Savage Tide Obituaries

[Charlie Bell]

Name: Mehtarenis, captain of the Sea Wyvern
Elf mobile fighter 13/rogue 3
Adventure: Into the Maw
The party is systematically freeing all celestials in the cell blocks on Paradise when a patrol of 8 hezrous rounds the corner. The PCs are bottlenecked in between rows of cells... but that doesn't stop the hezrous from targeting them with unholy blight. 5d8 isn't much, especially with a Will save for half, but 40d8 from all 8 hezrous is nothing to laugh about. The party's monk and totemic demonslayer are up front, but because of the narrow cell block corridor, they can only clear out about 1 hezrou per round. A series of bad Will saves puts down Meht on the 2nd round of the unholy blight barrage.

Name: Verity Tyne
Elf (reincarnated human) rogue 16
Adventure: Into the Maw
Same encounter as above. Verity makes more Will saves and survives the initial barrages. The monk and totemic demonslayer kill 5 of the hezrous and the last 3 turn gaseous. S'Sharra has siezed the opportunity to ambush the party's rear echelons. The monk and totemic demonslayer move to deal with her. As soon as they get out of charge range, the hezrous re-materialize and lay out their final barrage of unholy blights, pushing Verity over the edge of death.

[carborundum]

Back for another round of unholy blights? Ouch - bet the DM got a few dice thrown at him! :-)

[Charlie Bell]

Name: Mehtarenis, captain of the Sea Wyvern
Elf mobile fighter 13/rogue 3
Adventure: Into the Maw
Instead of parlaying with Lillianth, the party attempted a daring frontal assault on her domain. All 8 hezrous, Jariaxer, Lynnara, and Lillianth, due to telepathic communication, responded en masse. The party's heavies attempted to close with and destroy the CR 22 marilith in melee. She had 9 attacks per round, Stunning Assault (DC 32!), and could reliably hit anyone in the party. She totally stun-locked Meht, Verity, Whisper (the monk), and both of the party's allied filth demons. About 3 rounds of stun-locking were all it took. Meht took a heavy pick x4 crit and went from positive hp to about -35 or so: instant hamburger.

Name: Verity Tyne
Elf (reincarnated human) rogue 16
Adventure: Into the Maw
Bled out due to wounding weapon attacks during Lillianth's stun-lock-stravaganza.

Before closing with Lillianth, the party heavies mopped up the hezrous while Lillianth chewed through the filth demons and crushing coiled Toltek, the Olman witch (unconscious 6 rounds). Verity and Whisper's ivory champion took down Jariaxer, while a timely finger of death from Les, the wizard, sent Lynnara into full retreat. After Verity, Meht, and the filth demons all fell to the marilith's blades, Whisper was in single digits and ran away. Les was left all alone with an angry marilith. Lillianth closed to within melee range, took out all his mirror images with her weapon attacks, and crushed him unconscious with her crushing coils. It would have been a TPK had Les's Mordenkainen's sword not finished off Lillianth's last 10 hit points the very next round. Whisper came back around and policed up the fallen and the unconscious mages.

[Charlie Bell]

Lavinia Vanderboren
Human arcane duelist bard 16 (PFRPG restatted)
Adventure: Into the Maw
After her rescue from Lillianth, Lavinia accompanied the party when they confronted Vanthus at the bridge to his stronghold. Her fiance, Danithal (ranger/totemic demonslayer) and the paladin Brother Aum flew up to the roof of the stronghold to confront Vanthus, leaving the squishies on the friendly side of the bridge unguarded. 3 of the dread wraiths siezed this opportunity to Spring Attack past Lavinia, hitting her for 3d6 Con drain in the process. I rolled 12 Con drain versus her 10 Con. Since Danithal's player had been running her, I had him roll the d4 for number of rounds until she returned as a wraith: 4. In the intervening rounds, the party managed to kill Vanthus and the rest of the bad guys. The party wizard, Les, put a resilient sphere around Lavinia's corpse. When we left off, the wraith that was once Lavinia was taunting Danithal from inside the sphere. The real kicker was that Danithal's player (and everyone else at the table) had completely forgotten that Lavinia had 6 mirror images up, even one of which would have stopped enough Con drain to keep her alive.

[Charlie Bell]

Toltek
Human (Olman) male witch 17
Adventure: Wells of Darkness
Toltek got based by two of the Spawn of Ahazu (nightwings) in Overlook Tower. 2 hits at 4d10+18 plus 4d6 cold, one of which was a high damage crit, were all it took. He got raised by the rogue Verity, using his own staff of life.

[carborundum]

Those PF conversions of yours are earning their keep, mate :-)

[TheWhiteknife]

Vash
Human Cleric of Procan 1
Adventure: There is No Honor..
Summary: George Romero'ed!

