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Spoilers Book 3/Metaplot Did anyone think about the similarities between the sudden disappearance of house Rogovaria and the Varnhold. It just seems like there should be some creepy old guy with a twitching eye somewhere talking about doom and gloom spouting wild theories about House Rogovaria and Varnhold.
Did anybody think about possibly having Vordakai animate dead this Linnorm Skeleton? It says its of immense size, so I'm guessing it might be collossal. My players are a big fan of the mass combat rules, I'm debating having V raise it and it be so ginormous that they might bring an army to fight it. Are there any other good undead spells/things I could use with this skeleton if the PC's themselves fight it? Specifically looking for an intelligence template or something around their level that would be interesting.
Note to GM
Adventure Background
Adventure Summary
More soon!!!!
So at the end of RRR I've decided to mesh in large parts of Second Darkness into the campaign. The only real rule is to keep all the locations within the Kingmaker setting. Luckily, I had just enough time to squeeze in some of book 1... This is a work in progress. Important Locations:
*I know its kind of hard to rip the city from where it is, but it works and to have a lone lost city at war. I'm sure this could cause some problems with them and Kyonin if they tried to take it. I definitely want to add some more "stuff" to the nomen heights map so it might be beneficial to add something in the surrounding hexes. It needs to be far from Restov, but I don't think it hurts the story. II. Rivers Run Red
This is a bit of custom content for an adventure I'm running and I was looking for some ideas. What happened:
*Her father is an elven ambassador in Kyonin who had been put into house arrest for supposedly waisting to many resources on developing good relations with his daughter's kingdom. **At this point the demon has explained to the girl's father that she has made a contract with his daughter and that if he is willing to do it a favor she will release his daughter from her current contract. Now, I'm planning on holding the favors over her head for a while, but I'm interested to see what people think I should have her do. She's a high ranking member of her country's government and she is also trying to forge good relations with Kyonin. The demon itself is a servant of the greater demon inhabiting the Tanglebriar, Treerazor. I would assume that the demon itself wants to maximize the effect of its contract. The player also now carries an evil mark that brands her as the property of the demon.
I've added an elf gate and the npc Quilindria (Second Darkness) to this area. Quilindria has currently been turned to stone, can communicate telepathically. One of my pc's is an elf so I'm really playing up the connection with Kyonin. Second Darkness AP5 Spoiler Required:
So if you've read the 5th book you get introduced to Quilindria the Succubus, now for purposes of the AP I have reduced her level, but otherwise she's the exact same character and I'm using her content almost completely except for her connection to the Queen. I'm using her as an infiltrator trying to find ways into the elven capital and in this case she has found one leading directly to the Lotus Hub, unfortunately for her she was turned to stone years ago by the evil fey after loosing a riddle contest when confronted by Dancing Lady. This does a few thing like giving the PC's a chance to travel to Iobara, except that the elven kingdom is horribly racist against humans, but if they can get the portal functioning I might give them a +1 Economy for it, but that will definitely require some diplomacy with the elves.
The primary reason for adding this is that one of my players is the daughter of an elven ambassador to Restov and her father was recently imprisoned after being accused by the Winter Council of using the kingdom treasury as a slush fund to send his daughter, all fluff. The fluff is that he is wasting time sending resources and entertaining diplomatic relations with a nation that has no cultural attatchment to Kyonin, the player has been tasked with finding historically relevant cultural connections with the old kingdom of the elves and to prove that the Stolen Lands were a significant part of their history. I wanted to a way to keep that elven politicing rp aspect and have a plausible reason for having a population of elves be in the kingdom without having them travel through the River Kingdoms. Now of course in the future I'm sure I can develop some kind of plot where the Winter Council says its too dangerous to have a portal to the capital in barbarian hands (the PC's). Lastly, I'm trying to open up something so eventually there may be a plot with Treerazor to take the portal as a backdoor into the elven capital. I'm trying to find feasible plots for the high end game and more reasons for mass combat, my players really like the army building stuff. Thoughts? Questions? Its always good to have the vast and creative ideas of the paizo forums! My players' awesome Adventure Blog:
What kind of awards would you give the player characters for winning a mass combat? I'm referring to army vs army battles. I'm working on adding alot more mass combat starting in adventure 2, but I think I need to supplement the pc's with some BP so it doesn't dramatically stunt their kingdom's growth. So what kind of rewards for winning, especialy BP wise.
So my players are itching to try out some mass combat and I have a few concerns. Right now I'm setting up to have a couple of CR1 (Using River Kingdoms Rules) armies roving around and the fluff isn't as important right now as not torpedoing the game. Armies:
Anyways the way I'm intending on using these is probably have one bandit army roving around as a "test" battle for the PC's, having it have a minor impact on the kingdom. After the original test battle I'll probably bring in a few small Troll armies to conclude book 2. Maegar's Forces are around as a hireable mercenary army if the PC's get into trouble. I want them to have friendly relations, thoughts? Tiger Lords, well in Book 4 Drelev's Fort has already surrendured to Pitax and this is after Drelev defeated Armage's barbarians. I'd like to have at least the threat wandering around outside of their map right now. Sort of as a "hey there's a war to the west as well". I don't think this could screw anything up unless the PC's tried to help out Drelev too much, he's already bitter about their prosperity anyways. So my questions this time: Is book 2 to early to start using small battles? Is it too much of a reveal to have the tiger lord armies attacking to the west? Thoughts on tying Maegar more into the story this way?
