All posts by jon

The Bronze Dogs

Session 1 – The Bellsover Breaks

Deep within the Spur Mountains there lies a narrow pass that leads from the stone fields of the Scar to the civilized realms of mankind. This mountain pass, called the “Chasm of Gorgamela” has forever been a migratory route for Giants, Orcs, Ogres and Trolls to travel along in search of bloodshed and plunder. Just over two hundred years ago the Dwarves of the Forgekingdoms and the men of the Krown Empire formed an alliance to prevent the humanoid tribes from raiding the south. Together they built a massive wall to block the chasm cut from nearby basalt stone. The Dwarves cast a massive bell of brass to be hung from the fortress that guarded the wall as a way to summon aid should the defenses fail. The bell was so well tuned it was said you could hear it ring over 300 miles away. Named “Bellsover Break” this fortress was so mighty it was deemed impregnable. Less than a year after its construction it was tested when a tribe of Hill Giants attempted to use the Chasm of Gorgamela to raid the southern lands. The Giants assaulted Bellsover Break for fourteen days and nights before retreating.

Bellsover Break was attacked almost yearly for a decade before the humanoids of the barren lands of the Scar realized the Chasm of Gorgamela was now impassable. This forced these blood thirsty creatures to use other ravines and passes through the Spur Mountains in search of plunder. Many of these routes are prone to rock slides and avalanches. Others are terribly narrow and treacherous. All of these alternative passages limit the movement of large groups. The Krown Empire and the Dwarven Forgekingdoms could finally enjoy peace and prosperity.

In the Common Year 2751, 36 years after the construction of Bellsover Break the fortress was placed under control of the mercenary armies of the newly formed Shieldhood. The Shieldhood is a collection of independent free-companies who dwell together in a city-state located in the eastern edge of the Spur Mountains. The Shieldhood boasts a population of roughly 13,000 inhabitants. Not all who dwell within the fortified city-state are sell swords; the Shieldhood has many who act as support staff for the mercenaries including scribes, carpenters, surveyors, cooks, smiths, whores, merchants and barber surgeons. Leading the city-state is the “War Captain”; all mercenary companies pay allegiance and swear a blood oath to the War Captain but are independently established and governed. Not only is the defense of the Shieldhood itself considering part of the duties the free- companies share but also the maintenance of several forts and guard posts. Bellsover Break is one of these locations.

You are members of the Bronze Dogs a small to mid-sized mercenary free-company established two decades ago by Exarch (equal to a Colonel) Lubomir Gizela. Lubomir was born the son of common farmer in village of Bulnik during the conquest of the Eastern Kingdom of the Krown Empire by the Sons of Samalin. When Bulnik was conquered Lubomir became a member of the resistance and fought in the city of Pelshuh during the occupation. After the Eastern Kingdom was liberated from the Sons of Samalin Lubomir became a soldier and later served in the army as an officer. When Lubomir left the service he gathered together a small but elite force of combatants for special assignments. He named them the Bronze Dogs.

Lubomir Gizela is in his late forties with a head of dark hair, dark eyes and a full beard. He walks with a noticeable limp having been injured during the liberation of the city of Pelshuh.

After the war to free the Eastern Kingdom a large number of professional soldier were left unemployed. Lubomir’s goal was to create a small specialized free-company. First he looked for men and women with experience. He hand-picked those who he believed would follow orders and perform their duties with a high degree of professionalism. Lubomir wanted no contention to his rules. No looting unless instructed, no rapine and no chance of mutiny. Next Lubomir looked for highly trained specialists, those skilled in living off the land, talented masters of stealth, urban combatants and those skilled in the mystical arts. During his time as a soldier Lubomir had first hand witnessed the failure of many armies and it was his desire to avoid these pit falls. He wanted a company of talented specialists who could avoid such disasters by the merit of their individual skill sets. Lastly he wanted to make his policies clear to both his mercenaries and those patrons they would serve. Lubomir Gizela wrote up a series of articles of the free-company to be signed by all members from support staff to mercenaries. Failure or breeches in the articles carried the sentence of death by execution.

Lubomir’s first member of the Bronze Dogs was a longtime friend. Sir Audwine Sterz was the bastard of a count from the Northern Kingdom of the Krown Empire. Raised as a knight but unable to inherit any lands Sterz was forced to seek riches elsewhere. Serving as the second in command of a free-company was Audwine Sterz’s path to a life of leisure. A master of tactics Sterz was an excellent addition to the company and serves as the Archon of the Bronze Dogs. Of average height and thickly built Sterz is well known as a talented fighter in hand to hand combat as well as skillful rider. At 60 years of age the silver haired Archon (equal to a Major) maybe be considered past his prime although none would say it to his face.

