Primal/Within Chronicles: Election Day, Part Two

See part 1 here.

Morning Plenary

The second scene of the evening was a plenary where the voters and candidates mingled during a luxurious breakfast set in a specially-built area of Delve #57.  The PCs were there as all other security and support staff.

For the next 45-60 minutes, I let my players play out the scene as they saw fit.  My notes were really simple, each candidate (and their aides) had the following ‘stats’ prepared:

• Name and appearance
• What they’ll tell PC
• What they know and might share if PC roleplay it out
• A secret they wont reveal unless circumstances forces them to do so (but that other NPCa may decide to share).

So depending on how the PCs approached a given NPC, they got some bits of info about the candidate’s plans for the day and/or some juicy bits of rumours/gossip about the others.

Here’s a few highlights:

• The Preservers candidate apporached Fangs (Amnesic Warden) and praised that he had returned from his mission in the Dungeon.  Seeing Fangs completely fail to recognize him (Eric’s puzzled face was priceless), the candidate apologized, pretexting a case of mistaken identity.
• The Gladiator candidate (Garn) had an exceedingly chatty female Halfling Aide.  She had an ever-shifting birthmark strangely similar to Corwin’s (Halfling Sorcerer).
• Kelian Dawnchaser (Agricultural candidate), after professing his hate for the Sarn-Mors candidate (Commerce) was later found chatting it up with her and later announce that he had worked out a possible alliance with her.
• Kelian’s Aide (named Dawn) is an androgynous Shifter that was never seen anywhere whenever the Sarn Mors candidate was around (making my players call “Dopplegagner!” faster than a Barbarian can say “I attack!”)
• The preservers candidate took the primal characters (Fangs and Dworkin) aside and presented his secret plan to bind a Spirit to the Burg to free it from both the City and the Dungeon’s influence.

This scene was a ton a fun to play, and my players even congratulated me about it.  I was really happy to see them get into so much into the story.

Once PCs had talked to all the NPCs they wanted to interact with, we moved to the next scene.

Thumping the beasts

Garn Petraliak, ex-gladiator from the Oscaliath family, had staged a demonstration of the type of entertainment that the burg would feature if he was elected.  The arena was the area surrounding an old dwarven outpost (the one included in the 4e version of the D&D Miniature game).  All candidates had first class ‘seats’ from the central outpost while the voters were seated in bleachers at each corner of the arena.

The ‘fight’ was between a tame Macetail Behemoth and 5 gladiators.  I told the players that they could see that it was a staged fight but the rest of the audience was eating it up.  While describing the fight, I informed the Rogue that he started hearing some sort of thumping noise coming from somewhere in the arena.  That noise was not unlike the thumpers used to attract Sand Worms in Dune.

Before that new sound could be investigated, I described a strong tremor shaking the whole area.  Suddenly huge slabs of stone shot out of the ground and ‘ate’ the dinosaur and sent the gladiators flying to their deaths on the arena’s walls.

When the slabs receded back into the ground, the Behemoth had changed into a bigger, savage Bloodtail Behemoth!  While the crowd was going wild with the spectacle, the PCs could see from Garn’s face that things weren’t going according to plan.

The Dungeon had made its first move against the election. Fight!

As the party moved on the crazed dinosaur, the candidates stayed in the bunker.

As the players were running to the behemoth, the rogue noticed that the thumping sound appeared to be comming from underneath a bridge found near the ruined outpost.  Corwin, the halfling sorcerer, investigated and found a stone column jut out of the water, hidden under the bridge.  There was a door on it.  The Sorcerer elected to blow the door up with some acid orbs.

On the second round of combat, a Owlbear came into the arena, coming from the opposite side that the behemoth (already bloodied at this point) was.  Jaiel ran from the dinosaur and made a beeline to the owlbear to prevent it from charging the outpost.  She spent a lot of the fight one on one against the owlbear.  The Invoker and Shaman supported her and that allowed her to keep the owlbear mostly away from anyone else.

