"Tales of Blood and Thunder" is a role-playing campaign set in the Hollow Earth universe published by Exile Games for their top-notch table-top RPG, Hollow Earth Expedition. The players were simply instructed to create characters for a pulp style adventure game set in 1930s Earth.
Although designed to be episodic, the campaign draws a loose structure from the first adventure, which involved the player characters coming together to help their mutual friend, Elizabeth Rookwood, rescue her father, J. M. Rookwood, from Nazi operatives.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Player Characters
1) Dr. Nicholas "Nick" Weymouth (anthropologist): Dr. Nicholas Weymouth was born in Cairo, Egypt to Dr. Henry Weymouth, an English physician, and Mrs. Catherine Embly, an American socialite and novelist. The family lived in Egypt until Nick was six years old, after which they moved to London, where four years later, Nick’s father died suddenly of a mysterious illness. Nick’s grieving mother moved with her son to her family’s home near Ithaca, New York, where Nick grew up. As a teenager, he spent summers visiting with cousins in New Mexico, where he developed an amateur interest in Native American cultures, especially myths concerning ancient Anasazi peoples. At the age of seventeen, Nick entered Columbia University where he majored in biology. Eventually, he earned a Ph.D. in anthropology under the supervision of Franz Boas at Columbia, completing a dissertation on Amerindian shamanic religions and rituals involving hallucinogens and self-mutilation. During his fieldwork among pueblo peoples of the American southwest, he participated in hallucinogenic religious rituals that triggered a latent extra-sensory perception in him, and which inspired him to continue his studies on human perception and the supernatural. His first professional field work project after graduate school was an investigation of ritual violence and spirit possession in the shamanic traditions of Nahuatl-speaking peoples in southern Mexico, as well as archival work on human sacrifice among the Mexica (Aztecs) of central Mexico. During one visit to Mexico he participated in a ceremony wherein he had an out of body experience, and when he awoke he found that he held a small effigy in the form of a skull carved from turquoise. He always carries this artifact with him, and it serves as a focal instrument when he uses his extra-sensory perception. Although relatively young, Dr. Weymouth is an experienced traveler and adventurer, speaking several languages, and has some skill navigating both the natural and bureaucratic jungles in foreign lands.
2) Hedley Laroux: Fearless and determined, Laroux is a big game hunter by trade. The many contacts he has established over the years have recently pulled him into the life of general adventurer.
3) Dr. Anaxamander Swift: Labeled a "mad scientist" by many of his peers, Anaxamander Swift designed and built The Hyperion, a miraculous flying machine. The vessel is powered by orichalcum, an Atlantean ore provided by Swift's equally eccentric friend, the late Dr. J. M. Rookwood.
4) Holly Baker: Originally from Chicago, Holly attended college in her hometown where she met and roomed with Elizabeth Rookwood (the late Dr. J. M. Rookwood's daughter). While in school she also began dating a small time mob thug. When her boyfriend moved to robbing banks in the mid-west, she dropped out of school and ran away with him. Unfortunately, her boyfriend was gunned down during an escape. Since the botched robbery, Holly has been wandering the mid-west, doing odd jobs and living out of barns and guestrooms, evading the law and basically surviving. Meanwhile, she is trying to "go clean." Shaken by the death of her boyfriend, she is trying to salvage her life.
2) Hedley Laroux: Fearless and determined, Laroux is a big game hunter by trade. The many contacts he has established over the years have recently pulled him into the life of general adventurer.
3) Dr. Anaxamander Swift: Labeled a "mad scientist" by many of his peers, Anaxamander Swift designed and built The Hyperion, a miraculous flying machine. The vessel is powered by orichalcum, an Atlantean ore provided by Swift's equally eccentric friend, the late Dr. J. M. Rookwood.
4) Holly Baker: Originally from Chicago, Holly attended college in her hometown where she met and roomed with Elizabeth Rookwood (the late Dr. J. M. Rookwood's daughter). While in school she also began dating a small time mob thug. When her boyfriend moved to robbing banks in the mid-west, she dropped out of school and ran away with him. Unfortunately, her boyfriend was gunned down during an escape. Since the botched robbery, Holly has been wandering the mid-west, doing odd jobs and living out of barns and guestrooms, evading the law and basically surviving. Meanwhile, she is trying to "go clean." Shaken by the death of her boyfriend, she is trying to salvage her life.
