Three Worlds #2

Kargen falls afoul of a giant scorpion

When our heroes returned to the fort they found that their success had already been made known by the restoration of the spring. Once more a modest feast was held in their honour, where they made acquaintance of two newcomers to the fort, who had escorted a priest of Andeus there.

After learning what our heroes had encountered, Captain Mossak asked our heroes to lead a party of his soldier to the site of the dam, where they hope to pick up the trail of the orcs and find their lair and end the threat. Arwin and Kargen, the two new arrivals, were asked to join the mission.

The next morning Arwin, Kargen, Mala, and Rokas (see PC profiles here) and five soldiers from the garrison made their way back to the site of the dam. There they found that the bodies of the orc warriors slain by our heroes the day before had been dragged away. Following the trail east for two hours, the party came upon an abandoned village set against the side of a cliff. The adobe houses of the village lacked doors at the ground level; a wooden ladder led from the ground to the second storey door in one of the houses, and through its windows Arwin saw a few orc warriors.

Kargen and Rokas approached the house, but immediately the orcs shot arrows at them - the ladder to the door was withdrawn.

The soldiers took shelter behind some rocks, while Kargen and Rokas ran towards the houses and stood against the walls of the houses beside the one occupied by the orcs so they could not be shot at. They were soon joined by Mala.

After a failed attempt by Kargen to flings a lit lantern into the house, the trio decided to entered the house next to the one held by the orcs. From there they ascended to the roof top by a hole in the ceiling, and sneaked to the roof of the house held by the orcs.

Through the hole in the ceiling there, the trio could see that four orc warriors were in the room. The three planned a co-ordinated attack: Rokas would hurl a throwing axe at one of the orcs shooting from one of the windows, Mala would cast a spell of fire to burn the two behind the other window, while Kargen would leap from the roof down and attack any surviving orc.

While Rokas and Mala managed to execute their attack as planned, Kargen found to his surprise that when his feet landed on the floor of the house it gave way and he plunged into the room in the floor below. Almost immediately he heard a clattering sound and turned to see giant scorpion charging at him. Kargen was seized by the giant claws of the scorpion, and fell unconscious.

On the floor above Mala and Rokas had trouble taking down the last orc warrior, until the soldiers entered the fray and cut him down. The party then shot missiles at the giant scorpion to keep it away from the prone body of Kargen. Eventually Gad, an orc soldier, offered to jump to the floor below with a rope tied around his waist, and recovered the dwarf.

Eventually the soldiers killed the scorpion, and when they searched the house they found that the bodies of the two lost soldier had seemingly be fed to the scorpion, while their gear were found in another room. With the hour being late, the party made a sweep of the village to make sure there were no more threats, and then settled for the night.

==

Two days later, when they had rested and recovered, Valdus offered to take Arwin and Kargen into employment, and sent our heroes out to scout the routes ahead to make sure they were free from orc raiders. So once more our heroes ventured out of Fort Davelmag, this time to investigate the cliff painting of the manticore which gave the valley its nickname.

It was late afternoon when they arrived at the base of the cliff which bore the painting of the monster, which differed somewhat from the manticore of the Old World. Under the painting, some 20 feet from ground level, they saw a cave opening the size of a door, which they entered by employing a grappling hook.

image from wikipedia

Inside, they found a large cave with the floor covered by a layer of sand blown in from the outside, and a tunnel leading further into the mountainside. With sunset approaching, they resolved to spend the night in the cave and explore further when morning came. While they prepared to settle in for the fight, Mala was attacked by a giant lizard which had laid hidden under the sand. After a short fight, Mala killed the lizard with a blow from his shovel, and the party settled down for the night.

The next morning our heroes ventured deeper into the cave. There they found a larger cavern which was used as a burial site for orcs. In another chamber they found the remains of an orc interred in a seated position, with grave goods placed on and beside him. Our heroes took some of the goods, with Kargen claiming a necklace with a turquoise stone the size of an egg.

One tunnel led to a strange round cave that had the size and shape of the pit which served as a jail in Fort Davelmag: a round chamber some 12 yards across, with a ring of stones placed in the centre serving as a fireplace, and a small pit about two foot across set north of the centre. The room was also unnaturally cold, and frost formed upon the floor and walls of the cave.

Mala was able to sense magic in the cave, but was otherwise unable to learn more about it, and so the party decided to return to the fort.

Prepping and Running the Game

The first part of this session was a continuation of the encounter from the last session, but I changed the scene of the combat from a dungeon to an adobe village and added a vertical element, which worked well and provided some tension and laughs.

With the first encounter and quest done, I asked the players to choose which location they wished to explore next. There are about seven "dungeons" in the module, so it was not difficult to prep all the locations beforehand, especially since I modified all of them to cut them down and make them easy to remember.

The "manticore" in the photo above is actually a piasa, a mythological monster from the Mississippian Culture, which I borrowed because I thought it fit the name of the module.

The magical cave is based on the kiva of the Ancestral Puebloan culture, and is actually an important part of the plot of the campaign.

The character Mala had scored three criticals while attacking with the shovel in our two sessions, and it had become a running gag in the campaign. The player and I have decided to capitalise on this and use the shovel as a device in the character's specialisation as a warlock.

Three Worlds #1

Mala, Zua, and Rokas battle an orc warrior

Our story begins as Mala, Rokas, and Zua (see PC profiles here) entered Fort Davelmag at the western end of Huloror Canyon - known also as the Valley of the Manticore - as guards for the first trade caravan of the season. Valdus, their employer, had hoped to be the first merchant to reach Karn Buldahr in the south this year, and make a tidy profit.

The party were welcomed by the garrison, as news from the outside world was eagerly sought. That evening a modest feast was held for the visitors. But midway through the evening, a cry and a loud sound was heard outside the mess hall, and when the soldiers and our heroes rushed out they saw the body of Arnellas, one of the soldiers, lying face down at the bottom of the fort's watch tower. Standing at the top of the tower was Jorrus, the caravan's muleteer. His face was in a daze, and in his hand he held a knife.

Jorrus was disarmed and bound by the soldiers, and it soon became clear that he had stabbed Arnellas in the back and the latter had either fallen or been pushed off the watch tower. The two men had not met each other before the day, and no motive for the attack could be found, but nevertheless the guilt was clear. Jorrus was placed in a large pit in the courtyard of the fort which served as a jail, and Captain Mossak would send messengers to the town of Belton to fetch the duke's emissary to execute the death sentence for the crime.

