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

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Re: Joël's campaign (now: end part of Bleak House!)

Post by Zilfer »

Fun times. :D Yeah I went through some of your journals, and I see most of her showing up is when you ran the Evil Eye way back when. :) I've ran the beginning part with Raul before as a hook, though I doubt my players remember that one, beyond 'some vistani dude with a ghost wife.' xD

Anyways, I'll be transposing 'him' to Nova Vassa in mine because hey it's my game, and the players will never know! :azalin:

Thanks for your response!
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Re: Joël's campaign (now: end part of Bleak House!)

Post by Starscream »

Gonzoron of the FoS wrote:
Zilfer wrote:Speaking of Campaigns, how is the Twilight Children going? hmmm?
Funny you should mention that.... session 28 has been played and the journal is in progress... expect it soon. :twisted: (but don't get too excited, it was a shorter than usual session)
Good news, I need some new journals! :)

If also Joel would update his journal :P
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Re: Joël's campaign (now: end part of Bleak House!)

Post by Joël of the FoS »

Starscream wrote:If also Joel would update his journal :P
Oh, you remind me there are two sessions which never got writen. Will do!
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Re: Joël's campaign (now: end part of Bleak House!)

Post by Joël of the FoS »

Ladies and ghouls,

Here's session 83 and 84 of my campaign, found here!

Those two sessions are rolling toward the very end of Bleak House. So in these two, you will read about the crescendo of events of the last day, preparing the final confrontation with Mme Radanovich.

Next session : the big fight!
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Re: Joël's campaign (now: end part of Bleak House!)

Post by DustBunny »

Joël of the FoS wrote:Here's session 83 and 84 of my campaign
Interesting - so by screwing up the cycle enough, some of the spooks 'woke up'. I am definetly looking forward to see how you work out the 'ghost/anti-ghost' thing from the big battle (IMNSHO the original module handled this _very_ badly).

I wonder if they will remember they still have a ghost in a bottle or will forget about it until later (like with bags of holding/portable holes - you sometimes forget what junk you have shoved in there over the adventure, and remember at the most inopportune times sometime later :P ).

"Hey lets use the ghost bottle ... wait a minute ... didn't we already use a few months back at Bleak House? Oh Crap - umm look we're really sorry about that Davyyd..."

Oh and you may want to update the Veranda links - the journal links stop at 73-74
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Re: Joël's campaign (now: end part of Bleak House!)

Post by Starscream »

very good sessions!
I like how the players tried to screw up the events. I too would have done the same.

Now I'am waiting for the big match!
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Re: Joël's campaign (now: end part of Bleak House!)

Post by Joël of the FoS »

DustBunny wrote:Interesting - so by screwing up the cycle enough, some of the spooks 'woke up'. I am definetly looking forward to see how you work out the 'ghost/anti-ghost' thing from the big battle (IMNSHO the original module handled this _very_ badly).
Indeed, the original adventure had the day ghost fight with the night ghost and « destroy » themselves both in the fight.
Which I thought was anticlimatic and « unrealistic » in D&D mode. There is always a winner, and a dead guy.

So I put stats on everybody and the big fight will be more fun that way (more job for the DM, but I have a cheat sheat ready that will help quicken the game). In our group, we really like big and long fights.

In the big fight against night ghost, the day ghosts will coordinate with one PC (a PC they often interacted with, and consider as friend), and will enable the PCs to get flanking advantage. Also, in case of energy-based attacks from the night ghosts & Mme R, they will try to cover the PCs and make them avoid the damage.

The original module had four endings, after a random draw. I didn’t keep the random thing. All of these ends had cool parts, and I merged them all into one scenario. You’ll see!
I wonder if they will remember they still have a ghost in a bottle or will forget about it until later (like with bags of holding/portable holes - you sometimes forget what junk you have shoved in there over the adventure, and remember at the most inopportune times sometime later :P ).


I’m quite sure they will remember it, but I don’t know when they will pull him out.
"Hey lets use the ghost bottle ... wait a minute ... didn't we already use a few months back at Bleak House? Oh Crap - umm look we're really sorry about that Davyyd..."
Indeed! That begs for another question : does the trapped ghost of Davvyd vanishes from the bottle when the other ghosts will vanish at the end of Bleak House? Or will he exit pissed as hell? Or friendly, now that Mme R isn’t there anymore?
Oh and you may want to update the Veranda links - the journal links stop at 73-74
Those site updates are made by Ron, who runs the site.

When I put journals online, I use my very limited computer skills to put these journals online and not mess with the site while doing so :)

But indeed, once in a while I collect them into one larger file for the Veranda.
Starscream wrote:very good sessions!
I like how the players tried to screw up the events. I too would have done the same.

Now I'am waiting for the big match!
Thanks! Once they figured that was a possible way to end the Ground Hog Day cycle, they made it very competently ;)
It was a fun thing for the DM to try to have the « scenario » adapt and unfolds nevertheless, until it was completely stopped.
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Re: Joël's campaign (now: end part of Bleak House!

Post by Joël of the FoS »

Bleak house finished today!

End battle was a blast (but it needed a few deus ex machina things to make it work without a TPK), you will see in the journal, coming soon!

