Gunpowder, Reason and Plot.

[Shadowsoul]

Re: Gunpowder, Reason and Plot.

 

Sorry about the lack of an update in the last couple of weeks. I was busy with research for the most part. I will post last week's update by the end of today and will take extra care to have this week's one done on time.

[Shadowsoul]

Re: Gunpowder, Reason and Plot.

 

Here it is and sorry about the delay.

 

Session 18.

Of Madness and Mayhem.

 

Straight back into the action then.

 

Griff suddenly remembered that he had attached the Hunter Demon’s strange circular blade to the back of his rifle. He promptly reversed the gun and hacked the stubborn Cossack down with a single blow.

 

Three Cossacks wheeled round and thundered back towards Salisbury, the noble stood his ground and swept one lance aside while dodging the other two and managing to stab one of the riders in the process.

 

Dora was still slowly hacking her opponents into smaller and smaller pieces.

 

Sai fared less well. Lord Morton sent his remaining Cossacks after the Kensai warrior and they put him down properly this time, although not without taking injuries themselves. The heretic was finally running out of Cossacks to put between him and his opponents.

 

Hildegard lay panting in her metal hideaway. Unfortunately Lord Morton had not returned to fight alongside his remaining Cossacks, the fight was not going as well as he would have liked so he decided to escape on the wagon, reasoning that nothing would dare to get in its way. To this end the heretical nobleman chased the wagon’s driver out from his hiding place under its wheels and stabbed him in the leg, having thus demonstrated his ownership of the vehicle Lord … leapt into the driver’s seat and whipped the team into a frenzied trot. He was heading downhill towards the approaching Hobgoblins, presumably hoping to gain sanctuary with them.

 

Hildegard could see that the wagon was moving and she wasn’t happy about it. Since there was no way she was giving up the submersible to Lord Morton the only sensible option was to climb out of it and attempt to capture or incapacitate him. Instead Hildegard turned the sub’s engine on and before it could tear its way out of the fragile wooden frame she activated its energy weapon.

 

A wash of searing black light burst from the submersible and hammered both team and driver into unconsciousness. Morton rolled limply of the side of the wagon as the horses collapsed and the wagon was catapulted over their heads. The submersible exploded through the front of the wagon and caromed straight into the Hobgoblins, crushing some and shredding others with its wildly rotating engine blades. Then the flying wagon, still trailing the broken remains of the horse team, landed on the hillside and bounce-rolled across the other side of the goblin formation with a series of distressingly loud crunches. The air was filled with the screams of dying horses and the high ululations of wounded Hobgoblins. Almost half of the forty-strong unit had been killed or maimed, the survivors turned tail and fled from the still growling submersible in their midst.

 

The architect of this destruction was unable to appreciate her handiwork as she had bounced several times of the ceiling and floor of the submersible and was now lying in a bleeding heap in one corner.

 

Griff and Alexis seemed to be gaining the upper hand at last. Alexis had thrown one of his strength draining darts at a Cossack’s horse, causing it to topple over while Griff had reloaded and gunned down another rider. Together they finished off the unhorsed enemy and moved to help the rest of the party. The alchemist had spotted the Hildegard-havoc on the hill and headed off in that direction, he had guessed that the Golem-Maker would be in need of a healing potion. He sprinted in that direction but went via Sai and poured a regenerative potion down his throat first, the Kensai staggered upright yet again and looked for new targets.

 

Dora butchered the last of her Cossacks and joined the assault.

 

Salisbury stood through another lance charge without taking a scratch and his friends soon arrived to finish of the surviving riders; all except Alexis who had scrambled into the submersible and given Hildegard a draught of potion.

 

The battle had now turned decisively in favour of the Legend Breakers and soon there was not a single Cossack left on the field.

 

Dora had been told to kill everything in front of her that she didn’t recognise so when the Hobgoblins rallied and began to ride towards the party she thundered down the hill towards them with her halberds raised to strike. The war Golem was looking rather battered but it would take more than a few cracks to stop the automaton carrying out her orders.

 

Sai didn’t think that the party would last very long against a fresh bunch of horse archers and so he began raced after the Golem while offering a parley at the top of his voice.

 

Fortunately Hildegard had stumbled out of the sub by now and had spotted her creation preparing to employ the lowest form of diplomacy, she screamed at Dora to stop fighting and come back to her.

 

The Golem skidded to a halt about 30 yards from the Hobgoblins and they returned the favour by nod launching a volley of arrows at her as she turned away from them.

 

Sai reached the Hobgoblins and Salisbury followed him. Between them they managed to get the savage steppe-dwellers to agree not to attack the party. They managed to convince the Goblins that Morton had been responsible for the accident which had killed so many of them. So the cruel little creatures demanded that the cultist be handed over to them so that they could make their displeasure very clear to him. With the Marquis translating for them Sai manage to convince the Hobgoblins to let the party have … for one day before they took possession of him. The steppes-warriors grudgingly agreed to this stipulation since they had guessed correctly that the Legend Breakers would not be finished off easily and because Sai offered to let them loot the Cossacks’ bodies.

 

So the Hobgoblins rode off and the party set about patching up wounds, commiserating with the weeping wagon-driver, catching horses and tying Morton up securely.

 

When the unlucky cultist woke up Sai interrogated him. He was a compassionate man and so did not lay a violent finger on his prisoner, he did ask Hildegard to do him a small favour however. He wanted her to command Sylvester to place a paw on Morton’s balls and slowly sink his claws in until the cultist agreed to talk.

 

This charming procedure, coupled with a bit of old fashioned bullying, served to loosen the heretic’s tongue. He agreed to talk in return for a promise that he would be set free and given his weapon once the interrogation was over. Sai agreed to this with a straight face.

 

He explained that he belonged to a particular cell which was nominally linked to a wider network of cultists. These cultists were made up of those who thought that they were being done out of their fair share of the world, in Lord Morton’s case he was a member of the old Adaman aristocracy which was being neglected by the royal family. A hidden group, The Masters, had formed the cells and allowed none of them to have any contact with the others, nor did one contact The Masters as they would make their wishes plain as and when they felt it necessary to do so.

 

The purpose of the cult was to forge a link with the ‘Unbound’; a group of gods who had also lost what was rightfully theirs. Those spirits and beings which had refused to bow to Eight Great Gods but had survived the war that followed. These beings had taken refuge in hell but unlike demons they could manifest permanently in the human realm, so long as faithful worshippers summoned them. Each cell was responsible for summoning a particular god or group of gods. Morton’s cell was dedicated to a creature known as ‘The Fisher King’.

