Editing SGA 2007 Archive (section)

=Dungeon & Savages: Against the Lord of Blood=
[[Image:Cardboardmini.jpg|thumb|Aaron, Longrinn, and Fat Bastard attacking the Lord of Blood]]
; Game System
: [http://www.savageheroes.com/conversions.htm Savage Worlds]
; Pitch
: Your party is now approaching the Village of Hommlet, having ridden up from lands of the Wild Coast. All you have is what you wear and wield, plus the few coins that are hidden in purses and pockets.  What you do possess in quantity, though, is daring and desire to become wealthy and famous. Thus your group comes to Hommlet to learn. Is this indeed a place for adventurers to seek their fortunes? You all hope, of course, to gain riches and make names for yourselves. The outcome of this is uncertain, but your skill and daring, along with a good measure of luck, will be the main ingredients of what follows, be it for weal or woe!

: The dusty, rutted road is lined with closely-grown hedges of brambles and shrubs. Here and there it cuts through a copse or crosses a rivulet. To either hand, forest and meadow have given way to field and orchard. A small herd of kine graze nearby, and a distant hill is dotted with the wand stone chimneys with thin plumes of blue smoke rising from them.  A road angles west into the hill country, and to either side of the road ahead are barns and buildings &#8212; Hommlet at last!

: But who is this?  You hear a cry for help from the direction of the mountain road.  Investigating, you walk up the mountain road to the next hillock, where you discover a man crumpled in the rise between the wheel ruts.  You judge him a villager, by his simple, sturdy clothes.  And, by the bloodstains on that garb, and by the cuts on the sturdy staff that lies next to him, you also judge that he has recently seen a fight...
; Game Master
: Johnzo
; Players
: 8
; Characters - "The Five Swell Gals"
: Longrinn the human paladin (Mark Walters)
: Mykk the half-Orc fighter (Edmund Metheny)
: Aaron the half-Elf ranger (Laura)
: Lyle the Elf bard (Taylor)
: Sianica the human thief (Kayobi - first episode)
: Fat Bastard the Dwarf Cleric (Kristian)
: Petunia the Halfling druid (Sophie) and her dog Martha
: Sammy Topbottom the Gnome thief/magic user (Meg)
; Date
: January 8 & 15, 2007
; Technical Notes
: Power stunting rule: Make a raise and you can narrate your result.
; Recaps
==Part 1==
: '''[[User:Mechante Anemone|Mechante Anemone]]:''' With five female players, the ladies had a majority and successfully voted in the name "The Five Swell Gals" for the party (after all, the Five Swell Guys weren't all guys.)   Yes, we did notice there were more than five of us -- how about the Seven Sentinels who were really nine?  Yeah, I read way too many Alan Moore comics. :)

: So the Five Swell Gals found the aforementioned pesant who had been badly beaten, and decided to take him to nearby Hommlet to get some care.  They soon learned that he was the only survivor of a party of fifteen villagers who had ventured up in the mountains to retrieve young Horace, a 12-year old boy who had been somehow lured to a little-known monastery.

: Apparently, Young Horace was a quiet boy, his widowed father's only child and support.  Old Horace (the father) was legless, and relied on his helpful son to get around and take care of his modest farm.  But a few weeks before, a two-headed calf had been born to one of their cows.  Young Horace took it to the local druid so that she would read the omen, but when she decreed that the calf must be sacrificed, the boy had refused and instead hidden the calf in the forest.  Then Young Horace had suddenly started developping an interest in the abbey in the mountains, declaring that he wanted to join the monastery.  Eventually, the boy had run away to the abbey.   His father was upset and when a group of villagers went to demand that he be returned, they discovered that the monks had hired a band of Orcs, the Twisted Tooth, as mercenaries to defend the monastery. 

: Old Horace and the villagers pleaded with the Five Swell Gals to help -- and the rumour that the monks were sitting on a huge treasure trove didn't hurt either.   Although a crabby Petunia complained that they should be doing a little more ground work first, the group charged up the mountain, with Longrinn and Mykk taking point.

: When they reached the monastery in the crags, they indedd found it defended by Orcs.  Sammy cast a spell to plunge the (previously damaged) gate area in darkness (Obscure).  Erin and Sianica climbed over the walls, Petunia burrowed under the foundations, and the rest swarmed through the broken gate.  

