Protectors of Golarion (Wrath of the Righteous AP)

Game Master Sensen

To prevent Merixia from having to roleplay with herself, I'll take Elliot if we get the go ahead or just don't get a response in a timely fashion.

I was just going to suggest Merixia should not bot Elliot :)

Yeah, that could be a bit awkward. If the communication has already been sent, maybe we give them until next week and then start back up?

I'll take responsibility for botting Azira then, if that's okay with everyone and we turn out to have to do so. Hope her player is doing better health-wise.

On a related sidenote, I succesfully completed my move.

In pf1e terms, took some electricity damage due to a failed disable lightbulb check, took some non lethal due to stepping on a nail (non rusty), and am fatigued because of a failed fort save originating from shrubbing something vigorously for about an hour (i got gifted a small barrel of beer once, put it in a pantry, ignored it, was away over the winter so it exploded inside of the pantry and made a bit of a mess haha), but I did it!

but next time I move I hire some professionals.

I send out the messages, no response so far.

Is Merixia fine with botting Wulfric?

Hey, nice! Congrats on the successful move, GM. I hope your battle scars heal quickly.

Congrats on your successful move, Lili! Been there, done that, it sucks every single time.

On this end of the internet, I started making some Christmas gifts and discovered that my jojoba oil leaked all over a storage tub full of bottles and other small items. Then in the process of cleaning that up, the benzoin resinoid (sticky, fragrant, very tenacious) leaked. Today was the oilpocalypse. My small precision scale is still kind of greasy, but the user manual got soaked with oil and I don't dare throw it out, so I'll just have to keep it in a baggie and clean the scale every time I use it.

I'm fine with botting Wulfric.

most interesting"move related" things I witnessed:

--When my old german army moved from one location to another, our resident barracks joker thought it really amusing to purchase a bunch of fake hand grenade pins, and liberally drop them whenever someone was transporting hand grenades before being like "Uh, buddy, did you drop that?" and pointing at the fake grenade pin on the floor.

--There was a close call with someone trying to impress someone elses girlfriend, and nearly stumbling down a stair while trying (and failing, mostly) to transport a washing machine (lifting and holding it is one thing, transporting it safely down a stairway is a somewhat higher STR check). I managed to somewhat barely catch him, out of reflex more then anything, and am to this day surprised I managed to do that, only damage was to some box with books I was carrying (which I dropped when it happened), almost had like a premonition which caused me to look back at him just as he was starting to fumble.

--Due to due misjusding size, one dude got imprisoned by the bed he was trying to transport down, as said bed got stuck in the stair way. We ended up decoonstructing the bed in the stair way to unstuck it, while a more bemused then aggressive old 80 yearish lady (who couldnt reach her flat because the stuck bed was in the way) was offering helpfull commentary, and demanding a beer while she was stuck since she was technically assisting us moving.

@Verene I am looking forward to you botting Azira this turn then!

Okay, can do, likely tomorrow. Happy Thanksgiving Day to the other Americans! Happy Thursday to you, GM.

Happy Black Friday, everyone. I posted for Azira. Also spent a considerable amount of today on buying and loading up 60 15-pound bricks that were on clearance.

Dang, I think I meant to remove the charging bonus on those attacks and didn't. So each one should be 2 lower.

I also just do want to check — there were only three gems left, and Elliot already got one of them, correct?

Freeable were:

Infernal (red) free
Emo-Psychopomp (black) (Elliot got it)
Protean (teal) (what I think just got freed)
Another Azata (yellow)

Need to do some math if its enough to get the Azata free too.

After the Legendary Surge that will still be a 39 on the yellow if that helps. Also the kalavakus is still grappled, so loses its Dex to CMD!

Yeah, and then he has the advanced template, and is himself good at disarming. But I think it is sufficient.

He has one gem left, but thinks the Protean removed his ability to effectively consume it. He now knows he is dimensionally anchored, which he did not know before. I am fairly certain the party can put him down.

Noxious Nahyndrian noodle-horned non-entity, hahahaha! I love it. That's awesome.

I'm way too tired to do combat math tonight, but I had to compliment your protean's skill at mockery.

Feel free to do so in character, he is... quite a character and I am glad he still has one hit dice left after getting drained from the "abrupt release".

Also gives me a ready made trash talking dispensing device, and it makes sense for a Protean, especially an Azuretzi, to trashtalk powerful demons to their faces.

Merixia would get the idea that Irathiel, the Munagola, has a sense of humor, freely cooperates with chaotic outsiders (as long as they arent demons/Qlippoths/Great Old ones presumably) and is a team player.

Highly unusual for a devil, some devils have one of these traits, but a high ranking devil with all 3 of them?

She did visibly strain when touching Radiance (not sure if I wrote it in, but she temporarily got another negative level from touching radiance).

Oh, the 2 Schirs and the remaining Brimoracks will die to the black tentacles without being able to force the party to expend any more resources on them.

Why did he get drained, again? I'm not sure I understand. I attempted the Disarm even though it was harder to do, specifically because we were told Sunder had a chance to kill the souls in the gems.

