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Play Report 29/10/2014

Apologies in advance for vagueness or anything incorrect in this post, I didn't take proper notes at the last session and it was a while ago...

Our heroes were optimistic that the heavy, padlocked door that led belowdecks at the bow was heavy and padlocked for a lucrative reason. So, they set to, and after unbundling the thieves' tools and much cracking of knuckles, found that the padlock sprang open with a simple twist.

Disappointingly easy! Natural 20 on the lock pick if I recall...

The door swung open into a small armory - but the first thing Der Schrecken noticed was a huge spiny conch shell, larger than a man, which dominated the room. Der Schrecken closed the door and the group hastily conferred - they had little doubt that this was another of the strangely afflicted Orcish sailors. They resolved to give it the bash - in the meantime though it seems that thing wedged itself up against the door, and Puku had to take to the door with a crowbar to get it open.

Peeping out from beneath the lip of the shell was a hunched and crusty-skinned orc, with a large sea anemone sprouting from the flesh of one arm and a hatchet gripped in the other. It teetered under the cumbersome shell as it closed to attack.

Its shell was tough to crack, but the prowess of our heroes was equal to the task, and the thing was destroyed just as its other shipmates had before.

The armory was stocked with fairly trash weapons (spears, axes, cutlasses) but of more interest was a weighty bow somewhere between a heavy crossbow and a ballista. From his military training, Melthorpe recognised this as a siege bow, designed to be fired from a mount or by a man reclining on his back (since typically the only way to draw the bow solo is by lying down with your feet braced against the arms.

Such bows are typically used to fire grapples into stonework when assaulting fortifications, or sometimes by monster hunters against thick-hided quarry. Accordingly, there was a rope winch and two grapples which appear to be made to fit the bow. Also, nine long, heavy bolts, broad-headed and barbed.

Unfortunately the string for the siege bow is rotted and rusted and will need to be replaced before the bow can be used (it appears to have been made of corded gut and metal wire). Melthorpe elected to take it with him nevertheless.

Beneath the armory the part found a quartermaster's store, well-stocked - here the was another cursed orc, this one aspected to the starfish, and as such, splayed motionless against the wall. He greeted Puku in a dialect of Orcish, somewhat more sensibly than others, and through Puku's halting translation they learned a few things. Though plainly unhinged and given to tuneless humming between speech, the Starfish explained that the crew had been cursed by an ocean spirit of some sort, known as the Green Lady. Their captain had cut an unspecified deal with the Green Lady, and the ship had travelled to an island infested with cannibalistic halflings, ultimately succeeding in retreiving an artefact on the Lady's behalf. They then sailed back to the Yellow Isle to fulfil the deal. However there seems to have been some kind of betrayal on the part of the First Mate who hid the artefact and refused to hand it over when they met with the Green Lady's "emmissary". It came to blows between the first mate and captain but the patience of their eldritch client was exhausted - the Lady's curse was upon them, a huge wave wrecked their ship upon the rocks and the crew were transformed into what the things they are now - corrupted grotesques, driven mad by a longing for the release of death which is ever denied them.

The Starfish made some alarming statements to the effect that any slain crew-members are returned to their parody of life "when the tide rises", which gave our heroes some concern - they elected not to waste time rifling through the supplies in the quartermaster's store, as the tide is rising already.

Puku was moved by the Starfish's tale and encouraged the others to attempt to lift the curse by finding the artefact on the ship and completing the deal with the Green Lady.

The Starfish had indicated that the believed he First Mate had been locked in the archer's tower above the captain's cabin before the supernatural wave hit their ship, so the party returned abovedecks to take another look at that mysteriously encrusted room.
Arriving at the deck however they encountered a harpy with the gray and white plumage of a seabird (perhaps it had been attracted by the hooting and hollering of a certain character in an earlier session?) It ensorcelled most the party with it's spooky song but greed got the better of it and it ceased its chant to try to carry Orna away in its claws. This did not go well for the harpy and it flew off with many wounds upon it - and then a beautiful long shot from Puku's bow dropped in it the drink like a sack of sh!t.

That's where the session ended...

...our heroes then...?

Play Report 2/9/2014

Der Schrecken sprang from his handholds on the rock spur across to the top deck, alert for danger. As Puku clambered up the snarled rigging, he took in his surroundings. There were no immediate signs of trouble. The deck was a mess of shattered timbers, rope and canvas. The rain pooled in folds in the canvas, stained green and brown from stagnant water. To the bow there were steps leading down to a iron-reinforced door with a heavy lock. To the aft the was a door leading into the 3-tier pagoda structure, and amidships there was hatch near the broken stump of the mast.

Near the bow there was a rift clean across the deck where the ship seems to be slowly breaking apart, the bow dragged down by the weight of the ram. D.S. hopped across this and kept watch while Puku finished his climb. They then threw a rope down for Kat, who was uncertain of her ability to make the climb due to the extreme gluteal cramping she had recently been experiencing after a Grinne-dyloch had stabbed her in the arse with some kind of shellfish.

Kat lassoed herself into an improvised harness and waited patiently while Puku started hauling her up (like a school production of Peter Pan). Melthorpe began the tricky climb up the rigging, and Orna looked around for dolphins while she awaited her turn.

At that point, D.S. noted a shape stirring beneath the canvas on the other side of the deck. He interposed himself between it and Puku, who could not take action without letting go of the rope, and Kat on the other end of it. A strange humanoid form crawled out from beneath the canvas and drunkenly lurched to its feet - its skin was covered in thick horizontal bands, gray-green and mottled like snakeskin. Other than that it looked like an orc, clad in the ragged remnants of a sailor's slops. It looked at Der Schrecken with sad eyes and said something - a dialect of Orcish dissimilar from his own, but he could hazard it was some phrase of surrender... the creature approached D.S. with arms wide and welcome - our Fabulous Fishman, bemused by the whole situation, decided to go along with as the thing moved in for a hug. At the last moment, a vertical seam in its torso split open, revealing a revolting giant chiton foot in glistening pink & yellow. It glommed onto D.S. with fearsome force and he felt a wash of pain and disgust as its grotesque little radula rasped against his chest, even as it continued to murmur Orcish capitulations in his ear-hole.

As D.S. grappled with the chiton-orc, Puku hauled on the rope as quick as he could, and after several seconds more got Kat up to the railing. But as he joined the fray, another strangely mutated orc charged from the pagoda, this one half-crab, the whole musculutare of its body lop-sided and twisted by the giant pincer replacing one arm. It had nothing to say, for its mouth was become a nest of whirring palps and maxillae. It slammed square into the startled Puku and sent him tumbling back through the broken gap in the deck and down to the underdeck below.

Kat and Melthorpe now joined the battle against the Chiton and the Fiddler Crab, while belowdecks Puku got to his feet and took in his grim surroundings. Two rows of rowing benches stretched sternwards before him, and behind him was a door leading afore and down. From the jumble of bones and fetters strewn about, it was clear this had been a slave galley. At once he saw a blur of motion and felt a sting of pain in his cheek - another of the twisted orcs was down here, perhaps the former slave-driver, now half-jellyfish and the master of a wicked stinging lash! Strangely, once again the orc-thing muttered piteous, hopeful non sequitirs in an Orcish dialect even as it pressed the attack.

Though surprised and horrified by their strange foes, our heroes reached for the steel within and found it - overcoming the trio of terrors, though not before Melthorpe had been half-killed, lifted from his feet and dumped on his head by a single blow from the Fiddler Crab's monstrous pincer.

The enemy's equipment was mostly tattered trash, but D.S. found and donned a magic necklace on the Fiddler Crab - it was the Necklace of Thunderstones.

Puku was leery of the Jellyfish's lash and left it where it lay, but he brought back a couple of oars that were in sound condition, though the long handle and blade would likely need to be cut shorter. (He left these on the main deck to grab up before leaving).

Meanwhile, Orna had finally made her way up to deck, having struggled with the climb due to her height. She healed Melthorpe and the party elected to explore the pagoda structure next. As they moved towards the stern, they noticed damage to the woodwork seemingly caused by the blows of an axe. They successfully snuck into the cabin at the base of the pagoda and observed another orc-thing, naked but for boots and a bicorne hat, perched on the edge of a ruined bed and poking at the mattress with a savage cleaver-like blade with a sawtooth edge. Its skin was a pallid gray, thick and clammy, and covered in strange bumps. Its eyes were large, spaced wide apart and bulbous to the point of swelling beyond the socket. Its mouth was tiny any pinched, the size of a baby's, and without lips, like a little slot in its face.

