Hi all, my Strange Aeons game wrapped in October after nearly three years of play, and I figured I’d write out my experiences and thoughts on the campaign as a whole.
The game was certainly personalized to a high degree post-book 3, but I think my changes were valid and could possibly work as inspiration for other GMs looking to mix things up. I’m going to go book by book and talk about what changes I made and why, as well as what I liked about each one.
This may be a bit indulgent, and for that I apologize, but after three years, I think I deserve a little indulgence :P
Characters:
The characters are as follows - they all survived through to the end, which I wanted, as I made the theme of the campaign “Is there an amount of good you can put into the universe that makes you a good decision, and can you really change away from your past sins?” As well as similar musings on morality despite past atrocities. All of their backstories were influenced by what the player had said, but I wrote them up with an evil twist on each of them. For the fighting of shadows in book 3, I statted them up as equal-level evil versions of their previous selves, leading to the most difficult-to-run, but also one of the most rewarding combats of the whole adventure.
As well - for names, I had each player give me a list of possible names, which I chose from for the reveal in book 1 in order to give them some agency over their names, but also still the surprise and curiosity of not knowing who they were. If we met more frequently, I would have loved to have kept their names a mystery for the whole first book.
Kethethar - An inquisitor of a CN god of adventure, who had placed her own enjoyment of life over all others, and was seeking fun (which, to her, was mostly murder before the amnesia). She sold her daughter into slavery in return for a magic sword, along with various other evil acts of violence. Used to be an anti-paladin.
Ur - An oracle who used to follow Bokrug, acting very meek and crippled but influencing people from the sidelines and eventually running his own cult. It was super fun to hint at his connection when Bokrug shows up in Book 3. Used to be a cleric to the old one.
Suavi - An elf Magus who believed himself to be all-powerful and above everyone else. Was trying to become a lich, but while he could pull off the evil acts he needed to perform, he wasn’t strong enough to achieve lichdom. I used a modified forsaken lich template for his old self, though he eventually became mortal again just before he lost his memory. Used to be an Eldritch Knight, as well.
Anummu - A fighter/brawler/maneuver master who felt absolutely sure that he used to be a god - this was such a good prompt, and the source of a lot of jokes. His old self ALSO thought he used to be a god, but was very violent in his attempts to regain godly power. Used to be a barbarian with mythic levels (I used these sparingly throughout the campaign).
Cecelia - A wizard that was basically a privileged little s&!&, she was manipulative and often tapped into dark powers. She also got married to one of Lowls’ servants, who he was using for a lot of his occult experiments. Used to be a sorrowsoul bard.
Xanthe - This is the player who exited the game after the first book, and while I’ll go into a bit more detail on her later, she used to be a piece of the Briarstone Witch’s soul that was sent to Golarion in order to influence Lowls into doing his occult schtick, and eventually planned on feeding Golarion to Hastur. Plus before she was the Briarstone Witch, she was a super-powered adventurer who fought off the corruption of Hastur from Golarion a long time ago but got corrupted by his influence still and sucked into Carcosa… the backstory here got to be pages long.
Book 1:
Love this thing. Session 0, making characters only took a couple of hours (since I went with the full fugue state - no backstories to write up!), so the back half started with everyone getting murdered. All my players were clearly aware this was some weird situation, but went along with it really well.
The mega dungeon crawl was full of interesting combat scenarios and paranoia for the PCs, but since we meet once every other week and are limited to four hours, I wasn’t able to play up some of the roleplaying (they didn’t talk to many of the survivors for long, I led them to find their files in the second session, etc.), so they were more concerned about dispelling the mist as quickly as possible for their own benefit. Overall it was a bit rushed, even as it took many hours to get through, but the haunts and the Byakhee added some great tension despite that. Definitely would prefer either longer or more frequent sessions - of all the games I’ve played, the first book of SA would probably make the best marathon session.
I didn’t make many changes, other than making Red Destiny one of the PC’s weapons from their lost life (though they don’t figure that out until later). Overall I’d rate this as the second strongest adventure, and one of the strongest intros to any campaign I’ve played from Paizo - the lost memory mechanic can be played out in so many different ways, and I’ve seen tons of different ideas on how to do it that were phenomenal, but it is easy to get over-excited about stealing that agency from your players - this AP, IMO, works much better for those players that you know pretty well, so you can gauge how they’d react to their backstories being stolen from them.
Book 2:
At the end of book 1, I had a player leave, which kinda left me out in the lurch. They were playing an amnesiac psychic (which is so thematically tasty for this AP that I’d recommend pushing it as a GM for your own amusement/more toys to play with), who I had decided had faced Hastur in the past, and was catapulted into the future under his influence - the fugue state actually cured her of her Hastur brain, but I changed that a little bit to fully merge this character and the Briarstone Witch, as I mentioned in her character profile above. So I decided that after hearing the name Hastur for the first time, it activated her programming, and sent her to get her memories from the Mad Poet early, and pursue Lowls on her own. She had already been pretty weird, so her just wandering off wasn’t out of character.
The rest of the party set about looking for Lowls, who had already left, and I have to say that this is probably the best usage of the amnesia mechanic - having characters that knew the PCs, looking around to find contingency plans they had made previously, it was super fun. I agree with some people that it’s hard to get the PCs to ignore Lowls’ manor for the fort, but my players were good sports and followed Cesedia’s plea to look into the fort first.
I didn’t make many changes to this adventure, but I have to say that the players can remove a lot of the dramatic tension by simply recognizing that the biggest house is where Lowls would be and immediately blazing through it, ignoring a lot of the side-content that they would have to come back and clear out in a somewhat boring epilogue later. I’d suggest being pretty harsh on them with your tactics if they go that route, to encourage a bit more stealth and management of side-objectives.
The other thing was that they managed to talk Risi out of a life of crime! They snuck up on her and while she managed to bluff that she was just some thief, they never gave her an opening to assassinate them, and when they killed her boss, she surrendered. The oracle ended up taking leadership, and Risi joined as their companion for the rest of the game! Her and the brawler ended up dating. It was fun to flesh out her character a bit more.
Book 3:
This is absolutely the best book as-written in the AP (or at least, the most fun for me to run). The dreamlands, the dream quests, the intense encounters, that final fight against the evil shadows of the character’s past selves? Chef’s kiss. It was a whole bunch of bonkers fun.
The only problem ended up being pacing: they banged out all of the dream-quests in less than two weeks. Even when they died (and I didn’t pull any punches), having a divine spontaneous caster meant that and psychosis they gained were basically instantly removed. Plus, since they completed all the dream quests before any of the real life content, the grittier moves of the grey wardens and the rat king felt kinda dull in comparison.
The main changes I made ended up being cutting a few of the waking world encounters so they could skip to book 4, and adding a bit of continuity underlying the dream quests - the inquisitor, if you’ll remember, sold her child - the person she sold it to was a Denizen of Leng (Weirilai, who came back to attack the PCs more than a few times throughout the AP), and as such lived in the dreamlands for a long time. So, at a couple points, they ran into the child, who the inquisitor had no memories of, as she was growing up as a slave girl (working for the night hag, working for the prince at the ball, etc). To this end, I turned the child into Vadrack, having her hunt the party as a slave of Weirilai with a longer leash. She actually killed most of them handily, but the oracle managed to grab her hat before they bounced. Later (post-memory recovery) the inquisitor came back and apologized, and promised to kill Weirilai for real, freeing her daughter. Her daughter said she’d never forgive her, but… she’d take being freed from slavery.
Book 4:
Book 4, I think, isn’t all bad. I liked the mysterium, Okeno is an interesting locale, but there’s absolutely some problems with it, especially as it follows the excellence of book 3. The fact that the players spend most of it fighting gnolls is pretty bleh flavorwise, and I’ve run legacy of fire for some people in this group before, so they’d probably had enough gnolls for a lifetime, and I made major, major changes to this book.