Having found Jorrus an honest and upright fellow during their time together, our heroes were puzzled by his actions, and so they asked him what had trasnpired. Jorrus, still in a daze, replied that he had gone up to the top of the watch tower with Arnellos to take in the view of the canyon at night, and that he heard the saw the flapping of giant wings, and the next thing he remembered was that he was being arrested by the soldiers.

Our heroes returned to their quarters to find Valdus waiting for them. Valdus was unwilling to leave the fort without Jorrus, who had been a good muleteer, and in any case it would be unwise to travel on without someone to tend to the mules. He would ask the soldiers traveling to Belton to seek a replacement for Jorrus, which meant that they would have to wait for four weeks at the fort.

To make things worse, Captain Mossak had informed Valdus that the stream supplying the fort had in recent days decreased in flow, and their water would not be able to sustain the garrison and the mules if the caravan remained for more than a few days. Two soldiers sent out to investigate the cause of the lessened flow had not returned, so now Valdus asked our heroes to seek out the cause of the problem.

The next day, our heroes followed the course of the stream up the hills, and about noon time they came to a place where a pool had formed over a flat area of ground; a crude dam of rocks had been built across the stream. Zua observed that two orcs were hiding among rocks in the sloped overlooking the dam.

Rokas and Mala decided to make a wide flanking move and come upon the orcs from their rear, but as they neared the orcs' position Zua saw that one orc archer had in fact noticed the two of them and was aiming an arrow at Rokas. Zua loosed an arrow at the archer, and Rokas and Mala were warned of his presence. A brief skirmish broke out, and soon one of the orc warriors were dead, and the other one defeated and bound by our heroes. On the orc they found a sword which belonged to one of the soldiers from the garrison.

Our heroes attempted to interrogate the orc, but they could not speak each other's language. Zua, who had learned something of the "hand speech" used by some orc tribes during his travel, was able to learn that the orcs had indeed dammed the stream as they deemed the garrison of the fort enemies.

Our heroes began the work of dismantling the dam, with Mala wielding a shovel which he had acquired from the fort for this purpose, but before they could complete their work Zua spied two more orcs heading their way. As the two orcs began to shoot arrows at our heroes the first orc attempted to break out of his bonds. Mala felled him with a blow from his shovel.

Once more a fight broke out, and Zua and Rokas in turn fell to the orcs, until Mala struck down the last of the orcs with his shovel and ended the battle. Fearful of more attacks, our heroes looted the orcs, laid their bodies in a row, and then returned to the fort.

Prepping and Running the Game

This session is based pretty much "out of the book" from the module Through the Valley of the Manticore. I had the PCs be part of the caravan described in the module to give them a reason for being at the fort, and reversed the roles of the murderer and murder victim so that the PCs would have a motivation to want to get to the bottom of the mystery and prove the innocence of their fellow traveler.

This was a little more successful than I had hoped for, and the players spent quite a bit of time trying to solve the crime, and I had to move things long by nudging them in the direction of the problem with the water supply. The scenario with the water supply was supposed to lead to a second location, but given the time we had left and the state the PCs were in, I decided to delay that to our next session.

One of the things I have done for this campaign is to replace all the "humanoid" opposition with orcs, who play the role of the indigenous people of the continent. I used the culture and the architecture of the tribes of the American Southwest for the setting, and used the idea of the Plains Indian Sign Language to allow the PCs and the orcs to communicate.

Three Worlds #0

art by Jacob Fleming

Campaign Background (see here)

PC Profiles

Arwin, elven ranger seeking to learn about the flora and fauna of the Third World

Baldrik, human bard, a bounty-hunter

Bliss, human warlock

Enree, human warlock; formerly a sailor

Ivan, human fighter seeking fame, fortune, and glory in the Third World

Kargen, dwarven fighter seeking his fortune in the Third World. Retired and returned to the Old World with loot taken from orc tombs

Mala, elven warlock on a secret quest

Malkam Ronkugark, dwarven miner on a quest to uncover undiscovered precious stones an gems in the Third World

Melig, human thief on the run from enemies in the Old World

Rokas, orc barbarian, orphaned as a child and raised by humans. Retired back on the coast and started a small business after the events at Obanhold.

Zua, elven bard traveling through the Third World to collect lore

NPCs

Captain Mossak, captain of the garrison at Fort Davelmag, human

Dareni, dwarven stone mason

Gad, orc soldier at Fort Davelmag

Lennard, human porter at Fort Davelmag

Mama Clay, human cook at Fort Davelmag

Fiatus, steward to Castellan of Obanhold and Priest of Andeus

Tugh, soldier at Obanhold

Saulinus, headman of the lumber village of Gatton

Remunas, headman of the fishing village of Yngley; Elze, his daughter

Mama Clay, human cook at Obanhold

Chogan, an orc captain

Bruthalan, an emissary from the Plains Orcs, blinded and imprisoned by the Castellan of Obanhold

Clovas, formerly a fur trapper, now a smuggler operating in Karn Buldhar

Tlaco, an orc informer

Playable Races

• Elves

More than three thousand years ago, the elven cities states in the First World joined to become an empire that ruled over the First World. From there their ships sailed to the Second World, where they built many cities and enslaved the humans there and forced them to produce the goods to feed their empire. All that ended two and a half millennia ago, when the humans revolted and invaded the homeland of the elves, shattering their empire. Several of the elven cities survived the Age of Strife and the Great Plague that followed, and while their fortunes have waxed and waned in the years that follow, they still endure.

Today the elves are known for their prowess as seafarers and traders, as well as their skills and knowledge as scholars, mages, and craftsmen.

Elves are slighter in height and built than humans, but have a longer lifespan, living up to the age of 130.

• Dwarves

The dwarven have their origins in the mountain ranges that divide the First and Second World, where they mined the metals the elves needed, and acted as middle-men in the trade between the elves and men. The various dwarven kingdoms warred with each other and the elves in earlier times, until the Dwarven Empire was formed.

In time the Dwarven Empire became rich and powerful, and the dwarves became skilled craftsmen in their own right. But their fortunes were intertwined with those of the elves, and during the Age of Strife and the Great Plague that followed they retreated from the surface world and withdrew to their underground homes.

Dwarves are shorter than men but more stoutly built. They too have a longer lifespan than men, with most living past the age of 100.

• Men

It is believed that men originated in the Second World, where they were once simple hunters and gatherers, until they were taught the knowledge of farming and metal-working by the elves. In time they learned also writing and sailing from the elves; but of all the races men alone knew how to tame horses. During the Age of Strife men overthrew the elven yoke and invaded the First World, shattering the Elven Empire.

Today men rule over most of the First and Second Worlds, divided into many kingdoms and empires, and now they have begun to conquer the Third World.

