Vermilleo's page

My GM used Cry Little Sister as Vanthus' theme.

Interesting choice...I like it :) I liked having multiple "themes" for Vanthus, though...he was too multifaceted a character (killing, betrayal, murder, hate, vengeance, arson, family, demons, pirates, uh...etc. :) to tie down with just one song.

:P

Well, I received a PM asking for specific details of the stuff I did. So here is at least some of it (more to follow later, eventually, when I have more time). Note: some of the stuff I have here was taken from or inspired by other threads on these forums. I don't really remember who or where. So while some of this is my own stuff, not all of it is. Anyone who recognizes anything, feel free to post links to the original threads :)

Also...this is long, rambling, and full of probably too much detail. But if you're not interested, just ignore this post (:

General
You can foreshadow quite a few events in the campaign before the party ever meets Lavinia. For example, if any of the party has adventurer or sailor relatives or backgrounds, you can drop hints about the legendary Isle of Dread, Journey's End, island-sized turtles big enough to swallow whole ships...and of plenty of other red herrings, such as ghost ships, krakens, sea serpents. If none of them have the appropriate background, just have them overhear it as part of a conversation between sailors or something. One thing I specifically recommend is to foreshadow the Crimson Fleet and the Sea Wyvern in this manner, maybe among merchants talking about a recent pirate attack somewhere.

You can also introduce some of the NPCs in this way. Avner Meravanchi ran into (and was a jackass towards) my party early on as they made their way to Vanderboren Manor, and didn't remember them at all the next time he saw them.

Prologue
At the very beginning of the campaign, I ran a prologue encounter taking place one year before the events in TINH. Several members of my group had played through the Age of Worms with me, and with the Wormfall Festival playing such a large part in TBG, I thought it would be a good place to sort of put the major players in the same place.

Basically, I had all the PCs be present in Sasserine when Kyuss broke free from his prison. From the jungles to the west, hordes of undead spilled forth to destroy the city, etc. The PCs (none of whom knew each other, except for two with shared backstory) found themselves fighting to survive against a horde of zombies (which, since zombies are pretty weak, they killed pretty easily). They kept looking for safety when they saw a nobleman being assaulted by a Spawn of Kyuss. After a long, difficult fight against the Spawn and a few zombies (Spawn of Kyuss are CR 5 if I remember correctly), they killed it and were just barely able to save the nobleman's life by cutting the Kyuss worm the Spawn had infested him with out of his flesh before it reached his brain.

Guess who the nobleman was? Vanthus Vanderboren, of course! :D

As an aside: Vanthus's backstory, as expanded on later in the campaign, seemed to imply that he should still have been on the Isle of Dread when this happened. They started figuring something was fishy when they found that out. (This was before the party found out about him summoning Pazuzu - or, as originally written, General something-or-other, some commander in Demogorgon's army - in Farshore.)

Another aside: my original plan was to keep increasing the difficulty of the encounters until the party died, eventually stomping them with an overworm if they lasted long enough. I ditched this idea for obvious reasons and I recommend you avoid it, too. Bad way to start the campaign :C

There Is No Honor (TINH)
When Lavinia asked them to help her save her brother from the bad crowd he'd fallen in with, they recognized him from the prologue. Right there, they all had an expectation that he would be (i) an important NPC, and (ii) an ally.

Also, as mentioned elsewhere, I had Vanthus dragged off to the Isle of Dread by his parents for character development (rather than being sent to some random place - I don't even remember where the original AP said he was) while Lavinia went to Thenalar Academy. I figured this fit much better for all kinds of reasons. This didn't really come into play much until later in the campaign, but I added one detail when the party gets into Vanderboren Vault under Castle Teraknian. When they left the vault with Lavinia's treasure and debt notes and stuff, one of the PCs started feeling horribly depressed every time someone mentioned "Vanthus" or "Vanderboren." They eventually discovered there was a locket of a small girl in that PC's pockets. She was an intelligent item with very few abilities beyond empathy/telepathy, 30' sight, and the ability to dimension door herself once per day. Vanthus picked her up on the Isle of Dread from one of Xiureksor's half-dragon kids. (Xiureksor, one of the Infamous Seven, played a large part in the campaign.) She helped him break into his Uncle Ventrue's secret room in Farshore, where he found the Book of Infinite Spells that let him summon his first demon lord...he brought her back with him to Sasserine and used her to help him break into the vault, then abandoned her. She was kind of naive and romantic and sort of in love with him...when she found out about all his dastardliness, she had a breakdown and eventually became Lavinia's sort of adopted sister.

Anyway, the point of all that rambling is that she was seemingly not very important at the beginning but tied into a lot of stuff that happened on the Isle of Dread later, as well as a lot of the stuff that Vanthus had done.

Lastly, Parrot Island...

When the party started looking around for Vanthus, I had Vanthus (disguised as a mute beggar) follow them around along with the shifty fellow who led them to Parrot Island in the first place. (As I recall Vanthus was waiting there. I could be wrong...but anyway, having him literally within arm's reach the whole time they were looking for him just rubbed salt in the wound later.) Here's what happened after he stabbed the informant and tossed him down to his death:
********************************************
A shadow blocks off the sunlight in the shaft, and a mocking voice spirals down from above.

