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Session 5 – 1/22
Participating: Allistar, Argus, Barzard, Kragg, Krask

I forgot to note that when raiding the slaver camp we’d also found a pair of prisoners, a dwarf and an unconscious elf. Or so we thought. The dwarf was quite talkative, and since he first assumed us to be more of the slavers that had killed his brother I believe I’ve increased my repertoire of dwarven curses. We gave the dwarf his own gear and at least some of his bothers before he departed for Monmerg (I did later notice Kragg had a nicer axe). We did what we could for the elf, but he didn’t come to until morning. For some reason Krask had taken the bracelet preventing casting off the rich girl during the slaver’s ambush, so we had a bit of challenge getting it back on along with a pair of shackles. Allistar was strangely chivalrous toward her again, making idle threats towards several of us in the process. We’re going to need to take him down a couple notches soon.

We continued along the marsh road and about time to make camp that evening we encountered a gypsy caravan headed the other way, also stopping for the night. We decided staying close but separate would be best, and made sure to keep a extra watchful eye out. Krask went to find a healer and didn’t return until morning, in an uncharacteristically non-engaging mood. Kragg and I spent a good part of the night at the gypsy’s communal fire, with him largely tying one on while I offered entertained the crowd with some classic tales for a few hours until it was time for second watch, which I’d promised to take.

In the morning the elf was up and after a short tale of his enslavement he was eager to move. Once he heard we weren’t headed back towards Monmerg soon and the gypsies were he ditched us and ingratiated himself with them, not even inquiring about his equipment. We spent a bit more than the next day moving across a rather uninteresting patch of marsh and swamp before realizing that, while Krask might be a talented summoner, he was a rather poor guide and barely had enough skill with a weapon to cut his own meat. This was confirmed when he delivered us directly into quicksand, with no warning. Kragg reacted quickly and probably would have saved his mount, but for the swarm of beetles that chose that moment to attack. It’s a good thing they were primarily interested in consuming Kragg’s horse, since we were summarily ineffective at stopping the thing. Oh why couldn’t one of the Druid or Ranger that joined us briefly about a week prior have stuck around.

Kragg trod the swamp on foot from that point, though it wasn’t long before we found ourselves under attack again, and nearly as bad off. A group of at least a half dozen lizard men arose from the swamp and we found ourselves under ambush by archers. Their surprise attack nearly routed us, but Kragg challenged them for a battle of champions and their leader accepted. It didn’t look good for Kragg though, since they chose bow and I’ve never seen him use one. They allowed him to substitute javelin, but were at a goodly distance to do very well it. Just when it looked he’d be turned into an oversize pincushion a war drum sounded and a bigger band of substantially bigger and meaner looking lizard men surrounded both groups. The smaller group quickly called for us to join them for our freedom. Since there was no point in fighting both groups we accepted and an all-out battle ensued.

The larger group proved quite fierce with axes, quickly decimating the ranks of the smaller group’s archers while we picked away at them largely from horseback. A couple of us with ability in enchantment put several into a slumber and the rest were mainly taken out by the archers or our skill with blades. While I don’t profess to be a master with a sword, I nearly had one of the larger ones down before he slashed my mount so badly that she bolted. About then the last of the smaller lizard men fell, leaving us just two opponents. I was able to rejoin the battle just in time to assist in our victory, and then had to treat the terrible wounds we’d been dealt. I don’t know how our healer managed to bow out of our current adventure, but I’m definitely more cut out for entertaining the ladies than manipulating mana to seal bloody tissues back in normal order.

Session 4

So the woman we freed from the cellar at the gambling den turned out to be the daughter of one of the local high merchants, and a fair piece of trouble in more ways than one. Now don’t get me wrong, pretty rebellious lasses are a staple of my profession and I’ve enjoyed my share, but this one quickly reeked of high maintenance in the worst ways – she was used to getting her way and privileged enough for that to cover a wide range. Women were put here to meet our needs, not the other way around. Of course, poor wretched Allistar hadn’t learned that lesson yet and was practically fawning over the girls every move, as if with his disfigured hands he had a chance with a girl of means like that. With Krag about to fall over even after I patched him a bit, no one noticed me pilfer a couple rare bottles of vino I found lost in the cellar.

