The Prodigal Son

Game Master doggziller


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Orna level up results:

+9 HP
+1 Reflex Save
Channels 1d6 -> 2d6
Gained Feat: Extra Channel (+2 Channels per day)

MAGIC
Now gets following casts/day:
3 L1 spells + 1 Domain spell
2 L2 spells + 1 Domain spell
Gained Level 2 Luck Domain spell: Aid
Gained Level 2 Travel Domain spell: Locate Object


XP AWARDZ!
Kat gets 1700 XP
Puku gets 1700 XP
Apparicio gets 2100 XP
Orna gets 1300 XP
Melthorpe gets 800 XP


Orc Barbarian 3

The darkened sea-cave echoed eerily with Puku's soft waiata. He was lamenting the fate of Bess, a Dwarven lady he had briefly known aboard the good ship Skippebble. She had vanished beneath the waves in the tentacled clutches of the dastardly Grindyloch only to emerge this night as a frightful Drowner! Such a fate, thought the Orc, to be defiled and twisted in such a way as to return from the dead and accost your once comrades.

After the fight against the Grindyloch and their Drowner pets, Puku had gathered Bess's mangled corpse, and enshrouding it in his tattered red shirt, he built her a cairn from the multitude of rocks within the cave.
He placed one green hand on her covered head as he finished his mournful dirge and finally entombed the corpse with a flat stone across the top of the cairn. Hopefully Bess would find peace amongst her ancestors in the afterlife, wherever it was that Dwarves gathered across the veil of death.

He couldn't help but think of his precious Druzilla, also a Dwarf, back home in Woodenhead. Silently he asked of his ancestors to watch over her and keep her from horror such as this.

"Might be those little fvckers DO have our mates, Orto, Lenny and them." Puku muttered to the otherss as they rested fitfully in the dark. "Might be they dont, but we gotta check eh. We get rid of those cvnts and might be we can get away from this cursed place."

Puku cautiously wandered down to the tidepool to wash off the muck of battle and clean the wounds raked across his chest. He didn't care too much for squeezing himself through the rocks to get at those fiends, Orna had said she had trouble fitting through that gap and she was small as. He stared into the dark pool and wondered if there was perhaps another route...

Puku knew of lava tunnels such as those in the cliffs around Fenrir's crag and Ruapekapeka. He was curious as to the depth of this pool...did he touch the bottom when he done that choice as rastan mangere into it? If not can he do a sounding with his grappling hook?


Play report 6/8/14 & 13/8/14

Puku roused the rest of the party at low tide as had been agreed. It was still about two hours before dawn. Orna gave her morning reading from the Book of Daily Inspiration ( I don't remember who was affected, thought I noted this but can't find it - please post if you have it recorded ). Puku bathed in the tidepool and received some healing via the Balm of the Ocean - he also managed to find some trash that had been thrown in there by previous occupants of the cave.

As the group breakfasted on raw fish and mussels, they discussed their next move. There was not much initial consensus.

* Orna donned the battered tricorne of Captain Saltpepper and offered to scout out the tiny passage at the back of the cave, with a view to tracing the Grinne-dyloch back to their lair and hopefully rescuing the Captain or other possible survivors from the Skippebble.

* Melthorpe was also keen for a rescue attempt, but preferred to travel overland in the hope of picking up the trail of the dwarves who slew Chorster and kidnapped Marven.

* Adlin proposed to gather material, build a raft and strike out for the mainland at the earliest opportunity.

* The youth Rickas sat glumly and did not offer an opinion, but he clearly seems to take his cue from Adlin.

Kat and Der Schrecken managed to convince Adlin that setting to sea on a raft in such rough, monster-haunted waters, with nary a sailor among them, would be a recipe for a doomful end. He reluctantly backed away from his ultimatum once it became clear he did not have support.

