Shaonir's page

3) There is an alchemist's lab in the monastery. Another in Kelmarane, owned by the harpy Undrella. It is stated that she was there when Kelmerane fell.

Was she once a sister of the monastery - a human before she became a harpy? Did she work in the lab, studying the Vardishal mold, and then expand her knowledge by visiting the Shrine of Nethys and beginning work on the Infusium device?

Was she responsible for the plague? Or was she trying to find a cure? Did exposure to the strange magics of the Nethys shrine, or even the wishcraft of the Vardishal mold, transform her into a harpy?

Was it, in fact, Undella, who cured the plague, perhaps by releasing something from the Infusium... but by then she was so far transformed that she could not reveal herself to the people... and by coincidence Xulthos arrived in town and took credit for ending the plague?

Can anyone with foreknowledge assist? I think my party are taking a shine to Kardswann, and will probably keep him alive by any means possible.

It says at the end of Part 1 that "Ramifications of Kardswann’s survival and redemption are explored in later adventures in this
Adventure Path." But I can't see these anywhere. I did a search for "Kardswann" in the later parts, but no luck.

I also searched for Nefeshti, since it mentioned that he would probably report back to her. But right now I don't know where Nefeshti is either.

Does anyone have oversight of the "ramifications"?

AAAAAAAAAGH! One of my players named her character Tempest!

And she was the rogue! And she became the Moldspeaker! Then she dug up a blade with her own name on it!

Aaaargh!

2) It's possible that the tree is called the Sultan's Claw because, when the sun rises, it will cast finger-like shadows across the sand. From a distance it will look like a hand raking the ground, leaving dark tracts in it. Like a greedy man digging for treasures.

I've noticed Paizo adventures are chock full of strange coincidences and thematic curiosities. I'll keep track of my observations as I begin playing this...

1) The first encounter features a goat going missing, and a man being blamed for something he didn't do. An ESCAPED GOAT, and a SCAPEGOAT. In Jewish lore, there must be one good goat that is treated well (the goat for Yahweh), and one bad goat that is scorned (the goat for Azazel). This is how a community comes together and purifies itself. In Legacy of Fire, it is how the party comes together and performs its first noble deeds.

According to Incident at Absalom Station, both the Steward fleet and the Armada are "required" to defend the station in times of trouble.

So is that "required" with a soft R... as in all these independent ships will naturally defend themselves if something comes their way, so Absalom Security counts upon their self-interest to be of value.

Or is it "required" with a hard R... as in the moment a ship enters Abasalom's airspace and docks up with the Armada, they are under legal obligation to defend Absalom Station if they want to continue benefiting from access privileges and tax breaks?

My crew's about to arrive at Absalom Station and dock with the Armada. So I'm wondering if there needs to be a PSA that they pick up which instructs them which quadrant they have to defend and how many space goblins they have to repel before claiming compensation for lost ammunition.

Chapter 2 – The Skinsaw Murders

PART FOUR: THE MISGIVINGS

So, for the Foxglove Manor chapter, I went straight down the Event Horizon route. Because who wouldn't?

As the party made their way through the Muscovin freighter, they found evidence of various horrors. It seemed that the crew had taken a strange artifact on board and then tried to Drift jump back to Absalom Station. The jump had failed halfway, resulting in the ship being caught between the Material Plane and the Shadow Plane.

The "artifact" in this case was a lifepod - a lifepod from the Azlanti Empire, containing none other than our golden girl Xanesha. After being found floating in space, the crew of the Muscovin brought her on board, and immediately became exposed both to her mind-affect powers and to the nanobots that she carried with her.

Lorrey, the ship's android, suffered a horrific transformation as the nanobots tied to convert her into a Skinsaw Spider. She died as a result, and this is what caused Doctor Craesby to flee the ship. Later on, one of the gunners, Cyralie, tried to jettison Xanesha's lifepod, only to be blown out of the airlock herself when Travers, the navigation officer, became corrupted and spaced his crewmate. In a moment of brief respite from his Xanesha-induced madness, Travers was consumed by remorse and shot himself in his quarters.

Desperate to get help, the ship attempted a Drift jump to Absalom Station. But the moment the Drift portal was torn open, Xanesha's xanobots tried to repair it, sensing that it was a threat to their queen's lifepod. The nanbots were thus locked in an unending conflict with the Drift drive - one trying to open the portal while the other tried to close it.

The pilot, Vorel, and the engineer, Kassanda were both consumed by the Shadow Plane as it infected the ship. Foxglove, likewise, became utterly corrupted and murdered the remaining two gunners, Sendeli and Zeeva. Consumed by remorse, he fled the ship and took its shuttle to Sandpoint (a place he knew because of the various trades his crew had done with Doctor Habe and Caizarlu). He was planning to hide out there with Habe and Caizarlu, when he was caught up in the goblin raids.

