Okay so after a long slump of no gaming I got a new group together, there are 3 core players, myself and two others. Both of the others Grey and Kris, are new players to the game, I got them involved in the Beta playtest and we are now running the final rules. As of right now we are running through Skinsaw murders, but I'm going to do some backtracking and try and post as much as I remember so that this is a complete story journal, I love talking about the game so if you read this and would like to comment or suggest things please feel free, even if you are not involved in my game because I often fountain off of ideas others give me.

First off the houserules for our campaign.

Now the Characters

Landon LG Human Sorcerer 1
An outspoken magician with a slight flair for the dramatic, easily liked and very likable

Mal N Elf Ranger 1
A quiet, somewhat introverted man, he is nonetheless very faithful to his allies always ready to step in and take the blows of the enemy whenever needed.

Raid on Sandpoint: The characters had quite a lot of fun, they learned a bit about golarion gods watching the parade. Got to sample food from the different hotels in the area, and were watching the ceremonies as the goblins attacked. Belor having been giving a speech a little bit earlier was also in the square and the three kinda wound up joining forces the two PCs naturally following behind the sheriff. They managed to make it through the fight relatively safely. Very heroic even working to push the flaming cart (despite the heat and damage) into an open area where it wouldn't burn anything while people formed a bucket line to put out the fire. They also rescued Aldern who invited them on a boar hunt.

Boar Hunt: So I decided to play this out and have the players actually fight a boar. Aldern was with them and actually made decent use of his javelins. Boars are tough with that ferocity feature. The players not competent horsemen had decided to go on foot, which may have been a bad idea if you know anything about boars. The boar after taking an acid splash charged Landon and after one or two gores he went down. Mal and Aldern manage to take down the boar and Mal stabilized Landon and used a makeshift stretcher to cart Landon back to town for healing. I made a big deal over it since they fought a tough CR creature and they wound up getting it weighed at the hagfish and getting their names in the record book as the people who caught the largest boar in sandpoint adding to their reputations as heroes.

In the interim before the glassworks the heroes when getting their boar weighed were invited back to the hagfish to try the challenge, Mal the one seen as tougher threw up the water, but Landon to everyones surprise managed to hold it down and add his name to the board of people who beat the challange. Mal got involved with Ven Vinders daughter and failed every check running out of the store with his shirt off and leading to be known as a womanizer in town :) This reputation had only been increased by his drunken one night stand with one of the less attractive waitresses at the hagfish earlier lol.

Glass works:So as a bit of backstory, Landon had been playing the field having a hard time deciding between pursuing Ameiko and Rynshin. So when Ameiko got kidnapped he immediately went to the glassworks with Mal not even taking the time to find the guards, they did however come across two, and they sent one guard down to the garrison to get more guards (Belor of course being gone) while the they take the one guard with them into their investigation. They stayed hidden in the glassworks when they saw the goblins for a while and when a half elf appeared they decided it was time to take action (previous interogation with captured goblins revealed at least one "pointy eared longshanks" had been involved in the attack on sandpoint) So they charge in, and in the fight Tsuto takes down the guard they are with, and tries to get Mal before taking some damage and going running downstairs (acrobatics to avoid AoOs then second move action while Mal and Landon go to try and heal the guard who has already died). So Landon and Mal go after Tsuto and follow him into the tunnel. Now because of the way they chose to go, the first door they investigated had the tunnel to the catacombs of wrath. Which they take after a survival check to find out tsuto did come this way. Unfortunately they didn't bother to search the other rooms leaving Ameiko tied up in the basement, luckily the guards they sent for earlier came and found her while Landon and Mal were getting their asses handed to them by a sinspawn. When Ameiko found out that Landon could have saved her but instead of saving her went after her brother, it made her put him into the "Friend Zone". In the meantime the sinspawn actually took Mal down but Landon had run back and got the guards and rushed them back down the tunnel to save him. They defeated the sinspawn and grabbed Mals unconcious body taking him back to the glassworks where they sent for the healer. Mal and Landon decide after some healing to hold off having guards guard the entrance to the tunnel so they could go in. At this point they hit level 2.

Catacombs of Wrath So the next day saw the arrival of Belor back to sandpoint with his green guards (it really was a coincidence of timing that the glassworks happened the day before he got back, the party being busy with roleplaying stuff). So the guys get Belor to join them for the trip into the catacombs, and having heard and spoken with Deverin Hosk at the goblin squash stables, they knew he could kick some goblin ass so they asked him to come along as well. So they go down into the glassworks and fight some sinspawn, and some zombies, Deverin at this point grumbling about how their fighting monsters not goblins. After the encounter with the vargouilles attack (Mal gets kissed and fails his save), Deverin chickens out and says he's had enough and that if they want to fight goblins he'll join em, but that he's not getting killed by monsters in a bunch of caves. Leaving Belor, Mal, and Landon to make their way into the dungeon to fight Nualia. Who proceeds to whoop their buts, after they get Belor's sword shattered, and the sinspawn do damage, they manage to kill off the sinspawn, but not until loosing one of Landon's ears to a crit fumble. Leaving Nualia who can't hurt them too much, but is almost impossible to hit. (Being new players they weren't thinking of using CMBs, so to help them out I had Belor do it to give them the idea) Once Belor grabbed Nualia, Mal assisted in drowning her.