Story: After being trapped in the smuggler's tunnels beneath Parrot Island by the blackhearted Vanthus Vanderboren, the party had no choice but to explore their dank subterrianan surroundings to find an exit. Cracking a sunrod or three, the brave explorers opened a waterlogged door and proceeded into a brick lined pillared room with some long dead bodies slumped about. Kon, the halfling cutpurse, noticed that the bodies seemed to stir in reaction to the sunrod's light. A fight ensued, during which it was noticed that these vile undead had the jaws of sharks, with rows upon rows of serrated teeth, instead of normal human jaws. What sort of dark necromancy was at work here?!? The party bested them, however, as well as several other groups of the shambling dead. Drained of resources, the party holed up in a defensible location. Low on sunrods and rations, and weary from the less than ideal sleeping conditions, the party knew that they had better find a way out and very very soon.

(As DM, I was lamenting that the PF rules for channeling wouldnt allow me to use the need to feed special quality, a truly truly evil thing for 1st level pc's to have to deal with.)

After waking up and meditating and/or saying their prayers, the intrepid adventurers set out once again in search of an exit. A trio of the hungry dead awaited them behind another of the stuck oaken doors. Vash, pious follower of the Stormlord, could not engage the filthy undead from outside the room, so decided to enter, provoking three(!) attacks of opportunity as he did so. Noticing the fresh meat entering in between them, the three blood hungry zombies, all turned and bit into the warm flesh of the hapless holy man. No deific channeling would prevent these three from enjoying their meal! (Two of them failed their saves to resist the urge to nosh on some delectable viscera) Demarcia, stern barmaid and would-be swashbuckler, cut one of the undead down when it turned it's attention from her, but she could not stop the other one from enjoying a good gut-munch. Nom nom nom nom!

[carborundum]

Hooray - more grist for the STAP mill :-)

I'm looking forward to more gruesome deaths from your campaign!

[TheWhiteknife]

And I am looking forward to obliging. I feel an overwhelming need to top my Age of Worms kill count. (14)

[TheWhiteknife]

STAP is proving to be not as deadly as AoW. I mostly blame the pathfinder vs 3.5 rules, but I bagged my second tonight.

Fernando Coronado
Tiefling male witch 6 (along with numerous red-shirt passengers and Thunderstrike)
Adventure: Here There Be Monsters
Summary: Mummy, Can I go out and kill tonight?!?

Long Version: The party, in an astouding turn-around of their usual antics, managed to not try to loot any of the burial niches in Dark Mountain Pass, thus the mummy guardians didnt activate until they found the secret door. Buhlman, in his deviousness, placed the secret door as far back in the mini-maze as possible allowing the undead to attack from multiple sides. (It's little things like this that make a good adventure great.) The three shambling corpses manage to paralyze every single NPC with fright. (the NPC's that were supposed to survive, as well as Lirith and 6 or so commoner passengers) Fernando found himself singled up with an approaching mummy advancing from the west. He kept backing up, but knew that he could not back too far up, as he would run into the mummy attacking other party members to the east or into the mummy working its way through the red-shirts in the short hallway to the north. Eventually, he ran out of room and then hit points on a critical hit.

Next Session: Olangru!!! If I dont add something new here, Ill have failed

[carborundum]

Tin-a-Tin,
Female Halfling Spellthief 13
Adventure: City of Broken Idols
Cause of death: Sneakily placed Symbol of Death

The party elected to go straight to Taboo Island, stopping for 20 seconds to say hi to the lizardfolk before getting on their jetskis (phantom steeds) and heading round the back of the island. The rode up the beach and made a beeline for the closest ziggurat, where they encountered a chimera, lolling in the sun atop the pyramid.

It took wing and dived down ... into a wallof force. One acid breath from the dragon shaman an a whack from the fighter later, it lay dead. The party ascended the pyramid and found a bloody stone... the blood obscuring the various glyphs and carvings.

They pulled the decanter of endless water out of a handy haversack and hosed down the stone, revealing a Symbol of Death left by a certain demonic adversary. This version of the Symbol targetted not the closest but a random living being within 60ft. She didn't make the save.

The invisible, flying, darkstalker spellthief tumbled silently to the ground, landing softly on the steps of the ziggurat. In the party's greater status, her condition was... dead.

[TheWhiteknife]

Trybas
male human Cleric (Celestian)
Adventure: HTBM
Cause of Death: The loving embrace of Lemoria

Trybas, flying, flew up and took Urol off the meathook that he was suspended from. (Sploortch!) Not to be denied his proper sacrifice, the Golem sprang into action, leaping across the fire pit into the midst of a slew of huddled PC's, who were still fairly injured from Olangru. On his turn, Trybas heroically decided not to GTFO, but to enter the Golem's threatened area in order to channel healing energy. Healing the party served only to enrage the Golem further, as it considered the act to be further denying Big D his proper offerings. So he gave Trybas a nice long slow tentacled hug. Between the rotting of his soft tissues and the crushing coils of constriction(tm), Trybas' soul had had enough and decided to shuck his mortal coil to wander the blackness between the stars with his master, far from the reaches of Demogorgon.

[TheWhiteknife]

Graham Grambly
male goblin-disguised-as-a-halfling fighter/rogue/barbarian
adventure:ToD
cause of Death: one eyed, one armed, scaly goblin eater

Graham manged to interpose himself between a group of innocent phanaton tar gatherers and the ever hungry Temahuani-tecuati. He managed to survive the first attack (+ awesome blow. Yay!). Not knowing that Big T had combat reflexes, Graham stood up on his turn, provoking another attack. Then it was T's turn again, and Graham found himself as just another meal for the scaly lord of the Tar Pits.