Hey guys,
Now we are about halfway through AP2 and I'm not sure its worth the headache to use the other rules, I've seen people mention that the high end mass combat is going to be wonky. I absolutely intend to take this game into the level 20 region with some post-AP Runelords stuff. My party completed that AP previously and I want to do something with it. So: Question 1: Should I bother with it? Question 2: In the future when running homebrew games, would it be my best option to use the Kingmaker rules, the River Kingdom stuff, or just hand waive it? My players really enjoy the kingdom building so this is an important topic for me. Question 3: I've heard stuff about the magic item selling becoming a real problem later in the adventure. I don't let my players munchkin the game to death so will this be a problem? Has it been a real problem for non-munchinkin groups? Question 4: The Kingmaker Mass combat rules, do they work? I've seen some discussion about whether they are workable or not, opinions/discussions?
One of my players is playing an elven noble, daughter of an elven ambassador in the Rostlands for the nation of Kyonin. Last night she recieved some grave news by elven messenger. She has been planning a wedding in game to an npc elven knight from Kyonin who is part of her backstory. One of the things I've required of her is that since they are both nobles, that the wedding be somewhat lavish and to ensure that, she has to work out alot of arraingments for elves to come visit their capital for the celebration. Basically I told her to invest the equivalent of 1 build point and it might possibly generate some economic revenue for her kingdom. She has been working very hard to form a friendly relations with Kyonin and I figured I'd spice it up for her since it was her birthday. I wanted to really play up the politics of her working things out with a mostly racist and xenophobic country. Please let me know your thoughts. The Letter:
High Inquisitor Khalandill duly appointed representative of the Winter Council in service of Queen Telandia Edasseril, long may she reign.
Ok, just curious, did anyone have a PC try to woo Svetlana? The player knows she's married, but wants to try it anyways. I figured I'd at least give him a roll for it. Do the Leveton's have a huge part to play in the upcoming adventures? Some drama would be fun to add to the game I think and he's going to try and keep it secret for a while. I figured it was like this rather than handwaving it,
DC11 seems about right to me...at least temporarily
So far my players have made it out of Restov and just finished the initial battle at Oleg's Trading Post. Some key points of interest. We turned Nikta's Crossing (from book 3) into a neat side adventure where they got to meet Maegar Varn (the Nomen Heights group). He bragged about finding a decent map of the region (the Map folio map) while playing a dice gambling game (the example in the GameMastery Guide). The players having found no other reliable maps in the region gambled several items, until finally they bribed him to borrow it for a few hours so they could copy it. Other notable things, my players sometimes are on the fence and a little soft hearted, so when they saw bandits hanging from the wall and one in a crow's cage out in the cold weather it really set the scene for them. Locals had talked about some starving and going hungry because of bandits, because when you rob from people who don't have much, they do without and my players toughened up a little. Additionally, I had a drug dealer try and get our barbarian player hooked on drugs (from GM guide), I really wanted to try out those new rules. So anyways, they got snowed in (using the weather chart for a cold climate) for a day and finally took off down to Oleg's. I had to give them a new map, because in book 3 you get an accurate map of the Restov-Oleg's journey, not in book 1. They get there and I play up the dark abandoned post atmosphere, but they hear some hammering noises. Now I'm a big fan of goblinscomic and I'm not a huge fan of racial steriotyping, so my first NPC is a lone goblin in a broken breastplate sitting in the fort chowing down on some meat. I had them preroll initiative as I always do in any situation just to raise tension. And the wizard, who was scouting for some reason, hailed the fort and the goblin starts yelling for Oleg. The tension in the room was huge and then a great look of relief passed over, they all got a little laugh about GetsthePig the goblin hunter. My player's kept on trying to talk to Oleg, and Svetlana was described as a russian mail order bride, but they finally started listening to her as Oleg waived them off. My players figured out subtley that Oleg was very unhappy that they were mercenaries on a charter, not soldiers. They had a little discussion about how Oleg was probably not happy that they were there to claim land, not just protect them, it played out well. They were told about the bandits and the players designed a little wooden contraption that would slam the gate shut basically involving an engineering roll and a huge log and some rope. Given my group is 7 players, I doubled the number of bandits and the fight went off really well. My players interrogated the bandits and allowed the first one that surrendured to live, they executed the rest for banditry, especially Happs because he was yelling out racial insults to the elves the whole battle as he shot them (think Goblinslayer from Goblinscomic). I had a carbunkle show up when the barbarian was chopping down a tree, he thought his character was hallucinating and the Gunslinger completely failed his perception so its a running gag now that the barbarian sees floating catapillars with jewels in their heads. Overall, my players love this adventure so far. I was happy to find the entry on Maegar Varn (I think its in book 3/1?), so I could introduce him as a likeable and capable swordsman before book 3. I've played up the cold climate alot, making my players check for weather everyday in fear of a blizzard or snowstorm, we have a very Game of Thrones atmosphere. The party: Conan-ish Barbarian, Racist Elven Druid, Great Expectations (the book) Cavalier, Godchild (descendant) Oracle, Conniving Beggar Bard, Wandering Gunslinger, On the Run Wizard
