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I very much enjoyed reading a few Crimson Throne campaign logs when I was running that AP a while back, and figured I'd try my hand at it with the Extinction Curse campaign I started running on Roll20 as a quarantine diversion. Now that my group has kicked off and we're having such a grand time of it, it's looking like we'll continue it post-quarantine, bringing my "total active campaign" count to four.
Since I'm piling this campaign onto an already-existing workload of three other games, I'm running it very by-the-book. For house-rules, we're using the Gradual Ability Boosts from the Gamemastery Guide and I've given everybody a free Dedication feat at level 2 to help seal in that sweet circus flavor.
Rask's player has played a ton of Pathfinder 1e and Pathfinder 2e with me before this, and I ran a lot of 3.5 for Tar's player about a decade ago, but the other two players are (I believe) most familiar with 5e and have never played with me until this campaign.
- Rask, Iruxi Champion of Gozreh, circus animal handler, drug enthusiast
- Tar, Goblin Alchemist, performer, junk-welder, adorable but don't hug him
- Brun Treesoar, Halfling Ranger, safety, maintenance, artillery, the normal one
- Garrett "Cinder" Cinderholm, Half-orc Sorcerer, former barker, performer, likes puns, lives dangerously
- Rask has gone trident/shield and is a Redeemer Champion. He took the Reptile Speaker lizardfolk feat, and sort of stumbled into making the perfect character for Book 1 (and maybe the whole AP, honestly). Animal Wrangler background.
- Tar is a chirurgeon and makes a lot of disgusting "herbal" "tea". He's got an iron gut and uses it. Tinker background.
- Brun started with a longbow, but at the start of session three we ret-conned that he'd been using a slingstaff all along. I offered to let him apply the Crossbow Ace feat to the slingstaff, since it didn't seem all that out of line balance-wise to me (just an average +1 damage over the crossbow plus propulsive, which is at best a +2 damage later on, and less range, which feels right in line for a simple vs advanced weapon). Rigger background.
- Cinder is a Fire Elemental Sorcerer. He picked up Overlooked Mastermind. Barker background.
Before the session I had everybody either pick one of the NPCs with a starting act to link themselves to as friend or family, or create a backstage NPC that would tie them in. Rask works closely with Elizia and Mister Tickles, Tar has befriended the dwarven matron of maintenance Bergthora Battlebeard, Brun's netting saved the life of the Kanbali family's patriarch, and Cinder was half-raised by the Flamboni Sisters and refers to them as his "aunties".
SESSION ONE
We start in medias res, as per the book. The players leap into planning the circus. The first roll of the game is Rask's intimidate check to attempt to persuade Mordaine to perform as the Opening Act, and it's a near-critical failure, so she storms off, the party sighs, and they decide to send Elizia in instead, but of course her snake is sick. Rask is able to help Tar diagnose what the situation is by speaking to Mister Tickles ("Tar!" "What? I haven't had goblin pox in months!"), and he feeds Mister Tickles an anti-plague to get a success and get Elizia out in front of the audience.
As Elizia begins performing, the Professor calls the party's attention to hecklers causing trouble with their cruel bets. Cinder, Rask and Brun head over to take care of it. Cinder shouts out "You wanna see someone fall from a trapeze? C'mere and I'll make it happen," and one of them bolts, yelling back, "I like my bones unbroken!" Rask tells the second one that they've run out of dwarfs for one of the acts, "so why don't I just toss you instead." The ruffian responds with "You could probably benchpress me, so you got it, sir!" and gets outta there. Brun just punches the third guy in the stomach and tells him to shut up, and he's out too.
Elizia manages to get a single success even though Mister Tickles is still pretty sick, but then gets a critical failure, so Mister Tickles starts vomiting in the ring and the clowns are sent in to rescue them. Meanwhile, the Kanbali's bring their rat-eaten nets to Brun, who is able to both identify the problem and reassure them that everything will go smoothly.
At the start of the Build-up, the Professor points out the snakes beneath the risers. Rask leaps into action, grabs a couple mice, and persuades the snakes into leaving the tent with little trouble. Cinder asks what the snakes said to him, and Rask says "They were just hungry, maaaaan" and offers Cinder some of the seaweed he's munching on.
The Build-up sees Tar do his alchemical juggling act alongside the Kanbali Five, and Tar helps out by tossing some volatile chemicals up to the Kanbali family to liven up their performance. They net a total of two or three successes, I think.
Axel is freaking out about performing in the finale, and Cinder tries to get his head in the game and crit fails, so Axel is OUT. Which present a problem, since the party only has two tricks prepared among them, and since Mordaine has retired to her wagon, they don't have enough acts for the show.
That's a problem that will have to wait, though. The Dwarven Throwers are rocking the Big Number, but there are some drunker brawlers in the crowd! The party jeer at them and goad them into coming down and fighting them instead. One of them accidentally kicks a kid in the head as he's leaping down, and Brun hits his calf with a sling rock, causing the crowd to gasp. Tar admonishes the drunkard, saying he shouldn't get into fights while drunk, and starts bandaging the dude mid-fight, causing some of the crowd to go "awwwww." Rask grapples with the other one, and Cinder crits one with produce flame, lighting him on fire. The crowd is at first horrified as the drunkards run away in terror, but Cinder shoots them all a winning smile, noting that "there's more of that to come in the finale!" The kicked child cheers and stops crying because fire is cool ("This circus is AWESOME!"), and the crowd seems to think it's all part of the act, maybe? They don't lose any Excitement over it. Tar encourages the crowd to enjoy alcohol responsibly as they walk backstage as the Gottliebs give them some flying side-eye. Cinder earns a second Hero Point.
