Empire of Ashes

Welcome to the session summaries for our Empire of Ashes campaign.  Our gaming group decided it was about time to take Savage Worlds for a test drive, so Chuck put together this short campaign to give us all a taste!  The setting’s all a homebrew of his creation.

Session Summaries

• First Session (10 page .pdf) – Off in search of the MacGuffin!  Some guy named Valix Drogue needs killing, and we’re OK with that.
• Second Session (13 page .pdf) – We continue to kill everyone in Valix Drogue’s zip code until we can get to him.  And he lives in a big zip code.
• Third Session (9 page .pdf) – We kill Valix Drogue, then some damn priests kill half the party.  Then we go to Ravenloft, or something similar.
• Fourth Session (14 page .pdf) – In the land of mists, we kill a bunch of largely undescribed undead in a largely undescribed house which used to belong to Valix Drogue but now belongs to me!
• Fifth Session(6 page .pdf) – Some noble shows up and wants our newly liberated manor house!  Luckily, an assassin shows up for him, so we help out.  The session scribe had to leave early, so here’s my quick version of the climax:
  • Versane and the assassin fought the Groarg captain and two tough mooks for like ten rounds with no one hurting anyone else.  Finally their sorcerer opened the door and zapped Versane, who filled him full of arrow holes for his temerity.Downstairs, Garret engaged guard after guard out in the yard, not hurting a one of them, while Ardreth and Seth zap-and-stun them off him.  They were down to three opponents, two of them stunned, when Ardreth decided to come upstairs and help.Sadly, all three of those guys downstairs then activated in ninja mode.  Two of them ran up and slashed Seth into little pieces.  Bennie spends and fleeing only bought him like a round.  Garret engaged and finally killed the third one but too late for Seth.  Ardreth showed up and zapped the crap out of the Groarg captain.  He still fought all three of us us off for like five rounds with three wounds on him.  We finally killed all of them, as the two guards who killed Seth showed up.  They saw we were badass and ran off.And… that’s about it!  The assassin killed the Baron and the paralyzed chickie. The majordomo and doctor surrendered (well, the majordomo just tried to stay between us and the Baron, but that was less “combat” and more “step around him”).
• Sixth Session (9 page .pdf) – We sweep and clear some of our new manor of all kinds of undead.  And we get acquainted with our new staff.  Ah, empire building.  For some reason Chuck expected us to do something else…
• Seventh Session– no one with typing skills was in attendance, so there’s no formal summary.  But here’s a quick description from Chuck:
  • Only Garret, Ardreth, and Jarden were in attendance.  The party found some living villagers in the town and it was decided that the rest of the party escorted them back to the manor.  The attending characters follow up on a rumor from the villagers about a very bad place in the woods.  Along the way they meet Fel-Staff, a Grorg warden.  Fel-Staff gets informed about the new lord and just shrugs.  “I don’t bother learning their names anymore.  I just tend to the woods.”
    The party finds a blasted area of the forest.  In the middle a large odd shaped hill.  After some exploring and digging by the newly acquired footman, they find an ancient stone door.  We have a “lift with the legs” moment when Chris’ fighter is unable to open the door but Paul’s Warlock manages to swing the door open with hardly any effort.
    Inside they fight various undead, including the usual zombies and skeletons plus a giant sized zombie slave master and a couple of demi-liches.  They get banged around but no one gets seriously hurt. The Warlock ran out juice so they decided to go back to Fel-Staff’s cottage.
    Patrick’s pearl tended to be a bit unpredictable.  Helpful at times. Blasting some undead and other things.  But also a hindrance, like draining Power Points from the Warlock.  Perhaps to keep them away from the dungeon longer.
    The session ended with group back at Fel-Staff’s place resting.
• Eighth Session – the climax of this campaign.  We follow the Black Pearl and fight a death knight in his lair!  I love the closing lines of the summary; Bruce closes us out with his typical class:

Lord Versane proclaims, “All’s well that ends well! Now, where have those naughty scullery maids run off to?” The others laugh uproariously. And in the darkness, the zombies scratch against the windows and lurk among the blighted trees.

The Characters

Our brave heroes are (follow links for character sheets):

• Ardreth, the arrogant, vengeful Thul-Eth warlock (Paul).  Thul-Eth are green bald freaks that look like Greys and act like Atlanteans.
• Garret Heftungen, the extra-dirty Drolar investigator (Chris).  Drolar are Frankenstein’s  monsters.
• Versane, the arrogant, vengeful Aemoni noble (Ernest).  Aemoni are the elite of the Empire, and look like demons of the “dude from Legend” type.
  • Versane, Level 8
  • Versane, Level 10
• Maurs, the Aemoni underworld enforcer (Ed).
• Kalauben, the curious, strait-laced Vashaen swordsman (Bruce).  Vashaen are sexy shadow people like from the animes.  With purty mouths.
  • Kalauben, Level 5
• Jarden, the brawny, one-eyed human assassin (Patrick).  In this setting humans are considered slave fodder at best.
• Grond, the Groarg barbarian (Tim).  Groarg are savages from the hills, but still better than humans.
  • Grond, Level 7
• Erf, the retarded Drolar monster (Tim).  Deceased.
  • Erf, Level 2
• Umbutu, the unlucky, plumpy Grorg witch doctor (Patrick).  Grorg are savages from the hills.  Deceased.
• Seth Avan, the excommunicated Thul-Eth priest (Tim).  An atttempt to bring some healing to the group.  Deceased.

The Setting

The Most Holy Church of The Dreaming teaches that The Dreaming Gods banished the Forgotten Ones from the universe. After the battle, they slept and dreamed. Their dreams and nightmares created the world. If the uninitiated should speak the true names of the Dreaming Gods, they would awaken and the world would come to an end.

The first race to walk the world were the Mius or the First Created. They built a mighty empire and molded reality to their whims. The spires of their mighty palaces touched the heavens. But all that came to a quick and violent end. The Church teaches that this was punishment from the Dreaming Gods for acts of hubris.

The modern races emerged from the ashes each warped by ancient Mius magics. The powerful Aemoni became masters the land but were slaves to their own desires. The seductive Vashaen manipulated weaker wills to their whim while fulfilling their own carnal pleasures. The ghoulish Drolar gained strength from all around them while disfiguring themselves in the process. The savage Grorg embraced the feral spirit of the wild at the cost of civilization. The sorcerous Thul-Eth struggled to regain control of the ancient magics weakening their own bodies. And the pitiful Humans were left weak by the ancient magics and easily subjugated by the more powerful races.

The Il-hoth Empire was built on the ruins of the First Created Empire and has ruled the land for over 700 years. But now it is rotting from within. Petty nobles vie for the Emporer’s favor. Power hungry warlocks delve into the forbidden secrets of the Mius. The sorcerer-priests of the Dreaming Gods pursue the insane cults of the Forgotten Ones. The Emperor’s Ash Wolves mercilessly hunt down the enemies of the Empire.  Crime and poverty eat away at the will of the people. The armies of the Eastern Kingdoms gather in the names of their alien gods.

• Setting background and races
• Visual conceptions of the races