I've really been setting em up and knocking them down the last few sessions. Next session will feature the return of an old foe, and hopefully I'll be back here again!

[Scarletrose]

Kervica
Illumian Female bard 6/Thrall of Malcanthet 1
Adventure: Sea Wyvern Wake
Catalyst: Pissing off the party during a 6 month sail to an exotic Island

Story: After being a Jerk to basically everyone during the campaign and secretly summoning and loosing control of a succubus on the sea wyvern the rogue decided to backstab her to death and drop her body overboard.
The succubus struck a pact with the rogue and posed as the dead bard for the rest of the trip covering her crime and disappeared during the shipwreck.
To this day the party doesn't know about the fate of Kervica or the current identity of the succubus.

[TheWhiteknife]

Kon and "Blue"
halfling rogue and deathtouched sorceror/force missle mage, respectively
Adventure: taking on the Infamous Seven in between ToD and LD
Catalyst: Converting to Pathfinder is hard, sometimes.

Story: The party decided to hunt down the infamous seven, for the fame and to make the isle safer, I guess. So they hunt for Baarugrath (sp?). I didnt feel like converting a dragon eel and after AoW, Id like to keep dragons to a minimum, so B became an advanced giant masher with some other unique powers. His poison dc was something like 27 or 29!! Combine that with no one actually reading how neutralise poison works, and two pc's flesh literally rotted from their bodies!

post-script- I usually try to have more details for my kills, but this happened two sessions ago (over a month), and my memory isnt what it used to be...

[TheWhiteknife]

Tyson and "Blue" (once again)
Human Cleric and Deathtouched Sorceror/force missle mage
Adventure: City of Broken Idols
Catalyst: Party really might consider recruiting a rogue

Story: After battling the Deinosuchus, the Wastrilith's projected image, and then the actual Wastrilith, the party found themselves at the entrance to the Taboo Island complex. Rubble from a statue dedicated to one of the strange Olman gods littered the grand staircase. For reasons unknown to me, Tyson decided that something about the room seemed "off" and scanned the area with a detect magic spell. His sonar got a ping somewhere at the top of the stairs, in between the grand statues still-standing legs. Alerting the rest of the party to the possibility of magical riches, the whole party raced up the stairs to attempt to claim their just rewards, which came in the form of fortitude saves. After the fighting to get there, Trybas had 80 hit points and Blue had 70. The maroon words that were etched into the ground burrowed into their minds, shutting off synapses and disrupting vital respiratory processes, until the intrepid duo ceased to exist. (Blue's spirit decided to come back, after a hasty teleport, however.)

[ReganFriend]

Hello, Paizonians! First time poster here, with quite a few Obituaries to list. I'm DMing the STAP in a very casual game (we've played together on and off for nearly 20 years; we all know what to expect), and I've decided to "referee" the campaign -- all my rolls are out in the open, and I'm not going to cheat for or against the party. That means I do not try to engineer drama; on the other hand, if y'all die, y'all die.

First deaths:

Y'all died!

The Bullywug Gambit, Ripclaw. The entire party was killed by Ripclaw and a few savage pirates from nearby. The party was one encounter away from leveling to third, which would have given the ECL characters another hit die, but they walked into Room K3, and, in an attempt to flank the pirates, one of the PCs walked through Ripclaw's room without attempting to hide. Ripclaw + 3 savage pirates + that savage Ewok = TPK. They were:

Player 1: Don't Remember Name ("DRN"), Aasimar Cleric 1
Player 2: DRN, Halfling Rogue 2
Player 3: Mike Holmes, Human Warblade 2
Player 4: Bait (1)*, Sahuagin 1
Player 5: DRN, Human Telepath 2

Much fun was had upon re-entering the pirates' lair, particularly when they encountered Harliss Javell, who at that time had been fighting off savage pirates for days!

Player 1 re-rolled as a Half-Orc Barbarian 2. Player 2 re-rolled as a Star Elf Bard 2 with a 6 CON (she wanted to roll for stats instead of point buy, and I said why not? She picked her "8" for CON). Player 3 re-rolled as Mike Holmes's son, Mike Holmes, an identical character (it was her first time playing, and we decided that Warblade would be best for her to get used to DnD. Rather than learn an entirely new class, she just wanted to keep playing that.) Players 4 and 5 also re-rolled as clones, primarily because they were really into their characters and wanted to get a few levels to play with them. As I said, casual game, so nobody minds God-awful role-play finagling -- in fact, we sort of enjoy it.

*Note that the character of "Bait" is listed as "Bait (1)." At the time, he was only known as "Bait," but later got the affix "1," once Player 4's Sahuagins kept dying. Cf. World War One as "The Great War."

Next Deaths:

Sea Wyvern's Wake, assaulting The Thunderer.

