Other adventures in this series:
My Player Characters
- Zastra, a failed practising chemist. He has a long knife, a flask of Never-Melting Crushed ice, and a test tube of liquid that can make an object look gold.
- Rades, a failed corpse collector. He has an axe, a wheelbarrow, a plunger, a hand that follows him around and listens to basic instructions, and a small Companion Ball that follows him and can store small items.
- Sol, a failed gang enforcer, former member of Solid Nation gang. She has a busted face, a sledgehammer, silver face paint, and a chain that can transfer harmful effects between two people.
- Percy, tenth in line for the title of Eminent-Raider of Ruther's Ford. He has a fire poker, a fur cloak, and a warhorse
- J.R. Pufnstuf, a failed mendicant mycologist (studies fungus). He has a khukuri, a mushroom cap hat, a pouch of salty moss, and a mushroom that induces sleep and causes nightmares.
Part 2: The Collar
“The Collar is worn in plain sight by the Machinist evangelist, Brockman Gaiter.” (Electric Bastionland, pg 321)Primary Bastionland Element(s) Explored: Electric Bastion, The Living City, Monstrosities
“Machinists seek shortcuts from Machines in the Underground, but each Machine responds differently.” (Electric Bastionland, pg 251)
According to Alaine’s Sources:
- Gaiter is leading an expedition in the Nixforge Borough
- Expedition includes machinists, electricians, scientists, ecologists, and city planners.
- Nixforge is easily accessed by canal.
- Canal only flows one way.
- Canal leaves Nixforge by dipping into the Underground
- There is a dangerous machine in the Underground below Nixforge.
- Alaine suggests funding another way out of the Borough.
- The group can obtain the collar however they want.
- They could easily steal it or overpower Gaiter and take it
- However, Mr. Gaiter may be able to help ease their time acquiring another piece of the suit (the sash)
- Would require positive relations not necessarily gained by stealing.
“The Sash still lies buried with the Tailor’s Daughter. The graveyard she was buried in has sunk deep into the underground.” (Electric Bastionland, pg 321)
Nixforge
- Newly formed part of Bastion
- No one takes credit for building it
- Actively seeking new residents
- Will try to get the player characters to stay there, or kill them.
- Likely sequence of events: Obstacle (K), Landmark (9), Landmark (8), Obstacle (J), Landmark (7), Landmark (5), Obstacle (H), Obstacle (L)
- Landmark (11), Obstacle (M), Obstacle (F)
- Landmark (11), Obstacle (B), Landmark (1), Obstacle (A)/Obstacle(C), Landmark (2), Obstacle (E)/Obstacle(D), Landmark (4), Obstacle (F)
- Obstacle (G), Landmark (4), Obstacle (F)
Landmarks:
1. Warehouses (Expensive)
- Gold-plated warehouse buildings
- Mostly used for storing excess business files/paperwork
- Most of the paperwork is currently blank (as the businesses are all newly established)
2. The Electric Bulldog Squad Hideout (Public)
- Largely placed for Sol, the former gang enforcer for Solid Nation
- Electric Bulldog Squad (gang) hangs out here
- Also serves as public relations between gang and other people
- Well advertised
3. Nixforge Council Building
- Brockman Gaiter wants to go here
- Wants building records for this Borough.
- When it was built/opened and by who
- Who approved anything related to businesses/zoning/whatever for the borough
- Run by bureaucrats
- Will try to keep Brockman and/or PCs from getting any useful info
- Will become violent if bureaucracy does not deter PCs/Brockman
- Will turn into monstrosities if forced to face the truth about the borough themselves.
4. Art Garden (Overgrown)
- Art grows like plants
- Statues
- Paintings
- Weird sculpture things
- Overgrown
- Paintings growing into one another.
- Statues growing out of paintings
- Nowhere to stand without getting on the art
- Art enthusiasts nearby get very upset if you disturb the art.
- Fungal Paint
- Placed primarily for J.R. Pufnstuf, the failed mendicant mycologist
5. Heart of Nixforge Borough
- A large, mostly automated factory
- There are some human workers, but their tasks are fairly menial
- Most of them are so focused on their work that they don’t notice people trying to interact with them unless said people get in their way. Even then, they are dull and generally unaware of anything beyond their work.
- Seem to be putting together building pieces, pipes, electrical wiring, etc.
- Brockman Gaiter is here.
- Hiding out in a room without active machinery
- The factory machines killed the rest of his team in a series of increasingly improbable accidents.