D.S., Puku and Kat all rushed into the room and attacked, scribbling the creature with wounds. However, once they surrounding it, it suddenly puffed up into a 10' sphere, knocking back our heroes and skewering them with poisonous spines. Both D.S. & Puku were sickened by the poison, Puku most greviously. However the enemy was vulnerable in its bloated state and they cut it to bits almost immediately after, Kat finishing the thing off with a Ray of Frost to its exposed heart as it slumped against Puku like a mauled rag-doll.

The explored the cabin and found a sea-chart of the local area with some annotations in Orcish, a log-book that seems to be mostly written in Common, a fine spy-glass and the funny-looking Armour of Vigilance which Kat excitedly donned (missed opportunity for me to have a greebly burst into the room while she had her pants down but, maybe next time).
The Fugu's weapon was also slightly magical - a Hackblade that would never grow dull. It does extra damage and has a chance to cause Bleed damaage, but is poorly balanced, and harder to wield than most weapons - the party gave it into Melthorpe's keeping.

At the stern of the ship DS found a rowboat, which sadly had been badly damaged by the Fugu and his compulsive chopping at things with the Hackblade.

DS and Kat realised they could sense a powerful magic aura emmitting from the second level of the pagoda - something ancient and abyssal, redolent of the midnight deeps of the sea. Something... possibly worth a lot of money. So, the group made a plan for Kat to burst into the room from the floor-hatch while DS climbed in from the outside. Unfortunately this did not really come off as the interior of the cabin seemed to have been lined with some kind of brittle, chalky stone in ridged and swirling patterns. Kat wasted a Potion of Cat's Grace before realising she couldn't get the hatch open because this stuff had grown over it - she practiced one-handed cartwheels on the main deck while Puku laboriously busted through with the aid of a crowbar. Weakened by the Fugu poison, he elected to hang back and DS entered the cramped and eerie space within. Not an inch of wood was still showing. There were a number of large holes in the walls, floor and ceiling - DS spied a soft, fist-size knot of flesh poking out one of these holes and bulls-eyed it with an Acid Splash. It recoiled and he could here something moving around inside the walls. This did not suit him, so he left, and the party regrouped in Captain Fugu's cabin to consider their next move.

Hey pals... gonna write up the past two sessions prolly tomorrow.
In the meantime I have made a little diagram of the shipwreck on the roll20 page, if you log into the Prodigal Son campaign you can see where known doors/hatches are and what parts of the wreck remain unexplored.

Scroll down just below the artwork.

Play report 6/8/14 & 13/8/14

Puku roused the rest of the party at low tide as had been agreed. It was still about two hours before dawn. Orna gave her morning reading from the Book of Daily Inspiration ( I don't remember who was affected, thought I noted this but can't find it - please post if you have it recorded ). Puku bathed in the tidepool and received some healing via the Balm of the Ocean - he also managed to find some trash that had been thrown in there by previous occupants of the cave.

As the group breakfasted on raw fish and mussels, they discussed their next move. There was not much initial consensus.

* Orna donned the battered tricorne of Captain Saltpepper and offered to scout out the tiny passage at the back of the cave, with a view to tracing the Grinne-dyloch back to their lair and hopefully rescuing the Captain or other possible survivors from the Skippebble.

* Melthorpe was also keen for a rescue attempt, but preferred to travel overland in the hope of picking up the trail of the dwarves who slew Chorster and kidnapped Marven.

* Adlin proposed to gather material, build a raft and strike out for the mainland at the earliest opportunity.

* The youth Rickas sat glumly and did not offer an opinion, but he clearly seems to take his cue from Adlin.

Kat and Der Schrecken managed to convince Adlin that setting to sea on a raft in such rough, monster-haunted waters, with nary a sailor among them, would be a recipe for a doomful end. He reluctantly backed away from his ultimatum once it became clear he did not have support.

Orna, however, would not be dissuaded and insisted on delving further into the cave. Der Schrecken decided to go ahead of her - clambering awkwardly among the rocks, down on all fours with the stone pressing in from all sides, he reached a pinch point where he realised he would need to crawl on his belly to progress further. Pressing his cheek to the stone, he peered through the gap. He enchanted a pebble to cast light and threw it through the gap - as it bounced down the tunnel he could see it opened up again a few feet ahead. He also saw a glistening layer of slime on the floor, and, flaring his nostrils, caught the anchovy stink of Grinne-dyloch.

The instant after he discerned the danger, there was a flurry of movement beyond the pinch point and a jellyfish was lobbed back through the gap in answer - it smacked into Der Schrecken's face, but by good fortune its tendrils did not touch his eyes, mouth, or other mucus tissue - he felt just a mild burning irritation at the base of his facial scales. Pulling the pulpy mass from his face in disgust, he and Orna retreated with alacrity.

Having verified that the tunnel contained the obvious ambush that the less optimistic party members had expected, Kat then argued that they should try to find Lenny & Orto, those two sailors who had set off from the Skippebble in the pinnace to resupply the miners camp, well before disaster struck. Adlin reminds her that they never arrived that the miners saw, and is pessimistic as to their fate. If neither ship-wrecked nor dead, he argues, they will be long gone, for they are no fools.

Pressed against his will into hypotheticals, Adlin conceded that if they were still on the island, they might perhaps have put in at a smuggler's cove on the eastern shore. The group decided to circumnavigate the island around the northern side, avoiding the route back past the southern, open-side of the crater, where the Titanic Thing had passed on its way out to sea, and to keep an eye out for traces of the dwarves that Melthorpe was so hot to pursue.

They clambered up the rope and into the pre-dawn gloom. It was raining fairly heavily and made for miserable travelling. As they made their way north, Adlin remembered an unusual ship-wreck he had seen months before, further up the coast. If it was still intact, he argued, it might be worth exploring for the chance to salvage ship-worthy timber and tools or maybe, by grace of fortune, even a row-boat. The group agreed this would be worth a side trip.

As they hiked through the scrub, Puku noticed a broken branches that suggested others may have come this way, though due to the rain he was not able to find a real trail to follow.

The dawn was obscured by the overcast skies, but as it lightened, the group passed east of a wide pit near the cliff's edge. An interesting geological feature, but they elected not to investigate it.

Approaching a headland, they could see a broken spire of rock a few hundred feet off-shore from the point, which was probably once connected to the rest of the island. Oddly though, they could see a variety of vegetation growing on the natural shelves and ledges of the rock, none of which appeared to grow on Yellow Isle itself. Fat, bulbous fruit nestled among black, thorny vines in one spot, elsewhere a huge fleshy blossom sprouted almost horizontally out of the cliffside. It was unnaturally diverse. Adlin allowed that this was quite peculiar but claimed not to have really noticed in the past.

Rounding the headland, they could see the wreck Adlin had mentioned far below. A vessel of about 100' length appeared to have been driven up by wild seas and wedged between two spurs of rocks just off-shore. It was of an unrecognised design, with a fearsome spiked bronze ram on the prow, and a three-tiered pagoda to the stern, the whole thing tilted on about a 30 degree angle, so that the bow was aloft, and the stern lapped by the waves.

With the tide still mostly out, it seemed easy enough to wade out there. The group made their way carefully down the cliffs and across the thigh-deep water, leaving Adlin & Rickas to keep watch for new threats from the mainland (Rickas' patent fear and reluctance to venture out to the wreck was a politely unacknowledged factor in this arrangement).

The prow of the ship loomed above the party as they approached. Getting closer, they could see the railings and other features near the ram had been carved with representations of narwhals, albatrosses, krakens and other such potent animals, though much of this work was damaged. Seeing no easy way up, they moved around the landward side and found a spot where a piece of the broken mast was hanging down, tangled in great snarls of rigging. This seemed a climbable spot and Puku started heading up. Der Schrecken, ever at ease clinging to a cliffside, took a more difficult route up the rock spur to gain a vantage over the deck of the ship, easily overtaking Puku. He could see the deck was strewn with detritus - tangles of rope, smashed timbers and barrels, lengths of canvas torn and flapping in the breeze. About 30' back from the bow is a big crack in the deck where the ship seems to be beginning to break in two, though from his vantage he can't perceive much of the deck below. There are no clear signs of life or danger.

THEN MIKEY'S INNERNET FUKKED OUT FOR THE LAST TIME! THE END

XP AWARDZ!
Kat gets 1700 XP
Puku gets 1700 XP
Apparicio gets 2100 XP
Orna gets 1300 XP
Melthorpe gets 800 XP

Orna level up results:

+9 HP
+1 Reflex Save
Channels 1d6 -> 2d6
Gained Feat: Extra Channel (+2 Channels per day)

MAGIC
Now gets following casts/day:
3 L1 spells + 1 Domain spell
2 L2 spells + 1 Domain spell
Gained Level 2 Luck Domain spell: Aid
Gained Level 2 Travel Domain spell: Locate Object

The rest of the night will be uneventful, Orna will level up! And she will have Lesser Restoration prepared in the morning.

