Return to the Valley that Time Forgot II: the complete campaign

[Photographer]

As I am on  holidays, I had have some time to upgrade some ideas for the new scenarios. This is going to be the start of the next scenario. Fighting over the pit of death anyone?? And what are those terrible beings???

All the answers next week!! (probably we are going to play them monday or tuesday)

Brilliant!

[Neotacha]

Looks like a lot of fun!  Who makes the pliesiosaur, also HLBS?

Some gorgeous minis there, and the story is fascinating.  I look forward to hearing what comes next!

[Tsune]

Looks like a lot of fun!  Who makes the pliesiosaur, also HLBS?

Some gorgeous minis there, and the story is fascinating.  I look forward to hearing what comes next!

yes, the plesiosaur is from HLBS too. Great miniatures!

[6milPhil]

Charming scenario, well stocked game table and a great game report. Perfecto! 

[Calvin Montana]

Your Pulp campaigns are wonderful indeed. Very creative, and well thought out.

[Tsune]

Hi, yesterday we played the third scenario and half of the fourth.

Scenario 3: God save King Benito!

Last scenario ended with the heroes captured by the Wachinga warriors and guided to their village. There, they are confined in a hut for some hours until someone enters to greet them. He is Prof. Hauptman!! Who, in theory, died in the volcano explosion (that’s happened in the last scenario of the previous campaign).

This is a picture of the board, waiting to start the game:



Hauptman has enough time to explain them that, in the volcano, when all was falling apart, Benito appeared. He has not fallen to the lava but, in the last moment, he managed to hang from a rock and save himself. There, he had found a hidden passage and guided Hauptman and his enemies (the Wachinga warriors who were fighting them) to it. They followed the passage until they found an exit to a lost city. But in the meantime, some of the Wachinga ate some seeds they had found on the caves, and fell ill. Seemed that the seeds had germinated inside them, and in seconds they become zombie-plants! The survivors fought the beings and arrived to the village, but a lot of them become infected. Benito was the key again, as seemed that his animal instinct allowed him to detect the infected ones, and thanks to him they were able to fight them back. He also explains that, two days ago, the warriors captured the Prof. Beef expedition, and the Wachinga king has sacrificed his askaris and porters, but not the white expedition members (with the exception of the boat captain) as Prof. Beef seems to have a strange influence over him, though not for much more time as the shaman demands to sacrifice them all to their gods, or at least Ms. Lovelace, as she is “only” a woman:



The heroes and guided to the pit of death! There, the Wachinga king tells them that he would kill them all, as they have bring them all the misfortunes, but some of the village elder ones think that kill the “white skins” would bring their people more problems. So, they will let Benito, “the one send by the gods” to decide. The chimp enters the board in a palanquin:



But Benito does not dare to decide (he has gained the coward ability, and has to pass a GUTS check in order to take a dangerous or delicate action). So, the King tells that will be their valor what will decide, and one of them will fight his son over the pit. He makes a signal and three zombie-plants are introduced into the pit. “Who that falls” he laughs “is going to have the worst of deaths, and become one of them”.

In addition, the Beef expedition is forced to watch the spectacle, but Ms. Lovelace is not with them.

The prof. hero, as the one with the fencing ability, gives a step to the front (in fact, he won’t, but the other players forced him, as with the ability he can choose not to be forced back and resist more time).



Soon, Lungile, the King son, takes advantage and injuries the hero. Seems that he is used to this kind of duels and, in addition, the zombie-plants threat with entangle them with their appendices (they have to pass a DG test each round or be trapped). The hero is worried as in the first round he has to spend 4 Hero Points and, at the end, falls to the pit. The future is not very clear for the heroes… but in that moment, Benito pass the GUTS check when see his last owner endangered, leaps to the King and unbalances him, causing his fall and the warrior serving the pit door into the pit and opening the door by accident (this was a scenario event). The zombie-plants exit the pit and start to attack the warriors, causing havoc and infecting some of them. As the warriors fail their GUTS check, enter in panic mode and run!

This is the event that allows the rest of heroes to start playing. Their first action is unexpected (for me at least), and two of them climb the pit and, adding their strength, remove the plank causing the fall of Lungile to the pit and creating a easy way to exit the pit to their friend!:



The players’ objectives are four:
-   To recover their weapons, as they think that they would have to exit the valley through the Lost City full of dangers.
-   To recover the proofs they found of the Valley existence.
-   Find Ms. Lovelace and save her.
-   To save as many civilians as possible from the zombie-plants.

And 14 markers are placed on the board representing the weapons, clues, Ms Lovelace, more warriors and civilians, and some surprises.