The players afterwards go to sell off their treasure, Nualia's dagger of course being more expensive than the towns GP limit meant they couldn't sell it, but I allowed Landon to roll a diplomacy check to trade it for Vansaya since he wanted the crossbow. Then as they were leaving the timing struck and Mal had his first step in the transformation into Vargouille. It got bad, the players didn't know what to do and started running around like chickens with their heads cut off, before thinking after the problem progressed further (to the point where he had sprouted bat wing ears and tentacles freaking out the people of town) of seeing the priest.

Normally there is no way to stop varguiolle transformation, but since we only had two players, I'm not a fan of save or dies as much. Four players I wouldn't have minded, but just two, nah. So I let a break curse scroll cure Mal. However as a result of getting so far into the progress of transformation, Mal was from then on bald and lacking in the eyebrow, eyelash, and facial hair department (if there was ever a dust storm effect or similar I would've given him a -1 penalty to the save due to lack of eyelashes lol, it never came up). Nothing like and eerily hairless head to make a person really get into character.

Oh some houserules I've forgotten.

Important note, after the catacombs the party got to level 3, Mal went ranger 3 and Landon went Favored Soul 1 becoming a Sorcerer/Favored Soul in service of Ironi. (when the appropriate time comes he will be swapping out his favored soul levels for those of Oracle for playtesting)

Thistletop Whoo boy what a wild ride, So before going to the thistle they get some help. Shelelu agrees to go with them into the thistle, so does Belor (leaving his #2 in command while he's gone) the party deciding they want one more person who's stealthy so based off of discussions with Belor they go and meet Sabyl, in trying to get her to join them she deluges them with questions, Landon is driven nuts by this and hates her, Mal finds her absolutely fascinating, hillarious. Anywho so the party of 5 goes to the thistle and begins sneaking around the tunnels, so far so good. Then they peek around a corner and see some goblins, well instead of sneaking around and getting past them, the heroes decide to quickly take them out, charging in. Into the refugee camp with approx. 10 goblins. Who of course start screaming and fighting alerting Gogmurt who sends his animal messenger, starts casting spells, releases the goblin dogs and sends them and his firepelt out down various tunnels. While gogmurt is doing this the party handles the gobbos pretty easy, but then they start traveling back through the thistle tunnels, where they get pincered by goblin dogs. Normally they'd wipe the floor with them, but because they are all medium they're taking penalties due to the thistle, well to try and out manuever them Sable and Shelelu try to go down a different tunnel to circle around, and run straight into the firpelt animal companion. Who turns Sabyl into a fine red mist with his pounce, shelelu tries to fall back and rejoin the party only to have Gogmurt double team her. Meanwhile Belor is at the front of the other tunnel trying to kill off the goblin dogs and after all but one are left mal and landon turn and try to aid shelelu. Finally they kill his AnCo and send Gogmurt running, and thinking they are done with him they take some time to heal, while gogmurt converts all his spells into summon nature's ally and attacks with a second wave of beasties. Luckily the party has better luck this time and even manage to capture gogmurt but whoo boy did they pay for it. Sabyl dead, and most of their healing gone. So they go to the bridge and tie a rope around their end, then cut the rope and rest to recoup their strength. Of course Gogmurt having raised the alarm the goblins see this and attempt to send a party out to repair the bridge and kill the people, but at range and out of the thistle, My party quickly hands the archers their collective asses and prevent any escape. So while they recoup their wounds, the goblins and the people on the island prepare...

to be continued.

Thistletop Pt. 2: This is a sad sad day for adventuring, Mal has fallen to the goblin warchief Ripnugget. Leaving Gogmurt tied up and gagged, literally hanging over the pit that holds the Bunyip. The heroes pulled up the rope holding the bridge and resecuring it (thereby negating the trap). The goblins already knowing the heroes were coming, those remaining all piled into the throne room. As Landon and Mal stepped into the room, Ripnugget told them that Landon had earned the right to negotiate, of course turning on him the second he stepped forward. Belor being the type he is had refused healing the night before, leaving him weakened for todays fight and when he charged forward to get to ripnugget his guards were able to take him down. Mal seeing the need stepped forward into the breach with his great axe, but with Belor down the party was lacking in power ripnugget used his gecko to climb the ceiling avoiding mal and attacking landon and shelelu while the better goblin guards started focusing on Mal. Mal killed of most of the weaker ones, but before he could finish them off he fell to a vicious blow. Landon knowing that Belor had been down longer struggled through, luckily there were enough goblins left when Mal went down that the goblins fighting him, rather than fight, figured ripnugget had things in hand and started looting Mal's corpse. This opening was all Landon needed, he ran over to Belor and brought him up, Belor got up and attacked Ripnugget and between him and shelelu they took down the goblin cheiftan, Mal was just one turn away from healing and Landon would save him but the stabilization check came up and the dreaded one reared his ugly head. Mal the Ranger died. After seeing their leader fall the remaining goblins tried to run, but in their anger the party pursued and cut down all the fleeing goblins. Then severely injured they pulled back off the island and set to rest again realizing that Ripnugget was still alive they tied him up and set him with Gogmurt. During this time the enemy tried a new tactic to get to the bridge, they brought tables from somewhere in the fort and used them as cover to attempt to fix the bridge, but even this got them no-where as the heroes were simply to good at ranged combat eventually the enemy retreated back into the fort.