If you want to discuss the party's next move in character, feel free to retcon it to occurring before you slept since that is probably the natural point at which such discussion would have occurred. Or do what you want.

Play Report 1/8/14

The rest of the party clambered down into the cave. Puku went down last, pulling an uprooted shrub into the hole behind him in a small stroke of woodcrafty genius.

Adlin explained that the cave is sometimes used by the miners to shelter from storms, since the camp itself is exposed and relatively fragile. In times past they used it more frequently, however since so many Grinne-dyloch are around these days, in recent years they've been cautious about staying near the water.

Urged on by others in the party, Orna explored the back end of the cave (east) where the roof become low and rocks are jumbled everywhere. She found that it keeps on going further into the interior of the island, but gets increasingly difficult to squeeze through, even for a hobbit.

Sad Mel was antsy and eager to search for his kidnapped comrade, Marven - a beautiful charcoal rendition of a plump-haunched pony on the cave walls only seemed to spur the desire to save his friend - but the others convinced him to have patience while they rested and waited for the barbazu and its forces to (hopefully) go elsewhere.

Rickas was worried about his mother back in Andersport.

The group dined on lightning-toasted crabs and settled down to rest as best they could on the dank, hard rock. An order of watch was agreed and the party resolved to move out at the next low tide, which they guessed would be an hour or two before dawn (though they had not yet resolved where they would head).

Apparicio took second watch in the form of Der Schrecken. Some time in the early evening, not too long after the high tide, the party was attacked from the sea-ward side by three lacedons, AKA sea-ghouls or sometimes "drowners". The creatures had kelp ropes looped around their necks which led back into the tidepool, where, it transpired, a wicked Grinne-dyloch priest was lurking.

And more peril yet! Even as the heroes engaged the lacedons, more Grinne-dyloch launched a surprise attack - these were a sneaky breed that could change the colour of their skin to blend in with their surroundings, melting away before the heroes' eyes as they squirmed among the rocks. These creatures seemed to be trying to poison our heroes by some means, however they had little success.

Despite sustaining wounds and the paralysis of both Puku & Der Schrecken, the party prevailed and the Grinne-dyloch were once again defeated. The drowners were destroyed, three of the chameleonic squidlings lay dead and the priest fled out to sea.

Another of the sneaky Grinne-dyloch revealed itself before fleeing, throwing a small, weatherbeaten tricorne hat to the ground and hissing a challenge in ill-accented Common: "We have your friends, meat! Come get them!"
Pulse of gray then surged across its skin as it withdrew among the rocks at the back of the cave, and the heroes lost sight of it.

The party recognised the sad little hat as belonging to Parsonpot Saltpepper, Captain of the Skippebble.

Kat grabs the rope from Adlin and descends. The hole is the opening of a natural rock chimney which drops eight or nine feet before belling out into a larger cavern below. It's rather like climbing into a giant alchemical flask. The first part of the climb is easy as you can brace your feet against the sides. After it opens out it gets harder as you're just clinging to the rope - you're thankful to whoever set it up for tying thick knots in the rope every two feet or so.

It's about fifteen feet down from the chimney to the floor of the cavern, the scuffing of your bootsoles rings in the hard empty space as you drop to the ground.

As your eyes adjust you make out dim daylight from the chimney above and also the the west, where you see faint light glistening on water. You can hear a hollow boom of waves breaking from that direction, the sound funneling down the cavern towards you. The air is damp and you can faintly smell rotting seaweed.

"Disco Instanciar!" you intone in words of lavender, and faerie lights waft around you. By the rainbow lights you can see you're in a fairly spacious grotto. Rocks, large and small, are jumbled everywhere but a space of about 15' diameter has been cleared directly beneath the chimney and the floor is solid rock. Some dusty trash is lying around. Just next to you are the remains of an old campfire.

The opening of the chimney is the peak of the roof of the grotto - further away it slopes down and you can see marks made in charcoal on the rock.

To the south-west the rock floor drops some ten or twelve feet down to a still tidepool. Just to the right of that - due west - a tumble of rocks creates an easier slope leading down to a natural corridor with a floor of wet sand, which you surmise runs out to the sea.

To the north the arch of the ceiling meets the floor only ten foot from the campfire. To the south and east, the roof is low and the rocks are piled high, it looks like you could move around among those rocks beneath the low ceiling (with difficulty) but you can't see if it goes anywhere.

Play Report 23/7/14

While Puku finished the grave, Melthorpe relayed the tale of how he and the others had escaped pursuit from the devils who attacked them at the sulphur mill by bringing a landslide down across the path, seemingly through an act of reckless heroics on his part. For the benefit of Kat & Apparicio, he explained again the fate of the slain Chorster (murdered by dwarven kidnappers!) and his friend Marven (kidnapped by dwarven murderers!) the night prior. Meanwhile Orna planted her greenwood staff in the ground and watered it.

Puku finished digging and the party respectfully participated in the burial of Chorster, though privately Apparicio hoped that Melthorpe's rhyming eulogy was not the best he had to offer. Puku knelt solemnly and commended also the crew of the Skippebble into the care of Those Beyond.

Adlin and Rickas were too antsy for such niceties and were busy collapsing a couple of tents and repurposing the canvas as large, ungainly swag bags to drag away supplies from the camp. At the conclusion of the funeral, they were already halfway to the tree-line, each awkwardly hauling an out-size bundle behind him.

The party was moving to catch up with them when a purple imp flew out from above the scrub forest, and flew towards them! Puku put an arrow in the thing, while Apparicio summoned a brave little Air Elemental which took immediate issue with the winged devil and administered a robust uppercut to the chin. Brandishing his longsword, Melthorpe Madrigell cut a most heroic figure, and he free-styled a few lines of verse which lifted everyone's spirits and resolve.

Now, Apparicio and Kat were both sufficiently educated enough to know that imps characteristically have RED skin, hence this one was an oddity - but only Kat had seen anything like a purple imp before...

SEPIA-TONE FLASHBACK!

...for at her finishing school in Almas, study break had been greatly enlivened when a swarm of tiny purple implings had burst from the belly of the illicit imp familiar of her classmate Bethany Wyrmire! Narsus had been the name of the wretched thing, and it had gloated cryptically before expiring from the trauma of its blasphemous natality. In the days following, every ratcatcher in the city had been paid a triple bounty for purple tails, but it was always suspected that some few of the critters had escaped to elsewhere. Could this be one of the Spawn of Narsus, grown now to adult stature?

CRASH-CUT TO REALITY!

"Hey, dummy! Your old man Narsus was a bumble-butt!" Katerina hollered at the purple imp as it approached, hoping to confirm her theory.

"What know you of Narsus, b!tch?" the imp said crossly, veering over to hover above her head, and up-ending a sack from which tumbled two flaming orange-scaled snakes! Fleet-footed Kat sprang back and they dropped to the ground where moments before she had stood. One slithered over forthwith and gave her a painful burning bite on the calf, leaving a sinuous line of scorched earth behind it.

Peppered with arrows and punches from Appariocio's weather-wyrd, the imp was getting flustered and it cried out in the Infernal tongue. Six melty-men broke from the tree-line! Rickas & Adlin fell back to join the rest of the party, abandoning their supplies.

Kat & Melthorpe wasted no time in snipping the heads from the fiery asps at their feet, then turned to face this new threat from the clumsy yet resilient hell-fatties. (Thok-Murel praised the spicy tang of the reptile's effluvia).

"'Ware the leader!" cried Adlin, "if the leader comes, we flee!"
Sad Mel, though plainly no coward, immediately endorsed this plan.

The imp finally went down beneath the combined onslaught of the heroes as the melty-men made their lumbering charge from the tree-line. Puku scooped up the empty sack it had carried, noting that it was made from an unusual leather, its colour the deep dark red of air-starved blood.

The melty-men were spreading out to encircle the party in their approach and at this, the callow Rickas broke and ran for the trees to the east.

It seems he had the right idea for not long after our heroes engaged the leading foes, a horrifying figure stalked out from the scrub, a fearsome bearded devil, wielding a wicked glaive and clad only in a purple sash, its loathsome pronged genitalia wafting about as it strode forth. It bellowed commands in Infernal at its underlings as it advanced.

(Somewhere in the back of her mind Kat wondered why the fiend did not teleport, as such is known to be within the power of a barbazu, but, why second-guess good fortune?)

