Great story going in Ptolus

[Gandalf970]

Many years ago I bought Ptolus and my group really wasn't into it.  The DnD version just didn't strike them as they couldn't do "what they wanted" with the classes, spells and story etc.  My group is really about having the mechanics support the roleplaying they do.  So I started a new campaign and decided Ptolus Fantasy Hero Version would be the meal.  

 

They are so in love with it and have really went crazy with Hero and Ptolus.  One is a rogueish type with decent skills and got his first follower.  He runs atop the rooftops and is a half-elf who only needs to sleep 3 hours a day.  He is super active and came from the Warrens (a slum type district). 

 

The next player chose a Necromancer type player who was using Vampiric Touch (heal by draining body).  He learned later that he was gaining corruption from doing this and decided to find religion.  We created something called the Sisters of Mercy where the third sister was the sister of retribution and justice.  He has been able to heal the corruption by doing good deeds for the church and gives me another plot hook.

 

The last player is a face man who is a gambler who took 25 points of luck.  He likes to flip a coin and decide what to do, great fun.

 

Thank you to the forums for the ideas about the story.  I used many and they are working for a Demon named Deimos, they haven't put it all together yet.  They have been collecting items for him to make a huge summons and after about 20 sessions are now starting to see the light. 

 

Three of the four in my group have been gaming together for 40 years the other about 20.  I think the combination of this system and our experience have made this one of the best campaigns we have ever played.  We are all dreaming about it and really really roleplaying.  One of the guys really was a min/maxer and that was all he cared about, but now he is really doing some cool things.

 

We are using the hard recovery where they only get recovery of body every two weeks.  It makes the game grittier and they don't charge into many combats.  Also the Prescence mechanic and social combat have been unbelievably well received.  Can't say enough about how much we are loving this game.  We all looked at each other the other night and said, "I wish we had started playing this game years ago"!

 

Thanks again.  If you interested in more I can post more info.  If you looking for a great City to adventure in for Hero, Ptolus is the way!

 

[MK Blackout]

That's awesome.  I'd love to hear more.

[Ninja-Bear]

I would too. What is Ptolus?

[Gandalf970]

Ptolus is a huge city built upon many cities that were destroyed in the past.  Thus it has dungeons if that is what the players want and huge underground network.  The City is hugely detailed with districts, organizations, history and religion.  Of course you don't have to use any of this, but having it when you need it helps.  They also have a lifestyle to the districts on what the people eat, entertainment and such.  There are at least a 1000 businesses detailed with personality for the NPC's as well.  When it came out in 2006 it was so big they had to load much of it on CD-ROM!  It is over 700 pages with the maps and two extra adventures from the PDF!

 

It was a setting for all the game designers to play in and does have a high fantasy feel, but it is easy to push that aside if that isn't your speed.  I would recommend anyone buy the pdf just for reference.  The city is really cosmopolitan in that they like adventurers and actually have a Delver's Guild that explores the ruins below the city.  There are orcs, bugbears, ogres and even demons that walk amongst others in the city.  The people are not so freaked out by the occasional magic casting, but one still needs to be careful.    

 

More on my campaign, the players have purchased a mortuary so the Necromancer has easy access to bodies.  Also this is in the Warrens and slum-like area where there hasn't been anyone to get rid of bodies for a while.  The city has negotiated a contract to take bodies so they are using bureaucratics a lot and negotiations.  Now they are planning on becoming a gang in the Warrens as there are twelve other small disorganized gangs they need to quell or be run over.  Soon the Necromancer will be able to create a Vampire so that will add another element to the game.

[Gandalf970]

Had a couple of sessions which were great fun.  The Necromancer was working late at the mortuary with his contact and got captured by his ex-wife's dad.  His ex father-in-law is one of his complications and gave him over to a demon cult.  They need people with magic to extract it to help in a ritual.  The other two went to see him and his mother said he never came home.  It's funny because the Necromancer lives with his Dependant NPC mother and she is always asking about him and makes him come home at night.

 

So the other two search the city and using their streetwise skills find out that he was seen being pummeled and thrown in a bag.  A critical roll showed them the way to the place.  They then discovered where eight buildings were larger and formed a pentagram above ground so they went scurrying under.  They fought off a few minions and lesser people and had a nice fight with a mutated rival of one party member.  One of the party members is in the actors guild and is slowly working his way into the Nobles District to move uptown.  He is also a gambler with 5d6 luck and this has helped and hurt in many situations.

 

A question how do you handle the killing of a players complication, I don't think it is a big deal, but do you just roleplay another for him and write him into the story?

