DM Jesse's Kingmaker PbP (Inactive)

Game Master Jesse Heinig

If you dislike my words I will not continue this conversation if you wish such," Kavalina says calmly. She stops looking for her equipment s she watches Cassandra tense up. She instead goes for her glaive, "Possibly. I would need time, but I doubt corruption has taken hold of this place, be on guard however for such. This would know more than I do."

Will be caught up shortly - next couple hours most likely.

"Guys. Jhod said there's a bear here."

Noticing Cassandra tense up, Telmarni looks at her a bit confused. But when she reminds them about a bear, she immediately puts her hand onto the scimitar. She hesitates to draw it out but after a few seconds, she does so anyway.

"A bear? Where!?" She begins to look about for anything around that may look like a bear, or something moving that isn't them.

Perception: 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (10) + 6 = 16

"Oh! I'd forgotten about the bear," Korinne gasps, immediately moving closer to the others. "I think Perli and Tyg said something about a bear too..."

She turns her gaze toward the cave. "Would it be in there or out hunting right now?"

Telmarni approaches the stagnant pool. The water looks murky and filled with leaves, moss, and algae.

As Telmarni sidles along the pool, a massive grizzly bear comes roaring out of the cave at the far end, squeezes between the pillars, and rushes down the stairwell. There it stops and lets out a tremendous, angry roar. It has bloodshot eyes and patchy fur and definitely does not look like it is happy to see visitors.

Telmarni: Initiative: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (4) + 5 = 9
Korinne: Initiative: 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (11) + 2 = 13
Carinna: Initiative: 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (3) + 4 = 7
Cassandra: Initiative: 1d20 + 3 ⇒ (3) + 3 = 6
Kavalina Norreiys: Initiative: 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (9) + 2 = 11

Grizzly bear: Initiative: 1d20 + 1 ⇒ (13) + 1 = 14

ROUND 1

The bear comes rushing at the party at full speed!

Party up!

No one expects the Erastil Bears by how our initiatives went. >.>

"Bear! There's a bear!" Telmarni exclaims as it barrels down the stairs. She immediately takes flight and moves away from the bear. Feeling at a good height, she quickly casts a spell which cause a disk to appear before her, and then soon vanish.

Move Action: Move 15ft west an up. She moves normally, but it cost double movement due to going up.
Standard Action: Cast Shield

Also, does anyone else having problems moving their pawn on Roll20? I can't move mine.

Cassandra's flight response told her to flee immediately but she overrode the instinct. She circles to the opposite side of the pool and takes aim at the bear's flank.

Attack: 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (7) + 6 = 13
Damage: 1d8 + 2 + 1d6 ⇒ (2) + 2 + (6) = 10

Move north around the pool. Swift for Piercing Rays Stance. Standard to shoot.

DM, not that it would matter here thanks to her terrible roll, but as long as Carinna has a panache point (and I intend to always have at least one), she gets +2 init to a total of +6.

Seeing the bear charging towards Telmarni, Carinna swiftly moves to stand besides her, her sword ready to strike as soon as the bear comes closer. While waiting for the imminent attack she starts to doubt if her sword would be able to do any harm to the grizzly bear. "Wow... do they always get this big?" In the heat of battle she didn't really expect an answer but talking always helped her to focus and keep her hands from shaking.

Readied Attack (dueling sword): 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (16) + 9 = 25
Damage (dueling sword): 1d8 + 7 ⇒ (7) + 7 = 14

Round 1

"O-oh...that's a very large and very angry bear!" Korinne gasps, brilliantly stating the obvious. As her companions move to encircle the bear, she quickly weaves a spell of protection around herself.

"Um...I don't really know much about bears! Do they have any weaknesses?" she calls out.

Casting Mage Armor.

Round 1

A small, irritated squeak is heard as Babs crawls out of Korinne's pack and peeks over her shoulder to see what all the ruckus is about. Upon seeing the oncoming bear she begins squeaking excitedly and takes flight, circling her master as if a moon orbiting a planet.

I'm helping! Nothing can get past me!

For simplicity's sake in most combats Babs will just act on Kor's initiative to orbit her and use the Loyal Bodyguard ability to try and improve her AC should something attack her. She's diminutive size so she should be able to occupy Korinne's square without any trouble.