First of all I loved this adventure and so did my players, but having finished it there were a few things I wished I could have changed in the story, and a few things I did. Hope this helps someone. Book 1 - I made Nualia into a victim, possessed by the demon in the stone head. My players eventually took her down and she became the cohort of a player who was playing her younger sister. I pushed hellknights alot in this adventure as some badguys and had Madam Niska actually be a dragon turtle who watched over the local shoanti. The town was up in arms when the Hellknights wanted to search her house for a shoanti rebel in the region and they nearly had a riot. Book 2 - My favorite book, I loved the intrigue, I did alot more with the docks district and the scarzani thugs, had some player's arrested when they started messing with the operation. Didn't change much other than I had the chief put out a citywide APB against the "murderous band of adventurers" when they got to close to the truth. Had them get set up in an abandoned mansion with a loose tiger from the zoo and some dead townguard bodies. Book 3 - I liked this, but my players didn't. They hated being away from Sandpoint and they did nothing with the fort. Several mentioned they would have rather had me mix in something or bring it to Sandpoint in some way. They loved the npcs and all hide wives, husbands, kids, and great friends there. If I could have, I would have placed this significantly closer to town. Book 4 - Yet again away from town, yes some NPCs were involved, but they were largely kept away from the players. The saving grace was the library, we did alot with that. During the attack on the town I had more giants and had the red dragon godzilla fight with Niska, I let her die off here and the players were ready for revenge. They really didn't want the town burning to the ground. Book 5 - Major Change. The stone heads could easily have been put somewhere out in the woods near town and the stones in the church could easily have been the portal to the runeforge. I know its a little exotic to move it away, but my players were begging to go back to Sandpoint at this point. I really wish something significant would have been done with them. Book 6 - By this time my players were so ready to get back to Sandpoint that they wanted to breeze through this one and start Kingmaker. In the end, the epic story took a backseat to their families and castle they had started building in Sandpoint on Chopper's Isle. I think we might as well of had a portal in the Runeforge lead to Xin Shalast rather than hoofing it all the way there. Overall my players loved the centric around a little town story, they really wanted it to be the Sunnydale (buffy the vampire slayer) of the game. And had it been more close to that I think they would have enjoyed it more. Also they started begging to go check out Hollow Mountain and got a little irritated when it wasn't part of the core game.
Hey guys, my group just finally finished RotRL after 2 years and we are now onto Kingmaker. I've been frantically trying to find all sorts of good things to throw into this game and add alot more color in they style of RotRL Book 1 (a bazillion NPC's). Anyways, so far my biggest note was that after reading book 1, I was incorrectly assuming that the walk from Restov was straight south to the Greenbelt, I later noted when reading book 4, it wasn't the case. But my point is, how necessary is the Map Folio? I've debated using it, but I'm not sure I want to reveal a map to the players, it may take some of the exploration feeling out of the game, your thoughts? Aside from that I'm trying to mesh in some extra content, I've adapted the setting to use the Cold Climate, but just not checking hourly, my group really likes Game of Thrones the tv show. The other thing I'm doing is meshing in a 2nd Edition Module that spans levels 7-20 roughly the Dawn of the Overmind trilogy. Of course I'm going to have to make a homebrew write up for illithids due to the copyright stuff. Anyways I'm just looking for insight. I've seen some mention about dropping the Lyre of Building, Fabricate, and Wall of Stone type stuff out of the game, and yeah I'm going to drop it. The Gamemastery guide has alot of neat stuff to help with random memorable npc's and the humanoid encounters sections (prostitutes, beggars, thieves, etc). Most notably I have a group of 7 players, which is large, yes, but I run them low magic and typically beef up most of the encounters. As far as purchasing magic items, I was thinking of only letting them buy the random goods their town pops (erfworld reference anyone?). There's also a guideline about what items are available in Restov, ie. 2d4 minor 1d4 medium random items or something. Anyone feel this is going to put them at too much of a disadvantage? Just looking for any advice, good sidequests, etc.
Ok last night we reached the conclusion of the Skinsaw Murders and my party had a rough time with the Scarecrow in the Shadow Clock. I had alot of fun making the stairs and adventure in themselves almost along with the falling bell my players really were getting excited. Right after the defeat of the shapechanger guys I had Xanesha make a villan's entrance by bursting through the ceiling where the players were at. The party only had one front line fighter who got critical chunky salsaed on round 2 for something like 75 damage. The surviving players were scrambling around yelling at each other in character to collapse the floor under her until they recognized the fly spell. In the end they took her down with a combined effort and a lot of luck. As she was escaping the party cleric who never enter's combat ran up and inflicted wounds on her. Just gotta say it was an exciting game.
I know my players and ever since I read a thread on here that said the giant head on the Hambley farm might have been the cockpit for a collossal golem, my players have been in awe of Thassilon. I added a little sidequest where Madam Niska told the shoanti player to go in and gather the "holy shoanti relics" that were inside the place, because an archeologist from Magnimar had bought the farm after the Skinsaw Murders. Anyways, inside the head they found a gigantic mirror and a set of armor with dozens of chains extending from it, something akin to Neon Genesis or Robot Jocks. So I was sitting around and thinking, where would be a good place to throw in a good fight between two collossal Thassilonian golems, I'm thinking somewhere near the end of AP#6. And realistically it probably needs to fall to pieces during the epic battle. It would be some really cool imagery for the players to see one of these big golems climbing out of a big hole in a mountain or something like that. I'm looking for ideas here, I haven't read AP#6 in any detail yet. Anyone see the cover for the Elder Evils book? Something like that.
