I just came from my weekly session and the group consensus is that we're starting the Age of Worms adventure path next week and 1.) my wife and I are hosting and 2.) I am DM'ing.
I thought that I would take advantage of the wonderful Campaign Journal board provided us by Paizo in order to share with the world my and my group's experience. I've always loved reading through other journals so I figured others would want to read mine.
That being said I want to share that I am truly excited to be DM'ing this adventure path. I've been chomping at the proverbial bit since last summer when I renewed my subscription (let it go while another player DM'ed Shackled City). And after joining this community it has been a phenomonal shared experience with so many of us playing the same adventure and offering our own twists and turns, questions and answers, problems and solutions.
Thank you Paizo for offering us such a great product and such a wonderful community here on the boards.
Please enjoy the rambling descriptions of the lives of the NPC's and PC's in my campaign.
Let the adventure begin...
Pre-game:
The Setup
Constance Grace has been kidnapped by goblinoid thugs. Her boyfriend - the uncomplicated half-orc bouncer Grunn - and her cousin - the obese mine administrator Nor MoSta hear from Purple Prose that kidnappers sent her ear with a ransom note requesting that 100 gp's be delivered to the abandoned mine office.
Grunn wallows in his own misery and worry for the night as Nor MoSta asks his dragonchess buddy - Faregel, an elven wizard and apprentice to Allustan - if he and anyone he knows could help recover his cousin. The elf invites Gideon, the adopted nephew of Allustan and a fighter training at the garrison to help find Constance. The fighter requests the presence of his classmate the honorable Sister Gwendolyn on this heroic mission.
All the while Brother Benedict and his superior of the Twilight Monastery have followed leads regarding ears and kidnappings which seem to be related to a vision granted by Izefen. They tracks down Purple Prose and offer to protect young Constance if Brother Benedict is involved.
First Session
Prose meets with all of them and so the party plans how they are to go about rescuing the poor woman. They opt for a striahgtforward exchange, with the elven wizard and half-orc barbarian holding back 20 feet to protect the rear and offer any support with their keen vision.
The Exchange
They approach the dilapitated office at dusk and are hailed by an armored hobgoblin who requests double the ransom. A short parely ensues and Nor notices that the hobgoblin seems nervous about something.
Suddenly crashing through the window and wall to the hobgoblin's left is the slathering bugbear cleric of his party. The brute screams dark prophecies in a common-goblin pidgin: "It is hungry, don't let it feed!" It then proceeds to cast inflict light wounds on anything it can get his hands on. Welts and boils erupt on the flesh of its victims. An arrow sinks deep into Brother Benedict as the goblin rogue snipes it from the second floor. The hobgoblin tries to command the rabid bugbear to stand down while keeping the gate and wall between him and the cleric.
The battle is in full force as the hobgoblin drops by a hefty braining from Sister Gwendolyn. A woman screams inside and Nor yells that his cousin is in danger as his longspear pierces the bugbear's groin and drops it. In its deaththroes it belches forth a vile concoction of bile, filth, and dead worms upon poor Gideon.
Grunn keeps a cautious and cool head as he enters the office. His love screams a second time and the sound is cut short. Filled with rage he begins shouldering open any door within sight. The party enters the building and the monk bringing up the rear hears a rustling behind him. Whirling around he sees the bugbear slowly lift itself from the ground and stagger towards him in the open door. He calls for help.
Gideon and Grunn find the prone form of Constance lying in the kitchen as a goblin with a wicked looking kukri curses under his breath and dashes out the window. They rush to her side and Nor enters, calling for the cleric.
But the cleric is busy trying to turn this foul undead beast that drops Brother Benedict under its powerful pummeling. It resists her cries for Heironeous' strength. The rest of the party joins the battle but their weapons seem ineffective. The club, fists, and morning star are glancning off the thick hide of this beast. Yet Gideon's axe finds purchase. It cuts two deep furrows and eventually splits the zombie in twain as more ichor, bile, and dead worms pour onto the floor.
When all is said and done Constance is safe, yet disfigured as she is now missing both ears. The hobgoblin and bugbear corpses are burned (but not before they loot the hobgoblin's body), and the goblin rogue escaped into the night towards the direction of the Whispering Cairn. Returning to Diamond Lake they stay the night at the garrison and in the morning they are planning on taking Constance to the protection of the Twilight Monastery.
Nor begins to think that the goblin bastard that disfigured his cousin might be hiding out in the Whispering Cairn.
The battle didn't go exactly as I had expected. The bugbear zombie definitely gave them a run for their money because only one of them had a slashing weappon and he was rolling TERRIBLY. The barbarian rolled a crit with his greatclub so I described him breaking the neck of the thing and it's head lolling about at an odd angle - yet it didn't seem to mind. The fighter finally got two good shots in with his greataxe to drop it.
