Rippers: Chapter 5

It's been a while, but we finally reconvened for a new session of Rippers! +Annette's been busy with work, but particularly wanted to have a game on the weekend of her birthday. +Michael reported in sick, but bravely soldiered on and joined us via Google Hangout to avoid spreading his illness around.

• +Annette plays Gregory Pratchett, an alienist with a gift for physically battling the forces of darkness. His encounter with a werewolf led to the Rippers showing an interest in his talents.
• +Michael plays William Baker, a Professor of Archaeology who uses knowledge as a weapon. On his expeditions across Europe he began uncovering signs of the occult. In Eastern Europe, one of his parties was all but wiped out by a vampire. He was kicked out of Cambridge for publicly airing his views on the supernatural, losing his tenure and his marriage. The Rippers recruited him shortly afterwards.
• James plays Douglas, a mysterious cloaked gadgeteer with a modified crossbow whose fiancée was killed by a werewolf on their wedding day.

Previously, all three Rippers followed Lord Maybrick to his country estate in an attempt to recover the heart of a rare Mesopotamian Mummy. The direct approach failed, so they are attempting to sneak back inside... although at the end of last session, they had just set fire to a carriage and two Mummies in the stable yard.


Given the commotion they have just ignited at the back of the East Wing, the Rippers sneak in the front door. Soon after entering, they hear a gunshot from upstairs - however, their minds are on other matters. Reasoning that the Mummy Heart is probably in a secure location, they head for the West Wing and the library.

They search the library quickly and thoroughly. Douglas finds a secret passage as a neatly-dressed man in a top hat runs past clutching something. Pratchett and Baker pursue him, also hearing booted feet coming from the same direction as their quarry, while Douglas investigates the passage.

Pratchett and Baker catch up with the top-hatted gentleman and attempt to snatch the canopic jar he's carrying. The struggle spills out onto the back lawn, where they are soon joined by three thugs dressed as footmen who assist Top Hat. The gentleman utters some arcane phrases in Ancient Egyptian and summons an otherworldly servant from the ground.

Meanwhile, Douglas' investigation of the passage is stymied by a lack of illumination. As he returns to the library to look for something to light his way, he hears the fracas outside and hurries to join the fray. He discovers that some of Maybrick's serving staff are also fighting against Top Hat's thugs. Top Hat loses the jar to Pratchett, and draws his sword in an attempt to get it back. Baker is struck a grievous blow by one of the thugs, who pays the ultimate price at Pratchett's hand.  As most of Top Hat's minions have fallen, he flees but is shot down on the way to the stables by a hail of bolts from Douglas' crossbow.

Maybrick's staff reveal that the gentleman is Sir Conrad Leek, and also that he shot their master; the butler is currently providing medical attention. The Head Maid wants them to stay to speak with Maybrick when he recovers, and requests the return of the jar, but Pratchett implicates their master in its theft and informs them the group will leave immediately.

The Rippers return by carriage to the London Lodge, deliver Leek to the cells, and debrief Shackleworth and Van Helsing. They are congratulated for their return of the artefact. Investigations will continue into Leek's cult, and Van Helsing will deal with the Maybrick situation.

The Rippers have proved their worth to the organisation, and Van Helsing offers them the opportunity of their own Lodge. However, they turn down the offer, content to keep working under orders as they have been.


Rather than tracking Experience Points too closely, I've basically been giving them half an advance every session. Since this session made a good conclusion for the current story arc, and would be a good spot to start them off with their own Lodge as they became Seasoned, I gave them a whole advance this time.

However, they turned down the offer, both in and out of character. The players are happy to be given assignments with enough leeway to use their own initiative and preferred methods, and just concentrate on hunting down and eradicating evil, without the need to bring additional responsibilities and the worries of resource management into the mix. The "run your own Lodge" system is a unique element of the Rippers setting, but it's not one the players are keen on at this juncture. They might decide to give it a try later on, though.

I actually went against the expectations I'd laid out at the beginning regarding pulling punches and character death. In our first game I'd used the Heroes Never Die setting rule to take PC death off the table. For Rippers however, given the visceral and brutal nature of the setting and the foes they would be facing, I'd said that I wouldn't fudge the rules to save lives.

Then I did just that, when a damage die exploded several times in a row against poor Professor Baker and he was faced with taking four Wounds at once from a cultist Extra. Although he might not have died, I reduced the blow to three Wounds, which effectively took him out of the fight anyway.

The main factor influencing my decision was that he'd Soaked against the immediately previous attack with a total Vigour roll of about 26, giving him more than enough Raises to Soak the one Wound he was going to take but also leaving him out of Bennies.

The other factor was that I was concerned about the difficulty of the fight - at the start, due to Douglas' absence, it looked like it would be two Rippers against Wild-Card Leek, three Cultists, and a summoned Bodyguard! I gave Douglas an opportunity to join in, and also had Maybricks' combat servants help out. Even so, it was a close thing when Baker went down. In hindsight I probably shouldn't have been overly concerned; rather than worrying about what makes for a good and balanced fight, I think Rippers is more about what the situation demands. If the good guys end up outnumbered and out of luck, that's the way it goes. Leek was in a hurry to leave anyway, so it's unlikely he would have stopped to finish them off if all the Rippers had been incapacitated.

Anyway, I talked to the group about it afterwards, and they didn't seem to think their sense of fun or challenge had been betrayed. In addition, two of them currently have back-up PCs in case they feel like a change or suddenly need a new PC. I'll try harder to toe the line in the future, but I am by nature a fairly soft-hearted GM.

>>> To be continued!

Rippers: Chapter 4

Since everyone's on holidays at the moment, we got together for an extended Rippers session. It ended up going for eight hours, with about a one hour break for dinner; the Actual Play is fairly long because it's effectively two sessions' worth of stuff, and we spent a good deal of time discussing and executing plans and conducting investigations so big combat scenes didn't really feature this time around.

• +Annette plays Gregory Pratchett, an alienist with a gift for physically battling the forces of darkness. His encounter with a werewolf led to the Rippers showing an interest in his talents.
• +Michael plays William Baker, a Professor of Archaeology who uses knowledge as a weapon. On his expeditions across Europe he began uncovering signs of the occult. In Eastern Europe, one of his parties was all but wiped out by a vampire. He was kicked out of Cambridge for publicly airing his views on the supernatural, losing his tenure and his marriage. The Rippers recruited him shortly afterwards.
• James plays Douglas, a mysterious cloaked gadgeteer with a modified crossbow.

Last time, Pratchett and Baker were unable to prevent the theft of a canopic jar from an exhibit at the British Museum. Baker was certain that it contained the heart of a rare Mesopotamian mummy.


Baker and Pratchett debrief their superiors at Ripper HQ, and also reunite with Douglas. They return to the scene of the crime and try to track the thief, but find only a small black cat statue. Baker uses his shady contacts to learn it's the calling card of the cat burglar known as Black Cat.

On Douglas' suggestion, they set up a "job" for Black Cat to steal an Egyptian cat statue from the Rippers Lodge. It's early morning, so they have to wait until that night to spring the trap and question him about the whereabouts of the stolen canopic jar.

On his way home to sleep, Pratchett is set upon by two assassins with swords who scream "Die in the name of Imhotep!" Surprised, overwhelmed, and badly injured, Pratchett makes it inside his office and bolts the door; the assassins are forced to flee as people begin to emerge onto the street. Pratchett returns to Rippers HQ by hansom cab to seek medical attention, and everyone sleeps at the Lodge until evening.

Late that night the Rippers lure Black Cat into a secure room and capture the burglar after a brief skirmish. Unmasked, they discover that Black Cat is a woman! Upon questioning her, they learn that the stolen canopic jar has been delivered to Lord Julian Maybrick, an occasional Rippers sponsor, friend of Johann Van Helsing, and collector of Egyptian artefacts (and the man whose party the PCs crashed in the Prologue). Black Cat only agreed to tell them this because they promised not to reveal their source, and Pratchett agreed to pay the rest of her fee for the fake job and let her go.

Led by Van Helsing, the group calls upon Maybrick's town house only to discover he has departed for his country estate earlier that evening.

Having missed the last train, Pratchett, Baker and Douglas travel to Maybrick's estate via carriage, arriving in the morning. Pratchett and Baker meet Maybrick and suggest he may be in possession of the jar, perhaps to protect it. He takes umbrage and orders them to leave. Meanwhile Douglas strolls in the back of the house, but doesn't find anything before being accosted by servants and escorted off the property.

Douglas jumps the wall and the group meets up again. The groundskeeper releases his dogs, and the Rippers climb a tree. Pratchett reveals his ability to empathise and communicate with dogs, and persuades them to leave - although the group remains in the tree to avoid the groundskeeper.

Some time in the afternoon, they see a carriage arrive with several lackeys and one gentleman in a top hat. The new arrivals are met at the front door by Maybrick and his butler, and are escorted inside. One of the lackeys drives the carriage around to the back of the house.

