City in the Mirage, Chapter 1

Pi 2-50

What follows is a write-up of my group's playtest of the new game I'm working on: Exiled in Eris.

I am running them through the introductory adventure I included with Swords of Cydoria, adapted to Exiled in Eris. Not to mention some final playtesting and fine tuning of the rules.

Characters:

Rage Bourne Crusader, Human Artifact Hunter
Theris, Human Celestial Guardian, searching to recover lost artifacts of the Celestials.
Jip-Jip, Tintazi Scout with a slave-bond to Theris
Pi 2-50, Cyberdroid Aerine and sniper

Thyra, Barbarian warrior from Gatas, land of the Amazon women.

"The City in the Mirage"

When we last saw our intrepid band of artifact hunters, they had returned to the free city of Acik-Sehir after a successful mission. After spending a few days of down time recuperating, Rage Bourne Crusader decided to do a little bit of research at a well-stocked library. He was looking for information on the lost city of Hrosek, the greatest city built by Yalzhas the Architect. It was a legend, no one had ever found it. Yet he had just seen a model of the city in the tomb of its builder and ruler. 

The library had only one book that mentioned anything about Hrosek, and the librarian indicated that it was currently in the possession of that man over there.

Rage asked the young privileged academic about the book. The young man introduced himself as Dentir Osso, a student of antiquities from the University of Vrildar and asked Rage why he might be interested. Rage explained that he was an artifact hunter searching for the lost city of Hrosek. Osso explained that he was part of an expedition from the university searching for the lost city and that they were in need of a guide. He asked Rage if he would be interested. Rage agreed.

Dentir Osso, you just want to punch him in the soul patch!

Later, Rage and his team met the members of the expedition in a private room at a local restaurant. The leader of the expedition was a older professor named Magister Kulik Reeg. Accompanying the magister was Osso and four young Vrildarian students.

Magister Kulik Reeg

 The expedition was being funded by a Norukarian aristocrat named Lord Garrus Kendrik. Lord Kendrik was a famous adventurer of the previous generation who had explored many of the ruined cities of eastern Cydoria until he lost his arms and eyes in an explosion. Today, he has artificial bionic hands and eyes supplied by Rhakadian technology.

Lord Kendrik enjoying a smoke.

The team also met Lord Kendrik's bodyguards, Trin and Kabak, and his two retainers, Dergo and Frunk.

Also in the room was a Demetrian airship captain, Kak Resko, master of the cargo airship named Tonbo.

Captain Kak Resko is totally played by Timothy Hutton in the movie!

Captain Resko's crew included young Fornaxian navigator Xuxa Kaym.

Xuxa Kaym

The bald and burly Zinjani engineer Dys, who of course has a valid guild license with the Syntechnium. Would you like to see it?

Dys, bald by choice!

There was the dashing, handsome, and roguish Mancean pilot, Dosay Matin.

Dosay Matin, "Well, Hello there!"

And finally there was the laconic Bakaran ship's purser, Bannis.

Bannis

After introductions, the magister laid out his backstory and plan. He explains that through careful research and interviews he has deduced that a previously undiscovered Aeonian city, possibly legendary Hrosek, is located in the heart of the desolate region known as the Wasteland. For some reason, airship engines will not work within the wasteland. To that end, he has chartered the Tonbo to take them as far as the small village of Sweetwater. There, they will procure several girah and wagons and the expedition will travel overland to the northeast. The journey will take two days. The first day will include a 25 mile hike to the edge of the wasteland where they will camp. The second day includes a 15 mile hike over the burning alkalai flats to the center of the wasteland, where he hopes to find a previously undiscovered Aeonian city.

Rage and his team would be paid 2000 Aus each to act as guides. All artifacts and treasures will be the property of the university of Vrildar. During the mission, they would be allowed to carry and use a Rhakadian plasma rifle belonging to Lord Kendrik. Any other reasonable equipment would be provided at the team's request.

Rage and his team agreed. They were to report to the Tonbo in the landing field at dawn. 

