Dogman, Skygiant and the nameless rogue wanted to scout the wetlands and find ways into Chagrinspire. With followers Chryspasia the lady thief and Rat Sonja an abhuman wearing six bikini tops. The party previous scout through no-mans-land relied on a small party with invisibility to undead and detect traps but only for four persons. The party want a route to the plateau gatehouse where they can get transport and followers and set up a camp.
The party wanted to also build a trade route to the Mash Folk village. They spent days with the old ferryman of Flatspur building a raft with his three daughters. The party avoided marriage offers and helped improve the ferry wharf.
With their guide, they set off upriver. Saw a canal boat on the canal to the hill forts mountain entrance. Avoided it and saw sea mine and blew it up. Found a sunk boat and a crate of tools. Marked the map and as only the boatmaid could swim considered an engineering solution for salvage. With a rope and weights someone might get down there but were too worried. Filled the raft with fish and went home. Taught the hog and turnip farmers how to dry fish and set off again.
Reached lake and the boatmaid was impressed the party could spot hazards ad they stopped to look at crap on the beach and the alchemical waste sludge the man with no name sampled. The giant and dog man found a fish idol and smashed it and were struck with a curse. The dogman resisted. Found dead monster body parts so moved on.
I found a small rusty oil rig and docked it. The nameless man started sneaking up central stairwell of the structure to the platform level. Others hung back with missiles while the dogman climbed a ladder. River pirate archers came down stirs and started shooting after accidental metallic clanking from party. Party pushed back and pushed through to the platform. The dogman who reached the top and blindsided the gang and attacked their leader. A few pirates after some horrific bloody dismemberment jumped overboard and one escaped. The leader also dived in and got away swearing revenge.
Found some nice treasure and ledgers indicating the river pirate clan a menace on the two southbound rivers were trading with slavers and alchemists guilds. They had held slaves here and the rig was pumping up demon ichor by the barrel. The party considered bringing looters here and destroying the place. Theorised about pumping holy water back down.
Continued and saw a distant monster then into the stream from the Chagrinspire platuau the source of all the quite pure water. Found the marsh folk village and swapped gifts. They spoke of a bulwark of human traders 50 years ago burned by other humans where all the lake folk traded. The druid offered to help party meet friendly fish and frog folk. The fish folk shrine was a ruin from ancient Exilon six thousand years ago. They worshipped the primordial water dragon and the celestial dracomarchy. The heard about the fish folk Bulwark where all the region fish folk trade. The got some magic water weed that lets you breathe water from the fish who want human bread in return for water weed and fish.
The frog folk seemed simpler and seemed ignorant but showed their sophisticated numeracy with money. The frog folk are clearly selling their magic grog and pipeweed and cultivating huge quantities. Frogs bred bugs and wanted food to grow bugs. Mentioned there was a Dimetrodon pack they wanted gone and a turnip shrine purified and offered magic items as rewards.
First they killed a mud hog and the man with no name filled it with all his cast iron grenades and incendiary bombs. Made a long fuse and party waited for the monsters. The blast killed and frightened all the younger ones and a few medium ones also fled badly hurt. The party finished the largests three and took their skins and the frog folk had a feast. The frogs offer drugs, bugs for metal tools also.
The frog folk were concerned they had offended Bogrump the Terrible Turnip god. The hoped human-looking people could appease the shrine and let local people grow turnips again which the bugs liked. The stinkroot substitute was just a poorer crop nobody liked.
The stone turnip shrine was full of tiny turnip headed kobolds, servitors of the shrine bu their heads were worm-infested by the worm god. They slew the critters and saw a glimpse of Bugrump and light inside. Found three glorious giant turnips Bogrump had left them.
Having set up trade with marsh folk, frog folk and fish folk the party rowed home buy raft. Brought back the swamp chief's son to teach coneo building in return for turnip care. Saw a small sailing boat berthed where they saw a canal barge beforeso went to look closer. A guy in the river pirate garb hailed them assuming the party mercenaries or criminals. He explained he was actually a slaver and the namelass man ran him through instantly. The party took the 20 foot sailing boat too.
