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Okay so I've been waiting, figuring I'd try and run Pathfinder sometime next year after the core books come out. No big deal. Yeah the posts whizzing around were deliciously awesome and made me really jealous, but I figured I could wait.
Then one of our gaming buddies gives us a lift to Salt Lake to pick up our new car (mmm...Mitsubishi) and we drop by their awesome game store. This is the first time any of us got to see and handle Pathfinder products in the flesh. My friend was so enamored he bought everything. Player's Guide, all the Pathfinders...everything.
We were going to be running a game this Saturday, but we had an abrupt change of setting. PATHFINDER!! So now I've got a player group and a week to hammer out a cool story somewhere in the wilds between Magnimar, the Mushfens and the Hook Mountains.
We've got three characters (it's a prestige campaign):
Male Half-elven Scout exile from the Shoanti wastes--a lone wolf hardcore.
Female Gnomish Rainbow Servant from Wartle. She had an encounter with a coatl and has become it's holy agent.
Male Chelaxian Warmage originally from Falcon's Hollow, but freshly finished schooling in Magnimar. He's a proud but pragmatic loyalist patriot eager to take jobs througout the former colonies to make them safe.
It's looking to be a cool cool game.
P.S. The art for elves has earned them one higher hit die in the Grimcleaver system--> 8 hp rather than 6!
EDIT: Looking at the map, Falcon's Hollow is really a lot closer (LOTS) to Korvosa than it is to Magnimar--and it would stoke the fires of our young Warmage's patriotism a darnsite more. Minus the lovely art of Magnimar there's really no downside. It just seems a better fit. Plus that way the characters will be right in the area of places like Lake Syrantula, the creepy Ashwood and the notoriously monster plagued Fenwall Mountains. Perfect spot!
Only three players Grim? Or is that all that is created thus far?
It would be interesting to see how they fare with no Fighter/Paladin up front taking the beats. Maybe a more hit and run skirmish style?
Ill be reading this as it progresses! Keep up the good work.
Yep, just us three. That's our usual game group.
We've never done the usual "marching formation" style games anyway. Our games are run pretty fast and loose with nary a game mat or mini in sight. It's much more in our heads and a lot more drama intensive. Fun way to play. I tried running the map and minis thing for my first time for D&D day and it about killed me. I honestly can't see how people can run games this way. Made me appreciate the Paizo guys a heckovalot more though. They're great. But yeah, the game is pretty freeform, I'm not going by any of the modules except as backstory and setting material. It's going to be set somewhere around the Fenwall.
Heh. I also discovered something a little embarrassing. Falcon's Hollow, which I'd thought was somewhere around the Falcon River, isn't. It's actually all the way past the mountains and beyond any civilization. Whoops. Yeah, so that's two bits of story rework to spring on our warmage--wow I'm so green on this setting--meh. I'm thinking Malfesh should make an okay substitute though. It's got the same kind of hard work lumber mentality.
The Prologues:
Zoy, the Rainbow Servant comes back to Wartle, elated at her having been chosen by the coatl as it's servant in this new era of light and hope. She tells everyone about it, and gradually rumors arise ranging from the belief that she's become a bit touched, to that she's become the minion of some foul swamp demon. The next bit of misfortune and she's being sternly asked to gather her things and leave.
Going out into the swamp she's able to save a group of injured NPC adventurers that are being hunted by boggards, sneaking them through hidden passes out of the Mushfens and safely to Whistledown. During their travels together, she's told that they were hired by a mysterious half-elf in Ilsurian to retrieve a relic for him from the ancient ruins to the west. They've succeeded in finding it and are on their way to get payment. Their first night in Whistledown they are attacked by a pack of runehounds that have been tracking them from the swamps. The party is able to fight them into retreating, but they are all seriously injured or dying. Only Zoy was able to escape, because the big fighter locked her in a cabinet when the fighting began.
As the party are being taken to the local temple, she's intrusted with the item by the leader of the adventurers--that the relic is not safe and must go to Ilsurian, and that she must return with the payment to pay for their healing. She nods, and deeply concerned and on the verge of tears makes her way to Ilsurian to help her friends.
------------
Meanwhile the half-elf/Shoanti scout has had it with his tribe's constant punishment of him, ignoring him and scorning him at every turn. He has taken his gear and made the long weary trek through the Cinderlands to find new lands and his place in the world.
Exhausted he comes within sight of Kaer Maga. Exploring the labrynthine squatter city for days, he is eventually found by the Half-Moons, a group of half elves led by a wild and passionate nolander half-elf named Dircene. He lives amid the splendors of his half-elf benefactor and their clique in opulent luxury for days--but soon he begins to sense a glass cieling there, that while they accept him, he still isn't one of them.
It's just as he's readying himself to leave, that Dircene meets with him in private and invites him to take part in his great plan. He wishes to see the half-elves become their own people, to see them be greater than elf or man, to have their own nation and culture. But for that to happen they must contact prominent half-elves throughout Varisia--so that when Dircene gives his sign, a sign so great that all of Varisia will know when it happens, that they will come to his side and usher in a new age.
All the young half-elf must do is find others, tell them of the Half Moons, invite them to come to Kaer Maga and visit. That is all. Dircene tells him of a powerful half-elf named Surin that lives in Ilsurian and bids him go and acquaint himself with him. Departing he makes his way into lower Varisia, the lushest and most beautiful land he has ever seen, and to Ilsurian with a message to deliver.
------------
Finally there's the warmage, once a bold woodsman from Melfesh who impressed a delegation from Korvosa. He was taken back to become a valiant champion of the people, a beacon of light and civilization to the ever frightened and struggling people of Korvosa. With a strong distaste for the heavy-handed justice of the Hellknights, meted out with equal amounts of atrocity, he has vowed to become a great patriotic defender of his lands. Having kept careful track of stories of monsters in the rolling hills, great manticores chewing through half a patrol, trolls and their half-human spawn laying waste to villages--then suddenly the rumors all stop.
A great travesty has been wrought upon Korvosa. A seditionist among the many traders who flood the markets of the city sets off a firestorm that swooshes through the streets, killing dozens in it's magical wake. In the chaos the terrorist flees and disappears before the city can be adequately contained. More attacks come in the weeks that follow, and finally one of the participants is caught.
