The Waking Rune PFS (Inactive)

Game Master James Martin

Nienna moves up, while Exiel smashes into Karzoug! The longspear audibly weeps and wails as it smashes into its former master! Karzoug snarls, blood pouring from his wounds! Ralph's fireball explodes a moment later! Krune Reflex: 1d20 + 13 ⇒ (18) + 13 = 31 and Mothman Reflex: 1d20 + 10 ⇒ (4) + 10 = 14

In the distance, a lonesome song begins to play. The mothman is gone, destroyed or departed, you cannot tell. Krune stands, barely, in the middle of the scorched hallway. Dried blood from cauterized wounds stain his robes. He glances up at all of you, his eyes meeting yours briefly. His eyes burn with a force of personality so fierce you almost expect him to defy death. In broken gasps, he utters a phrase in Thassalonian*. And falls, as gentle music plays.

In the sanctum of a Runelord you stand, breathing in the air that is now free of Krune's influence. A silence fills the halls, broken only by your footsteps and breathing. Krune, the Runelord of Sloth, ruler of Xin-Haruka, has fallen.

Alden cheers his comrades and their fantastic abilities! "We've performed very well today, my friends!"
He will ride over to Krune's body, give it an extra stab from his lance for good measure, and search the body for TREASURE!

Krune's body holds boots of speed, wand of acid arrow (CL 9th, 23 charges), wand of summon monster 3 (12 charges), belt of physical perfection +4, pearl of power (8th), periapt of proof against poison, ring of freedom of movement, ring of spell turning, 1000 gp of diamond and granite dust, spell component pouch

WOOT!

I'll let you roleplay out the aftermath, but Krune has fallen. You possess his spear, which weeps loudly, and his rod, which does not. His servants are dead. The place is explored. I think we can call this one pretty much done! I'm having issues with connectivity at work, but I hope to have that figured out tomorrow. I will put chronicle sheets together and send them off. In the meantime, roll day jobs if you have them!

day job (handle animal from farmstead vanity): 1d20 + 21 ⇒ (8) + 21 = 29

Exiel heaves a sigh of relief as the fires and the runelord around him die down.

"That...went alot more smoothly than I expected! I suppose it helped that we knew exactly what tools we needed to deprive him of. And we managed to pressure him hard from the beginning so he had no time to raise any defences or summon creatures to his aid." He nods to Lavode. "My thanks for the wards you cast, by the way. Between Ralph and 42, I would've been turned into a roasted gargoyle by now if not for your spell."

"And thank YOU, my new overly-loquacious stabbing implement. Oh do pipe down, none of us get a word you're saying anyway. You've performed admirably though. Especially that stab a short while ago. I shall make sure your contribution to Krune's demise is immortalised in the annals of history," Exiel laughs as he thumps the base of the noisy spear on the ground.

Can I get a special note on my chronicle that I crit-smited Krune with his own spear? =D

will save again: 1d20 + 20 ⇒ (20) + 20 = 40

Ok, seriously? What's with all these 20s flying about? Is the dice-roller broken or something? XD

Day job roll (Diplomacy with Caravan): 1d20 + 25 ⇒ (1) + 25 = 26 (Glad I still have my re-roll)
Day job re-roll (Diplomacy with Caravan): 1d20 + 25 ⇒ (17) + 25 = 42

Can you also note that I will use this to mark of my "Earn at least 100 gp as the result of a Day Job check." objective for my faction journal card? =)

brewing something that might explode: 1d20 + 15 ⇒ (16) + 15 = 31

What happened to making it difficult? :3 I feel the same way, since i was the last GM...

"Let us report our success to the nearest Lodge. And see what they can do about quieting the racket of that weapon."

What happened to making it difficult? :3

Heh. It was alot of things that came together so that Krune started off on the back-foot, and with some very lucky rolls we were able to keep constant pressure on him so he never got the chance to raise his defences or summon allies. My only disappointment is that we never got to see what he was actually capable of, but then part of good strategy is making sure that the enemy never gets to bring their big guns to the table in the first place. XD

Funny thing is there's a thread going on about how high initiative is over-rated, but it occurs to me that if Krune had gotten even one round of actions before us to buff or summon, this whole fight probably would have gone very, very differently.

The sad part is the adventure calls for him to basically show up and not knowing who you are, call out to you as if he was your lord and savior reborn. If he came in hot, things might be different. Also, taking out his runes really did lower his defenses and abilities a great deal. And the enervation crits were a very lucky, well thought out strategy that came together to make him have to go on the defensive.

Yeah, if i didn't have the fire resistance, 42 would have killed himself.

The sad part is the adventure calls for him to basically show up and not knowing who you are, call out to you as if he was your lord and savior reborn. If he came in hot, things might be different. Also, taking out his runes really did lower his defenses and abilities a great deal. And the enervation crits were a very lucky, well thought out strategy that came together to make him have to go on the defensive.

Sounds like if he wasn't so lazy he could have also been the runelord of pride. LOL.

Although he had gambled (successfully) on his fireball being enough to take down the runelord, Ralph finds himself almost disappointed in the aftermath of the battle. He had with some trepidation hoped to see some truly potent spells employed this day, yet the most potent one he saw had been his own. (My dazing intensified empowered fireball is a level nine equivalent.)

"It appears Krune's sloth was his own undoing. Compared to the reports of what Karzoug had prepared, this was pathetic. Granted we didn't give Krune time to cast any potent spells, but his failure was in allowing us to get to a point where we could do that in the first place. It looks like this was as much as we could expect from the weakest of the runelords."

"Good job, everyone. Everyone's contributions to this victory were invaluable, and to take down even the weakest of the runelords is no mean feat."

