Commence to dotting.
Faction Missions are no longer given out, as of Season 5 of the Pathfinder Society. Soon, there will be Primary and Secondary missions for all the old adventures. But for now, you'll get full Prestige Points just for completing the mission and surviving to the end. That will be the basis for this game.
Nonetheless, I present you with the original Faction missions. You can do them or not as you will.
Warm greetings on this cold Desnu morn. This city’s chill and squalor does not agree with me, and each day I see the Council bow
to slavers and oppressors, my heart sickens. We must do better, we can do better. It all begins with you, my friend.
We have become interested in a man named Yargos Gill. Although he’s not much to look at, Yargos is an important voice
of the common man in Absalom’s underclass. He is well educated, but he prefers to live among the downtrodden in that
wasteland called the Puddles District. He’s also more virtuous than most give him credit for. The Eagle Knights of Andoran
have identified Yargos as important to Absalom’s future destiny as a free and independent state of the people. If you find Yargos,
above all, make sure you keep him alive. Please do your best to aid him thereafter, and secretly pass along the message that the
Eagle Knights will be there for him when he needs them. Purport yourself well and do nothing to besmirch our reputation as
beacons of freedom. One day Yargos will be vitally important to the future of Absalom. We wish you to gain his trust so as best
to aid him in his cause.
Many thanks for your assistance in this matter. As always, I am in your debt.
Sincerely,
Captain Colson Maldris
Asmodeus’s dark blessings upon you. Your service to his smoking altar does you great honor and advances the glory of Cheliax. Your
devotion has not gone unnoticed, and I must say I am intrigued by you. I have a task of dire import—I have chosen to entrust it to you.
Her Majestrix’s interest is piqued concerning the reports of strange undead roaming Absalom’s notorious slum—the Puddles
District. Early reports suggest that these strange mist-walkers are animated not by necromancy alone, but by the power of oaths given
during their former lives. Our diabolic patrons decree these strange undead merit further study, in case this knowledge leads to a
new source of power over mortal souls. Your mission is to obtain an intact skull of one of these undead assassins and secret it back to
Cheliax. You must also uncover just what was the oath that these undead killers took.
If you succeed, a slew of fresh souls will be tied to Asmodeus’s great purpose. As always, keep your mission in utmost confidence—tell
no one. Your service to the Dark One is best done in whispers and shadows. Report back to me when it is done, and I shall reward you,
perhaps with an invitation to my next exclusive party… or better yet, a private audience in the boudoir. I think I might enjoy that.
Achingly Yours,
Paracountess Zarta Dralneen
I trust this correspondence finds you well. As always, you have the gratitude of my ancestors and myself for your continued
service to Sothis. Dark times are upon this city, and undead walk the streets in the misty hours of the night. Worse, a spectre
from our past also rears its head.
Centuries ago, Osirion’s food supply was plagued by a horrible poison called Gut Wither, a war-manufactured toxin brought over
from Qadira to further weaken Osiron’s delicate agricultural base. To protect the populace, the then ruling sultans waged a lengthy
campaign to ensure that Gut Wither was stamped out and the secrets of its creation were destroyed. Our seers have advised that
whoever these undead, mist-walking assassins within Absalom are, they somehow have obtained a chest containing a small supply
of Gut Wither, perhaps left over from a forgotten age. I’m asking ask you to track down their supply and bring us a vial of this terrible
concoction. The famine days cannot return to our gloried land.
In All Sincerity,
Amenopheus, The Sapphire Sage
Your rarified services are once again required. I shall not bore you with obfuscation or frivolity. We have acted against Absalom
on myriad occasions and failed with each passing stroke. Apparently this new terror of undead in that ever so deplorable Puddles
District is a remnant of one of our more infamous disappointments.
The undead’s weaponry, distinctive curved sickles, match the sickles once used by Black Echelon. Black Echelon was the rather
ostentatious name of our hidden agents and saboteurs ordered to attack Absalom from within its walls as part of the “Silent Tide,”
an embarrassing and ill-conceived invasion plan we hatched several centuries ago. In advance of the failed attack, we hid a secret
cache of magic wands somewhere within the heart of Absalom for Black Echelon’s use when the time was right. As the Silent Tide
turned out to be an utter boondoggle, the wand cache was never claimed. We believe Absalom’s authorities never uncovered the
cache and the valuable wands remain hidden, their location now lost to time.
With this return of Black Echelon from beyond the pale, we are calling upon you to keep an eye out for any clues as to the
whereabouts of the wand cache. Relay your findings back to us so that we can send a second team to recover the wands. It is believed
that a map to the wand cache was hidden on the last page of a codebook that contained the secret signals to direct the Silent Tide
invasion. If you can find the book, steal or copy the last page and bring it to me.
Do so and you shall be suitably rewarded.
