PFS: AP: Carrion Crown (CORE!)

Game Master R D

to keep things moving again attack on my turn

attack: 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (7) + 6 = 13

damage: 1d12 + 7 ⇒ (5) + 7 = 12

Poshment attacks: Longsword: 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (16) + 2 = 18, Damage: 1d6 + 1 ⇒ (4) + 1 = 5

The swarm takes a couple of points of damage.

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Sharien
Swarm: 12 HP damage
Grog: 3 HP damage
Faria
Poshment
Zorra: 4 HP damage
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Sharien is back up!

Having little left in her repertoire, Sharien will attempt to fire a blob of acid at the swarm.
ranged touch: 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (20) + 2 = 22
acid: 1d6 ⇒ 5

In desperation, Sharien fires a "Hail Mary." And it works! The acid disperses the swarm!

Combat over!

Does the party still want to go towards the "house" structure? Do you want to check out the tower from which the swarm came? Do you want to head somewhere else?

One of you looks back to see Riff. He's standing there with his mouth agape. He just witnessed the fury of the party--melee and blasts of energy (fire and acid). He had no idea y'all had so much power.

:-)

Faria turns to the man and smiles, giving him a brief wave before turning back to her fellows. "Shall we continue on, then?" The priestess keeps her voice calm, but her heart pounds in her chest. The realization of the dangers they faced suddenly catapulted to the front of her mind.

This wasn't a test of some sort where you got admonished if you missed something. The consequences in this place would be death. For her or a fellow party member. She looks at her companions with a confidence she isn't sure she feels, waiting for Poshment and Grog to lead them in.

Okie dokie. Onto the "house" then?

This small brick manor house is overgrown with thick sheets of gray-green ivy. The roof sags ominously, and the front door hangs askew.

Getting this far, you lose sight of Riff in the fog.

Onto the house.

"That was dangerous. I had to use all of my scrolls of fire, which means if we run into another swarm of creatures like that, I will be mostly useless."

You're not far from town. You can always gear up, rest, recover spells, and come back.

It's very quiet in the house. Too quiet. You don't even hear insects.

Grog investigates the door.

search the door

Perception: 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (14) + 4 = 18

Grog, you can see bricks, timbers, and other support structures missing in key places in the roof (and walls, and floors, and etc.) of the house. You're pretty sure that the whole house is unstable.

Given its size, an attempt to explore it fully would take 10 minutes. However, anyone inside runs the risk of triggering a partial collapse of the building.

You suspect that there might be ways to mitigate this risk. But you could not eliminate it entirely without months-long renovations.

hmmm..doesn't look safe says Grog who then turns his head and looks at the rest of the party.

Faria's brow furrows, then she shakes her head. "We can always search there later, if need be. Let us proceed to the main body of the prison itself." The priestess was anxious to see what it was Professor Lorrimor had thought was so important he would risk a trip inside.

I'm going to let the party discuss and decide if they want to brave the house or head elsewhere. If you collectively decide to go somewhere else, where to?

My vote will be the main prison complex. More than happy to hear from everyone else, though. :)

Sounds good replies Grog looking at Faria.

Prison works for me

Here is a description of the prison.

A two-story stone building looms in the center of the prison grounds. Ivy and moss cling tenaciously to the walls, while above the wooden shingles of the roof are often missing entirely, exposing the wooden rafters of the upper structure to the sky. Here and there, leering stone gargoyles perch on the eaves, once functioning as drainspouts and decorations but now seeming almost to serve a more ominous role of sentinels. Many of these stone decorations have crumbled away and lie in ruined piles on the soggy ground below. Windows in the building's facade are narrow and blocked by grills of rusty iron bars. Stone columns support a slumping wooden balcony over the building's wooden front doors, both of which hang askew and reveal dark glimpses of chambers within.

You are also welcome to circumnavigate the grounds, if you wish.

The party approaches the front of the prison:

Both Grog and Zorra notice that the balcony above the entrance is unsound. Though, if it fell, it doesn't look like it would completely block the doorway--it would simply become difficult terrain. (Structurally, it doesn't look as bad as the house you skipped.)