 

More specifically Morton dictated a list of the other members of his cell that he was in contact with.

 

Sai had run out of questions by this point but Griff suggested that it might be worth asking about the Harlequin. Sai thought that this was a good suggestion and so he asked … if he knew anything about the curious masked man. The cultist claimed that the Harlequin was kin to the Unbound but also their enemy, he had never travelled to hell and so had avoided any demonic influences.

 

Sai thanked his prisoner for his cooperation then he knocked him out.

 

In accordance with his second obligation the Kensai untied the unconscious noblemand and laid his sword in his hand. And in accordance with his first obligation Sai waited until the morning of the next day to do this, in fact he waited until the returning Hobgoblins were within earshot.

 

Then the Legend Breaker called out to the approaching riders. “There he is. I set him free with a weapon just like he asked. He should have worded his demands more carefully. Anyway, he’s not in my custody any more, do what you like with him.”

 

Morton had not woken up by the time the Hobgoblins reached him. But they managed to wake him up pretty quickly and as the Legend Breakers rode away they were chased by a series of agonised screams.

 

The party reported their success to the Princess and she informed them that they could return to the army now. She would use their destruction of the demonic fertility goddess Mammon as an excuse to publicly forgive them for appearing to have gone AWOL. They would be reinstated and granted full back pay.

 

Now however there was a new task to look forward to. The army was approaching the Konstantin Empire now and would soon be launching its offensive against the Sturks in support of the failing Empire. They had already joined up with a number of other crusaders and a large fleet had been assembled to take them on the final leg of the journey, on disembarkation they would relieve the siege of the Konstantin city of Enis. Unfortunately it appeared that the Sturks had got wind of this plan and had hired an armada of Yarabar corsairs to prevent the allied forces from landing at Enis. Although they had some ships of their own the crusaders did not want to be distracted by a naval battle. So Serena had decided to hire her own pirate fleet with promises of pay, plunder and pardons. This fleet and a few of the League of Parchment’s warships would engage the corsairs while the bulk of the army landed a few miles down the coast and moved to raze the siege.

 

The Legend Breakers and their submersible were to join the pirate fleet and do their best to ensure that it was successful.

 

 

GM's notes.

 

 

Griff was under his player's control during the previous session. He had forgotten the Predator blade, but I hadn't, so when I took him over this session while the player was absent he suddenly 'remembered' his weapon and used it.

 

 

 

 

 

That’s it for now. We did in fact start the sea-battle this session but I think it will work better if told in a single write-up and I'm running out of time to post this.

 

 

So look out for pirates, monsters, magic and the Fisher King.

[Bismark]

Re: Gunpowder, Reason and Plot.

 

I <> people who don't phrase their demands carefully when negotiating with me - er, sorry - my characters... (I did like playing Sai )

 

I might add that one of the main reaons that the party had such a rough time against the cossacks was the fact that we developed a bad case of "can't roll decent combat dice for s##t" after the first couple of phases (though hitting one of the guys in his unarmoured neck with an arrow for 10 BODY was a fun way to start the carnage...).

[Shadowsoul]

Re: Gunpowder, Reason and Plot.

 

Sorry it took so long but I'm writing my dissertation at the moment and that takes precedent, one update a week is no longer tenable. I won't attempt to guess when I'll get the final write up done but I will get around to it eventually.

 

 

 

A quick note. This was the first battle in which the new Golem, Corvy, had an active role. So I’ll note that he had a special ability called ‘Nightmare Scream’ which dramatically increased his presence and allowed him to make extremely powerful presence attacks.

 

Session 19.

Arrrrr!

Or

In which our heroes generate a sinking feeling in a number of their opponents.

 

While they were waiting amongst the camps of Serena’s army for the fleet to arrive and pick them up the Legend Breakers were approached by three huge hooded men. These creatures introduced themselves as the Children of Falkenberg and explained that they were the sons of a creature which had been sewn together from pieces of the dead by a natural philosopher who went by that name. The original creature had managed to prevail upon his creator to build him a mate in return for a promise to leave the lands of men. These three did not believe that the promise affected them however and so they had returned to human lands on a quest.

The PCs accepted this grisly information with great calm, (Griff wasn’t with them at the time). Hildegard was, of course, fascinated.

 

The Children then asked the Legend Breakers for help. A descendant of Falkenberg was holed up in the city that the army was to going to relieve and they believed that he knew how to create more of their kind. Without brides of their own these three Children would be doomed to loneliness and despair while their nascent race dwindled into extinction. In return for being helped into the city and if necessary given aid in finding Falkenberg’s descendant the Children would lend their arms to the war effort.

 

Not being people to let a little weirdness get in the way of gaining allies the party agreed to this bargain without qualms.

 

Having rested a little the Legend Breakers were introduced to pirate captain who was acting as a liaison between the regular navy and the freebooters and the captain of the Adaman man ‘o war which would serve as a flagship to the League’s pirate fleet. These two said that the Legend Breakers could stay on any ship they wanted but the party decided to stick with the flagship for the time being. Alexis would be driving the submersible of course.

 

Along the way the party amused themselves in various ways, most stayed in their cabins and battled with sea sickness. Hildegard, however, was mulling over ideas for a new Golem to add to her growing collection. And Sai was used to the sea, he spent his time up on deck practicing his showy and acrobatic martial arts moves.

 

The crew of a neighbouring pirate ship seemed to be interested in Sai’s antics. They were a strange sight even to the cosmopolitan Kensai warrior, they were very large men wielding broad bladed spears, their skin was a lustrous black and they wore little more than loin cloths and assorted jewellery. Sai suspected that they hailed from the mysterious Burnt Continent even though their ship was clearly of an Atalan design.

 

The Burnt men proceeded to perform their own display, a complicated dance which seemed to involve a mixture of foot stamping and vicious attempts to kill each other. Somehow all the flailing bodies and waving spears manage to avoid each other and not a drop of blood was spilled.

 

“Oh I’m going in on that boat.” Sai grinned.