It seems like a check result of 29 to steal works, but 39 to disarm does not, so someone should steal the final yellow gem before the kalavakus's next turn. We shouldn't sunder it because that has a good chance to kill the azata inside, unless I am misunderstanding something.

The remaining brimorak and schirs could roll well on their concentration checks to dimension door out, or just to break the grapple, I suppose. The concentration check DC to cast a spell or spell-like ability while grappled by the black tentacles is 10 + grappler's CMB + spell level, so, 25 + spell level. That's 28 for dispel magic, 29 for dimension door and 32 for greater teleport. Breaking out can be done with a standard action combat maneuver check to escape the grapple vs a CMD of 10 + the tentacles' effective CMB, which is 15. So, CMD 25. (Unless the +5 bonus the tentacles get to grapple CMB checks against creatures it is already grappling gets added to that, which would make it DC 30. The spell is not totally clear.)

I made several mistakes:

Major mistake: I interpreted the disarm as a sunder, totally on me, in my defense, I am currently a bit sick and spent too much energy trying to figure out what the CMB/CMD of the black tentacles was, and how much the roided up by the soul gems Kalavakus loses by no longer having these soul gems.

Not quite sure if we want to retcon it.

Minor mistakes: I wrote "concetration check Brimorack to cast while grappled", when that was the Kalavakus (which he made, albeit narrowly), he also made the check to cast defensively, but since Verene dimensional anchored him (and he thought it was another spell) the spell is wasted.

Oh, I see. Yes, it was a Disarm on both teal and yellow separately, in place of her two attacks of a full attack. I should have made that clear in the labeling of the rolls, not just the description. We could say that the teal gem shattered when it fell to the stone cobbles, I suppose?

I inferred that the rolls you mention were meant to be for the kalavakus's actions, since they were placed after that description and had different bonuses. I'm more concerned about the yellow gem. Does a 39 Disarm it from him? If so, I would request a retcon of that working.

If not, about how hurt does the kalavakus look currently? Could full attacks from our three primary damage dealers reasonably kill him, or do we need to worry about getting the yellow gem out first?

I hope thats a fair retcon!

No gems left, although the kalavakus does not know that.

Also, I missed the chance to turn the "I AM FREE AND YOU ARE DOOMED! FREEEDOOOOM!" pun for the Protean, well, I got a flu and he got level drain :)

Thanks for retconning that re: the yellow gem, GM. I am amused by this protean, not least because he is Small size. I hope I've gotten Azira's various modifiers right. I separated them out to show my work, using her standard +18 to hit and 1d8+9 damage as the base.

That one specifically is actually medium sized, his physical shape adjusted to his ego :).

Ah! Well, in that case she admires his colorful scales.

Oh dear, I rolled SR checks automatically as though it was a spell Verene was casting. The wand is not, and as far as I can tell uses its own caster level for everything. Meaning the CL is only 5, no +4 trait bonus against demons, and Eldritch Breach does not apply. Sorry about that.

Apologies on the delay. I'll be working on getting up a post later tonight. I'll also be reviewing Elliot's character as well so I can take over for him for now.

I also apologize for the delay, I pushed myself too hard yesterday (and the day before, and the day before that) and paid the price. I can substitute Will for Fort, right? Right?? …Wrong. But hey, I got a good night’s sleep so hopefully Merixia can kick some demon butt today.

Apologies. Day got away from me. I am catching up. But I will hold off on a post seeing as I believe you're having Verene/Merixia determine how they finish off our dear enemy. I wanted to make sure to at least post here though to note I am back to being active.

Yeap, its very dead and Merixia can describe how she kills it.

I can? Awesome! The tentacles are probably holding him down in kind of a hunched position, right? Decapitation is always a classic, let’s go with that. If Merixia can’t reach high enough for that, she’ll get him in the chest, possibly through one of the wounds we made carving out soul gems.

Although he has a gargantuan ego, he himself is medium sized because only cool proteans have a "your physical size adjusts to your ego" function.

I hope the "give a history lesson" subtask is fun.

Also, Thesius would not that, in a way, Irathiel is a archeological artifact and he is an archeologist :).

I feel like the Blood War was made canon again but can't find the post and am not certain, so I won't call it that.

Ah, found it. Okay, it is specifically noted as there being no such overarching term or concept, but devils and demons do still often come into conflict.

What Verene would know:

There is no "Blood War" between Hell as a whole and the Abyss as a whole, but individual Demonlords and individual Arch devils are in state of wars.

For example, Baphomet is at war with Asmodeus, Nurgal is at war with Nergal.

Meanwhile, some Demonlords such as Pazuzu (who hates Lamashtu, and by extension Lamashtus offspring/husbands such as Baphomet, which by double extension makes him friendly to anyone who hates Baphomet) are on fairly reasonable terms with much of hell, and a few of the more civilized demonlords such as Nocticula or Haagenti also have (incredibly well guarded, by the devils against shenanigians) embassies in Dis.

