Kingmaker Campaign Journal


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Hi there. My name is Daron – I’m the founder and lead author for Abandoned Arts, a mid-to-small sized third-party Pathfinder RPG publisher – and I’ve recently undertaken the task of GM-ing a new Kingmaker campaign for a group of three players.

We’re actually all complete strangers, playing twice a week(ish), long-distance via the Fantasy Grounds software. We’re playing a very conventional, rules-as-written game with no houserules or third-party content (not even my own). Actually, we’re playing only with content featured at the official prd. At time of this posting, we are only two sessions in. My players seem to have mixed levels of experience with Pathfinder, but are playing pretty well together so far. The party is fairly small, so they should level quickly. If you’ve run a Kingmaker game before, you know that the random encounter table is absolutely brutal at the lower levels, so the extra experience point gains should help. Maybe.

I’m the kind of GM that runs things by the book – I’m not a killer GM, or a “nice guy” GM – I’m just bringing the module to life, here, and letting the rules (and the dice) do the talking. That means that I play it straight with the rules, the encounters, and that damn wandering monster table. Why do I mention this here? Because if there’s any appeal to a campaign journal like this one, it’ll be in watching a small group of players with mixed Pathfinder experience tackle one of the most sandboxy and difficult (at least at first) Paizo APs out there, and succeed (or not) on their own merits, and – let’s be honest – on their own luck.

What follows will serve to document our campaign, so let’s kick things off by talking about our (squishy but practical) party of three. Click the spoilers for details. Descriptions of sessions one and two to follow this post. We play about twice a week, and I plan to update once or twice a week.

I don’t know if my players will post here or not, but if anyone’s dying for more details on this-or-that encounter or event, I’m sure that either myself or one of our heroes will be happy to oblige. Eventually, I'll probably get full character stats posted up here, too. Happy reading.

The Party

Beru Flatpeak, CN halfling oracle:

Str 12, Dex 14, Con 10, Int 14, Wis 8, Cha 18
fortune-teller, speaker-in-tongues, diviner of the mystery of the heavens

Beru had a hard time learning to speak as a child, often mispronouncing or mixing up words badly. His family would joke good-naturedly that Beru spoke a language all his own. Eventually he mastered the common Taldan tongue, but when a roaming priest of Erastil sought a night’s rest at the Flatpeak estate, the priest was surprised to hear Beru speak in his “first tongue,” for it was not a language of nonsense. Beru was speaking in the Celestial tongue of the angels.

Perplexed by this information, Beru spent time travelling through Avistan and speaking with priests and practitioners of every faith, searching for the meaning of this strange, intrinsic gift. Finding no bond or peace in any known faith, Beru came to discover that only the moon and stars seemed to “speak” to him in the spiritual sense of the word – in the ways that pious men and women would describe the voices and visions of their gods. What’s more: his gift of tongues, it turns out, is also a curse – a linguistic impulse that overtakes him in times of stress or trauma.

After returning home to Brevoy, Beru sought a simple life in the south of Brevoy – far from the bustle of the cities, and perhaps nearer to the tranquil night skies. Though the halfling has discovered that his gift is greater than he ever dreamed – his connection to the heavens and the cosmos is strong enough to empower him with the ability to work miracles – he also supports his income peddling fortune-tellings with a deck of cards.

Beru has accepted the Lord Mayor’s charter in order to better test himself and sharpen the blade of his double-edged divine gift. With no gods to guide him, he must make his own way in the world and discover the meaning of his cosmic mystery alone.

Boszin Hartz, N samaran druid:

Str 16, Dex 12, Con 12, Int 10, Wis 16, Cha 10
tiger-tamer, scimitar swordsman, druidic heretic

The tale of Boszin’s life is a tale of self-inflicted exile. His family immigrated to Brevoy in generations past, and lived honest lives in the Rostland Plains. Tragically, Boszin’s homestead burned to the ground when he was young, taking the lives of his immediate family… including that of his beloved sister. Rather than forge a new life in Brevoy, Boszin swore off the world he’d known and left civilization behind him, trekking south and adopting the life of a pioneer.