After being spurned by the party a week later, Foxglove returned to the Muscovin, and on the way back to Xanesha's corrupting influence he jettisoned the remaining cargo of smuggled androids over the Hambley Moon, which were now long infected by the Azlanti nanobots. He also programmed one of them (Grayst) to go after the PC who had spurned him.

When the party finally tracked Foxglove down, he was in the midst of trying to complete the Drift jump, following Xanesha's orders to take him to Absalom Station. Foxglove was now (like the rest of the crew) fully consumed by the influence of Xanesha and the Shadow Plane which had half-swallowed the ship. Assuming Kyton form, he attacked the party, and was defeated only when they blew him out of the airlock.

The party moved to open the Azlanti pod and slay Xanesha. But in the time that Foxglove had brought for her, the Lamia had escaped, slipping directly into the Shadow Plane.

The party could not risk following her. They escaped the disintegrating freighter, and took with them as much information as they could. Foremost among it were the logs of Captain Foxglove's plans to take Xanesha's pod to the Brotherhood and use it to impress them and win himself membership of their exclusive organization.

Now Nualia, Habe, and Foxglove were joined by a common thread... and all clues pointed to the Brotherhood... and to the Azlanti Queen who was traveling to meet them.

You're right. The Mammon factor may have to become the new threat, especially if Lady Kaltessa gets drawn into the fray. The PCs want to help the siblings, but the contract means that Chammady is increasingly under threat, while Ecarrdian is increasingly going off the rails.

1055. "Aroden H. Christ!" is not an authentic exclamation.

Wish I had read this two months ago...

My party has currently JOINED UP with Ilnerik and Ecarrdian, so I'm in real uncharted territory, watching the PCs turn to Evil.

Ecarrdian was successful in releasing Liebdaga and doing a deal with him to stage a public dual in which Ecarrdian "banished" the devil and saved the city. So right now the Golden Scion is on top of the world, and the PCs actually WANT him to succeed and stick it to the man.

So... I might be leaning on your wisdom here to chart the way ahead.

I did a little of this when Chammady turned up at the Cornucopia Banquet. I had a very scary Serafian hanging around as her bodyguard, and also had Vassindio present, being an absolute... delight... talking about how in the good old days he would have had the players hanged in the street for daring to speak/look/exist at him. He then moved on to talking about a "woman's place", and this allowed me to subtly hint that Chammady was tolerating his ass until the inevitable sibling shanking session.

The tension came from the early revelation that Serafian was the long-lost elven mother of Arael. But that kinda thing might not float your boat.

At this point in the plot, Chammady could perhaps mislead them about Cutlass Cove - tell them some spooky stories about ghosts and pirates that gives them completely the wrong impression, or something else that makes them uniquely vulnerable to the Shadow Beast ambush that waits for them there.

Likewise, some grisly tales about what happened to Sivanshin and Bisby on their Mwangi expedition could set things up nicely for the Delvehaven chapter. I think the horrible things that happened in the jungle really contributed to Sivanshin's decision to embrace the darkness.

Reprimanding/punishing a servant is a good idea, especially if it echoes that childhood episode where Chammady got a handmaid dismissed for picking on Ecarrdian. I think she's always been very good at pointing out people's flaws - a necessity, really, to divert judgement away from her beloved brother. In my game she's something of an Inquisitor, bringing others to repentance and shame (the handmaid from the childhood episode was Janiven's mother, exiled and forced to raise her child on the edge of society).

You could also have the Shadow Beasts lurking around - maybe a scene where they are glimpsed through the windows or outside the door. But of course Chammady has no fear of them, or is deliberately using them to stage something.

Maybe have Vuiper Ghivel there as a guest, and show how he is besotted with Chammady and trying to hide it, while also trying to effect his theological blend of Asmodean and Abadaran beliefs. Good foreshadowing for the last chapter.

The Ghivel townhouse might be a good setting for the dinner that doesn't give too much away. Likewise, the Gargling Gargoyle if you want to keep clear of the Parego Dospera for now. Chammady might also have a VIP section at the Pleatra Slave Market. I did a great scene where I was intercutting the characters' conversations with the sight of slaves being brought in from the Xin-Shalast expeditions and auctioned off to various diabolists and tyrants. Delicious symbolism.

Or you could be too cool for school and have the dinner take place on a luxury barge, floating along the river. That way Chammady could give a guided tour of the outer walls of the Parego, i.e. the king's abandoned castle, the noble villas, Walcourt, etc. I like to drop in as often as I can the story of how Queen Koridanna arrived in Westcrown to subdue its lawlessness and had to choose between a bloodbath and doing a deal with the Council of Thieves. Because that very history is about to repeat itself when General Vourne shows up at the end of the adventure. Likewise, some mention of House Thrune and how it has Pit Fiends on tap will foreshadow the Infernal Syndrome.