We carted the girl home to daddy, who clearly enjoyed the finer things in life and had no little idea what his daughter really did most of the time. In exchange for our discretion concerning his daughters recent affairs, I arranged for our obligations with the construction, permits/bribes, outfitting, and maybe some help with clientele for our recent Inn and pit fighting enterprise to be covered. I hadn’t exactly been cut in on that action already, but I knew I could arrange it. While sampling some of his fine selection of food and drink, I realized the best way to leverage my recent rare wine acquisition so as to further me in the good graces of some of the local elite.

After a bit of rest, I took it upon myself to lead some of the team to turn our recently acquired surplus and finery into usable coin. The standard gear was easy enough, but it took a little charm and social greasing to find suitable buyers for the rarer items. I located buyers among the crew of the stone ship, easily trading a lovely full length mirror to the lady captain for an exquisite fire ruby, and wrangling a much better deal on a phase spider egg than I thought possible locally out of the first mate.

Several of us then went out in search of new business opportunities for our team, and I found a couple lucrative and potentially easy opportunities to rid of ourselves of a counts signet ring we’d taken off the recently deceased street rates. Both he and his rival the Baron of Monmerg were after it, and there’s nothing quite as fun as stirring up problems among the elite. By the time I’d returned, the high merchant’s wife had left a message for me though, and a short meeting with her revealed a need to quietly get her daughter to a more disciplined environment, which just happened to be a school which would further the skills she’d exhibited in summoning. Of course, her husband hadn’t bought into it yet and the daughter was sure to resist if she knew so it called for a bit of subterfuge on the part of someone she might trust. A guide from the summoning school was to be included as well. It seemed right up our alley, and we took the deal.

We outfitted ourselves with horses and a carriage to speed the journey and Miranda’s daughter was all too eager to escape her father again. Everything went largely to plan, except for Allistar being more of a pain over the daughter’s attentions until we put him out, until a day or so out on the road through the marshes. I’d been riding by the carriage keeping an eye on Allistar and the daughter when we found ourselves in an ambush and under fire by archers. For some reason the wizard had been driving the carriage and was quickly taken down, so I had to jump to it to stop it from advancing fully into an apparent slaver trap. Krag and Krask, our summoner guide, moved to take down our assailants with fair amount of success. After a lack of success at range from the carriage I ran forward to assist in taking down a pair that had taken Krag down off his mount. The unfortunate attempt at an ambush was over in little over a minute, with one or two out of the dozen or so men fleeing for their lives and one foolish attempt to surrender to Krag. I’ll be sure not to go into my better slaver tales with him around. After little success in helping in the fray, Allistar was able to at least track one back to their camp and raid it. I wound up with a decent little spiked whip for our trouble and we returned to our mission.

Session 3

Not long passed before the contractor enlisted to fix up our warehouse acquisition sent for us. I figured he either wanted more coin or he was getting pressured to drop us, so with most of the others back at their day jobs the savage fighter, who’d hired him, had the barbarian and I come along to visit his current work site. That turned out to be a substantial church renovation, though I think church may be a rather loose term for a god of trickery’s local gambling establishment. The church was holding the contractor responsible for damages he insisted were occurring at night when his men were away, and he needed someone to figure out what was going on and stop it. While he couldn’t pay, he could significantly reduce the cost for our own renovations.

It only took a few hours to determine that there wasn’t much in the way of rivals for either our contractor or the gambling den. Neighbors and the church staff were fairly forthcoming on some changes in policy dealing with those who failed to pay up, with a number of people reportedly gone missing once they had sizable debts to the church. We found some uncharacteristic markings in the church, more elemental in nature, where damage had occurred and decided to do further reconnaissance that night in the church. We found a nice alchemist shop where we acquired some lotion to help deal with likely magical intruders and rested up.

While waiting in hiding in the gambling den that night, two earthy mephits appeared looking for their “mistress”. The barbarian apparently spoke with them, but as he’d been hiding in the bar area and had quite a few drinks earlier plying the church staff, his later recollections weren’t that clear. Around the same time the head cleric entered another a short distance away with a few lads who didn’t have much business in a church, and the young fighter went a bit loco. I couldn’t quite hear all the conversation, but it definitely seems our chum didn’t have a clear understanding of the circumstances and called the cleric out. One of the things I do recall about church hierarchy is that even lowly gambling den’s aren’t run by junior clerics, and we were potentially outnumbered and about to take a pounding. Fortunately the mephits went after the cleric and friends, so I broke cover and began a telling of Tho’Zed’s alliance with earth elementals in a long forgotten battle to bolster us and our new earthen allies and unleashed my whip and commenced trip maneuvers. In short order the barbarian and mephits wrought havoc among the cleric and the slavers he had business with. Something had enraged the barbarian enough that he took off alone after the one opponent who dared flee, but I’ll get that story from him later.