Round 1

"Shelyn, grant us power to deal with this beast. Bestow upon us your blessing," chants Kavalina as she raises her holy symbol up. A divine feeling enters the body, granting them insight.

Cast Bless

Kavalina's bless spell goes off before everyone but Korinne, FWIW.

There may be some madness going on with the tokens on Roll20 due to the new map layer and some finagling that I had to do. I'll keep tweaking it. I did some adjustments and with luck they should be movable again. I moved Carinna next to Telmarni, as requested.

Cassandra fires her bow and a flaming arrow just barely misses the bear's immense, furry back. Telmarni, Korinne, and Kavalina all cast spells, while Carinna takes up a waiting position next to Telmarni.

The grizzly rushes at Telmarni. It lashes out with an immense paw!

Grizzly: Claw attack: 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (5) + 7 = 12

It is repelled by Telmarni's magical shield.

At the same moment Carinna darts in and stabs at the bear with her blade! It bats her sword aside angrily, though clearly she is keeping it disoriented and off its guard.

Carinna's attack is effective, but not enough to draw blood yet. 14 damage is 14 damage though!

ROUND 2

The bear continues its angry assault on Telmarni.

Grizzly: Claw attack 1: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (20) + 5 = 25
Grizzly: Confirm crit: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (14) + 5 = 19 (no confirm thanks to shield spell)

Grizzly: Claw attack 2: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (18) + 5 = 23

It slams both claws into her!

Grizzly: Claw damage: 1d6 + 3 ⇒ (1) + 3 = 4
Grizzly: Claw damage: 1d6 + 3 ⇒ (3) + 3 = 6

With Telmarni savaged by its claws, the bear tries to grab on to her!

Grizzly: Grab attack: 1d20 + 11 ⇒ (11) + 11 = 22

The bear knocks her defenses away as it claws her, then wraps its immense arms around her and tries to bite her in the neck!

Grizzly: Bite attack: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (3) + 5 = 8

At the last minute Telmarni is able to get her sword in between herself and the bear, just barely keeping it from biting in to her!

This cursed beast will find peace only in death, her sword says eerily.

Party's turn for round 2!

Round 2

"Tel! No!" Seeing her sister being mauled by the enraged bear, Carinna doubles her efforts to kill it as fast as she can. If my last attack was against almost anything else I think it would be already dead but this beast is too tough!

Attack (dueling sword), bless: 1d20 + 9 + 1 ⇒ (16) + 9 + 1 = 26
Damage (dueling sowrd): 1d8 + 7 ⇒ (4) + 7 = 11

I guess my movement didn't happen in my earlier post. Oh well.

Telmarni yells out as the bear tears into her. "Gah!" Not wanting to stay within it's grasp, she tries to escape.

CMB Attempt: 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (12) + 4 = 16 Telmarni doesn't have Escape Artist trained, she has to attempt a CMB to gain control and free herself.

And I don't think that did it.

The bear came charging out while you were a bit ahead of the party - then you stopped to cast the shield spell, which obviously was a good choice as it stopped you from taking a crit! :D

"Unhand her!" Kavalina shouts as she rushes forward to strike the bear with her glaive.

Attack: 1d20 + 4 + 1 ⇒ (6) + 4 + 1 = 11
Damage: 1d10 + 4 ⇒ (1) + 4 = 5

Round 2

Cassandra groans in frustration as the first shot goes wide. She hesitates to fire the second. Telmarni was now caught in the bear's arms. A miss now might mean hitting her friend. But if she didn't shoot, it might rip her to shreds. Cassandra pulls back on string, bringing it and the arrow back to her lip. Now was not the time to doubt.

Attack: 1d20 + 6 + 1 ⇒ (2) + 6 + 1 = 9
Damage: 1d8 + 2 + 1d6 ⇒ (5) + 2 + (5) = 12 Okay, screw you dice.

Just waitin' on Korinne. Telmarni's 16 is not enough to escape the bear's grab, but Corinna's sword does hit, so the bear is pretty beaten up at this point. A well-placed damage spell might tip it over, or you might decide to heal Telmarni to keep her from being torn in half when the bear takes its turn at the top of round 3!

