Wednesday, June 21, 2017

(Savage Lost) #2.10 Against the Ape God

After rescuing their friend Nils Lingonberry from the horrible Ahdo tribe, our heroes were themselves rescued by one of the Akala tribesmen, who warned them that the rest of the tribe wanted them dead for the death of the Akala tribal elder. To make matters worse, the Ahdo had successfully summoned their Ape God from wherever he was slumbering and he was now rampaging across the valley.  If the  heroes ever wanted time to get home from where ever they were, they would have to deal with these crazy predicaments.

At the same time, Blauen was leading the heroes to the Ape God, the Akala  were attempting a preemptive strike on the Ahdo and Atil-a-Kong. The nature of the sacrifice didn't allow their high priestess to control the Ape God.  The Ahdo were desperate not having their God under their sway, for he would cause havoc, starvation,  and even more general chaos, more so than the high priestess was willing to except

Set up:

The lair of Atil-a-Kong was an ancient ruin.  Through his various incarnations that appeared over thousands of years,  the Ape God had dug out and torn apart the surrounding ruins, so treasures were strewn across the area.  When the war parties couldn't engage in combat against Atil-a-Kong or a rival party, they could investigate an area (the blue chips) and draw a chit out of a cup.  Sometimes it would be the lost treasures, other times a monster attack, killing a party member, or quicksand, forcing them to lose a turn.   Each treasure was worth between five and twenty victory points. landing the killing/subduing blow on Atil-a-Kong was thirty.

Rules are Valley of the Ape, and the war parties have the following special rules.

The War Parties - 
The Akala (10) - By using the trees, they may retreat though the Ape-God, rathing than fleeing away from him.

The Ahdo (10) - They are able to go through rough terrain that other characters must move around.

The Heroes (Nils Ligonberry, Kacey Barbara, Lord Jon-Smythe Cuppenbrush, Maja Millie, and the Akala Blauen) - Allowed to shoot up to 18 inches.  All heroes, save Blauen, have two hits.

Turn One-Three:
The Akala dashed out and yet another disorganized formation, and after a lone warrior threw a spear at the Ape-God, Atil-a-Kong moved over and turned the monkey-man into a fine blue and red paste. The others fled in terror and somehow regrouped.

Atil-a-Kong on the move. 

The Ahdo tried a flanking attack, only landed one spear, and all five tribesmen were crushed by an ape backhand.  To make matter worse, the remaining Ahdo, fell into quicksand, but Atil-a-Kong was distracted by the Heroes nearing the ruins.  .
Turn: 4-6
The Ahdo escaped from the quicksand and found a strange treasure, an infernal contraption which whirled to life, cut off a man's head, and went dead again.  Even the treasures in the area were deadly.
The heroes managed to hide from the Ape-God, find a treasure...
and also got trapped in a quicksand bog right next to where the Ahdo had been trapped.

The Ahdo continue to flee...
The Akala continued to spread out, uncovering treasures, but also failing prey to the Deep Ones!
Gahhhh!
Turns 7-9
A portion of the Akala flanked the Ape-God, and another quick wave of the arm, eliminated them from existence.    The heroes superior range allowed them to fire on the monster and retreat far enough to keep him out of range, until, of course, they backed into a table edge!
Oh no!  Not poor Blauen!
When Atil-a-Kong managed to reach the heroes, the beast was too winded to properly attack, and he could only step on Blauen.

Turns 10+

The Ahdo regrouped and attacked beast from the rear, significantly  wounding/subduing the Ape God on back-to-back turns.   That grabbed the giant primate's attention, and the result was not pretty....
The Ahdo get knocked out...
The Akala lost more men to exploration and when it came time to attack, the Ape-God brushed aside the first wave.

Oooh!  A surprise under the tree!
With the Akala down to two, the heroes decided to join forces to take out the beast in hand-to-hand combat
The Joint Akala-Hero Task Force
Together, the die rolls were high enough to wound the monster significantly, while it's counter attack was weakened, spreading wound among all of the heroes.

Kornblum, one of the two final Akala, delivered the killing blow on the beast.
It wasn't beauty that killed the beast, it was short spears and gunfire.
With this incarnation of the Ape God dead, and the Ahdo weakened, the Akala and the Heroes made up.  Kornblum would challenge Cyan for Warchief of the Akala and a giant ape was worth more prestige than a measly dinosaur.

Returning to the Akala village, Kornblum accosted Cyan, and quickly dropped his challenge.  The Elder Mettiaus was alive and forcing stampedes of dinosaurs were quite disconcerting.  Even more so was the direction the shaman was heading... towards "Yetekelekele Ketema."

The forbidden city.

GM Note:  Valley of the Ape is a quick and easy game.  I do plan on using it for some of the kid's games this Fall on the con circuit.   Even with the fall of the Ahdo (20 victory points), we needed to kill the Ape to get enough victory points to win.  The heroes will get to use the Crytal Skull and the Crown of Kamula on the adventurers (if they do anything).  The Akala recovered an ancient scepter from a long-dead Akala elder.  They might need that to combat the apparent madness that Mettiaus succumbed to.

RIP:  Blauen

Next: #2.11 The Outlying Pickets of the New World

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