Thistletop Pt. 3 So we had new players join the group, my wife and two others. At this point I decided that since the PCs group had been gone for two days, that the mayor would get a group of those green recruits and send them out to find out what happened. My wife was a warmage (her character was a one shot) and the two new players chose monk and fighter. All started at level 3 (one level lower than the current party because Landon managed to level up to 4 last session now he is a sorcerer 3/favored soul 1) as they were being summoned by the mayor a sneaky little halfling rogue followed them and listened in, offering his services in exchange for a reward (Mal's player's new character) seeing the advantage of someone who could sneak into her house unnoticed she agreed for him to go with them (figuring if nothing else he could sneak in, confirm whether or not the party was dead and sneak out). They set off on the morning and actually manage to find the party before they crossed over the bridge (the party wasted a lot of time arguing over what they should do with their two prisoners). So that actually makes it easier for the party as Belor agrees to stay and guard the prisoners while the new and improved party goes into the fort.

Having dealt with the goblins they only encountered the concubines on the second level, which they killed easily and without hesitation despite the fact that they were cowarding in the corner. Then they found the goblin babies in the other room in cages. They decided to go ahead and kill those as well, not even taking the time to take them out of the cages and do it humanely but rather litterally taking the fighters glaive and ramming it through the bars killing them one at a time while the others have to watch (I gave them a point of sloth for that since I considered it taking the easy way out). So the party descends farther and straight into the awaiting ambush of Nualia, Tsuto, Brathazmus, Lyrie, and the mercenary guy who's name I can't remember, and the yeth hounds. The fight starts heavily in the bad guys favor, the fighters sword gets shattered, the Yeth hounds cause the Monk to run in fear. the rogue tries to sneak around and gets surprised by a hiding Brathazmus. Lyrie then starts magic missle wanding. Then my wifes character turns the tables around on the baddies, since they got the good guys in a choke point first wave of hounds and the mercenary all got caught in the wifes hail of stone and she rolled decent damage. Enough to drop the fighter and the hound. Nualia steps forward to try and heal the mercenary who turned out to be dead so she cast an inflict spell instead on the fighter. The fighter actually decides to do something crazy and charges across the room to the altar striking Lyrie who was hiding behind it sniping the party with magic missles. His one strike power attack one hit kills her. meanwhile Landon and the rogue take out tsuto. And the wife hits nualia with a stone rain. She heals Tsuto while the second wave of yeth hounds takes on the fighter in the back of the room. Brathazmus takes shelelu down, while Landon and my wife both team up striking Nualia with another magic missle and a stone rain the badly injured halfling gets feared by the yeth hounds fighting the fighters bay. Nualia tells the group to focus on taking my wifes character out and heals herself. At this point the monks fear finally wore off and he comes charging back in just in time to get in the way of the party closing on my wife, enabling her and landon to double team nualia one last time which drops her. Tsuto Acrobatics to my wife and strikes at her while brathazmus, with Tsuto and the monk in the way, can't get to my wife so he attacks the monk. My wife takes tsuto down with her sword while Landon heals her wounds. Meanwhile the fighter has killed one of the yeth hounds, but the last hound drops him. Brathazmus attacks my wife, dropping her character. While landon heals the halfling. The halfling and the monk surround Brathazmus while Landon takes out the last Yeth hound with his last magic missle. At this point seeing himself outnumbered Brathazmus surrenders while Landon heals those who had fallen, when Shelelu sees a manacled brathazmus she cuts him down. The party does not object.

Thistletop Pt. 4:So having defeated the main force the PCs decide to explore more of thistletop. When they get to the Tentamorts layer they completely fail spot checks and the tentamort stings the halfling, ouch, I believe he had a whopping 3 con after that, just barely not killed. So now the PCs are on their toes, the halfling is in no condition to search for traps so the fighter takes the lead. They get to the chamber where the undead begin strength draining them, and try to fight, but they quickly get str drained and have to run, carrying the now 0 str halfling (poor guy took sooo much ability drain that session). With no spells, and a ton of ability damage the group decides that's it, and leave. When they get to Balor they get a little upset because there is only one goblin prisoner. When questioned Belor tells them how the two goblins got into a fight and in their yelling at each other, it became aparent that Gogmurt had nothing to do with the raid on sandpoint and in fact had opposed the whole thing from the start. So once gogmurt reaffirmed his promise that he would make his tribe leave the town alone once the party removed the human leaders he let gogmurt go. The party a little upset takes it in stride not bothering to mention to belor that they had just slaughtered every last man woman and child in Gogmurt's tribe. And they return to Sandpoint where once it's realized that they were successful and ripnugget is taken to the prison a feast is held in their honor along with a mourning ceremony for the loss of Mal.