Cinder eats his pride and goes to Mordaine to beg that she perform in the finale. He fails again, but spends a Hero Point to reroll and hit the DC exactly. Mordaine agrees to save the circus in this, it's darkest hour. It gives the finale an extra little flair, since it totally has a fire-water-fire theme going on, since Mordaine is featured between the Flamboni Sisters and Cinder's drum-laden fire dance.
The finale is going sort of smoothly until the Flamboni Sisters get a critical failure and Cinder has to call in the clowns. He then rolls a critical failure on his last action of the round, and the outlook for the circus as a whole is looking pretty hopeless. But Cinder's player decides to blow his last Hero Point and reroll, and rolls a 20! This puts the circus' Anticipation up to 16, but the crit with Brun's backstage Pyrotechnics work pushes the circus' Excitement to 16 exactly, meaning that they actually manage to critically succeed on the whole performance, which nets them a pretty nice pay out.
The party begins to investigate Myron's murder. They nail all the investigation checks in the big tent, and Rask actually wonders a bit whether this could be Gozreh's displeasure, but ultimately decides that's not likely given the manner of Myron's death. Brun is able to follow the rat tracks, and they decide to follow it to Bartolph's wagon first. Brun is suspicious and knocks on the wagon's side, calling out, and hears a low threatening growl as Tar approaches the wagon door and cautions him against opening it.
I forgot how 2e's detect magic worked, and when Cinder pinged the area I told him he detected an aura hanging in Bartolph's wagon. Brun clambered up the wagon and attempted to create a hole in the roof using a knife to extract the item, since they were afraid it was affecting Bartolph (it wasn't, it was just the owlbear claw, but it worked in their favor). The door of the wagon starts to rattle and the wagon starts to rock as Brun gets to work, and Rask tries to brace the door closed. Some claws rip through the wood of the door, giving Bartolph a way to look at who's outside, and by the time Brun extracts the owlbear claw, Bartolph has mostly expended his rage. He knocks the door down onto Rask, causing a bit of damage, but manages to stop himself before mauling Tar and looks a bit sheepish. They're able to tell that he wasn't quite in his right mind, and is feeling a bit mournful, and they coax him back into his wagon to sleep it off.
They head to Myron's wagon next, and Brun actually notices the roots of the dream pollen pods sticking out from under the wagon and identifies them as such, but the party decides to open up the wagon door anyway. I'm fairly sure I ran the trap wrong, since I gave it three attacks (and it acted first since it rolled well). Most of the party wound up confused (Brun actually critically fails on his Will save), and Rask knocks Brun unconscious with his claws. Cinder is able to burn up most of the pods on his turn, though, and they survive just fine.
As they're recovering from that encounter, a couple of roustabouts trigger the snake encounter in the woods, and the party rushes to defend them. Rask is able to tank the giant viper and saves against the poison thanks to the buff from Tar's elixir of health. It's over pretty quick.
The party recovers again and follows the rat tracks to the Kanbali wagon. Brun can hear the rats inside, so they move to open the door, but Nemmia has been waiting for this and the rats come cascading out. It's really not an ideal situation for Nemmia, though, since without room to maneuver her Entangle doesn't get much value. Tar is able to deal with the rat swarm with two bombs, and the giant rat doesn't last much longer. They're able to corner Nemmia in the wagon and wear her down without any member of the party dropping.
The party's feeling pretty pleased with themselves, since they managed to knock Nemmia out instead of just killing her. They tie her up and bring her back to the fire, and we end session one there.
We just finished up session six this past Thursday, so I'll try to get the other sessions up when I have time. They're currently headed to Erran Tower and just hit level four.
That was a fun read — keep them coming!
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Alright, we've got a session tonight, but I have a moment to get another session or two logged here and hopefully get a little ahead!
Last session closed out with their capture of Nemmia, and the heroes take some time to recover around the fire before following the tracks into the woods. Tar fumbles his medicine check and winds up injuring himself further, but downs an elixir of life to make up for it.
One of the circus workers approaches the party and lets them know that the elephant in its pen to the southeast is getting a bit spooked, and the party decides to investigate. They find a statue of a cow that appears to be crumbling a bit, and Tar takes a look and makes a Medicine check. He notices that around the cow's throat, where some of the crumbling has occurred, is the proper equipment to indicate a circulatory system, and so concludes that either this was once a real cow or that Abberton has an extremely skilled sculptor.
That question is answered pretty much right away, as a cockatrice crests over a nearby rock with a war-warble... and proceeds to botch its initiative, and so stumbles a bit as it hops off in a careening charge toward the party. Rask, up first, crits it in the neck with his trident for twenty-four damage, so right off the bat it's spraying black blood everywhere and struggling. Brun makes a recall knowledge check and makes a mental note about their love of gemstones. Cinder successfully Demoralizes it ("Scram, you damn chicken!") and hits it with Produce Flame. The cockatrice misses an attack on Rask, then bolts past him to hit Cinder, but Rask uses his reaction to negate all of the damage from the hit and Cinder makes his save against its poison.
