Joël's campaign (now: Har'Akir desert arc!)

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

I've been meaning to put this up for you for over a month now, but never found the time. Glad to see you took matters into your own hands. I've done it all proper-like now, with links on the Veranda, announcements, etc. Many apologies for the long delay!

Now off to read it!

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

S55: nice spooky battles with the ghosts. good use of their incorporeal nature.

S56: Darkon to Mordent is a long way to go for a Raise dead! Did Tora's player have a backup character or something to do? Did he or she take over Kendra, perhaps?

"We are getting back to Mordent to have him raised from the dead" Lucky this is Darkon. Say that in Barovia or Tepest and see what happens.

I love the frequent checks on the stored body. Good practice in Ravenloft!

Wow! Super-thorough list of passengers! I'm always wary of stuff like that, since it can be information overload to provide it all, but it's not realistic to limit suspicion to a small section of a large group (i.e. the ones with names).

Great cliffhanger... Will continue later.

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

S57: nice link to the Vorishkova bloodline!

"they bury Yvonne at sea, in a private ceremony where Petrak blesses her soul. Yvonne doesn’t say much." I should hope not! I guess you meant Antionette...

Is this the first time they are hearing Van Richten's backstory?

heheh... regular reports to Ivana. Love that.

S58: "running headless" LOL seems like you had a lot of fun with Ms Montarri.

[Lord_Pruitt]

I'm getting the dreaded "404 Not Found" message when I try and access Joel's latest

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

Whoopsie. A little file renaming snafu. All fixed now, I hope. thanks for the heads up.

[Joël of the FoS]

Thanks for the feedback, Ron!

S55: nice spooky battles with the ghosts. good use of their incorporeal nature.

I added the swarm to the Lopper encounter. I’ve found that many adventure have the flaw of presenting the BBEG alone. In this situation, it is much easier for the PCs to give everything they have and kill the BBEG. From now on, I often add a secondary battle going on at the same time. In this case, a swarm.

For the Splatter Man battle, the terrain was difficult after the room partial collapse (so the incorporeal Splatter Man was easily eluding the PC’s close combat), and this guy was very tough, so I didn’t need to add that much to it.

S56: Darkon to Mordent is a long way to go for a Raise dead! Did Tora's player have a backup character or something to do? Did he or she take over Kendra, perhaps?

Well there are six PCs and six players. But sometimes a player can’t show up, and in this case a player has two PCs to play. IIRC, Yvon played another PC until Tora was raised.

"We are getting back to Mordent to have him raised from the dead" Lucky this is Darkon. Say that in Barovia or Tepest and see what happens.

Indeed!

I love the frequent checks on the stored body. Good practice in Ravenloft!

Yep, as they suspected a hidden beast was on board, they didn’t want Tora to become a snack for the beast

Wow! Super-thorough list of passengers! I'm always wary of stuff like that, since it can be information overload to provide it all, but it's not realistic to limit suspicion to a small section of a large group (i.e. the ones with names).

That’s the goal. My players are not able to guess which NPC is more important than another just because one has a name, and the other’s name is clearly made on the spot by the DM.

IIRC, it didn’t take a long time to do this, perhaps an hour and a half. Found a name generator and added some ideas to each names.

The players didn’t speak to as many NPC as I had planned, but I was ready

Great cliffhanger...

On each gaming Sunday, we finish our games around 8 pm. I often try to stop on a cliffhanger, or just after they got an important clue. That keeps them discussing this new clue by emails until the next game!

S57: nice link to the Vorishkova bloodline!

Another story arc opened there! Antoinette might eventually get into trouble when NPCs try to get to her mother, Natalia.

"they bury Yvonne at sea, in a private ceremony where Petrak blesses her soul. Yvonne doesn’t say much." I should hope not! I guess you meant Antionette...

Ooops! Corrected!

Is this the first time they are hearing Van Richten's backstory?

Yep! After ten years, now is the time they get more info on this NPC. I read in your journal you are preparing to play the
Bleakhouse adventure, same here!

heheh... regular reports to Ivana. Love that.

