GM_Foxy's 2nd Carrion Crown

Game Master Foxy Quickpaw

This serious attempt to take justice in their own hands and force entry into the heart of the justice system in Lepidstadt degenerates into a slapstick comedy performance with Stam greasing their whole way to the door. They try their best but at least one is always slipping trying to hold himself at the ram pulling the others down with him.

As the first start laughing at that sight the atmosphere changes. The leaders of this are no longer taken serious and as they try to push it by force people get angry and leave. Not to be found alone facing the Beast lovers the leaders leave too as the crowd gets thin.

Spugnoir sighs in relief. Nothing more than bruised egos and bumped knees.

Darius makes a mental note of who the leaders were, the ones he could see that is.

Perception: 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (6) + 6 = 12

Then turns to the rest. "Well that went better than expected. Great job everyone. We seem to have bought a little more time. Let's not waste it."

Darius then heals Stam with some Cure Light Wounds.

CLW: 1d8 + 5 ⇒ (8) + 5 = 13

Thank you everyone, that was very well done! Mr. Truthfinder whatever you did was an amazing idea!

Mr. Redgrave, if you have any channels left, I think we can all use some healing before we sleep. It has been a very long day.

"It is not the way the guards or the Hellknights would have handled things, although I don't think in Cheliax it would have gotten this far. The People are pretty obedient and trusting, well they know that the Justice system works well in the fashion it does there. I didn't want murdering of innocent people, I didn't have to press them to see that they were being bullied. Did anyone see who the leaders were?"

Stam rubs at his sore shoulder even after Darius has healed it.

The leaders are just average guys that stuck out trough their acting but finding them by description would be a hard task. As you get back to the Crooked Kin it is already dark. It was a long day and could use some rest. But at least you're done and can sleep in. After enjoying some time with the kin or going directly to bed - the night passes uneventful. You wake latest as the place get's crowded again after the sun is up.

After the events of the previous night, the crowd still seems angry. The atmosphere on this final day is frenzied, with the locals determined to see the Beast burn. The clerks arrive early, with other members of the court arriving as the time approaches 10:00 a.m.

10:00 a.m.: The final day of the Trial of the Beast begins. Chief Justice Khard reminds the crowd of the penalties of violence, and tells them "I will clear the entire court if you do not behave. And just so you know what to expect: Mobs do not rule Lepidstadt, and should anyone threaten violence to any of the defense, I will have the person whipped out of town or hanged." He then requests the prosecution to describe the alleged events at Sanctuary.

10:30 a.m.: Witnesses for the Prosecution. The prosecution details the arson attack on the hospital of Sanctuary on Karb Isle 4 months ago. Otto Haiger alleges that the Beast set fire to the building, murdering Doctor Brada and his patients in the process, and states that only Brada’s loyal assistant Karl survived. Haiger calls Karl to the stand to give his evidence.

Karl tells what he has seen in the night of the fire just as he had as the defense visited him at home. Haiger is pleased with that and leaves Karl to the defense.

"Th-th-th-ank you. I g-g-give the floor to Mr. Varsk." Gustaf stammers.

Retcon things to do before the trial. Make sure the gnome is in jail, and register the vial and burnt papers as evidence

Mr Karl, just two questions before I present my evidence:
First: please describe any relationship that you know of between Doctor Brata and the Asylum to Vorkstag and Grine?
Second: Please describe the creature you saw, and what % confidence you have that the creature on trial is the same creature as the one you saw.

"I know Dr. Brada got deliveries of bleach from Vorgstag & Grine. He used it to clean up the asylum from time to time."

"As for the beast - It was really large and looked as if made from different parts. I didn't see it up close. But I can't compare it to the beast sitting on trial here as I can't see anymore. But how many beast do we have around Lepidstadt?" Karl asks, his tone not cynic but rather curious as where you want to go with that.

Darius used channel on everyone before they went to sleep the night before.

