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This journal will not follow a campaign per se, but rather the ongoing adventures of Siella Irisani, (NG Female Elf Hunter) as a relatively new Pathfinder agent, carrying out various missions for the Society. I am attempting to link the various PFS sessions for this particular character into more of a continuous narrative, and I will see how successful this is. Siella's background kind of evolved with the character, and there is one major part of it that was added later, when I started to realize the possibility that there was a major out-of-character reason why I had created the character in the first place. That will come up at its proper point in the story though.
However, when Serion was brought before the spiritual circle, the explanation made everything clear. As it turns out, Serion had really been a girl all along, at least mentally, and developing the abilities confirmed it. Other boys had developed them in the past, all of whom had felt similarly. In fact, the spiritual circle had a ritual designed to permanently transform these particular members of its ranks. Upon being accepted into the circle, Serion underwent this ritual and emerged under the new name Siella.
Siella learned a great deal about using her magical abilities in the following years, as well as being taught the philosophy and practices of the spiritual circle. The spiritual circle was part of the Green Faith, an ancient tradition that respects nature above all else; worshiping powerful outsiders with their own agendas was not part of their practice. The primary goal of all the circle’s members was to maintain the balance of nature and to prevent anything else from unbalancing it. The circle was particularly distrustful of arcane magic, seeing it as interfering with nature. The more “unnatural” a spell, the less the circle liked it. In particular, evocation and necromancy were considered the most suspicious. And although the tribe was an isolated one, the spiritual circle had its own means of keeping an eye on the doings of the outside world.
After passing the first phase of training, every spiritual initiate has to undertake their own journey into the outside world. They live outside of the tribe for an indefinite period of years, traveling far and wide. They learn as much as they can of the doings of society so they can report back after their time is up. There is no definite limit to how long this phase will last; the goal is to get as much experience as necessary. Ultimately, each initiate will face a spiritual test. The form of this trial is unique to each initiate and my not be recognized as such until it is over. Passing the test grants the initiate the right to return and take their place among the spiritual leaders of the tribe; failing it means more years spent abroad until a new opportunity presents itself.
At this point, Siella has completed her initial training and has started this phase. She left the Mierani Forest in 4714 AR and made her way as far south as Sandpoint. After helping resolve a dispute in the area, she was recruited by the Pathfinder Society in Magnimar on 15 Abadius 4715, and has been adventuring on behalf of the Grand Lodge ever since.
Siella has blond hair which she keeps fairly short, and emerald-green eyes. She is very tall, standing about 6’3”. She is a natural explorer, very curious about how things work, the history of places and people, and will typically investigate everything. She is not content with explanations like “this is just how it is.” She generally follows rules in order to avoid making a lot of trouble, but will readily disregard them if she believes it is the right thing to do. She is not particularly quick to fight, but will not shy away from combat either. Outside of adventuring, Siella likes to explore and discover new things, asking travelers where they’ve been and what they’ve seen, examining local sights and curiosities, and participating in local customs and traditions. After hours, Siella writes about her experiences, often while trying whatever local variety of wine is available. Siella’s primary weapon is the longbow, which she has trained with for most of her life, though she keeps a greatsword ready in the event that close combat is necessary. Her animal companion is a Dromaeosaurus named Fuzzball, whom she met while investigating a hidden passage to a vast prehistoric underworld beneath the Realm of the Mammoth Lords.
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I have been pulled off my duties cataloguing Thassilonian ruins in northern Varisia to help with an ongoing situation in Irrisen and the Land of the Linnorm Kings. This is my first real mission as a Pathfinder agent.
I accompanied a group of Pathfinders in search of a legendary flaming axe, which had been given to the Snowmask tribe in the Realm of the Mammoth Lords but later stolen by members of a rebel Pathfinder faction called the Shadow Lodge. We first encountered a field of recently-killed corpses, and when we went to investigate them, we were attacked by wolverines. Many of our number were injured during the fight, and my mountain lion companion Punkin was knocked unconscious. I expended a few charges from my healing wand at the end of the fight, where it turned out many of the dead were Shadow Lodge members and many more were native Kellids. We stayed long enough to determine that there were no survivors left, and then set off toward the ruined fortress that was axe’s last known location.