 

To help pass the time Sai looked around the Burnt men’s ship. He discovered some ragged gun crews lurking in the ship’s depths. Most of these were Atalans, (Europeans), who were chained in place. One of these unfortunates explained that they had once been the ship’s crew but they had travelled to the Burnt Continent in order to set up a trade route for slaving. They had been bargaining with the local tribes for prisoners when one particularly fierce tribe decided that slaving was dishonourable and stormed the ship. Since then some of the tribe’s more adventurous warriors had taken up piracy and the would-be slavers had been put to work on the cannons. Sai had little sympathy for these men, they had been defeated in battle after all and so deserved all that they got.

 

Otherwise the sea journey was without incident and soon the combined fleet reached the besieged city. The siege was in full swing with Sturkic armies swarming round the city and crowds of Konstantin troops clustered on the beleaguered walls. More worryingly a large and colourful fleet of Yarabar corsairs was headed straight for the crusader’s forces.

 

The troop ships headed for the coast while the pirates and a few men ‘o war sailed boldly towards the enemy ships.

 

The Yarabar had their own ship yards and some of their ships would almost qualify as ships of the line. The crusader’s pirates sailed in a mixture of ships but seemed to have the advantage of manoeuvrability. The larger ships in the centre would have to defeat their opposite numbers however or their smaller allies would be annihilated by overwhelming cannon fire.

 

Just as he had promised Sai joined the Burnt men, as did the Children of Falkenberg. Alexis was piloting the submersible, its little adventure on the steppe had drained a lot of its power but it was still functional, just. Griff had taken up a position in the crows nest of the Adaman flagship, from there he would be able to pick off likely targets almost at will. Salisbury and Hildegard placed themselves on deck so that they could deal with boarders and perhaps launch an assault or two themselves.

 

The two fleets drew inexorably closer. The leading ships began to exchange cannon balls, although not as dangerous as a full broadside these initial shots could prove deadly.

 

Sai’s adopted ship proved this when by an incredible stroke of fortune they managed to land a perfect shot on the ship which was moving to oppose them. A cannon ball bounced onto the foredeck and skimmed along the length of the ship before ripping straight through the powder magazine and blowing it sky high.

 

The visibly shaken crew of another corsair began to shift their vessel’s position in order to plug the hole in their fleet’s line.

 

Alexis was keeping pace with the sailing ships above him as he searched for a nice big hull to smash his sub’s fin-blade into.

 

At last the flag ship moved alongside a corsair and began exchanging cannon fire in earnest. Grinning Yarabar pirates threw grappling hooks at the Adaman vessel and began to swarm across.

 

Up in the crows nest Griff had spotted some men perched in the rigging of the enemy ship, they were armed with crossbows and were clearly professional marksmen. The rifleman took exception to pirates copying ‘his’ idea so he started shooting them.

 

Hildegard sent her two smaller Golems to attack the corsairs who were climbing onto her ship. Sylvester simply ran along a rope with his claws out until he passed over a pirate and scratched his fingers in the process, the unlucky corsair let go and plummeted into the sea. Corvy used his long steel talons to slash at one pirate until he let go and then screamed at another boarder, during that moment the crow Golem somehow managed to shift it’s shape to look like something out a dark and bloody nightmare, the corsair turned white and fell from the rope, he vanished into the waves with a whimper of fear.

 

The Marquis simply waited for the pirates to come to him. All around him red-coated Adaman soldiers assembled into ranks and fired unending volleys into the enemy boarders while Adaman sailors clutched various weapons and prayed to the Eight.

 

The Burnt men were far more cheerful. As they sailed within reach of a corsair their shaman waved his staff and bellowed something in a strange language. The pirate ship shuddered as a wave of tree branches burst forth from its side and fastened onto the enemy’s ship. The Burnt men charged across this leafy bridge without s moment’s hesitation and Sai rushed to follow them.

 

Alexis decided to tear into the corsair which was fighting the flagship so he brought the sub up to ramming speed and headed towards her hull.

 

One of the crossbowmen managed to put a bolt into Griff’s leg but he snarled the pain away and killed the last of them, then he turned his attention to the deck of the enemy ship and began to look for its captain.

 

Despite the volley fire which was tearing through them the crew of the corsair ship managed to charge home. Salisbury and Dora rushed to meet the charge and stormed through the pirates leaving a trail of bodies behind them.

 

Suddenly the Yarabar ship rocked violently as the submersible’s fin-blade tore a great gash in its hull. Alexis whooped and spun his sub around for another go.

 

The Burnt men leapt onto the ship that opposed them, a ragged volley cut down the front line but the survivors crashed into the corsairs and blood sprayed like sea-foam from the point of impact as battle was joined, spear against cutlass, pirate against corsair.

 

Sai and the Children plunged onto the ship, he introduced a pair of unlucky Yarabar sailors to his signature weapon and once the smoke had cleared he began to cleave his way through the press with his Tai Dao. The Children followed crushing skulls and spilling entrails as they went.

 

The Adaman forces on the flag ship were gaining the upper hand. The enemy captain was shouting orders frantically but he stopped almost instantly when a rifle bullet splattered his brains all over the forecastle. The corsair ship itself was now listing seriously to the side and when Alexis ripped another hole in it the ship began to sink.

 

Meanwhile the Burnt men and their allies had pushed the Yarabar pirates back to the forecastle But a handful of huge corsairs stood atop this structure and each one held a seven barrelled naval volley gin in his hands. The guns flamed and a half-dozen pirates were hurled bloodily into the arms of death. Sai knew that he couldn’t let his allies lose their momentum so he somersaulted onto the forecastle and began to fight the surviving corsairs single-handed. A giant of a Yarabar warrior swung his still smoking volley gun at the Kensai but hit only air and got a foot of steel in his guts for his trouble.

 

The corsairs who had been fighting the flag ship crew were forced to abandon ship and make a desperate attempt to take the Adaman vessel. Hildegard and her Golems led the defence with Salisbury at their head and the pirates were cut down almost to a man, only a handful surviving long enough to surrender.

 

The battle was going well. So it was at this point that the remaining members of Lord Morton’s cultist cell summoned their master with infernal charms and blood in the water.

 

A vast silhouette appeared in the water, it was vaguely shark-like but instead of fins it had a writhing nest of long tentacles, each one equipped with a long barbed hook. Once the Fisher King had aided humanity by singing the oceans bounty into their nets; now he arose to drag a new kind of harvest into the sea. Bone hooks lashed out at nearby ships and snatched shrieking victims into the gaping maw.

