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The swashbuckler shivers from the wet and damp, suddenly plucked from the churning maelstrom into the waiting tentacles of a hungry Kraken. At the last second he was spared from being a tasty morsel of a meal and deposited roughly unto the deck of a fearsome ship with an even deadlier crew. Even the greenest of sailors in the Shackles would recognize this ship and her immortal, always dangerous captain. What can only be her first mate and herald strides forward from the crowd to speak.

"Aye matey! You almost made toothy over there a fine starter of a meal! It seems you have stirred the Lady's interest however, so she persuaded her friend to place you upon our deck!" The herald smiles a black toothed grin, his one eye glowing a crimson red as he speaks. "But first we needs to judge ye according to yer deeds. How much tribute have you paid the lady? What have you taken in her name? Let's just see shall we?"

The swashbuckler can only watch in morbid fascination as a large iron wrought chest is dragged from the depths of the maelstrom by the justifiably angry Kraken. It's worked in cold iron and precious metals with large and small jolly rogers picked out of gemstones of the finest quality and clarity. It is easily the most valuable thing he has even seen in his lifetime. With a mind piecing shriek the chest is opened unto the deck and from the blackness inside roll out...
Two shiny gold pieces.

"Lads! Look at the bounty this man has bestowed upon our Goddess! shouts the herald. With this tribute we can raise havoc across all the known worlds!" The crew shouts with joy as if a mountain of coin and plunder had poured forth from within the chest. It takes a few minutes for the mayhem to cease, after which the herald once again addresses the unfortunate swashbuckler.

"Aye! Ye have been judged and found wanting laddie! But yea still have a chance to make yer amends. We will return yea from whence yea came. In exchange, for a year and a day ALL ye plunder save whatcha need for food and lodgins will be thrown overboard in tribute to the Pirate Queen!" The herald pauses to spit something black and viscous over the side of the ship before continuing.

"If yea don't agree now, we feed yea to toothy here! If yea agree and attempt to renege on this agreement, than toothy here will have a second chance at a meal!" The herald gazes upon the swashbuckler with a predatory grin as if almost daring the man to strike him, perhaps offering yet another way out of this predicament.

"So matey! What will yea answer be?"

*Please note that the two shiny gold piece reference is what would occur if this happened in my own campaign. Your mileage may vary.*

What is the swashbucklers standing with Besmara? You could have him cast into the Maelstrom and have him fished out of the chaos by the Seawraith and Besmara herself.

She could then judge him according to his deeds. "Aye matey! How much tribute have you paid the lady? What have you taken in her name? Let's just see shall we?" At which point a chest materializes on board with all the loot the PC has thrown overboard in tribute to Besmara. Woe be unto him if he hasn't dropped any.

Regardless of the outcome, the swashbuckler would then be required to "walk the plank" off the ship at the end of negotiations. He ends up either swimming by himself (with hungry sharks/weresharks/Kraken if Besmara is displeased) or in a rowboat with a couple of days of food and water somewhere in the Shackles if things take a better turn.

The other thought here is to have him picked up (still in the Maelstrom) by Besmara's herald the Kelpie's wrath. It has been known to pick up drowning sailors in exchange for years of service (when this is to be served could be negotiated) or to help mortals in exchange for large amounts of treasure.

Given that you are at the end of book 5 the character is at a level that justifies this level of interest by the goddess in question.

Barghests love to consume corpses. The fresher the better. Even though Malfeshnekor is a greater barghest, he still hasn't eaten in a very long time. It would be well within Nualia's character to say and do this.

"What just happened here? The mighty heroes of Sandpoint thought they could just stroll into our complex and defeat us? We all see how that went. Useless scum! Let us not let them off so easily by burning them now! When I free Malfeshnekor, his first meal shall be the flesh of these so called heroes and everyone here can witness their destruction!"

The party is then stabilized and thrown into the dungeon until Nualia can open up the prison which takes... however many days (less than a week though) you need until a "rescue party" can come get them. Several NPC's in town have enough levels to mount a commando style raid with the sole intent of rescuing the PC's. I would let the party members run them so they have something to do during this time. It would also give the PC's a chance to learn the abilities/ increase the levels of the NPC's for the giant raid down the road.

This part is NSFW. It will contain thoughts and magic items that are mature and disturbing in nature. Parental discretion is advised.

The "rescue party" would have a much easier go of it in this case, and the PC's (who still need to recover after their ordeal) would be ready to deal with Malfeshnekor's raid in about a month give or take.

OK, so it's not that risque, but it does involve Shayliss so I put the tags up.

My parties Barbarian was the one who impressed Shayliss in her encounter during the raid, so he was the one who she tried to seduce.
Note the tried there.