Player 1: DRN, Half-Orc Barbarian 5, and
Player 2: DRN, Star Elf Bard 5

They were killed in a surprisingly difficult fight with some vine horrors before reaching the Mother-Of-All. The Bard's death was only a matter of time -- she had something like eight hit points -- but the Barbarian caught some bad dice rolls and ended up dying dead when his rage ran out, as Player 1 role-played a little too enthusiastically and never told the other party members how much damage he had actually taken.

Player 1 re-rolled as a Human Warlock, and Player 2 re-rolled as a Maenad Psychic Warrior, to join the party later.

Immediately following the battle with the vine horrors, the Telepath (very useful against plants!), Warblade, and Sahuagin (now Monstrous Humanoid 2 / Swashbuckler 1) pressed on against the Mother-Of-All. I was preparing the customary God-awful retconning to explain where the entirely new party came from (the Jade Ravens was my first thought) when every die roll that went against them in the fight with the vine horrors went for them against the Mother, and they beat her in incredibly efficient fashion. There was one casualty:

Player 4: Bait 2, Sahuagin 2 / Swashbuckler 1

Player 4 re-rolled as -- you guessed it -- Bait 3, a Monstrous Humanoid 2 / Swashbuckler 1, another one of Bait's 255 identical twins.

Next Deaths:

Here There Be Monsters, the T-Rex.

Player 2: DRN, Maenad Psychic Warrior 5
Player 4: Bait 3, Sahuagin 2 / Swashbuckler 2 (we changed his advancement a little to give him some more survivability - hah!)

The T-Rex burst out of the trees, and immediately bit and grappled Player 3's Warblade. Player 5's Telepath used time hop to jump the Warblade into the future, saving her from certain death by digestion. On the following turn the T-Rex one-shotted Bait 3 with a critical hit. (This was the point where we fully embraced Player 4's lazy cloning of his earlier characters, and adopted the numeric naming of each successive "Bait.") Bait 3 had participated in the battle against the Masher and did very well; alas, that was the only combat he'd see the end of. Needless to say, he was replaced by Bait 4.

Player 2 had literally just been finished creating the Psychic Warrior when the T-Rex grabbed her and swallowed her whole. Then the Warlock and the Telepath drove the T-Rex off with the Psychic Warrior inside (without a light weapon or natural attacks). The Psychic Warrior had lasted 12 in-game seconds. Despite her general desire not to clone characters, Player 2 really did want to play a Psychic Warrior, so she cloned DRN. Who, honestly, may not have ever had a name anyway.

Next Deaths:

Here There Be Monsters, the Mummies. (Or: Despair is brutal.)

Player 2: DRN, Psychic Warrior 6
Player 4: Bait 4, Sahuagin 2 / Swashbuckler 3
Player 5: DRN, Human Telepath 5 / Thrallherd 1

Everybody but the Telepath and his thrall, Urol Forol (a re-specced Druid 5) failed their saves against the Mummies' despair ability, primarily because they all knowingly exposed themselves to it in the first round of combat. Luckily for them, coup de graces take a full round, and the Mummies were only able to coup the Psychic Warrior and Bait 4. The Warlock had turned himself invisible before addressing the Mummies, so he was invisible and helpless. The Telepath used his one useful-against-mindless-things power -- some explosive force-push thing -- and saved the day, keeping enough Mummies away from helpless characters long enough so their despair ran out. In the course of the remainder of the battle the Telepath was killed by the Mummies through normal means (slam attacks), but the flying Warlock, the Warblade, and Urol were able to finish them off with some excellent tactics involving the bridges earlier in Dark Mountain Pass.

Player 2 re-rolled as a Psychic Warrior again, having not gotten her fill of the class yet, though she's considering re-rolling as Amella Venkalie if (let's face it: "when") she dies again. Player 4 now has built a chart on which to roll to see what class the next "Bait" will be, and rolled Barbarian. Player 5 has abandoned his Telepath and is now going to play Urol Forol full time, but advanced to level 6 so he can be with the other PCs.

Player 3's Warblade is the only PC remaining that Lavinia Vanderborn has ever met, not counting Urol Forol. In a perfect world, every other PC and NPC would die in the conclusion of Here There Be Monsters, and Mike Holmes, Warblade, would walk out of the jungle into Farshore completely alone, the sole survivor from the Sea Wyvern.

I think I might have even missed one or two. I recall explaining to someone that Lavinia would be able to pay to raise them (raising doesn't cost a level in my campaign), so I think my total about 1/3 of the way through HTBM is 14 or 15. And I'm not even trying!

[Turin the Mad]

There there *consoling pat on the shoulder*, there there. At the rate your group is going, you'll have a good five or six dozen body bags when all is said and done. It will go much higher if you steal some stat blocks... :)

[Charlie Bell]

STAP doesn't mollycoddle. It only gets more and more lethal.

[carborundum]

Don't listen to Turin, it's a slippery slope. First it's just a simple template but then it's three, four templates, class levels, cackling after midnight and RSS feeds on Turins story hour.
"The first hit's for free, kid," he'll say, "but you'll pay in blood for the rest" ;-)

[ReganFriend]

Got another one!