Channel Heal: 3d6 + 2 ⇒ (3, 5, 6) + 2 = 16

"Your honor we would like to present a Mongrel man skin suit, it has a large bite mark and because of the mutations they go through it could appear to be "made up of different parts"

diplomacy: 1d20 + 12 ⇒ (13) + 12 = 25

Your knowledge roll to know the skinstealer was only one point short. After having seen Vorgstag and the use of skins you remember the details. Just look it up in the Bestiary and you can use it in the trial. The judges won't respond.

"I believe and have confirmed it with some study that Vorgstag is a skin stealer, they are a creature that can wear the skins of those who are dead. We found many skins in preserved condition in the office or Vorgstag and there was a Mongrelman skin that had a large bite out of it like I had said before."

Stam will sit back down, looking more though the notes they have made about Vorgstag,

"The Gnome could confirm this."

Karl looks confused at Stam "Why is it important that it has bitemarks?" As he has no experience with court sessions he is unaware that he is not supposed to ask questions.

Your Honors we should explain.

In doing the due dillagence for this trial, we explored the ruins of the Asylum.
In that building we found a number of items that linked the Asylum to Vorgstag & Grine.

Submit the vial Diplomacy: 1d20 + 11 ⇒ (3) + 11 = 14
Submit the papers Diplomacy: 1d20 + 11 ⇒ (2) + 11 = 13

In addition we traced the tools found previously at the site of the swampers boneyard to the same location.

We visited Vorgstag's and Grim's place of business to discuss what these ties may be, and were set upon by a primitive Flesh Golem that was chained in their factory.
I recommend sending your local law enforcement to look at this as the body is still there. And well there is more that I will get to in a moment.

Submit the idea there is more then one Flesh Golem. Diplomacy: 1d20 + 11 ⇒ (13) + 11 = 24

In the course of our visit unfortuently further hostilities occurred which ended up with Mr. Grime captured and in your prison and Mr. Vorgstag escaping after revealing his true form as well as his ability to shapeshift. All this relates to the crimes at hand in a number of ways.
I warn anyone that is present that What we found was pretty frustum, so you may want to cover your eyes.

First, we found this head, that you can see bears a striking resemblance to the sawampers from the first crime.
Submit the preserved head Diplomacy: 1d20 + 11 ⇒ (8) + 11 = 19

Then we found this whole cabinet of skins including the mongleman skin already submitted by my companion as well as others skins from numerous murders.
Submit the Cabinet of skins Diplomacy: 1d20 + 11 ⇒ (13) + 11 = 24

In addition in the cabinet we found this ledger recording transactions. You will see that a number of these transactions are from Dr. Brada to Vorgstag & Grime confirming their connection.

Submit the ledger Diplomacy: 1d20 + 11 ⇒ (8) + 11 = 19

In addition we found a number of other bodies in the factory. Of which, this gentleman is simply the best preserved example.
Submit the coffin& body Diplomacy: 1d20 + 11 ⇒ (8) + 11 = 19

As I said earlier, I recommend you send your law enforcement to that factory to recover the many additional bodies and give them a proper final resting place.

In summary, this city has truly been under threat of a vial beast. But the defendant is not he. For while the creature before has a general resemblance to the beast, the evidence before you is undenighable. The true Beasts that have stalked this city is none other then Mr. Vorgstag & Mr. Grime. Beasts who can change form, walk amount you and commit hideous crimes that no city should ever be subjected to.

Mr. Karl, it was established in an earlier crime, that the beast matching your description was attacked by a Blood Caiman while escaping into the swamp with a body. The defendant is a golem that can not heal, but has no bite marks. This beast skin bears those marks.

"Is there a Zoology Professor we could call in to examine the skin with the bite marks to confirm the type of creature? As to sending the constabulary over I would send some mages and clerics with them as well just in case Vorgstag has returned."