As the second son of the King, Mthunzi the Wise, manage to rally and reorganize some of his warriors, around the board there is a clash between them, the heroes and the zombie-plants. As he seems to be a reasonable man, after some troubles Hauptman negotiates a truce between the two men factions versus the beings that seem to grow their numbers each round, and the Wachinga leader agrees (BR test). That gives the opportunity to the heroes to rush for the markers and save the civilians:



In the meantime, the members of the Beef expedition have used the chaos to free themselves and start to search the markers. Soon, they are in possession of the weapons… and although they are forced to collaborate if they want to survive, the heroes suspect some treacherous action. But it is not an easy task for them too, Mahmout Medina is near to become a zombie-plant when is surrounded by four of the beings. He is badly injured, but luckily pass all the BW test to avoid being infected:



On the other side of the board, the heroes find more helpless civilians, or are they zombies? Some markers were apparently warriors or civilians, but there were a 50% of possibilities of being zombie-plants and they have to pass a BR test to detect them. Here, Mluda, the hired native guide, fails the test. Uh, oh… those civilians look… but at the end they seem to be humans (not as before, that M. Medina found three zombified warriors and was not able to avoid them…):



The warriors, with the help of some of the heroes, have managed to stop the zombies in a well organized defense, giving time to the rest to investigate the markers. But it is Prof. Beef that, one more time, finds the expedition proofs, like the protoceratops. The heroes are furious and talk about fighting the rival expedition:



But they calm down knowing that the only exit from the Valley is going to be trough the Lost City and the passages found by Benito, and probably they are going to need a collaborative mood if they want to survive. So, they continue to investigate the markers until they find Mrs. Lovelace, who seems injured as she is making a bandage on her arm. But before the hunter could do nothing, the shaman hiding the shadows attack him and hit his leg with the poisonous knife. But the presence of more heroes dissuades the shaman to continue the fighting and runs to the jungle. Lovelace seems poisoned too, as feels weak:


 
With the objectives accomplished, the heroes run to the exit as the defense of the Wachingas is starting to collapse to the zombie-plants pressure. It is time to negotiate Prof. Beef for the weapons and proofs.

That ended the scenario, that was played by 7 gamers (one of them played Prof. Hauptman and the other one the Beef expedition). They agreed to distribute the weapons for the next scenario, but P. Beef refused to give them the proofs. That would cause the Prof. of the hero team refused to heal Mahmut Medina and, in this mood of weak collaboration, both expeditions go to the Lost City in order to find an exit from the Valley.

We manage to play a part of the last scenario, and I am going to post the pictures and report tomorrow, and the rest once played (this week?).

[Argonor]

Excellent stuff! 

[Anpu]

Inspiring!

[Doomhippie]

I've been watching this thread time and again and never even dropped a line telling you how much I liked it. Wonderfull tables and terrain and an awesome story line. Absolutely wonderful.

[Operator5]

Excellent and so full of surprises. I could never tell what was going to happen next. It made for an excellent read and it sounds like the players really got into their roles.

[Tsune]

Hi, yesterday we ended the fourth scenario, which we started two days before. Surprisingly, we could game two days in a week, as the players were eager to conclude it.

Scenario 4: The gate

In the last scenario, the two rival expeditions escape together from the Wachinga village, as it is being taken by the zombie-plants, and face their steps to the lost city trying to find an exit. As they arrive, they are received by nothing but ruins and silent statues.



There is something eerie in the area, and only some dinosaurs and other unknown animals dare to enter it, like this pair of oviraptors.



The two expeditions, with some civilians, find the gate guided by Prof. Hauptman and Benito but it is closed and they are not able to open it by any means. The anthropologist tells them that all indicates that it was a civilization ruled by priests and the opening of the gate through the volcano would have had a religious meaning and it would have involved a ritual ceremony. So, they will have to find any clues about it in order to open the gate before the zombie-plants arrive. That is the only scenario objective: open the gate and exit the valley alive.



This is a picture of the board:

[Tsune]

Then, the hero team and the Prof. Beef expedition advance to the markers (there were 12 of them on the board). Soon, the heroes find an important clue at the upper side of the board: the remains of a zombie-plant, covered by some sort of yellow fungus. The Prof. thinks that it could be one of those natural enemies and that effectively it has killed the zombie. So, he takes one dose with him.

 

And the heroes continue with their good luck, as the members of the Beef expedition only find false clues and ambushed zombie-plants, they find some hieroglyphs that explain that, to open the gate, they have to push the eyes of one of the statues in order to open a cavity at the top of the pyramid where they have to put a kind of key. There are not very clear instructions, and are accompanied by alerts about dangers and guardians, that they interpret rightly as some kind of traps. Prof. Beef rush to the hieroglyphs himself to read them, as he distrust the heroes.