And when you're done, you can reuse the dinner barge as the slave barge in Part Six.

As for Chammady herself, I always like to hint at how she is not so much a villain as someone compelled by love. Ecarrdian is all she has in this world, and vice versa, and with their fates so entwined there is nothing they will not do for one another. Perhaps that is a bond AS strong or STRONGER than what the PCs share right now. As such, he sense of loyalty and drive could either be an inspiration or a humiliation to the party.

Yeah, my party includes a grig jigger and an Inquisitor. They're going to tear Eccardian to shreds. Perhaps Magus is the way to go.

:(

You have brought misery to this house.

So... if an Inquisitor can use Discern Lies... does that mean he can use Part the Veil to cast Confusion whenever he Discerns Lies?

Cos... my inquisitor is played by Mads Mikkelsen. And asking probing questions that drive people insane would be exquisite.

Part the Veil (Su): At 8th level, you can lace spells you cast with the raw madness that waits in the outer darkness. Activating this ability is a swift action that you must use as you cast a spell that targets a single creature and that allows a Will saving throw to negate or reduce the spell's primary effect. If the target fails to resist the spell, the target is also confused for a number of rounds equal to the spell's level as visions of the void cause temporary insanity.

So... can Khazrae use all of her spell-like abilities... including Teleport and Summon?

I don't see why not, and I can't see anything in her backstory about losing these spells. You would just have to persuade her to do it each time, and maybe roll on the Confusion table to see if she prefers to yodel instead.

Spell-Like Abilities (CL 12th)

Constant — true seeing
At will — fear (single target, DC 19), greater teleport (self plus 50 lbs. of objects only), minor image (DC 17), unholy blight (DC 19)
1/day — summon (level 3, 2 bearded devils, 50%)

Well, my bard was so successful in wrapping the Bastards around her finger that she's now got them in place to attack the Cornucopia Dinner Party as a distraction. So they're probably going to die... but not before they kill some important, drugged-up nobles.

Also, at he party I included Avahzi Serafian as a bodyguard for Chammady, and reasoned that she is Arael's estranged mother - a Forlorn who abandoned him after giving birth to him.

Furthermore, I have Janiven as the daughter of the house maid who Chammady got ejected from her home as a child.

So now, Janiven and Arael are directly linked to the Drovenges.

At the party, I also included Delilee the Doppelganger (who was there to be hedonistic as f%@+), and Verennie, who was there to indulge some of her lawless cravings. I also had Vassindio, the Mhartises, the Ciuccis, Vuiper Ghivel and Captain Cervesi.

This allowed for a lot of foreshadowing... but yeah... the Bastards attacking the party with these lot there could be... plot-changing.

One of my PCs is infiltrating the Bastards of Erebus and has managed to convince Palaveen that she works for the Council. As a result, I've had to develop both the cleric and his tieflings.

While doing so, I realized that the Bastards are the thematic mirror of the Children of Westcrown. Two groups of outcasts gathered together by an idealistic cleric in an abandoned church.

Both are trying to make the general public react in some way to their exploits. I think the numbers in each gang are roughly equal too.

Also, the vagrant that Arael meets with to get intelligence on the Bastards could well be Jerusen, in his human state before getting Ilnerikity-wrecked. So Jerusen could well show up in Chapter 1 for some foreshadowy shenanigans.

Thirdly, the blood and sewer water that the Bastards feed to the dogs to make the Hell Dogs could have been made by Ophal, who is the closest friendly alchemist to their location. Could be a nice side-income for the old lady.

I'll update this thread with more as I play through. It could be useful to DMs looking to make plot links.

Ah, wordcount. One sympathizes.

I had my party racing against time to stop Yads and Berthandy Kesker from strapping a halfling bomb (TM) to the side of the barge.

Also, I demand an answer to Question 7, James. I think you owe it to all of us. Do the coins fall on Ghlorofaex's head?

I have a single player (a bard) knocking on the door of their lair right now...

So she's either gonna die, or convince them that she's delivering some of the blood and alchemical fluids that the Bastards are using to create Hell Dogs.

She previously spotted Ophal selling some of this stuff to one of the Bastards. So the bluff may just work...

Questions that still prick my restless soul in the dead of night:

1) Does Aeryn Barret still have nightmares?
2) Why didn't Craesby notice Foxglove stuffing a body in the attic?
3) Is the Black Magga still swimming around in that lake?
4) Why did the writers sink the Paradise instead of designing an awesome Casino Heist challenge?
5) Was Longtooth the father of those two baby dragons under Jorgenfist? Did he betray and capture his OWN CHILDREN?
6) What lengths did Khalib go to while perfecting his Yeti act?
7) Were the coins that the PCs put into the Portal of Greed dropping directly on Ghlorofaex's head? Is that why he's grumpy?

I think Groetus was faking it, to be honest.