The Abyss is chaotic, and while in some places hierarchies exist (for example, Nocticula is the liege lord of Shamira, who is a demonlord in her own right, and who is beefing, albeit not open waring with Ardad Lili over who gets to seduce the innocent, while Nocticula herself prefers to seduce the really hard targets, meaning either virtous Paladins or those who are skilled seducers herself and thus doesnt particularly mind Ardad Lili).

Xar Azmask canonically messed up Dis (some of the damage, more due to complicated infernal beurocracy then to anything else, still hasnt been fixed after 10 millenia) and wasnt popular in the Abyss, so most of the Abyss gave little expletives about hell killing him in return.

When demons and devils meet, it often but not always results in violence.

Demons are more numerous, but, paradoxically, they do better in small scale engagement against the infernals, who in turn tend to dominate larger battles oweing to their superior organization.

Unless very specific circumstances are in place, the adage that 10 demons will beat 10 devils, but 10000 devils will curbstomp 10000 demons, holds mostly true.

Good to know, GM, thank you. I'm trying to participate and push us along but also leave space for Merixia to convey some important information. I think you said before that Freedom of Movement would also work to free the souls?

And that's why Merixia has been so friendly towards a devil! She saw Irathiel's loyalty toward Ragathiel and thought "it's free real estate!". Getting such a powerful devil to convert to good would be a valuable addition to Ragathiel's army and a slap in the face to Asmodeus, both of which Merixia considers to be excellent things.

It could work as part of it. Freedom, the level 9 spell proper would absolutely do it.

Feel free to roll some knowledge arcana on the soul gems.

Loot:

I am abstracting stuff that you will add to the crusades supply pile (masterwork Halberds and longswords from the mook demons for example),

but the Kalavakus had:

--3 empty soul gems (smelly) which the Munagola fished out of its... rear end.

--An amulet of mighty fists +2

--a cloak of resistance +2

--a ring of protection +2

--A headband of wisdom +2

--A belt of phyiscal perfection +2 inscribed with "for the delivery of 10 paladins to Lord Baphomeets perusal".

And while I think nobody is useing natural attacks or unarmed strike, all of these items are upgrades for someone.

Thanks GM. I will record those when I can. I probably won't be able to post tomorrow, as I will be traveling all day.

If you feel like it, could you put a link to the treasure sheet in your status line along with the ones to the map and buff list?

Done!

I should have a post up in the next couple of hours.

Okay, new loot is recorded! Are the spent soul gems worth anything, GM?

One of Thesius or Merixia should take that +2 cloak, and the other one should take the +2 cloak that was on the tiefling sorcerer Barrid Issen, from two in-game days ago. I don't think it was ever claimed.

Wisdom headband should go to Merixia, obviously. Belt probably to Thesius? He's quite multiple ability dependent.

The ring of protection +2 would be good on either of you, but maybe Thesius would be a better bearer since Merixia just got some fancy new armor that ups her AC and Thesius seems to be mixing it up in melee and getting hit a lot. The only other ring of protection we've found was +1, on the tiefling alchemist in the Gray Garrison, and I think Azira is wearing it.

I am readjusting loot from the module, and liberally sprinkling it to be both more useful to the party (like, the number of super longsword found is like.... comical. In another games a character joked that he could be a righteous 4 armed half marilith specializing in demon slaying with longswords, and there would still be spare longswords of demonslaying), there is also no reason why there cant be a celestial breastplate, instead of a celestial full plate (pretty sure Meri will keep her new armor for a long time). Thesius/Wulfric may find some bard stuff that is not in the module, in exchange for not finding longsword number 6 of demon slaying.

You can ask the protean about where to sell unusual loot. He is kind of intended to be a mobile shop, although he initially slightly scams you because he needs to get his level drain fixed.

Thesius could definitely make use of those items. His AC would jump anywhere from 1 to 3. If he gets the best, the Belt of Mighty Constitution +2 could go to someone else.

A lot of the items as written do seem to lean pretty heavily in specific directions.

With that in mind, I've been contemplating going with Legendary Item as one of Thesius' next Mythic Advancements. As much fun as 24 hours of everyone having Mythic Heroism is, the original intent was for him to use those spells to bolster himself to keep more in line with others. Not to boost the entire party when we have some rather heavy hitters already.

Give the ring of protection +2 and belt to Thesius, I'm quite happy with the headband.

I'll get those added later today. So I believe that puts him with the following:
+Belt of Physical Perfection +2
+Ring of Protection +2
+Cloak of Resistance +2

-Belt of Mighty Constitution +2

Hey all,
I'm still schlepping around this mortal coil, though my SO and I have continued to be plagued with health issues. I really, truly hate to do this but, at this point I think it's long overdue, and probably not at all a surprise... I've had to admit to myself that I really just don't have the time or energy to continue on the forums or with PbP, so--with great sadness--I'm afraid I need to bow out of this game. I really will miss it (and all of you), and I hope you're able to keep it going. Maybe one day, when things calm down, I'll be able to pop in and read the story that continued after my departure. Happy gaming.
GH

I hope you and your SO get to doing better. Sorry to hear things seem to keep coming up.

Thanks for letting us know and I with you two the best! I don't any of us would mind seeing you around again should that time come.