Bannis overseeing the loading of the Tonbo

The next day, they boarded the rusty boxy airship and lifted off, headed southeast. Their journey would take roughly 8 hours, taking them near the busy Imperial territory captitol of Feng and the iron fields of Tzan where hundreds of machines and thousands of slaves scraped the rust red surface sand so it could be smelted for iron and other metals. They arrived at the small walled village of Sweetwater late  that afternoon. 

Their landing was met by several rough-looking thugs carrying ballistic rifles. The thugs greeted the expedition and demanded to see papers. Their sole purpose was to look intimidating in case of trouble and to make sure nobody started any trouble.

The town of Sweetwater was built around a pump that drew water from a deep aquifer. A small power transmitter supplied electricity to the area and a wall kept marauding bandits, barbarian tribes, and Tintazi at bay. A fortified manor house built of basalt overlooked the village from a nearby hill. The team started unloading all the equipment. A large blustery man with a wide military helmet came down from the manor accompanied by a few more retainers. The man was friendly but imperious. He introduced himself as Baron Donahee of Sweetwater. He spoke mostly with Lord Kendrik and Magister Reeg, giving them a tour of the town and pointing out its many shops and entertainments. The rest of the team were left to their own devices until morning.

The town had few choices. You could get a meal and a drink at the Golden Goblet saloon or you could find more carnal entertainment at the Desert Pearl brothel. Other locations in town included a Syntechnium guild house run by a lone hydraulics engineer, a dry goods store run by a Bakaran bookseller, an apothecary, a mining assayer, and a wine shop that had very little wine for sale.

The team decided to check out the Golden Goblet.

The Golden Goblet was run by a diminutive red-skinned Jinx named Cyril who stood on a raised platform behind the bar. An intimidatingly large but dim-witted brux named Gunter stood by the door.

As they entered, Pi 2-50 noticed Osso meeting with a handsome woman in her forties wearing a fine dress made of Mancean silk. Osso and the woman began walking toward the Desert Pearl brothel. Pi made a comment towards Osso about the mystery of the human practice of mating and expressed his desire to observe. Osso scowled at him, made some kind of defensive remark, and left. Pi 2-50, still curious, decided to follow them more discreetly. To his surprise, he saw them enter the cellar door in the back of the Desert Pearl.  Pi 2-50 then approached the cellar door and listened. He heard nothing. After a moment, the cellar door suddenly opened and Osso exited. Osso was surprised to see the cyberdroid standing at the cellar entrance. He scowled and glared at the Ohnan. Pi 2-50, still curious, expressed his surprise that the act of mating would be so fast. He had heard that it took longer than a few seconds, and complimented Osso on his efficiency. Osso ignored him and pushed past. Pi 2-50 shrugged and re-joined his companions at the Golden Goblet.

While they were enjoying a drink and a meal, a hunched old man with matted hair and wearing tattered robes staggered into the saloon and began asking patrons for drinks or money. Theris could sense attunement in the old stranger, perhaps he was a Celestial!

Cyril yelled at the old man, "Ismir! I told you you weren't allowed in here! Gunter! Throw the old man out and don't let him back in!" Gunter then grabbed Ismir and pushed him out the front door and into the dusty street.

The team asked Cyril about the old man. Cyril explained that he was some war veteran who did ten years in a prison camp. He's got no money and contributes nothing to the town. He lived in a shack back by the waste processor.

Theris and the rest of the team left the Golden Goblet and, despite being thrown out only seconds before, could find no trace of the old vagrant. They tracked him down in his shack, where they found him muttering to himself. They asked him a few questions about his past and what happened to him but could get no coherent answers. Eventually, they gave the poor old man a few dozen Aus and left him to retire for the night.

The expedition assembled the next morning around the the tree girahs. They left through the town gates and trudged to the north-northeast. It was a long day of hiking across the rocky desert with little to see but a few scattered wild girah grazing on dry lichens and a few rattlesnakes.

About ten miles out, Thyra stepped on a hidden trap-cactus buried under the sand. The trap-cactus snapped shut, missing Thyra's feet and legs, and retreated into its burrow. The team was a little more careful thereafter.

