If they want memorable, satisfactory and scrappy, I'd say don't grant that wish. Make them dig deep into those one use items. Make a depleted sorcerer flank with a staff so the rogue can get that sneak attack. Push them out of their comfort zones.
Those are the fights that players remember.
Well, they strived to formulate an all-inclusive wish, but after a lot of debating they failed quite miserably. They managed to get their rest and XPs, but no spell was gained.
So here they are, completely spell-less (actually the druid and the sorcerer are completely spell-less, while the cleric still have a few, but he's been made Insane by Freija and mummy-tied by his comrades) and somewhat low in HPs also, pondering what to do now (which includes leaving the place and Plane Shifting to Occipitus).
However, I had already set my mind to end the AP just after Thirteen Cages, so this is how it'll go, for god or bad. I will encourage them not to give up the quest, and try their best to save Cauldron once again. I hope this will lead to some memorable moments as you say.
Quote:
If they're fully rested, they'll probably walk through it without much difficulty because they can nail all the Cagewrights with their best spells. It'll end up with, "So, what do we get for loot?"
Well... they probably won't either :) They started this mission full-powered, nevertheless they had quite a difficult time until now, and they still have to fight the toughest enemies.
If they will embrace the challenge, though, I could consider being somewhat more lenient than usual ;)
Now they're thinking about using the Wish from the Altar to Adimarchus to wish for 'a night's rest' or 'give the sorcerer back all his spells'.
My players are right now in a very similar situation and they had the very same idea about using the Wish to ask for "the whole effects of a night's rest" (IMC this would include giving out XPs, so gaining a level to all of them).
However, while discussing the issue between them, a player said that while that Wish would work for the sorcerer, it wouldn't for the druid and the cleric, since they'd still have to pray at a precise moment in time to regain their spells.
I'd be willing to let them "recharge" themselves, since they are very low on spells (sorcerer depleted, druid almost depleted, cleric a few remaining) and they have still a lot of opponents to defeat (they managed to kill Gau, Moltenwing, Dechrini and Ti'irek, and are chasing Freija after battling her two times).
So, what they want is rest, pray, obtain new levels and prepare/gain back their spells. Would you grant such a Wish? How would you express it?
I assigned a different color for each of the spells... (snip)
I used a similar idea. I had each beholder-shaped door to have nine eyestalks, each sporting a gem of a different color. So, I had a total of ten different colors, nine of them on each door. The color of the missing gem hinted about the spell needed to open that door (ie red for Inflict Wounds, black for Finger of Death and so on).
I thought it fit nicely with the 9-eyed Orbius, and actually my players managed to understand how to operate the doors. However, lacking almost all the necessary spells (to say nothing of their very limited knowledge about WHAT spells a beholder can fire from its eyes), they used the good old Umber Hulk trick to bypass them.
I had the doors kept in place by a quite large circular metal frame the Umber Hulk couldn't dig through, so it had to detour a little, sometimes ending into a room different from the intended one.
I'm playing the SCAP since late 2006, and we just got past midpoint (my players are reaaaaaally slow...). We had a lot of glorious moments in those three years, though. Here's some.
[WARNING - some various spoilers ahead]
-- o -- o -- o --
The final battle in the Malachite Fortress is proving too tough for the party. His high AC, regeneration and ugrosh make Kazmojen nearly unstoppable, and five out of six PCs are on the ground, dead, dying or otherwise incapacitated.
Only Eyleen, the elven sorceress, stands his ground in single-digit HPs [ie completely unharmed, being a second-level sorceress ;)], while the slaver is about half-sane and approaching her with a killer grin on his face, his ugrosh dripping her camerades' blood.
She has this newly found wand, whose flame marks all over its lenght suggest some kind of Fire power. No command word, though. But, wait! A closer examination of the flame marks [and the wise expenditure of a Hero Point] shows the marks are made with tiny letters forming a word repeated again and again! Maybe...