Back at Flatspur ferry the heroes returned. The scavengers guild with the three boat women looted the ichor drilling platform taking the buildings from the platform. Nobody knows how to sail, only the women know how to swim and are fighters. The heroes fort top soldiers got dimetradon armour instead of their deserter army uniforms.
They planted one turnip near the party fort. The wild power of the turnip god are best kept unwalled. The turnip grew and dancing peasants arrived dancing and playing bagpipes. They carved the giant turnip into a shrine then passed out. They were from a religious estate in the south and unsure why here but accepted they were chosen by the turnip god. So the party colony has some real farmers and one has been anointed as a turnip priest. Some of the party tempted to make turnip god oaths as fertility and peasant vengeance they can support.
I guess when the party cleric player returns to play, they will be surprised.
Most of this is from random tables from Chagrinspire here, vol 1-3 and my salty seaman book of marine tables. All the turnip stuff appears in the Petty Gods book.
Numerous party members considering swim skills or marine skills now. Several plan to change their classes. The dog man wants to be a druid. The nameless man is interested in mutations, especially as he now wears a magic mutant scavenger suit. This player previously had a thief become a mutant centaur that budded off clone offspring constantly.
Outpost Notes
Party Includes
The man with no name a mysterious thief from shadelport and boss of the outpost in the name of the scavengers guild with Rat Sonja the rat lady and posh Chrysopasia a gang lady followers
Priest of Light with two followers from Southern church
A dog man
A sky giant youth with his jester
Outpost Population
Robert Gulp the porter/gatekeeper with chainmail, maul, backpack and a weird 360 degree vision globe helmet. A big farmer now a fighter.
Balzac the baby flesh golem they hope to reform
Dozen remaining older youths learning trades
(youngest now 8 adopted in the Flatspur, 4 went to templar seminary down Sth)
Help loot ruins with kinder more protective supervision
9 auxiliary spearmen (deserters from the empire) led by karl in dimetrodon armour
3 bandit archers who surrendered early
3 gladiators (warrior 1) in dimetrodon armour +4AC
Sticky Stabhands - has knife hands, now kids help him and smith made non lethal hands
Clancy the woodsman - grim silent stoic outdoorsman
Kaligra the strangler (former circus wrestler and strongman and tattoo artist, loves body oil and his moustache)
4 Abhumans (cultural humans currently)
Barry the ram man (shepherd with staff skill)
Peggy the goat girl (farm girl with clubs)
Tonya the rabbit lady (herbalist with sickle has hatred of dogs)
Egbert the ape man (very angry with axe is learning to frenzy)
12 liberated slaves
-baker and three assistants
-weapon smith, armourer and two assistants
-leather crafter making armour
12 Scavengers from the guild
7 serfs from the south now turnip cultists
-led by a 1st lv priest and a 1st lv bard with bagpipes
Borris Vanderpump - merchant (rogue 1) uses outpost as base
Fanby Klungus - merchant adventurer (rogue 1 warrior 1) runs the store
Jasper Hoop (rogue 1) was going to betray the party but decided to hang around, has been working with Borris and spying on other settlements.
Stores
1000 ration packs a month from trade with undead allied soldiers
1 months worth of gruel and army biscuits
three days of flour and bread making supplies
several good wells
Lots of pots, pans, tools, building materials, chains
Building supplies
Armoury
23 suits of leather armour
12 shortbows
200 arrows
7x shots of the mortar on the tower
Treasury
slavers payroll chest of 3000 silver and 200 gold in chest
20gp ring
bone flute
plush demon doll
goat costume
100gp incence
medal and ribbon 30gp
1586gp in a sack
500gp in a sack
1159gp in a sack
6cp 7sp loose coins in jar
gold rat 25gp
globe puzzle 100gp
rat form potion one hour
4 potions of waterbreathing
resist lightning blue potion
cure disease potion orange
ring cast light per day
Library
ledgers of the bandits dealing with slavers including warehousing prisoners
ledgers of river pirates dealings with slavers and alchemists
wizard's surgical notes on making abhumans
observations of a druid using of yellow musk creepers
ancient treasure map 30gp
manual of miasmas - how to modify the weather with a mortar
worm cult book
astrological chart 30gp
cursed porn book
------------------
I'm very happy with how the hex crawls around the mountain has gone and explorers making trade and new routes in the campaign. Their aiding local settlements and new colonies has changed the region of their first hex.