Thyra failed her awareness check but the trap-cactus rolled a 1 to attack.

Later that afternoon, after hiking twenty miles across the dry rocky landscape, they passed between two steep ridges and turned to the northeast. Ahead and below, they could see the vast white expanse of the flat dry lake-bed known as the Wasteland stretching away below them. A rocky ridge could be seen on the horizon in the far distance.

It was near dark by the time they reached the edge of the wasteland. The expedition set up camp for the night.

That evening, the expedition formed small cliques around the campfire. Lord Kendrik and Magister Reeg conversed with each other in one group, surrounded by bodyguards. The students sat together in another group. The shorter of the two household armsmen tried to socialize with the students but was rejected. He rejoined his partner who laughed at his efforts. The artifact hunters kept to themselves and maintained watch throughout the night.

Late that night, after everyone had gone to sleep, Pi 2-50 was on guard with one of the retainers when he saw the reflection of night eyes in the darkness coming towards them. His auditory sensors picked up the sound of breathing and movement. He fired a warning shot from the plasma rifle, creating a report like a thunderclap. The bolt of high energy charged particles streaked off into the night, illuminating the desert around it n red neon light. He saw several short reptilian humanoids sneaking towards the camp, suddenly frozen in shock by the bright light and sound of thunder.

The sound woke everyone in camp. Pi 2-50 shone his powered torch towards the now fleeing creatures and took some shots with his ballistic rifle, killing one of them. With the flight of the remaining three, there was no indication of further attack. They recovered the body of the one Pi shot. It was a tintazi, a diminutive and savage cousin of the dakazi. They lived a stone-age existence in caves throughout Eris. After the commotion died down, the expedition went back to sleep.

Tintazi

Later that night, about two hours before dawn, the expedition was once more rattled awake. This time, a force of at least sixteen tintazi had returned to raid the camp. They had crept close in the dark before they were discovered. An alarm was raised and the the tintazi responded by charging and shouting their war-bark, "Gah! Gah! GAH-GAH-GAH!"

To be continued!

Tomb of the Architect, Chapter 2

What follows is a write-up of my group's playtest of the new game I'm working on: Exiled in Eris.

I am running them through the introductory adventure I'm including with the game. I want to gauge the difficulty of my encounters against real players. Not to mention some final playtesting and fine tuning of the rules.

Characters:

Rage Bourne Crusader, Human Artifact Hunter
Theris, Human Celestial Guardian, searching to recover lost artifacts of the Celestials.
Jip-Jip, Tintazi Scout with a slave-bond to Theris
Pi 2-50, Cyberdroid Aerine and sniper

Introducing:

Thyra
Barbarian warrior from Gatas, land of the Amazon women.
Thyra wears the furs of her people but carries a ballistic rifle. She is trained in the mystic healing arts of the medicine women of her tribe.

"The Tomb of the Architect"

When we last left our intrepid band of artifact hunters, they had broken the seal on the ancient tomb in the desert. After removing a few urns, exploring a room with a rack of deactivated guardians, and finding a scale model of an unknown city, they forced open a door to a hemisphere-shaped room filled with dirt and debris. Within the debris were several dog-sized wrinkled naked cave rats, their wriggling sausage-like pups, and some loathsome giant maggots.

Amid the shells and bones and detritus of the room, Rage spotted a glass or amber ovoid. He called the team to clear the room of its inhabitants. Theris and Rage formed a shield wall at the entrance while Thyra and Pi 2-50 fired their rifles over the shoulders of the front rank at the gnashing rodents within. In a few moments, all the rodents and maggots were dead.

The team set about searching the detritus for more hidden treasures. After two hours of searching they had found additional ovoids. Rage identified them as Aya stones. The first stone contained a simple class-I Aya whose job was apparently to deactivate some kind of guardian. The second stone held a class-IV Aya in the form of a bald androgynous child-like humanoid. This aya contained comprehensive information on Sdara Vatran urban centers, including population, demographics, government, trade, transportation, and other sociological data. The third stone held what appeared to be a mercurial metal humanoid. The apparition that appeared shivered and popped and flashed colors. It began to scream and took a new form, that of a demonic being, a Varic!