• Orcs

The myths of many of the orc nations of the Third World tell of how their gods brought them from the First World to the Second, and thence to the Third World in a time long past.

There the orcs lived apart from men, elves, and dwarves and formed their own nations and empires. Then two hundred years ago, men arrived from across the ocean. After a brief period of conflict, men were driven off, but the diseases brought by them afflicted the orcs and soon spread across the Third World, killing most of their populace and causing a collapse of their nations. When men once more arrived fifty years ago, they found the lands abandoned and unworked, and the orcish cities in ruins and deserted.

But the orcs still abide, in thousands of villages across the Third World, some clinging on to their old ways, some trying to adapt to this new threat to their land.

Orcs are shorter than men but stronger. They have a lifespan just a little shorter than that of men, with few reaching the age of 60.

Playable Classes

• Warrior

Barbarian

Fighter

Ranger

• Thief

Assassin

Bard

Rogue

• Zealot

Cleric

Druid

Paladin

• Mage

Sorcerer

Warlock

Wizard

Character Stats

Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma

Assign in any order: 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14

• Ability Score Modifiers

1-3	-4
4-5	-3
6-7	-2
8-9	-1
10-11	0
12-13	+1
14-15	+2
16-17	+3
18+	+4

 Racial Traits and Talents:

• Dwarf

+2 to STR, CON, or WIS

Movement 5”

INT check to detect direction when underground

• Elf

+2 to DEX, INT, or WIS

Movement 6”

INT check to know purpose of crafted item

• Human

+1 to any 2 (different) stats

Gain Adv to next check when enemy Crit against you

Movement 6”

• Orc

+2 to STR, CON, or CHA

Ignore 1 level of Exhaustion

Movement 6”

Three Worlds - A New Fantasy Campaign

map from: Silver Compass Maps

My original plan for the major fantasy campaign for this year was going to be Blood Sword using Fantasy Age 2nd Edition, but as the campaign books have been delayed by more than a year and a half, with no clear delivery date in sight, I had to look for a filler campaign.

I looked around for a sandbox/hexcrawl campaign that would provide about 4 to 6 sessions of play, and came across Through the Valley of the Manticore from Gelatinous Cubism, which seems to fit the bill. I particularly enjoyed the geographical setting of the campaign and its "The Keep on the Borderlands" vibe. I had the idea of looking for more campaign modules that will fit with Through the Valley of the Manticore, and looked at some of the early D&D modules, but eventually decided that the two other campaigns from Gelatinous Cubism can actually be set in the same world.

The thought of linking the three campaigns together set me on the path to, over the past couple of weeks, world-building.

But before we go any further, I would just like to say that the map above is not done by me, nor is it the map which I plan to use for my game world, which has... no world map.

Other than the three regional maps from the three modules, I am not planning on actually creating a world map. I do have some idea of how many continents my world has (well, it's either three or four, I haven't quite decided) and what their geographical relationships to each other are, but as the three modules will all be set in the "New World" (the "third" continent in the narrative, known as the Third World in the setting), there is no need to detail the geography of the "Old World".

Now the... difficult part.

As the name "New World" suggests, the setting of my campaign will be an analogue of America. I am aware that in recent years D&D (and by extension all fantasy RPGs) had been accused of having "colonialist roots". I think an argument can be made for that, and that the geography of the early D&D module and its premise are based on those of America and their "frontier" mythology, but in this case I have chosen to steer into the colonialist roots of D&D on my own accord, and have the campaign explore what it is like living in a fantasy world at a time when civilisations come to a clash.

In this campaign, orcs will be the original inhabitants of the New World. They will not all be "evil" or "noble savages", and they will not be a monoculture - their many cultures will be based off Native American cultures, though I do not claim to known enough about them to be "representing" these cultures in the game. The campaign is set some 150 years after the first contact between the Old World and the New World, when the disease brought by the inhabitants of the Old World had caused the deaths of 95% of the New World and caused their advanced civilisations to collapse.

The "explorers" of the Old World: elves, dwarves, and men, now find themselves in a vast new land, sparsely populated by strange and unfamiliar peoples, largely uncultivated and littered with ruins and tombs containing grave goods made from gold and precious stones, all seemingly there for taking.

What drove our PCs to venture across the ocean to come to the New World? What do they hope to gain in their travels into the strange land, and what will they learn about the people of the land and about themselves?

Due to difficulty with scheduling, the campaign will be in the open-table, drop-in, drop-out format. As a result, I have decided to forgo the more complicated Fantasy Age 2nd Edition rules and instead return to Five Torches Deep, although I will be transplanting the rules for magic from the former to the latter.

I hope you will join us in our campaign.

2023 in Review and Looking Ahead

Some of the rulebooks and scenario books I bought in 2023

2023 was a good year for wargaming - we played a total of 11 sessions - but RPG saw a decrease to just 19 sessions. The total number of gaming sessions was the same as last year, which tells me that when it comes to wargaming and RPG, it's a zero-sum game.

I managed to complete most of the RPG campaigns which I planned to: the Dwarrowdeep campaign (which I thought had a satisfactory ending), the John Wick campaign (again, a good finale session), and Season 3 of our Savage Gamma World campaign, which saw the introduction of new players to the group.

A change in my schedule next year means that we will be losing a few players from our pool, and in response I will probably be running another open-table Five Torches Deep campaign in the vein of the Barrowmaze campaign we played, with some modifications. At the same time, I am keeping an eye on suitable campaigns to base the next seasons of our Space Opera and Savage Gamma World campaigns on. 

On the wargaming front, the monthly session allowed me to play all the rules I have been meaning to try out, and also let my friends (finally) use their miniatures in actual games. There are still many games which we want to play, as well as miniatures we want to field, so hopefully we can continue the monthly sessions in the year ahead.

But the first quarter of this year may see little if any gaming as I move to a new home and a new weekly schedule. RPG will now fall on Wednesday evenings, on a working day, which will mean I have to prep for sessions before the day of the game itself. The logistics of moving all my books, miniatures, and terrain and the storage solution for them will be a challenge, and it has forced me to prune my collection over the past year. I will need to be prudent in acquiring new stuff in the coming years, but already I have plans to buy and paint units for my friends' armies, as I have done previously.

Here's wishing you a Happy New Year with lots of Gaming in it.

Everything I painted this Year

 25mm Sci-fi

6mm Sci-fi

1/1200 Sci-fi

A Trio of Titans

Not surprisingly, my group is planning to play some Epic sacle 40K games in the near future. Rick came into possession of several Epic 40K armies this year, and had passed some of the models out to be painted. My share of this assignment are a few titans from the earlier editions of the game. Here you can see the Reaver titan and a pair of Warhound titans I have painted. They are done in a simple scheme, and the bases are rather minimal.