"DIEYOUBASTARD!!", yells Eyleen, pointing the wand against the half-troll. A jet of bright red flames spouts from the raised wand, striking Kazmojen in the middle of chest, this unexpected resistance scorching as much as astounding him, his ugrosh falling on the ground.
"DIEYOUBASTARD!!", yells Eyleen again, promply seizing his enemy faltering. The flames engulf Kazmojen again, his blistering wounds unable to close. Enraged, Kazmojen throws an axe, opening a large slash on Eyleen flank, which leaves her with 3hp.
"Die...You...Bastard!!", pants Eyleen, desperately clutching the wand. And once again, the wand reacts, the fire ignites, the troll screams... this time, falling on the ground, motionless!
[Eyleen then leaved the Fortess, rushed to the St. Cuthbert church and got healed, then led Alek Tercival and a couple of Cuthbertians to recover his fellows and the kidnapped kids. Days later, the party was celebrated in a public ceremony by the Lord Major, which christened them officially as "The Eyleen Band", and granted them a tax-free residence on Ash Avenue. It's worth mentioning that the girl playing Eyleen the Sorceress was at her first D&D experience ever.]
-- o -- o -- o --
When a couple of porters delivers a big, rich chest to their new home, saying the Lord Major wants to add a personal rewards for their services to the said new home they received on the City behalf, the PCs are flattered and just a little suspicious, but put it nevertheless in their living room.
Their suspicion level raises dramatically next morning, when they wake up to discover the chest has disappeared overnight, with no signs of burglary. Then, they find a new four-poster bed in a unused room.
Prodding the bed with a spear, they discover that it was actually the mimic they bargained with to free Ghelve's familiar in Jzadirune. Since then, they have that mimic as a guard "dog", and actually hired an old croonie to prepare him some food (it's especially fond of turkeys) while they're away.
[In the time, the mimic posed as a table, armchair, doorframe, piano, lacunar ceiling, harp, to the delight of the old croonie... :)]
-- o -- o -- o --
"Ehi, wait, the sign on that door reads 'No fire beyond this point', maybe we shouldn't throw fire here..."
"Don't worry, I'm staying clear from that door... it's THIS moldy door here we need to break down!"
[Brown mold nearly reached the Lucky Monkey's kitchen -- five PCs succumbed to the subdual damage, the sixth managed to get them out of the cellar somehow]
-- o -- o -- o --
The noise of battle draws Triel Eldurast out of her room, to join his thugs in the fray against the PCs, which however fare very well and quickly drops a handful of Alleybasher, forcing Triel to retreat back in his room, closing [but not locking!] the door behind.
Eager to press their enemy, the Rogue sprints to the door and pushes it. The trap sprungs, slashing the Rogue and pinning him in the doorframe, where he can't help but watch Triel fully healing herself in a couple of rounds.
Enters the party Barbarian!, who just dropped the last thug and jostles vigorously the door. The door opens just enough to unpin the Rogue, which deems wiser not to risk being trapped alone in the room with Triel, and hence steps back in the corridor. The door closes again.
The Barbarian jostles harder, opens the door, steps forward, get pinned himself and suffers two square hits from Triel's flail, dropping to 0hps. The other PCs rush to the door and try to open it but fail.
The Barbarian decides to push and manage to open the door before falling to the ground unconscious, his body preventing the door to close once again. Finally able to enter the room, the party drops Triel in just two rounds.
Still in the Kopru ruins, the party is already weared after the battles against the T-rex skeleton and the large spider zombies, but they simply CAN'T ignore that last cave with the big stone slab that could be hiding "the treasure".
So they enter the cave, turn undeads exhausted, and what could have been a thrilling (for the Kyuss Spawns worms menace) but manageable encounter turn out a near TPK.
The Monk succumbs to the fear aura and runs away, heading squarely to the nearest Glyph of Warding, which goes boom! and put him in negatives. The Cleric goes down and is worm infected, the party rogue is down, everybody but the Barbarian in single digits. "Flee!" yells the Sorceress, heading for the exit.
