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The Broken Tower scenario - a retrospective


jajagappa

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The Broken Tower - a retrospective/review from play

!!Spoiler Alert!! - stop now if you are planning to play it later. :)

A little later in the review cycle than most, but that's what happens when stretched out via the PbF format (~3 months - consistent with my usual "sessions").  I'm primarily focusing here on the scenario, not the new RQG rules, but both I and my players enjoyed the rules and thought they worked well.  The inclusion of Runes, Passions, augments all worked.  That you could even run a Spirit Combat was great.  That combat on the whole did not take forever to run was great.  And despite being 20 years distant from the last time I GM'd RQ, it was relatively easy to pick back up and to teach via the Quickstart rules.

Overall I enjoyed running the scenario.  It was easy to get the pre-gen characters into the flow of the scenario and the premise of rescuing the clan's cattle.  We started with four players and they chose to run as:  Vasana, Yanioth, Harmast, and Sorala (who became Sorola).  Lost the player running Vasana about a 1/3 of the way in, so she became an NPC at that point (and generally following the lead of the others).  3 active PC's proved workable for the scenario.

The only thing that bugged me at this point was the opening indicating that they would have been on the road for "days".  If they were coming from near Clearwine and going to the end of the Starfire Ridges in early Fireseason, that clearly would not be the case - a simple review of map distance and movement rates shows that .  I had to adjust that to be "the better part of a day". 

Interestingly, the players stuck with their goal to track down the cattle and avoided getting side-tracked.  That meant that the whole episode with Carthalo got skipped.  They saw him, but concluded it was not worth pursuing him.  The PC's never learned from him or the ghost as to what happened.  All they knew was that a Greydog raider had her throat cut.  They did the proper thing, though, following the lead of the Ernalda priestess - they buried the body.

Moving into the hillier Badlands, they heard the distressed bull and came to its rescue from the rock lizards.  Nice to actually get to battle those beasts after all these years!  This was a good intro to the combat system and the use of augments and spirit magic.  About half the rock lizards were slain or dazed with Befuddle (whether or not Befuddle should work on them or not is another question, but it seemed to fit and I didn't see a reason to disqualify its use here).  The rest were driven off and retreated into the scrubland.  The party utilized spirit magic healing to restore those injured in the fight.  And Yanioth used her Meditation to restore some of the lost MP's.

It was then that we discovered that the pre-gens had no one with a reasonable Herd ability.  If you're really sending a party out to recover some 50-60 of the clan's cattle, you're going to send out someone or an alynx with herding skills.  This could have been addressed in the scenario with an upfront note, or by including a follower with one of the PC's (much like Vasana had a 'follower' in her bison).  Finally got someone to get a successful Herd roll here.  The issue came up again towards the end of the scenario - Vasana ended up calling upon Orlanth via her Air Rune to inspire her.  With that +20% augment, she actually succeeded in enough Herd rolls to get the cattle away from the Broken Tower.

As they approached the Broken Tower, they again stuck to the road, and did not get sidetracked by the broken menhirs.  Leaving riding beasts (and the rescued bull) behind in a nearby grove, they made their way in via a broken wall.  At this point they first encountered Varanik who threw stones at them, but eventually ran off into the ruins.  Varanik is probably the weak point in the scenario.  He's in the ruins, he's been driven mad, but given he's supposed to fear Idrima, why does he not flee the place?  And what's he really trying to achieve by harassing the PC's?  I had him come back and bug the PC's at a couple points, but in the end he was left to his own devices in the ruins having fled from a couple PC's once again.  They did not pursue or try to "cure" him.  

Following the sounds of cattle, the PC's made their way to the plaza beside the Broken Tower.  Several sprul-pa rose up.  But it didn't seem like a point for them to attack.  Instead, I had a dream-weft appear and encourage them to follow and enter into the Broken Tower.  They did.  And there they beheld the charnal scene.  And Idrima spoke to them.  In fact, Idrima enthralled Vasana.  And that's when everything broke loose.  Yanioth used Inviolate to save Vasana.  Danakos leapt from hiding to destroy the interlopers in his relationship with Idrima.  Harmast, inspired by his Hatred of the Greydogs, slew Danakos.  Yanioth used Befuddle again to hold off the sprul-pa (again I might have disallowed this, but given their 'independence' from Idrima, it seemed appropriate for an Earth priestess to be able to confuse Earth creatures).  With Danakos dead, Idrima advanced and the PC's fought her.  (I thought for a bit that Yanioth might have tried to bargain with Idrima.  The player really thought about summoning an Earth elemental to fight Idrima, but did not end up doing so - it was a question asked after the scenario was done as to what would have happened.  I noted that Idrima would have turned the elemental against them if she had.)  Sorola was nearly crushed to death in Idrima's grasp - brought to 0 HP in the chest.  But blows by both Yanioth and Harmast, toppled Idrima, and they were able to free/heal Sorola while Idrima discorporated into the Earth, escaping her own possible demise.

With Idrima put to the earth, they departed the Broken Tower and freed their cattle.  Again, it was an effort to get an effective Herd roll, though Vasana eventually succeeded.  While Vasana led the cattle off, with Harmast's help, Varanik attacked Sorola.  She went off in pursuit of Varanik, and then Yanioth went off in pursuit of Sorola.  There was a brief standoff between Sorola and Varanik, but with Yanioth's arrival Varanik fled.  This was one of the points where it wasn't clear what really should happen with Varanik.  So, he's still in the ruins and likely to become Idrima's eventual pawn.

