TOPIC: Savage Worlds - Curse of Strahd/Hellboy Mashup

Woah. I just re-read the rules for Conviction, and they are mad powerful. You spend Conviction to add +1d6 to ALL trait AND damage rolls until the start of your next turn! You can spend a Benny to maintain the effect for ANOTHER FULL round, and continue to do so until you run out of Bennies, or choose to let the effect lapse.

WOLFENSTRAHD
Session 6

No Jack/Cassius this week.

Mind-altering green gas drifts into the Hexworks through the ragged hole Vex blasted in the frontage. Some soldiers did not get their masks on quick enough, and flee in mindless fear from whatever their minds have conjured to terrorize their waking dreams. Vex and Rayne head directly for the holding cells. Half of the prisoners remain lucid enough to understand the grinning skeleton man is here to help them, the rest cower in senseless dread. Vex uses the wings granted by the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind to buffet the gas away from the prisoners as they flee. Meanwhile, Rayne sets a twenty minute timer on the explosives to destroy the facility.

Victor and Guy Hades II are pinned down by the sniper on the roof. In bear form, Victor clambers the exterior wall and tears into the bothersome marksman with fang and claw.

The monsters steal a truck to transport the freed prisoners to Vallaki. Twenty minutes later, the Hexworks explode in a huge fireball, destroying the reserves of Phobos gas and the apparatus required to manufacture any more of the veridian nightmare fuel.

When Taskforce M return to Vallaki, they find a scene of carnage. The resistance are in disarray after the Nightfangs (Strahd's elite dhampir commando unit) attacked in the night. Many resistance fighters were killed, Ismark was maimed, and Ireena Kolyana was abducted! A message - written in fresh blood -reads;

Dear C.
If you want to save the human bitch, come to Yester Hill at midnight.
Bring your sword!
Love, A

The monsters assume C is Cassius, and A is his psychopathic sister Adelia. Unfortunately, they lost track of Cassius during the raid on the Hexworks, after he rushed back inside to recover Blade's corpse, moments before the whole building came down. With Ireena's life at stake, Taskforce M resolve to meet A without C, hoping she is not as bat-shit crazy as her brother makes her out to be.

The monsters arrive at Yester Hill as the moon is rising. Mist swirls around the old barrow mound, crowned by a ring of standing stones and the gnarled branches of a long dead tree. A crude block of sandstone stained brown by old blood suggests the site was once the scene of unholy pagan rites.

As the twelth hour draws near, the mist grows murkier and a half dozen hardened dhampir commandos coalesce from the fog. Adelia Barbastella appears as an attractive young woman in the uniform of the Aufsehirinnen, a sardonic smile playing around the edges of her red rouged lips. The hilt of an ornate rapier pokes out from beneath her belt. She is not amused by Cassius' absence, anticipating a duel with her despised brother, not a chinwag with these three chucklefucks. Since the Nightfangs have standing orders to eliminate Taskforce M on sight, Adelia cuts the conversation short.

Vex casts Blast, wiping out half the commandos - and wounding Adelia - with a single lucky spellcasting roll (note to self, stop placing miniatures close enough that they can all be taken out in a medium/large blast template). Guy II punches Adelia in the face, knocking her unconcious. The Nightfangs are armed with light-weight repeating crossbows, and one of them shoots Rayne in the back. The shot pierces her spine and she collapses at the foot of the bloody altar, unable to move her legs. Victor transforms into a bear and attacks, rolls snake-eyes and knocks over one of the standing stones. This initates a sort-of domino rally as the stone topples into the adjacent obelisk - and the next - until the final stone falls onto Rayne with a sickening crunch.

RIP RAYNE

As the mercenaries lifeblood seeps into the unhallowed soil of the old barrow mound, the restless dead interred within the hill begin to wake. Dozens of skeletal figures garbed in rotten furs crawl from their shallow graves, crude bronze weapons gripped in their bony claws. The dead swarm over Victor. He roars in rage, batting them away with his powerful claws - but there are simply too many, and his ursine bulk sinks beneath a wave of moldering corpses. Vex and Guy Hades II (with Adelia slung over his shoulder) retreat to the centre of the stone circle, surrounded on all sides by the clamorous dead. They will run out of ammo long before they run out of skeletons to shoot at. Guy II spots an opening among the roots of the old tree and dives into it headfirst.