Meanwhile, Tar has borrowed a sling from Cinder and is just repeatedly missing with it. "How do you use this thing?" Brun then pelts the cockatrice with two more stones and drops it, closing out a very clean fight for the party. They go hunting for its burrow and find a dwarf corpse in a suit of dino-plate (leather full-plate, basically, that I figured would really appeal to our champion, and it did), a cold-iron pick, and a cockatrice stone (since Brun learned about them from his recall knowledge check and was specifically asking about them).
They turn toward the woods to follow those tracks, and as they go hear that the music shifts to a much cheerier, livelier tune, but think nothing of it. Cinder stumbles onto the branch trap and gets critted by it, and falls unconscious. Rask lays his hands on him and he's right back up while Tar tries to scrape some of the poison off the branch.
Brun, who's been carrying the party's light-bearing rock, tosses it toward the stream in the distance. He hears a splash, but also the sound of the rock bouncing in the woods, and he can still see the light clearly, so he knows he didn't toss it in. A voice then calls out, panicked.
"Is... is that you, mistress?"
Cinder: "Yes, it is I!" (12 to Lie)
"I think you're lying, mistress!"
C: "Would I lie to my most faithful minion?"
Brun clambers up a tree and sees, at the edge of the light, a pair of small humanoids with pronounced noses. He just makes out the silhouettes, though. He alerts the party, and hunts one of 'em.
Rask: "You should just come on out, guys. Your mistress is dead." (11 to Coerce)
"Um, pretty sure that's not the case. She was super strong and you're just voices in the woods."
Brun: "I've got her sickle!"
Cinder and Tar start to sneak forward. Cinder is found out immediately, but Tar is able to use the distraction to get closer. Brun fires off a warning shot to make the threat a little more apparent. The shot spooks the water mephits.
"They might just be voices, but there might be twenty of 'em, let's bolt!" They disappear into the water, and the party moves forward and recovers Nemmia's pack. Rask is alarmed when he notices the symbol of Gozreh on the bag, and immediately insists "Hey, it wasn't me, man."
Cinder grins at him and says, "Of course not. Mr. Tickles wouldn't hang out with a bad man."
The party returns to the fire with their new evidence and discovers that the grigs have moved in and are causing an issue. Rask is able to push his way through to the crowd, but he attempts to Demoralize then to spook them out of their song and fails, so they mistake his Threatening Approach as some sort of iruxi dance and compliment him on it as they play on. Brun tries to pelt them with a stone from his sling-staff, but it misses them and skips off the back side of their plate. They can't make out who tossed it because of all the confusion, though, and carry on as though nothing happened.
Cinder dances his way through to the center and gets to know the grigs a little, and Brun decides to Recall Knowledge instead, and concludes that the little troublemakers probably aren't doing this out of spite. Meanwhile, Cinder observes that they're playing a never-ending round, and I let him know that if he tried to join the tune he might be able to guide it to a conclusion. He jumps in with his drums and is able to Perform his way to a solution, and they get the grigs' potency crystal as a prize. The circus is a welcoming host all the same, and the circus celebrates everything that the party did for the circus. The party levels up!
I give everybody in the party a free dedication feat to represent their jobs in the circus. Tar picks up Juggler Dedication, Brun gets Staff Acrobat Dedication, Cinder grabs Firebrand Braggart Dedication (to represent his old Barker position), and Rask nabs Animal Trainer Dedication. We decided that Mr. Tickles had recently produced some little snakes, and so Elizia gifted Rask one of his children as thanks for everything he'd done for her and the circus. And that's how Ms. Daisy, who wears a dapper St. Patrick's Day hat, joined the party.
Brun: expert Athletics, Quickdraw, Powerful Leap
Cinder: expert Intimidation, Reach Spell, Intimidating Glare; SPELLS: Burning Hands, Charm, Feather Fall, Heal
Rask: expert Athletics, Weight of Guilt (I think?), and unsure which skill feat, Roll20 sheet hasn't been updated with it
Tar: expert Crafting, Battle Medicine, Quick Bomber; RECIPES: Didn't actually get anything new until most of the way through level 3 since player missed that he got additional recipes each level, so I'll include the additions then. He started with Antiplague, Minor Elixer of Life, Antidote, AlchFire, Thunderstone, and BottLight, I think.
The next morning, Nemmia is staring angrily at anybody and everybody. Mayor Jae Abber approaches, and explains how the town has been terrorized. They show the Mayor their captured villain. Mayor: "Oh, alright then! I'll see if we can get her to the jail. Sheriff has been missing, but I'll send a deputy out." The party asks about the orchard and the mill, and they show him the map. The mayor explains everything, asks for their help (they agree), and offers to head up to the Hermitage to get an invite for the heroes. Rask hands the mayor his holy symbol of Gozreh, in case it'll help smooth the process. The mayor is delighted at their agreement, and hugs Cinder, who we agree is the most huggable of the party (since he's neither short nor scaly).