[Gandalf970]

Another couple of good night's in Ptolus.  My players picked up a basic job.  I spice merchant they worked for before named Burt hired them to find out who is underselling him in the trade and get the product for him.  Usually my group does their investigation, surveillance and is pretty cautious.  For whatever reason they ran right in and didn't do anything.  They detected some magic around candles the people they were searching for and decided they wanted nothing to do with them.  

 

They never asked the next question and assumed that they were evil.  The sent a letter to the Knight of Pale and the Conciliators.  They then received some bad dreams and a vision, but they ignored it.  Well the Knights of Pale do what they do and killed two of the merchants and captured the other one.  What they found out later was that the candles were for good voodoo magic as a recent surge of refugees was bringing disease into the city and Aizylin the loa of marketplaces wanted this healed.  

 

This led to some great aha moments and some back tracking a requests of forgiveness.  They found a juju zombie head and he told them what was needed.  They did a great job impersonating a Lothian High Messiah and releasing the prisoner and returning the bodies to a withdoctor.  Great night tomorrow as a player is summoning his first vampire!!!

[MordeanGrey]

Sounds like you have a good game going. One thing I highly recommend is asking the players to write campaign journals after each session, telling the story from their point of view.

 

We started doing this a long time ago, and it's great fun when several participate and you see events from their perspectives.

 

It doesn't matter if the facts are slightly off in a player's account of the story.

 

I normally gave a point or two of bonus experience if they wrote journals as a reward and incentive.

 

We posted them in an online forum or emailed them to everyone so they could all enjoy them.

 

Just something to consider. (and thanks for sharing your campaign updates)

[Gandalf970]

MordeanGrey, I am going to do this for sure.  It makes so much sense!

 

 

[Gandalf970]

Another session in Ptolus and some fun stuff.  The Necromancer was able to summon his Vampire Scarlett with much fanfare.  This was a long term goal which he finally succeeded at.  The party reveled in this for a few days and ran around at night unhindered for the first time.  The face man and gambler got a hook when he was shooting dice from someone.  A group of Delvers had found something deep under the city.  They tried selling it at the Undercity Market (a less then scrupulous place for black-market items) and were unable to find a buyer.

 

The information was gathered on a critical roll so I gave them the Midtown location where the item and Delvers were located.  They surveilled the place and found that they had at least one mage and decided to hang back and watch the place a little longer.  Another player the 1/2 Elf Rogue rolled a critical surveillance and the gambler found some luck (5d6 luck) when he rolled.  As they were watching the place the Balcazar Crime Family sent in eight thugs to steal what they had brought up from under the city.  There was a huge fight that the players watched and then they swooped in killing the injured and securing the chest.

 

They then had to hang out in a hideout before they could move the item to a safe place.  The Necromancer detected magic and they decided to go to the Necro's contact and ask him.  Fortunately they didn't bring the chest with the item in it.  The Necromancer's contact wanted 25% to open, but they were to cheap and once again they were fortunate to not take the deal. 

 

The following day they hid out in one of the Rogue's hideouts in Midtown and noticed someone was searching the area.  They moved the chest to the Warrens at night with the help of the recently summoned Vampire.  By this time the Crime Family was wrecking shanties as mages were desperately searching for the chest.  Again they were smart and put it deep under the mortuary they had purchased in the Warrens.

 

They hired a professional to unlock the chest and found an arm to a statue.  The Rogue remembered a dark demonic statue in the Necromancer's contact's place that didn't have an arm.  His contact was afraid of the statue as it was demonic.  So they did the right thing and dumped the chest and arm deep in the ocean.  

 

Very fun night and they were afraid the whole night, they were worried about the Vampire's bloodlust, the Crime Family and the Delvers. 

 

[Panpiper]

I'm playing in a Ptolus campaign right now, though we are using D&D 5e. We are definitely having a good time. I would have much prefered Hero, but I was out voted by the other players.

[steph]

What is your character ?

[Gandalf970]

Pan piper that is great, Ptolus is a great campaign setting and a lot of fun for all.

[Gandalf970]

Well the group didn’t want to be a hero and allowed the chaos cults of Ptolus to summon the Night of Disolution.  What this amounted to is bringing various demons into the fight.

 

A little back drop was a barbarian horde was part of a prophecy and this has been going on for 15 sessions.  The players then seen the armies take to the walls.  I have them a chance to interrupt one of the rituals but they ran away and hid in a mortuary of theirs for 8 days.

 

After their Vampire gave the all clear they went out and viewed the wreckage!  Half of the city is gone and so is 60% of the population.  There are fires everywhere, ghouls on most streets, demons flying about and a Necromancer has raised a skeletal army in Necropolis.