* An epic fight ensued, where some of the highlights included:
** Lyle the bard waded through the fray (using Mykk as cover) and took no damage, while Sammy scurried into a building to hide and was turned into a pincushion by archers.
** Lyle used her Fear spells (singing heavy metal) to rout large mobs of monks and Orcs.
** Longrinn the paladin had the worst luck with his dice, worse even that Aaron the ranger, and that takes a lot of effort.
** Martha the dog managed to horribly maul an Orc on her first attack (and then never rolled anything higher than a 2).
** Petunia burrowed under the Orc leader Hakka's feet and dragged him halfway into the ground as a "weasel attack."
** Ganging up on Hakka allowed the group to chip at him effectively.
** Speaking of effectiveness, Aaron (despite a series of disappointing rolls at one point) showed that he was just as effective with a bow as he was as the two-sword Cuisinart.
** Mykk was a tank, as expected, and bagged Hakka after many blows.
** Sianica was a true "death from above" ninja and also managed to claim credit on others' kills!
** Fat Bastard would rather stay in the middle and risk taking Mykk's "friendly fire" than miss a fight.
** Longrinn can take quantities of damage that would squish several of the other heroes, and barely notice -- which is good, 'cause he sure took a lot of blows.

: Eventually the Orcs were annihilated and Longrinn and Mykk brushed off the monks who were trying to bar the way to the treasure chamber.  An immense pile of gold was in the center of the large room; although Longrinn could feel serious evil vibes, they seemed to come from the room, not the gold. 

: Going gold-mad, Sammy threw herself face-first in the treasure, having gone to Gnome heaven.  Swimming in gold, she reached for a single coin -- and as soon as she grabbed it, the room started filling with blood.  Meanwhile, outside, Petunia found Young Horace in a cell.  Gleeful, the boy was shouting: "He comes!  The master comes!"  A gigantic, shapeless tentacled monster emerged from the gold.

: The monks wailed in despair.  Longrinn managed to extract an explanation from them: the Lord of Blood had long ago been imprisoned here and for 3,000 years, the abbey's monks had been keeping him/it imprisonned by making sacrifice of all earthly pleasures and riches, denying themselves every comfort.  But recent omens and a planetary alignment had allowed the Lord of Blood to contact a receptive victim and call to Young Horace.  The monks had hoped to keep the boy locked up and prevent him from aiding the Lord of Blood; because of his age, they could not bring themselves to hurt Horace.  But the first act of greed committed in the room had freed the Lord of Blood!

::<blockquote style="background:aliceblue; border:1px solid black; padding:1em"><B>johnzo:</B> Like [[SGA_2006_Archive#The_Voyage_of_the_Olympic|The Voyage of the Olympic]] I'd planned this to be another "Pottery Barn" game where in the first session, the PCs would be induced to break something, and in subsequent sessions, they would have to deal with the fallout of that breakage.  So I was very happy with the Lord of Blood's emergence in Session 1. </blockquote>

==Part 2==

:'''[[User:Mechante Anemone|Mechante Anemone]]:''' A fierce battle broke out, as Longrinn, Fat Bastard, Mykk, Aaron and a bunch of angry monks tried to prevent the Lord of Blood from getting out of the treasure room.  [http://www.johnzo.com/pic.html?s=_lg&d=2007-against-the-lord-of-blood&i=0&e=jpg Sianica was grabbed by a tentacle and devoured by the LoB!] (on account of player no-show.)  Meanwhile, Sammy explored the abbey for something helpful, Lyle retreated to the library to find the book about the Lord of Blood, and Petunia talked to Young Horace. 

:Petunia had really meant to kill off Young Horace before he could help the LoB complete his ritual, but upon hearing that Young Horace was hoping to find a way to heal his old father through a bargain with the LoB, she didn't have the heart.  Instead, she let him out and started trying to steer him out of the monastery, so she was too distracted to stop her dog Martha to run off and join the fray in the treasure room.

: [http://www.johnzo.com/pic.html?d=2007-against-the-lord-of-blood&i=2&e=jpg&s=_lg&c=1 While the fight raged on], with the Five Swell Gals hacking at tentacles that kept growing back, Lyle found the Book of Eville and brought it out to the light, but could not decipher it.  Sammy, tired of being pursued by an angry little monk belittling him for his part in allowing the Lord of Blood to break his bonds, decided to join the battle and attack the LoB with fire.