The party meets the Sideshow and gets their infodump, and start planning their route through Abberton. They decide to head to Hawfton Mill first.
They see that the mill's river mechanisms are still running, and admire the Hawfton's snazzy garden. They know there are wasps in the area from the sideshow, but haven't identified any hives yet. They're sneaking up on the garden when Brun notices the spiders, and initiative is rolled.
Brun Recalls Knowledge on the spiders: "Spiders! Poisonous? Venemous? What's the difference? Kill 'em!" and clips one of their legs with a shot, and Cinder follows up with a Produce Flame that scorches some of the garden, to the rest of the party's chagrin. Rask finishes off the first spider with a lunging stab crit, and Tar crits the other one with his sling and acrobats his way through the fence.
Before it is overwhelmed, the last spider manages to crit Ms. Daisy and nearly drops her, but she crits her Fortitude save versus the poison. Brun finishes it off with a shot from the slingstaff.
Rask lays hands on Miss Daisy, and Tar performs snedicine (snake medicine) to bring her to full. The party is disappointed that there are no tomatoes in the garden, and they look through the window and see TOO MANY WASPS.
Tar tosses an antivenom to Rask and leaps over the fence, and the party assumes their positions. Rask kicks open the door and unleashes Wasp Hell on the party.
Rask starts to run away from the approaching swarm and raises his shield (as though that'll help), and Tar readies an action to hurl his alchemist fire when it approaches. Brun readies a bolt from his sling and tries to Recall Knowledge, but he crit fails and spends the rest of the session shouting "THE BEES, NOT THE BEES." The wasps move in!
The alchemist fire misses, but the splash damage still takes out some wasps. Brun hits, but his rock does absolutely nothing to a swarm of wasps. The wasps swarm in on Brun and Rask. Rask succeeds on his Reflex, but Brun fails both the Reflex and Fort against the poison and starts the slow descent to oblivion that is PF2e poison. Rask gives the wasps a Glimpse of Redemption, but it doesn't seem to matter all that much.
Cinder uses burning hands against the wasps, but they roll a critical success on their Reflex and part around the flames as if they anticipated it. Rask separates himself from Brun, and orders Ms. Daisy to slither over to the river. Tar misses again (still good damage), Brun runs into the mill and crit misses (he's in full-on panic mode now), and Rask swipes some wasps out of the air. The wasps come for Rask, but he continues to roll absurdly well on his Reflex saves and takes only incidental damage. Still, he and everybody else is yelling "Kill it! Kill it!"
Cinder's second burning hands is much better, dealing 13 fire damage. Cinder: "I figured it out, guys. You gotta aim!" Rask stabs and runs. Tar hits with a thunderstone that does 8 damage, but the swarm is still (barely) up. Brun misses twice more with two natural ones, bursting a pumpkin and the top of the mill's door frame, and moves on to the worst tier of wasp poisoning. Cinder critically fails his reflex save AND fortitude save, taking 12 piercing damage and 5 poison damage, and though he succeeds on the save during his turn, he's still at stage 1. He does manage to kill the remaining wasps, though!
Both Brun and Cinder collapse from poison damage the next turn, and Tar is very busy trying to keep both of them alive and kicking; at least one Hero Point is spent. Wasp swarms are the real deal.
While Tar is helping individual characters recover from that harrowing battle, the other two explore the mill. Cinder and Rask try to lift up the fallen armoire in the master bedroom and fail a couple times - the wasp stings on their fingers and legs are making it a pretty painful endeavor. Ms. Daisy steps in to help on the third attempt and "works like a back brace," per Rask's player, but Rask crits, so I guess it's legit.
The air mephit launches out from beneath the armoire in a flying uppercut, trying to deck Rask, but crit misses. Rask grabs his trident from the bed and critically hits it. It screams: "OH NOOOOOO" and dies, impaled on the trident.
Rask: "I don't do well with jumpscares, man."
Cinder Recalls Knowledge on the corpse, and tells Rask it's fine, just a mephit.
Tar: "What's that?"
Cinder: "Air mephit. Jeez, you murdered that thing."
Rask: "It came at me, man!"
Tar: "Maybe the ones that ran away were water mephits?"
They cracked the case, mystery solved. They also grab the Hawfton's strongbox from beneath the bed, then both Brun and Tar proceed to break their Thieves' Tools in the lock. Rask sighs and goes at it for a minute with a crowbar, and finally pops the thing open. Cinder grabs the dancing scarf.
Tar: "Are we stealing?"
Rask: "Um. Well, we'll hold onto it. For safekeeping, since their lockbox is broken."
He tosses it in his bag.
Rask: "Hey Brun, while you were dying from wasp venom, did you see a white light?"
Brun: "Mostly smelled the goblin."
Me: "Yeah, there was a white smell. Like a hospital, I suppose. And the goblin."
Tar: "Hey, I haven't had goblin pox for months!"
The party runs into the performers from the Celestial Menagerie on the road while heading back through town.
Viktor Volkano: "Hey, Circus of Wayward Punks. Dusklight sent us to check up on you. We're gonna do that by having a GOOD OLD FASHIONED TRICK OFF." Townspeople start to gather around, I show them the art of Jellico Bounce-Bounce, and my players are sure they've glimpsed the villain of the entire campaign. We end the session there.
