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kensanata

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Posts: 119

Mar 3 08 4:41 PM

Ghoul

The first half of the session the party managed to talk to some clerks of the association running the Necropolis. Here the rich have their mausoleums and crypts. The poor are simply thrown into the sea of fire. The association guards the graveyards from necromancers and grave robbers. The party talks, asks around, finds another clerk, bribes him with 200 gp, talks about the possibilities of special rituals, other gods, and finally the clerk guides them through vaults and labyrinths into the depth of the necropolis. Apparently the very rich will build crypts down here and safeguard their last resting place using strong magic. Finally the party arrives past a hall of heroes at a secret temple of Orcus. A six pointed star, a pool of lava, four stairs leading to a raised platform above the lava, a statue of Orcus in the background… Some more talking and 1000 gp later the clerk will organize a ceremony of thanksgiving and prayer for the party. Highpriest Zehn will lead the ceremony and there will be an opportunity to talk to him as well. Next week, same place. Two goats are sacrificed, a chorus of Orcus priests sings, the blood is smeared on Orcus' belly, the high priest and a Vrock pray, the party mumbels the Abyssal words of gratitude and servitude - all except for the two good characters who keep staring into the ground. Saito then has a long conversation with Zehn, full of inuendos and unspoken understandings. Yes, if the body of the old sultan were found, and if his wife Cirreshade were there, then possibly one could speak with him, if some higher ups were to agree, given that finding either of these two would probably be high treason… Some information regarding the Dead City of the Sultana is discovered.

On the way back, the party is ambushed by a party of Set followers. When the fight was nearly over, Saito was stabbed to death by one of the fighters. The wizard survived the fight and surrendered at the very end as his Stoneskin was starting to fail him.

The party loots the wizard and just as they look up, they see some Burning Dervishes arrive...

The necropolis based on my improvisation, the temple of Orcus based on the Upper Temple of Rappan Athuk 2. The ambush by the followers of Set based on the battle slaves pages 395 to 397 with their normal equipment.

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Last Edited By: kensanata Mar 3 08 4:46 PM. Edited 1 times.

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kensanata

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Posts: 119

Mar 13 08 7:46 AM

Ghoul

The party just finished the fight against the Set followers when six burning dervishes and a fire giant patrol come up to them and wants to know what was going on. The surviving Set wizard accuses the party of stealing from him and indeed they have looted the wands already. :) They claim self-defense. The leader of the dervishes quotes from the Sultan's law and says that self-defense is not an excuse for robbery and that both parties shall be punished according to the Sultan's law. The players protest. The dervishes want to collect their weapons. The cleric wants to walk over to the dead party mystic theurge. The dervishes open the bag. The cleric walks past. They look at each other... ROLL FOR INITIATIVE!!

The party kills the patrol, including the fire giant (by disarming him first). Too bad he tried to throw rocks at first and missed every single throw. The fight is over, the bystanders of the lower city in awe, afraid, but quiet. Then Tarbish comes up and tells the party to meet him tomorrow. This they do, and I finally get to introduce Tarbish, protect them from scrying, and tell them about the mask in the pyramid of Set. The party feels that it isn't ready, yet. They would prefer "killing rats in the sewers for the salamander resistance."

Oh well... I'll prepare a burning sea expedition for next time. I'm going to make the Attune Form spell from the Planar Handbook available to my players. Without it, travelling into the Plane of Fire will be impossible.

The party spends a few more days getting Baracus and his wife Najima out of the city, breaking the Geas and tricking the guards (Sense Motive +19).

The savages also sell both the Sword of Dawwad and the Frostbrand Baracus gave them in return for helping him escape…

The above based on the Sultan's law on theft page 52, the Burning Dervish monster entry on page 308, Tarbish on page 133, Baracus the barbarian sorcerer on page 61.

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Last Edited By: kensanata Mar 14 08 5:21 PM. Edited 1 times.

Sen the Collector

thanks for the update

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Posts: 3869

Mar 14 08 1:50 PM

Dark Walker of the Planes

Still enjoying these posts.

What was the punishment that the player's were threatened with? Did they actually kill off a patrol of the city guard, or was the patrol working for Set's temple? If they killed off some of the city guard, are you going "to let them get away with it?" Or will they be sentenced with a heavy fine and maybe some sort of quest?

The burning sea idea sounds cool. Is that also in the City of Brass box, or homebrewed?

Your posts are really making me consider moving up the City of Brass adventures in my planar campaigns to earlier than I'd planned.

kensanata

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Posts: 119

Mar 14 08 5:40 PM

Ghoul

The threat was this: I said that if they were convicted of theft, one of them would have "his left hand cut from his body and spend two days imprisoned with hard labor fo each brass piece value" of the wand of fireball CL 8 with about 10 charges left... I didn't tell them that killing others using arcane magic was a separate crime, yet.