Orna, however, would not be dissuaded and insisted on delving further into the cave. Der Schrecken decided to go ahead of her - clambering awkwardly among the rocks, down on all fours with the stone pressing in from all sides, he reached a pinch point where he realised he would need to crawl on his belly to progress further. Pressing his cheek to the stone, he peered through the gap. He enchanted a pebble to cast light and threw it through the gap - as it bounced down the tunnel he could see it opened up again a few feet ahead. He also saw a glistening layer of slime on the floor, and, flaring his nostrils, caught the anchovy stink of Grinne-dyloch.

The instant after he discerned the danger, there was a flurry of movement beyond the pinch point and a jellyfish was lobbed back through the gap in answer - it smacked into Der Schrecken's face, but by good fortune its tendrils did not touch his eyes, mouth, or other mucus tissue - he felt just a mild burning irritation at the base of his facial scales. Pulling the pulpy mass from his face in disgust, he and Orna retreated with alacrity.

Having verified that the tunnel contained the obvious ambush that the less optimistic party members had expected, Kat then argued that they should try to find Lenny & Orto, those two sailors who had set off from the Skippebble in the pinnace to resupply the miners camp, well before disaster struck. Adlin reminds her that they never arrived that the miners saw, and is pessimistic as to their fate. If neither ship-wrecked nor dead, he argues, they will be long gone, for they are no fools.

Pressed against his will into hypotheticals, Adlin conceded that if they were still on the island, they might perhaps have put in at a smuggler's cove on the eastern shore. The group decided to circumnavigate the island around the northern side, avoiding the route back past the southern, open-side of the crater, where the Titanic Thing had passed on its way out to sea, and to keep an eye out for traces of the dwarves that Melthorpe was so hot to pursue.

They clambered up the rope and into the pre-dawn gloom. It was raining fairly heavily and made for miserable travelling. As they made their way north, Adlin remembered an unusual ship-wreck he had seen months before, further up the coast. If it was still intact, he argued, it might be worth exploring for the chance to salvage ship-worthy timber and tools or maybe, by grace of fortune, even a row-boat. The group agreed this would be worth a side trip.

As they hiked through the scrub, Puku noticed a broken branches that suggested others may have come this way, though due to the rain he was not able to find a real trail to follow.

The dawn was obscured by the overcast skies, but as it lightened, the group passed east of a wide pit near the cliff's edge. An interesting geological feature, but they elected not to investigate it.

Approaching a headland, they could see a broken spire of rock a few hundred feet off-shore from the point, which was probably once connected to the rest of the island. Oddly though, they could see a variety of vegetation growing on the natural shelves and ledges of the rock, none of which appeared to grow on Yellow Isle itself. Fat, bulbous fruit nestled among black, thorny vines in one spot, elsewhere a huge fleshy blossom sprouted almost horizontally out of the cliffside. It was unnaturally diverse. Adlin allowed that this was quite peculiar but claimed not to have really noticed in the past.

Rounding the headland, they could see the wreck Adlin had mentioned far below. A vessel of about 100' length appeared to have been driven up by wild seas and wedged between two spurs of rocks just off-shore. It was of an unrecognised design, with a fearsome spiked bronze ram on the prow, and a three-tiered pagoda to the stern, the whole thing tilted on about a 30 degree angle, so that the bow was aloft, and the stern lapped by the waves.

With the tide still mostly out, it seemed easy enough to wade out there. The group made their way carefully down the cliffs and across the thigh-deep water, leaving Adlin & Rickas to keep watch for new threats from the mainland (Rickas' patent fear and reluctance to venture out to the wreck was a politely unacknowledged factor in this arrangement).

The prow of the ship loomed above the party as they approached. Getting closer, they could see the railings and other features near the ram had been carved with representations of narwhals, albatrosses, krakens and other such potent animals, though much of this work was damaged. Seeing no easy way up, they moved around the landward side and found a spot where a piece of the broken mast was hanging down, tangled in great snarls of rigging. This seemed a climbable spot and Puku started heading up. Der Schrecken, ever at ease clinging to a cliffside, took a more difficult route up the rock spur to gain a vantage over the deck of the ship, easily overtaking Puku. He could see the deck was strewn with detritus - tangles of rope, smashed timbers and barrels, lengths of canvas torn and flapping in the breeze. About 30' back from the bow is a big crack in the deck where the ship seems to be beginning to break in two, though from his vantage he can't perceive much of the deck below. There are no clear signs of life or danger.

