| Disrae A.D.B.P.A |
So. I’ll be keeping and updating this journal week to week as we progress through our WotW campaign. Our group isn’t the most experienced bunch, but it is by far the craziest and most interesting group I’ve ever personally played with. My brother is our DM, and while it is a WotW campaign, it isn’t exactly the “vanilla” experience. We’re often just playing with three PC’s, and there are some additions to the game and setting. Some of said changes include player templates (to even out the small player group I assume?), a few additions from the newly released Pathfinder Unchained, the ever amusing critical generator, (See session three for poor Mr. Odenkirk drowning in his own blood) And a homebrew class of my design, which I have named the Black Powder Alchemist (think Gunslinger/Alchemist hybrid). This journal is from the perspective of one of the PC’s, not the GM.
Anyhow.
Our Motley Crew of misfits includes:
Ander the Faithful, Aka. Ander the Wretch, Aka. Raggedy Andy. A Lawful Evil Goblin Fighter, a devoted follower and religious zealot of Asmodeus. Played by one of the best RPer’s I’ve ever had the luck to play with, Though he is new to Pathfinder as a whole, he is a blast to play with. (Example, see session two for the turning of the squire at his hands. Crazy awesome)
Strange. Thats it, Strange. A Lawful Evil Tiefling Wizard, Will offhandedly be referred to as Useless, as he is often not able to make sessions because of work commitments out of city. We all went into this campaign knowing that he often wouldn’t be able to make it. A mad genius of a player, though he has some RPing experience, he has little Pathfinder experience.
Mallus Guillos, A Lawful Evil Tiefling Magus. An odd boy, he shares his consciousness with an Ice Devil, for currently unrevealed reasons. The Devil’s only ability is to give minor aid to Mallus in the form of advice, and a 100ft Telepathy beacon of communication for the party. His player is fairly new to RPGs in general, and this is his first actual pathfinder campaign, though he is quickly getting the basics down and attempting to find his way through the system, he is doing phenomenally, Though it has taken him a few weeks to break a little out of his shell and get a little more involved in the RP part of the game, He is a joy to play with. Also a little on the mad genius side.
And then there is me. Disrae of Phlegethon, Daughter of Fierna, Granddaughter of Belial, Archduke of the Fourth. (When I write backstory, i tend to go overboard, In short. Powerful mage called Fierna to the material plane, and offered thousands of souls and uncountable riches in exchange for a child with her. She accepted. Long ass backstory later, I’m with these shmucks.) A Neutral Evil Tiefling B.P.A. (Black Powder Alchemist). The most “Chill” mad scientist you will ever meet, and I'm apparently the “Vet” of the party here With multiple Pathfinder campaigns under my belt, as well as a bunch of other systems, I’m often finding myself the voice of (somewhat) reason. While I do tend to try and keep the boys on course, we seem to pass the leadership flag around more than I have EVER seen in a game. Everyone is coming up with plans and ideas. It. Is. Awesome.
I will get actual character descriptions up after our next session (probably the....29th?) As well, the journals will get longer as our sessions cover more ground and more interesting RP situations arise.
So. Without further A due'
Author's Forward:
I’m keeping this journal for a variety of reasons. To inspire the young and evil to greatness, to warn the pure of heart of the follies of intruding on the works of their betters, and for the general amusement of us sitting at this campfire, hearth or throne, to reminisce over the times that got us here.
For Ander, Mallus, And Sometimes Strange
The Best kind of the Worst People
| Disrae A.D.B.P.A |
Session 1: The Escape from Branderburnttotheground
I’ll start where things actually matter, for whatever reason, we all ended up chained to a wall in Branderscar. Ander beheaded a bunch of Mitran priests in broad daylight, Mallus set fire to an inn and ended up killing a bunch of people, knights included, and I got caught burning a village to the ground… It wasn’t even on bloody purpose! But whatever the reason, we all got stuck in here, though even with the bleakness of our little situation, Ander was managing to stay gleefully optimistic. Kept muttering something about the fact that Asmodeus would save him.
After a few hours of getting to “quietly” know each other in that cell, we hushed up as The guards came stomping through and took the orphan boy, Mallus. He had a visitor of sorts, which was kind of suspect, considering the whole ORPHAN BOY thing. He came back shortly and told us that a woman named Tiadora had come and offered us a deal, she gave us a means to escape, a silk veil with embroidered patches, that actually contained the items embroidered. in return, all we had to do was come meet her boss in some manor house in the swamps outside the nearby village. Considering it was either slow painful death at the hands of the executioners or into the hands of the inquisition...we all agreed that this escape was our best chance for survival. Taking the veil, I took out a set of lockpicks and got to work removing us from our bonds, after we were free of the chains, I handed the two daggers the veil had to Mallus and Ander and went to open the cell door. The lock proved too difficult for my poor skills to manage, but Ander had another idea.