They climb down and circle around the mansion, but run into some of the dogs and the groundsman. They try to persuade him they are supposed to be there, but he tries to escort them to the main house "for their own safety." Douglas shoots him in the back, and is badly mauled by the dogs until Pratchett manages to call them off again.

They drag the unconscious groundsman towards the carriage. Pratchett recognises the lackey guarding it as one of the assassins from yesterday morning. He steps out and stabs the man before the thug can draw his weapon. They try to stuff the body into the carriage's trunk, but discover it's already occupied by two active Mummies. They slay one, and set fire to the carriage which burns the second one. As the fire takes off, they retreat into the cover of the garden.


To prepare for this session, I spent maybe an hour or two writing notes and mulling over the existing situation. With several elements already in play, I drew a relationship map showing who was doing what with whom. I then came up with a couple of timelines - lists of sequential events that would happen if the NPCs' plans went ahead unopposed. Once the PCs start to interfere, I just need to adjust the plans and maybe rework the timelines to reflect the changed circumstances.

All of my prep for this seven hour session (and probably for the next session as well) fit on one piece of paper, although I also used another sheet with some NPC and monster stats. Here's a scan, although I've obscured the details since I don't want to reveal some of the connections to my players yet!

Relationship diagrams help me get a better feel for how things look from various points of view. A lot of this planning style is influenced by Apocalypse World which uses Fronts (sources of trouble) and Countdown Clocks (essentially, a list of what will happen if nobody interferes). Speaking of which, I have a three-player Apocalypse World game lined up later in the week with two of my three Rippers and one of the Pathfinder guys.

>>> To be continued...

Ghouls for Savage Worlds

Reading through the Rippers bestiary, I was disappointed to find no Ghouls - so I made my own.

Since reading up a little on Persian mythology many years ago, I've always been quite partial to the Arabic ghul - not an undead, but an inhuman creature that feeds on the dead; that cannot starve to death but becomes increasingly emaciated; that has broad soft feet that don't leave footprints on sand; that can imitate a human; and that can turn invisible when standing still.

My Ghouls come in three versions - Sated, Hungry, and Starving. Sated Ghouls are tougher, but the hungrier they get the faster and more vicious they become. They excel as ambush predators, often waiting underground or simply invisible in plain sight until their prey moves within reach.

Ghoul

Split attributes are for Sated/Hungry/Starving Ghouls.

Attributes: Agility d6/d8/d10, Smarts d6, Spirit d8, Strength d10, Vigor d8
Skills: Fighting d6/d8/d10, Stealth d10+2, Notice d8/d8+1/d8+2
Parry 5/6/7, Toughness 8/7/6, Pace 6+d6/8+d6/10+d8

Special Abilities

• Burrowing (4): Able to dig rapidly through dirt, sand, mud, and clay. Ambush (Stealth vs Notice) for +2 Attack and Damage (+4 on a Raise).
• Darksight: No vision penalty from darkness.
• Fade: In a turn where it takes no actions (including reactive or free actions), the Ghoul can choose to turn invisible, fading into the surrounding scenery. -4 to Notice and subsequent attacks - but if attacked the Ghoul must move to defend itself and therefore becomes immediately visible.
• False Visage: The Ghoul can pull its face into the semblance of a human face, and imitate a human gait, but it will not stand up to close inspection; Notice at +2 will reveal its inhuman nature.
• Grasping Teeth: Str+d6 Damage.
• Rubbery Hide: Armour +2/+1/0 (calculated into Toughness).
• Sand Feet: Stealth +2. No Pace penalty on soft sand, thick mud, or snow.

Rippers: Chapters 1 to 3

We held a second Rippers session in November or December, and managed to fit in another couple of sessions around the New Year period. James turned up for session two (Chapter 1), but unfortunately couldn't make it to either of the subsequent games. Undaunted, Pratchett and Baker pressed on against the forces of darkness.

• +Annette plays Gregory Pratchett, an alienist with a gift for physically battling the forces of darkness. His encounter with a werewolf led to the Rippers showing an interest in his talents.
• +Michael plays William Baker, a Professor of Archaeology who uses knowledge as a weapon. On his expeditions across Europe he began uncovering signs of the occult. In Eastern Europe, one of his parties was all but wiped out by a vampire. He was kicked out of Cambridge for publicly airing his views on the supernatural, losing his tenure and his marriage. The Rippers recruited him shortly afterwards.
• James plays Douglas, a mysterious cloaked gadgeteer with a modified crossbow.

Chapter 1

Pratchett and Baker were placed under the administration of the bureaucratic Tristifer Shackleworth, and teamed up with the mysterious Douglas. Given the option of searching for the missing mummy-filled crates from Canary Wharf or checking out reports of grave-robbing at a small church in Southwark, they chose the church. They determined that something had been burrowing into the graves, which had subsequently collapsed. Entering the catacombs below the church, they discovered a nest of Ghouls! While fighting them off, Baker was severely injured. The group was forced to retreat before completing a thorough search, and the elderly Father Robertson agreed to keep the catacombs firmly shut just in case.

Chapter 2

Two weeks later, Baker was fully recovered. He and Pratchett were assigned to help guard the British Museum the following evening. The Rippers were providing additional security to an exhibit of Mesopotamian grave artefacts, posing as Scotland Yard detectives. Until then, the pair had free reign to undertake their own investigations. Douglas was in the middle of another assignment and would not be joining them.

Father Robertson visited Pratchett and reported that he had heard noises from the crypts. The pair go back to Southwark and slay a final Ghoul that had sated its hunger on the bodies of its fallen comrades. Unfortunately, one of the Ripper irregulars they brought as backup falls in combat.

After returning to the city, the pair investigate the missing Mummy-laden crates from Canary Wharf. The crates came in on the Azimuth, a cargo ship registered to Leek Imports, owned by industrialist Conrad Leek. They deduce the likely location of the Mummy crates and raid a warehouse the following morning. It's empty save for the remnants of some crates, and four unopened ones that contain activated Mummies. They slew two in their boxes before the other pair burst out. The Mummies are defeated, but one of the Ripper irregulars falls in combat.

Chapter 3

After finishing off the Mummies, the group were forced to flee as the police approached.

That night, the pair help guard the unusual Mesopotamian burial exhibition at the British Museum, under the direction of senior Ripper John Stebbins. The exhibit was an unusual form of mummification, with obvious Egyptian influences. A gang of Mummies attacked one of the rear entrances, and it took the combined force of seven Rippers and a game security guard to stop their advance.

Alas, the assault had drawn their attention away from the exhibition room. As they returned, they witnessed a cat burglar climbing a rope to the skylight, with one of the canopic jars! Their attempts to foil the burglar's escape were in vain.


I really started to feel the swinginess of Savage Worlds combat in these games - a lot of misses followed by one explosive, decisive hit. The extra-resilient Mummies (even Servitors have a high Parry and exceptional Toughness) probably don't help, so I will be sure to introduce more enemy variety in the ensuing sessions. I do feel for Professor Baker, as he's not really much chop in a fight.

We have another session scheduled in the next couple of days. I still need to sit down and work out some more factional details and potential looming threats, but I've been going over things in my head so it should just be a matter of making some notes and pulling the threads to see what happens.

>>> Chapter 4

Rippers: Prologue

Since our D&D Next DM's on an extended holiday, a few of us from that group decided to get together for a game in Savage Worlds' "Rippers" setting. I'm GMing; there were going to be three players, but James wasn't able to make it for this first session.

Michael had made his character ahead of time, but Annette had been otherwise occupied. We started work shortly before Michael arrived, and managed to get her character organised after a couple of hours. Although she enjoys roleplaying, she's expressed a dislike for character creation, so we discussed the issues around that a bit. Character creation in some games can be a bit of a slog, and while Savage Worlds is not quite as convoluted as the current D&D Next, it is up there a bit. The need to have a good grasp of the available Edges is probably the biggest hurdle to overcome. I've also found that, instead of buying Edges and Hindrances near the end, character creation in Savage Worlds is usually best done by starting with the Edges you want and then buying Attributes and Skills afterwards to ensure you meet the Edge requirements.

Annette explained that she dislikes the process of trying to find the right way to express her character concept in game terms. It's one thing to describe them in prose, but another thing entirely to translate that into numbers and game options. "If you want your character to do X, you have to take points in Y" was just not engaging or exciting for her. The pitfalls of the concept-to-mechanics process were also made abundantly clear when Michael's professor of archaeology turned out to not actually have the Knowledge (Archaeology) skill - an omission that was rectified in play by swapping out one of his other skills. The need to manipulate multiple interacting segments takes a certain amount of concentration; not only do you have to know which Edges to take, but Attributes are affected by Edges, and Skills are affected by both Edges and Attributes.

