The Campaign Builder's Guild

[ic=Episode 20: Surface]The front doors of Obraxus' Lair swing open and Kraashgar steps into what he can only conceive of as the largest cavern he's ever entered.  The roof is enormous, yawning above him like a huge black shroud, dotted here and there with tiny lights like distant, white torches and dominated by a blindingly bright white orb.  Our hero's mind struggles to comprehend so much open space.  Below him, stony cliffs ramble down towards a mass of dark shapes he thinks might be vegetation.

'First time topside?'  One of the gnolls asks.  'You get used to it.  Name's Wrask.'

'Kraashgar.'  Our hero struggles not to retch with the hideous emptiness of the place, the obscenity of so much space.

The raiding party descend steep stone steps.  Arrow slits carved in the walls look down upon the path.  Cold wind blows against the cliffs, bringing with it a spray of liquid.  The droplets of huge stalactites, perhaps, hung high up in the sky?  The troglodyte, an adept named Xug, grumbles about 'rain.'

The trek down the mountainside continues, Zetch and his Umber Hulk, Mr. Pincer, leading the way.  They pass massive stone statues of dwarven warlords, eroded by time and weather, as featureless and deformed as figures of melting wax.  Distant thunder makes Kraashgar's heart pound.  As they round a craggy corner Kraashgar notices a series of strange holes in the cliff above them: black, square openings of regular shape, around which he perceives a number of intricate runes.

'Quiet here,' Wrask growls.  'Those are crypts, where the old dwarf hill-tribes used to bury their dead, long before the Gearhead Clan built their stronghold in the mountain; they were defiled, long ago, and sometimes '" oh crap.'  The gnoll bristles and looks upwards.  Kraashgar follows his gaze up the cliff: something is creeping from one of the crypts, scuttling out on all fours, spider-like and agile.  Its posture is hunched and bent, and the creature looks small and somewhat frail.

There is a sudden scratching noise right above, as of long nails clawing at stone, and Kraashgar is horrified to see a pair of gaunt, pallid arms emerge from a lower opening, followed closely by a bald, shaggy-bearded head and an emaciated torso.  He can see mottled, necrotic flesh drawn tightly over clearly visible bones; the creature is squat and stocky, hunched, draped in a tattered funerary shroud that flaps in the wind like an aura of black flame.  A pair of hellish red eyes peer out from sunken sockets as a low hissing sound fills the air.  Kraashgar barely has time to ready his morningstar when the creature leaps down, baring its fangs!

'Ghouls!'  Zetch shrieks, as more of the undead abominations issue forth from the orifices in the cliff-face.  One particularly malignant-looking creature leaps atop Mr. Pincer; a vile stench, as of putrid carrion, assails Kraashgar, who gags and vomits noisily, even as the nearest ghoul advances!

The combat is swift and deadly.  Kraashgar swings his weapon but in his shaken, nauseated state his fighting skills are impaired: he misses widely, even as the creature scrabbles at his studded leathers and gnashes its teeth.  It closes its jaws on his arm and bites, drawing blood; Kraashgar fights off a fresh wave of sickness, as a crippling numbness begins to spread up his arm.  He grits his teeth and batters at the creature till it releases him, then makes another swipe; this time the force of his swing and the dizziness gripping his brain make him overbalance, and he stumbles backwards, off the cliff altogether!

Our hero scrambles madly at the edge of the precipice, trying to get a grip, but he can feel himself slipping.  Suddenly a hairy paw seizes his forearm '" the gnoll Wrask!  His companion is laughing with battle-fever, tongue lolling, axe spattered with ghoul-blood; he swings Kraashgar up easily, and the goblin nearly collides with the ghoul he'd been fighting.  Back to back with Wrask he attack again, dodging the ghoul's claws and brining his morningstar down on the creature's head, shattering bone and spraying gray-matter into the wind.

The ghoul hisses and presses its attack, unperturbed.  Wrask, having slain his own ghoul, turns and lands an axe-blow on Kraashgar's opponent, nearly felling the creature; Kraashgar, fighting through his nausea, grips his weapon with both hands and brings down the spiked head of the mornigstar on the ghoul, again and again, before kicking and smashing the undead's pulverized corpse off the cliff and into the rainy darkness below.

He breathes heavily and looks up to the rest of the fight, catching a glimpse of Mr. Pincer picking up the ghast and hurling it, screaming, over the edge.  His first hour in the Overworld and already something tried to eat him '" fantastic.[/ic] [ooc]Also updated the Dramatis Personae at the beginning.[/ooc]

Love the description of the surface world from a goblin's point of view!