We all pretended to be chained up as he started screaming at the top of his lungs about the glory of Asmodeus. The guards came to shut the little nuisance up, but found themselves silenced, stripped, and branded by Ander’s knife. We quietly released the other two prisoners that were left in the cell block with us. A massive fellow, half ogre I think, by the name of Grumblejack, and a frail old Drow, whose name consistently escapes my notice or care. We went about dispatching the rest of the guards in the immediate building as quickly and silently as possible, didn’t want any of them blowing their damn horns… And we stumbled on a few surprises on the way. A few Belladonna plants, a poor, misbegotten chef and his assistant, who after being exceedingly helpful by giving us the password to the keep for the week, found himself impaled on the end of Ander’s blade… I said I would allow him to live, I never said what Ander would allow. His assistant fainted at the sight and quickly found herself inside Grumblejack’s hungry maw. After murdering the off duty patrol in their barracks, and taking everything we could get our grubby little mitts on, we went about exploring the rest of the main keep. Finding proof of the guard captain’s illegal gambling ring, as well as his larcenous large pot of winnings, which we took with us, we also stumbled on the armory, finding our confiscated gear, including the very tool that got me put in here. My pistol. My baby that I forged and built by hand over months… we also found a few kegs of oil and more torches and arrows than you could shake a stick at. Which gave me, and Ander, a horrible, beautiful idea, but for this idea, we would need to get to the roof of the gatehouse, and the only way up there, was through the warden’s tower.
After ransacking his halls, library, and office, we came to the room that held what should be our largest obstacle between us and freedom. The Warden, whose name I honestly didn’t care to remember, partially because it turns out, Ander is as mad as a hatter who has been working for 50 years. He had us hide across the hall in the man’s office, and Grumblejack just down the stairs. Ander disguised himself, or hid himself (depending on your perspective) in a burlap sack, like a parcel being delivered to the poor sod, and plopped himself down right in front of the door. And he knocked. The Warden opened the door, noticed the bag, and for whatever ungodly reason, the old fool investigated...and found a dagger inserted wholesomely in his eye socket as Ander sprung from the bag, cackling while dancing around like an idiot. I put an arrow cleanly in the man’s other eye as we opened the door and attacked. Which was ended with a brutal swing from Grumblejack’s greataxe as he came running up the stairs, cleft the poor bastard clean in twain. We took what we could from his room, and after putting another arrow in the former warden’s rather talkative bird, we continued with our glorious plan.
After clearing the wall of patrols, we climbed atop the gatehouse, kegs of oil in hand. We poured them down both turrets of the gatehouse, Grumblejack broke the ladders to get out of the building, and then we lit the entire structure on fire. The screams of the poor, drunk guards were almost amusing. The Drow put us all under a featherfall spell and we floated to safety, as the bridge guard came running underneath us towards the blaze, maybe get his friends out? That pillar of fire was immense... especially after Mallus cause an explosion with his Pyrotechnics.
Our journey the remainder of the way to the manor was largely unaccosted, except by a rather large toad that decided Ander would have been a tasty snack...and noticed the error of its choice far too late, As I heard the thunder of my little death stick go off for the first time since my capture, and its body exploded in a gout of flame. Ander then went about riffling through its remains, trying to find anything useful, the only useful thing there was to be found, well, he found it. It’s poison. Putting him almost into a complete stupor (He was left with 1 wisdom after it was all said and done), we soon found ourselves at our destination, the Manor house, with one little light in the second floor window.
| Disrae A.D.B.P.A |
Session 2: Praise Asmodeus for Darkvision.
Arriving at the Manor, we were welcomed by the woman named Tiadora and her servants, and another Tiefling. A wizard who called himself Strange, we made no argument, but he insisted that it was his name. We were given quarters fit for nobles, and given access to the facilities around the manor. Libraries, alchemist’s laboratory, even a damned brothel. Mallus and Strange spent every waking moment in the library, Ander at the chapel to Asmodeus. I either lounged around my new room, relaxing in the finery, or down in the lab, brewing up some extra acid and alchemist’s fire, and preparing more bombs. After a few days of work, rest and relaxation, Tiadora called us all together.