Character creation is often seen as a chore - a necessary evil that needs to be suffered in order to get to the fun bit. Mind you, some people do actually enjoy the character creation process itself, although that probably depends on the game. I talked a bit about some of the other games I'd run lately that approach character creation somewhat differently. Apocalypse World (and the *World games in general) give you a guided package deal where all of the thematic choices have been compiled for you, so you just need to go through a checklist and pick some stuff that sounds cool. Some games such as Fiasco and Annalise build character creation into the session itself. Annalise also starts with very vague character outlines which become fleshed out during play, while Fiasco defines characters only by their relationships and requires you to hash out a consensus of who these people are in freeform discussion before the game proper gets underway. In Fate, a high concept aspect such as "Disgraced Professor of Archaeology from Cambridge" would tend to avoid the problem of forgetting to buy all the mechanical widgets to suit your concept, although Fate still has Skills and Stunts to select or build.

During the session Annette also mentioned that she didn't mind spending Experience Points to buy more things for her character; it's just the huge lump of character creation that's a bit much to deal with all at once. I suggested a system (like Leverage or one suggestion in Fate) where you start out with little more than a broad character concept and then fill in the details as they come up in play. "Oh, we have to get away? Well, it turns out I'm a stunt driver! And I can hotwire this car!" It's something I might look into using heavily in a future game.

Anyway, on to the Actual Play!

• Annette plays Gregory Pratchett, an alienist with a gift for physically battling the forces of darkness. His encounter with a werewolf led to the Rippers showing an interest in his talents.
• Michael plays William Baker, a Professor of Archaeology who uses knowledge as a weapon. On his expeditions across Europe he began uncovering signs of the occult. In Eastern Europe, one of his parties was all but wiped out by a vampire. He was kicked out of Cambridge for publicly airing his views on the supernatural, losing his tenure and his marriage. The Rippers recruited him shortly afterwards.

The two recent recruits to the Rippers' London Lodge meet briefly with Johann Van Helsing himself. He welcomes them to the organisation, and immediately provides them with a mission. The Rippers' information network had picked up news of a disturbance at Canary Wharf. It sounds as though it might be Cabal-related, but the Rippers don't have any definite information yet. The pair are sent off into the foggy London night to see what they can discover.

Thick fog rolls across the dockside warehouses. On the other side of the street, the wan light from a tavern is the only cheer to be seen in the gloom, but the place does not boast the raucous sounds normally heard from such common establishments. The pair make their entrance to find the bar nearly empty, with only the innkeeper and a few sullen workers nursing their drinks. A group of three are gathered near the back, two men comforting their obviously shaken comrade - Alf, the man who had been attacked.

The overdressed Rippers interview Alf, gaining his confidence with drink, coin, and encouraging words. He tells them that he was working in one of the warehouses when a long, narrow crate burst open, smashing him in the head with a flying plank and knocking him to the ground. He was dazed, but recalled the scent of roses and had the vague impression of a form shambling away. By the time he came to his senses, his mates had come to assist and drag him away. The men refused to return to work, much to the chagrin of their boss, so the wharves have lain idle since late afternoon. The men aren't sure where the ship that carried the crates had sailed from, but believe it had come through the Mediterranean. Pratchett and Baker ask if Alf will show them to the site of the incident, but no force will motivate him. His friend George, however, is eager to help.

Baker manages to jimmy the lock on the gate, and they enter the docks. George leads them between rows of warehouses. The eerie silence is broken only by the noise of movement some distance to their right, but they ignore it and press on to the warehouse where the incident took place. The storage area stands unchanged since the afternoon, with a devastated crate on the floor and stacks of them against the wall. Baker discovers a scrap of dried cloth in the ruined box, which smells vaguely of perfume and dried herbs. Pratchett breaks open one of the other crates, and discovers a mummified corpse nestled beneath the packing straw! The sound of rattling chains from the front gate cannot deter them from their investigation, and they are loath to go see what it is in case they disturb some night-watchman. Pratchett runs the corpse through with his sword-cane to test it for signs of animation, but it appears to simply be a dry husk. They search for clues as to the crates' origins, but find only a cargo lot number stamped on them.

They hear a strangled scream from the street, and finally call off their investigation to rush to the front gate. They see a drunk man sitting against a lamp-post with his neck at a fatal angle, and catch sight of a stiff form shambling away into the fog. They pursue it, and the figure turns to confront them - a mummy, risen from the tomb, with blazing green eyes. It prepares to attack, but Pratchett speaks to it in Ancient Egyptian and persuades it that they have been sent to help it in its task. In a dry husky voice it hisses "the Eye of Osiris" and motions for them to follow.

Their undead friend leads them through a series of back alleys, thankfully sparing them from any more run-ins with the public. However, it becomes apparent that the mummy's destination is a soiree at an inner-city town house. They try to persuade it to wait until the party is over, but its master compels it inexorably towards its goal. Since they can't deter it, they are reluctantly forced to fight it. Pratchett whips out his sword-cane, and Baker attempts to put a couple of ruonds in it from his pistol. The mummy tries to shrug off the attacks and make for the garden wall, but Pratchett pursues it and stries it down. As it falls, it crumbles into a pile of dust and bones. Pratchett is unimpressed, as he was hoping to keep it as a pet. Baker Rips some powdered bone from the crumbled corpse to turn into extracts.

The pair gatecrash the party to attempt to gain control of the Eye of Osiris, but just as Baker is about to make an announcement to clear the crowd he spots Johannes Van Helsing among the guests. Van Helsing heads for a side-entrance, and the two wayward Rippers take this as a cue to withdraw, encouraged by the doorman. Before they can be escorted off the property, Van Helsing catches up with them and sends the doorman away. They move to a secluded garden courtyard, where they debrief Van Helsing on the mummy and the Eye of Osiris. Van Helsing explains that the party is being held by his associate, a minor aristocrat who is an avid collector of Egyptian artefacts. He will investigate the Eye of Osiris personally, and instructs the two Rippers to return to the Lodge, get some manpower, and return to the wharves. He also expects a full report in the morning.

Unfortunately, by the time they return the site has been cleared. There's no sign of the dead man or the crates of mummies. Even the broken crate has been cleared away. Their investigation frustrated, they return to the Lodge, where Baker creates two extracts from the mummy's remains.

>>> Chapters 1 to 3

Savage Devonport 5

Last time, our heroes pursued a group of orcs into the twisted landscape of the Shattered Mountain in search of the Lost Library. Having overcome the orcs, they began exploring the ruins...

• +Annette plays Snowfall, a Human Paladin whose family owns an apothecary in Stormhaven.
• David plays Ret Inas, a Human Thief from the village of Dryfield.
• James plays Angus Arrowbeard, a Dwarven Archer/Rogue from a hold to the North.
• Michael plays Novim, an Elf Ranger who has sworn fealty to the Lord of the Jagged Coast.
• Sasha plays Kae Swiftfoot, a Monk/Rogue who owns a corn farm North of Stormhaven.
• Shane plays Typhus, a Wizard who seeks to make his fortune.

After exploring the doorway to the left and defeating a brood of giant spiders, the party returns to the main chamber and unlocks the doorway to the right. Kae manages to avoid a poisoned needle trap in the lock. Beyond, they discover only a series of derelict rooms and hallways, with most of the books long since mouldered and rotten. They manage to find a stairway up, and come out on the walkway surrounding the main chamber one floor up - the stairs down to the ground floor had long since collapsed.

Always willing to walk straight into danger, Kae steps out first, and is nearly hit by a stone gargoyle plummeting from the upper galleries! Three more circle downwards on rigid wings, and battle is met! The gargoyles' tough hide makes them difficult to put down. One manages to engage Novim in close combat, and requires some cross-fire to defeat. Soon the gargoyles lie shattered into piles of rubble, and the party has suffered no major injuries.

In an alcove, they discover an enchanted longsword. The blade is covered in mystical sigils that Typhus identifies as a Shapeshifting spell. Ret claims it as he desperately needs a stronger melee weapon, having only been armed with a knife.

From the balcony here, they can see some alcoves very high up on the opposite side of the chamber, among shattered stone walkways. There seems to be something in one, but they can't tell what. Also, directly above them is a great jagged hole in the stonework leading into the mountain. They head upstairs, Typhus leading the way through a maze of corridors and hallways, until they reach the chamber that opens out onto the central chamber through the broken wall.

The large chamber has a single door from the passageways. Three of its walls are solid and strong, but the fourth facing onto the central tower chamber has been bashed or broken through, leaving a large jagged hole. The floor here is covered with the dried and dismembered carcasses of many creatures; this is obviously the lair of some fierce beast, although they can't immediately identify it.

From here, the walkway around the central chamber is broken and intermittent. In an alcove opposite, they can see what looks like a shiny suit of mail. Rather than risk jumping across the gaps, Ret uses his new sword to transform into a hawk and fly across. On the other side, he finds a mail hauberk, and also discovers a black leather-bound spellbook with pages of woven metal cloth.

