Rycross's page

Hey I had a few thoughts on your remix for Runelords. I like where you're going with it, in my game I made Tsuto a gunslinger after he escaped from jail when the PCs caught him. It turned him into a young Lee VanCleef with a broody trench coat and a chip on his shoulder, my players loved it. Also I changed Nualia's old lover from some random dude to none other than Justice Ironbriar. Her child then ends up being a half aasimar half elf with a feindish template. She was sold to a disreputable orphanage that didn't ask any questions in Magnimar. The book states that the child was deformed, but doesn't specify in what way, so I decided that the child was born with an oversized claw-like red left hand. As a cruel joke Lamashtu "gifted" Nualia with the exact same deformity and doesn't plan on changing anything else on her just to see how far Nualia will go to please her.
In another twist I also made Ironbriar Tsuto's father. As an elf it's altogether possible that he would "sow his wild oats" for fifty years or more and if Sandpoint is in his jurisdiction for capital crimes like mass murder, terrorism, trying conspirators of invasion and such it not only gives him a decent timeframe to knock up Mrs. Kaijutsu and Nualia. He could have visited under the pretense of investigating the area looking for a nice summer home in a quiet town or just an inspection of the law enforcement facilities in Sandpoint. Secretly of course he's also scouting the countryside for potential talent for his murder cult. He being the head lawman in the area also gives the PCs a very valid reason to seek him out when the story moves to Magnimar in book 2.
I also didn't really like the transition from Aldern's townhouse to the seven's sawmill being in a conspicuous note saying "here's where you need to go now!" So I had the PCs hit a brick wall at Aldern's townhouse where they were summoned to Ironbriar's office. He proceeds to chew them out for stumbling into an ongoing investigation without his direction and has them look into a string of murders that may be related to what they're looking for. I inserted the Dawn of the Scarlet Sun module here and in context of the game it was just Ironbriar manipulating the heroes into assassinating a rival underworld boss who was threatening Xanesha's turf. Tsuto shows up at the end of the module and helps them can the succubus at the conclusion (which could very well be the same one who enthralled Lyrie in your game hmmmm...) he then reveals that they've been manipulated by Ironbriar, shares the revelation of his parentage and that of Nualia's daughter and says that Ironbriar has found her as well and is planning to sacrifice the young urchin himself. Ironbriar has gone a bit mad and has begun sacrificing victims directly to his Mistress, whom he sees as a manifestation of Norgorbor that he must please. Tsuto knows that the cultists will be moving the child to the sawmill for her sacrifice in a few hours and wants the players to intercept the coach she'll be travelling in leading to a chase sequence. At the end of the chase Tsuto ransoms his freedom with the girl in tow against the ultimate location of Ironbriar. As he will be expecting the arrival of the coach momentarily the PCs have about five minutes to decide whether to let the murderer and known abductor get away with an innocent (albeit deformed) child in his grasp, or track down the only lead they have to discover a ritualistic serial killer.
The scenario as I ran it forced the PCs into an endurance run that they weren't prepared for. They basically had to do the entire Dawn of the Scarlet Sun module a chase scene and the entire sevens sawmill encounter in one big go. That stretched my PC's capabilities quite thin and left them gasping for breath, but they all had a ton of fun and I didn't really need to stat up Ironbriar any because he was at the end of the gauntlet and their best spells and abilities were likely to be used up by then.
I know that this post is turning into a serious novel, but I just had to share what I did with Orik. I made him the most unlucky sod in the world. I mean his backstory has him being pretty unlucky in the first place so my PCs let him live and since I had a guest playing Shelalu at the time she gave him a letter of recommendation to Sheriff Hemlock. I had him end up joining the Sandpoint garrison, getting involved with Shayliss Vinder (and if one of your PCs is involved with her at this point it could lead to her cheating on him with a clueless Orik.) Because Shayliss wants to keep their relationship a secret from her father she demands that Orik be really quiet about it and as such Hemlock doesn't know any better than to send poor Orik to arrest her father when he becomes a suspect for the skinsaw murders, which Shayliss causes a huge scene at. He makes up for it later by bringing Vin home and claiming he helped clear her father's name, which of course is a lie and once that comes to light there's going to be some sort of nuclear fallout. I'm trying to think of some other incredibly unlucky thing that forces him to live through his bad luck. Perhaps he and Shayliss' wedding day will be punctuated by a stone giant attack. hmmm...

Well I was GMing a 3.5 swashbuckling game in a very renaissance setting when I decided to run a musical session. Yeah you read that right.

So the party, consisting of a swashbuckler, a spellthief, a cleric, and a fighter had all settled in for an evening's rest out in the wilderness on their way home to the great city of Solis from yet another rousing adventure when I ask them to roll a will save, I believe the highest die roll around the table was a 3, so needless to say they all fail miserably and every single one of them falls into the cold embrace of sleep.

They awake to find themselves tied together in a single file line and slowly marching their way to the top of a hill through a crowd of corpses dressed as an angry mob of Solisian peasants in equally decayed clothing. At the crest of the hill is an immensely large and draped pillar-like structure draped in a sheer fabric gently wafting in the breeze and a man in an impossibly red robe who turns to witness the oncoming procession of mentally bridled prisoners and begins to sing:

I know the gutter and I know the stink of the street
Kicked like a dog, I have spat out the bile of defeat
All you beauties who towered above me
You who gave me the smack of your rod
Now I give you the gutter
I give you the judgment of God!

