GM Jhaeman's "To Scale the Dragon" (Inactive)

Game Master Jhaeman

"Well, that was bracing!" Pethwen laughs, her badly bruised ribs bringing a slight wince of pain onto her angelic face. "Here, let me ease some of the pain before we continue."

Channel energy for all the injured.
Heal: 2d6 ⇒ (3, 5) = 8
Heal: 2d6 ⇒ (5, 2) = 7
Heal: 2d6 ⇒ (1, 2) = 3

Hopping back onto the sled, the young cleric's eyes twinkle with glee. "OK, hold on Pai, let's see how quick we can get this thing over that bridge!"

Pethwen would want to take the faster, riskier option unless convinced not to.

Pai's eyes go wide. "Umm... You know... Not that I'd do any better or anything, but you're, umm...not the best driver, and I reeeeallly don't want to end up down there in the ice water. I've got some rope we can use to tie to the chain. And go carefully? Please?"

Pethwen looks a little hurt at Pai's lack of enthusiasm for racing across the ice bridge. "Oh Pai! Don't worry, I wouldn't let you get hurt. I've got a Feather Fall spell ready for all of us in the unlikely event we don't make it across!"

Nevertheless, the eager young cleric waits to see what others think before mushing the dogs across the ice.

Andor is not really eager to be daring.

"Let us take it slow!"

Taking it slowly and using the chain to tie yourselves off, you slowly walk the dogsleds across the ice bridge. Once on the far side, you're able to set off again at greater speed.

You soon reach the "Talons" of the Dragon. Here the path splits into adjacent routes: a higher path with a slow incline, and a wider steep path that plunges below it across a series of ice dunes. As you journey through the area, you all notice a trickle of frozen blood crossing the trail.

The air seems even thinner.

At this point, every PC (except Pai who has air shroud) needs to make a DC 15 Fortitude save or become fatigued from altitude sickness.

If you'd like to try to follow the trickle of frozen blood, it would take a Survival check to follow tracks.

Folks who have taken the nonlethal damage from crashes may need to add a new designation to their taglines to keep track--remember that nonlethal damage is tallied upward (and when it meets your descending regular hit point number, you fall unconscious). But also don't forget that Pethwen's three channels removed a total of 18 points of the nonlethal damage.

Fort DC15: 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (1) + 6 = 7

The high altitude saps some of Yaiho strength as he tries to track the trickle of frozen blood.

Survival: 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (3) + 8 = 11

Constantin stands tall, his expertise at long-winded speechifying serving him well. Petros however is noticeably peaked, and snuggles up closer in Constantin's pocket.

Fort: 1d20 + 6 + 1 ⇒ (16) + 6 + 1 = 23
Bunny Fort: 1d20 + 1 + 1 ⇒ (11) + 1 + 1 = 13

Fort DC15: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (20) + 5 = 25

The high altitude does not harm Andor.

FORT: 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (5) + 6 = 11

"Wow! The view from up here takes the breath away, doesn't it!" Pethwen's exterted pants sound like the practice blows across the holes of a flute, each breath rising and falling in perfect scales.

Survival: 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (4) + 2 = 6

Not sure why this didn't post yesterday...

"Let's split the difference, shall we?"

Kaa pulls out 50' of hemp rope, and ties off one end to a tree or rock, and the other end to his sled. Then he races his sled across the bridge and hopes for the best.

Handle Animal: 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (10) + 7 = 17

Ha! Just like taking 10...

Assuming he makes it, we can use the rope to help, and either I can come back to help lead the second sled or we can tie it up and pull for extra safety.

Sorry Kaa, we've already passed that point--it looked like folks were taking the safe route, so I moved us ahead. Can I get you to roll the Fort save vs altitude sickness?

Yep - guess I didn't see the new posts since I started mine!

Fort Save: 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (9) + 9 = 18

Yaiho and Pethwen don't cope well with the increasing altitude, and both lose the trail of blood.

Would someone else like to try tracking, or would you like to hop back on the sleds and move on?

Tracking isn't really my thing, but Kaa is happy to assist.

Survival: 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (11) + 4 = 15

Kaa is able to spot what the others missed. The trail of blood leads a few hundred yards off the trail until it stops at three piles of fresh snow piled hurriedly over bodies. Two of the piles conceal the corpses of hideous, white-furred simians. The third holds a human, perhaps of Chelish descent, killed by a bite wound between his neck and shoulder; he wears thick furs, but has no other visible equipment.

Andor shakes his head.

“What happened here?!“

He starts searching the surroundings and the bodies.

perc : 0 + 1d20 + 14 ⇒ 0 + (4) + 14 = 18

"Monkey things ambush group of men. One died while rest of group moved on." Yaiho speculates.