The Druid grabs the Rogue, while the Barbarian fends off one Spawn before retreating, glimpsing the other spawn drawing the Cleric in a niche at the far end of the cave...
They spend some days recovering, healing two of them from the Kyuss's Gift, and equipping themselves at Skie's. Upon hearing their tale, Skie asks them to get her an alive worm to study, for 1.000GPs.
Returning to the cave after recovery (which included healing two of them from the Kyuss's Gift), the party is obviously greeted by TWO Spawns, one of them being the unfortunate Cleric. This time, being well prepared and at full strength, they manage to kill the Spawns quite easily.
They manage to get the worm for Skye, and are about to leave, when the Sorceress says "We've already failed Fairax [the Cleric] once, we cannot leave him here again...". The party looks dismayed at the two puddles of green goo that the Spawns had dissolved to, then the Druid fetches two small bottles from his knapsack, labels them "A" and "B" and fills up each from a different puddle.
They then head to the Kord church and deliver there the bottles, saying they're truly sorry but they "can't tell which one is the Goo formerly known as Fairax, albeit one of those surely is", then leave.
-- o -- o -- o --
The party fells for the Kuo-Toa ferry-keeper trick, gets dumped in the water and attacked. Being totally unprepared to battle in the water, they have to retreat hastily and somehow manage to. So obviously they recover and plan for vengeance, cheering the moment they will encounter that "froggy bastard" again.
Well, despite all their planning, they underestimate by far the "froggy bastard"in HIS natural environment [not mentioning him being a 5th level monk, anyway], so the ferry-keeper manages to kick the hell out of them once more, single-handedly!
[In their third attempt, they managed to evade the ferry-keeper and finally entered Bhal-Hamatugn, where they were repeatedly beaten, incarcerated and variously humiliated by the other Kuo-Toa. The Kuo-Toas, especially the ferry-keeper Kuo-Toas, are now the archetipal invincible bad guy of our campaign]
-- o -- o -- o --
When Kristof the Pelorite went mad at the new Wee Jas spire shadowing his shrine, obviously the party felt compassionate with him and really wanted to do something for him.
As the events leading them to Karran-Kurral unfold [in an expanded way, see here], they deactivate an artifact in Liduton, causing a side-effect cave-in just under the Wee Jas cathedral in Cauldron. While the cathedral doesn't collapse, it tilts a little to one side, just enough to cast its spire shadow away from the Pelor shrine.
IMC, I used an much altered version of The Battle of Red Gorge.
The main power I gave the Bastions is to forbid entrance in Redgorge to all demons, until peace reigned in the village.
Of course, as soon as Cauldronites did attack Redgorge to capture the Chisels (Maavu fled from Cauldron riots), the demons took notice and Nabtathoron quickly led its troops against Redgorge.
The secondary power of the Bastions is to annihilate demons which come to close to them (15 feets or so). Black filaments would emanate from the jet-black Bastions and cocooned the demon, shrinking it into nothingness in a couple of rounds.
Nabtathoron did knew the trick, however, and devised a special ritual involving several Babaus to withstand the Bastions power, allowing himn to lay waste freely near the Bastions.
That made for a nice tactical battle under the Bastions shadows (which still protected against the lesser demons), which my PCs managed to win by having the Chisel resources (golem and winged statues) attack and destroy the Babaus, so reducing Nabtathoron's protection, then hitting him with a 3-charges shot from a Ring of the Ram which sent Nabtathoron against the Bastions.
The Bastions recognized their old, bitter enemy, and tried to annihilate him, however I allowed him to escape to use it again when the PCs found Alek Tercival (IMC the Redgorge battle happened earlier).
The Bastions now sports a completely transparent, large winged demonic silhouette were Nabtathoron hit them, and several narrow transparent cracks where the filaments sprout from. People in Redgorge look at them as a strong reminder to keep peace in their village.
As one of the original petitioners for Delvesdeep Haunted Village adventure, I'd just like to let you know that I ended up writing my own.
In short, I created a catacomb level under the Wee Jas cathedral in Cauldron, which my PCs explored after managing to drive away Ike Iverson and to steer off long enough the city guard investigation.