The burrow ends at a stone slab. Guy II breaks through effortlessly. Beyond lies a crypt. A large skeletal warrior withdraws a ruby-tipped spear from the body of the dead Nightfang at its feet, and turns to face Guy II. Muffled screams emanate from the stone sarcophagus at the back of the crypt. The skeletal champion drives the spear through Guy II's chest, narrowly missing any important organs.

"I don't need my spleen!" Guy II roars, inaccurately.

Vex scrambles down into the crypt, a swarm of skeletons flooding the tunnel behind him. Spotting the glowing red stone at the end of the champion's spear, he takes careful aim and shoots at it (-4 called shot). The ruby shatters, sundering whatever foul magic was animating the pagan bones. The skeletons crumble into fine powder, their twisted souls finally able to move on to whatever form of judgement awaits them beyond the veil.

(GM note: The ruby was never meant to destroy the skeletons, but things were looking grim so I kinda' rolled with it. Vex actually destroyed a magic item called the Blood Spear, which would have enabled the wielder to make a natural healing roll whenever they used it to kill a living target. Oops.)

The monsters open the sarcophagus and Ireena clambers out, grateful to be rescued before she ran out of air. Adelia Barbastella is trussed up and tossed into the boot of the roadster for the trip back to Vallaki. Ismark is relieved to see Ireena safely returned and re-pledges his commitment to help Taskforce M complete their mission.

The monsters interrogate Adelia. Vex senses her hatred for Cassius is what truly drives her, and leverages that angle to get her talking. Adelia provides valuable intel, re: the defences of Castle Ravenloft. The monsters bind Adelia as best they can, until Cassius decides what to do about her.

After much discussion, Taskforce M finalize their plan for the assault on Castle Ravenloft. The monsters will lead the resistance fighters in a frontal attack on the cable car station at the foot of the mountain the fortress perches atop of, then ride the cable car up to the castle ramparts. It's a plan so dumb it's brilliant!



We run the raid on the cable car station as a Quick Encounter, which the party crushes. Guy II harvests weaponary from an Ubermech destroyed in the fighting, while Victor and Vex strip uniforms from two of the least messed-up bodies. Vex operates the radio equipment and convinces the guy at the other end of the line that there is a crate of important 'stuff' to be delivered to Count von Zarovich.

OPERATOR: "But what is in zis crate? And was zat shooting I heard just now?"

VEX: "Nah, just a car backfiring, probably. I don't know, it just says 'Urgent' on the label. Don't worry about it."

Vex can be very persuasive at times. The monsters wedge Guy Hades II into a big box and load him onto the cable car. The ride up to the castle is smooth and uneventful.

As the monsters disembark, some soldiers arrive to inspect the suspicious crate. The radio operator is getting screamed at for his poor judgement. A red-faced officer approaches the monsters-disguised-as-Nazis and demands to see some identification. Vex theatrically pats his pockets for non-existent paperwork, then produces a pistol and shoots the officer in the face. An alarm sounds nearby. Shit just done gone hit the fan now.

TBC

WOLFENSTRAHD
Session 7

Sometime after Taskforce M launch the assault on Castle Ravenloft, Cassius returns to Vallaki carrying the bullet-riddled corpse of Blade (KIA). The warehouse is dark, but Cassius' night-attuned eyes pick out a slumped figure tied to a chair, a burlap sack over their head. Cassius removes the hood, and looks upon the slack, bloodless face of one of Ismark's resistance fighters. Something drops from the ceiling to land lightly behind him.



Adelia Barbastella (who escaped her bonds with laughable ease) pounces toward her brother, fangs bared bright and bloody in the waning moonlight. Cassius grabs her out of the air, and hurls her against the brick wall. The two dhampir fight, and Cassius wins. Adelia curses Cassius for being their mother's favourite, and constantly overshadowing her. Cassius explains to Adelia he was only given the most dangerous assignments because the clan saw him as an expendable asset, to be deployed and discarded with no care for his survival. This exchange gives Adelia something to think about, and Cassius allows her to leave - after extracting a promise that she will stop consorting with Nazis.

Left alone, Cassius performs a dark rite to raise the corpse of Blade as a mindless zombie under his control (a slight re-imagining of the Thrall edge from the Horror Companion).

The brain of Walter Thiel cries out to be remembered! He could be of help if the monsters need to complete a complex dramatic task, like disarming a massive Phobos bomb (what a strangely specific example...) but he is left behind again to gather dust.