While the people in the streets call for his execution, a plan is concieved. The insurgent is set loose in the middle of the night, an arrangement made to look as though he has escaped, and the new warmage is given the duty to track him back to his lair, to gather evidence and to dig out all who are responsible. Then, to deal with them--or if they prove too numerous, to send back his report, the list of names, and evidence acquired, whereupon the forces of Korvosa will march. It is hoped earnestly that it is not Magnimar that is responsible--for such a thing would bring war, a terrible possibility that could douse the flame of civilization in Varisia forever.
For two days, fueled by potions of nightvision and stamina, the warmage follows the fugitive--until he tracks him across Skull Bridge and into Ilsurian. Although the man is wearing prison garb, and is filthy and dangerous-looking, the guards admit him seemingly without question. Scowling, the warmage follows. Answers will be had.
For feference if possible Grimcleaver, could you post a link to your 'Grimcleaver System' on this thread so I can follow things a bit better?
Oh, heh. Sorry about that! Here you go. Hope it helps!
The Grimcleaver System.
Just finished our second session of the game. Cool stuff. One of our players is talking about posting our exploits thus far, and really I enjoy hearing the player's eye view of things myself--so I'll just say that things are turning out to be pretty interesting and leave the rest to them.
Looking forward to next week...
Hello again all! Havn't posted for a while, but here I am again. Anyhow, first and foremost I have to say WOOOT PATHFINDER!!! Big thumbs up from me, keep the good stuff rolling. Anyhow, here's whats been happening so far.
We'll start with me, I'm playing the warmage named Garovostrino (Gorav to his friends and associates). Things seem suspicious to say the least. After seeing the prisoner enter the city at night, wounded and in prison clothes without so much as a question lifted Garov drops the idea of speaking with the city guard, after all it seems like as least a few of them are in on things.
The first thing I discover upon entering the town is that they don't like strangers, especially strangers that look or sound like they could be from Korvosa(sp?) Seems like people are fairly certain that either Korvosa or Magnimar are going to attack and conquer the sooner or later. In fact, the entire city seems to be a cleverly disguised fortress, with major buildings build with archer firing positions and carefully stashed bundles of suplies where soldiers could easily get to them in case of attack. So it seems pretty clear that getting any help from the citizens is going to be pretty tough.
Garov sets himself up in an inn, the only one in the city that is friendly to outsiders and begins looking for other travelers to assist him in his search, after all they seem like the only ones he can trust at this point.
Zoy, enters the town and goes to find Surien and deliver the gem to him. She finds him easily hanging around with some of his friends in a tavern. He takes her in the back room and takes the gem but refuses to pay her on the grounds that she isn't the one who he made the bargain with. Zoy protests, but is surrounded by thugs, too many to fight, and so leavs empty handed. She decides to follow Surien to see where he takes the gem.
Acshaun, the half-elf scout enters town and finds Surien pretty quick. Surien is a member of the town guard in high standing. He gives his offer to Surien who turns him down out of hand telling him that the reason he has always been rejected is the fualt of his personality, not his ears. Acshaun is angry, but notices someone following Surien (Zoy). The two see Surien drop off the gem at a local temple to a god of fighting and valor (sorry, can't remember the name exactly and Grim has my books, if he could fill this part in later I'd appriciate it)
Zoy explains the situation to Acshaun. Acshaun agrees to help, looking foreward for a chance to get some revenge on the man who insulted him. In the Morning Garov finds Zoy, an odvious outsider, and explains the situation to her. The mutually agree to help eachother with their problems, finind the murderer and seeing the Surien honors his side of the bargain.
They begin their search in the morning. Garov heads to the temple to check it out and winds up in a worship service the involves wrestling bare chested until exhaustion, followed up with getting drunk. Good times. During the party, Zoy slips into the back for a look around. She finds where she thinks the gem could be kept, but can't get through the locks. Zoy sneaks out in the hope of getting more tools later and leads a now quite drunk Garov home to his inn. In the mean time Acshaun has been scouting around the woods and has found a the enterance to a secret tunnel that appears to lead under the city.
The group agrees to check it out after sunset. Before we can get up and move out however we each receive an after hours guest. Each member of the group is assualted in his or her room by a mob of men, each wearing black robes and skull masks. Due to surprise both Garov and Acshaun get pretty severely beaten, as well as the bar tender who tried to help us fight the mystery attackers. Zoy manages to dart away from her attackers and they eventually give up chasing her shouting threats that if we don't leave town, things are going to be worse next time.
After a few healing potions, we get back on our feet. We agree that there is something big going on in this town and it is likely that our seperate trouble are likely connected. Together we head out town and towards the secret tunnel.
More to come soon!
The two see Surien drop off the gem at a local temple to a god of fighting and valor (sorry, can't remember the name exactly and Grim has my books, if he could fill this part in later I'd appriciate it)
The deity in question would be Cayden Cailean--good times indeed!
Y'know. Without exception I always learn interesting and cool things about the game when I get to hear other people recount their versions of it. Helps me to run a better game. A lot of times the DM is so thick amidst all the inside knowledge of the game and it's workings that it's hard to get the kind of distance to really see the game as a whole as experienced by the players. Inside of it, you can't really see it clearly.
So yeah, thanks! I'm loving reading along with our adventures and it's helping me get a much clearer idea of how you all are seeing the game!
Looking forward to more of the same!
Here we go, round 2
The party climbs down to the secret door which is in a small gully dug out by the river. We find that the door is hidden by a large rock rolled infront of the enterance. Through strength and leverage the party manages to get the door open.
As soon as the door is open Zoy enters, we make some spot/spell craft checks and realize that we have just set of some kind of glyph ward. Sure that we've set off some kind of alarm, we decide to press onwards and deal with what we find as we find it. Searching we find that the caverns appear to be some sort of abandoned mine. The place seems to be purposefully set up like a maze. We find a door and begin to work on getting it open when we hear a noise behind us that sounds like people.
Everybody makes hide checks, Gorav and Zoy do fair, Acshaun does great. We wait and see a halfling move around the corner. He spots Zoy and Gorav (no big surprise there) but misses Acshaun. He cries out to his friends and tries to run. Garov beats him to the punch and successfully graples him. Surprisingly he identifies himself as as scout for the city guard. Garov and Zoy really don't want to start killing city guards, even if things seem suspicious like crazy. We agree to go with the guards and speak with the captain, hoping that he isn't part of this conspiracy.