I have to idea what to do with this for the moment, but since the location of Borca is very central, they have to cooperate otherwise their travel will get extremely complicated.

And who knows? It might eventually become a story seed.

S58: "running headless" LOL seems like you had a lot of fun with Ms Montarri.

They hate her guts and hate the fact she was clearly using them as flour, eggs and all in her own cake.

It isn’t excluded that they eventually go back at her to try to assassinate her.

Or that the Vardo show up later, and they need something the heroes have

Joël

[Band2]

Hey Joel, I had fallen behind in following your campaign and am just catching up now. That skinsaws adventure was very interesting. Was it all from a pathfinders module or was some of that your creation. It almost seemed like it could have been 2 adventures with the ghoul-scarecrows in the fields and the haunted house.
The death of the children- that is evil of you.
But it did make me wonder if it is going to trigger some of dreams of regret from the PCs and draw the attention of the Nightmare Court. Is that in the plans?
The Harrowstone adventure is interesting as well. I am almost finished reading that one.
Next it looks like the Sea Wolf adventure. I remember running that one years ago in Gothic Earth. It seemed a little to advanced in Ravenloft, if I remember right, but I am sure you made it work.

[Epically]

The link of the first page is broked.

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

The link of the first page is broked.

Yeah, that was a very old link, from back when the Veranda was called the Smoking Room. Fixed it for ya.

[Epically]

Cheers. Liking the campaign so far.

[Joël of the FoS]

Hey Joel, I had fallen behind in following your campaign and am just catching up now. That skinsaws adventure was very interesting. Was it all from a pathfinders module or was some of that your creation. It almost seemed like it could have been 2 adventures with the ghoul-scarecrows in the fields and the haunted house.

It was part of the same PF adventure, # 2! (and PF is improving since then!)
But you’ll see that I added my own campaign twist to it, i.e the heretic texts, and the Death cavaliers...

The death of the children- that is evil of you.

Yeah, I know … Sorry.

(not!)

But it did make me wonder if it is going to trigger some of dreams of regret from the PCs and draw the attention of the Nightmare Court. Is that in the plans?

That would be a fun twist indeed. They already met the NC before (the Ghost Dancer), would be fun indeed to meet another guy from the NC…

The Harrowstone adventure is interesting as well. I am almost finished reading that one.

Very cool thing that adventure indeed, perhaps the best RL adventure …

Next it looks like the Sea Wolf adventure. I remember running that one years ago in Gothic Earth. It seemed a little to advanced in Ravenloft, if I remember right, but I am sure you made it work.

Indeed, that was a bit advanced in technology, but it worked well as a delaying side trek

Cheers. Liking the campaign so far.

Thank you very much, and let me know if you have any questions or comment!

Joël

[Joël of the FoS]

And I just added session 59 and 60.

Here's the link!.

In my Carrion Crown reshuffled to my campaign, the players (after trying to cross the Dreadpass at night in winter, and a meeting their brother gundarakite Ardonk Szerieza), will go to Karina to find more about the Sante-Lyrimin Abbey. They investigate and cross their path with a beautiful but deadly witch! Then they find more clues about the Whispering Way cult next actions.

Joël

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

Just posted the announcement for S59-60 in the usual places, now to read it for myself...

S59: VERY nice pics you found for the dreadpass. Where are they really?
Glad you liked my zombie encounter ideas. Though I must admit, the other apparitions really do make the place seem even more Dread-ful.

That's one heck of a password. Better hope you don't give it to someone loyal to Strahd by accident!

Strange wolves... interested in what their deal is.

S60: Yay, Vartinna! Love them. You can thank Andrew Wyatt for bringing them to my attention, on the old Kargatane music list: https://web.archive.org/web/20030223011 ... usic.shtml

M.G. .... I'm trying so hard to figure out who that might be and failing. argh! ... AH! Medraut Gundar! phew... thought I was slipping there for a bit. am I right?

ooh, yeah, creating blood from hair. I'm right. These witches want to magically create Medraut's blood from his hair to open the old hunadora portal, eh? OK, yes, the next paragraph says so.