 

Also their vampire died due to feasting on infected blood (and an 18 attack roll)which has them even more scared.  They are now trying to figure out who they are going to align with.  They have a mistrust of the city government and really have a quandary.  Disease is going to come knocking and they only have three weeks worth of food and water.  Flies and cultists are there big worry and the ghouls

 

[Ninja-Bear]

Vampire dies due to infected blood? That’s a sentence you don’t hear too often! Tell more how that works! Please!

[Gandalf970]

It was a perfect role playing moment!  The party was hiding out in their mortuary basement.  There are 6 coffins tied to a ritual called the covenant of blood that they haven’t figured out.  
 

There is also an opening to the ocean.  Well part of the covenant is if they fill the coffins with vampires they can summon the sahuagin to aid them.  But since they haven’t figured this out the sahuagin come to check on this periodically.  When they came up they attacked them.  The vampire did as well and then lost control due to bloodlust after feasting on one.  She turned to attack a player and I rolled an 18, so I had her crumble to dust.  But one player took it and ran saying she died from infected blood.  This ties perfectly with the covenant and may cause them to investigate further.  I am adding that vampires cannot hurt sahuagin in that room due to the prophecy.

[Gandalf970]

The party had to decide which faction they were going to align with to try and figure a way out of this.  After seeing the lay of the land, there were the barbarians who held the docks, the Crimson Circle in the middle, three demon cults to the NW a Necromancer to the North and a force who worships the Sun God Tharzane to the due west.  The city was a miasma of dead animals, people and life in general.  Smoke, flies and carrion birds abounded.  They approached this encampment and with a little luck (one player has 5d6 luck) they were allowed in and asked to help.  They all decided to do some hero stuff and helped capture one of the more learned cultists.  He explained that there was a ritual they were planning.

 

The party then went back and forth on just getting out of the city, but remembered the barbarians were outside.  They then went and conversed with the said barbarians.  They wanted to know why they attacked the city in such force when they had to march for 6 months to get to the city.  Well they found out the Crimson Circle cult had captured their king and they were fighting for him.  So they went back to the Sun God people and told them what they found out.  One of their priests informed them of a prophecy that if a king was sacrificed then the Ghul can return and fulfill his evilness.  

 

So now they are going to be heroes and interrupt the ritual and help save the city.

[Killer Shrike]

Absolutely. Back in the day I used to have a Ptolus HERO subsite up on killershrike.com and ran a mini campaign using my D&D to Fantasy HERO conversion materials. It didn't last as long as I wanted but it was fun while it did. I always thought D&D was the wrong engine for Ptolus. I liked the ideas of the city & environs so much, I repurposed it as a location in my San'Dora setting (the city of Kark in that setting is a Ptolus homage); I ran a couple of campaigns in the San'Dora setting using Fantasy Hero and another campaign explicitly set in Kark using a Cortex Plus hack.

 

I still have the Ptolus book (locked up in storage) and maps etc, every now and then when I go to the storage site to add to the pile of rpg's and etc, I'll crack open the box and carefully thumb thru it. For whatever reason, it always recharges my creative energies and makes me want to run something using it or inspired by it. 

 

I highly recommend people get a copy if they can; if nothing else it's interesting as a piece of rpg history and choc full of story ideas.

[Gandalf970]

Epic stop to the ritual.  The party decided to go down into the hell spawn pit.  Thanks to Lord Liaden for the advice on this.  The players lost their minds over the blood, faces, snake rope and were very hesitant to move into this adventure.  They climbed down this blood ridden hole and were very scared.  They fought a war demon and finished off a blood demon.  One player almost died and he was probably dead if it wasn't for his vampire attacking another player.

 

They finished off the demon and now are going to reap some rewards and try and rebuild a part of the city into their own light.  Might be a little while as they figure out how they are going to proceed.  They are sticking to their guns about not being heroes, but they have helped people.

[Panpiper]

On 9/5/2020 at 11:42 AM, steph said:

What is your character ?

Hey Steph, sorry, didn't see your question.

 

I am the fighter of the group, the tank (subclass 'brute'), with one level in forge cleric so he can run a bless and identify stuff. He's a mountain dwarf that kicks some serious ass. He is second son to a highly respected dwarven master smith, wealthy enough to be considered minor nobility. Sadly his older brother shall inherit their manor/forge, so Wode started adventuring so as to work up the capital to pay for his own forge. Then we started putting pieces together about shit going down with chaos cults, the undead, demons, etc., and he diverted his cash hoarding into magic item stacking. We've been very successful coming up with valuable loot and have used that to kit ourselves out fairly well, usually by selling it and commissioning custom magic items. Our druid caster recently acquired a wand of fireballs which is making short work of trash, while Wode confronts bosses.