Zoy and Gorav are taken to spend the rest of the night as guests of the city guard, we even get complimentary slop in the morning yum. We give our story to the captain. Turns out he's not to pleased that we found the tunnels. They were going to be used as a secret escape route incase the city was ever attacked. The captain is convinced that Garov is a Korvosa agent coming to case the town before an attack. Not good for us... We explain our story and tell the captain to talk to the bartender, he was attacked too and can back up our story. The captian agress to look into it but explains that we will be his guests until he can be sure of our good intentions.
Meanwhile, Acshuan is left inside the cave. He manages to make his way out without too much trouble, just two guards who were left behind. He manages to knock them out without killing them. He sneaks back to the inn and asks for some answers. He finds out that the bartender used to be an honored member of the city, but his son was born with down syndrome. One it was learned that the child would never be able to contribute to the defense of the city, the towns folk demanded that the child be expeled from the city. The bartender, Fard, refused to abandon his son and has since been unpopular in the city.
Fard continues with the hisory lesson. Seems that the town was founded by a man name Ilsur, who was a Korvosan ex-patriot. He founded the city to be a future staging ground against Korvosa in the future. His plans took too long however and he was dead before they came to fruition. As generations past, most people forgot about Ilsur's plans and were simple willing to maintain their independance. A few however, calling themselves the "Blades of Ilsur" were not willing to let the past die. They were looking for a way to take the fight to Korvosa, no matter the cost. Seems like we've found our culprits. He explains that all the major buildings in the city, including his inn, have pathways that lead underground. Acshaun is convinced that the only way that our assailant could have attacked us in our beds was by using the secret tunnels. He decideds that he needs to have another look around, hopefull he can find something to get Zoy and Gorav out of jail.
He goes underground and after some searching finds a blocked off tunnel, he digs and finds what appears to be a secret tunnel within a secret tunnel. Exploring he finds what appears to be a ritual chamber. Chanting and the like. He over hears a conversation between to men who are complaining about the creepy creatures that they have locked up. Yikes... They also complain about Surien, saying that he is Ilsur's little pet. Double yikes... We're hoping that their current leader is just taking the name to give himself pull with his men. Nobody even wants to think, powerfull free willed undead at the moment.
Acshuan leaves hoping that what he has can convince the captain to let Zoy and Gorav go.
In the morning who should wind up in our cell but Fard. Seems that he and the captain has a disagreement. Fard though that the captain was there to take him for questioning and that more men would come for his son while he was away (a theory that turned out to be true) He got in a fight with the captain and wounded him severely. Guess who is up to take his place? You geussed it, Surien. Gorav and Zoy feel that their chances of getting out of here without a rope attached to our necks just fell to about zero. Plus, we can't let Fard get hung considering that we were somewhat responsible for him getting into this mess in the first place.
When the jailer comes to give us our slop, Fard in the oposite cell throws the contents of his chamber pot at him. The Jailer lurches foreward, close enough for Gorav to grapple him. Gorav holds him while Zoy takes his keys. We escape and knock out the jailer. He head to the equipment locker and get our gear back, at which point we head for the seweres. Fard used to be town guard and knows his way around the underground tunnels which attach to the sewers. A few hours, and a ruined set of clothes each we find our way into the main tunnels. There we hear the sound of crying. We find Fard's wife and son crying and lost. They ran underground when guards came to take Fard's son.
The Blades of Ilsur will have to wait, the party decides that the first priority is getting Fard's family out of danger. We go back to the inn, the guards are gone by now and we plan our escape from the city. We can't go through the tunnels, they are being guarded now. We plan stage a distraction and head through the front gate. The distraction goes well and we run for it. Fard's family is in a cart. We throw smoke sticks to cover us and thow spells and arrows to give cover. Between the smoke and cover fire we manage to get out intact. We head out of town with all speed. Fard goes his way and the party plan to go to a nearby town to rest and gear up before heading back to deal with the blades of Ilsur.
Wicked Grimcleaver and players, this is certainly not turning out to be the usual Pathfinder campaign stuff. Player characters on the lam, probably wanted for numerous charges both true and false ...
An excellent example, albiet not in genre, is the HUGE list from the Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Just listen to the scene where the judge is reading off the list of charges Ugly has confessed to in writing prior to being hung... the list continues in the background for the better part of 10 minutes or so it seems ...
Round three. BTW, Galin the player of Aucshawn has just let me know that I've been spelling his name wrong, heh heh, oops. Anyhow, I'll spell it right from here on out.
Bellow are several spoiler tags. This particular adventure invloved ogre-kin. Grim didn't hold any punches describing the horror that these creatures were responsible for. If you are one of the people who would prefer not to read some pretty intensly gory sceens, then please don't open the spoilers.
anyhow, here we go. Last time our party had just parted ways with Fard and his family, now safe to go make a life for themselves somewhere else. In thanks for our help, Fard offers Gorav his old adventuring sword. Gorav gratefully accepts.
We head out, keeping to the back roads and being carefull to cover our tracks to prevent anyone from Ilsurian finding us. We make camp for the night exhausted from a full day of hard traveling. During the night Gorav had a dream. He is standing in a pristeen and beautiful forest surrounded by the sounds of wildlife. He hears the sound of an arrow whistle through the air and land at his feet. Gorav reaches down and picks up the arrow, noticing that it is gold and covered with what appear to be holy symbols. As he picks up the arrow the birds in the forest take flight and sunlight beams down upon him. (Gorav has now taken his next level as a favored soul of Erastil)
Zoy and Aucshawn take their next level as couatl servant and scout respectively.
During the same night a visitor aproaches our camp. Turns out it is Zoy's patron, the couatl she serves named Zactatoen. Both Gorav and Aucshawn are a little suspicious of their midnight visitor but Zoy manages to quiet their fears. Zactatoen tells Zoy that he is pleased with her actions, especially with the assistance that she provided for Fard and his family. He tells her not to worry about her injured friends back south, he has been there and taken care of them. Zactatoen then casts hero's feast, after being held in cells, forced to climb through sewers and chased by guards the feast is a welcome thing indeed. Everybody digs in with gusto.