The banquet of battle was almost done, but the party had no appetite for dessert and beat a retreat for the questionable safety of the trees, hot on the heels of Rickas. Luckily, the plucky little weather-wyrd threw itself at the bearded devil, buying them precious seconds. They were pursued into the scrub by the melty-men but Apparicio craftily delayed the pursuers by summoning a Holy Beast-Ant at a natural chokepoint, then sealed the escape by Greasing an embankment after our heroes had scrambled up it.

The party moved more stealthily now, circling back to the north, behind where the baddies had emerged from. Adlin lead them to a hole in the rock, about the width of a gnoll's shoulders. A knotted rope is tied to the trunk of a gnarly tea-tree nearby, and drops down into the hole.

"This here's the way down to the storm cave..." hisses Adlin, his face grubby with dirt and gleaming with sweat, but his sh!t, seemingly, together. "Wit' Gorum's bloody grace, could be safe to hole up here for a while..."

He offers the knotted rope...

Just to remind myself, Kat copped some Strength damage due to a critical failure first time she tried to stab a snake

Oh yeah, Adlin took your offered handshake, Apparicio, Melthorpe did not - he sullenly wandered away before you could proffer the hand. Adlin's palm felt like fossilized beef jerky.

“Good afternoon, my good fellows, and well met,” he offers hand-shakes to Adlin and Melthorpe as he continues, ”I am Apparicio, and I apologise for my delay in arriving. I am not at my best, and the travails of our journey briefly proved too much for me.”

Adlin nods at you.

He turns and starts walking up the earthen bank that surround the miner's camp as a windbreak and rudimentary fortification.

"Melthorpe Madrigal, on your family's honor we must return to the mainland at once and come to the aid of your sister and your beloved Leyland! My sword and those of my companions are at your service in this most noble endevour!"

Striking a suitably dramatic pose and awaits Mels reaction.

Secret GM diplomacy roll!

The young nobleman's dewy, limpid eyes shimmer as you tell your tale. More than once, you are almost stricken dumb by the wistful look on his fine-featured face, but you power through it.

Your rousing finish, however, sends his gaze sliding forlornly to the ground.

"Ah, 'my family's honour'..." he says bitterly. "Do you think I *chose* to be a Madrigell? A scion of a dusty dynasty, still clinging pathetically to our venal privileges, hiding from the light of Andoren's freedom dawn? No more than butchers of the borderlands, my family - cynically allowed the fool's grace of a title for fear that red priests of Cheliax would have our loyalty elsewise."

He meets your gaze again.

"I do not consider my family's honour. But Leyland was more a father to me than... the Baron. And my sister... how we left things, I never dreamed she'd come looking for me. You have given me much to think on. But let me now bury my comrade."

Oh, how his sorrowful tones pluck at your feminine soul!

Apparicio is approaching at this point and says:

“Good afternoon, my good fellows, and well met,” he offers hand-shakes to Adlin and Melthorpe as he continues, ”I am Apparicio, and I apologise for my delay in arriving. I am not at my best, and the travails of our journey briefly proved too much for me.”

"Well met." says Melthorpe sadly, lingering not at all and heading over to the grave (where Puku is burrowing like a ankheg!)

I'm waiting on Kat ATM...

You know my computer crashed halfway through making a map last night? So upsetting...

Time for PEDANT'S CORNER!

Chocking back tears of remorse and frustration Benzo gently secured the body to his horse, swearing to give her a decent burial and to bring the perpetrators of this hideous crime to justice.

Benzo's "horse" is a pony! And, it's dead.

More ghouls poured from the barn and cornfield, savaging the incapacitated Vizigog and momentarily paralyzing Mahlo. Benzo's attempts to come to his companions aid were hindered by an ongoing stream of assailants issuing form the barn.

There was like, ONE extra ghoul that came out of the barn after the first one Benzo iced?

OKAY SORRY THAT'S THAT DONE, I'M OKAY NOW

"Far out Mel, what befell this fulla? Looks like his necks got the mean bash!" Observed the barbarian as he toiled at the grave...

Melthorpe comes over after he finishes interacting with Kat. Puku has already started digging in the interim.

"He was killed while on watch last night, by... well, it was dark, but I think it was dwarves, if you can credit it! As if being set upon by devils were not miserable enough! Three or four of them crept upon us during the night, they killed Chorster and kidnapped another of our company, Marven. I woke and tried to take after them, but - curse it! - in the black of night, they moved so surely with their underground eyes and they got away clean..."

"Ah, Marven! Do you know he is an artist? He draws horses. No formal training of course. But he's a wondrous talent. Now that you're here, stout Puku, I'm sure that if he's alive, we'll save him! And some day, why, Marven's horses shall run free, their lovely manes flowing and bright haunches gleaming as they frolic through the parlors of the fine and mighty! Hanging on the walls, as, as paintings, I mean." he appends for Puku's benefit.

"Well, so I hope..." he adds forlornly.

Melthorpe interrupts Kat.

"Hold a moment milady, you mentioned you know my sister, and our faithful servant, Leyland? And Leyland in some sort of trouble? Speak of this, please, I'm bewildered?"

You tell him whatever you tell him and then after {REACTION TBD} he moves over to the grave to interact with Puku

The man opens his mouth to answer but Kat interrupts

"Hey our friends from the Skippebble had a boat! They were bringing it here to deliver your supplies, have you seen them?"

"So, it were the Skippebble ye came on," Adlin confirms glumly, "I's fool enough to hope otherwise, though there's little else makes landfall here other than wracks and black-boats..."

He shoots a glance over to Mel.
"Listen, do ye know young Mel, have ye some sway with him? I tell ye, I had no notion he were high-born, I swear it. It makes me sick to think some of what me and the boys said to him when we thought... well it don't matter what we thought. But if you've any clout with the young master, please, you gotta talk some sense to him, we gotta get moving quickly, first we gotta get outta this camp, before that buzzing brings all Fourteen Hells right down on us... and then we gotta get off this damn island, even if it mean swimmin'! Never mind a burial - Chorster can come back as a ghost and spook the melty-men for all I cares."

"Worse," he adds, "I think the young lord's of a mind to go looking for Marven, who were grabbed up last night... no doubt by now he'll be dead like the rest..."

Okay so for posterity, as I recall we:
* set a fire trap in our old base, which we dunno whether it has gone off yet

* got a job from some kind of butler to go looking for Ogden's posh girlfriend. We took a copy (by eye?!) of a letter in Elvish and are looking for someone who can read it. We dunno how good Nyx's transcription is.

* interrogated our captive on a rowboat floating downstream - he mentioned something about the Pure Men gearing up to take more territory and named some guy in their crew who's meant to be a hard-arse I guess (don't recall the name)

* we left that guy in the boat floating downstream (maybe he will show up in Andersport eventually)

* went to the Rueful Crabb where a couple of guys from some backwoods cult were trying to strong-arm a wayward member back into the fold. We had a scrap with them and they were genuinely trying to kill us which seemed a bit extreme - they run off and so did the guy that we helped

* we scarpered out the back before the Law could show up. Stegg asked the barkeep Mungo if he knew someone who could read Elvish but I can't remember if he told us anything

That's the main bits as I recollect them. I think Nyx tailed the butler back to his place but it didn't appear to have any significant outcome.

Puku wastes no time and takes up the the shovel to dig deeper the grave,. Though ignorant to much of the religions of the civilized world, he holds the sanctity of death and fallen comrades with most pious regard.

"You suss out your words and I'll fix you a hole whats deep enough for your bro." He said to Mel as he jumped into the pit.

You can help but notice the human corpse lying next to the half-dug grave.

GM roll for Heal check...

Glancing at the body, Puku notes that the wounds are quite different from those of the other men killed at the sulphur mill - no lacerations, but from bruising and the crumpled line of his throat, you'd mark that this man's windpipe was crushed by a blunt force.

(Puku once saw a man die after taking a chair leg to the throat in a bar brawl - or insert your own explanation if you prefer).

You grab up the spade and set to.
Gimme a Strength check...

Now waiting on KAT to reply to Adlin, and DER SCHRECKEN to declare some kind of action...

Does the grave look dug? Does it seem to be just a matter of lob in the stiff and cover it up by pushing in the heap of dirt? How long would it take to bury this dude if Puku(and maybe Der Shrecken) hekped Mel? Maybe while the others gathered suppplies for an immediate evac?

It's a few dozen feet off, but you can see that the pile of excavated dirt isn't all that big.

"It's about half dug," Sad Mel tells you, "but worse, I've completely confounded on the matter of the eulogy. No idea what rhyme scheme would be appropriate..."
There are tears in his eyes as he tells you this.

Adlin scowls and glares at Melthorpe, then turns his regard to the younger miner.