Sharien follows her allies closely, ready to cast a summoning spell to aid them if need be. She's not much of an architectural guru, however, and does not notice anything useful about the building.

A cold wind suddenly blows. The howling sound of the wind doesn't sound ominous. At all. It totally doesn't sound like the prison is screaming at you. Nope. It sure doesn't. ;-P

In the distance, you can hear Riff exclaim: "Whut tha heck?!?"

Before the group enters, Faria calls over her shoulder. "What is it, Riff?" She was hoping it was just the foul wind, but she'd rather be sure before they went in.

Assuming he calls back an A-ok, she steels herself, wrapping her faith around her like a protective cloak as she and her companions enter the forbidding structure.

"I dunno. Sounded like screamin' from yer direction!"

Perception: 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (4) + 4 = 8

Grog listens for more sounds of howling

doesn't sounds like anything

"We're fine, but thanks for your concern." The priestess calls out to the man, a bit amused and touched at the same time. She looks at Poshment. "Brother, care to lead us into the gloom?" She calls upon Pharasma's divine power, asking for a pittance. Suddenly, Poshment's shield glows as brightly as a torch, perhaps brighter, with none of the flickering lights.

As Poshment's shield begins to glow the darkness "shies" away. But, the light doesn't uniformly provide clarity of vision. It's more like the darkness "concedes" to the light.

The fog, however, reacts as though "offended" by the light. Just like back at the crypt, tendrils of fog "test" the edges of the light--as though they're trying to find a way in...

Poshment will steel his rattled nerves and head into the dark prison.

There is a new map (Harrowstone Prison--First Floor) linked at the top of the page. The party is heading into area S1. Please note, 1 square is 10 feet.

Poshment leads the way into the entrance foyer. This was once a wide hall flanked by a pair of waiting rooms, but the foyer to Harrowstone now lies in ruins. With little left to hold up the ceiling, the wooden beams above sag dramatically. The wall to the north contains a large pair of oaken doors.

"See nothing to be afraid of...just a old building that is ready to fall over due to disrepair...nope not haunted at all" He will move forward and check the doors to see if they are locked.

CREAK! CRACK! SNAP! The floorboards groan with every step the halfling makes. (Heh. Yeah. It was totally the floorboards. Gulp!)

The doors don't seem locked. Hm. Strange. These doors look as old as the rest of the place. But, they seem sturdy. The party inches their way forward carefully. Poshment opens the doors.

Streaks of mold stain the walls of this foyer (area S2 on the map), and the floor below is a thick, gray carpet of fungal growth. Sturdy wooden doors beckon from every wall. (Map updated.)

The priestess gives Poshment a wry look as he waxes on about the not-so-badness of the place. Meanwhile, the fog kept swirling on the outskirts of the light, almost as if waiting for the glow to die down so as to fill in the gap.

"Hold, brother. Let's let Zorra take a look around with her keen eyes before proceeding any further."

While waiting for the dwarf, Faria herself takes a look around the room.

Perception: 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (20) + 4 = 24

know nature: 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (12) + 4 = 16

check out the fungus

Grog looks closely in the area where the fungus is growing.

The fungus is thick and gross, but otherwise natural. Faria finds nothing else of note in the room--except, you know, for the pervasive sense of the souls of many burned prisoners.

Sharien keeps an eye out, but otherwise waits for her allies to find something useful other than fungus.

Nothing useful in this room. Just more doors. Strange that the doors look so sturdy when everything else looks like it's ready to fall apart. The doors are definitely old, though...

Nothing the dwarf's silence, Faria shakes her head minutely. The foulness of this place has crept into that one's nerves. She calls out, "I don't see anything wrong...though I feel the evil and sorrow of the spirits that were burned here. Poshment, can you lead us through the door to the right?" She smiles encouragingly at the Halfling, fighting back her own sense of doom and despair. This place really weighed on one's psyche.

Poshment opens the door to the right. It seems to lead to a hallway. The hall way is 30 feet long and 10 feet wide. There is a ruined piece of furniture in the middle.