Chapter 2 – The Skinsaw Murders

PART THREE: WALKING SCARECROWS

The interrogation of Habe and Caizarlu revealed that they were brought together by a mysterious group call The Brotherhood, who provided funds to people conducting research beyond the scruples of the Law. As with Nualia, the Brotherhood had used a dynamically-changing email address, and had refused to offer further help unless they were presented with Azlanti artifacts.

Doctor Habe also revealed that the androids they were picking up from the Varisian Bay were being delivered via lifepods from the Bleaklow System.

The party dropped off the villains with Hemlock, then jetted off to Bleaklow, a gas giant on the edge of the Diaspora. Following the coded signal from Caizarlu's last android order, they arrived at the moon of Hambley, a farming colony with a population of around 30 that worked on massive hydroponic farms and had their harvests picked up every 3-4 months.

As the party took the ship down, it quickly became clear that there was no sign of the population. Before they could investigate further, a ship appeared on the sensors, seemingly fleeing from the ground below. It attacked the PCs in a state of panic, and a space battle ensued, which ended with the enemy ship crashing down into one of the hydroponic irrigation shafts.

Unable to follow them down in the ship, the PCs rappelled into the shaft and tried to investigate the burning crash site. But at that point a couple of farmers, and a man named Craesby staggered from the wreckage and attacked them. The PCs subdued them, but all the while they were screaming "The Skinsaws are coming! The Skinsaws are coming!"

The reason for their terrified babbling soon became clear. There were androids on the moon - androids like Grayst - these ones fully transformed by the mysterious nanobots into spider-like forms (seven-legged Azlanti murder bots with a penchant for dissection). They had dissected most of the farmers, and the survivors had tried to get out on Craesby's ship.

Before they could pull any more survivors from the wreckage, the PCs came under siege. More than two dozen Skinsaw Spiderbots crawled into the shaft, seeking to harvest the fresh DNA of the PCs. A battle ensued, and the party narrowly survived.

As the smoke cleared, the leader of the survivors - Craesby - revealed that he was a doctor. In particular, the ship's doctor from an explorer vessel known as the Muscovin. He had fled here from the orbit of the Bleaklow gas giant, shortly before the Spiders landed and set about harvesting the population. The survivors had been fixing up an escape ship and living in hiding all this time.

Craesby directed the PCs to recalibrate their sensors and point them at the Bleaklow gas giant. And there they saw it... a ship. The Muscovin - cloaked in the upper atmosphere, its thrusters and Drift drive active.

But the ship wasn't moving. It was half-in and half-out of the Drift portal, seemingly trapped - caught between two dimensions.

Craesby told them that the Muscovin ('Misgivings' - get it?) belonged to Captain Foxglove... and that the Spiders (and Grayst) had been sent from it, jettisoned in the ship's many lifepods.

The party had tracked the Skinsaw Murders to their source.

As a Kasathan Mystic stuck in the Science Officer role, I heartily endorse this idea. I would love to be able to use my cerebral, philosophical side in a way that doesn't involve me fumbling with Computer checks.

Chapter 2 – The Skinsaw Murders

PART TWO: THE THING IN THE ATTIC

Arriving in their starship outside Habe's Sanitorium (For Deranged Androids), the party were able to convince the staff that they were deputies under Sheriff Hemlock. The nervous doctor let them inside, and allowed them to view the older patients: Sedge - an android who had become paranoid, complaining of strange malfunctions in his perception circuits; Wald - an android obsessed with contortion, climbing and other physical feats well beyond the abilities of his deteriorating body; and Pidge (I gender-swapped Pidget, mostly to make a Voltron joke) - an android obsessed with blades and the maiming of animals. Habe had so far been unable to find the cause of their respective dementias.

The three patients were notably agitated, but the party put this down to landing a starship on the front lawn. Habe led the party to Grayst's cell, while explaining that Grayst was ranting about the "second moon" and claiming that he was a hunter undergoing lunar transformation.

When they opened the cell, Grayst gasped in shock, and his milk-white eyes fixed on one of the PCs - the same PC who had been cloned in Part 1. At the very same moment, a frantic message came through on the party's comms. It was Sheriff Hemlock, from the crime scene on Junker's Edge. His forensics tests had just revealed who the second body was in the shack.

...it was the clone's.

For reasons yet to be uncovered, Grayst was revealed as an android assassin. He had arrived on the planet a few days ago, and had been tracking one of the PCs. But as dumb luck would have it, this was the same PC who was cloned. So Grayst ended up killing the clone while it was attacking the vagrant on Junker's Edge.

Realizing that his target was still alive, Grayst went into attack-mode again. And, by means of nanobots that he had been steadily disseminating through the sanitorium, he was able to get Sedge, Wald and Pidge under the influence of his hivemind. In a sudden moment of horror, Doctor Habe realized now why his three older patients had been complaining of strange sounds, physical urges and violent impulses. It was the nanobots reprogramming their bodies.