"Rickas! Keep hold of your nuts, boy. Bring down a couple of the tents and bundle supplies in the canvas, get going!"

Rickas scurries back over the bank.

"We're low on supplies, but with most of our crew dead there's a bit more to go around. Problem's gonna be where to go..."

He addresses Kat.
"Do you people have any kind of a plan?"

"Buzzing?!"
The younger miner's voice cracks in panic.

"Shhhhh...!" hushes Adlin urgently, raising a hand and tilting his head to one side.

You hear it faintly, seemingly circling quite high above the group.

Melthorpe hunches and draws his broadsword a hand's breadth from its sheath.

dice roll...

Puku's nostrils flare as he draws back the bowstring, sighting along the shaft at the clear blue sky above, trying to pinpoint the noise as it zags and loops around.

He looses!
The arrow describes a beautiful parabola, in accordance with physical laws - hitting nothing, it thunks into the earth a few dozen yards away.
However, you hear the buzzing noise recede to the east.

"Sh!t...!" cusses Adlin, "we should move, we should get out of here. Last time we heard that noise was about an hour afore the melty-men fell upon us at the mine. I not seen such a bloody slaughter in twelve-year or more..."

"Indeed," intones Melthorpe, and gestures towards the grave he was digging, "but first, let us bury our fallen comrade, Chorster, with the honour he deserves..."

"Nah, nah, we gotta go, we gotta go now!" says the young feller, panicked.

Actions/reactions please...

Puku grins at Mels approach, "Thought you's might need a hand! " and he strides foward to address a mighty handshake with his old comrade.

"You's got some pretty massive troub's here eh mate," Bobbing his coarse eyebrows he gestures back towards the treeline, "But dont worry, I brought some mates."

With a wave, Puku beckons the others over from their hiding place...

"Can it be?! Puku, our rough-hewn deliverance!" gasps Melthorpe, his voice cracking. He looks beat, but glimmers of hope animate his face. "Our saviour in serpentine! Messiah in malachite!"

Puku senses exhaustion quivering through Mel's muscles as their hands lock together in the famous "Lumberjack's Clasp".

He leans back and rests his other hand on the greenskin's mighty shoulder.

"You, friend, are ambrosia to my eyes, Desna's very honey decanted through the nozzle of my pupils as a balm to succour my scathed and bleeding soul! But how in all the world's wending ways come you to be here?"

The rough cove with the shortbow steps down from the embankment.

"Old friends is it..." he mutters, seemingly to himself, but audible to all,"'spose the tusker's another fukken poet, jus' what we need."

He looks Kat up and down as she approaches, meets her gaze and scowls.

Kat sidles out from cover and approaches the beckoning Puku. As she gets near she notices the double-headed crane, the dark hair the comely features.

"Melthorpe Madrigal?? Mel?"

She breaks into a run and basically leaps at the dude, wrapping her arms around his neck

"We've been looking everywhere for you! Eloise sent us!" she babbles "We gotta get back to Andersport! Leyland is in trouble!"

dice rolls...

The young lordling catches Kat by the waist and gently pivots to set her down on her feet on the other side of him.

His eyes bulge as she blurts data at him.
"Eloise? Leyland? How do you know my family? Who are you, dear maiden? Who is she, Puku?"

"More to the point," the grizzled marksman interjects, "does the slip have a boat?"

More less at the same moment, Kat asks:

"So.... do you guys have a boat? Ours kind of got smashed by a giant lizard..."

Melthorpe and the bowman exchange alarmed looks.

The bowman growls a reply through clenched teeth, yellow.
"There's the rowboat we use to get to the mine on calm days. But it ain't here, we left it moored when we... well, when we ran away. Was thinking about making a play for it though it's like as not a play for the grave... but you came that way from the mine, surely, did you see it?"

You did not, and he reads this in your face.
The leathery old reprobate slumps and presses the heel of his hand up against his left eye.
"Ah, Gorum strike me fukken blue..."

A third fellow emerges from behind the embankment, a young man, half a child yet, eyes wide, he has a harrowed look.

"Mercy of the Dawn!" he yaps excitedly, "Adlin, are they here to rescue us? We're saved!"

The bowman - Adlin, it seems - looks down and spits.
"Saved? Reckon these ones are just as fukked as us..."

BTW don't forget that you heard that buzzing noise as you approached - moments ago in game time, but obviously weeks ago in the real world, hence the reminder.

Also - since Der Schrecken has declared no action, for now I'm assuming he has elected to hang back, hiding in the treeline, to observe. Because who knows what kind of reaction his appearance might provoke from these embattled men? Orna, however, has toddled along several paces behind Kat.

No play report?

They stand there like dummies.

Sad Mel drops his spade, even from a hundred yards away you can see his stunned expression.

"Hold! Hold!" he calls to the fellow with the bow.

That guy lowers his bow but keeps the arrow nocked.
"There's more o' them up yonder," warns the bowman, indicating the rest of the group still up by the treeline. "Caint see no horns 'pon they brow, leastways," he allows. His tones are coarse, and his accent rustic.

Sad Mel starts walking towards you then breaks into a jog.
You recognise his armor, the splendid breastplate with the Madrigell crest (a double-headed crane) masterfully wrought on its surface - but marred now with fresh dents, and spatters of gore.

His pale face is shiny with sweat and his jaw hangs slack in wonderment.
"Can it be...? My old comrade, Puku the Savage? Be you a spectre or a seeming, begone from my sight! But if true flesh before me... how come you here, at this, our direst hour?"

A third man emerges from behind the earthworks, and watches.

Puku, you charge ahead. For a few moments you can barely discern the mysterious buzzing sound, wending through the air somewhere ahead and above you, before it is lost amidst the noise of your breath and the thump of your feet against the earth.

As you get nearer, you feel certain that the man you're charging towards is none other than Melthorpe Madrigell, or "Sad Mel" as he was known among the jacks. He startles at your approach and drops his spade.

At the same time, off to your right you see a figure clamber atop the round earthworks from the inside. A short, drably dressed human male, he draws his shortbow and takes aim at you!

Also - Murray can award Benzo 5xp for utilizing the term "Alienist", which is awesome.

It's a Lovecraft staple!

The guy has not seen you - he is focused on the work of digging, back bent and arms to the shovel. However at the moment, if he happened to look toward the treeline he would probably spot you, unless you wish to take effort to conceal yourself.

If you approach him, it will be over open ground and concealment will not be an option.

"Hey, sssh, listen!" squawks Orna.
You strain your ears - at first all you notice is the faint rush of wind through the trees and the hum of insects - normal sounds that you're hearing really for the first time since arriving on the Isle - and the wash of the sea from the base of the nearby cliffs.

But then you pick out a low-pitched drone, like a much larger insect, in your mind's eye, something like a fly the size of a wolfhound, circling dozens of feet above your head.

But you look up and see only empty sky.

"It's the same noise, just like before!" Orna says.

The noise grows fainter and seems to be advancing ahead of you, in the general direction of the earthworks and the armoured man.

Okay rolling for Apparacio and Orna...

Apparico Perception: 1d20 + 3 ⇒ (8) + 3 = 11
Orna Perception: 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (17) + 4 = 21

Gimme Perception checks before you do anything else

Play Report 6/2/14 & 11/2/14

Working as a team, it wasn't difficult to get Der Schrecken and Puku safely up out of the water, along with the rotting, barnacle-studded chest. Der Schrecken was also able to dive down and scoop up a handful of shiny platinum pieces and a rusted sword with a fine golden hilt from the seabed, while Puku hacked off the eel-like tail from the aquatic monstrosity that had attacked his pal, for savory enjoyment at a later date.

Within the chest they found a couple of treasures, an silver-chased ivory drinking horn, and a gold censer with silver filigree, evidently lifted from a temple of Sarenrae. The silver was tarnished but otherwise these treasures were not in bad nick. Puku resolved to keep the drinking horn handy for future employment as a Pimp Cup.

The party then continued on the path which switched back and crawled up the outer wall of the crater, affording fine views of the glittering ocean. The path almost skirted just below the lip of the crater wall before descending again, down towards a flat area they could see far below. It was covered in rough, dry grass, the first vegetation they'd seen on the island.

Wending around the folds and ridges of the crater wall, the party came to an obstacle - evidently a recent landslide had obliterated part of the path, and climbing seemed treacherous. Looking some hundred feet or so below they could see three broken forms, evidently tumbled down from roughly where they stood - and clustered around them a feeding flock of loathsome "fangbirds" - not proper birds as such, but that species of swoop-lizard notorious for their hooked teeth that sprout from heavy, outsize jaws.