In the most remote rooms they found a Necrorift (a sort of teleport device for undeads I devised) that was bringing in a WHOLE LOT of assorted corporeal undeads, kept at bay by an Antiunlife Shell (again, my creation). The undeads were however digging thru the walls to find an escape route, and should they be successful there were grim troubles in for Cauldron.
So the PCs investigated about the Necrorift and thanks to a St Cuthbert divination they discovered the history of Liduton and its current status, which made it a likely location for the source Necrorift.
Reached Liduton by day, they found it in a big depression some 25 feet deep, quiet and nearly completely in ruin, except for a magically sealed tower (Kozomagon's) and the city hall, in good shape while completely empty.
Spending there the night, they discovered that by night Liduton was Thriller-like haunted by corporeal undeads, and the tower opened up revealing inside the source Necrorift (placed there by Ike Iverson with Fetor help).
The next night they tried to gain safe access to Kozomagon tower to cope with the Necrorift, but failed miserably. Running for their lives to escape the undead hordes (while low in CR they were a lot), they climbed up inside the tower and reached the safety of the last floor.
There they met the ghost of Kozomagon, who told them what really happened there. Foolishly driven by her friendly but fierce rivalry with Surabar, Kozomagon tapped the arcane knowledge of the Souls Pillars and created the Fulchrum, an artifact that should've give her full control over legions and legions of undeads to lead in battle against the demons at Redgorge.
While Kozomagon did succesfully lead undeads in the victorious Redgorge first demon war, she didn't gain control over them at all in the long run, due to a fatal mistake in the Fulchrum creation.
Unable to stop the Fulchrum to regenerate continually the undeads from the thousands of corpses the Spellweaver threw in the lake near Liduton after experimenting with them in the nearby Karran-Kurral, Kozomagon sacrificed herself to confine the undead inside Liduton.
The undeads were so forbidden to leave Liduton, until Ike and Fetor managed to open the Necrorift and fetch them to Cauldron (Ike planned to use them for its post-ritual goals).
Kozomagon instructed the PC about the Fulchrum secret location under the city hall, and they found it battling a lot of incorporeal undeads (the souls of the deads absorbed and held by the Fulchrum) in a vast maze-like underground library, finally managing to destroy it with the combined use of positive energy, light and a rod of cancellation.
Having put a stop to the undead menace both there and in Cauldron (the undeads turned into dust with the destruction of the Fulchrum), Kozomagon led the PCs to Karran-Kurral before getting to her final rest.
Hi all,
someone else has ideas to share about adventures to take place in the Haunted Village? I'd be very interested in some free or Dungeon adventure suitable to be placed there, for level 9-10 PCs.
Dungeondelve,
with RPGenius being currently unavailable, could you possibly share your aforementioned adventure via email at misc underscore web at jumpy dot it?
Nib,
thanks for sharing your ideas. I just ran the next session, and as usual my players managed to surprise me (not necessarily in a positive way ;))
They had an afterthought as soon as they leaved the Wee Jas cathedral, and decided to reenter it to behead the corpses to avoid someone could cast "Speak with dead" on them and discover who was responsible for the slaughter.
(Of course, the fact they were storming a temple hosting at least two high level clerics more than capable to cast divination or commune to fetch that information didn't cross their mind...)
Anyway, I ruled it took them about 5 minutes for the beheading, and during this time Ike did get nervous enough for the waiting to send the death wraith investigating.
So the party thief watching the tower door got surprised by the wraith emerging from the door itself, and another combat ensued, with the undead draining constitution from several PCs before they managed to kill it.
Still, they insisted in completing the beheading before heading again to Jenya church, dragging a couple of sacks full of bleeding heads.
So, the issue about Ike reactions is postponed to next week. I've almost decided Ike will try to stand its ground in the cathedral, still fearing the wrath of Valhantru and Embril more than the PCs. He will reinforce the church defenses with some traps (glyphs and the like) and he will hire some more mercenaries (I think I could put Zarik to a good use for that -- IMC the PCs didn't combat Dhorlot, so the hooks for using Zarik weren't good for me).