Pai's lips purse in thought. "Yeah, but all of them are buried, not just one type. Why bury the other creatures too? If they're trying to cover up an ambush point, they should've covered the blood too. Or maybe to hide the bodies from scavengers? Huh. Okay. We'd better keep an eye out as we go, just in case." She begins scanning the area, looking for anything that could be a threat.

Perception: 1d20 + 10 ⇒ (17) + 10 = 27

"OOOHH! I bet those are the beast men! Whoaaa..." Pai is pseudo-amazed by her brilliance.

Constantin meanwhile, spends time examining the hideous simians. Were these mere beasts? Or outrunners of a some sort of tribe?

Knowledge (nature?): 1d20 + 12 + 1 ⇒ (14) + 12 + 1 = 27

Andor takes something out from one of the bodies and shows it to you - a small bronze coin.

”Look what was hidden in his clothing: a sign he's a member of the Aspis Consortium! We should be careful!“

"Aspis are ahead of us, but this looks like we are catching up. But it also means we should not dawdle too much. The air is thin and cold, so take a quick rest and let's be on our way."

Kaa checks his weapon, tightens the gear on the sleds, and gets ready to go.

Yaiho shakes his head in agreement with Kaa. "Right. Yaiho fight Apsis before. We go and kill more."

"Some flame will serve us well if fight we must
against the tribe of Taer who hold this land.
Their territory they will seek to guard
Unless their gods and spirits we appease."

"Ooooh! Those Apsis jerk-faces! Yeah, we gotta make sure they don't get those bones! Watch out for them tossing stuff down on us and whatnot, too. I wouldn't put it past them to start an avalanche if they know they're being followed." Pai puts on her game face and prances around with her fists up like a boxer in a ring, then laughs at herself and scuttles back onto the sled, ready to go.

Everyone climbs back on the sleds, and the journey continues.

At the "Wings" of the Dragon, the pass drops into a small valley between two small hills, becoming extremely narrow and difficult to traverse. But by taking your time, you make it through without incident. It's clear this pass would be more difficult if you were descending, or in a hurry.

Near the top of the pass, at a place marked on the map as the "Eye," the angle of the slope increases until it bisects a small glen near the base of a steep butte on the mountainside. Atop the butte, a wide ledge climbs slowly back up the mountain.

The pass continues until it reaches a high ledge atop a staggeringly sheer scarp that spills down into the lowlands: the breathtaking view provides a panorama of most of the lower peaks. As you pause briefly to enjoy the sight, you hear a strange scraping sound coming from above.

Looking up, you see several white-furried simian creatures on the slopes, pushing rocks down at you before fleeing into the hills! The rocks fall quickly, picking up speed and accumulating snow with them until a massive wave of icy death is about to fall upon you--avalanche!

Fortunately, you have just enough time to discern the path of the avalanche and race out of its way!

The avalanche starts 3500 feet away from you and moves 500 feet a round. It is 100 feet wide, and you all start 60 feet towards the edge from the center of its path. So effectively, you're not in harm's way. The avalanche could have been more dangerous if some of the random die rolls had gone differently, but for present purposes just consider it a cinematic danger.

"Welp, not the Apsis, but still--I called it! Avalanche! Let's move, people!"

"Kill monkey faces on way back down." he promises as he looks away from the monkeys and back to the trail.

Constantin keeps quiet for once, using his flag as a staff to help him hustle to the side!

Andor looks at the spectacle with worry.

"Wow! We could have been beneath all this snow! Let us move!" he says.

"Not a pleasant thought. And we need to remember these dangers on the way back. But yes, let's continue."

After escaping the avalanche, you push through to the final part of the pass—an area labelled on the map as the “Maw” of the Dragon. Here, the path becomes impassable by sled. A tiny footpath winds up a steep slope covered with boulders. When you reach the top of the slope, you can see a broad plateau ahead to the south, with a snow-filled gorge falling off nearly a thousand feet just off to the side!

A thin fog shrouds the area, but you can still just make out a massive, squat structure in the distance perhaps forty yards to the south. It looks like a stone rostrum that holds four columns of dark, grey stone. This must be the cairn you were sent to find! One of the columns is broken and lies half-buried in the nearby drifts of snow. In the center of the rostrum rests a five-foot-tall beehive-shaped nest built of ice and cairn stones, seemingly frozen around a clutch of eight massive bluish-gray speckled eggs, each the size of a brandy cask.

Andor stops you all and whispers.

"Hey, dozens of footprints made by oversized, barefooted humanoids leading in the direction of the cairn. Let us be careful!" he says and starts walking forward in the direction of the footsteps.

Yaiho nods, "Maybe more monkey faces."