Flash forward to the rest of Taskforce M defending the vernicular station from waves of German soldiers spilling out of Castle Ravenloft. A second gondola arrives carrying reinforcements, including Cassius and Zombie Blade. Ismark and Doc Donnavich are also present.

Victor Moonstruck rampages along the wall, ripping through a dozen men. A German sniper positioned atop the gatehouse takes careful aim at the monstrous bear. Cassius dashes toward the towering bulwark, and scrambles up toward the marksman's nest. Zombie Blade shambles along behind, absent the dhampir's inhuman grace. Guy Hades II leaps down into the courtyard and sweeps his stolen laser weapon toward the advancing soldiers. Dismembered bodies litter the ground. A steilhandgranate arcs into the cable car station where the resistance fighters are hunkered down. Ismark is grievously injured in the blast. Vex creeps along the wall, the stone parapets shielding him from enemy fire - until a big guy with a combat knife tackles him to the ground. Vex resists the impulse to uneash devastating magic on his aggressor, he is saving his Power Points for Strahd.

The gates to Castle Ravenloft burst outward, as a hulking mechnical Uberhund joins the fray! Victor jumps onto its back, tearing up the exposed wiring beneath its armoured hide. Cassius reaches the top of the gatehouse, rolls a critical failure to attack the sniper, and falls off the roof. He lands beside the Uberhund. It bites him. Not quite believing his luck, the sniper pops out of cover to line up another shot. Guy II lasers him in the face. Victor successfully disables the Uberhund, but is trapped beneath it as it powers down. Flames rush toward the volatile fuel reserves in the gullet of the metal beast, heralding imminent self-destruction. Guy II hauls Victor out just in time for them to both escape the explosion.

Taskforce M have captured the gatehouse! The surviving resistance fighters dig in to hold it. Doc D gives each of the monsters a medical syrige to heal one wound if he's not around to patch them up. Vex is like; "WTF am I supposed to do with this? I don't have a vascular system!"

Taskforce M enter Castle Ravenloft. They are greeted by a ridiculously old butler, stooped almost double by the weight of his years.

"The Master welcomes you to his home. Come freely. Go safely, and leave something of the happiness you bring."

Vex shoves passed the elderly manservant, making a beeline for Strahd's throne room. The butler shuffles along behind, muttering about the brashness of youth, with their loud music, their baggy pants and their flensed skulls.

The monsters find themslves on the edge of a neatly trimmed hedge maze. Rather than navigate the labyrinth, Victor carves a path straight though to the other side. Beyond the maze lies the threshold of Strahd's throne room. The vampire lord is sprawled languidly acoss his magnificent thone, carved from a single block of obsidian to depict a rearing, three headed dragon. A dozen elite bodyguards stand ready to defend their deathless liege.

Guy Hades II rips off his shirt, flexing his rippling demon pecs.

GUY II: "FIGHT ME!"

STRAHD: "Right now? You don't wan't to hear my big villainous monologue first?"

GUY II: "FIGHT ME LIKE A MANO!"

Strahd accepts Guy's challenge, and they square off. Strahd is lightning fast, but Guy II hits like a truck. Guy II manages to get the Count into a headlock, and tries to rip his head off Predator-style. Strahd transforms into his huge, monstrous bat form to escape the grapple, leathery wings unfurling from his back to knock Guy II prone. Strahd emits a skull-splitting shriek that makes the monster's ears bleed (except Vex, who has neither blood nor ears). Strahd's three vampiric brides rush to his aid, flying from his bed to join the battle in nowt but their provocative nightwear.

The elderly butler produces an antique blunderbuss and starts blasting!

Vex casts Blast (and rolls an offensive number of exploding dice), blowing a gaping hole in the wall, through which bright golden sunlight streams. Strahd's skin blisters where the sun touches, and he is driven back into the shadows near his draconic throne. Guy II tackles the retreating vampire and forcibly tears the wings from Strahd's back, casting the coriaceous membrane to the ground. Defeated, Strahd collapses onto his throne and triggers the mechnism for a deus ex machina. The entire dais upon which the throne rests descends into the floor, and reinforced blast doors slam shut to seal the shaft.

Victor dismembers one of Strahd's brides. Surprisingly, this fails to kill her, and the severed head curses the confused bear with some very colourful language. Cassius kicks the head into the pool of sunlight, and it bursts into flame. Vex incinerates the other two brides with another empowered Blast.

