Cattle Driving Necromancers-Bizarre Campaign Journal

[NowhereMan583]

I'm thrilled to see the salt mephits showing up in a campaign log -- now I get to see how it plays out before I try it in my campaign.

Also, really enjoying the story so far. The relatively-morally-unfettered characters are pretty entertaining. And, you know, there's just something about a good old-fashioned dungeon crawl.

[Kaveman26]

Were the items you listed in the inventory all that was in the vault, or just all that they examined or made use of? I'm kind of curious. Really looking forward to more of this group!

That was the extent of the items in the vault.

I have to say, that's probably the most coherent set of character backgrounds I've ever seen for a party. In most campaigns I've run or played in, a random cacophony is the norm, but your players are all dancing to the same dirge.

Yeah, I imagine they worked at this for some time. I was genuinely surprised at the effort put in.

Also, do you have two different players running the two dhampirs, or is it one player running two characters? I get the sense it's two players, but they'd have to be coordinating really closely.

It’s actually a Father/Son duo. The father is a longtime friend and familiar gamer. His son is a bit newer and they created them in tandem.

You have great players. Ordinarily I really dislike evil campaigns, but these guys are rolling like champs.

We did one “evil campaign” before and there was all kinds of backstabbing and vengeance all over the place. Was a blast but complete anarchy. This is scarier, cause they are cooperating. The fact that there is characterization and thought behind their treachery and evil is a real treat. It’s not just murder and pillaging, there is reason and pragmatism in their decisions.

I'm thrilled to see the salt mephits showing up in a campaign log -- now I get to see how it plays out before I try it in my campaign.

I loved this concept and when I sat down to hammer it out I had something of an inspiration (an uninspired inspiration). Thought to myself “If I was stuck with the same twenty or so people for all eternity and we couldn’t actually die and basically lived forever what would it be like?” and myself answered “Kind of like Highlander…but if immortals were the genie’s in a bottle”

So…I have 20 mephits in the hourglass that will all be more or less knock off’s of the Highlander characters. They will model their show/movie counterparts and can only be permanently killed via vorpal weapons (cause you know…decapitation).

[Kaveman26]

War Room 2:

What is on the Horizon:

Spoiler

Show

*With the gnolls more or less crushed, barring the U.C. making some strange decisions, they will now have to press on further into the dungeon and hopefully explore newer territory. A lot of their herd has been culled and food may now be an issue.

*I am going to weave in psionics a bit more now. The next wing they locate is going to have many creatures altered by psionic radiation. Things like the expanding/compressing dire weasels and other oddities will crop up. The core “villians” will be psychic warrior minotaurs.

*The gnoll chief Rusk may bide his time with the gang, much like Reggie but I don’t intend to see him as a permanent ally.

*Some of the other adventuring groups are going to have start clashing with the Necro-Ranchers soon (loved the post by someone with this in the thread). I have a couple fleshed out concepts for characters in other groups. One of which seems like a fitting counter. I call them “The Illuminated Canticle”. Party consists of a Cavalier (knight in shining armor) a Paladin (more diplomat than crusader) a Magician Bard, an anti undead cleric and Bow Ranger

Points of Interest:

Spoiler

Show

*The cog crystals are currently useless. Exposure to the hubs in next wing will trigger psionic abilities.

*The Salt Mephits will slowly grow in power over time and their attitude will be a measure of how they are treated and used.

*The monk’s robe is meant to be a future “hook” of sorts. I want a martial character to hunt them down when word of the robe spreads.

*They are not the only evil party in the dungeon and I need to flesh out more evil groups.

Random Musings:

I thoroughly enjoyed the application of slaughtering the cattle to get on the fly back up, and the fact that they more or less Trojan Horsed the six gnoll skeletons to a place where they could be of use. Having said that, the sheer number of undead they can muster (especially depending on how you interept Undead Master) makes certain pre-planning of encounters daunting to say the least.

The group is having a blast without having to worry about right or wrong and they are getting into their characters quite a bit. That makes me happy to know they are enjoying things so far. I am going to continue with the elements I have prepped without over worrying about countering their characters. I did let them know that level progression will go slow, much slower than usual which dissapointed Skalagrim a bit, as level 6 is a big shift for him.