Did Krune even have 9th level spells? I am quite certain he didn't have summon monster 9 prepared, otherwise you would have had him cast it. Two of the summon options at that level actually have restoraton. And can I ask what the runes we disabled actually did? And what about the artifacts? What do they do?

"Many thanks, Lavode - your spells made this adventure much easier."

Nienna pats the wailing spear on it's shaft and whispers in Thassalonian: "There, there, little one. You will meet many powerful casters inside the lodge. Perhaps you should make the acquaintance of Paracountess Zarta Dralneen..."

Day Job - Craft Miniatures: 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (4) + 6 = 10

Ok, ok, I got the hint...at the end of the scenario, Ralph will buy a scroll of communal protection from energy and scribe it into his spellbook...
spellcraft to scribe: 1d20 + 18 ⇒ (12) + 18 = 30

And before I forget:
day job craft alchemy: 1d20 + 23 ⇒ (13) + 23 = 36

Good thinknig Ralph.

42 offers his spellbook to Ralph, seeing if he can use any of the spells from his book. In return, he asks to see Ralph's book.

Ralph nods at 42's suggestion, although he will wait till they are back at the lodge before swapping spells.

Scribing frostbite and ray of exhaustion, can't fail the checks. Alot of your nice spells are magus-only.

Ralph returns to the altar that they saw earlier and looks into the bowl of crystal shards, picking out the crystals with the symbols corresponding to each of the gathered pathfinder and handing them out accordingly.

How do these crystals work?

knowledge arcana: 1d20 + 29 ⇒ (11) + 29 = 40

Your welcome to any assistance I can provide. It's what I do.
.
Yeah, I'm learning to really like the communal defensive buff spells. I no longer have to try and decide which guy will get blasted or which guy can make the best use of an extra +3 to hit and damage.

I'll take 10 on my spellcrafts. That will be sufficient.

Each Rune you destroyed, in tier 10-11, had a cumulative effect. Each one expended one of his spells, including 2 quickened summon monster V's, a quickened wall of stone, foresight, an empowered summon monster VI, quickened summon monster IV and quickened black tentacles. He could have cast summon monster IX, but you stole his bonded item, the spear, making life interesting for Krune. And then you bumped his caster level from a reduced 14, due to the destroyed runes, to 4...

He hates your dice. I do, too.

The cystals are much like a reversed summon charm: break the one inscribed with the same symbol as the charm that brought you here and it returns you to the same place.

Alden will be buying at least one (probably two) wands of cure light wounds for the next scenario. No longer will we be left without between-combat healing! I'm also trying to come up with something that will let him deal real damage when need be (he's not at all built for it, obviously). Not sure what it would be though. Any suggestions?

Lavode, do you have a day job?

Sorry, nope. Lavode doesn't have a day job.

He could have cast summon monster IX, but you stole his bonded item, the spear, making life interesting for Krune.

This actually made me literally laugh out loud. Exiel's player did the same to Karzoug in my Rise of the Runelords game, but we weren't sure if Krune would also use his intelligent weapon as his bonded item.

And then you bumped his caster level from a reduced 14, due to the destroyed runes, to 4...

I was going to guess that it was down to 7, which is still enough time for summons to do some serious damage in. I wonder whether any of the people who played this just ignored the runes in the outside area. So many hints were given to us at the start. Moral of the story, pay attention to mission briefings.

We still had a few backup plans. I had two more spells to help Exiel full attack Krune. Telekinetic charge to literally throw Exiel at him and summoner conduit so that even if Krune summoned a big monster and ran, we could still kill him by killing his summoned monster. And if all of that failed, I still had my antiamgic scroll. But the lucky crits meant that we didn't even need them. :)

Ralph analyses the course of the battle and smiles contentedly. When all their enemies have been looted and the chambers stripped of everything valuable that isn't nailed or sovereign-glued down, he addresses the group.

"Alright, it's been little over five minutes since we came here. Let's give the venture captains and the Decemvirate a nice surprise by returning early. These crystals should return us to Sheila Heidmarch's study when you break them. Exiel, would you kindly bring Krune's body with you? And that wind-bag of a spear of course. Lavode, you have the rod? Good. Well then, ladies and gentlemen. If everyone is ready."

Ralph places his crystal on the floor and crushes it under the heel of his boot.

Those quickened spells would have made a difference too... Glad you had a tricked out knowledge arcana score. It looks like we won half the battle before it even started by getting rid of those runes.

Exiel obligingly picks up Krune's corpse (after checking to make sure that he is well and truly dead), and then, with Krune over his left shoulder and the spear in his right hand, brings the butt of the spear down on the crystal that Ralph handed to him.

42 dusts off some of the ash that has fallen onto his glamored armor. "Well, that was a good warm-up. Who want to go fight a dragon?"

Alden and Naala follow along, ready to head back and report.

Exiel grins.

"Well, I had been saving some of Torag's wrath for a nasty summoned-creature, but since nothing of the sort appeared, I'm still good for another round... Let's see what else the society's upper echelons have in store for us, eh?"

Lavode grins, I could go for some dragon steaks.
crunch

Once more there is a swirl of magic and you find yourselves back in the study of Sheila Heidmarch. Ambrus Valsin paces, while the masked Decemvirate member stands impassive and still as a statue.

When you appear, Sheila lets out a gasp that turns into a cry of triumph when she sees you both all live and you carry the corpse and tools of a Runelord! "Praise the gods! Please, please, tell me everything! Ambrus, fetch a scribe, please! This tale absolutely MUST go in the Chronicles!"

Thus passes adventure into legend. When the next volume of the Pathfinder Chronicles is printed, a tale will be told of the fall of the Runelord Krune, of the folly of overconfidence, and of the brave souls who did what time and cataclysm could not: they brought low a mighty Runelord.

Can you put this into inactive please :)