Yay! They rolled a varic! Mental note- I need to shore up the varic rules for when they fail. All my rules are for when they succeed.

The varic immediately tried to jump into Pi 2-50, but the Ohnan was able to successfully resist the spirit. The varic remained trapped in the stone. Rage quickly wrapped the stone and hid it away.

Four small cramped tunnels, large enough for a person to crawl on their belly, led away from the room. The team made a note of it and exited the room.

Nobody was going to crawl around in no rat tunnels.

They went to a large brass door decorated in bas relief with a stylized golden obelisk. The door was locked but forced open after an hour of work.

Rage Bourne Crusader

Inside they found a large rectangular chamber. In the center of the chamber was a raised plinth. Atop the plinth was a golden obelisk the size of a man's arm. The team cautiously approached but Rage stopped them. He noted a difference in coloration in the stones in a five-foot band around the plinth and those of the rest of the room. He tied Jip-Jip to a rope and asked him to jump across the band. Jip-Jip easily did so and recovered the obelisk. However, Jip-Jip failed the return jump and landed on the band. The stones of the band descended quickly, creating a twenty-foot deep pit around the plinth. A hissing sound, like escaping gas, emerged from small vents near the top of the walls of the pit. They quickly hauled Jip-Jip up just as deadly yellow acid began to pour from the vents, filling the pit. The team took the obelisk and left the room in a hurry.

This would have been an awesome and potentially deadly trap had they not criticaled the awareness skill test and figured out how to get across. 

The fourth door was partially obscured by a huge pile of rubble from where the roof had collapsed, exposing the gallery to the sky above. As the team crossed the rubble, a pack of wolf-sized locusts known as devourers emerged from gaps and holes in the rubble. The team made a tight formation, back to back, as they defended themselves from the flying giant insects. Thyra and Pi-250 were shooting them out of the sky while Rage and Theris cut them down with sword and starblade. All of the devourers were soon defeated.

This was a great and memorable fight. There was a hint of danger but nothing serious. Everyone liked the back-to-back battle and the giant insects flying around.

The brass door before them contained a bas relief showing a grid with sixteen squares. The door was locked but forced open after an hour of work. Within they found a bare room, a ten foot featureless cube. It was Pi 2-50 that noticed that the far wall had a paper-thin gap separating its corners from all the other walls. The team pushed on the far wall and it receded ten feet.

The team spread out, each person taking a different wall. The farthest section of the wall to the left receded, revealing another room. Again the team spread out and tried each ten foot section of wall. The farthest section of the left wall again receded ten feet and stopped.

The team tried to continue the pattern but could not. They tried other sections of wall, eventually trying a section they had pushed earlier. The section of wall they pushed, the first section to the far left, receded farther.

 They spread out and tried each section. By trial and error, they found a section moved away from the far wall, revealing another ten foot by ten foot room and an exit. They quickly left the puzzle room.

I really need to add a penalty to a failed guess. Perhaps an electric shock for guessing the wrong wall. As it was, it was an interesting brain teaser, but wasn't a threat. It was solved by trial and error and pushing all the walls. 

Beyond, they found a corridor leading down a long flight of stairs. Tiny square holes lined the walls of the corridor. Rage and Theris started running down the stairs, triggering a hail of poison darts. The darts bounced harmlessly off their thick hides and chain mail armor. Once they realized this, they slowed their pace and calmly walked down the stairs, immune to the effects of the ancient trap.

Again, I need to ramp this trap up. It would be dangerous to anyone without armor, but useless against anyone with armor. Maybe electric arcs. I like that. 

At the bottom of the stairs, the team found a round room with a domed ceiling, like a rotunda. Four pillars connected the floor to the ceiling. A ring was set in the floor connecting each of the pillars. In the center of the dome was a ten foot aperture. There was no other exit.