Though Boszin’s kind ascribe to a spiritual search for self-perfection and reincarnation, this belief did nothing to dull the sting of his sister’s death. As time wore on, the pain grew only sharper, and so it was that Boszin put his family’s superstitions behind him and swore a bond to a nameless circle of Gozreh-worshipping druids. The samsaran learned the druidic craft and conjured his companion, Feltch (a young tiger from the Valley of Fire beyond the Gonzi Forest). Eventually, Boszin disclosed his past – and his agenda – to the circle. Boszin sought spirit magic which might return his sister’s soul to the mortal world. In time, his elders revealed to him that their magic could not bring his sibling back, because her spirit was unwilling to return. Perhaps her cycle of reincarnation had begun. Perhaps her spirit did walk the world again – inhabiting another body, living another life… loving another brother.

Boszin’s refusal to accept this possibility – and the rage that simmered within him – were enough to convince the samsaran’s druidic elders that he was preparing to walk a forbidden path, and exiled him: and they were right. Now, Boszin seeks magic closed to druidic tradition: the powers of necromancy. Half-recalling necromantic spells from a previous life, the druid slowly succumbs to the unnatural temptation even as he takes up arms for the Lord Mayor’s charter in an effort to protect Brevoy’s frontiers. After losing two families and choosing exile from the bonds of both civilization and brotherhood, the Greenbelt is the only home that Boszin has left.

Tarnil Lostwing, CN aasimar inquisitor (sacred huntmaster) of Gorum:

Str 14, Dex 12, Con 14, Int 14, Wis 16, Cha 10
eagle-eyed intimidator, professional soldier, battle-panther commander

A native of Brevoy, and a soldier by trade, the divine influence in Tarnil’s heritage attracted him to the church of Gorum, where he clawed his way up to the rank of inquisitor (with the assistance of the esteem imparted by the auspicious nature and circumstances of his birth to human parents). Tarnil carries out the Lord Mayor’s charter in pursuit of an excuse to be where the fighting is. The politics of Brevoy necessitate that church of Gorum – which is, effectively, a standing army – distance themselves from any armed conflict involving border disputes or open warfare in the Swordlords’ name.

There is, however, no reason why an inquisitor of Gorum should not be able to root out heretics hiding in the Greenbelt. And what could be more heretical than cowardice and banditry? Tarnil means to ensure that any folk living on the Greenbelt belong there. He means to put every man infected with the curse of cowardice or the plague of banditry to the sword (his greatsword, specifically) – or else to recruit them, knowingly or otherwise, into Gorum’s service and make them to swear off (and hunt down) their criminal associates.

But Tarnil is something more than a soldier-turned-inquisitor, and his heritage is not his only advantage in this crusade: beside him walks the war-panther Aria, whom Gorum sent to his side. Together, the pair quests for little more (and nothing less) than glorious battle in the monster-haunted, bandit-infested wilderness that is the Greenbelt.

Sessions I & II
We had a pretty short first session, so I’ll be combining the first two sessions into one post.

Stolen Land: Introduction
In short, the nation of Brevoy – a cold and misty northern nation with… difficult political climates – has suffered the tangled, haunted, bandit-ridden, monster-infested catastrophe that is its southern border with the River Kingdoms for quite long enough. A small party of pioneers and adventurers has been chartered by the Swordlords of Restov to explore the Greenbelt as the first step of a national effort to map, settle, and civilize the land which rightfully – at least from one perspective – belongs to the nation of Brevoy.

Calistril 24th, AR 4710
The campaign opens as Boszin arrives at Oleg’s trading post, in possession of a charter identical to those carried by Beru and Tarnil, who, having met en route and travelled there together, are preparing to embark into the Greenbelt. It’s a bit after 12:30 pm.