I kept the intro - where they had to find more transport to Okeno, where they knew Lowls was going, but I cut out all of the stops before they got to the pirate city. Instead, I changed the tower into one that the party had built in their evil days, as a base of operations where they often went into the Osirian desert to find occult artifacts for their boss (the tower also acted as a magical tuning fork across a bunch of leylines, meaning that they could teleport to and from it very easily, and also it was the tower used as a mirror in the final encounter of book 6 instead of Thrushmoor - more on that later). It had been overrun by some science experiments they had made, and they had to clear it of both the troops Lowls left behind as well as their own nasties.
This is also when I brought the psychic/the Briarstone Witch back into play. Her soul had been separated from her body and put into a doll at the end of all of this by a Lowls unaware that the psychic was actually the key to helping him complete his goals, removing huge chunks of her memory once again but allowing her to act as the stand-in companion NPC for the PCs. Since the big twist of this campaign is that the PCs are unwittingly setting the stage for Hastur to devour Golarion, it makes more sense that they are fooled into heading to Carcosa by an unwittingly evil puppet.
From here, I bridged the gap between books four and five by turning it into a fetch quest - similar to book 3, but with the twist that each item they had to get for the ritual to head into Neruzivan (which had been locked out of time, but was still the only way to get to Carcosa, so they had to get a bunch of items for Xanthe’s ritual) was connected to their past sins. I wrote and re-skinned several different pieces of content to make this work.
The oracle had to return to the town of cultists he had founded (which was infected by the Hive monsters - basically my excuse to run Aliens as a module), the Inquisitor needed to go kill Weiralai on Leng, in her house (Which was a converted temple to the Yellow King), the brawler who thought he was a god needed to go and fight in a tournament put on by one of his followers, the wizard needed to dive, inception-style, into the memories of her wife (who had been erased from memory by Lowls - this was run in a hypercube and was extremely trippy and fun), and the magus needed to cleanse a library he had ruined when they refused to let him continue his work there (I saved the Mysterium from the beginning of the adventure for this bit - I also put a Colour out of Space in the basement as someone else in a different thread had suggested. It was very cool! After that, they were able to teleport themselves to Neruzivan, from where they would then teleport to Carcosa…
Three of the characters actually died in this adventure, but I brought them back under mysterious circumstances - specifically, some of their memories were removed, and they woke up in a puddle of blood at the bottom of their tower. The Pallid Mask was responsible for this, since again, the twist was that they needed the PCs to be alive so that they could complete the feeding of Golarion to Carcosa.
Obviously I pretty much chucked most of this adventure in favor of creating some scenarios where my players would have to do more of what I enjoyed in the second book - facing the consequences of their past lives. I also left the Necronomicon in the Mysterium, writing that there were two copies on Golarion and they had already found the other one for Lowls years earlier, meaning they got an early look at the unholy book.
Book 5:
Because I had so many new dungeons and missions for the PCs in book 4, I sheared off a bunch of stuff in book 5 as well. Specifically, since Xanthe took on the role of their guide to Carcosa, and the mind-swapped Yithian no longer made an appearance, I didn’t see much reason for them to deal with the flying polyps below the city, and obviously they skipped out on the whole travelling through the desert thing. So, they simply went to each star stelae before dealing with the remains of the star seed in the lake.
The saffron king was a bit of a pushover, as they convinced him to get into a 1-on-1 fight with the brawler in exchange for his kingship. Obviously the highly optimized fighter came out on top of that one...
Weiralai’s return here was great, although she almost had a comedic tone - I wrote her as becoming attached to Carcosa (specifically feeding off the energy of the Pallid Mask, which I’ll get into later) after her death on Leng, and as such having a much faster regeneration. She showed up a couple of times in the city, and ambushed the party when the Star Seed spawned. Then, Xanthe zapped them up to Carcosa.
Book 6:
Carcosa also received a few cuts and changes, but as a whole I think it works as a final adventure pretty well. I think pacing wise it felt a little over-long, with the idea that they would teleport directly into the final fight being more appealing, but the three locales they had to deal with were fun in their own right.
The Pallid Mask was pretty integral to the ending I had landed on, and he was fun to play. He showed up a few times throughout each nexus, summoning some of the random encounters that the book has that struck me as filler. He started out very complimentary, but got less verbose as the players made more progress through the world…
I changed the vampire manor to take place in 1919 Paris, as I had run a Dread game the previous Halloween that involved the Pallid Mask (unknown to my players at the time) hunting their characters through a manor after a performance of the King in Yellow goes awry, and eventually pulling the mansion into Carcosa - the characters that got sucked in showed up in their insane states, which was fun!
This meant that I wanted to change the Paris Nexus as well, so I replaced it with Seattle - we live in Oregon so it was a fun little easter egg, and instead of climbing the Eiffel Tower, they fought the Bhole on the Space Needle for maximum intenseness!
Finally, the Elder Thing nexus was fun, but they were always way too on their guard at this point (and had too many escape plans) for me to really menace them with the Wendigo, so after it couldn’t fear and separate them, it kind of gave up.
In both the conflict between the Elder Things and the Shoggoths, and the Leng Ghouls and Erich Zhann, they just ended up mediating a treaty meeting. Which is fine, but also kind of silly. I try to play my NPCs, even monsters, with some sort of reason, so it didn’t make sense to just have them refuse to negotiate.
Finally, they headed to the reflection of their tower in Okeno! I decided to let them run into Lowls pre-transformation at the top of the tower, who was trying to use the Witch’s body as a power source to consume Golarion (though it wasn’t working). I figured, after all this time, they should get a chance to taunt him while he was still capable of speaking common. But, it didn’t take long for him to get decapitated in one hit by the inquisitor (I had him statted as a level 6 bard for the fake-out).
That’s when the Witch (played by her original player) put herself back in her body, and betrayed the party. I think they realized what was happening pretty quick, but they were good sports about it. Lowls’ body morphed into the Star Seed, and the fight went on. I gave Ariadnah a couple of mythic levels, and a focus on control - she had oodles of domination spells and other ways to get people to stop doing anything while the star seed would wail on them. However, the party made a great move in mazing the monster, leaving just Xanthe/Ariadnah to fight on her own (without much in the way of blasting power). Eventually they took her down, then the Star Seed when he came back, and realized they had no way of stopping Golarion from being eaten by Carcosa.
That’s when the Pallid Mask showed up and took off his face, revealing a bunch of tentacles where his head should be - he didn’t outright say it, but he was actually Nyarlathotehp in disguise, and offered the group a choice.
He could turn back time, but with their knowledge, they were a danger to the world - Xhamen-Dor had already grown heavily in all of them and Golarion would be in grave danger because of that.
In ascending order of “Amount of time that Golarion will avoid being eaten by Xhamen-Dor”, their choices were:
1: Have their memories erased, but have it so that they never met Lowls, so they are still a!+%!&+s, just not world-destroying a+#**+%s.
2: Be put into a permanent fugue state, forever unaware of their surroundings.
3: Be erased from time altogether - making them and this whole adventure never having happened.
They obviously went for the third option (the secret 4th option was to go fight Xhamen-Dor on Golarion, but they didn’t want to go with that). They said their goodbyes, and Nyarlathotehp opened up a portal into his dad’s stomach, where they were unmade and the world was saved - although, of course, it was always safe.
I play for the story, but Pathfinder is undeniably a tactical game. This one had some great fights and some great moments, and I really did love this AP. It’s probably the last thing I’m going to GM for a while since I got way busier near the end of the AP, but it was a fantastic time. If you get the chance, I’d definitely say to run the 3rd book, even as a standalone - it’s that good. As well, the 1st book is also really well written and brimming with creepy flavor for a megadungeon. The others were good overall, but the AP as a whole is really carried by 1 and 3, and its solid premise of just trying to kill the guy who wronged you, and ending up trying to save the world (even if it’s hopeless). I’d definitely recommend this AP to any party that likes fighting weird monsters and dungeon crawling, as it has a lot of great encounters and settings to fight in.
Anyway, AMA! If you have any questions about how I handled something, I’d love to answer them, since I think running the full game gave me a good overall understanding of how (my) players would handle different things.
Before I make my first post - I've made a small change to Bescha, making her school the "counterspell" subschool, with the intent to have her break spells with her hammer! Like a true dwarf!