Partly I'm doing this because my party consists of combat optimized characters with lousy social skills. They are optimized for fighting, which is why social situations often go turn sour. I actually think it's appropriate.

The players stopped in a little park in the lower city, were ambushed by the Set party, and defeated them. (The party had already destroyed a clandestine Set temple in the lower city for the Samaghar salamanders.) As they started looting the Set wizard, some city guards come to investigate the noise.

I'm going to let them get away with it for two reasons:

I got to introduce Tarbish who protects them from scrying by the Sultan and his minions as detailed in the summary box on page 132.
The killed the patrol and strutted off proudly wearing their stolen Set amulets. They're hoping that this will cause rumors of fighting between the forces of Set and the Sultan's city guards. This is all in preparation to the Shining Pyramid of Set adventure.

As for the burning sea, I felt inspired by the corsair docks on page 92. I'm going to use salamanders, fire elementals, a fire whale, maybe oil sharks, more salamanders and maybe efreet, firefiends, more fire elementals, maybe magmoids. The plot will maybe reveal Prince Asmyr from page 29, require the murder of an evil efreet willing to turn away from Pazuzu's evil ways (and thus repay Pazuzu's favor). I'll let you know how it went after Monday's session.

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kensanata

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Posts: 119

Mar 19 08 2:19 AM

Ghoul

The session consisted of a mission from the Samaghar salamanders. One of their agents in the efreet outpost Mansoor on the Plane of Fire had gone missing. Its name is Xenophon, and it is to be rescued or terminated. The same night Saito had a dream: Pazuzu came and told him to kill somebody called Garulan - a life for a life and all that. This was followed by some color scenes in the harbor and on the sea of fire: The herbalist and news dealer called Aroon, the small transporter run by captain Abdul-Latif and his three efreeti and his fifteen azer slaves, the oily sea turning into a roarding fire storm on the second day, how the efreeti don't eat, are loyal servants of the sultan, etc.

There's another passenger on the ship called Garulan. I was using a female nymph assassin from one of the later Dungeon magazines. The plot was that she had done great evil, had used Pazuzu's help, and was now trying to repent. Pazuzu wanted Saito to kill her before she had time to redeem herself, making sure that her soul belonged to the demon lord. Saito did not tell the others and decided not to kill the woman, so now I'll have to think of complications. I think I'm going to use vrock assassins sent by Pazuzu (there's the Pazuzu temple in the City of Brass that I will use) who will try to kill Saito in a future session. Anyway, Garulan knows of a secret portal in Mansoor, uses it, and leaves the game.

Before arriving in Mansoor the party is assaulted by some fire elementals that are driving a fire whale into the ship. The efreet take care of most of the elementals, but the whale and two large elementals are dealt with by the party.

In Mansoor, the party asks around and eventually ends up in a fight with 15 flamebrother salamanders, 6 average salamanders, 2 firefiends, and 2 noble salamanders. It goes badly for the party because after some initial mistakes the second noble salamander manages to protect itself with a summonned huge fire elemental and casts maximized enlarged fireballs at the party. More details in my session report.

The party has decided that everybody needs a resist fire weapon crystal (Magic Item Compendium).

Flamefiends and fire whale are from the list of monsters in the third book, the rest is standard Monster Manual I fare. I have plans of mentioning the salamander prince that runs the listening post outside the City of Brass, mentioning the azer holy man mentioned in the section on the azer slave quarters (but only if the party resolves to free the azer slaves on the ship, which seems unlikely at the moment), and with one of the party members being a dragon disciple, I have decided to insert Paizo's Dragonfall module.

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Sen the Collector

fun times

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Posts: 3869

Mar 20 08 5:25 PM

Dark Walker of the Planes

Wow! Your sessions sound like they're just getting cooler all the time! Really neat idea with the nymph and her connection to the Pazuzu subplot. So will the PCs have a chance to stop the vrock assassins? This could be quite interesting if it causes Saito to become an enemy of Pazuzu.

Sounds like your players are lucky to have such a creative DM.

Duke Omote

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Posts: 509

Mar 27 08 10:53 AM

Ghast

In my Necroworld campaign that I have going on right now, players will eventually be headed to the City of Brass. There are some fantastic ideas to mine from these posts. Thanks again kensanata.