Here There Be Monsters, trap in the sarcophagus room off the Mummy Maze.

The party doesn't have a trapfinder.

Player 2: DRN, Psychic Warrior 6

The player actually happened to step out of the room as the party closely inspected the carvings on the walls while one character opened the sarcophagus. The Psychic Warrior was hit with six of the spears, taking her to -6. Since she had an even-numbered Constitution score, she had to make all six Fortitude saves to live. We allowed her to come in and make the saves herself, and she failed the first one.

(Incidentally, Urol Forol, Player 5's Druid 6, also got hit with six spears, and had to make three of his six Fortitude saves; he made exactly three -- it came down to the last roll -- and survived at low negatives.)

Additional story related to killing PCs: Since Urol is now played by Player 5, I had Olangru snatch Tavey during that fight where an NPC gets snatched. Tavey had very much taken to the Player 3's Warblade character (who's really hitting her stride -- she one-shotted one of Olangru's mates with a critical in that battle), so his capture was taken hard by the group. Player 4, however, noted that:

We have to rescue Tavey. We're going to need him to be another PC soon.

[ReganFriend]

Turin and others,

Thanks for the kind words. :) I don't think I'm going to steal stat blocks, despite your offer, because I want to run it straight up. I.e., the players against the authors. It's been interesting to see which encounters they crush (Gargoyles) and which they do not (Mummies).

[Scarletrose]

Instead of posting death one after the other I will post all the deaths in my campaign (after kervica, a few rows above.

Liriel
Half drow Female rogue 14/Shadowdancer 1
Adventure: City of Broken Idols
Catalyst: Cowardice in front of Khala's pets

Story: During the battle against Khala, Lirel engages with one of Khala's Pets. Being badly hurt she decides to try a last strike against the Skulvyn and retreat. Unfortunately she rolls a natural 1 on his tumble check and the Skulvyn kills her with its vicious tail. The funny fact... the skulvyn only had 2 hp left and would have probably died agains a full attack.
She gets resurrected in a dangerous and bloody Olman ritual where Neliel (paladin of freedom 3/barbarian 3/fighter 2/Frenzied Berserker 7) endangers her life and infuses her blood, soul and vital essence on her trying to bring her back to life. Neliel enters a coma for months and awake again at scuttlecove as a Saint.

Liriel
Half drow Female rogue 15/Shadowdancer 1
Adventure: Serpents of Scuttlecove
Catalyst: The right tactic, performed in the right way against the wrong target.

Story: In the secret base of the crimson fleet the party faces a strange human pirate and a Pirate capitain.. the strange fact is the human seem to be in charge. Liriel with her ring of invisibility tries to slip past him and flank but she suddenly realizes he is way bigger than he seems, is not quite human and he can see her perfectly.
The fragile Half Drow gets ravaged by a full attack from Orlath's 12 scimitars.

Oni
Half ogre Changeling male Monk4/Initiate of draconic mysteries9/Fist of the forest3/Warshaper4
Adventure: Prince of demons
Catalyst: The Prince of Demons Himself

Story: As half of the party is affected one way or another by Demogorgon gaze, the monk despite his insanity attacks Demogorgon.
With the saint retreating trying to reform her holy sword sundered by Demogorgon, a feebleminded wizard that poses no threat to him and the other party members outside his range, demogorgon diverts his fury to the monk dealing enough damage in 2 rounds to utterly kill the big Changeling.

Boindil
Illumian Lich Wizard 20
Adventure: Prince of demons
Catalyst: Ring of 3 wishes

Story: Just resurrected after his death against Demogorgon. Oni decides to use the ring of three wishes. Having studied for the last months the actual extent of the power the ring granted to him and knowing he couldn't dispose of someone in a direct way he devised a plan. So the first wish is against the Lich. He wishes for the Lich Phylactery. The Phylactery materializes on the monk hands and he destroy it ending the Undeath of Boindil.

[Luna eladrin]

Name: Almanacl
Cohort to the party cleric (Olman, level 9 expert, level 3 rogue)
Adventure: City of Broken Idols
Catalyst: combat with an NPC group (of my own, unrelated to the campaign)

The group was surprised by a group of NPCs they have been quarreling with since There is no honor. An NPC wizard cast a confusion and to my surprise 2 PCs and the 2 cohorts fail their saves (very unlucky dice throws). Only Hessa the cleric and Morlam the wizard are still uninfluenced. Morlam casts a spell (I do not remember which one) and manages to kill the NPC wizard. Then the NPC cleric casts a fire storm and kills the PC cleric's cohort and damages the group heavily. At this point the party decides to flee, as it is simply not their day. The cleric takes the two other confused PCs by the hand and casts etherealness. The wizard teleports away with the two cohorts (one confused, one dead). I ask him: what is your teleport destination?
He answers: I teleport to the garden of Worrin's house (this is Worrin of the Dawn Council in Sasserine - they are friends of his).
In the garden the wizard succesfully casts dispel magic on the cohort who is still confused. Then Worrin comes into his garden and comments: "Why is a dead Olman lying in my garden?" lol!