They are a bit of a rush job as we are hoping to get a game in next month, and I may return to them to add some banners and scenic elements on the bases.

Savage Gamma World #12

Stronskey battles the HR's titan

For a few weeks afterwards our mutants busied themselves extracting and processing the yellow lava from the mining facility so they could refill Stronskey's circulation system, but they were no closer to reanimating the titan.

Things looked worse when Mama Clay arrived at the village one day, bringing them news that HR had indeed found a larger titan and are working to reanimate it. At the same time, news arrived that the mutants in the surrounding villages were being attacked by drones which injected the mutants with an agent that caused them to de-mutate. The mutants in these villages who did not de-mutate were captured by HR troopers and taken away. Ah Meng sent several of the mutants from the village to the surrounding ones, hoping to provide some protection against further attacks.

But then Dreadnought arrived soon after, bringing at last some good news. The AI-in-a-battlesuit had been traveling around the lands and had learned about HR and their attacks on mutants. To repay our mutants for freeing him from the facility, Dreadnought had come to help them reanimate Stronskey, to reactivate his weapon systems, and to convert the controls so they could be used by mutants. But all these would take time, and to reduce the chance that HR will be able to attack them with their titan before the work is complete, Ah Meng decided to send Batte, Kong, Ranggup, and Rex (see PC profiles here) to HR's titan to sabotage its repair.

Accompanied by Mama Clay, our heroes journeyed to the site where HR's titan was, buried in a hillside with only its head and right arm exposed. Dozens of tents were set up near its head - our mutants estimated some 500 HR troopers, along with many mutants, were encamped there. It would be impossible to enter the titan via its head, but Mama Clay knew a secret entrance located at the base of the hill, through the titan's left foot.

Our mutants entered the opening at the titan's foot, where they had to fight off a giant worm that had taken up residence there. After some exploration, they learned that a gravitic platform in the leg of the titan led from the foot to the hips of the titan, which appeared to be an assembly point for troops. From the hips a lift led to the upper levels of the titan.

Making their way to the titan's torso, our mutants reached the troop quarters, which was being made ready for occupation by mutants taken as slaves by HR. Our heroes overcame the troopers quickly, and were thanked by the dozens of mutants there. The mutants told our heroes that HR had killed all the mutants whom they thought had dangerous powers, and put leg shackles on the rest and forced them to help restore the titan. About a hundred mutants were enslaved by HR, and they were made to work to restore its controls, its engines, and its weapon and shield generators.

Knowing that they had little time before HR realised their presence, our mutants decided to disable the titan's weapon and shield generator. Traveling to the titan's shoulders using the lift, they split up, with Ranggup and Batte working to sabotage the weapon system, and Kong and Tom working to sabotage the shield generator.

Ranggup managed to sneak into the weapon arm of the titan and cut through several cables connecting the machines he found there. Kong and Tom made their way to the shield generator arm, but were discovered by HR troopers. In desperation Kong fired the anti-tank weapon he found at Dreadnought's facility at the shield generator. The resulting explosion killed all the HR troopers and technicians around the generator, and severely wounded Kong and Tom.

Batte, Ranggup and the other mutants rushed to drag Kong and Tom's unconscious bodies into the lift, and together they exited the titan through its foot again. But with leg shackles still around their ankles, the mutants knew they could not outrun the HR troops who will be sent to find them. In an act of self-sacrifice, the rescued mutants decided to split up and deliberately travel towards where the pursuing troopers would come from, hoping to lure them away from our heroes.

Two stronger mutants helped carry Kong and Tom away from the titan. Kong had lost his right arm in the explosion, and Tom suffered a leg injury that would make him lame, but they party managed to make it back to the village.

Our heroes' mission worked, for when HR's titan was spotted moving towards the village weeks later, it was missing its left forearm and hand. The weeks had given enough time for Dreadnought to complete his work, and Stronskey, piloted and crewed by our mutants, marched out to face the larger titan.

After a great battle, Stronskey managed to take the larger titan down at the river, and shot it through the stump of its forearm, bypassing its armour. The resulting explosion blew the upper part of the titan off. Hundreds of HR troopers who tried to escape the titan via its foot drowned in the river as they emerged. But Proteus' body was not among the dead counted by the mutants.

A few days later word would reach our mutants that the remaining HR troopers at their base camp dispersed, allowing the enslaved mutants to return to their homes. The threat of HR had been eliminated for now, but our heroes knew that as long as Proteus may still be out there, he would remain a threat to the zone...

Prepping and Running the Game

The plot for this session came organically from the sessions that came before. I knew my players wanted a titan vs. titan fight, but to make that the whole session would mean a very short game. I decided that a mission to sabotage the titan would allow a more traditional exploration format, while having an impact on the final confrontation.

The interior of the titan was based on The Fallen Titan.

I enjoyed running this campaign, but the format of the typical MCC module does get a but repetitive after a while. If we do return to the setting again, which I hope to, I will probably want to try a different style.

We will be taking break from our sessions until next year, when I hope to start running a Fantasy Age 2nd Edition campaign. Have a good year-end season.

Savage Gamma World #11

One late summer night the sky north of our mutants' village was lit up by a shooting star, and for the next three days a fire burned in the forest where it landed. A few weeks afterwards, a hunter from a village near the forest came to our heroes, telling a tale of cave entrances that appeared on the side of the crater made by the shooting star, and strange green mutants who attacked him.

Realising that the "cave entrances" may in fact be entrances to underground facilities of the Ancients exposed by the meteor strike, Ah Meng tasked our heroes to journey there and to learn where they lead to, and about the strange green mutants.

Ranggup, Rex, and Tom (see PC profiles here) followed the hunter to the crater in the forest. The crater was a quarter of a mile across. below the lip, almost directly across from each other, were two openings that lead into the earth. At both entrances were HR troopers, standing guard. Above the entrance across the crater from our mutants, they HR troopers have set up some sort of a hoist, and were lifting barrels that were being brought out of the entrance. 

Our mutants overcame the HR troopers guarding the entrance, and followed the passage that led from there to the ground below. It soon became clear that the facility was once a mining complex of sorts. While exploring the living quarters of the miners, our mutants noticed the strange green mutants whom the hunter spoke of, but managed to hide from them while they passed them, traveling in the opposite direction from our mutants.

Descending deeper into the complex, our mutants came across what must been the processing plant of the mining facility. A passage led deeper into the earth, and our mutants could feel heated air coming from there. Our mutants donned the protective gear that were in the processing plant (cutting holes in them to accommodate wings and large ears...), and entered the passage.