Zactatoen starts asking up a question and answer seesion. During our conversation we are told that the people we are after are part of a larger organization, even if they don't realize it. We are told that the rulers of an ancient empire, the Rune Lords are beggining to wake up and are making moves to reclaim their old empire. Gorav and Aucshawn aren't sure they belive such a fantastic tale, but the warning is dire enough they decide that they must at least check it out.
On a humerous note, Gorav forgot to ask Fard what kind of magic the blade he gave him has. Gorav tries to figure it our himself and rolls knowledge arcana... 1! Critical fumble, Gorav determines that the sword is "obviously" a dancing long sword and decides to throw it at the first enemy he sees. (the sword is in actuallity an Eager +2 long sword)
We decide to head back to Korvosa to gear up and wait for the heat to die down before heading back but our plans are changed by a Hell Knight who crosses our path. He tells us about a small thorp near the ashwood, everybody has dissapeared but there simply aren't enough kinghts to deal with the situation right now. He tells us that if we help the Knight out they will be sure to return the favor later. We decide that heading to Krosova can wait for a bit and the missing people need help now. We head to the thorp known as Widow's Glen. There we get a few necesities and plan to go to Cutter's Camp (the missing thorp) in the morning.
One of the villagers tells Zoy about a local legend. Supposedly there is a creature that stalks the forrests in the area, they say that it looks like a donkey rat (capibara) at first glance but is a good bit larger than a nomal donkey rat on inspection. It only seems to attack when there is fog and is belived to be able to appear and dissapear at will in mist. It has the power to freeze its victims in place with its eyes and then procededs to feed on them while they are still alive. A chilling tail to say the least. The villagers don't have the means to slay the creature themselves but they have pooled some money to offer as a bounty if it is captured and killed. The party makes a note of this but decide that the missing people from Cutter's Camp are their top priority.
Once again our night is interrupted. Zoy nottices that the night is particularily misty, she looks out the window and notices movement in the night. It isn't a monster however, but a wounded young man (appears to be about 15 or 16). Zoy rushed downstairs and calls to the rest to follow her. She gets to the wounded person first. He sees her and colapses from exhaustion. The wound is easy to find, it seems a long piton like spike has been nailed into his shoulder. Gorav and Zoy carry the wounded to the inn and clear off a table for him. The innkeeper comes downstairs and offers his assistance. We determine that before he can be healed the spike must be removed. It's in there pretty tight but we manage to get it out at which point Gorav heals him with his new divine spells. The young man is coherent but haunted by what has happened. As soon as he is ready to talk he explains that he is from Cutters Camp. Their villiage was attacked by horrible looking mishapen men. They took everyone back from the camp and kept them in a pit. Every so often they would take people out of the pit, there was screaming but he doesn't know what happened. He and a few other made an escape attempt but he was the only one who managed to get away, the other were recaptured. Gorav makes a knowledge role and realizes that they are up against Ogre-kin...
Nobody can sleep so we get an early start knowing that anybody still alive needs to be saved immediately.
We make our way through the woods. These aren't happy woods though, they feel close, greasy, misty, muddy and dark. We see a small clearing and see what appears to be a person standing in it.
It seems clear that some kind of magic is holding the person is place. Gorav makes a knowlegde arcana role and rolls a critical fumble. He feels that no one could sustain such injuries and still be alive. It is clearly undead and the best course of action is to destroy it before it moves in to attack. He throws his "dancing" long sword at it to no effect...after which point he kills it with his non magical sword. The poor soul has a relived look in his eyes as the blow swings in. Further inspection reveals small bloody paw prints in the mud. It appears that perhaps the legendary donky rat creature is in the area. The party remains on guard.
Following the tracks of the wounded man, we find one of his companions. He was unfortunately killed shorly after he was recaptured, the wounds howerver seem to indicate some sort of wolf like creature, not ogre-kin. A third set of tracks are in the area and we follow them. The trail ends abruptly at the base of a tree with a thick copse of brush around it. He start to poke around. Fortunately we are saved by Aucshawn's trap finding ability. The entire area around the base of the tree has been filled with a variety of make shift, but dangerous traps. We are pretty convinced at this point that whoever made these must be still around, after all why would you fortify an area so if you were'nt going to stay there at least for a little while. We begin searching the area CAREFULLY. In the midst of the branches we find what appears at first glance to be child, but is in fact a wounded halfling, also with a large spike driven into his shoulder. He in unconcious and the wound seems infected. The party gently take him out of the tree and tend to his wounds. Healing potion for the damage and herbs for the infection (no cure dissease potions unfortunately). He wakes up before the treatment is over and while still sickend from the infection is able to travel and speak.
He explains that he lost the strength to travel and decided to make his last stand here, hence all the traps. His name is Omner and he tells us that there are still about 12 people left alive that can be saved. He also tells us that there is some equipment we can use in Cutters Camp, including weapons, food and traps used for hunting. He also tells us that it's not just ogre-kin we are dealing with. The ogres are lead by a pack or worgs (great, just great). There are six ogre-kin and at least that many worgs. Omner is willing to fight, despite his sickness.
We decide to attack during the night, best chance of success. In the mean time we head to Cutters Camp and get what we can. Eerily enough, the place does not appear to have been attacked, everything is set up and replaced carefuly. We find some armor, weapons and heavy hunting traps which we intend to use in our plan.
We head back to the ogre-kin camp. The pit is in the center of the camp and we can hear the moans coming from it, at least they are alive. Two of the prisoners are being forced to fight each other for food
The ogre-kin appear to be in the center of the camp while the worgs are patroling the edges. We currenly only see 4 ogre-kin and three worgs. near the pit are three crudely constructed huts that look like potato cellars (long thin buildings build partially underground). We assume that the rest of the monters are in there.
Our plan is as follows. Gorav and Aucshawn will head to the west side of the camp, there we will set up the traps (eight in all) at the edge of the woods. Both Gorav and Aucshawn are proficient in bows and will hide in the woods are fire arrows using some poison that Omner gave us. Gorav and Aucshawn are planning to shoot arrows at the worgs on patrol, taking as many of them out as we can before the whole camp is alerted. Hopefully they are going to charge us. With any luck some of them will get killed or at least imobilized in the traps. While the distraction is going on Zoy and Omner are going to sneak over to the pit with a rope ladder that we have pre-made. They are going to help the prisoners out of the pit and arm them with the weapons we got from Cutters Camp. The prisoners, Zoy and Omner are then going to attack the ogre-kin and worgs from behind. Hopefully then we can surround the monsters and take them out.