Before he can secure the items and return, the group hears the beating of powerful wings approach. They call out to Ret, who has time to throw the armour and the book off the ledge onto the floor far below just before a wyvern flies through the cracked dome! It screeches as it discovers people in its lair, and swoops to attack Typhus! He backs away as Kae, Snowfall, and Angus step forward to engage it in close combat. Ret turns back into a hawk and flies towards the wyvern's back, attempting to attack it in the back with his longsword by changing back after making it to the other side. Unfortunately his blow is turned aside by its thick hide.

Lashing with tooth and poisonous tail-sting, the wyvern rages against the heroes. It inflicts several near-misses, but good luck saves the adventurers from harm. After an epic battle it succumbs to their blows and falls dead, with Kae striking the final wound!

They take the time to dig through the bone-litter, uncovering some coin, and then head downstairs to investigate the treasure flung from the alcove. Typhus identifies both items. The armour is known as the Hauberk of the Mage-Slayer, and grants the wearer great resistance to magic. The book is a Tome of Zombie, which Typhus keeps even though the spell is as yet beyond his capabilities.

Having scoured the Library for all that it now holds, the party makes their way back to the village of Dryfield to rest, resupply, and consider their next adventure.


That was the last session of Savage Worlds we'll be playing for a while. Not a particularly conclusive end, but at least the fight with the wyvern was a nice "boss fight." The campaign is going on indefinite hiatus while Sasha starts running a game of D&D Next using the current playtest rules.

>>> To be continued..?

Savage Devonport 4

The continued adventures of our heroes, who have struck out North through the Last Pass into the ruined domain of Caernfallen to see if they can stem the advancing tides of an orcish army.

• +Annette plays Snowfall, a Human Paladin whose family owns an apothecary in Stormhaven.
• David plays Ret Inas, a Human Thief from the village of Dryfield.
• James (absent) plays Angus Arrowbeard, a Dwarven Archer/Rogue from a hold to the North.
• Michael plays Novim, an Elf Ranger who has sworn fealty to the local Lord.
• Sasha plays Kae Swiftfoot, a Monk/Rogue who owns a corn farm North of Stormhaven.
• Shane plays Typhus, a Wizard who seeks to make his fortune.

The party returns to Dryfield and speaks to Timpany about the orcs. The bard tells them that the warband split up into many smaller groups, and she suspects they have headed in various directions to search nearby ruins for ancient treasures. She tells them the tale of Sir Marden, an ancient knight who was cursed after defeating a necromancer, and who was laid to rest in a magically-sealed tomb in the hills, to prevent the necromancer's power from rising again. She also tells them of the Lost Library, an ancient repository of knowledge said to lie beyond the Shattered Mountain; and of Lorden Rill, a great rift in the land plagued by monsters and leading down to a wide marsh, beyond which stood the castle of the Knights of Estiban who have been protecting Caernfallen from orcish invasion for years.

Despite Typhus' obvious interest in Marden's tomb, the group decides to seek out the Lost Library instead. They travel to the Southeast and begin navigating their way through the Shattered Mountain's precipitous terrain. The group all works together, with those more skilled at climbing aiding those who start to lag behind.

Deep in the mountains, they find signs of many orcs having travelled this way. From their tracks, it appears as though they were searching, with many tracks doubling back as they reach dead-ends. The group makes haste, following the orcs' main trail in hopes of catching up with them before they reach the Library.

The party reached a great chasm, with a trail leading along one side, and an ancient suspension bridge connecting the near side to a great, cylindrical stone building carved outof the very mountainside. A group of orcs is making their way along the trail towards the bridge, so our heroes engage them in combat. The Wand of Vines helps, immobilising one orc and bottlenecking the rest, preventing them from attacking the party in melee. The orcish archer and shaman attack the group at a distance, but they are no match for Novim and Typhus' ranged attacks. As the last of the orcish grunts fall, the shaman, an archer, and his bodyguard make it across the bridge into the ruin.

Pursuing the orcs across the bridge, the party finds them in a large circular chamber, facing off against two large moving statues that seem to want to touch them and put them to sleep. The heroes finish off the orcs, and follow through on the statues once they begin attacking party members too.

They explore the ruined library; due to time and exposure to the elements, they can't find any books in good condition in the main tower, so they press on into the chambers carved into the mountain itself. In a dark corridor, they fail to notice the giant spiders on the walls and ceiling until it's too late! The party is surrounded, and take an early loss as Ret succumbs to the creatures' paralysing venom! A much larger spider emerges from a side-room, entangling Novim in a spray of web. Ret recovers, and they eventually manage to defeat the eight-legged fiends.

After a little searching, they manage to dig up a Scroll of Burrowing and a Tome of Bolt, so Holy Bolt is added to Snowfall's repertoire.


I was a little underprepared for the Lost Library, but figured I'd wing it a bit and test out Savage Worlds' much-vaunted low-prep requirement. It went pretty well, since I had a fair idea of what the Library was like, but it did suffer a little. With some additional planning I'm sure I could have made the journey there more meaningfully interesting. I also fumbled a bit with the final encounter, and had to reach a bit to come up with a thematically suitable challenge.

Normally Ret would have been paralysed for ages, but we discovered we'd done something wrong with his check, so I allowed him to recover after only a few turns rather than cutting him out of the rest of the session.

>>> Session 5

Savage Devonport 3

So last session I had a request from James for more puzzles and problem-solving elements. I picked up the Fantasy Companion, which has awesome random magical treasure tables (a part of fantasy games I usually neglect) and a fantastic bestiary, and also a couple of 10 Fantasy Traps guides to mine for ideas. Since the group were in an Elven ruin, with an Elf in the party (played by Michael), I planned a sort of "dungeon" in a slightly alternate-reality "elf world."

Naturally, neither James nor Michael could make it to this session! We were joined by David, though, playing a Human Thief.

• +Annette plays Snowfall, a Human Paladin whose family owns an apothecary in Stormhaven.
• David plays Ret Inas, a Human Thief from the village of Dryfield.
• James (absent) plays Angus Arrowbeard, a Dwarven Archer/Rogue from a hold to the North.
• Michael (absent) plays Novim, an Elf Ranger who has sworn fealty to the local Lord.
• Sasha plays Kae Swiftfoot, a Monk/Rogue who owns a corn farm North of Stormhaven.
• Shane plays Typhus, a Wizard who seeks to make his fortune.

Unbeknownst to the party, when they left the small farming village of Dryfield they were being followed by Ret Inas, a local lad with skills not usually fostered by farmers, and with an itch for adventure - or profit, perhaps, from these well-equipped travellers from the South.

After defeating the orcs who were guarding it, the party camps in the old Elven shrine. Novim keeps watch but drifts off to sleep. Ret sneaks in to check out their stuff, but as he does so reality shimmers; the forest swells and grows, sprouting hedge-walls and thorny brambles, and the sky changes to an eerie aurora twilight. A cool breeze wafts through the open structure, and everyone awakes apart from Novim and Angus.

Ret remains hidden while the party checks out their new surroundings. Typhus believes they have been shifted into some sort of alternate reality, such as a pocket dimension or faerie world. Although the shrine itself appears to be the same, everything outside it has changed. The shrine is obviously the key to coming and going, but Typhus is fairly certain that they won't get stuck if reality shifts back without them being in the shrine.

Kae does a quick lap of the clearing to get a first impression of their new environment. The thick hedgerows have created four passages. From the North and the South, he hears the sound of flowing water. They decide to go North first, and notice Ret sneaking after them. Since they're all in the same boat he joins the group, although they keep an eye on each other.

The Northern path leads to a dead tree with a face carved in it, spewing black water out of its mouth into a basin formed by twisted roots. Kae takes some in his wineskin. When he pours a little on the ground, the grass shrivels and dies.

They next head South, and find a fountain of pure crystal-clear water. After some experimentation, they discover that it causes plants to rapidly sprout and grow, and that mixing it with the black water creates regular water. It doesn't seem to have any special effect on people, although they are not currently injured or fatigued.

West of the shrine they find a clearing with a large statue of an Elven archer in the centre, twice the height of a man, his bow drawn and pointing North along a forest pathway. Half-dead shrivelled vines cover the pedestal. They investigate the statue, discovering that the bow and arrow are a mechanism, implying that the arrow will be loosed under certain circumstances. They also discover holes or channels around the Elf's flowing stone robes, leading up into the stonework. Kae pours pure shrine water on the vines, and they spring back to life, growing and entering the holes in the statue. As they do so, the statue relaxes its bow-arm and lowers the bow.

The party heads North along the trail. After a short distance, they come upon another clearing, although this one is darker and surrounded by more dead plants. The remains of a fragmented skeleton lie at the end of the path, its head pinned to a tree on the far side of the clearing by a three-foot-long arrow obviously fired by the statue behind them. Half a dozen skeletons are milling around armed with longswords, so the group engages them. Typhus makes sure Ret gets out there and fights, so he can keep an eye on him. Kae tries pouring some of the pure fountain water over one of the skeletons; it has no effect on the undead directly, although as the water hits the ground the grass grows up and entwines the skeleton, restricting its movements. The skeletons are quickly destroyed, and the group moves on to the North.