Six seconds after the paladin opens the door, badly-burnt faces of shrieking inmates rush out of all of the doors before causing each door to open and slam violently shut. All the doors are then stuck for one minute. The next time you open a door (any door) the same thing happens.

Anyone with any ranks in knowledge religion recognizes this as a "Slamming Portal" haunt. It's not immediately dangerous. However, if you needed to make a hasty retreat, this could trap party members in the room for a full minute...

"Hmm... should we use one of our haunt eater items on this, Faria? You're more knowledgable about things such as this than I am."

"It's a rather inconvenient haunt known as a Slamming Portal haunt. Basically, any time someone opens a door, they will all slam shut for a short period. It's more inconvenience than anything, but if we need to beat a hasty retreat through this area, we could be in trouble if we don't take care of it." Faria looks to her companions...these haunt syphons were treasures, and she didn't want to waste one on a mere inconvenience, but she also sought their input.

anyway to disable it?

check the door on the "left"

percep: 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (2) + 4 = 6

Grog, any door you open activates the haunt. Then all the doors are shut for 1 minute.

It's a haunt, not a trap, so it cannot be disabled except by dealing with the cause of the haunt or using your siphons.

You can easily see how this thing could be used to split the party--or keep you confined.

Making a decision, Faria takes out the haunt syphon that she possesses, activating its magic to attempt to clear the area of the haunt. At some point they would need to cleanse the source of these things, but that could be a convoluted chain of events.

Faria takes out the Haunt Siphon and activates it by twisting the metal casing to open the vial at the same time that the haunt manifests.

Siphon's Positive Energy: 3d6 ⇒ (6, 4, 1) = 11 (Feel free to roll this yourself in the future.)

The haunt seems to be eliminated; the mist inside the haunt siphon glows green.

Haunt Check: 1d20 - 4 ⇒ (5) - 4 = 1 (Nice! The haunt is allowed a check (with super-secret modifiers) to see if it can eventually come back. This one will not--especially with that roll.)

The room feels "lighter" somehow. Less ominous. Faria feels certain that she has permanently dealt with the haunt!

Good job! :-)

"Well done, Lady Faria. I think that was a good use of one of our siphons."

As the faces appear and the doors slam shut Poshment will jump and grab tightly onto Faria's arm, hugging it to him as he begins to shake a little bit. After a moment he clears his throat and pushes her arm away, blushing brightly. "I...uh...I wanted to make sure you were safe sister...thats all...good use of a haunt siphen I believe."

We can use the 'full' haunt syphon as a negative energy grenade at a later date, correct?

Faria glows at Sharien's praise, pale cheeks brightening. "It was nothing, Sharien. We each have our specialties, this just happened to be one of mine."

The priestess smiles down at Poshment, nodding. "Thank you for ensuring my safety, brother. I feel braver knowing you are here to protect me." Her dark eyes twinkle with mirth as the Halfling disengages, more than willing to let him keep his dignity intact.

Poshment smiles and puffs out his chest a little as he proceeds to reopen the door to the right.

We can use the 'full' haunt syphon as a negative energy grenade at a later date, correct?

Yup!

Poshment opens the door to the hallway. It looks like this "hallway" isn't actually a hallway! (You only got to see it for a moment before.) It's a stage? Weird. It is "walled off" from an auditorium by iron bars. Several rows of wooden benches, all spotted with mold and sagging with neglect face the stage.

"Odd...I wouldn't have imagined this place to have a theater...maybe they made the prisoners preform shows here...seems odd to let them get this close to the front door however."

The Pharasman frowns as she looks on at the stage. For some reason she had a feeling it was a dark sort of entertainment that went on in this room. "Let us take a look around to see if we can find a source of the spirits that roam this place."

Knowledge history, knowledge local, profession lawyer (or related) skill checks are applicable here.

Discuss here, if you dare!

"Hello fellow Pathfinders. I am Sharien, a humble mage who wishes to see the world. I look forward to adventuring with you!"

