My Prodesto Campaign

Hey, all!

I'm currently running a Living Legends campaign with my friends, since our Pony Tales one from 2013 didn't pan out so good. It's set in a slightly-modified version of the world of Soul Nomad & the World Eaters (for the PS2). There's a sort of industrial magitek vibe to it, with morphing weapons and artificial life, and jazz like that.

Our group consists of myself and three friends, one of which lives out of state (Skype helps). We've been playing nearly every weekend for the last few months, and they're a reasonably eager bunch. We've got:

Myself as DM. I also control a Dracon necromancer the party picked up, named Dr. Samantha Blitzkrieg. He's kind of like a cross between a stereotypical otaku and Trixie when she had that Alicorn Amulet. He was originally a boss fight, but I accidentally overestimated the players and he kicked their flanks in without even trying, until they managed to befriend him mid-battle via incredibly lucky skill checks.

RJ as Viktor Gohl, a Wolven detective of nationwide fame. Our party's de facto leader, diplomancer, and the most roleplay-oriented. Has a girlfriend in every major city, and has the best memory when it comes to plot details.

Dom as Durrak Whitehide, a Minotaur who got exhiled for being an albino. Durrak has a demon companion named Bolk, and rides a Triceratops named Titan. Dom recently created a Demonborn named Dalius, who's about as Original the Character as you can get; dresses like Dante, has a possessed katana, that sort of thing. He's currently trying to swap out characters at every turn, wanting to dump his Minotaur unceremoniously. Has a habit of trying to override the story with what he wants to happen. Our resident power player and combat enthusiast.

Eric as Angelo Salvatore, a Hawkling with a history as a military combat medic and mad scientist. Has a pet Siberian husky with wings. Tends to get frustrated easily over little things. He keeps his character out of the limelight, frequently having him off to the side in a sort of narrative limbo, but then complains about not being involved enough despite having plenty of opportunity. Can roleplay just fine if I set him up for specific lines.

We're a few months in, and they've already battled and befriended a necromancer, volunteered to find a woman who went missing 30 years ago, put down a rabid hellhound that murdered a depressed angel, and are currently setting off a plot that revolves around a Dr. Doom expy attempting to resurrect three living seige engines with the power to level the continent, by tapping into the power of unincarnated souls. Keeping them on-track has been hard, since they still seem to think that they're on a sidequest for some reason, but it's still an incredibly fun experience.

I'm happy to share more details, like plot events, funny moments, and stuff like that. I'm also open to questions and suggestions, since this is still a new thing for me.

A lot has happened in the two months since I made this thread.

Due to various reasons, Eric (Angelo's player) has been cut from the game. I couldn't stand his constant, baseless complaining over problems that didn't exist. He was dragging the entire game down, and I made the decision I feel was best.

I treated his character's departure as respectfully as I could, of course. In-story, they needed a cursed forest to be un-cursed, and so Angelo enlisted the help of the guy who out it there, Grand Sorcerer Dio of the Evil Eye. His price for being bothered was Angelo's memories of his time with the party, for reasons known only to him. Now, Angelo is just a regular guy, back to his old life.

Dom (Durrak & Dalius's player) didn't like how I handled it. He got moody and short-tempered with me for the rest of the session. As someone who can't stand having everyone's fun ruined by one person who doesn't even want to be there, I stand by my decision.

Adventure-wise, the party has spent the last several sessions being busy busy busy. First, Durrak was informed that a figure from his past was last seen in a nearby town. At the same time, Viktor got a lead on a human-trafficking operation. The party split up; Viktor, Dalius, and Bolk headed to the canal town of Zazzana while Durrak, Angelo, and Sam went to the ruined canyon town of Pulkina.

Durrak's group hunted down Dirty Dan, the man who murdered Durrak's adoptive mother. He was now an ex-criminal, working in a rock quarry. Despite Dan's insistence that he was a changed man, Durrak attacked him anyway. The party took him down in a heated battle, fulfilling Durrak's vendetta.

Viktor's group split up when they reached Zazzana. Dalius went to hire mercenaries, while Viktor attended a secret trial and found out the location of the Yesterwind: an old fortress by the sea. The daughter of the man in trial had been sold to him by that group at a young age, and was absolutely furious when she found out. She told Viktor that, if he was up to taking the Yesterwind down, she would fund a small army to help. They met back up with Dalius, who had hired a bunch of mercenaries.