THEN MIKEY'S INNERNET FUKKED OUT FOR THE LAST TIME! THE END


Orc Barbarian 3
Orna wrote:
Orna gave her morning reading from the Book of Daily Inspiration

"WHOOOOOOOOAH! Buzzy!" Gasped Puku as Orna's robust nuggets of truth sunk into the grimy slop of his mind.

Brobarian Puku thinks that sh!t is DEEP and is well affected!


Hey pals... gonna write up the past two sessions prolly tomorrow.
In the meantime I have made a little diagram of the shipwreck on the roll20 page, if you log into the Prodigal Son campaign you can see where known doors/hatches are and what parts of the wreck remain unexplored.

Scroll down just below the artwork.


Play Report 2/9/2014

Der Schrecken sprang from his handholds on the rock spur across to the top deck, alert for danger. As Puku clambered up the snarled rigging, he took in his surroundings. There were no immediate signs of trouble. The deck was a mess of shattered timbers, rope and canvas. The rain pooled in folds in the canvas, stained green and brown from stagnant water. To the bow there were steps leading down to a iron-reinforced door with a heavy lock. To the aft the was a door leading into the 3-tier pagoda structure, and amidships there was hatch near the broken stump of the mast.

Near the bow there was a rift clean across the deck where the ship seems to be slowly breaking apart, the bow dragged down by the weight of the ram. D.S. hopped across this and kept watch while Puku finished his climb. They then threw a rope down for Kat, who was uncertain of her ability to make the climb due to the extreme gluteal cramping she had recently been experiencing after a Grinne-dyloch had stabbed her in the arse with some kind of shellfish.

Kat lassoed herself into an improvised harness and waited patiently while Puku started hauling her up (like a school production of Peter Pan). Melthorpe began the tricky climb up the rigging, and Orna looked around for dolphins while she awaited her turn.

At that point, D.S. noted a shape stirring beneath the canvas on the other side of the deck. He interposed himself between it and Puku, who could not take action without letting go of the rope, and Kat on the other end of it. A strange humanoid form crawled out from beneath the canvas and drunkenly lurched to its feet - its skin was covered in thick horizontal bands, gray-green and mottled like snakeskin. Other than that it looked like an orc, clad in the ragged remnants of a sailor's slops. It looked at Der Schrecken with sad eyes and said something - a dialect of Orcish dissimilar from his own, but he could hazard it was some phrase of surrender... the creature approached D.S. with arms wide and welcome - our Fabulous Fishman, bemused by the whole situation, decided to go along with as the thing moved in for a hug. At the last moment, a vertical seam in its torso split open, revealing a revolting giant chiton foot in glistening pink & yellow. It glommed onto D.S. with fearsome force and he felt a wash of pain and disgust as its grotesque little radula rasped against his chest, even as it continued to murmur Orcish capitulations in his ear-hole.

As D.S. grappled with the chiton-orc, Puku hauled on the rope as quick as he could, and after several seconds more got Kat up to the railing. But as he joined the fray, another strangely mutated orc charged from the pagoda, this one half-crab, the whole musculutare of its body lop-sided and twisted by the giant pincer replacing one arm. It had nothing to say, for its mouth was become a nest of whirring palps and maxillae. It slammed square into the startled Puku and sent him tumbling back through the broken gap in the deck and down to the underdeck below.

Kat and Melthorpe now joined the battle against the Chiton and the Fiddler Crab, while belowdecks Puku got to his feet and took in his grim surroundings. Two rows of rowing benches stretched sternwards before him, and behind him was a door leading afore and down. From the jumble of bones and fetters strewn about, it was clear this had been a slave galley. At once he saw a blur of motion and felt a sting of pain in his cheek - another of the twisted orcs was down here, perhaps the former slave-driver, now half-jellyfish and the master of a wicked stinging lash! Strangely, once again the orc-thing muttered piteous, hopeful non sequitirs in an Orcish dialect even as it pressed the attack.