 

The Burnt men were horrified by the assault of this demon but they were not paralyzed, instead they redoubled their efforts to finish off the last corsairs and once they succeeded they turned the ship’s guns on the creature. The thunder of the great guns had never ceased but now it was strengthened by the inhuman bellows of a wounded god as cannon balls hammered into the titanic form and punched holes in its rubbery flesh.

 

Whether through instinct or intelligence the beast located its tormentors and wreaked a bloody revenge upon them with its flesh hooks, even worse it began to slam itself into the captured ship and tear great holes in it with iron-hard tentacles.

 

Alexis had spent a few seconds gazing at the creature in awe. But then his attention was captured by a faint glow coming from the sub’s control console, one of the buttons that did not appear to do anything was flashing faintly. The alchemist shrugged. “Why not?” He thought to himself.

 

It took only the lightest of touches to depress the button and only the slightest of moments for its purpose to be revealed. The submersible rocked wildly as six metal clamps launched themselves from its nose, two of them striking the Fisher King, long wires attached these projectiles to the sub and the two that had hit home began to throb alarmingly, they seemed to be leeching some kind of energy from the demon. Whatever this force was it seemed to agree with the sub because all the lights in the control room began to glow more brightly and the engine started rumbling in a far more energetic way than before.

 

The Fisher King lashed out at the sub but only succeeded in denting it.

 

With their first opponent defeated the crew of the flag ship looked around for a worthy target. One presented itself almost immediately, an imperial Stanu war-dromon had left the port and was sailing directly at them. It looked to be carrying a full complement of troops who stood in two distinct groups on the foredeck. As the two ships drew closer the Adaman Captain warned that one of the enemy units was made up of Janissaries, converts to the Way of the Spoken Word and who formed a fearless corps of elite troops. The second group were archers and they began to fire an unending stream of shafts into the Adaman crew. The surviving redcoats started up a rattle of musketry but they were outnumbered and exhausted and when the Janissaries began to fire volleys of their own it was clear that the Adamans were overmatched.

 

Griff managed to claw back a little of the advantage by shooting the Janissaries’ commander but the elite warriors seemed comparatively unmoved by this setback.

 

The ship which the Burnt men had captured was not faring nearly as well as the sub had; the Fisher King had torn a couple of huge holes in its side and seemed intent on dragging it beneath the waves by main force.

 

Seeing that the ship was lost Sai decided that if he couldn’t go sailing he’d try his hand at fishing. The Kensai sprinted to the forecastle’s handrail and leapt over it, he flew through the air as straight as an arrow and landed spear-first on the demon’s blubbery head. Where he slipped over and nearly fell into the sea.

 

The flagship and the dromon sailed right up beside one another, exchanging withering volleys of cannon and musket fire as they went. The Sturks were confident enough that they were aiming broadsides at an Adaman pirate ship on their other flank as well. Cannonballs crashed into the flagship and musket-balls ripped through its crew. The Legend Breakers decided that they would have to settle this fight face to face or perish in the crossfire. Alongside the archers and hardened Janissaries the dromon had a full complement of armed sailors, but any ship could be taken if the assault was brutal and desperate enough. Salisbury led the charge, jumping for the other ship’s deck even as he and the others threw their grenades. Explosions blew crimson drenched holes in the Janissaries’ ranks and burners set the deck alight. Arrows and bullets caught some of the boarders in mid air but most made it onto the enemy ship.

 

The Marquis cut a magnificent figure amongst the carnage as he landed with his bloody swords already reaching forward for a taste of Sturkic flesh. His swords flickered and two sailors fell, one struck through the heart and the other through the groin. More Sturks rushed at the swordsman only to perish on his sword-points so when Salisbury struck a pose with those swords held high and screamed wildly at the remaining Sturkic sailors they cowered and fell back before him like frightened sheep.

 

When Dora hit the deck the whole ship seemed to shudder but the heavy Golem just started running and didn’t stop until she was hip deep in Janissaries, then she and her pole-axes began to reap the bloody harvest that they had been made for. The Janissaries did not run from her, some of them even hacked chunks off clay from her titanic body with wildly swung scimitars and thrusting bayonets, but they could not stop her. Sylvester had been atop Dora’s head as usual and by the time she had gutted her first Janissary he was already clawing the eyes from another. Corvy ripped into a Sturk who was clinging from the rigging and introduced him to the delights of flying, the sailor couldn’t get the hang of this trick however and he plunged straight down into the deck. Behind all this stood Hildegard with a smoking pistol in her hand urging her pets on to greater feats of destruction.

 

Griff didn’t join the charge but he still sighted down his rifle barrel at the Sturkic ship and wherever his gaze lingered a man died with a smashed skull or a pierced throat.

 

The Fisher King was still taking victims but most of his attention was focused on the creatures that had dared to attack him. More claws slammed into the sub and Alexis hung grimly to the controls and watched his ship come to glowing life around him. Two tentacles whipped towards Sai and he managed to duck beneath one but the other slammed into his shoulder, buckling his armour and gouging yet another wound in his scarred hide. Sai raised his Tai Dao and brought it down on the slippery mass beneath his feet with all his strength.

 

There were no sailors left who were willing to fight Salisbury so he ordered some Adamans to follow him then sprinted to a nearby hatch, tore it open and plunged down the steps beneath. The nobleman swiftly reached the narrow stinking passages where the ship’s cannon crews did their brutal work, he shouted to these men in perfect Sturkish and told them that they could cease firing or die. None had the heart to stand up to this bloody handed apparition and his desperate band of followers.

 

Hildegard had ordered Corvy to assault the archers and so he flew at them with claws outstretched and nightmares howling out of his snapping beak. Perhaps they were unusually superstitious or the losses they had already taken had unmanned them but the entire group wailed in unmanly terror and fled before the demon-crow in their midst. The Janissaries were holding their own but desperate redcoats and burly grenadiers from the flagship were making some headway, if only because of the brutal swathe that Dora had cut through the enemy.

 

The surviving Burnt men who had not made it back to their ship were hurled into the water as the ship they had captured was pulled apart and sucked beneath the waves. The Fisher King began to swim towards the Adaman flagship, still beating the living daylights out of Sai as it went. Alexis pressed the glowing button once again and the lifesucking metal cables withdrew. Although the alchemist could see that the demon had been wounded by cannon fire it was clear that few of the clumsy missiles had managed to hit it. Alexis decided that the most accurate projectile was a self guided one and so he revved up the sub’s engines and headed on a collision course with the writhing monster.