But, that wasn't quite the end of things.  Though Idrima had discorporated, it seemed reasonable to have her send her dream-wefts off after those who were still near the ruins in an attempt to possess them and bring them back to Idrima.  So, it was a good opportunity to try out the Spirit Combat rules.  Harmast and Yanioth defeated their spirits, particularly with some Runic inspiration, but Sorola struggled against hers and was down to 5MP when she finally called upon Lhankor Mhy for inspiration.  It worked and she, too, was able at last to put the spirit to rest.

An uneventful return to the clan lands, and they received their rewards for their efforts.

The play-aids were good.  Events were well-sequenced.  As noted, a few loose ends or bits that weren't as well-defined, but easy enough to work through.  And certainly a good opportunity to try out many of the new RQG features - will definitely run more RQG!

Overall grade:  A-

 

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1 hour ago, David Scott said:

Thanks for the retrospective. I played in a game of it on Free RPG day. I enjoyed it as well.

It was a nice showcase for the new rules while being a fun scenario.  

Beyond just classic RQ combat and spirit magic, there were opportunities to use augments, Passions, Runes, rune magic, and try spirit combat.  My three favorite new features are:  inspiration from Runes/Passions, Rune Points, and the Spirit Combat ability.  The duel between the pre-gen Harmast and the crazed Greydog, Danakos, was the most memorable fight, partially because Harmast invoked his Hate(Greydogs) and it led him to show no mercy in the fight.  The flexibility with Rune Points was really useful, whether for Yanioth to cast Inviolable and effectively restore balance vs. Idrima, or the party to put up Spirit Block vs. the dream-wefts and keep the spirits at bay.  And to actually have an ability for the average PC to fight spirits means you don't end up with spirit encounters that are impossible for PC's to overcome.

There's certainly opportunity to plug this scenario into an ongoing campaign and have it generate some good lingering plot twists.  It could easily fit into the SKoH campaign of Orlmarth vs. Greydog.  Going back to the old TotRM issues depicting the Greydog clan, I find that Danakos fits as a cousin to Branduan so easy to have him make the cattle raid as part of Branduan's retribution vs. the clan.  What happens then when Danakos is killed, as is likely?  Will the Greydogs seek blood vengeance?  

Various options are possible with Idrima too.  Does she survive?  Has she been left as an ally or enemy of the clan?  Does the Broken Tower become a home for bandits?  You might easily transpose the old Borderlands scenario Jezra's Rescue here with the Tusk Riders feeding blood sacrifices to Idrima in return for her aid.  Or perhaps Idrima is a link to the old Earth powers destroyed by Venebain and his demons?  Could she be employed to bury the Cinder Pits forever?  Or could she reveal other older Earth palaces beneath the Starfire Ridges?

So good standalone adventure with plenty of additional plot hooks.

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On 27/10/2017 at 11:35 PM, jajagappa said:

Harmast and Yanioth defeated their spirits, particularly with some Runic inspiration, but Sorola struggled against hers and was down to 5MP when she finally called upon Lhankor Mhy for inspiration. 

How did you referee this?

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5 hours ago, GianniVacca said:

How did you referee this?

Since Spirit Combat is a skill, it can be augmented like any other skill by the Runes and Passions.

In this case, the player invoked Sorola's Devotion (Lhankor Mhy), praying for guidance from the God of Knowledge to help drive back the spirit.  The Passion roll succeeded, inspiring Sorola, so gave a +20% augment to the subsequent Spirit Combat rolls.  Which proved enough to finally defeat and dissipate the dream-weft.  Not unlike a Divine Intervention, I suppose, but I'm finding the passions and runes interesting in game play.

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Speaking of the Spirit Combat, one of the aspects I had to decide from the GM perspective was how to handle Idrima's approach to the PC's.  It was not the same as Danakos' approach.  Based on the scenario text, I played Danakos as the crazed cultist.  He had been enthralled by Idrima and his goal was to feed sacrifices to her to see her glorious return to the world.

But the text noted that Idrima was somewhat indifferent to Danakos - she could just as easily get someone else.  So her approach was initially to try to lure the PC's into the Broken Tower, and then Enthrall them.  But Yanioth put a stop to that, and then Harmast killed Danakos.  Idrima attacked at that point, but Yanioth and Harmast proved able to take her down, and survived her Earthquake Stomp (even though she was prone).  Potentially, Idrima could have kept attacking at that point, but I figured that her natural survival instinct would be to retreat into the Earth, so she Discorporated, to sit and wait for a better chance at action and revenge.

So the final Spirit Combat came out of that.  I thought she'd likely try to see what the PC's were up to, and potentially take possession of them unexpectedly.  So she used some of her remaining power to spin 3 dream-wefts to pursue them, and caught them just before they were about to retrieve their mounts.   Though not overly powerful (POW 10, and Spirit Combat at 50%), that proved challenging for the PC's, even with all using last Rune Points to put up Spirit Blocks (and I really liked that the Rune Points allow the flexibility to invoke these common rune magics!). 

Though the dream-wefts were driven off/dissipated, the players clearly liked the mystery of the Broken Tower and were left wondering whether they could/should investigate further.  And I like having Idrima remain for a longer campaign seeking her own revenge (not to mention the Greydogs seeking to avenge the death of Danakos).

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