Ike will keep an escape root open, thought, and your suggestion about him reaching FA in Karran-Kurral is really good.
Last session, the party I'm DMing through SCAP decided to enter the Cathedral of Wee Jas after being subject to the assassination attempt and tracing it back to Ike Iverson.
They entered the temple and battled the first batch of guardians in the main hall. Being the "naive" tacticians they are, they attempted to bring down the giants with ranged weapons and spells. Of course the giants were more than happy to stand in the rear and to demonstrate them how well versed they were with thrown boulders, one of which made a rather elegant circular mark 5 inches deep into the chest of the party sorcerer, leaving him stone dead on the ground.
In the end the party managed to kill all the opponents, included the cleric which was trying to run toward Ike in the upper floors, but they were down one member and quite low in both HPs and spells, so they decided to call it a day and ran away from the Wee Jas cathedral toward the cozy safety of Jenya's church.
Now, I'm expecting them wanting to recuperate and assault again the following day, and I'm wondering what should I setup for them.
The first obvious choice is having Ike to replace the dead guardians with some others (assuming he can manage to find them so quickly). The sorcerer assassin escaped alive the battle against the PCs, so he could be a prime choice.
However, I was thinking of some other more indirect ways to hamper the PCs. For instance, Ike could raise loud complaints about the assault with the city guard and try to have it to go after the PCs.
Ideally, I'd like to have the PCs sweat a lot to recover from their error (assaulting the Cathedral with almost no preparation at all), without derailing the story too much from its planned path.
Hi all,
I've read somewhere in this forum a thread where the designer asked for advices on what to change/add/remove in the process of creating the hardcover SCAP version.
However, I'm not able to find a summary of the actual differences that made it through this process. Could someone please list them, or point me to some web resource detailing them?
Eyleen's Band, so christened by the Lord Major during a official, public ceremony celebrating the victorious party, from the name of the party Sorcereress, that was the last PC standing (with 3HPs) after the fierce battle against Kazmojen to free the orphans (she managed to kill Kazmojen by spending an Hero Point to discover the activation word for a Wand of Greater Burning Hands -- the word she chose was "Dieyoubastard!").
For the record, during the same ceremony the Lord Major conceded to Eyleen's Band a small house for free, "conveniently" placed on Ash Avenue, fully within the flood range ;)
The party Rogue didn't appreciate the wide notoriety the party gained, though... :)
Just to let you know my PCs managed to escape from the cells (Druid shapechanged into a small viper), almost naked and empty-handed, then they tried to rearm themselves from the kuo-toa armory, were discovered by a sentinel and engaged a new battle against the remaining whips with the same catastrophic outcome as the first one, except this time they bit the bait (kuo-toan high priest coming out of his room fully armed and beefed up with flashy spells) and run out of the temple swimming furiously for the other shore.
Now they are ashore on the other side of the cave, HPs in single digit, out of spell and with no equipment whatsoever, in for a volley of flaming arrows from Aushanna's bow (yes, they managed to start the summoning AGAIN).
I stumbled upon this thread just a few hours before running the whips+Aushanna encounter in my SC campaign, and it helped me to avoid (barely) a TPK, just like many others before me.
I withheld a lot of Aushanna power, and I had her combat for capturing instead of killing, so now my whole party is somewhat alive and jailed, stripped of everything useful except their wits (not so valuable, actually :P) and some inherent powers, like the druid wild shape or the monk unarmed attack.
While I hope my players will come up with some plausible escape plan, I need to have a believable backup plan, just in case they won't. So, I'd like to hear some suggestions, especially from fellow DMs like Strachan Fireblade and Sean McDaniel who ran similar development to this encounter.