"So, these are my sister's pets...a pity. You should have stayed away from us. I had hoped to one day receive you in our manor and thank you properly for saving my life. Unfortunately, circumstances make that unlikely, so please accept both my gratitude and my regrets. I do not believe we shall meet again."

Vanthus stands and retrieves a small object from his sabretache, staring it contemplatively before letting it fall. "Something for the ferryman," he calls, a moment before it strikes the floor with a metallic clank. "Give my regards to Penkus!"

In a moment he has closed the trap door and you hear an ominous grinding coming from above.
********************************************
The thing he tossed down was a bag full of platinum coins from the Abyss, used there to pay Charon and the ferrymen. This was, perhaps, going to come back waaaaaay at the end of the campaign, when the party actually runs into Charon, but sadly, we never made it there.

The informant was stabbed to death with silver needles. When the party left for Kraken's Cove, they had an opportunity to hear that Keltar Islaran (I think was his name) - the Harbormaster - had been murdered the night before in the same fashion. Vanthus killed him to help Rowyn consolidate her hold on the harbor trade.

Also, politics: see this post. This is another opportunity to make Lavinia a contributor to the party's exploits, not just a beneficiary.

Lastly: Churtle the kobold. You can, of course, do whatever you like with her. However, in my experience, PCs love quirky kobold henchmen, I don't know why :) Also, if you decide to go really overboard with Rowyn's sabotage during TSWW, Churtle's expertise in poison can, you know, provide an out for you so everyone doesn't die horribly of poisoning. My PCs were properly paranoid so it wasn't an issue with them, but...

The Bullywug Gambit
Not much worth changing here, in my opinion:

1) "Random encounter" - while on their way to Kraken's Cove, the party spots a troupe of bullywugs in the distance, slopping their way through the marsh in the general direction of Sasserine.

2) Harliss will come back as an ally later in the campaign...if possible, you should make sure that she and the PCs part on good terms. If any of your PCs are sailors or reformed pirates, they may even recognize her. One of my PCs (who had issues roleplaying from the very beginning...but that's another story) threatened Harliss with violence unless she helped them. I have just one recommendation: if someone in your group is stupid enough to do that, well...I mean, don't kill everyone, but, you know, humiliate them. There are plenty of times in the future when the party is going to have to deal with people more powerful than them. This is an excellent place to emphasize the importance of Diplomacy.

3) If you're interested in the obyrith conspiracy I wrote about somewhere else on here, it's easy enough to drop a few Dagon references among the bullywugs, especially Bua Gorg.

4) I had Fleur (the locket I mentioned above) really ingratiate herself to the party by dimension dooring into Drevoraz's face when the fight started, giving Lavinia an opportunity to get to safety, grab a rapier, and start killing bullywugs. I also had Bua Gorg fill the room with fog cloud and enlarge himself. The suddenly huge bullywug rampaging through the party in cramped quarters was very memorable.

5) The encounter with Diamondback. See this post.

6) Kraken's Cove is one of the very, very few on-screen appearances of the Savage Tide. Since stopping the Savage Tide is, well, the whole point of the campaign, you should make it as memorable as possible. Make the savage creatures dangerous and dramatic and make it clear that the contagion will spread beyond the 1-mile radius of the initial Savage Tide. For this particular reason I also had another shadow pearl go off in a city the PCs passed in TSWW, just so, you know, they don't forget about it by ToD when Vanthus and the Savage Tide make a reappearance.

7) Finally - just as with the Savage Tide, Vanthus disappears for a looong time here. Just make sure the PCs don't forget about him.

Eh, such a long and disorganized post. Really, if you want to know what I did, you should just read the posts I made :P But I will try to post more later anyhow. I guess this is much shorter, huh...

In fact wasn't it Red Shroud who sent Sutolore to fiddle around with Zotzilaha's stuff in the first place? Or was that Malcanthet?

It was Malcanthet who sent Sutolore, although Red Shroud knows about it and tells the party when they meet with her (if they are sufficiently diplomatic and tell her they have the Tooth of Ahazu).

It was not Malcanthet, but Red Shroud, and she does not loan it to the group, but sell it, and I seem to remember that is was for 40,000 go, but my memory might be wrong.

I checked, and I had misremembered. The party can buy a key for 40,000 gp plus Red Shroud's tax, the amount of which I forget. If she is made Helpful she lifts the tax, reducing the cost. However because the party has to pay 10,000 gp to her directly to meet with her in the first place, they end up paying 50,000 gp, minimum, to get to the Wells of Darkness one way or another.