My Sincere Gratitude,
Baron Jacquo Dalsine
Your boots squash with fetid water as you plod through the Puddles. A thick fog hangs in the air, seeming almost to caress the flesh with an unnatural chill. As you stand outside the Soggy Piper in a foot and a half of brackish brine, you try to recall what was so damned important to demand your presence in the half flooded slum during Absalom’s rainy season. You remember your meeting at the Lodge just a few hours earlier with your Venture-Captain, Adril Hestram.
A bear of a man with only a few teeth remaining in his head, he motioned you into the meeting hall with a casual wave of his grizzled hand. The human captain outweighs most of Absalom’s half-orcs, and though a layer of beefy blubber coats his frame, those of you who have tangled with him in the Lodge sparring ring know that beneath this thin veneer of fat lies nothing but solid, steely sinew. Adril’s wild beard wags to the ponderous shake of his massive head as he examines a scrap of ancient parchment on the table before raising his eyes to greet your gaze and speaking:
“Come in then, friends, and thank you for answering my summons so swiftly. The society is in need. An old and quite penniless historian, a bespectacled wag-beard by the name of Yargos Gill has recently made a discovery in an old archive that we have a great interest in obtaining: an ancient codebook, left behind in the wake of one of Taldor’s many failed attempts at invasion. This several-hundred-year-old text would prove an excellent addition to our collection, and must be preserved."
“Yargos makes his home in ‘The Puddles,’ Absalom’s poorest district, suffering from a well-known reputation as a haven for lowlifes. Following an earthquake ten years ago, parts of the Puddles now rest below sea level, resulting in frequent and untimely flooding. Those who can afford not to live there—don’t."
“The district is the stomping ground of pimps, harlots, addicts, knifers, and hoards of unseemly derelicts. It’s never been a kind place, but recent reports reveal some new nameless terror on her waterlogged streets. Several persons claim to have seen cloaked, skeletal-like figures marching through an unnatural fog. Ill tidings indeed. Tracking down Yargos is now a priority—--lest some yellow-toothed thug cut him down, or one of these strange wraiths carry him beyond the pale. Find him, fellow Pathfinders, and find the codebook. Your exploits will be recorded in the Chronicles if you succeed.”
The memory fades as a fresh deluge of cold seawater rounds a bend in the lane and assaults your knees. After searching for Yargos at his favorite eatery, the Soggy Piper, you learned you just missed him. According to the Piper’s staff, a gang of dangerous young tattooed toughs arrived ahead of you. They grabbed Yargos and several of his friends from their dinner table and dragged them to a nearby cliff at the edge of the Puddle District. The watch was called, but they will arrive too late, as they often do in the Puddles, when they bother to venture there at all.
It is early evening, the first Wealday of the month of Desnus, an old man is about to face some awful fate at the sea cliff known as Torsen’s Maw, and you are no closer to finding the codebook Adril sent you for.
ACT I: THE DROWNING DEPTHS
Six brash young toughs covered with tattoos of vicious, snarling dogs are prodding four terrified older men off the edge of a cliff into the sea. The prisoners are shackled together in a line with heavy chains, which shall surely drag them to the sea floor in short order should they tumble from the cliff’s edge into the churning waters below.
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[The "beach" on that map is in fact a cliff 35' above the ocean. The prisoners are labeled 1-4, the thugs A-F. They look like they're just about to toss the prisoners overboard.]
Everyone roll initiative!
D'oh! None of them. That was the wrong map. And so the four-table thing already rears its head. The above map is correct, although I'll amend it to put Etrigan on it.
Map's up. And your eidolons, animal companions and summoned monsters will all go on your initiative.
Initiative Order:
- Guido (13)
- War Hounder Thugs (6)
- Flinkae (5/+2)
- Iason (5/+1)
- Slachagok (3)
No one is surprised, so this is not a surprise round. Guido, go!
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Move NW, W, W, W, W, W. Total Defense. AC:17
Guido strides forward towards the thugs like a man with a purpose pointing an accusatory fingure at them as he yells over the crashing surf below,
"If any of you little s#~@s put those men over the cliff, I'll make damned sure you follow."
Guido does not strike a stance to betray his talents, but mentally rehearses various counters to likely attacks. He smiles in a predatory way knowing that his 'obvious' lack of defense will only make their attacks all the more predicable.
Yeah... soon as somebody tells me how to do that.
Guido rushes forward and bravely threatens a line of six dim-witted thugs.
Then one of the thugs shoves the lead prisoner off the cliff. Screaming, the man falls. His chains drag the other prisoners with him. The last prisoner, a middle-aged man, manages to seize the edge of the cliff and arrest the fall of the others, but it is clear his grip is already slipping!
The remaining five thugs charge Guido while making a baying, dog-like sound and rake him with their "dog claws" (spiked gauntlets). "Nobody messes with the War Hounders!" spits one.
Flinkae, Iason (and friend) and Slachagok, go!
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Iason's dark eyes rake the scene of the battle dispassionately. The old man must be their quarry-- but old hands will not keep their grip on the cliff's edge for long.
He reaches back to brush his fingers against the hulking, cloaked form of his servant, his fingers crackling with a ripple of energy. "I protect you, Etrigan-- and thus, you are indebted. Execute my will."