They discover a large clearing surrounded by dead trees, the forest wall choked with enormous thorny vines. At the North end lies a paved square pond, from where the black water appears to be bubbling forth. It runs out of a channel and forms a vile stream flowing South. Next to the pool stands a massive gnarled tree; despite having its roots in the stream, it appears to have some semblance of life.

Kae approaches the tree, and one of its branches - long, jagged, and spiked at the tip - lunges from the foliage to stab at him. He evades it, and as the others follow he dashes over to the stream and pours pure spring-water from his flask onto one of its roots. The tree shudders, and the root turns crystal-white. More branches reach down and attack as Snowfall joins in. The paladin pours holy water onto the remaining roots, with similar effect! Typhus lightning-blasts the trunk and catches a couple of the branches, but has little effect. In return, he is stabbed by one of the mobile limbs and passes out, the tree also draining some of his life-force.

They use the last of the water on the roots to cut the tree off from the dark stream, and some of its spiked limbs start drooping. They fight the two remaining branches until Ret manages to split both of them with his dagger! Now disarmed, the evil tree slumps and dies. Disappointingly for Kae, his giant axe had little effect.

South-East of the dark spring, they find an area of foul-smelling bog. Run-off from the dark stream has created a poisoned swamp. They decide that it's not worth the trouble, and head back around the other way. Kae suggests they try using the pure fountain water to revive Typhus, but it has no apparent effect on people (other than making him very clean). Snowfall uses medical and magical skills to return him to health.

East of the shrine, they find a clearing with a strange tree in the centre. It appears to be living, but the branches have grown into a tangled sphere, as though woven around something. The branches are woven too tightly for them to see all the way in, although there does appear to be a mysterious glow inside the tree. Typhus advocates using the black water to make the tree wither and die, thus revealing the item within. Kae protests, saying he would rather respect this Elven place and not kill the tree unnecessarily. Ret volunteers to worm his way through the brances into the heart of the tree, and does so without getting stuck. There he finds a beautifully carved Elven bow of golden wood, and climbs safely back out of the tree with it.

To the South lies a hedge maze. Kae tries to mark a trail by dragging his axe along the ground, but Typhus realises that the maze's walls are shifting around them. The wizard takes the lead and guides the group through.

On the other side of the maze lies a clearing with a square pool, the mirror opposite of the one to the North. The plants are all in fine health, and the tree overlooking the pool is massive and green. As the party approach, however, a wall of brambles springs up across the clearing, denying them access to the pool. A booming voice tells them they should not be here. It turns out the tree is home to a dryad, who is the guardian of the Tomb of Eladrin, buried under the pure spring. They coax her out so they can talk face to face, and convince her they only want to leave. Once they tell her they've slain the dark tree, she agrees to help them leave if they can purify the black spring - the Tomb of Laguna, Eladrin's lover, who was cursed by a necromancer. They do so. In the newly purified pool, they find a Wand of Vines. They return to the dryad, who rewards them with Eladrin's Cloak of the Marksman. She gives them herbs that will awaken their sleeping comrades.

They return to the shrine and awaken Novim and Angus. Everyone returns to the normal world, where it is dawn, and discovers the shrine is being approached by an orc warband who must have been using the shrine as a staging post!

The orcs are suspicious because the sentries they left at the shrine haven't answered their calls. They fan out and approach as the group hides to varying degrees, but some are soon spotted and the orcs rush in. Four archers take pot-shots from a distance, but most of the fighting takes place inside the ruin. Typhus blasts lightning as the orcs rush him. Kae engages the orc leader, and fights him toe-to-toe for the whole battle in an epic struggle! Snowfall provides melee support, and uses the Wand of Vines to entangle a few orcs who are then fried by Typhus. Ret sneaks through the forest and assassinates one of the archers, then engages his partner in close combat and strikes him down as he attempts to flee. Typhus uses the Staff of Skulls to raise one of the fallen orcs. The two remaining archers turn to flee when one of them accidentally hits their leader with an ill-aimed shot! With the rest of the orcs gone, everyone gangs up on the war-chief and he finally falls.

The party is now thinking of returning to Dryfield, to see if they can get any more useful information out of the bard. 

>>> Session 4

Savage Devonport 2

The group enjoyed the first session so much, plus they'd invested a lot of time and effort in character creation, so we decided to extend the game. I let people re-jig their characters a bit if they wanted, or even change them entirely. Novim's Skills got shuffled, Typhus chose some different spells, and Invghost was replaced by a completely new Dwarf.

• +Annette plays Snowfall, a Human Paladin whose family owns an apothecary in Stormhaven.
• James plays Angus Arrowbeard, a Dwarven Archer/Rogue from a hold to the North.
• Michael plays Novim, an Elf Ranger who has sworn fealty to the local Lord.
• Sasha plays Kae Swiftfoot, a Monk/Rogue who owns a corn farm North of Stormhaven.
• Shane plays Typhus, a Wizard who seeks to make his fortune.

A week or two after dealing with the necromancer, Kae is awoken by his guard rabbit. He sees shadows moving through the corn, and heads out into the fields with a torch. He comes face to face with an orc, and tries to scare the brute away - they end up fighting. Two other orcs attempt to join their comrade, but the Dwarven archer Angus Arrowbeard has been tracking them since they came through the Last Pass, and manages to take one out with an arrow he never saw coming. After a brief skirmish, the orcs are defeated. Angus and Kae introduce each other, and Angus explains that the orcs have attacked the Dwarven city of Targan's Forge. He'd been following a group who struck out South and headed through the Last Pass.

The pair travel to Stormhaven in the middle of the night, finding everyone else still at the Green Dragon inn. Angus tells his tale about the orcish army, and the group decides it's in the best interests of the realm for them to head North and investigate what's going on beyond the Last Pass.

*          *          *

As they travel past Kobold Hill, Snowfall spots an orc sentry atop one of the half-ruined towers, and also notices that kobolds have returned. The group attempts a stealth approach from the road, but the bald hillside doesn't offer much in the way of cover and the sentries spot them. The group attempts a frontal assault, and the orcs shove the kobolds out front to bear the brunt of the attack. Meanwhile, extra orcish archers appear on the two mostly-intact towers, and several emerge from the towers wielding swords. They are followed into the fray by a tough war-boss wearing better armour than the rest.

In a long slog, the heroes finally manage to defeat all of the kobolds and some of the orcs. However, the withering fire from the archers on the towers takes its toll, with Typhus and Angus in particular suffering serious injuries. Snowfall falls back to heal the wounded, but unfortunately Kae is still on the front line and quickly becomes surrounded and overwhelmed. The group has little choice but to withdraw and regroup, vowing to return and liberate the captured Kae. They withdraw to Swiftfoot Farm, and spend the night recovering their health and magical power.

*          *          *

The party returns to Kobold Hill the next morning for a dawn assault. Now that there are fewer orcs, the place is not as well defended - one archer on top of each of the two standing towers, plus four orcs and their chief inside one of the towers, along with the captive Kae. 

The group launches a multi-pronged assault. Angus sneaks up one of the towers and stealth-kills the lone orc archer atop it, then goes on to use the roof to shoot at other orcs as they come into view. Novim takes cover in one of the shattered towers, and takes pot-shots as various orcs emerge from the tower they're using as their base. Snowfall and Typhus conduct a frontal assault on the tower door, although Snowfall is forced to duck against the base of the tower to avoid arrow-fire from above. Typhus uses the Staff of Skulls to raise some of the dead orcs to attack their leader. While engaged with the zombies, the orc commander also suffers concentrated missile fire, and finally succumbs to Snowfall's blade! As the orcs abandon their guard duty to join the fray, the heavily-wounded Kae finally manages to slip his bonds. By the time he joins the fight, however, only a couple of orcs are still standing. Kae claims the leader's giant battle-axe.

The last surviving orcish archer surrenders, so the group captures and questions him. After discussing whether to let him go (suggested by Angus) or slit his throat (Typhus' suggestion), they decide on Novim's advice to instead return him to town so he can face justice. With that done, they head off once more towards the Last Pass.

After passing through the narrow gap between the mountains, the party finds themselves in a dry country. Yellowed grasses cover the hillsides, and a scraggly forest can be seen in the distance. In front of them lies the farming village of Dryfield. 

The place seems deserted, although they can see that many feet have passed through recently. The mournful plucking of a lute is the only sound they hear, so they head towards it and meet the young bard, Timpany. She tells them that the villagers are all working the fields. She came into town yesterday, some time after a large group of orcs raided the village and sent groups off in various directions. The orcs apparently came from the Witherwood, which jibes with Angus' information. Timpany tells them that this is an ancient land filled with ruins, and sings a song of the fall of the Elves of Witherwood. The group decides to head into the forest to explore Elven ruins and perhaps find the source of the orcs.