Sharien is a quiet, reserved young half-elven woman whose nose is almost always in some ancient tome or another. She thirsts for knowledge, and looks forward to testing the skills that she learned at the academy in the real world. She is very green, though, and has never seen combat outside the safety of the academy.

Which academy? The Arcanamirium in Absalom? The Magaambya in Nantambu? No answer required; but if you tie your character's background into Golarion lore, there could be neat Easter Eggs or perhaps more overt connections as we play.

Well darn that was the fastest recruitment I've been through to date lol.

"Hello everyone" A shout stout halfling dressed in armor carrying what is to him a long sword stands before you all. After he greets you he bows and then stakes a seat.

GM I am working on updating him as we speak to be PFS legal. As I'm not a big fan of PFS I will not be doing this for credit just a heads up.

Magaambyan academy in Nantambu. I imagine Sharien being very in-tune with nature thanks to her elven heritage, and if we weren't using Core-only rules I would have considered the Magaambyan Arcanist as a prestige class for her. :)

Thank you to GM Engleaktig for letting me join! I will be fleshing my bard out over the next day or so, but she/he will be a true generalist type who will hopefully be able to round-out the group powers in several different contexts.

As a player, I tend toward -/bard class-combinations, but I intend to single-class it this time. I look forward to going a little deeper with the Pathfinder spell system than I have before. For better or worse, my characters can usually be described as "flashy."

OOPS! I may be at table two, so everyone pretend you didn't see this!!!!

Thistebane, because of the heavy interst, may I trouble you to join table 2? Same AP.

Table 2: gameplay; discussion; recruitment

Hey all! Don't have the alias yet, but I will be playing a human cleric of Pherasma. He will mainly buff/heal, with ho-hum fighting capability (beyond channeling vs undead, of course).

That said, if anyone has any suggestions or desires, please feel free to let me know.

Once you've all settled on your characters, please fill out details here.

'Lo.
A dwarf in a standard Chain shirt raises her arm in greeting, then crosses her arms and leans against a wall.

Zorra, could you please pick an avatar/image for your character. I'll use it for the combat maps. Thanks! :-)

The GM has added the Gameplay thread as well, so everyone should dot in over there so that the game shows up in your "My Campaigns" tab. :)

I've started editing my profile but I have to run to class now. I should have this done sometime later today.

Hey GM would it be possible for him to be a native of Ravengrow and be adopted by the Lorrimores? I think it would present an interesting connection and role play possibility to have him and Kendra already know each other and have a brother/sister bond. If that's to much of a connection then that's fine just let me know.

Yep! Do it up! For the sake of consistency of experience with the other players, let's say that you've been away for a couple of years--getting all trained up and whatnot. When you come back to Ravengro, they don't recognize you. Cool?

Will she at least or no? And I kind of assumed he was a student at Lapedstat(sp) university anyway.

Sure. If you want her to, she'll recognize you right away.

Hey GM when you get a sec can you check my math on the point buy?

Your math is off, Poshment. An ability score of 17 costs 13 points. Check out this chart.

Before racial bonuses it was a 15 which was 7 points

You're still off:

13 == 3 points
13 == 3
11 == 1
13 == 3
11 == 1
15 == 7

That's only 18 points. This is a 20 point buy.

Sorry guys, I've been slacking. Went to the Science Fair today with two of my kids. I'll have my character posted in a bit.

Besides for background, I believe everything is ready for Faria, if you want to make a check, GM Engleaktig. :)

Finally got my profile done. Ability scores with out racial modifiers are 14,11,15,12,12,13 which should be 20 points

Thanks, Poshment. Looks good. What Knoweldge skill will you choose for your Teacher's Pet trait?
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Faria, looks good too, thanks. You may add 1 additional language for your 12 INT. What region is Faria from; it might give you yet another language.
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Zorra: Your dwarf's stats are short by one point:

Strength 10
Dexterity 18 --> 17 points
Constitution 12
Intelligence 10
Wisdom 12
Charisma 10 --> 2 points

This is a 20 point buy. :-) Could you also please add your gear to your profile? Thanks.
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Sharien looks fine, as far as I can tell.

She's from Ustalav, close to Caliphas.