The passage opened into a large cavern whose floor was covered in a yellow lava. Across the pool of lava was a steel platform. A pipe connected to a pump on the platform was drawing the lava from the pool below. Standing next to the pump were several HR troopers, and a man Rex recognised: Proteus!

Proteus ordered the troopers to kill the mutants, then turned and left. Tom flew up across the pool of lava to attack the troopers, but was shot and fell into the lava. Rex and Ranggup made their way to the platform, and climbed up, all the while under enemy fire, and after a hard fight managed to take out the HR troopers.

But as they stood on the platform mourning the loss of Tom, the lava began to glow even brighter, and from the surface of the lava Tom emerged, his body shining. Reunited, our mutants chased after Proteus, but found that he and the HR troopers have left the complex.

Our mutants returned to complex and studied the processing plant more carefully. They soon realised that the plant processed the yellow lava into the yellow liquid that flowed in their dormant titan - with this source of yellow liquid, perhaps they can reactivate Stronskey the titan? Yet amidst their excitement, our mutants also had a worrying question: why was Proteus extracting the yellow lava?

Prepping and Running the Game

This session was based on the MCC module A Fallen Star for All. Once again I stripped most of the plot out and just used the basic premise and the maps for our game.

The death and resurrection of Tom was a railroaded event, as I wanted to give the character a new mutation to replace the one which he lost in the previous session. Once again I had the player draw a random mutation card, and the new power of Light Bearer just happened to fit the narrative.

The reappearance of Proteus and the hint of HR having a titan of their own sets up the next session of the campaign, which is the finale session.

Savage Gamma World #10

Once again, our mutants receive a call for help from another village. Pyr, a mutant groundhog, had come to seek the help of our heroes to find a cure for a deadly disease that had afflicted his village. The symptoms of the disease was documented in the records of the village, along with where the cure might be found. Seekers from the village had gone to search for a cure, but none had return.

At Pyr's advice our heroes followed him to the site mentioned in the record instead of heading to the village, to avoid catching the infection themselves.

When they arrived at the site, they saw only a field of tall grass and no building. Flying overhead, Tom (see PC profiles here) saw the dead body of a mutant goat (which they later identified as Koln, a seeker from the village), but was attacked by a giant owl, which our heroes managed to chase off. Exploring further, they found a hatch which led to an long flight of stairs that led deep underground. Leaving Pyr at the surface, our heroes ventured in.

At the foot of the stairs our heroes came upon an open door. Beside the door was a plan of the facility, although our mutants could not understand the symbols on the plan. Entering the facility, they saw two sets of footprints: one reptilian and one crustacean, corresponding to Prokk and Voov, the crab and alligator mutants from the village. They decided to make a systematic search of the facility to find the cure for the disease, which the records would bear certain symbols (a copy of which was given to them by Pyr)

They followed the footprints to a door, and realised that while two sets of footprints entered the room, on one set (the reptilian one) exited it. The room turned out to be a cryogenic chamber holding a number of mutants. One of the cryogenic chambers had broken open, and a large black slime organism hiding on the ceiling dropped down on Batte and began to digest him. Rex and Tom attacked the slime with fire, driving it off Batte, before the trio beat a hasty retreat out of the room.

Exploring further, our mutants found a lab containing several glass-fronted storage cupboard full of chemicals, including one with the symbol Pyr had shown them! Stuffing their bags full of the chemical, our heroes continued exploring the facility, following the reptilian footprint, they found that it led to a place in the corridor where there were signs of a struggle, and from there on the footprint appeared different.

The altered footprints led the quarters of the staff who once lived there. There, they found a dead alligator on one of the beds. The alligator was in animal form, but was clad in humanoid clothing that obviously did not fit it. Searching through the clothing, our mutants realised that the alligator was Voov, but "demutated".

The mystery of what attacked Voov and demutated him was soon solved, as our heroes were attacked by a security droid that grabbed Tom and injected him with a solution. Our mutants disabled the droid and broke it open, and found that the needle which the droid used to inject Tom was connected to a vial that bore the same symbols - DNAX - as the cure Pyr told them to find! At the same time, Tom realised that he had lost his mental mutation power!

Our heroes went on to explore the final room in the facility, which turned out to be the infirmary. Here, they encountered a medical droid, and questioned it. It turned out that the facility was a medical research lab, and DNAX was one of the compounds created by the scientists to reverse mutation. Our heroes described the symptoms of the illness to the droid, who told them that no cure to the disease had been made yet, but the droid was able to isolate the virus from Voov's body and synthesise a cure.

Our heroes emerged from the infirmary to see another security droid headed their way. The fled back to the lab, and for a while considered destroying the stock of DNAX in case they fell into the wrong hands, but eventually decided against it.

Returning to the surface, they were met by an eager Pyr, who was overjoyed that they had found DNAX, and asked that they be handed to him so he could teleport back to the village to save lives immediately. Our mutants were suspicious of Pyr by now, and when Pyr became agitated Batte injected him with a vial of DNAX. Pyr turned into a groundhog before their eyes, and scurried into the tall grass.

Our mutants made their way to the village, and found that there had indeed been an infection, which the medicine they brought cured. Their mission completed, our heroes reevaluated the situation, and decided to return to the facility and destroy the remaining stock of DNAX. But when they arrived, they found that someone else had been there and taken away a number of vials while they were away. Dejected, they destroyed the remaining samples, and then concealed the entrance to the facility as best they could, and returned home.

Prepping and Running the Game

This session was based on the MCC module Phage from Below.

As with the other modules, the original plot was too complicated for me. I decided to substitute it with one of my own that would link the other NPCs and the villain of the series to a plot that will culminate in the finale.

Jaffar, as it turned out, was hired by Proteus - the villain from our previous season and now head of "Humanity's Restoration"- to recover DNAX from a the facility. Jaffar then colluded with Pyr to release a virus into the village to compel them to send their seekers to go into the facility - the bit about the ancient records were all made up by Pyr. When the seekers all died in their quest, Jaffar suggested that Pyr approach our PCs to get the job done. I imagined that Jaffar was waiting nearby when the PCs had their confrontation with Pyr, and that he afterwards sneaked into the facility and grabbed whatever DNAX he could carry.

I am not sure why my players decided against destroying all the DNAX once they realised something was off, but it does allow me to use that as a plot point for the finale.

Grid-based Napoleonics and Undaunted: Battle of Britain

For our November session we managed to get five players for another grid-based Napoleonic Game.

We played the action of the Austrian left flank at the Battle of Sacile.