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I've been slacking, and my backlog is growing! Time to catch up a bit. I might cover things a little more loosely for the next few sessions.
I'm lucky in that the player of Tar keeps very comprehensive notes of each session (81 pages on a Google Doc so far) so I have plenty of reference material.
The trick-off kicks off with Jellico facing down Tar. Jellico moves like Voldo from Soul Calibur on the approach, causing widespread distress, but Tar beats him out with an alchemical rocket-jump during his juggling act. Crowds love fireworks.
Brun then faces down Danika. She has Leandrus swipe at Brun's balancing rope, which is tied between two fence posts, but he dismounts onto the lion and flips off before Leandrus can swipe at him. The crowd loves it.
Viktor Volkano and Cinder have some history. Viktor helped Cinder develop his trick but also incorporated some of those elements into his own trick. Cinder accused Viktor of stealing his trick and punched him, and they had a big falling out - and the rivalry only grows, since Viktor is able to upstage Cinder with his fire-breating antics. Cinder is out of Burning Hands casts for today and simply can't keep up.
The finale goes in the party's favor, as Rask holds Ms. Daisy taut, Brun balances atop her with his sling staff, Tar rocket-jumps to the top of Brun and juggles a bunch of explosives into the air, and the fireworks (and Cinder's helpful pyrotechnics) mask the collapse as Ms. Daisy falters. The Celestial Menagerie slink away, and the party is victorious, but Jellico kneels next to Tar first. "Listen closely. Mistress Dusklight sent me with a message. There's an old temple of Aroden just outside Abberton. Come see me there at noon tomorrow, and you'll get the message." He winks and bounces off, and the party starts off with 5 Excitement for the next show.
The party is looking pretty rough post-wasp swarm, but they decide to swing by the Mad Mug before taking a rest. They're accosted by the Muggers on the porch, and recognize them as the guys who were making cruel bets at the circus on opening night.
Cinder: "I seem to recall you all running like rabbits last time we met. You feeling braver now?"
"Yeah, this is our turf!"
C: "We're here for a drink, not trouble. How about we settle this like civilized folk?"
"You calling us uncivilized?"
C: "How about one of the fights of one of us and we'll leave it at that."
"How about four on one, smart guy?"
Rask steps forward, clad in dino-plate.
R: "Hey guys, we're doing this to protect your lives, not ours." (Intimidate 23, critical success)
The Muggers push one of their number forward. "Carl, you've been spoiling for a fight, so go ahead!"
There's a quick Intimidate-off for initiative, and two punches later Rask has the mugger in the grass. He lays on hands and yanks him back up with one hand. "Good fight, man."
The Muggers, now cowed, let 'em pass. They make a beeline to Pruana Two-Punch.
Pruana: "What're you here for? I'm impressed you convinced my idiotic boys to fight one-on-one."
Rask: "We're carnies, man. We just want a drink."
P: "There's a safer bar than this that doesn't require fist-fights to enter, which makes me think you wanna see me."
Rask asks about the goat, learns her name is Violet.
C: "Is the goat the third punch?" (8 Diplomacy)
P: "Nah, she's Violet Two-Horn. She doesn't need a punch. Don't go trying to butter me up."
Brun buys her a drink, and Rask buys drinks for the boys outside and takes them out.
P: "You're not trying to come onto me, are you, little man?"
B: "So what if I am?" (Deception 14, she's indifferent and pleasantly surprised)
P: "Alright, give me the actual reason you're here. Of what service can we humble Muggers be?"
B: "Some weird terrible shit happened at our last show, some of which was your boys raising a ruckus, which is whatever, but the mayor asked us to investigate weird stuff happening in town. Wanted to ask your take."
P: "You're not wrong. We did see a little halfling witch sneaking around after dark."
C: "Did she look a little ratty?"
P: "Yep. Could tell you where she was headed, even, for 10g."
Somebody rolls a 17 on Diplomacy for another success.
P: "Well, the sheriff is missing, which excites and dismays me simultaneously since I had nothing to do with it. Tell you what, info's yours for 5gp."
The party pays up.
P: "My Muggers tracked your witch to the Lindell Barn outside town. Odd place for her to have gone. My boys went to check it out and almost got grabbed by some plants."
Rask: "That's druids for you."
P: "The Lindells sure aren't known for murder plants. Or plants at all, honestly. Things've been hard, late."
B: "Haven't heard of any wasps over there, have you?" The party is still obviously covered in wasp stings.
P: "Nope. Anything else I can help you with?"
R: "Anything on the sheriff?"
P: "Not a damn thing. You tell me if you find him."
B: "Beer's pretty good here. We might be back."
The party heads back to the circus to discuss matters and have a meal, then head off to the orchard. Brun finds some boar tracks and they follow them into the orchard, also noticing the tracks of a small person - child, halfling, or gnome? They took off running, and it looks like boars charged after. They notice the irrigation ditch as a likely boar habitat.
T: "If they were chasing someone, we should check if they're okay, right?"
B: "Tracks are a bit old, but yeah, we can check."
