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Sunzagek Gadzhialma*
*They aim to misbehave |
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Collecting on a Kickstarter perk,
I had the opportunity back in May 2012 to get together with the cast and crew of JourneyQuest
(JQ) and members of Pinnacle Entertainment Group (PEG), to play Savage Worlds and the
results were… incendiary.
How this all came about
During the JourneyQuest Season 2 Kickstarter campaign, Zombie Orpheus Entertainment (ZOE) set up incentives for other organizations to
help spread the word about the campaign. One such incentive promised that if PEG could raise enough pledges for the JQ2 Kickstarter, then
ZOE would record cast and crew playing the Savage Worlds RPG. Further,
the JQ2 fundraising campaign offered a “Brown Robe B” package that
included a personal gaming session run by JQ writer/director Matt Vancil again with the cast and
crew. Being a fan of both JQ and Savage Worlds, I ‘savaged’ my pledge to the
project. To meet both objectives, ZOE combined them into one weekend.
Day One
Clint Black, the
Savage Worlds Core Rules Brand Manager for PEG, came in and ran an excellent
tutorial adventure set in the JourneyQuest universe with an all-orc cast of
Player Characters – continuing the tale of Rilk the Wise, Yart Flayschildren
and Grellnock Skullsplitter who are joined by three others of their clan: Drurt, Zeeba and Mooby. His adventure “It Ain’t Easy Being Green” was fantastic, fun, and extremely entertaining.
Participating in this
session were: Jesse Lee Keeter as Rilk, Christian Doyle as Yart, Matt Vancil as
Grellnock, PEG special guest Cheyenne Wright as Drurt, Aubrey Kehres as Zeeba, and
myself as Mooby.
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| Rilk |
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| Grellnock |
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| Yart |
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| Zeeba |
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| Drurt |
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| Mooby |
Day Two
With only the previous
day’s tutorial under his belt, Matt Vancil took the helm for the second session
and continued the tale of Rilk and company, this time picking up the trail of Glorion
the Orcslayer and into the underbelly of the Temple of All Dooms.
Participating in this
session were: Jesse Lee Keeter again as Rilk (for the first half of the
session), Samara Lerman as Rilk (for the second half), Luke Amundson
as Yart, Scott C. Brown as Grellnock, Clint Black as Drurt, Brian Lewis as
Zeeba, and myself again as Mooby.
Matt has committed to
writing a short story (or possibly a published RPG adventure) about the sessions at
some future date, which will become canon in the JQ universe. I’m intentionally not revealing the plot of the sessions so as to not spoil
any of his fun or the poetic licenses he may need to take to avoid literally exploding
his universe (I did hint a bit about Mooby in some fan fiction). Ben also recorded pieces of the sessions and a few snippets of
those may slip out in the future (such as the post-game discussion on the JQ2
Supporters DVD).
Was it worth it?
Quite honestly, when I
committed the pledge I was terrified that I would regret it. All sorts of
scenarios popped into my head: I’ve never met them, they’ve
never met me -- would this get weird? What if the session was only two-hours? on
and on. With these people, I shouldn’t have worried. Matt, Ben, and Clint are professionals and they went above and beyond my expectations, not
only making a fan feel welcome, but providing a lasting memory. The same holds for all the people I met -- they truly are a great community.
Finally, what I valued greatly from these sessions was to see a spark of collaboration kindle between PEG and ZOE (technically, between PEG and DG) in
what I’m hoping is the start of more. This was
the first time the cast and crew played Savage Worlds and they took to it like
green to an orc on a cloudless day.
Acknowledgements
Thank you to all the
Savages who pledge to the JQ2 kickstarter -- your support of both Savage Worlds and JourneyQuest made these sessions possible.
Thank you to Beau
Prichard, Tyler Hill, and Taylor Buhrman for Friday morning and afternoon –
Glitch is awesome and I cannot wait for the next season to happen.
Thank you to the all-star
players: Cheyenne Wright, Christian Doyle, Jesse Lee Keeter, Aubrey Kehres,
Brian Lewis, Samara Lerman, Luke Amundson and Scott C. Brown.
Thank you to DTwenty
Games (now Card Advantage Games) for the use of their spectacular venue and hospitality.
Thank you to my wife
for agreeing to let me go on this little journey.
And my most sincere
gratitude to Clint Black, Shane Hensley (for sending Clint), Ben Dobyns and
Matt Vancil for organizing this and truly cranking the fun dial to 11. Well
done, guys, well done.