FG, Adrian, and I, playing the Franco-Italian force, slogged through the forests and marshes surrounding the Austrian-held towns of Palse and Porcia instead of approaching them in the open; as a result our attacks went in piecemeal, and the Austrians were able to hold on to Porcia by the time the clock ran down, winning the game.

After the main game Adrian took us through a game of Undaunted: Battle of Britain.

I thought the flow of the game didn't really resemble aerial dogfighting, but it did give me an appreciation of the Undaunted game mechanics, and make me want to give the original Undaunted game a try.

For our December game we are planning a game of the second edition of Conquerors & Kings, so stay tuned.

Savage Gamma World #9

Our tale began when the mutants were visited by a human who called himself Jaffar. Jaffar claimed to be a traveling merchant, and possessed the knowledge to modify the rifles our mutants had looted from Humanity's Restoration (HR) so they could be used by mutants. He offered to "unlock" all the rifles they had collected in exchange for them recovering a piece of technology from a facility of the Ancients. To demonstrate his knowledge and sincerity, he unlocked a rifle, which Tom was afterwards able to use.

Kong, Ranggup, and Tom (see PC profiles here) traveled with Jaffar to the facility in the middle of the desert, but found that a Deathclaw - a carnivorous beast - had made its lair at its entrance. Tom was able to lure the Deathclaw into an area of soft sand, where the mutants managed to kill it, but when they made their way to the entrance they found two Deathclaw cubs there, which Ranggup decided he would adopt and bring back to the village.

Jaffar opened the door to the facility using a passkey, and our mutants found themselves in a lift that took them deep under the desert floor. When the loft door opened, they found themselves in a large, dimly lit room that was the scene of carnage - many skeletons and destroyed robots were strewn all over the floor. Our mutants found themselves being scanned by laser, and soon afterwards a voice spoke to them, informing them that they were trespassing on a United States Army facility, and asked them to identify themselves. Our mutants replied that they were there to recover a suit of armour, and after a long pause, the voice instructed them to proceed to a console and retrieve a widget there, and to proceed to a lift at the other end of the room.

The voice explained that its name was Dreadnought, and that it was the Artificial Intelligence in charge of the security of the facility. Many years ago, it explained, the security of of the facility was breached by enemies of the state, who tried to lock Dreadnought out of the system and corrupted the security droids, which then killed all the scientists and workers within the compound. Fortunately, Dreadnought retained control of the lobby level and its wall-mounted lasers, which it then used to destroyed the rogue security droids. It then placed the facility under lock-down until the proper authorities arrived, but they never did. Now, it requested the party to retrieve the weapon arms of the suit of armour from the various levels of the facility, and then to unite them with the main chassis of the armour, so it could leave the facility before the enemies of the state could arrive.

Our mutants followed the directions of the AI, and traveled to the manufacturing level and then the weapon range, overcame the surviving security droids there, and restored control of the levels to Dreadnought by inserting the widget into the consoles of each level. Finally, Dreadnought instructed our mutants to go to the research level, where they would retrieve the passkey from the dead body of the head of the facility, which would allow them to access the armour.

Our mutants followed the instructions, but when they entered the research level they were confronted by a droid that resembled a large mechanical spider. After ascertaining their identities, the spider droid revealed that it was an Artificial Intelligence that preserved the memories of Dr Martin, the head of the facility. Dr Martin told our mutants that Dreadnought was in fact the codename for the power armour and the Artificial Intelligence that inhabited it. Dreadnought was originally designed to take over the functions of the power armour in the event that its human operator was incapacitated so it could remove itself and its operator from the site of danger. However, the AI came to the conclusion that it could better protect its occupant if it was in charge of all of the suit's functions even while its occupant was fully competent. Realising this, Dr Martin decided to shut the AI down, and began to disarm Dreadnought under the pretext of upgrading its weapons. But Dreadnought soon saw through the ruse, and ordered the security droids to kill all the humans within the facility before they could disable it. Dr Martin was able to use the wall-mounted lasers to destroy most of the droids and to lock Dreadnought out of all of the levels except the lobby level. He hunkered down in the research level with a few of his colleagues and waited for help to arrive, but when it became clear that no help was coming, he transferred his memory to a separate AI which inhabited a spider droid, so he could warn anyone who came after his death of Dreadnought's intentions.

For a while our mutants wanted to help Dr Martin, but when they realised that they were at Dreadnought's mercy while they remained in the facility, they destroyed the spider droid and located Dr Martin's mortal remains, and took from it the passkey. They then took the precaution of disabling the weapon arms.

Once they restored control of the level to Dreadnought, they were instructed to bring the weapon arms and the passkey to the lowest level of the facility: the vault.

Our mutants used the passkey to enter the vault, and there they saw Dreadnought, a hulking suit of armour taller than a man. Robotic arms there affixed the weapon arms to the chassis, and Dreadnought awoke and started to move towards the lift. Our mutants followed it, and together they all traveled to the surface level.

Outside the facility, they were met by Jaffar, who was ecstatic when he saw Dreadnought. However, his joy soon turned into panic as Dreadnought refused to follow any of his instructions, but simply walked into the desert. Jaffar followed the walking armour, all the while yelling orders at it, and left our mutants behind.

Prepping and Running the Game

This session was based on the Fallout: The Roleplaying Game module Fully Operational.

I followed the basic premise of the module rather closely, but changed certain elements that did not fit my vision of the post-apocalyptic world, and streamlined it. There was a little more role-playing this session that the others, but once again there was no "right answer" to the situation.

Jaffar was of course a reference to Jafar in Aladdin - I had the idea that in the even the PCs refused to hand over Dreadnought to him, he would leave them locked within the facility.

Following the original module, I had Dreadnought walk off into the sunset to enjoy its newfound freedom. I do hope to bring him back in a future session though.

Savage Gamma World #8

Once again our mutants were called to eliminate a threat to peaceful mutants. This time, they investigated rumours of the Locust People, a race of cannibalistic humanoid mutants that lived in a 'hive' society. It was believed that a Locust People queen would lay dozens of eggs before she died, and when those eggs hatched some of them would become new queens-in-waiting, while the rest would become warriors; the warriors would range far and wide to gather food for their queen, chiefly in the form of the flesh of other mutants! When they had been sufficiently fed, the queens would disperse and find new lands where they would lay their eggs and then die, starting another cycle of carnage.

The last appearance of the Locust People had been a few decades ago, and the memory of their destructiveness still remained in the minds of many elderly mutants, who feared the reports of new Locust warriors ranging about would mean another calamity for the zone.