Players could not admit it was the end of VR, very cool RPG session.
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Re: Joël's campaign (now: end part of Bleak House!

Post by DustBunny »

So which ending did you use (baby VR, ghost VR, House VR, etc)?

Regardless of the ending, the fun part will be how they explain it to the Weathermay twins later on (IIRC, standard canon is they never found out exactly). Not that they will have time to think when they return to Borca..... :P

Oh and did they let Davyyd out of his bottle?
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Re: Joël's campaign (now: end part of Bleak House!

Post by Joël of the FoS »

DustBunny wrote:So which ending did you use (baby VR, ghost VR, House VR, etc)?
As I once said, I didn't use the random aspect of the adventure. Instead, I merged the coolest parts of the four ends to make one cinematic end.

It was nearly a TPK ;) Journal to be out soon.
Regardless of the ending, the fun part will be how they explain it to the Weathermay twins later on (IIRC, standard canon is they never found out exactly).
Done, they has a stop at Mordent to bring the sad news of VR's passing. The twins had many questions that were left unanswered.
Not that they will have time to think when they return to Borca..... :P
Indeed, the session ended in Levkarest :)
Oh and did they let Davyyd out of his bottle?


Yes, while they were still in Darkon. Davvyd was confused, not remembering much, asking for the year, realised he died 7 years ago, and quickly disappeared in the ether. Could be returning later to haunt the PC for answers? ;)

Joël
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Re: Joël's campaign (now: end part of Bleak House!)

Post by Gonzoron of the FoS »

Most of these Joel already posted here in this thread, but now I've linked to them in the Veranda as I should have long ago. And the last one is brand new.... Sessions 75-78, Sessions 79-82, Sessions 83-84, and Session 85.
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Re: Joël's campaign (now: end part of Bleak House!)

Post by Joël of the FoS »

Gonzoron of the FoS wrote:Most of these Joel already posted here in this thread, but now I've linked to them in the Veranda as I should have long ago. And the last one is brand new.... Sessions 75-78, Sessions 79-82, Sessions 83-84, and Session 85.
Thank you Ron!

I will soon bundle 75 to 85 into one file, it will be nicer in the Veranda.

Session 85 - So here's the end of Bleak House!
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Re: Joël's campaign (now: end part of Bleak House!)

Post by Gonzoron of the FoS »

Catching up on my reading:
84: "Van Richten says “he stops because he will do it again soon next round, quick!” " Careful, Van Richten, you're breaking the fourth wall! :)

The slow elevator ride while a zombie hoard is coming made me laugh. all that was missing was "girl from Ipanema" playing in the elevator...

85: Austizel using a dagger to open his own mouth... ew.... but cool!

So funny that they wouldn't believe he was dead until they saw the box cover. :) That's the sign of an impactful NPC.

I always love the "we can't be seen looking into this, but you can, so don't get traced back to us!" excuse for an adventure hook.

Not sure I ever noticed the resemblance between Ezra and Ivana before. Am I that blind? or has it been pointed out in the books somewhere and I forgot about it? Of course in the domain of intrigue would the church sanctioned by the vain and beautiful ruler/darklord worship a god that looks like her. So perfect!
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Re: Joël's campaign (now: end part of Bleak House!)

Post by Joël of the FoS »

Gonzoron of the FoS wrote:Catching up on my reading:
84: "Van Richten says “he stops because he will do it again soon next round, quick!” " Careful, Van Richten, you're breaking the fourth wall! :)
Doh!
The slow elevator ride while a zombie hoard is coming made me laugh. all that was missing was "girl from Ipanema" playing in the elevator...
Ah ah ah, very good one, you made me laugh too :)
Not sure I ever noticed the resemblance between Ezra and Ivana before. Am I that blind? or has it been pointed out in the books somewhere and I forgot about it? Of course in the domain of intrigue would the church sanctioned by the vain and beautiful ruler/darklord worship a god that looks like her. So perfect!
If not mistaken I think this comes from my games? The first time they were in Levkarest I described Ezra (a woman with long black hairs, blue eyes, with the face kindness itself would have, wearing a sword and an armor) and Ivana a bit later (a very charming woman, a little pale, blue eyes with long flowing black hairs, the face of innocence itself). And I think the players made the connexion between both.

Genius indeed.

(unless I'm not remembering where I got this)

Well it started as different images, or may be not. Maybe Yakov was inspired by the youthful look of Ivana when she was a young girl? Even if not, people saw the same kind of "Ivana" look in many of the icons made (as my players did), and then it became more and more apparent as artists were inspired by the generous donations made by Ivana after 711.

It's not a copycat image, it's in the same range of beauty.

And it makes the great dread possibility of the Gargoyle of the Cathedral taking an interest in Ivana.

Added later : the ressemblance is mentionned under Lollar Boritsi about the Icon of Danzig (LotB)

---

Tell me, what do you think of the combined ends I merged for Bleak House? If you DM it, will you go with the random ends, or will you make something alike?
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Re: Joël's campaign (now: end part of Bleak House!)

Post by Joël of the FoS »

And for those interested, here's session 86!

The Borca fun starts :)
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