During that time, Corwin blasted open the door and entered the column.  He saw an apparatus much like the ones in Dune, emanating a strong magical aura reminiscent of the energies released by the Dungeon.  This thing was attracting monsters and was marked with the Oscaliath crest!

Garn later said that the device, while an Oscaliath invention to attract monsters from the dungeon, was NOT supposed to be at the election convention! It had allegedly been stolen and used to discredit him.

When 2 rounds later, I added 3 Flame Snakes coming from yet another side of the map, my players had their hands full.  They were spread out all over the map, had trouble finding their usual synergies, and were getting pummeled by the Flame Snakes.

Mixed encounters aside: Artillery monsters in mixed encounters rock! They hit often and hard but are easy to kill once cornered.  I love them!

Fortunately, Corwin destroyed the thumper before a Venom-Eye Basilisk and Wyvern came into the fight.  Thus, the party was able to slay the snakes and the Owlbear and managed to have just one PC (Jaiel) fall into negative… which lead to Yan rolling a natural 20 on his death save and bring her back into the fight instantly.

Oh yeah, most PCs had to use thier daily powers to survive.  It was a great fight, hard but without any significant frustrations but it was a costly one.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot!  During the fight, when it appeared that the PCs were going to turn the tide and head for a sure win, I had candidate Kelian Dawnchaser (the agriculture guy) go blank, strip naked and walk into the arena screaming”I am the Lizard King!” while Jevika Sarn-Mors was smirking.

For real… this was so cool!

Kelian got out unhurt except for his pride.

By that point, the players HATED the Sarn-Mors candidate and they were sure she was a shapeshifting conniver doing everything to win the election.

Kelian’s Luncheon

The next scene was created to allow players to further explore NPCs and plots.  That’s where Kelian was supposed to give a luncheon speech.  Instead, he announced his resignation, following his humiliating spectacle a few hours earlier in the arena.  While everyone assumed he had been charmed by something, Kelian couldn’t face it anymore and annouced that he supported the Preservers’ candidate, inviting his potential voters to switch to her.

That’s when I had Dawn (Kelian’s Aide) show up, and ask Jaiel to distract Jevika.  What made this scene fun to play was that Dawn could not look at nor name Jevika and I tried to make Yan (Jaiel’s player) try to understand what Dawn wanted through the limitations of an obvious curse.

By that point, players were getting confused and that made me even happier.

When Jaiel agreed to help, Dawn went up to the podium and announced that she would run in the place of Kelian, invoking an obscure electoral bylaw.

During that time, Jevika and Jaiel were trading thinly veiled threats to one another.  When Jevikka realized that she was being played, she tried to leave… That’s when I played a fast one on Yan

Chatty DM: She about to leave, do you want to do something to keep here there?

Yan: Yeah… hmmmm.

Chatty DM: Do you want to kiss her?

Yan: Yeah, I do that!

Chatty DM: All right, why don’t yon follow me in the next room then, I need to talk to you…

He he he!  I can’t tell you what I told him now, but in the next session log, I will.

We ended up the session with the PCs going to the Preservers candidate to hear about his plan.  He wanted to make a demonstration that it was possible to protect the area from the dungeon’s influence without resorting to building a city and link it to the City’s Guardian Nexus (the energy source that protects the city and also binds the Primordial in the Dungeon).

The candidate wanted this done before his demonstration in the afternoon.  The players abandoned all pretense of neutrality and accepted to help the candidate.

This concluded one of our greatest sessions of D&D.

The next session will start with the ritual to bind the new spirit while the Dungeon sends everything it has to stop this.

Lessons Learned

• Create a bunch of NPCs with criss-crossing motivations/stories/agenda, add a common plot, add PCs with a stake in the plot, let simmer = recipe for a great game
• Artillery monsters rule!  I need to use more of them and more often!