Posts made in March, 2017

Aaron’s Scenario Recap (PCon 42)

The Heart of Gold

Backstory: One of Gargravarr’s great promises to the people of Qoin was to tunnel through the center of the disc to create a trade route from Heads to Tails. While nobody has ever reliably reported contact with the far side of the disc, this proved to be an inspiring undertaking, spreading dreams of beautiful fabrics and exotic spices and wealth to be made.

It was certainly popular among Dwarves and Gnomes, for it created the world’s largest demand for mining and machinery. Gargravarr used a vast tunnel-boring machine, built and maintained by the Gnomes, directed by the Dwarves, and supported by mining grunts of every shape and size.

Or course, a trade route was not Gargravarr’s actual motivation…

Run 1: The Mission is Mine

As far as the Resistance is concerned, there’s one big problem with the mining operation, and that’s that it was Gargravarr’s idea. Therefore, no matter how attractive it might appear on the surface, there must be some underlying motive to the detriment of the world. The first party was sent to investigate the mine and find out what’s going on there.

They had some adventures even reaching the glacier at the center of Qoin where the mining operation was located. All shipping capacity was consumed with miners and supplies, and the captains had turned to highway robbery to allow miners or passengers to claim a spot. With strategic bribery, the party lubricated their departure, and found themselves crammed in to a ship vastly overloaded with rough-edged folk. And then the first night out, the ship’s crew abandoned them, taking the money and running (er, rowing the dinghy) out of sight.

The lack of food, water, and elbow room could have proved to be a serious problem, except for the legendary Elven secrets that the party brought on board. (Namely, an alchemist’s jug producing an endless supply of fine wine.) With a little help from one experienced hand, they managed to reach the glacier, and by following another vessel, crash-land on the docks that were the intended destination all along.

Following the crowd, they crammed into wagons headed for the mine. On their arrival they found a vast temporary city — rows on rows of tents — in concentric circles around a vast hole in the ground. Unable to locate a “headquarters” among the tents (it was revealed later that all those in charge lived underground), they opted to take over one of the wagons of tailings, dumping it and returning to the mine for more.

The found themselves rudely directed down a circuitous path by Dwarves, who appeared roundly entertained by abusing the hapless grunts directing the wagon. In fact, a little investigation established that the mine was run by Dwarves and Gnomes, who were thrilled to have the chance. The Dwarves seemed to choose the route and procedures, while the Gnomes operated the vast tunnel-boring machine, and everyone else involved attended to the mundane tasks such as digging side tunnels, clearing the waste left by the boring machine, and resupplying the proper miners. This left the enormous main tunnel, surrounded by a huge number of weaving side tunnels, and a nearly inscrutable wagon route marked only by Dwarven runes etched faintly into the rock.

More investigation and a fair bit of stealth brought the party to a room where one of Gargravarr’s advisors was apparently dictating terms to frustrated Dwarf and Gnome leaders. From the sounds of it the Gnomes were advocating a break for maintenance, the Dwarves were advocating following a gentler route that avoided harder ground and obstacles, and Gargravarr was insisting on a straight-line route. (To the Heart of Gold, of course, though this wasn’t apparent to anybody at the time.)

Before the party could take advantage of this information, a party of invisible Drow attacked, supported by spellcasters in the distance. This turned into a four-way melee, from which no side emerged satisfied. The party lost two members and was unable to secure any of the specific plans or diagrams that had been under discussion. The Drow attempted to carry off Gargravarr’s representative, but were unable to. The representative was ultimately killed, leaving the Dwarves and Gnomes in a tight spot, and Gargravarr assuredly displeased.

Still, the remainder of the party returned with excellent intelligence on the mine, the factions involved, and Gargravarr’s influence.

Run 2: Tails of Qoin

Coming soon…

Run 3: The Enemy of My Enemy…?

Coming soon…

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Steve C’s Scenario Recap (PCon 42)

Steve & Nayla’s Scenario #1: A Fool’s Gold Errand

Funding a resistance effort is not cheap, and someone is stealing gold. Literally out of the pockets of the Resistance. And the bastard who’s doing it needs to be caught.

Our heroes were tasked with protecting a shipment of gold between two hideouts, and the trip will take all night. While beset upon by a distraction, the entire payload was lost, replaced with counterfeits made of brass.

On the face of the counterfeits, however, there was an island that is not on any map, so obviously that was their next step. Upon the unnamed island, they overcome two sea hags with strange clothes and the alchemical symbol for lead on their head coverings –– some of the Immortals from the wheel recoiled at the sight of it. The Symbol of the Hand of Dusk!

