(Savage4) Tomb of the Serpent - #4.2 The Craft Fair of Chaos

While our normal heroes recover from the Attack on Lake's Wharf, some sleep soundly for the first time in years.... others can't close their eyes at all during the night, staring into the darkness of what they can't see... but they know it's everywhere...

It will be other "heroes" who get the dream, like Alexander Mikoyn.  His hair is turning white.  He saw enough of the horrors of war during the Great War and the Russian Civil War.   He's seen thing men... or comrades were not meant to know, and as a high ranking agent of the SV-8, he's kept the Motherland safe, even as the threat of Stalin's purges keep his head on a swivel.

But he's never dreamt of Egypt before.  Doesn't even remember if he's ever seen more than artist's work of the pyramids, but there, in his dream, he's there, in all its vivid glory.   The old gods of Egypt are there... with a message.

He wakes up, wide-eyed.  The message is distorted and hazy, but the meaning is still clear.  A great evil is returning to the world, and he must assemble his trusted cohort and save humanity.

He must go to this... Indiana....

Alexander (Wild Card), Elani (Wild Card), Viktor, and Myshkin

Greystone, Indiana -  Mr John T Rea has always been a respectable businessman.  Scratch that, he's been a shyster and a con since the day he was born.  But the cons aren't as profitable as they once were.    Event the "Sideshow of the Incredible" hasn't been making money for weeks.  They've been forced to join forces with a popular local community craft fair... with just the flair for pranks and spookiness. 

It's the early morning, and Rea is wandering through town, grabbing a cup of coffee from the folks setting up a kitchenette in the back of a truck, before the craft fair... and his failure of a sideshow opens up.  He worries about how he's going to make payroll this week, especially after spending the last of the money on a number of supposed relics some scoundrel pawned off on him.  Egyptian in look, he's quite certain that law enforcement is going to descend on him.  He just has no idea who's coming for him that morning.  

Greystone, Indiana.  The Objectives are numbered with green dice 

Alexander Mikoyn and his associates don't know exactly what they're looking for... and they don't know the Servants of Apophis are in town for the same mission, but a far more nefarious purpose.  

The Serpent Priest, 4 Militant Cultists (guns), 1 Fierce Cultist (sword)

Turn One:  Alexander walks through the graveyard to the first objective, a broad-shouldered man kneeling in front of a gravestone.    Two-Gun Babbitt is an associate of Rea, his marksmanship and feats of daring-do bring in the nickels to the sideshow.  But he's also the whole reason they're in Greystone, wishing to visit his mother's grave, after his own dreams of Egypt trouble his mind.  

It doesn't help that a crazy old man with a thick Russian accent comes stumbling through the cemetery, barking at him with word he doesn't understand.  And what's up that the pick axe?

(Alexander is a grumpy old Russian man who kills monsters for the Soviet Union.  He gets a -2 to interact with people, plus his limp forced him to run to Mr Babbitt... another -2 modifier, and almost a guaranteed failure.  He should be grateful ol' Two Gun wasn't a perilous objective, or he quite certainly would have been shot in the face. )

Babbitt was  going to be a gentleman and start walking away to avoid a confrontation, if the bullets from the cultists didn't start flying... and missing.  A loud man barking in broken English with a Russian accent seems to attract cultists!  Even the priest tried to throw a serpent curse onto Alexander, but he easily shook it off.  

Alas, poor Mishkyn, he was dim-witted, but had survived some skirmishes with Alexander back in the Soviet Union.  We walked with no impetus towards his objective.  A rifle shot over his head made him turn to his left, and a pistol shot behind him struck his back, dropping him. 

Turn Two: Meanwhile, the only cultist who brought a sword to a gun fight rendezvoused with their contact in town.  The relic they were seeking was somewhere in town, just not with him. 

Another agent for the Servants...

The Serpent Priest was getting dispirited.  He was throwing every type of curse and eldritch blasts his dark gods had granted him at the Russian, and there was no effect, save the old man scaring away some cultists, and the other individual wandering away. 

Victor avenged his friend Miskyn's death, trading shots until the cutist's body his the truck and slumped down onto the cobblestone.   Mr Rea, finally coffee in hand, began to look for an escape from this chaos.  

Elani's mission was the snake charmers tent, trading shots with a cultists before diving into booth... full on snakes.  The snakes managed to do what the cultist couldn't:  wound her. 

