Shaella's page

My group just finished up the last encounter before Tazion last night. I just wanted to add a few things that I felt worked for adding to the feeling that they were racing the other factions (some shamelessly stolen from these boards!)

- The warehouse fire delayed the party's faction (Pathfinders)leaving, and it was made clear that the rival faction (Aspis) had planned it. Aspis had gone through some length to buy up some very specific items throughout Eleder that would be needed for an expedition (medicines, anti-toxins, etc) that were missing from the Pathfinder gear after the fire. This also gave them a reason to search out Nkechi, as he was a source of information about how to get these supplies from tribes during the trip.

- Once they were restocked and ready to leave, the Sargavan government closed the gates, delaying the expedition yet again. I allowed the party to leave a few days ahead and start trailblazing, but made clear that the expedition would be lagging behind.

- In Kalabuto, the Sargavan government was in full force again, having placed a quarantine on all pack animals that entered the city. The group had to get word to the expedition not to enter the city or risk all the pack mules. It was great fun seeing the druid fuming about all the animals being packed into an unsanitary kennel and fed with moldy feed.

- The Last Hurrah was in port in Kalabuto, with the majority of the crew very obviously missing and the ship set to be docked for a long time.

- The party had a few NPCs with them (Nkechi, some porters, a camp mom, some messengers to go between the PC's and the expedition) and the rival agents took them hostage instead of targeting the PC's directly. They stole the PC's supplies and hid them in a cache at the docks. One of the agents escaped the fight with the PCs and made it back to the cache to try and make off with some loot, only to be trailed by a Red Mantis agent. He was killed and the assassin left a sawtooth blade in his chest as a warning. The party's food was also poisoned, but they didn't check it before they left, since they were feeling rushed to leave town ASAP. Since they were traveling along the river for a while after Kalabuto, they didn't break into the rations until they were days out of the city. Several days of food poisoning with zero progress made towards trailblazing really made them nervous.

- After the food poisoning delay, the next encounter was the dire ape, and what scared them more than that encounter was the bodies of the other faction, a sign that they had fallen behind. By the time they got to the spirit dancers they got into a big debate about if they had the time to spare to get the tattoos, even though that time was measured in hours, not days.