All in all, I am pleased with how the dungeon is going.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Kaveman26
This is scarier, cause they are cooperating.

Oh yeah.

Originally Posted by Kaveman26
The fact that there is characterization and thought behind their treachery and evil is a real treat. It’s not just murder and pillaging, there is reason and pragmatism in their decisions.

You're really lucky that you have a group capable of the planning, the creativity, and the maturity to pull this off. I've never run or played in a campaign where the players could even conceive of something like this--or if they did, they never managed to mesh their characters to such a smooth extent.

Originaly Posted by Kaveman26

Spoiler

Show

Some of the other adventuring groups are going to have start clashing with the Necro-Ranchers soon....

Spoiler

Show

As it happens, I have a group of fifth-level characters from a previous campaign, which were developed independently by several players who ended up not joining the game. If you like I can share the basic builds and let you polish them up into a random adventuring group. They actually work pretty well together, although fairly low-op by Playground standards. I'd love to see how they manage against your crew.

.

[Kaveman26]

Sure. If youmcan send me notes as a pm that would be great

[turbo164]

Longtime reader, loved all of the logs I've gone through so far and this is no exception Definitely one of the best uses of weaponized cattle I've ever seen.

Mind linking the mephit hourglass? And also, what happened to Gup?

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Kaveman26
Sure. If youmcan send me notes as a pm that would be great

PM sent, and feel free to ask me about any of those builds. Hope they're useful, and I'll be looking forward to their first meeting with the Necro-Ranchers.

[The_Werebear]

You'd think a party so inclined to treachery would be more wary of it. If Rusk doesn't turn at the worst possible time for the party, I will be shocked.

[Kaveman26]

Longtime reader, loved all of the logs I've gone through so far and this is no exception Definitely one of the best uses of weaponized cattle I've ever seen.

Mind linking the mephit hourglass? And also, what happened to Gup?

Gup's fate is currently unknown. It is likely he will be located next week.

[Demon 997]

Really enjoying this so far. Keep up the great work.

How much food is the party consuming per day? Seems like most of their stored food (cattle) would be going to feed their cattle. Would meat having more nutritional value (may very well be wrong on this) than an equivalent mass of grain or hay affect how much transformed meat the cattle need to eat?

Also, have you done any other campaign journals? Feed my procrastination...

[Jacob.Tyr]

Really enjoying this so far. Keep up the great work.

How much food is the party consuming per day? Seems like most of their stored food (cattle) would be going to feed their cattle. Would meat having more nutritional value (may very well be wrong on this) than an equivalent mass of grain or hay affect how much transformed meat the cattle need to eat?

Also, have you done any other campaign journals? Feed my procrastination...

Kaveman's signature holds many of the best campaign journals you'll find anywhere. Personally I love the Big one, and Calimshank Redemption. The city of the Over Gnome is awesome, too, but very different.

I might be a bit of a fanboy, though. I'd kill to play in a game with Kaveman.

[NowhereMan583]

Mind linking the mephit hourglass?

I believe his inspiration comes from my thread here.

[Demon 997]

Kaveman's signature holds many of the best campaign journals you'll find anywhere. Personally I love the Big one, and Calimshank Redemption. The city of the Over Gnome is awesome, too, but very different.

I might be a bit of a fanboy, though. I'd kill to play in a game with Kaveman.

The old hiding in the plain sight obvious place where I should have looked trick. Gets me every time.

[Scow2]

*Some of the other adventuring groups are going to have start clashing with the Necro-Ranchers soon (loved the post by someone with this in the thread). I have a couple fleshed out concepts for characters in other groups. One of which seems like a fitting counter. I call them “The Illuminated Canticle”. Party consists of a Cavalier (knight in shining armor) a Paladin (more diplomat than crusader) a Magician Bard, an anti undead cleric and Bow Ranger

That was me I came up with the term on the spot over on the Bay12 forums in response to people realizing that in Dwarf Fortress, animating the dead made them stronger... and due to the simulationist-beyond-reason nature of the game, that meant they also got bigger and more muscle mass, which converted to more meat upon butchery. So now we had dwarf fortresses capturing Necromancers, putting them in rooms where they could see cows, killing the cows, animating them, killing them again, then butchering the greater yield (Is there any monster/threat a Dwarf Fortress can't use to its advantage? We have Vampire lever-operators, all sorts of horrific warbeasts, and... well. DF players are a creative lot!)