Not rellied on villains much.
There is the worm cult and one 5th lv river pirate thief who have a grudge and alive. They know they were surveilled by the black sphere and backed off. Aware the mountain has some active areas and that the golem factory Balzac came from is enormous and growing an army of them is being made and possibly shipped to locations.
Players started with a rumour, and some are interested in finding out if the Spire is active, a threat, or just a 16km high treasure dungeon.
Players picked up on threads of ancient technology and propaganda like archaeologists to develop a view of the past.
By Lv 3 the party had own domain and occasionally issues around their home base.
Other ambivalent factions the party has worked for but don't trust exist and are seen as possible tools and possible threats.
They trade with undead soldiers (cursed to be undying until they win the apocalypse war that fizzled out a thousand years ago). Frog and fish people come in good and evil types and are tradable, so I can imagine players learning their languages. They claim to have destroyed the function of the sphere and to have infiltrated its inner workings by aquatic tunnels. The kobolds claim the tower belongs to them and that they built it so it's theirs.
So no heavy-handed plots and players driving a loaded sandbox.
Exploration, discoveries and events have driven more.
Prepping with some tables and encounters running quite smooth.
They are aware of the coastal civilised kingdoms and none stand out as wonderful choices.
Maybe need some doom tracks to set some events into escalating.
As I'm running this and players are interested in high-level play this might last a while but we chose to use slow progress rules for level gain making it ever slower to improve or requiring significant campaign-affecting deeds. So I can see plenty of content for a while.
Players' stuff like classes are slower projects.
At some point maybe Vol 4 I will work on a revision of all of them. But I also want my homebrew book done by then too. I need hardcopies of my books. Too many huge PDFs having problems. My sea book has been used recently.
The party wanted to also build a trade route to the Mash Folk village. They spent days with the old ferryman of Flatspur building a raft with his three daughters. The party avoided marriage offers and helped improve the ferry wharf.
With their guide, they set off upriver. Saw a canal boat on the canal to the hill forts mountain entrance. Avoided it and saw sea mine and blew it up. Found a sunk boat and a crate of tools. Marked the map and as only the boatmaid could swim considered an engineering solution for salvage. With a rope and weights someone might get down there but were too worried. Filled the raft with fish and went home. Taught the hog and turnip farmers how to dry fish and set off again.
Reached lake and the boatmaid was impressed the party could spot hazards ad they stopped to look at crap on the beach and the alchemical waste sludge the man with no name sampled. The giant and dog man found a fish idol and smashed it and were struck with a curse. The dogman resisted. Found dead monster body parts so moved on.
I found a small rusty oil rig and docked it. The nameless man started sneaking up central stairwell of the structure to the platform level. Others hung back with missiles while the dogman climbed a ladder. River pirate archers came down stirs and started shooting after accidental metallic clanking from party. Party pushed back and pushed through to the platform. The dogman who reached the top and blindsided the gang and attacked their leader. A few pirates after some horrific bloody dismemberment jumped overboard and one escaped. The leader also dived in and got away swearing revenge.
Found some nice treasure and ledgers indicating the river pirate clan a menace on the two southbound rivers were trading with slavers and alchemists guilds. They had held slaves here and the rig was pumping up demon ichor by the barrel. The party considered bringing looters here and destroying the place. Theorised about pumping holy water back down.
