The Black Campbell

Our Hollow Earth Expedition game kicked off with a bang — the characters, trapped in their Atlantean flying saucer, sinking under the sea after having been hit by heat rays from war saucers from Atlantis. After a tense escape and rush to the surface, they were rescued from the hovering saucers by merfolk, who took them to a grotto in a cave system under the nearby mountains, and which connects to the merfolk’s home.

The destruction of the large war saucer Durga had produced a blast that stunned or killed dozens of merfolk, leaving the characters in a tight spot with King Triton. Eventually, his son Glaucus intervened on their behalf. They were able to exit the cave complex, finding some of the Sanctuary survivors in the process, before returning to find the old liner badly damaged by fire, their pirate ships sunk, and Zek’s airplane destroyed. The Atlantean saucers had decamped. After searching the ship, they were able to find a few survivors, including Zek and his daughter.

After collecting as much food and other supplies as they could from Sanctuary’s stores, they returned to the caves to try and plot their next move. (One of the players was pretty adamant about attempting to use the whirlpool under the Aerie, assuming it some kind of gate, as it is through there supposedly much of Sanctuary’s found cargo comes from.) They were desperate to rescue Olga and Shria, both captured by Thoth, Emperor Mot’s secret police chief during the attacks.

This led to a hairbrained scheme to find and collect the balloon from Ivora’s crashed airship, Sela, and use it to float their lost saucer with the aid of the mermen. With two dozen people, they trekked two days through the dinosaur-filled jungle to the crash site, build a boma and fires to keep the animals at bay, then spend another three days getting the balloon out of the trees, rolling it, and lugging it and the hot air engine back to Sanctuary.

They were able to repair the engine, patch the balloon, and eventually they attached the balloon to the saucer. Using the engine and a long length of tubing made from jungle vines, Zek, Hunter, and Amon inflated the balloon from a small launch. The plan was working, the balloon was very slowly lifting the saucer when Gus decided the process was too slow and attempted to aid the ascent by trying to restart Agni’s engines…a fumble, followed by a good roll succeeded…but sent the saucer up too quickly, out of control and blinded by the balloon. This capsized the launch, and during their rescue attempt of Gus, the characters (plus Amon) were able to get aboard. Just in time for the saucer to lose power over the whirlpool called the “Hole in the World.”

The balloon acted like a parachute, giving them time to seal the saucer before they were sucked into deep water, tumbled and spun in darkness, only to surface a long time later. They found themselves in the saucer, which was again starting to sink, and escape to the surface to find themselves under a sky at sunset, the stars coming out, in the middle of a endless ocean! (Causing Amon no small amount of terror; he’s never seen the sun “go away.”)

Now they are trapped in the Outer World, with no way to get back to rescue Shria and Olga…

This evening was fun for the endless pulp-fiction moments that kept cropping up. The campaign is proving to be a lesson in go big or go home when it comes to playing pulp. The bigger and more ridiculous, the better.

The rule book deals with drowning and suffocation, but the cliffhanger of our latest session also has a few other issues the heroes will have to deal with — atmospheric pressure (from water) and decompression…

With their flying saucer sinking under the ocean, they have only a few turns to figure out how to get out of the craft…but in that time, the saucer has sank some distance. so that leaves them with a few issues to address:

The first, air. They should have time to hold their breath, but they will be exerting themselves early on. From the core rules,

“…your character can hold his breath for one minute per point of Body rating. In combat, your character holds his breath for one turn per success on a reflexive body roll. After this time passes, your character will be forced to take a breath and suffer the effects of whatever he breathes in. If he inhales water or thick smoke, for example, he will receive one nonlethal wound per turn until he is able to breathe normally. Your character cannot hold his breath again until he has had a chance to catch his breath.”

It will take several turns before they can exit the craft under the best of conditions. By the time they are out, the saucer will have sank between 100-200′ (between 30-600m-ish), with an increase of 1 bar/33′ or 10m…they could be exiting somewhere in the range of 9 bars of pressure.

So, rules for high atmospheric pressure and decompression:

Characters exposed to high atmospheric pressures will suffer 1 non-lethal in damage for every 3 bars of pressure (every 100′ or 30m of depth.) Also, holding one’s breath becomes more difficult at these pressures, as the lungs are not strong enough to fight the crush of the pressure. Holding your breath requires a Body+Will with the difficulty increasing one success for each 100′ of depth. (You can reflexively hold your breath without a check down to 100′) This damage only lasts as long as the  person is under pressure.