There is also a portal in Red Shroud's palace that leads to the Wells of Darkness that can only be activated by a tooth of one of the beings imprisoned there. Red Shroud tells them about this if she knows they have the Tooth of Ahazu, so they can use that for free (well, after they pay her 10,000 gp for an audience in the first place). However, I thought this was kind of convenient (in a deus ex machina kind of way, rather than a planar conspiracy kind of way), so...Besides, a plane shift focus is a lot easier to figure out what to do with than a random demon fang O_o

Also, there was one more factor in my decision to swap the Tooth of Ahazu out...basically, in order to really benefit from it (other than possibly using it as a portal key), the party would have to either: (i) install it in someone's mouth, or (ii) toss it into the Well of Ahazu. (i) requires substantial spiritual risk for minimal payout. (ii) requires the party to make a shady deal with an evil outsider, which is fine, except that they may have already done that with Red Shroud and, with or without the rewrites I made to the end of the campaign, would have had to do that about ten times in "Enemies of My Enemy" anyway. I figured sparing them one more demonic bargain would probably improve morale. Wells of Darkness sees them freeing a demon lord already...a good-aligned party shouldn't have to do that AND help Ahazu the Seizer along on his path to evil godhood or whatever AND butter up five or six other demon lords immediately after...plus, the way I had written the end of the campaign there was a chance the party would end up giving the Crown of the Abyss to Pale Night anyway in exchange for the layer of Androlynne. Talk about a catch-22 for a good party: save a generation of otherwise doomed eladrin children, but hand over the Crown of the Abyss to the most evil being in the entire multiverse, or take the Crown themselves in a (no doubt futile) attempt to dilute the evil of the entire Abyss with their own good alignment, knowing that Pale Night would wipe out the eladrin in reprisal? So...yeah...

Of course, if Vanthus successfully betrayed Big D at the last second and took the Crown for himself, then killed everybody, that particular thorny question would have been avoided ^^

For what it's worth, the first part of my campaign log (up until the point where my group fell apart...about 2/3 of the way through) is here. Here is a link to the campaign's website, which has A LOT of resources I put together...most of it is stuff you probably don't need, like a new class and a new oracle mystery, but there are expanded versions of Larissa's journal and Vanthus's diaries, map scans, and (if you're interested) the rest of the campaign log.

As far as general stuff goes, towards the end of the first thread I linked to, you will find some plot changes I made. If you search on the boards you will find a lot more, but obviously I think mine are the best ;) (In particular, the alterations to Rowyn's sabotage made for great roleplaying...and I was really looking forward to the end of the campaign, having rewritten a lot of the politics involved...)

I will say that I trawled these boards to compile a 300 page or so document of posts with ideas I later went through looking for changes to make to the campaign...that took a long time, but it was definitely worth it, because there are a LOT of good ideas on here.

Possible pitfalls:

1) The players must LOVE Lavinia and HATE Vanthus. Period. Those two PCs motivate like 75% of the campaign. If the players don't care about them you will have a hard time convincing them to do certain things...like sail to the Isle of Dread (installment 3), attack Scuttlecove (installment 8, I think), or sail into the Abyss itself to break into Demogorgon's personal prison to rescue Lavinia (installment 9). Personally, I just enforced that all PCs must be good-aligned. This prevented a few sticky moral issues from causing a rift between PCs based on alignment (which usually turns into a rift between players) and gave them a lot of reasons to do certain things which advanced the plot and helped everyone have a good time.

2) The wreck at the end of installment 3, and the subsequent journey to Farshore, present their own set of problems...you can just kill all the NPCs (except the 4 mentioned in the adventure), and if you play them smart, the bar-lguras will kill EVERYONE. I added together the PCs' Profession (sailor) checks, divided by 2, and allowed that many NPCs to survive (in my case, all of them). That isn't as much of a logistical headache as it seems, because most of them are non-combatants. Allowing the party to bond with Farshore's future citizens gives them added motivation to save the colony.
For the same reason, I had Lavinia be aboard the Sea Wyvern when the first storm stranded it in the sargasso, after which she remained with the party throughout the second storm, the wreck, the overland trek across the Isle, and the rescue mission in Fogmire. I strongly recommend this, because otherwise the party will not have much contact with her at all. Since Vanthus is gone for the whole space between installments 2 and 5, the party will forget about him unless you are careful (or unless they really hate him - which they should). It really helps later to have Lavinia become a familiar presence. Plus, you can use this opportunity to display her leadership qualities and resourcefulness. That way, the party will be a lot less likely to view her as a figurehead and/or damsel in distress, which will come in handy later when Vanthus comes back for her.

3) Just to repeat: Vanthus and Lavinia are the core of the campaign. In particular, it's a loooong time between the incident at Kraken's Cove, where the party is first exposed to the horrible danger of the shadow pearls, and the siege of Farshore, which is the next time we see them again. The Savage Tide gets sort of forgotten between installments 2 and 5, and if that was the party's motivation for doing anything, they will lose that motivation long before Vanthus shows up in Farshore with a shadow pearl. It's only late in the campaign that Demogorgon even comes into focus as the villain. 2/3 of the campaign revolves around helping Lavinia and chasing down...and always failing to catch...Vanthus. (Until they finally kill him...and he comes back.)

A lot of people say that the end of the campaign falls off, and their players stopped caring. It's really easy to let what should be an epic invasion of the Abyss turn into a generic "attack monsters" series of dungeon crawls. The key to avoiding this is to keep things personal and build up to the shadow pearl conspiracy as a natural and gradual extension of chasing Vanthus and saving Lavinia.

