The setting: Sanctum, a world created eons ago by the combined breath of the Six Great Wyrms. Sanctum is a single large continent at the center of an ocean, surrounded by archipelagos. It's divided into several regions, each of which has their own distinct culture.
More detail can be found here
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The cast:
- Me, first-time GM.
- Captain Creig Cornswaggle, a Jerkass gnome pirate / rogue from the wasteland.
- Aisling, a barbarian / ice elementalist from the plains.
- Gerard Hennerson, a kindly monk from the Mountain.
- Amusel, a shaman from the plains.
- Shamus Shimmershield, a gnome paladin / shaman from the canyon.
- Denzai, a sage / necromancer from the marshland.
As our campaign begins, our party is doing mercenary work guarding a merchant on his way up the Mountain. Stopping for the night in the relatively peaceful village of Tor Phagos, they are awakened by sounds of screaming from outside. As they rush downstairs, the merchant comes in from the street. He tells them that the town is under attack right before three unknown creatures come in and kill him. A fight ensues, during which Denzai discovers that the creatures are Wyrmborn Goblins - non-sentient creatures created by the five remaining Wyrms prior to their discovery of gnome- and orc-ification. The Wyrmborn haven't been seen since the end of the war, and if they're here, then something is very, very wrong.
Exiting the inn, the party finds the town in ruins. The sole survivor is a little girl, who tells them that the beacons at the Temple of the White Wyrm have been lit for the first time since the banishment that ended the war took place there. Fires in the distance confirm this, and Goblin footprints lead towards the flames. Gerard offers to take the girl with him to protect her as they set off for the temple.
Upon reaching the temple, they are confronted by its guardian - a fire elemental who tells them that another has already entered. Despite constant aggravation by Creig, Shamus is able to convince the elemental to let them enter and attempt to stop the threat posed by whoever else is in there. They leave the girl under the elemental's protection.
Inside the dungeon, the party splits up. Creig, Amusel, and Gerard locate and frighten off a Kobold, while Shamus and Denzai manage to lock themselves in a room with a pair of hungry wolves. As the trio realizes their mistake and rushes back to assist their companions, Shamus is able to cow one of the wolves into submission. Gerard arrives just in time for the other wolf to bullrush him and shove him into a fire, which almost kills him. In retaliation for the damage done to his friend, Denzai summons a shadow halberd and decapitates the wolf. As they recover, they notice that the other wolf seems to have disappeared. They all solemnly swear never, ever to split the party again.
Tropes from this session (Bear in mind that most of this is just my take on things:
- Action Prologue
- Badass Bookworm: Gerard, big time.
- Beef Gate: Unbeknownst to the party, it was technically possible for them to try to go Off the Rails early and make their way out through the cave... which is why I had five invisible level 20 earth elementals guarding it just in case. They weren't needed, but will stay there in case any of them read this and get some bright ideas.
- Berserk Button: Gerard manages to brush off getting pushed into a fire... until he finds that his book has been lightly charred.
- Broken Bridge: It breaks while the party is asleep. Via a cave in.
- Creepy Child: This is how the little girl comes off, but that's mostly because of my attempts at speaking her lines. My attempt at a kid's voice is disturbing in and of itself just because of how incredibly unnatural it sounds, but when I start trying to freak people out... well, see below.
- Critical Failure: Happened twice. Creig's first roll of the session resulted in him accidentally stabbing himself, and one of the wolves accidentally bit his own leg off.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: Among other things, this was the only writeup entry I wrote in the present tense.
- Face Palm: One loud enough to be heard quite clearly over the mic in response to the below-mentioned Incredibly Lame Pun.
- Harmful to Minors: The sole survivor of Tor Phagos is a little girl who watched the entire massacre because she couldn't get away.
- Incredibly Lame Pun: Diplomancy started as a typo and turned into this when Evii mentioned that it should be a thing because "It means that friendship is magic!"
- Jerkass Has a Point: While Creig mouthing off to a very powerful fire elemental about how bad the latter was at his job was an incredibly bad idea, there's more than a little truth to it.
- Never Split the Party: Consider this lesson learned.
- Oh, Crap!: Somebody had this reaction upon finding out the exact origin of the Wyrmborn, and learning that they're back after a long absence.
- Omnicidal Maniac: The Wyrms.
- Player Archetypes: From what I've seen so far:
- Cornswaggle's player would be The Loonie... if his actions weren't completely in character. He was submitted as an antisocial jackass with a nutty streak, and, well, he's a gnome. Because of this, he's actually more along the lines of The Roleplayer.
- I was initially worried about Shamus's player being a Munchkin due to the sheer unlikelihood of that particular combination of traits and what I saw as a bit of Min-Maxing on his character sheet, but Shamus ended up being a very well balanced character with a solid roleplaying element.
- Aisling's player definitely comes off as The Real Man. I can tell you that if I'm right, he's going to have quite a bit of fun with this campaign.
- Gerard's and Denzai's players are very much The Roleplayer.
- Amusel's player is hard to pin down due to the fact that he never really says much in or out of character.
- Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies: I said this an hour before we even started when someone said my voice sounded like Tom Cruise's.
- Rouge Angles of Satin: "Diplomancy."
- Sealed Evil in a Can: The Wyrms are functionally this. The Wyrmborn are what happens when the can springs a leak.
- What Measure Is a Non-Human?: It's explicitly stated that Wyrmborn are essentially dangerous animals - not sentient, and with no moral complications about killing them.
My Favorite OOC Moment:
- The players learn exactly why Nightmare Fetishist is listed as one of the tropes that apply to me:
Kyle: (In a singsongy Creepy Child voice) Hey there, mister! Guess what? First, I'm going to kill you, and then your wife, and your kids, and then I'm going to fuck your dog—Exelixi: OHDEARSWEETCRYSTALDRAGONJESUSMAKEITSTOP!
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