Empress session report - My Beautiful Sociopaths

I am, of course, referring to my players, the crew that refers to themselves as the "Murderhobros."  But before we catch up with them, I just want to let you know that you're in for a special edition of "What Did I Learn?"  Today I'm going to go big and list my Principles of Gamemastering.  This is eternally a work-in-progress, which is how it should be for us all.  Life lessons, people!

So anyway, where did we last leave our winsome charmers?

All credit to Gus L. - check out his awesome blog, Dungeon of Signs

Ah yes...they had just received a massive text dump of plot hooks, courtesy of the GM with two thumbs (i.e. "This guy!").  And they were very curious about the effects of their sabotage on the Pie Cult.

Report on the so-called "sick rock" mineral

Let me start with a little background about my weekly campaign.  As I've mentioned before, I'm running my adaptation of Anomalous Subsurface Environment, the great OSR megadungeon affectionately known as "ASE."  The best part of it is that my players haven't set foot in so much as the gatehouse, as they are continually deflected from their quest by their own misadventures.

Just another day in ASE

That quest is to retrieve a certain quantity of raw protonium ore for their patron, an old and clever dragon.  They know that they can find this in a place called Mount Rendon, and to gain entrance to this mountain they must obtain a small quantity of what is known as "sick rock" i.e. uranium.

Towards the end of a fun little picaresque journey from their portal to Denethix, the party got its hands on this very material in the traditional way (i.e. they beat-up some lion men).  ASE provides a nice little lair dungeon to make this happen, so I ran that and the PCs won the prize.

But then they lost it.  It wasn't really their fault.  Well, actually, they sort of panicked and let it be known that they had found the wizard's lost sick rock. After being thanked and rewarded, the authorities took custody of the stuff and sent the PCs on their way.  So now what?

Empress session report - The Murderhobros meet hard-punching lion-men

It's been a while since we had one of these.  Well, life gets in the way, which means that we missed a few sessions and I'm behind on reporting the ones that we had.  So let's catch up a bit.

We're at least three sessions behind, so I'm going to compress a bit of the older events.  Anyway, we left our lovable scoundrels having more or less disrupted the plan of Lord Python (an evil wrassler) to have some thugs drug the ales of the beloved Wolf Brothers (the good guys!) so as to impair them for the upcoming match.  

For all I know these guys really were called the Wolf Brothers

Things went well from there; the Wolf Brothers met and beat Lord Python the very next day, although he escaped the justice of the militia.  The PCs were celebrated for safekeeping the honor of Lugosi and the Wolf Brothers.  Radj was able to order dog barding at a bargain price.  Yay team!

Of course, things got messy again.

Empress session report - The Rise of the Murderhobros #4, part 2 of 2

It's hard to believe how much we accomplished in the fourth session.  I have a feeling that part two is going to be longer than part one.  I suppose that if I'm wrong, I'll just edit this sentence later.  If I'm right, I'll leave it there, and look pretty prescient.

Anyway, where were we?  Ah yes, the gang had just been roused by a commotion from outside the inn, and townsfolk were moving en masse in that direction.  Naturally, the party joined the surging crowd, and made their way towards the town's eastern gate.  They were greeted by an interesting sight.

This

Well, not quite that.  They were more lupine-themed, for one.  The self-styled Wolf Brothers, Howl and Growl, had arrived to challenge the town of the Lugosi to...A WRASSLE-OFF!

Empress session report - The Rise of the Murderhobros #4, part 1 of 2

This session, things really started to take off.  The Murderhobros Three were about to face off against a savage lion-man and a terrifying spheroid bear-bot-thing, which had just sprouted a spinning buzzsaw at the end of a small arm that extended from its chest.  That's how things started, and from there, the Gonzometer started beeping like crazy.

Note: This is what actually happened.
Everything else is in Duncan't head.

Empress session report - The Rise of the Murderhobros #2-3

As we check in on our murderous trio, we're going to cover two sessions in one shot.  This is primarily because second of these was a pretty short one due to the intrusion of real-life demands on our participants.  That's fine; we're role-players, so we have to work around that stuff.  So without further ado...

And so it begins again...

Picking up where we left off, the crew was walking rapidly away from angry gang bosses and alarmed citizens in the town of Hoblington, making their way to meet Duncan's mysterious benefactor.  As the group approached the place, Duncan informed his compatriots that they were going to be going through a (hopefully) abandoned village to climb down a sea cliff.  There, they would find a cave wherein dwelled his employer, a dragon named Krakatoka.

Zab and Radj reacted to this announcement with a healthy dose of disbelief, and concern that their new friend wasn't right in the head.  Oh well, they reasoned; we've come this far, and hitched our wagon to this maniac.  Let's see where this leads...you never know, right?

DCC session report - Blackrock Manor #5

In this installment of Blackrock Manor, we return to our intrepid band of monster killers and treasure hunters, standing over the body of a slain construct of metal and glass in an otherworldly trophy room.  So far, their expedition has made good decisions and possessed good fortune.  The former would be remain the case, but not the latter.

Vanquished at the end of last session

The trophies in question occupied metal plinths, some of which were surrounded by strange fields of light, of which some were stable and others flickered unpredictably.  With little difficulty, the party was able to obtain all the artifacts that weren't protected by constant fields.