As the team entered the room to inspect the pillars, the aperture opened and from it emerged a ten foot hovering silver sphere of liquid metal. Spikes emerged and receded from the silver sphere. The room began to rotate. Only the ring and the pillars remained motionless.

Rage Bourne held forth the aya stone that controlled the guardian. The aperture reopened, the guardian retreated within it, the aperture closed, the room stopped spinning. Problem solved!

When the room began to spin, the entrance in the wall rotated away from the corridor. The entrance now faced a blank wall. The team began to push against the pillars in order to spin the room some more. Each time they pushed against the pillar, the guardian re-emerged from the aperture. Rage would simply re-present the aya stone and the guardian would retreat again. On one occasion, Rage was a little slow in presenting the stone and the guardian managed to attack, launching two spears of liquid metal at range and attacking anyone near it with long spikes of liquid metal. Rage quickly recovered and forced the sphere to retreat. Eventually, the team rotated the room 270 degrees and revealed another corridor.

Theris

They exited the room and were faced with double brass doors with bas reliefs displaying the space gods known as the Sdara Vatra creating all the worlds of the heavens. The doors were sealed with lead which was easily chipped away. The doors were forced open, revealing the burial vault within.

The room was a long rectangle. The center of the room was dominated by a large sarcophagus. A large steel vault door was set into the far wall. The right and left walls were each covered with five large brass panels. Each panel was adorned with Aeonian runes and bas relief images. Rage Bourne began translating the panels while Theris, Thyra, and Pi 2-50 searched the rooms for traps and opening the sarcophagus.

Each panel took twelve minutes to translate and read:

1. He was born to Tilkas and Ulumei, leaders of the city of Hrosek, during the year of the falling moonshard. The haruspices of far Gromad foretold of the building of a great empire in the west. His brother Selmic was healthy and strapping while Yalzhas was weak and sickly. 
2. As a child of ten years, he found a spear and aya stone at the site of the fallen moonshard. He named the spear Ite and the aya stone Deyyam.
3. As the age of 15, he defeated the Nilian bandit king Rothor in the Battle of the Nyrroth. There he gained the loyalty of the Nilian Horde.
4. As a strapping lad of 16, he bested the gymnosoph of the Copper Prince in a series of tests of cunning. His reward was a golden ewe and a position as seventh apprentice to Klaven Mason of the Jeweled Spires. Within two moons he wore the brass compass of first apprentice.
5. At age 20, having learned all his master had to teach him, during the season of crimson skies, he departed on his famous trek to the sunken temple. There he heard the prophecy of the hissing sybil who foretold his assassination at age 40. In melancholy, he conceived the first of his weighted and pitching labyrinths.
6. At the age of 22, his parents were murdered by his treacherous brother Selmic. Yalzhas slew his brother in a duel of honor and became ruler of Hrosek. 
7. By the age of 25, Yalzhas led his army to conquer the surrounding kingdoms. He personally defeated several kings in ritual battle using Deyyam-Ite. Wealth began to pour into his city.
8. By the age of 30, Yalzhas had rebuilt Hrosek into a powerful walled city-state protected by a wide but shallow lake. Hrosek became the jewel of the west. Its fabulous towers were of Yalzhas’ own design and distinctive style.
9. By the age of 35, Yalzhas had many wives, cementing treaties with other cities from the south and east. 
10. At age 40, Yalzhas was assassinated by agents of the northern coalition. The Aya Stone known as Deyyam was never found. He was buried in this tomb of his own design with his magic spear Ite. 

Within the sarcophagus were the mummified remains of Yalzhas the Architect, builder and ruler of an ancient Aeonian city.

Yalzhas was buried in a funerary shroud and adorned with jewelry worth a total of 5000 Aus. A pendant of starmetal is placed on his chest. Runes engraved on the pendant spell the words “NA ITE MELKONI” in ancient Aeonian runes.

NA ITE MELKONI

Theris was able to channel the Oudh into the pendant, causing it to glow, but could activate no other property.