Attempting to track the survivors, we came to a circle of stones, where we were ambushed by a group of Kellids ourselves. We managed to defeat them, but we were caught in a blizzard and had to take shelter in a cave. This cave was unusual, it had bizarre varieties of fungi growing inside and was unusually warm for a cave in this location, plus there was a strange draft of air from the back as if it somehow continued farther than it appeared to. We slept near the back and posted a watch at the front, rotating them in cycles. The cave did hold a secret, as it turned out: three small dinosaurs crept up through some passage from below and attacked us in our sleep. They were dealt with quickly, and one of them became the pet of one of the other party members.
2 Gozran 4715 AR
I wanted to investigate this cave further, but the storm was clearing and we needed to track the Shadow Lodge’s stolen axe. On our way out, we were nearly trampled to death by a herd of wild oxen, but we were rescued at the last second by a group of Kellids. They brought us to their camp, where they asked us why we had come there. We managed to satisfy them that we meant no harm, and that we would return the axe to them.
During a feast afterward, we were asked to give stories of ourselves. One of our party asked her companion, a summoner, to leave the room while she told her story, and swore us to secrecy about it. She described that the summoner’s father had died due to a magical accident, and said summoner had been very lonely without him. Somehow, the summoner had made contact with the spirit of his dead father who was now his eidolon, but didn’t realize it. Attempting to explain what had happened to him would have just been too difficult. It was then my turn to share my story, which I did. I explained how my spiritual circle operated and why an initiate like me had come so far from my tribe. Eventually, we managed to reach the ruined tower, where we encountered a barbarian woman wielding the flaming axe. She taunted us with it, and the battle began. Four Shadow Lodge members charged in to back her up, but it was a fairly quick fight as we had superior numbers. I had cast Gravity Bow and was about to fire at the axe-wielding barbarian, but she fell before I got the chance to. With the axe returned, the Snowmask tribe accepted us as honorary members. We were painted with their white facepaint and given permanent magical immunity to cold weather.
Siella's first two experience points were gained from her experience in Rise of the Runelords, and as such she reached level 2 after this session. I also maintained a druid variant of her for PFS Core games, which won't be covered here.
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Intermission
25 Gozran 4715 AR
The rest of the party returned to the Society afterward, but I continue to stay with the Snowmask Tribe for a while longer, listening to their stories and recording the history of their people and the area in general. In addition, something else is keeping me here. I still need to follow up on the cave where we had encountered the dinosaurs. I did not make note of its location in the blizzard, and search attempts have proven unsuccessful. I will not give up on this, though.
28 Desnus 4715 AR
I have finally found the cavern where we hid from the blizzard. It seems a later storm covered it completely, and the spring meltdown caused a mudslide to bury it again. Once inside, finding the passage was difficult. It was fairly small, and I had to work for a while to enlarge the opening enough to fit in. (summoning badgers helped). I climbed down for what seemed like an eternity, and as I did, the temperature got warmer and wetter until I finally emerged in a vast underground realm like nothing I had seen before. Although deep underground, it was lit by some sun-like orb nevertheless. This illuminated a subtropical land within. There were rivers snaking across wide plains covered in forests and swamps, separated by low hills. I intend to explore this further once I have more resources.
15 Sarenith 4715 AR
A base camp has been established at the cave entrance by the Kellids, in exchange for my providing them with valuable resources from the realm below and from there I have been exploring the area. I have encountered a wide variety of dinosaurs and other creatures from the ancient world, including large duckbilled herbivores, quadrupeds with horns and neck frills, and some rarer ones with armored scales covering their backs. There were two-legged carnivores as well; some large ones with massive jaws and tiny arms, and packs of small feathered ones with sharp claws. Additionally, I have encountered some lightly-built birdlike ones with toothless beaks. The land extends far beyond my ability to measure; it seems to surround some vast sea at its center which contains prehistoric creatures of its own.