We get into postion. Gorav and Aucshawn poison 5 arrows apiece and get ready. Gorav casts true strike and fires. Good thing cause I rolled a three. Gorav rolls max damage and combined with the poison takes out a worg. Aucshawn wounds another. It howls and more worgs, including a big one with paint on its fur (clearly the pack leader) come out of the huts. 7 worgs total, 6 now that one is down. They spot us and come charging. Aucshawn manages to fell the worg he wounded earlier but Gorav misses. The worgs run into the traps which work great, three are felled but the leader and one other catch on to what is happening and pull up short. Gorav launches a fire orb at one of them but misses. They worgs run to the side of the traps and dissapear into the woods, circling around for an opportunity to attack. Neither of us can spot them. Aucshawn starts moving to clear a way through the traps so that we can move into clear ground while Gorav takes up a deffensive position. No good, the leader springs out of nowhere and get a good solid bit off of Gorav's arm, his armor soaks some of the damage, but it still hurts. The second one grapples Aucshawn and they start rolling through the traped area. Gorav tries to hit the chief worg but rolls yet another critical fumble and plants the sword deeply into the roots of a tree. He casts stone hands and goes after the leader but rolls one again (what are the odds?) Gorav loses sight worg who has dissapeared again and is setting up for another suprise strike. Gorav casts sanctuary just in time to avoid the cheif worg's attack. Aucshawn is still grappled with the other worg. The worg has been trying to bite him an has been missing by a hairs width. Finaly Aucshawn manages to get the thing off of him and draws his hand axe. The worg charges, jumps and opens its jaws to bite. Aucshawns attacks first though (just barely) and lands a nat 2O WOOOOOT! He rolls huge damage and knocks the beast of course, where it lands in one of the traps and is finished. The cheif worg, unable to attack Gorav moves in to attack Aucshawn. Gorav casts magic missles and finally manages to bring the beast down.
In the mean time Zoy and Omner aren't sure what to do, the worgs are distracted but the ogre-kin seem more interested in tormenting their captives than helping the worgs. They decide they can't delay any longer as the two men being forced to fight don't look like they can last much longer. Zoy summons a giant centiped to distract the ogre-kin, and distracted they are as it grapples onto one of the monsters and begins to sting it. While the ogre kin deal with the centiped, Zoy and Omner move in to help the people, they lower the ladder and start handing out weapons. This plan goes well until the centiped is dead and one of the ogre-kin notices Zoy. She summons another centiped but one of them is still coming. The two men who were out of the pit try to attack the ogre-kin, but wounded and mal-nourished as they are, they don't last for long. Zoy moves in and color sprays one of the ogre-kin to buy some time. While it is blinded Omner gets enough of the prisoners out of the pit that a true counter strike is mounted. Between Zoy, Omner and the remaining prisoners the tide of battle shifts.
By this time Gorav and Aucshawn are done with the worgs and are heading back to help Zoy and Omner. The two remaining ogres don't last long when everybody gets in on the fight.
Gorav tends to the wounded, but there are still two ogre-kin missing. The party feel that they must check inside the huts, if there is any chance at all that some one is still alive in there, they deserve a chance to be rescued. We enter the huts.
We leave the place but realize that it will be a long time before any of us stop having nightmares about this place. Worse yet, there are still some people, all women, who havn't been seen dead or otherwise. The prisoners are taken back to Widow's Glen. The viliagers take them in and feed and tend to them. Gorav tells the viliage leader that there are still missing people and ogre-kin out there and that they must be found. There is no excuse for leaving people in the hands of such monsters, even if there is little chance for success. Grimly, the party makes their way from Widow's Glen in the morning determined to find the rest of the missing viliagers.
So we finally got to do the next Pathfinder game. Dude. I won't go into in too much, since Sel Carim is probably typing up the synopis as we speak--but wow. I have never seen a group of characters so fully and totally throw themselves into neck deep trouble, come up with a solid, daring plan, and carry it off like such champs. Wow! All I'm gonna' say for now is:
Lamashtu worshipping cult of werewolves in the deep Ashwood keeping a camp of exiled refugee Kreeg ogres.
...oh the werewolves have a Child of Oblivion too.
Yeah.
Oh, and next session they get to meet the iconics at Fort Rannick!
Whew, here we are. After finals, the holidays and a particularily nasty cold my gaming schedual is back on track and I am ready with the next post of what has been a pretty hair raising campaign so far.
After bringing the survivors back from the ogre camp we take a good solid rest. The next day we head out to find the missing women, or at least acertain their fate. Our plan is to search for a trail near the camp where we first battled the ogre-kin.
We head back to the camp and find it pretty much the way we had left it, the bodies however have been picked clean of meat and there are three fuzzy, dirty white creatures about the size of bear cubs squaling loudly while pecking the remains. Were not quite sure what to make of this until we hear heavy thumping through the underbrush and see a large female owl bear heading in our direction. The creature is odviously alerted to our presence though it is still sniffing to find our exact location in the underbrush. Much to our dismay we realize that she probably sees us as a threat and is coming to defend her cubs. Zoy dosen't want to kill the creature, after all it is just defending its young and is hasn't quite found us yet though it is sniffing searching dilligently. We start heading off as quietly as we can away from the camp, attempting to go around the owl bears when we hear crashing in the other direction behind us, yup it's the bull owl bear. We realize that we are pretty well trapped. Gorav gets an idea, albiet not a very good one. He yells to Aucshawn to go find the trail while he destracts the owl bears. Gorav sprints out of the bushes and the two owl bears howl with rage and start stomping after him, Aucshawn takes his que and darts for the edge of the camp. Gorav's distraction is working well, except for the bait, with the owl bears in close persuit things aren't looking well for the battle mage. Fortunately Zoy manages to intercept us and casts color spray at the two beasts stunning them, they then start cooing confusedly and batting staring off into space. Gorav and Zoy run for it.