The four patients broke out and butchered the orderlies, Gortus and Gurnak. This was not only a killing, but a clinical dissection. The patients ripped the two brothers apart, removing bones and organs, exacting the same kind of anatomical destruction that the party had witnessed in the hobo shack. Again, the reason for this behaviour is yet to be revealed.

The party fled, with a terrified Doctor Habe, down to the basement, and there encountered Caizarlu, who in this version was a Technomancer involved in the illegal trade of androids. He was also the father of Lyrie Akenja, who had taken after her old man when stealing the cyborgs used by Nualia's forces in chapter 1.

The criminal operation was exposed. Habe and Caizarlu were conspiring to reprogram androids (physically and psychologically) and sell them on as slaves, soldiers and sexbots. Their mysterious suppliers would deliver androids to the planet via lifepods that would crash into the sea and then get picked up by Gortus and Gurnak and brought back to the clinic.

They had picked up Sedge, Wald and Pidge earlier that month via the usual method. But they were too late to pick up Grayst - the assassin slipped his pod while still underwater and swam ashore to make his kill. Nonetheless, Habe and Caizarlu counted it as good luck when Hemlock delivered Grayst right back into their hands after the murders. They were getting ready to reprogram all four of their patients for sale when they started manifesting strange behaviour on account of the nanobots.

It seemed that even Habe and Caizarlu were at a loss to why Grayst had been programmed to kill that one PC.

The party made a last stand and defeated the rogue androids. Then they arrested Habe and Caizarlu and prepared to question them about exactly WHO was sending these androids to them in lifepods.

They would also have some questions about an email found on Habe's computer... from a mysterious group who said they were “considering his request for membership”.

Chapter 2 – The Skinsaw Murders

PART ONE: MURDER MOST FOUL

So, chapter 2 took place a month after Nualia's defeat. The Thistlerock monitoring station, as well Erylium's dungeon under the Old Light, were locked down by Sheriff Hemlock. To bolster defenses, he requested help from Abadarcorps, and they sent over some ships and personnel from Absalom Station. But with the goblins lying low, Abadacorps instead focused on restoring local businesses and helping Ameiko Kaijitsu take over her father's computer factory. This is how I justified Starpoint Colony gaining access to Tier 4 equipment and goods.

Captain Foxglove abandoned the party early on, hopping on the next freight ship off-world without another word. Shalelu was hospitalized for devil chills (from a nasty Malfeshnikor bite), but while recovering she allowed the party to make use of the body shop owned by her boyfriend, Hosk. So for most of the month's downtime the party were able to fix up Shadowmist into a working Tier 4 starship.

Now, if the reader recalls, the party encountered a Vargouille while down in Erylium's cloning facility. This Vargouille just so happened to bite one of the PCs, which as you know causes their hair to fall out. As such, the party overlooked the fact that one of them had been walking around this cloning facility while shedding copious amounts of DNA.

This is how the Skinsaw Murders began. The machines in Erylium's facility were working according to their default protocols, so when the PC contaminated the labs, the machines were able to manufacture just one more Sinspawn-like clone before Erylium was destroyed. With this clone's DNA exactly matching one of party members, I was able to recreate all the good Chapter 2 fun of making people suspect one of the PCs as the Skinsaw Man.

After being birthed, the PC's clone followed the old smuggling tunnels used by the Sczarni, and came up outside the Pixie's Kitten nightclub. Those familiar with the Sandpoint NPC list will know that one of the girls at the Pixie's Kitten (Jass) is a Sczarni informant. I reasoned that Jass's scent would be all over the tunnels around the nightclub, since she spent a lot of time covering for the smugglers. So when the clone reached the surface, he followed the girl's scent to the nightclub and attacked her in Jass's private dressing room (also murdering one of her clients, Ibor Thorn). And of course, plenty of eyewitnesses in the smoky, poorly-lit nightclub got a glimpse of the murderer and gave descriptions matching one of the PCs.

The clone escaped after the double murder, and fled to Junker's Edge, on the north side of the colony. It tried to hide out, but got surprised by three vagrants living in one of the shacks: a trio of hobos named Mortwell, Hask and Tabe. This is how the second set of murders occurred.

With Hemlock having his own personal connection to the Pixie's Kitten, he sprung into action and confronted the party while they were fixing up their starship. Partly to gauge their reactions, and partly to give them the benefit of the doubt, Hemlock brought them along to the nightclub and showed how the DNA of the one of the PCs was all over the dressing room.

But when the Sczarni connection was revealed, and the hair follicles examined, the PC bitten by the Vargouille worked out what had happened and gave his full support to Hemlock to clear his name. The investigation led them to the junkyard where the three hobos were killed, and they put pressure on Gorvi, a foulmouthed Vesk who owned the scrapyard and gave odd jobs to the homeless. Gorvi dug out his security tapes, and the footage, naturally, showed someone very much like the framed PC trying to hide out in an old shack, where it was surprised by the three vagrants squatting there.

