Soulbould - Flight Through the Caves

 I've been running two games of Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Soulbound - the role-playing game set in the Mortal Realms of the Age of Sigmar. One game is online with friends that no longer live in Saskatoon. The other is in-person with Amanda and Finnegan and our friends Orion and Nick. 

In the in-person game has been a lot of fun and has motivated me to get a lot of miniatures painted, because OF COURSE I have to use miniatures... The Spite-Revenants, the Hunter, the The Minstrel and Pilgrim, the Arkanaut Company, the Screamers of Tzeentch, all the  Tzaangors, I mean, the whole reason I picked up Arcane Cataclysm was because I figured for Disciples of Tzeentch were going to be regular opponents... 

In Soulbound, the characters are a bit more powerful than characters in regular games. Unlike Warhammer Fantasy, where you start as a stable hand or rat-catcher or burglar or whatever and work your way up... The starting characters are pretty powerful... the level of play is more like Greek myths - Jason and the Argonauts or Herakles or Odysseus or Achilles- powerful mortals that have gained the attention of the gods... 

Indeed, the characters in Soulbound have done SOMETHING to have gained the attention of the Gods of the Mortal Realms. They have been chosen to become a part of a Soulbinding - a group whose souls are bound together - making them nigh immortal and very quick to recover from illness and injury. And they are generally tasked with seeking out and destroying agents of Chaos or other threats to the Mortal Realms...

Amanda is playing Dollenorig, a Sylvaneth Spite-Revenant character. They're kind of like vengeful tree spirits that are so mean, they have been outcast of the Sylvaneth. The Sylvaneth are pretty suspicious of outsiders. Spite-Revenants just hate the outsiders... 

Finnegan is playing Evirach, a Witch Hunter of the Order of Azyr. He is rather book-obsessed and NOT REALLY A FIGHTER AT ALL! He's used to doing the investigating and interviews and lets his subordinates do all the fighty-murdery stuff... He also wears a jaunty hat, unlike most of the others in his order.

Nick is playing Namakona, a playing an Idoneth Deepkin Tidecaster (Deep Sea Elf wizard, of a sort). The idoneth exist at the bottom of the sea where it's dark and quiet and no one around to bother them. They don't even like each other much, let alone outsiders... 

Orion is playing Roragnir, a Fyreslayer DOOMSEEKER. Also an outcast, Doomseekers have taken the barazakdum - the doom-oath - forsaking their lodge and cast out to wander the realms alone... for... REASONS... 

(I don't have pictures of their miniatures...) 

So... Yeah... They're a really odd bunch of outcasts... HOW in the Realms did they end up in a Soulbinding together!? Well we decided that Malerion, The Shadow King, got bored of sitting upon his throne in Ulgu - the Realm of Shadow - over which he reigns, and took on the form of a large aelf and slipped into Misthåvn (a floating City of Sigmar in the Realm of Shadow) and wandered into a pub to get drunk... and when he was deep in his cups, he clocked the four characters in the pub with him.... Each was there for their own, but similar, purposes. They each were on the trail of a Tzeentch Sorceress, the Burning [body part] (She has gone by different names over the centuries; The Burning Foot, The Burning Fist, The Burning Armpit, the Burning Butthole... (Cado Ezechiar knew her as the Burning Hand...).

Malerion was feeling bitter and cranky about Sigmar having hounded him to contribute MORE to the Pantheon and the fight against Chaos... and figured these would make a great binding... or a good joke...? So, without their permission he bound their souls... The pub burst into magical blue flames that burned for four days and when it suddenly extinguished itself, it was discovered that everyone in the pub had died, except for the four whose souls were now bound to each others... 

Somehow they travelled from Misthåvn, in the Realm of Ulgu, to Hammerhal, the "Twin-Tailed City" that exists in both in the Realm of Aqushy and the Realm of Ghyran - connected by the Stormrift Realmgate. 

For the past few weeks, we have been playing through Crash and Burn - an adventure that starts in Hammerhal Aqsha and involves the player characters boarding a Kharadron Overlord airship that is part of a entire flotilla bound for the city of Brightspear... 