I was in a player in a previous attempted running of this adventure, but the group disbanded. Half of the group has rejoined and half are new players and now I'm running it. I'm looking for a few quick tips and some brainstorming on how to alter things so its "new" for even the old players. The previous game successfully completed the "all the world's meat section", but skipped most of it except for the boss because of some good planning. Here are my objectives. *Make Korvosa seem friendlier. *Add a crapload of NPCs to talk to, I only have book 1 and I have ran Rise of the Runelords twice, is there an npc section in any of the books like in the first adventure? If so, which book? *Significantly change the beginning, but keep the story on track. Notably the Old Fishery will have to change somehow, whether Gaedren Lamm is there or not. Its not like it was a secret location from the PC's so I need a twist. *Add in additional little missions. *Remove any time constraints from the adventure So far I've made Zellara into the daughter of a murdered fortune teller, so the player's always have someone to come back and talk to. Any ideas would help.
This is just something I've knocked out really quick. I used it in both of my groups that I have ran for. It needs maps probably, but I'm no good with mapping software. Please feel free to tweak it. *****
Background:
With the loss of his entire family, Das Korvut became soured and took to drinking heavily and became very abusive to his customers and friends. He blames everyone involved for not finding his son and killing Jervas sooner. Adventurer’s themselves seem to anger him, because “They should have been around to stop him” and blaming them in particular. Das Korvut is a capable and strong fighter and can be very dangerous in his drunken rages, lately his neighbors have heard him howling in the night. In his dreams, he sees the ghost of Chopper and can hear the sobs of his little boy. Even some residents of Sandpoint sometimes see on clear nights a little boy chasing a fox through town sobbing only to find nothing when they look. Synopsis:
Chopper’s Isle
A. The Cliff
B. The Cliff’s Top
Looking around (DC15 Survival) reveals some strange claw marks that lead to a cliff edge where nestled in a group of loose rocks there is a human skull, hip bones, cow bones, and a few goblin bones. It may become apparent that the bones have been gnawed on by a toothy mawed creature with a strong jaw, there are a few thick femur bones that have been snapped into pieces, the remains appear at least a month old. The tracks are from the Sandpoint Devil whom once a month returns to this island with its kills on the full moon. Some study of the tracks will reveal they are from a three clawed quadruped of large size and weight that can probably fly. The creature itself is smart enough to understand that this site is holy to its god Pazuzu so it jealously guards the island and will track down scents that it finds there, but over the last 5 years no one has been here so it has become complacent. Development: If the PC’s are interested the Sandpoint Mercantile League is eager to sell the property, which is rumored to be haunted. For 2,000 gold they are willing to sell the island to anyone who wanted the property, a bit of bargaining (Diplomacy DC15) can lower this price to 1,000 gold as they are very eager to sell it. Typically a building can be constructed for 1 gold per square foot, just to keep the numbers simple. C. The Burned Remains of the House
The Ruins
A. Main Chamber
Creatures: Attic Whisperer (1) B. West Door – The Offerings Room
C. East Door – Haunted Hallway (CR 3)
Chopper’s Haunt: Will Save DC 15, per round, for 1d4+3 a round for 4 rounds save ends, as the haunt of Chopper makes stabs and cuts at the character. The haunt can only manifest every 24 hours.
E. Simon’s Prison
So the party has just captured Nualia and taken Orik and Lyrie and released them under a watchful parole. In my game Nualia was possessed by Malfeshnekor who still hasn't been seen yet. Most of Thistletop has been explored except the last level, Orik led them straight to Nualia when he was defeated. One of my PC's is Nualia's sister who is very sympathetic to her as well as the love interest of a certain you know who from AP2. The players never deactivated the runewell under the town. They are also building a bridge to Chopper's Isle to build a fortress, they got a cheap deal on the "haunted" property. I've got a neat story to run over there with the Attic Whisperer or the Sandpoint Devil, not sure which or both yet. Lyrie is teaching Thassilonian to one of the PC's. I've already had Hellknights ransack the town looking for a fugitive and the Black Arrows already stopped in and one of the players tried to rob Kaven, which resulted in a bloody mess and a pissed off Kaven. Just trying to brainstorm here, maybe I could add a secret tunnel underneath the Cathedral and expand on the Catacombs or do something for the lighthouse. Any ideas, they are level 4.
