Something Wicked This Way Comes (Inactive)

Game Master Fanguar

I think there's also an official Paizo archetype for Lawful Evil antipaladins, just in case Fang doesnt want to use 3rd party stuff. So you should be fine either way.

With the minion issue closed, we're almost done. Here's the things that are left on my checklist-

Rose, are you ok with memorizing a lot of Stoneshape spells over the week where we're doing all these renovations? The skeletons and the lyre will do most of the work, but for things like concealing hidden doors and turning stacked rock into solid rock, we will need magic. GM, how do we set the Search DCs of our new secret doors? Can Molsabar use counter-tracking and direct Rose's stoneshaping?

Molsabar, you're also on trap concealment duty. I'd like to add the Search and Disable DCs to the map to make things easy. GM, same question as above. Can Molsabar conseal our new traps?

Did we ever figure out who/what is on surveillance duty, using the Eyes in the Sanctum? My thought is that the vamps can split up night duty, and the rest of us can split up the days.

Haruk, you and I need to make basic stat templates for our followers. I'm thinking each of us make a new "cultists" alias that includes stat spoilers for our respective groups. I'm planning on having all my followers be Clerics with Negative Energy Affinity (an undeath cult). Not sure what you want to do.

Sari, what do you want to do with the room in front of your crypt?

Do we want to give the 7th Knot a tour of the Horn? Maybe just the first two or three levels, not letting them know about the sanctum?

Do we want to try to move the "escape throne" to a different location? Maybe to town somewhere?[/ooc]

I thought we were going to use the wraiths for monitor duty? I think Fang said that was okay.

For the vast majority of my followers, I'll see if I can find some NPC stat blocks that can be easily modified. Probably going to have a mix of classes, as Hell welcomes all.

Fang, could I stat out the 3 siblings from my backstory? Which is my 4th level, 3rd level and one of the 2nd level followers.

Rose can definitely stone shape over and over to get our building into shape.

I believe we were going to use Hexor and Vexor to monitor the scrying. They don't need to eat or sleep, and they can teleport to warn us when they discover something (since they can scry on the interior of the Horn, they will know where to teleport to deliver warnings).

Molasbar can work to conceal the traps. He doesn't have any points in Craft (traps, but his intelligence gives him a +4 to do so. And I believe he can take 20 on it. A few borrowed minions helping him out can bump that up to a 30 if needed. Maybe I'll throw a point into it when we level up next time.

Turn it into a storeroom or something equally innocuous. Sari is far more stealthy about things than our resident panzer!!

Xanos has a +11 Craft Trap, but I think making them and hiding them require different skills. I might be wrong on that.

Using Hex and Vex for monitor duty is a fantastic idea.

I would think stealth or survival, or heck maybe even dungeoneering for hiding traps.

@Haruk: On the trait/drawback issue: A tentative yes. Re: siblings as minions, yes? I think that would be fine.

Re: Wraiths: they are not under any obligation to obey the party, though I'm sure the resident necromancer probably could force them.

Re: thrones: They're not really movable. More or less fixed location magical artifacts.

@Xanos: The DC for a well hidden secret door is 30. The rules for crafting traps can be found Here. Hiding them is part of the crafting process.

Arent there rules for hiding a trap after it's built. I know that's how deployable traps work. I guess that's not really applicable in this situation.

Alright, I'll do up stats for the traps I've built within the next few days and make the construction roles here in thread. After that, I think we're ready to kick off the ritual as long as there's no objections from Fang regarding the various changes or plans.

Anyone else have anything on their agenda?

Are we able to use this time to finally spend all our loot, and gear up?

I know we sort of did that during the few weeks of our prior downtime, but I had thought we weren't able to sell everything or something? I might be mistaken however.

If we're okay to fully sell everything, what were our final totals on what we earned?

Second that one! Would be nice to know what loot we can expect/play with etc.

And did we ever get the wand of silence?

Fellow Knotters - just a wee heads up that my last grandparent passed this morning :(

My Granny Connie was 97 and the matriarchal fulcrum of our pretty big extended family. I'm being pretty philosophical about it and the good life she led, but just a heads up that if I'm off beat over the next wee while please bear with.

Cheers

My condolences. Very hard to lose someone so close.

I fell ill during international travels, I'll be fine, but please bot me for now.

Sorry if someone was waiting on me.

I'm pretty sure there was some discussion of treasure splitting back in may or june, back when you found the cult's treasure room and reached level 7. The party hasn't found any substantial loot since then. I'm pretty sure that half of the point of the away team last time the party split was to sell stuff and order equipment. Assume it has arrived.

How do you want to handle trap costs?

Between the Lyre and castings of Stoneshape, it seems like a lot of the construction costs of various traps (especially pit traps) would be pretty much negated.