As the bear scoops up Telmarni, Hatch screams out "No!" and rushes it with his shortsword.

Hatch: Shortsword attack: 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (7) + 2 = 9

... to no avail.

Oy...what a decision to make...

Round 2

Korinne watches with horror as the grizzly savages Telmarni before knocking her to the ground, even as the others hack away at the frenzied animal.

"Tel, hold on!" she cries as she races to her friend's aid, Babs flapping after her as fast as her little wings can carry her. As Korinne moves an electrical hum begins to emanate from her, culminating in a surprisingly loud *pop* when she reaches Telmarni and manages to place her hand on the strix's shoulder.

Cure Light Wounds (+1 CL via Arcane Reservoir): 1d8 + 4 ⇒ (2) + 4 = 6 ;_;

Moving, expending one point from Kor's arcane reservoir to cast CLW and then another point as a free action to boost the caster level on her spell.

Thanks for the healing.

ROUND 3

Korinne manages to give Telmarni a little relief, just before the bear roars and tears at the strix again.

Grizzly grapple: Claw #1: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (20) + 5 = 25 hit
Grizzly grapple: Confirm #1: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (5) + 5 = 10 (failed to confirm)
Grizzly grapple: Claw #2: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (13) + 5 = 18 hit due to Telmarni's Dex penalty from being grappled

Grizzly grapple: Bite: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (8) + 5 = 13 miss

The bear rips and bites and continues beating up your poor companion, though her magical shielding absorbs the brunt of the damage.

Grizzly: Claw damage: 1d6 + 3 ⇒ (2) + 3 = 5
Grizzly: Claw damage: 1d6 + 3 ⇒ (1) + 3 = 4

Hatch actually leaps on one of the bear's arms and tries to pull it away from Telmarni.

Aid another: 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (10) + 2 = 12

Telmarni gets a +2 on her attempt to break free, if she chooses to do so.

Party time!

With Korinne healing Telmarni and Hatch trying to free her from the bear, Carinna tried once more to finish the bear... both her prior attacks resulted in injury but the tough beast was still fighting! Aim for the heart!

Attack (dueling sword), bless: 1d20 + 9 + 1 ⇒ (17) + 9 + 1 = 27
Damage (dueling sword): 1d8 + 7 ⇒ (2) + 7 = 9

Round 3

Realizing that her healing won't be able to keep pace with the bear's attacks, Korinne calls forth tiny darts of energy that slam into the bear's head and shoulders. "Get off of her you crazy thing!"

Magic Missile: 2d4 + 2 ⇒ (2, 2) + 2 = 6

Carinna lunges forward and Korinne's magical bolts sail over her and slam into the bear. The bear lifts Telmarni off the ground, and Carinna takes the opening to lunge up underneath its arms, squeezing between her friend and the bear and plunging her sword deep into its torso.

The bear roars and drops Telmarni, then, still standing on its hind legs, it writhes and twists. Its roar changes to a gurgle, then to a soft sigh of resignation and... relief? Its fur shortens and diminishes and then is gone as it shrinks and turns and then in just a few seconds there is only an old man there, pierced by Carinna's sword - and he, too, continues to collapse in on himself, his skin turning to ash, his muscles knotting and disintegrating and his flesh falling away to sand and dust until all that is left is a dry skeleton. Without tendons to hold it together the skeleton collapses in a heap, leaving its ribcage suspended on Carinna's dueling blade.

A small wisp of wind sweeps up much of the dust and blows it away across the landscape. The trees wave in the breeze and sunlight filters down through the canopy haphazardly, leaving sparkles and uneven moving shadows, as if something unseen has passed by and away.

The pool next to you all sparkles as well in the sunlight and you realize with a start that the collected algae and moss is gone, and the water in it is clear and still.

The cursed bear-guardian is laid to rest, for another 160 xp each.

Still with the ribcage suspended in her sword, Carinna looks to the others. "Girls... I'm not really knowledgeable in matters of the gods or the nature world but I'm pretty sure what happened is far from normal... I've heard about men who can turn into beast, lycanthropes, but I'm not sure this is the case." She looks at Cassandra with questioning eyes before noticing the change in the pool.