Here's the situation. I've got a tiefling sorcerer named Kynaris who's backstory consists of him having an incestuous relationship with his sister who was later mentally dominated/charmed by a noble in Magnimar for his devious experiments. The noble's name is Lord Xeno and he's experimenting by trying to breed sorcerer's. Kynaris' lover is some kind of talented sorcereress, with a dark prophecy surrounding her, and has been a part of this for some time against her will. At some point Kynaris snuck into House Xeno intent on breaking his love free, but as they were escaping they were caught and Xeno reinstituted his charm spell on her and forced her to stab him in the back. Now he falsely believes she is in love with Xeno, thus he fled to Sandpoint and is now heartbroken and lives out of a bottle. Naturally, I'm trying to write in all of my player's backstories and mesh them with the adventure. I'm thinking that I can take out the Seven's Sawmill and replace it with this noble's estate. Lord Xeno's stats are somewhat irrelevant since he just needs Charm Person or something similar and a decent charisma score to concide with backstory. What I'm looking for is ideas for neat little rooms to put into the estate and maybe a few ideas on how to work in the whole Skinsaw Cult into this. I really like the innate danger of the Sawmill with its gears and saws and would like to include a "danger room" as it were. Maybe sometype of mechanical coglike steampunk tinkering room where the cultists can push/be pushed into the works. Right now I'm thinking Lord Xeno is probably Justice Ironbriar's favored pupil and I'm not planning on replacing the Shadow Clock tower because its got alot of neat imagery. For some reason I'm thinking Sweeny Todd. Anyways, just looking for people to bounce some ideas around. Naturally Xeno can't be too high level and I don't mind him being a little tough, I just need some kind of compulsion that could force Kynaris' lover to stab him in the back against her will. As the story goes, after he was stabbed Xeno's men (probably the cultists) did bad things to him and threw him in the sewer and left him for dead.
This is a second group I'm running(simultaneously) through the AP, hope you enjoy, its interesting seeing the different choices parties make. Nearly unknown to each other soon a small band of adventurers will soon change the face of Varissia. ;) Wondabrien "Reece" Ries - a 19 year old CN Halfling rogue all the way from Korvosa, who fashions himself a thief. By trade his family are a group of specialist scoundrels who are more interested in the art of the steal than the prize itself, but then again it never hurts to be rich. He's been in town for about 3 years now give or take and has still managed to elude the employment of the local Scarzani. He has a noble streak and has his eyes set on the fortunes of a local noble, Titus Scarnetti. Kynaris - a mid twenties CN tiefling Sorcerer straight out of Magnimar, he's in such an emotional wreck he's been drowning himself in whiskey and whores when he isn't hungover and pushing trash loads for Gorvi. He's a competent sorcerer, but he's having trouble getting his life together, recently the Scarzani started getting him addicted to drugs so they can put their new junkie to use. Why is he so messed up? He and his human sister fell madly in love and were scorned by their parents and siblings, she was sent away and after some time he found her being taught in a sorcerer academy, House Xeno. He secretly joined the academy under a false name and they continued their incestuous relationship, in a confused lover's quarrel Kynaris found out that the leader of the academy was sleeping with Allyia. During the fight that ensued Kynaris was stabbed by his sister lover and thrown into the sewers for dead, he didn't know that she had been under the influence of a dominate spell. Scorned he fled away to Sandpoint. Shuten "the Ogre" Doji - In his 30's Shuten's is from Tian Xia, marooned in the far north and having wandered the forests of Varrisia for some time, CG human fighter. The Black Arrows of Fort Rannick rescued him seven years ago half dead in the woods, attacked and tortured by goblins. He regards Kaven as one of his saviors and mentors. He found it safer to join the town garrison as a prison guard where he learned the ways of Gorum from a dwarven prisoner. Now he assists Sherriff Hemlock in training the militia. Morgrym "Greybeard" Torag - a LG dwarf paladin from Janderhoff, coming from a family of nobles, he has been traveling Varrisia looking for a place to settle down and call his own with his family. For 40 years he's been traveling, 20 years ago he met a man named Christoper Brandle, a half celestial, and his wife Tina Brandle who lived in Windsong Abbey and they became good friends. In the last month his house in Sandpoint has been finished and he and his family have moved in, unfortunately Christopher died several years ago, preceeded by his wife by 9 years. Morgrym was asked on Christopher's death bed to watch out for his assimir daughter Ellris Brandle, who is just turning 16 and graduating from the Windsong Abbey. Morgrym's wife Ingra and four children have made a good living in Sandpoint, Morgrym works for Das Korvut and Ingra works at the Rusty Dragon for a local noble. Ellris Brandle - a NG assamir cleric of Sarenrae, at 16 she has just finished her cleric schooling and is tasked to go and spread the good word and works of Sarenrae. At her graduation a man who knew her father, a dwarf, named Morgrym congratulated her. She didn't know that Morgrym also carried a letter addressed for her from her mother. She would get it, when she has shown to have grown into a woman. Being parentless and with her friends leaving on their own missions, the decision to come to Sandpoint to possibly stay and help at the Sandpoint Cathedral was a natural choice. ?????(I can't remember)- a CN half-elf beguiler from Riddleport, he's in town for a big scam with his pirate buddies, but three months ago they never showed up, so for the last three months this scallywag has been drinking and roaming port to port with the local ladies. He's a sly member of the Scarzani and is trying to addict, trick, and persuade local authorities to be more kind to the local mobsters. Lately he's been working on Kynaris and getting him addicted into service, but for the right price he's willing to occasionally be a "good guy". With a rifle or a musket thrown over one shoulder, he smiles as he swindles the coins of locals in a crooked gambling racket he's running for the mob at the Rusty Dragon. ****************************************************
Basically, the exotic feat means most people won't take them, but their costs aren't prohibitive. I'm not using any of the optional rules for misfire or exploding dice.