 

Other than Wode, we have a trickster rogue crossbow expert played by a player with an active mind. He's a gnome who tries to masquerade as a halfling. We have a Circle of the Land druid that is the least appropriate, least combat capable character that likely could exist in a city bound campaign, but she just got that wand of fireballs, so... Finally we have a Life Cleric, another mountain dwarf, who has followed my lead with regards to kit, and has almost the same AC. He can stand the line with Wode, and combining Spirit Guardians, Spiritual Weapon, and his morning star, is often enough the star of the show.

 

I created the Fantasy Hero version of Wode for giggles, and is the first character I posted in a series of characters in this thread. The background was changed so he could fit more generically into other people's games, as either a PC or an NPC.

 

Our game has been running a good two years so far. We are level seven now, and deeply involved in figuring out what is going on with the various factions, and interfering in their nefarious plans. We have made friends, as well as earned the enmity of some powerful enemies. Wode's family manor which is a small stone fortress carved into a mountain side in Old Town, has become both our stronghold and the scene of many encounters. 

[Gandalf970]

And then there was a TPK!  The party had done a fine job of endearing themselves and decided to help the city.  There was a Necromancer who was controlling the Necropolis.  They entered and he let them in.  The Necromancer had 1000 skeletons and 8 vampires.  He told them he only wanted a staff from the vaults of the Knight's of Pale and he would leave.  They relayed this message to the leadership of the city and through some persuasion they agreed to give him the staff and he would leave.  They asked the party to deliver it as they had no experience dealing with these situations.  

 

They delivered the staff that was in a sealed lead box.  Then as they are walking away 13 meters to be precise the lead character decides he isn't having it and attacks.  What they didn't know which is where they failed is that he wasn't just a necromancer, he was a lich.  So with 100 skeletons and  8 vampires the party fought valiantly for 27 seconds and that was it.  I rolled all the dice out in the open and understandably they were upset.  Usually they check out everything, learn about what they are doing, but this spontaneous reaction was the end for them.

 

It was a fun campaign and hopefully we will have some more if they will talk to me again.

[Lord Liaden]

On 9/25/2020 at 6:58 AM, Gandalf970 said:

Epic stop to the ritual.  The party decided to go down into the hell spawn pit.  Thanks to Lord Liaden for the advice on this.  The players lost their minds over the blood, faces, snake rope and were very hesitant to move into this adventure.  They climbed down this blood ridden hole and were very scared.  They fought a war demon and finished off a blood demon.  One player almost died and he was probably dead if it wasn't for his vampire attacking another player.

 

They finished off the demon and now are going to reap some rewards and try and rebuild a part of the city into their own light.  Might be a little while as they figure out how they are going to proceed.  They are sticking to their guns about not being heroes, but they have helped people.

 

Glad I could help, and that it worked for your group.

[Scott Ruggels]

On 10/1/2020 at 6:34 PM, Gandalf970 said:

And then there was a TPK!  The party had done a fine job of endearing themselves and decided to help the city.  There was a Necromancer who was controlling the Necropolis.  They entered and he let them in.  The Necromancer had 1000 skeletons and 8 vampires.  He told them he only wanted a staff from the vaults of the Knight's of Pale and he would leave.  They relayed this message to the leadership of the city and through some persuasion they agreed to give him the staff and he would leave.  They asked the party to deliver it as they had no experience dealing with these situations.  

 

They delivered the staff that was in a sealed lead box.  Then as they are walking away 13 meters to be precise the lead character decides he isn't having it and attacks.  What they didn't know which is where they failed is that he wasn't just a necromancer, he was a lich.  So with 100 skeletons and  8 vampires the party fought valiantly for 27 seconds and that was it.  I rolled all the dice out in the open and understandably they were upset.  Usually they check out everything, learn about what they are doing, but this spontaneous reaction was the end for them.

 

It was a fun campaign and hopefully we will have some more if they will talk to me again.

Oh Lordy. Someone caught a case of lethal stupidity, and it was contagious. Woof.   Two turns and 3 segments. That's a fairly quick fight.

In a similar situation, I and my fellow nobles survived, when we disavowed the actions of the impulsive character, and did nothing, other than stepping back and voicing their displeasure at the breach of manners.  Another time, I sold out the rogue for nearly causing a diplomatic incident, and remanding him to local justice. 😁

[Ninja-Bear]

Well if they weren’t paranoid about the GM before this they are now! 😂 

[Gandalf970]

They totally understand and actually lamented their actions.  They realized how stupid they were after being warned numerous times.  I don’t pull punches and most of this group has played at my table for 40 years.

 

I am thinking either a Arthurian Knight campaign or Dark Heresy.  Would love to do the Western Hero when it drops.