Over about midway through the multi-week journey across the Parch - a continent  in the Realm of Aqshy, the Flotilla was beset by a HORDE of the Disciples of Tzeentch - Daemons and Tzaangor flying through the air, of their own accord or riding on Discs of Tzeentch (which are really just another magical flying disc-shaped daemon that others can ride on...) over the Polychromatic Sea! 

The Soulbound and crew fought desperately against the Screamers and Tzaangors. Rorignir, at one point, strapped himself into one of the dead crews harness and clipped onto one of the safety lines and then hurled himself overboard at one of the flying Tzaangor - and actually hit it with his mighty axe! Despite their spirited defence, the ship eventually collided with another and crashed to the ground... 

in the Kindling Forest... A forest that burns eternally thanks to some weird Tzeentch magics and extremely fast-growing trees... 

On the forest floor amongst buring trees and the wreckage of the ship, they had to save trapped passengers while fighting off Tzaangor which continued to attack them... 

Eventually they made their way into a cave, which turned out to be a system of tunnels and caverns which they made their way through, hoping to reach the shore - where they'd seen another ship put down to affect repairs! 

Last week there was a rather large encounter with some of my Nighthaunts... 

Then there was supposed to be some encounters with some Gloomspite Gitz (goblins)... but I did not get enough of those painted in time... so this past week, they faced more Nighthaunts... but like and endless host of them that chased them through the caverns and tunnels all the way to the exit near the shore... 

I thought I'd bust out my caverns and tunnels terrain for them all to run through fleeing the ghosties! As they moved out of one area, I removed them, shifted the bunch that were on the table and added more at the other end! 

At the Soulbound player characters let the surviving crew and passengers run ahead, while they fought off as many of the pursuing nighthaunts. 

Evirach the Witch Hunter, Finnegan's character, went with the crew and passengers, he's not super useful in combat... but still better than the crew (and TOUGHER!). He tried to fend off any of the nighthaunts that tried to ambush them from the side - or block their way! 

Dollenorig, Amanda's Spite-Revenant character, took up the rear for the whole flight - fighting all sorts of Nighthaunts - Here she is facing a Chainghast and a Chainrasp... and about to be attacked by a Spirit Torment and a Bladegheist Revenant! 

A few times it looked like she might be overwhelmed and killed... but each time, Rorignir or Namakona would come to their aid! 

Rorignir is just a beast... Just a killing machine.  Due to the ethereal nature of the Nighthaunts, all damage was halved and that mean little dorf just one-shotted so many very nasty haunts... 

Namakona being stabbed by a Glavewraith! 

She was the only character with a magical attack - the Arcane Blast spell! 

The crew weren't terrible, they held their own against the hordes of Chainrasps... 

Another Chainghast attacking Dollenorig! 

Almost there... 

It was fun getting to use this terrain again! 

Three Chainrasps blocking their escape! 

Evirach had checked a different passage which turned out to be a dead end... with MORE nighthaunts! 

the Spite-Revenant fighting a PILE of Nighthaunts again! 

Roaragnir swining his mighty axe at more ghosties... 

The surviving passengers stumbling through the caves in near darkness... 

(maybe I should have shot it day-for-night with a blue filter...)

TWO Bladegheist Revenants caught up with them at the same time!! They are particularly nasty and dealt the most damage to the Characters... 

The last of the Horde seeing them all out! 

A lot of Aqua Ghyranis was chugged along the way... It's kind of a type of liquid currency... but also can be consumed as a sort of healing potion...? It's a weird setting... 

A few of the crew and couple of the passengers were injured along the way... some very close to being taken out... and I was alittle concerned it might end up being a massacre (I'm still sorting out the system and trying to get the balance right!) but in the end, only one Crew member was killed! 

they staggered out of the cave system and through a small bit of burning forest and were VERY releived to see the other ship that had set down was still there! The boarded and lifted off and continued their journey to Brightspear. 

For the most part, I like the system and setting... There are a few odd bits, but I try to not think about it too hard. Nick and Orion and Amanda and Finnegan and just a riot to play with!? I am looking forward to seeing what they get up to in Brightspear!