After a long, way too long deliberation on my part, I've found that I agree with Waskally - there should be some more dwarves submitted!
Here's my middle-aged, recently widowed dwarf mom who's hoping to follow her childhood dreams of adventure! She's lived in Daggor her whole life and is just looking for an excuse to leave.
Crunch (Bescha Stonecrusher-Rumbleroar):
Bescha Stonecrusher-Rumbleroar
Dwarf Abjurer 1
LN Medium humanoid (Dwarf)
Init +4; Perception +2, Darkvision 60 ft.
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Defense
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AC 11, touch 11, flat-footed 10 (+0 armor, +1 Dex) (+4 against giants)
hp 12 (1d6+2CON+3TOUGH+1FCB)
Fort +3, Ref +2, Will +4
Resist (Choice) 5
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Offense
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Speed 20 ft. (Never modified by encumbrance)
Melee Mwk. Warhammer + 2 (1d8+1/x3) or Dagger + 1 (1d4+1/19-20)
Ranged Touch Spell (cantrip) +2 (1d3) or
Heavy crossbow +2 (1d10/19-20)
Wizard Spells Prepared (CL 1st)
(3 Cantrips, 3 1st)
0 : Acid Splash, Detect Magic, Prestidigitation
1 : Mage Armor, Magic Missile, Ray of Fatigue, Shield (A)
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Statistics
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Str 13, Dex 13, Con 14, Int 18, Wis 13, Cha 8
Base Atk +0; CMB +1; CMD 12 (+4 against Bull Rush, Trip)
Feats : Scribe Scroll, Toughness, Arcane Strike
Traits : Reactionary, Breadth of Experience, Suspicious
Drawbacks : Scarred
Skills : Appraise +8, Kn. Arcana +10, Kn. Dungeoneering +10, Kn. Local +10, Perception +2, Profession (Woodcutter) +7, Sense Motive +6, Spellcraft +8
Languages Common, Dwarven, Giant, Undercommon, Terran, Goblin
SQ : Greed (+2 Appraise on gems), Stonecunning (+2 Perception on weird rocks), Hatred (+1 ATK against orc and goblinoids), Weapon Familiarity, Unstoppable (Toughness, +1 Fort)
Combat Gear : Mwk. Warhammer, Dagger, Heavy Crossbow, 30 Bolts, 2 Alchemist’s Fire, 4 Acid Flasks, Spellbook (Primary), chalk, backpack, a bedroll, a belt pouch, a flint and steel, ink, an inkpen, an iron pot, a mess kit, soap, spell component pouch, torches (10), trail rations (5 days), waterskin, rope (100 ft) (21 gp + 2gp + 2gp + 50gp + 3gp + 40gp + 40gp) = (158gp Spent)
42 gp in change
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Special Abilities
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Banned Schools: Illusion + Evocation
Resistance: You gain resistance 5 to an energy type of your choice, chosen when you prepare spells. This resistance can be changed each day. At 11th level, this resistance increases to 10. At 20th level, this resistance changes to immunity to the chosen energy type.
Protective Ward: As a standard action, you can create a 10-foot-radius field of protective magic centered on you that lasts for a number of rounds equal to your Intelligence modifier. All allies in this area (including you) receive a +1 deflection bonus to their Armor Class. This bonus increases by +1 for every five wizard levels you possess. You can use this ability a number of times per day equal to 3 + your Intelligence modifier. (7/Day)
Arcane Bond: Warhammer
Abjuration Arcane School: 1 Extra Abjuration spell per level prepared per day
1st: Endure Elements, Mage Armor, Magic Missile, Protection from Chaos, Ray of Fatigue, Shield, Stunning Barrier
(Spellbook Pages Used: 25)
Ability Score Breakdown (Middle-Age):
STR : 14 - 1 AGE = 13
DEX : 14 - 1 AGE = 13
CON : 13 - 1 AGE + 2 DWARF = 14
INT : 17 + 1 AGE = 18
WIS : 10 + 2 DWARF + 1 AGE = 13
CHA : 9 - 2 DWARF + 1 AGE = 8
Backstory:
At 140 years old, Bescha isn’t as spry as she used to be, but the recently widowed dwarf still has an itch for adventure. As a young’n, she had big dreams, of fighting goblins and giants, tales told by her own father, who had his own short-term career as a travelling guard, seeing the world and smashing skulls with his warhammer. He had given that hammer to her, and she spent the day running around, swinging the thing with gusto at the boulders and trees that she scratched faces into.
When she grew up, she almost immediately set off into the world to make her name as an adventurer - father’s warhammer in hand, she made it about two miles out of Daggor before finding the man who would be her future husband bent over and bleeding - a pair of goblins had ambushed the scholarly dwarf and tried to take his shiny things. Bescha was victorious, but not without taking several severe attacks, leaving scars on her face and arms. Bescha sighed, and took the wounded man back to the town to nurse him (and herself) back to health.
After a week, she knew she was in love with Aird Rumbleroar - she spent the next 80 years staying in Daggor as they carved out a small life for themselves. He ran a small library, while she would actually make money with physical labor in the logcutting business. At the end of the day, they’d come home and read together, savoring whatever books they could import into the small town. Her father’s warhammer rested upon the hearth of their home.
Eventually they had a pair of children, themselves - Wen and Bhu, a boy and a girl, who they raised with dwarven discipline but adventuring spirit, and eventually their pair of children grew up, and began to experience the same wanderlust Bescha had felt so long ago - and then they left town to make their name as adventurers.
Years passed, with only occasional correspondence from their children, and Aird began to grow deathly ill. With limited healing resources in Daggor, Bescha began to look through all of the arcane knowledge the pair had collected for the library, learning magic use in some vain attempt to grow powerful enough to save her husband. With her already strong connection to her father’s hammer, she found it to be a capable focus for her magic. However, despite her rapid growth in magic use, she couldn’t possibly have been able to grow strong enough to cure him. He passed in his sleep and was buried in the local cemetery.
Now, she remains quietly friendly, still chopping down trees and being cordial with the town, but keeps the library closed and spends most of her free time within. She’s stayed focused on her wizardly studies, and has been stockpiling gear, finally hoping to follow her hundred-year-old life goal of being an adventurer once again.
Personality:
Bescha is a practical and hearty soul. She is quick to correct others and use her life experience to inform on day to day tasks, but accepts where she may not know as much as someone else. Still, her time as a mother has given her a great deal of both protective and suspicious instincts, and she has some desire to protect the things that she’s grown close to - at this point, however, that is simply her children (who likely can handle themselves).
Appearance:
Bescha is short and stocky, and though it’s clear that age is beginning to take its hold on the dwarf (with a few grey streaks running through her red hair), she still has some level of musculature and spryness left in her. She wears comfortable clothing (all shades of black), stained through some years of sweat and manual labor, and carries her weatherproof spellbook on her right side and her father’s warhammer, inset with jade, on her left. She always wears her iron wedding ring.
Some formatting will have to be done for bolding, etc. later, and it's possible I'll make a minor change or two (still debating between abjuration and transmutation). Bescha is kind of a schizophrenic wizard, capable of stepping up in close quarters but preferring to protect herself and her comrades if possible. Depending on if she gets accepted and who else gets accepted, she may shift into Eldritch knight, or she may just stay pure wizard. To prevent alias bloat, I'm going to hold off on creating a new one if she doesn't get accepted.
I've mentioned this in other threads, but when I wrote my player's backstories I asked for a few things from each of them that they really wanted or didn't want in their backstories, then worked within those guidelines and what they were planning on building to make an "evil" version of that character.
So, the charismatic oracle who wants to save people used to be a cleric of an elder god who left people alive to convert them to his evil religion, the scholar wizard who is focused on getting revenge on Lowls used to be a researcher bard who worked with him to satisfy her own morbid curiosity, the intelligent and tactical fighter who thought he might be a fallen god was a raging and violent barbarian, and the CG inquisitor of a CN deity was an evil antipaladin. Taking their choices and inverting them.