Anyone have the final total of what our personal wealth was supposed to have been ?? Should I just gear up for WBL for 7th level?

Anyone have the final total of what our personal wealth was supposed to have been ?? Should I just gear up for WBL for 7th level?

Coin was indeed divvied up back in May as per the away teams shopping trip. Baron was brokering the sale of artwork and valuables etc - see Molesbar's sums below:

Counting the coinage that we found in the treasure room, that is 45,500 gp in value for us. That works out to 6,500 gp for each PC, and 6,500 gp to the renovations budget.

Re: Trap cost: if it has mechanical bits, just quote me something reasonable. For things like pits, consider them free.

Great, thanks. I'll have some kind of trap breakdown done in the next day or two.

Besides that, I think we're ready to go.

Rose waits expectantly for some human sacrifices for her altar to walk through the door. :P

Traps are $&@# expensive. Ugh.

I'm going to put the more complex traps on the back-burner for now. We'll say I've built the components but haven't installed them yet. Once we have some more cash I'll do the installation with the Lyre.

The traps that the Horn came with have been fixed and properly hidden. A few new pits and other inexpensive traps have been added.

The Horn is ready to go.

Everyone take a hand and allow me to lead you on a guided tour of the new and improved Horn of Abbadon. Feel free to follow along on the Map while I describe the Caverns.

I've tried to label everything clearly. Caverns lableled "guard beast lair" are empty right now.

All the player tokens should allow everyone to control their characters, as well as all of our NPC minions. Global Illumination is currently on to make it easier for everyone to see everything.

If you click on a minion, you should see it's HP on the left and it's AC on the right. The Boggards also have a 1 in the middle representing their Terrifying Croak (and whether or not they've used it for the day).

All the traps and secret doors have their mechanics written on the map.

Once everyone's had a chance to check out the Caverns we'll take the tour upstairs.

Starting in C1, there's now a hidden way into the Boggard village. It's hard to spot due to Molsabar's expert camouflage skills, and Xanos has outfitted it with a Masterwork lock. We all have keys. The Boggards use a code-knock to have people on the other side let them in.

The caverns to the right are full of traps and nothing else. Short of magic, there's no way through on that side anymore.

C12 and C14 are our Stables. Right now there's a burning horse and a dead horse in them. If anyone else has a mount, let me know.

C10 is the the only real way forward into the rest of the caves. The portcullis is hidden in the ceiling. After intruders enter C15 the Boggard in the Watchcage (area A) drops the portcullis on each side of the chamber. The Watchcage grants Cover and can only be entered from the back.

Beneath the central walkway are now water channels that allow the boggards to swim back and forth under the water. There is an underwater escape/reinforcement tunnel that leads all the way up to C20.

Boggards in the water attack with Longspears, Underwater Crossbows and Nets. The water grants them Improved Cover against anyone attacking them from the land (see the Environmental rules) which boosts their effective AC to 24. Bear Traps scattered all over the land path further make a mess of things.

The Watchtoad brings all the frogs to the yard with a Terrifying Croak. They boggards in the village will run up to C20 and swim into C15, or swarm around both sides of C15 to attack through the closed portcullis.

Past C15 there's a new pit trap just in case anyone gets through the C15 gauntlet.

C20 has the previously mentioned underwater tunnel to C15, as well as a longer one to C3 (I didn't draw that one on the map because I didn't want to clutter it up).

The rest of the structure is unchanged save for C8. The Mudpits. The Mudmen stay hidden in the mud unless some moron decides to take the bait that is the old chest on the far side. Their instructions are, once the chest has been looted, then attack. The key inside the chest is a red herring.

Anyone have any questions or comments so far?

You should really add a link to the map on your alias, either in the header or on the actual character sheet.

It's at the top of this page with the other map links.

Would just be easier to have it linked in your profile, but having at the top is fine, I guess.

I'm not sure if it's all the extra notes added to the map, or something else, but I'm having a hard having it load all at once. I didn't have that issue with the upper levels previously.

Hmm. Strange. I was making small edits and moving some things around recently. Try again, see if it works now.

FYI - Have done some further adjustments to our resident vampanzer (with GMFang's unholy blessing).

Addressed his background in taking a level in Cavalier. Using the 3PP Black Knight archetype and attaching him to the Knight Errant Order.

His mount was lost before he joined the Knot and never regained (until Golgotha was gifted to him).

Lost some of his unholy might but its marginal. Challenge ability is pretty cool as is the Black Knight swap for tactician (focusses on being more slaughtery to unarmoured foes).

Plan to have his appearance change also when he becomes full vamp (at 9th) - more akin to a nosferatu/Master Strogoi from The Strain. Am drawing inspiration from this artwork

Going forward will be downplaying the pestilence/Chaos Warrior style angle that is more daemonic and upping the creepy on him. At his core he will remain a zealot of undeath

Well that's horrifying.

