ICRPG Campaign Diary: The Shadowrealm

session-recap

#21

Session 12: The Alun-Maris-Mercenary

Last time on The Shadowrealm …

In Session 11, HECTOR , LAFAYETTE and TORAK made their way back to the city of ARANUN, killed a giant spider, burned down some gallows and killed two vampires… and they caused a tavern building to collapse. In awaiting of the skeleton town guards, session 11 ended.

Session Prep

I decided to go with a series of “rooms”, loosely distributed over the course of finding the count to keep the action up - mainly as a counterpart to the previous session. I created four scenes with a couple of bullets each. Here’s me prep:

Deadend to an inner yard - Target 12

  • PCs run through alley ways to escape skeleton guards
  • Skeleton :heart: +2 to all checks, swords/axes, bows
  • crates and clotheslines
  • hooded figure leads skeletons, has explosive arrows (gun effort)
  • Timer: swarm of bats joins the undead (DEF vs. Basic)
  • Timer: stable boy / good guy’s spy lowers rope from ceiling

Escape on the rooftops - Target 15

  • losing balance leads to hanging, falling leads to dying
  • swarm of bats follows, tries to thward PC progress
  • Redo: “the jail is right over there, see the tower?”
  • Skeleton-Archers ready positions on inner city walls near tower
  • Timer: hooded guy catches up

Down the tower - Target 12

  • wooden spiral staircase leads down
  • skeletons attack from the inner yard (inside the inner city wall)
  • arrow bursts from top of tower
  • ground-floor guarded, trapdoor to basement
  • Ogre Skeleton :heart::heart: +4 to all checks, halve damage from magic, huge metal ball on chain (AoE weapon, or single target ultimate)

The Castle’s Jail - Target 12

  • illuminated by torches
  • count Ireb lies in his cell, without conscious
  • Timer: jailer tortures formed soldier Heinbel to death
  • hooded figure catches up: Druidhunter Enaro
  • Enaro :heart::heart: +4 to all checks, 2 actions, pale skin, tatoos, robe with hood
  • two swords (poisoned: CON vs dying in d4 rounds)
  • bow with explosive arrows (gun effort)
  • 3x strong healing potions (heal :heart:)
  • desecrated druid amulet (stop any NEAR druid shapeshift immediately)
  • 2x turtle eggs
  • letter with orders by Tjiarr to annihilate all local druids

Side node: LAFAYETTE is a druid, whose druid folk was killed by the shadowrealm. TORAK whorships a giant turtle, whose eggs are of religious meaning

How things turned out
Two minutes in, they were slightly off my planned path, so I adapted the first scene to the actual one.

They successfully ran away from the guards with the intent to reach the jail asap, so they quickly encountered some unaware skeleton guards on a larger street. HECTOR was recognized by the hooded guy due to his burning gauntlet. Being chased, he used his last piece of dynamite to damage one of the buildings and fill the alleyway with rubble. He quickly got away and seeked shelter in one of the buildings.
Meanwhile - since they hastefully ran into a party split early - TORAK took one of the crates and tried to get away while covering himself with the crate. He successfully made it, while LAFAYETTE - meanwhile transformed into a swan - was pushing TORAK’s crate forward, helping him with the direction.

TORAK used the haste of the scene and the fact that the guards were focused on HECTOR, they ran into the next alleyway. Suddenly Redo lowered a rope.

“Hey friends, our common fried Ferall sends you, right?”
Unfortunately TORAK totally screwed up, not remembering their quest givers name, so he scared away Redo. After reaching the rooftop anyway, TORAK made a jump onto the inner city walls and observed the inner yard: dozends of skeleton warriors waiting for orders. Since he wasn’t wanted, TORAK decided to sneak into the yard.

Meanwhile LAFAYETTE (as the swan) tried to find HECTOR by flying up high. He realized (as the timer was getting close to zero), that a couple of bat swarms were closing in. The hooded guy made his way up to one of the rooftops, so LAFAYETTE decided to swan-tackle him down! Shortly before reaching him, the guy’s druid amulett kicked in and LAFAYETTE dropped out of swan-shape, but totally kicked the guy (let’s stick with his name Erano, but the PCs never learned that name) fell off the roof. LAFAYETTE didn’t manage to keep the balance while falling onto the roof, so he was hanging on the edge of the roof.

Meanwhile HECTOR reached his building’s top, made a huge jump and helped LAFAYETTE out. After a short combat with the incoming swarms of bats, they accidentally shattered LAFAYETTE’s pusling crystal (which knowbody knew what that was for). Meanwhile TORAK made his was into the stables, but was somehow followed by a swarm of bats. He hid himself in the straw for quite a while, until the skeletons (in the yard) and the swarm where commanded to the street, where “the infiltrators” (HECTOR and LAFAYETTE) were spotted.

They overcame a couple of more roof top distances by some cool collaboration: LAFAYETTE moved the rope to the next roof in swan-form and after attaching it, HECTOR slided along with a carabiner, dodging all enemy bow shots. They encountered redo again, who was convinced, that those guys where working for the same goal as he does. So he helped them getting of the rooftop.

TORAK, meanwhile left the stables, and ran randomly inside one of the towers, discovered a hude ogre skeleton. Luckily, his friends arrived and they managed to dodge most of the ogre’s attacks. LAFAYETTE stole the key to unlock the trapdoor, and HECTOR barricaded the tower’s door to stop the approaching skeletons from entering (at least for the momemt).

Finally, they made their way down the trapdoor and reached the jail room. The jailer was quickly overrun and they found the unconscious Ireb in his cell. Unfortunately the skeleton army, led by Erano, broke through the tower’s door and caught up with the heroes. They tried to barricade themselves behind turned-over stretching bank, but rolls were brutal to them. They were trapped in a dead end, bravely fight the skeletons and Erano. LAFAYETTE attempted to break the only exit door they’ve found, but got too close to Erano, so he was un-shapeshifted by his amulet. Low on resources, the enemies overran the heroes and killed them all. TPK.

Conclusion:

  • The campaign is over, which made as all a bit sad. But all agreed, that the last couple of sessions were both fun but also so hasteful and haphazared, that this TPK was on the horizon. At no point, they had any real plan besides reacting in the moment.
  • The overall session prep worked out well. Having a high-action session worked out well. But this game night was also brutal in playing time: Roughly 4 hours (or maybe 4.5… I don’t remember exactly anymore).
  • We all agreed on starting a new campaign “10 years later” in that world, in a couple of weeks. But tbh, I’m not sure whether I’ll continue those campaign reports. Taking notes on the events during game and recapping things after it are bit too much. Maybe I’ll pick one cool moment for each session, but this won’t give you a good picture… yeah, idk :smiley:

Anyway, thanks for reading and following the heroes :slight_smile:

Cheers
glocke