The theme I tried to stick to was how making different choices in response to trauma leads to being a good or bad person. I outlawed paladins as well, since I felt like they would steamroll this campaign and not be as fun to work with, but it could be an interesting route for a player.
Admittedly, they are humanoids, but Derro could be helpful to you. They live in the underdark, are pretty mercenary (working for Drow is definitely not out of the question), and can easily be scaled to your party with class levels. Having played against them before, they can be absurdly creepy when they use their natural stealth and brutality to perform guerrilla combat on the PCs, or if they crawl around the walls with magic help from their more powerful friends. Plus, their natural tendencies towards creating mad slaves can also add to the creepiness if the PCs run into a bunch of mad people before realizing what they're up against.
I'm intending for Nyarlathotehp to be a minor player in my game, since he gets some fun lip service in book 3. If any of my PCs would die for real, my intention is to have him bring them back. They don't remember their encounter with him, but they do bring back some extra knowledge that might help them in the future. The knowledge is going to be kind of riddle-y, and will be in the form of a short poem or something. It could actually be useful or it could be so cryptic they won't know what to do with it. At the end of the campaign, I'm planning on having Nyar give them a choice about remembering their adventures and XD, or not, and giving up on all of their development since the start of the adventure. At that point, they'll remember their previous meetings with him, and how he fished them out of the river of souls and revived them.
Thanks to all for continuing to play! This group has been super exciting, the characters are fun, and the situations tense and memorable.
I especially want to say I am super happy with the length of posts. Sometimes we post shorter ones, of course (and that's definitely a necessary option), but I feel like everyone gives their posts and characters space to breathe - like CT said, it's not just "I hit it with my sword" or "we go here", the party just feels so textured. It's great.
On a bit of a personal note, I also have to say that I've never played a character like Aza before - usually I play pretty chaotic neutral fare, and pure good characters (even paladins) are difficult for me - but since coming down from a few issues in my own life and working on more personal reflection to become a better person, Aza has been a great outlet to move forward and visualize some of those changes I want to make. And also she can breathe lightning, which is pretty cool, too.
I may have to go with Pious's voluntary natural 1 on diplomacy, it made me burst into laughter when I saw it. That and the entirety of the hurricane encounter was certainly one of the most dramaticool game events I've been a part of.
It's been a blast, and I can't wait to see what happens next!
"This is my friend, Gerald. He gets cold very easily, so that's why he's covered in blankets and robes. He also has halitosis, which is why it seems like he smells so much. Don't mention it, he's sensitive."
Real talk, this phrase is included as a "get out of jail free" for these exact situations in the Paladin's code of conduct:
Quote:
Under exceptional circumstances, a paladin can ally with evil associates, but only to defeat what she believes to be a greater evil.
As long as the campaign has a BBEG or some major threat that you're helping to deal with, you should be fine, although the paladin might shoot you some dirty looks. Just make sure you discuss the implications OOC as well.
As someone who played a spellslinger for a good two levels, with the same intentions to go into eldritch knight...
If you're looking for a different direction, you can actually eschew any gunslinger levels at all if you want to keep quick clear, via the amateur gunslinger feat, just as an option to keep in mind. That'd free up your martial class if you wanted to go a more fighter/paladin/etc. route (though, gunslinger does come with some fringe first level benefits, you already get gunsmithing and proficiency from spellslinger, so examining your options might be worthwhile). In my opinion having one magic gun is far superior to splitting them up, considering that it's the only way to get a x3 modifier on spell criticals that I know of - just imagine those scorching rays! It's a fringe benefit, but the amount of stuff you give up for that magic gun, I'd take all the benefits you can find. The only real reason to have two guns would be if you lost one, anyway.
As an aside, misfires don't come up incredibly often - if you want to dump wisdom, you can. One grit minimum is still 1 grit, and if you gain some good stats in other areas, it can be worth it (Plus, the extra grit feat if you find yourself really hurting down the line). At the end of the day, unlike a gunslinger, you'll always have other options - you don't have to fire spells through your gun, and if you have a web or two in your back pocket, they can cover you for a round until you get the chance to fix your gun as a standard action.
I still think it's important if you don't want your pals to get annoyed while you spend an hour fixing your gun after a combat, but overall I think you don't have to focus on using the move action version all the time.
A side-note on necromancy - good choice to bring that back. Rays of exhaustion and enfeeblement I've always felt are undervalued at early levels especially, and can completely shut down martial enemies. With the bonus to DCs from magic weapons, they can deliver some serious debuffs. It's a bit against what your character is going for, I think, but something to keep in mind for if a monster has a bunch of fire resist.
If you want to focus on blasting, keep spell specialization in mind. It's still just as good for you as it is for the crossblooded sorcerer, but you'll look way cooler when you're using it.
1. It connects to the bottom of the well, which has 15 feet of water in it and another 50 feet of well to climb up to get into G6 proper. Plus, rats, if you want to be mean and have them start attacking climbing PCs.
2. Theoretically yes, but it would be difficult - medium creatures would have to be squeezing through the aquaduct and possibly holding their breath throughout depending on how full you'd like to make it (though, it's 4 foot wide and 6 feet wide - that wouldn't be too difficult).
3. My PCs did something similar, they basically saw the big house and immediately said "That's where the boss is where Lowls sleeps, let's go there." and ended up sneaking past a lot of the enemies before taking out Nemira and then running downstairs to deal with Melisenn, with very few side-routes. The final boss was much harder because Melisenn summoned a few waves of minions the PCs didn't kill earlier, but afterwards they basically just went from room to unexplored room murdering minions and looting the place (not unwarranted - Melisenn definitely dropped the hammer on them for a very tough fight). The book actually specifically calls out that the Hound of Tindalos joins her if the PCs don't kill it earlier, which makes that fight a whole lot more interesting.
They didn't bother with the whole "your leader is dead!" thing at all, instead just going straight for the throat at every opportunity. Otherwise I'd assume the rest of the cultists would scatter, some would try for revenge but most are rich enough to probably charter a course back to Absolom to regroup. Maybe they make an appearance in the dreamlands or in what grows within as they are running interference for big H?
One change I made for this module was the Kuru, since I felt they were a bit problematic as a kind of "savage foreigner" archetype, into basically normal people who were psychically lobotomized and brainwashed by Lowls and Melisenn. That made them fairly docile once the one with psychic control over them, Melisenn, had perished, so they were mostly hanging around confused after the big fight.
Hey all, I'm a GM planning on running the first session of Carrion Crown in a couple weeks, and you've all been really helpful in fleshing out the adventure - so I'm giving back! Spoilers ahoy for the campaign.
As of now, I am also running a Strange Aeons game, which utilizes the research rules quite a bit, and I thought that part one of HoH is crying out for the implementation of research rules for Harrowstone, the Way, etc. It solves a few problems, including being a time-sink for PCs to ramp up the tension with the blood letters around town and the other creepy events. It also gives each location they can research at significance, and makes it more of an inevitability that they will find all of the plot-important information as long as they spend the time researching.
Below I've reorganized each research location into a library, very easily transferring the info as written from the book into each knowledge point threshold - the only difficult bit was implementing the prisoners, but I think that organizing them in some semblance of power level (not necessarily encounter order), with the Splatterman himself being the top dog, makes sense. They also have the combined total of each topic's EXP as their reward for exhausting their information, so that the EXP flow of the adventure can still continue as intended. It's likely that they won't KNOW to research the five prisoners until after they research the prison and the prisoners in general, but I think once they have that they can figure out where they might be able to research that info.
Finally, some locations contain multiple areas of research - I figure if the PCs want to use the same place for multiple topics, then I can just use the same CR and KP from the other locations.
The Lorrimor Place (The Whispering Way):
Professor Lorrimor’s library is filled with esoteric knowledge and history on a variety of subjects, from the history of Ustalav to the darker practices of necromancy - some of these are relevant, and some are not, but deciphering Lorrimor’s rough, handwritten notes will be no easy task...