[ic=Episode 21: Through the Woods]The path winds down the mountainside into the depths of the eerie green-black mass that Zetch terms a forest; the raiders, healed by the troglodyte adept Xug, push on into the verdurous depths with unshaken purpose.  Twisted boughs like gnarled, slender limbs intertwine above the path, blotting out the moonlight, making the path into a sort of tunnel.  Kraashgar finds the forest comfortable, almost like being back underground, but it is still a strange, alienating place.  His agoraphobia has faded, but odd scents assail the goblin's nostrils, issuing forth from garishly coloured blooms or strange toadstools unlike anything he's seen in the Great Below.  The exotic arboreal perfume makes Kraashgar a little drowsy.

'Don't drop your guard,' Zetch says in a low voice, addressing the group, who now troop single-file down the narrow, viridescent path, deeper into the dense green darkness so utterly unlike the pitch black of the underworld.  'There are predators here, and fey, and a tribe of forest gnomes'¦ keep your eyes peeled.'

They continue, swallowed by the wood.  Kraashgar assumes a position between the two gnolls of the party; Zetch and Mr. Pincer lead, the Umber Hulk and its Neogi master almost brushing against the canopy overhead; Xug and the orc bring up the rear.  The raiding group cross small streams and turn down trails that meander through the morass, labyrinthine, some of them so narrow that Kraashgar can barely see them, even with Darkvision.  Mr. Pincer, though surprisingly quiet for an Umber Hulk, leaves a flattened swathe of undergrowth wherever he treads.  Knotholes peer like black eyes from the trees, and skittering sounds surround them.

Suddenly there is a swift whizzing sound and a strangled cry from the rear of the group.  Our hero turns, and sees the orc rear-guard fall forwards, a crossbow bolt protruding through his neck, two more feathering his back!  The raiders draw their weapons but the gnomes are already upon them, emerging out of the foliage from impossibly well-concealed hiding places, brandishing short blades and wicked crossbows!

In the narrow confines of the forest the combat becomes utter chaos.  Kraashgar almost immediately takes a crossbow bolt to the upper chest, nearly felling the goblin warrior.  He snarls and leaps forward, cursing in his native tongue, swinging his morningstar like a diminutive battle-god!  He flails at he nearest gnome, who squeaks and dodges backwards, trying to reload her crossbow, but our hero manages to land a blow and smash the forest gnome's skull with a sickly crunching sound.  Zetch has enslaved one of the other gnomes, which fights its fellows before being stabbed to death; Wrask and the other gnoll make short work of two other gnomes, and the remainder of the attackers retreat into the forest, immediately concealed by the nigh-impenetrable underbrush.

Kraashgar grunts and rips free the quarrel from his chest in a spurt of blood, then checks the gnome's body.  He finds a small sum of gold '" nearly doubling his current trove, which has dwindled recently, after purchases in Ool-Nacha and losses at the gambling table in the Lair '" and straps on the gnome's light crossbow and bolt-case.  He also finds a small glass vial, filled with some sort of elixir, which Xug quickly identifies as a healing potion of some sort; Kraashgar downs the bitter concoction and watches his bolt-wound close up and scar almost instantly.

'Damn half-pint tree-lovers,' Wrask growls.

'Let's hurry,' Zetch whinges.  'We've been delayed too long.  We'll have to move fast if we want to catch the caravan before sunup.'[/ic] [ooc]I know there've been quite a few fights the last couple sessions, which is kind of unusual for the campaign; for one I wanted to give the player a chance to be part of a party, but this specific encounter had the purpose of equipping him with a ranged weapon, which was very useful in the upcoming firefight with the Gearheads.[/ooc]

look at those flowers.  SP, wow.  

[ooc]Thanks!  I owe Aubrey Beardsley for those.  I want the Overworld to have an intensely exotic feel to it, much as the Underdark usually feels in standard DnD.  The idea is to keep the subterannean world very familiar and banal while making the surface frightening and strange, invert the usual binary as much as possible.[/ooc]

I wish you were my DM... that is all I have to say about that...

[ooc]High praise indeed!  Thank you.[/ooc]

[ic=Episode 22: Firefight]The skirmish with the forest gnomes resolved, the raiding party continue to thread their way through the unsettling green corridors of the forest.  They encounter no other creatures save a spooked owlbear that lopes across their path, turns its head round and hoots twice, then disappears into the wood.  Truly the Overworld is an odd place, Kraashgar thinks, if such abominable creatures make their home upon its barren, vulnerable surface.

