c02s02e07 - Desert Privateering Mid afternoon, Day 53 Karrnath Battle Cruiser - Medusa Class - "Slaughter Claw" The Medusa Class ship is 400 feet long, 120 feet wide, 150 feet tall, housing hundreds of troops and bristling with necrotek auto-balista, Ultra-Heavy Necro Cannons and a contingent of Scythe Class Fighter Skiffs, these ships are designed to invade hostile territories and establish a zone of control for the Karrnath navy to operate from. They are capable of squaring off against Breland Floating Fortresses. This is the first noted incident in the past 70 years that one has been positioned west of Thrane... that piece of history is referred to as "The Droaam Initiative" when karrnath destroyed the eastern mountain Defenses in Droaam, leading to Karrnath's only open weapons trade agreement, providing necrotek to Droaam despite protest and sanctions from Thrane, Breland, Aundair and Zilargo that are still in effect today. The appearance of Slaughter Claw in the Athasian desert only reinforces the team's assessment that Karrnath is attempting to escalate diplomatic ties through Bodak with the Cult of Draegoth. A quick recap: Cult of Draegoth is the regime controlling Balic and the Ledo Collective east of Zilargo and Breland. When the Athasian Accords was signed by the Recognized Nations of Khorvaire (Aundair, Breland, Karrnath, Thrane, and Zilargo) as well as Mror Hold and Valenar, it was agreed that any attempt to establish an embassy within the athasian city states would warrant hostile retaliation from the remaining signers up to and including declaration of war. At that time 2 years ago, Bodak was still little more than a refuge for Gulg and Nibernay expatriots. Now, in the past 9 months the Cult of Draegoth assumed control of the community and it has grown to nearly 10,000 residents-- but it is still not included in the Athasian Accords.... so it is the only population center of athasians where the participants of the AA can establish embassies without retribution. ... so this bitch gotta go. The plan is simple: slam BlackFly into Slaughter Claw -- punch a hole in the ship and fight their way to the bridge; seize control, and destabilize Karrnath's power grab while scoring a ship literally built to command large military operations from which to lead the assault against Kazarak in Hell. 1st part is easy.. there's a landing deck on the aft section of the cruiser with inviting bay doors. the BlackFly survived the initial barrage of aulobalista fire long enough to headbutt into the repair docks midship. initial resistance was minimal, but the passive interior defenses of the cruiser anticipate infiltration, and by the time the team had secured the repair garage they were already knee-deep in countermeasures. A few highlights from the session: 1. Necrotek. Necrotek is an energy system developed by Karrnath that is in direct competition with Zilargo elemental helms. the quick summary is that the technology imposes levels of exhaustion upon the user to produce effects: the greater the effect, the greater degree of exhaustion imposed. the ships and siege weapon systems of the Battle Cruiser use this technology liberally. THX engaged the Necrotek system on an autobalista while repelling karrnath troops trying to enter the repair garage from the flight deck where BlackFly wrecked. Fun mechanic here: siege weaponry is an intelligence based proficiency, but exhaustion taxes str and con ability checks... so it is possible to incur initial penalties with no impact on siege weapon performance.... just don't plan on running around alot afterwards. Initially the team had taken control of the repair garage, which has autobalista turrets flanking the garage door to prevent people from slamming ships into the structure (just like the team did... lol ) so THX was defending the garage from counter-infiltration by targeting parked Scythe Fighter with an autobalista (to minimize cover positions available to the karrnath troops).. he specifically wanted to avoid engaging the necrotek, sticking to the normal functions of the basic balista weapon he was already familiar with. THX rolled a crit fumble. so naturally he engages the necrotek enhancements and scores a level of fatigue-- obliterating the Scythe Fighter! That tek has serious punch. THX backs away from the weapon, turning his attention to the troops swarming up from the cargo hold below. What's more-- the necrotek enhancement rig mounted to the autobalista can be removed. It's like a joystick trigger grip inside a metal frame with multiple needles that stab the user to engage and withdraw vitality from the user.... effectively it's a man-sized large weapon that fires a necrotic charge of seige damage (2-20 necro damage) for each point of exhaustion imposed. The karrnath crew is intimately familiar with the mechanics of the weapons, so when the team starts to corner crew members, one of them disengages the necrotek cannon from an autobalista and fires on the team-- Dhraksis plays cat n mouse a bit with the opponent, but the crewman shreds one of the stair wells in the process with a stray shot. 2. Stairwells. Stairwells are bad. They are 10 foot diameter cylinders that lead up and down in a spiral staircase method. Able to easily accomodate medium size personnel, they are also defenisve points. When active, they have iris portals that snap shut above and below occupants, and the walls of the cylinder interiors are actually layered bucklers bolted to skeletal arms that batter the trapped victims to death. Dhraksis enjoyed that experience for a few rounds while Tug and Rogar tried to figure out how to disable the trap.... this severely slowed movement between floors. The team lost all 4 of the warforged scouts this way before they realized what was happening. 3. DeadApes. Karrnath is well known for using necromancy to control undead troops. One of their units is a skeleton bolted into large sized armor with elongated arms and legs like an ape-postured armor construct. they soak some decent damage and hit hard. They are primarily shock troops and strength utility like, tearing open the sealed elevator shaft that Tug disabled with tinkering to slow the inflow of Karrnath resistance. The team spent the session mowing down a few dozen repelling troopers, a handfull of DeadApes, and once they had barricaded the space, they have the choice between going up towards the top of the ship where there's a ring of autobalistas crowning the ship's forward skull-- or down further into the bulk of the structure. they went down into what turns out being the top floor of a 3 tiered cargo bay large a few hundred feet in length-- large enough to hold a decent sized ship of its own. The hold is filled with literally tons of supplies as well as additional Scythe Fighters -- and skeletal troops that necromancers are activating to reinforce the repelling troops. there's the main shaft elevator adjacent to the team on the balcony that is bringing more troops to bear as well as two cargo lifts at the aft end on the other side of the bay that are large enough to lift Scythe Fighters or a swarm of troops onto the flight deck above. A massive hangar bay door is locked shut in an upright position, serving as a reinforced blast shield that makes up the back wall of the 40 foot tall cargo bay-- if it were lowered, the cargo bay is directly accessible and a ship could be flown in, or massive amounts of workers could load/unload on foot. two balcony tiers and a 'ground floor" to the cargo hold is lined with more autobalista turrets accessible by catwalks surrounding the open space. The session ended with the team holding off incoming troops attempting to surround the team on the cargo balcony 30 feet above the main cargo hold. They've blown some short rest cooldowns as well as a handful of spells.. but aren't certain where the bridge is or how many floors of opposition they are going to have to face to get there. <end of session> current time: middle of Day 53 Time spent in game: about 10 minutes. the team is now level 8