Then the entire mob bursts into song

Vengeance victorious
These are the glorious days
Women of Solis, come gather your bloody bouquets!
Now gaze on our goddess of justice
With her shimmering, glimmering blade
As she kisses these traitors she sings them a last serenade

The curtain blows away in a sudden violent burst of wind revealing a 15 foot guillotine and the crowd continues

Sing, swing
Savor the sting
As she severs you, Madame Guillotine
Slice, come paradise
You'll be smitten with Madame Guillotine

The swashbuckler at the head of the column is asked to roll a will save, he rolls a 5 and instantly snaps his head up and joins the song

The world may be ugly but each man must do what he must

His hair is violently jerked back by the dead fingers of a rotting woman as she thrusts he maggot ridden, eyeless face into his

Give in pretty dear, in a year you will be pretty dust

The rest of the mob then takes up the dirge once more

Now come let our lady possess you
In her breathtaking, hair-raising bed
She will tingle your spine
As she captures your heart and your head

Sing, swing
Savor the sting
As she severs you, Madame Guillotine
Slice, come paradise
Our Delilah will shave you razor clean

Suddenly the cleric stops dead in her tracks and is asked to roll a will save, an 18, the party breathes a collective sigh, finally, a good roll! The cleric then raises her eyes to the sky and her hands still bound laces her fingers in supplication and much to the horror of the rest of the group she joins in the song

God, when did man lose his reason?
Save us, my God, if you're there
God, can you not feel the terror like a fire in the air?

At that moment the darkened sky splits and issues forth a pillar of blinding light that strikes the cleric square and grows to encompass the entirety of the hill, as the unholy mob is blasted away in a divine wind that leaves the party untouched the mob tries in vain out sing the holy energies but is ultimately overcome

Flash, slash! Glisten and gash!
She will ravish you, Madame Guillotine
Split, Madame just bit
Give her more to bite, she's a hungry queen
Sing, savor the sting
As she severs you, Madame Guillotine
Slice, come paradise

The party's vision returns and they are no longer bound and now find themselves staring at the man in red now kneeling at the shrine of murder

Hail her Majesty!

He bows his head on the block as ghostly voices scream the last line

Madame Guillotine!

At last the blade falls and just before the inevitable and much aforementioned "sting" the party all snaps awake in a cold sweat greeted by the sight of a cold fire pit and an ominous nearby hill in the moonlight. They wordlessly gather their things and silently agree never to speak of the evening again.

I must admit I can't take credit for the lyrics They're stolen directly from the song "Madame Guillotine" in Scarlet Pimpernel musical you can find the song on youtube and I'd post it here but I'm not really sure what the rules for posting youtube videos on this particular forum are. It's really pretty cool sounding though so I urge you to check it out.

But yeah that's my epic story, complete with lyrics.

When my players had cleared out the catacombs of wrath and had found the small hole that led to the intersection of streets beneath Sandpoint they all got terrible rolls on their perception checks and couldn't quite make out the specifics of the conversations going on above them. For some reason they interpreted this to mean that they must therefore be directly beneath the main encampment of the goblin horde and immediately began to make plans with the gunslinger in the group to mass produce black powder and try to collapse the ruins and destroy the encampment from below. Looking at the map of Sandpoint and the cross streets referenced in the catacombs of wrath description it really only would have collapsed both the town hall and the garrison, as well as a fair chunk of residential areas in the center of the town, and seeing as how I really kind of wanted them to be hailed as "the Heroes of Sandpoint" and not "those colossal jerks who blew up the mayor, sheriff, and half the town just before a major invasion" (though the chant of 'Death, death, on the fifth of Neth, the gunpowder treason and plot' really might have been a fun thing to haunt them for the rest of the game) just as they turn away to begin enacting their explosive plan I had the very distinctively voiced Sheriff Hemlock stand above the hole and say (in my best Lance Henrickson impersonation) "Madame Mvishti I just got back into town with reinforcements from Magnimar. Can you tell me precisely why you dragged me into the middle of this intersection?" followed by an elderly woman who sounded suspiciously like Miracle Max's wife from the princess bride saying "I got no idea, kid. All I know really is that when I get a message this clear? I gotta follow through. Now be a good boy and walk me home." To which the barbarian player turns to the rest of the group and says "Wait...so...is Law-man working with goblins now?"

My two cents: when talking about the concepts of good vs evil in role playing games I think it's actually a good thing to paint wickedness and righteousness alike in broad strokes, especially for kids. I think it's important to understand the basic concepts of an idea before you begin analyzing the intricacies of said concepts. That being said, it's not like it's a concept that you can't or shouldn't leave behind or outgrow at some point. Likewise, look at the racial diversity within player choices, PCs are more often the most accepting characters when it comes to making friends with a racially diverse group. When a townsman yells for help and the half-orc, elf and dwarf spring up with the human the players get the opportunity to judge their companions by the content of their character and to try and make friends with people with a variety of racial and cultural backgrounds that they can interact with. It's a great way to teach kids that in different places people do things differently and that exploring those differences is an adventure not something scary and alien and to be avoided or unaccepted. By playing a game in which you quite literally stand in the shoes of another you really begin to flex that empathy muscle and it can really aid in understanding how to understand.