I normally have six players in my game and my daughter, who is 12, writes the game logs (proud Dad). I find them entertaining to read especially reading the various assumptions – usually wrong – the players have made during the game. We started Iron Gods after finishing of Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set
Our Brave Band of Adventurers:
- Charisma, a “human” -mutant- sorceress whose power source is Gamma Radiation which she was exposed to as a child. As a child of the Atom her hair goes green in the presence of radiation and she progressively gets greener the more powerful spells she casts (and as she gets angry). She has no love for the Technic League.
- Heidt, a ranger who has traded an affinity for nature for an affinity for machines. This android has mastered cybertheurgy as well as the lasgun. Has chosen the mechromancer archetype (blog post at some later point!). Seeking to learn more about his history he has become an archaeological expert on all things related to the Rain of Stars.
- Rikku, an elven rogue who was adopted by Khonnir Baine when he found her wandering the wasteland near Torch more than a decade ago. She claims to be a blood elf from a far-away land. Her history is tied up with a nearby ruin.
- Sylvanus, a dark elf monk who escaped the clutches of mind flayer slavemasters in the area of the Scar of the Spider after a daring raid by surface dwelling heroes freed her.
- Brokthor, a human fighter who was raised by dwarfs and thinks he IS a dwarf.
- Tufast, a human cleric who serves the unpredictable goddess of thunder and lightning Dorana. Much like his barbarian family he hates technology and has a particular spite for robots. He sees the cleansing power of Dorana as the perfect antidote to the curse of the robot infestation of Nimmeria.
Fires of Creation
Session 1
By Rikku Yuffina Kyrus
Khonnir Baine, my dad, has been gone for a few days. A cave under the city, Torch, is where he disappeared. A high reward from the city council has been put up of 4,000gp to find Dad. This reward and a very hot fire have brought travelers. This fire has recently gone out and is giving every one in the town headaches and migraines. Four parties have gone into the caves. The 1st and 2nd party that went into the caves have not returned. The 3rd party that went down had my Dad in it. But that party came back, with a repair drone. Then they went back and haven’t returned since then.
Dad has a tavern and put the drone in there. Together with my sister, Val, I run the tavern – The Foundry. A bunch of adventurers come for the night when Val offers to get some drinks. A few minutes later there is a scream. Val runs out of the kitchen. Following her is the repair drone Dad brought from the caves. It looks damaged and is tearing the tavern apart. So me and the other adventurers blow it up. Val starts gathering the pieces when she said she was fixing it to see if it could help us find Dad. After the commotion everyone goes to bed.
In the morning we greet each other. The visitor’s names are Heidt, Charisma, Brocktha, Sylvanus, and Tufast the Furious. They all know off the troubles in Torch and agree to go to the council for more details. There is only one council member right now and her name is Dolga. She is a dwarf and is happy to tell us anything we want to know.
Dolga says that the regular cave entrance to the Black Hills has been blocked by a cave-in and we can’t get in that way. But Dad recently found a new entrance through the Weeping Pond. He first discovered it when he was testing the Weeping Ponds water. For the water in Torch is poisonous and Dad had found a way to purify it. Anyway he was testing the water when he noticed a group of human footprints going into the pond.
He got a water breathing spell to avoid the poisonous waters and found the Black Hill Caves “back entrance”. So if we want to go down and avoid the toxic waters we would have to go to the priest of Brigh, Joram Kyte, to get a water breathing spell. We did this and swam down when we hit a sandy beach with three mounds. It was pitch black when we landed so Charisma cast light on Brocktha’s axes and that’s when we saw three huge beetles with lighted glands sneaking up on us. We killed them easily and I took off one of the beetle’s glands, which were still glowing, and put it in my bag. In front of us were two entrances; one with a small ledge to climb and the other was just a passage. We choose to go right.
Above the ledge are stalagmites, stalactites, and a dead body. Sylvanus and I recognize him as Padagar the Brawler. When we have a closer look at him we see that he is looted and has several dagger or sword stabs in his body. As we twist our way through the stalagmites and stalactites a big frog called a blindheim jumps out of a small pool of water. It flashes its big eyes as bright as day and blinds Charisma and me. We kill it with ease but Charisma and I are blinded, so we take a rest. When we wake up we search the pool and find a half eaten body and some money. We search the blindheim and find a tag on the frog saying “pet” in drow – an elven dialect.
There are, again, two passageways and we choose to go left. We come to a small room filled with fungus and moss. On the ceiling are four patches of clear goo like substances. When we enter the room the goo drops and slowly starts making its way towards us. We splatter them and disturb the fungus but nothing happens.
