GOBLIN DOWN!
The Black Powder Cadre took a hit in this marathon, and lost one of its founding members. Like we said in our last report, author Vanessa Hoskins will surprise you. No finger-pointing amongst the team here—we got surprised—plain and simple. Before we get to what happened, this daring all-gunslingers project has lasted longer than many of us expected, so get caught up if you need to:
Summer marathons are usually grinders for us, and that’s exactly what we did for this one. It was too hot for any post-session fire pit gatherings, so we just kept playing until enough voices called it. The second day of this marathon saw an eighteen-hour run, and came within sight of our record for the longest session on the Paizo blog. We even had our friend Joe O’Brien—from the Glass Cannon Network—with us again, returning as Axayaca, the Beast Gunner from Arcadia. Joe wanted the full Order of the Amber Die (OAD) experience this time, so on the day he was here we decided to push until O’Brien threw in the towel. We’ll offer this to Glass Cannon fans: Joe can grind!
If you’ve read our reports from years past, you’ll know one of the main secrets to playing the longest sessions in the industry is actually our GM. It’s Adam who will drag you long into the wee hours of the morning, jumping around behind the screen at every natural 20 along the way. He’s just been this way since ’87, and we keep making the mistake of thinking he’ll slow down.
- Adventure: Hands of the Devil
- Marathon Length: 63 hours, 40 minutes
- Session Hours: 44 hours, 30 minutes
It’s for extreme marathons like this one, that we keep a couple of critical care nurses in the Order—you probably think we’re kidding. Now we can officially welcome our newest member, who can roleplay all day, straight after a night shift: Theodora Marcantonis! We’re always on the lookout for hardcore gamers, and while vetting Theodora, we learned she possessed a platinum trophy in God of War: Ragnarök, and spent her precious time between shifts playing Pathfinder:Kingmaker and Pathfinder:Wrath of the Righteous on PlayStation. SOLD! Everyone in OAD gets the team jersey of their choice, and we’re proud to have pink as the newest color at our table. Tess Rajani, Way of the Drifter, has moved from a cameo in our project to a full-time gunslinger in the Black Powder Cadre!
Highlights from Hands of the Devil:
□ We finished out the last blog on level five, with the party having woken a massive amalgamation of discarded flesh and bone. The behemoth surged to life, possessing unexpected speed and maneuverability. We opened with a torrent of gunfire from the balcony, but it responded with a salvo of its own: shards of bone that tore through the Cadre, forcing us into a fighting retreat. We leapfrogged back through the level, managing to hold the monstrosity’s advance at a couple of key locations where it couldn’t afford to press into our firing line. When our options dwindled, we made our final stand on the staircase up to level four. It closed with the party, and Vlai plunged his scattergun into its gooey hide. Click – BOOM! The resulting explosion caused the behemoth to decompose into a necrotic gas that curdled the flesh of the closest gunslingers. You get one Hero Point for an entire day during a marathon, and we burned them all here.
□ The Laboratories level of this megadungeon means you’re really in it now, and level six did more than any level so far to put the “Abomination” into Abomination Vaults. Disgusting fleshwarps of varying sizes, seugathi researchers performing experiments best left off this blog, and even scientific viewing galleries were intermixed within the chambers we explored. We use our soundtrack to stay immersed, and there’s good reason why we chose Chevelle’s Peach as the song for this level.
□ You know that rule about not stepping into a portal by yourself? Yeah, well this is OAD and we’ve always said that there are few absolutes in Pathfinder. Tess strode right into a teleporter that landed her in some kind of testing grounds, complete with a seugathi taking notes on how quickly its destrachan subject would annihilate her. She decided the best course of action was to run like hell and lead the reptilian aberration toward our party; after all, we brought guns to this megadungeon. As it turned out though, the destrachan brought artillery. It let rip with 201 damage to the Cadre in a single area-of-effect blast from its Destructive Harmonics, creating a new pedestal of statistics among our enemies so far. For the record, you can go through a portal by yourself in this game and survive.
□ In case you needed more from our “Vanessa will surprise you” theme, here it is: there is a tavern in this megadungeon. Yup, full of morlocks and such, ready to kill you or crack a beer—your choice. Stay long enough, and you’ll end up in a battle of the bands versus Shadow Malice. Think of an all-star lineup that only the Darklands can produce: duergar on drums, xulgath on guitar, caligni on bass, and ratfolk on vocals. We survived the solo portion of the competition due to the adept acrobatics of gunslingers, but the group section was a major problem—made worse when Shadow Malice let it rip with “Shout at the Devil” at full volume, even out-of-game. It was daunting to try and show them up with just one roll and a +8 Performance modifier. That is, until Breen’s natural 20 made us the hottest new band of the Abomination Vaults! When the crowd yelled for our name, we looked to Zoric, the naming phenom who once accidentally coined us “The Blue Coat Adventurers.” This time, he looked right back at the party and made it clear: "hey, don’t look at me.” The bartender screamed out Zoric’s response in Undercommon. Then several other denizens screeched the name in unison: “DON’T LOOK AT ME!” It was too late; Zoric had done it again.
□ While confronting a seugathi and its latest fleshwarp creations known as dreshkhans, we once again met our match in the ballistics department. Dreshkhans have an ability known as Needle Spray, or “Death Blossom” as those of us who grew up watching The Last Starfighter call it. If it wasn’t for our Player Captain making Risky Reload a mandatory feat in this party, we might have needed more word count for the Character Death section.
Character Deaths:
If you give our GM an assassin with free reign to target a single PC, murder will happen. Adam already proved it when he was given a carte blanche assassin during Strange Aeons. This time it was Maloika the Miserable, our ever-curious goblin, who squeezed through an arrow slit into a series of long-unused guardrooms. Inside, lingered Siora Fallowglade, the greater shadow and chief assassin of Belcorra herself—determined to slay again after 500 years. Adam claims that, because he acted out a kill emote from Assassin’s Creed, that’s why he rolled a critical hit to open combat against the goblin. At least it was quick.
The Arsenal:
Maloika is gone, and it sits hard with us, perhaps hardest with his Sniping Duo partner: Zoric. The goblin had grand plans to hang up his guns, then use his relationship with the market owner to open his own megadungeon collectibles store in Otari. We’re carrying on Maloika’s dream, by continuing to take advantage of the organization rules in the PathfinderGamemastery Guide. Our newest followers and lieutenants have overseen construction, which was built over the ruins of the Thirsty Alpaca. We’ve already named the store: Ayla’s Oddities & Collectibles. We even have plans to haul the giant gong out from the arena level, the same one the goblin shot with his harmona gun to wake the behemoth. We’ll make sure it rings every morning when the store opens—in honor of Maloika.
Best Quote from Marathon 4:
(after Vlai managed to hit three party members with one blast from the scattergun)
Axayaca: “Why do you shoot your friends? Do you derive some pleasure from it?”
Vlai: “It’s nothing personal.” (reloads)
Current Situation:
We blasted our way through levels five and six, and just set foot on level seven. It smells like soot. The temperature feels warmer here for some reason, and runes are carved on the walls. Lock and load…
More Content:
Our table was brought to life with the help of Blue Table Painting for the miniatures, and Black Bard Studios for custom adventure-specific miniatures/terrain.
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The Abomination Arsenal: Part 4
Friday, November 3rd, 2023