Aucshawn finds the trail pretty quick, seems that the ogre-kin weren't taking much trouble to cover their trail. By the tracks there are 2 ogre-kin and 8 women. Their trail is heading straight for the ashwood. We follow the trail for almost a day, at which point we hear the sound of a sword battle going on slightly to the left of the trail, thinking that this might have something to do with our quarry we go to check it out. We quietly poke our heads out of the brush and are witness to a pitched battle going on. A group of Shuanti raiders are figthing a group of mounted horsemen. We check the horsemen to and determine that they are from Ilsurien, most likely the patrol sent to track us down. The Shuanti are quickly overpowing them and the party decides to move on and not get involved, after all neither side would bear us any good will if they won. Shorly later we find a body, one of the women apparely didn't last, her body was unceromoniously cast aside in a pile of bushes. We pull the body out and burn it, the least we can do. We also find where the ogre-kin made camp, by the tracks we discover that the women have been tied to a beam by their hair which the ogre-kin have been holding between their shoulders. We push on as far as we possibly can cosidering the darkness and camp at the border of the forboding ashwood, a tall dark wall of close trees.
During the night we light a small fire, at which point Gorav takes first watch, as everyone is preparing to go to bed the fire flares up, Zoy sees nothing but Gorav and Aucshawn both see the face of the girl they buried earlier that day. He face is nearly consumed by the flames which lick hungrily through her nose and mouth, and in an instant the vision is gone. Gorav (who made a 15 on his will save) is chilled but manages to shake the image from his mind, Aucshawn isn't so lucky. He feels extreemly cold and miserable, the only thing that seems to make it better is the fire. He drawns closer and closer. Gorav notices something is wrong when Aucshawn's blanket starts to smolder. Gorav shakes him awake and douses the fire which screams into the night, by this point Aucshawn has already lost 4 con points and is feeling pretty sickly.
The next morning we follow the trail into the ashwood. The trail is getting harder and harder to follow as the ground starts to get more and more soggy. We spend one night in the ashwood, completely in the dark camped in a tree with nothing but the sounds of the now swampy ashwood to keep us company. We awake and press on into what has become fully swampy terrain. During the evening of the second day we find ourselves in a more open part of the swamp, placed several metters from each other we see small, alter like stones set in the swamp. There are hundreds, maybe thousands of alters, each one has a bundle of lit tinder. These alters make it possible to see the swamp well for the first time. We are certain we are near the final destination of the women we are looking for, but this certainly seems like more than a simple ogre-kin viliage. We move foreward quietly and on our guard. We notice that the alters are set up in a large circle. We head towards the center and notice one alter that seems to be different from the others. Instead of a small hollow, the top is adorned with a carved head, three eyes, long ears and a mouth with jagged teeth. Inside the idol is a fire, smoke and light spill forth from out of the eyes and mouth. None of us recognize the idol right off so we all make knowledge religion rolls...clatter... 1 for all of us. What are the odds? Anyhow, the idol is covered in blood and there is fire burning in it right? Red color and fire can only mean red dragons right? Yes, this must be a cult dedicated to red dragon worship, good thing none of us are in the mystery buisness...
As it turns out the idol is actually made to venerate the mother of beasts, that could have come in handy.
We soon leave the idol and continue are trip inwards, shorly after Zoy climbs a tree to get a birds eye view of the area and try to get an idea of what we are up against. She is in the middle of climbing when she hears a voice from down below. Gorav and Aucshawn fall back into the shadows as a young woman steps into view. She is covered in swamp muck and appears to have undergone ritual scarification. She looks up at Zoy and asks her what she is doing here, stating that she is impressed that we came all this way. She smiles and wonders if we came to rescue the women who were captured. Well, she sure isn't acting like a prisoner so Aucshawn and Gorav noch arrows to bow and wait for this stange person to make the first move. The woman starts to sniff the air and invites us to come out saying that she smells a Cheliax man and a strange Shuanti (bad sign, very bad sign). Zoy asks her if this is her home and what kind of place this is. The woman responds by shapshifing into a half human, half wolf hybrid. 8 other people step out of the bushes and do the same. Great, were-wolves. Everybody starts sweating d20s about now and combat ensues. Zoy gets initiative and tosses a tanglefoot bag on the leader, who gets stuck in the gooey mess. 4 wolves come after Gorav and Aucshawn, sniffing the ground to find where we are hiding. Gorav and Aucshawn let loose with arrows, landing solid hits but revealing our position. The wolves move in while the 4 remaining ones try to climb the tree that Zoy is in. Zoy lets loose with color spray (perhaps the best used casting of color spray in the history of DnD) most of the wolves are blinded and some are stunned, however none of them can continue climbing the tree and so fall to the earth in a heap. The leading starts to cut herself loose of the tanglefoot bag with her claws. The wolves are closing in on Gorav and Aucshawn, we are hitting them solidly with both arrows and ranged magic but as soon as our shots hit, the wounds heal and the wolves and up moving again. The pack is closing in, and it become clear that we are fighting a losing battle. All the damage we have done so far has been healed leaving no effect and the pack now has us surrounded, the wolves at the base of Zoy's tree are regaining their sight and are starting to climb back up despite Zoy's best efforts too keep them at bay. At this point the wolf leader has freed herself and howls to her pack mate. They all turn around and run off.
Nobody is sure why they left, they could have killed the lot of us easily. Something is terribly wrong, though we are happy to be alive. Suddenly the swamp is filled with a low, rhythmic drumming noise. Aucshawn goes to check it out, rubbing mud all over his body to mask his scent. What he finds is a small viliage of tents places on stilts above the swamp. On one side are more were-wolves. On the other side are ogres and ogre-kin. In the middle is a cave, fire light is pooring out. Aucshawn heads back. Our best guess is that the wolves left because they didn't want to be late for whatever ritual is about to be performed (a theory which is partially true). The women must be inside the cave. We agonize with the decision at hand. We certainly can't fight the whole viliage seeing as a handful of wolves almost killed us and there seems to be no way into the cave which is guarded by several large wolves. However, we can't just abandon those we came to rescue to a certainly gruesome fate. We come up with a plan.
