Into Pergon

Northeast of the Thymasian empire was a prospering gnomish kingdom. It was one of the large kingdoms prevalent at the time, having not only more than a single city, but having many cities. It was larger and more prosperous than most other kingdoms. Gnomish intellect and curiosity led this kingdom to magical and technological advancement many other nations would never have even thought of. Vehicles which moved without being drawn, lamps which required no flame or wizardry, Magical teleportation rings which could take one to a different city in a matter of minutes, and far more were the result of gnomish philosophers and scholars. They're even credited with originating the Philosopher's Guild, a multi-national group dedicated to investigating the world and extracting knowledge.

When the Thymasian empire began it's attack, it started with this gnomish kingdom. It's magic and technology were the biggest threat to the emperor's plans. The gnomes never expected it. Many of the cities in this mighty kingdom were destroyed by it's own rushed defenses. Those cities which did not accidentally destroy themselves were quickly over-run by the Thymasian army, led by the emperor himself. The confusion caused by the self-destroyed cities caused the rest of the gnomish lands to be easily defeated, regardless their powerful magics and curious weapons.

Pergon was one of the gnomish kingdom's cities. Though the group does not know it's specific history, it appears to be mostly intact, though abandoned. They approached from the north, after visiting Mt. Sierra and losing a large, magical gem which, so they've been told, did nothing except accumulate arcane energies... to the succubus in disguise. They were following a river to Pergon, since they have a map showing the river led right to it. Upon camping by a large lake, they saw the lights of the city across the waters. Unlike normal city lights, they appeared for extremely short bursts individually. It looked as though large lights were being started and suddenly stopped all over the city, constantly.

In the morning they rounded the lake, and they saw large metal things jutting from various, seemingly random, places on the buildings. Electricity arched from these metal pieces to their near counterpart. Essentially, they were huge tesla coils all over the city's buildings. Their purpose was a mystery, but the fact that they'd need to be powered by something led the group to believe one of the "keystones" they've been looking for was there. Also, of course, someone had pointed out the keystones location on their map several months earlier.

As they wandered the city, they marveled at the tesla coils, curious as to their purpose. They discovered a large, squat building in the center of the city. In other gnomish cities they had been in, the large building in the center of town was the important one, being the government building. While they do not realize this was not the government building, it was still the important one, being the city's engineering headquarters. When they tried to enter, they discovered that the copper floor shocked them when they walked on it. As they examined the surrounding area for a solution, they found that the road was made of a bouncy, squishy, black material (rubber). They removed some bits of the road and affixed them to the bottom of whatever was on their feet after realizing it prevented the shock, and they entered the building normally.

In that first hallway they found nothing more than meeting rooms and storage closets. Until they got to the last room on the right. This room was full of computer consoles and screens and a whole of other stuff the group doesn't really understand (they've typically pushed buttons until something bad happened upon encountering computers, so far), yet would be recognizable to gnomes from a few hundred years ago. Against the right wall was a series of nooks, in which were small, metal gnomes. The group has encountered these metal gnomes before. They're some kind of gnomish creation, made as one of the hastily built defenses which caused the downfall of the kingdom. They're built upon primarily natural mechanics, but they aren't complete without some magic. They're effectively natural animates. They were not activated yet, however.

The real threat was the tieflings that were in the room. Upon opening the door, the tieflings flew into attack. While they were well trained and vicious, one of them fled and another one was taken captive, the third being killed. When they questioned the tiefling they captured, they figured out that the tieflings were under the impression the group was there to destroy the keystone, something they, too, were apparently trying to prevent. The tiefling said they presumed someone named Warick sent them. That was about all the information they could get from him, so they intimidated him into showing them where the keystone was.

Though they still didn't quite trust him, and he didn't quite trust them, he seemed to lead them the right way, instead of the wrong way. That is, he took them to the second basement, which is where they presumed it would be already. The three keystones they had found before were always in the lowest floor of where they were being kept. However, when they got to the very first full room of the bottom floor, they were assaulted by a group of six "robognomes". While the machines hurt much of the group and put up a good fight, they were defeated. Before they were defeated, however, they killed the tiefling who was leading the group.