He follows carefully toward the cairn.

Constantin calls after Yaiho, "Respect might pave a path where force would fail."

Pai keeps her eyes peeled--forward, back, and all around--as the group approaches the cairn. She murmurs to those near her: "Where are the Apsis folks?"

You and your fellow Pathfinders advance carefully through the fog towards the cairn. The air is still, and the only sound is the crunching of your boots on the snow and the laboured breathing of some of your companions.

Suddenly, Pai and Kaa realise something at the same instant: there are beastial creatures with thick, shaggy fur hiding in the snow around the cairn!

Initiative: Surprise Round

Pai
Creatures
Kaa

Bold can go!

This encounter is on Slide # 1. There are a couple of special things to keep in mind here. First, each square is 15'. We'll have to do some rough approximation to have a battle in a game designed with 5' squares, and I'll be reasonably flexible to help keep things moving. Second, the "thin fog" has the following effects: : 0-60’ away is clear visibility; 60-90’ away gives a target concealment (20% miss chance), and more than 90’ away a target has total concealment (you have to pick a square and, if you pick the right square, there is still a 50% miss chance).

On your turn, you can try to identify the creatures.

Knowledge (local): 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (12) + 5 = 17

"Oh! I remember! The beastmen are big on sacred stuff! Maybe they're protecting the remains!"

On a hunch, Pai advances with her arms spread out in a nonthreatening way. Maybe we can do this without a fight.

Moved Pai what I think is 20'

The taers burst out of the snow and advance with startling speed. The howling beastmen hold crude but deadly spears in their fur-covered hands!

Each of the taers is doing a move action to advance (50' speed). They were hoping you would get closer before spotting their ambush!

Initiative: Surprise Round

Pai
Creatures
Kaa

Bold can go!

There are a couple of special things to keep in mind here. First, each square is 15'. We'll have to do some rough approximation to have a battle in a game designed with 5' squares, and I'll be reasonably flexible to help keep things moving. Second, the "thin fog" has the following effects: : 0-60’ away is clear visibility; 60-90’ away gives a target concealment (20% miss chance), and more than 90’ away a target has total concealment (you have to pick a square and, if you pick the right square, there is still a 50% miss chance).

"Looks like they aren't willing to hear us out. Maybe someone can calm them down?"

Not willing to wait for too long, Kaa let's his inner blood boil, lathering up into a battle rage. As he does so, he starts to grow larger, and once he reaches full size, he moves forward, drawing his weapon and hissing out threatening tone as clear as he can make it. "SSSStop! Or you will ssssuffer!"

Swift action to rage which includes enlarge person, move forward and then Intimidate (although he will wait until they are within range if needed).

Intimidate: 1d20 + 10 ⇒ (9) + 10 = 19

The lead taer shrinks back in fear at Kaa's sudden enlargement and threatening posture!

The Red taer is shaken for two rounds.

Initiative (Round 1)

Constantin
Andor
Pethwen
Yaiho
Pai
Creatures
Kaa

Bold may go!

Pai huffs with her hands on her hips, shaking her head. "Well, if they're gonna fight, I'm gonna fight back!" She then spreads her arms, Gathering Power into herself. Arcs of pale blue electricity swirl and snap around her in a 20' radius, converging on her petite form. Anyone close enough can feel the static electricity pulling their hairs on end. Suddenly, all the electricity is sucked into her. A moment later she flings one arm forward, and all that energy blasts from her palm in a twisting, crackling blast toward the blue taer.

Electric blast vs. Touch AC: 1d20 + 9 + 1 ⇒ (9) + 9 + 1 = 192d6 + 2 + 2 ⇒ (3, 6) + 2 + 2 = 13
Includes Elemental Overflow. She gathered power to avoid taking burn to use the Extended Range Infusion (120ft).

"Yes, fight friends! These beastmen look like worthy foes but we now have the scent of the hunt!" Pethwen moves forward, drawing her bow and calling out to encourage the group.

Inspire Courage. +2 attack and damage to all.

Andor retrieves his mutagen and invests it.

“I really don’t want to fight. Was that necessary?“

Pai has an extra +1 to hit and damage from Constantin's flag, even before anyone's Inspire Courage is up

Knowledge (local): 1d20 + 12 + 1 ⇒ (10) + 12 + 1 = 23

Seeing the Taer in action doesn't do much to change Constantin's impression of them and their weaknesses, but even if they're unlikely to stop and listen to words, particularly in Taldane, he is loath to start with violence, instead preparing his power in case it should be needed.

Readying a grease for the first Taer to charge, he'll put it under their feet, with at least one square in between them and their target. Should cancel the charge, might leave them prone. DC 15 Ref