GAME START (I start every game by reading a section from the player's guide, along with the rumors, gotta keep them in the mood.) The adventurer's hardly know each other and are somewhat spread out throughout the town although many of the locals are out. Shuten gets a complaint about a drunk at the Fatman's feedbag, its Kynaris, Shuten feels sorry for the sad drunk and takes him down to the Rusty Dragon, where the crowd is happy and lively. The owner of the Rusty Dragon, a geisha named Ameiko, seems preoccupied but has additonal help to deal with the big crowd the night before the festival. Morgrym is waiting for his wife Ingra to get off work and casually scans the crowd seeing some younger people with evil auras, he occupies himself by talking to these people finding out that they are common bullies, one of which is a child named Boyd who snuck out of the orphanige, the Turandarok Academy. Ellris comes in and sits at a quiet table, she's only been here a week, but her striking looks have attracted many local men to favor her. One such conversation strikes her as strange, a elderly local man pesters her for a bit of hair, saying that assamir hair cures warts, while she is eating he shows her, making her less hungry, but she begrudgingly takes a look and recommends a treatment, she kindly gives the man a few bits of her silver hair. A number of other locals visit her and she receives much attention, but yet again another strange man comes up to her staring. He introduces himself as Banny Harker and insists that he knows her, but leaves after a few minutes a little disturbed. Morgrym spends some time with the child Boyd (with an evil aura) and gives him some food. He interrogates the other young man an apparent farmhand from out of town, but nothing comes of it. The Beguiler, Reece, and Kynaris end up sitting at a table together gambling with locals and begin to talk. Kynaris is drinking heavily and loosing all of his money, while Reece is canvasing the crowd for a good mark, finding one of Scarnetti's mill managers, he quickly pockets some money during a performance by Ameiko (yes I thought she would be neat as a giesha). A local working girl, from the Pixie's kitten, Emerald comes into the tavern much to the enjoyment of its patrons. Her green dyed hair, green revealing dress, and purple mascara making her stand out she cooingly sits near Kynaris, she seemed genuinely concerned about his state, also one of her frequent customers. Shuten makes an monetary offer to her to take Kynaris off before he looses the shirt of his back, but she refuses saying that she doesn't service drunks. Morgrym makes a stop at the table with the gambling and tries to dissuade them from their folly, Reece pulls out some Orc-rotgut and invites Morgrym to a few rounds, quickly Morgrym, even though he is a dwarf, is hit hard by the hearty beverage. Kynaris finally passes out, the rotgut to much for his overworked liver. Shuten, wearing samurai style armor, hefts Kynaris up and carries him to his room/closet at the Fatman's feedbag. **The Next Morning**
Morning festivities kick off and the day wears on, the Beguiler attempting to hobnob with the local nobility. Morning turns to noon and the game of chase the goblin kicks off for the children (something similar to flag football). Ellris is yet again pestered by local folk who believe her silver hair has the ability to cure ailments from the flue to warts, she obligingly gives out a few strands. As the afternoon wears on and Father Zantus takes the stage, after a short speech with Cyruk Drokkus and his lead acrobat Reece, a thundering crack boomed as Zantus struck a thunderstone in preparation for his speech. That's when the screams began, quickly a the festival turned to panic and a motely crew of locals killed a small band of goblins. Seeing the groups will to fight Sherrif Hemlock asked them to help repel the goblins, the beguiler agreed for a small fee, while the others jumped to help, except for Kynaris who sat back down to finish his drink. Having seen his use of magic Shuten snatched him out of his chair and promised him all the drink he wanted if he would help. The would be heroes fled down streets slaughtering goblins and narrowly avoiding being jumped on by a large group of them, who subsequently fell to their deaths. Bravely these new heroes strode through the streets healing the wounded and even saving a stolen baby from certain dinner. Their last confrontation led them to save the life of a noble visiting from Magnimar, Aldern Foxglove, but they paid him little mind as they rushed off. During that last encounter a riderless goblin dog nearly decapitated Morgrym who was mounted on a pony, the dog lept up and nearly tore his throat out, he was healed from the brink of death by the young assamir girl Ellris. Soon the goblins were corralled and marched off a cliff, but Shuten could not contain his anger for them as he rushed the hopless creatures slaughtering them wholesale in front of the town militia. Several of the locals hefted him up as a brave and excellent swordsman. Shortly thereafter, the entire group of new heroes was lavished with gifts, kisses, and thanks from all the locals as they continued the festival. Kynaris greatfully drunk himself into a stupor, while the beguiler attempted to win the favors of local women. Morgrym, Reece, and Ellris found the attack to curious and began scouting around for a reason for the attack. Quickly the Beguiler, Reece, and Shuten decided to go interrogate some goblins captured by the townguard, first by magic, then by subtle torture. They didn't find much out other than the leader was a longshank on some secret mission. Ellris and Father Zantus found the desecrated grave of Father Ezakien Tobyn. Morgrym finally told Ellris about the letter and gave it to her. Letter Addressed to Ellris Brandle,
I’m writing this to you just in case I do not have the chance to watch you grow up; I’ve been sick for a long time. I wish I had time to teach you all of the things a mother should teach a daughter, but I fear that I will not have the chance. Know that you have all my love and I will always watch over you. I have asked Christopher to wait until you are older to give this to you when you can understand. I truly hope that you will follow in my footsteps and become a cleric, but if that is not your fate, please be kind to others and believe that there is good in all people, and I ask you to forgive me. Your father will soon tell you of your older sister, I am so sorry that you could not grow up with her. After she was born I fell sick for nearly half a year, I couldn’t even stand up and hold her. I was so weak and your father could not care for us both, we left her with in the care of the Turandarok orphanage in Sandpoint. Please forgive us. Her given name is Christina, she has your father’s face, you will know her by her beautiful violet eyes, and her hair is the color of precious silver. Please give her my love. Your loving Mother,
Ps. Take care of your father for me. Ellris quickly put the letter away after unsealing and reading it. Pilling up gifts of food Morgrym and Ellris gathered up a mountain of food that they knew they could not possible eat, even in a week, they took the remainders down to the Turandarok Academy for the orphans. Illsorai was pleased to have the heroes of the festival at his doorstep and the children were pleased as well. Before leaving Ellris asked to speak privately with Illsorai. She wanted to know if a silver haired girl named Christina had ever been in his care, he asked her why and she revealed that they were related. Illsoari with a somber look asked her to come with him, Morgrym followed. Illsoari led them to the Sandpoint boneyard, to the grave of Nualia Tobyn, he explained that they had never known the child's real name, but that she had been taken care of before her untimely death, Nualia (Christina Brandle) was three years older than Ellris, and Ellris excused herself for some time to come to grips with the news. Mogrym overhearing Illsoari saying "Nualia was your sister" was suprised that his good friend Christopher had, had another child and never mentioned it.