Continued and saw a distant monster then into the stream from the Chagrinspire platuau the source of all the quite pure water. Found the marsh folk village and swapped gifts. They spoke of a bulwark of human traders 50 years ago burned by other humans where all the lake folk traded. The druid offered to help party meet friendly fish and frog folk. The fish folk shrine was a ruin from ancient Exilon six thousand years ago. They worshipped the primordial water dragon and the celestial dracomarchy. The heard about the fish folk Bulwark where all the region fish folk trade. The got some magic water weed that lets you breathe water from the fish who want human bread in return for water weed and fish.
The frog folk seemed simpler and seemed ignorant but showed their sophisticated numeracy with money. The frog folk are clearly selling their magic grog and pipeweed and cultivating huge quantities. Frogs bred bugs and wanted food to grow bugs. Mentioned there was a Dimetrodon pack they wanted gone and a turnip shrine purified and offered magic items as rewards.
First they killed a mud hog and the man with no name filled it with all his cast iron grenades and incendiary bombs. Made a long fuse and party waited for the monsters. The blast killed and frightened all the younger ones and a few medium ones also fled badly hurt. The party finished the largests three and took their skins and the frog folk had a feast. The frogs offer drugs, bugs for metal tools also.
The frog folk were concerned they had offended Bogrump the Terrible Turnip god. The hoped human-looking people could appease the shrine and let local people grow turnips again which the bugs liked. The stinkroot substitute was just a poorer crop nobody liked.
The stone turnip shrine was full of tiny turnip headed kobolds, servitors of the shrine bu their heads were worm-infested by the worm god. They slew the critters and saw a glimpse of Bugrump and light inside. Found three glorious giant turnips Bogrump had left them.
Having set up trade with marsh folk, frog folk and fish folk the party rowed home buy raft. Brought back the swamp chief's son to teach coneo building in return for turnip care. Saw a small sailing boat berthed where they saw a canal barge beforeso went to look closer. A guy in the river pirate garb hailed them assuming the party mercenaries or criminals. He explained he was actually a slaver and the namelass man ran him through instantly. The party took the 20 foot sailing boat too.
Back at Flatspur ferry the heroes returned. The scavengers guild with the three boat women looted the ichor drilling platform taking the buildings from the platform. Nobody knows how to sail, only the women know how to swim and are fighters. The heroes fort top soldiers got dimetradon armour instead of their deserter army uniforms.
They planted one turnip near the party fort. The wild power of the turnip god are best kept unwalled. The turnip grew and dancing peasants arrived dancing and playing bagpipes. They carved the giant turnip into a shrine then passed out. They were from a religious estate in the south and unsure why here but accepted they were chosen by the turnip god. So the party colony has some real farmers and one has been anointed as a turnip priest. Some of the party tempted to make turnip god oaths as fertility and peasant vengeance they can support.
I guess when the party cleric player returns to play, they will be surprised.
Most of this is from random tables from Chagrinspire here, vol 1-3 and my salty seaman book of marine tables. All the turnip stuff appears in the Petty Gods book.
Numerous party members considering swim skills or marine skills now. Several plan to change their classes. The dog man wants to be a druid. The nameless man is interested in mutations, especially as he now wears a magic mutant scavenger suit. This player previously had a thief become a mutant centaur that budded off clone offspring constantly.
Outpost Notes
Party Includes
The man with no name a mysterious thief from shadelport and boss of the outpost in the name of the scavengers guild with Rat Sonja the rat lady and posh Chrysopasia a gang lady followers
Priest of Light with two followers from Southern church
A dog man
A sky giant youth with his jester
Outpost Population
Robert Gulp the porter/gatekeeper with chainmail, maul, backpack and a weird 360 degree vision globe helmet. A big farmer now a fighter.