Phew, that's a lot. See the links above and/or the rest of the boards for more ideas. It's worth taking the time to do! I don't check these boards all that often, but next time I come by I will check and see if you have any specific questions.

TLDR: rule 0 is that the DM decides what the rules are - so many people forget this. And it's RAW because the Core Book tells you this...but read on.

I feel compelled to say that, in my campaign, one of my PCs has been playing a wizard/druid/theurge. From about 7-8 levels she was "behind" the other party caster in terms of total damage output, but about half of that was because she donated most of her treasure to another PC who ended up being the main tank and damage dealer of the party.

As of now she just cashed a large amount of loot and has Int and Wis in the high-ish 20s, a metamagic rod of quicken, and I don't remember what-all else. Feats like (Greater) Spell Penetration and the trait that increases your caster level (forgot what it's called), an orange ioun stone (+1 CL for a very reasonable price), and so forth also make a big difference, as does the Allied Caster feat (which she and the other casters in the party have all taken). The Theurgy feat from Ultimate Magic also provides a use for some of those leftover spell levels for many theurge-players. (For the record she loves her character and hasn't felt underpowered at all...)

As someone in some other old old thread said, it also helps to not overlap with your other party members. If you have a cleric, try druid as your divine class. And so forth.

Also...rule 0 is that the DM decides the rules and the rulebooks are just guidelines. That should ALWAYS be the first response to anyone who is (1) a rules lawyer (the bad kind), (2) a min/maxer, and (3) has complaints that any given part of the game is "too weak" or "too strong." If one of my players says "it's in the rules with blah blah feats and stuff that I get +30 trip attempts at level 4," I'm going to say "no" and make it clear what the rules really are. If someone says "mystic theurges are underpowered" and it's true based on our experience in the campaign so far then I'll make some slight changes to the rules and tell everyone what they are.

I have in fact semi-recently made several changes both up and down to different things the PCs have taken as items, feats, etc., all of which have served to keep things challenging (people still die) and fun for all of us. I update them on the campaign website so no one is left out of the loop.

To anyone reading this: if anyone tells you that mystic theurges are too weak, and you agree, here's what you do: go up to your DM and ask him to take a look at the PrC with you for half an hour sometime. Both of you should look at different options for base classes, feats, items, etc. Your DM, if he's any good at all, will (assuming that he agrees they are underpowered) make some slight revisions to the rules. He should make them available to everyone in the game so you're all on the same page. He should ALSO periodically revisit those changes. Do they solve the problem? Are they too powerful? Then he should make changes as needed and work with you to do so; in return, you don't pitch a fit if he realizes he just gave you something OP and adjusts it. Your DM should also keep in mind the direction his campaign is going to go and use that to guide his judgment.

No one should say "well, that's house rules, not RAW," to this, either...seriously. Read the Core Book, where it talks about DMing. (Yes, I know they don't call it that.) Right there it will tell you what I wrote at the top of the post...which makes Rule 0 RAW. Even if it didn't say that, common sense, people.

Rules in the books are a GREAT guide and make organized play possible, but if your DM won't work with you to make your concept work, he's not doing his job. That's also what these messageboards are supposed to be for...all I see (at least regarding mystic theurges) are people naively asking "how do I make a good one" and 90% of the posts are "THEY SUCK."

/rant

A second interlude!

May I introduce the crew of the Sea Wyvern, the intrepid colonists she carries to the Isle of Dread, and anyone else aboard the ship. These are people that the PCs will interact with on a daily basis, in some cases forming close relationships. In fact, they owe their lives to at least one of the people on this list...turnabout is fair play!

The Vanderstorms - this is the name the party had decided on at the time they set sail. No comment :)

_Eroknar
_Veerga
_D'razul
_Izzy

As ship owners, they are the boss of everyone on the ship, answering only to Lavinia. They also provide security (being adventurers) and are backup crew for the ship - all of them have quite good Profession (sailor) modifiers.

The Crew - a diverse crew made up of humans, hadozee, and one, ah, tiefling.