-O

Castles & Crusades Society ~ Duke Omote Landwehr, Holy Order of the FPQ
"My God is weird. My God is scared. My God taints a pretty picture." -KT
>>Advanced Castles & Crusades<<

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kensanata

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Posts: 119

Apr 2 08 1:53 AM

Ghoul

Thanks! I'm looking forward to read about other campaigns. Be sure to post plot stuff! One of my players asked for some dragon related stuff (because he's a dragon disciple) and we're currently running Paizo's Guardians of Dragonfall. That's why I won't be posting any new stuff in the next two or three weeks.

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kensanata

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Posts: 119

May 21 08 5:13 AM

Ghoul

Turns out that from Guardians of Dragonfall we moved pretty much straight into Citadel of the Demon Prince. (We also had a little Beyond Countless Doors sidequest.) The abbey is the abbey where one of my player characters grew up in, turned evil. The monks guard a dragon tooth relic there. When the party came back from Dragonfall they were attacked by a party of evil monks that revealed how the abbey is searching for their patron saint dragon because Tiamat is calling all evil dragons back to this contested Material Plane. The players also had received a hint that some sort of planar rift was happening on their Material Plane.

The real story is that the abbey has been taken over by a son of Pazuzu who is trying to establish himself on the Material Plane and drag it into the Abyss. The players believe there is some connection with Tiamat because the monks mentioned it, but the monks have been fooled by Pazuzu's son. He talked to them about the coming of the final judgement and the age of dragons and how important it was to find those evil dragons, sending them off to deadly missions. And in the mean time he's preparing for the final ritual that will merge his little Abyss astroid with the Material Plane...

I'm not yet sure what the reveal will be. Pazuzu is still involved. Tiamat is still growing in power. The gods of law and light are still interested. The so-called patron saint dragon is in fact lawful evil and was slain by the dragon mentioned in the City of Brass and raised as some powerful undead. At least that's what it is going to be so that the party has a chance of defeating him (they are now on levels 10-14), should they choose to do it.

Plans. Questions... Is nobody else running a campaign and willing to give us some plot exposition for inspiration? I want to hear some other DMs speak up!

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Stonefist

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Posts: 456

May 21 08 5:36 AM

2E Master

Kensanata,

Well, I've read most of the boxed set. It is an interesting story line. However, I don't think I'm going to run that story line. My world is built around cities. There are at least a dozen well developed cities in my world. CSIO, is the main one, however. You can read more about my world in the World of Wynn thread in the Stories sub forum. In my world, there aren't many gods. However, I've created a story line where a rakshasa brought 6 brazen flasks to a set of 6 cities in my world and sold them to the leaders of these cities. A kind of religion developed, and followers worship in the Temple of Grazzim. Each city must provide 10 slaves a month who serve in the city of brass for one year and one day, in the house of El Naar, which Grazzim heads up. Each temple has a large brass mirror and it is through this mirror that the future slaves can pass into the city of brass. So, the city of brass is in my world. You can read more about how I've adapted the city of brass in my City of Brass, personal mods thread in this sub forum.

kensanata

The End!

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Posts: 119

Oct 7 08 8:04 AM

Ghoul

My campaign reached an end around level 15; most of the City of Brass ended up not being used.

What little I used were a few names and locations within the city, some nice stat blocks for high-level threats, and a lot of inspiration. I think the only thing my players remembered are the following:

We can buy all the magic items we want in the City of Brass.
Everybody is evil and trying to screw us.
OMG THEY HAVE NUCLEAR WARHEADS AND CRUISE MISSILES!!!!

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Sen the Collector

miss your posts

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Posts: 3869

Oct 8 08 7:43 AM

Dark Walker of the Planes

Total bummer.

I really enjoyed your campaign posts, Kensanata. Thanks for taking the time to share on the boards.

What the heck happened? DM burnout due to high level gaming? Scheduling issues with the players? Some huge campaign meltdown?

kensanata

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Posts: 119

Oct 15 08 2:33 PM

Ghoul

Nothing to worry about! I was getting tired of the high-level game. Every fight started with endless buffing it just wasn't exciting any more. Right now we're running two Paizo adventures where I was hoping to sell them on M20 Hard Core but the feedback I got already indicates that most of them enjoy the D&D 3.5 rules. I'm not quite sure what to do next year after the two adventures. I was going to run Rise of the Runelords. If my players are not switching to an M20 variant, I'll be limiting the game to levels 1-9 or something along these lines, and I'll use a restricted spell list.

As for the City of Brass itself and some planar adventures: I think my players weren't too interested in abandoning their home plane and the fight against Tiamat, which resulted in them never "adopting" the City of Brass as a new base. At one time they owned a shop there, but only one of the players was interested in building on that.

Maybe in a few years again.

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