The Lorrimor Place CR 3
XP 750
Complexity 14
Languages Common, Necril
Research Check Knowledge (Arcana) or Knowledge (Religion); Knowledge Bonus +2
kp 12
Research Thresholds kp 9 The Whispering Way is a sinister organization of necromancers that has been active in the Inner Sea region for thousands of years.
kp 6 Agents of the Whispering Way often seek alliances with undead creatures, or are themselves undead. The Whispering Way’s most notorious member was Tar-Baphon, the Whispering Tyrant, although the society itself has existed much longer than even that mighty necromancer.
kp 3 The Whispering Way itself is a series of philosophies that can only be transferred via whispers—the philosophies are never written or spoken of loudly, making the exact goals and nature of the secretive philosophy difficult for outsiders to learn much about.
kp 0 Exact details on the society are difficult to discern, but chief among the Whispering Way’s goals are discovering formulae for creating liches and engineering the release of the Whispering Tyrant. Agents often travel to remote sites or areas plagued by notorious haunts or undead menaces to perform field research or even to capture unique monsters. Their symbol is a gagged skull, and those who learn too many of the Way’s secrets are often murdered, and their mouths mutilated to prevent their bodies from divulging secrets via speak with dead.
Ravengro Town Hall (The Five Prisoners - Details on the Prisoners):
The records room in Ravengro’s town hall is filled to the brim with an amount of records that seems impossible for a town of this size to generate, but with all of the extra information present there, comes a litany of details about each and every prisoner kept in Harrowstone - of course, finding what’s important among the clutter is sure to be a difficult task.
(Can also be used to research Harrowstone and General Prisoner Knowledge)
Ravengro Town Hall CR 5
XP 1600
Complexity 16
Languages Common
Research Check Knowledge (History) or Knowledge (Local); Knowledge Bonus +2
kp 20
Research Thresholds kp 16 Sefic Corvin aka Father Charlatan - Of the five notorious prisoners, only Father Charlatan was not technically a murderer, yet his crimes were so blasphemous that several churches demanded he be punished to the full extent of Ustalavic law. Although he claimed to be an ordained priest of any number of faiths, Father Corvin was in fact a traveling con artist who used faith as a mask and a means to bilk the faithful out of money in payment for false miracles or cures. He became known as Father Charlatan after his scheme was exposed and his Sczarni accomplices murdered a half-dozen city guards in an attempt to make good the group’s escape.
kp 12 Vance Saetressle aka The Lopper - When the Lopper stalked prey, he would hide in the most unlikely of places, sometimes for days upon end with only a few supplies to keep him going while he waited for the exact right moment to strike. Once his target was alone, the Lopper would emerge to savagely behead his victim with a handaxe.
kp 8 Ispin Onyxcudgel aka The Mosswater Marauder - Only 5 years before his hometown of Mosswater was destined to be overrun and ruined by monsters from the nearby river, Ispin Onyxcudgel was a well-liked artisan and a doting husband. When he discovered his wife’s infidelity, he flew into a jealous rage and struck her dead with his hammer, shattering her skull and his sanity with one murderous blow. Wracked with shame and guilt, Ispin became convinced that if he could rebuild his wife’s skull she would come back to life—but unfortunately, he could not find the last blade-shaped fragment from the murder site. So instead, Ispin became the Mosswater Marauder. Over the course of several weeks, the cunning dwarf stalked and murdered nearly 20 people while searching for just the right skull fragment. He was captured just before murdering the daughter of a visiting nobleman from Varno, and was carted off to Harrowstone that same night.
kp 4 The Piper of Illmarsh (Real Name Unknown) - Before he snatched his victims, the Piper taunted his targets with a mournful dirge on his flute. He preferred to paralyze lone victims by dosing their meals with lich dust and then allowed his pet stirges to drink the victims dry of blood.
kp 0 Hean Feramin aka The Splatterman - Professor Feramin was a celebrated scholar of Anthroponomastics (the study of personal names and their origins) at the Quartrefaux Archives in Caliphas. Yet an accidental association with a succubus twisted and warped his study, turning it into an obsession. Feramin became obsessed with the power of a name and how he could use it to terrify and control. Soon enough, his reputation was ruined, he’d lost his tenure, and he’d developed an uncontrollable obsession with an imaginary link between a person’s name and what happens to that name when the person dies. Every few days, he would secretly arrange for his victim to find a letter from her name written in blood, perhaps smeared on a wall or spelled out with carefully arranged entrails. Once he had spelled his victim’s name, he would at last come for her, killing her in a gory mess using a complex trap or series of rigged events meant to look like an accident.
The Temple of Pharasma (General Harrowstone Prisoner Knowledge):
The Temple of Pharasma has a small chamber dedicated to the extensive notes that the church has taken on the history of the town over the years, including a small library discussing the history and cultural significance of the Harrowstone Prison. This includes, of course, some discussion of the prisoners housed there. Well-organized, if difficult to read hand-written journals are stacked neatly on the shelves of this small library.
(Can also be used to research Harrowstone knowledge)
The Temple of Pharasma CR 2
XP 300
Complexity 13
Languages Common
Research Check Knowledge (History) or Knowledge (Local); Knowledge Bonus +2
kp 6
Research Thresholds kp 3 Originally, Harrowstone housed only local criminals, but as the prison’s fame spread, other counties and distant lands began paying to have more dangerous criminals housed within this prison’s walls.
kp 2 At the time of the great Harrowstone Fire, the number of particularly violent or dangerous criminals imprisoned within the dungeons below was at an all-time high.
kp 0 The five most notorious prisoners in Harrowstone at the time of the great fire were Father Charlatan, the Lopper, the Mosswater Marauder, the Piper of Illlmarsh, and the Splatter Man.
The Unfurling Scroll (Harrowstone):
This combination magic school and item shop naturally maintains a small library of information - while most of it is relating to magical history and practices, it contains some history books on Ustalav and Ravengro, tucked away in a dusty, mostly unused corner of the library.
The Unfurling Scroll CR 3
XP 750
Complexity 14
Languages Common
Research Check Knowledge (History) or Knowledge (Local); Knowledge Bonus +1
kp 12
Research Thresholds kp 9 Harrowstone is a ruined prison—partially destroyed by a fire in 4661, the building has stood vacant ever since. The locals suspect that it’s haunted, and don’t enjoy speaking of the place.
kp 6 Harrowstone was built in 4594. Ravengro was founded at the same time as a place where guards and their families could live and that would produce food and other supplies used by the prison. The fire that killed all of the prisoners and most of the guards destroyed a large portion of the prison’s underground eastern wing, but left most of the stone structure above relatively intact. The prison’s warden perished in the fire, along with his wife, although no one knows why she was in the prison when the fire occurred. A statue commemorating the warden and the guards who lost their lives was built in the months after the tragedy—that statue still stands on the riverbank just outside of town.
kp 3 Most of the hardened criminals sent to Harrowstone spent only a few months imprisoned, for it was here that most of Ustalav’s executions during that era were carried out. The fire that caused the tragedy was, in fact, a blessing in disguise, for the prisoners had rioted and gained control of the prison’s dungeons immediately prior to the conflagration. It was only through the self- sacrifice of Warden Hawkran and 23 of his guards that the prisoners were prevented from escaping—the guards gave their lives to save the town of Ravengro.
kp 0 At the time Harrowstone burned, five particularly notorious criminals had recently arrived at the prison. While the commonly held belief is that the tragic fire began accidentally after the riot began, in fact the prisoners had already seized control of the dungeon and had been in command of the lower level for several hours before the fire. Warden Hawkran triggered a deadfall to seal the rioting prisoners in the lower level, but in so doing trapped himself and nearly two dozen guards. The prisoners were in the process of escaping when the panicked guards accidentally started the fire in a desperate attempt to end the riot.
You could always run Risi attempting to paralyze with her death attack rather than kill, and taking the PCs underneath Iris Hill in order to sacrifice them, giving them a few chances to make a daring escape! Why waste spilled blood on not charging up the Stelae, after all...
Having just wrapped tTT, I figured I'd post something about a character I feel could have been... more. Here are some thoughts on Risi.