Puku cast a survivor's eye over the loose rock and scree around them and judged that the safest climb was straight down and then continuing around the rocky shore, rejoining the path at the grassy area.

The team misliked the prospect of being set upon by fangbirds while hugging the cliff, so they resolved to kill or drive them off with missile attacks from above. Puku opened with a shot from his long-bow which skewered the largest, the "alpha fangbird" perhaps half again the size of the others and with the scaly skin of its skull stained blood-red.

Evidently the fangbirds were feeling gully and they flew up to attack, wheeling around outside of melee range then swooping in to snap at them with their big jaws. The alpha bit the end of Puku's arrow and worried it out from between its ribs - flying up to attack, almost lazily it flapped past the hapless deckhand Grallen and snapped his head up with a single bite! It flew off to enjoy this morsel, and the other fangbirds quickly scattered after two of their number were put to death, but not before injuring the hobbit Orna Goodgrace.

With the fangbirds gone and the shock of Grallen's sudden demise fresh in their minds, the party made their way down to the rocky shore. Though not an easy climb, by taking great care and making use of Der Schrecken's natural climbing skills, this was accomplished without incident.

They examined the bodies at the base of the cliff. Two humans corpses, partly eaten by the fangbirds. These seemed to be two more of the miners, and not more than a day dead as best as our heroes could tell.

The third was untouched by the scavengers, a green pinch-faced thing with spiny skin and cloven hooves for feet - yet another devil it seemed, though Kat wasn't sure what kind exactly. It was dead from a snapped neck and smelled like alchemist's acid.

What is going on on this island?!

Grallen's headless body and the other two dead humans were committed to the sea after a strange eulogy about circles was delivered by Orna. They were dandled in the waves for a while before one thrashed about like a rag doll and was pulled under by some unseen thing. The party decided to move on hastily.

They made their way a short distance around the rocky shore and then climbed up to the flat grassy space they had previously seen from above. They knew they could rejoin the path on the other side.

As they crossed, Puku spied something flying up above the crater, to the east - the shape vaguely humanoid but sprouting four large, bat-like wings. Remembering her planar studies, Kat thought the four wings characteristic of a Magaav, a devil most fell! The party exercised discretion and hid themselves as best they could in a fold in the land and the thing flew off to the south, apparently without noticing them.

([/i]NEW INFO - it later occurs to Kat that Magaavs are also known as 'host devils' as they are thought to swarm in great numbers - so, curious to see one alone, if that's indeed what it was[/i])

Our heroes were back on the trail and continued their way toward the miner's camp. Rounded the westernmost ridges of the island, they could see the cape they were headed for, covered in scrubby forest and open grassy areas - not good land by any stretch, but perhaps the best to be found in this place. The path continued its circuitous route up and down through the difficult terrain, avoiding the steepest slopes.

They reach a fairly, wide open rocky area near the shore, where the air was spiced with sea spray. As they progressed, they spied piles of clean-picked animal bones among the rocks, and discerned a subtle chorus of wet clicking, sucking noises that put them on their guard. And just as well, for a great host of hand-sized crabs boiled up from the rocks and crevasses around them, implacable in their hunger, remorseless in the cruel-plucking clutch of their hideous little claws!

The party was hard pressed by this enemy as no matter how many they crushed it seemed like picking sand from the desert one grain at a time. Fortunately, a series of super-potent (lucky) attack eventually broke up the swarm, but not before Kat and Puku had felt the grotesque tickle of a hundred crabby claws daintily pinching morsels of their still-living flesh into their whirring, sick little mouths.

A couple of sackloads of crabs had been cooked by Kat's magical lightning and Puku grabbed some up for later eating. The smell of cooked crab also attracted another fangbird which kept its distance until the party moved on. Looking back as the left the rocky shelf behind, they spied a tilted wooden sign, wedged between two rocks. It read:

WATCH OUT
CRABBS

The trail took them further from the crater wall to land where the soil was somewhat fertile, and there they had the brief enjoyment of shade as the passed beneath a patch of scrubby forest. Emerging from the twisted trees, they found themselves on the edge of a wide grassy clifftop area, which juts westward out into the sea, with the great wall of the crater behind to the east and looming hundreds of feet above.

A couple of hundred feet to the west, out in the open, the party can see a small circular bank of piled up dirt, a low wall of earthworks in effect. The top of a shanty-like wooden structure can be seen behind it.
A few dozen feet away from the circle, a man appears to be digging a grave. He has dark hair and is clad in armour of shining steel.

BTW the description of a Fan Feather Token expressly says "It does not function on land", but that seems needlessly stifling to me, so I'm saying it will function on land, so long as you're pretty close to the ocean, i.e. you have line of sight to it. And it will always create an on-shore breeze.

Won't work underground etc...

But that could potentially allow for some creative application, some day...

Play Report 30/1/14

The heroes' sleep was punctuated with small seismic tremors - Apparicio, unaccustomed to roughing it, slept fitfully and awoke fatigued. Nevertheless the party rose to face the day with grim determination and a will to survive. (Apparicio refreshed himself via the useful expedient of transforming into Der Schrecken).

Orna read a passage from her "Daily Book of Inspirations", something odd about swimming with dolphins. Puku and Apparicio were uplifted in wonderment, Kat was unimpressed.

Taking stock of the situation, the party realised that while they had unlimited water supplies through the cantrips of Orna Goodgrace, food was a limited resource. So they elected to cook up the meat of the slaughtered donkeys. While Puku set to the task of butchery, the others broke up packing crates for firewood.

They decided to set their fire down near the water so some could hunt for salvage while the others cooked. As they were hauling the meat and wood away from the mine however, Puku looked up and was startled to see a figure watching them from about 100' inland, towards the crater. The observer was a well-formed naked woman with skin like burnished copper and hair of flame (Apparicio recognised this creature as a fire nymph, a native of the Plane of Fire, having read a cautionary tale about a novice Summoner's attempts to enjoy sexual congress with one such being).

The party looked back for a while, uncertain how to respond to the outsider's regard. Puku waved, and the nymph raised one arm in return, then turned and sauntered back inland, through the clouds of steam.

Soon afterwards, Kat and Der Schrecken were thrown into the air as the earth erupted under their feet - an attack by more outsiders - two Thoqqua, stone-plated burrowing worms with magma-hot flesh (this time Kat recognised them, having read "Top 10 Times To Leave Your Quarterstaff At Home" somewhere). The party dispatched the searing worms without too much difficulty. Conveniently, their corpses provided an excellent surface for grilling meat (the donkey turned out to be tastier than you might expect).

Scouring the water's edge turned up a crate with some edible supplies still intact, and Der Schrecken - sweeping the shore-line with Detect Magic, managed to grab up a Fan Feather Token from a rusty tin on the sea-bed, evidently lost by some mariner long ago.

Their packs now bearing a comforting weight of food, they set off to follow the trail around to the miner's camp on the west of the island. The first stretch of the trail skirts the rocky shore before switching back and clambering up the outer slope of the crater.

Passing above a calm inlet in the shoreline, the party could see beneath the water a sunken row-boat that appeared to have some loot scattered on the pebbly sea-bed around it. A positive hit on Detect Magic was the clincher for Der Schrecken, and he dived down to investigate. However, camoflaged among the rocks was a monstrous crustacean, almost as big as a man, which seized him in its poisonous claws.

Kat fired Rays of Frost down into the water and Puku dropped the rope and dived in after Der Schrecken - the crabby creature was destroyed, but its poison seems most potent and Der Schrecken's strength has been sapped considerably (-7 STR). We pause our tale with Der Schrecken and Puku down in the water, with a 10' slippery climb to the path above them.

BTW I've been looking up nautical terms a little bit, I think the boat that Orto and Lenny left on is probably better described as a "pinnace", whereas the jolly-boat would be Steady Kenn's row-boat.

Now you're learnin'!!!

Awesome! Old man V up in the piece!

Gimme an order of watch guys, and let me know any precautions you take.

Go ahead with your level-up posts though, I'm sure you'll be fine...

Play report 23/1/14

As Kat stood and tested her weight on her bandaged ankle, she noticed a flat smooth surface among the rocks, catching the moonlight. Approaching closer, it proved to be a long wooden case, of fine make but battered by the elements. And a strangely familiar case at that - last seen in the Twisted Tiki back at Woodenhead, it was part of the family's effects brought from Almas - how did it come to be here?

Opening it, Kat found what she dared to hope for - it contained the heirloom blade of her great-great-uncle Abaddon Crowley, who had met his fate somewhere on an expedition to the Frozen North. The blade was known to be most puissant, a magical artefact with a mind of its own - yet since re-appearing mysteriously in the Crowley vault three generations ago, it had been silent and inert. And now it had seemingly transported itself once again.