After some time Zetch and Mr. Pincer lead the raiders out of the forest and onto the open plains-country below.  The crippling agoraphobia that had so shaken Kraashgar before returns in the face of such ghastly openness, such terrifyingly boundless hugeness, but the goblin suppresses his fear, gulps, and hurries onwards to keep up with his party.  The country is covered in tall, blade-like plants and scattered with copses of the unlikely plants Kraashgar recognizes now as trees.  The moon glares down, hideous and inescapable, like the visage of some watching demon.  A light drizzle of rain spits upon our hero and his comrades.

Zetch gestures with a thin, chitinous limb down the gentle slope of the plains towards a sinuous line '" a surface road.

'That's where the caravan'll pass through,' the Neogi tells them quietly.  'We'll find some cover and set our ambush.'

They make their way towards the road, using as much stealth as they can muster, eventually finding a cluster of trees that overlooks one edge of the road.  Some boulders that might be rubble and a few vandalized statues, mossy and mutilated, also stand here; Kraashgar takes up a position behind one, not far from the Umber Hulk and Neogi raid-captain, while the gnolls and Xug move into their own positions behind trees, directed by Zetch.

Time passes, indeterminate.  The sky begins to almost imperceptibly lighten, as if some huge and terrible flame were moving towards them.

At last the clop of hooves and the grind of wheels become audible, and the caravan appears out of the dwindling night.  Three wagons, packed with kegs and crates, plod down the road, drawn by strange beasts the like of which Kraashgar has never seen, long-necked and shaggy-maned things with glinting hooves and dense, muscular bodies.  Already the goblin can make out the dwarven guards, perched atop the wagons or on mounts of their own, making their way towards them.

Zetch signals for complete silence.  Kraashgar's heart thuds loudly in his ears: surely it will give him away?  He can feel cold sweat on his brow, as he tries to quiet his breathing.  He checks his newly acquired light crossbow, carefully reloaded and wound, ready to fire.

The caravan rolls past the copse of trees.  Embers glow from the dwarves, the soft lights of cigars.  Zetch holds the attack till the last possible moment '" and then the ambush begins.

Our hero has the honour of the first shot, a crossbow bolt that takes one of the dwarven guards in the back.  His war-pony neighs and bucks as the rider swears and urns, leveling a squat pistol at Kraashgar and firing with a blaze of fire and pungent smoke.  The dwarf's bullet whizzes past and into the darkness, even as the rest of the combatants appear from their hiding places and enter the fray.

Everything seems to happen at once.  Kraashgar reloads, fires, reloads again, drops his target with a second bolt between the eyes.  He hears an ugly shattering sound as one of the gnolls' heads is blown into wet, pulpy mush, like a rotten fruit.  Mr. Pincer has jumped atop one of the wagons and is tearing apart Gearhead clansmen, interrupting their cleric's spells while bullets whine off his thick, organic armour, Zetch struggling to keep hold, enslaving dwarves with his mind-powers and sending them like suicidal wind-up toys against their own comrades

Three dwarves rush out of the darkness with warhammers and battleaxes and blunderbusses, firing and hollering in their accursed tongue, straight towards our hero.  Kraashgar slings his crossbow over his shoulder and reaches for his morningstar, then charges towards them, yelling his own battle-cry, filled with a sudden lunatic courage.  Through luck or perhaps fate he lands the first blow, felling one of the dwarves with a lucky strike.  He dodges aside as the second swings his warhammer while blocking the goblin's blows with his shield.  Kraashgar ducks beneath a low swing and lands a strike on the dwarf's torso.  This close he can discern the creatures properly: pallid, bearded things, some with bodies partially sheathed or integrated with hissing, steam-powered machines.  True monsters!

For a moment it looks like Kraashgar will be outmatched, but Mr. Pincer suddenly appears, leaping from a wagon and thundering into the two dwarves, crushing one with a meaty fist and seizing the other, which Zetch disarms handily.  Only a few of the guards remain.  Xug is casting a spell, Wrask '" still alive, but wounded '" is fending off a gore-spattered clansman and a mounted dwarf with a heavy firearm is circling around on his pony, taking aim.  Kraashgar snarls and backs away, reaching again for his crossbow, but the dwarf marksman ahs already fired.  He misses the goblin '" but hits one of the wagons.  There is a blaze of orange light and Kraashgar is thrown off his feet, lapsing into unconsciousness![/ic][ooc]Man did I have fun drawing this one.  A dwarven Spider Jerusalem!