That said, rising or decompressing too quickly will cause the damage to remain and possibly worsen as the body cannot reabsorb nitrogen and other gasses released by the drop in pressure. This can be cured with safety stops and a slower ascent of about 30fpm to allow the body to adapt to the lower pressures, but in an emergency assent (as these characters will have to attempt), the character can ascend at speeds up to 100fpm. That still leaves two minutes for the characters. If the character has to surface at unsafe speeds, they will take 1 non-lethal in damage for every 100′ they have to ascent at faster than 60fpm.After the character has reached the surface, they must make a Body test versus the damage they took. If they fail the test, they take lethal damage equal to the number of failures in addition to the non-lethal they have.

(Example: Steve has to ascend from his crashed and sining seaplane. He was able to catch his breath before exiting the craft, but has to ascend 200′ to the surface before his breath runs out. He has 2NL in damage from the pressure, and has to roll a Body+Will vs. 2, and succeeds. He has a Body of 2 — he has two minutes, if he doesn’t exert himself, to reach the surface. He opts to rise as fast as he can, but it will still take all of his two minutes… The speed of his ascent means the damage will not got away on reaching the surface as he experiences “the bends”. He makes it to the surface, but is suffering from decompression sickness. He rolls his Bodyx2 vs. the 2NL and rolls a 1. He now has 2NL and 1L in damage, which will heal at the normal rates.)

Had Steve has a Body 3, he could have ascended slower, and risked a non-lethal or two for breathing water, but that pressure and drowning damage would have gone away once he could get to the air.

The group finally had everyone back together again for the session this week. We picked up a few days after the raid on the Sanctuary and the removal of the chua te, the pirate king, Trihn from the place. The characters are mostly recovered from their injuries during the fight, they’ve been working to sound the old liner that serves as the trade port, and looking for the other cargo cultists that escaped into the jungle. They’ve been building  docks for the pirate ships, having talked those crews into allying after Trihn was packed off to the merfolk to answer for his crimes against them. And they are preparing for their meeting with the hawkmen of “the Aerie” — a mountain topped by a Greco-Roman-looking city that floats a half mile above the “Hole in the Ocean”, a giant whirlpool that swirls into darkness under the rock.

After some character interaction and catching up the one player who was out for a fortnight, they flew to the Aerie in their Atlantean flying saucer, Agni, only to be met by scores of the creatures, armed and flying in intricate formations. They landed, and Gus Hassenfeldt in a fit of exuberance and naivety rushed out to greet the creatures. Eventually, the characters — with the aid of Prince Glaucus of the mermen and Lord Amon (late of Ultima Thule) — were able to establish enough of a rapport with the incredulous Prince Sycrat of the Hawkmen, to have a sit down and talk about an alliance against the cruel Emperor Mot of Atlantis. With some judicious use of style points and a decent “take the average”, they were able to sell the hawkmen on an alliance, with the hawkmen and merfolk working to extend their lines of communication, and find other ready to rise up and fight.

On their way back to the Sanctuary, however, they spotted several gleaming objects in the sky — Durga and her escorts, returning to investigate the Sanctuary. They decided to submerge the saucer in the ocean and wait it out, but Glaucus — able to communicate with his people nearby — learned that the saucer fleet had gone to Sanctuary and one of the ships had landed on the old liner! Obviously, the chances that Captain Thoth would discover Olga and Princess Shria, both still aboard the craft, were high. With that, they decided to take the bold (and very pulp) action of attacking the fleet!

Bursting from the ocean in their flying saucer, they got an incredibly lucky hit on Durga that disabled the vehicle. The great war saucer fell out of the sky and exploded when it hit the ocean, doing damage to the nearby pirate ships and the shockwave killing some of the nearby merfolk in the water. Disoriented from fireball, Lord Amon almost crashed the saucer, and a bad initiative test led them to be hit by the escort saucers’ heat rays. While the saucer wasn’t destroyed or incapacitated, they landed hard on the ocean…at which point the water rushed through the damage in the hull and started to pull them under.

We ended the night with the cabin filling with water as they struggled to get the exit open. Then the lights went out…

One thing this campaign is teaching me is every time I think it’s time to pull back and be a bit more “realistic”, I find the better choice is to do the opposite: more over the top, more cliché, more action over plot and character. The result has been one hell of a good game, thus far.