Thursday Mar 28, 2024

The Rise of the Ancient Rulers

Welcome to this intriguing new actual-play. Since I am playing this one on YAG, this would be quite a visual game. So lots of screenshots! And less text 🙂 Going to use PUM and SUM for driving the game forward. As to the RPG: Savage Worlds. I have a premise, but no idea about how it unfolds.

WARNING: Please be advised. This is a GAME, and thus holds fictional and does not recall to any historical or ideological topics. Violence levels are light but might not be everyone’s liking, as this is a horror-adventure game!

Premise

An expedition is sent to the Jungles of Opiateh, in order to research the omens of the old rulers, and (🎲 SUM inspiration → Delay Disastrous Ruler) which tell the story of (🎲 PUM Someone → Curiously Dangerous. 🎲 Is it an undead? → Yes, obviously) Tzontemoc, an old ruler of Aztec.

Laura and Diego are arriving to the jungle in a boat, coming with expedition pathfinders that bring them along. The crew will set up camp and wait, until Laura and Diego investigate the location.

Scene 1

ContextThe crew arrives to the cliffs of Opiateh’s south side, they will approach the cliff and climb with their grapple hooks
Design🎲 Expectation Check → As expected

The crew approaches the cliff.

🎲 SUM GM action → Remains silent, what do characters do?

The crew assistants, Robbie and Jack start working on the ropes and hook to help the rest go up.

🎲 SUM GM action → Further explains sensorial elements to characters

The humidity of the jungle is perceived heavier here, it doesn’t look like it is going to rain anytime soon, however. There is almost a perfect silence, other than the water waves from the boat and the crew’s movement. (🎲 describe the moment → Aquatic, liquid, watery, oceanic, wet) The crew can feel their boots and jackets somewhat wet from recent waterfalls and the trip.

They climb the cliff after a few minutes of preparation, so far so good. And they make it to the top.

🎲 SUM GM action → Describes an additional location element or detail. 🎲 How does it look like? → Magical, mystical, wondrous, strange, wizardry. 🎲 Describe area → Legally Dangerous.

Up there it feels as if even the lights shine weaker, the silence and void feel even stronger. But it may be some of their own paranoia. They proceed to set up camp.

🎲 SUM GM action → Conclude the scene, make characters move on

The camp is now ready.

Scene 2

ContextAs Robbie and Jack stay at the camp. Laura and Diego get on their way, no time to lose. I have no idea what happens next!
Design🎲 Scene Designer → Active opposition or a new enemy. 🎲 Challenge → Notice, intuition, perceive – Time pressure. 🎲 SUM Describe enemy → Enigmatic, confusing, curious, distinctive. 🎲 Is it some sort of creature or monster rodent? → Don’t know, but… it moves sneakily…
InterpretationThere might be some detectable noises, what can it be?

🎲 Laura and Diego roll notice → 1d4: 3, 1d6: 5 (Diego succeeds)

“Laura, shh! What was that?”

🎲 SUM GM Action +10 → Introduces a random encounter or event
🎲 SUM Action+Subject → Oppose, fight, disapprove, dislike, reject + Corpses, death, mortality, undead, necromancy, ghosts (Choosing → Dislike the Undead)
🎲 SUM Adjective describe undead → Limited, insufficient, lacking, incomplete, missing
🎲 PUM How big is the other creature? → Scarce

A wild dog, probably native to the jungle, start fiercely fighting a horrible resemblance of what seems to be… a dead man. Red eyes, long arms, missing parts of his body. Is he alive?

There will be a fight here, at least between the Wild Dog and the Undead, because of Time Pressure in the last 🎲 Scene Design, Laura and Diego need to make it in time if they want to interfere!