The woods are dry, with twisted and gnarled trees clawing at the sky. The party spots and manages to avoid several orc patrols, and eventually discovers an old Elven shrine, now occupied by half a dozen orcs. The heroes move in and fight them, using cover and ambush. The orcs fall after a brief skirmish, and the party discovers they were guarding a large amount of food and other supplies. The day is getting late, so they decide to set up camp in the shrine.



This session went for five or six hours, and we got quite a bit done! The first fight took a long time to resolve, and taught all of us a lesson about tactics in Savage Worlds. I probably threw in a few too many orcs, plus a frontal assault in the open while being harassed by missile fire, plus discovering the death-spiral of wound penalties... well, it could have gone better. In fact, the regroup went much more smoothly, in large part due to effective tactics and positioning.

I did get some feedback from this session - James requested some puzzles and things to solve, which I agree would help take the focus off combat a little. I also felt that I'm not giving out very good treasure. I was going to write up a series of magical item tables, but then I discovered that the Fantasy Companion already has a most awesomely comprehensive set, which saves me a lot of work! It doesn't have anything in the way of tricks and traps though, so I've also purchased a couple of "10 Fantasy Traps" booklets to start me off.

Travelling to interesting places, meeting unique characters, fighting monsters, solving puzzles, finding treasures... I think if I can flesh the game out to cover all of that, then I'll feel like I'm providing a much more substantial gaming experience!

>>> Session 3

Savage Devonport 1

On Sunday night we held the inaugural game session organised by members of the Devonport RPG group. I'm GMing Savage Worlds, and we started off with a D&D-style fantasy game focussed on adventure and combat. We spent the week before the session creating characters via the Facebook group. As it was to be a test game, pitched as a one-shot, I wasn't too worried about making a perfectly balanced group, so within the confines of typical D&D-style fantasy and the options available in the Savage Worlds core rules, I let people pretty much take what they wanted.

I drew up a simple map of a rural coastal province. I got everyone to each choose one of the options from a list of six to connect their characters to the location and give them some motivation for protecting the place. Other than that, I suggested that they were all local do-gooders and heroic types, rather than mercenary adventurers only out for themselves.

• +Annette plays Snowfall, a Human Paladin whose family owns an apothecary in town.
• James plays Invghost, an Aevion Archer looking for fame and glory.
• Michael plays Novim, an Elf Ranger who has sworn fealty to the local Lord.
• Sasha plays Kae Swiftfoot, a Monk/Thief who owns a corn farm North of town.
• Shane plays Typhus, a Wizard who seeks to make his fortune.

Since there was no unifying point of contact for all the characters, and because Annette and James hadn't played a D&D-inspired game before, we decided to actually start everyone off in a tavern...

The Green Dragon Inn is the social heart of Stormhaven. One morning, all of the characters are assembled there when Old Linderman from the farm just outside of town bursts in, and tells everyone that he's witnessed kobolds come out of the Moss Vale forest and kill one of his cows! Kobolds don't usually come this far South, as they mostly occupy the ruined fort on Kobold Hill, near a mountain pass that has fallen into disuse.

On their way out of town, one of the priests from Faithstone Abbey sought out Snowfall and informed the knight that the gates to the ancient Dunlane Crypts had been opened. The priests feared some sort of evil or necromancy is afoot. The group decided to go check out the kobold situation first.

At the farm, they found the butchered carcase of the poor cow. They followed a trail of blood and footprints into the woods, and eventually found a group of six kobolds cooking cow meat in a clearing by the river. Forgoing all pretence of ambush, Kae stepped out and challenged the creatures; in a brief skirmish, all of the kobolds were quickly defeated. The last one, an archer who'd moved to the treeline, almost escaped but Invghost managed to aim an arrow between the treetrunks and shoot him down. The heroes feasted on barbecued cow and returned to the Green Dragon to report a job (and steak) well done.

The group next headed up the other side of the river to ask the priests about the Dunlane Crypts. They are an ancient burial ground, and the Abbey was established to safeguard it. The priests had sensed an evil presence, disturbed spirits, and possibly the taint of necromancy. The group immediately headed in, with Kae once more charging ahead. The interior was a dark passageway; only Kae had thought to bring a lantern, and Novim could see in the dark as he was an Elf. The rest suffered a bit from the poor lighting. The Elven ranger scouted ahead, discovering an animated skeleton wandering around in a side passage. It was quickly despatched, followed by three of its friends.

After picking the lock on a barred gate, the party entered a large chamber with six skeletal warriors. Invghost became cut off from the rest of the group and, due to his lack of close-combat skill, suffered a wound at the hands of two skeletons. The heroes soon finished off the undead, and discovered a hidden treasure chest. They reported back to the Abbey, receiving a reward, and finally managed to pop the lock on the chest after arriving back in town to find many gold coins. Freshly cashed up, they bought some new equipment and retired for the night.

At the Swiftfoot farm, Kae witnessed a strange, flickering light on the distant Kobold Hill. In the morning, he brought the news to town. They also heard the testimony of a pilgrim who'd arrived in Stormhaven that morning after travelling through the Last Pass. He'd seen a greenish-black flickering glow playing across the ruins, and decided it was best to press on rather than camp nearby. The group immediately got ready and headed to Kobold Hill.

The ancient, ruined fort was once the scene of a mighty battle in years long past, and now its great walls were laid low. They found signs of a necromantic ritual, with a magical symbol burned into the earth. However, there was no sign of any activity above-ground, so they descended into the ruined cellars through one of the blasted towers. They discovered a large, dark chamber with eight skeletons. Luckily, more people had brought lanterns with them, so visibility was less of an issue. As they engaged the skeletons, a necromancer appeared from behind an altar and began chanting. Unfortunately for him, Novim's bow took him out in one shot! He obviously should have kept his head down. The group cleared out the rest of the skeletons and returned home, secure in the knowledge that evil had been defeated for another day.


Everybody enjoyed the game, and we're planning a second session in a couple of weeks. There will be a few tweaks and revisions on some of the characters, now everyone's had a chance to see how the system works in play.

I deliberately went pretty easy with the monster stats and numbers, as I didn't want to accidentally overwhelm the PCs during their first introduction to the system. It's obvious that I'll need to step up the quantity and/or quantity of enemies in order to provide a decent challenge, though.

Although I set up a dynamic situation with multiple things going on, I never actually followed through on any evil plots as a consequence of player choice or inaction. They chose to deal with the kobolds first rather than the crypts, so I could have had undead attack the Abbey. They didn't check out Kobold Hill promptly to see why the kobolds had moved South, so I could have had a wave of freshly-risen skeletons attack the Swiftfoot Farm.

I originally planned the game as a one-shot, but I'll expand on the basic ideas and give them a reason to roam further afield, facing more varied and hazardous foes, and exploring new and more dangerous environments.

>>> Session 2

Savage Worlds: Zombie Outbreak

In 2012, +Paul decided to run a game of Savage Worlds set in the very near future, based on a zombie outbreak in central Melbourne. Our characters would be relatively ordinary people caught up in the crisis, although we were allowed to have concepts involving combat training, medical skills, or other things that would give us an advantage. This post will be a summary of the whole first arc of the campaign

• Barb plays Ellen Somerset, a paramedic with an ambulance and a hazmat suit.
• Matt plays Shawn, a hardware store clerk with a drinking problem.
• Rohin plays Jeff, a young pizza delivery driver and aspiring criminal.
• I play Harry Michaels, a University student studying both history and historical fencing.

During the Melbourne Grand Prix, a racing event using an elevated track around the city centre, a military van rolls over on a bridge, releasing its small cargo of zombies into the river. They soon spread, infecting the crowd and wandering further afield. Ellen and her partner, "Good Guy" Greg, tried to help out some people trackside, but Ellen insisted on staying in the ambulance. From memory, they may have also picked up Jeff.

South of the city centre, Shawn failed to notice zombies occupying the hardware store until customers started fighting over the power tools. He "tooled up" and managed to fight his way past a couple of shamblers using a shopping trolley, and fled into the wider city.

My historical fencing group had been attending a seminar at a conference centre in South Yarra, near the river. We saw the disaster starting to spread across the bridge and along the river, and began securing the building. Shawn managed to stumble in, although his craziness and aggression almost led to him being shut out! The ambulance turned up just as we were closing the garage doors.

We stayed put for a little while, trying to figure out the best plan of action. Some of the people started showing signs of infection, so on Ellen's advice they were isolated in a semi-trailer in the secured parking lot. I felt that it was wrong to put potentially OK people in a container with potential zombies, so I insisted on standing guard and looking after them. We couldn't stay put for long, though. The Air Force began firebombing runs on the bridge and surrounds, so we loaded up the rented trucks with food and people and headed South towards the ferry terminal, in the hopes of catching a boat to Tasmania.

We reached the ferry pier to discover that there was no ferry, and no other boats. Some of the people in the back of the trucks had begun vomiting, although thankfully it was mostly motion sickness! We got everybody into a restaurant built at the land-end of the pier, and closed the chainlink gates. We quarantined the worst of our infected, and restocked our supplies from the kitchens. We learned that the coastguard was preventing boats from leaving, and that the ferry had been turned back. Still,we were in a well-supplied defensive location with over a hundred people, and so we decided to stay put until it all blew over. Unfortunately, we'd be forced to move again before too long.