None of us are sure what to do about the wolves and their invulnerability, until Aucshawn has a brilliant idea. He pulls into his coin pouch and pulls out 8 silver coins. We all smile and start tying them onto arrows. The plan is simple, we climb over the rocks on the cliff wall overlooking the cave, from there we shoot the guards with our new arrows. We deal with whatever we find in the cave and have Zoy use her trap making ability and ghost sound spell to break up the pack of wolves which are sure to come after us. We reason that if we can break up their pack, we might be able to deal with smaller numbers at a time. Short on details, but high on determination we make our way in. The climb down the rock face is difficult, but we find to our surprise that the guards are gone. We enter the cave which is a long tube at first but opens up into a large vaulted cave shortly after. Down a side tunnel we hear sobbing. We peer down the tunnel and see what we came after. The women are untied, but are guarded by two nasty looking wolves and one old woman in a bone mask similar to the idol we saw earlier. We nock the silver loaded arrows into our bows, Gorav casts true strike. Everybody hits first round, Gorav and Aucshawn both roll great damage, taking down the elderly cleric in one shot and heavily wounding one of the guards. Zoy dazes the final guard. The next moment we all rush in and push the dazed guard on the ground hacking him to pieces until he stops regenerating, after that point we turn and finish off the wounded one.
The women are malnourished, cold, hungry and tired. Gorav casts what healing he can and prepares for the perilous treck out of the camp. From deep within the cave we hear the allarming sound of slithering. This sound however sounds like it is coming from a creature that weighs about the same as a bus. We take that as our cue to leave. Keeping the women between us we head out of the cave. Zoy summons a celestial eagle and commands it to take Gorav's last vial of alchemists fire and drop it on the far side of the camp. The vial bursts into flames and lights one of the tents on fire, as well as some of the walkways connecting it to other tents. Using this as a distraction we head out of the camp with the captives in tow. Once outside the viliage we run for it. The captives are tired and hungry but we push on anyways, from back towards the camp we hear the sound of howling and bellowing, but the cries sound fightened and in pain, not angry. We decide to leave that mystery be and continue our rush our of the ashwood. Several hours later we emerge near a fishing viliage on the shore of a large lake. (sorry can't remember the name of the town off the top of my head). There we colapse, exhausted but alive and well. The rescued captives tell the viliagers what has happened which quickly earns the rest of us free lodgings and all the beer we can drink!
Little curtain raise, we asked Grim about the camp and the were-wolves afterwords and this is what he told us. Turns out that a tenticle of Black Maga, cut long ago found its way into the ashwood. A camp of were-wolves found the creature and decided to worship it. The leader of their tribe, a cleric of the mother of beasts, apeased the child of oblivion by brining it periodic sacrifices. The were-wolves used the ogre-kin as slaves to go out and round up people for the child of oblivion to eat. When the ritual was to be enacted, all the members of the tribe would go within their tents, anyone inside was spared (hence why there were no guards the second time we went to the cave) The child of oblivion would leave its cave and go hunting. As long as there was suficient people to eat, it would leave the tribe alone. The were-wolves we meet earlier wanted to draw us into the viliage so that we too could help to satisfy the creatures hunger. Unfortunately for them, when the sacrifices were nowehere to be found it quickly turned on the tribe and began to feast on them instead. Yikes.
We just got done with the next session. I'm really looking forward to reading the synopsis of this one. Dude. I have to say I'm very much digging Turtleback Ferry as a backdrop. Plus it was way fun to introduce the PCs to the iconics. Not to mention I think there's going to be some fun next game. Dragon versus Child of Oblivion action. Woo-hoo!
Here we go. The party, with the rescued viliagers make our way into Turtleback Ferry and get a heros welcome. Free drinks, food and rest for everybody. We take some time to enjoy and catch up on our sleep. In the morning we eat a huge breakfast and take a look at the town. The place is in quite a state, for starters it looks like the church has been sat on by something huge and there is mud and muck on everything. We are told that not only has the town been flooded recently but that an enormous creature washed down from the north decided to attack the town. Fortunately however a previous group of adventurers were able to repel the beast and deal with the flooding. The viliagers also mention a fort that is a short march north. Apparently the place was attacked and taken by ogres recently but was retaken. We figure that we should travel to the fort and at least warn them about the things we saw in the ashwood. We decide to resuply before heading out. Gorav sends his armor to be cleaned and repaired. After being through several battles, a sewer and the ashwood without proper care it is in a pretty sorry state.
We are approaced by a young man, about 20 who seems nervous. We ask him what the matter is. He tells us that some of the children in the town are missing, 4 to be exact. He says that the mayor has lost many sentimentally valuable artifacts in the church, and while he would never ask anyone to risk themselves to get them, it is well known that their loss has saddened him greatly. These four children decided to enter the ruins in an attemp to get some of them back for him and give them to the mayor as a suprise, however they have yet to return and he is nervous for their safety. The young man asks the party enter the ruins and look for them. We agree. Gorav goes to pick up his armor which has been sent to someone named Iron Tooth. Iron Tooth turns out to be a particularily disagreeable sort who doesn't like Chilaxians. The armor is in a heap and hasn't been tended to at all, just hasn't gotten around to it. However he does have a breast plate that he is willing to loan Gorav, the only problem is that is was crafted for a woman. Deciding that some armor is better than no armor, and certainly not willing to cringe infront of the oafish blacksmith Gorav dons the armor and leaves, wraping his cloak all the way around himself.
We head down to the ruins of the church. The front door is still intack, though it is lying almost flush with the ground by now. We have to enter one by one and crawl almost on our bellies to get in but we manage to get in. We crawl into what is left of the main room of the church. There is just enough space in some areas to stand. We light up our sunrods and get to searching. The ruins seem about ready to completly colapse and we have to be extremely carefull not to distub the precariously balanced rubble. During our search we hear noise, sounds like scampering through the rubble, Gorav immediately worries that it could be goblins. Whatever it is it is keeping just out of range of our light. We form a tight group and keep moving now even more worried about the children. We call out but get no response. Zoy manages to hear what sounds like muffled sobbing coming from the end of the "room" we are in. We move over towards it and find a piece of an old door held against a cubby space. The door has large tooth gouges in it. We try to pull it away and hear the voice of a child from behind it telling us to hide or we will get eaten. More scampering sounds ensue. We tell the children that we are going to get them out. They come reluctently, afraid of the creatures that are lurking about.