- Brockman is sure that they had a good reason
- Brockman and his team are investigating the new formation of the Nixforge Borough.
- The borough only started appearing on records recently, even if the records indicated it had always been here.
- There are no records that Brockman can find of any construction company building the borough or anything in it.
- There are no records that Brockman can find of any council or entity designing or commissioning the construction of the borough.
- Brockman believes that this borough, and many others that have cropped up over the years, was built by a machine.
- Is this true? Eh. My general thought is that the boroughs grow more naturally on their own, but that human minds can’t really comprehend that so it has a risk of breaking them.
- If the PCs ask about the collar: Gaiter will promise it to them in exchange for safe passage out of the borough. He really feels like the borough itself is trying to kill him.
- But first he’d really like to stop in at the council building to try to see if there are any records there that could help.
- If the PCs ask about him helping them to find the Scarf in the Underground, he’ll offer to help them if they help him search the council building for records.
- Once out of Nixforge Borough, he can probably be convinced to help them anyway, provided everyone is still on good terms. But probably not before then.
6. Canal access to Underground
- Sharp drop, big splash at the bottom.
- Domain of a particularly slicy Machine.
- Likes taking cutting things apart and putting them back together.
- Has not yet mastered the later part with living organisms
7. Distillery (Broken)
- Doesn’t stop them from trying to keep producing drinks
- Drinks tend to try to break people. 1d4 damage per sip.
- Sips must only be taken willingly/knowingly.
- Oddly does not work as secret poison.
8. All You Can Eat Restaurant Cafe
- Run by man named Chuman Phile
- Loves the Job
- Insincere
- Seeks Truth
- Low price of 3£, serves All You Can Eat meal consisting of Restaurant parts
- Includes things like doors, walls, windows, cookware, etc
- None of it is actually edible
- But they’ll let you try to eat as much as you want
- They do not allow people to take the “food” to go.
9. Nixforge Memorial Bridge
- Seen upon entry to Nixforge Borough via canal
- Several large places on the bridge surrounded by elegant embroidery
- Look like places for murals or etchings, but currently left blank
- This is because the borough is new and doesn’t yet have anything to memorialize
- If the PCs do something particularly memorable, it may be depicted on the bridge if they see it again. Possibly, someone might be painting the bridge when they go by.
10. Oddity Emporium
- Gives players a chance to buy/sell oddities
- Run by a man named Vanis Kross.
- Long Hair
- Slow moving
- Seeks Astral Enlightenment
- Most of what’s for sale is fake and/or doesn’t work and/or works less well/frequently than the salesperson says.
11. That Which Ales You Tavern
- Run by woman named Stella Gill
- Cynical
- Seeks Peace and Quiet
- Upset that deliveries aren’t really working from the Broken Distillery
- Use the Cocktails and/or Parlour Games generators as necessary
Obstacles
A. Wear-house Warehouse raiders
- These raiders have wooden and brick house frames instead of normal clothes.
- Shaped into raider-looking things, including horned helmets
- Generally trying to get whatever they can from the warehouses in this area
B. Limb Vulture
- Stooped, flightless, and barely able to hold the weight of its huge, chomping beak. Will approach an already weakened victim before attempting to tear off a single limb to feed on. (Generated from this official Bastionland blog post: http://www.bastionland.com/2020/04/d50-birds-of-bastion.html
C. Business/Warehouse cross traffic
- Stampede of office-folk
- Will happily trample those trying to walk down the street
- Will not part for traffic
D. Electric Bulldog Protection Racket
- The Electric Bulldog Gang is happy to provide protection from the dangers of Nilforge Borough.
- For a price
- The Electric Bulldog Gang are among the dangers of Nilforge Borough.
E. Adventuring Capitalists
- Leaping from buildings
- Running from explosions
- That they caused
- Having thrilling corporate espionage encounters
- Investing in high risk gum stocks
- Battling tax dragons
F. Incoming Traffic/Population Minimum not met
- A large number of people, horses, cars, etc, are entering the borough, shoving anyone who would go the other way backwards.
- There is a sign near the borough’s exit which says “Exiting not permitted. Population Minimum Not Yet Met.”
- There are guards nearby to enforce the population minimum, and the need to keep people from exiting.
