Rick Gerdes' Bi-monthly game

1st session

So I started a F2F game two weeks ago set in the Shadow World of I.C.E. but using GURPS with heavily modified Magic. The characters are in thumbnail:

Unlife Hunter Vaal- A priest of the Goddess of Death, he single mindedly tracks down people he believes are in the service of the UnLife, gather evidence, and with the sanction of his superiors, quietly, or sometimes not so quietly, removes them. He has seen it all and has no illusions left, this a war, and he has no intention of losing. The player is a puzzle-solver, more interested in the hows and why's than the down and dirty.

Illusionist Vash- Something of a mystery, Vash has been used since childhood by various unsavory groups, most recently the Cult of Yaarthrak, as a supporter in intimidation and awe. She is a Mentalist capable of generating large and complex illusions. She is quite good, but has recently started picking up a bit of mind reading, and what she learned caused her to run away. She is currently being pursued, if for no other reason to make certain she doesn't talk to anyone. The player is a fairly game-rule antagonist; "Just tell me what I can do" narrativist.

Urik the Jeweler- A low key "grey market" man, Urik makes a living by day as a jeweler, and by night as an arsonist. A minor pyrokinetic, he lights fires easily, but would rather be left alone. The player is middle of the road simulationist-narrativist, and rather passive so far.

Blind Seer- somewhat stereotypical, the blind man seeing through other's eyes, or through knowledge magic, he makes a living telling old housewives what they want to hear. But he is quite curious, and looking for a chance to make enough to retire somewhere, anywhere, else. The player freely admits he's only here to collect the stories.

The Champion- he's actually just a kid, but he was good enough to win a few competitions, and his reward was the blessings of the god of athletes. With cinematic skills still being developed, he's a good set of muscles, with enough brains to be dangerous. The player is a hack-n-slasher 1e D&Der. But he's willing.

So the hard part is getting them all together. I like making it part of the story in-game, so the players and characters can learn about each other. The Champion was sent to town to investigate Yaarthrak for his temple back home. Vaal is on a similar mission for a major center of learning. Vash just got away from them.

First session started with Urik hearing groans from an alley on his way home from a job. Vaal had been beaten heavily, stripped, and dumped in the bay. Urik sighed heavily and helped the dazed and confused guy back to his place. On the way an old man offered to help out with the
incoherent wet naked man for a little food and a place to crash. Urik was feeling put upon, but never turns down a request for aid.

Back at Urik's apartment, Vaal woke up enough to recall his name, but the rest was kinda fuzzy. The old man revealed herself to be a young
woman. Urik wanted to say something about deception, but it was late and he was tired. He fed them and gave them blankets to sleep on and a change of clothes (way wrong size) for Vaal.

Next morning Vaal goes down to the local magician's lane, looking for someone to help put his memories back together. The third place he
visited had someone who could actually DO something. The Blind Seer put enough back together that Vaal remembered to throw up his own defenses and close the Seer out. The Seer demanded a significant payment, and Vaal went out to find work.

Vash went to the local guild hall, of which she was NOT a member, to find out how to join and get work. The phrase indentured servant was
never used, but other words like 'loan', 'interest', 'debt' were. She showed off a little and the examiner made a decision to put her on retainer personally. He gave her a small advance, and told her to come back in the morning.

Vaal's memories trickled back over the course of the day, and he went to his contact in town to report in. He'd been missing only a few days,
so they weren't TERRIBLY worried. He got a small advance to help pay off the blind guy, and got enough information to formulate a plan. He went to the local anonymous message board and found several notices for generic 'work' and followed up on them.

The second one was for a job, for a group probably, paid very well, and involved a little breaking and entering...of the Tower of Yaarthrak! Seems a wealthy merchant bought a necklace for his wife years ago. She loved it, but died about a year back. Shortly after her death, the
necklace, and sundry other valuables were stolen. The necklace was recently magically traced, to the Tower. Now Mr. Johnson has a man lined
up to authenticate the necklace; but he needs a team to enter weak point in their defenses, ascend to the treasury, and locate the necklace.
Since the access point is at the water line, they have a two hour window at low tide. Vaal accepts the job, and goes to find some backup.

On his way to the blind seer's (who better to spot magical defenses after all, and he already owes him money) Vaal gets id'd by the new boy
in town. He looks VERY familiar, so he gets followed into the Seer's storefront. Vaal and the Seer hash out a few details in the back, while
our champion loiters in the front room, listening as best he can. Vaal asks if the Seer knows any local muscle that might work against Yaarthrak, the Seer smiles enigmatically. He's been sifting through our young friend's head and knows all about the reason he's in town.