But the footage also showed something else - a fourth man soaked in blood and crawling out of that shack a few minutes after the sounds of carnage faded. A fourth hobo, it seemed, but one with augmentations.

Hemlock recognized the figure as Grayst Sevilla, a local android who had helped in the colony's construction but had since become unemployed and glitchy, living rough on the streets. A quick call back to the police station revealed that Grayst had been picked up by a patrol on the cliffs that same morning. The officers, thinking the android defective, had dropped Grayst off at the one place where he could get some professional help and maintenance...

...Erin Habe's android psychiatric clinic, a few miles south of Starpoint Colony.

The PCs set out (in their shiny new starship) to visit the clinic and interview Grayst. Hemlock, meanwhile, stayed at the shack to wait for the forensics team. Because, while the clone's DNA was all over the shack, there was also another mystery...

Inside the shack, there seemed to be a fourth body - someone besides the hobos. And this fourth corpse had been utterly ripped apart - its bones cracked open, its skin flayed, its organs laid out with anatomical precision, blood sprayed and pooled all over the room. Such was the extent of the gory desecration that there was no telling who this fourth victim was.

Hemlock started testing the DNA, while the PCs landed outside Habe's android clinic, hoping to get an interview with Grayst.

But who would crack the case first...?

My players are reading this, so I can neither confirm nor deny that.

But if you remember how you-know-who protected himself from the you-know-what, and how he had certain links with you-know-where, that might give you a clue.

o_o Well, we finished Chapter 1 last night. So it'll take a while to blog the next part. Luckily, our android character has decided to seek some professional therapy from that nice Doctor Habe, who specializes in human/automaton schizophrenia.

Chapter 1 – Burnt Offerings

I set up Varisia as a frontier world on the edge of the Pact System – a small planet colonized by four corporations roughly fifty years ago. Its only known menaces are goblin scavengers, who live among the moons and space junk that orbit the world (the colony ships left behind a lot of garbage and spaceship parts before making landfall, so the goblins have turned these into a bases).

The quest began with the reopening of the Sandpoint Spaceport, which was my stand-in for the cathedral. The Spaceport had been mysteriously destroyed five years before. A faulty fuel line was blamed. The spaceport director and his daughter (Tobyn and Nualia) died in the blast. But now, after five years, and with investment from the four founding families, the spaceport was finally ready for reopening. To celebrate the occasion, Sandpoint had lifted all import taxes and travel fees for anyone visiting the spaceport. This is how my party members entered the story. One was a taxi driver local to Sandpoint; one was a visiting scientist; and two were criminals hoping for a safe place to lie low.

The spaceport was a large complex with multiple businesses inside it, such as Ameiko Kaijitsu’s noodle bar, Ven Vinder’s trading post, Jasper Korvaski’s taxi service, and so forth. The players got to meet everyone while touring the lobby. I also made it clear that the Kaijitsu Corporation was a local producer of laptop computers, and many of these computers were on display at merchandise stands around the spaceport. The main exhibits were some new drones designed by the Kaijitsu Corporation which looked like pretty butterflies. These were released during the opening speeches and started buzzing around the lobby.

Also at the merchandise tables were crates stuffed with goblins. The critters made their attack as the butterfly-drones were released, and it quickly became clear that the drones were assisting them in locking doors, hacking systems and causing mayhem. The party dealt with them as expected, and also rescued another visiting space captain – one Aldern Foxglove, who came very close to being shot by the commando.

After saving the spaceport, the party rested up in the Sandpoint infirmary, and there came under siege from news crews and grateful colonists. Their doctor, Erin Habe, managed to clear out the mob, while Director Zantus and Marshall Hemlock explained how all flights to and from Varisia were now on hold, since they couldn’t work out how the goblins had reached the planet’s surface. The party would have to wait until the quarantine was lifted.

While cooped up in the infirmary, the party had to contend with the overly-familiar approaches of a fellow patient: Captain Foxglove. Amid the flattery and creepy looks, Foxglove dropped an important nugget of information for later – the fact that he owned a personal starship. While explaining this, the infirmary started suffering blackouts and power glitches. The party (somewhat eager to get away from Foxglove) investigated, and found four cyborgs in the server room, hooked to the computer archives and uploading data to somewhere off-world. Just like in the original, Tsuto had put them there while the goblins caused a distraction. The cyborgs activated their defense systems when discovered, and a fight ensued. The party was then able to hack the least damaged android and learn that the intruders were uploading data from the personal files of the previous director – the deceased Ezakien Tobyn.