Sure, the Barbarian showed up to her place looking sharp and neatly groomed (via prestidigitation). He also brought with him food and drinks (provided by two very helpful PC's). However not being all that experienced having no experience at all in the art of love, when it came down to the action part of the evening he thought “wrestling” with Shayliss with one hand behind his back and naked meant that he was actually wrestling with Shayliss with the disadvantage of being naked with one hand behind his back.

As such, our wonderful “hero” of this tale repeatedly ignored several blatant attempts to interest him in furthering his sexual education including several lines that had the table in stitches. This includes such safer things to post as “Why you stick your tongue in my mouth? That not wrestling!” and more than one accusation of cheating when a clearly frustrated Shayliss doubled down by putting both hands on a very personal area of our heroes anatomy instead of trying to get out of a hold. “Why you cheat and not wrestle? This how you wrestle!” PIN

Of course this is when dear old dad showed up to which our hero promptly offered to “wrestle” him in this new style of wrestling that he had just learned from his daughter. He even remembered to tell dad that he had to get naked first to do it correctly.

Yeah. That went over well.

After the third punch connected to our heroes face with the only reaction from dad being “ the best bleeping rage you have seen from a non Barbarian”, our hero decided that the wrestling match had already begun and immediately grappled/pinned dad in two rounds.

That's when the still naked Shayliss broke the bottle of very expensive Dwarven spirits over the Barbarians head.

Our hero decided at that point that, “You all sore losers and cheaters. Me go home now.”

It wasn't until he got outside that he figured out that while he had remembered to put on his pants before leaving that he had neglected to put on his shirt. Oddly enough the door to Shayliss's house was locked when he turned around to get it.

I have looked through a bunch of stuff relating to background for a ROTR campaign, and this is the direction I think I am going to lead my PC's in for the first session. The goal here being to tie my PC's as tightly as possible to the town of Sandpoint from the opening session. Nothing is set in stone yet however.

Thoughts and observations are certainly welcome.

It's a year later or so, but I'm still going to say Gladiators on this one. It could be done and done well I think as long as you manage the expectations of moving from the arena in the first few AP's to ruling a city state infatuated with its love of gladiatorial combat in the final AP's.

An all underwater AP as mentioned more than once would be nice.
The sinking of your ship beneath the cruel waves of the merciless sea was not the end of your journey traveler, but just the beginning!

Other than that a Ulfen/Nordic/Viking themed AP with just the Ulfen represented would be most appreciated.

An AP set in a nation that has plenty of arenas and the PC's are gladiators.
Your characters start out just fighting to take one more breath, to survive one more day. Slowly they earn their way out of the fighting pits by strength and guile straight into a web of deadly intrigue that threatens to burn this imperiled nation to ashes.

All will be clear by Paizocon. We have plans.

I wasn't planning to lead, I was standing in the back and then everyone turned around.”

Gorum. With the whole Hell's Rebels thing going on, how can you not?

"What are you rebelling against Johnny?"
"What have you got?"

Now I just need to figure out how to justify why my cleric will wear only leather armor and insist on riding something vaguely resembling a metallic horse with wagon wheels instead of legs everywhere around town.
BRMC for life!

The Temple ...Cathedral of Elemental ...Primordial Evil ...Bad! Uh... One sec... Corruption! That sounds better.

Yup! The Cathedral of Primordial Corruption.

Battle Cleric of Gorum. 18 str, 15 wis, 14 con, 13 dex, 10 int & chr. Be a human to make up for lack of skill points. Still choose HP every level. You can be CG to keep the good requirement. Take offensive domains for self and team buffs. Keep your spell list stocked with combat buffs. Tell your party that you heal by "Killing the enemy in glorious battle with better planning, better buffs and better tactics than your foes."

Before you get to battle however, have arm wrestling events with every party member you have. Constantly try to test everyone you meet and your party members in other contests of strength and skill as well. Tell your teamates that Gorum demands that they "Prove themselves worthy of healing by showing their couarge in combat before you can heal them." Etc. Etc.

Mr. Creighton. I currently have 26 of your products. I have found them all to be enjoyable although not all of them are five star worthy. (IMHO of course) I don't post much in general, (lurker mostly) so real review write ups would be more than I am willing to do right now.

Some of those were free of course, and most of them were obtained on sale. However, every one of them was worth the price I paid for it. Including the ones I purchased at full price. I keep track of your products and will continue to do so. I like them quite a bit.

So the final score here so far is you 26 (27 after I DL portcullis) and the other gentleman 0. 27-0 is a sound thrashing sir, regardless of the sport. Keep up the good work.