The party regrouped and got ready for the task ahead. Over the next week and a half, they split up to get as much help as they could. Once they had enough support, they gathered everyone at the edge of the forest between them and Yesterwind. This is where Angelo made his trade and was teleported away.

Now, the party is in an all-out battle between them and their small army, and the surprisingly large horde of bandits housed at the fort. This is the climax of this chapter in their adventure, so I'm making sure to provide plenty of action and hopefully an epic conclusion. After this, we'll be taking a break so I can set up the next chapter. I'll be sure to keep a proper record of everything, so that I can keep everyone up to date on this campaign.

Viktor, Dalius, Durrak, and their NPC army have finally cleared out the Yesterwind Fortress. There was a lot going on in there; spooky empty hallways, a mysterious figure running just out of sight, strange carvings of pagan gods, a golem, and strange creatures that feed off of a special jewel called Crimson Tears, which are sort of like the Philosopher's Stones in Fullmetal Alchemist. There was a Christmas episode, too, in which Dalius and Viktor saved Christmas from the horrors of slave labor, cubes, anthropomorphic personifications of people's childhoods, and Sir Alec Guinness.

The party is at Level 4, now, which means they get to choose their Destinies and everything that goes with it. There's also an exciting new development hitting our gaming group! I needed a break from being DM, so we agreed to do start rotating the player/DM dynamic from now on. Dom occupies the role of DM now, with RJ and I as players. In order to avoid a player's character being left on the sidelines when they're running the game, we're switching to a different party altogether, consisting of:

RJ as Burglor, a Gideon jester who escaped from some lab where he was subjected to horrific experiments that changed him beyond recognition. Think Krieg from Borderlands combined with Deadpool, and you get the idea. He runs entirely on toon logic, which makes for a lot more silliness than the previous team had.

Myself as Endive (pronounced ON-deev), an Elf swordsman with twin swords. He's from Shadowstar Island, where he trained since childhood under a swordsmaster. His master gave him freedom to visit the mainland and test himself, so he's eager to learn about their culture and ways. Endive is always looking for someone to help, but he's not willing to wait around for hours waiting for someone to get around to explaining what their problem actually is.

Their story begins in Muku Village, a small community in the desert that has definitely seen better days. After our characters meet, they talk to the townspeople, who are oddly unwilling to share any details of their problems. A guard tells them to ask at the bar, but the bartender immediately runs away when he sees Burglor's reality-bending antics. Endive gets annoyed and addresses the entire bar, but nobody answers him. Just as he's getting fed up and is about to leave town, they hear a scream from outside. They rush to the town square, where the city hall is under attach from about 20 zombies. After dispatching the undead, they head to the main office, where they meet the village elder. He informs them of a necromancer who has been attacking the the town.

Unfortunately, I was sleep-deprived during this first session, so this is where we cut off for now. So far, it's an interesting story. I'm definitely anxious to get back to it, and I'll of course be sharing the adventure with everyone here who wants to read about it. Let me know what you think.

I realise it's been months since I last updated this thread, though I don't think many people noticed. After the last session I described, we had one more in that setting, before putting it on indefinite hiatus. During that second session, I got a call and had to leave. When I arrived at the place I had been told to go to, I was informed that my grandfather was dying and was on hospice. He'd been battling lung cancer for quite some time, and it finally caught up to him. After getting this news, I resolved to move in with him, so he would have someone there to help him when the day nurses weren't there. Within three days, he took a fall while I was helping him into his computer chair, and I was unable to get him back off the floor on my own. It took an hour before anyone who could help showed up, and by the time we managed to get him up and onto his bed, that was it. The EMTs came and did all they could, but it was too much stress and trauma at once, and he didn't make it. After that, the landlord unceremoniously kicked me out, despite us already having an arrangement for me to pay the rent and live there. I was forced to move into the attic room where my mother is living, effectively putting an end to my Prodesto campaign for several months.

My group has gotten back into regular roleplaying sessions, but we've switched to D&D 4e, after I managed to find all of the sourcebooks. We've been playing that for a month or two, and you can read about that campaign here. We may go back to Living Legends at some point, maybe even Wanderlust or Pony Tales, but for now, I'll be focusing on running my 4e campaign. Sorry if anyone had been looking forward to more info on my Prodesto campaign, but I just haven't been feeling that setting for the last while.