Some thoughts on Risi:
My players blitzed through tTT pretty quickly, and as such I didn't get to use Risi as an assassin in town. After a fairly divine rush through Iris Hill (stemming from the party basically entering and then going directly to the Lady Lowls in the attic), they ended up surprising Risi in her resting spot in Lowls' estate. Risi being a survivalist and deciding not to dive headlong into the party, she plays the gambit of confessing to a lesser crime - she broke into the estate and got trapped here by all the animated hedge animals and has been waiting for a way out since.
She followed the PCs slowly, waiting for an opportunity, but she never found one - once they got to Melissen in the basement, she had planned on backing whoever appeared to be coming out on top. With liberal usage of web to clamp down on the flying creatures, that ended up being the PCs. As I allowed one of my players to take leadership (a Sarenrean oracle with a big focus on redemption), I had Risi confess who she actually was and join them as a cohort.
So this had me needing to expand on Risi's character greatly so that she could react properly to this new situation. I started with the fact that she is described as "not desiring life's creature comforts", and being a "hardened woman" and worked from there. Specifically, determining that she had no loyalties to the cult of Hastur, since living with only the bare essentials is pretty antithetical to the tenants of the cultists hanging out around Thrushmoor.
She of course, then, still needed a connection to the cult, so I went a bit stereotypical - made her an orphan. After a decade of living on the streets of Absalom, she was found and adopted by a couple of cultists of Hastur, to basically be used as a tool for their esoteric rituals. But, seeing potential in her sneakiness, the cultists started using her for theft, and eventually assassination.
Bing bang boom, she's in the cult and acquaintances with Melissen, who was growing up with her at around the same time. Risi began branching out since her Hastur cultist "parents" didn't really give her much in the way of food - they never really saw her as a follower of Hastur, and so she was never fully initiated into the cult.
In this case, she was making money from her assassinations outside the cult, and with Melissen calling in a favor for her to escort some cultists over to Thrushmoor, Risi saw this as her chance to exit from Absalom and after performing this favor, leave the whole "cult" business behind. She never really knew that much about Melissen or Lowls' apocalyptic plans, but isn't willing to throw away her life for what she does know about them.
So, I think in the end this could lead to a bit more interesting arc/fight with her - when cornered or found out, she could act as a source of information, a social bluffing encounter, or possibly even be turned - she's definitely not in this for the end of the world, from my perspective.
Anyway, maybe some GMs could make use of this if they want to flesh out Risi a bit more for their own campaigns - she struck me as an interesting character, and as a recurring villain seemed a bit less than an actual character throughout tTT (not that this isn't understandable, the other NPCs were definitely more important to flesh out in the end).
Henri takes several minutes to pour over the notes in Dara's book, each page turn leading to some new, interesting, and revealing information about the elf's captured party member. However, there was not much time to process this information, nor did Henri want to spend the time to around all of this Altiendel brass. She shuts the book quietly, and slips it into a safe place in her pack. "Well, you're betting our lives on it, so I hope you're right." She re-shoulders her pack with the gear stored inside, and rests a hand on her revolver. "We better not f!$~ing die, cause if we do I'm gonna come back and haunt the s$+& outta you."
I wish I could do more. It really was the first time Aza felt truly useless among this party, as they rushed around her to keep the ship steady in the surf, but once they were on board the ship and underway, she threw herself whole heartedly into the work - Even her inexperienced and shaky hands could be useful here.
And then, the storm. It was like a burst of energy from the universe, and Aza could feel each and every inch of it crackling through the air, causing her hair to stand on end, but not slowing her movements as she attempted to help keep the ship together. She follow's Jit's lead when the team decides to force their way to the shore, trusting the gnome's experience over whatever desire she had to get off of this wreck as quickly as possible. Aza practically feels at home through the violent winds and the storms, connected to the rushing air, but she also knows that it will absolutely crush them if they dallied on getting to shore.
And it nearly did do them in - Aza, even with her affinity for the winds of the storm, was thrown overboard violently as the ship collided with the shore, and while her fall was softened by Aza's thick clothes, water, and sand, she knew that she would be able to feel an ache the next day as she pulled herself to a shaky standing position in the muddy sand and rain. She did a quick check to make sure her spellbook was still present, and retrieved her hat and staff from nearby, before moving to the other members of her party to make sure that each one was conscious and healthy.
As they gather to discuss their next move, Aza breaths heavily, exhausted from the rough morning of sailing - but, she refused to say anything, and attempted to calm herself down. The others worked much harder than her, and if they could keep going, so could she. Aza gives Jit a small bow and a nervous smile alongside Chest Thumper. "Th-thank you, captain. I would call th-that a very fortunate journey."
"I agree. We could use a chance to regroup where th-there is less immediate threat of undead creatures. As much as I'd like to head straight to the lizardfolk, there isn't much we can do if w-we are not in good condition."
"For his... shadowy ways, little Rabbit," Henri smiles cooly through gritted teeth back at Cel.
Henri's face becomes less calming and more angry as she peers inside the bag, before recklessly tossing it behind her. She surreptitiously uncocks the hammer to the revolver, before raising its glowing blue barrel and pressing it, hard, to the side of Terry's head, dramatically pulling the hammer back again with her thumb - clik! The blue of the barrel shines against his fresh wounds. "All right, دودة, I'm done f%*~ing playing around. If you aren't going to tell us about whatever Raven's guild you're a part of, however the f$!# you're planning on killing this town, or how you now suddenly know how to match our names to our faces," she closes in, putting her face close to Xizoh's and growling (though she doubts that anything about her could add something to what the Doc looked like right now),"Then you're of no use to us, and I'll send you into darkness right godsdamned now."
The barrel of Henri's revolver glows blue with the magical energy she has poured into it, alighting her hand with a blue, dancing light. She cranks back the hammer of the revolver, nodding at Xizoh's mention of the pouch that Terry has dropped. "Don't see why you're laughing," the elf responds, weakly stepping forward, the deep pain of her damaged strength making it difficult to move as quickly as she'd like. She holds the revolver up high, aiming at Terry as she goes to examine the pouch. "You gotta death wish, دودة?"
She tries to keep her composure, the idea of the entire town's death in the near future affecting the elf a bit more than she'd like to admit - It's probably just because all of my friends are here. And, well, I should definitely feel a little bad if everyone dies. Even if they are crawling bluebloods."I'm surprised they haven't told stories of this handsome face." Henri smiles genuinely at Xizoh, though it transforms into a smirk as she turns to stare down Terry.
Henri will move to stand next to Xizoh and examine the pouch if she can safely - she's not too worried about Terry.
Henri can feel herself wavering, still buzzing from the alcohol invading her system. She frowns at Aubergine and shakes her head. "What is with you?" she asks, not really expecting an answer. Still, she sighs and rests her head on the counter. "Bed would be nice. Don't mind sharing if I have to. Wouldn't be the first time." She smirks slightly at no one in particular.
Henri, still somewhat angry, finds herself somewhat curious as well. "You're not saying that there's actually old magic down there, are you?" She inhales the rest of the cigarette and laughs coldly. "Buncha g+@#*&ned idiots must've built this place. When I was younger..." Henri trails off before she finds herself lost in her past, not wanting to bring it up so that she'd have to lie about it later. "Well. I thought this place was doomed before, but now there's what, some dark magic user hiding out in the tunnels, perverting the spirits and screwing with the townsfolk? Maybe has an army of undead at his back? My advice? Move, or don't drink the water for the next few years." She shakes her mostly empty cup of beer before downing it, letting out a small hiccup!"Imports, only."
Henri pulls another cigarette from her endless supply and lights it, breathing heavily as Elioden dances up next to them, scowling and blowing a cloud directly into his face. "Someone wasn't respectful enough to shut the hell up about our personal lives, neither." While she was loathe to admit it, Elioden was at least somewhat upfront with them - Terry himself still attempting to slip out of guilt even at a direct accusation.
"دودة," Henri states towards Terry, venom dripping out of her mouth alongside the smoke, "If I hear any more godforsaken songs, stories, anything." She grabs at the scruff of his shirt to keep him from walking off, "I'm holding you personally. G&%#$!n. Accountable. Understand?" She grins humorously, bits of smoke still leaking through clenched teeth.