There’s some confusion between Svetlana and the party at the outset – Svetlana seems to expect that the party has come to the trading post to assist with a recent bandit problem. It seemed the Levetons had requested aid from Restov and hoped the party were sent to aid the operation. The party agreed to help when the bandits next returned to collect their “taxes” from Oleg.

In the meantime, Tarnil collects a few jobs from Oleg’s bulletin board. It seems the Lord Mayor of Restov is offering rewards for slain bandits and for solutions to the recent spikes in Sootscale Kobold activity in the Greenbelt. Also, Oleg is looking for a tatzlwyrm head to mount at the trading post and a retired hunter named Vekkel Benzen is looking for a capable adventurer to hunt and slay Tuskgutter, the monstrous boar that took his leg.

Before leaving, Beru reads Oleg’s fortunes in the cards, and convinces a hesitant Oleg to let him borrow his (somewhat jittery and neurotic) horse, Claptrap.

Tarnil asks after recent Tuskgutter sightings, and proposes a trip south-southwest of Oleg’s to look for boar tracks (planning to return before the sunrise on the 1st of Pharast, (when the bandit “tax collectors” are next expected to visit, according to precedent). The party sets out.

Calistril 25th, AR 4710
After an uneventful trip some miles south of the trading post (not bothering to explore or map any of the Greenbelt just yet, in the interest of time), the party takes an overnight rest, then searches for a way around the Thorn River the next afternoon.

Finding only a disused and rickety bridge crossing a twenty-foot-deep ravine, Beru the oracle conjures bridges of shimmering moonlight over most of the rope bridge’s surface. The party manages to cross safely (this time), though their crossing is noted by a river monster which Beru identifies as a slurk, which climbs the steep cliff face with bizarre proficiency for such an ungainly creature.

GM’s Notes:
The slurk was a random encounter. I’d planned to spring it on the party as they carefully crossed the bridge one or two at a time. With the slurk’s abilities being what they are, this would actually have been a pretty nightmarish first encounter if it had taken place on the rickety, falling-apart bridge. Tarnil thought the bridge would be too difficult for the horses, though, so they all crossed together once Beru thought to use his moonlight bridges.

The moonlight bridges were a neat idea; normally each bridge reaches only 10 ft. and must attach to a surface (so no chaining bridges together). The bridge itself is a surface, though, so it wasn’t much of a stretch to allow it to originate from the wooden surfaces of the rope bridge itself. As for the crossing, the moonlight bridges covered (in total) 40 of the bridges’ 60-foot length, so anytime a character incurred a risk of falling through while crossing I rolled for a 4-in-6 chance that the player was standing on a beam of moonlight instead. This created a safe (but not quite risk-free) path across, with Beru bringing up the rear (since the bridges vanish if he crosses them himself).

Since they got across so quickly, they were able to encounter the slurk from the safety of the solid ground on the other side.

Dispatching the slurk was a pretty simple affair – the creature was used to ambushing travelers picking their way delicately across the bridge, and didn’t stand up to a five-against-one assault. After hacking it apart to take the tusks for trophies, the party returned their attention to exploring the hex.

Calistril 26th, AR 4710
In the evening, the party fed itself by foraging for game and edible plants. After an overnight rest, the party turned their efforts back to tracking Tuskgutter. Following some very old tracks (with a pretty great Survival check), the party wandered out of the Kamelands, west-northwest into the Narlmarches.

And, boy, did they find him. I rolled the percentiles as instructed to see if Tuskgutter was “at home” when they came upon his liar.

He was.

The boar lived up to his reputation as a local terror. Covered in scars, with enormous chipped-and-scratched tusks, the monster-pig simply came charging out of the undergrowth some seventy feet away.