: [http://www.johnzo.com/pic.html?d=2007-against-the-lord-of-blood&i=1&e=jpg&s=_lg&c=1 Longrinn stopped blow after blow from the Lord of Blood], his shield dented beyond recognition.  [http://www.johnzo.com/pic.html?d=2007-against-the-lord-of-blood&i=3&e=jpg&s=_lg&c=1 Mykk fought hard, but was eventually captured by the LoB's tentacles and dragged toward the waiting maw].  Mykk used this new-found closeness with divinity to go berserk and deal the LoB several painful blows.  The combined efforts of all those fighting on the side of Good-and-Not-Being-Eaten, and particularly Mykk's berserker rage, caused the LoB several wounds.  A little monk, full of admiration for Mykk's brave fighting, tried to pull him out but instead was pulled in with the Half-Orc to be devoured by the enemy.

: [http://www.johnzo.com/pic.html?d=2007-against-the-lord-of-blood&i=4&e=jpg&s=_lg&c=1 Just as Mykk, still suspended in the air by tentacles, was being dropped in the LoB's gullet], Aaron of the Two-Sword Cuisinart dealt the LoB the mortal blows.  The hellish creature shivered; Fat Bastard and Longrinn combined their powers to Turn it, and [http://www.johnzo.com/pic.html?d=2007-against-the-lord-of-blood&i=5&e=jpg&s=_lg&c=1 the LoB collapsed in a puddle of ichor and tentacle bits].  But Martha the dog plunged into the puddle as it bubble away, and could not be found again afterwards.

:Although the Lord of Blood was gone, Longrinn could still feel evil inside the treasure room, its very walls, and some of the gold.  Then animals started arriving from the surrounding mountain forest, trooping inside the treasure chamber around the debris.  Questioned by Sammy and Petunia, they kept saying the "Spring is coming." 

:The monks decided to disband since their task was over, except for the one who had been so impressed by Mykk and asked to become his apprentice.  Fat Bastard and Sammy went down to Hommlet to take Young Horace back to his father and look for a scholar and a wizard to read the Book of Eville.  Although the priest at the local Temple of St. Cuthbert was very happy to help sequester the tainted gold, no one could be found to read the book, not even at the viscount's castle. 

:But Aaron found the local druid dead, beyond a breech in a hastily thrown barrier of thorns; she appeared to have been gored by an animal, probably a boar.  None of this did much to improve the sense that the Five Swell Gals had not succeeded as brilliantly as they had hoped.  They elected to keep watch on the place while looking for someone to decipher the book and until "spring" came. 

:Lyle finally got impatient.  She decided to walk into the erstwhile treasure room, where the animals were still waiting, and cut her hand, letting the blood fall to the floor.  The resulting tremor alerted the rest of the group, who rushed to the treasure room with weapons drawn. 

:In the center stood Martha the dog.  The animals started advancing toward her; when a squirrel reached her, she gave it a friendly lick &mdash; and it sprouted bat wings and flew off.  A steer approach next, was licked, and had its antlers turn to serpents. 

:But Petunia, not the sharpest tool in the shed, ran in and, recognizing her companion, ran to embrace Martha.  Though her features momentarily wavered when Martha licked her, she seemed unaffected.  She brought Martha out of the treasure room &mdash; where Longrinn slew the dog on the spot, then the steer.  But the squirrel could not be found...

:'''Epilogue:''' Days later in Greyhawk, a large city with its generous share of vermin, pigeons and rats gathered around a bat-winged squirrel...

; Player Thoughts
* '''[[User:Mechante Anemone|Mechante Anemone]]:''' Some favourite quotes:
** "You forgot to call me a fool this turn!" &mdash; Sammy to the angry little monk
** "We're about to be the Four Swell Gals." &mdash; Lyle
** GM: "These are the front tentacles..."<br>  Petunia: "And Longrinn's being attacked by the ass tentacles."
** "I have him right where he wants me!" &mdash; Mykk, dragged to his (near) doom by the LoB
** Lyle: "We must disperse this evil gold so it can't do any more harm."<br>  Longrinn: "Yeah, you'd like that."
** Petunia: "The druid is a halfling, so she can hardly have been gored by something large like a steer."<br>  Mykk: "Maybe it was a dyk-dyk."
** GM: "But how do you track a flying squirrel?"<br>   Longrinn: "First, you need a really large moose."

; Additional GM Thoughts
: '''[[User:Johnzo|Johnzo]]:''' [http://www.johnzo.com/gallery.html?d=2007-against-the-lord-of-blood Against The Lord of Blood: The Photonovel].



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