The team then turned to the vault door on the opposite wall. A brass cover slid aside to reveal a triangular keyhole the size of a human finger. Theris was unable to cut through the door with his starsword and no one was able to open the lock. Suddenly, Rage remembered Jip-Jip, who stayed behind at the top of the stairs. He ran back up, ignoring the hail of darts. He wrapped Jip-Jip inside a heavy cloak and carried him safely past the darts.

Jip-Jip set about opening the lock. He managed to open the door after three hours.

Inside the vault, the team found:

•  A mysterious staff made of starmetal mounted on a beautiful display. 
• One hundred iron cauldrons filled with coins and gems worth 1,000 Aus each. Each cauldron weighed about 100 pounds.
• Four statues, each the size of a small humanoid, carved from ruby, jade, onyx, and ivory worth 50 Aus each.  
• Corn, beans, wheat, cured meats, wines, and spirits stored in sealed amphorae to provide refreshment for the king in the afterlife. Each amphora weighed about 200 pounds and was worth 100 Aus.
• Two fine suits of ceremonial armor and swords, impractical for battle, each worth 1000 Aus.

Pi 2-50

Pi 2-50 noticed the fine pin-sized holes that lined the wall near the ceiling. Fearing a gas-trap, Rage spiked the vault door open and the team began moving ten cauldrons, all four statues, and the suits of armor out of the vault. Once they were safely in the burial chamber, they exited the vault. Theris then carefully took the starmetal staff from its display.

When he did so, a grey mist began to emanate from the pin-holes. Theris quickly left the vault, but the grey mist dissolved his clothing and all his soft possessions into fine grey powder. Rage removed the spike and closed the vault door.

Very clever players! I thought they'd go for the mysterious staff first, but they figured that removing it would activate the trap, and they were right!

Safe from the strange grey mist, the team returned up the dart corridor. They opened the door to the room of the shifting walls only to discover that the walls had returned to their original position and that none of the walls would move. They were trapped!

They returned to the burial chamber to think of their options. The Imperials would arrive any hour now. Pi 2-50 estimated six hours left before their scheduled arrival.

I rolled randomly at the start of the adventure, they actually only had three hours left. 

It was then that they noticed the small tunnels in the walls, just large enough for wrinkled cave rats. The team sent Jip-Jip ahead to scout. Jip-Jip returned an hour later with a triangular key, "Hey look! I found the key in one of the tunnels!"

Rage rolled his eyes, "Great! That's helpful now. Do any of the tunnels lead out?"

Jip-Jip

Jip-Jip looked nervously back into the tunnels, "Not that I've found, but they have to lead back to that rat room, right? I'm just nervous about going alone."

The team decided to explore the tunnels with Jip-Jip. They slowly belly-crawled through the dark smelly tunnels, carrying as much gold from the cauldrons as four bags dragging behind them would allow, occasionally finding a small chamber with some rat pups. After about two hours of crawling, they made their way to the room filled with dirt and detritus. From there they retraced their steps to the exit.

Back in the harsh glare of the sun atop the trapezoid shaped monument, they could see their air-skiff in the distance. They could also see another air-skiff, the one carrying the bandits! Pi 2-50 spotted an ambush waiting for them at the gates to the necropolis.

Pi 2-50 and Thyra took up sniper positions while Theris and Rage drew their swords and charged the gate. They battled the bandits man-to-man while the snipers picked off the rest. Rage even managed to scare two of them into running away. The pair ran back to their air-skiff and took off, leaving their companions to die.

Lessons learned from this battle: re-tool the ranged weapon rules, shooting was too damn easy! Also make shooting into melee a little more perilous. I have since added in some friendly fire rules. I made up the morale rules on the spot because Rage made such a good roll. I'll have something better next time. 

The team returned to their air-skiff. They found Glorin tied up and gagged. They also found their power coupling stolen! Without it, they were stranded in the desert. However, Pi 2-50 offered an alternative. He removed his own power coupler, rendering him unconscious, so that it could be used on the air-skiff. With that, they got loaded all the statues and gold and jewelry, the mysterious staff, the obelisk, and the urns on the air-skiff. Each was carefully logged and inspected by Glorin. Not logged was the starmetal amulet and two of the three aya stones. They repaired the air-skiff and were soon in the sky, headed back to Acik-Sehir.

