RiftWalker Luminvale Campaign Overview & Thoughts (5-8)
The campaign is back! After a long hiatus due to a bunch of life events, we are back playing. Here I wrap up the last few sessions, which eventuated to 2 adventures over 4 sessions. It was amazing to get back into it. It was clear from all the players they had missed it.
Sky Isle fishing: Quell the Grieving Lake
The group was told of an issue to solve through a letter from the Fan-men. After they arrived on one of the many Sky-Isles, they found a Griffon Man (half fox, half eagle) in overalls. The yokel gentleman said he has had a tough time fishing recently not finding any fish. They found out his name was Griff Beanson and his father, daughter and grandfather had the same name, but with different spellings. His daughter had set to travel the isles. The group set off to searching and found a giant angry fish that was in a bad way, scaring the others. They found it was from an artefact under the water driving it mad. It was causing the Songs of Discord to be majorly amplified in this region. Between Socko exploring and mind reading, DJ listening to the sounds, Sally rowing a boat with her zombies and Barnaby exploring and swimming; the group managed to get the artefact and the fish was calmed to swim off. They found out it was one of the Seals they had been searching for.
Downtime:
Sally - learn to make excellent oolong tea as a skill
DJ - learnt of fireworks ad adapting that into their powers
Socko - Has a vision of the Songs of Discord and that his mother might know something of this phenomenon - gained a boon for the next session (random event)
Barnaby - learn of the Seal - the Badge of the Sky Warden
Prep takes all forms. This is the initial idea sketch of my session outline, before fleshing it out.
Find the Missing Shipments of Shed 43 (P1)
After a quick check in with Dora the giant, he group arrived in Marron Town, the home of Barnaby. They explored the pier and found all sorts of wonders. A Soothsayer read the demise of all the RWs to Socko; a fight was stopped between two hungry thugs trying to feed their family by Barnaby; DJ made an excellent playlist and found out some secret intelligence; Sally found herself a large rugged man servant for an hour. They had met with Dockmaster Shaggs to learn of shipments of spices going missing on the pier and not being delivered to the right sheds, late in the night. Before setting off, the group met at the Dropped Anchor bar to meet up with the hostess Jolene (Barnaby’s old romance). They had found out that Barbaric Boris, a larger than life local thug had been bullying the establishment and the people of the town, after a brief stand off, they agreed to fight on the Saturday night, to settle it once and for all. They staked out the shed of the missing shipments to find out some skeletons had been stealing them. After some mind reading and control over the undead, they found out that the Soothsayer was practicing dread magic. A fight began to break out, which is where the group left it for the night….
Find the Missing Shipments of Shed 43 (P2)
Picking up where we left off, a fight with the skeletons began, DJ and Barnaby held the ones outside at bay, while Socko and Sally learnt what they could of the magic from the controlled skeletons. Once the Dreadcaller (Soothsayer) showed herself, the real fight broke out. After some near misses, the group eventually took her and her skeletons down. Some reduction in ability, some damage and some beatdowns happened for sure. Barnaby taking point in the fight to protect his home town. They found out she was using it for her rituals to learn deeper magics. Sally convinced her to come back with them to Gearstone Circle to learn magic in return for learning how to be a “boss bitch”. The group then went to the Dropped Anchor to prepare for the fight of the centuary….
Beanson Bombastic Beatdown of Barbaric Boris
Prior to the fight, Barnaby got some good luck prep from Socko through the form of magic and DJ in the form of assistance. Sally had prepared a ring girl costume for the fight. Boris entered the ring with his 2 cronies off to the side. As the fight started it was clear that Barnaby had the upper hand, in his prowess in the boxing ring. Even when Boris was slagging him out and trying to be cheap in his attacks, Barnaby was the victor in the end. The mightiest of boxers in all of the Plunder Coast! In the confusion, the cronies tried to take down Jolene. With the assistance of DJ and Sally, Socko was able to capture one of the cronies in a mind control, which was significant as that was the first time he had used that power since the accident that turned him into what he is. While the others assisted, Barnaby beat down the other crony and saved Jolene, ending in a passionate moment of love between the two of them. In his generosity, he set up a homestead for Boris out of the town in a d remote village beneath the nearby mountain. He had to let Jolene go for now to continue his quest to reunite the kingdoms of Luminvale.
The group picked up a group power as their Renown grew!
Downtime:
Sally - learning of dread magic with the Dread Caller - to
DJ -
Socko -
Barnaby - checks in on Boris and learns of a new legend: a giant sea beast who is avenging the caves of the Plunder Coast
Campaign Thoughts
It has been a while between these and session 4. That was clear in the players and myself having forgotten rules. It is hard to keep up with versioning of the rules, as I am working on v0.4 as we write this, taking on tweaks and thoughts of the players. I have seen an issue so far that the combat encounters are not difficult enough. It is a balancing act between not wanting them to go on too long, and them being enjoyable. I know I will need to start having monsters have a difficulty rating again, to attempt to fix this. I am excited to try out the complex framework in another encounter type, other than combat, but have not had the chance to yet. I feel like after the break, I lost my rhythm with prep, but feel like I am into it again now, as it is regular once more. There is also the difficulty of the game master, in knowing a “meta plot” but not knowing what of the players remember/know of it and if they even care. Haha, I will have to remind myself that in these times, it is best to just straight out ask the players.