TBC

WOLFENSTRAHD
Session 8 - The Finale!

Last week; Taskforce M bust into Castle Ravenloft, warmed to Strahd's elderly manservant Pidwick, killed Strahd's three vampire wives (Tatiana, Natalia & Alina), and explosively redecorated Strahd's throne room with the Blast power. Strahd himself escaped via a hidden elevator beneath his throne, thick metal doors closing behind him to deter pursuit. Guy Hades II cuts a hole through this barrier, depleting the battery of his laser weapon. An 80ft shaft descends into the lower levels of the castle, filled with a complex arrangement of moving lasers.

Guy II turns to address Cassius, only to witness his dhampir companion sucking the last fluid ounces of blood out of Pidwick's wrinkly neck.

"What?" Cassius snaps, "I was hungry!"

"But we were warming to him!" Guy II protests, "He was a fan favourite on the EN World forums!"

Cassius shrugs and tosses the exsanguinated corpse into the shaft. It is sliced up by the lasers before hitting the ground. Cassius spider-climbs down the wall, carefully avoiding the lasers, and deactivates the defences via a big conspicuous OFF switch at the bottom. The rest of Taskforce M follow.

The monsters emerge into a wide concrete tunnel beneath Castle Ravenloft, big enough to accomodate large freight trucks like the three parked nearby. One way leads out of the underground complex, the other opens into a secret hangar, where a large German bomber is being fuelled for take-off. A comically large PHOBOS bomb is being loaded onto the plane, supervised by Strahd who is already on-board. A dozen German soldiers are hunkered down behind sandbags between Taskforce M and their quarry, one of whom is manning a mounted machine gun.

The machine gun opens up, filling the tunnel with the clatter of gunfire. Victor Moonstruck takes cover behind the trucks, but hears something clunking around inside. The something punches the back door of the truck hard enough to buckle the metal outward. Vex casts Blast on the German's position (cos they are all bunched up again, like complete idiots). He wipes out the entire squad with a single spell, and melts the machine gun down to slag.

The rear doors of the three trucks burst open, and one Ubermech emerges from the back of each vehicle; docked, locked and ready to rock. Victor tears two of them up pretty handily, being a big-fuck-off werebear. The final Ubermech charges toward Vex, who retreats into the much smaller corridor the party entered from. The Ubermech smashes through the door in pursuit, and gets its dumb metal ass stuck. It lunges for Vex, but cannot reach. It is wedged in there real good. Zombie Blade is chilling back here too, as Cassius' player had kinda' forgotten about him until now. Vex is feeling pretty smug, until the Ubermech charges up its laser weapon and fires it down the narrow corridor. Vex dodges the beam, but Zombie Blade is sliced in half at the midrift (still 'alive', but Pace reduced to 2"). Sustained fire causes the battery to overheat, and the Ubermech self-destructs.

Taskforce M hurry to catch their plane. (The history buffs among you may know the Heinkel He 177 Greif was commonly known as the Flaming Coffin, due to frequent engine fires mid-flight, and is totally on point for a vampire game.) Guy II loots the dead Nazis and finds a bazooka! The bomber is taxiing toward the underground runway, which extends 8,000 ft toward a cave mouth behind Tser Falls. The rear cargo bay door hangs open, because of course it does. Flight safety be damned, this is pulp!

Catching up with the plane is a Dramatic Task; the monsters must accumulate 16 successes over 3 rounds to stop the plane taking off, or be on-board as it does (determined by their actions). Guy II fires his new rocket launcher at the plane, taking out an engine. Cassius & Victor start running. German soldiers on the plane shoot at the pursuing monsters. A grenade is tossed out onto the runway; Cassius evades the blast, but Victor is wounded. Cassius calls upon his batty brethren, and commands a swarm into the plane to distract the pilots.

Vex hops into the fuel truck parked nearby and drives down the runway, leaving a trail of kerosene in his wake. Two jeeps carrying more Nazi soldiers give chase. Guy II blows up the first with his bazooka. The second jeep swerves around the flaming wreckage to pursue Vex. Suddenly, Zombie Blade (who had been left behind again) rises from the back seat to grapple the driver! The driver loses control and crashes into a stack of conspicuous red barrels, triggering another big explosion. Ain't no surviving that.