270. This is the only town with Cheetos.
271. There is plenty of darkness here at night to cast your magic missile at.

I wouldn't punish the players for making a sound (but harrowing) tactical choice. Instead I would move the goalposts on them.

So you originally planned to have the end battle in a fortress. Great! Use that same fortress, but leave a high level lackey lieutenant guarding a teleportation circle to wherever you want the new "final battle" to take place. As Mario taught me as a wee lad, "Your princess is in another castle."

I wouldn't just make another castle though. And now you have time to make it Epic. Mini demi plane of Frost? Why not? Your circle could go anywhere. Does your BBEG realize that the PC's are adapted for cold magic? Make the final fight deep in a scalding desert with a powerful previously unrevealed fire wielding ally. Or the reveal of the BBEG's long term plan of trying to slay said fire creature by bringing Ice to a fire realm. The choices are endless.

The bottom line is that your players shouldn't know that this is where the final battle is. If they think so, let them. It makes the reveal of yet another place to go that much better.

Don't extend this out to far however. Having the "real" princess never get rescued really does get old after a while.

First off, wow. Thanks for all of the replies even if most of them are pointing out flaws in my take on the situation. Secondly, I'm currently on my break and can't give a full reply at this time.

Ok, my domains are tactics and ferocity. They are not Leroy and Jenkins. The party had a plan to deal with the skeleton after we found the Clerics who are currently our top priority. We have found out through an NPC we rescued that the bad guys have reinforcements on the way and that they are rapidly trying to finish whatever escavation they're doing. So time is a major issue with us at the moment.

My character already had his "moment of glory" by rushing in to a bar fight in hommlet. He ran in, threw some punches, slipped on a puddle of spilled beer, (nat 1+ fumble check) and cracked his head against a table. This knocked him out for three rounds. The character decided this was his gods way of telling him to use proper tactics, even in something as simple as a tavern brawl. This has altered his view of all combat since then.

The skeleton in question did not move towards us as we opened the door. We backed away and observed it for a round or two, making skill checks to figure out what it was and why it wasn't attacking. The room was the last one on a level and had another door we could lock/bar to hinder anyone who came to claim it. Not perfect, but we still are pressed for time.

We do also have a Druid and a Summoner in this game so extra healing is available. I concede the point that not healing him is also bad tactics but because I told the character beforehand that I wouldn't heal him I couldn't take that back afterwords.

Lastly, the fighter in question is a bow specialist who had his bow out when he went into that 20 by 20 room.(Ogre skeleton in middle) His only actions were to get hit and run away yelling "run!" to the rest of the party at the top of his lungs as he ran by us.

Thanks again for all the replies.

So. I am old. Let me throw that out there as this post harkens back to the days of yore when Top Secret was brand new and full of new car smell goodness.

The three of us (1 DM/whatever they called it and two PCs) had finally found a free weekend where we could all get together and test drive this new game. (Average age 17)

The DM had been able to run an encounter or two beforehand without us and he was the DM in our semi regular D&D game so that made him an expert in our eyes. We were total noobs.

We spent the better part of two hours crafting our characters and outfitting ourselves as IRA "freedom fighters" on an op in London. Remember that this was "back in the day" when judging from the news at the time, you could see it happening.

Well, not like this.

We start actually playing and my friend (who was driving our car) drives to the nearest pub "full of loyal Britons" and sets about five pounds of C-4 off on a timer in the mens bathroom.
Oddly enough while this is happening, quite a few patrons of said establishment start to wonder why we are parading through their bar dressed like soldiers and carrying "extremely illegal equipment" around.

They try to stop us. The bartender calls the cops. My friend starts shooting. As we get out, the C-4 goes off just as "all the cops in London" seem to be headed to our location. "No worries" Says my friend. "I have a plan"

We abandon the car and run to the tube/subway/whatever and get into a subway car filled with "terrorized" cityfolk. My friends plan at this point is brought to the fore as he calmly pulls a grenade off of his web belt, pulls the pin, holds it up in the air and screams "I HAVE A GRENADE!!"

The panicked townsfolk scatter slamming into both of us in a mad rush for the doors. I fall prone, and my friend sadly looses his grip on the white phosphorus grenade he's holding.

I told the DM I was going to try to run, but he said "don't bother" as he explained to us in great painstaking detail for several minutes about the rules on cooking off additional ammo and grenades. (This would be after we were all long dead from the original grenade of course)

I didn't get to fire one shot, drive one car, or punch one patron of the bar. It was the best twenty three minutes of roleplaying in my entire life.

To this day I call up my best friend once a year and yell "I HAVE A GRENADE!!" into the phone. I am most likely on an FBI watchlist somewhere.