I'm prety sure everyone has had a chance to take the tour of the Catacombs now, so I've moved the players to the Upper Levels on my map. I'll do this one in stages since it's a bit more complex.

Everyone should be able to grab any NPC token and move it around to see the layout. I have the map set to global illumination right now for ease.

The entrance is a winding staircase that leads to a couple of arrow slits and a pair of iron banded double doors. Right off the bat there's a trap. The minion on watch here has a lever next to them that manually triggers and resets a trap right in front of the doors. It causes the floor to drop back at an angle (it's hinged right beneath the double doors). Anyone caught by the trap falls down onto the stalagmites in front of the entrance to the Catacombs. The distance is ambiguous, but based on the map legend, I think it's a 50' drop before hitting the spiky rocks.

The Entry Hall is lines with arrow slits. Behind them are guard minions with crossbows and longspears. Right now they're flaming skeletons with Fiery Auras.
All along this hallway at roughly thigh height, between each arrow slit, are deployable metal bars to obstruct movement. Here's how they work- On one side of the wall are holes that look like the entrance to a pencil sharpener. Opposite them are metal spikes sticking out of the wall about a foot. In the guard rooms are long metal poles that can be pushed through into the hall and locked into place with a twist. These can either be deployed ahead of intruders, or used as an attack from a Large sized longspear during deployment (if an enemy is in the right square). Once deployed, these metal bars turn the square they cross into Difficult Terrain.
At the end of the hall, behind the wall is a light ballista instillation.
Just before the curve of the hall you'll see grating. On the map it appears to be the floor, but it actually represents murder holes in the ceiling. Stone shape and the lyre's magic allowed us to bore a bunch of two inch wide holes straight down from the level above (see 2nd floor guardstation 1).
After the hallway turns left, intruders will have a Hwatcha siege engine at their back (basically an arrow volley launcher. Look them up, they're cool).
At the end of the hall is a portcullis with our new golem friend, who is basically a siege weapon all on his own.
Anyone trying to come in the front door is in for a painful experience.

If enemies manage to get past the portcullis they're in a room with our golem, and another portcullis on the far side can be opened to release uncontrolled undead into the room. The only door out of this room is steel with a Masterwork lock.

1-20 is the entrance to our first floor guard station. You can see the winches that control the portcullises here. Down the hall to 1-2 you'll see a Ram Trap Winch. ignore that. It's for a trap that hasn't been fully installed yet.

1-21 The Trophy Room. Right now it's just an unadorned parlor/receiving room. We can fancy it up if we want to.

1-23 The Cage Room. Anyone who falls down the 2nd floor pit trap ends up here. This is also the entrance to Molsabar's corner of the horn. He's kind of our Warden, keeping an eye on our guards, the capture cell, and the first floor prison. Molsabar's room has a few arrow slits to let him keep an eye on the outside too.

1-27 The Old Temple. This space is still decked out as a temple to the Horsemen of the Apocalypse. If anyone wants to convert it to something else, that's fine. It's a lot of usable space.

1-16 The Courtyard. This is the common area living space for the folks living on the first floor (Molsabar, Xanos, Halthus, and Xanos' cultists). It's also the central social hub due to Halthus' tavern, so any minion not on duty or sleeping is likely to be found here.
Above Halthus' bedroom is our torture chamber. Flanking his room is a couple empty rooms for special minions who might show up later. Right now they're empty.

That's about it for important features of the first floor. You'll notice that the tavern is now attached to the kitchens and the larder (because duh). I also sectioned off an area of the larder for corpses we want to preserve. Xanos has a secret door from his workshop into corpse storage so he doesn't have to wander through the social central whenever he needs bodies.

Any questions or comments on Floor One?

@Xanos: Both Caverns and Level 1 look sound. Like the judicious use of red herring keys etc to maximise both confusion and paranoia.

Not sure if its in anyone's power remit (yet) or if it even will, but illusionary traps/obstacles could also be somewhat useful - especially if the incoming intruders are aware of our number and natures? Phantom traps and Illusionary walls could effectively make a large area (such as 1-27) seem like a trap filled maze and cause foes to bottleneck effectively in an open space (and therefore ripe of heavy artillery from the likes of Haruk...

Think having chambers for emissaries and such is a good shout. As we attract the attentions of heroic victims adventurers, so too we might also host other villainous races/factions etc.

My 2 fangs worth :)

Regardless keep up the great, nay awesome, work chief - much appreciated.

PS - Brings joy to my cold, black heart that you find Albrέkt's final form to be suitably horrific :)

I love the idea of an illusory maze that our people know about but the enemy doesn't. That would be a fantastic use of 1-27.

