Gorthog's page

Meanwhile, Veil and Brian Constantine, a/k/a Neggs, stayed at The Little Uskwood, where they met Vincent (a mesmerist who is both the brother and replacement of poor, unfortunate Stephen, who fell in the water and drowned during the fight at the docks). While none of the adventurers are aware of Stephen's death, Neggs and Veil allowed Vincent to join them. Having no healing left, Veil had to rely on his Bandages of Rapid Recovery to heal over a period of two days.

On the second night, Veil, Vincent, and Neggs heard a scratching noise under the floor of the inn. They found the concealed entrance to the basement and descended via the ladder. Veil, who was the only one of the three with darkvision, tried to sneak ahead. However, he accidentally bumped one of his swords against a wall, and a vicious fight broke out between him and Loredana's undead shredskin father (Masimo).

Already weaker than usual, Veil was easily grappled and then pinned (engulfed) by Masimo. By the time Masimo was defeated, Veil was down to -11 hit points. At -13, he would be dead. Three heal checks and two stabilize checks all failed, and so he succumbed to his numerous injuries.

Veil's player is not distressed at all. He loves trying out different characters and is already considering two options for our next session. I anticipate that Veil's replacement and the other five will try to break Lilith out of Hardship's Hearth shortly before her scheduled execution and that Neggs/Brian Constantine will thereafter spy for them in order that they can then utilize guerilla tactics to hit soft targets in Kantaria with lightning speed and then flee to the relative safety of the wilderness outside town.

This has been a surprisingly deadly AP so far, though at least there haven't been any TPKs. Hopefully, though, things will settle down soon!

In all the confusion, no one noticed that Stephen had been knocked off one of the docks and into the water. Having a -6 on his Swim checks, he quickly sank. Through an unbelievable series of bad rolls, Stephen never surfaced again, drowning in the Sedna River. With all of the guards, dockworkers, and Jonas dead and the other town guards on the other side of a closed portcullis, four of the adventurers, Icas, Lilith, Garrett (a dwarven warrior), and Saeros (an elven ninja) have decided to try to flee north and east along the coast, while Veil (who started the whole mess and currently has 2 hp) is trying to pose as a follower of Iomedae who was hurt in the attack. Neggs, the party vigilante, has changed to his social identity (Brian Constantine) and is hoping to similarly bluff his way out of the mess.

I think this "sandbox" chapter has just left the sandbox and maybe even the whole park. Next session will be very interesting, to say the least!

The rest of the band barely survived, defeating their halfling attacker and forcing the manticore to flee. (They had Nalingca down to 0 hit points but could not finish her off as she flew away.)

Dareon was not restored to life. Instead, his player has opted to play a mesmerist, which has worked out nicely.

His comrades avenged his death by putting everyone in the fort to the sword. Grimgrinn has returned to the land of the living, this time as a human, but still with a skull tattoo on his face. The group is now en route to Kantaria. One wonders, though, how that tattoo will impact his ability to be effective in Kantaria...

They reached the site of the first giant attack and dispatched all three giants, although they took a couple rounds longer doing it than they should have. When they arrived at the site of the second giant incursion, they were somewhat disadvantaged because the giants and dire bears had already made it across the bridge into town. Wolim rushed to attack one bear, which promptly grappled him. Meanwhile, the others were too slow to act, and so the other dire bears engaged them, effectively splitting the party. A bear grappled Correlia, as well. Wolim and Correlia were both slain through the concerted efforts of the grappling bear and one of the stone giants. Elsa Jane also was knocked unconscious, leaving only Landon standing. Recognizing that he could not survive a combat with two giants and a dire bear, he fled the town, watching as half of it went up in flames.

After things had finally settled down, he reentered the town only to find that the stone giants had carried off Elsa. It remains to be seen whether he will raise Wolim and Correlia from the dead or instead rely on a new group of heroes to help rescue Elsa from the giants.

It really is weird. My other group had no trouble at all with this fight (or with the entire defense of Sandpoint, for that matter), but it was just an utter mess this time! You never know...

An invisible Arkhryst was waiting for them, and the group all failed their Perception checks. He nailed the whole group with his breath weapon, and the adventurers desperately fought back, although overcoming the buffed ancient dragon's AC and SR proved to be challenging. The dragon chomped the ninja with a Power Attack-enhanced, critical-hit bite and then smashed her to paste with his claws; she wound up at -79 hp! Not long after that, Nobatu also fell victim to one of Arkhryst's full-attacks, ending up at -39 hp, even though this one did not involve a crit.

In the meantime, Alika and Jake were gradually wearing down the dragon. A successful Disintegrate sure improved the heroes' prospects. Things looked very grim, though, when another use of the breath weapon sent Alika down to -4 hp, leaving Jake as the last man standing. Arkhryst, protecting his treasure hoard and sensing that he still had the advantage, decided not to flee. Jake's last Lightning Bolt brought the dragon down to 12 hp, but the dragon then managed another bite-crit like the one that killed Keiko. The dragon's 2d6-hp-per-round cold aura then brought Jake down to 2 hp. The wizard, who was low on attack spells, successfully cast defensively a lowly Magic Missile spell and overcame the dragon's spell resistance, dropping it to -5 hp; he then used his move action to get out of range of the cold aura just in the nick of time and used a Potion of Cure Moderate Wounds to revive Alika.

The players, who have become very attached to their PCs, breathed a collective sigh of relief and agreed that it was one of the closest fights they had ever experienced. I had to concur with them! Talk about a narrow escape!