Though surprised and horrified by their strange foes, our heroes reached for the steel within and found it - overcoming the trio of terrors, though not before Melthorpe had been half-killed, lifted from his feet and dumped on his head by a single blow from the Fiddler Crab's monstrous pincer.

The enemy's equipment was mostly tattered trash, but D.S. found and donned a magic necklace on the Fiddler Crab - it was the Necklace of Thunderstones.

Puku was leery of the Jellyfish's lash and left it where it lay, but he brought back a couple of oars that were in sound condition, though the long handle and blade would likely need to be cut shorter. (He left these on the main deck to grab up before leaving).

Meanwhile, Orna had finally made her way up to deck, having struggled with the climb due to her height. She healed Melthorpe and the party elected to explore the pagoda structure next. As they moved towards the stern, they noticed damage to the woodwork seemingly caused by the blows of an axe. They successfully snuck into the cabin at the base of the pagoda and observed another orc-thing, naked but for boots and a bicorne hat, perched on the edge of a ruined bed and poking at the mattress with a savage cleaver-like blade with a sawtooth edge. Its skin was a pallid gray, thick and clammy, and covered in strange bumps. Its eyes were large, spaced wide apart and bulbous to the point of swelling beyond the socket. Its mouth was tiny any pinched, the size of a baby's, and without lips, like a little slot in its face.

D.S., Puku and Kat all rushed into the room and attacked, scribbling the creature with wounds. However, once they surrounding it, it suddenly puffed up into a 10' sphere, knocking back our heroes and skewering them with poisonous spines. Both D.S. & Puku were sickened by the poison, Puku most greviously. However the enemy was vulnerable in its bloated state and they cut it to bits almost immediately after, Kat finishing the thing off with a Ray of Frost to its exposed heart as it slumped against Puku like a mauled rag-doll.

The explored the cabin and found a sea-chart of the local area with some annotations in Orcish, a log-book that seems to be mostly written in Common, a fine spy-glass and the funny-looking Armour of Vigilance which Kat excitedly donned (missed opportunity for me to have a greebly burst into the room while she had her pants down but, maybe next time).
The Fugu's weapon was also slightly magical - a Hackblade that would never grow dull. It does extra damage and has a chance to cause Bleed damaage, but is poorly balanced, and harder to wield than most weapons - the party gave it into Melthorpe's keeping.

At the stern of the ship DS found a rowboat, which sadly had been badly damaged by the Fugu and his compulsive chopping at things with the Hackblade.

DS and Kat realised they could sense a powerful magic aura emmitting from the second level of the pagoda - something ancient and abyssal, redolent of the midnight deeps of the sea. Something... possibly worth a lot of money. So, the group made a plan for Kat to burst into the room from the floor-hatch while DS climbed in from the outside. Unfortunately this did not really come off as the interior of the cabin seemed to have been lined with some kind of brittle, chalky stone in ridged and swirling patterns. Kat wasted a Potion of Cat's Grace before realising she couldn't get the hatch open because this stuff had grown over it - she practiced one-handed cartwheels on the main deck while Puku laboriously busted through with the aid of a crowbar. Weakened by the Fugu poison, he elected to hang back and DS entered the cramped and eerie space within. Not an inch of wood was still showing. There were a number of large holes in the walls, floor and ceiling - DS spied a soft, fist-size knot of flesh poking out one of these holes and bulls-eyed it with an Acid Splash. It recoiled and he could here something moving around inside the walls. This did not suit him, so he left, and the party regrouped in Captain Fugu's cabin to consider their next move.


Play Report 29/10/2014

Apologies in advance for vagueness or anything incorrect in this post, I didn't take proper notes at the last session and it was a while ago...