Our mysterious benefactor wished to finally meet us. Tiadora gathered us outside his study and led us in. Seated in a high backed chair in the middle of the room was a bald, older man, He introduced himself as Adrastus Thorn, the last High Cardinel of Asmodeus left in Talingarde. He asked that we retrieve something in the basement of the manor for him, a beautifully made necklace of silver and sapphire. A test of sorts, and I had the gut feeling that we should do as he said...hell, he gave me the willies something fierce. After we accepted, he gave us each an iron circlet, saying that they were magical and would hide us from the sight of our enemies. We gathered our things, aside from a decanter that “had healing properties”... It must have escaped my interest. We delved into the dungeon.
The first few rooms were largely uneventful, the wizard almost fell down a pit that bottomed out into spiked death, I was electrocuted trying to pick a lock, thanks for a heads up that it was magical before I stuck a fork in the light socket….useless wizard. We came upon a room that had no illumination, in the center of it was a rock that was generating an aura of darkness. Being sick of traps at this point, I decided that pulling the rock from the pedestal with some rope, from a distance, was the best solution. But of course, I was assaulted as I approached the stone. A Vampiric mist? Blood mist? I don’t care. Damn thing rose out of the floor and wrenched my blood out of my pores. Bled me half to death, thankfully Mallus prepared Infernal healing this morning, staunching the bleeding without fail. We forced it underground between my bombs and a few well placed Acid splashes. And then we did the only reasonable thing, We poured oil down the holes in the floor and set it on fire. Smoked the blasted mist out, and then watched it evaporate as Ander somehow got the thing square in the "chest" with his hammer while playing hopscotch around the fire.
With all of us being able to see in the dark perfectly well, we figured taking the rock that caused a massive field of darkness that we could work in would be a good idea. In the next room, we found a young man hiding in a hole in the wall, the apparent squire to Sir Balin. The poor boy was badly wounded, pissing himself, and in the middle of a crisis of faith. Using the circlets that were gifted to us, we took on the guises of knights and Aasimar, and broke the orb of darkness. It didn’t take much to have the young man come out and assist us, give us the key to the light socket door, and stay behind us, and alive. We continued exploring, finding a necklace that was an obvious fake, which we let the squire keep. A couple more rooms, a screaming mushroom, a few secret doors, and a pack of draugr later. One of which almost brought Mallus low, we found ourselves outside the room that contained our last challenge. Which we all suspected had to be Sir Balin himself, and luckily, we were right.
Ander took the squire in with him to the last room, he talked the lonesome knight into coming out, bluffing that we were here to save him and the boy, and that the his holy symbol. A gorgeous necklace of silver and sapphire, was the key out, which actually was the truth for the four of us. He walked right into an ambush, as Mallus and I opened up at him. Mallus was swinging with the flat of his blade, and I was firing salt shot. We wanted him alive, for now. The fighting continued for a bit, but he quickly became surprised with my blatant disregard for my comrades safety, as a lined up a shot and fired right across Mallus’ back towards the tired old knight. I actually caught Mallus across his left shoulder. (Which I will argue as a tactical advantage every time.) But the utter shock of me firing upon my own comrade left an opening in the knight’s defence, and Mallus took the opportunity, and sent Sir Balin reeling from a blow to the leg. Ander finished him off from behind with a massive swing to the back of the poor man’s skull, knocking the poor witch hunter clean out cold.
We dismissed the paltry disguises that were on us, then gave the young squire a choice, slay his former master and join us, or join him in the grave. Ander handed him one of the kitchen knives he had stolen from Branderscar and demanded he decapitate the old man. The young squire knelt and craned over his mentor, knife in hand. But he would not budge. Mallus commanded him “Kill him.” The young man did as instructed, he buried the knife deep in Balin’s throat. “I believe Ander wanted his head off boy” I sassed him… Sneering with a wicked grin, the young squire picked up his former lord’s blade. With one fell swing, he removed the skull cleanly from the body. “That little knife wasn’t sharp enough to cut boar with, let alone a spine” The boy’s tabard, stained a deep red from the blood of his deceased lord, bore the holy symbol of Asmodeus. He beamed with sinister pride and eager anticipation as we brought him before Thorn with us in our triumphant return. Balin’s skull erupted in flame as soon as Thorn saw it. “Now now, we wouldn’t want to stain the carpet now would we?” I chuckled…
He then proceeded into a long winded monologue of sorts. Truthfully I zoned out, dreaming of improvements to my gun, skyship designs, and amphibious mole machines… I zoned back in as he asked us to sign a contract in blood. To bind us to him I’m guessing. Most of us signed without a second thought, after all, we had no life to go back to, and he did inadvertently save us from an agonizing death. After it was all said and done, we were to be called the Nessian Knot, bound together for better or for worse. Like a big, evil, polygamous marriage.