Beneath the hood, the outsider smiles, all jagged teeth. "To kill, 'master'?"
"...no, not yet, I think. Go to the old man. Drag him and the others up. Do not harm them. You may slay my foes once the old man is safe."
The outsider snarls his disappointment, but wordlessly runs to obey, skirting the edges of the clump of thugs.
Iason snaps his wand of healing from its wrist sheath into his hand and holds it out to to his half-orc colleague, while undoing his crossbow with his other hand. "You might find more use for this than I."
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"Hold fast, scholar!" Slach shouts to the old man scrabbling against the muddy rocks. Luck grant that greybeard Gill is not swinging at the end of that chain, head bashed in against an outcropping.
"You'll be wise to risk that beast's paws over the cliff bottom's jags. We'll put these rabid mutts down for ya."
Slachagok hefts his greataxe, and cliffward splashes through the mud.
Etrigan dashes past the War Hounders and arrives at the end of his move, but can't grab the struggling man this turn.
Guido, go!
Guido strikes the War Hounder so hard his nose breaks and the man's eyes roll back in his head as he drops to the ground.
Just then, the victim's grip gives way and all four fall screaming into the water, their heavy chains bearing them down!
The thugs swarm around the Pathfinders, slashing with their "dog claws" and saying "Now you die, loudmouth!"
Anyone, go!
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Iason looks down with furrowed brows at the wand in his hand. He rarely uses this sort of healing-- his magic tends to, well, darker sorts-- but as the half-orc has declined the wand, he supposes it falls to him, in the interests of much-vaunted teamwork.
He mutters the command word, focusing his will to do some of the light, fluffy, gods-touched magic that most of the world prefers.
Nothing. Iason mutters a calm, unsurprised curse in Infernal, then strides forward to stand directly behind the wounded Guido, dropping his crossbow as he goes and snapping his other wrist sheath.
On the other side of the battle, the creature called Etrigan is seconds too late to grab the humans.
"Oops," he says with disinterest as he watches them fall to the surf below.
"Master, I fear I am too late
"Your quarry is shark bait
"So NOW can I kill
"And taste battle's thrill?"
Iason glares. "I gave you orders. Go. Get. Them."
Etrigan looks over the cliff's edge, sighs, then hurls himself bodily over.
Demonic outsiders are apparently really good at bellyflops. Etrigan lands in the surf.
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Flinkae steps back from the thugs engaging him. His bright black eyes blink once as he takes in the situation, and calculates the odds of reaching the cliff's edge to help. Calculating that his best contribution will be to keep Guido alive and the war hounds from interfering with Etrigan's rescue attempts, he casts a spell to limit the Hounds' mobility a bit.
"Guido! Back Out!"
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Slach's eyes go wide as the men fall from the cliff, but he can do little to help at the moment. Maybe better if it was scholar Gill at the end of the chain, to make the shortest fall. Slach hopes that summoner's beast can swim, because he and his allies have more immediate concerns.
He snaps his head to see the furthest War Hound, suddenly not so far anymore, and getting closer by the moment.
Slach sidesteps the charge... right into the claws of the thug beside him. The bladed gauntlet rakes through leather, then flesh. Slach has scarce moments to contemplate the pain, and select a response. He raises his axe swings it down with a hearty roar.
________________________________________________
The demon manages to grab the bitter end of the chain as the prisoners head for the bottom, weighted down by its many heavy links. He himself is about to be dragged down, too.
Iason's attempt to summon divine magic from the wand fails to accomplish anything.
Flinkae's spell summons ectoplasmic goo from the netherworld that bubbles up from the sand around two of the War Hounders, who promptly make "Woop!" sounds and flat on their faces in the midst of battle.
Slachagok's axe bites only air as he duels one of the War Hounders.
Two thugs move to flank Slachagok, raking him with their "dog claws." One gets in under the half-orc's guard and slashes his chest with the spiked gauntlet.
The two downed thugs show remarkable agility and rise from the grease, drawing attacks from Slachagok and Guido. Slachagok's axe badly injures one of the two. Both thugs then attack, and one slashes Guido across the face. The monk falls to the sand in a spray of blood.
Anyone but Guido, go!
Slachagok, feel free to redo your orders.
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Iason touches Guido with the demon's blood wand. It won't be quick, but it will be steady. Hell never gives you quite what you want.
"You would be better with this other wand than I, I expect," he says to Slachagok. "If you don't care to take it, let me know so that I may free my hands for something more offensive."
He'll stay where he is, since it seems he may need to inflict hell's variety of healing on Slachagok next.
Meanwhile, down in the surf...
Etrigan snarls as he kicks to stay afloat in the pounding surf and starts hauling the chained prisoners upwards, or trying to, at least.
Smashing an object is like sundering a weapon or shield, except that your combat maneuver check is opposed by the object's AC. Generally, you can smash an object only with a bludgeoning or slashing weapon.