Balzac the baby flesh golem they hope to reform
Dozen remaining older youths learning trades
(youngest now 8 adopted in the Flatspur, 4 went to templar seminary down Sth)
Help loot ruins with kinder more protective supervision
9 auxiliary spearmen (deserters from the empire) led by karl in dimetrodon armour
3 bandit archers who surrendered early
3 gladiators (warrior 1) in dimetrodon armour +4AC
Sticky Stabhands - has knife hands, now kids help him and smith made non lethal hands
Clancy the woodsman - grim silent stoic outdoorsman
Kaligra the strangler (former circus wrestler and strongman and tattoo artist, loves body oil and his moustache)
4 Abhumans (cultural humans currently)
Barry the ram man (shepherd with staff skill)
Peggy the goat girl (farm girl with clubs)
Tonya the rabbit lady (herbalist with sickle has hatred of dogs)
Egbert the ape man (very angry with axe is learning to frenzy)
12 liberated slaves
-baker and three assistants
-weapon smith, armourer and two assistants
-leather crafter making armour
12 Scavengers from the guild
7 serfs from the south now turnip cultists
-led by a 1st lv priest and a 1st lv bard with bagpipes
Borris Vanderpump - merchant (rogue 1) uses outpost as base
Fanby Klungus - merchant adventurer (rogue 1 warrior 1) runs the store
Jasper Hoop (rogue 1) was going to betray the party but decided to hang around, has been working with Borris and spying on other settlements.
Stores
1000 ration packs a month from trade with undead allied soldiers
1 months worth of gruel and army biscuits
three days of flour and bread making supplies
several good wells
Lots of pots, pans, tools, building materials, chains
Building supplies
Armoury
23 suits of leather armour
12 shortbows
200 arrows
7x shots of the mortar on the tower
Treasury
slavers payroll chest of 3000 silver and 200 gold in chest
20gp ring
bone flute
plush demon doll
goat costume
100gp incence
medal and ribbon 30gp
1586gp in a sack
500gp in a sack
1159gp in a sack
6cp 7sp loose coins in jar
gold rat 25gp
globe puzzle 100gp
rat form potion one hour
4 potions of waterbreathing
resist lightning blue potion
cure disease potion orange
ring cast light per day
Library
ledgers of the bandits dealing with slavers including warehousing prisoners
ledgers of river pirates dealings with slavers and alchemists
wizard's surgical notes on making abhumans
observations of a druid using of yellow musk creepers
ancient treasure map 30gp
manual of miasmas - how to modify the weather with a mortar
worm cult book
astrological chart 30gp
cursed porn book
------------------
I'm very happy with how the hex crawls around the mountain has gone and explorers making trade and new routes in the campaign. Their aiding local settlements and new colonies has changed the region of their first hex.
Not rellied on villains much.
There is the worm cult and one 5th lv river pirate thief who have a grudge and alive. They know they were surveilled by the black sphere and backed off. Aware the mountain has some active areas and that the golem factory Balzac came from is enormous and growing an army of them is being made and possibly shipped to locations.
Players started with a rumour, and some are interested in finding out if the Spire is active, a threat, or just a 16km high treasure dungeon.
Players picked up on threads of ancient technology and propaganda like archaeologists to develop a view of the past.
By Lv 3 the party had own domain and occasionally issues around their home base.
Other ambivalent factions the party has worked for but don't trust exist and are seen as possible tools and possible threats.
They trade with undead soldiers (cursed to be undying until they win the apocalypse war that fizzled out a thousand years ago). Frog and fish people come in good and evil types and are tradable, so I can imagine players learning their languages. They claim to have destroyed the function of the sphere and to have infiltrated its inner workings by aquatic tunnels. The kobolds claim the tower belongs to them and that they built it so it's theirs.
So no heavy-handed plots and players driving a loaded sandbox.
Exploration, discoveries and events have driven more.
Prepping with some tables and encounters running quite smooth.
They are aware of the coastal civilised kingdoms and none stand out as wonderful choices.
Maybe need some doom tracks to set some events into escalating.
As I'm running this and players are interested in high-level play this might last a while but we chose to use slow progress rules for level gain making it ever slower to improve or requiring significant campaign-affecting deeds. So I can see plenty of content for a while.
Players' stuff like classes are slower projects.
At some point maybe Vol 4 I will work on a revision of all of them. But I also want my homebrew book done by then too. I need hardcopies of my books. Too many huge PDFs having problems. My sea book has been used recently.
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