The group's luck took a turn for the worse when they entered Dorella and Hookmaw's room. The ogres had heard the adventurers and Dorella had made them both invisible. They then attacked with surprise, with Dorella hitting the entire party with Confusion. It was bad: Jakardros, Kibb, the rogue, the fighter, and even the cleric all failed their Will saves. Only Correlia and Shalelu made their saves! Correlia made some progress in weakening Hookmaw and Dorella, but Dorella then softened him up with a Lightning Bolt. Regrettably, the fighter then rolled the attack nearest person option, and his full attack knocked Correlia all the way to -12. Correlia failed to stabilize and died soon after.

It was a terribly close fight. At one point, everyone was unconscious or dead except the rogue (who was ineffective since she was confused and Dorella was backed into the corner) and Shalelu, who was in bad shape herself. Thankfully, Shalelu used her Wand of Cure Light Wounds to get the fighter and the cleric back up. The cleric used his last channel to get Jakardros and Kibb back up, and that spelled the end for Dorella. (Hookmaw had fallen earlier.)

The party had Correlia reincarnated as a human. He had been a half-elf. The player was hoping for a different race, and so I won't be surprised if the player is very reckless at our next session...

A little while later, though, the band discovered the hounds of Lamashtu. One of the hounds won initiative and bayed. Almost unbelievably, the fighter, ninja, wizard, and wizard's cat familiar (Andrew) all failed their saving throws, leaving just the cleric in control of herself. She only managed to catch the fighter with Calm Emotions, while the other three fled blindly through the shrine. None of them fled from the shrine itself, and the Scribbler seized the opportunity to send the two babau demons that he had summoned to attack the ninja, while he and a hound followed Jake and his familiar. They were cowering at the end of a hallway with no other apparent exits. It took virtually no time for the hound and the Scribbler to shred Jake and Andrew.

Happily, Jake has since been raised and has summoned a new cat familiar, Andrew, Jr.

The heroes have now beaten a hasty retreat while they try to regroup and plan their next attempt to enter Jorgenfist.

As it was, Dorella managed to cast Confusion on the whole group and Jakardros, with four of them failing their saves. Alika had cast Shield Other on Keiko, the party's ninja, earlier. That had been helpful, but now it sealed Alika's fate. She was eating half of all damage taken by Keiko while also bearing the brunt of a flurry of Keiko's sneak attacks. The result? One dead cleric.

The heroes leaped to the attack but unfortunately fell victim to the Confusion that Black Magga caused. Poor Nobatu found himself caught directly between Black Magga and a confused Keiko, who eviscerated him with three consecutive sneak attacks. Sadly enough, that was enough to kill him outright. Fortunately, the rest of the group survived long enough to drive away Black Magga and save Turtleback Ferry.

While exploring Skull's Crossing, Nobatu fell prey to the skull ripper's grapple and never managed to escape. The construct peeled him right out of his armor like spam from a tin. Nasty!

Happily, Nobatu is back for yet more, and the heroes are ready to attack the Kreeg stronghold on Hook Mountain. We'll hope that we don't end up with a three-fer for the Nobatu death toll!

They soon opened the doors to the temple of Lamashtu, which prompted the two yeth hounds within to race through the air toward the heroes while baying loudly. Of the PCs, only Jack failed his saving throw and began fleeing. However, his cat familiar (Aldwyn) and Athena's cat familiar (Yeardley) both fled, too. Now came the critical mistake. Rather than help Jacob and Nancy battle the yeth hounds, Athena tried to catch her cat, chasing it as it ran farther and farther away from the temple.

With the group being split in two, Jacob and Nancy were outmatched by the yeth hounds. Eventually, Athena gave up on trying to catch her terrified familiar and returned, and Jack rejoined the group even later. By then, though, it was too late. Nancy fell to the floor lifeless, her throat ripped out by one of the yeth hounds. The adventurers then managed to finish off the beasts.

Unfortunately, though, the baying of the hounds and all the rest of the commotion caused by Jack and Athena as they ran through the halls of the dungeon drew the attention of both Orik and Bruthazmus, who then attacked the badly injured party just outside the temple. Jacob was soon slain by Bruthazmus, and Jack was knocked unconscious by Orik (although he stabilized). Poor Athena tried to flee through the temple and out the side door near the altar, then proceeding into the prison cell area with Orik in hot pursuit of her. She might have outrun him, had Bruthazmus not cut her off as she tried to exit the cell block in order to approach the stairs. It wasn't even close. Bruthazmus one-shotted the badly injured wizard.

Bruthazmus gleefully collected Jacob's ears for his precious necklace, before disposing of his remains and those of Nancy and Athena. He and Orik took Jack prisoner, locking him in one of the cells.

Sheriff Hemlock soon began to worry about the band of adventurers and located another group of heroes to determine what had happened to our friends at Thistletop. That new group of brave heroes was able to free Jack; sway Orik into defecting from Nualia's side; and slay Bruthazmus, Nualia, Lyrie, and Malfeshnekor. They also have enjoyed much success (no deaths at all!) since then and now are in the process of seeking to retake Fort Rannick.

By the time they finally reached the front doors of the keep, the entire complex was on alert -- particularly the top level. Nearly all of the goblins on that level fell back before the heroes' onslaught, retreating to the throne room. The adventurers were not prepared for such a large grouping of enemies in one place. Unfortunately, several of them entered the throne room in such a fashion that it allowed their enemies to surround them. As if that were not enough, Quinlinn unwisely split up from the party and tried to circle around in order to enter the throne room from a different direction. Chief Ripnugget was waiting for her, though, and she was no match for him. Soon, she fell. With the paladin being the only remaining healer and with the heroes greatly outnumbered, surrounded, and unwilling to retreat (even if they could safely withdraw), there could only be one result: Death. And that is just what happened.