And the finding of the first clue activates an scenario event: two pteradons appear and capture Benito and one child, taking them to their nest. Three new markers are placed on the board to try to find were the nest is. But they are lucky and on the first one they find it on the top of the ruined building. Seem that they would have to split the group to the bottom side of the board, as the members of the Beef expedition, who are in the area, seem that are going to do nothing to save them.



And they start to suffer some difficulties too: searching the ruins, they have to fight some unknown beasts that inhabit them. But they are playing as a team and are well supported. The industrialist fires the insect down before it could injure badly his friend.



On the other hand, the Beef expedition is much more unlucky. Two of his members are fighting zombie plants and searching another marker, Panayotas Karimakis, the enforcer, is ambushed by two oviraptors. They not attack him, but steal the dinosaur eggs that he is carrying in his bag (as they found the proofs the last scenario and they did not give them back to the heroes). Then, the hero performer fires the beast, hitting it and forcing it to drop the eggs, and then catch them. Seem that they have one proof after all.

[Tsune]

But what seemed a good action turns unexpectedly in a serious problem. The oviraptors are not going to give away their prey easily, and to complicate it more, three zombie-plants enter the board at that point (there were three spawn points on the board and each round I dice 1d10. When the count reached 10, 1d3 zombies entered the board in the seven firsts round, 1d6 afterwards to press the expeditions to open the gate as soon as possible). The number of zombie-plants on the board start to be a problem…



At the same time, the heroes find the second clue. To open the gate, they have to put the key, a little idol, on the cavity. There is a drawing of the idol, so they can search for it and three new markers are placed on the board. The bad news are that the hieroglyphics say that the gate, once the key is used, only remains open for three rounds and it would be able to be open in the next seven years, as the mechanism is refilled again. The players seem worried, more when Prof. Beef finds the idol, but give it to the heroes so they can open the gate.


 
And the finding of the second clue activates a second scenario event. Suddenly, Ms Lovelace feels wrong and turns to a zombie-plant! They found her in the last scenario wounded, and thought she has been injured by the shaman, but not! They discuss that could have placed Benito next to her to avoid something like this, as he can detect the infected, but they did not think in the possibility. They have, after all, one opportunity. Lovelace attacks them, but they do not want to fight back, as think they can cure her with the fungus found. So, they try to immobilize her (or it).



At this moment, seem like the scenario is a lot more difficult. First, they have to open the door following some unclear instructions, and once opened, they are going to have only three rounds to reach the gate and exit; on the other side of the board it is Benito and the child waiting to be rescued; and they have to try to save Lovelace. All while they have to fight increasing hordes of zombie-plants and suspecting a treacherous action from the rival expedition… it is easy to understand that the players are becoming nervous and can not stop eating “pipas Tijuana” (a snack)  .



Could they triumph??

[Operator5]

Don't keep us in suspense! What happens next?!?

[Tsune]

Pressed badly by the oviraptors, the performer decides that his life is worthier than the eggs, and throws them, losing that proofs to the dinosaurs that catch them and exit the board with their prey. So, the heroes can concentrate in saving Benito and the child on one side, and Lovelace on the other.



They can immobilize finally Lovelace and give her the fungus, saving her from a terrible “death”. On the other side, rescuing Benito is not as easy, as the pteradons defend their nest.



The heroes agree that they cannot wait more and decide to start the opening of the gate because more zombie-plants are entering the board and are afraid to become surrounded and their way to the gate cut. The main performer (that I forget to comment that he had met their old friends in the Wachinga village as he had been captured too. The film company manager, thinking it would be a great marketing action for his upcoming film to go back to the valley, sent him with the intention to meet their companions but was captured before. Well, in the practice, the player could come to the game the last two scenarios) thinks he has understood the instructions and push the statue eyes, and he is received with a flame that can dodge at the last moment.



But he has accomplished to activate the mechanism and the pyramid trembles as a cavity opens at the top. They can hear some other mechanism activating too, but can see nothing. What other perilous await them? They do not know, and nobody decide to do the first step.



But the presence of more and more zombie-plants is a good pressure. Finally, the main performer decides that he can do it. He can see that the pyramid steps have some symbols on them and remember something about saying the correct litany when ascending. So, they have to pass a BR test in order to remember the right symbols and then a BW/DG test to jump to the right steps. It is not an easy task but he can do it… or not. He is badly injured in their legs. The players are worried as they can feel that they will need all their speed to reach the gate.



But on the other side, the heroes managed to save Benito and the child from the pteradons, but not before receiving some injures from the terrible and fast beasts.



And meanwhile, the hero prof., replaces his friend and, with three consecutive jumps, pass all the BR and BW/DG test and places the idol in the cavity.



The counting back has started!!