Gripping the hilt, Kat felt something new, a responding surge of warmth and the tingle of mysterious energies warping about the black-bladed scimitar. The blade awakens!

"HI THERE!!! YOU MUST BE MY 'TRUE WIELDER'!!!" the scimitar yelled into her mind with excessive cheer.

After decades dormant, the thing seemed keen to bond with her - super-keen! The blade named itself as Thok-Mur-El and, seemingly eager for the taste of blood, nonchalantly suggested that she stab Puku or Apparicio (now transformed into Der Schrecken). It seemed unperturbed by her refusal, but continued to harp on about its thirst.

The blade seemed to remember little about itself other than its name and a distant memory of cold.

While Kat communed telepathically with her blade, the others discussed the next move. From the sounds they'd heard, they feared the Skippebble was wrecked. They decided to walk back around to the bay to confirm this, and check for any survivors or salvage washed ashore before moving to the shelter of the rock-cracking house for a much-needed rest.

The group moved back around the headland, and above the surge of the sea, Orna heard someone's cries for help out over the water. Der Schrecken, as swift in water as on land, dived off the jetty to investigate. Powering through the swell without too much difficulty, he came upon the half-orc Steady Kenn, clinging to a spar and clearly exhausted. Unfortunately, the dull-witted cabin boy took fright at the sight of Apparicio in his monstrous form and attempted to swim away. As Apparicio remonstrated with him, he felt a painful stab in his leg, and a heartbeat later Steady Kenn slipped suddenly beneath the waves.

Apparicio ducked beneath the waves, only to see - the Grinne-dyloch had struck again! Two had grappled Steady Kenn by the legs and were dragging him away. The half-orc clutched frantically towards Apparicio, his life's breath bubbling from his throat, but the summoner turned, leaving him to die.

Another of the Grinne-dyloch was between Der Schrecken and Der Shore - it jabbed Apparicio once more with its spear, but then the great rubber-skinned brute tore the squiddish greebly apart with one pass of his ghastly paws.

Apparicio swung back to shore - his compatriots had found nothing of value in their beach-combing. They moved back to the mine and prepared to rest in the tool shed...

Remember that shivering popinjay is currently transformed into a big lizard guy, though!

[b]Puku[b] takes stock...

Aw, pretty sweet...?

His morningstar is gone.
In the pack, everything got wet but two of Puku's food rations have deteriorated into inedible mush.

That's all.

Man oh man, the dice loved Puku on this one... Apparicio ate sh!t by comparison :P

Speaking of "hardcore", characters who fell into the raging waters might've lost or had their items damaged.

Randomly determined, with some semi-rational adjustment of the odds based on the type of item

Apparicio takes stock.
* He dropped his ranseur.
* His pouch of sling bullets has been ripped from his belt. Great, a sling with no bullets...

One strap of his backpack slipped the buckle, luckily he caught the other strap in the crook of his elbow and didn't lose the whole thing, but it's been saturated, battered, and hanging half open while he was roiled around...

* Dag nab it! One of his Pot CLW shattered.
* Good thing he kept his papers in a scroll box. Wait a minute, where's the scroll box? Sh!t...!
* What? My Thief's Tools missing as well!?!?

Everything else is okay.

Apparicio congratulates himself on not bringing any rations because he hates soggy food.

Quit yer whining, Orna might die in the next fight! THIS IS HARDCORE, MAN

Orna stops smirking at the moonrise and toddles over, clucking sympathetically.
"Well Kat I'm about pooped! I don't think I open myself to The Flow right now, my head's all muddled... let's get that boot off though."

Kat grits her teeth as Orna carefully removes her right boot.

She lays her plump little palms on the ankle and begins tenderly kneading at the inflammed flesh...

Heal check: 1d20 + 11 ⇒ (15) + 11 = 26

...she works at the injury for several minutes. The whole time she is explaining her belief that sparrows are capable of entering human dreams. Kat feels like alternating hot and cool fluids are pulsing through the joint, even as Orna's weird words slather her brain. Gradually she realizes the pain has eased.

Orna anoints Kat's ankle in a white unguent and tightly binds the joint with bandages.

She nods at Kat and smiles with satisfaction.
"Should be a bit better."

She yawns and stretches.
"Huh, I was hoping to sleep in a hammock tonight like a real sailor! I guess it's not to be. There must be somewhere comfortable around here, don't you think?"

Kat regained 1 HP and no longer has a penalty to her base speed. But she can't charge or run in combat for the time being.

Orna used up 1 use of her healer's kit.

Apparicop gets to Level 3 after all, from looking at the moon.

In the interests of balanced play...

But Orna still needs another 100 XP, that dumb-dumb!

Kat and Puku, your level-ups will not apply until you rest. Your current condition is not ideal for a good rest.

Apparicio has lost his ranseur. He and Puku may have lost other items, I'll make some rolls later.

Currently the sky is mostly clear and now that the moon has risen the light is a bit better for non-Pukus. There is a breeze that's making you shiver as you're all soaked to the bone.

Play report 8/1/14

The Captain revealed that the greeblies who assualted the ship are known as "the Grinne-dyloch" (a name of Orcish origin), and are normally a relatively minor nautical menace. A sneak attack like this in numbers is apparently quite unusual.

The party met two more crew-members who had remained below-decks during the fight (to Orto's disgust):

Keppler, a gnome - ship's engineer
Weldon Saddler, a half-elf - his assistant

The Captain said a few words to the crew regarding the death of Bess and thanked the party for their part in repelling the assault. But he re-iterated that run must continue as the miners are depending on them to re-supply food and water.

The sailor Grallen commemorated the death of his ship-mate by firing the Grinne-dyloch corpses overboard from the catapult.

“Let their dead rain down on those fukcers, sneaking about on the ocean floor, then they’ll think twice! Then they'll think again!”

Kat and Apparicio experimented with the coral wand from the Grinne-dyloch priest, and after a false start determined that it has healing powers (equivalent to CLW), but does not work unless the subject is wet with saltwater. This is the Wand of the Ocean's Balm.

They also poked around with the disgusting spongey things, determining that one of them was full of seawater and some pulpy blue thing, then they got grossed out and decided to keep them in a bucket of salt-water for now.

Puku salvaged some flash-cooked meat from the big octopus that Captain Saltpepper blew up with black powder (+2 rations)

As the Skippebble progressed towards the island it became apparent that Keppler and the Captain were worried about the ship's performance, with the Iounic Furnace producing a fluttery, uneven torque, and the swell rising.

Due to their lateness and concern about conditions on the far side of the island, Orto and Lenny loaded up the jolly-boat with supplies to be taken the to the miner's camp on the west side of the island and set off alone.

The Skippebble continued on to the bay where they would re-supply the mine itself and take on crates of ore in the morning. It was sunset by the time they arrived, the crew showed some concern that none of the miners appeared on the jetty to welcome them.

"Perhaps they went back to camp already," Grallen surmised, "She's a treacherous trail in the dark."

The Captain was concerned that the should be expected. It was decided to ferry Grallen and the party over in a rowboat powered by Steady Kenn. This was achieved, and Kenn rowed back to the Skippebble as the high swells and rocky shores made it inadvisible to dock at the jetty.

Puku fell in the water on the way in, and since he was already wet, the group took the opportunity to further heal him with the Wand of the Ocean's Balm.

This part of the island is open to the volcanic crater to the north east, and is utterly barren. The view into the crater is obscured a few hundred feet in by great plumes of smoke, and the roar of fumeroles is as constant as the stench of sulphur.

The party headed a short walk north-east to a set of blocky utilitarian buildings, which Grallen indicated was the mining base where sulphurous rocks would be ground up and packed down for shipping to Andersport.

As the party approached, there were no signs of life, and Grallen noted that the mine's donkeys were missing from their stables, which should not be the case if the miner's had gone by stealth. Grallen became a-frighted, and thereafter the party proceeded cautiously.

The donkeys were soon discovered in a small round building housing a crankshaft - still hobbled to the wheel, they had been bloodily slaughtered. (A ginger tom-cat was also there, enjoying a meal).

In the main building (where the rocks are ground up), two of the miners where found dead, and a strange being like an obese man with leathery skin and rudimentary facial features was trapped with its legs mashed in the rock grinder. Kat recognised it as an Infernal outsider, a
nupperibbo, one of the lowest of the low in the hierarchy of the Hells.

The party were unable to communicate with the feeble, crippled monstrosity and Orna ruthlessly splattered its head apart with a Grinne-dyloch mace.