Leaving the androids to be studied by Hemlock, the party accepted an invitation from Ameiko Kaijitsu (whose noodle bar they had saved) to crash at her apartment. But when they arrived at the hab complex they found a bunch of Kaijitsu personal security guards standing in the corridor. From the room beyond they could hear Ameiko arguing with her father about the computer company, the loss of the Swallowtail drones, the death of Atsui, the disappearance of Tsuto, and all that other family drama. The party considered confronting Lonjiku about the fact that it was his merchandise crates that the goblins were smuggled in on. But the old man had too much security. Lonjiku and his goons stormed out.

While comforting a distraught Ameiko, and preparing for a good night’s sleep, the party heard shots and explosions from the other side of the apartment complex. They left Ameiko and went to investigate, and there ran into some goblin commandos who were hiding out in one of the other apartments. They were holding the Barrett family hostage, since the Barretts worked at the spaceport and the goblins believed they could get them a ship to escape off-world.

As the firefight broke out, the party received unexpected aid from the bounty hunter Shalelu, who in this version was a Bobba Fett-style badass with a jump pack and a plasma rifle who came crashing through the window. Apparently, she had been hired to track down any remaining goblin fugitives on the planet.

While untying the Barrett family and cleaning up the mess, Shalelu gave the party the low-down on the local goblin tribes that inhabit the moons and debris fields around Varisia. She explains that she has a ship which was allowed through the quarantine, and is using it to patrol and clear out the colony.

The conversation, however, cost the party valuable time. For when they returned to Ameiko’s apartment they found it ransacked and Ameiko gone. Also missing was Ameiko’s security card for the Kaijitsu Factory. A quick hack into the apartment’s security cameras revealed the long-lost Tsuto Kaijitsu dragging his sister down the stairwell while the firefight in the Barrett apartment caused the perfect distraction.

Tracking Tsuto to the Kaijitsu Computer Factory, the party broke in and found a half-dozen dead security guards. The factory’s speaker system was also broadcasting the last confession of Lonjiku Kaijitsu. In the recording the old CEO admitted to murdering his wife and performing a hostile takeover of the company. He also confessed to smuggling the goblins onto the planet aboard one of his freight ships. With the cover of this horrific confession, delivered via torture, playing on all speakers, the party was able to get the drop on the goblins in the computer assembly room. They defeated them, found Lonjiku’s mutilated corpse, then spotted Tsuto trying to force Ameiko aboard a small shuttle that was firing up its engines. The party killed Tsuto before he could set a course back to a mysterious destination in the planet’s orbit.

In the aftermath, the party comforted Ameiko and learned the tragic story of the Kaijitsu family. When asked why Tsuto kidnapped her, Ameiko revealed that her brother was trying to get into the service tunnels under the factory. The siblings used to play there as children, until their father discovered this and sealed up the tunnels. She also mentions a time, several years ago, when they found a strange tunnel that didn’t appear to have been built by humans. And while down there, they ran into another teenager who was snooping around – the daughter of the spaceport director, Nualia Tobyn.

This is where the story of Nualia and Tsuto was revealed. It turns out the colony was built next to an ancient alien ruin – a tower of unusual construction believed to be over 10,000 years old. I called this the Vetalux (a mangled Latin version of “Old Light”), and explained that the colony had flourished by tapping power from the mysterious structure. Though many had tried to explore the Vetalux (including Professor Quink and Ethram Valdemar), most had ended up going mad or suffering debilitating illnesses. But one man refused to give up: Ezakien Tobyn. The former spaceport director was so obsessed with learning the alien secrets that he forced his own daughter to assist him in cracking the security in the Vetalux’s inner chambers.

Nualia was so overworked and exhausted that she became even more estranged from her fellow colonists (who already thought her a freak because of her albinism). The only one who comforted her was Tsuto, who took to joining her on her secret forays into the alien structure. But Tsuto, just like Tobyn, was completely unaware of the dangerous radiation down there – radiation that spiked 5 years ago when the Vetalux received a mysterious reboot signal from deep space (this was my equivalent of the Minor Runewell flaring up. Until that moment the facility had been dormant). The radiation caused the secret love-child of Tsuto and Nualia to be stillborn, and Tsuto was forced to cut the child out of Nualia.

Needless to say, the event left Nualia traumatized. But the spilling of her blood and her baby’s genetic material had an unintended side-effect. It brought the Vetalux’s AI into full operation. The ancient AI, known as ERYLIUM, awoke and began resuming its primary protocol. Tsuto and Nualia learned that the chambers they had found were a cloning facility, where test subjects could be grown from local DNA samples. The Sinspawn in this version were essentially lab-grown clones who would be genetically tailored and then released onto the surface, so that the Vetalux could test its weapons on them. This gene-specific weapons testing was part of the Runelords’ effort to develop doomsday weapons keyed to specific demographics and species.