With an enraged squeal, Boar Mom and two young boars erupt from the ditch. Rask gets charged for 10 damage. Brun sends a stone at her. Rask and Ms. Daisy flank Boar Mom, Daisy bites for 10, and Brun stabs it with his trident. A boar trots up to Miss Daisy and gores her, and another charges fruitlessly at Brun. Cinder crits Boar Mom with Produce Flame, but it uses Ferocity to stay standing, and he misses with elemental toss to finish it off. Tar leaps onto Boar Mom and bites her, finishing her off. Brun trips his boar with the slingstaff and gets a critical success, then point-blanks it for 12 damage with his sling staff. It's squirming, but not quite to Ferocity yet. Miss Daisy bites again and retreats, and Rask triggers its Ferocity with another stab.
The boar responds in kind by critting Rask, which drops him. It trots menacingly toward Tar. The other boar struggles up and nicks Brun for a measly 4 damage. Cinder rushes in and pummels the boar with his fists, popping its ferocity, and delivers a swift kick to its head, finishing it off. Sorcerers can melee too, you know!
Tar heals Rask up and bombs the remaining boar, triggering its Ferocity, and Brun is able to finish it off with a final shot.
Tar and Brun stumble on the baby boars, which squeal in fear and start to run down the ditch. Tar uses his borrowed sling to peg one of them, then goes and grabs it and consumes it whole. It works its way down his throat "like a snake." The party is horrified. They find the body of the gnome that was slain by boars. Rask identifies the scroll in her scroll case due to its association with wind and storms - it's Unseasonable Squall! They make a litter and carry the gnome's corpse back to town. A passerby identifies the gnome and tells the party to deliver her to the gravetender outside of town.
The party decides that they've had enough for today and take a nice long rest after a supper of bacon.
The next day, they plan to head toward the church of Abadar. Rask preemptively downs an antiplague.
They walk up to the front door and see how ruined the inside of the church looks. They also identify the quasit on the altar and notice a squat robed man with horns ruining the tapestry and know that something weird is happening. Tar sneaks in under some pews, Rask rushes the door, and Brun hunts the quasit. Brun misses his first shot, but his second deals 10 damage to the quasit.
Tar sneak-scrambles up and tosses another thunderstone, dealing... not very much damage. He then noisily sneaks his back under the pews toward the party. Cinder leaps through the window and tosses a flame bolt at the quasit, but it dodges.
Rask bashes through the door and raises his shield in the middle of the room. The man in the robe turns and is revealed to be a abrikandilu. He tosses a chunk of debris at Rask, which shatters against his shield, then advances and swipes at Rask with a claw, which is partially shield-blocked. Cinder gets spooked by the quasit's fear spell, and the quasit flits closer.
Brun and Tar miss their respective shots. Miss Daisy leaps out at the quasit and deals a chunk of damage to it, which sets it up so that Cinder can finish it off with a Produce Flame.
The abrikandilu tears into Rask, breaking his shield with a critical hit and leaving him quite scarred, and casts fear, and even though he saves Rask is a bit afraid.
Brun uses his sling staff to leap over the pews into a flanking position behind the abrikandilu, drops his staff, and quick draws the cold-iron pick. He sinks it into the back of the abrikandilu for a bit of damage.
Tar heals Rask with a minor elixir of life and misses with another shot, and Rask attacks with Miss Daisy to deal another 18 damage, then crits with his last action for another 20 damage. Cinder demoralizes it as well, but misses with his Produce Flame. It crawls its way up the trident impaling it to chomp directly onto Rask's head, critting for a nasty 34 points of damage and dropping Rask, and claws at both Miss Daisy and Tar.
Brun continues to stick it with his cold-iron pick, and the rest of the party heals up Rask, who order Miss Daisy to go for the throat. Miss Daisy does so and finishes off the abrikandilu.
The party hears the priest of Abadar through the vault door and starts working to clear the door. Meanwhile, Rask notices the symbol of Gozreh around the abrikandilu's neck. The mutilated priest of Abadar is released.
"Thank the gods you've come. I've been in here for over a day!"
He looks around, and then tasks the party with recovering his two missing holy books. Rask in nearly inconsolable, clutching the symbol of Gozreh in his hand. Brun inquires.
Brun: "Did these things come from the monastery?"
Rask: *shrugs* "The faith is pretty diverse. All I know is we were attacked by a druid who also followed Gozreh. Hermitage could be involved."
Priest: "They must have attacked the hermitage first and stolen the cloak and the symbol."
The priest also asks the party to investigate the graveyard and ensure the premises are completely safe. He hands them an onyx dog figurine. Rask asks about inter-faith relations between Gozreh and Abadar. The priest admits they don't mix super-well, and though he'd met Hemlock once up at the monastery, they didn't have much to speak of. They pretty much stay out of each other's way.
Rask: "Probably the best we can hope for."
The priest also gives them three vials of holy water. Rask bolts together a new wooden shield out of a broken pew, and they head toward the graveyard. They see the two people opening up graves outside, and we call the session there.
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It's been two months since I posted this, but who expects campaign logs to be regular, right? This is the way of things, and I'm moving, so eh. Huge shout-out to the player of Tar for keeping painstaking logs of each session so that the process of recollection comes easy to this attention-deficit brain.
There are gravediggers! At a church graveyard!
Brun: "Hey, who are you burying, and who do you work for?"
Gravediggers: *look at each other* "Uh, just some... dead people. And we work for the church. Duh."
