The Raven Black wrote:
This is literally a company built around freelancers working for Paizo.
Male Human Bard (Sandman) 10; HP 78, Init +3, AC: 24 T: 17 F:20 ; Fort:+6, Ref:+11/14 vs traps, Will:+10; Per: +12; BAB: +7/+2 CMB: +10, CMD: 23
The Ring (or Ring of the Kraken to give them their full name)are a group at the heart of things going on in Port Shaw. They are a cabal of influential persons involved in all sorts of sinister business. Strangely, no rumors connect them to dragonsmoke dealing. We have been told they are watching the Chapter House, believe that they hired Old Fish to silence Garreg (a dragonsmoke dealer we were strongarming), that they had the former Priest of Quell in Port Shaw murdered and probably connected to the attempt to blow the Chapter House sky high with alchemists fire. The Ring serve Harthagoa, the Krakenfiend, some sort of fiendish Kraken offspring with powers and immunities common to outsiders—particularly demons—and that it may have been spawned on a shekraken by the demon lord, Demogorgon. Five years ago, the Wave Riders planned to ambush the Kraken and rid the shipping lanes of this fiendish terror once and for all. Masquerading their ship, the Trident, as a cargo freighter laden down with gold, they sailed forth to battle the Demon Below.
The surviving heroes, viewing the defeat of their steadfast leader, fled in disgrace. Since this demoralizing defeat, none have dared face the Demon Below. Nowadays, the only precautions available to a captain who braves the sea are prayers to Quell. Most ensure their affairs are in order before they set sail. I think we only know that Sergeant Darenar is a member of the Ring. Not sure about anyone else though we may suspect.
Session yesterday in my tabletop game. We started trying to build ships using Fire as She Bears. Has anyone already done this for Thunderstrike and Baron of the Tide? I'm having real issues seeing how the costs in the book to buy them relate to what size/type of ship should be built using FASB? Spoiler: On with the events and they quickly dealt with the Nightslinks threatening the Tulita and outskirts. Slightly concerned with how quickly they went down.
With that sorted they decided now was the time to go deal with Bonegnaw. They had run away from the Midnight deal before and didn't do any preparation to know what they were heading towards. This is compared to the PBP game BRvheart's running where we still had Garreg to give us information and we were ready to go deal with various beasts that Bonegnaw had. They hired Captain Montgomery and started to look for the cove. Due to the Captain they managed to spot it and then did a backtrack of the coves coming in from above. They didn't stealth up so the watchers fired a crossbow bolt warning of an approach. They did deposit all of the smugglers up top in the water and then fireballed the Cockatrices killing two. The other two they dealt with in the air as well as the Chimera. They used a haemonculous to observe the beach so knew there was a large number of people down there. A standoff started with Bonegnaw in the end calling them out to surrender or he would kill a slave. They tried to bluff that he should. So he did and Rake, the ex slave, demanded they get in there. So they backed off and went into the water via rope then water walked or swam in. Obadiah went in first and almost straight into the Chuul. Despite the players going that's a Chuul without having done the Knowledge checks they didn't seem to do a lot about him having been grabbed by a claw. Nor do much when the tentacles came into play. He kept attacking it with his rapier. Mary Belle, the cleric, went up to do a lightning bolt down the beach, targetting the smugglers, Bonegnaw and his hyena. Took out a few, but again not targetting the big threats. The others stayed out on the water with a fireball coming in on the clump of smugglers and Bonegnaw (who ignored it due to his effect). In the end Obadiah was eaten, Mary Belle has been captured and the rest have retreated. They are going to go back to try and rescue Mary Belle, hopefully this time with a proper plan. Mary Belle is the last remaining original party member. This is now the campaign I've done the most damage to a party in as well.
Well we managed to finish the sections of the sewers they were interested in and that I prepped for 2 sessions ago. Having killed 2 of the party and the others deciding to take responsibility for their own character builds the group now looks like this: Rake - Half Orc Bard 3/Ranger 2/Dragon Disciple 2 - ex slave who sympathises with the plight of the Tulita. According to his player he is focused on buffing, knowledge skills and acts as the trap monkey. Others in the party still aren't sure what he actually does. Obadiah Flint - Human Swashbukler 7, Pirate wanting to do piratey things - I so want to introduce him to Bethany. Dex Fighter, Bluff, Multiple AOO/trips and High AC. Did very well parrying and getting to attack in response. Mary Belle - Human Cleric of Pekko 7- encouraging whoring and drinking. Used to be an Aasimar, but no one ever remembered. She no acts as Heal bot, has the worst perception we've ever seen on a Cleric and did surprisingly good work helping defend with her shield. The new characters:
Angelino Durrante - Human Sorcerer 7 - didn't get to form much of a personality as his player turned up late in the day - the rest of the group had this very charismatic sorcerer act like Goofy instead. Already making friends though. Spoiler:
Having retreated from the Babau they took the body of Makakoa back to the Tulita having warned Zalen of the danger below. They met Hanale who joined them to aid them in their work for the people.
Back to Port Shaw and they met Rake's cousin, Angelino, who also introduced them to Major Roland Lawrence. They played it well given their hatred of the Dragoons and agreed to come back to meet him the next night. Then back to Lester and into the sewers again. The fight against the Babau went ok, but got dicey when Rake moved to get flanking and the Babau slammed him back into range of the Scorpion. So they had to go rescue him. So with all the enemies dealt with they sent the Tiki back with Lester and camped out in the barrel room to protect it overnight. In the morning stone shapes were used to create an opening and get the barrels up into the Chapter House. The plan was to sell some, give a chunk to the Tulita for later use and use some. Zalen was ready to Then they went to look in the room below Samuel's, back to Lester and heading to the top of the sewers. There were definite issues with how water was working in the Karikanti section given the descriptions, but also how water was not coming from some places - the pool room for example. They prepared to enter the sludge and started figuring how they would deal with forms of aquatic combat. They used the Tiki to look over the area flying in the space above the water so it didn't attract attention. Once they had an idea where to go they headed for the pool room first where the scout had retreated to. Once in they managed to spot some of the skulkers and attempted to bargain. They offered meat for free passage into the next room. The Karikanti were fine with that as it meant the party would be trapped. Into the Throne room and Roarog was impressive. He didn't get chance to surrender due to a good roll from Rake. They failed miserably to identify any items as Angelino revealed he didn't know Detect Magic. On to retrieve the bones and starting to figure what might be going on at Beacon Island. They finished the day breaking into the shrine, dealing with the Golems and then using Consecrate to try and deal with the shrine. So next time they plan to go see Roland, look to get a boat, off to the Broken Skull and then go after Bonegnaw finally. I'm hoping for a lot more roleplay focused next session. They are now on their way to getting on to the high seas.
I've got my second epic table group session coming up end of this month, but they are already prepared with ideas at least for alternates and a couple of builds ready from our character designer. I'd say it was because we're playing Cthullhu as one of our other games, but the character designer loves building characters so it's normally more of an issue getting him to stick with one character.
Male Human Monk 1(favoured class)
Strands 2nd attempt after closing the wrong tab. Only included stuff the current party knows of. Plot strands Dragonsmoke smugglers - Garreg, cove 2 miles upcoast, tulita councilman Elder Nakuaka
Whispers Garr Bloodbane's gold
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