Intimidate:1d20 + 1 ⇒ (18) + 1 = 19
Henri releases the man's collar and sits back down, taking another pull from her cigarette. She gives Elioden a sideways glance, the elf still breathing heavily with anger. "Don't push me, Dead Meat. I'm still debating whether it's worth it to shoot you. That beauty comment just pushed me to 50/50."
"He isn't allowed to sing about... like that." Henri's voice has lowered to a growl that only her companions can hear, and for a moment she considers whether it's worth it to go over and shoot the bard in the face - but she knew that she probably couldn't get away with that, and didn't want to get her friends into a bad situation. Still, she keeps one hand at her side as she swipes the beer away from Archana, spits out "Fine," and downs the whole thing in one go. "I'll remember this," she mutters to herself.
Henri clutches at her drink tightly, taking sips every now and then to attempt to calm herself. Something about this bard just rubbed her the wrong way, beyond just the information being incorrect - she could handle that. It was the almost silly way he spoke of the harrowing trials they had been through, trivializing the pain and angst that each of them had experienced. Henri's hand was squeezing the cup so tightly that she thought it might shatter in her palm, but she focused on her breathing, slow and steady. It's fine. It's just fine. You're over 100 years old, Henri, act like it.
And then came the chorus.
"كل الحق، كنت تبتسم قليلا قليلا، كنت جليئة مملوءة يغلي على أولبير وراء," the elf rose slowly, glass still clutched in one hand, "كنت إضاعة اللحم، أنت ممل، لا معنى لها باطلة، كنت المهجورة المهجورة الفراغ، وحان الوقت بالنسبة لك ل يموت يموت." With that, she hurls her half-empty glass at Elioden.
"All right, you vulgar little maggot, you puss-filled boil on an owlbear's behind, you waste of flesh, you boring, meaningless void, you tragic abandoned emptiness, it's time for you to f%~*ing die.
Henri also puts a coin onto the table, her hat kept low over her eyes. "Yeah, gimme one, too." She puts the stub of her cigarette out on the table, eyes narrowed and staring intensely at the singing bard. Misinformation is fine. You should not be mad at this, Henri. It's better that you're not more specifically known. The elf taps her fingers on the table as she waits for the ale, still staring with laser focus at the singing man. But I mean, come on, Bodyguard!?!? They couldn't have... I mean, I was..."هذا الرجل يمكن أن تذهب الحصول على ثمل من قبل الطرف الأيمن من مطرقة برودوس في صياغتها الشخصية," she mutters under her breath, eyes still locked.
draconic:
This guy can go get screwed by the right end of Produs' hammer in her personal forge.
Henri sighs, resting a hand on her revolver and leaning against the wall, semi-nervous. She was happy to be getting away from this place, she had been here far too long. "Yeah. He may follow us, but, corruption, Red's dad, more important stuff to take care of." While Henri sounds serious about Alaina's father, her voice is somewhat uninterested when she mentions the corruption.
"Gah!" Henri clenches her fists and bites down on her cigarette in frustration. It was just a moment of anger, but it seems to release some of the buildup within the elf. "Yeah. I think if we leave, as long as everyone in the group comes..." she glances at Dulae, almost involuntarily, "...or has a military escort, we should be fine. Temporarily. Red's dad is a bigger priority, and it might be better to plan out an ambush elsewhere." She leans against the wall and takes the cigarette out of her mouth, breathing more smoke into the air. "But that's just my thoughts. If you really want to fight Ez, well... Of course I'll be there."
Sorry about the delay on that one - didn't mean to hold people up!
Henri takes the note and furrows her brow, an expression between fear and anger forming on her face as she reads, and then comprehends what is written on the paper. "Altien damn him..." she mutters quietly, not even having the energy for a true curse. She looks at Xizoh, biting at her lip in stress, reaching for a cigarette out of stress and contemplation. "I'm sorry to wrap y'all up in this," she said softly, lighting the cigarette. "But knowing Ez, at this point he's probably set traps all up and down the pass for us. And even if he catches me and I run on my own... he'll probably come after you for making him work for it."
She takes a deep breath of smoke, and as she speaks the fog rises from her mouth gently. "If we do teleport out of here today, it'll probably take him a while to catch up to us. A few weeks at least. But we could also try to take him down here, since we at least have some idea of where he is." Henri glances at Alaina. "I don't want to ask any of you to do that, or to hold Red up from going after her dad, though. He's... I'm not your problem."
Henri removes her hat and starts to unbuckle her belt and holster. "Yeah." She grins and runs a hand through her hair, finally taking a moment to light the cigarette that'd been hanging in her mouth. "Looks like I'm leavin' damn soon."
Henri II:
Henri dresses in her jacket and hat, donning her revolver after a few minutes looking over her spellbook for the day. While her stomach rumbled somewhat, she determined that Blaine was likely just too busy with something else going on this morning for her to...
S@%#. Her eyes widen in surprise at Anatoly's perseverance, though she is reminded of a few particular duels they had on the family grounds where he had managed to snap her training weapon in half. She hadn't even noticed that her hand had slipped to her gun until hers and Blaine's eyes met - she let her hand off the grip immediately. A small part of her was tugging her to go out there and speak to her brother, but she held herself back - she doubted that he would let her leave, no matter what Henri said, and while she wanted some more information about what was going on with her family, she knew that she probably shouldn't implicate Blaine in helping to hide her - maybe she could visit with him somewhere else...? But then, leaving the grounds put her at risk of getting seen by Ezikiel. It was a predicament. She took a few steps back, looking to hide herself from the view of the door if it was to open for Ruiz.
"Will do." Henri thought for a moment. It definitely started with a D. Her past studies and work on her magic stuck in her mind far better than in the past, and she knew that she must have gained SOME extra ability to remember things. Even names, for once. "D-... Dulae." She nodded nervously, hoping the name was correct, before smiling at Alaina and Cel before heading back to her room. "See y'all tomorrow."
Henri offers an eye roll in return to Blaine as she exits the room. "I mean I doubt I'd be really satisfied, but I'd like to see you try."
Henri, split between being excited to see her friends after such a time and not wanting to disrupt the proceedings, smiles at everyone as she arrives. She leans against the wall during the proceedings, listening but not offering anything other than a wave to everyone - mostly just trying to piece together the situation. As she is waiting for Silo to cast his spell, the elf grins. "It's good to see y'all. Feels like it's been months."
As Silo casts the spell, Henri looks at the spell intensely, finding it interesting to examine it with new eyes. But as the message comes through, her gaze flickers from the light, to Alaina, to the light again - concern growing by the word. As Alaina storms out of the office, Henri hesitates - the elf doubts that she can do much to assist her friend, but shouldn't she try? She certainly wouldn't be the best person for the job (and she might need to stay and catch up what's going on with Silo). She looked at Dara and Cel. Not seeing Dara follow Alaina, Henri decided that she should at least go and make sure that Alaina didn't do anything too rash.
Henri followed Alaina to the practice area, and stood back a bit, lighting a cigarette and taking a drag from it, trying to think of what to say. At least she wasn't hurting anything that could feel it.
Regarding the memory loss throughout the first book. How much of a backstory are the PCs creating. (I am in a group which backstory is almost as important as the current campaign.) They are very interested in this concept, and I am just confused on what they should know and not know about their characters and the situation.
When I ran ISoS, the backstory stuff didn't come up much, but when I went about developing them I basically asked them what they'd like out of a backstory for their character and twisted it to make them much more... sinister. HOWEVER, this doesn't come up until the 2nd and 3rd adventures.
In my game they started only with their character sheets - but no names. Later on they found some files that are marked for destruction (Since Lowls makes the request of Losandro that there be no record of the PCs in the asylum, I assumed that they still had to go through patient intake and she was just going to dispose of the documents later).
These files as written pretty much only have the PCs names and descriptions so they could learn their names (I asked each of my players for a pool of names I could pull from - so they still had some choice but it would also be a surprise). I also wrote little tidbits about who they were. In the fugue state they don't really talk or do much, but I figured that some of their personalities would shine through, like the Inquisitor of an obscure god carving symbols all around the chapel, even though she didn't really know why.