*The party realizes they're a bunch of stinking liars with a Perception check, and somebody calls for Nellyn to come out and clock these dudes*
Rask: "If you work for the church, what's the name of the priest?"
Me: "They look at each other."
The vermleks get a surprise round (yeah, I know they don't exist in 2e, sue me), and one pulls a Las Plagas, erupting out of one of the dudes' mouth. They cast Fear on Cinder and Rask, who both save. The party hears Nellyn in the church - "I'm coming, coming." Somebody yells back "NO, GO BACK," so he responds, "Oh, alright."
Brun hunts the exposed one and crits it for 30, right through the gullet. It slithers up to Rask and bites for 13, then tail-whips him with a Harm spell for another 18 damage. The one that's still enfleshed clips Tar with a shovel and also casts Harm, but Tar makes it out much better, partially because Rask gives it a Glimpse of Redemption.
Tar tosses an elixir to Rask and bathes one in alchemist fire, and then uses Recall Knowledge to identify the things, and lets the party know that Cold Iron and sonic damage is the way to go. Cinder also heals Rask and repositions, then Rask heals himself and misses. Brun hits pretty solidly with another shot, and yells at Rask to move so he can hit things with the pick.
The first vermlek tries another Fear spell and attempts to bite Rask, but both attempts are abject failures. The second gets another fear off on Brun, who saves, then tries to punch Rask. A shield block means only two damage gets through.
Between thunderstones, firebolts, and some snake flanks, they really wreck the first one and forcibly eject the second from its human body, the sight of which leaves Brun pretty grossed out. They decide to burn all the demons at once.
Some of the party reburies the exposed bodies while Tar heals people and Brun scouts around the rest of the graveyard. Nellyn identifies the two men as the Lindel Brothers, and the party already knows that Nemmia was seen around their farm, so they make the connection.
Rask: "Were the Lindels big into Gozreh?"
Nellyn: "I don't think so. They came here to worship from time to time."
Brun: "Well, I don't think they had much choice in what they were doing here."
Rask gets pretty wigged out. They ask Nellyn about demons, who tells them that certain actions antithetical to a demon's essence can hurt them deep - for instance, if a Vermlek sees someone close to death and they get healed, they are harmed.
Brun notices the broken lock on the crypt, and the crack in the door. He listens and hears high-pitched voices, and Tar identifies the language as Undercommon. "Who is this guy, anyway? Wings, what do you want! Speak slooooowly. What a weird language."
"You idiot! Even if he speaks slower, we still won't know what he's saying."
"Well, should we just rip off his wings and eat him, then?"
Tar peeks in and notices two blue-skinned shorties talking to a quasit, who is perched on a skull. Cinder identifies them as Pugwampi, and knows that they worship gnolls and project an aura of unluck. Also, weak to cold iron!
Cinder and Rask bust down the door (rolling Athletics and Intimidate, respectively), and the quasit sighs in exasperation. Cinder mimcs a gnoll and shouts "I'm your god now!" to one of the Pugwampi and succeeds at a Demoralize. He follows up with a Produce Flame crit, and a frustrating, fumble-heavy fight follows. The party is never really in any real danger, everybody just sort of stumbles around and eventually the party lands enough hits to kill everybody.
With the church all settled, the party heads to their appointment with Jellico. The party asks what they remember of the terrifying clown, and they can recall that he was mean, demanding, and selfish, but they never explicitly saw him commit serial murders, so whether or not he is a notorious serial killer in Escadar is impossible to definitively prove.
The meeting is set to occur at a ruined temple of Aroden outside Abberton. I drop some Aroden lore on them, and they split up to scope the place out.
Tar creeps into the chapel and notices the distinctive silhouette of Dingo the Roboclown, a notable attraction of the Celestial Menagerie. "He shouldn't be here! He should be in Escadar!" Tar lets most of the party know. Brun is separate at the moment, though, and he sees Jellico also sneaking around a pillar at his side of the temple. They notice each other, and Jellico puts a finger up to his lips, and then kisses his finger. He sneaks away in a comical stage-sneak manner, hands bouncing in front of him and clown shoes squeaking, and crooks a finger for Brun to follow.
To my immense surprise, Brun follows. Jellico pulls a pantomime string that Brun is apparently attached to. Brun continues to follow him to the courtyard out back. Jellico leans close and smiles wide.
Back in the chapel, Tar sneaks up on Dingo, and Dingo suddenly lights up and swivels to Tar, its arms rotating in a wave. "HELLO! I, DINGO THE ROBOCLOWN, COME BEARING A MESSAGE FROM... MIST. RESS. DUSK. LIGHT! YAAAAAAY!"
Cinder pops out from behind a pew. "What's the message?"
"THEY WILL RECEIVE THE MESSAGE! YAY! SHE SAYS..."
It aims its arms at Tar.
"ROT IN HELL!"
Brun realizes that the Jellico before him is an illusion, and curses. Roll initiative!
(An aside - I'm really proud of the playlists I've assembled for this game. I might actually post links to the tunes I've used for each scene at the end here, but for this specific scene I used this absolute banger.)
Dingo assumes a pugilist's pose, brandishing his springy gloved hands.
