Reavers on the Seas of Fate – Season Two, Tenth Session

Tenth Session (7 page pdf) – “Sign of the Void” – A shadow demon tries to claim the PCs’ allegiance and takes rejection poorly. But their rune-markings unlock odd new weapons that prove most efficacious against the phantoms he unleashes from beyond the dark gate. Will they work as well against Clegg Zincher and cannon shot? They find out!

This session was basically two big battles; the first was a continuation of the major sea-cave setpiece from last session. Chmetugo the shadow demon showed up and laid a rap on them about how they are marked with the sign of the void and are fated to serve him and to transform the world into some weird monster realm. Naturally they turned him down. So he raised all the pirates as undead and sicced them on the party as basically unlimited numbers of tentacle-dogs came through the dark gate into our world.

I came up with a cool environmental thing; the shadow demon used his cold powers to make the surface of the water start freezing, moving outward another 10′ radius every round. This allowed the tentacle-dogs to attack (albeit precariously), provided danger for the PCs in the water, and generally made things interesting. They enjoyed breaking the ice, sliding around on the ice, and generally indulging in shenanigans. They finally decided that the only way to take care of the whole thing is to blow it up, which is fair enough.

Also, they investigated their weird runes they got from the activation of the Cyphergate. Glyphs from Tammerhawk’s glyph-plaque that exploded are embedded in their bodies and tattoolike runes appear over their location. They know that the glyphs burn when the tentacle-dogs are close, but now once they touched the gate they seem to be more active somehow. They resonate with the matching larger glyphs that once sealed this gate. During the fight they got a hold of the glyphs and they turn into weapons made of orichalcum that allow the PCs to hurt the shadow creatures. And when they saw Zincher with a similar weapon, they realized that he too was there in the Riddleport Light that day. They didn’t have a lot of spare time, but they started counting glyph plaques and trying to put two and two together. And the metaplot rolls on.

And more Clegg Zincher. That’s always fun. They kinda want to kill him and kinda not.  But he’s threatening Tommy’s girlfriend! But he’s a made man! But we don’t like him, he worked against us and Saul! But he does a lot of damage with that pickaxe! But he told the demon he refused to be its butt-boy! But… I see Zincher as an interesting Mafia type guy. He tells demons and Commies and other undesirables to go hose, and is out there personally helping people in the neighborhood when disasters come. But he’s a ruthless businessman who is not hesitant about having people killed.  But he operates under a certain code of honor. And he loves birds.

So pretty much, two three hour long fights! I don’t usually do that, I go in for more RP and stuff, but I wanted to really amp up this start of a new leg of the campaign. The first season was mostly urban and not so much pirate; this leg will be real pirate in spades!