 

Now that all of these men with cannons had surrendered to him Salisbury decided that they might aswell do something useful and ordered them to open fire on the Fisher King who was now swimming into view, in case the gun crews were thinking of disobeying him the Marquis kindly took the time to explain the unpleasant things he would do to them if they didn’t comply. Amidst quiet mutterings of ‘I wish he’d make his mind up’ the gun crews managed to launch a ragged broadside at the beast. On deck the battle still raged on, only the Janissaries were really holding out but the surviving Adamans were too few to overwhelm these stalwart opponents.

 

Sai had to dance about wildly on the demon’s back to avoid being hurled into the sea as tentacles lashed at him and cannonballs tore bleeding furrows in the King’s hide. The Kensai hacked away furiously at the beast’s back, splattering himself with black blood in the process, he was almost dead on his feet but a mixture of desperation and sheer stubbornness kept him fighting. Then the creature’s entire body shuddered as Alexis’ sub crashed into it and slit open its belly. The Fisher King roared one last time and then gave itself over to the frenzy of approaching death. In its death throes the creature was even more dangerous than before; the sub was knocked away, a unlucky sailor was smashed from a ship’s deck and Sai was hurled high into the air by a flailing tentacle, the Kensai described a graceful arc through the air and thudded into the war-dromon’s deck, he did not move again.

 

In one final desperate push the Legend Breakers and their allies managed to dispatch the last of the Janissaries and capture the dromon.

 

Sai was unconscious but not dying. He would be patched up and almost good as new by the time the next battle came around.

 

The Legend Breaker’s ships had done more than their fair share and the rest of the fleet had thus been able to outmanoeuvre their opponents. The Corsair fleet was in retreat and the battle belonged to the League of Parchment. Back on land the League’s forces had broken the siege and driven off the remaining Sturks. The war-dromon had been the only Sturkic presence in the harbour itself and so that too was soon back in the hands of the Konstantin Empire.

 

 

 

 

Join us next time, whenever that is, to learn how it all turned out and to enjoy the spectacle of three sessions worth of intrigue, plot exposition and epic battles being ruthlessly forced into a single battle.

[jaws]

Re: Gunpowder, Reason and Plot.

 

Great work!!! keep it coming

[Shadowsoul]

Re: Gunpowder, Reason and Plot.

 

Just a note to say that I will finish this write up eventually. Honest.

 

Here are my excuses.

 

But I have just one week left to finish writing up my dissertation so it can be printed bound etc in time. And since problems with my back etc caused by crouching over a laptop for four years limit the time I can spend on a computer I only have so much time to work with. What time doesn't go to that is mostly taken up by my efforts to keep my new Online Campaign going.

 

So there you have it. Once I've handed my dissertation in on the 16th I promise I will make the final write up my top priority. Hopefully I'll be seeing one or two of my players next week so I can ask them to joh my memory.

 

Hope that didn't sound too whiny but I didn't want anybody to think that I had forgotten this project.

[Shadowsoul]

Re: Gunpowder, Reason and Plot.

 

At long last I have written up the final session.

 

I've reconstructed it as best I can without notes so if anyone else who was there would like to PM me with reminders then that would be great.

 

 

Session 20.

Finale.

Or

In Which The Plot Is Forcibly Ended

 

The battle against the Stanu Empire was going well. After relieving the siege the League of Parchment had defeated another Sturkic force in pitched battle. The Bezants were not very trustworthy allies but they were cooperating for the moment and the various factions within the allied forces had refrained from backstabbing for the time being.

 

The League had spent several weeks chasing the Sturks around Konstantin territory while their numbers were swelled by large new allies including a large army sent by the Ilskian, (Polish), King. But the Sturks had assembled a large force of their own and had at last condescended to fight a pitched battle. They had conceded the advantage to the League however as it was the Atalans, (Europeans), who held the high ground; they had placed themselves upon three hills called the Three Sisters which overlooked the Venta Plain. The Sturks were confident enough to assault those hills however, perhaps because their army now included levies from the Dark Continent, some of whom had brought monstrous creatures known as ‘Elephants’ to use as battle mounts.

 

The League had their own ace in the hole however. In the confusion of the Sturkic retreat the Adaman forces had discovered an old friend, Bortio Singuezi had fled far from the failed kidnapping attempt upon Princess Serena but he had not got quite far enough. But rather than having the man executed for war crimes just yet the League’s leadership had agreed to use his expertise to construct a small fleet of hot air balloons with which to bombard the enemy.

 

The Legend Breakers had also been busy during the past few weeks. Some of them had to spend some time recovering from their injuries, with the expert help of Serena’s Natural Philosophers of course, even Sai made a full recovery. Those who were capable of standing had helped the Children of Falkenberg to locate the descendant of their father’s creator. This man, Johann Von Falkenberg, turned out to be rather less conflicted than his famous grandfather and he agreed to help the Children.

 

Hildegard had been particularly busy; she was fascinated by Sai’s flame lances and with his help had created a small flamethrower with attached oil reservoir which she housed in a new stone Golem carved into the shape of a shoulder-sized dragon. She named this last Golem Draco.

 

The Legend Breakers had been given no special mission in the coming battle so they had simply dispersed themselves through the League’s forces. Hildegard and her Golems had joined the Princess’s Royal Guard, a mixture of Adaman House Guards and the best mercenaries in Serena’s army. The ever-gallant Salisbury had also decided to fight alongside his General. Stationed alongside the Princess’ unit were several large boulders, she had decided to put Hildegard’s unintentional hill tactic to good use.

 

The submersible would be useless in this battle so Alexis had been given a new toy to play with, one of the hot air balloons, it had already floated aloft and the alchemist was gleefully rubbing his hands together at the prospect of raining fire down on his enemies.

 

Griff had also been offered a place upon one of the balloons but had decided to join the skirmishers since he regarded them as his personal regiment; for lack of a better plan the skirmishers had been place on the edges of the army in order to deter enemy light cavalry and if possible to harass the enemy’s flanks. Sai had no particular affinity with any one regiment but since he was a cavalryman by trade he had chosen to fight alongside the Adaman Royal Dragoons Regiments and once they had deployed he found himself facing a unit of six war elephants, Sai had heard of these creatures before however and was confident that he could survive their charge.

