Thursday, September 25, 2008

Synnibarr One Shot Part Deux

I got a second character concept in the meantime. It is:

Samurai with a laser sword...

I thought you could create that as a Shadow Warrior. At least that is the best fitting class. Otherwise you could do it as a non-classed character obviously. The biggest problem is that the light saber will already cost most of the starting money if you don't roll really, really well. So how to get the armour?

But back to the adventure:
We need an easy hook.

That should be the story about the mayor's mansion.
If the PCs won't investigate it, they can also go up to the vulcano and find a cave or even further up and find the gremlin.

The cave connects to the underwater base of the slavers and the secret gambling room in the mayor's basement. So all the hooks are leading to the same structure. Simple right?

I am just not sure if a game of Poker is the the right thing for Synnibarr. Maybe something like the video game out of James Bond Moonraker instead? Called Telepathker??

I also noticed that the Lesser monsters (gremlins and the slavers) are too strong for starting character. While I could have changed them, I think there are more elegant ways around the problem of their 2 tenth. The Gremlin is on shaky terrain and I think in the cave there is a room where lizard people are treated in one cave room with something that disolves their scales...


If you want to know how it played out, and if the Gremlin's strength was a problem, have a look in the Synnibarr actual play post!

Saturday, September 20, 2008

Synnibarr One Shot

Finally the big thing will happen: after waiting since 1994, I will be able to play Synnibarr. Actually I already had reached the point of character creation once with Halbi and Roman around 1998...

At the moment 1 have one character concept:
"Fairy that throws bombs" I created that as a Flyman/Flygirl with Superspeed mutation. Only the skill points for skills are missing, because that power is so expensive.

But now the important part: the adventure:

I want to use different inspirations:
Song titles by the bands Chrome Hoof and the Apes
Winterhaven, the city out of D&D4th Keep on the Shadowfell
The Savage Worlds of Solomon Kane adventure generator on deadlands.info/
Namely: Villain: Avenger (Noble) Goal: Conquer Hook: Rumor Locale: Exotic Land Henchmen: Combat Veteran Twist: Discovery

So it plays on an isolated vulcano island in the Sapphire Deep. There is a small, boring village called Frosthaven near the coast, where the Giants' come with a ship (500m length) every 1 months. There is an inn called Lazermead, some fishers and some farmers and an alchemist's tower. There is also a temple to Yanak, god of time (p.446).

Important NPCs:
Abon - Blood Orange (p.408) and Heal Spring Melon (p.402) farmer & trader, wants to become mayor, as the current one never leaves his mansion
Simera - female Talking Raccon (p.411) who is living in a cabin (!), hunter
Goto - Cyborg barman
Sam - Old, somewhat crazy dwarven fisherman: has seen Tenjohussan slavers in their whale. On one table with Abon...
Irpine - mayor (see adventure), lives in mansion build straight in rocks

The vulcano is most of the island and is surrounded by fog in the middle part. It is smoking at the moment. There jungle in the fog part. Flying Deer is normally circling the island.
There is also a cave to the magma with stalactites.
There are 4 traps (pit trap, hidden gun, mine, room filling with lava) and 1 monster there. Maybe also 1 wereman adventurer... Treasure: p.335!
Random encounters island: p.345+

Also: Octopus! Flying Deer, Flying Grizzly. Shark.. Tenjohussan slavers (p.426) in whale!!!

Basic outline - I hope it is crazy enough for Synnibarr: The mayor started to gamble with a Gremlin (p.382) who lives on top of the vulcano. He lost all his money. He contacted Tenjohussan slavers (p.426) traveling in a whale nearby. They plan to enslave all the village. The mayor sold his people...
But Simera, the raccoon, found out. The mayor told the Gremlin that there was danger the money would get lost and the Gremlin was able to kidnap Simera's twins.
If she tells about the secret of the mayor and the Gremlin, they will be thrown in the vulcano.
So she tries to plant subtle hints for the adventurers.

The gremlin is probably too strong to be beaten directly, but could be thrown into the volcano.

Here is a map I created from this outline:

You can read part 2 of the Synnbarr one shot preparation here.