Last week, with the first installment of Golarion Day, I put out a call for everyone to start sending in ideas for future blog posts. Those requests are pouring in, but it's gonna take a few weeks for us to sort through them and match requests to the right content and all that. But keep the suggestions coming!
This week, though, I thought I'd show off a bit of my office Sandpoint campaign. This game's one of the largest I've ever run—the initial goal was to have it be a game that the entire editorial pit could take part in as a team-building exercise. But as we've hired more folks, and as friends of current players have joined, the size of the group has exploded into an intimidating group of nine players. The campaign itself is called The Shadow Under Sandpoint. You can check out the campaign journal over on our boards—it's generally only a few game sessions behind where we're at.
Illustration by John Gravato
One of the tricky things about such a large group, of course, is designing encounters that challenge the group. You can't just boost the CR of the bad guys and make them individually tougher, because that'll only mean that the bad guy will have a much better chance to kill a few PCs before he's defeated—you don't want to kill PCs in every fight, since that's a downward spiral. Instead, I've found that having one particularly tough boss monster surrounded by lots of less powerful minions works really well—gives everyone in the party someone to face off against, but also lets me have big key encounters with major bad guys.
Such was the case several months ago, when I knew the PCs were going up against the ghost of an infamous local murderer named Jervis Stoot. Old Stoot (known as Chopper back during the height of his murdering days) is part of Sandpoint's history, and those who've played in "Rise of the Runelords" have probably heard his name. He was never a villain in that Adventure Path, though, so that made him a perfect source for a logical foe for the PCs to face in this campaign.
So when I designed Stoot, I made him a ghost that would provide a challenge to the party (they were all about 4th or 5th level at the time), but who also had some built-in options to call upon allies. Giving him a new ghost ability that allows him to summon birds and command avians made sense (he was a Pazuzu cultist back in the day, after all!). The fight ended up playing out over two sessions—one atop the old light while Stoot had possessed the town sheriff, and then a second after they defeated the possessed sheriff and chased the ghost back to his island den to finish him off. In both cases, I threw in some bird swarms to help amp up the terror and mayhem, resulting in what normally would have been a CR 8 encounter, but when you have nine players, that's what you gotta do!
(And don't tell my players, but they've not seen the last of old Stoot's ghost yet! That's why I'm not listing the way in which you can permanently put Stoot to rest, after all...)
In any event, if any of you are playing a game set in Sandpoint, or if you're looking for a cool, flavorful ghost to use, I thought for today that I'd throw Stoot's stat block in for folks to check out. You'll note I did something a little weird with this ghost—he should normally only have two special ghost abilities, but I gave him three—corrupting touch, avian mastery, and malevolence. In order to balance things, I also gave him an additional weakness and nerfed his malevolence ability. In other words, feel free when you're making villains up for your home game to fiddle with the rules!
JERVAS STOOT CR 6 XP 2,400
Male human ghost rogue 5
CE Medium undead (incorporeal) Init +7; Senses darkvision 60 ft.; Perception +13
DEFENSE AC 19, touch 19, flat-footed 15 (+5 deflection, +3 Dex, +1 dodge) hp 61 (5d8+35) Fort +6, Ref +7, Will +2 Defensive Abilities channel resistance +4, evasion, incorporeal, rejuvenation, trapfinding, trap sense +1; Immune undead traits Weakness avians
OFFENSE Speed fly 30 ft. (perfect) Melee corrupting touch +6 (6d6; Fort. DC 17 half) Special Attacks avian mastery, malevolence 1/day (DC 17), sneak attack +3d6
STATISTICS Str —, Dex 16, Con —, Int 12, Wis 13, Cha 20 Base Atk +3; CMB +3; CMD 16 Feats Combat Reflexes, Dodge, Improved Initiative, Toughness Skills Bluff +11, Climb +8, Craft (woodcarving) +9, Craft (metalworking) +9, Escape Artist +11, Knowledge (local) +9, Knowledge (nature) +6, Perception +13, Sense Motive +9, Stealth +15 Languages Common, Thassilonian SQ fast stealth, surprise attack
SPECIAL ABILITIES Avian Mastery (Su) Stoot can command and influence all normal birds as if via dominate animal at will. He can control any number of birds within a 60-foot radius in this manner. Once per day, he may cast summon swarm as a spell-like ability to summon a swarm of crows (treat as a bat swarm sans the wounding ability). Weakness to Avians (Ex) Damage inflicted on Stoot from any avian's natural attacks is resolved as if he did not possess the incorporeal defensive ability. This includes creatures that have assumed the form of an avian.
James Jacobs
Creative Director
DISCLAIMER: I know how much fun some folks have checking our work on stat blocks, but since I'm more or less copy/pasting these stats directly from my campaign notes without going back to give them the same level of checking I'd give something going into print... there might be an error in there somewhere! (This is also an excuse for me to see how harrowing it is to format a stat block for a blog post... wish me luck!)
You've head the rumors. Now learn the truth from the journal of Howell, Tim Nightengale's character in James Jacobs's legendary Shadows Under Sandpoint campaign.
Entry from the travel journal of Howell B. Talbot III, Servant of Abadar 18 Pharast (late morning)
All praise the might and justice of Abadar!
A quick missive here, as we have met and vanquished the object of Styrian's obsession: the Sandpoint Devil!
I must say that the pictures and descriptions that Styrian has shown me do not convey its sheer horror. The wolf-horse devil was summoned by one of the ghouls that waylaid us inside the back passages of Kanker's lair, by means of a large spiraled horn. The devil's approach was marked by such a scream that both Zandu and Rummy-Tum-Tugger fled in fear, and its arrival was punctuated by a flash and explosion that left Velmarius blinded. The horror flew in over the summoned pit, and proceeded to vomit a flame over Vorn that left him with horrible burns.
A hound archon summoned by Balazar seemed to occupy the devil, while Ostog, Melga (now, where did she come from, and where is Hazel?), and I moved up to attack. It was then that I called upon the Justice and Glory of the Gold-Fisted One, and finally, after many a failed attempt at smiting evils on this mission, I buried Thundergütter deeply in the chest of the Sandpoint Devil, causing it a truly grievous wound, and doubly-so as I wrenched the axe free. Ostog, as always, delivered the killing blow. Unfortunately, the beast's final act was to spray us with its infernal breath, leaving Ostog and myself, along with Vorn, charred and bleeding despite all healing. And yet, the Sandpoint Devil is no more, reduced to a cleaned skull in the hands of the scholar that has tirelessly pursued it. Styrian tells me it belongs in a museum....
Reports are coming in of a doughty band of adventurers facing off against the legendary Sandpoint Devil in bloody battle beneath the stones of western Varisia. Could it be true that the infamous beast, cow killer and hermit spooker, has been slain? Tune back in next week for the full report.
Until then, gird your sanity as we page through the journal of that chronicler of terrors and outrages, Styrian Kindler.
Last Thursday an unlikely group of strangers gathered on the docks of Sandpoint, beginning what will doubtlessly be one of the most unfortunate misadventures in the usually peaceful town's history. This marks the beginning of the Paizo editorial pit's new biweekly Pathfinder RPG Campaign: James Jacobs's The Shadow Under Sandpoint! Watch the calamity unfold with ongoing character reports, missives, comments, journal entries, and sketches on the Shadow Under Sandpoint thread here.
And wish good luck to the people of Sandpoint—they're going to need it.
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