The Black Pyramid Campaign/Session 0

Details on the makeup of the expedition:
*Leadership and Specialists:
**Chief Scientist and Senior Occultist: Dr. Lungren - a well respected gnomish occultist who managed the astonishing feat of reaching his twilight years without ever seeing the inside of a padded cell (although he conversed with many resident colleagues in the Academy's Reality Rehabilitation Center by standing on a high chair and talking through the door bars).
**Senior Ethericist: Dr. Niels - a human scientist in the middle of his career, Dr. Niels is gambling heavily on this expedition. It may be a career-slumping distraction from the high theory practiced by his department, but unveiling a new etheric lane could mean a lofty place in the history books. Like most ethericists, he has a deep distaste for the Occult, which he considers a paltry attempt to achieve by smoke and mirrors the purity of understanding that comes with his discipline. Matters are not assisted by the serious rivalry between the Etheric and Occult departments, which boiled over into a bout of violence half a century ago when the Codex Exilium was stolen at around the same time as a string of deaths and disappearances in both departments — a whirlwind of mutual accusations ended in an embarrassing brawl resulting in three deaths from heart attacks due to overexertion.
**Senior Archaeologist: Dr. Jonessi - an elf of academic parentage whose father died defending a dig site from grave robbers. Dr. Jonessi has garnered attention as an advocate for the conservation of artifacts; though dismissed by many as a sentimentalist, a meaningful archaeological find on World A11 could give her the prestige to make her case more forcefully. The disaster that is the Gate Town scavenger community is a ready-made exhibit.
**Senior Physician and Engineer: Dr. Sera - the daughter of influential elvish aristocrats on Aeldrum, Dr. Sera defied convention by leaving the life of wealth and politics promised to her by birth to study at the Academy of Saldan. She has spent much of her career trying to find the great discovery that will surely demonstrate the value of science to her disapproving family. Unfortunately, her enthusiastic focus on Trans-Carnism (colloquially, Cyborging) has done little to convince her relatives that she is anything other than slightly insane. A recent lecture by the cosmically famous Mr. Royce Poindexter, one of the academy's most successful non-academic alumni, led Dr. Sera to consider drones as a feature of her research; this particular expertise, combined with her medical background, earned her a place on the expedition's command board.
**Chief of Hostile Asset Disposal: Marcel Rey - the expedition's resident antipersonnel operative, retained in the event that the party should encounter either hostile indigenous life or rival expeditions. The unspoken threat, however, is that Marcel may be the insurance policy of the Occult Department should things go terribly awry.
**Consultant for Archaeological Retrieval: Godehard Makiah - Frequently contracted by the Academy to obtain valuable artifacts from independent build sites, the expedition's Retrieval Consultant is a helpful means of bypassing 
*General Personnel:
**20 laborers w/ demolitions training, led by Jenkins the Foreman
**5 Saldanese Janissaries
**1 junior physician
**2 nurses
**3 auto mechanics
**1 troll, property of the Occult Department, retained by Dr. Lungren as a bodyguard
**3 human mercenaries, contracted to Dr. Niels (second and third contracts added after discovering that Dr. Lungren had brought along a troll: quote from memo to Head of the Etheric Department, Dr. Sulando: "If the gnome gets a fucking troll, I want enough guns to take it out.")
**2 graduate students: 1 employed by Dr. Jonessi, 1 employed by Dr. Niels
*Assets:
**2 Rolls Royce Armored Convertibles (1 w/ machine-gun mount)
**8 cargo trucks
**24 mules
**8 horses
**200 lbs dynamite
**Vast quantities of fuel
**2 years of food and 2 months of water
**100 cases of tea cakes (reserved for expedition leadership)
**20 boxes of cigars (reserved for expedition leadership)
**20,000 ft. of rope
**30 Schulz-pattern rifles
**200 boxes of ammo (100 rounds each)
**30 mining kits
Category:Session Summaries