_[CAPTAIN] Amella Venkalie - slight, blonde, and scarred, Amella has been hired to captain the Sea Wyvern by Lavinia. She seems confident, haughty, and experienced, but reluctant to form attachments.
_[1st MATE] Madee Wyvernscream - Cheelor's mate and a seasoned fighter, Madee is even older than he, and carries a brace of Lantan pistols thrust through her bandolier at all times. She is taciturn around non-hadozee, preferring to let Cheelor interact with them, though she has no qualms working with them on the ship. A bass, and also percussion.
_[2nd MATE] Lirith Veldirose - a red-haired, flamboyantly-dressed tomboy, Lirith is the most noticeable of the Sea Wyvern's new crew. She has sailed with Captain Venkalie before, and appears quite comfortable on the sea. A talented, if somewhat unrefined, alto.
_[NAVIGATOR] Skald - a shifty-looking, stoop-shouldered man (and a tiefling, as it happens), Skald's nasal voice and high-pitched laugh set your teeth on edge, as does his nervous habit of constantly looking over his shoulder. Nevertheless, he has a reputation as a skilled navigator, tracker, and explorer. A fantastic mandolineer.
_[CABIN BOY] Tavey Nesk - A young and excitable lad, Tavey is the Sea Wyvern's cabin boy, a good-looking boy who appears to be under Lirith's and Amella's joint protection. This looks to be his first long sea voyage, and he's looking forward to seeing some real adventure. Quite the contra-tenor.
_Cheelor Wyvernscream - Formerly Cheelor Stormrage, this strapping orange-furred hadozee sailor is the head of the family that signed up for the voyage. He's quite old, and missing three fingers on his right hand, lost fighting Rundeen pirates during the scouring of Sasserine decades ago. Dual-wields bandoneón accordions (he has four "hands," after all), a feat made all the more impressive by his missing fingers.
_Habeego Wyvernscream - one of Cheelor's and Madee's daughters, Habeego is a skilled flyer as hadozee go, and as fierce as her mother. She is powerfully built and fond of drink, carrying a flask of ale strapped to her hip. Another bass/percussionist.
_Cheeskak Wyvernscream - Habeego's sister, she is smaller and quieter, with large eyes and a long tail. She is the family's lookout, and spends a lot of her time in the crow's nest when she isn't working elsewhere on the ship.
_Edward Wyvernscream - Cheelor's half-brother, Edward is the sole survivor of the ill-fated Eking Kite, lost to sahuagin attack in the Sea of Fallen Stars seven years ago. He took his name from a human sailor with whom he had a close friendship, torn to pieces by sharks during the attacks. Also the ship's cook, he is a miracle-worker with salt meat.
_Pembrooke Pete - An old, experienced hand, Pete is a well-known fixture from the docks of Sasserine, a native of the city who has lived his entire life on the sea lanes that connect Sasserine to the rest of the world. Most recently, he was the mate of a whaling vessel just retired due to age and a general lack of seaworthiness. He also appears to be a superstitious rumormonger. Pete can’t sing, but sometimes thinks he can when he’s drunk.
_Crench the Mute - A late addition to the crew, Crench is a burly, almost freakishly muscular half-orc sailor. His larynx was ruined in a Crimson Fleet attack, and he's illiterate. He communicates mostly by gestures, and occasionally by violence.
_Isis Wyvernscream - Another late addition, Isis is a hadozee pyrophile with silky black fur. When it's repaired, she'll be in charge of the firedrake. She's the only Wyvernscream not related by blood to the others.

The Colonists - they've been underestimated more than once. The most important thing to remember about these people is that they are planning to settle on the Isle of Dread. They know what they signed up for, and they have the badass to back it up.

_Penelope Jask - A colonist along with her husband Oscar, Penelope is a kind-faced woman whose pregnancy is just beginning to show. Despite her condition she and Oscar are determined to make a life for themselves and their unborn child in Farshore. She is a smith, and among their cargo is a full forge waiting to be assembled in Farshore. (Note - hmm...human, just entering the 2nd trimester of her pregnancy, signing up for a six-month voyage...)
_Oscar Jask - A broad-shouldered man with dark skin, Oscar is Penelope's husband and a skilled carpenter. He hopes to make a good life for his wife and child there.
_Nerlur Hapsbarren - Nerlur and his family owned a ropewalk in Sasserine that was burned down when the Lotus Dragon warehouses went. He is eager to leave that bitterness behind him and has decided to move them to rebuild in Farshore.
_Brie Hapsbarren - Nerlur's wife, she oversaw the ropewalking process herself, leaving the financial and market aspects to her husband. An imposing woman with a ready laugh, worry lines around her eyes hint at the difficult times the family has suffered.
_Waldam Hapsbarren - The right side of his face scarred during the fire that claimed the family property, Waldam was injured saving his sister Alea from the blaze. Nevertheless, he is a cheerful young man, his ready smile twisted by the scars.
_Alea Hapsbarren - A beautiful girl just entering womanhood, Alea is fit and athletic, delighting in feats of acrobatics on tightropes. She enjoys clambering about the rigging, and is looking forward to a new life even more than her father.
_Durgan Stonethroat - His velvety baritone belying his name, Durgan is trying to make a new life for himself. He seems reluctant to talk about himself or his past, but the dwarf is a skilled architect and worker of stone. Lavinia hopes that with his help, Farshore will be able to construct a small quarry to mine local stone, and possibly mine gems for trade. As I said, a baritone.
_Belkor Steelthew - Another dwarf, Belkor is silent where Durgan is talkative. His heavily scarred skin is a peculiar grayish hue, and though his limbs are thin he can move heavy cargo with apparent ease. He signed on with Durgan, and the two are rarely apart.

Miscellaneous - this category is for everyone else.

