Hawke's Dark Sun Campaign

Tell us how you are using our gaming tools and how your sessions are going.

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Dracorat
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Post by Dracorat »

btw, I don't usually add shadows to the renders of my figures but if you want a similar shadow, an "outer glow" colored black is the easiest way to accomplish it in either The Gimp or in Photoshop.

(The Gimp is free, but I'm not sure what the outer glow method is).

And my Adventuress make another appearance too!! At this point, I'd say she's easily the most used of any of the renders I made!

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torstan
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Post by torstan »

You select the image (usually best to use the magic wand to select all the background colour - or transparency in this case - and invert the selection to get a good selection) and then go to Script-Fu(menu)->Shadows->Drop shadow. That will give it a nice outer glow.

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Hawke
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Post by Hawke »

Here's a mega recap of several sessions. So much of them were discussion of the political workings in Tyr so they didn't have so many good screenshots. Names and plot lines *sort of* taken from the Freedom Dark Sun book...but there's heavy modifications to the characters and less emphasis on the slave pits early on so bare with the major changes. Maps are by Vry with tokens in there by Devin, Dracorat, Steel Rat and Vry. Sorry if I missed anything by anyone!

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Arriving in Tyr, the players set up shop in the Horus Inn. Due to the restrictions on magic within the city, Nezoje Vel left the group to try and start rounding up supplies. She explained it would be difficult as all veiled alliance contacts had left the city to assist with the recent attack on Nahtahn. In the Horus Inn, there were mentions of the mystic Sadira by some patrons, though others in the city outwardly laughed and denied her existence.

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Hamash arrived at the Horus Inn and waived off the earlier encounter but offered to hire the party to do some bidding for him. He presented two tasks, both of them eventually taken by the party. First, he let on to his newest business - selling Gargoyle Hounds to many in the city. He explained with a small psionic crystal they were loyal and easy to control and provided protection during troubling times within the city as violence and tensions between groups increased. He was shocked to find out when he arrived in the city that his associates were selling almost their entire inventory to a woman named Mahlanda who seemed disinterested in the associated psionic stones he was providing with the hounds. The players were hired to go gather some more information about the hounds and exactly what she was doing.

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The meeting with Mahlanda began under the guise of buying a hound. Nezoje confirmed that Veiled Alliance sources said Mahlanda was an arcane magic user, but seemed both uninterested in the Veiled Alliance but had a distaste for Defilers. She seemed friendly and willing to sell the party a hound but did not have a psionic crystal ready for them and suggested they come back soon.

The second task from Hamash was to intimidate Rikus into giving them some information about things he had stolen from Hamash. Rikus was an ex-slave middle class worker living in Tyr. He had gained much popularity both among slaves and free workers within the city and was suspected as being involved in a revolt in the coming days. The party found Rikus dead in his room with the apartment torn apart. Inside the apartment they found:

-A cracked stone ring with the coil roughly 1/2 inch in diameter and the overall diameter of 5 inches.
-A note indicating the stone ring was to be given to Sadira when she asked for it
-An ancient ripped painting with two men standing on a very unique white stone
-Several psionic stones

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The party quickly left and returned to Hamash with further information. Hamash took the painting, but the party kept control of the cracked stone ring with hopes of finding Sadira int he future. They returned to Mahlanda to find that she was still unable to sell them a hound but would have one for them in a few days. The party still has questions about what she is doing.

Nezoje had suggested another possible route for information as the tensions grew - the slaves. As more were being imported and more citizens were having their freedom stripped for petty offenses to help with the completion of Kalak's ziggurat. The solution was for Nezoje to "lend" her "slaves" Maleek and Cariad to a noble in the city for help. The task would be difficult for Maleek and Cariad as they would be treated poorly, worked hard, but would be freed after a few days hopefully with more information from either the party or Nezoje. They agreed.

Before they were given away as slaves, they encountered a scuffle with Orman of the Waste and bounty hunters accusing him of breaking and entering into a noble's house. Maleek and Cariad helped him escape back to the Horus Inn and successfully intimidated the bounty hunters to leave. Orman was thankful, but disliked the debt he now had to them. He had broken into a noble's library to get more information about the location of an artifact he believed was within Kalak's temple and had been there for millennia. He collected artifacts and believed, almost religiously, that the history and ruins would be the key to understanding what happened to the tablelands and only through knowledge would there be a chance for change or redemption. He scoffed at the nobles with vast libraries of history that cared about politics and cruelty more than they sought the understand the past and the future.

