Primal/Within Chronicles: Election Day, Part One

Previously in Phil’s game:

Our Heroes fought some undead captives charged with protecting the Font of Sorrows.  Later, Spurt the Silvered Bulette found them and they managed to subdued it.  Exploring the water temple chaos further, they discovered a passage to the High Priest’s crypt where they fought a giant undead tree and a pair of acid elemental sharks.

I don’t know about you but once in a blue moon, the stars align themselves and we get THE perfect RPG session.   Last Friday’s game was, bar none, the best D&D 4e session I DMed since it was published a year ago.  It showed me that it was entirely possible, even easy, to weave combat encounters with strong story elements and roleplaying.

Dramatis Persona

Party Level: 8

Jaiel (Yan): Female Deva Avenger. Tightly bound to the City and its mission

Dworkin (Franky): Dwarven Shaman.  Present to help the City fight the Dingeon

Usul (Mike): Elven Invoker of Kord. Present to support the Divine forces protecting the City Within

Corwin: (Math): Halfling Sorcerer. Arrived by accident, stayed because it’s fun.

Rocco la Muerte: Halfling Rogue. Surface champion come to help the city fight the Dungeon.

Fangs: Longtooth Shifter Warden.  Suffers from Amnesia, joined Jaiel’s adventuring group while working out who he is.

Info Dump warning!

As I mentioned in earlier posts on the blog, I had prepped for a more cerebral session, setting the adventure in the City around the concept of an election.  When I told my friends,over email, about my plans, they shared their worries that they might be too tired to spend an evening doing a roleplay heavy session.

That worried me a bit, and I changed a few things in the adventure to weave plenty of action in the story.

Turns out that the players weren’t too tired after all and that all the ingredients for a good game were there.

The game started with me giving the players some setting info.  I wanted to set the stage for the adventure and that needed a short info dump.  I explained how a Nexus of divine energy, not-unlike a sun, was found at the center of the city, anchoring the city’s existance within the Dungeon and protecting it against the Dungeon.  I also explained that this Nexus was what kept the Primordial imprisoned in the middle of the Primal Dungeon, which spark an interesting discussion about the Nexus ‘wasting’ energy protecting the City, which I rapidly noted down.

After that, I informed all players that they had been granted houses (for free) in the City’s newest burg: Lower Delve #57.

Franky: Lower Delve #57? This feels like a city in a post -apocalyptic game.

He’s not far from the truth.

Security!

The PCs were invited to meet with one Jarl Boten, a hobgoblin Warlord of some renown in the City.  Jarl runs the Crimson Claws, a mercenary outfit of excellent repute that operates in the nearby Underdark.  While a neutral organization, the Claws have recently been taking more contracts from the city.

Jarl explained to the PCs that his outfit had been awarded the contract of handling all security issues of the upcoming election for the council representative of Lower Delve #57.  That elected representative would be in charge of shaping the function of that new burg and oversee its development over the next 10  years.

In the evening’s second info dump, he explained how elections worked in the City Within:

• 200 voters are randomly chosen by the central government.  Voting in the City is like jury duty in our democracies, you have to go if chosen.
• The campaign and the election is a one day process (once again, thanks to reader BradG for the idea).
• All voters and candidate participate in a convention where each candidates gets to present their plans for the burg and voting occurs after the last debate of the evening.

The PCs job was dead simple, they had to make sure none of the candidates died.

Party: But why do you need us?

Jarl: Let’s just say that I’ve got access to some info that indicates that the threat level to the candidates and voters is going to be  above and beyond what my current resources can deal with.

Jarl offered payment of 13 000 gp if all 4 candidates made it alive.

D&D 4e reward decision: I had initially combined 2 monetary treasure parcel and a high level magic Item as final payment. But I realized that I could just give the value of the item in gold and create a much larger gold piece reward.  I changed this on the fly and it made the goal of protecting the candidate seem that much important, 13 000 gp being, by far, the largest amount of gold the PCs have had to deal with since the start of the campaign.

I knew that I had my players hooked when they started discussing security measures to take for the coming election.  When I sensed that they were veering toward fine detail planning, I intervened with a bit of improv:

Jarl Boten: You guys don’t have to sweat the small stuff like checking food and frisking voters, I’ll have personnel there to do that.  I want you around to mingle with the candidates and be ready to react when the really nasty stuff will happen.

Party: How will we know when the nasty stuff will happen (they were getting curious about Jarl’s apparent knowledge of future events)

Jarl: I honestly don’t know (confirmed by PC insight roll), I have scryers helping me plan my (airquotes) buisness strategy (/airquotes).  I can promise you that you’ll know when it happens.

Franky: Hey guys, did you hear that plopping sound?  I think someone threw a rock in the nearby puddle, we should investigate!

Chatty DM: Har har har!

The PCs accepted the job. Yay!

DM Aside: I’ve said time and again that my players are docile in terms of catching the plot hooks I throw.  Since we discuss the upcoming adventures in advance, we’ve been able to avoid the dreaded “But my PC doesn’t want to do this!” that many gaming groups are plagued with. Thanks guys!

We concluded the scene with Jarl presenting each candidates and the faction the City faction they represented:

• Jevika Sarn-Mors: Very charismatic thiefling middle-aged woman of a Noble House of traders and bankers.  Think Meryl Streep  in  The Devil Wears Prada/101 Dalmatians… with hooves and horns. She wants to create a new commercial district and tas haven for new trading and manufacturing companies.
• Garn Petraliak: Retired Goliath Gladiator of the entertainment mogul Oscaliath family, think The Rock meets Jesse Ventura.  Wants to build a sports/entertainment district with new martial schools, stadiums, theaters, barracks and a revolutionary Dungeon-Crawling gladiator arena.
• Kelian Dawnchaser: Running for a Oscaliath competitor faction: The Alrenko family.  Wants to develop low-cost housing and extend the city’s agricultural industry.  Kelian featured in the last adventure.
• Radik Whiteblade: Elven Druid of the newly politically active Preservers faction.  Wants to revert the burg to a mostly wild state (parks, low impact housing, protected areas, etc) and stop the frenzied building of the city.

Thus, we were ready for to the ‘Election Day’

Image Credit: Claudio Pozas (Pozas Art Pack vol. 2: Hobgoblins”, from Expeditious Retreat Press)

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