Diplomacy: 1d20 + 12 ⇒ (9) + 12 = 21

The eyes of the judges and Otto Haiger grow wide as you lay out the horrible evidence before the court.

After Grergof closes the case with his statement Otto Haiger holds his Closing Statements. The prosecution asserts that the Beast is guilty of the murders in Morast, Hergstag, and Sanctuary. Otto claims that the Beast is a danger to society, and is a monster that should be destroyed. He recommends punishment in accordance with traditional law—execution by burning in the Punishing Man.

Gustav Kaple asserts that the prosecution’s evidence is not enough to prove the Beast guilty of any of the crimes in Morast, Hergstag, or Sanctuary. He recommends the Beast be freed immediately.

Close of the Trial. When both prosecution and defense have made their closing statements, Chief Justice Khard announces that the trial is over, and he and the other justices depart to deliberate.

An hour after the justices leave to deliberate, they return looking grim. The Herald calls for order, and the crowd immediately hushes. Chief Justice Khard stands and announces the verdict.

"We have heard the evidence presented before us, and thank Pharasma that we did so, for without this trial there would have been a most terrible miscarriage of justice. There are many cruelties in the world, but to lie and blame another for one’s crimes is the most terrible of sins. We have asked ourselves a question—who is the monster here? Is it this creature before us, with its broken body and terrible form, or is it we, the people of Lepidstadt, with our bigotry and lies? The Beast is innocent!"

If it’s found innocent, the crowd screams its anger at the verdict, and the guards must draw weapons to keep them at bay. Within minutes, a mob forms outside the courthouse, chanting, "Burn the Beast! Burn the Beast!"

The beast smiles it's sneering smile - the only one it is able to. "Thank you. You best friends. You come visit me. At Schloss Caromarc yes?"

The Beast is released from it's chains and the guards guide it through the mob and to the border of the city.

As the trial is over Judge Daramid comes over to the defence. "Thank you. You did Lepidstadt a great favour by rooting out this evil. Please meet me tomorrow morning in my house."

Grergof approaches Otto Haiger.
Sir, I hope there is no hard feelings between us. I understand that what we have done is going to cause you problems. Please know it was not done with mallace toword you or the city. We simply wished to see true justice done.

From the evidence we have found it seems like the true criminals are, as we stated, Vorgstag and Grime. If we can in any way be if service in capturing or prosecuting the true perpetrators of these crimes please let us know. This city deserves to see the true Beasts caught and punished.

"We're all professionals aren't we?" Haiger replies. But it is not hard to see his anger. It's just not clear whom he is angry at. Could as well be himself for not finding this out himself.

"Be assured that Grine - and Vorgstag if he is found - will pay for their crimes."

Stam will tag along with Grergof, listening intently to the judge.

"I enjoy seeing other justice systems at work, I am a from Cheliax and this is not quite how it would have been done there. Where did the beast say it was going, I am not familiar with the local towns."

K.Local: 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (12) + 8 = 20

"Why would the beast be heading North to a castle? I assume we are done here? We can collect out things and leave on the morrow?"

Spugnoir waves to The Beast. It is best you stay away from the city, I feel that many will not accept this verdict. Best wishes to you.

Spugnoir nods to the others. We should lay low as well, plenty of raw feelings.

Kaleb comes over as you stand in front of the court and wave the Beast goodbye. "Congratulations you did the impossible!" he greets you. "Now the party is over." He is a bit sad because if the beast would have been convicted there would have been another day of good business.

"I can't complain. We made a fair share in these days. But now it's time to pack up and say goodbye. We're leaving town tomorrow morning at dawn. Thank you again for your help with Aleece. If you're interested - her burial is this evening at the local cemetery."

"But if we don't meet again I want to tell you that it was a pleasure to meet you and to get to know you."

"I will attend, it is always sad to loose someone so young."

Stam wanders around the Krooked Kins campground, stopping in to chat with everyone before they go.