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He seemed to hint that overthrowing Kalak would help him gain access to the temple and retrieve the artifact - an ancient evil weapon. Orman expressed concern that this artifact might fall into the hands of Akenaten. Several times in the past, Orman had encountered Akenaten at ruins and other sites he frequented. Several times his name came up as someone people Orman dealt with knew and also had dealings with. Akenaten was aware of the artifact and was searching for the weapon, though Orman did not know whether or not Akenaten knew the location as clearly as Orman did. Feeling they both had an enemy in Akenaten a short alliance seemingly as established between the party.

The party was sold to Eramus, a cruel and rich old half-giant gladiator who was temporarily operating in an old prison. Seeking to gain favor with Kalak, he was managing a small group of slaves that were rushing the completion of the ziggurat - estimated to be done within the week. They party had not yet encountered Eramus but he was known in the city as a cruel, vile gladiator but was infamously loved as an entertainer whose ruthlessness was feared as much as his strength and skill revered.

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RPMiller
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Post by RPMiller »

I'm way jealous of those maps and portraits! :x

Sound like a really fun game!
You're just jealous 'cause the voices only talk to me.

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Hawke
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Post by Hawke »

The party had decided to enter into mock-slavery with Nezoje Vel as their noble benefactor lending her "slaves" to King Kalak's service to finish his ziggurat. They were stripped of their belongings and thrown in Eramas' prison to gather more information about the upcoming slave revolt.

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They quickly ran into some trouble as fights frequently broke out and they didn't exactly fit in with this group of slaves. One encounter in particular stood out with the dim-witted and slow half-giant Urrgos being tormented by several elves who were throwing rocks at him and giving him a hard time. After some time and Urrgos' frustration, the party decided to intervene getting in a scuffle with the elves. After they finally broke up the party had not only earned the near-worship of Urrgos, but also caught the eye of the dwarf Liurgand who seemed to be pleased that someone was willing to stand up for someone else in these conditions.

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The next days were especially rough with several checks for doing some menial slave tasks. Though the party was able to get some food and water that they weren't given to keep their health up, several mistakes while moving bricks caused whippings and the heat to take their toll. The players expressed frustration that they were slowly being eroded away and the lack of sleep and food was preventing them from fully healing up damage done to them. The cruel world of Athas was taking their toll on their personalities, too. They passed up on an encounter when King Kalak came to tour the current construction with some nobles got furious as two nobles complained that he was killing their slaves for a pointless project. With ease, he tossed the nobles to the slaves and declared, "If I'm overworking your slaves, then why not let them have some entertainment!" The slaves of course grabbed their tools and tormented, tortured, and beat the nobles for amusement. In an encounter that I'm sure the players/characters would've intervened months ago, they decided to remain silent and get back to work worrying about risking their lives and creating more enemies.

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During the particularly hard day's work they also turned down a chance to help a gladiator from being killed by another gladiator in a scuffle. It definitely weighed on them as they knew one had been pushed into a fight needlessly and was being killed and begged for help. I didn't expect it, but she died and they really expressed an interest in getting out of there and on their way...

When they arrived back at the prison they walked in to find their benefactor, Nezoje Vel, within inches of her life laying bloody and beaten in the center of the yard. Rumor was that she had been caught purchasing magical components and had been stripped of her freedom, beaten and tormented by the guards before being thrown in to the slaves. They certainly weren't happy with the prospect of now having to escape and trying to go at it on their own with Nezoje inches from life and not many means to heal her with...

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(Both maps and most tokens done by Vry. Character tokens done by Devin with some other tokens and portraits done by Steel Rat and Dracorat. Two requested tokens appear: Nezoje's lifeless body and King Kalak which were both requested in threads here... thanks for all that were willing to help!)

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Hawke
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Post by Hawke »

Taking a look at the potraits above, I noticed that the ones for Liurgand and Kalak don't look so great with the border. Any thoughts about making it possible for it to just be transparent standing alone or if it's a square image w/o transparency then have a border? I'm not sure how often people use/need the background there... but maybe I'm wrong.

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PillBox
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Post by PillBox »

darn, Dark Sun was the best ever campaign. Wish I had a group to play with!