Vaal leaves those two to discuss the night's meeting with Mr. Johnson, and goes to find Vash, who he dragoons into making a lot of money quick, for doing what she already does, against, he finds out, people she doesn't like anyway.

They all meet with Mr. Johnson and meet the jeweler, Urik, who several already knew. They hash out the plans using the notes and sketches
provided. They decide they need a lock expert and post a blind notice themselves.

Next day and several unsavory people turned down later, they meet a young girl who was studying magic before she funding issues. She's an
honest girl who has been forced by circumstances to use her magic to steal. She readily agrees to do 'this one last job' for enough money to
get back to her studies.

Long planning and discussion later. They go out that night and rappel down to the grate, exposed at low tide. Only two of them know how to swim, but several others know enough magic to borrow/lend skill, and they are all functional. They get inside and are disguised by illusion
to be rats, and by mind shields to 'think' like rats, and head up. They discover the Tower's sub level has something large and ugly in it, which
they avoid, and a contingent of beast-men, often used as shock troops by the local big-bad bogey men who haven't been seen in person in a few hundred years. They continue to slip upwards until they get to the room in question. A few spells later and the chests are all open and no
necklace. The seer slips into Mage-sight and spots a few things hidden in the wall. The first box has the necklace, which Urik starts to authenticate. The second shines like a floodlight to the seer's magesight. Vaal, not liking this does a death-vision on himself and figures out that opening the box at the moment would be a 'bad thing'. The seer straps the box into his pack. The last box in the wall is a ceremonial knife. The type used by several cults in human-sacrifice. It has bad vibes to it, and Vaal drops THAT box into his pack.

Exit very similar to entrance (as low key as possible) until they start down into the sub-levels, and alarms start going off. They run past the
beasties coming out of their barracks and quickly decide against taking one of the low skiffs out to the grating. They don't know how to open
the grate or operate the boat after all. So they swim, their thief flying overhead low to help pull up people who are struggling. Outside isn't an improvement. The causeway out to the tower is crowded with people. A quick decision later and our champion (he needs a name) and Urik climb across the causeway, along the sides of the arch, while the rest swim across the hundred yards to the mainland. The climbers drop ropes from a ways down along the cliff and haul the others up. Pursuit is heading their way, and the Seer decides that a little discretion is in order. He wraps everything he has that's not being used into a shield around the magical artifact in his pack. The team runs through the woods, guiding the blind guy, and pursuit is quickly shaken off.

Getting back to town, they now have an item of unknown capability, and the only way to find out what it is, is to have the Seer work a divination. problem, he's hiding it. If he tries, either the divination is likely to fail, or the shields will drop. Have we mentioned he's been up a LONG time and getting very tired?

Vaal pulls rank at the local temple of Eissa, and it's a good thing his reputation and charisma are up to the task. The priests their will sustain the seer in protecting the item, while the other go to 'cash out' on their job.

A few additional notes. The girl turns out to be the one who stole the necklace in the first place. Vaal has asked for assistance from his backers at the college to came and investigate this artifact, and the knife he has. If Yaarthrak finds them it won't be pretty.

We'll see where it goes from here.

2nd session

OK, the bi-monthly game met again. The blind seer was there this time, but the divine athlete pulled his back before the game started so the
list of victi...er, characters was:

Vaal - Undead Hunter/Necromancer (but he is thinking about branching out)
Vash - Illusionist with short attention span (Bored now...)
Urik - The money man, jeweler, barbarian warrior, street hustler, arsonist
The old man - a blind seer, powerful, but limited mentalist
Tiemor - Athletic warrior touched by the gods, aka 'Sir Not Appearing in This Film'
Alessa - Former magic student turned thief. Has 1/2 point in almost everything, but is good only in popping locks.

We spent time recounting 'the story of the film so far' for the blind seer. He was both apprehensive and resigned to his being drug along into
the catacombs full of ancient undead in the quest for an artifact from a previous Era.