I had wanted to make the hobgoblin and his goblin partner recurring villians and possibly show up for the Champion's Games. With them burning the corpse of the hobgoblin that puts a kink in that plan. But the goblin will definitely be back - wearing Constance's ear like some sort of trophy. Can't wait to see how the barbarian responds to that one...
Interesting way to start the campaign!
I've since realized that I've been struggling writing re-cap's for my campaign in this journal because I'm so used to having a particular character as a frame of reference.
I came to a realization, an apocolypse if you will (a revelation for all you Greek speakers out there). I might as well write as a DM speaking about running the sessions, THERE'S the frame of reference.
March 7th the party found the passage of the face and the wind trap. They failed the heal check to notice the skeleton had fallen from a great height, they noticed the gouges in the floor (and I described them as something being dragged or pushed OUT of the passage), and when one of them eventually tripped the trap (with a terribly failed disarming attempt) I figured that they would skedaddle.
Nope.
The wind kicked up and two of them succumbed to the prismatic pattern but next round made their Will saves. The thief continued to disarm with another failed attempt, two party members said that they should get out of the passage as they ran towards the bumbling thief and the face. The wind kicked up again and two of them are checked by the force of the wind, yet nobody tried to leave, they all got closer to the face. After asking the thief to make an Intelligence check and was told that the trap was more advanced than anything he had ever seen he still tried to disarm it.
When all was said and done the two who were mezmerized and thus closer to the entrance escaped, the other four were flung from the passage unconscious and bleeding to death.
I HAD to fudge rolls. Third session, new characters, and as frustrated as I was with everyone ignoring the sigs, the wind, and their own advice I couldn't bring myself to drop a virtual TPK on them.
Oh well...
March 9th, Fourth session
After the wind trap fiasco the party decided to explore the elevators. They use the yellow elevator to move to the Lair of the Architect. The thief detects the trap and figures that he must remove the slab before he can disarm it. The party struggles to move the slab and the room fills with the poison gas. Three of the six are poisoned. Five complain to the thief.
I got a chance to raise the tension level bu having the sneaky lurking strangler hide and shoot a few sleep rays. The monk got freaked out when he suddenly felt drowsy but didn't know why.
The eventual battle really creeped them out because the lurking strangler dropped the monk with a second ray and began to strangle him. I didn't like the idea of the L.S. having a -10 grapple check so I had the barbarian and the L.S. make opposed grapple checks and the L.S. won - it began to constrict tighter and the party began to panic. It was soon dispatched.
The sudden clouds of breath and the increasing cold made them extremely cautious and they have yet to kill the brown mold.
The earth elemental scared them a bit but with a craptastic initiative roll (1) it was about to attack before the barbarian smashed it with one hit.
They found the treasure under the sprung trap and debated what to do about the brown mold. They decided to explore more of the cairn.
There was an absolute fiasco with the indigo elevator trap. The thief once again after the party voiced that it looked like a trap he got in and pushed the button anyway. After the drama of pushing the dais they eventually freed and healed the dying thief.
He tried again. And the trap got him again only this time after miserable rolls on both sides, he died.
After the building tension and the drama of players screaming at each other to roll it ended up with everyone standing up around the table and getting panicked.
All in all an awesome session.
e-roleplaying
My group tries to save the tactical combat and dungeon exploration for our weekly sessions and we try to e-mail throughout the week. Many times we can use this medium for a lot of the filler roleplaying. People can write in accents and dialects, when they can't speak in them around the table, and it speeds up our sessions when we're not bogged down with buying rations and seeing how much a shortbow costs.
But other times it can be a real pain in the patoot - a "monkeywrench" if you will.
Via e-mail...
The barbarian was just fired for leaving his job to explore the Cairn and not giving his employer (Tidwoad) a head's up. Feeling dejected he was walking along the Vein and moping about. The player himself described the denizens of Diamond Lake mocking him and so he hauled off and beat up some citizen on the street. I'm not one for telling a player what he can or can't do so now there are some miners involved and soon what passes for the "law."
Ah yes, now the party gets to meet and greet with the constabulary.
e-roleplaying
addendum
After reading through my last post I realized that I didn't relate why it was such a "monkeywrench." Hell, any player could have done what happened around the table and it would have been fine.
The issue was that with one player starting such an encounter via e-mail, the other players have to wait until the next session. This bogs down the action and the momentum a bit.
Right now they've been pretty unresponsive this week even BEFORE the altercation started so I'm curious as to how other DM's use e-roleplaying in their table-top games.
heh, I'll be playing in an AoW game in Rochester, NY in about a month, after I finish my Eberron adventure. I fully plan to put my character journal up here.
Wouldn't describe that as a monkeywrench, but more of a situation in which could get young barbarian in trouble further on when you aren't prepared for a game.