When they left, they literally had one hour left before the Imperials arrived to take all their treasure. It was a nail-biter for me! The players had no idea until they got away and I showed them the tick-marks where I recorded each hour that passed compared to how many they had.

Almost immediately once they were in the air, they could see the dark shape of an Imperial air-frigate in the distance, coming closer. Glorin took a wide course away to the south to avoid the air-frigate. After four hours, they were back in Acik-Sehir. The sun had set by then and the sky glimmered with the swirling patterns of the permanent aurora that lit the night sky with pale green vapors.

They met their contact, a human broker named Tarvo, accompanied by two human thugs, two myrmidon warriors, and three drudge laborers. Tarvo took possession of the artifacts and Glorin and told the team that their payment was hidden in a water barrel over there. Rage verified the payment of eight thousand aus and the two groups parted ways without incident.

I was surprised they gave up the mysterious staff so easily. But it was their first mission and they didn't want to piss off their employer too much right away.

Thus ends The Tomb of the Architect.

Next week, the adventure continues with chapter 1 of "The City in the Mirage"!

Tomb of the Architect, Chapter 1

What follows is a write-up of my group's playtest of the new game I'm working on: Exiled in Eris.

I am running them through the introductory adventure I'm including with the game. I want to gauge the difficulty of my encounters against real players. Not to mention some final playtesting and fine tuning of the rules.

"The Tomb of the Architect"

The team:

Theris 

Theris, a clean-cut by-the-book Celestial Guardian who's only an Artifact Hunter so he can study the ruins of the past and have an opportunity to rescue artifacts that might otherwise be stolen and sold on the black market. He carries a shield made of Starmetal.

Pi 2-50 

Pi 2-50's full name is 3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937510. Pi 2-50’s body is painted a azure blue with light gold joints He has two optic units, one with a larger targeting system that snaps into place when he is firing his rifle. He has two sensor booms for ‘ears’ that fold down against his head when he puts his heavy helmet on (thus the penalty to Awareness). His helmet is modified with a single sensor bar that connects to his internal targeting systems when worn. He also has a “mouth” that is pixilated and moves when he talks and moving eyebrows that help him to have “realistic emotional facial features”.

He joined the resistance against the empire as an Aerine Ranger. While with the humanoids in the resistance, he took to wearing clothes to fit in. Pi currently wears brown ballistic mesh pants and a silver ballistic mesh shirt and his feet are painted to look like boots. He wears gloves as well and a bandana on his head to “keep the sweat out of his eyes”. At least that’s what the others in his platoon wore them for. Of course, he also wears his on the outside of his helmet. He also still wears his long coat that’s kind of brown.

Jip-Jip 

Jip-Jip is a scrawny Tintazi from the caverns under Eris. Jip-Jip likes to nest, and fills it with the softest things he can find. In his native caves, the softest things you can find are lichen and they are scratchy. He also likes bright colors.

There is a perfectly valid reason for why Jip-Jip was exiled from his native homeland, leaving friends and family behind, to be revealed at a later date.

Theris found Jip-Jip out in the desert alone and near death. He rescued the wretched creature and nursed him back to health. Today, Jip-Jip is fiercely loyal to Theris.

Jip-Jip has hunched, wrinkly, dark brown/olive reptilian skin with scales over most of his body except hands, feet, and face.

He has 1 blue eye and 1 brown eye, slight webbing between the fingers and toes, and always wears a scarf.

Rage Bourne 

Rage Bourne is a scruffy artifact hunter from one of the rural villages on the edge of the toxic jungle. He is a treasure hunter seeking fame and glory.

They work together as a team of artifact hunters. They operate out of the free city of Acik-Sehir. Their job is to retrieve lost treasures and artifacts before they are confiscated by the Vrildarian Empire.