The group had spent a little time cataloging a treasury they had found, and the necromancer had decided to gauge the relative strengths of the
three undead in the area, to determine who he should have a 'talk' with. The blind seer drew a pentagram and huddled in it, with the illusionist.
Alessa discreetly left the room. As it turned out, the ghost he summoned only wanted to leave this plane, and couldn't until his death mask was destroyed. (Think Tutankhamen with Waterworld's budget.) Vaal pumped him for info about the other two local undead, then they broke into his sarcophagus and with great reluctance, broke the mask. They started back to the main room to deal with the next one, a wraith, when they realized they couldn't see through the thick white mist filling the room. Universally recognized as a BAD thing, they were discussing how to navigate through the mist, and how to avoid the three large glass panels in the room set with faintly glowing runes almost certainly guaranteed to kill them if they saw them. Alessa levitated a small chest filled with gold and hurtled it into the mist, on a straight line for two of the three panels and two satisfying crashes were heard. While discussing how to deal with the third one, Vash basically announced, 'Bored Now' and taking up a blade from Urik, walked into the mist. She stumbled around for quite a while, lost, until she found something, a sarcophagus, trembling slightly. Vaal sent in his skeleton horde he had animated the previous session to go in and smash the glass panel if they could find it. The seer thought his way through the problem finally and dispelled the mist. Bad idea. The zombies DID then smash the glass panel, but then the mist reappeared, and filled a LARGER area. Repeated attempt to dispel the mist failed, required more power than he had. Urik placed his left hand on the wall and entered the room, following the wall toward the sarcophagus, he demonstrated a heretofore unknown talent to the other characters by lighting a hand on fire and using it as a torch. "It's a gift," was all he would say. Vash entered the room and navigated the mist by the position of the spirit of the wraith. There was some comic relief as the confused zombies minions alternately blocked Urik, Vash, Vaal, tripped over each other, etc. Finally Urik got close enough for Vash to see his fire and she returned his blade, just in time for the wraith to break free. He came out toward the closest, obvious target, the flaming warrior with a sword. First example of how dangerous things could get _this week_ when the wraith got a tap from Urik, and Urik got his hand have cut off. Fortunately before the wraith could finish the job, the spell that Vaal had been working on finished and a Banish was released. Quick contest and the wraith collapsed. Alessa used her meager understanding of healing to patch up Urik's hand as best she could, while the others burned the body. Fortunately the mist dispersed shortly thereafter. Now a smart group might think, wow, that wasn't fun. But apparently this one thought it was. They appropriated the golden blade of the former wraith king and gave it to Urik, who tested it's flaming powers, while a double ring that throws water bolts went to the blind seer who
navigates by the astral and mage sight, and who couldn't hit a barn if he were standing IN it. They then decided, ok, lets see about the last
one...

 
THAT room was filled with a sandstorm. Send in six zombies to drag the sarcophagus out here then. Six go in, none come out. So the seer tries the dispelling trick again. Everyone huddles out in the corridor and he does his mojo and the sandstorm drops. Everyone averts their eyes to the floor to avoid seeing the glass panels in this room. Vash takes a sword and with eyes down on the floor starts to shuffle in to break the
panels...and gets slapped hard and knocked off her feet by a blast from stage left. Everyone goes oooooooo. They peek their heads in. The wraith queen is up, out, and pissed off. Vash is on the floor trying to pull herself together. Vaal sent in the remaining zombies with the comment, 'That should slow her down.' once the zombies were all the room and advancing, she gestured. There were seven zombies left of the original horde (they had been used as polish mine detectors), her gesture shattered three of them completely, blew two two tatters, and the last two were knocked down. Vaal immediately yelled for the two least damaged to continue forward, the two badly hurt to retreat and shatter the glass panels. Vash conjures an illusion of multiple wizards appearing and starting to throw spells at her. She takes some time to start blasting them with her wand. Vaal enters the room with intent to banish, but he has to get close enough. The blind seer, targeting with mage sight is laying down covering fire. In other words he's a distraction, not a threat. The zombies break the glass panels and glass shards start littering the
floor. The illusionary magi are falling fast, and the wraith sorceress is turning her attention on Vaal... so Vash conjures duplicates of him,
a dozen, filling the room. Apparently the LAST time she shattered a roomful of critters didn't sink in...The fireball is quite spectacular. Vaal is down, hard, but he's unfazeable and single minded. He gets up and continues. Urik had picked up some bangles from the last wraith that the ghost had said would act as a shield, so trusting in that, he started a charge. She blasts him, and he dodges! She blasts him, and the shield catches it. He slaps her hard with his sword and knocks her down. Vash, dropping the illusion dupes raises a blackness around her. Aless picks up a double handful of glass shards and poltergeists them into the blackness with a wide spread. The wraith queen steps out, glass embedded in her, and Urik sets her on fire. There is *whump* and the fire is out and stiff breeze blows briefly. She raises her wand at Vaal, who has closed to near 0 distance. He's at 0 HT, a point-blank wand shot will likely kill him since he's been healed once today already. Initiative- he wins, and he gets off the Banish. Quick contest, she drops. Urik burns her body GOOD.