The now deranged Nualia clung to this discovery in order to preserve her sanity. She gave her stillborn child to Erylium, and watched as a clone of herself was created out of the infant’s DNA. The clone was born with a burning desire to go up to the surface, as were all the test subjects conditioned here. So that’s what Nualia did – she sent this clone of herself to the surface, to meet with her father in the spaceport. Tobyn was tricked into approaching Nualia, and then killed as a bomb-device implanted in the clone detonated. The security footage was just grainy enough to make people believe it was the real Nualia who perished.

Right before the explosion, Tsuto used a freight ship to get himself and Nualia off-world. They took with them the secrets learned from Erylium – the secrets of the Azlanti Empire, the ancient angels who had passed this way 10,000 years ago. Nualia began her training as a Solarian, growing obsessed with celestial light.

Fast-forward 5 years, and now Nualia and Tsuto were back, with mercenaries Lyrie and Orik at their side. They had taken over the Thistlerock Moon, and from there were coordinating the theft of Director Tobyn’s lockpicking algorithms and Murasaki’s cutting-edge laptop devices.

The party learned all this after going down into Erylium’s cloning facility, following one of Tsuto’s goblins who fled the firefight above. This goblin (Koruvus) hid out in the cloning room and stupidly started drinking some of the water there. The rapid mutations he suffered demonstrated just how accelerated the Azlanti cloning process had become. After killing Koruvus, the party also had to contend with several clones who had been created from a gang of Sczarni thieves who had stumbled upon the facility while scouting smuggling routes. The party had to fight their way through clones of Jubrayal, Podiker, Rozalia, Gressel, etc., before destroying the backup generator that Nualia had built to keep Erylium functioning.

Erylium’s last words hinted that her master had left her long ago, but this plot hook was, of course, downplayed. The more urgent information was about Nualia and Tsuto being down here 5 years ago. As well as kidnapping his sister, Tsuto had taken several of his father’s latest laptop products down to Erylium in order to install Azlanti software onto them. This software was to compliment the algorithms stolen from Tobyn.

Using both Foxglove’s and Shalelu’s ships, the party violated the quarantine and fought their way past the goblin junk-ships in the Hinterfield. They had to crash-land on the moon’s surface and have some mind-bending low gravity fights with some goblins led by the bugbear Bruthazmus. Then they stormed the Thistlerock moon base directly, and had a close call with Chief Ripnugget (who in this version drove a power loader instead of a gecko). The base’s mechanic, Gogmurt, was the only who made the sensible decision to run away (taking the goblin wives with him).

Next up, the party chased the arch-hacker Lyrie down a ladderwell into the base’s lower levels. These levels had the same architecture as Erylium’s facility. The PCs learned that the moon was in fact a monitoring station, built to compliment the Vetalux. The base, known as the Sentinel, would assist in the targeting of the Vetalux by identifying threats both on and beyond the planet. There were monitoring stations like this one on each of the three moons (representing Mosswood, Brinestump Marsh & Thistletop), but this here was the only one still operational. And Nualia was hard at work breaking through the various security barriers to reach the facility’s generator.

Of course, the PCs didn’t know that the “generator” in this case, was not just a machine, but our old slobbery TPK friend Malfeshnikor. They soon found out, though, when they were too late to stop Nualia cracking the final door code with her father’s algorithm. I used the idea from the original adventure where two demons were being used to power the Skull’s Crossing dam, only this time it was Malfie and the Hellcat trapped in magical circles. Both demons were released, but while the cat was a severely level-drained pushover, Malfie was his full blinky, buffy self. A three-way massacre broke out in which Lyrie was killed and Malfie was held back only by the Yeth Hounds pouncing on him. The PCs, with Shalelu and Foxglove tagging along, had to run for their lives. Luckily, they followed Nualia and Orik, who made the sensible choice to flee to the hangar bay.

There in the hangar was Orik’s ship, Shadowmist. I left the details of this ship deliberately generic, because this is going to be the starship that the party use for the rest of the adventure. While powering up the thrusters, Nualia tried to hold off the PCs with all manner of Solarian tricks, but the party was able to get past and leave her to the clutches of Malfeshnikor, who was chasing them down the tunnels like Jack Nicholson. Malfie slew Nualia, who prayed to “the angels” as her body was ripped apart. Orik quickly surrendered and helped the party launch the ship. But Malfie was still a hungry, hungry boy. He cast Levitate and we quickly played out an homage to Ridley Scott by having him latch onto the ship, about to Blink through the hull and tear everyone apart, before the pilot got the thrusters to engage and burn him to a crisp.

The party escaped, and below them the Sentinel fell silent, its two power generators lost. The goblin tribes were in tatters, and the survivors led away into hiding by Gogmurt. All that could be salvaged from the base’s files was an email sent to Nualia a few days ago, from a mysterious group who said they were “considering her request for membership” and would count any Azlanti relics as a definite advantage on her application.

And there on that escaping ship, traumatized by his experiences, was a pale and shivering Captain Foxglove, whose life had been saved by those big strong heroes…