19 Esrastus 4715 AR
Mapping is proceeding well. Most of this shore of the sea is well-explored now. Catalog of species continues; there is so much life down there. We have expanded the entrance enough to get more supplies in and out, and are building our own camp inside the realm.
10 Arodus 4715 AR
Attacked by big carnivore in woods. Punkin dead. Wand out of charges. May not survive night.
15 Arodus 4715 AR
I am continuing to recover from my injuries, tended to by the Snowmask Tribe. There is no way I can complete this project on my own ; more help is needed.
20 Arodus 4715 AR
The Kellid camp inside the underground realm was destroyed when a pack of the small feathered carnivores attacked it. I should never have allowed them to follow me in there. This expedition is turning into a disaster.
29 Arodus 4715 AR
Fortunately, one of the Kellids managed to find another healing wand in a hidden chamber of the Huscarl Keep which I am using now. I have regained my former strength, but do not wish to repeat any foolish mistakes from before. I will leave this place and return once the Pathfinder Society hears of what happened here and can send its own teams in. I have taken the best notes I could and decided to bring back proof of what I’d found. As I needed a new animal companion anyway, I performed the necessary ritual on one of the small feathered carnivores (ADDENDUM: which I later learned was called a Dromaeosaurus). I decided to name him Fuzzball. With that completed, Fuzzball and I have started the journey south toward Absalom to report our findings to the Grand Lodge.
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Our trip to Absalom was delayed when Fuzzball and I reached Nirmathas. We were approached by a Varisian man named Guaril Karela, who was gathering whatever Pathfinders could be found in the local area. In this case we were joined by a Kitsune hunter and her wolf, a half-orc paladin, and a rather bloodthirsty gnome illusionist with a pet giant mantis. According to Guaril Karela (a shifty fellow who I definitely did not trust), the supplies the Society was smuggling to Nirmathas through neighboring Molthune were not reaching their destination, and the locals in the Nirmathan border town of Tamran were suspecting us of being in league with the Molthuni.
We headed to the Pathfinder lodge in Tamran to clear things up, and started asking locals about the missing shipments. We were constantly insulted. At one point though, one person apparently pickpocketed us only to come away with a bag of Molthuni coins, which he showed as proof we were dealing with them. A bar brawl soon started, but after some gentle reminders from Fuzzball and my sword, the would-be assailants confessed that they were working for the Aspis Consortium, and pointed us to some of their superiors.
After a fight with some of their colleagues on the outskirts of town, we knocked out one and forced the other to surrender. I had to call off the mage from feeding the unconscious one to his mantis (he always opts for the bloodiest possible options!). Instead, for the interrogation, we decided to have the illusionist create the sounds of someone screaming and being ripped apart while the giant mantis acted like it was eating someone just behind a nearby wall. The illusionist also created the shadow of the man’s companion being ripped apart on the opposite wall. Fuzzball growling and acting all intimidating toward the man completed the picture, and he quickly confessed what he knew.
We had only sketchy information to go on, but what we had learned suggested a male and female elf, along with a tall black-and-white haired woman, had been behind all of this as part of the Aspis Consortium. They were holed up in an old fortress from the days of the war against the Whispering Tyrant, and it was in marshlands near the river to the south of Tamran. We scouted several possible locations, and at one of them we were greeted by several glowing white figures. They were apparently spirits of the holy warriors that had maintained the fortress in the past, and warned us away. I believed them, but the paladin and illusionist did not and attacked. I was hit by a Color Spray from the lead figure and passed out for the rest of combat.