Because I'm describing this campaign with a late start, I may segue off into descriptions or histories necessary to understand the immediate subject, or at least to elucidate for interest's sake. For example, the gnome-made and gnome-resembling natural animates are called "robognomes" by the group, but you probably figured that out and did not need an explanation.

Another segue you might find at this point is the new members of the group. I won't go into detail. The characters of this campaign is in a near constant state of flux. There's constantly new players who want in, or old players who can't play any more, or players who don't show up. I'm sure this isn't the only campaign to ever go this way. Anyhow, these players wanted in right at this point, so I spent several hours of the night helping them make their characters and bringing the characters into the game, and their players up to speed.

Two of these new characters may stick around, but the player of the other seems flaky. I won't bother going into detail about them until I determine their characters are going to stick around. Just so you understand the group's composition, though, there are two minotaurs, one ranger and one barbarian. The other character, and the player who shows the most promise I think, is a human bard. The minotaurs are both men, the bard is a lady. There was a fairly funny out-of-character conversation, about characters, where Titania admitted she did not like the new bard because she was prettier than herself.

And now to try to get back into the game; The new, larger group was fairly difficult to manage due to size and the lack of flow due to the players not knowing each other well and some of the players being fairly new to RPing and brand new to the game. However, I simply had the new characters originally be their own adventuring group who happened to be going the same place as the classic characters. For now, they're simply working together because they have no reason not to. So the new characters heard the fight down the stairs after they figured out how to not get shocked at walking in the building, discovering the rest of the group just after the fight.

At this point there were introductions and insight checks, followed by a lack of trust. Both of the minotaurs are evil, and don't act particularily trustworthy. I've never understood the appeal of playing an evil character, but I've never really been one to tell players they can't play a character they want to play, so long as they get along with the rest of the group. Either way, the group began wondering how to continue through the basement. The room they were in had two doors in it, with locks which were ancient gnomish mechanics throughout the door. Essentially, the doors were puzzles. There was mild effort put into figuring out the puzzles before one of the minotaurs simply set to hacking at the door until it broke. The breaking was a little cleverer at the other door, but each door led to what was basically a five foot hallway with another, similar door at the end.

The second southern door at the end of the hall was cleverly destroyed before the other second door, and they discovered what was essentially a small temple with an altar to Rao, the Goddess of peace. Rao was a goddess held in high esteem by the gnomes, so this made sense. However, the group felt a strange sadness upon entering the room. Behind the altar was a torn bag full of what was, at one point, an offering of gold. The group, understanding this, either gave their own offerings or ignored the room.

Bob the Ever-Patient decided the room was of no serious consequence, and continued to cleverly break the door which probably led further into the basement. In this room were several more robognomes. The group worked together to destroy the machines, though several characters were still in the altar room. Robognomes are actually quite potent and irritating as enemies, though, and the fight took some time to conclude. By the time the fight was over, Toryc had properly made an offering to Rao, leading him to have a vision, or perhaps a memory, of the gnomish kingdom at it's prime. He felt the goddess's sadness at it's destruction, and then the room no longer seemed to effect his emotions.

At this point we were pretty tired, so we called it a night. However, I was not done considering the game. A DM, or at least I, never really stop thinking about the game. I need to plan, and consider what kind of problems certain players or characters might pose to the fun of the game.Constantly adding to or subtracting from the party's number is a problem both in game and out. New characters take time to make, taking away from game time. Players not being around means their character either has to be run by someone else or they are not around. Nobody likes other people to run their character, and thinking up reasons they suddenly wander off gets difficult after a while. But I'm sure I'm not the only DM who's ever had that problem. Anyhow, next time I suppose I'll see who shows up, and we'll see how whomever that is handles the rest of this basement.

Hint; one of those tieflings got away alive, and the group skipped over the first basement entirely.