What the Bronze Dogs do that makes them unique is that they fulfill the roles few free-companies do. While the Bronze Dogs have engaged in open conflict it is not the free-companies forte. The Bronze Dogs often guard supply lines and baggage trains. They act as an unofficial police force in conquered areas preventing pillaging by rival mercenaries and displaced members of local populace. The Bronze Dogs breaks up riots and rebellions for local rulers. They actively hunt down roving groups of bandits raiding the villages or farmsteads. The Bronze Dogs excel in scouting territories and in forging the countryside for supplies. As Lubomir has proudly stated to his employers the Bronze Dogs free-company can do more with less.

The Bronze Dogs number under two hundred members including support staff. To date you have never been defeated!

In between contracts the Bronze Dogs reside in the fortified city-state of the Shieldhood. They dwell in what is commonly referred to as a “Soul”; a compound that includes barracks, stables, and a small training field. Life in the Shieldhood is easy, most mercenaries spend their time training, drinking, gambling and whoring in what is considered a soldiers paradise. In the spring many free-companies leave the city-state to fulfil contracts of service in various foreign nations. Most return to the Shieldhood in the winter before the snow makes the roads impassable and wait for spring and their next contract.

The early spring assignment

The Bronze Dogs have been selected by the War Captain of the Shieldhood to defend Bellsover Break for a period of 4 months before being relieved by another free company known as the Sorrowful Companions. This is a common assignment and the Bronze Dogs have done this task before. Archon Audwine Sterz is the acting leader of this force. Each member of the Bronze Dogs is asked to blindly select a stone from a bag. Those who draw forth a black stone are given duty at Bellsover Break. You have drawn forth a black stone. You and your fellows leave the Shieldhood and travel three days to the famous fortress.

The Magicians

Session 4 – Per Ankh

We finish getting equipment and then Jack goes to purchase a gun at an island near the Bronx. He gets a Colt 1911.

We meet up with Antonio and share that we got a letter with PER-ANKH on it. Jack looks at it again and is able to track the Egyptian couple. They are in the temple.

We go to the temple and the couple is there. They welcome us, and say we were expected. The woman explains that the cult of Per-Ankh has been around for thousands of years. They need our help to get Set — the god of Chaos — to do his job. It is because he abandoned his post that this chaos is occurring. The work of Apep.

The woman tells Jack her name as a “price” for believing him.

The man warns of Nurugu, the god of chaos helping Apep. Beware of serpents and pale foxes.

Nurugu is looking for his sister, who is safe hiding with another god.

We must first seek the jewel where the sister is hiding. It is a cosmic egg. The Trill family had it last.

The woman gives us a magic piece of paper that we can use to contact her instantly at any time.

The Magicians

Session 3 – Ta Ambua

Antonio visits the address on the card and it is a brown brick building. He opens the front door and it opens to an outdoor scene. He goes to the back and there is none!

We all go inside. It is raining here and we are getting soaked. On the door handle it says SIMBA RAS. None of us can decipher it.

We see something in the distance. Shen recognizes it as a temple where the early sorcerers would go to the afterlife. It is a sandstone “lost city” with pillars, etc. TA AMBUA. The landscape is getting more sandy.

The big door at the front is shattered. There is a scorch mark. When Shen touches it, he feels the presence of the Devil.

We go down the stairs, and they go on forever. Jack scrapes the wall and sees that we are not really moving. We are clearly under a spell. Jack pushes the spell back and we get down to the ground.

We run into a lecturn made out of stone. Nearby there are twelve prayer mats. There is one sarcophagus here with one small male in prayer. There are etchings in the ground that go outside. We should watch this place and bring shovels next time.

The Magicians

Session 2 – Italian Restaurant

Shen goes to the newsstand, Jonathan Trill is listed among the victims of the accident.

We split up; Antonio goes to the library and Jack & Shen go to the carnival. Antonio is being followed.

The carnival is in the Bronx. There are 16×5 blocks with damage.

At an Italian restaurant, we meet a dangerous looking man and a woman with dark eyebrows with a scar on her left eye. They invite Shen to their cause, though he doesn’t understand what they want. They give him a card with an address.

There was purple and red lightning during the storm.

We find that the Trills were involved in Egyptian excavations.

They found the Trill Treasure in 1868, which is lost now. The weighted key to the treasures of Egypt.

An article on the subject was written by Randall Kelly.

We go to visit the address on the card.

