Gold Rush - weekender '23 campaign
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Note: you'll need the campaign rules for leveling up your characters and evolving the warband.
Made in collaboration with Wayne Burton
Arcworld Weekender 2023 campaign.
The hunt for gold
Introduksjon.
For most living in upper Arcworlde life is hard, the lands are strife with conflicts and there are plenty of folk who take whatever they please if they are able to do so. The peace that exists is fragile and will put a toll on the ones who live under it. They have to pay high taxes and provide muscle to the ruler of the land for him to uphold the peace or raid for more loot. As such not many can afford to settle, let alone live an easy life. Many live from day to day, picking up whatever work they can and often the pay is low. The lure of a quick and easy chest of gold is often a dream for most. When the news spread that someone found gold littered around the hillside many packed up the little they own and set out to seek their fortune.
News of such an outspring of gold has just spread throughout upper Arcworlde. Hailing from the far east in Alphos, up into the Jerspeak mountains. Travelers have reported to find loads of large gold nuggets lying spread about the rocky outcrops. One such fortunate individual, Dyke von Clon, came back with a chest filled and had gold aplenty to buy both a house and hire servants. He made even more money on other fortune seekers, by selling information.
You players control a band of characters that have joined forces while traveling towards the distant part, far to the east in the Oval oceans.The roads are filled with robbers and thieves that loot any traveler for their equipment or even better take their gold if they happen to have found some. Traveling as a group gives better protection from attacks. Your destination is the newly established settlement of “Port Deng”. This port provides docking for larger ships and is the starting point for most as they venture up into the mountains in search of gold.
So a quick rundown of the campaign.
The start with 200 (250) gold to buy characters and up to three pieces of equipment. Then they get extra equipment if they bring a painted warband, a prited stat card /list, background story, objective markers and so on.
I suggest charging the warband requirements to the following
>>> So the warband size is:
- starter warband 200g
- fully painted warband 50g, or a fresh brought one at the weekender.
From those gold, they can only buy 3 pieces of equipment
If they bring the following, they will be awarded the following items that can be equipped to any character. Or you can choose to take the listed gold instead.
- 5 objective markers: a lantern for night work (torch) and great axe / pickaxe / sledgehammer (two handed weapon) or 15g.
- printed army list/stat cards: large gold pan (shield) or 10g
- dice, mature tape, tarot deck and tokens: arcanite token or 10g
- background story: a griffling/mjowl, beast class creature from army list (for 25g, can uses original cash to buy more expensive creature) or 20g
Scenario 1: Search for gold.
By reaching the destination of Port Deng, you are only partly to your goal. There is little gold to be found within the city limits. Although the city watch patrol the streets often enough to enforce a better peace than anywhere else for miles, the crowds are filled with pickpockets, frauds and scamming merchants trying to lift any unfortunate or unwatchful passerby. These kinds of fortune seekers are not for you, after all you had set your eyes on that big gold strike that legends are made of. So as soon as you have provisioned yourself and acquired the essentials, you head out of town and inland towards the Thesporion pass. The land is open and travel is relatively safe, apart from the rocky outcrops of thickets that line the path from time to time. There are other prospectors like you traveling the land, but as you get higher up into the Jernspeak mountains all spread out, seeking their own path. There is after all no gold to be found on well trodden paths. After crawling over dusty rocks for weeks, as you climb up onto the Kydamahos plato, your fortune finally seems to have changed. There out on the level ground the low sunlight reflects off the stone piles littered across the scene in front of you. The excitement gives new strengths to your weary bodies as you rush towards the first pile and sure enough, this looks like gold. It was all so simple, too simple actually. As you start breaking loose pieces you see that it was too good to be true. Other groups of fortune seekers have come upon the same location and are rushing in. You have come too far, worked too hard and paid too high a price to let them steal it away from you now. So you ready yourself for a scrap as you continue to chip gold loose from the piles.
__scenario 1__ is picking for gold. They get to pick up gold nuggets from objectives spread over the table. The total amount of nuggets gives gold they can spend on buying equipment / recruit troops after the first game. There will be a table with three "levels", giving them a maximum of 50 gold to spend. Each nugget is 1 VP in terms of skills.
Post game, scenario 1
Fatigue has by now completely drained you and you fall exhausted to the ground. The few precious nuggets you managed to scrape away are safely tucked under your shirt and hidden from the plunderers that assaulted you. They too have backed off to regain their strengths. It dawns upon you that this will be much harder and more brutal than you could have imagined. With this realization, the merchant selling weapons,that you saw a few days past, was not that silly after all. As you regroup you come to the agreement that you need to make the way back to the merchant and trade the gold you just found for some better equipment if you're ever going to make it through this alive.
All players will have to visit the GM and work out skills and injuries gained. After that they can spend gold secured from the objectives at thy merchant to buy equipment and recruit new party members.
