Rift Walker Luminvale Campaign - Overview and Thoughts (Final Session 27)
The Uniting of Luminvale
The heroes finalised their final downtime events before being approached by Solandra the great owl from the Whimsy Wood. Solandra had said that the there were big issues happening with the worlds of Luminvale. There were attacks happening, and that a council needed to be formed to decide how to proceed. The group decided that the following people would be representative of the worlds of Luminvale:
Solandra the Owl - Whimsy Wood: as the leader of their people
Sally Forth - Sky Islands: as their old companion who had big sway with the peoples
Jolene the barkeep - Plunder Coast: the partner of Barnaby and the community leader of the town
Chief of the Stone Giants - Iron Peaks/Enduring Wastes: the now only leader in the world
Queen of the Ant-Folk - Caves of Wonder: the monarch of the least troubled people in the world
As the council was being formed, Barnaby used his favour with a weapon dealer to find some unique digital weapons for the Dwarves and Stone Giants so that if they were attacked again by the Maestro’s forces, they wouldn’t be left unguarded. Fish had organised for Dorak to look after the baby kittens in the Gearstone Circle. DJ had re-equipped their music decks so that they were extra bright.
As the council was formed, they came in and told of various attacks that had happened. Due to the issues that happened it first appeared that the worlds had attacked one another. The group quickly quelled the fighting through a montage sequence, calming the he group and making them see reason. They decided that they could solve most of these issues by utilising the skills of the other world’s and their peoples. This was the first major attempt to unite the peoples of Luminvale that had been seen in many years. Of course the group had decided that the Maestro was behind this. They needed to stop his plans once and for all.
Whimsy Wood’s sacred forest had been set alight - the Sea elementals of Plunder coast could quell the fires
Iron Peak’s King Under the hill had been killed - it was not by the Ant Queen’s request, they could be rehomed in the Iron peaks through the work of the Stone Giants
Plunder Coast’s Marron Town warehouse district had been destroyed - the Solandra’s people could feed them while they regrouped
The tunnels of the Ant Queen’s people had been destroyed - and the Dwarves were told to clear out the tunnels
Astroloplis’ slums district had been levelled by Boris - the group decided to handle this themselves
While the other issues were being fixed, the group took a rift to Astropolis and fought Boris, who had some technology to make him grow, even as he fled back through a rift to the home of the Maestro in the tunnels of Gearstone Circle. Fish was able to destroy his new technical gauntlets and rush back to the city, as he first saw the Maestro, and help the peoples trapped in the rubble. DJ spoke with Sally about a concert ticket that spoke of a ritual concert in the Ancient Pastures, with a sinister note of the encore. Barnaby killed most of the MAestro’s Cool folk forces. They were disarranged when their leader was killed many months before, and were taken over by the Maestro. Corrected in their ways through fear, the group talked with Sally. Initially suspicious of her questions, the group eventually took her advice about being prepared. The group found out the Maestro wanted to permanently destroy the peoples of Luminvale through his chaotic and melancholic music. They went home to prepare for the concert to see that Dorak had been kidnapped and another entrance had been created through Gearstone Circle. They read through the journals of the ancient Rift Walkers to find out that the only way to stop the Maestro was to protect the peoples of Luminvale from his music, by using their empowered seals and connect them through these conduit pillars in an ancient ritual site in Gearstone Circle. They the found out that when protected, they could fight the Maestro, subdue him and then lock him away forever.
The Sounds of Chaos
Taking the side entrance, to the ritual site, the group came across an area with an orchestra pit full of sentient music notes they had fought before; a lighting and sound desk area with a former priest cultist of his, and his zombie brethren; finally a stage with the Maestro in all of his wood glory, with Dorak tied to a chair with a bomb on his chest. Boris was there too and challenged Barnaby to another duel. The group sprang into action, trying to use their seals to protect one another or find information out about the enemy. Some focussed on the minions. Some focussed on the major foes, while sometimes the focussed on the other timing situations. Barnaby’s main duty was doing mass damage to the minions and Boris. DJ focussed on protection and doing morale damage to the Maestro. and Fish and E3 saved Dorak and was able to use him in the fight. He finally finished off the Priest and Boris. The major attacks from the Maestro were devastating in damaging the group, leading to a couple of critical wounds. He laid out a few “musical solo bombs”, that would explode after some time, even damaging himself. Eventually the group were able to empower the Seals and place them in their ceremonial pillars. The worlds were connected and protected, meaning the peoples could no longer be affected by the Maestro’s music. Enraged, he started his encore, by breaking through his puppet form and becoming a being of pure sound. In this form he would attack and give just critical wounds. He was eventually beaten down enough that he could be held in place by Barnaby while DJ read the rites of the Ritual. Dorak brought the wounded Fish over so they could all give their piece in completing the ritual, through music, memories and positive thinking; they overcame his hatred and banished him away. After defeating him the group all went away to relax, Barnaby went sailing with his love, Fish stayed in the Circle with Dorak to look after the kittens and DJ went to the beach to learn acoustic guitar.
Setup for the final session
Thoughts
That was it, the peoples of Luminvale were saved and united by the Rift Walkers. The power of love got everyone there in the end. Corny but it’s great hey? I was happy to get to do this in person as a 6 hour epic. In 2 and 4 hour parts we completed the boss battle with the Maestro. I have a few thoughts about the session and the campaign as a whole. It was good that I could pull out all the stops for the final battle: the set piece maps, props, the mega powers, all the enemies and the big damn ritual. This was an epic Rift Walker battle. The players mostly went through their resources and used all their fun abilities they had gotten throughout the campaign. The magic items, the contacts, the one off renown powers etc. I used a cool move I have done before, taking people aside to give them information about what they ask for dramatic effect. I took Brandon’s advice from Runehammer Games, and used heaps of timers. Timer for the ritual, timer for the bombs, timer for mega attacks. These helped guide the players and give them information about when things were relevant to do. There were many engaging ways for the players to menage, through attacking, moving around to avoid things, putting the seals in the pillars and making them use it and etc. I liked using the Critical wound attacks of the final form of the Maestro. It was also fun to use up the cube - visible hit points of the enemies, so that players could know who to attack and how best to attack them. I had heaps of peril points, and to be honest had some left over, and were very deviously used to: gain extra attacks, and give huge penalty modifiers to defence checks. To be honest, I thought they were a bit brutal sometimes, but overall I think the players liked it. Whenever a major enemy died, I let the players roll a d6 and on a 6 would get a Fate Point back. A fun little extra for the environment. This was a fun campaign. I have really ritualised my prep, I found out what the core essentials for a RW adventure is, and I went through 0.3 and 0.4 version of the game. Even for this session, I had only my note book and a cripple of post it notes pages on my GM screen. I am happy I have gone physical (then digitising for safekeeping). I have learnt a lot as a RM, and I am now happy to give the reigns over to a player in the group to run Rift Walker in their own campaign. I am psyched to be a player and see it from that angle, outside of the solo play I have done. I will share the 0.5 rules later on, but I am broadly happy with where they are at. We went through a lot of characters in this campaign, and I was happy that we could explore many genres, as that is a main aspect of RW. This was a great double session and a great campaign.