G. Rats!
H. Monstrosity
- Looks to be a ball made out of many limbs
- Formed in an industrial accident when reality was manipulated to create Nixforge borough where there just happened to be people standing
- Those that die in industrial incidents in the Heart of Nixforge are added to its body
- It will follow and hunt for Brockman either because a) the people who were a part of his expedition and who are now part of the monster blame him for their deaths; or b) because it wants to protect Nixforge and feels that Brockman discovering the truth is a threat to that.
I. See Mines
- Blinding
J. Leapfrogs
- About the size of a five year old child
- Not intentionally malicious
- Just like jumping off of things/people
- Will push people off of canal boat and into canal
K. Photo Station
- Welcome to Nixforge!
- Please bring your boat to a complete stop!
- Wait several moments while the camera gets ready
- Photo souvenir can be picked up in 1-5 business days from the Oddity Emporium
L. Ambush (Sabyetta)
- Sabyetta (the rival) returns!
- This time, she and her lackeys are prepared
- First Strategy: Hide behind/within/atop buildings and try to shoot the PCs down to isolate Brockman and get the collar.
- Second Strategy: Convince Brockman that the PCs don’t have his best interests at heart
- Third Strategy: Kidnap Brockman
- Fourth Strategy: Kidnap one or more of the PCs to use as leverage against the others
- Fifth Strategy: All out fight
M. Maintenance Spiders
- Actual spiders
- Fixing wiring in electric systems
- Fixing holes in walls and such
- Generally maintaining Nixforge borough
N. Electric Music (Hypnotic)
- CHA save to resist.
- Failure results in uncontrolled dancing
- Excessive dancing can be painful/lead to taking damage
My Players' Journey
So, for all this planning, what did my players do?
When the idea was presented that they shouldn't beat up Brockman/steal the collar from him because he could help with finding the sash, the players came up with the clever strategy of getting his help looking for the sash and *then* beating him up/stealing from him.
They had their photo taken and passed under the bridge. They passed the All You Can Eat Restaurant Cafe. For some reason, I forgot to use the leapfrogs, and I'm still kicking myself over it. They got off their boat and walked past the broken distillery. All until they found the factory at the heart of Nixforge.
After finding Brockman, Sol (the failed gang enforcer) attempted to gain his trust and/or intimidate him by claiming that he should know who they were. This failed and made him believe that they were part of the Electric Bulldog Gang, who had demanded that he and his team pay them for protection, which he and his team had refused. The PCs leaned into the Electric Bulldog Gang lie, offering their help with his efforts if he would help them with theirs (giving them the collar and helping them find the sash.) He agreed and they set off towards the council building.
The players had debated about the idea of going off the path and just cutting across to the council building, since that would have been much faster. However, they also were theorizing that the entire borough may have actually been the machine itself (specifically the one below the borough that they'd been warned about), and that it might try to smash them between walls or other unpleasant things if they went off the street.
Heading back down the main road, they encountered the Monstrosity. This is something that I really wish I could have done differently and will think about a lot for future rewrites. I really wanted the whole scenario to have a sort of 'running from the monster' feel to it that I really wasn't able to accomplish. And I'm not sure how I could have accomplished it better. Something to think about.
They tried to run from the Monstrosity, but only Brockman, Zastra (the chemist), and Rades were able to get away. Fighting the monster, J.R. Pufnstuf ended up getting a smashed mouth and Sol ended up with shaken nerves. Pufnstuf and Percy were able to get away, but Sol wasn't so lucky, taking critical damage. Percy went back and trampled the monstrosity with his horse, killing it and saving Sol.
They did think that the monstrosity might have been created by the Machine below the borough, since they'd been told that it liked taking living things apart and putting them back together, and since the monster seemed to be a bunch of arms put back together. It hadn't been my plan, but it seemed super reasonable, so I probably would have said that was the case had they ever had the opportunity to confirm their suspicion.
At this point in the adventure, we were running shorter on time than I'd have liked, so I cut some of the encounters out. Especially since they had just had a combat against the monstrosity, I didn't really want another combat scene right away. So I skipped over Sabeyetta's ambush. They passed the tavern. I skipped the limb vulture. They saw the warehouses, but generally didn't care about them.
They went to the council building where they were stopped by a bureaucratic secretary. Using Percy's noble reputation/title/persuasion that those things actually are meaningful in some way, the players were able to convince their way past the bureaucracy and into the office to examine the borough's records.
They found the records blank, and found more bureaucrats waiting to ambush them when they left. They snuck out the back without being noticed.