How much does this guy really know? My players are foaming at the mouth for this guy to be a fount of information on these strange runes they are slowly finding all over the place. So far they have found them in the Catacombs, Chopper's Isle, the Cathedral Stones, and in various Shoanti Tatoos. I had Madam Niska Mishvanti clueless to their meanings and in my game she is an elderly Dragon Turtle shapeshifted. Thassilion was around 10,000 years ago and basically all that remains at this point are some wierd symbols and occasionally some buildings. My player's might strangle me if I don't dangle a carrot for them, so how much should I reveal about anything?
I'm having difficulty with presenting Magnimar as a living city to the players, they are still in AP#1 and are so intertwined with Sandpoint and all of its people. I find it hard to describe the City of Monuments as anything other than "people static" such as a city full of bustling crowds and paper pushers. Did any NPC's just jump out at anyone besides the obvious BBEGs (big bad evil guys). Moonbeam mentioned a player who was reincarnated by a druid, but I couldn't find the character. Maybe I skimmed over him. I know the Lord Mayor, but my PC's are likely to be disgusted by the awesome and repugnant NPC.
This is just a summary of how things went at my game, maybe someone will find it useful or interesting. Players:
Furrlana - CG fey Druid 2, has a grove and is student to Madam Nishka Mivanti (sp), she claims to be a dryad and carries around a wooden staff that is growing leaves and shifts into whatever shape she desires, she is from Sanos Forest where she keeps a glade. Someone keeps stealing her undergarments from her room in the Rusty Dragon. Ally - NG elven Cleric of Royka (custom demigod of Desna) 2, she's a bit of a nutcase always seeing little blue goblins causing mischeif, she spent a substantial amount of time in the Sanitarium. Justin - CG human Sorcerer 2, this 16 year old just doesn't know how to stay out of trouble, his recent shotgun wedding to Marilyn (age 24 with a child) was a suprise to everyone, but his fellow adventurers who may have manipulated the situation. Game Start:
Noah woke and went to the Red Dog Smithy where he works for Das Korvut as a red smith (coppersmith), even though Korvut wasn't up yet he got started, almost relieved that he didn't have to deal with the somewhat verbally abusive boss. When Korvut eventually awoke he unleashed a slur of bitter insults as he had obviously been drinking the night before and didn't appear to get any sleep, Korvut accused him of "You killed my boy, you and Hemlock!" And the drunken exhausted Korvut weakly attacked Noah. It was ended quickly with Corporal Baervar(sp) of the town watch assisting Noah and throwing Korvut in the drunk tank. Regardless the accusation hit home as Noah felt guilty about the whole Chopper incident and somewhat suspicious of Sherrif Hemlock's involvement in Captain Avertin's death. He left to find his party after making sure the smithy wouldn't burn to the ground. Furrlana bemusedly went to seek out her mentor after furiously searching for many missing undergarments and curiously eyeing all the men in the Rusty Dragon, most of which spent some time noticing her delicate yet enticing figure. She walked the streets a bit wondering about an event earlier in the week, apparently a rare bush had begun growing in her secred glade, a rare bush from the cinderlands that only grew in soil from the tops of mountains, someone had seemingly snuck into her glade placed the soil and special stones and had the good fortune to be able to grow a Goodberry Bush. (secretly it was her dryad mother, whom she hasn't seen in many years) She wandered until she had breakfast with Madam Niska, then went to find her party. Ally had the misfortune of running into the owner of the Sanitarium, she seemed to have some adverse reactions as memories of her traumatic childhood flashed back with a vengeance, she became terribly confused and found herself standing in the living room of Banny Harker, who was apparently in the middle of a morning tryst with a local girl Katrine Vender, of course she didn't recognize either one. She thought she saw a glowing blue butterfly on his bookshelf, but she fled the scene embarrased by her actions and the less than half dressed and furious Banny Harker. She had apparently battered his door down and dislodged some of his furniture. She ran to find her party. Justin hadn't talked to his wife in about a week, well not in any unbarbed tones. Marilyn's brother had apparently moved into their house after "falling down the stairs" and loosing his pinky finger on his left hand. Marilyn's brother had secretly made a loan with the local scarzani to buy a masterwork silver dagger for his new stepbrother, of course he didn't tell anyone, and he wasn't able to pay. Either ways, the youngest member of the heroes recieved a summons by the noble Titus Scarzani, he apparently wanted to "finance" the heroes and recieve some political promotion for a monthly stipend of funds. After the meeting he chose not to make the decision for the party, so he left to find them and discuss the proposition. The party.