RIP Zombie Blade (fo sho this time, bro)

The hangar is now very much on fire, and the flames quickly spread to the rest of Castle Ravenloft. Vex closes in on the Heinkel. A machine gun turret atop the bomber opens fire, blowing up the fuel truck! Vex dives clear of the resultant explosion, and clatters to the ground like a sack full of broken glockenspiels.

Guy II fires another rocket at the plane, rolls a silly number of raises on his Shooting die and completes the Dramatic Task in the final round. Time slows down as the rocket passes through the open cargo bay door and hits the PHOBOS bomb dead on. The Heinkel explodes, skidding along what's left of the runway to teeter precariously over the edge of the waterfall.

Count Strahd steps out of the flaming wreckage, indifferent to the screams of his Germanic underlings as they burn alive. Victor lumbers toward the ancient vampire, but Strahd strikes first and hits the werebear hard enough to punch through his ribcage (Strahd got a Joker in the initiative order, attacked with Impoved Frenzy and exploded several d12 damage dice). Victor reverts to his human form, spewing up black blood as he collapses at Strahd's feet. He seems oddly small when not in his bear form, still just a man after all. Victor convulses for few moments longer, gasping painfully for a final breath that will not come, then lies still forever more.

RIP Victor Moonstruck

Cassius annoints his sword with the holy water provided by their Vatican handlers way back in session #1 (careful not to splash himself) and charges forth to avenge his fallen comrade. The blessed blade cuts through Strahd's supernatural invulnerabilities, and he is pushed back toward the end of the runway.

"Sister!" Cassius shouts over the roar of the falls, "If you can hear me, I could do with some help here!"

A single bat flaps through the curtain of rushing water, taking human shape as it alights beside Cassius.

"Brother." Adelia says coldly, shaking her wet hair, "I'm only helping you because it will piss mother off when you come back alive."

Cassius strikes at Strahd with the consecrated blade, then tosses the sword to Adelia to press the attack. Slash. Cut. Chop. Strahd may be serpent-fast, but even he can't keep up with the two Barbastella siblings fighting side-by-side. Cassius swings the blade down to sever Strahd's hand. He passes the blade to Adelia, and she hacks at Strahd's neck, decapitating the dread lord of Barovia and ending his reign of terror once and for all! The headless body tumbles over the waterfall and crumbles into ash.

Adelia picks up Strahd's disembodied head.

"I'm keeping this," she says brightly, "It will look nice with all the others."

Cassius doesn't object. He pulls the von Zarovich signet ring from the finger of Strahd's severed hand and tosses it to Adelia.

"Give that to mother when you see her, with my compliments."

Explosions from beneath the castle interrupt this tender moment. A wall of fire rushes down the underground runway toward them. Guy Hades II jogs passed and jumps over the edge of the falls. Vex flies by on raven wings and vanishes through the curtain of water. Time to go! Adelia turns into a bat and flies away. Cassius summons his bat swarm to slow his own descent down to the banks of the Tser Pool. They gaze up at the smoke rising from Castle Ravenloft, as the ancient fortress is consumed by the fires from below. A fitting pyre for their fallen friend.

EPILOGUE

The monsters return to Vallaki to celebrate their victory. There will be time enough to mourn the dead in the days to come, tonight they par-taaaay! Strahd is destroyed and the German forces are in disarray. The future of Barovia is bright! Guy II drinks heavily and dances with Ireena. Vex cannot remember where he parked his car. Cassius steps away from the revelry to brood by himself and sees Adelia driving off in Vex's stolen roadster. She has Strahd's head mounted on the bonnet like a hood ornament. He waves to her as she speeds passed. She flips him the bird. Oh well, at least she didn't try to run him over. That's progress right there.

Their mission complete, it is time for Taskforce M to return to Rome. Cassius promises to leverage his mob connections to replace Vex's beloved roadster as they pass though Italy. Back in the dungeons beneath Vatican City, the monsters are debriefed by Cardinal Gunn. Well done chaps, too bad about Victor, very sad, anyway.... Turns out there truly is no rest for the wicked; an urgent new mission demands Taskforce M's unique skill set! Cardinal Gunn drops a heavy manila folder onto the table, the letters T.O.P S.E.C.R.E.T stenciled across the cover. A photograph slips out, showing an angry looking man with a side parting and a silly moustache.

"Looks like you boys are going to Berlin."

TBC... in April 2026

Taskforce M will return

in WOLFENSTRAHD 2: Hitler Me Baby One More Time