Tar skitters behind him and makes some crafting checks to pry off a control panel and futz with Dingo; I make him Clumsy 1 until he gets repaired.
Dingo rattles down the stairs toward Cinder and smacks him with a glove for 12 non-lethal. "BURN, RAPSCALLION!" A follow-up haymaker for 22. Cinder spins, "Oh, not this again..." and collapses. We quickly establish that this isn't the first time Cinder's been knocked unconscious by this Roboclown. "AHA!"
Brun runs back to the party. "Guys, it's a trap!"
Jellico appears close to Rask. "Ho ho HO! Looks like Cinder's already down for the count!" My Jellico sounds like every annoying cartoon clown you've ever seen. He bombards Rask with bowling pins, missing every attack.
Rask heals Cinder up and commands Miss Daisy to attack Jellico, but he leaps over the bite. Cinder misses Dingo. "Curse you, Dingo! I said I'd see you again and get my revenge!"
"AND I'M HAPPY TO SEE YOU TOO!" Dingo swivels to Tar, who has continued trying to dismantle the clown. "PLEASE STOP TOUCHING MY WHEELS, CHILD! MY WARRANTY IS VOID NOW!" It acts like one of those balloon clowns that you punch and hammers Tar into the ground.
Brun crits Dingo right through the eye, causing a bunch of electric shocks, but Dingo doesn't go haywire quite yet. Jellico throws the last of his bowling pins, missing entirely, and he's down to just daggers. "Looks like I'm down to just the stabs!"
Miss Daisy grabs his ankle mid-leap. "That's my jumping ankle! Aaaah!" Rask stabs him through the chest with his trident. "I use those lungs to breathe!"
Tar shoves an alchemist fire into Dingo's shattered eye, which causes him to go haywire. "THE WARRANTY... THE WARRANTY!" Cinder misses it with a produce flame, and so Dingo bounces toward Tar on a big spring and shatters the tile where Tar just was. It then crushes Tar into the ground with its head, dropping him. "YOU DID THIS! YOU MADE ME A MONSTER!"
Brun fires off another shot and shatters Dingo's other eye, which causes his head to explode. Rask and Jellico are dueling on the other side of the battle. Cinder joins in. "One clown down, one to go!"
J: "That's no clown! It's a soulless machine, you philistine!"
The party realizes that Jellico is motivated by a fear of automation stealing the jobs of hardworking clowns and clocks him as a Luddite.
Brun crits Jellico mid-bounce, hitting him in the neck and dropping him for good. He tumbles in a bouncing, squeaking heap just past Rask. Tar rolls to salvage Dingo, and does well enough that I go ahead and give the Circus of Wayward Wonders a Roboclown. The party expresses dismay that Miss Daisy is currently too small to consume Jellico.
This marks the first person that the party has slain, but they don't feel much remorse. They find out what was in Jellico's bag - a rubber chicken that is full of blood? They decide to go ahead and give him a circus burial in the temple's graveyard, since this was the site of his last joke. The headstone bears the name of the show, not the performer.
As Tar is repairing Dingo, he notices that it has a switch that flicks between "racist" and "boring", which Tar rips out. Cinder: "So THAT'S why he always punched me." Tar: "The guy who made Dingo was a real jerk." They rename it Wensleydale the Wayward Wobot. They drop him off at the circus and head to the Lindel Barn.
They notice the giant flytrap on the approach and easily skirmish the hell out of it with fire. It does manage to crit Miss Daisy, but they drop it before it does anything too bad.
A voice comes from inside the barn. "Mistress, is that you?"
Brun sneaks around the back while the rest approach the front.
Cinder: "We've got your mistress. Get out here or we'll hurt you."
Voice: "No way! We've got hostages too! We'll burn them all!"
C: "How about a trade?"
V: "...let us hear her!"
Rask: "Wait, how do we know you have hostages?"
V: "We can make 'em scream, if you want."
R: "The more they scream, the more you'll scream."
V: "We'll all scream!"
V: "'...ah, help, I'm a hostage!' See, there's one of them now!"
R: "Prove it!"
V: "Um. Do you want an ear?"
C: "Yes."
V: "Uh. Wait, really?"
Brun peeks in the back and sees two pairs of mephits.
C: "What should we do?"
R: "I'm not sure."
Brun sees the stone mephits open a stable door and sees some squirming figures, then busts down the door. "They have hostages!" The stone mephit near the hostages leaps into the arms of the other stone mephit. "I'm the hostage!"
Brun hunts him anyway and hits him with the pick. Rask charges through the front door, and starts fighting the fire mephits.
The fight goes back and forth. Brun gets hit with shotgun blasts of rock pellets from the stone mephits, but he doesn't drop, and after weathering other breath weapons the party pretty easily takes the mephits down. The party rescues the hostages and gets the full story of Nemmia's actions in town.
Rask hauls out the lockbox from the mill and says they found it broken into, but he offers it to them now, but the millers say the party can have it as thanks. Rask posits a theory that this is a Gozreh splinter group trafficking with demons, given that there are two hermit corpses here that clearly weren't willing participants. They rest for the night, realize they haven't seen the mayor of Abberton since he left for the Hermitage, and resolve to head to the hermitage the next day. The party levels again!
That was hilarious. :D
Looking forward to the next installment.