The Magicians

Session 1- Upper West Side

Upper West Side of New York City, June of 1922. There was a terrible carnival accident. One of the victims is a blond young man. We learn that there may be a clue at the mausoleum of a man named Jonathan Trill.

We go to the cemetery and we see an evil looking man — satan?? Jack’s eyes bleed and Shen’s ears bleed. He says “thank you” to Shen.

Necessary Evil

Session 4 – The Undergrounders

We research more about the Undergrounders before embark down to their domain. They are numerous — no one knows how many there are. They are refugees from the Visori.

Dr. Ashur creates a device that can shrink the power source. He makes it the size of a cell phone so they can easily take it with them.

The group opens up a nearby manhole and climbs down to try and find the Undergrounder domain. We wander for quite a while and when we’ve gone a fair distance, we hear a noise and stop. Looking around, we see a bunch of men in dirty clothes hiding behind some stalagtites. One of them has a gun.

Dr. Ashur uses his mind control to take over the man with the gun, whose name is Carl. He forces the man to lower his weapon and give him information. We ask them if they know where the device is, and they say that their leader may know. Her name is Valerie.

They lead us to an underground city that is a shantytown. We go to the “nicest” shanty and meet Valerie. She is the woman we saved in the first session. She says that she may know where the device may be, but there are probably Grogs (alien crocodile-dog hybrids specifically bred to kill Undergrounders). She offers to come with us and brings several men.

We get to an area with several dead Grogs, and hear something up ahead. Dr. Ashur starts to send Carl (the controlled Undergrounder) up to see what is there, but Abaddon says that’s not a good idea. 080 goes instead, and see that there is a huge robot in the room, with scythes for hands. 080 says “Oh, nice to see a fellow robot!”

The others come in and begin to attack the robot. After a while we are able to deactivate it. Dr. Ashur reprograms it and uses his shrink ray to make it the size of an action figure so he can take it with him.

We search the laboratory and we only find some booze stashed away. The computers do not have any interesting information that we can see.

Abaddon takes the elevator up and there is something blocking the way once the door opens. It is a grandfather clock. He pushed it open and sees that this is an antique store. This must be The Terran’s hideout.

We plug the tiny power converter in and it creates a small beam that goes through the ceiling and out to the sky.

Necessary Evil

Session 3 – The Device

We have a pre-recorded mession on our comlinks from Dr. Destruction: “The info you brought me says tht there is a power source underneath the city that the Visori haven’t found out about. The Terran created it, and the Undergrounders (beneath the city) know its location). You will need to take a heavy piece of equipment to go along with us to make use of the power source.”

Dr. Ashur takes a look at the piece of equipment that was left for us, and sees that it will collect energy and fire it off as a concentrated stream. He tries to reverse-engineer it, but is not able to.

Necessary Evil

Session 2 – The Lair

We go to a warehouse in South Point which is our group’s base of operations. It is a crummy building in a crummy part of town.

This area was a large-scale social program where non-violent offenders were released, so there is a lot a drug trade in the area. A drug called EZ showed up here after the Visori invaded. Its side effects varied based on the biology on the person. Some people became very aggressive and violent, and many of these peple gathered in a group called The Dregs. There is another gang called the South Point Slashers who are supported by the VIsori, so they are running around with alient weapons. Finally The Family is here, essentially the mafia. The only positive thing is that the Visori don’t come here much, as it is pretty overrun by the gangs.

Dr. Destructo has set up the warehouse to have basic amenities.

Necessary Evil

Session 1 – Welcome to Omega

Sometime in the last two days, the aliens slapped us in chains. We were all independently captured. We were put on a transport going downtown, probably to a transport to space to be dissected.

Roland is a well-educated man with glasses in his mid-30s, who doesn’t look like he has been outside the university. He looks sickly.

Abaddon has black plastic looking skin, sort of like an action figure in a black trench coat. There is no heat coming off of him — he is the same temperature as the vehicle we are in, which is strange.

Matt is an older gentleman with a nice suit. He has graying hair and is wearing gloves. Glints of metal can be seen on him.

080 is a silver looking android with green energy.  He does not appear to have any weapons.

The ship crashes and there is blood and smoke everywhere. The guards have all been killed, and there is a huge hole in the ship. Doctor Destruction, the most powerful super-villain in the world, asks us if we want to live. 080 asks who he is, and he is not amused.