She then lets the ribcage fall and sheathes her blade. "Hum, actually it looks more like a curse and perhaps we fixed this place... should we also bury the poor fellow, or burn its bones?"

"Oh...oh wow, I've never seen anything like that before," Korinne finally says in a hushed voice. As she notices the now-clear pool, her eyes widen and she looks at the others.

"I think you're right Carinna...I think we just saw a..." she turns and looks questioningly at Kavalina. "Was that a miracle?"

"A guardian perhaps, Left to fend off those whom would corrupt this place," she goes to Telmanari's side, "do we have any healing potions?

Hatch huffs and says, "I dunno what it was, other than a really big bear, but I'm just glad it didn't kill Tel." He looks around the shrine and says, "I wonder if he was turned into a bear by something here?"

With the strange bear loosened its grip on her, Telmarni slumps to the ground and watched on, confused at the sight. "Wh-What happened with it!? Seeing the bear change into a human, and then into bones and dust, Telmarni just lays back onto the ground. "This place is weird... And humans are strange." As she speaks, a bit of confusion in her voice.

Korinne shakes her head as she kneels down next to Telmarni as well. "I don't think we have any potions but I can use some of my power to create another healing effect," she replies. On cue, her hands begin to crackle with energy and another electrical hum can be heard...

Cure Light Wounds (Telmarni): 1d8 + 3 ⇒ (5) + 3 = 8

She frowns as the strix's wounds fail to mend completely, then wipes her brow. "Still not quite enough..."

Cure Light Wounds (Telmarni): 1d8 + 3 ⇒ (6) + 3 = 9

"Ah-hah! Good as new," she smiles, though she looks a little wan after expending so much energy in such a short time. "But I'm afraid that's all I can do for today, so...no more cursed, angry bear-men, okay?"

Telmarni nods in agreement while laying on the ground. "And no giant centipedes. Don't forget those." She states.

Slowly sitting upright, she looks around the now cleared and cleaned sight. "Okay, this place is weird. Wasn't this place just covered with muck and plants just a few seconds ago?" She stands up and continues to look around. Weird. This place is just strange. Recalling what the sword said before she was mauled, she looks down at it. "Huh, it was right."

Shaking her own head, she casts a spell, and her eyes begin to glow a light blue. She casts Detect Magic and begis surveying the area.

She wonders why the pool of water is radiating magic. "Huh, that's strange... The water in the pool is magical. Ever so faintly of conjuration magic though."

She notices also the dust of the remains of the cursed bear. Even though the enchantment has vanished, the remaining aura left over is still strong. "And what ever cursed him, changed him and... Well, changed his life. There are traces of Transmutation and Necromancy. So it changed him, and was most likely a curse, which kept him alive for such a long time."

"A curse...I wonder who put it on him?" Korinne ponders as the group slowly begins to return to the task of exploring the temple grounds. "Maybe he did something really bad and Erastil struck him down? Or maybe an enemy of Erastil's faith...though I'm not sure who it would've been," she frowns. "Jhod might know more."

She moves toward the far end of the magical pool until she stands in front of the steps leading up to the cave entrance. "Come on, let's see if there's anything still inside!"

"Um..." Cassandra said intelligently. It was a stall for time because she didn't know how to respond. As confident as she was that her friends no longer judged her by the blood running through her veins, this situation might lead to some future difficulties. Thus she stayed quiet for a while, not sure how to answer the question. When Telmarni mentioned magic at play she latched onto it a little to conspicuously. "Magic? So it might not be lycanthropy?" She knew well enough that lycanthropy could be contracted by magical curse but that was not the main method many knew of. Lycanthropy was a disease, contracted from similarly diseased people. This seemed more divine than arcane or mundane. Hopefully this wasn't a rampaging lycan.

Telmarni shakes her head side to side. "Most definitely magic in nature. It was a curse that changed him, and extended his life. I don't believe lyc... Lycanthropy can do that, right?" She coughs a bit before turning to Cassandra with a slightly confused look upon her face. "Um... Maybe he did something bad to cause what happened to him? Maybe he went on a rampage someplace, and was cursed to guard this place? I don't rightly know.... But, maybe I might find out a little more." She turns back to the dust, hoping a little bit of the aura of the magic is still around, and refocus upon it.