Alessa gets the wand and she treats Vash's injuries, and then, VERY carefully and slowly she treats Vaal. He's not in danger of death anymore.
In game calculations verify it's been about four hours since they entered the catacombs, and they've been near death about four times, and
are no closer to finding the Blade they were sent for, but they have a lot of treasure and have cleared three undead, and lost almost the entire zombie army.

We'll see where things go next time...

3rd session

AAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

Ok, I feel better.

It wasn't that bad, honest, but someone here has the saying in their sig, no plan of action survives contact with us.

The players- we had full buy in this week-
Vaal- Necromancer
Vash- Illusionist
Gurin- Blind Seer
Tiemor- Divine Warrior
Urik- Barbarian Jeweler
Alessa- Thief/Mage (NPC)

After the last session, I was fully ready for this game to implode, IC. Instead, magic happened. I feel that a game requires a seminal event to lock the 'party' in. We hadn't had that up til now, but it occurred today.

When we left they had been kicked around pretty hard, but survived in the Catacombs of the ancient kings by the undead residents. Vaal wanted to 'clean' the place, everyone else decided we WILL focus on the goal, finding the sword buried with the last king.

This took almost an hour of game time for the characters to hash out, IC. Finally Vaal asked to 'check out' an area that had been looked at last time before heading out. Everyone agreed, 'Fine, go look.'

He checked out the four kings buried in that area with magic and found out something.

One wasn't dead.

They gathered and investigated, broke traps cleared through and double-checked. This guy was VERY sick, he was separated from his Soul, and placed in a slow, long term healer, and forgotten. A former King, buried and left forgotten. His Soul was present, and he was healed, but dead, sorta.

Oh the agonizing. The stress, what to do.

They restored his soul. He woke up. He was confused, to say the least, he was laid to rest 12,000 years ago. He rested a bit and got a quick synopsis as best the characters knew what was going on. He thanked  then and told them to meet him back in the main entrance to the catacombs. He was going to recover his Crown.

Half a day passed before he returned, with the Crown. He commented in passing how he was 'annoyed' with the 'pretenders' who ignored the laws of his ancestors and contested his rights and fought him for it, and how he had to 'level' them.

He recognized there was a new door since his time and knocked it down. They proceeded down following the King and found a major example of arrogance. The last line of Kings raised a massive monument to themselves around an Essence Node (Magic spring) and the King was pissed, and powerful. Vaal identified one big bad undead one way and a lot of little ones the other. The King walked into the big bad's room, and the players had a chuckle over the- 'WHO DARES- urk aaauugghhhh squeel squeel SPULRK!' and the return of the reborn king and his, 'Not there.' Comment. He wandered into the other side and tripped a few traps, ticking him off, then a muttered, 'They're coming your way,' as a horde of barrow wights rolled in.

Between the Essence node, the Necormancer, the Mage, the warrior (he got to use his 'Power Blow' on a few of the Wights for 4d+1 damage) they survived. They carefully walked in and found the King chatting with the ghost of his ancestor... go figure.

Second blow of the night, the Divine Warrior did a gut check, and pulled the Blade out of the grasp of the last king of Zor, dropped to a knee and swear allegiance to the reborn King.

Third blow- the party told the King he could likely get knowledge about the modern day from their patron, the College they are based out of. He agreed it sounded good, where was this place? Oh yeah- They had the Crown, wouldn't give to me, they were the ones I had to 'educate'.

One of the characters grew up there, he's most unhappy. Long story short- they go back, they aren't happy either, but they cope. He killed the current heir to reclaim the Crown, and has declared his nation, dead these last 7,000 years, reborn.

They counted their money, spent most of it, hired a tutor for the magically inclined (have to draft an NPC) and managed to spend almost all of their money on Magic Items and potions.

They arranged to work WITH the King on restoring the other King (their original Quest) to his throne. Everyone agrees there is a wave of conquest coming from the West in the near future and they want a buffer to the west to buy time to rebuild Zor...