Sunday, July 27, 2014

[Pendragon] The Great Pendragon Campaign: Year 507 - The Dragon of Norton Fitzwarren

A vision from Amesbury Abbey guides the knights to the site of a long-forgotten battle in the wilds of Somerset, and the ancient evil that slumbers there. But beyond the timeless marshes, the machinations of ambitious men may be spelling doom for Salisbury...



Featuring:

Jade
Jen
David S.
And...Edie the Dog

The campaign's wiki can be found here.

14 comments:

  1. Hey I totally spelled Fitzwarren right in my notes!

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    1. I was ready to come in screaming about circumference, but then I remembered that 2*pi*radius is equivalent to pi * diameter. I'd never heard it expressed the latter way, so you are on fire this week!

      Back to listening to the episode and trying to remember whatever-the-Hell-grade I learned basic geometry in.

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    2. In all fairness, I think I said "pi R-Squared" first, and that's area, if I recall correctly without googling.

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  2. That was a really intense fight with the dragon, especially since realistically you were massively outclassed so that every attack (or frantic defense in this case) mattered. How close was David to death, as the dragon had rolled slightly below average for 16d6, which may have been enough to save him.

    Also, rampant speculation time! I'm assuming that it wasn't Blains who betrayed Salisbury because he seems smart enough to know that letting Saxons spread that close to his territory would be a terrible long-term goal, it would make Countess Ellen upset which he would probably want to avoid, and if he was behind it Des would have been at this session trolling all of you with cryptic remarks.

    Congratulations on finally being the hero we all knew you could become Jade! www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uvm3GixEj4

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  3. Sir Blains a traitor? Nooooooooo!

    (Obviously he was under an enchantment.)

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    1. I don't think Blains can be a traitor because that's a little hardcore for him. He might be a jerk (and he is), but he's not a traitor! He raids people's estates, but is polite enough to burn his own emblem in the fields so that they know it was him. He gets captured for ransom and is just snarky and resigned about it. He marries the woman who got away, but only by waiting for someone else to kill her husband.

      He gets an A+ for Saturday Morning cartoon villainy, but this is just senseless and short-sighted betrayal, which doesn't seem his style.

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    2. I would personally agree with Jake because it seems to me that Blains already got all he wanted in that he married the woman he has always had a passion for and is in a position to influence Salisbury's next generation thereby cementing his own legacy.

      P.S. How much glory does Cynrain get for helping to retake London.

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    3. "P.S. How much glory does Cynrain get for helping to retake London."

      Did Jade put you up to asking that question? ;D

      What happened at London specifically is that the Duke's army besieged the city, and then the citizens of the city rose up and chased the Saxons out over London Bridge after fierce street fighting. So the Glory actually goes to the people of London rather than the besiegers!

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  4. Is it me, or does Dave S. have this problem with characters getting offed/injured badly? I mean, Pace, Lewyn, Tathan... Now Archade nearly getting slaughtered by the beastie.

    Also, Dave, what made you decide to bring in a dragon? I understood that in Pendragon, they are exceedingly potent. Of course, they did have the sword that was its bane, so that made it a lot less... risky, though still risky (as Archade no doubt realizes).

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    1. Good question, Winwaar. Dragons in Pendragon are indeed fearsome. This was only the second time I've ever featured one in a game, because they're total party killers unless you provide some sort of nuclear option to take them out. Knights really can't just go toe-to-toe with them D&D-style.

      What inspired this scenario was the need to figure out a way to dispose of the sword. The adventure I ran that introduced the sword merely noted that it couldn't be destroyed by normal means, and that a suitably difficult quest would be needed to be rid of it, but didn't specify what that quest might entail. I put the matter in the back of my mind, knowing I'd want to introduce the quest in 506 or 507. Serendipitously, I ran across a write-up on the hillfort at Norton Fitzwarren and the legend of the corpse-dragon that lived there and thought, "BINGO." It was the fact that the sword was capable of one-shotting the dragon that made the scenario balanced in my mind--the trick was surviving long enough to hit it!

      And yeah, Dave S. is kind of notorious for being probability's whipping boy. I really wanted to get him this shirt, but it was all sold out!

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    2. Yes, that Dragon would have finished Dave off if it got another hit in. Thus making it approximately as dangerous as a Saxon, or a Monkfish.

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    3. Oh, to answer your earlier question, Jake: Dave can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe Archade was knocked down to 1 or 2 Hit Points.

      I believe the Pendragon conversion chart goes like this:

      1 Dragon (normal damage against armored)=1 Saxon (crit damage against armored)=1 Flying Monkfish (normal damage against unarmored)=1 Lady with a Dagger (crit damage against unarmored).

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    4. Seems like a reasonable chart. You should probably send one of the latter ones against Dave just to make sure that this is correct. It's for science.

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