Of course, I will be there. I just want to do a bit of shopping first.

Grergof goes to sell the items listed in the discussion and find if a adamatium heavy flail is available anywhere and what the cost would be.

Wandering around town you find this and that but a curiosity/pawn shop catches your eye. It's a totally unsorted collection of everything, from canned beans, over dead parrots to everything magical and nonmagical.

As you enter the man immediately approaches you scanning you for interesting items he would like to buy. As there are indeed a few items that pique his curiosity he offers to take all of that stuff from you for a fair price. As you mention your need of a new flail with special properties he disappears in his maze of shelves and strange things to return with just such a thing.

He rips off a tag and offers you "All your stuff and 800 gold and this fine flail is yours."

Foxy does that price include the second set of stuff I threw in discussion a minute before this response?

"Oh you have even more stuff. Then you don't have to pay extra. Give that to me too and we are even." he offers.

Of course it did not. I hadn't my crystal ball with me to check for future posts ;) I leave it to you to calculate in detail if that's a good deal.

Grergof offers his hand.
Done, and thank you. I hope all these items are extremely profitable for you, my good man.

He offloads everything that he had for sale and takes the Adamantium Heavy Flail.

Then he returns to his companions and gives each of them 66PP and 70GP.
I got a pretty good price for everything we sold. Here is your portion of the sale.

As he delivers the coins Grergof asks:
That creature we fought in the factory. The one that looked like a dog and the one with no skin. I have a feeling we may run into them again. Does anyone know anything about them? We are near the university, maybe it would make sense to go see if we could research their strengths and weaknesses before we have to face either one of them again.

"It would be a good idea, the dog like creature was a Golem, If I new a weakness I might be able to change up my magic a bit to be more helpful."

Stam will head off to the University to do some research till the funeral takes place, as long as someone else goes as well.

I'll join you, the quiet and scholarly men at the university remind me of home.

At the university people have better things to do than to serve the guys who got the Beast out of jail. Because now this monster is still running around even though it broke into their beloved university.

But finally you stumble over Montagne Crowl who is willing to let you have a look into some books in the library. It's not too hard to find the information you seek.

As golems are constructs they are immune to death effects, disease, mind-affecting effects (charms, compulsions, phantasms, patterns, and morale effects), necromancy effects, paralysis, poison, sleep, stun, and any effect that requires a Fortitude save (unless the effect also works on objects, or is harmless). Constructs are not subject to nonlethal damage, ability damage, ability drain, fatigue, exhaustion, or energy drain. Constructs are not at risk of death from massive damage.

In addition to that golems are completely immune to any kind of magic and are hard to hurt with weapons. But at least that can be mitigated by using weapons made of adamantine.

Stam will visibly relax while at the Library, taking in the smell of the musty old tomes and the power that is contained in the room.

"Grergof where do you hail from? I don't feel we have got to much, the whirl wind of our meeting in Rivengro and then here to Lepidstadt and the trail."

Uggg... These are going to be hard to kill. You were right about needing my new Flail Mr. Truthfinder. I'm glad I went and bought it.
Sounds like for spells you would have to focus on summoning the little Elemental creatures you can call up or affecting the area around it.

Now what about the skinwalker?

As Grergof looks through the shelves he also looks if he finds what Vorgstag is. And as the index of the library is really good he finds what he searches for.

A sadistic being from the realm of the fey, a skin stealer is a terrifying sight to behold. These blood-red creatures resemble horrid, emaciated humans without skin, their yellowish eyes and teeth suggesting malnourishment or disease. Skin stealers suffer from no ailment, however, except for their insatiable lust for chaos and their hunger for flesh.

A skin stealer is a little over 6 feet tall and weighs about 100 pounds, though it can adjust its size to inhabit many different creatures’ skins.

