Sessions 5 Recap

 We began the session 5 as the party is meeting with the Fellowship leaders, devising a plan to take down Rolnar Ironjaw once and for all. Here is what they know; the Ironjaw raiders are magically juicing and creating super soldiers, they have a way point on the main road south out of trade town and taxing everyone who comes by for "protection", and they have a keep on the side of a mountain. So the party decided to attack the way point and cut off their main source of funds.

This part of the mission went off without a hitch. They Trojan Horsed some guys in the back of a cart, blasted the way point leader away and broke the morale of many soldiers. One surrendered and told them that Rolnar has an evil mage, Taznak the Vile, who speaks the tongue of demon-binding and has been doing all of the super soldier experiments. 

Back in Tradetown,Yosper the druid, told the party of the Silent People (anyone who has read Fred Saberhagen's Empire of the East should be familiar with these guys!). They are huge friendly feathered people who are friends of the Fellowship and mortal enemies of the Leather Wings. The Silent People only come out at night, when the Leather Wings are sleeping. He also gave them a little flute and taught them the summoning tune. 

Given the general direction they headed out to meet the Silent People in the hopes of getting some aerial support or at least recon. After a short trek into the mountains nearby they came across two 6-ft tall owls, Strijeef and Feathertip. They said any friend of Yosper is a friend of theirs. The party asked if they would do a fly over and gather some intel for them, so each with a party member in their claws, they flew them over the castle in the mountains to see what was going on with the Ironjaw raiders. 

As they got closer they saw a three level keep jutting out from the side of the mountain with some 2000 ft drop below. (It would take about 11 seconds to splat. We had to do the math, it'll come in handy later). They flew around the upper levels, looking in windows to see what they could find. In the 3rd level of the main part of the keep they saw a hulking blue skinned bald headed man with an iron jaw sharpening his bone axe. Rolnar. Rightfully spooked, they kept flying around and went to the 3rd level of the castle's spire and found a similarly blue skinned man but this was dressed in Mage's attire and experimenting on a poor stranger. 

They landed on the roof of the 2nd level and peering in the window cast mage hand and knocked on the window to get his attention. The mage summoned a demon to go open the window and with the opportunity afoot the party's wizard cast sleep. He failed his save! (Turns out these Thool are immune, but we didn't realize that until a few rounds later.), the party jumped in and grabbed him, hoping to throw him off the side of the keep. However, he succeeded his second save (2025 5e sleep is weird). He immediately Misty Stepped out of the room and onto the second floor roof, then cast Fireball. (The party is 2 3rd level characters. This is a CR 6 Mage. Oops!). They wiped. But thank the gods for Relentless Endurance and the Orc having Lay on Hands. They are back!!

The wizard cast Gust of Wind hoping to knock the mage off the side. He succeeded his save. The paladin jumped out the window and tackled the mage off the side! They are both in free fall. The wizard jumped after them, Feather Fall ready to go. The mage then Misty Stepped out of his grip and cast Fly. Our wizard immediately cast Feather Fall so the party wouldn't splat. Then cast a 2nd level Magic Missile, knocking the concentration away causing the Mage's fly to fail! He also was plummeting! They did it!!! Plummeting, just as the party was in range, mid air, the mage cast his last Fireball. They in fact, did not do it. TPK.

 

Session 4 Recap

 As the session begins, the technomancer Lagren Tung and the party devise a plan to save his friend who had been captured by the Ironjaw raiders. They wait until nightfall and notice that the raiders aren't really on high alert. While waiting, the party hears gusts of wind but doesn't feel anything, spooky. Eventually they deduce that there are a group of elementals playing pranks on them. The elementals are harmless and attempt to communicate that they are bound here and need help. The party tells them they will help, or at least mimes it. 