 

Even disregarding their more unusual units the two armies were a glorious sight as they faced each other across the plain. The armies of the Stanu seemed to be drawn from all over the world; dark skinned warriors dressed in lion-skins or hide armour, wild hillfolk wielding straight edged swords, the disciplined ranks of the janissaries, khumbaraci with their bags of grenades, grim eyed Atalan mercenaries who had converted to the Spoken Word, heavily armoured Sipahi cavalry who looked to have ridden out of some ancient age of chivalry and battalion after battalion of infantry carrying muskets or spears. Behind all this were an array of small fortifications housing the feared Stanu artillery.

 

The Leagues forces were even less cohesive. Infantry regiments displayed a score of different national uniforms in an eye watering variety of colours, Adaman Redcoats, armoured Norscans, (Danes), Vurtz, (Swiss), Pikemen, Slavonyans in fur and blue cloth, Aragonese swordsmen in dark green and many more. Grenadiers marched around importantly with their mitre hats pointing aggressively at the clear blue sky above. Light cavalry regiments manoeuvred at the edges of the vast army, Cossacks and Hobgoblin mercenaries mingling with the more disciplined yet less fearsome troops of Hussars and Light Dragoons. Dragoons from Adamas, Vurtzaland, (Switzerland), and a dozen Axon states shifted in their saddles as they attempted to literally outshine each other; the IlskianWinged Hussars stood out above all others; a fact that they would come to regret when the artillery barrage began.

 

At some unseen signal the Stanu cannons began their bombardment, the League’s guns answered them and the battle was joined. Sturkic cavalry formations manoeuvred for a charge while the infantry slogged along the plains towards their counterparts on the hill.

 

The minutes crawled by as the massed formations rolled forward, then officers and sergeants all along the League’s line began bellowing at their men and the front of the allied ranks vanished in a cloud of smoke. Volley after volley rippled across the ever more cramped space between the two armies and once orderly battlefield was transformed into a hellish confusion of smoke, thunder and screams.

 

A unit of Stanu musketeers managed to break through the League’s front lines and charged up the hill where Serena and her bodyguards were standing. With a whoop the Princess drew her pistols and started shooting into the swarm of soldiers below. The boulders were released and they tore red lines through the approaching Sturks but they did not falter. Serena’s mercenaries were lined up in a skirmishing formation and if not for the fences and trenches which had been dotted along the hill they would have been swept away by the disciplined unit that approached. As it was the approaching enemy were funnelled into a dozen different pathways and were slaughtered piecemeal by the elite warriors who had gathered to the Princess’s banner.

 

Hildegard edged away from the fighting while letting Dora loose. The Golem cleaved through limbs and torsos with the same emotionless dedication that she brought to any other task. Any who got too close the Golem Mistress herself was sent to the afterlife by fire or bullet. Salisbury, his swords a blur, simply concentrated on keeping up with the Princess and cutting down any that tried to close with her. After a few eternal, blood-soaked moments the Stanu infantry broke. Serena did not rush after the retreating soldiers, instead she ran back up the hill and leapt onto her horse so that she could pursue at a better pace. Those who could mounted up and followed her.

 

To the right of all this reckless violence Sai stood listening the thunderous approach of six angry elephants. He had convinced the Dragoon’s commander to dismount his men and order them to be ready to drive the beasts back shooting at them and pricking them with lances.

 

Just as the immense beasts burst out of a wall of powder smoke Alexis’ balloon appeared over them and the alchemist dropped poured a viscous smoky concoction over the leftmost elephant which screamed, reared and then rolled onto its back in a desperate attempt to put out the liquid flames which were eating through its hide. Two more elephants panicked and slammed into each other, leaving only half the formation to charge through a volley of carbine fire and crash into the trembling dragoons. Even so the carnage was horrible as long tusks flicked men into the air and stamping feet crushed them into a pulp.

 

Sai decided that the ground was a bad place to be for the time being and so he used his spear as a pole and vaulted high into the air to land on the head of the leading elephant before bouncing onto the howdah on its back. Six archers, a handler and a splendidly dressed Sturkic officer glared with horror and shock at the Kensai in their midst.

 

There followed a couple of dozen seconds of cramped, desperate murder as the Stanu soldiers tried to rid themselves of their unwanted passenger. Sai swept his sword free and hacked the officer’s arms into a bloody mess, staggered as the wounded man tried to bulrush him out of the howdah and then caught the unlucky Sturk and heaved him out instead. Sai cut down the handler and then began killing the archers. Meanwhile the elephant had lost what was left of its nerve and without direction from the handler it took a sharp left and began to run through the middle of the dragoons. Sai didn’t think that the surviving crew would be able to regain control so he jumped acrobatically off the howdah and landed back on the ground. A slash with his spear wounded the already panicked elephant and sent it thundering back almost the way it had come; its two surviving herd-mates in tow. Reluctant dragoons swarmed over the fallen elephants and ended their nightmarish introduction to the world of human warfare.

 

Griff’s unit had also made contact with the enemy. A loose band of warriors draped in animal hides and wielding heavy axes had charged towards his redcoats. A knowledgeable Adaman officer told Griff that the approaching men were Dervishes, supposedly they were virtuous warrior monks with absolutely no interest in their own personal safety. Certainly a handful of musket volleys failed to deter the fanatical warriors and they charged home despite taking considerable losses from the skirmisher’s musketry. Griff could not pick out a leader so he shot the Dervish who was wearing the biggest hat but this didn’t seem to bother them much either.

 

It came down to close combat and while the Adaman skirmishers had a longer reach with their bayonets their loose formation made it easy for the elite warrior monks to carve through them. Griff however proved too fast and too dexterous even for the Dervishes, he gutted one, stabbed another in the groin and managed to knock one over; this last Dervish was no luckier than the others however as a skirmisher promptly leaned over and nailed him to the ground with a bayonet.

 

A troop of Stanu light cavalry attempted to come to the aid of the Dervishes but were headed off by some League hussars.