In a cave on the coast of the island, they come across a laboratory where some Villain is minting fake gold coins that directly threaten the world’s gold supply. They look quite convincingly valuable, and are laced with magic which allows them to steal real gold coins by swapping them out with fool’s gold copies. 1 then turns to 2, 4, 8, 16… Exponentially growing. Dare I say, as “confounding interest.”

In any case, the the Villian comes home to his lab. However, the “Villain” turns out not to be an enemy, but Tabernaculus, an old dragon from The Wheel. “We’ve heard of him!” Exclaimed some of the party.

His world is dying, and he found a way back to the Wheel, into a place called the Garden of Dusk to try and salvage some clippings of the Tree of Life. However, they do not seem to want to grow in this world – that is to say Quoin – perhaps, he says, because it has an incompatible Heart. So he started experimenting and discovered how this world’s Heart of Gold is being depleted. The gold-stealing coins are a way to try and reverse the damage.

But that doesn’t seem to be working either. He stole back into the Garden of Dusk to try and find a better solution, and found out that the Hand of Dusk was guarding something called the “Seed of Life” – apparently the one last Seed of the Tree, which he stole away. However, the next day he woke up to find that it had sprouted, but apparently the Seedling was more mobile than he anticipated (think Baby Groot) and it escaped.

While discussing with Tab, the players realized that they needed some dirt from The Wheel to entice Audrey out to take root, and where Tab had virtually none they remembered the two bodies of the Hand of Dusk. Those would mulch nicely. Bedecked with flowers and a Wheelian lullaby played by their Bard, they they managed to lure Baby Audrey out and bring her back to Tab without incident. They succeeded. (One player exclaimed something about, “Essentially mulching Nazis in order to grow the Flower of Peace.”)

The Heroes ended this run with Heart-strengthening fools’ gold coins, two pages of the Guide, and the Heart of Oak, itself – Baby Audrey.

Steve & Nayla’s Scenario #2: Everything is Illuminated

“Well, let’s see what happened then, shall we?” said Merriweather.

Why does the party have an headache? And why is everything so loud? It was as if their ears had opened for the first time. And why is there so much wind whipping at their clothing? And why is the ground approaching so fast? Ahhhhhhh! They awake to find themselves falling through the air.

How did they end up here? And what is that book falling along with them?

Flashing back to the beginning of things, they were sent off to retrieve The Book! The Book! Another copy of the manuscript – The Guide to the Multiverse – that held details about what is happening with the Immortals and Gargravarr, hoping that it may give them some clue as to how to defeat him. However, the Guide is hidden away in a tower. It’s all terribly mundane: They get their Quest, they go to the Tower, they dispatch the guard… and suddenly, a strange corrosion demon besets itself upon them and – they all die.

TPK. Whoops.

“No, no that can’t be right!”

That is not how Heroes die! So their story begins again. They get their Quest, they go to the Tower, they defeat the two guards, they head down into the Dungeon below it and find a Goblin who challenges them to a game of riddles. And they strain to best the riddle in 3 guesses…

The corrosion beast shows up again! They remember *everything* just before they die…

“Blast it! Why does this keep happening?”

They get their Quest, they go to the Dark Keep, they defeat the *10* guards, they find the goblin *Riddlesmith,* and defeat him with one try… and…

As you can guess, the story “resets” itself several times, changing a bit with each iteration, becoming more epic, more heroic, succeeding more easily against evermore unsurmountable odds, until they get to the final room and they realize that… it’s simply not there.

Past the door, it dissolves into nothingness, and it feels awful familiar. Like it’s where they started out. And then in a moment of desperation– they break through. Everything dissolves into a thousand threads of gold, and they fall “out,” looking up at two giant Monks of Hione, who are in turn looking down upon tiny versions of the Heroes, sitting upon a page of a manuscript.

It turns out that they are not the Heroes themselves, but how history had remembered them. The manuscript – which was illuminated with literal golden letters – was damaged when the gold was drawn from it by some surviving shard of Gargravarr, and the Monks (Albus and Merriweather) were trying to repair the book along with its illuminations. However, the final portions of it (think, the explosion and falling through the air part at the beginning) were damaged irreparably. So they did what any old Monks of Hione would do: Cast Speak with Book and try and see if the book remembered what happened. They did not expect *this*. :-)

Meanwhile, many centuries before, the real Heroes made their way into the tower – which was little more than a storage silo – searching after the Book. The Book, that could help them. Instead, with the help of the farmer who lived there, they came across a small, but powerful, magical item in the form of a figurine of a Raven. Their source had misheard. The Rook. The Rook was hidden in the tower. Granted, along with some very nice loot that certainly *could* help them turn the tide against Gargravarr.

Where their original quest was quite mundane, History remembered them as True Heroes.

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Wolf’s Scenario Recap (PCon 42)

Run #1: Alcheringa Calling


















Run #2:  Waking the Crocodile Man















Hidden Facts:



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