"Suddenly, and without warning, a thug comes out of the darkness and hits Hrothganar. He is closely followed by 10 others...."
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heh, I'll be playing in an AoW game in Rochester, NY in about a month, after I finish my Eberron adventure. I fully plan to put my character journal up here.
Wouldn't describe that as a monkeywrench, but more of a situation in which could get young barbarian in trouble further on when you aren't prepared for a game.
Hopefully we will have a lot of fun Chris. As the DM for that Campaign I will also put updates up occasionally.
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e-roleplaying
addendumAfter reading through my last post I realized that I didn't relate why it was such a "monkeywrench." Hell, any player could have done what happened around the table and it would have been fine.
The issue was that with one player starting such an encounter via e-mail, the other players have to wait until the next session. This bogs down the action and the momentum a bit.
Right now they've been pretty unresponsive this week even BEFORE the altercation started so I'm curious as to how other DM's use e-roleplaying in their table-top games.
As someone who will be starting this campaign in about a month I can tell you that I am going to use either a webpage or emails to dish out info that characters will find out and as some filler like you are Timault.
As a player I can tell you that the DM that is DMing the group at this time has been sending us emails to let us know any info that are characters should know ahead of time. I have to say this has made it alot easier to play the character as knowing something as opposed to asking the DM in mid encounter "Should I know that?"
Lyle
Haven't posted a journal in quite a while... life took the wheel for a moment.
Let's see...
The party has "completed" the Whispering Cairn and is trying to tie up loose ends with Kullen. Time and time again my players are quick to forget their plans and even quicker to jump into battle. Twice while facing off against Kullen and his gang they've shot first and drawn first blood - only this time they were victorious.
The first time I really had to pull some punches and make Kullen more of a bully and less of a murderer - they respected him enough to steer clear and prepare a battle plan for their second meeting.
But I was NOT going to pull any punches for the second meeting. They've gained a level or two and I have no qualms about a half party kill or the whole darn thing.
Apparently I had no need to worry...
Now the gang lays dead at the feet of the party, with the shouts of battle and a sound burst spell (all at 3 AM) they've drawn the attention of the stable owner (who chased the rogue down off his stable earlier that afternoon) and the constabulary.
They will be caught "red-handed" looting through the bodies with Filge's pickled head. Yes, they pickled his head.
Sherriff Cubbin enter stage right.
Well, two players couldn't make it due to family obligations but with the party splitting up to flee the scene it opened up a few possible encounters for the four who could make it.
The week off (my wife and I moved last week) I sent an e-mail that was written from the stable owner's point of view as he was a witness to the fight between the party and Kullen's gang. They didn't know he was a witness but they knew it was OOC knowledge and many of them knew that they would be in trouble.
Well, they threw me a curve ball - the four turned themselves in.
So they hid their weapons and goods and went to the Sherriff's office to explain their part in the death of Kullen and his goons. The whole session was roleplaying, no combat.
After two days of investigating and trying to prove the outrageous story of the four "adventurers" the Sherriff asked the jailed heroes to pay a fine/bribe of 25 gold each for disturbing the peace and were warned to never carry weapons in town or cause trouble in any way. Since there was not enough evidence to convict them and they offered the possibility of finding out Smenk's connection to some cult in Diamond Lake they were released.
Now free and able to clean up they welcomed an invitation to join a dinner conversation with Chaum Gansworth in his private booth at the Rusty Bucket. He asked them to help him find dirt on Balabar Smenk.
I gave them all 400 xp for the great roleplaying. The lawful good monk definitely had a problem with bribing their way out of jail but the fighter/sorcerer told him that he had to think of it as paying a fine. The halfling lost his tools (poor Sleight of Hand check to hide them) and was creeping out the constables and frustrating the monk because it was he who had pickled the head of the necromancer.
I play in this campaign and must say he is a great dm. We always seem to do the least expected.
Thanks, Morbid.
Unbeknownst to the party...
"That damn gnome better not try anything tonight," he mutters trying to huff anf puff his portly frame up the ladder and into the hay loft. The horses below whinny nervously, mostly out of fear of the half-elf stable master. The tension is roiling off him like a storm front and that usually meant a switch or a belt - the horses remember.
He - on the other hand - thinks that they're laughing at him in their damnable horse way. That proud mare of Allustan's is probably cajoling them on. He won't dare touch that one. Wizards have ways that he'd rather not experience first hand. But he does know thieves and that gnome he caught climbing up his barn this afternoon had a thievish way about him. That's why he figured he would stay in his hay loft tonight - to make sure to teach that gnome a very important lesson in case he wanted to put his pale greasy nose where it did not belong.