DD asks us to be part of Omega, of which he is the leader. His minions place radio receivers on our nullifiers, and he opens the back hatch, making all of us fall out. He psychically tells us that if we agree to help him break out another super-villain named MindJack from a prison camp, he will free us. Begrudginly, we all agree and the radio recievers catch a signal that detonates the nullifiers, setting us free. Abaddon immediately teleports back to the transport, then teleports to the ground. The rest of us hit the ground on a tin roof, not softly but we are not hurt. Roland has turned into a giant snarling wolf. The rest of us look at him in terror and disgust.

Everyone is a bit dazed, but we jump down and start on our “mission”. As we descend there are a group of Drones, faceless automatons with rifles on their arms and claws. They move to attack us, and we take them all out. 080 gets hit, and after the battle gets up and says an expletive loudly.

Abaddon dissolves the door to the building and 080 walks in. He tells the guards that he requires one of their prisoners and that no violence is necessary, but immediately discharges a shock attack that takes three of them out. Matt mind controls the last one, and has him shoot himself in the head. We see MindJack in one of the cells and a woman named Valerie calls out and asks us to free her, saying that she has resistance ties. 

Roland (as Fenrir) bursts into the room and begins tearing into the prisoners. Matt mind controls him to stop and we all head outside. We decide to bring Valreie with us.

Dr. Destruction’s ship descends and picks us up. He says that we did better than he expected, and we are part of Omega now. He tells us that we should come up with a team name, and gives us a box with wrist communicators for all of us. He takes off with MindJack and Valerie.

The Destined

Session 53 – A New Age

Porodo fires a catapult at Necros, but he is not bothered. Necros begins to pay attention to Eilenos, however, as he smites all of the evil creatures around him in a blaze of holy glory, destroying scores of them.

Porodo shoots an arrow into Grom’s head, doing 98 damage. Grom is not happy.

Imra casts “embiggening” on Eilenos and he grows large, getting stronger and tougher. He strikes at Necros but Necros isn’t fazed.

A beam of light comes from the heavens and lands next to Grom. The biggest Dwarf we’ve ever seen emerges — it’s Krodmich! He strikes a mighty blow on Grom and screams “Get off of my field!”

Nadia, Charon and Berethenu also strike good hits on Grom. Grom strikes back, sweeping Nadia and Berethenu and causing massive damage on both of them.

Necros is taunting Eilenos, which frustrates him, and his attacks have been ineffectual. He says “I don’t need Berethenu’s help to defeat you.” He drops his sword and reaches out with his mind, attempting to control the nearby zombies to his will. Necros looks afraid as Eilenos begins to win in the battle of wills — he sees in his mind all of the threads of control Necros has over the zombies, and is able to tap into and control them. They begin to attack the evil forces. He doesn’t notice, however, that Berethenu’s armor falls off of him as he does this. The other characters notice that there is a purple haze of evil magic that is coalescing between the two, and finally cocooning around Eilenos.

Sarthisis creates a portal underneath Grom, and he falls through. It empties him from the sky and he falls hundreds of feet directly on top of the cloud where Necros and Eilenos were. Imra uses her elemental powers to blow the fog away, and they see that Necros has been utterly destroyed by Grom. However, Grom gets to his feet after the fall. Stranger still is that where Eilenos was standing is now a knight of chaos, wearing corrupted armor and holding a tainted sword.

Charon gets an idea and jumps through the portal, drawing his swords and doing an acrobatic flip on top of Grom and stabbing him deep through the chest.  However, the force of the fall hurts him greatly — but Sarthisis magically takes the damage to himself and falls unconscious. Imra rushes to heal him.

Eilenos taps into his new abilities and enhances several nearby zombies.

The battle continues for more than an hour, and it is a rout — the evil forces have been defeated. Eilenos shuts down all of the zombies, and they fall. Josephus, or Enigwa, as he is properly known, goes to Necros and Grom. He calls all of us to them, and says that we have fulfilled our duty.

Porodo has his rangers, he says…Sarthisis has taken control of the realm of flame. Krodmich has been brought back to reclaim his throne of Iron Hallow Hall. Grom has made too much war over Juravia, and overstepped his bounds. Charon, who has shown his valor, will become the new god of war. He says that he doesn’t know what to do with Eilenos…he assumes that if he misueses his power, he will take it away. As part of this, he must right the wrongs that Necros perpetrated on the Elves. Eilenos agrees. He says that Nadia will be brought back to life and will be the new god of justice. Imra will become the queen of the elves.

He says that he could have fixed the wrongs of his own famly by himself, but he wanted us to have free will to fix things since it is our world. He hopes that we will continue to do the right thing with the power we have gained, for the betterment of all.

Enigwa then fades away.

THE END