Two sessions of non-stop action have started to take their toll. A few heroes are wounded and lack of sleep begins to creep in. Despite the urgency to act, the team regroups before “tracking” the demon train and infiltrating the Monster Kingdom of Calgary. 

Seeing no victims to collect the demon train from whooshes by the slave pen. Rufus spends a benny to make one of the victims a medic who tries to heal him, and succeeds in restoring one Wound. After picking up some salvaged Particle beam Rifles, the group quickly ushers the survivors back toward the train wreck to look for more medical supplies. The militia from Purgatory has finally caught up to the action and are searching the wreck site when the heroes return.

We used the Relic Salvage operation Rules from Empires of Humanity to simulate searching the train for medical supplies. The heroes rolled well and got to draw 8 Cards — but no face cards came up! When we totalled it up they had about 42,000 credits worth of salvaged goods. The IRMSS they were really hoping for costs 50,000! They started negotiating with the militia to trade their salvage for an IRMSS. It was a good back-and-forth roleplay with some great arguments by the heroes. Eventually, the militia Captain had his medic take a look at Rufus, but couldn’t help him, and gave the group a TW Healing Device — which wasn’t much help to Rufus the Nega-psychic either.

FoundryVTT: Cards on the Canvas

FoundryVTT does a lot of things really well. However, cards are one area that needs improvement from a Savage Worlds perspective. Cards for initiative works really well, and the options for going on hold, grouping extras etc, are all very handy but just to deal one card or draw a card is not always intuitive. Fortunately, the SWADE system has a built in function for laying out Chase Cards by right-clicking on the deck. In this case I laid out 8 cards to represent the Relic Salvage Operation results.

Railroading

The group passed up a ride back to town and camped at the wreck overnight so they could follow after the demon train in the morning. The train was easy to follow, it passed over the land on a cloud of smoke that reeked of sulphur and brimstone, leaving black streaks across the badlands that stunk like hell (get it?).

Things got more tense as they got closer to the ruins of Calgary. The outskirts of the ruins were lightly patrolled, but gargoyles passed overhead and packs of Brodkil camped about willy-nilly. Rogan, the Knight of the White Rose, used some nearby carnage to smear up his armor and pose as an evil Mystic Knight while the rest of the group did their best to look tough. Before long, they were stopped and questioned by a Brodkil patrol but managed to bluff their way past with a warning not to stray too far from their master in the future. Sensing they needed to beef up their disguises, Gristly turned into bear form, meaning he only had animal smarts, and the rest of the crew tried to look really evil.

The Monster Kingdom

Passing deeper into the city they saw a portrait of hell, as demons and monsters walked about freely with thousands and thousands of human slaves working on building structures and serving their demonic overlords. As they passed through I paraphrased some of the many highlights from the description of the Monster Kingdom found in Blood and Banes. The crew got really nervous when they saw the bone pit. Finally, they found out that the train had passed through a massive gate into a large walled-off area right underneath the massive ley line nexus. Unable to see past the wall and not wanting to try and sneak in, they found an old abandoned skyscraper and ascended to the upper floors to look in. They saw the massive pit, filled with humans working and digging (no spoilers here, see Blood and Banes for more information). 

Frenemies

Peering into the pit from their perch the group soon realized someone was approaching. A group of black armored figures emerged from the shadows and started a tense staredown. Fortunately the heroes decided to ask questions first and not shoot…weird.

Got to give the players credit, they all knew what the black armor represented but played their character’s ignorance perfectly. The leader introduced themselves as Lily and shared that the demons were collecting humans as part of a massive sacrificial ritual to open a permanent gate to Hades. The demon train travelled to outlying towns to gather humans captured by demonic raiders. Lily showed the heroes a playbill from a carnival, apparently the demons struck towns where the carnival was as it gathered together large groups of people…the same carnival visiting Purgatory. Worst of all the ritual needs to happen during the Blood Moon, in three days time. The people of Purgatory are the last sacrifices needed for the ritual!

Lily said her masters did not want the demons to succeed but could not be seen as interfering. The heroes were quick to take the role of Patsy and agreed to stop the ritual with a little help from their new friends.

The group gained the train’s route to Purgatory and started cooking up a plan to ambush it before it got to town. Rufus prepared a mediation to dispel the power locomotive (a legendary magic device) while Drake gathered some explosives to stop the train with more mundane methods. After setting their plan into motion the heroes moved into position for next week’s thrilling conclusion.

Infodump

This session was all roleplay, exploration, etc. There were very few skill rolls and no combat yet we still managed drama, tension, exploration, and discovery. All credit to the players for carrying the session with conversation, ideas, and planning.