He then took us to another room, with a large ritual circle scrawled in the center of it. Another brief monologue later and we were whisked away to Hell to meet our lord and master, or an avatar of his at least. He granted each of us a portion of power, befitting our position of service to him. He granted Ander the power of a Lycanthrope, the power to shift his form at a whim. He gave Mallus the power of nightmares, to haunt dreams and in general scare the s$#~ out of people. I was granted the power of smoke, to see through fire, flame and smog, and to hide in them eternally. It took a while to notice, but Strange wasn’t with us after the ritual, not even Thorn knew where he went.
Afterwards, Mallus took note that while the circlets provided us with a means to hide in plain sight from our foes, they also allowed Thorn to scry upon us with ease. I also caught Tiadora snipping a small amount of my hair off in passing. Thanks to Mallus’ “friend” we were able to discreetly discuss it. Though for now there was very little could do about fact that the old Cardinal could very well be watching us every second of the day as he pleased. We didn’t have much time to rest before he called us to his study once more.
(Just a few things of note that may or may not make sense.)
1. I took the feat "Friendly Fire". kind of substitutes for Precise shot, only with drawbacks and bonuses.
2. for both Mallus' finding of the scrying magic in the circlets, and the noticing of Tiadora's snipping of the hair, we both rolled natural 20's.
3. The templates that we gained were Anders - Lycanthrope, Mallus - Nightmare Creature, and me - Smoke Creature (Altered to not be monstrous for its CR value)
4. The squire gained a level of Anti-paladin (LE variant for story reasons) for his slaying of Balin.
5. I will NEVER live down not taking that potion thing with us....never.
6. I was serious about the skyships/molemachines thing... If the DM posts on here, feel free to ask him. We've chatted...the molemachines are a no go.
| Disrae A.D.B.P.A |
Disrae’s Journal, Entry 3: Bluff, Assassinate, Repeat.
Thorn had a mission for us, we were to bring war itself to Talingarde. The first objective was to smuggle arms and armor to a bugbear army north of the Watch Wall, led by a fearsome fellow called “The Fireaxe”. We were given a vessel to carry us north, a longboat captained by a grizzled old man called Odenkirk. He did not know of the plan, was paid up front, and was “disposable”. We were told to kill him following the completion of our mission. No loose ends. Our second objective was to infiltrate the tower Balyntine, open its gates, and let the bugbear horde itself into Talingarde.
We left immediately, donning the guises of varied righteous folk. I took the guise of an Angel-blooded Aasimar, wings and all, and by Hell it served me well in the following weeks… months even. Our first few days of travel were uneventful, but a few more days in we spotted a Mitran patrol vessel plowing through the water towards us. Thinking quickly on my newly acquired sea legs, I quickly forged some false documentation, stating that we were carrying food and wine to a celebration of sorts in Aldencross, the town close to the tower of Balyntine. We immediately loosed the sails and brought ourselves to a halt while we waited for the vessel to intercept.
The Captain and four guards came aboard, with either remaining on the other vessel, training bows at our party. The Captain apologized to me, calling me “Gracious One.” He inquired to our cargo, and I presented him with the documents, spouting some drivel that we were on our way to the town with celebratory spirits and delicacies, which he bought like discount healing potions. Apparently there was a celebration happening soon there, something about a Bard coming to town, I had lost all interest at this point. He asked “Is there anything else we can do for you this day ‘Gracious One’.” “No captain, thank you for your time.” He turned to walk away. “Wait, there is one thing you have that I could use… your ship.” “Click. BANG.” I shot him clean in the back, and Ander caught on immediately, thrusting a dagger just a few inches from where my shot landed. The captain hit the deck with a blood curdling “Thunk”. Between the barbarian crewmen, Mallus summoning an aggressive thundercloud, and some well placed grapeshot from my little boomstick, the remaining Mitran crew either surrendered or were dead. Grumblejack and the Drow took control of the Mitran vessel, and we started north with the beginning of our very own armada.
The newly appointed “Admiral” Odenkirk suggested we stop off on a nearby Island for resupply, which also happened to be some of the best seal fur territory in all of Talingarde. We stopped for a few days to resupply and for a bit of hunting. We caught very little, but we had a chance meeting with some of the northern natives, the Utak. We traded with them, giving them some of our recently accrued arms and armor from the Mitran vessel, among other things, in return for a bunch ivory, furs, an impressive Narwhal horn, and a short lesson in their language (We may be merciless killers. But it doesn’t mean we aren’t knowledge seekers as well.) We parted ways, and their shaman warned us of an evil ice spirit that haunted the waters to the north. We pressed on.