Let's pause a moment to take the roll call, in alphabetical order, no less:

• Brendan, doing his best to prove with Gregh the Warrior that might makes might
• Gareth, offering the sage judgement of the Wizard Sizarius, and getting the hell out of Gregh's way
• Stan, whose Courve the Thief always erred on the side of Not Dying
• Steve H., bravely rescuing fellow dwarfs with his Rune Priest, Martine
• Steve W., insuring that Grognard the Dwarf gave Martine plenty to do
• Xavier, pushing Archimedia the Thief's luck to nearly-tragic ends

So what treasures did our gang liberate from this forgotten museum?

Empress session report - The Rise of the Murderhobros #1

As I mentioned in my last post, I am now GMing for a weekly crew using my homebrew rules for Empress 2.0.  Now, I still need to catch up on session reports from the Blackrock Manor campaign, but due to its monthly nature, it won't be hard to bring this blog up to speed.

A legend is born

So as for my Empress gang, a bit of history...I was previously GMing a group with Empress 1.0 as a weekly thing, with all players connected to an audio group chat in Roll20 (later using Roll20 for shared maps and Google Hangouts for the audio).  With that group, we had some great moments, but I didn't feel that my campaign was working for the group, and we tried to transition to a weekly DCC campaign.

That campaign eventually ran into scheduling issues, and as a result, it's become my monthly DCC group aka Blackrock Manor.  And I have to say, the rules and whole sensibility of DCC are a much better fit for this crew, as are in-person sessions.

Unfortunately, the mix of in-person and online players didn't really work for the people online (crosstalk at at the gaming table can become very indistinct over webcam).  As a result, I lost one of my original players, but he wasn't done with our campaign, bless his soul.  Instead, he wrangled up a couple of players in HIS area, hyped them up on probably-untrue stories of my GMing prowess, and drafted me into being their GM.  Well, I always said I wanted enthusiastic players.

DCC session report - Blackrock Manor #3 and #4

It's been a while since we visited that blasted suburb of Punjar, Blackrock, and its eponymous brothel - although, it should be noted that its owner, mistress Archimedia of...what was the name of her family, anyway?  Anyway, her - she renamed it "Blackrock Manor."  And why not?  It's no less a manor than a brothel.  The reality is neither; it is the rat-infested and rain-sodden guildhouse of a budding adventurer's guild.

That's nothing new, just a bit of a background recap.  Except for the part about the new name.

Anyway, when last we visited our intrepid adventurers, they were emerging into the sun, blinking furiously and too parched to form words.  As they greedily eyed the babbling brook, looking to slake their collective thirst, a peculiar troupe of imps had emerged from the forest path bearing an unconscious priest.  Upon sighting the party, they had laid down their recumbent cleric as a disembodied voice bid them to feast on your flesh.  That's pretty much where we left off.

DCC session report - Blackrock Brothel #2

When last we left our heroes...

In this session of the Blackrock Brothel campaign, we return to our intrepid adventurers as they have reached the bottom of the wizard Nekros' subterranean sanctum, a bizarre scene: at the bottom of a gaping two-mile deep shaft, reached after two days of marching down an interminable staircase, there lies a lake of acid, inhabited by colossal leeches, spanned by a set of narrow circular bridges.  At the central convergence of these bridges there waits a gigantic mound of guano.  This is the home of a wizard, and clearly, the ways of wizards are not the ways of ordinary men.

For this session, the following players were in attendance:

• Stan, in charge of Grognard the Dwarf and Courve the Thief
• Xavier, running with the priest Dar Shasta and Archimedia the Thief
• Steve W., stepping in for Brendan to manage Sizarius the Wizard, and the mighty warrior Greg

In the real world, our session was delayed by about an hour due to connectivity issues, and the need to bring Steve up to speed.  I was worried that this would leave us without enough time to stab things and generally dampen spirits, but once the action got started, my fears were proven groundless.

DCC session report - Blackrock Brothel #1

The basics

This is the first session report from my new Dungeon Crawl Classics campaign, which I have dubbed the Blackrock Brothel campaign.  The concept behind this campaign is pretty simple: first, we play the funnel adventure Hole in the Sky.  Then, any survivors from that decide to continue together and form an adventuring guild. I told you it was simple.

To get things started, one of the players is a member of a distant branch of a long-declined noble house, and that player, out of the blue, inherits an estate in a suburb of Punjar called Blackrock.  This estate was sold by the family a long time ago as fortunes turned sour, and as the surrounding district also declined, the so did the estate.  In one of its most recent incarnations, it was a brothel in Blackrock, so named because it catered to miners in the nearby basalt quarries.

Once these quarries ran dry, so did Blackrock, and now the estate is in a state of a shocking disrepair, fit only for rats.  The surrounding district is home almost exclusively to bands of squatters and stray dogs, both of whom can be occasional hazards.  The brothel-become-guildhouse has three rooms that a human could comfortably live it, and a heavy safe set into a room on the ground floor.  

In the setup, I tell the inheriting player that not three days after his character (Archimedia the Thief) laid claim to the place, the tax collector showed up with two thugs to demands 50 gp.  When his character protested that she had no money and just showed up, the collector said he would be back within the year, looking for twice that.