The good news was: Tuskgutter wasn’t hard to spot. He’s loud, and angry, and uninterested in subtlety. Boszin dropped an entangle and Tarnil and Aria were the first to engage, while the rest of the party maneuvered as best they could for sling shots. The inquisitor landed a couple of mighty blows on the boar. Blood-soaked and shrieking rabidly, Tuskgutter repaid the injuries by thrashing Tarnil, Aria, and eventually Feltch (the druid’s companion) quickly into unconsciousness. By the time Bozsin joined the melee, the battle seemed lost. Beru had his hands full just keeping dying characters (and animal companions, in that order) from bleeding out, while Bozsin desperately struggled to do more harm to the boar than the boar was dishing out. Unfortunately, this proved futile – Tuskgutter was a true monster, and it didn’t take him long to put the druid down, too.

Fortunately, Boszin had been able to put Tuskgutter into the negatives before he dropped. But, as you might know, a boar can keep fighting even as its life blood still bleeds away. Tuskgutter’s ferocity ability kept him fighting even at a negative hit point total, and so… Beru simply ran. Still mounted upon Claptrap – Oleg’s borrowed steed – the halfling oracle outran the boar, deliberately keeping only just out of Tuskgutter’s reach to keep the boar more interested in the chase than in his helpless friends. With the boar staggered and the horse outpacing it easily, it became a simple (if stressful) matter to simply wait out the clock on Tuskgutter’s remaining moments. Soon, the boar dropped dead of its injuries mid-stride, and Beru was able to return to his crippled and unconscious party, now many hundreds of feet behind.

Many hours of healing and stabilizing later, the party was able to get on their feet and begin heading back to Oleg’s by the most direct route available, north-northeast through the Narlmarches. Mind you, our heroes are far from recovered. Feltch is limping along with one hit point and nobody else (except for Beru, who is unharmed) is faring all much better. Bozsin is still sitting on an entangle spell, but otherwise the party’s magic is similarly on its last legs.

And that’s when the wolves showed up.

GM’s Notes:
When I rolled a random encounter just before the party could clear the Narlmarches, I had a notion that the campaign was over already. Tuskgutter was a very rough encounter for only three 1st-level characters, and the party hadn’t done all that well on their healing spell rolls. I rolled for the type of encounter, and was relieved to roll up nothing worse than wolves… except that it was 1d6 wolves… and, naturally, I rolled a 6. And horses can’t simply outrun wolves like they can outrun staggered boars. Especially in the dense forest, where Large creatures have fewer options.

Fortunately, entangle is almost made for exactly this sort of encounter, and man does it have a wide area of effect.

It’s somewhere between midnight on the 27th and morning on the 28th when they spot them. Six wolves, fanned out in a semi-circle around the party. Desperately hungry animals, with visible ribs and ravenous expressions, drooling in anticipation of so much horseflesh.

Tarnil and Boszin dismount their steeds, and the wolves charge. At least, they try, but...

Erupting from the ground, the grasses, roots, and vines of the Narlmarches spring to life as Boszin bids them to entangle five of the six wolves. As the wolves gradually struggle out of the spell’s area, Tarnil and Aria get to work putting free-moving wolves (and those close to the edge of the spell) down quickly. Beru refuses to dismount Claptrap, panicking in Celestial tongues as the majority of the wolves make beelines for the horses. Unattended, a pair of wolves topple Boszin’s horse prone, and begin to savage the poor animal, hoping to kill it now and then return for it later. They don’t get the chance. Tarnil and Boszin convene on the panicking animal (who, despite the penalties for fighting prone and for attacking with secondary hooves, actually lands a really solid blow on its lead antagonist, itself) and put the wolves down as they try to make an escape. Injured, with their pack slain, two of the last wolves to escape the magical entanglement flee into the forest, and the party is happy to let them go.

Calistril 25th, AR 4710
It’s 3:30 am when the party arrives back at Oleg’s, making plans for tomorrow’s bandit “tax collectors” as they rest and heal. Oleg sends word to Vekkel Benzen that Tuskgutter has been slain, but the reward (some fine hunting weapons) will never arrive before the bandits do. Tarnil borrows a longbow from Oleg’s supplies, and our heroes arrive at a plan...

To be continued..!

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