As for where I'm from. I grew up in Varisia as the youngest son to a farmer. With too many mouths to feed, I was sent off to the church of Sarenrae as a young boy. I was never quick enough to become a dervish, so when I became a full brother, I was assigned to to teach those blessed by The Dawnbringer of the Undead and methods to fight them.

When I'm done here I of plan to return to my teaching. Some of what I am experiencing in the field will no doubt help with my future classes, and who knows what other things Sarenrae has set before me before that happens.

before continuing the getting to know each other

As Grergof is off looking for a book Stam approaches a Librarian, "I have a spell book that was recovered in Ravengro. I am wondering if the University would be interested in purchasing it. I have copied all the spells from it and I would like others to be able to benefit from the knowledge. Also can you tell me where the local mages guild is? I am in need of purchasing another blank spell book."

to Grergof once he returns

"I have heard Varisia is quite a place, The Rune lords and Thassilonian ruins that are there. Once we have completed whatever it is we are doing I would like to venture there with you if you would have me."

"I don't think we're interested in that." Dr. Crowl replies with a raised eyebrow and open disgust as he looks at the mouldy book.

How about you try the curiosites shop ;)

Darius will go looking for ye old magic item shoppe. Need to lighten my load.

Darius nods his agreement in attending the poor girls funeral later, and while grergof and everyone do shopping he goes off to do some shopping of his own.

Spugnoir brushes up on his studying for a bit before the funeral, he has gained some inspiration for new formulas!

Then Darius decides that he should at least look in the same curiosities shop at the very least before wandering off to somewhere else. As he browses looking at the oddities and items on display he says to the shop owner "Um sir. As you might be able to tell, we've been travelling a lot and tend to pick up a few things along the way. I'm not as young as I used to be so do you by chance have anything to help lighten my load? A bag or ring or something?"

So a Bag of Holding or Ring of Ant Haul would be swell.

"You've come to the right place." the man replies. He wanders off through his maze of shelves and piles and you see him emerge here and there until he finally comes back with four items. Three of them he puts down on the floor the third he shows to you.

"First I have this well made backpack. It has several compartments to bring some order in your belingings and to be able to retrieve them quicker. It's also a bargain at 50 gold."

He drops it and fetches the next item. This wide leather is held together with two strands of oxen skin threaded through holes on each end. "With this belt you can carry trice of what you can without.For 2000gold"

"And these here" picking up thick leather cords and wrapping them around his biceps and shoulders. "these make you strong like a mule. You can carry as much a a man almost double your strength. For 1000gold"

"But the best is this one." he states showing backpack which appears to be well made, well used, and quite ordinary. It has two side pouches, each of which appears large enough to hold about a quart of material. But as he opens them to show you it looks as if it could hold as much as 2 cubic feet in volume or. The large central portion of the pack can even contain up to 8 cubic feet. "It's enourmus, isn't it? Even if you fill it to the brim it never weighs more than 5 pounds. And all that for 2000 gold."

"Or you take all of that and take along your whole house." the man jokes.

As Darius can't decide what to take he leaves to come back the next day.

As evening comes Grergof, Darius, Stam and Spugnoir meet with the Crooked kin on the cemetery. A Pharasmin Cleric leads the ceremony. Kaleb does the funeral oration. Lettie and Poppie cry through the whole ceremony as well as the wolf boy. Halfway through it the sky starts crying too.

It's a burial on hallowed ground but as the Kin are far from rich there will be no stone and in a year no one will remember who lies here and those who know will have a hard time finding the place. All of the Kin thank you for coming and for getting Aleece out of the claws of that monster - even though the only good it did was that she could be buried.

The night you stay with them - as you still have no other room. It's a long night of telling stories about the real monsters in the trial. After a good nights sleep the Kin puts their horses in front of the wagons. They all have grown fond of you through these days and there is more crying as it's time for them to leave. You wave them goodbye as they leave to travel to the next town that might pay some copper for easy amusement and staring at them.

I am sure we could spend a little gold for a stone.