 

Back in the centre Serena, Dora, the Marquis and their allies crashed into the disorganised ranks of a Stanu infantry unit which had not expected to receive a cavalry charge from the supposedly crumbling League centre. While the rest of the bodyguards were hacking their way through that unit Hildegard sent Corvy to harass a neighbouring battalion. This second battalion must have been demoralised already because when Corvy flew over them and unleashed the full force of his Nightmare Scream attack the entire unit turned tail and fled in abject terror. Hildegard squinted through the crowds of battling soldiers to see where her creation had got to and nearly wet herself laughing when she saw the fleeing troops. The unit that the rest of the bodyguards were fighting put up considerably more of a fight but were eventually broken by their elite opponents.

 

Across the field Sai led the remnants of the Dragoons in a similar charge and after weathering a storm of musket balls managed to slam into an infantry unit and cut down a couple of enemy soldiers before the Stanu trumpets signalled the retreat.

 

Griff’s unit had been similarly cut to ribbons but he had managed to survive long enough for allied cavalry to come to their rescue and hack down the surviving Dervishes.

 

As the smoke cleared it seemed that the League had won a pyrrhic victory, the Sturkic army had been driven back but only at the cost of many lives on both sides. A grisly carpet of corpses extended across the field and the cries of the wounded and the dying seemed somehow more overwhelming than the thunder of cannons and muskets.

 

The Legend Breakers gathered at Serena’s temporary command post back at the top of the hill which she was supposed to have remained upon throughout the battle. The Princess commanded her agents to come before her and once they had assembled she gave them some news. It seemed that three Leaguers of royal blood had been slain in the battle; coincidentally there were reports that three Stanu princelings had also been killed. Of more relevance however was the news that the League forces had abandoned the rightmost hill for reasons that their commanders could not quite remember and there was reportedly a lone man standing at the top. Since this was clearly some kind of unnatural weirdness it was up to the Legend Breakers to sort it out.

 

So after pausing to have their wounds patched up the long suffering heroes dutifully marched off towards the hill in question. Serena had had a bad feeling about this job and so she had sent the Legend Breakers B-Team or Drop Out Squad along with them. Specifically these were Vladimir Ivanovitch the Slavonyan Boyar, Tamasz Volkov the Axon Quartermaster and Robert Savage the common born officer.

 

On the way to the hill a familiar figure wandered out from behind a tree. The Harlequin.

 

Sai sighed. “I expected you’d turn up.”

 

The Harlequin grinned. “Oh yes, I have things to tell you. You see this little war of yours was arranged or at least encouraged by certain cultists. They needed a particularly large massacre in order to summon the most dangerous of my former brethren. His name is not your concern but his role in the old world was that of psychopomp, the one who guided the dead to the Underworld, you may think of him as the Deathwalker. If he is allowed to manifest fully then he will be able to return the rest of my fallen brethren to this world at a single stroke and he will be able to drag mortal souls down to hell at will. Fortunately only six of the seven royal sacrifices required to complete his resurrection were successful, you foiled the attempt to capture and thus prepare Princess Serena all those months ago in Hansburg Thus the Deathwalker is still slightly vulnerable and it is up to you to finish the job. You will have to move quickly however.”

 

The party digested this news nonchalantly and agreed to go through with their suddenly rather more urgent task.

 

The Harlequin drew a golden dagger from a pocket which was clearly too small for it and held it out to Sai. “Take this and when you have defeated him drive it into his chest before he dies. That will create a more permanent solution to this problem. If you are successful my brother will be released to take the rest of our pantheon to their eternal rest.”

 

Sai took the dagger with a shrug and the Harlequin disappeared.

 

The party reached the foot of the hill without further incident and began to struggle up it. When they reached the top third of the hill the heroes paused as three skeletal figures arose in front of them. The Legend Breakers drew their weapons but then Tamasz stepped forward. “Vladimir, Savage and I will deal with these creatures. You go on ahead.”

 

Obediently the Legend Breakers jinked around the three undead fiends and rushed up the hill, the sounds of battle ringing in their ears as they went.

 

At the very top of the hill a man waited. He seemed fairly normal except that he was wearing a tunic and hose of a sort which had been unfashionable for at least a thousand years; his sword was also rather out of date but it did at least look pretty sharp. Apart from that the only hint that this man might be less natural than he appeared to be was the fact that his eyes were missing; twin voids took their place.

 

The demon smiled pleasantly. “Are you the ones to free me then?” He asked.

 

“Arrogant.” Sai commented succinctly as he and his companions rushed towards the awakened god.

 

The demon blurred; his sword swung around with such speed that the very air roared as it was torn apart by the unholy blade. Salisbury and Sai crumpled to the ground, their armour torn, their flesh rent.

 

Dora’s halberds swept out but the Deathwalker rolled away from them and spun past the Golem and cracked her shoulder with a vicious downward chop of his evil sword. Corvy and Sylvester were faster and they leapt onto the demon, scratching madly at it with claws and talons, they couldn’t seem to find any purchase on the creature’s unnatural flesh however.

 

Hildegard’s newest pet was rather more successful, it hit the demon with a burst of flame that visibly scorched the supernaturally hardened flesh.

 

Griff smirked cockily and hit the demon’s head with a rifle ball, which promptly flattened against the rock hard skin. The rifleman’s smile faded.

 

Alexis lurked at the edges of the battle, he didn’t dare use explosives at this range and he didn’t expect to be able to pierce the creature’s skin with a strength draining dart, so he simply crept around and poured regenerative potions into the mouths of the fallen.

 

The fight so far had seemed to take only a few seconds but even as the Marquis was struggling to his feet he was joined by an old friend.

 

Tamasz grinned and brandished his holy dagger. “I finished my first opponent and thought you might want some help with yours.”

 

The Legend Breakers rallied and drove in at the demon with fire and blessed blades. Tamasz struck the creature with his dagger and managed to wound it. The demon cried out in pain at the blow but the dagger burst into flames and dissolved into a blackened mess.

 

Griff caught the Deathwalker with a bayonet charge and lost his blessed dagger/bayonet in the same manner. As did the Marquis when he switched his main gauche for the more effective holy dagger.

 

But at least the demon was suffering beneath these attacks and the repeated gouts of flame from Draco. In return however the Deathwalker was handing out nasty wounds and even worse it gave Dora such a beating that the indomitable Golem ground to a halt, there were too many cracks in her clay body for her to continue the fight. She had at least carved a shallow gash in her opponent’s side before he finished her.

 

Sai managed to pull himself to his feet however, just as he always did. Alexis crept up to the wounded warrior and tossed him a gleaming silver dagger.

