Players document their characters' experiences in the Badlands here.
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See The Story So Far for the DMs' session overviews.
Session 1: Kickoff Megagame - New Place, New Identity, and New Dream with an old scar of redemption[edit | edit source]
DM:
NPCs: "The Chairman," Raegina,
Significant events: Himo Nilo has just arrived at the junkyard. It has been months of traveling alone with the hope of improving himself. Sweat constantly drips off his forehead as he is not used to this area. He received a letter from his contact arboretum asking for new hires and who goes by the name, "The Chairman." He left for the Arboretum, has been on the road since, and doesn't know anything. After all, he was given only a description of Raegina, her cohorts, and had no tools. He scraped the money he could and went over to the junkyard putting everything he could on the line just for the security of a little bit of breathing room. He watched Grind,Smash, & Cleave with great intent because he has never seen functioning robots, but sharpened himself when he realized he was fighting them. Attacking the robots, he realized they explode on death. He let instinctual training kick in and just kept throwing his dagger at Grind, Smash then Cleave. Adrenaline still rushing, he learned how to scrap creatures, but not that he was good at it. At least now he could possibly gather parts he needed to jerryrig what he wants. One of his biggest limitations had always been he was never too far when throwing his dagger, so he hopes he can use this to improve his main weapon. When he got the chance to improve Grind, he attempted two things to make it better. The first is he tried to increase the accuracy of the attacks, but as he worked on it, he got really nervous and fumbled with arm, almost removing it entirely. He barely improved it meanwhile Jynx made the saw light ablaze whenever it swung to attack, and Raazdrog managed to add a ranged weapon to it. He did have two really great ideas that both of them liked. The first is he renamed grind to Sparkburn. The second is he built off of Raazdrog's idea to give a voice. Raazdrog gave it "I am fire. I am death." to repeat while fighting enemies. Himo added to that by having it also repeat "Feel the Spark. Feel the Burn!" When Raegina offered a wager for the best bot created, she gave everyone 10 additional GP and Himo bet seven of that ten on Sparkburn, and the other three went to Cleave. Sparkburn ended coming out on top and he made 31 GP out of that and Raazdrog's got 35 GP. Raazdrog's managed to convince Himo to give Stix 10 GP from both of us since they helped improve Sparkburn, to which Himo agreed and almost seemed relieved that Raazdrog's prompted him to do it. When the horn was blasted, Himo immediately got on the war rig and started repairing Sparkburn. When they got to an entrance of the Arboretum the war rig was flipped onto its side by an Oliphaunt. He managed to catch himself landing and immediately tried to help others up but it wasn't enough with his one hand. While fighting Himo climbed on the war rig while it was on its side to get a clear vantage point, and saw the scale of this invastion for the first time.
Session 1: Kickoff Megagame - Trading Route Troubles + Aggression From Above: Koro's Account[edit | edit source]
DM: Amanda
PCs: Pryderi, Silgr Þyrikk, Chanterelle Viscaryn, Davin Dunefoot, Rhogar Dreel, Rimsa Pavdad, Koro, Demir Malchan, Lincoln "Toots" Whiterock, Pearl Dust, Larry
NPCs: Lord Pavan, Swordmaster Krispin, Tradesman Kareek, Stanley the monitor lizard
Significant events: Jeez...this place is insane. I guess the multiple sulfurous explosions originating from Hell Circles should've maybe tipped me off to that, but I figured I could avoid all that craziness if I just did what I've been doing this whole time! Simple job got served up on a silver platter from Duke Solon: escort duty of some goods and traders heading into Fed territory, easy peasy; been doing that type of thing for a while before coming to the Arboretum and never ran into any trouble that couldn't have been solved by standing around and looking tough. I assumed it would be more of the same this time around, just with more company than usual, and certainly better than getting served up as a punching bag against the Scrappers' war machines. It was a fairly sized convoy: couple camel-drawn carts and some horses to carry the lord Pavan and his bodyguard Krispin, the trade envoys at the head of the small group. There was one cart that seemed more important than the others though. Drawn by a large monitor lizard named Stanley, the mystery cargo remained covered by thick tarps at all times, and the driver, Kareek, was not forthcoming about its contents either, despite Pryderi's inquiry. With the last thing that, at the time I thought, would make the job somewhat interesting firmly drowned in secrecy, I decided to settle in for the long haul...but that's when it all went to hell.