_Father Feres - A priest of Tyr anxious to spread the faith beyond Sasserine's walls, Father Feres is a small man with an easy smile and nervous, edgy demeanor.
_Avner Meravanchi - A slanderer, deflowerer of maidens, and utter cad. Despite recovering a good portion of her stolen wealth, Lavinia needed additional financial support to launch the expedition. Lady Anwyn Arabani donated a large sum of gold, but Lord Zebula Meravanchi's support was also critical. He has sent Avner along to “oversee the support of his investment.” (i.e. “get the hell out of Sasserine before you embarrass me further.”)
_Thunderstrike - Avner's stallion, a magnificent white warhorse. Veerga more or less convinced the other PCs to allow him on board...she is a druid, after all.
_Barnaby Chisk - One of Avner's body servants. A paunchy man with watery brown eyes.
_Quenge Asper - The other of Avner's body servants. A tall, thin man with brown skin. He doesn't speak much. Apparently a skilled closet tenor.
_Urol Furol - A bent old gnome smelling of earth and plants, Urol is a scholar and expert on natural lore. He has been to the Isle of Dread once before, although his stay was cut short “due to events beyond his control.” He volunteered himself for the journey, offering his skills as a healer and naturalist to the colony of Farshore. Currently expecting a short side trek to the ruins of Tamoachan.
_Churtle - Churtle!

That's a total of 30 people, not counting Thunderstrike or Penelope's pregnancy. As you can see, the party has one hell of a band hidden amongst their crew. :)

Session 12: The party made it back to street level, Rowyn and Gut Tugger (oh, and Churtle - did I forget? The party spared her, and in fact - due to her slightly age-based confusion and her earnest pleas of loyalty - decided to keep her on as a hired expert on poison. Izzy washed his/her hands of any involvement, but Veerga started paying her 50 gp per month, deductible from the salary she gets from Lavinia. Why are large groups of kobolds slaughtered indiscriminately, but lone "named" kobolds invariably accepted into the party? :)

Anyway, the sight of so many strangely-dressed, strangely-equipped, or just plain strange people (including the PCs not least) started an impromptu parade that morphed into a kind of riot as the PCs progressed to the guardhouse. Rowyn, Gut Tugger, and some surviving Lotus Dragons were handed over to the guards, but Churtle was brought back to Lavinia's and ordered to whip up a couple tanglefoot bags while the party broke the truth about her parents' death to Lavinia.

She took it rather well, all things considered, going pale and asking to be left alone. The party took their respectful leave and spent some time nibbling Kora's unnaturally tasty blueberry scones. When she emerged from her room, red-eyed and pale, the party comforted her as best they could, presenting her a silver unicorn figurine they had found in Rowyn's lair. They also put Fleur into her keeping, reasoning (correctly, as it happened) that they would be able to somehow comfort one another. After a light supper (served by the ubiquitous Kora) Lavinia retired to her chambers and the party went to bed...and dreamed again. May I present dream 2 of the Savage Tide dream log:

"The Bullywug Gambit" – The Rising Tide

A fleet of ships flying the Lotus Dragon flag sweeps with measured inevitability across the surface of the moonlit sea, its numberless sails imprisoning the wind, its threshing oars pulled by slaves, its crew the dregs of Sasserine's worst criminals. For one horrible moment you fear that the sails are white – a thought that fills you with a nameless terror – before, to your relief, you realize that they are black after all. At the head of the fleet is a magnificent caravel with a figurehead in the likeness of Rowyn Kellani, gilded and elaborately carved above the waterline, but rotting wood underneath. The weather is clear and the sun glances off the dark waters.

Suddenly, clouds pile up on the horizon – towering thunderclouds that rapidly converge on the fleet from all directions, leaving no avenue of escape. The ships begin to founder as the waves mount, and despite the crews' efforts, within moments the Lotus Dragon fleet has been hurled down to a watery grave.

You find yourselves floundering in the sea amongst the wreckage, and all of you fight desperately to stay above the water. Bits of flotsam swirl around you as sharks tear the corpses to pieces. After what seems like an eternity, the storm finally passes and the clouds part to reveal a strangely darkened sky. The moon no longer shines – it is black, and you can only tell its position in the sky because of the stars it occults. Blood fills the air, but whether it is falling torrentially from the sky or rising from the surface of the sea, you cannot tell. The moon flares a bright green before splintering and splitting like a walnut smashed between two stones. Screams and howls rise towards you from the depths and something seizes your legs in its jaws.

When the party awoke, covered in cold sweat, they found that Lavinia had gone to transact business in the city and Kora had (in some unspeakable, unknowable fashion) laid out clean formal clothes for each of them - in Veerga's case, the horrid little dear had cleaned and set out the silk dress Veerga had claimed from Rowyn's hoard. On each set of clothing was a neatly-folded slip of cream-colored paper whereupon, written out in Lavinia's bold, flourishing script, the party found invitations to a banquet being held that evening in Castle Teraknian.

As it happened, Lavinia had not retired for very long. Instead, she had interrogated Fleur and, later, Churtle, who corroborated the party's tale in full. She organized what she knew of Vanthus's whereabouts during the short time he had stayed in the manor. Most importantly of all, when Detective Veerga pointed out a red "X" over the Islaran Estate (see "Backdrop: Sasserine," published with the AP), the two of them made the connection between that and Vanthus's last letter. Lavinia had sent her unnatural majordomo quickstep to warn Lord Islaran, the harbormaster, of his danger...only to find his household in an uproar, as it seems that he had been murdered during the night...opal-tipped silver pins driven through his eyes. There was no sign of a struggle...