Additional infos:
- PCs are: 6 Druid, 4 Monk/2 Sorcerer, 5 Barbarian/1 Sorcerer, 4 Fighter/1 Cleric, 6 Rogue (yes, they are low on both divine and especially arcane magic -- their choice)
- Cherrit and White-Eye left the shrine, in not-so-good terms with the PCs -- they hardly will come back to help'em, although mockin'em could be an option ;)
- The only NPC that could conceivably come to their help is Crazy Jared; no one else knows their whereabouts
Charhide Heritage: Your ancestors have always had a connection to fire and a thicker skin, which allows you to resist burning. You gain fire resistance equal to half your level (minimum 1). You can also recover from being on fire more easily. Your flat check to remove persistent fire damage is DC 10 instead of DC 15, which is reduced to DC 5 if another creature uses a particularly appropriate action to help.
Darkvision: You can see in darkness and dim light just as well as you can see in bright light, though your vision in darkness is in black and white.
Junk Tinker: You can make useful tools out of even twisted or rusted scraps. When using the Crafting skill to Craft, you can make level 0 items, including weapons but not armor, out of junk. This reduces the Price to one-quarter the usual amount but always results in a shoddy item. Shoddy items normally give a penalty, but you don't take this penalty when using shoddy items you made.
You can also incorporate junk to save money while you Craft any item. This grants you a discount on the item as if you had spent 1 additional day working to reduce the cost, but the item is obviously made of junk. At the GM's discretion, this might affect the item's resale value depending on the buyer's tastes.
Alchemy:You understand the complex interactions of natural and unnatural substances and can concoct alchemical items to meet your needs. You can do this using normal reagents and the Craft activity, or you can use special infused reagents that allow you to craft temporary items quickly and at no cost. Over time, you can create more and more alchemical items for free, and since each of them becomes more and more powerful, you advance in power dramatically, leaving behind those who don't understand your strange science.
You gain the Alchemical Crafting feat, even if you don't meet that feat's prerequisites, and you gain the four common 1st-level alchemical formulas granted by that feat. Alchemical Items can be found here. You can use this feat to create alchemical items as long as you have the items' formulas in your formula book.
Infused Reagents: You infuse reagents with your own alchemical essence, allowing you to create alchemical items at no cost. Each day during your daily preparations, you gain a number of batches of infused reagents equal to your level + your Intelligence modifier. You can use these reagents for either advanced alchemy or Quick Alchemy, described below. Together, these infused reagents have light Bulk.
As soon as you make your next daily preparations, your infused reagents from the previous day's preparations are instantly destroyed, and nonpermanent effects of your previous day's infused items immediately end. While infused reagents are physical objects, they can't be duplicated, preserved, or created in any way other than your daily preparations. Any such artificial reagents lack the infusion and are useless for advanced alchemy or Quick Alchemy.
Advanced Alchemy: During your daily preparations, after producing new infused reagents, you can spend batches of those infused reagents to create infused alchemical items. You don't need to attempt a Crafting check to do this, and you ignore both the number of days typically required to create the items and any alchemical reagent requirements. Your advanced alchemy level is equal to your level. For each batch of infused reagents you spend, choose an alchemical item of your advanced alchemy level or lower that's in your formula book, and make a batch of two of that item. These items have the infused trait and remain potent for 24 hours or until your next daily preparations, whichever comes first.
Quick Alchemy: You swiftly mix up a short-lived alchemical item to use at a moment's notice. You create a single alchemical item of your advanced alchemy level or lower that's in your formula book without having to spend the normal monetary cost in alchemical reagents or needing to attempt a Crafting check. This item has the infused trait, but it remains potent only until the start of your next turn.
Formula Book: An alchemist keeps meticulous records of the formulas for every item they can create. You start with a standard formula book worth 10 sp or less for free. The formula book contains the formulas for two common 1st-level alchemical items of your choice, in addition to those you gained from Alchemical Crafting and your research field. Alchemical Items can be found here.
Each time you gain a level, you can add the formulas for two common alchemical items to your formula book. These new formulas can be for any level of item you can create. You learn these formulas automatically, but it's also possible to find or buy additional formulas in settlements or from other alchemists, or to invent them with the Inventor feat.