With the clergy out of the way we searched for the mentioned mistress, and anything worthwhile as well. I found evidence the gambling hall was rigged for cheating and at some point we found a trap door where the mephits originally showed up. We let the woman we found within out and she revealed the cleric’s fondness for selling debtors into slavery for extra personal funds. She was the next intended victim, but she wasn’t about to go peacefully.

Session 2

Since we’d taken out enough of the gang’s support to be missed, we kept up momentum and kept after their leader. Some intel indicated he might be at room he kept, but it turned out he’d already met his end. Some queer fellow was still present with the body and lacked the sense to either run or answer our questions so the barbarian subdued him with a chair. There’s not even an attempt at leadership yet, but I’ll wait to see what happens when the disagreements start. The queer fellow eventually decided to tag along with us and we soon discovered someone else was in charge and continued on to the gang’s warehouse, already identified.

This time there was the spark of a plan, but it quickly fell apart and became a minor bloodbath. I’d taken a route up an adjacent building to a second floor entry with all but the Inn workers, who supposedly would create a diversion at the front, but someone got a little too eager and noisily dropped a trapped part of the second floor. We were quickly attacked by bolts from the windows and went at haste for whoever had spotted us. I took out the dwarf I thought was the leader, but it turned out I was wrong. I wouldn’t have guessed the nearly naked wench just sitting on the bed was the leader, but she unfortunately revealed herself instead of hightailing it.

Our newest member was put down (again) when gang members who must have been sleeping came out and caught him unawares. The Inn workers had meanwhile charged right in the front door and eventually hacked their way upstairs, with the barbarian fortunately taking the brunt of the b*~!+’s ire. Between a couple of us we ground her down enough before the barbarian passed out.

It appeared the gang was sitting on merchandise instead of coin, probably while they hadn’t paid yet, so we just had the client collect that and he soon paid our fee, in a much more convenient form. We’d managed to pick up some other odds and ends from the recently departed, and I came out with a nice armor upgrade (no holes or blood even) and crossbow package. We wound up with the deed on the warehouse area and someone with too much spare coin decided we should fix the place up and run fights from the adjacent building. He even has a contractor lined up to start work soon, but I don’t think he’s thought through needing to maintain a lower profile.

Campaign journal from a PF/3.5 homebrew game

The cast of miscreants:
Allistar / Human? Fighter
Argus / Half-elf Bard
Bolthaz / Half-elf Necromancer
Brendan / Human Ranger
Carl / Gnome Druid
Grogg / Goblin Oracle
Kragg / Orc Barbarian
Vali / Human Rogue

Session 1

It started with a shortage of coin that had gone on too long. One of my usual contributors, a family friend back from when the slave trade covered my expenses, knew a guy who needed a few people with some talent in debt collection. The usual bag of material was getting a little too well known around the docks so I figured it was time for some new inspiration. The meet was set at an Inn that looked bad enough to condemn and smelled worse. That smell turned out to be the food, which would be best not described.

The talent that showed appeared to be a rag-tag group of burn-outs and wannabe’s, half running the Inn as their normal means of support. I counted a mage, a thief, and a ranger from the normal races, as well as an orc barbarian and some sort of goblin shaman. After the incident last summer I really didn’t want to lead such a sorry bunch again, so played it cool and observed the group dynamics.

The patron didn’t quite spell it out, but his rundown sounded like some minor gang had failed to maintain their tithe to the guild. While he mentioned getting payment, he seemed more concerned with making an example of them. It sounded like a good way to at least make some new contacts and coin, but I thought I’d try not to stand out so quickly.
It didn’t take much effort to figure out where we could find the gang and head over to bring some pain. The group had no concept of planning and just barreled into a fight. There was little to memorialize, but it didn’t go as poorly as it could have. Unfortunately, the man we needed to collect from wasn’t present so it looked like the job would take a bit longer.