So Lavinia had presented all of this to an emergency session of the Dawn Council at, well, dawn that morning, assisted by her patron, Anwyn Arabani - the influential Dawn Council member in charge of Sasserine's Merchant district. All of this the party only found out that evening, when Lavinia presented them to the assembled nobles of Sasserine (including a shocked and furious Heldrath Kellani) and Anwyn presented them with the Spire of Sasserine, the city's highest honor. Later, Anwyn announced that she would be taking temporary control of the position of Harbormaster (a deal she and Lavinia had worked out with the Islaran estate, as none of his heirs wanted the responsibility), effectively making Anwyn Sasserine's most powerful noble, thanks in no small part to the party and to Lavinia.

After the ceremonies, Lavinia met the party and thanked them privately, explaining that the haste had been necessary to keep Heldrath Kellani from properly hiding her involvement with the Lotus Dragons. She was interrupted as a loutish, drunken nobleman - Avner Meravanchi by name - slapped her on the ass from behind. The party was about to take him down a peg or two, when his father - the imposing Lord Zebula Meravanchi - appeared behind him and slapped him to the floor himself, shouting that no son of his would embarrass the family in public. Avner hauled himself off in shame as Zebula formally apologized to the mollified Lavinia.

It's pretty fair to say that at the end of this party Lavinia had the party's sympathy, respect, and complete loyalty. As a show of this, they offered to track Vanthus to Kraken's Cove the next morning. Lavinia told them to bring him back alive, if possible - but not to risk themselves to do so. She wants to see him brought to justice.

So at the crack of dawn, the party hired a pinnace run by an old hadozee and his kids, sailing east along the coast. They didn't see much interesting on the way...just a tribe of bullywugs in the distance, one of whom appeared to be carrying an exceptionally large axe, heading in the general direction of Sasserine. But when they hit the 1-mile mark out from the Cove, things got weird. Plants and animals were twisted and tumorous, mostly dead, and frequently ripped apart in senseless savagery. Lingering Conjuration magic stained the air and earth. The party went the last bit on foot, avoiding a fallen, blood-spattered tree from whose hollow trunk came the sounds of tearing and chewing. When they made it to the cliff above Kraken's Cove, all they could see was smoke and all they could hear was the roar of the flames. The ships in the cove were burning! ...and there was movement in the smoke below.

Session 3: On the way back from the Blue Nixie, flushed with their victory, the party unexpectedly ran into Avner Meravanchi harassing a meat vendor in the middle of a crowd of festival partygoers. After an awkward encounter (the druid distracted him by showing a little skin), they made their way to the nearest Watch captain and turned over their captives, identified as "Lotus Dragons" by their distinctive tattoos.

"The worst gang of criminals and evildoers in Sasserine," according to the Watch captain, who was suitably impressed by their writ of authority and captives that he didn't give them any trouble about breaking onto a ship impounded by the Harbormaster. The party got a little insight into why the Harbormaster allowed such corruption...apparently, the man (one Keltar Islaran) is getting old and trying to find a successor.

A delighted Lavinia was only too happy to see the party. The outright horrifying (but so adorable) Kora Whistlegap brought them more blueberry scones than they could eat...Veerga especially became fascinated with this strange, delicious surface food and became pretty attached to the little halfling.

The party gallantly offered to escort Lavinia to Castle Teraknian. After a relatively uneventful trip through the city, they headed into the castle's bowels, passing two haughty-looking noblewomen on their way out of the vault...Lavinia identified them as the Kellanis, a family whose bad reputation is surpassed only by Lord Dracktus of Shadowshore.

Once inside the vault, the party quickly bypassed the cobra constructs when they realized that Lavinia's ring commanded them, and rapidly solved the combination lock on the vault.

Unfortunately, however, the vault's contents were mostly gone! Nearly in tears, Lavinia hurried from chest to chest, finding to her joy that at least one remained partially unplundered. She also found a vast quantity of notes and journals from her parents' travels, including (at the top of the stack) a thick journal detailing the existence of the colony of Farshore, which her parents had founded on the half-mythical Isle of Dread some years ago.

Hastening back to the receptionist in Castle Teraknian proper, Lavinia wrathfully demanded to know who had stolen her property - only to hear that it was her brother! The poor clerk, nearly at his wits' end with a furious noble denying any knowledge of Vanthus's whereabouts, knew only that Vanthus had come and gone several times since her parents' death.

(At around this time, Eroknar experienced a profound, unnatural wave of sadness welling up inside. Though disturbed, he kept it to himself for the time being.)

After cooling down, Lavinia realized that in order to have accessed the vault, Vanthus must have stolen or found her mother's missing signet ring. She now thinks that he has been blackmailed somehow into this treachery, and redoubles her pleas to the PCs to find him.