Following the information provided by the hunters who spotted the Locust warriors, Kong, Ranggup, Rex, Tom, and Vik (see PC profiles here) ventured into the cave complex where the Locust People made their lair, and fought and killed a number of the warriors, from which they looted shiny pieces of card which the warriors wore around their necks. However, when they delved deeper into the caves, they were attacked by the enormous queen of the Locust People, and had to flee through a metal door that incongruently stood at the side of a cave.

One through the metal door, they found themselves in a well-appointed room. They were greeted by a holographic human, who welcomed them "back onboard" - the holo-conductor had mistaken our mutants as passengers of the train based on the cards they were carrying - and informed them that the train would depart immediately so as to make sure it could "make up for lost time".

Sure enough the whole room the mutants were in began to lurch and then move, and after a short while light came through the windows on the sides of the room: the train had exited the caves and was now moving north at great speed! As the train passed through a forest there was a sudden loud bang and shaking of the cabin, as if the train had collided with something. As the train sped on, our mutants noticed that every so often the train would lurch dangerously and threaten to throw them around the cabin. It was obvious that there was something wrong with the train, but the holo-conductor was mum, and would only assure them that the passengers' safety were his utmost priority.

As the train gained speed the lurching would occur more frequently be come more and more violent. Our mutants realsied that their lives would be in danger if they did not leave the train or stop it. At first they tried to open the doors or windows on the train so they could leave, but the holo-conductor informed them that the doors and windows were secured while the train was in motion for the passengers' safety. Our mutants then tried to make their way to the front of the train to stop it, but found their way blocked by a jammed door between the dining car and the lounge car. Through the bent door they could hear a growling sound. Climbing through the vent in the kitchen car to the roof of the trains, Ranggup crawled forward to the lounge car, which had an observation dome of glass. Here he saw that the dome was broken at the front, as if it had struck something. No doubt it was this impact that cause a malfunction in the lounge car that led to the train's periodic lurching. Crawling through the broken dome, Ranggup saw what was making the growling sound: a large, six-legged plant-beast that had most likely been struck by the dome and fallen through. Ranggup was able to calm the beast, and open the jammed door from the other side to allow our mutants to continue forward.

Finally our mutants came to the door to the pilot's coach, but found that they could not access it. The holo-conductor once more appeared and informed them that the pilot's car was out of bounds to the passengers for their safety. Our mutants were able to convince the holo-conductor that their safety was at risk if they could not enter the pilot's car and stop the train, and after some calculation the holo-conductor agreed with them, and allowed them through.

There, in the pilot's car, our mutants overcame the security droid guarding the controls, and finally managed to put the train to a stop.

When they had left the train, Rex's unerring sense of direction told them that they were a ten-day's walk from the cave!

When they finally made their way back to their village, our mutants found a shrine for them in outside the titan which they had made their home - the villagers had thought that they had perished fighting the Locust People, and in response the surrounding villages banded together to avenge them and to end the Locust People threat.

Prepping and Running the Game

This session was based on the Mutant Crawl Classic module Mayhem on the Magtrain. Once again I found the module to be a little more complicated than necessary (although it was thematic), but was able to take the central premise of the story and have a fun, full session.

When first told about the Locust People my players took the threat seriously, and the first hour of the session was spent gathering information, scouting, and making a plan of attack. Knowing that the Locust People were in fact just an excuse for the PCs to enter a cave and be forced into a runaway train, I briefly contemplated making the whole session about fighting the Locust People instead, but decided to stick to the plan. In my defence, I had informed them that the session would be "a bit rail-roady" in advance, which one of the players took to mean that it would take place on a train.

The players were a little concerned and disappointed that their characters were not the ones to end the Locust People threat, and I had to comfort them by telling them that there isn't always a "right way" to "solve" an adventure, and that sometimes the game was just to explore and deal with whatever happens. That's the OSR way.

Arrowstorm and FiveCore Company Command (ft. Undaunted: Normandy)

I am actually two AARs behind on our Savage Gamma World campaign, but since it is faster to wrote a wargaming AAR than an RPG AAR...

We were planning to play another Napoleonic game on Sunday, but due to unforeseen circumstances only Fg and myself were able to meet up for the session, so we decided to instead play something I have been planning for for a while, and something that just came up recently.

The first game we played was Arrowstorm, a recent release by Dan Mersey. I was actually a playtester for the game in its previous incarnation many years ago, so I was excited to get a copy of the rules when they were released this month. The rules cover the period from the Norman Conquest to the Hundred Years War, and I was hoping to use them for Wars of the Roses too, but given that this was October, I decided to take my Dark Ages collection out and fight the Battle of Hastings.

The rules utilise a tile system, which allows me to use my Undaunted: Normandy tiles. They are a tight squeeze with the 15mm figures we used, but I like the look. In the original game players placed order token onto a shared order chart, but I thought it would be easier to just print the order chart out, glue it onto a piece of card, and cut it into counters which the players can take instead.

The game is rather, well, game-y. You take turns to choose a limited menu of orders from a common pool, which you can then use during the upcoming turn. However, you may choose orders which your troops cannot actually execute just to deny them to your opponent - in our game I (playing the Anglo-Danish) chose the Shoot order on many turns even though I had no missile troops simply to deny them to the Normans, who had missile troops.

The game flowed well enough. In our game the Normans charged the English left flank, but then their cavalry was defeated when they charged up the hill. Fg sent his spears round the English flank, but as I held a unit in reserve they were able to hold them off until I could deploy more units from the main line.

I will see if I can make up scenarios for Wars of the Roses for these rules in the future.

For the second game we played FiveCore Company Command, a game by Nordic Weasel, but not exactly. You see, I have been looking at the Undaunted: Normandy tiles for a while, hoping to use them with miniatures. They are unfortunately a little small, being only 9cm x 9cm, and while they are printed on both sides, there are only 18 tiles in a box, and I had to wait until Amazon Prime Day to order a second set to have enough tiles for our games.

Anyway, back to rules.

Our group were playing the Chain of Command rules several years ago, and have between us accumulated four 20mm armies. While we enjoyed the period, the CoC rules were not the easiest to play or remember. After trying out a few of the other Nordic Weasel games, I decided to give FiveCore Company Command a try, and thought that its depicted my idea of WW2 combat well enough. With some tweaking, I converted the rules to being grid-based, using a rough conversion of 1 grid = 6".

As you can see from the photo above, the tiles are even more crowded when using 20mm figures, and all the more so when vehicles are used. But the grid format made the game easy to play.

We played a scenario from a Chain of Command Pint-sized Campaign book, twice - the first time with just infantry, and the second time with a Sherman on the US side and an anti-tank gun on the German side. The Germans won the first game, and the US the second game. In both games the victory came after one side suppressed the other side and made a dash to/from the church on the upper side of the map across the open ground (tile 12B). The tank and the anti-tank gun we used in the second game did not actually end up having much influence on the outcome.