The next day, Army ground patrols came past and cleared out the occasional shambling zombie. They were escorting corporate tankers that were running pipes into the sewers and storm water pipes. We got the attention of one of the army guys, who explained that there were zombies in the sewer and this company was going to pump in a sort of acid or organic solvent to kill them all, and we should just stay put. Instead, the tankers pumped a green gas underground, and the cabs detached and drove away. The Army guys tried to wave them down, but then all hell broke loose. The back of the tanker opened, and several gas-soaked super-zombies climbed out, followed from the sewers by a number of their enervated kin!

We stood and fought from behind the mesh fence, stabbing and burning at the wall of undead! Eventually, one of the faster ones broke through and ran inside. We were already loading people onto trucks for a quick getaway, as a massive horde of undead was closing in on us. I pursued the fast zombie inside, yelling for peope to get out, and managed to strike it down before it killed any civilians. I had to leap from the first floor window onto the back of the semi-trailer to avoid being left behind, and we drove off crunchily through the crowd.

We decided to head East, with thoughts of perhaps reaching Mount Dandenong or finding a way around the quarantined city to the North. We didn't have much information to go on, so we discussed several possibilities. After driving for some time through mostly deserted streets, we came across the site of an overrun Army barricade on the freeway. A few of us went onto the flyover to investigate, and discovered several APCs with weapon mounts, and a troop transport truck. After clearing out the dead bodies and fighting off some enthusiastic crows, we added the vehicles to our convoy. Worried about our food supply, we decided to look for a nearby shopping market supply warehouse.

We soon found a warehouse district. Each building had a spray-painted marking on the front; it looked like the Army had been through and marked them as "clear" or "useful" or something, but we weren't sure what. We found a safe warehouse that was still fully stocked with food and household supplies, and decided to camp out. However, a few problems soon became apparent. Out the back, in a caged-off area with a generator in it, were three obviously mutated guard dogs. We put them down, decapitated the bodies, and buried them just in case they decided to rise from the dead. Ellen found a ventilation pipe coming up from underground, which was slowly leaking a green gas. She took a sample in a jar.

The next morning, some of the people were feeling ill and a few were showing signs of mutation. We couldn't stay any longer for fear of contamination, so we took as much sealed food as wecould and started up the convoy again. Some of the gas-affected people decided to stay behind, despite our promise to find help for them. Ellen also suggested we paint red crosses on the roofs of the vehicles to either attract attention or ward off military strikes.

We headed East again, through a ruined urban landscape. We passed a truck that had rolled over, and witnessed a creature scavenging meat from the dead. Pressing on, we eventually reached a massive barrier wall across the freeway, being assaulted by hordes of zombies clambering over each other in an attempt to escape the city. The barricade was manned, and they were fighting the zombies. We made radio contact from one of our APCs. Unfortunately they weren't able to open the gates for us because of the undead, but they gave us directions to another gate a little way to the North where we might be able to get out.

A tense drive later, we approached the next gate. There were fewer zombies, and we radioed ahead to let them know we were coming. They opened the gates and fought back the undead as we gunned the trucks down the highway and through the checkpoint! The back of one of the vehicles was singed a little from a flamethrower, but we made it without bringing any zombies with us. The gates were shut, and we were safe.

All the people we got out were put through quarantine. The whole city of Melbourne was walled off, and the zombie plague had been contained... so far. I was very suspicious of scientists in the quarantine camp who were wearing the logo of the company who had released the green gas into the tunnels, but they assured us that it had been a rogue element or terrorists using their vehicles as cover. It turned out our small group all had a natural resistance to the zombie virus, and there was some discussion of us being recruited to fight this new threat, should it arise again.

Nobody knows what the future will bring.


It's been a while since we played; if any of the other players or GM read this and remember something differently, let me know and I'll edit it appropriately!

In general, I liked the way Paul ran the game; he adapted to our plans and allowed us flexibility of action, always coming up with new imperfect conditions to stop us from staying in one place while advancing the story of the outbreak.

Over the course of the campaign, I don't think we had as many direct conflicts with zombies and other monsters as I was expecting. I thought there would be more occasion where, despite our generally cautious approach, the undead would find a way through our defences and force a fight. Given that we were facing infectious zombies but didn't know how Paul's game mechanics covering infection worked, we were understandably reluctant to engage them if we didn't have to.

I think that Paul would have liked more combat too, but maybe didn't feel like he could justifiably attack our armed vehicle convoy. Still, even something as simple as running out of fuel would have forced us to make some tough choices or expose ourselves to danger. I wouldn't have been surprised to have super-zombies leap onto the vehcles, or have an acute outbreak amid the civilians we were trying to protect.

Because of the shortage of engagements, we also didn't use the full combat system all that often. I did find that anything lower than a d10 Fighting tended to miss rather a lot. I was having fun picking out new combat Edges to make the sort of doomed, heroic melee-based zombie fighter of my concept.

The campaign ended after we escaped the initial outbreak, although Paul's said he has more plans for if we decide to play again.

Interface Zero: Vegas

Since Rohin fell in love with the Interface Zero setting for Savage Worlds even more than I did, he decided to run a game based in the Free City of Las Vegas, located in the Northeast of Baja Mexico. The city was controlled in equal parts by corporate and organised crime interests. The party would all be working as security and troubleshooters at a strip mall owned by corporate magnate Bob Ho.

We played several sessions in 2012, but didn't manage to resolve the main storyline.

+Andrew played Gerald Rigg, an android security guard.
John played Mr. X, a blind mouse-hybrid hacker.
+Melysa played Kuma, a genetically modified security dog with near-human intelligence.
I played Devlin Monterey, a dog-hybrid rentacop of French-Canadian extraction.


The game started with a couple of us pulling security duty in the mall. A few kids started a food fight, so I intimidated them (and drew my stun-stick) and they ran away. During the ruckus, a virtual graffiti artist dropped a hyper-reality tag on the wall. I think he got chased off by Mr. X.

We were soon called into our boss' office, and given a mission. The daughter of a friend of the company had gone missing, and we were asked to find her. The situation was big and complex. The reference photos for the daughter had been doctored, but we managed to hack her school and find security footage of her. She'd disappeared from an alley in a Triad part of town during some turmoil with rival Hispanic gangs, but we learned she had friends in the Mafia and had probably gone with them. We tracked down the car she'd been taken away in, but it was booby-trapped and exploded. It began to seem as though she might have run away rather than being kidnapped.

We were sent video footage from the kidnapper showing her being sexually assaulted. The man in the video had a class ring. Her father was a member of the same class; we tracked down three other members who were currently in Baja Mexico - a scientist working for a bio-research facility, someone with connections to the European mafia, and an ex-General now working as a fight promoter and manager for a cyber-gladiator.

We ended up at a bit of an impasse, trying to untangle the various webs of stories and connections, and trying to figure out the best way to gain leverage and information hile exposing ourselves to minimal harm. Luckily, we had some other things to keep us occupied...

We received a tip-off that some gangers were going to raid one of our stock warehouses. We waited nearby in our AV, swooping in once they entered corporate property and our jurisdiction. We engaged them with deadly force, killing most of them and destroying their van as they fled using our vehicle-mounted cannon.

We'd been hearing rumours of a Bio-Horror prowling around the city ever since the start of the game, but we finally got a call that it was rampaging through one of our company malls.  We arrived to find it - a mutated giant tiger-like creature - prowling around an upper-storey food court, eating things and people. Some of us engaged it head-on to draw its attention, while the others guided the civilians to safety. It was a tough fight, but we eventually managed to subdue it.

As we transported it to the roof for extraction, a second Bio-Horror, like the first one but twice the size, climbed up onto the roof and, using  voice synthesiser, demanded the return of his "brother." It charged, and I faced it down as the others hurried for the AV. Miraculously, I put one shot into its head and it went down. My elation was short-lived, as it began to regenerate and showed signs of moving. We cleared out as fast as we could.


That was as much as we got through in 2012. My first impressions of playing Savage Worlds are that the dice did tend to feel "swingy" quite a lot of the time. In particular, I had a hard time trying to get decent damage rolls, and it was frustrating to not have the option of spending a Benny to reroll. I spent four or five rounds shooting the little Bio-Horror to no effect, only to completely drop the larger Bio-Horror with a single shot from the same gun. From what I've read about the system since, we probably could have used a few combat manoeuvres other than just repeatedly making attack rolls.

Deciding what to increase with an advance does tend to take a little while, unless you have it planned out. To start with, I guess there were a few Edges on my wish-list that I hadn't managed to pick up at character creation. I found that Skills only start to feel really competent at d10 or higher; starting with d8's, I flubbed more rolls than I would have liked.