Round 1

🎲 Wild dog draws a joker for initiative! He strikes fiercely to the undead. 🎲 1d6x+2: 5 HIT → 2d4x+2: 4 damage. Undead is shaken, on the ground trying to get rid of a dog.
🎲 Diego goes next, he hears noises of a fight. 🎲 Does he manage to spot the enemy quickly? → No. (Since he succeeded Notice roll, he is at least going in the right direction)
🎲 Laura goes now, she just follows Diego (as she failed her own notice). “Diego! What happened? dammit!”
🎲 The undead wants to eat the dog of course, fighting continues. 🎲 Unshake attempt → 1d6x: [4] Success. He pushes the dog back, and attacks. 🎲 Attack → 1d8x: [4] Hit 🎲 Damage → 2d6x: [1, 4] = 5 The dog is now shaken.

Round 2

🎲 Wild dog unshake test → 1d4x: [4, 4, 3] Success. Attacks back 🎲 Attack → 1d6x: [5] Hit. 🎲 Damage → 2d4x: [2, 1] = 3, does not pass armor.
🎲 Undead attacks again → 1d8x: [5] HIT 🎲 Damage → 2d6x: [2, 6, 1] = 9 Raise! Dog takes one wound (🎲 Is dog a wild card animal? → Yes.), still fighting for his live!
🎲 Diego (🎲 Did he arrive yet? → Yes, unless… he trips on a jungle entanglement!) steps on an unstable part of the muddy jungle, and needs to succeed an Athletics to not lose his round 🎲 Athletics → 1d8: [6] = 6 Success. He finds a monster attacking a dog. “Hey! You bastard!”. Before he opens fire, he points at the monster with his flashlight 🎲 Does that even work? → Hard to say, possibly.
The monster does definitely dislike the light, it remains stunned, but Diego is not yet sure if it is going to run or continue the fight…
🎲 Laura comes just next, her immediate priority is to save the dog, she approaches the dog from the back, not losing an eye from the monster, pointing at it with her gun. The dog is wounded. She will try to pick it up and kick the undead back, 🎲 Athletics → 1d4x: [3] but cannot do it safely and the undead pushes taunts her with his hissing.

Round 3

🎲 Diego will store his Thompson and draw his Combat Knife, as he wants to avoid making fire noise this early, and attacks (with a -2 multi action penalty). 🎲 Attack → 1d8x-2: 5 HIT. 🎲 Damage → 1d6x+1d6x: 4 (Spends a benny to re-roll this crap) → 🎲 1d6x+1d6x: 19 and WOW that’s immediate 3 wounds, one more hit and the creature should die.
🎲 Laura goes next, but she delays to see what the dog does.
🎲 The undead tries to unshake → 1d6x: [2] Fails – it screams in pain, but it has no tongue!
🎲 The Wild Dog will attack the undead again → 1d6x: [1] 1d4x: [4, 2] HIT 🎲 Damage → 2d4x: [2, 2] = 4 Damage, soaks.
🎲 Laura pulls herself back to a safe distance

Round 4

🎲 The Undead draws a Joker! Tries to Unshake → 1d6x+2: 5 Succeeds. 🎲 Will attack Diego instead? → No. It will continue to attack the dog, it’s original prey. 1d8x: [1] 1d4x+2: 5 HIT → 2d6x+2: 32 🎲 Goodbye Wild Dog 🙁 The undead claws and raises the wild dog from the jungle, and starts devouring it.
🎲 Laura will delay to Diego, it is too late to save the dog now…
🎲 Diego will smash with his Knife. 🎲 Attack → 1d8x: [8, 6] HIT 🎲 Damage → 1d6x+1d6x+1d6x: 21 and cuts the Undead in half

🎲 Is there anything that can be done to save the Wild Dog at all? → Don’t know.
🎲 Diego spends a Bennie to make that Dog rescuable, and rolls Healing. 🎲 Healing → 1d6x: [2] 1d4x: [3], Laura will try to help with healing (Unskilled) 🎲 Healing → 1d4x-2: -1 1d4x-2: -1 Fail.

It was a costly decision not to make noise in the jungle with guns… next time Laura and Diego will think twice before keeping silence. What a terrible cost they paid!

Despite the hard attempts, the Wild Dog unfortunately perishes to the wounds of the undead, Diego and Laura swearing in anger… It is a bad start for the crew…

To be continued…

JeansenVaars

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