Friday, May 29, 2009
Episode #1: Prisoner of the Reich
The heroes all received an urgent summons from Elizabeth Rookwood, adopted daughter of anthropologist Dr. J. M. Rookwood. The characters knew the Rookwoods from previous associations. Dr. Nicholas Weymouth had studied under Dr. Rookwood during his undergraduate days. Dr. Anaxamander Swift had collaborated with Dr. Rookwood to create experimental technologies powered by a strange ore discovered by Dr. Rookwood at a field site. Hedley Laroux knew both Rookwoods from an expedition gone wrong a few years earlier, while Holly Baker had roomed with Elizabeth during their days at the University of Chicago. They all gathered at the Rookwood home in Princeton, New Jersey and received the startling news that Dr. Rookwood had gone missing. The only clue Elizabeth had as to her father’s whereabouts was a package that she received from him containing his research journal. The return address indicated that the package was sent from the Al-Konbas Hotel in Cairo.
The heroes all agreed to help Elizabeth find her father. With that, Dr. Swift unveiled the Hyperion, an impossibly advanced aircraft (powered by the ore that Dr. Rookwood discovered) that could get them to Cairo in record time. Refusing to play a passive role in her father’s rescue, Elizabeth joined the heroes onboard the Hyperion and they set off across the Atlantic.
Upon arriving in Cairo, the heroes investigated the Al-Konbas Hotel and the surrounding area. They discovered that Dr. Rookwood had arranged to meet a man named Reinhardt at Wah El Zalam, a bar on the other side of town. Upon entering the bar, the heroes were confronted by a group of Nazi soldiers led by an S.S. officer wielding a golden rod of Egyptian origins. The officer, Von Schreck, approached Elizabeth and told her that she had something that they wanted. A firefight ensued. Although Von Schreck used the rod to heal his wounds by draining the life force of others, Laroux managed to overpower his magic with a .50 caliber bullet to the Nazi’s head. As the heroes fled from the remaining soldiers, they ran into Dr. Rookwood’s contact, the mysterious Reinhardt. Reinhardt spirited them away from Wah El Zalam in his car.
On their way to the Hyperion, Reinhardt revealed his association with the Fifth Column, a sub-group of the Thule Society, an organization dedicated to amassing occult knowledge. As a Fifth Columnist, Reinhardt believed that the Thule Society had become corrupt. One of its members, Dr. Wurmhausen, kidnapped Dr. Rookwood and was holding him in Castle Wewelsburg, a Thule Society stronghold deep in the heart of Nazi Germany. Reinhardt revealed the location of the castle, as well as instructions for how to penetrate the stronghold without being detected, and then left the heroes to their fates.
As the Hyperion left Cairo, it was attacked by an armored Nazi zeppelin and its small contingent of German fighters, but the heroes managed to fend them off. Using the Hyperion’s cloaking mechanism, they then stole into the heart of Nazi Germany undetected.
Arriving at Castle Wewelsburg, the heroes met their contact, made their way into the stronghold via a series of secret passages, and found Dr. Wurmhausen’s laboratory. In addition to locating Dr. Rookwood and his abductor, the heroes discovered that Wurmhausen had their friend working on a gigantic circular portal engraved with symbols. The portal was connected to a bank of machinery that hummed with activity.
Wurmhausen surprised the heroes when he suddenly turned to face them, proclaiming that he had been expecting them. Pulling a strange looking pistol, he shot Dr. Rookwood in the abdomen and then explained that the projectile lodged in the Professor’s gut was actually a drill that was slowly making its way to the elderly anthropologist’s heart. Wurmhausen could shut down the drill, but only if the heroes agreed to give him the “key” to the portal. Not knowing what Wurmhausen was referring to, the heroes attacked. Elizabeth ran to her father, accidentally brushing against the portal in the process. Apparently, she was the key. The portal activated to reveal a primordial landscape. Everybody gazed in amazement for a few moments, until two small dinosaurs ran through the portal followed by two T. Rexes.
The resulting battle was brutal, with T. Rexes attacking Nazis and heroes alike. Laroux managed to kill Wurmhausen while the other heroes fended off the dinosaurs and deactivated the device drilling into Dr. Rookwood’s chest. The heroes then hurried back to the Hyperion, leaving the Nazis to fight the dinosaurs. The damage caused by the fight overloaded some of the machinery, and portions of the castle began to explode as the Hyperion sped away.