I think this AP works best with those little breadcrumbs of backstory being dropped in by the DM, and a shared ownership of the character's stories between the DM and the players. They SHOULD have some say in their story and their creation cause otherwise I don't think they feel invested - but I also think that the DM should be able to expand on that, add in details to help grow the backstory, etc.
Henri, noting that others were disassembling to their own personal goals, decided that she should do the same. She sidled slowly up to Blaine, asking "Can I... talk to you?" The elf glanced around the waiting room, at all of the assembled guardsmen, and added, "Somewhere else."
Blaine raises an eyebrow, but complies. They exit to the waiting room, where, alone, he asks - "What can I do for you?"
Henri and Blaine:
"Blaine," she says simply. She examines the firearm that she has just received, and gives him a pointed look. "It's a pretty nice gun, ain't it?" she asks, trying to figure out exactly how she's going to breach the subject.
"My pride and joy for seven years," he glances at his empty holster. He grins and shrugs. "I came across something better."
Henri lets out a low whistle. "Seven years? Jeez, I'm surprised the thing still works." She chuckles at her own joke, before pausing. "Listen, I've got a... favor to ask you. I'm interested in... well. I'd like to learn more about the arcane arts," she finishes bluntly. "And all due respect to 'em, I don't think that the Altiens can really give me the... direction that I'm after."
Blaine laughs loudly, in the most genuine expression Henri thinks she's seen him make. "You know, I'd ask what rumors you've been hearing about me, but you really mean that just as you said it, don't you?"
“Come with me,” Blaine smiles at Henri. “I want to show you something.”
Henri cocks an eyebrow, more surprised by the request to show her something than the laugh in her face, but she nods and follows, wondering if she should be regretting her request.
Henri smiles and hands over the money, but doesn't drink anything other than water. She also keeps uncharacteristically quiet, seeming to be mostly lost in thought throughout the meal. She had a plan, or at least a thought. But for now she needed to rest - she had been up for over 24 hours at this point. After wolfishly consuming her bread, she thanks Laurett, nods to Xizoh, and adjourns to her room, immediately falling onto the bed and nearly instantly drifting into sleep.
"...And then apparently the paladins die, leaving us to deal with the mess anyway." Henri rolls her eyes but smiles, comforted a small amount, though she can still feel her body buzzing with nervous energy. "Least Altien could do is get her glorious golden ass down here and help us drive some of that darkness back. Hell, Oranis at least got some skin in the game."
Oh man, those two spells bring back memories... I played through half of RotRL with an inquisitor who basically lived on intimidating people and had bloodhound up 90% of the time. The party would always ask if he could smell anything suspicious. Solid picks IMO.
I always liked flames of the faithful thematically, but it only really came in handy when we ran into ogres. Invisibility and communal protection from evil are standard buffs but not super interesting. Lesser restoration is similar, especially when you have some spell slots left over and can spam it to cure some ability damage - from a meta perspective something that starts to come up more often around this level. If that's not enough 2nd-level spell options for ya, Weapon of Awe and Zone of Truth are personal favorites.
As for spiritualist, I've never really delved into the occult spell lists, but there's some decent stuff on there at level 1 - Liiike Sanctury (if the enemy fails their save this can be a f%$$ing LIFESAVER), Summon monster (always a classic. Although you may already have that...) Touch of Gracelessness (situational, but can COMPLETELY shut down flying creatures. I've seen this spell bring down dragons), and Burst of Adrenaline seems a bit out there and situational as well, but that immediate action could add a LOT of damage to a roll (I meaan, it's either a +4 to a save or an additional +6 damage, and that's just stat-based uses for it). Otherwise it seems like it hangs around in buffs and debuffs territory, stuff like Protection from Alignment spells and Cure Light Wounds are ALWAYS useful, if not a bit redundant.
...I think about crunch way too much >_> obviously these are just a list of suggestions, don't take any of it as gospel xD
This arc DEFINITELY needed that extra space to breath imo (even if I wasn't here for a couple of months of it lol). It kept it really atmospheric.
I missed all of your guys character and the group, too. I'm very glad I was able to come back. And VERY glad so see SOME KITTIES
seriously. I just browse the humane society looking for cats I can get and lamenting that I can't take care of them ;_;
No worries, braindead is understandable - an online game has the kind of flexibility where you can afford to be awol story-wise for a couple days!
...unlike trying to run a biweekly game when you have been cursed by the horseman of plague because you can't skip a game cause then it'll be a month break between sessions.
Henri sighs, a small amount of regret in her voice. "Two unholy artifacts that have to be destroyed? Today is just the luckiest day ever." She moves away from the artifacts and the abandoned scrolls and orbs. "Well, if someone can at least grab those... I think they belong to the store in town." She glances at Dulae as she is dazed by the magical feedback. Somedays I wish I could do magic... it would make a lotta of things easier. But there are sure as heck downsides.
"Guess we better get outta here before Norah shows up, then. And, of course, so we can get rid of those creepy, but surprisingly fashionable pieces of jewelry." She glances around at her party members. Her friends. She slowly grins to herself, directing it mostly towards the floor. "I'm ready when y'all are."
Henri rolls her eyes. "Listen, I've had a bad day, can't I just be lazy for once, Retired Sergeant Sunshine? Maybe I'll order someone to carry me."
Even as Henri's wounds closed, she could still feel the exhaustion of fighting, running, being captured, and no sleep from the night before catching up to her. Even on days she had traveled without rest, this was just so much rougher - and while her body no longer hurt, her bones still ached.
"Have I mentioned I hate healing magic? If I had just stayed wounded, I coulda milked it for days, cuddled up to Sarge while she carried me down the mountain, gotten free drinks at the bar, rest up in a comfy bed..." She grunts, pulling herself to her feet and picking up her hat, brushing it off before placing it delicately on her head. "عصا غبية، كهف غبي، الكسالى غبي، يمكنك الحصول على كل وضعها على سندان برودوس حيث سيتم قصفت في بركة عميقة وموشقة من ضباب أحمر، أونريكوغنيزابل لهذا العام. إز أيضا. ويمكن وضعه في قفص من الصلب على سندان حتى يتمكن من البقاء على قيد الحياة للقرون القليلة الأولى، كما هو مضغوط في مكعب غرامة من الحديد و غور." The elf stretches and yawns deeply.
They teach you a lot of curses in Draconic for some reason:
"Stupid wand, stupid cave, stupid zombies, you can all get placed onto Produs's anvil where you will be pounded into a deep and mushy puddle of red mist, unrecognizable to the year. Ez, too. He can be placed into a steel cage on the anvil so he can survive for the first few centuries, as he is compressed into a fine cube of iron and gore."
Henri half spins, half stumbles away from the zombie, flinging blood about her and breathing heavily. "Why don't you take this one, Sarge? I'd deal with it, but uh, I'm too..." She pants heavily, trying to think of a witty, yet sexual line, but nothing comes to her. "I'll just be over h-here."
Henri coughs twice, practically choking on the potion as it invades her body - she grimaces as she struggles to her feet, grasping at a potion from her pack. "Don't worry, Doc. I've got someone who'll keep me on my feet." She gives Xizoh a wink, before uncorking the potion with her teeth, and downing the thing in one go. "Damned zombies don't know what they've got coming."
As the zombie slams into Henri, she blinks once, then twice as the force of the blow staggers her. She lets out a shakily held breath as her vision blurs, before falling to the ground, unconscious.
I mean at least the crit didn't confirm, then some very bad things might have happened (Hi, Mikkel.).
Yeesh, that sounds rad as all hell, Cel. Guerrilla is definitely the way to go :D congrats and stuff!
In arc terms, I agree with Cel - we can take on sub-plots if/as they come up, but I def. trust you enough as a GM to deliver unto us more fun and engaging plots!!
Henri snatches at the amulet again as she moves deftly through the strikes. She grunts softly as the missiles strike her, but does not let up her assault on the necromancer.