Again, Eroknar felt the inexplicable sadness, but this time he interrupted the conversation, asking Izzy and Veerga to scan him with detect magic. The two casters quickly found a locket in his pocket that hadn't been there before...a small, silver locket of exceptional craftsmanship, embossed with the image of a rose, and containing the miniature of a beautiful, sad young girl on the cusp of womanhood. In small silver script on the facing half of the locket is written:

je m'appelle c'est Fleur d'Amour
m'aimes comme je t'aime

A successful Linguistics check translates this as:

My name is Fleur d'Amour
Love me as I love you

The locket detects as magic, but Lavinia has never seen it before, and neither have the PCs. After several minutes of discussion and experiment, they discover that it empathically leaks sorrow onto anyone holding it when Vanthus's name is spoken nearby.

Hello everyone! This is V's Savage Tide Campaign Log. I'm V, the DM.

I kept promising and promising my players I'd put this online...so, here we go. There are 2.5 installments worth of backlog to go, so it'll be awhile before I get it up to the present, but it should be fun anyway.

Please don't write any spoilers for the campaign, as I want my PCs to be able to read this. Thanks!

Two of my players are veterans of my Age of Worms campaign (what a blast that was - thanks, Paizo!), while one started as a rookie but has been gaining experience as we go along. As of right now there are three players, with a fourth to join us sometime this summer after we finish "The Sea Wyvern's Wake."

We play with Pathfinder rules in the Forgotten Realms (1372ish DR, basically out of the excellent 3E FRCS bible). In general, I don't fudge die rolls and follow the rules strictly, but not slavishly. I also enjoy making them work for victory, both in and out of combat. Enough about me.

For today's installment I'll describe our party and their first encounter. All the PCs are good-aligned.

The party consists of:

The Scholar: Veerga Wasserkind, an aquatic elf druid/wizard going on mystic theurge, Veerga was adopted by an aquatic elf warrior taking part in a raid on a tribe of sahuagin. The infant Veerga was found in the hatching chamber, surrounded by eggs about to hatch, and rescued in the nick of time.

A wild, free-willed child, she was curbed from naturally rebellious tendencies only with extreme difficulty by her adoptive family, but her intelligence and inquisitive nature led her to be naturally curious about both the natural world and the supernatural. She became acquainted with D'razul Endlekind (see below) and got into a variety of scrapes with him, the most recent of which involved stealing a ship with several of their friends and sailing it (more by luck than anything else) from the Sea of Fallen Stars all the way to Tashluta - I mean, Sasserine, where they abandoned it and entered the city. Since then she's tried life out of water, trying to scrape up enough gold to safely make her way back home.

Played by one of the veterans.

The Noble Rogue: D'razul Endlekind, a rogue, the scion of a noble aquatic elf family, was groomed to succeed his father, liaison to surface governments for their city. Unbeknownst to his parents, however, he interspersed his studies of above-water culture and language with uncouth adventures shared with his good friend, Veerga Wasserkind, who his very traditional father would certainly have disapproved of.

D'razul did not share her free-spirited, spontaneous nature, instead preferring to plan his villainy where he could. Organizing several of their other friends, he masterminded the theft of a surface sailing vessel, which he and Veerga crashed on the rocks near Sasserine while squabbling over whose turn it was to be Captain. Sobered by the experience, he has been attempting to plan a way for himself and Veerga to get home.

Played by the newb. His weapon of choice is the harpoon.

The Hadozee Messiah: Ismat "Izzy" Madu, a witch, is the adoptive patriarch/matriarch of the hadozee citizens of Sasserine, having taken the position when his/her adoptive mother, "Mama 'Dozee," left on the Rage and never returned from the voyage. Izzy works tirelessly to better the lot of his/her flock, sadly downtrodden by the evil Lord Dracktus, Dawn Council representative for Shadowshore, where most of them live.

(If I didn't mention it yet, Izzy's true gender is a closely-guarded secret. Not even the DM knows which it is...yet.)

Played by the other veteran. His/her familiar is a thrush named Sie (pronounced "Zee") and s/he acts in a supporting role to everyone else. Also somewhat of a xenophobe, due to the way hadozee are treated as second-class citizens by some of Sasserine's more bigoted citizens.

What are hadozee, you ask? Big, bipedal monkeys with glidey wing-flaps and no homeland, they sail from port to port as crew on a ship. They're excellent sailors.

The Reformed Pirate: Eroknar B'kir, a half-orc axe-kensai (see this thread for the kensai base class I wrote - the version we're using is slightly different, but essentially the same in most respects). He used to work for Cap'n Harliss Javell of the Crimson Fleet corsair Wavereaper, feared scourge o' the seas. For reasons known only to himself, Eroknar renounced the Crimson Fleet and the worship of Garagos (his previous god) and took up the faith of the Red Knight. In fleeing retribution, he lost his ancestral axe and his honor, and he is working to find the one so he can regain both.

Played by everyone. We have a walnut shell we give to the person in charge of him at a given session. Also, he's QUITE the ladies' man, despite having 9 Cha. Wait 'til "The Sea Wyvern's Wake."