Troika! x Barkeep on Borderlands sesh 5
Currently I'm playing with my group a short campaign of Barkeep on Borderlands with Troika! My three-eager-to-play are Witch (ancient undead parchment witch), Assassin (journeyman of guild of sharp corners) and Necromancer (just that). Check pregame and part one and two and three and four
Too Short of a Tower 17:10
Cyclops stood up. Seeing Witch snooping in his stuff and Assassin taking his candle just told them "Burglars get out". They almost jumped, started calming him down, saying they didn't do anything and all sorts of stuff. Assassin threw him pack of cigarettes as a gift. They got really terrified.
After a bit of dialog they got some information from cyclops - that this is a wizard tower, that wizard is doing some animal/magical creature magic (Witch immediately smelled an opportunity to find an ingredient for the antidote) and that he won't be glad they visit him, unannounced and basically after breaking in. Now they got really scared, said goodbye and left him to his serving duties.
Interesting when they learned cyclops is bound to work for the wizard as a servant they didn't even mentioned intervening. It is wondrous to me seeing their reactions and watching what they'll pick up and what they'll dismissal as a potential quest. Although I think these characters grow up to be real assholes.
The group went upstairs and checked the door. No pursuers. They opened the door (oiling the hinges and stuff) and sneaked around. I told them they can be seen from any point of the altar room because they carry a lantern. So Witch stopped in the middle of the corridor. Necromancer went back to pick up carcass crawler chest. Assassin checked out the room and seen no one.
Bloody Mess Beside Altar 17:30
The moment Assassin's head peeked from the tunnel onto red illuminated room a stone hurled through the air and missed. Then the next one. Assassin came out, running to the tunnel to empty room leading to exit from catacombs. At that moment Yongardian guard and prosecutor came out from behind the statue, crossed Assassins path and started fighting.
In order to scare them Witch spent her precious stamina on turning into a cannon. Despite my sincere advice it won't work the player still decided to do it. And it didn't work, no one felt intimidated by empty cannon without operator. Necromancer couldn't decide whether to run with the chest or go carefully.
After some hard hits Assassin badly wounded both enemies - it helped they both had only knives to fight against his sword. Witch cast her spell to hit guard non-lethally with a cane1 and he fell down. Prosecutor ran away seeing that Witch and Necromancer finally moved in.
The group talked a bit what to do with the guard, they put manacles on him and wondered where to put him. On the altar? Chained to the statue? Considering the amount of blood spilled around fortunately Assassin told Witch to just put him in a corner. I was ready to awake the demon if the "sacrifice" was placed on the altar.
Second Mess 17:40
Then from the end of the tunnel came two Yongardians in full barrister equipment - one with giant shield and hammer, other in heavy armour and longsword. They left their lantern in an empty room so the tunnel would be illuminated at least a little. When they were close to demon room Necromancer opened a chest with the crawler and thanks to their luck it started attacking Yongardians. A fight started. The group debated a moment what to do, how to go around combatants and then Witch threw "Wizard, fireball them!" and so wizard NPC took out his wand and fireballed.
Prosecutor went down even though he had a heavy armour - wounds dealt by Assassin earlier were enough. Crawler too. Judge crouched next to his friend and started some first aid, crying.
The team came to the crying man, took his shield and hammer, left him one of the mundane healing potions and went away. When they stumbled upon dead basilisk Necromancer used his zombiefying spell which failed. BUT he had a real trouble coming up with his codependent ghost companion so I offered him this basilisk as his zombie servant instead.
For a second before the group thought about picking out the statue eyes, Necromancer even stepped on an altar but Witch said they don't have enough resources to deal with the curse they'll certainly get from those eyes. Yes they would. These guys know I wouldn't waste this occasion.
Finally Out
When they came out there was chaos. Destruction touched the cult nightclub, cultist running around, one sarcophagus hastily sealed after apparent destruction and a cultist watching it with fear. Some minotaur-like cultist caught them and helped them check out. They haggled some and decided to give up a shield, take cursed fiddle and be even 10% of treasures given. Bull guy wasn't happy but there were more pressing matters. In the end they got 6 gold crowns! Well, in a form of various things but still.
Nightclub was closed due to damages and Church organised a free meal, music and drinks for local people whose homes were affected by mysterious explosion deep in the ground. Hmm what could that be? Then the wizard used one of the last spells in his wand to create a flying carpet on which he took them to Royal Academy. They talked a little about magic, wands, and stuff, wizard filled in documents to get Witch and Necromancer enrolled in the Academy and they'd start their studies after the raves.
Pubcrawl Time 18:00
Most of this session was combat and combat related stuff. My comments are up there so the only thing I want to say here is that Necromancer player really did try weasel his way into running with crawler chest but I said: "either you do it carefully or in this round, you cannot do it both" and he felt kinda sobered, I think.
Also we're finally starting pubcrawl so the sessions and these reports will probably change. Or not, I don't really know what's coming.
I'm not sure if I explained it before but when someone loses all Stamina I interpret it not as sudden death but as being vulnerable to whatever enemy does to you. If they want they can kill you, if they have blunt weapon they may just incapacitate you, usually it is just a random wound. Also Parchment Witch's sword cane to me can be used either as a sword or as a club.↩