When I woke up, I saw the bodies of the two elves mentioned before, plus a number of other Aspis agents. The illusionist informed me that the “ghosts” had been illusions all along, cast by the male elf who had screamed “And I would have gotten away with it if it hadn’t been for you meddling kids!” before he passed out. Finding a trapdoor, we headed downstairs, where we found all the crates of supplies along with pamphlets from the Church of Razmir, who were apparently the intended recipients. The mystery had been solved; it was now time to confront the mastermind. After I took the religious pamphlets to use as toilet paper later, we headed farther along and met up with the tall woman the thug had mentioned from earlier. Unfortunately, we had not counted on her having a badger and a pair of dire weasels guarding her. The fight did not go well. The passages were oo narrow to fight effectively, and the illusionist’s Color Spray knocked out not only one of the dire weasels but Fuzzball as well. I was trapped in the hallway outside by the chaos and somehow most of my arrows failed to hit their targets. The fight ended badly. The illusionist and paladin were killed while the kitsune, her wolf, Fuzzball, and I barely escaped with our lives. However, we did make it to Guaril Karela with the proof we needed in the end. I still do not trust that man, though. I find it very suspicious that he stayed out of the fight.
I will remain in Tamran until the situation is settled and that woman is brought to justice, and then I intend to continue toward Absalom.
This session suffered from poor timing. The gaming shop we were trying to play at had booked a huge Magic: The Gathering tournament, and there was no room for us to play. We had to set up the session at a restaurant next door, which took a while. We started 30 minutes late and both the kitsune hunter’s player and I had to leave early for different things later in the day, which was why our characters ran away at the end and the remaining two got killed in the final battle.
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18 Lamashan 4715 AR
I turned 136 today and took some time to reflect on the year’s events. Seeing this much has been eye-opening; I feel I may actually be disappointed when I have to return to my people. I have met many interesting people as well; my experience with the illusionist and the elves of the Aspis Consortium continue to convince me not to trust arcane magic; its practitioners are amoral jerks and its effects can turn on one’s companions too easily. The Kellids I spent the summer with, despite being regarded as uncultured brutes, are kind and loyal when you get to know them.
Which brings me to my biggest regrets. I have not had the best career as a Pathfinder agent so far. I tried to do too much independently over the summer and got myself into big trouble. In addition, many other people died as a result of my actions, as did my animal companion. And then my failure to save my companions in Nirmathas only compounds my failures. I am trying to improve myself more in the hope that I can do better in the future.
Anyhow, the situation in Tamran was finally resolved; the paladin and illusionist have been raised along with the illusionist’s murderous creature and the mastermind behind the plot has been captured. I've bought a number of magical arrows from one of the grateful militiamen (nine flaming ones and one holy one), and Fuzzball and I leave for Absalom tomorrow morning.
It was also at this point that I added the part about her having originally been male to her backstory. If I do decide to transition to female in the future and have to come out to any of my fellow gamers, I will start by having Siella reveal this at some thematically-appropriate moment and gauging their reactions.
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4 Neth 4715 AR
At last, I have arrived in Absalom. Although I had heard many stories about the grandeur of the City at the Center of the World, I was still not prepared. The size and scale of this place is beyond anything I have seen before. I am still taking all of it in. My kitsune friend from Tamran who accompanied me here has been showing me around, which is good because otherwise I would be lost. I have been staying at the Pathfinder Society’s Grand Lodge while I complete my report on my activities in the prehistoric underworld. I have matched some of the species I encountered to records kept in the Blakros Museum’s archives and finally know their names now. Other species are not represented there, but seem to have close relatives known. I understand that a wedding is going to take place in the Blakros family soon and that the Pathfinder Society is going to send a delegation to it. I look forward to attending.