Sadly, Dr. Rookwood did not survive his wounds. Before passing on, however, he explained that Elizabeth was actually descended from ancient Atlantians. Wurmhausen knew this. Wurmhausen also knew that only someone with Atlantian blood could activate the portal, so he captured Rookwood as a means of luring Elizabeth to the ancient device. (Indeed, it was Wurmhausen who mailed Dr. Rookwood’s journal to Princeton, NJ.) After a touching farewell to his daughter and friends, Dr. Rookwood passed away, but not before asking the heroes to protect his daughter and her secret.
The heroes all agreed to help Elizabeth find her father. With that, Dr. Swift unveiled the Hyperion, an impossibly advanced aircraft (powered by the ore that Dr. Rookwood discovered) that could get them to Cairo in record time. Refusing to play a passive role in her father’s rescue, Elizabeth joined the heroes onboard the Hyperion and they set off across the Atlantic.
Upon arriving in Cairo, the heroes investigated the Al-Konbas Hotel and the surrounding area. They discovered that Dr. Rookwood had arranged to meet a man named Reinhardt at Wah El Zalam, a bar on the other side of town. Upon entering the bar, the heroes were confronted by a group of Nazi soldiers led by an S.S. officer wielding a golden rod of Egyptian origins. The officer, Von Schreck, approached Elizabeth and told her that she had something that they wanted. A firefight ensued. Although Von Schreck used the rod to heal his wounds by draining the life force of others, Laroux managed to overpower his magic with a .50 caliber bullet to the Nazi’s head. As the heroes fled from the remaining soldiers, they ran into Dr. Rookwood’s contact, the mysterious Reinhardt. Reinhardt spirited them away from Wah El Zalam in his car.
On their way to the Hyperion, Reinhardt revealed his association with the Fifth Column, a sub-group of the Thule Society, an organization dedicated to amassing occult knowledge. As a Fifth Columnist, Reinhardt believed that the Thule Society had become corrupt. One of its members, Dr. Wurmhausen, kidnapped Dr. Rookwood and was holding him in Castle Wewelsburg, a Thule Society stronghold deep in the heart of Nazi Germany. Reinhardt revealed the location of the castle, as well as instructions for how to penetrate the stronghold without being detected, and then left the heroes to their fates.
As the Hyperion left Cairo, it was attacked by an armored Nazi zeppelin and its small contingent of German fighters, but the heroes managed to fend them off. Using the Hyperion’s cloaking mechanism, they then stole into the heart of Nazi Germany undetected.
Arriving at Castle Wewelsburg, the heroes met their contact, made their way into the stronghold via a series of secret passages, and found Dr. Wurmhausen’s laboratory. In addition to locating Dr. Rookwood and his abductor, the heroes discovered that Wurmhausen had their friend working on a gigantic circular portal engraved with symbols. The portal was connected to a bank of machinery that hummed with activity.
Wurmhausen surprised the heroes when he suddenly turned to face them, proclaiming that he had been expecting them. Pulling a strange looking pistol, he shot Dr. Rookwood in the abdomen and then explained that the projectile lodged in the Professor’s gut was actually a drill that was slowly making its way to the elderly anthropologist’s heart. Wurmhausen could shut down the drill, but only if the heroes agreed to give him the “key” to the portal. Not knowing what Wurmhausen was referring to, the heroes attacked. Elizabeth ran to her father, accidentally brushing against the portal in the process. Apparently, she was the key. The portal activated to reveal a primordial landscape. Everybody gazed in amazement for a few moments, until two small dinosaurs ran through the portal followed by two T. Rexes.
The resulting battle was brutal, with T. Rexes attacking Nazis and heroes alike. Laroux managed to kill Wurmhausen while the other heroes fended off the dinosaurs and deactivated the device drilling into Dr. Rookwood’s chest. The heroes then hurried back to the Hyperion, leaving the Nazis to fight the dinosaurs. The damage caused by the fight overloaded some of the machinery, and portions of the castle began to explode as the Hyperion sped away.
Sadly, Dr. Rookwood did not survive his wounds. Before passing on, however, he explained that Elizabeth was actually descended from ancient Atlantians. Wurmhausen knew this. Wurmhausen also knew that only someone with Atlantian blood could activate the portal, so he captured Rookwood as a means of luring Elizabeth to the ancient device. (Indeed, it was Wurmhausen who mailed Dr. Rookwood’s journal to Princeton, NJ.) After a touching farewell to his daughter and friends, Dr. Rookwood passed away, but not before asking the heroes to protect his daughter and her secret.
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