Convinced now that they had their answer (although I'm not sure I know what they thought that answer was,) the players turned their attention to getting out of the borough. Sol and Zastra ran into trouble getting through the cross traffic between the warehouses and the businesses. Sol ended up getting trampled and, with the strength damage that she'd already taken from the monstrosity, ended up meeting a fatal end.
The players then avoided the Electric Bulldog Gang (especially important since Brockman thought they were members of it and they didn't want to blow their cover now.) They saw the overgrown art garden and didn't really care. They made their way to the borough exit just as the borough reached its population minimum, allowing them to leave.
Check out the next part of the Quest for the Nine Piece Suit here.
When the idea was presented that they shouldn't beat up Brockman/steal the collar from him because he could help with finding the sash, the players came up with the clever strategy of getting his help looking for the sash and *then* beating him up/stealing from him.
They had their photo taken and passed under the bridge. They passed the All You Can Eat Restaurant Cafe. For some reason, I forgot to use the leapfrogs, and I'm still kicking myself over it. They got off their boat and walked past the broken distillery. All until they found the factory at the heart of Nixforge.
After finding Brockman, Sol (the failed gang enforcer) attempted to gain his trust and/or intimidate him by claiming that he should know who they were. This failed and made him believe that they were part of the Electric Bulldog Gang, who had demanded that he and his team pay them for protection, which he and his team had refused. The PCs leaned into the Electric Bulldog Gang lie, offering their help with his efforts if he would help them with theirs (giving them the collar and helping them find the sash.) He agreed and they set off towards the council building.
The players had debated about the idea of going off the path and just cutting across to the council building, since that would have been much faster. However, they also were theorizing that the entire borough may have actually been the machine itself (specifically the one below the borough that they'd been warned about), and that it might try to smash them between walls or other unpleasant things if they went off the street.
Heading back down the main road, they encountered the Monstrosity. This is something that I really wish I could have done differently and will think about a lot for future rewrites. I really wanted the whole scenario to have a sort of 'running from the monster' feel to it that I really wasn't able to accomplish. And I'm not sure how I could have accomplished it better. Something to think about.
They tried to run from the Monstrosity, but only Brockman, Zastra (the chemist), and Rades were able to get away. Fighting the monster, J.R. Pufnstuf ended up getting a smashed mouth and Sol ended up with shaken nerves. Pufnstuf and Percy were able to get away, but Sol wasn't so lucky, taking critical damage. Percy went back and trampled the monstrosity with his horse, killing it and saving Sol.
They did think that the monstrosity might have been created by the Machine below the borough, since they'd been told that it liked taking living things apart and putting them back together, and since the monster seemed to be a bunch of arms put back together. It hadn't been my plan, but it seemed super reasonable, so I probably would have said that was the case had they ever had the opportunity to confirm their suspicion.
At this point in the adventure, we were running shorter on time than I'd have liked, so I cut some of the encounters out. Especially since they had just had a combat against the monstrosity, I didn't really want another combat scene right away. So I skipped over Sabeyetta's ambush. They passed the tavern. I skipped the limb vulture. They saw the warehouses, but generally didn't care about them.
They went to the council building where they were stopped by a bureaucratic secretary. Using Percy's noble reputation/title/persuasion that those things actually are meaningful in some way, the players were able to convince their way past the bureaucracy and into the office to examine the borough's records.
They found the records blank, and found more bureaucrats waiting to ambush them when they left. They snuck out the back without being noticed.
Convinced now that they had their answer (although I'm not sure I know what they thought that answer was,) the players turned their attention to getting out of the borough. Sol and Zastra ran into trouble getting through the cross traffic between the warehouses and the businesses. Sol ended up getting trampled and, with the strength damage that she'd already taken from the monstrosity, ended up meeting a fatal end.
The players then avoided the Electric Bulldog Gang (especially important since Brockman thought they were members of it and they didn't want to blow their cover now.) They saw the overgrown art garden and didn't really care. They made their way to the borough exit just as the borough reached its population minimum, allowing them to leave.
Check out the next part of the Quest for the Nine Piece Suit here.
If you're new to my blog, consider checking out my main project, the Book of Destiny, an audiobook-style podcast in which each episode is another chapter of the book. You can also find it on iTunes, Google Play, or on any other major podcast service.
The book is set in a shattered series of worlds threatened by groups of world destroyers, monsters, dragons, and and more. Magical Essence flows through the multiverse and is used by many for both help and destruction. Main characters include a knight, a smuggler, and refugees from a destroyed realm.
I've embedded the first episode down below:
I've embedded the first episode down below:
No comments:
Post a Comment