Into the twisted and swampy forest known as the Gnarls. The nothern part of Cygnar on the way to Five Fingers is densely overgrown and sparsely populated. Make sure you are stocked up before you enter, and that you double the night watch! Rough travel through a thickly overgrown forest track. It’s a fairly travelled road, but bad weather sets in, and its fairly miserable. It gets worse when a posse of Gatormen show up. The Gatormen are willing to be reasonable: Leave both cart horses, and the Gators will let the party run away. We didn’t really expect them to accept the offer, though.
DBGM06: Cygnar Countryside
This was a typical journey across the seedier side of Cygnar. This district has a Duke with a bad reputation, and things are kind of rough around the edges. This close to the coast, towns are walled and mistrustful from the occaisional Cryx raid. Further inland, things are more comfortable, but a bit unlawful. To the North, they enter the Gnarls. This episode was composed of a nice montage of small encounters along the way. This part covers the main Cygnar highways connecting Ceryl to Five Fingers, but not quite entering the Gnarls yet.
DB06: Cygnar Countryside
Crossing the Cygnar countryside shouldn’t be a problem, right? This part of Cygnar does not have the greatest Duke, so things are not as stable as you might expect. The countryside is used to occaisional Cryx raids, so the towns are defended and mistrustful. This game was to describe two days of travelling across the countryside. There was in-between cutscenes and dialogue, but it was mostly just a cross-country travel montage.
DBGM05: Escape Sharde Islands
The party flees some Cryx, gets some much-needed plot exposition, runs away some more, then finally gets a stop in a civilized City. One running fight with a lot of models on the table, but not too much direct combat. Lots of skill rolls, lots of talking and plot stuff, and plenty of Chickens in town. All in all, a solid session that pushed the story forward and gives the party their first round of upgrades.
DB05: Escape Sharde Islands
The party has fled the ruined town and are seeking escape from the Cryx. The small road should lead to a harbor, and possibly a ship that can be sailed away. Two regular Players are absent, and two new temporary Players are sitting in. They appear a few minutes into the episode, and are playing a pair of mercenaries who tend to be caught in bad situations.
DBGM04: Ghost Town
The second adventure takes them further inland to escape the Cryx. They find a ruined village to hide in, but it is only a brief respite. The Cryx are searching the island, and the party contacts one of the Cryxian groups. Some plot stuff is mixed into this episode, along with a nasty fight at the edge of town. The Cryx have ways of creating more undead during the battle, and this was the first real spellcaster/’jack controller that they faced.
DB04: Ghost Town
Now that the party has escaped the slave ship and started the campaign properly, they are fleeing the harbor inland and looking for a place of refuge. They are still not sure exactly where in the world they are, but are assuming they are somewhere either in the Broken Coast area, or the northern Sharde Islands of Cryx near the Cygnar coast. This episode is a bit more regrouping and finding out where they are and what’s going on.
DBGM03: Slave Ship
This first adventure was to set the tone for the campaign, as well as began a number of plot hooks and details for the future. A number of small personal details were added, and we’ve let the Players see how nasty the heavy units can be. I also wanted part of the challenge to come from having no equipment to start with, and discovering what the new creatures and models are.
DB03: Slave Ship
The first adventure went well, with the Players pulling themselves together and escaping the clutches of the Bad Guys. Most of the Players were there, and everyone got to participate. There were momentary disgruntlements when they realized I had taken away all of their starting equipment, but the setting and scenario made sense, and they did all end up having fun. This entry discusses the opening episode, and how things went down for the party.
DBGM02: Final Prep
Dragonsbane is a campaign that takes place in Privateer Press’ Iron Kingdoms role-playing game rules and setting. This series is specifically from the perspective of the Game Master, the person running the game. It is running concurrently with the Player Series for this campaign inthe RPG section. We have one week to ShowTime, so its time to make sure we have stuff plotted and planned. Characters are falling into place, and I’m weaving their stories together, so they (hopefully) have some reason to continue to work together. This is always a tough trick to pull off with a group this size. More than ten Players is a lot to juggle.