I had a high body count this weekend. In another campaign I killed off the druid and his pet bear. It was one of those weekends.

[Bellona]

Sometimes, the dice just side with the DM. :)

(I just managed to kill an almost-unkillable PC in another campaign, much to my surprise. High AC + high saves can be a pain.)

I'm happy to hear that STAP is still going strong in some circles, and I look forward to the day when I can start posting casualties myself. :)

[Hagor]

Bellona wrote:

I'm happy to hear that STAP is still going strong in some circles, and I look forward to the day when I can start posting casualties myself. :)

Yep, still slowly but steadily making progress.

No deaths to report so far: my players just reached the isle and were welcomed by the T. rex (which I made a little tougher). The barbarian went negative (and he would have been killed, but I saw too late that the T. rex swallow whole ability does not work on the enlarged barbarian & I ruled that the dinosaur had lost its action. A round or two later, a critical scorching ray of the sorcerer & a critical hit by the barbarian ended the fight).
But: Olangru is up!

Hagor

[Bellona]

How nasty a version of Olangru? There have been some gruesome tales told in the forums ... but maybe that had better wait for an actual obituary post. :)

[Hagor]

Bellona wrote:

There have been some gruesome tales told in the forums ...

I know them...

and my players soon as well!

[Luna eladrin]

Love to hear about them!

[TBA]

As my first ST group kinda collapsed, I've dragged the survivors to a new group, and am happily running this again. Currently in BWG, two deaths so far (both saved by heavy hero point use)

This group has a wierd house rule on criticals, meaning they're really lethal... both PC deaths have been due to this rule. But the group seem to love the rule, even if it turns out bad for them.

Name: Hatty (halfling ancestor oracle 2)
Adventure: There Is No Honour
Catalyst: Lotus Dragon Crossbow
During the assault on the Lotus Dragon guildhall, Hatty was missing most of the action due the large party size, the lack of space and her limited speed. She during a pitched battle in the training room, Hatty left the group to try and find an alternative route to the fight.

All she found was a couple of other Lotus Dragon guards, who she tried to battle on her own until one got lucky with a crossbow shot, striking her in the heart and killing her instantly

Name: Scar (half orc rogue 1/transmuter 2)
Adventure: The Bullywug Gambit
Catalyst: A savage two-by-four to the head
The group had arrived at Kraken's Cove to find the place in chaos. They battled their way into the mess hall and engaged the savage pirates there.

For a while it looked like the group paladin was going to be killed, until Scar got the attention of one of the pirates, who turned and struck him with his club like a baseball swing, snapping his neck.

[Haldrick]

Name: Danna (sorcerer 9th)
Adventure: Tides of Dread
Catalyst: This is not the Isle of Fluffy Bunny's (somthing of a catch phrase for the campaign recently)

I have been running ST for years (started in 3.5). Finnally had my first PC death. To a wandering monster (or four)

The party were travelling on the isle, there is a tropical storm which penalises perception (random weather) and I roll 4X Deinoychus. In their suprise round 2 hit Danna. They then went before her. One dead sorcerer. Four CR3 creature do what all the nasty's before could not.

We have had many close fights (recently the large serpant in ToD) but this shows that travelling unprepared and with your perceptions impared is dangerous. Well at this level she will be raised, but it is good to keep the players on their toe's

[Luna eladrin]

PC: Davidia, female half-orc fighter/barbarian
Adventure: Into the maw
Location of Death: large room near the entrance
Catalyst: too many belairon breath weapons

Into the maw ended with a bang in my campaign (literally when you count the exploding balor in his death throes): it ended with a massive battle between two large armies, one led by S'Sharra and Belshamoth and a lot of demons, and the other led by the PCs, Lillianth, Saureya and Orgosh and his undead. It was a memorable evening.
My players kept underestimating Belshamoth, and prepared especially for S'Sharra and for the balor they knew she had released from his cell. So the fighter/barbarian thought Belshamoth would be easy pickings when she attacked him. She did not worry about the filth demons, which the group had already classified as mooks. 4 breath weapons and some unluckily failed saving throws later they had to reconsider...

Finally the filth demons were killed and fed to Lazruvakas, the magma drake (named Francis by my players).

[Bellona]

Nice Elizabethan call-out there, with Francis! :)

[Turin the Mad]

Why ... just, why would anything (other than an ooze) eat poo demons?!

[Luna eladrin]

Burning poo is a very good source of energy! Especially when you have lain dormant in the magma for millennia. :-)

[Turin the Mad]

Luna eladrin wrote:

Burning poo is a very good source of energy! Especially when you have lain dormant in the magma for millennia. :-)

He's been dormant in magma for aeons ... think his batteries are charged. ;-)

I mean ... what can you use as a taste cleanser after eating destructively evil psychotic poo?

[TBA]

Couple more for me... again both saved by heavy hero point usage...

Name: Kellen (human Wood Mage 9)
Adventure: Tides of Dread
Catalyst: Wraith Drain

The group realised that they could spend a day out looking for the 8th Olman village without heavily impacting their plans for fortifying Farshore.