Known Formulas: Ghost Charge (Lesser), Blight Bomb (Lesser), Elixir of Life (Minor), Antidote (Lesser), Alchemists Fire (Lesser), Dread Ampoule (Lesser), Drakeheart Mutagen (Lesser), Smokestick.
Research Field: You specialize in explosions and other violent alchemical reactions. You start with the formulas for two 1st-level alchemical bombs in your formula book, in addition to your other formulas.
When throwing an alchemical bomb with the splash trait, you can deal splash damage to only your primary target instead of the usual splash area.
Quick Bomber: You keep your bombs in easy-to-reach pouches from which you draw without thinking. You Interact to draw a bomb, then Strike with it.
Root Magic: Your talismans ward against foul magic. During your daily preparations, you can assemble a small pouch with bits of herbs, hair, sacred oils, and other ritual ingredients, which you give to one ally. The first time that day the ally attempts a saving throw against a spell or haunt, they gain a +1 circumstance bonus to the roll. This bonus increases to +2 if you're an expert in Occultism or +3 if you're legendary.
EQUIPMENT
Kits: Adventurers Kit (backpack, a bedroll, 10 pieces of chalk, flint and steel, 50 feet of rope, 2 weeks’ rations, soap, 5 torches, and a waterskin.), Alchemists Kit (Studded Leather Armor, Dagger, Sling, 20 bullets, Alchemists Tools, Basic Crafter's Book, 2 sets of caltrops), Formula Book.
Armor: Studded Leather Armor
Weapons: Dagger, Sling
WEALTH
PP: 0
GP: 6
SP: 4
CP: 8
GEMS: 0
Background:
Scupper's great, great, great, great, grandnan founded the Shroomgut clan well before the longshanks resettled the vale at the base of The Mountain that Went Boom!. Drawn to the area as the forest regrew itself in the mineral rich volcanic soil coating the corpse of the previous forest. The powerful goblin matron built a dynasty on the abundant mushrooms, toadstools, and numerous other fungi that thrived in the woods of Darkmoon Vale. Nana Shroomgut's Gut Busting Mind Melting Chili was a favorite among the region's scattered clans and kin. Goblin warrior's would bulk up on the stuff before important trials and battles as it often left them in a such a numbed state pain was no deterrent. Goblin jujucasters and holy rollers would feast upon it in hopes of finding glorious inspiration. But most just ate it because Nana Shroomgut made sure a bit of the highly addictive Prune Boot Shroom was included in every batch. It was a prosperous and happy time for Scupper's Shroomgut ancestors. Then the longshanks moved in.
The founding of Falcon's Hollow was a disaster for the local goblin clans. As was so often the case one of the first actions by the settlers was to either enslave or drive off any goblinkin found within a three days walk of the town. Usually bribing mercenary adventurers to do the growing village's dirty work. If they weren't driven away or killed outright, the continuous logging of the forest insured their way of life would soon come to an end. The clans occasionally fought back, but that almost always ended in disaster. More importantly, the recipe for Nana's Gut Busting, Mind Melting Chili was lost when the clan's Matron was unexpectedly eaten by a hungry forest drake. The Shroomguts seemed destined for extinction.
But an ever resourceful people, the new Nana Shroomgut (for every clan Matron was known as Nana in order to keep anyone from forgetting her name) berated the male folk into proving they could make themselves useful to the longshanks. If they could do that, then maybe the clans could survive.
Amazingly, the goblins succeeded. Their natural curiosity and affinity for machinery meant that many had a knack for keeping the massive steam powered equipment that is the heart and soul of the Lumber Consortium's timber mills running. In fact, they even occasionally came up with an actual improvement that increased production. In addition, they worked cheap, ate most anything, and rarely complained when injured. In fact, some even took pride in such grim occurances, for gruesome injuries were just something goblin-kind had adapted too long, long ago.