Another fun idea is to overlap an illusion of a normal door over the top of an actual door made permanently invisible. Intruders would be fiddling with the door on one side, and everyone on the other side could see them plain as day and prep for when they finally got through.

Right now we only had enough spare cash for one casting of Permanent Image, and I used it on the Floor 3 balcony (it's marked by the upside down rainbow), so other permanent illusion ideas will have to wait until the next time we have some loot.

Wee heads up fellow Knotters - me and the missus are heading off to Dubai for our annual festive break with my brother-in-law and family from tomorrow.

I'm not back until the PM of 30th of Dec, and while I hope to post if/when I can, we may be pretty busy so presume it'll be sporadic at best.

I'll get some posting done throughout today, but likely tomorrow will be too busy and wanted to give everyone the heads up now.

- GMF please bot Albrekt as necessary.

Regardless folks have a superb festive holiday when it comes everyone - looking forward to continuing our nefarious adventures into the new year!

So, I think we're ready for Rose to sacrifice someone, yes?

Can we taste them first? Make sure they are worthy offerings? :D

Just to make sure we know exactly what's going on, the other Knot found and kidnapped a direct descendant of the original cult, and then they were transported here by our away team. Now they're in a cell somewhere waiting to be sacrificed.

Is that correct?

Apologies on the tardy posting gang - fell down the rabbit hole that is post-festive-work-catch-up.

Will try and get updated and back into it proper o'er the weekend.

Re: comments above - I vote they are put in the larder cells next to Albrekt's crypt...

Just to make sure we know exactly what's going on, the other Knot found and kidnapped a direct descendant of the original cult, and then they were transported here by our away team. Now they're in a cell somewhere waiting to be sacrificed.

Is that correct?

Yes. The descendant was a sister of the Abbey of St. Cynthia-Celeste in Farholde. Her absence has not gone unnoticed.

Ok. I'm not sure how long she's been here with us, but since the moment she arrived, Xanos has been casting Nondetection on her. That covers 21 hours a day. The other three hours a day Xanos hides her in a Rope Trick spell. That keeps her from being Scry'd on, or found with Locate Creature.

Every single thing she showed up with is temporarily stowed in a Bag of Holding. That prevents Locate Object.

Finally, Xanos is taking one of the human skeletons, casting Restore Corpse on it, then casting Sculpt Corpse to make a body that matches Sister Badluck. Then that body is dressed in the sister's clothes and mauled in such a way that the jaw/tongue is destroyed (preventing Speak With Dead unless they can restore the corpse).

Then the fake sister corpse is stuffed into a bag of holding. Albrekt can then take a trip back to town on his terrible horse and hand the body off to the other Knot. They can hide it somewhere that the people seeking it will find it and come to the wrong conclusions about how she died.

Hopefully that's enough coutermeasures that anyone trying to find her will be thrown off our trail.

Yup. That should sufficiently cover your tracks.

Is it possible to set up a permanent Desecrate effect around the altar? It just seems appropriate to me.

I think we'd have to buy a Darkskull for that.

The whole temple is under the desecrate effect and has been since you restored the gemstone eyes to the alter of Vetra-kali Wayback machine

Okay from here on out the adventure gets very episodic, with long periods of down time between events. I don't want to RP every day of the ritual, but I'm not sure we want to completely handwave the breaks, since there are crafting wishlists and other time consuming machinations in play.

So how do people feel about just jumping forward week-to-week, RPing the intervening time as we go?

That sounds great. Us crafters can do a week-by-week summary of what we're up to during those downtime periods.

It's a little metagame-y to know how much time we have between encounters, but I think we can make usre our crafting projects don't reflect any foreknowledge the players might have.

I'd really like to get some proper guard-beasts during our downtime. Would it be possible to handwave/montage over Rose, Sari and Albrekt going out and capturing critters, or you want to play out those kinds of encounters?

I seem to remember "capture creatures" being one of the actions an evil organization can undertake, but I don't know if that was a house rule or not.

Speaking of which, we need to remember that we have evil organization actions during each week of downtime. I just don't remember how those rules work (or if we are actually using them as written)

So how much time to we have before the first wave of adventurers shows up to check out the giant beacon in the sky that we just lit?

Crap.

I have a new laptop, and that's one of the bookmarks that I haven't replicated, the evil org rules.

In the same vein as Xanos, would it be possible for Haruk and his minions along with Xanos(if he's available) to call forth some minor devils for a more or less permanent duration via the rituals rules, or at least for longer than the 1 hour Haruk can pull off right now? Maybe up to CR 4 or so?

I have no problem with it - Sari doesn't craft etc, so her only interest is whether we can do the Hellhound rituals a few times and give her a hunting pack to work with. Otherwise crafters - feel free to have Sari help out as needed!

I think that is a perfect way to manage it.

Weekly sounds good!

If things bog down for some reason, we should be allowed to revisit this decision.