At the site, they found the location to be heavily infested by wraiths, who swarmed the party. Everyone largely made their saves against the Con Drain, except Kellen. The saves got more and more difficult as he failed each one... and got reduced to 4 con and -4 hps.

His hero points activated a dormant Dim Door spell that got him away from the wraiths, but still in range of the life Oracles life link ability. Once stabilised, he used Fly spells to return to Farshore (and safety)

Name: Gortex (half orc Paladin of Heironeous 8 / Fighter 1)
Adventure: Tides of Dread
Catalyst: Angry Bat God

The party headed into the Fangs of Zotzilaha to return the bat idol, and when confronted with the bat god minions (Salamanders in this case), they stowed the idol and started combat.

Shortly after, the Aspect of Zotzilaha arrived and (not seeing the idol) proceeded to beat on the party. Gortex (as usual) did everything he could to protect his allies, including sacrificing himself... which then promptly occurred.

As Gortex went down, the party rogue yanked the idol from Gortex's pack and presented it. This called the aspect off.

[Wyrin]

Bit late but as we had two deaths in the Tides of Dread climax on Sunday, figured I'd catch up

Name: Koravel (elven duskblade 5)
Adventure: Sea Wyvern's Wake
Catalyst: Mashers

Feeling cocky in the midst of a storm on the Sea of Dread, Koravel dives into the water using the newly-found cloak of the manta ray to swim beneath the ship - despite having seen several giant eels darting between the waves. He didn't see the one that swam up behind him...

Name: Kathryn (human sorcerer (draconic) 6)
Adventure: Sea Wyvern's Wake
Catalyst: Sargasso

Exploring one of the other wrecked ships in the Sargasso, the party heard a loud banging from beneath a boarded hatch. They all stood around the hatch as it was opened - and a Drowned Dead emerged. Everyone failed their saves, and tried to flee the drowning aura - Kathryn reacted last, and could not outrun the dead, which clobbered her senseless

Name: Profexion (human favoured soul 5)
Adventure: Sea Wyvern's Wake
Catalyst: Sargasso

No one thought to drag the immobilised drowning party member out of the drowned dead's aura....

Name: Jardek (dwarf ranger 5 / cleric 4)
Adventure: Tides of Dread
Catalyst: V'sesslin

After cleverly acting charmed to lure V'sesslin into a trap (Stygian Shark was floundering, and the mage had flown ashore), Jardek sadly too a lightning bolt to the face when his comrades gave up the ruse and charged the enemy

Name: Krunk (human barbarian 9)
Adventure: Tides of Dread
Catalyst: V'sesslin's flunkies

I'm running this on Mystara, and instead of yuan-ti, V'sesslin was accompanied by a Scoprionfolk Warrior, with a halberd and improved trip. Krunk couldn't get off the flor before the halberd pierced his heart.

Running this with 7 players, so they are a little behind on recommended XP, but generally coping well. Lack of defensive gear is hurting them, but some better coordinated buffing would not hurt at all....

[TBA]

Name: Gortex (half orc Paladin of Heironeous 9 / Fighter 1)
Adventure: Tides of Dread
Catalyst: Wrath of Gentleman Nurn

Nurn is my Farshore spy, and had been spotted by the group (but not uncovered) in the lead upto the battle for Farshore. They knew that they were dealing with a Slaad, and a powerful one at that

Nurn was still unsure of the parties abilities, so pounced on the wood mage during the battle while he was unprotected, and attempted to force them to stand down. They didn't like that idea so called his bluff. Somehow the mage managed to get away, and the paladin come rushing in to deal with the fiend.

As Gortex was the only one with a real chance of hitting the Slaad, Nurn used word of chaos and confused most of the party. While they were wandering around babbling incoherently and punching themselves in the face, Nurn laid into Gortex.

Gortex, without his healer to help him, didn't last too long

He's subsequently been saved by their secret patron, Three, who's suddenly not turning out to be who they thought he was...

[carborundum]

That sounds great, TBA! So you have a Story Hour or campaign website by any chance?

[TBA]

We don't, sadly... really wish we did however.

I simply don't have time to do it, and the one person who probably would have been up for it (the wood mage player) can't make it to every session.

If I would have been a little more on the ball last summer (when we started), I probably would have been able to persuade one of them to do... bit of a shame really

I may look at doing a campaign synopsis, a story so far if you will and see if one of them want to do this for the second half of the campaign.

[carborundum]

Thanks, man. I know how much work it is, I did my own Savage Tide one for years (if you speak Dutch I'll be happy to share :-D).