Puku exmained the soft, dry dirt around the area for tracks found the earth had a tale to tell. It seems a group of men had arrived from the east, likewise a jumbled set of "monstrous" tracks of diverse size and nature.

It appears that a group of men and monsters left again heading westward. Grallen thought it likely that the men were running for the trail back to the camp, and the monsters pursuing them. One set of booted feet also headed north, inland into the crater, as did a smaller number of monster tracks.

"That's crazy," commented Grallen, "whoever he is, once he's past the totems he'll be fukced!"

It was now dark and a terrified Grallen was eager to return to the Skippebble. The party walked back to the end of the jetty and used a magically illuminated pebble to signal the Skippebble.

As they waited for Steady Kenn to come back and pick them up, they heard a buzzing noise something like a giant blow-fly moving around in their vicinity. They were unable to determine the source and were discussing the matter with alarm when a new noise intruded above the roar of the fumeroles and the wash of the sea. A long creaking moan, distant to the north, and an ongoing series of concussive thuds. Puku, blessed with his orcish night vision, moved a ways north to investigate as the sounds got louder and the party began to feel the great thumps tremble the ground beneath their feet.

Meanwhile the others could spy the rowboat slowly approaching with a lantern on its prow.

Puku saw lights, low in the sky inland. Bands of dull orange, swinging in strange sweeps, somethimes winking in and out, and getting closer even as the oppressive noise did.

Puku ran back to the party. Something gargantuan was headed their way. Grallen broke and began hollering at Steady Kenn to hurry up, and the confused cries of the half-wit came back.

Puku threw a light-shedding pebble towards the approaching titan thing, and the party glimpsed party of a huge gray leg, and a lizard-like foot of bone easily some twenty-feet across.

It was clear that the rowboat would never reach them in time, and the party ran to the base of the jetty and started heading around the rocks to the south-east.

The giant thing stepped out into the sea, the crash of its feet raising great waves that surged across the bay, threatening to drag our heroes from the rocks and into the whirling waters.

The party distantly heard cries of alarm from the Skippebble.

Puku and Apparicio were both washed into the water and were fortunate to survive, but in the end everyone was able to clamber up high enough to be safe, though Kat sprained her ankle along the way.

The titanic thing had moved past them, straight out into the bay, and the party heard cries of alarm, screams and the crack and crunch of timber torn asunder.

With his night-vision, Puku had discerned the outlines of the thing asit passed, and its general lines perversely reminded him of the tiny emerald-green geckos of the forest at home. His view was unclear, just glimpses stolen while clambering over the rocks for dear life, but he thought the thing must be a hundred foot long or more.

Cold, bedraggled, clinging to the rocks, the part waited some ten minutes or so, at last it seemed the horror had passed.

They climbed back on shore and moved around the back of the small headland they had been climbing, to a bay on the other side, keeping the headland between them and the path the titan had just followed.

Now, sore, wet and exhausted, they sit slumped on the soft earth just above the rocky shore, coonsidering their fate.
To the south-east, a yellow sickle moon is rising over the ocean, swollen fat and stark in its detail. It's kind of beautiful.

Time for XP! - will catch up on a play report later...

Iacobus Apparicio
1000 XP
250 for his role in the bar-fight at the Captain's Repose (even tho he cheated)
300 for besting the early morning ambush by Scalers
350 for repelling the Grinne-dyloch assault on the Skippebble
100 for witnessing and surviving the passage of some titanic thing...

Do not fret, level 3 will not be far away. On the Yellow Isle, XP will come down like rain, providing you can stay alive... oh tee hee hee hee hee!

Katerina Crowley
950 XP
100 for proposing the drinking bout and seconding Puku, thereby winning the reluctant aid of Lenny and Orto
100 for role-playing Kat's self-destructive geas
300 for the Scaler ambush
350 for the Grinne-dyloch assault
100 for the passage of the titan

Puku
1050 XP
100 for winning the bout
200 for the bar-fight
300 for the Scaler ambush
350 for the Grinne-dyloch assault
100 for the passage of the titan

Orna also got 650 for her role in combat, leaving her just 100XP shy of Level 3. NPCs don't get 'Story' awards.

Alvaster turns his shoulder into it:

Fort save: 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (17) + 6 = 23

Okay just to move things along a bit I'll assume you do the obvious things to start with:
1) get heals
2) loot corpses

"Puku's bleeding out!" Kat hollers at Orna, "Get over here, make sure he gets the blessing! The rest of us will huddle up."

From memory, Orna was mostly tapped out but still had two channels left, she's gonna pop 'em both...
Healz: 2d6 ⇒ (2, 5) = 7

Golden light wells from the the throat of the hobbit and spills over you all, you feel warm and sleepy for a second, then somewhat recovered...

I have applied the +7 HP to your counters in Roll20 so they remain accurate. That puts Apparicio at 16/16, Kat at 19/20, and Puku at 5/28.

------

LOOTING
Based on your positions on the map I have assumed Apparicio takes a look at the corpse of the greebly caster, and Kat checks out the feller-with the blow-gun. I also assume you Detect Magic and all the usual stuff.

Apparicio, you take a look at the body once the revived Puku deigns to roll off of it ("Far out, swimmin' down under the ground again!" you hear the battered half-orc comment, though you're not sure what this means).

The greebly lies in a pool of blue ichor with its tentacles splayed across the deck haphazardly. You prod the loathsome little thing a couple of times with your ranseur before continuing.

The robe it wears is made out of a yellow-brown leathery substance which you'd hazard is fashioned from a type of seaweed somehow. Looks like it would fit Orna, though you doubt she'd want to wear it. Non-magical, possibly of some value as a curio.

It died gripping what appears to be a wand (detects as magical). It's a long finger of pinkish-orange coral with script of some sort carved spiraling along its length.
Muttering a quick prayer to Abadar, you attempt to attune yourself to the thing and glean its secrets...
Spellcraft check w/Guidance: 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (6) + 6 = 12

...but it defeats you, perhaps due to its exotic provenance. You are able to glean that it is infused with healing magic, and that its powers are tied to the ocean somehow.

Hanging from a sash about its shoulders it had a Small Masterwork Warhammer fashioned from what appears to be obsidian, stylized quite intriguingly into the shape of a squat creature like a seahorse, with the head of the hippocampus the head, too, of the hammer. Non-magical.

Also attached to the sash is a pouch of some sort, or at least you take it to be a pouch at first. On closer inspection, it seems organic in nature. It's brown, damp, about the size of a loaf of bread and shaped like a kidney. When you touch it, it has an unpleasantly soft and yielding surface and water wells around your fingertips where you prod it. It has a sphincter-like aperture at one end. Non-magical.

------

Kat
Inspecting the other body of what appears to be a "named" greebly, you also find an alien pouch of the type described above.

Its armour is made of gray/green chitinous plates, and the look of it reminds you of eating lobster. From what Puku's weapons have done to it you deem it inferior to conventional metal armour.

Its blowgun is made of some boney substance and has four knuckle like structure along its length.

It had some kind of sword, though the blade is a spur of cartilaginous material with close-knit, jagged teeth projecting from each edge. You test it against your thumb, the teeth are razor sharp -t though uncertain of the weapons durability you suspect it would inflict most grievous wounds.

Nothing magical on him.

The other dead greeblies are nude and carry nothing but their spears and a few pretty sea-shells.

Play Report 5/12/13

...the battle finished up.

Puku, exhausted as his rage abated, fell victim to the needling spear-stabs of his foes and is slumped unconscious near the stern of the ship. Compressed beneath his comatose form, the corpse of the enemy caster.

The party and crew all have their share of wounds.

Apparicio has run out of eagles.

Now read on...

-------------

First Mate Orto slashes his scimitar downwards, flicking ropes of bluish ichor from the blade. With the weapon clutched in a white-knuckled grip, he strides over to a door below the poop deck and hammers on it with the hilt.

"You can come out now, you damned cowards!" he roars at the door.

"Easy, Orto!" calls the Captain.

"Somebody wanna patch me up?" wimpers Lenny Findsfault weakly.

"Gather around me! Let the flow of the universe soothe all ills!" calls Orna, and golden motes of light speckle around here.

Steady Kenn bursts out from belowdecks, knocking Orto back on his arse.
He's brandishing a parcel hook and one foot is stuck in a bucket.
"Lemme attem!" he cries.

Another gnome and a half-elf follow, their eyes flickering about nervously. They are garbed as engineers.

There are six corpses of the greeblies and one mess of half-cooked octopus on the deck.
One is the blow-gun fighter with the eye-patch, he wears some kind of chitnous armour.
Second is the robed caster, pinned beneath the mortally wounded Puku.
The others are naked but for their spears.

The Skippebble remains on course for the Yellow Isle.