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Hawke
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Post by Hawke »

Whew! Lots of stuff happened, I'm gonna try and recap quickly here with some screenshots showing off some great and tokens by Vry. All the maps were done by him and all the tokens were as well (exceptions: the two PCs are from Devin and their gargoyle hound Trip is SteelRat's render). Much of this narrative is loosely based on the Freedom Dark Sun book - I know at least one person here is running that campaign... be careful players :-)

First, after finding themselves in a pickle the players were forced to enter as gladiators as the games commemorating the completion of the Dragon King Kalak's Ziggurat. The beginning creature was basically a Vrock but a little less traditional.

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As the games went on and some more arena style fights continued, there were several assassination attempts on Kalak. These failed and really made the players quake in their boots that most of their attempts to shore up support against Kalak had little fruits. Their final hope was Sadira, who had the players smuggle her a strange circular artifact that despite several attempts to find its use they came up dry. As Kalak began to use the completed Ziggurat to drain the energy and souls from the thousands in the stands to add to his power, Sadira used the artifact to bend reality and break Kalak into 5 shards each 1/5 of his total power. Unbeknown to the players, their reward from Sadira entitled them to enter one of these dimensional shards and fight Kalak. Each shard contained a different group seeking to defeat him... it really ended up being a cool way to use this neat picture I found and also take a epic level ancient badguy and make him beatable by midlevel characters.

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Kalak opened with a bunch of neat spells taking advantage of cool effects I snagged from Vry. Cutting off one character with a firewall and catching the other two with some tentacles, Kalak had time to summon some minions to help his cause. Breaking free of the tentacles, Maleek and Trip combined with some spellwork by Cariad first killed the minions and then set their sights on Kalak himself.

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After some long intense combat, some summoned eagles, spiritual weapons, health potions and other tomfoolery later, Kalak finally fell at the hands of Maleek's killing blow cracking his ribs as his energy broke free and the shard reconnected with reality to find Kalak had been defeated in 3 others leaving a badly wounded kalak to escape in a condition he was not sure to survive.

The city erupted into violence immediately as the slaves took arms and those that defeated Kalak quickly went into hiding - all were now contenders to rule the city. It was time for each to rally their troops and seek stability when a knife to the back of an injured champion could easily destroy their plan for controlling the city. The PCs - though not particularly interested in taking up residence in the city's government had another plan in mind. They sort of wanted to break things up with a quick quest - so upon meeting with an ally in the city:

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They learned a noble had an artifact (a skull mask) their long time enemy was attempting to steal during all the madness. Setting off to break into the noble's house after a night's rest and healing at a safe house, they were ready for the challenge. The maps here were from another purchased by Vry which included a noble house to break into and a secret entrance in the basement to an underground lair that connected to a local crypt. The players didn't expect a cult to be operating underneath preparing themselves... and after fighting through several cultists they didn't expect to see one summoning an Ash Angel:

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Luckily their hasty rolls worked well and they were able to disrupt his summoning and avoid the fight - a good foreshadowing to a future foe though. Slightly freaked out by the close call they elected to play the rest of the map very stealthy & wise and sought as little conflict as possible. When they finally found what they were looking for, they got a very confident bad guy that despite their initial "we can take her!" ended up deciding to side with her temporarily. I guess my personal intimidate rolls were good? The PC's goal to keep the mask out of the hands of their enemy was to be met by providing the enemy with a fake mask that was enchanted to weaken him greatly. The uneasy alliance is good as the players expect it to be broken sometime in the future but were happy to get a shot to slow down their main enemy.

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The map ends with a ladder going up to a crypt. Those maps are done as well allowing multiple entrances and ways to use this map set. Nice thing is sometime with a different group I could've done it backwards - use the crypt to break into the noble's house! Anyway, the players then encountered the group of bad guys on their way to steal the mask, bluffed their way into fearfully giving it up and keeping out of combat and lived to meddle with the future leadership of Tyr another day!

Here's a zoomed out version of some of the maps. Note it doesn't include all the stories of the noble house, the crypt, the graveyard, it isn't fully explored and also doesn't include some secret rooms that the players failed to locate.

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Woot!

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trevor
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Post by trevor »

I apologize for the delay in response to this thread, Hawke. I really enjoyed reading and seeing the fantastic artwork in the screenies. That was a fun, very elaborate story you told/played.
Dreaming of a 1.3 release

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