And so over time, rather than killing the remaining few clans off, the Shroomguts, Frogswatters, and Yellowbacks still living around Falcon's Hollow were offered homes and lives near the mills. Of course, most folks would actually say they were coaxed and coerced into hovel-like 'workcamps' where they became solely dependent on the meager livelihoods offered by the three major families of the town and the shareholders of the Lumber Consortium.
For several years the goblin chiefs, matrons, and wise ones of the clans had been able to eek out a reasonably pleasant existence by the standards of their kind. Occasionally they could even play the three families off each other well enough to increase pay at the mills or more meat into the cookpots. But when two of the three families fell, leaving only the Kreed's in charge, well even the occasional goblin took notice of the downturn in survival rates and upticks in lost limbs, hungry bellies, and growing persecution by the rest of the townsfolk who thought the mill jobs should go to proper longshank folk.
Scupper Shroomgut grew up working in the mill. As soon as he could crawl about and squirt an oil can he was sent into the gears with the other short stuffs to keep the constantly churning machines well oiled and running smoothly. By the time he was full grown, three of his fellow creche mates were dead and two others were missing at least one limb all due to accidents in the mills.
Scupper knew it was only a matter of time before he ended up the same way. And something was different about this young goblin. A true descendant of the ancient original Nana whose powerful herbal and shroom cooking once filled the bellies and opened the minds of every goblin in the vale. Not interested in ending his days with one arm and a wooden leg, Scupper did something few goblins ever do. He picked up a book. The tome was a tattered, torn, and mildewed bit of trash tossed upon the town midden, but for Scupper the blood stained copy of One Hundred and One Alchemical Potions and Conjurations for the Budget Conscious by A.S Jasper was a life changing treasure. Or at least it would be.
Scupper couldn't read a word of the book. But the pictures of massive fire bombs and miracle healing elixirs or billowing clouds of spook gas set his imagination ablaze. If only he could learn to create such things. Maybe he could even rediscover the recipe for Nana's Gut Busting, Mind Melting Chili and bring back the glory and pride of his clan and people. The possibilities seemed endless, except for his lack of reading skills. He tried following a few of the diagrams but decided to stop experimenting when he blew the back wall off the supply shed he'd been using as his "secret laboratory."
But he didn't give up completely. And as she does every so often, Lady Fate decided to annoy her immortal brothers and sisters and nudged the world slightly off its gods intended course. Seeing the little goblin's predicament, she reached out and twitched her fingers across a few strands of the world weave. And so it was that one day while Scupper sat outside of Roots and Remedies staring moon-eyed at the half dozen blooded-stained pictures in his book that Laurel Grebe took notice. Curious about the goblin's curiosity, she began talking to him and his dreams of being a master alchemist so he could find ways to protect his clan or heal them when they got clipped by the massive saw blades, or caught in the gears and belts, or seared by the boilers.
Taking pity upon the little creature and his kindred, Laurel decided to teach Scupper how to read and write and measure things and to calculate how many spoons in a thimble or mugs to a jug. For many days and passing moons, the goblin came to the back of Laurel's shop for his lessons. To her surprise, he proved an adept student and before long was able to reading the formulas in his book and even putting a few to the test. One or two with varying degrees of success.
Soon enough a small part of his dream was coming true. Scupper was able to brew an elixir that quickly healed minor wounds, and in the case of major injuries, could prevent death or help someone recover more quickly. Like any good goblin, he also tinkered with a variety of explosive devices. Initially thinking the fire bombs might be a quick and effective way of catching, killing, and cooking a rat for dinner, his devices ended up being a bit more popular with rebels and other criminal elements who wished to send a message to friend or foe.
Word of his healing successes both good started to get round certain elements of town, especially those who preferred not to seek out the services of Lady Cirthana or Laurel for whatever reasons. These were often the same folk who occasionally purchased one of his other products. All in all, his newly earned abilities have earned him a bit of respect among some, and perhaps scrutiny from others such as the sheriff or the town's true overlords, the Kreed's.
But he cares little for politics and instead focuses his true energies on seeking out more ways to mix his alchemical ingredients for other uses. And most importantly, to try and rediscover Nana's ancient chili recipe.