It was a lesson he learned at a young age and when he eventually got too lazy and too heavy to sneak around he figured that he should teach the lessons instead of taking them. So he brought his teaching tools: a special crossbow that did not need reloading until five bolts, a short sword and a few dirks in case he really needed to make the lesson personal. That gnome would lose that greasy nose if he - or was it a she? - tried to take his horses.
It was getting late and he was drifting in and out of sleep - lucky for him he had also learned that the horses would hear anyone sneaking around the barn before he would and the anxious hooves alerted him to movement outside.
About thirty yards off the leeward side of his barn a group was gathering: an elf, a dwarf, at this distance a gnome or a halfling - he couldn't be sure - and two humans. But it did not seem to be the slinky strange gnome he had seen earlier. They talked in low voices and seemed to be pointing at various shrubs and bushes while most of their attention was on the road leading out of town. A lot of folk meet in and around Diamond Lake and many of them late at night. But these folks were armed and armored - and they were not garrison soldiers. "Maybe they're looking for that gnome too," he whispered. He checked his crossbow and inched closer to a seam between planks, hunkering down to watch what he hoped to be an exciting exchange in what looked to be a boring night. "If I can't whup someone tonight," he thought, "at least I get to see a fight."
The elf and dwarf mumbled some words and waved their hands - wizard and cleric for sure. "This gang is looking for a rumble," he chuckled. Within moments a second group came from the direction of town. The voices were muffled but as soon as he saw them he knew exactly who it was: Kullen and his crew. That half-orc albino bastard practically glowed in the moonlight. He was hoping for a fight, now it was guaranteed.
They exchanged some words and the little one stepped forward cautiously and left a barrel or box on the ground. Kullen bent over to pick it up and pulled out - a head? Is that a head? Kullen's voice grew and the stable-master could pick out the words "pickled," "head," and "necromancer." What in the Nine Hells is going on here?
Before he could lean forward to hear more a bolt struck Kullen's pal and dropped him. Where did that come from? The half-elf scanned the shrubs between his barn and Kullen's fallen friend, Bask was his name, but could not find any bowman. Soon the skirmish was joined and blade, bolt, and spell flew. That bowman struck another of Kullen's crew and sunk deep one deep in his left eye. The bastard was still standing, broke the bolt in half and choked down a healing draught before he was taken in melee! A loud boom came from the dwarf as he clapped his hands together, loud enough to spook the horses. In a mere matter of seconds Kullen and his crew lay bleeding. There! There was that gnome slinking from behind the scrub and bush! He was the bowman!
Deep in his gullet the half-elf was glad that the gnome was not casing his stable but was looking for a perch - that oily bastard means business. But soon the gnome's party spread out and began to search the fallen. Suddenly they began to speak in hurried voices and they all fled the scene. The sounds of that combat are sure to draw the sherrif and his constables.
The session last night was also heavy on the roleplaying. The party had to figure out how to get into Dourstone's mine.
The two that didn't turn themselves in started working in the mine. The gnome rogue has a history of being contracted out by the managers for spelunking and other such dangerous work. The dwarf priest had only heard stories of mining and never really put them into practice before. But since he was well liked by some of the other miners they looked out for him and taught him some techniques (awarded one rank of Profession: miner).
The rest of the party tried to sweet talk their way in but the bard just couldn't do it. He has a pretty good diplomacy score but he had a pretty bad story. Four armed and armored adventurers enter the mining camp and the halfling says that they would like to go in because they suspect someone who stole from him is in the mine. Rangolin himself tells them to leave because he doesn't want that kind of trouble in his mine.
They leave the camp but stay just outside the camp for hours in view of the camp, the mining office, and the guards who are now unfriendly toward them. I give them a -7 DC (after Rangolin tells the guards that they're up to no good) and they return to bribe the guards. Even with 40-50 gp's they still can't get in. They then take their money back and wait until after the shift ends - to see if their two missing party members are inside.
As the shift changes the halfling bard plays his bagpipes for the crowd of miners leaving the camp - much to the chagrin of the cleric and rogue who are trying to keep a low profile. This bard just doesn't get the subtle nuances of diplomacy, bluffing, or modesty.
They finally end up sneaking into the camp with a few distractions and make their way to the elevator. Realizing that there are a lot of heavy party members plus the elevator the strongest really struggles and the elevator slowly descends at 5 feet per round. I then realize that it's going to be a very long ride so he starts making Fortitude checks to not become fatigued. Even with the Endurance feat he still fails and continues to struggle, soon he is exhausted and one of the helpers also becomes fatigued. The elevator plummets the rest of the way down and they take some damage. Then the gnome tries to jump on the feather-falling-ring-wearing elf to slow his descent but it doesn't work. A few failed strength checks by the elf and the gnome falls 20 feet.
We ended with one tiefling down and one more near death but the door opened and they hear armored troops coming. What a cliff hanger!