They sneak up to the camp, lure one of them out with a minor illusion and knock him out in one fell swoop. When they sneak into the camp they see their dwarven friend Tolbrek was actually Stone Shaped to a rock instead of chained with cuffs. Big uh oh. The guards become alert and a fight breaks out! Mid fight, the druid raider realizes what the party is after and seeing that his friends are on their last leg, he goes over to the prisoner and stone shapes again, completely encasing him in stone. Even bigger uh oh. 

The raiders were taken care of and with a crowbar, a natural 20 and a dream the paladin breaks the prison's head free of stone, no longer in danger of suffocation. Upon further investigation it seems that the raiders were filtering the toxic sludge and getting a refined magical essence that can be used to power magic items (oh yeah the paladin picked up a magic cannon).

Throughout the night the party continued to investigate the area and found a tunnel that brought them underground and ended up at a shrine deep under the wreckage. Lagren recognized this shrine as a shrine to Barbarsus, his ancestor and member of the MAN, and also founder of the Arcanotech Cabal. After some rummaging around the party stirred the guardian of this shrine, and Iron Golem! Even bigger uh oh. After a few rounds of futile combat the party uses their heads and has Lagren call out to the Iron Golem "By the power of my bloodline, halt!" and to the surprise of everyone, it does so! They even get the Iron Golem to release it's core, freeing the air elementals that were bound to the ship. They learned that the ship actually enslaved elementals and used them as a source of power. They also learned that the Arcanotech Cabal still does this, but they use Demons instead. 

They got what they came for, but they still wanted to take down that Magicore. They set a trap by piling up the Ironjaw raider's bodies as a feast when the Magicore comes out for its next sacrifice. They got the jump on it and after a tense battle (only tense because we forgot about Relentless Endurance for our Orc), they took down the Magicore, got some cool magic items and head back to town with all this new information.

Next they plan on gathering allies and taking the fight to Rolnar Ironjaw himself. 

Faction Tracking

 Factions play a big part in my current campaign and no supplement I have come across has handled factions in an entirely satisfying way, so naturally, I attempted to make a system to fit my needs. Here is what I have come up with. It is important to note that my campaign only has 2-4 players, depending on the night, so they frequently have an NPC tag along to fill out whatever the party is missing.

Favor - Each NPC has a Favor score that increases as the characters do things that they like, or decreases as the characters do things they dislike. The party's actions must directly affect/interact with the NPC to alter their Favor. If the party does something that the entire faction that the NPC belongs to would like, it doesn't change every NPC that belongs to that faction's Favor score, this would be inflationary. Also, if the NPC isn't around or isn't aware of their actions, the NPC's Favor score doesn't change. Every NPC's Favor score starts at 0.

 Renown - Each faction has a Renown score equal to the sum of the Favor scores of each NPC that belongs to that faction. If the party does things that do not directly involve a member of a faction, this could still alter the faction's Renown score, if any only if members of that faction catch word of the party's actions. Remember that these factions consist of real people who exist in these fantasy worlds and are not all-knowing.

 Both Favor and Renown could be used to adjust Morale or Reaction rolls, if your system uses them. 

 Example: If the party is questing with Joe, a member of the King's Guard, and they help a lowly citizen handle some goblins that are harassing their farm, then Bob's Favor would increase by 1, thus increasing the Renown score of the King's Guard by 1. However, just about every member of the King's Guard would appreciate this. Even though that is the case, don't increase every NPC the party knows's Favor by 1. 

However, let's say later in the party's adventures they need to smuggle in some goods under the noses of the King's Guard. If the party doesn't get caught, their Renown does not decrease. If they do, then you would keep track of a modifier for the Renown score separate from the sum of the individual NPC's Favor scores, unless you think that it would adjust the Favor of one of the NPCs. Maybe in this case it decreases the Favor of the captain of the guard because word got back to them. 

 

You can tie rewards to levels of Favor/Renown as well. Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica does this. This is entirely up to the discretion of the Game Master. Here is a suggestion.

Renown 1: Faction members are generally amenable to you. They are also more likely to tell you secrets/rumors.