Does anyone still need time to finish making/updating their character?

Sharien is ready!

Hey guys:

Sorry to kind of take over the discussion thread but I just wanted to give everyone a heads up I'm going to be starting 3 new games today. I'll be running Raise of the Runelords, Jade Regent, and Academy of Secrets. If anyone is interested please check out the recruitment threads. You guys may or may not be given preferential treatment since we're in a game together already, I haven't decided yet. Bribes will be accepted however lol.

Unsolicited opinion: I loved Rise of the Runelords and Academy of Secrets! If you haven't yet experienced those, I strongly recommend signing up!

GM I will guarentee you a spot in either of those if you want to play in them. If you don't have time I understand.

Thanks! :-) I'll pass for now. But I appreciate the invite. I'm in several other play by post games and I run two venues for my local PFS lodge. I'm at capacity.

I definitely want to revisit Runelords again. But right now I don't think I could do it justice.

I have both run and played in Runelords. One of my all time favorite campaigns. At the end of it my level 17 barbarian could PONE pretty much anything thrown at him.

My wife and I are in the process of moving into a new house, and today and tomorrow are our big moving days, so I won't be posting much until Sunday evening or even Monday morning. This'll probably be my last post until at least Sunday morning.

Congrats on the new house! That sounds fantastic. :-)

Thanks for the heads up.

I'll be traveling to a conference tomorrow and will be there through Saturday, so I imagine I'll have time to post while I'm there but it is possible that I won't. GMs, bot me as needed.

Okie dokie, thanks for letting us know. Have a safe, fun trip! What's the conference about?

It's called "The Biology of Genomes" at Cold Spring Harbor Labs. I'll be presenting my medical genetics research in the form of a poster. :)

Nice! Wish you luck. :-)

Moving our discussion here. As I said, no issues. I just figured you took the Rich Parents trait, but I didn't see it on your character sheet, so I got curious. The more stuff everyone has, the more survivability we have. I'm not complaining at all. :)

I checked the rules for the APs. Since we're doing campaign mode. I'll get rid of the masterwork weapon and the Wand of CLW. Since the character isn't supposed to be an official PFS character from what I read.

Mike

Hey guys I have a calculus final tomorrow at 9 am(yay) and a pre-calc test tonight and final next monday so my posting might be a little slow. With that said I don't know if I will be able to post today...I still have pre-calculus homework due tonight and calculus homework due tomorrow before the final to finish. Go ahead and bot me until tomorrow after 11 AM.

Good luck with your coursework! :-)

Just a heads up, and I apologize for the lack of posts in advance, but I won't be able to post much after 12 PM on Friday as I'm heading out of state to throw my dad a retirement party so will be with family and not able to get online. I will be back Monday morning.

Congrats to your father on the occasion of his retirement! :-)

GM Engleaktig, it looks like Zorra's last post was on May 5th. Maybe we should shoot her a PM and see if she is still interested in playing?

I will be traveling from Wednesday May 20 to Wednesday May 27, so my posting may be reduced. (I'm going to PaizoCon! :-D)

I think I should be able to post once a day while I'm there.

Might be a good time to have a role call, GM. I think you've mentioned combining the tables before now, and it seems we have two, maybe three parties still actively engaged.

Just a reminder that I am still very much in the game, just still traveling until tomorrow with no time to post proper.

Edit: Huh, I must have forgotten this one. I too am at paizocon and will be updating tomorrow.

-Posted with Wayfinder

Welcome back from PaizoCon! I arrived back on the East coast around midnight last night. Late travel plus the time zone diference hit me hard this morning. I guess I'm a "lightweight" with regards to travel. :-)

Did we happen to play any games together? I'm guessing probably not, because of the sheer number of people. Plus, you're an ACG VL, and I'm a PFS VL. (I didn't play any ACG at all while I was there.)

Might be a good time to have a role call, GM. I think you've mentioned combining the tables before now, and it seems we have two, maybe three parties still actively engaged.

It's also end of semester. Faria, Grog, Poshment, and Sharien have been active. In a couple of days, I'll create a "unified" thread for both tables.