They were hired by a wealthy Norkarian collector of black market antiquities named Karris Wati to check out a newly discovered ruin complex 200 miles north west of Acik-Sehir. They had two days to get there and loot it before an Imperial air-ship patrol returned and headed there to check it out. Karris took the liberty of hiring an air-skiff and a pilot/observer, a factotum named Glorin, to take them there. The observer's job was to make sure they didn't make off with any loot.

Thee team was offered 2000 Aus (gold coins) each plus 10 percent of the proceeds of the sale for the job, which they accepted.

It was an eight-hour ride to the ruins, skimming a few dozen feet above the desert sands. About 30 minutes out, Pi 2-50 spotted a tail. It was another air skiff, faster than theirs, closing fast. It had what looked like ne'er-do-well types and they were approaching the team's skiff on an intercept course. Pi 2-50 took a few shots at them with his rifle. They veered away, Pi 2-50 took one more shot at the pilot of the other skiff and hit him in the head. The pilot collapsed and the skiff wobbled but one of the other guys took over and they flew off in a different direction and eventually they were out of sight.

This is where I learned I didn't address ammo in my game.

The team arrived at the ruins.

The Tomb Compound

 ​There were six girah draft lizards corralled inside the wall of the compound. Glorin landed the air-skiff about 500 feet away. There was a loud clanging and the girah were diven out of the gate and scattered.

Girah 

The team cautiously entered the ancient gates and were attacked by two geks, two droks, and two trained devil-dogs.

Gek 

Devil Wolf

Droks

The savages were defeated.

I learned that Drok armor was too damn high, and that my original encounter, as written, had too many monsters for the first encounter (6 geks, 4 droks, and 4 devil dogs).

Then the team climbed to the top of the tallest ziggurat, found an entrance, and a stairway so steep, with stairs that were so shallow, it may as well have been a 150' deep shaft.

This was literally how steep it was:

When I wrote this encounter, I intended it to be a test of preparedness. Did you bring a rope and pitons? No problem. If not, start climbing down. If you fail, take some damage.

Here is where I learned my mistake as, since the longest rope anyone had was 50', everyone tumbled down to what would have been their gruesome but comically slapstick deaths had I run it as written.

So I've re-written that challenge.

At the bottom, they found a foyer with a large cracked crystal lens in the ceiling. A ghostly apparition, like a hologram of a banshee, emerged from the lens, screeched, and tried to fly into Theris. Pi 2-50 quickly fired at the lens and destroyed it, destroying the aya stored in it.

Theris tried to open the metal doors. They were electrified but he managed to avoid the damage.

Reactions are my version of saving throws.

The team dickered about how to defeat the doors for like 30 minutes. Finally someone took a chance and tried to pick the lock. They fumbled and broke Jeep Jeep's thieve's tools. However, they learned that the door had only one charge and was no longer electrified.

The team entered a large gallery with marble amphorae filled with the cremated ashes of favorite servants and concubines. They took the time to take those back upstairs before they got broke (very wise). They tried another door with no handle but with a key slot. It had the utilitarian outline of a cyberdroid on it. It did not open.

They tried another door. It led to a corridor that branched left and right. They went left and found a chamber with a miniature city built in a recessed floor. The city was unknown to any of them but looked like this (but not ruined):

Lost City, only not ruined

​As you can see, there's a large temple complex in the center. Pi 2-50 lifted the temple complex, revealing a scale model of an underground tunnel complex that looks like this:

Vault

Vault, you say? Inside the vault, where the little grey box with the 7 is, was a small floating grey metal marble hovering over a box the size of a human finger. Inside the box was a flat crystalline rectangle with glowing edges. A key?

They went to the other corridor, opened a door, and found a round room that was filled with dirt. It looked like some kind of nest. Perhaps a nest for those six dog-sized wrinkled cave rats and their dozens of wriggling sausage-sized pups!

Wrinkled Cave Rat

Along with that disgusting image were the four semi-translucent cat-sized kolops larvae that were obviously meant to be dinner for this handsome family.

Larvae

To be continued!