Overall it's a serviceable game. I think we spent a lot of time trying to plan our approaches and minimise exposure to danger rather than just diving in, which given the way NPCs tend to fold like card-houses, was probably largely unnecessary. I think we were still in a Cyberpunk 2020 mindset to some degree, where a single bullet can lay you low. While that's still true in Interface Zero, characters are by and large somewhat more resilient.

The VR/HR elements of Interface Zero were also a bit hand-wavey at times; the setting book gives a glimpse at an awesome vision of hyper-reality, but doesn't have solid enough grounding principles to allow for us to extrapolate logical outcomes without relying on GM fiat. Also, the rules for hacking and controlling other people were a bit vague.

I'm actually writing this blog post in April 2013, and I've recently put in for the Interface Zero 2.0 Kickstarter at the PDF level, so it will be interesting to see if the new version addresses any of my concerns with the setting-specific rules.

IZ: Scavengers of the Sunken City

I ran a short introductory Savage Worlds game in the Interface Zero setting, just so the group could become familiar with character creation and the basic mechanics before Rohin launched his Interface Zero Vegas campaign. I don't have a full cast list of characters, but the players were +Andrew, John, +Melysa, and Rohin.

We set the game in the semi-sunken ruins of Los Angeles, after the land to the West of the San Andreas Fault slid into the ocean. I cast L.A. as being 10 to 100 metres underwater, with ruined skyscrapers and fractured freeways poking above the surface. Several communities of scavengers, gangers, and the remnants of the LAPD had been built on the elevated land around the city basin.

There was some resistance to the system, especially from Andrew. In particular, needing to read and absorb the entire list of Edges in order to make informed choices at character creation was a big mark against the system. However, the whole point of this short game was to give people a chance to experiment and find the pitfalls so they could make more informed choices when making characters for Rohin's long-term game.

John went through a couple of iterations before deciding on an aquatic hybrid. There was also some uncertainty and confusion about the Interface Zero occupation and income system and how it related to Edges and Hindrances such as Rich or Poverty. He wanted to be a Crime Boss ($25K income) along with the Poverty Hindrance (halve income, can't hold onto cash), but this would still have meant he would be starting with more money than anyone else (mostly $5K to $10K incomes)! In the end, I decided that the Corporate and Crime Boss occupations were only available if you took the Rich Edge, and the Ganger occupation ($2K) was a representation of the Poverty Hindrance.

Speaking of money, IZ lacks a standard exchange rate with the dollars used in the Savage Worlds core rulebook, and also lacks a mundane equipment list! Due to hyperinflation, dollar values in IZ are between 2 and 10 times higher than their modern day equivalents, but it's somewhat frustrating to have to guesstimate prices for everything, especially when gear is a big part of the setting.

We opened with a fight, and I discovered how fragile Extras in Savage Worlds can be.


The group came down to their boats one day to find rival gangers looting them. The fight was brief, and none of my gangers got to fire a shot; I think one managed to crawl behind cover, but it didn't do him much good. 

The characters discovered a hyper-reality data file on one of the gangers - a map, describing the location of what appeared to be a concealed lab in one of the submerged skyscrapers in the abandoned central city. They dialled up a virtual connection, discovering that the lab seemed to contain several prototype wheeled remotes which may be collector's items. However, the HR version of the lab couldn't tell them much about the physical condition of the lab, except that the power was off. They decided to take a couple of boats and go check it out.

Using the map they quickly located the building and began trying to find a way into the sealed lab level. It turned out that it was definitely underwater now, but one of the group was an aquatic hybrid. Before they could find a way in though, they were attacked by several speedboats loaded with gangers.  A big firefight ensued, spanning the building with the lab and the one next door. They managed to snipe, outmanoeuvre, and gun down most of the gangers, but the last survivor took a boat and fled.

They finally managed to cut their way into the lab and recover the first edition remotes, but then decided to explore the upper levels of the shattered building in case there was anything else worth looting. Of course, most of the decent stuff had been stripped decades ago. They ended up disturbing a bio-horror that was nesting in the building; even as a Wild Card, it didn't last long against assault shotguns. They heard more scrabbling sounds from the next floor up, and took that as their cue to leave.


Even boatloads of Extras were little threat to the group, and the powerful weapons in Interface Zero seem to be able to chew through Wild Cards pretty well too. Playing cards worked pretty well for initiative, although as we were seated around a loungeroom rather than a table, it sometimes took more than a glance to see who was up next.

Some of the Hyper-Reality and hacking rules seemed a little vague, and I wasn't really confident in my approach. Oddly, having searched a few forums, apparently the guys at Gunmetal Games haven't fully thought through their vision of virtual reality either, as they mostly seem to say "we hadn't thought about that" and "just do whatever you like" in response to questions about The Deep. I can see a grand vision in the basic IZ hacking system, but it's a little too obscured for me to be able to see it clearly. I prefer to understand things from base principles, but it's tricky to come up with a consistent, understandable interpretation of The Deep that actually matches the rules. I also invested in the Hacking 2.0 PDF, which purports to simplify VR, but I think it takes away some of the charm.

After mostly playing the same game for a decade or so, some of the players were a bit slow on the uptake of a new system. I ended up making little summary sheets on how to make skill and damage rolls.

Up next, we made characters for Rohin's game, set in Vegas - a Free City in the country of Baja Mexico.

Savage Worlds: First Thoughts

I was initially attracted to Savage Worlds not becuse of its uniquely different approach, but because of its similar approach. From what I'd read, it seemed to share many of the same approaches and goals as I'd attempted to address when writing PowerFrame - a generic, simplified and streamlined distillation of 90's gaming, with an emphasis on low prep time. As I read the rules, my first impression was that it was more successful in its goals of low prep, simplicity and streamlining than I had managed. Everything in Savage Worlds was pared down to the minimum; by comparison, PowerFrame had begun to suffer from rules bloat.

Savage Worlds' resolution system appears to be much quicker - a single roll (two dice, pick the highest) against a static Target Number (usually 4, unless you're fighting in close combat or inflicting wounds) - this compared to PowerFrame, where in a contest both sides roll one exploding dice and add their Ability Level, with the defending roll setting the difficulty for the active character (or using static Target Numbers when there's nobody in direct opposition). Both systems apply modifiers, often count successes based on the margin, have exploding dice (although PowerFrame dice only explode once), and include a way to reroll the dice.

Another of Savage Worlds' "draw-cards" is its initiative system, where cards are dealt from a standard playing card deck to each player or group of NPCs. With a method for splitting ties between suits, there's no chance two people will end up on the same initiative - which admittedly, can take a little while to deal with in PowerFrame. However, while Savage Worlds deals initiative each turn, everyone in PowerFrame rolls once and then cycles around the list, so comparing the two systems is swings and roundabouts. Savage Worlds does have a slight advantage in that it can be a waste of time to set up an initiative list in PowerFrame only to have combat last just a couple of turns.

One thing both games have in common is a number of detailed and defined combat options. Savage Worlds even manages to keep non-combat-specced characters involved with Taunts and Tricks, which is something PowerFrame does not mechanically define - it's up to the GM to adjudicate any such attempts.

I haven't had a good look through the Powers chapter, although Rohin said it seemed to have some fairly large gaps. I guess the corebook just has a stripped down list, and you'd find more comprehensive Power sets in setting books or supplements like the Fantasy Companion; I haven't investigated those options, though.

I did find it a little difficult to gauge the power of NPCs; there's no real guidelines apart from "don't use the character system, just make them up!" which is all well and good if you're experienced enough to eyeball things. With just the corebook, though, there were precious few example NPCs. I guess the cross-genre nature makes it hard to come up with definitive examples, but even a rough idea of what a cannon fodder enemy, challenging enemy, and boss enemy looked like might have helped. It's also tricky to judge how the creatures will fare; I ran a small test with +Paul, whose monster-hunting priest nearly got taken out by two zombies because he couldn't pump out enough damage to keep them down! A second test against mostly d4-rated Nazis went much better.

One thing Savage Worlds has that PowerFrame doesn't is its lists of Edges and Hindrances - a system of advantages and disadvantages that is fairly integral to the characters. In fact, it's assumed that all characters will take their full complement of Hindrances, thus allowing them to buy advantages including unique Edges. Much like the Stunts in Spirit of the Century, these represent a large amount of up-front information that needs to be digested by each player before they can make fully informed choices about their character. The only comparable thing in PowerFrame is the Ability list, which is admittedly quite long, and which does contain Abilities with specific game effects... Maybe it's just familiarity that makes my groups comfortable with PowerFrame, but resistant to learning large amounts of stuff for a new system? Once the effort's been made to learn one system in detail, it can seem like unnecessary work to repeat that process with another system.

I was curious to see how Savage Worlds performed in actual play compared to PowerFrame, since the systems shared so much in common yet used different approaches. During Easter 2012, I picked up a hardcopy of the Interface Zero setting, and Rohin fell in love with it. He began to plan a campaign (Interface Zero: Las Vegas), and I suggested I run a brief test game (Scavengers of the Sunken City) so the group could test out character creation and get used to the basics first.