Our heroes were optimistic that the heavy, padlocked door that led belowdecks at the bow was heavy and padlocked for a lucrative reason. So, they set to, and after unbundling the thieves' tools and much cracking of knuckles, found that the padlock sprang open with a simple twist.

Disappointingly easy! Natural 20 on the lock pick if I recall...

The door swung open into a small armory - but the first thing Der Schrecken noticed was a huge spiny conch shell, larger than a man, which dominated the room. Der Schrecken closed the door and the group hastily conferred - they had little doubt that this was another of the strangely afflicted Orcish sailors. They resolved to give it the bash - in the meantime though it seems that thing wedged itself up against the door, and Puku had to take to the door with a crowbar to get it open.

Peeping out from beneath the lip of the shell was a hunched and crusty-skinned orc, with a large sea anemone sprouting from the flesh of one arm and a hatchet gripped in the other. It teetered under the cumbersome shell as it closed to attack.

Its shell was tough to crack, but the prowess of our heroes was equal to the task, and the thing was destroyed just as its other shipmates had before.

The armory was stocked with fairly trash weapons (spears, axes, cutlasses) but of more interest was a weighty bow somewhere between a heavy crossbow and a ballista. From his military training, Melthorpe recognised this as a siege bow, designed to be fired from a mount or by a man reclining on his back (since typically the only way to draw the bow solo is by lying down with your feet braced against the arms.

Such bows are typically used to fire grapples into stonework when assaulting fortifications, or sometimes by monster hunters against thick-hided quarry. Accordingly, there was a rope winch and two grapples which appear to be made to fit the bow. Also, nine long, heavy bolts, broad-headed and barbed.

Unfortunately the string for the siege bow is rotted and rusted and will need to be replaced before the bow can be used (it appears to have been made of corded gut and metal wire). Melthorpe elected to take it with him nevertheless.

Beneath the armory the part found a quartermaster's store, well-stocked - here the was another cursed orc, this one aspected to the starfish, and as such, splayed motionless against the wall. He greeted Puku in a dialect of Orcish, somewhat more sensibly than others, and through Puku's halting translation they learned a few things. Though plainly unhinged and given to tuneless humming between speech, the Starfish explained that the crew had been cursed by an ocean spirit of some sort, known as the Green Lady. Their captain had cut an unspecified deal with the Green Lady, and the ship had travelled to an island infested with cannibalistic halflings, ultimately succeeding in retreiving an artefact on the Lady's behalf. They then sailed back to the Yellow Isle to fulfil the deal. However there seems to have been some kind of betrayal on the part of the First Mate who hid the artefact and refused to hand it over when they met with the Green Lady's "emmissary". It came to blows between the first mate and captain but the patience of their eldritch client was exhausted - the Lady's curse was upon them, a huge wave wrecked their ship upon the rocks and the crew were transformed into what the things they are now - corrupted grotesques, driven mad by a longing for the release of death which is ever denied them.

The Starfish made some alarming statements to the effect that any slain crew-members are returned to their parody of life "when the tide rises", which gave our heroes some concern - they elected not to waste time rifling through the supplies in the quartermaster's store, as the tide is rising already.

Puku was moved by the Starfish's tale and encouraged the others to attempt to lift the curse by finding the artefact on the ship and completing the deal with the Green Lady.

The Starfish had indicated that the believed he First Mate had been locked in the archer's tower above the captain's cabin before the supernatural wave hit their ship, so the party returned abovedecks to take another look at that mysteriously encrusted room.
Arriving at the deck however they encountered a harpy with the gray and white plumage of a seabird (perhaps it had been attracted by the hooting and hollering of a certain character in an earlier session?) It ensorcelled most the party with it's spooky song but greed got the better of it and it ceased its chant to try to carry Orna away in its claws. This did not go well for the harpy and it flew off with many wounds upon it - and then a beautiful long shot from Puku's bow dropped in it the drink like a sack of sh!t.

That's where the session ended...

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