I'm starting to get an idea of the grand shape of the campaign... no spoilers (the player reads the thread), but its going to be wheels-within-wheels, plans within plans.  I see two great houses... heheh.[/ooc]

So how are you handling keeping the player from becoming bored that a lot of the fighting is being done by powerful companions? I am glad to see that you have kept his interest by focusing on small side battles in which the goblin can be involved- but the goblin often seems to be striding the line of death and sometimes seems to need his more powerful allies to bail him out.

I like reading this and the pictures are excellent, but the goblin seems more like a "cog" and less like a hero. I think that is what you are going for- the ironic term of "our hero" rather than the Joe Wood "heroic" type, but just wanted to mention my impression of how things were developing.

[ooc]I want him, ideally, to straddle the gap between cog and hero.  "Our hero" is definitely used with a heavy dose of irony.

In the overworld stuff so far, I admit he's been more than a little out of his league.  I've been trying to keep the battles with him small with enough companions around to bail him out as need be.  This is partly to give him a sense of being part of a team (notably lacking in many of the earlier episodes), partly to allow him to face some more serious foes (I'd hesitate sicking a ghoul on him without anyone around to help), and partly emphasizes that to someone from the Underdark, the surface world can be a very dangerous place.  I admit that the overworld has been a bit of a slog, though.

I do eventually want to place him in more positions where he can make a real difference.  I thought the crushing trap was, in some ways, a good example of this.  Because of the player's actions (resetting the traps, which took a long time and more than a little bit of logic, ingenuity, navigation, and general roleplaying, some of which I ommitted from the writeups for space; in any case, it took a lot more work than just pulling a lever), an uber 10th level adventurer got smushed.  One of my reasons for letting the player control the half-orc, Tul, for one episode was to remind him of how ridiculously powerful an adventuring party can be in one sense, and simultaneously how ridiculously powerful Kraashgar can be with the right combination of smarts, dilligence, and stealth, in a totally different sense.

Thanks for the comment, made me think.  I don't want the campaign to become a passenger ride![/ooc]

The crushing trap was good, and I like your full explanation of Kraashgar's empowerment.

I am glad you did not think my comment was too critical- I confronted the same issue several times in my games; I like to put the characters in a harsh 'real world' but don't particularly want to kill them. It is a tough line to straddle.

[ic=Episode 23: Kidnapped!]Kraashgar awakes, singed but without pain, with Xug the trog adept still standing over him, the glow of a healing spell lingering about the creature's scaly fingers.

'Nearly lost you, man,' Wrask says, laughing.

The group stands just outside the smoking remains of the caravan.  Fire has spread from one of the wagons to the nearby trees, smoke issuing upwards in clots, flames lapping at the sky, incandescent, reducing the figures of Zetch, Mr. Pincer, Wrask, Xug, Kraashgar, and the ponies to small black shapes.

'Aright, hurry up and take what you can from this wreck,' the Neogi orders, directing its Umber Hulk to start dragging kegs of blackpowder from the debris.

The raiders are swift.  They detonate the remaining barrels when they are finished, sparking two more huge fireballs.  When the party slips back into the woods, the evil yellow of pre-dawn light growing behind them, Mr. Pincer is carrying a keg of blackpowder under each arm, while Zetch totes pistols; Xug and Wrask carry kegs and more weapons, and lead two of the war-ponies through the forest paths, one of which the dwarf hostage is tied to.  Kraashgar carries a small pistol, bullets, powder, and a round bomb, plus a dwarven waraxe; he, too, leads a war-pony along the trails, laden with weapons and ammunition and bucking periodically, still spooked by the explosions an the unfamiliar smell of its new masters.

Kraashgar is following Mr. Pincer through the woods when he feels the hairs on the back of his neck prickle and raise.  He turns, perceiving a low, dark shape, and hears a sudden growling sound; he has grabbed his pistol and is about to alert the others when the undergrowth explodes as something large and hairy bursts onto the trail!  It is a wolf-like creature, with eerie red eyes and shadowy fur.

Kraashgar snarls, aims, and pulls the trigger of his pistol.  There is a huge boom and the goblin is knocked backwards by the recoil, but he hears a whimper '" he has hit the wolf!  More shots ring out as his companions try to hit the beast, but they ricochet off trees and into the forest.  The wolf, startled and bleeding, plows into one of the war-ponies, the one with the dwarf strapped to its back, and the three go down in a flail of limbs, tripping up Wrask the gnoll.  In the ensuing chaos the wolf manages to rip the dwarf free from the war pony and drags him savagely into the undergrowth, the bearded thing cursing in dwarven under his gag.  Zetch desperately tries to turn Mr. Pincer around, but in the cramped space the Umber Hulk has difficulty maneuvering.