A few nights later, we felt the temperature plummet. Ice sheets started forming on the deck, But Mallus and I had a plan to ward off the “spirit”. I walked to the bow of the deck, and lit a torch, and Mallus cause an enormous gout of flame to explode from it with his inherited ability. From high on the mast we heard a little “Oh s#!!.” It source was quickly found, an Ice mephit. The little bastard must’ve been in awe of the little show, because it took him a moment to gather his wits. A short conversation and the promise of some “fun” for the little creep, and we had a little walking icebox join our merry crew.
We eventually came to the mouth of a great river, though the entire inlet was littered with icebergs and sheet ice. Our new friend called his “boys”, a squad of little ice elementals, and they cleared us a path. The poor “admiral” was robbed of the only part of the journey he had actually looked forward to. We told the old bastard to calm himself, more fun was to come.
As we traveled down the river, we marveled at the natural beauty, completely undisturbed by civilization. It reminded me of home. We eventually came to a great lake, on the other side, our destination. The camp of the Fireaxe. On our approach, we saw bugbears, giants, intelligent polar bears and more. As we pulled into the lone pier, the bugbears on guard did not seem happy to see us, at all. Mallus decided that intimidating our bugbear friends was the best course of action, though he literally fell on his face in his attempt.
Scrambling to salvage the situation, I loaded some dragons breath into my pistol. I asked them, knowing the answer of course. “Do you know what this does?” They laughed, muttering something along the lines of “Is it a shiny toothpick?” I demonstrated, pointing it in the air, and let the gun go off. A pillar of flame shot into the air, which did exactly what i had intended it to, get the Fireaxe’s attention, rather than intimidate his cronies. The laughed a little. “So. We kill you, take your shiny fire stick, and take all the shiny weapons from the rest of you littl’uns.”
At this point, Grumblejack, who had been wading through the water from the other ship, reached the dock. The bugbears turned around to see his monstrous form looming over them. “Your a Bigg’un” was their only comment. Yelling from the shoreline revealed that the Fireaxe himself was approaching. Grumblejack and the cronies stepped aside as the Fireaxe strode up. He annouced us as friends and compatriots, bringing arms and armor to the horde. He invited us as personal guests to the feast that night, we offered him the remaining Mitrans and their vessel as offerings of good faith. So the few men left alive aboard the other vessel were dragged off and added to the roasts and animals being burned for consumption.
Mr. Sakarot Fireaxe invited us to his tent following the grand feast to discuss plans in private. We drank and chatted, and eventually he came to his point. “I know not why you would betray your own kind like this...but you have my thanks.” “Wait, wait, wait…(I cut him off) betray our own?... We are betraying no one, we are merely taking back what was taken from us.... Oh! I’ve been wearing this disguise for so long I had almost forgotten I was even wearing it.” We dropped all pretense of our disguises and showed ourselfs for what we truly were, a pair of Tieflings and a Goblin. He laughed wholeheartedly. “Well. That clears that up.” We drank more, laughed, and planned the night away. We gathered our things and prepared to leave immediately. The meager protection Fireaxe’s presence provided us disappeared the moment he fell asleep. We sailed due south, for the town of Aldencross.
We landed a few kilometers outside of the sleeping town. “So Captain, is there anything else we can do for you?” “Yes, you can get off my ship and be on your way, I’ve already been paid, and I don’t want to linger here any longer.” “Wait. You were paid up front?” “Yup” “By a man you never met, on a job that you weren’t important enough to warrant telling you the plan?” “Yup”. “And you thought this job would go off without a hitch?” “Click. Boom.” The shot rang out in the night, as the captain collapsed, drowning in his own blood… I may have punctured his lung, oh well, his life didn’t last long regardless. As Ander let his hammer drop upon the man’s chest.
Turning to his remaining crew. “so. you all are supposed to die tonight, but I’m feeling generous, so instead, you’re going to kill each other for our amusement, and the last man standing gets to walk away. And if you don’t start in the next ten seconds, one of you gets to be Grumblejack’s breakfast, capishe?” I barely finished when chaos broke out, and very shortly thereafter, one of the crew was left standing. “Good work, you’re free to go boy.” Mallus took him aside, and with his inherent powers, somehow convinced the young man to lie down for a rest before starting his new life… And then Mallus went, and using his voodoo magic, ate the man’s soul inside the man's own nightmare… or something like that. He seriously creeps me out whenever he does that.
The Captain’s vessel looted, and burning in the distance behind us, we turned our sights on the town of Aldencross, a little town that would soon be the largest gravestone in all of Talingarde.
Side note, it was at this point that we learned that Strange had dropped from the campaign formally because of work related commitments, we hold him no ill for it, though running this with three has proven. Well. interesting, further posts to come (I'm now three sessions behind on this journal.)