 

“You’ll probably make better use of that than I would.” The alchemist admitted. He certainly wasn’t getting any closer to the demon than necessary.

 

Sai snatched the holy blade out of the air and leapt at the demon putting all his weight into a desperate attempt to fillet the infernal horror. There was another tortured burst of dark flames and that dagger also melted into slag.

 

Hildegard’s supply of flame oil ran out soon after that and the party were reduced to hitting as hard as they could and hoping to get through the Deathwalker’s hideously strong defences. Mortal steel against immortal flesh.

 

It came down to a war of wills, of endurance and of luck. The fight was gruelling and bloody; it was the most vicious and dangerous challenge that the heroes had ever faced.

 

But the Legend Breakers were a team, they could support each other, they could strike from many directions and they could protect one another. The Deathwalker was alone and it had long since lost any taste for its accursed existence.

 

Slowly the embattled adventurers cut their opponent to pieces.

 

One blow too many rained down on the demon and it fell to its knees. The Legend Breakers hammered at the creature with frantic desperation, praying that it would not get back up. And through a fog of exhaustion Sai remembered the golden dagger, he tugged the mystical blade from his belt and plunged it into the demon’s neck. The dagger passed through the Deathwalker’s throat as easily as it would through air. Black blood gushed and the demon toppled forward.

 

There was a moment of silence.

 

Then the Deathwalker floated up into the air. The wounds on his body faded but so did the twin voids embedded in his eyes.

 

With a smile the reborn god bowed to the Legend Breakers. “Thank you.”

 

Then he disappeared.

 

Vladimir and Robert arrived moments later, running frantically and with their weapons at the ready, they deflated slightly when they saw that the battle was won and looked around inquisitively for the body of the defeated demon.

 

Then the Harlequin stepped into view and explanations were forgotten for the moment. The Harlequin’s masked face was impassive but he was clapping as he walked towards the assembled heroes.

 

“Well done, well done. Knew you could do it. Now then, I’ll have that dagger back please.”

 

Slightly reluctantly Sai returned the powerful weapon.

 

The Harlequin held the dagger’s pommel between thumb and two fingers as though it and drew his other hand across it; suddenly he was holding eight daggers which were spread out to form an elegant bladed fan shape. The whole thing looked like a sort of card trick. The Harlequin offered the golden weapons to the party.

 

“For your trouble. Oh, and did you know that an ancient king was buried with his royal treasure beneath this hill?” The Harlequin snapped his fingers and a rain of gold coins began to drift down from a point a few metres above the ground as the curiously garbed figure wandered of down the hill and vanished.

 

Endnote.

 

The Legend Breakers remained together for a while after that, fighting in the wars between the League and the Sturks, then the wars between the Leaguers and their former Bezant allies and finally in the petty conflicts between emerging ‘crusader colonies’ which were set up by victorious Leaguers. They did eventually split up although some remained in service to the Adaman Crown. In no particular order the known whereabouts of the various Breakers are as follows.

 

Griff Pointer. Although occasionally still employed as a special agent Griff now devotes his time to the new project funded by Princess Serena - the creation of the first Adaman Rifle Corps.

 

Vladimir Ivanovitch. Retained command of the so called Legion of the Damned. His battalion was out on a special training mission when the entire force disappeared mysteriously; rumours of a renegade band of mercenaries led by a bardiche-wielding nobleman have been discounted by the Adaman government.

 

Tamasz Volkov. Was officially given a position as quartermaster to one of Serena’s more prestigious regiments. Unofficially he is also in charge of the Adaman Army’s newly formed demon hunting group. This mysterious organisation is known to employ certain inhuman beings referred to as ‘The Children of Falkenburg’ and also has strong links to Pointer’s Greencoats.

 

Robert Savage. The most temporary Legend Breaker of all finally found an outlet for his stubborn and independent nature by joining Griff in his Rifle Corps project. As a rifle officer he too has been known to perform special missions from time to time.

 

Alexis. Spent some time working with other savants to develop new weapons for the Adaman Army. Eventually however his wanderlust got the better of him and he talked his way into a position as a roving spy and espionage agent for the Adaman Crown. He has a number of money making schemes on the side including a medical practice and an ongoing series of pamphlets entitled “The Continuing Adventures of the Mighty Legend Breakers”, these stories are entirely fictional and sell all the better for it.

 

Sai. Accepted a prestigious and lucrative position as one of Princess Serena’s personal bodyguards.

 

Hildegard. Retired from the mercenary life in order to build and sell Golems full time. Worryingly her latest project is an elephant Golem.

 

The Marquis of Salisbury. Had gained enough fame as a military hero and enough notoriety as a swordsman to return to his former position in the Adaman Court without any further fear of the powerful nobleman whom he had offended. Still dines out on the stories of his adventuring days and is a great favourite amongst the ladies of the Court.

 

 

GMs Notes.

 

The party were not supposed to play a pivotal role in the battle, it was just an excuse to involve them in a huge scrap and have them facing off against some exotic enemies.

 

I may not have mentioned it before but the Stanu, (Ottoman), Empire was rather different in this setting as it had still not taken over the equivalent of the Eastern Roman Empire but had instead expanded into the equivalent of Africa and so gained some very interesting auxiliaries.

 

Probably best to explain the inclusion of the B-team in the showdown. I wanted the final villain to be a real challenge for the party but I certainly didn’t want to end on a total party kill. I also didn’t want people sitting around getting bored during the final showdown. And since I wasn’t sure that my fledgling villain building skills were up to the task I cheated slightly by rather artificially engineering a situation where back up characters could be fed into the battle if the first five got flattened. Sai went down hard in the first phase so I let Bismark take over his old character Tamasz, the addition of another holy dagger was pretty helpful as well.

 

 

And that’s it. I’m sorry that real life kept getting in the way of regular updates but I hope those who’ve read these write-ups enjoyed them.

 

Thank you all for reading.

[jaws]

Re: Gunpowder, Reason and Plot.

 

Very fun, thanks for sharing that with us shadowsoul. May the Lengend Breakers, having become a legend not break themselves.

 

:thumbup::thumbup:

 

Thumbs up to you and the gang.

[teh bunneh]

Re: Gunpowder, Reason and Plot.

 

Cool beans! A good finale.

[matrix3]

Re: Gunpowder, Reason and Plot.

 

Thanks for the great campaign notes! I hope to soon see notes from a new campaign (should you have the time...)