Renown 3: You get a faction insignia that comes with benefits and drawbacks depending on who you are dealing with. People outside the faction begin to recognize you as allying with them.

Renown 5: You gain access to information channels/quests/rumors/NPCs that you would otherwise not. Maybe this is weapon stores, spell scrolls, and important favors you can cash in. 

 

 I have made a spreadsheet to help track all of the factions for a campaign and included an example faction. Make sure to copy the spreadsheet into your own Drive so you can edit it and make it your own! The Faction names at the top of each of the six charts will auto-populate with whatever you type in each cell in the Faction List column. Also, the Renown scores are auto-calculating. Make sure to include a negative if a general party action decreases a faction's Renown.

 

  Link to Google Sheets

Session 3 Recap

 This week was a shorter session due to a little bit of Magic the Gathering beforehand. However, the party arose from the ruins of the spell battery recharging station and made their way over to the amphitheater with the statues. The party noticed that a few of the items they recovered from the dungeon matched a few of the items that the statues were holding, however nothing happened when they brought the item to the statues. They determined that maybe they needed all seven before they could unlock anything there.

It was an easy journey back to town. They handed the spell batteries back over to the Residential Distribution Center and their four firenewt friends; Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin, stayed there as well to help out where they can. The party made their way back to the Fellowship HQ where they talked to the old druid and filled him in on everything that transpired. 

 They learned of a faction called the Arcanotech Cabal that might be more help with information about MAN artifacts and lore, and that a member of the faction, a card playing tiefling frequents the Hanging Sun Inn. The old druid told them about how their scouts have seen a camp of Ironjaw raiders to the west at the toxic alchemical sump, and he suspects something fishy is going on there and asks if they would investigate, which they accept.

 Next, the party made their way over to the Hanging Sun Inn in search of this NPC. The Hanging Sun is a typical old western saloon with the swinging doors, out of tune piano, gambling and rough crowd. They gather some rumors and find out that a few dozen patrons owe this swindling tiefling a debt. Her name is Fourthwind and she is going to be back in five days ready to collect. Sajin then asks about the Ironjaw raiders, and the barkeep quiets him down telling him not to mention that name and points over to a handful of them across the bar. Sajin gets an idea, he heads over to the other end of the inn and begins to ruffle through his bag to disguise a minor illusion spell. He projects a voice over a table of patron playing cards near the raiders at the bar saying "Those Ironjaw Raiders are pieces of shit." 

At that point, a table full of the raiders stands up and the largest of the bunch, a half ogre standing what must be 7'-6" tall, walks over, grabs one of the innocent bystanders who he thought said it by the head and starts an all out brawl. The bar empties quickly as the raiders beat these poor fools to a pulp. The barkeep intervenes, the raiders make their peace and leave and the party steps in to heal them.

The barkeep tells them this happens daily, and its really annoying. Actually, she remembers seeing that same huge half ogre looking guy when he first starting coming here some six months ago no bigger than our orc party member. Something is up. With all this information and a friend from the Fellowship, Shade, in tow, they head out to the toxic alchemical sump, about a days journey west. 

Upon arriving, they see a camp of none other than the Ironjaw raiders who seem to be pumping the toxic waste out of the fetid pools that cover the ground here.

 

 They also notice someone who is injured on the other side of the place, so they head over there to give them a hand. They learn that this NPC is a member of the Arcanotech Cabal and is actually here to recover an artifact from the crashed MAN airship that caused all of this toxic waste. They get him to safety and heal him when he points back over to the sump and tells them to watch. He explains that every day at noon a horrible beast appears and demands sacrifice. The group of raiders has dwindled down from twenty or so down to just seven. As he is explaining this, a giant four legged, fleshy winged beast with a wide toothy maw steps down from his cave and begins to make his prowling approach towards the raiders camp where the party sees them drawing straws. The unlucky raider approaches the beast and gets snapped in half and the beast says "That will do, for now." and heads back into its lair.

 With that, the clock stuck 9:00 and we wrapped up for the night!