Davin, a bow wielding halfling draped in the garb of one experienced in desert living, extended his senses into the distance searching for threats...and pinpointed a group of shadowy figures ahead of us. He was able to ascertain that the figures were no ordinary desert travelers, nor normal animals native to the dunes, and so we decided on a defensive approach. Unloading the carts of the wooden barrels and boxes, we fashioned a rough defensive perimeter of carts and containers, keeping what traders and animals we could within the circle. They were upon us not long after we finished setting up...these...things, they looked like dogs but ones that had been...melted. They flung themselves at us, tearing apart the animals first, but swiftly moving on to the traders if they had an opening. It seemed like they barely felt the impact of our attacks, I'm not convinced they could even feel pain. I was struggling to even hit them with my sword...probably because it was too...uh, short! Yeah, it wasn't a longer blade like the ones I was used to wielding, just the one I was able to steal from back east...yeah that's probably it, probably should've gotten around to replacing it sooner. I saw Pavan's bodyguard, Krispin, struggling to hit with his sword as well. His blade wasn't curved like the ones I preferred, but the length was right, I wondered if there was a way I could get it from him...but that would have to come after the battle. There was a larger hound leading the pack, cloaked in shadow and radiating heat, and it spewed a great beam of lava across Rhogar's body and many of the containers behind him; seemed like it nearly killed him on the spot. Oh, also forgot to mention that Stanley and the cart he was hitched to took off into the desert as soon as the hounds appeared, some help he was! A couple of the other animals got spooked too, but some members from our little troupe were able to round some of them up in the middle of the battle so we wouldn't be stranded if we survived. It was anything but easy, but eventually we were finally able to take out all the hounds. The traders had taken some casualties despite our efforts, but we didn't even have a second to catch our breaths before a flare shot over the horizon from the direction we had come from: the Arboretum was under attack. Pavan told us to forget the goods and to immediately hop on a cart and head back to assist. We did as we were told and were swiftly pulled back towards where we came. (Was able to convince Krispin to trade swords though with Pryderi's assistance, score! Not actually sure if the sword I gave him will serve him well, but I'm certainly happy to be rid of it. Only wish the old man could've been here so I could look him in the eye as I discarded it, good riddance).
Arriving at the Arboretum we saw a nightmare: demons flooding every inch of the place, inside and out. Everywhere you looked you could see a battle; metal hitting metal, claws rending flesh, it was chaos all over...except for one place. Above the very top of the massive tree was seemingly a dark cloud that upon closer inspection, was revealed to actually be a swarm of countless flying demons, seemingly targeting the defenses mounted atop the Arboretum. Pavan urged us to be the ones to rush to meet the swarm and keep them from assisting their grounded allies. My mind immediately told me it was impossible, but for some reason my feet followed after the group. Our druid, Rimsa, ran off to join another part of the battle, and a tiefling named Demir joined up with us during our ascent. At the top, we split up to try and cover more ground, and at the start it seemed like it was going to be alright. A large, feathered demon seemed to be leading its brethren up there, but Silgr was able to send it careening down the side of the tree by somehow freezing it in midair with a flash of one of his runes. He and Rhogar were able to get Pavan and Krispin to one of the ballistae while Chanterelle, Pryderi, Demir, Davin, and I were able to start carving a path towards the double shot ballista...but our success didn't last. The smaller demons would come in waves; they could swoop and slash at us and be repositioned in the air before we could get a swing on them. I found myself wishing for a bow in my hands again, but it seemed even our allies with ranged abilities were being torn up. Even worse, the feathered demon had seemingly broken free of Silgr's rune before it hit the ground and was rapidly ascending back up the side of the tree. One by one we began to get knocked unconscious, I myself would've likely fallen from the tree after a particular claw strike hit me hard if it wasn't for Chanterelle and Pryderi...it wasn't looking good. Additionally, a loud boom rang out from below us, and a violent quake shook the tree. Soon after, the cloud of demons above us began to dissipate, seemingly having completed the objective they came for (which I later learned was the destruction of the Arboretum's magical forge), but it seemed like the ones engaging us were still keen on wiping us out. I'll admit, I wasn't sure how we were going to make it out of there, but then, from the southernmost side of the tree, two literal bears that had scaled the entire height of the Arbotetum, one bearing a lizardfolk in wizard robes on its back, crested the top of the battlements and began laying into the demons. After realizing the new arrivals were on our side, our group was also able to rally and wipe out the demons before they could destroy the two remaining ballistae. The feathered demon appeared briefly, but it too followed its departing brethren away from the Arboretum.
The rest of the day was a blur. I remember bits and pieces of a big speech about the three factions banding together to restore the Arboretum and defend its denizens from the demonic forces that had made themselves known, but my body's aches seemed to distract my mind from fully comprehending it. And while this was a victory, I was left to wonder just what on Quelmar I had gotten myself into...