Scenario 2: Treacherous pass:
After upgrading your troupe at the merchants camp, you turn about towards the mountains to make it back up the Thesporion pass. All your hard won gold was spent on equipment and weapons, so you're back to start. No not really, the weapons can still be sold after you're done here, so no real value is lost there. However, it might just be what you needed to survive in the hostile congregation. Part way up the pass the sun starts to crawl behind the mountain peaks above you and dusk and darkness spread over the land, you roll out your bedrolls and light a fire for the night. As you sit and prepare your evening meal, you can see many small specks of light up and down the pass. Clearly you're not alone in making it back up and this bodes ill for the days to come. Maybe it was not such a good idea to go back, but what options do you have. After all, you know that there's more gold to be found atop, on the Kydamahos plato. Not feeling safe from the strangers in the surroundings, you decide to take turns sitting watch for the night. As the hours get late and into the early break of dawn, you find that the watch would not save you from the other prospectors, but the weather. At first it’s just a gentle drizzle, but soon it grows in intensity and soon it’s a torrential downpour. You all awake and quickly gather your geer and start rushing uphill for the safety of the plato. Already big streams are forming, spread out through the pass and the ground becomes slippery and treacherous.
__scenario 2__ is escaping up a dangerous ravine. If they make it out, they get VP and maybe skills. If they fail they have to take an injury. Any modle knocked out is left prone and can be plundered. For an easy feet they can steal an item and everything else on a medium feet.
Post game, treacherous pass.
Once more with solid ground beneath your feet, you scamper for the safe high ground and can only watch as the rain continues to pour down. The group got totally scattered in the effort to get to safety or got tied up with the other gang that bolted for the same opening as you. Some lost their equipment from the plundering strangers, while others looted some along their way up. Eventually you all make it to safety and you build a small shelter beneath a rock outcrop. The plato gets filled up with water and what you passed by as a stream into the pass, have turned into a waterfall that thrashes down the pass. Had you waited any longer, you’d get washed down and probably killed along the way. All that is left for you now is to wait until the rain stops.
Players need to update their warband with equipment lost and looted. They also need to visit the GM to work out new skills and injuries.
Scenario 3: Gold strike
The rain eventually thinned down and now was nothing more than damp air. Still there was a lake in the basin before you, as you scan it to get a bearing of the surroundings. A few places along the chasm edge, there were breaches and water streamed down and away. Along the same edges you see other prospectors drenched and huddled together. Either there would be nothing left up here and all could search peacefully, or there would be a rush in to claim what's left and potentially a fight to the death to keep it. No matter, you did not feel up to either. This past day had drained you to the core, but it was too late to turn around and so you waited. As time passed an outcropping appeared above the water line, far into the plato. The sun's light caught it and reflected outwards. This was no sandstone as the rest of what the hills were made up of, it was gold. Huge chunks of gold, never in your wildest dream have you seen this much of the noble metal. The sight rejuvenated you all and filled you with an urge, a lust - gold lust. Though the water was still too high for you to get at the loot. Standing this close to a fortune greater than the coffers of kings was unbearable. It became even worse, when you remembered that lining the lake, other groups had seen the same as you. So you started to wade out towards the island of gold and when the water was low enough you all rushed in.
__scenario 3__ have a double mission. its a 4vs4 free for all fight over a huge stack of gold in the center. With much the same objective as the first. But on turn 3 a dragon erupts from the pile of gold and start attacking everyone. Now it's up to the players to cooperate to survive. We're making feets where two players interact to get the effect a bonus of having critical success on 5' and 6'. So if one player uses a feet to force the dragon to expose a soft spot, so that another player can jabb at it. Both damage rolls get that bonus and the second activation interups the turn sequence for the effect to take place.
Interlude scenario 3.
It’s all chaos as you hack at the island of gold and competing prospectors alike. trying to wring gold from both and chuff them into your grips. Never knowing when to secure more loot, when to fend off a competitor or when to just defend your own life. Never does it occur to you to abandon this project for the safety of your life. Then you feel a deep rumbling and shaking of the ground underfoot. Oh no, it’s the muddy soil beneath you giving away. Within a short time, you're positive that this entire hillside will slide down and you’d be crushed and buried on the far away land. Luckily it stopped, for a short time. Then the gold island burst apart and from it a huge gold hued dragon erupts. Its raws echo across the mountain sides as it thrashes back and forth to break loose from the ground. It bites a claws at whoever still stands near its lair.
Post campaign (lost)
As the roaring dragon trashes about, with flesh from friends and competing protectors hanging from its claws and jaw. The few surviving members of your party crawls to safety. Deciding that this was no easy earned gold and that they much rather would work long hours for a day's pay, than risk their life in this way. So they flee the Kydamahos plato, not sparing a single glance back and pray that the monstrous beast is too busy to take note of them. Once in the safety of the rocks at the chasm's edge, they breathe a sigh of relief and once more make their way back down the now muddy pass.
Post campaign (won)
This was without a doubt the toughest and most scary encounter you ever had to fight. That beast was huge and extremely tough to bring down. Had it not been for the joint effort of all the prospectors, this could have gone immensely wrong. After checking and double checking that the dragon was indeed dead, you start looking after your friends to see if they still lived and helped the ones who did. All moved in silence, only talking in hushed voices as if the sound could reawaken the monster. There was an unspoken understanding that you owed your life to the strangers who fought alongside you and that to take any of the loot would be a desecration. When all wounded were looked after and the dead buried, you gathered and agreed to split the loot among you. It was more than you had ever imagined and more that you could carry. This would sort you for life, but at a cost. The encounter with the dragon had scared you for life and you knew you’d had bad dreams of what you’ve seen the past few days.
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