Kraashgar, the least dazed of the group, is hurriedly trying to reload his complicated pistol, but the wolf is gone.

'Everyone okay?'  Zetch asks.  'Godsdamn wolf!  Odd to see one solitary '" they're usually pack hunters.  Anyway, we need that Gearhead.  Obraxus'll flay us alive if we don't get him back.  Wrask, you have a good nose, right?'

'Heh, yeah,' the gnoll smirks.

'Alright, let's track this thing.  Come on.'

The party heads into the wood.  They follow the smell of blood '" Kraashgar's bullet has wounded the wolf badly, and drops of the stuff spatter the forest floor intermittingly.

Wrask leads them to a large mound of earth with a huge oak atop it.  A small hole is evident at its base.

'He's in there,' the gnoll growls.  'The dwarf, too.'

'Wolf-den,' Zetch proclaims.  'Mr. Pincer could burrow through, but it might collapse the whole place.  Kraashgar, you're up.'

Grumbling, our hero gets on his hands and knees and squeezes himself into the hole, tumbling into a low, dark chamber with roots protruding from the ceiling.  It reeks of fur and death; a little ways on, the goblin finds some small, pallid bones and rusting bits and pieces that look like they might once have belonged to forest gnomes.  He hears a mumbling sound from a small side-tunnel and half crawls, half walks to its location '" a rough, shallow chamber of sorts, in which the Gearhead dwarf has been unceremoniously dumped.  Using his goblinoid stealth Kraashgar creeps forwards, intent on retrieving the hostage.  He sees a sudden fear in the dwarf's eyes as they flicker behind him and he spins, groping for a weapon.

Two red eyes glare down on him out of the gloom.  Yellow fangs; black fur; a long, canine snout.  And then a voice, in Goblin of all languages:

'A goblin, is it?  Foolish to enter a worg's den uninvited.'

Kraashgar is silent.  He readies his morningstar.  The worg chuckles.

'Don't make me laugh.  I could tear you a part in an instant, you wretch.  What is your name, little goblin?'

'Kraashgar.'

'Mine is Svaroch.  You have come for your friend there, I take it?'

'No friend, but yes, why else would I be here?'

'Explain to me why I shouldn't devour you on the spot!'

'Come and try!'  Kraashgar senses that Svaroch is bluffing, partially.  If the worg was so intent on killing him, it would have done so without talking; and, despite its threats, he can see that it fears him.  The bullet-wound he gave it still seeps blood.

Svaroch growls, and for a moment it looks as if the two will fight, down amongst the roots, but the wolf-thing speaks again.

'What would you say to a trade?'

'What kind of trade?'  Kraashgar is wary.

'There is a huntsman, who lives on the eastern edge of the forest.  He murdered my pack, my mate, my young: a foul and sadistic human.  I will keep the dwarf alive if you bring me this man's corpse.'

'Very well.  The dwarf must be unharmed and whole when we get back!'

'Fine,' Svaroch grudgingly assents.

Kraashgar worms his way out of the den; the worg watches him as he leaves, sizing him up, pacing.[/ic]

Have you considered linking to this post at wizards and the Giant's forums? You could probably drum up some more readership.

I like how the dwarf was snatched from their grasp- fairly inventive and much better than kidnapping the main character (which is what I feared would happen.)

Quote from: Light DragonHave you considered linking to this post at wizards and the Giant's forums? You could probably drum up some more readership.

I like how the dwarf was snatched from their grasp- fairly inventive and much better than kidnapping the main character (which is what I feared would happen.)

I agree... this is too awesome not to put out there.

[ooc]I've actually been posting this on Wizards too, and updating it (close to the same format - it doesn't have the nice Dramatic Personae at the beginning because the Wizards forums don't allow more than 22 images in a single post).  I've actually got more responses here - probably because I spend much more tiem on this site, and I'm not well known at all over at Wizards.

Not familiar with the Giants forums, I'll look into them, though, thanks!  And glad you liked the kidnapping plot, Light Dragon - you inspired it with your comment earlier.  I felt Kraashgar was getting luggage-y so I decided it was time for him to do something only he could do, and that meant small spaces (and speaking in Goblin).  The dwarf was my only available mcguffin.  Originally it was going to be a krenshar ambush where he'd have to sneak past a pack of them but I've been having too many fights, and wanted something the player could roleplay with that wasn't a teammate/superior( plus I was reading the old MM and saw that worgs are particularly well-known for attacking just before daybreak).  Chalsezce has been the only other instance of that kind of relationship in the last few episodes, I think...

These forums?[/ooc]