Turn Three:  With the gunfire and explosion, Two-Gun put some pep in his step, turning around, only to be met with the business end of the cultist's sword. Two objectives secured for the Servants of Apophis!

(Our fierce cultist drew a Joker, allowing him initiative, a +2 to rolls , a +2 to damage and a Bennie [reroll]. His measly minion dice exploded, seizing the objective [Two-Gun].  It just made sense that he killed the gunslinger on the spot.)

Back at the gravesite, things had gone from bad to worse for Alexander.  His mouth agape from watching the outright murder of Two-Gun, the graveyard exploded with a blast, sending the Russian flying, wounded, bleeding, but otherwise intact. 

Alexander Mikoyn might be in trouble.... 

Elani had managed to get the information she need from the snake charmer, then fired a burst from her SMG at the cultist creeping up to the booth.  

Viktor might just be a spy living in the States, an untested asset for Alexander, but he was proving his worth with each moment.  Viktor reached Mr Rea.  Despite the broken English, the gunfire and other fellows wearing robes within eyesight convinced the sideshow owner than Viktor was one of the good guys.   

Soviets: 2 objectives, Servants: 2 objectives. 

Turn Four:   A shot rang out between Viktor and Mr Rea.  Viktor pushed Mr Rea back behind the truck  with his hand to the face, before rolling to the cover of the water fountain and kills the cultist across the square! 

Elani walked towards the chaos in the cemetery, unleashing her SMG on the sword wielding cultists.  

(She needed a single wound to kill them.  She got five!)

Under threats of torture or sacrifice from the Serpent Priest the one cowardly cultists finally got to nerve to hop of the cemetery wall and go after Alexander, shooting him with a pistol  The Russian was in a bad spot, still on the ground, crawling to the far wall from where he came from...

But he wasn't ready to die quite yet.

Meanwhile, the Serpent Priest finally moved, turning the corner to confront Elani! 

Turn Five:  The cultist standing over Alexander's head was covered, but there obviously a smile of sadistic glee on his face as he simply kept pace with the crawling Russian, putting a few more rounds into him as they neared the wall. Alexander had somehow regained some of his composure to futilely swing his pick axed at the cultist's ankles. 

(Alexander had finally recovered from being shaken, but chose to attack from the ground for cinematic purposes.  The same cinematic purposes that made the point-blank shots look painful, but in reality, the minion kept missing!   Let's chalk that up to the world-renowned Soviet seamstresses that made his uniform!)

Viktor dashed across the town square to the booth with the last objective, reaching it but unable to roll for it. The Serpent priest turned all his attention to Elani, casting dark and ancient Egyptian curses at her.  She laughed and spouted off something back at him, her own curse, not in Russian.  Finnish?  Or something older?  

(She needed a 4 to avoid the curse on a d6, with exploding dice with got a 19).  

The priest threw an eldritch bolt at her... she sidestepped it.  

(He used the last of his Bennies to finally get a hit and a wound on her, she used her last Bennie to soak the wound...)

Turn Six:  Viktor spoke with the gentle behemoth inside the booth.   Two objectives, two dead cultists.  Not bad for a mere minion.  Three objectives for the Soviets. 

Elani just lowered her SMG and said... "Minun vuroroni" 

And Alexander, the human target for this encounter?   He finally managed to get up on one knee and swing his pick-axe properly....

And that's how the Soviets acquired The Wand of Destiny from some sideshow barker in Indiana....

I've been playing "The Egypt Game" with my girls on and off for the last ten years.  My plan for "Season Four"  was a big send-off for our original heroes (Episode 4.1) followed by new groups/gangs/leagues, to use Pulp Alley, and run Tomb of the Serpent.

Beside a near lifetime to finally get the Zulus painted up for Episode 4.1, the girls have moved away and I'll be perfectly honest:  I love Pulp Alley, I love the cards, I love the feel... but we've been playing a version of Savage Showdown since my oldest, Maja, was three... and she drives now!    It works, we adapt.  

A lifetime ago... playing TIARA, which I created, but realized it was kid friendly Savage Worlds/Showdown. 

I was also not going to invest in circus tents and sideshow minis for a one-off game, so I made due with what I had.  My only regret is I do have three different types of cultist minis for each type in the scenario, and the proper "fierce" ones were right behind me the entire time.  

Next:  #4.3 - The Hall of Horrors

I got some of the inspiration for the board from a Pulp Alley game at The Land of Counterpane.