Spellcraft to figure out more about the curse: 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (1) + 9 = 10
Knowledge Arcana to recall if she heard anything similar to this: 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (17) + 7 = 24
Knowledge Nature to see if she may have gleamed of anything that may help: 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (7) + 4 = 11

Might not help, but couldn't have hurt. Maybe.

Although she knew she probably should be helping Telmarni examine the traces of magic left by the bear, Korinne can't help but find herself distracted by the prospect of exploring a temple that may have been abandoned for years, maybe even decades or centuries!

Conjuring a small light on her crossbow, she carefully advances up the stone steps and peers into the open cave...

Perception: 1d20 ⇒ 10

As Korinne tempts fate by peering into the strange cave, Babs begins squeaking in a rather agitated manner.

Hey, what are you doing? Stop! There might be more bears! Hey! Hey! Listen!

"Right. This is a temple to Erastil. Probably divine retribution...maybe," she says nervously as she tries to latch on to something that's not lycanthropy. She wasn't very convincing. When a lycan died they reverted to their previous form just like bear did. And the animal form was usually the one someone transitioned too. And many times they lost all sense of how they were. Sure, they didn't usually dissolve into dust but each case was different. To avoid further suspicion and questions she wanders over to the cavern beneath the deer statue.

K:Religion: 1d20 + 1 ⇒ (3) + 1 = 4 Rolling for common knowledge since she's a believer of Erastil but that's a terrible roll.

The cave seems to be empty now, aside from a few remnants of bones and patches of torn-up fur. It smells heavily of bear.

There are no immediate clues or signs as to what exactly transpired here, though clearly some sort of magic was at work, and perhaps Erastil isn't as far removed from this old shrine as its ancient and decrepit appearance would lead one to believe.

"Huh...nothing in here at all," Korinne calls back, Babs falling silent as Cassandra wanders over to join them. "So...I guess that's it? We tell Jhod what happened and see what he wants to do with this place now?"

Carinna still looks intrigued about the pool. It was not this bright before...

She then turned to the others before kneeling besides the pool. "Perhaps by killing the cursed bear we also cleansed this place..." With the help of her hand, she drank a bit of it.

** spoiler omitted **

Yeah forgot to mention that.

"I guess so," Cassandra says, a little disappointed there was nothing else here. At least the water was clean now. "Might as well rest a bit and refill the canteens." She unscrews the cap and downs the contents before dipping it in the pool. She waits for the bubbles to stop and gives the water a taste before re-screwing the top.

Telmarni nods in agreement. "This place... It reasonates with a... Higher power? I can't even figure out what kind of polymorph spell may have caused his transformation, and I can't even begin to explain why he lived so long." She shakes her head. "Everything here, must have been under some sort of divine curse, and it was lifted when the cursed man died."

The water is cool and fresh - like it just came from a mountain stream. It feels invigorating.

The water has a healing effect equivalent to a cure light wounds spell, so that takes care of Cassie's lingering point of damage.

"I guess so," Korinne responds as she heads back down the steps to join the others near the pool. She then looks around and smiles. "Either way, we did a good thing here."

I'm ready to move on once everyone else is :)

"Hey," Cassandra says in surprise. "Look," she says pointing at the wound from yesterday. It hadn't healed completely yet but one sip of the new water and it was gone completely. "The water heals."

After showing off the discovery and taking a few more sips Cassandra says, "So back to Oleg's or keep going? I think we have 4 or 5 days of food left."

"I think we were taking something of a scenic route back to Oleg's, right? We should probably have just enough food to look around a little more before we definitely have to head back."

My memory is a little hazy but I think that was the gist of it.

Hatch says, "Based on the map, we are not far from what the faeries said was a frog-pond of some kind. But exploring the forest takes longer because we can't see as far. So if we want to be careful maybe we can explore one or two areas nearby, then head back for food and news and to meet up with Vance again."

So, it's 2 days to explore a forest hex, so going D4->C5->B6->A7 and exploring all four would take 48 person-days of food from your current 50. That wouldn't leave you quite enough to get back to Oleg's without feeling some hunger pains. You could either use Survival to try to add to your supplies, or cut short (maybe skip on exploring A7) and ride straight for Oleg's when food goes short.

I've switched back to the overland map.