In the meantime I'll look forward to more ideas from stuff like "the patron who is more than they bargained for" in the Obituaries thread :-)

[Luna eladrin]

Are you still running Savage Tide, Carborundum? We are in Wells of Darkness now.
And unfortunately we do not have a campaign journal either, though we have a forum (members only, unfortunately) and an in-game newspaper, and yes, they are both in Dutch as well :-)

[carborundum]

Not at the minute. We stopped after Khala, the fights were getting VERY long (five, six hours) and we only play for two and a half hours every few weeks - so that meant a combat would take months. I didn't have time to prep everything when my daughter was born either :-)

I would like to pick it up again when the current campaign ends and run Scuttlecove, I love that place! Of course, that means building a Wreck so who knows when THAT will happen :-)

[Turin the Mad]

carborundum wrote:

Not at the minute. We stopped after Khala, the fights were getting VERY long (five, six hours) and we only play for two and a half hours every few weeks - so that meant a combat would take months. I didn't have time to prep everything when my daughter was born either :-)

I would like to pick it up again when the current campaign ends and run Scuttlecove, I love that place! Of course, that means building a Wreck so who knows when THAT will happen :-)

A project during a school break with the munchkin perhaps, carborundum? :)

[Luna eladrin]

Good luck with starting again and building the wreck, Carborundum!

And you can look ahead to the moment your daughter is old enough to play D&D!

Mine is, and I am DM-in Crown of the Kobold King with her and three other teenagers - such fun!

[TBA]

Name: Gortex (half orc Paladin of Heironeous 9 / Fighter 1)
Adventure: Tides of Dread, Crimson Sunset
Catalyst: A Vanthus Beheading

My 'Crimson Sunset' has run over a few sessions (3 so far and still going) and last night, the wayward brother made his appearance.

The group had telepathic commication setup with Lavinia, and as the battle neared its end, Lavinia went quiet. Fearing the worst, the party half flew, half dim doored to the Vanderboren manor, where they found it under seige from the few remaining pirates.

Watching from one of the nearby buildings, invisible, was Vanthus (the wood mage had See Invisibility running). Vanthus spotted them, and seeing the opportunity for a little revenge (a half orc with the party back in TiNH shot Vanthus in the shoulder), leapt down to melee

My Vanthus is fairly nails and my dice ran hot for the ensuing battle. Gortex charged in and declared a smite against Vanthus and then preceeded to miss him. Vanthus smited straight back, and immediately rolled a crit against Gortex, meaning the first hit alone struck for 84 damage. Then 5 more attacks followed... ouch

Gortex actually survived this initial onslaught, but was on the ropes for the next few rounds and never really recovered. Vanthus finally put him out of his misery shortly after, with another crit and actually killing him with a two weapon rend, neatly lopping off the half orcs head.

[Luna eladrin]

PC: Hessa, female human cleric (LN)
Adventure: Wells of darkness
Location of Death: on the Isle of Dread
Catalyst: a needed sacrifice

Because half my group is evil and the whole group has been played pretty ruthlessly so far, I introduced a plotline that they had to sacrifice a friend in order to gain the tooth of Shami-Amourae. The sacrifice had to be voluntary as well, so they had to convince him.
Hessa had sort of an affair going with this NPC, a LN halfdragon, but every time one of them got too close, the other one kept his/her distance. This had been going on since roughly the beginning of the campaign.
Now they invited him with a 'sending' to meet them on the Isle of Dread 'because they had important news', and they teleported there from Farshore. I fully expected them to sacrifice him then and there. However, Hessa did something really unexpected: she offered herself as a sacrifice, so that her friend could live. The reason was not that she felt sentimental about him and wanted to save him, but 'that it was something really unexpected'. As doing really unexpected deeds was part of her faith (long story), it was a logical action for her. Her words were: "Do not get emotional about this. You know that my faith requires me to do this!"
One of the other PCs (a lawful evil blackguard) finally sacrificed her, just after she pronounced her last spell, a miracle: "I want this sacrifice to have the best possible result for my friends."
She got it. After her death her body disappeared and the tooth of Shami-Amourae suddenly appeared out of nothing. Also, her friend, whom she saved, promised the group an army: he is a cleric of a war god and an admiral of the fleet. So they have got themselves one army for their final battle against Demogorgon.

I did not see this one coming at all. The player afterwards told me that he didn't either. He improvised it on the spot.

[TBA]

Name: Kellen (human Wood Mage 10) and Rethel (half-elf Rogue 10)
Adventure: Tides of Dread, Crimson Sunset
Catalyst: The Savage Tide

Vanthus set off the Savage Pearl as the combat started to turn sour for him... it was still fizzing away when Vanthus finally dropped.

Not sure what the do with the pearl, but expecting some sort of explosion, Kellen jabbed it into a bag of holding just before it went off. I'd already ruled that the bag didn't completely nagate the tide, but severly restricted it's radius, dropping it to 30 feet.

This forced four out of the remaining five standing PCs (and Lavinia) to make a save. Both Kellen (with the best Will save in the group) and Rethel (with Improved Iron Will) failed their saves, and being out of hero points to save them, they turned savage and turned on their allies.

A short bout of interparty combat later with two savage PCs against the remaining Magus, Dragon Disciple, Oracle (all of which were pretty much out of spells) and Lavinia.

Both Kellen and Rethel were defeated, both oddly splashing acid over Lavinia as they died. Then an NPC druid (ex-PC) in town reincarnated them, Kellen back to a human, Rethel to a gnome.

4 kills for me in the Battle for Farshore.

Side note, ToD is an awesome adventure... but a lot of work!

[Orthos]

It is at that, but the reward is well worth it. =)