We go through the only entrance and find that we are back at the beach. We explore the mounds, which are dead Halflings. I find an agate. We make our way back to the dead blindhiem and go right. After a bit of walking we come to a medium size room with metal scraps and are dimly lit. On one of the walls is a picture of a repair drone, a twisted twig like vine, and a starving skinny four armed creature. There are two passages. One to the left and the other to the right. We decide to go left.
We come to a huge cave with four huts in the middle. To the left are another cave and a pit. To the right is a cave entrance. And at the back is a metal wall. A male drow approaches us. He says something in drow which we don’t understand. Then seeing we don’t get him he speaks in elvish which Sylvanus, Hiedt, and I can understand. He says that his leader, Sef, would like to speak to only half of our group. We can come armed he says but only half. We ask him a lot of questions but most of the answers were that his orders were not to tell.
We settle on Sylvannus, Hiedt, and Tufast going, after we know he is not lying. Brocktha, Charisma, and I see the rest disappear into the right cave entrance.
After ten minutes or so of waiting Tufast, Sylvannus, and Heidt come back to tell us what Sef wants. Sef is a female drow who wants us to kill off an infestation of gremlins in the cave to the left. These gremlins like destroying stuff and the drow are here to do the opposite. So the gremlins are in the way. If we succeed she will give us some of the things she has collected, information, and safe passage in and out at any time. Sylvannus asked about the expeditions but Sef will not give us information until the gremlins are slain. They have come back to discus the matter. Sef seems to be telling the truth. We all agree except Tufast who is suspicious. We accept and go to the caves.
As we move deeper the height gets lower and lower until it is five feet from top to bottom. Suddenly a green skinned gremlin appears and stabs Heidt. Sylvannus returns the favor and kills it. Tufast doesn’t agree this is a good idea helping drow and goes out. When we reach a fork a blue skinned gremlin appears with three other normal ones. Brocktha whacked the “leader” but it bounced off a bit. Then Sylvannus hits the boss but it bounced off too. Then Heidt finishes blue skin with his lasgun. After the “leader” was killed all the other gremlins run or hide.
We decide to go right. We find a steel wall similar to the one outside. But near this wall is a flashing red light. It isn’t a button but has a brown stripe in the middle. We bang the door but it doesn’t budge. We try the light but that did nothing. So we made our way back and try the left passage. This has a trap but nothing else. When we come out we see Tufast near the entrance with two Drow shadowing him. We all go to Sef for the prize. She thanks us and gives us a bag.
Inside is some money and five cards with brown stripes like the one on the red light by the door. Sef says the drow have come here to collect and scavenge pieces beyond the metal doors. Soon after, there came a sorceress with purple hair, some ratmen, and fighters. They said they would pay us to attack and/or keep back any other expeditions. We agreed. Later came two groups which the drow killed. The third group got past and when they came out again we left them alone. That same group came back a day later and has not come out since then. Any other expeditions that have come, except you, are dead. Inside the caves are treasures and junk. Four powerful skeletons lurk there. They pushed the drow back and they have not ventured farther than that. We thank Sef and go back to the gremlin caves.
We use the “access cards” on the light and the door tries to open but we can see junk is blocking the door. We go out of the caves and through the metal wall. The wall is a door, which opens automatically. We cross the room and exit through the other door. This room is full of junk and a repair drone, in mint condition, lies down motionless. As we start to search the drone rises and attacks us. It shoots a queer net at Brocktha and moves towards the rest of us. We blow this construct up the same way we blew up the other one. When its down we free Brocktha and search the repair drone. We find more of those queer nets. We search the room and find two charged silverdisks, some coin, and a black ePick.
As we move on we find a room with more junk, a cage in the middle, and bones of an unknown creature in the cage. Another door is ahead of us and one to the right. The door straight ahead opens but the one to the right doesn’t. I try my ePick but the problem is there is no power. We continue straight into another junk-filled room except this room has two nozzles. The nozzles are attached to the ceiling by coiled pipes. These pipes, as Tufast tried, are solid. Both are pointing to the centre of the room and have no power. As we move to the next room we see its all dessert like with footprints as far as we can see. Its pitch black on the ceiling/sky. We try to follow the footprints but got stuck – literally.
We got stuck to the sand because of some sticky goop. Tentacles come out of the rock just ahead. Leeches grab our legs and suck our blood. We kill this monster as fast as we can and the stickiness and leeches go away. We have had enough for today and retreat back to Torch to rest, resupply and recuperate.