5 Neth 4715 AR
I was impressed and looked forward to whatever secret mission Dreng wanted us to go on, but was really disappointed when he asked us to go get him a particular type of well-aged brandy from a nearby tavern. Summoning all of us to him just to indulge his drinking habit? Seriously? Well, at least the location was interesting enough; the Wounded Wisp was the tavern where the Pathfinder Society was originally founded. A lot of interesting people were gathered there, and the place did serve some very good wine. I talked to several of the patrons who all had fascinating stories to tell. The paladin would up in an altercation with a few Varisians who were apparently cheating at a game of chance before the proprietress took us down to the wine cellar.
Once she tried to remove the bottle, we were in for a surprise. The “bottle” was actually a lever that opened a secret passage. We proceeded inside, only to be attacked by a group of giant spiders. Fuzzball and I managed to dispatch them effectively with a little help, and we then examined the items inside. Inside a desk, we found an odd note. Apparently, a Pathfinder agent, a gnome named Eylysia, had compiled a lot of data from an expedition, which was never forwarded to the Society itself. Two people, Arkath the Stonemason and a gnome illusionist named Fimbrik, were suggested to have been involved in the coverup. We brought the note back to Drandle Dreng at the Grand Lodge (I suspected he had planned the whole thing out ahead of time) to see what he had to say about it.
As it happened, Dreng had no idea about the note. Concerned, he asked us to investigate. We found out Arkath was dead, and the priests in charge of the cemetery wouldn’t let us into his tomb. The creepy Halfling wanted to beat up the priests and break in, and managed to get the kitsune on her side, but the paladin and I stopped them. Fimbrik was a different story. He had a house in the area, and when we went there, we knocked without a response. We decided just to break in. We found Fimbrik grooming himself in front of the mirror and asked him to explain, but he refused to listen. I stood between him and the mirror and he continued to ignore us. Really getting annoyed at this point, I wound up smashing the mirror without any reaction from him. It was at that moment that I realized that “Fimbrik” was actually an illusion. This was confirmed when we walked into a different room to find another identical gnome sitting in an armchair. We eventually found a note the real Fimbrik had left saying that he’d left on business, but we should check the names of three Pathfinders (Doulgonlir Caskmail, Hollis “Evil Grin” Thorne, and Karina Clamp, names also mentioned in the notes on Eylysia from before) for clues. And that the password was “WIFFLE” whatever that meant. Quite the eccentric fellow, that Fimbrik, though I still find his illusions annoying.
Drandle Dreng informed us that these three names belonged to Pathfinder initiates who had died before being formally confirmed, and that we could find them on the Wall of Names outside the Grand Lodge. Checking them, it turned out we had to solve a puzzle to determine when each of them had died and put them in the correct order. Luckily enough, the halfling was knowledgeable enough in history to piece it together, which gave us our next cue. The records were hidden somewhere in the Shrine of the Failed.
Some background regarding this place. In Absalom, there is a massive structure known as the Cathedral of the Starstone, where legend has it one can ascend to godhood by touching the unearthly object at its center. Getting there requires one pass a horrendously difficult test, and only three people ever managed to make it through to the end. The Shrine of the Failed is a mausoleum preserving the remains of those who tried and failed. Anyway, we entered and looked in all the tombs for quite a while before finding a hidden panel in one. Even then, it took a long time to figure out how to open this panel. We had to take the nameplate (which read “Here lies Bob”) off the tomb and write “WIFFLE” on the back of it. With the panel open, we made our way down a secret passage and into another room with a desk where we finally managed to discover Eylysia’s journal. Upon exiting into the Shrine proper, we were met by agents of the Aspis Consortium who wanted the notes for themselves. A nasty fight ensued. The party was trapped in a small room, so a lot of options weren’t available. Fuzzball managed to get out and attack while I fired off arrows, but I was eventually hit by one of their swords and fell unconscious. When I came to though, the battle was over and we had won. I am really beginning to hate these Aspis people.
In the end, Drandle Dreng was pleased when we handed over Eylysia’s notes and thanked us profusely. He said he would speed up the process for us to get officially commissioned as part of the Society, a prospect I am looking forward to.