I saw the title of this thread, read through it, and wanted to re-use the term.

[Kaveman26]

I'd kill to play in a game with Kaveman.

That is about the highest form of compliment a gamer could hope to receive. Much obliged.

How much food is the party consuming per day? Seems like most of their stored food (cattle) would be going to feed their cattle. Would meat having more nutritional value (may very well be wrong on this) than an equivalent mass of grain or hay affect how much transformed meat the cattle need to eat?

I am pressing them as needing a lot of sheer food/calories. They are only on Day 3 or so though, and they have stripped bare a human, six gnolls and several dire animals. So in terms of raw quantity they have not yet run into many issues.

[ImperatorV]

This sounds like an AWSOME group. I'll be watching this thread.

[Astral Avenger]

awesome, just saw this thread, glad to see I have more of your stuff to read

[ReaderAt2046]

Are you playing with psi-mag transparency?

Also, some suggestions:

Spoiler

Show

1. I think a really good defense for one of the more psi-heavy vaults would be a couple of astral construct traps, probably summoning level 4 or 5 constructs. It's the sort of thing you'd expect to see in a vessel like this, and it's a good way to challenge the party a bit.
2. Have there be a barrier to enter a certain area that only a psionic creature can get through. That way, they won't be able to get at *whatever* until the mutating effects of the psi radiation kick in.
3. This is a bit of a more long-term one, but you could have them encounter further in a community of elans who date back to the vessel's original creation. (elans are clinically immortal, and can sustain their bodies indefinitely with pure psychic energy if necessary). Great way to drop any necessary exposition, and may be used to force the players to work within a social system.

[Demon 997]

Any chance this is still ongoing? Really hoping to hear about what they do next.

[ImperatorV]

Any chance this is still ongoing? Really hoping to hear about what they do next.

Seconded.White space to meet character limit

[ReaderAt2046]

Thirded.

BTW, I did some fanart of the party that you might like:

Skalagrim

Seraphim

Hades/Pluto

Dis Pater

Chomper

[jguy]

You know you have an awesome campaign when other people are doing fan art of your characters.

[Palanan]

*sigh*

I eagerly clicked on this thread when it bubbled up again, hoping that another session had been written up. Alas, seems 'tis not to be.

So, when is the next session? You've got a fan base here.

[The_Werebear]

Fourth'd. Maybe fifth'd. I saw it was up and clicked it first.

[Envyus]

Question does Dis Pater have anything to do with the actual lord of Hell Dispater if not you should totally have him get annoyed that someone is using his name at some point and have his devils make moves against the party.

[Kaveman26]

The campaign is still running. Two more sessions complete just not written up. Love the fanart btw.

Dis pater is a roman/greek (dont recall which culture) death god. As are hades and pluto.

[Asmayus]

Good to hear it's still going. I was disappointed when Kaveman's new post wasn't an update though :P

[ReaderAt2046]

I had same thought regarding Wanda. The player says its more saffron from firefly but with a much bugger chip on her shoulder.

I've actually seen Firefly, and it seems to me that that's a very bad comparison. Saffron's one crippling weakness was her utter inability to keep faith with her team, but Seraphim, as has already been noted, seems to get along just fine with her teammates. Since this team's unity is so remarkable, it seems to me that any comparison to Saffron is missing one of this group's biggest advantages.

Relatedly, has your group read the Giant's gaming articles? He has this essay on the importance of illogical, emotional, reaction in designing good characters, and there's this one example of two villians who despite having every rational reason to distrust each other were friends, had agreed to split the world between them, and would honor the agreement. Sounds like a perfect inspiration for your party.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Kaveman26
The campaign is still running. Two more sessions complete just not written up.

Type, my good man, type like the wind!!!





Really, this is one of my favorite campaign journals, period. Pretty sure I'm not alone on that. You have a fan base now, and we want MOAR!!!

[Rethmar]

Reader, do you have a link to that essay? Sounds like a good read.