Next week, finishing the Catacombs of Wrath. Hopefully, lol.
Setup: Das Korvut had a wife and young child. Korvut loved to take his dogs out hunting and he used to bring his son along. Once when hunting his dogs chased a fox to a hole, but his son Griff begged him to capture it instead. They set a trap and Griff was very fond of it and kept it as a pet. Unfortunately Korvut's wife was one of the Chopper's first victims, his son was a witness to it, but the Chopper did not see the child as a victim, but as a student. The Chopper kidnapped the young boy and locked him away in a hidden room deep beneath his house on Chopper's Isle. The room was part of the Catacombs of Wrath, long separated from the rest by erosion. For a month Chopper forced the boy to bear witness to the atrocities he offered to the statue of the Demon Bird Statue (Pazuzu). When Chopper was finally killed no one saw the hidden door on to the room where poor Griff sat. He sat there until he starved. Current Day: The Ghost of Griff (the Attic Whisperer) has been seen roaming the streets sobbing. When Das Korvut here's about the ghost he gets angry and attacks Belor for not finding his boy. Korvut gets locked up in the garrison and Father Zantus attempts to council him, but fears that the ghost will harm someone. He approaches the PC's to see if they can find the boy's body. The PC's might go directly to Chopper's Isle or they might ask around town. Chopper's Isle: Other than a long tough climb, it probably takes a few hours to move the five year old burned debris that reveal a stone cover that leads into the lower chambers. Within they can find the statue of Pazuzu and a creepy sobbing. The attic whisperer is in one of the alcoves and its echoing. Near the back of the room they can uncover a stairwell and it leads to a spiral stairway down that eventually ends in a small pool of saltwater, after that the well is collapsed. Although along the stairwell there is a hidden passage that opens into a room where there are the bones of Griff and his fox. Anybody got anything that I could add to this, its just a brainstorming idea. Its meant to be a short sidetrek that helps the players become good friends with Korvut and get to know some of the history of the town. Any thoughts?
So does anyone think that the guy who runs the theives guild in Sandpoint might want to throw a hail-mary and try and get the adventurers to attack Sheriff Belor Hemlock? OOC one of my players thinks the guy is shady and IC one of my other players is a member of the theives guild and isn't above doing shady things. He's already beat someone half to death to wring some money out of them for the guild. Once the Tsuto Journal starts making its rounds through the townguards, I'm sure Jubyral(sp) might see an opportunity to get rid of Hemlock. The scarzani aren't above murder obviously, it wouldn't take much for them to set something up. It wouldn't take much to forge some battle plans and plant them in Hemlock's house or have them capture a goblin, plant them, and have it get loose in town. The one player thinks that Hemlock might actually be the Chopper and has murdered Jervas Stoot. Its already been proven once in my game that the players will listen to rumors. They force entried the orphanige when they heard people talk about there being monsters in there. I might just end up with a dead Hemlock. Is Belor or Jubryal (sp) specifically important to the story? Is Jubryal smart/crazy enough to try and pull something like this off?
This is a post about the villan of Burnt Offerings, major spoilers below. villan spoiler:
Given that the history of Nualia involves her being "tainted" by the activation of the runewell and my gaming group's affection for the setting does anyone view it as possible that Nualia could be redeemed? My gaming group is a big fan of taking down the BBEGs of adventures and modules by imprisoning, deleveling, and/or atoning them, but I really see some potential to have Nualia be a tragic victim of the Runewell and Lamashtu. I have a few ideas on how to have a moral dilema come up right as the end comes. I have only lightly read through AP 3-6, so I'm not sure if she possesses any knowledge that could really mess up the adventure. Tintagel (http://4e.educatedgamer.net/Home/rotr/burnt-offerings) had a really niffty posting about Nualia's Nightmare, which I intend to throw at the players somewhere between their coup de grace on her or maybe as a vision to the party's cleric as they enter her room for the final battle. Additionally, I'm thinking about having Hannah (RotRL 1, pg.70 building 45) have been one of Nualia's midwives who helped burn her baby originally, but I'm thinking about having Hannah have secretly burned a roll of cloth or a wrapped up ragdoll instead, or maybe even have the baby survive the fire. I'm thinking that the baby might have been an assimar half-fiend and for some reason Hannah just couldn't kill it. So she has been raising the baby in secret for the last 5 years. Basically, without railroading, what I would like to do is have Hannah approach the group shortly after word spreads around town that Nualia might not be dead and have her reveal that she helped Nualia to abort her baby, but that its still alive and well. This revelation might be enough to tip Nualia back into sanity after everything she's done, although she will surely face imprisonment and likely execution if they capture her. I even debated allowing a PC to take her as a cohort or maybe even play her if they want to. Edit:
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