We start heading for the front of the ruins with the children inbetween us. Halfway there we are attacked by what we now realize are giant salamanders. One of them attacks Gorav and gets it's tongue around his neck and starts dragging him backwards. The other one gets a dart from Zoy and retreats for now. Gorav manages to pull himself foreward enought to get his dagger out and slashes behind himself severing the tongue. The giant salamander is enraged but backs off. Aucshawn is busy getting the kids out the door, we ask them who is missing and they tell us his name is Ander. Zoy calls out his name and we hear a reply from deep within the ruins. He keeps saying that he almost has it but that it is stuck. As soon as he speaks we hear the sound of scutteling going towards the back of the church and Ander, we quickly throw the last child towards safety and move as fast as we can to intercept the salamanders.
At the very back of the church we find the ruined remains of what was apparently the reliquary, there is only a small ruined passage of what used to be a door that allows entry. Zoy goes in first, but both Gorav and Aucshawn must take their time to squeeze through. When Zoy gets in she sees Ander behind some fallen rubble trying to fend off the grasping tongues of two giant salamanders. She throws a dart at one of them and grabs it's attention. By this time Gorav is through and make an attack on one of the salamanders but fails utterly, the salamander takes this opportunity to get it's jaws arround Govar and sucks him in up to his waist. The other salamanders is taking shots at Zoy but hasn't been able to hit so far. Aucshawn enters the room and sees the situation, he immediately attacks the salamander eating Gorav and guts the thing (critical hit plus skirmish bonus YAH!) at which point Gorav starts to pull himself out of the things dead mouth. Next round Aucshawn rounds on the other salamander, pushing himself off a fallen beam into the air and burries his axe into the things skull (WOOT nat 20!). We quickly grab Ander and head for the exit, but before we can crawl out we see a very large salamander blocking the exit, it sees us and rams it's head into the small opening, it can't get through but each time it rams we hear the cracking of wood and dust starts to fall from the celing. Time to leave. Aucshawns grabs his axe and Gorav casts stone hands and we start trying to beat an exit through the back wall before the entire structure falls on us. Zoy trie to keep the thing at bay by throwing darts at it through the opening. As we are breaking through Ander reaches out and grabs an object that has now been freed by the shifting stucture. Aucshawn manages to break through the wall and the party jumps out just as the room we were in dissapears in a cloud of rubble. We check Ander who is shaken but alright. The object he grabed was a bow made of antlers, apparently blessed by Old Deadeye himself. We take the children back to mayor who is overjoyed to see them, he tells Ander to give the bow to his father and to never risk his life like that again.
That night the party is invited to tell their tale to the viliagers in a town gathering. Gorav starts the telling (whoping 7 on my performance roll :P) but is quickly interrupted by Zoy who finishes the story in a much more interesting fashion, using ghost sound and prestidigiation to enhance the story in places. After the story everybody ends up eating and chatting with the viliagers. Aucshawn notices a tall thin woman with long ears and large whiteless eyes, odviously an elf. Having never gotten a chance to speak with the other side of his heritige he decides to speak with her. The elf introduces herself as Mericial (I know I probably just butchered the spelling there, but once again Grim has my books so please bear with me). Anyhow, she says that she is from fort Rannik and that she is interested in our tale. She and Aucshawn get to talking and eventually the chat gets around to the strange sitings in Ilsurien as well as the information we received from Zoy's patron. She says that we need to come tell that to her friends as they would surely like to know. During the party, Zoy notices several tattoos that she recognizes on several of the young men in the viliage, the look similar to the ones she saw in Ilsurien. We head out to Fort Rannik. Once we get there Mericial tells us that we should speak with Sioni, after all she's the one who is into thinking and plans and all that. We are shown to the top room and meet a young man dressed in armor standing next to a large keg that has been brought up and a woman dressed in what is odviously varisian clothing and tattoos. We give our information to Sioni, including the part about the child of oblivion. She is grateful for the information and tells us that the child must be destroyed or it will surely ravage the countryside. However, she asks us not to tell Valarious just yet as he would surely go charging off after the thing without a decent plan. We work together and decide that until we know what the creatures weakness is we won't be able to defeat it, infact it is unlikely that we will even be able to damage it. We decide that the best way to study it is to trick it into fighting another large creature in the are and observe the fight. A dragon would do nicely... Dragons however are in short supply and we don't have a great deal of information on where to find one. Sioni says that she has scholar friends in Magnamar who could certainly help, so we make arrangements to leave for there shortly. (we get to hang out with the iconics SWEET!!!)
Heh! Awesome post! Yeah, basically the one thing that I would step in to correct is that they were actually Giant Geckos (kindova' staple of Pathfinder).
Oh, and for your edification, the official name spellings:
Merisiel
Seoni
Valeros (though I think I pronounce it Valereos--which I kind of like better)
Kyra
But yeah, good stuff! I can't wait for the next one. Always fun stuff.
Well the critical threat has passed (it looked for a while there like we were going to be getting a different constellation of Saturday players, thus requiring a game jump--but nah, it turns out things are stable) and we've gotten the next game of Pathfinder in the can. The PC's had to help the iconics defend Sandpoint from the stone giant invasion...at 3rd level. Heh. Things were awesome, but I won't steal Sel's glory by sayin' much.
But yeah, things have taken an interesting twist in their departure from the AP--the iconics have gone one way, and the PC's another with their newest NPC buddy. Longtooth! I kid you not...
Well...wow.
Another session in the can and from the aboleth stargate found in the depths of the mushfens to the climatic and much anticipated defeat of the Child of Oblivion and Longtooth amid the burning ruin of a werewolf village, the story has risen to another level. Man-oh-man! Lovin' the Pathfinder campaign! Anyway Sel should be by sometime soon to give the full details, but that was one awesome session. I love our group! The characters are wonderful and try as I might to kill them with challenges that are totally out of their league they just keep rising to the occasion and do this epic, crazy, heroic stuff and totally running away with these awesome, insane victories. Cool cool stuff.
Loving the story thus far. And despite my reservations at the start, the smaller group is still performing very well!
Any chance of an update on the stat and character blocks :P
/beg