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
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 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!
Initiative Order:
- Obed (24)
- Jasmine (20)
- Dristok (18)
- Sarion (14)
- War Hounder thugs (5)
No one is surprised, so this is not a surprise round. Everyone, go!
Jasmine races forward, whirling her sling around her head and lets fly. The stone strikes one of the thugs squarely between the eyes and drops him on the sand.
Obed and Dristok take up defensive positions.
Sarion, go!
One of the War Hounder thugs trembles at Sarion's approach, then looks down, then jogs swiftly away to the south, deciding better of his actions this night.
One of the others (B) shoves the old man at the head of the line of victims. He falls over the cliff, flailing his arms and screaming. His chain drags all the other victims with him. The last, a middle-aged man, seizes the edge of the cliff and stops the group from plummeting, but he clearly can't hold on any longer, as his fingers begin to slip...
The remaining War Hounders howl their war cry and attack. Two charge Sarion and beat uselessly on his shield and armor while a third draws a bead on Obed with his light crossbow, clearly waiting for the sorcerer to cast a spell. Dristok casts his hex on one War Hounder, who seems unaffected.
Anyone, go!
Jasmine races into position to flank her opponent, but he parries her knife deftly. Just then, Dristok screams directly at the War Hounder. The sound is so loud it causes his ears to bleed and he seems lost in a fog.
Obed starts to invoke his arcane power and the War Hounder thug pulls the trigger. His crossbow quarrel sails over Obed's shoulder and into the city. Moments later, Obed sprays him and another War Hounder with a violent splash of colors. Both thugs drop to the ground, unconscious.
Sarion runs to the cliff edge, just in time to watch the man's grip fail. All four victims fall screaming into the sea, weighted down by heavy chains!
The last thug runs north, fleeing the combat and this story.
Anyone, go!
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Dialog for my turn sorry about double posting; away from the computer at length today, do not want any hold ups on account of me.
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Jasmine stabs one of the thugs, injuring him. Dristok turns and fires at the same War Hounder, but his sling stone flies wide.
Obed fires his crossbow directly into the neck of a fallen opponent, killing him instantly.
Sarion gallantly flings himself off the cliff, but in full o-yoroi armor and shield, he hits the water with all the grace of a sackful of dishes. He plummets toward the ocean bottom immediately, following the War Hounder's victims.
The War Hounder fighting Jasmine, seeing himself alone on the field, attempts to flee past her to the north. The lithe rogue slashes out with her knife, stabbing the War Hounder just under the third rib and he drops to the sand, dead.
Anyone, go!
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Can somebody please break this man's leg? I would hate to kill him when he has answers to some questions. Then we may deposit him to the town guard or ocean below, the group consensus of course.
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Sarion lands in the muddy, weed-ridden ocean floor, surrounded by small, colorful fish and four struggling men chained together. Breathing easily from his air crystals, the holy warrior seizes the first man's lock and strains with all his might and determination, finally tearing the old and crude lock into two pieces and releasing the first man, who bobs toward the surface.
Obed tosses the unconscious thug's gear to the side while Dristok fishes in his pack for rope and then runs toward the cliff.
Overwhelmed by the excitement of the fight, Jasmine stares down at the man she just killed.
Anyone, go!
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Jasmine, after dropping the final thug, looks around the battlefield to see if there are any foes left. Once she realizes they are alone she wonders out loud, where did Sar... she stops mid sentence and looks towards the cliff. She hustles over there and looks over the edge to see one of the chained men bobbing in the water. She looks towards Dristok and helps him to drag anyone up to the top. If it appears that the edge is handled with the current muscle she poses a quick question, anyone with spare rope other than being currently used, I will tie up the unconscious thug for later questioning.
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Obed reloads his crossbow, and aims at the other unconscious thug. He is bound to be waking up any moment now.
Readied action for when the thug wakes up- dialog: I am fantastic with this crossbow pointed right at your pretty face. I have already killed your other friend, lay there do not move or I will be sending you to the abyss to meet him.. Any funny business I will fire aiming for his leg (assuming he is less than 2 HD because he fell unconscious he will wake up blind then stunned).
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Sorry, I had been recalling a past turn when I tried to double move to the edge of the cliff, and then lumped that in my head into being possible in one move. Not quite logical...
@Tarondor - My speed is listed in my Classes/Levels header section, but no where else, I realized. Would you like me to add it to my other stats for easier reference?
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Dristok moves the rest of the way to the edge of the cliff and, if he can judge that 100ft of rope can reach the water, will drop one end of the rope down the cliff while holding on tightly to his end.
"All right, Jasmine, let's hope the two of us can haul our five friends and their abundance of metal 'accessories' out of those foamy depths!"
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Obed covers the blind and stunned man with his crossbow. The thug covers his head with his hands. "Okay! Okay! I can't even see!"
Dristok and Jasmine haul the first man to safety. "Thank the gods you came when you did!" he gasps when he flops onto dry land.
Meanwhile, Sarion works his way down the chain as he is mobbed by desperate, drowning men, and snaps open the second lock.
[No new map. Go!]
Eventually, the Pathfinders sunder all the locks and haul the prisoners up onto the cliff top, where all (prisoners and Pathfinders) lay gasping for breath. Meanwhile, Obed has cowed a War Hounder thug, who lays obligingly on the ground.
"Thank you!" say the prisoners. "I thought we were dead for sure!
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"Well...that was certainly stressful," Dristok says to his breathless and waterlogged companions, collapsing to a sitting position on the ground. "And well done Sarion! I'm not sure I would have had the stones to jump straight off of the cliff like that, let alone in a full suit of armor! Your bravery is commendable."
He looks over his shoulder at Obed and the prostrate thug, "Perhaps we should tie up this last miscreant while we let our four friends catch their breath? Here," he says, lifting his soaked rope, " we can use my rope, but I am likely not the best candidate to tie a knot or, well, anything, with it." As he finishes his sentence, he begins to chuckle at the thought of himself attempting to do anything that could be considered even remotely skillful with a rope.
"Please," says one of the prisoners, the oldest and the one the War Hounders first pushed into the sea. "I'm Yargos Gill. There's no time. Absalom is in terrible danger!"
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Sarion, once back on the shore, spits up several bluish crystals that have begun to dissolve. "One of the best things I ever put in my tool-kit. Air crystals. Amazing." he says, dripping water from all the creases in his armor. He looks at the thug still in custody. "Now tell me..." he says, removing his helm to reveal a face as demonic as a nightmare - the horns that emerged from his helm are not a decoration, they belong to his own self and are not a decoration. Yellow, glowing eyes bore into the fellow. "Why were you and your friends attempting to kill these men?" he asks in a growling voice.