So then the question is ... why? What do these witches want with the portal?

[Joël of the FoS]

Just posted the announcement for S59-60 in the usual places, now to read it for myself...

Thank you!

S59: VERY nice pics you found for the dreadpass. Where are they really?

I do not remember, I googled for images (with wrds such as narrow mountain pass) and found these. Forgot to note the source.

Glad you liked my zombie encounter ideas. Though I must admit, the other apparitions really do make the place seem even more Dread-ful.

Thanks to all that contributed, they really were in for a creepy threat They won't soon forget their night there!

That's one heck of a password. Better hope you don't give it to someone loyal to Strahd by accident!

Yeah, I admit I wasn't inspired when I made this on the spot. Should have thought of something else!

Strange wolves... interested in what their deal is.

The Whispering Way (WW) is making a ritual to bring back their lich tyrant, Tar-Baphon. That is the main idea of the six adventures of the Carrion Crown serie. I transfered that into my campaign, mixing new NPCs from CC to old ones from my campaign.

Also changed their relics and other components needed for the ritual. In CC, there is a werewolf adventure I didn't really like, so I skipped it. In this adventure, the WW was stealing the heart of a wolf pack. IMC, I have the WW stealing the heart of Nathan Timothy (that the PCs killed). After the battle, the PCs fed, and the heart was preserved by the other werewolves.

Stealing the heart made a kind of civil war throught the lycanthropic tribes of northern Verbrek, (and those in close by Karina, ie the ones from the Evil Eye). Some werewolves with more wisdom are trying to steal it back from the WW, to restore peace in Verbrek.

The ones the PCs did meet are druid wwolves scouts.

S60: Yay, Vartinna! Love them. You can thank Andrew Wyatt for bringing them to my attention, on the old Kargatane music list: https://web.archive.org/web/20030223011 ... usic.shtml

Great song. We should organize such a list for the FoS, with appropriate link to you tube when found.

M.G. .... I'm trying so hard to figure out who that might be and failing. argh! ... AH! Medraut Gundar! phew... thought I was slipping there for a bit. am I right?

Ah, ah, you are not the only one. The players needed a reminder too!

ooh, yeah, creating blood from hair. I'm right. These witches want to magically create Medraut's blood from his hair to open the old hunadora portal, eh? OK, yes, the next paragraph says so.
So then the question is ... why? What do these witches want with the portal?

The witches are just helping the WW as alchemical mercenaries. Their own hidden agenda is elsewhere: one is to restore their hag mentor and reform the coven, the other one to get rid of their old mentor and move to something else

So what to the WW want with the portal? Next parts should happen in Hunadora, where the WW invaded the underground level and locked it from the gundarakites and Gabrielle. The PCs will run after them, avoiding Medraut's ideas of fun in traps, and then try to stop the ritual.

The gate opens (of course), one hated WW will enter it, the PCs will probably follow... to GE, Russia, 1920! The russian civil war is on, and the spirit of Tar-Baphon is now into ... the evil monk Rasputin! So it will be a "Rasputin, die! die! die!" again. That will be inspired by CC # 71.

This should be cloe to the end of the WW story arc IMC.

Joël

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

The ones the PCs did meet are druid wwolves scouts.

Huh... I figured since they didn't change to human form to speak to a human that they were just very intelligent wolves. Are they so feral that they refuse to take human form?

Great song. We should organize such a list for the FoS, with appropriate link to you tube when found.

not a bad idea... get to work on it!

to GE, Russia, 1920! The russian civil war is on, and the spirit of Tar-Baphon is now into ... the evil monk Rasputin! So it will be a "Rasputin, die! die! die!" again. That will be inspired by CC # 71.

Wow, that's a weird twist. Was not aware of that adventure.... definitely a weird premise. Is it good?