I enjoyed the games a lot, but the small size of the tiles was an issue for me. After the game I explored the options of recreating larger versions of the tiles, or even making similar larger tiles using the RPG maps I have been using, but there was no perfect solution. I think we will probably stick with the Undaunted tiles for now, and hope that they produce a deluxe edition with larger tiles someday.

Savage Gamma World #7

Our mutants were resting in their lair in the Titan when they heard a commotion from without. Emerging from the Titan, they were confronted by angry and confused mutants from a village 3 days away. They soon learned that the mutants' village was attacked by a giant steel robot a few days ago, during which eight of the villagers were captured and taken away. The rest of the villagers decided to come to our mutants' lair to see if they (and their Titan) were responsible for the attack. After seeing for themselves that our mutants' Titan was not the robot responsible, they villagers asked for our mutants' help in finding and returning their friends.

Batte, Ranggup, Rex, and Vik (see PC profiles here) followed the villagers back to their home, and from there they followed the giant round footprints of the robot, which led up and over a ridge. From the top of the ridge, our mutants could see a giant structure at the floor of the valley below. At first they thought that it was a building, but they soon noticed the tracks on the ground behind one end of the structure, realised that it was in fact a giant vehicle with tracks, consisting of a tractor at the front, hauling two trailers behind it. All told, the vehicle measured 60 metres long, 20 metres wide, and 40 metres tall at its highest point. At the bottom of the side of the front trailer was a door, and midway up the wall they saw an opening, from which plants grew out of. They also saw the giant robot described by the villagers patrolling around the vehicle.

Our mutants watched and waited, until at last a ramp lowered from the rear trailer, and the robot walked up into it. Batte decided to fly up to the opening on the side to see if it could provide a way for the party to enter the trailer, but when he came near the opening a plant tendril lashed out and grabbed him by the foot and pulled him inside. Below, the other mutants could hear Batte screaming telepathically for help. Rex and Vik decided to throw Ranggup up towards the opening, and sure enough the plant grabbed ahold of Ranggup and pulled him in too. Once inside, Rangup lowered a rope to Rex and Vik below, who quickly climbed up. Together, the mutants struck at the plant until it released Ranggup, and then reduced it to a pulp.

Our mutants then left the room they were in by the only door out, and were quickly confronted by man-sized security robots. They were able to overcome the robots, but could not open any of the other doors they found at the corridor they were in, until they realised that they could use the head of one of the droids (which they had knocked off during the fight) to unlock the doors. After some exploration, they learned that they were in the living quarters of the humans who must once have crewed the vehicle. They eventually found the door to lift, which they took to the lowest level. When the door to the lift opened, they were once again attacked by robots, which they once more overcame. They then found the door that opened to the outside of the vehicle (which they saw from the outside) and tried to wedge it open with the inactivated robots, but flying drones soon came to begin to repair the robots. Our mutants realised that time was of the essence, and decided to find the missing villagers and leave the vehicle before the robots were repaired.

At level 2 of the trailer, they found a large room with screens that showed the different parts of the trailer, and realised that the villagers were being kept in cryogenic stasis tubes at level 5, along with dozens of other mutants. Venturing to level 5, they exited the lift only to be attacked by a large yellow ooze creature, which caught Vik with a barbed tentacle. In a panic Vik used his molecular disruption power on the ooze, which turned it into a puddle of liquid, but also rendered him unconscious.

The other mutants brought Vik's unconscious body to what appeared to be a laboratory. Here they realised that the cryogenic storage room was at level 6, which was not accessible by the lift, but via hatches in the ceiling of the lab. Our mutants manipulated the control panels of the lab in random fashions, until at last one of the hatches opened, and a mechanical arm holding a cryogenic stasis tube descended from the opening to deposit it. Batte seized the moment to fly through the opening, while Ranggup leapt onto the mechanical arm, and was taken up to level 6 too.

Once the hatch closed, Batte and Ranggup found themselves in a cold chamber filled with close to a hundred cryogenic stasis tubes, each holding a mutant. They were unable to find a way to activate the mechanical arms in the chamber, or otherwise cause the hatch to open again. Cold-blooded Ranggup soon became to fall into a stupor, while Batte once more began to scream telepathically to Rex below to find a way to open the hatch.

Just then Vik woke up, and together he and Rex tried to work he control panels again, to no avail. In a panic Rex smashed opened one of the panels and peed onto it, which caused some sort of alarm to go off and a voice to announce that a fault had caused the cryogenic system to go into failure and that all the specimens held in stasis would die if not released from stasis in 15 minutes!

Vik proposed to Rex that they searched somewhere else for a solution, and the two took the lift to level 4, where they found the infirmary of the trailer, and found a robot doctor. The robot doctor was initially confused by the presence of our mutants, but once it had learned of the situation from our duo, its programming kicked in and it offered to help reverse the cryogenic process. However, there was not enough time left - only 66 out of the 99 mutants held in stasis could be saved before the time ran out; our mutants were able to save 6 of the 8 mutants recently seized. Our heroes herded the survivors out of the trailer, and they quickly put as much distance between themselves and the vehicle as they could.

When questioned, the other revived mutants all told the same story: they were going about their own business when they were attacked and seized by the giant robot. None of them could tell how long ago they were taken, and how far away they must be from their homes. Some of the mutants decided to follow our heroes, while others decided to strike out on their own to try to find their homes, and so they parted ways.

Prepping and Running the Game

This session was based on the Mutant Crawl Classics module "The Apocalypse Ark", which features a vehicle of “the ancients” with a mission to find and collect different species. The original story had a villain (who had taken over control of the vehicle and its AI), but I removed that character and plotline and instead just used the vehicle and its attached robots as a basis for this session.

The set-up was pretty standard, with the PCs exploring the “dungeon” and overcoming its various denizens. The players did do rather poorly towards the end of the session, which was probably due to a combination of boredom and frustration from lack of clear direction. I will have to manage this better in the future.

Xenos Rampant and Space Hulk again

For the September session we played two games of Xenos Rampant, followed by a game of Space Hulk.

We decided to make up lists of set points and then roll for scenarios.

The first game saw me fielding 36 points of Space Marines vs Rick's Necrons in the Diversion scenario. The game ended in a draw.

For the second game Adrian's Eldar defended against Rick's Tyranids in the Orbital Drop scenario.

We wrapped up the afternoon with a big game of Space Hulk.

For the October session I am planning to return to some historicals with a game of Napoleonics.