|
Well my players did the bulk of the first half of the skinsaw murders last night and I have to say it was a pretty effective session, probably one of the best in recent memory. Really long rambling spoiler ahead.
I had allowed the players to catch a few hints of things to come previously. They set off to Magnimar to make some purchases, after an encounter with Malfeshnekor that left them fleeing, and while they were there they met up with some faceless stalkers in a non-combat encounter, essentially the stalkers distracted some of the party away and while they were out looking for the disturbance, took their place in joining with the other members. In this role I had them serving Aldern in taking a scarf that the object of his lustful obsession was looking at.
His obsession was a varisian fighter and a very devote follower of desna(leaning towards the sphere walker PrC)and she has become very upset quite often over the fact that someone was 'desecrating her desna time' by both pilfering little trinkets, often of butterflies or the like(and occasionally from the shrine), but also doing it while she was dreaming and thus with desna.
Our party isn't terribly observant and with Aldern's impressive stealthy skills he was able to make off with quite a selection of little items from her(including a bit of hair, which really freaked her out when someone else in the party noticed one side of her hair was shorter then the other), and the shrine to desna which she often would nap beside in prayer.
This culminated with Father Zanthus pulling her aside after her and the group had been out of town for a couple of days, telling her how appreciative he was for all she had done in the town and how he knew she had been the one to spot the missing trinkets before, but one of the other acolytes saw -her- enter the church the night before and take an item from the shrine. He was careful not to be accusatory but told her that if she had any troubles that the church could try and help her.
Realizing that one of the shapeshifters(that is what they are calling the faceless stalkers, as they still don't know what they are) may have been infiltrating the church after her, she promised the priest that she would not be in the church for some time, and when she did she would return with the rest of the group, so if he saw her alone or with just one or two others he should alert the sheriff. It was amazingly hard for her to give up her time in the shrine, and just knowing the things were impersonating her was very off putting. This was one of those major steps in a session that truly succeeded in creeping her and her character out.
As a final touch, she awoke one morning to find one of the skinsaw man's lovely notes left upon her pillow beside her, offering her entrance into his pack as his love, and promising her a collection in her honor.
Past that bit of fluff, I should mention more of the murders as they saw them, because I altered the order a bit. On their return from a trip to magnimar, our druid's animal companion caught a strange scent with some tracks, and the druid followed them to the farm(site of the first murders) and I let the PCs be the ones who encountered that there. They met Grayst while he was still on the verge of turning and fully mad. They held back his change, temporarily, with a couple of lesser restorations that the cleric happened to have, and heard him shift between babbling about his lordship to raging jealously at the object of his Master's obsession. The group realized that they didn't have the power to heal him, nor did Father Zanthus, so they took him to sheriff hemlock to find out what to do with him and ended up leaving him with habe in the sanitarium. This is a small but semi-important detail I think, because as the players nerves started to get a bit wracked later in the adventure, their responses to these sort of things started to become less and less sensible.
The players were somewhat distressed about the possibility of a ghoul in their midst, but decided to confront the evil they could see first and set off to deal with Malfeshnekor. When they returned to town they had a few days of downtime, interspersed with some of the creepy-ness above(they were sleeping in shifts, even when staying at the tavern in town) and a visit to the sanitarium left them with the realization that realistically they could only stave off the ghoul fever so long and couldn't cure it. It sparked a big debate in the group about the idea of whether they should kill the man because he was ill, so he could at least die peacefully without turning into the beast they knew he would become. Neither side would back down(Killing an innocent is wrong! Better now then after he becomes a monster!) so they abandoned the sanitarium for the moment to return to town.
This is getting to be a ridiculously long post, so I'm going to try and skim through some of the rest of this. Basically the group returned to the sheriff who told them that there had been another set of murders and another note to the object of obsession had been found. The wizard was also under a bit of scrutiny because ven vinder wasn't too pleased with him, but they sidestepped that. The group first suspected the sczarni had a part in this and was spending time snooping at the fatman's feedbag when the sheriff called again because of farmer grump's arrival and tale.
The scarecrow nursery rhyme really got to one of them I think, but they set off quickly for the farmlands. It was a wonderful thing, having them arrive near dusk, feeling closed in by the corn around them. They were very cautious upon seeing the first scarecrow and proceeded to disassemble it, then when they came to one that was moving they cut it to bits.
Which became their standard method for things, that is until they found that they struck down a woman who wasn't a ghoul. This led to a bit more caution on their parts and when they found her husband, infected with ghoul fever, they didn't quite seem sure what to do with him. Their cleric actually tried to lie to the man(they truly were rattled at this point) acting as if his wife had to be killed.
And they finally told the man they had no cure for him and that either he could be put down now or as a monster, and it would be his choice. After breaking down and pleading with them to help him, which certainly affected a few of them but essentially fell of deaf ears, the man hung his head and told them to end it. Which their cleric did swiftly with a prayer to saranrae.
The rest of the farmhouse and barn was fairly quick and simple for them, but for rogors who spoke to the object of his obsession as they battled, telling her that his lordship had talked of her often. And with the additional note found there, she really was getting shakey, feeling she had brought this upon all the people. Finding the key and recognizing the crest pointing them towards the foxglove manor, and a bit of asking around town gave them some decent background upon it, so they headed that way.
The manor -really- worked a number over the players and characters alike as they walked through it. I wrote out a number of note cards for each of the haunts, one said what the initial check was, one said what they saw if they succeeded on the check(and gave them the option to roll initiative if they had an action to take) and then I would write up further ones, depending on the haunt, describing what they saw and what others could see. I let them describe what was happening with those(to the point one of the players was up dancing around the room and the like, seeming to be enjoying himself then slowly making more and more disgusted faces until someone said they were going to tackle him).
I had meant to bring some ambiance music, but didn't manage that(damn computers), however the room we were in was perfect as the lights were dim anyway, and with the AC going it would have occasional power hiccups that would cause the lamps to flicker randomly(maybe 2-3 times an hour). It really added a neat mood to it all. We literally had a player who at the end of one of the haunts, when people were asking him what just happened, announce that his character just starts crying.
And of course at the beginning when they hadn't been quite sure if it was anything more then a creepy old house the cleric was looking at those puffs of dust where feet seemed to be pacing, while everyone else kind of hung back, and announced 'Its nothing. I bet you could just stand in it and feel a breeze tickling your feet, like this...' and when he stepped there he failed the save, panicking and dragging out fighter back outside. Where they saw a mass of birds take flight and fled back within again...
Anyway, the party finally managed to make their way to Iesha and followed in her wake down through the manner directly to Aldern. I shifted things a bit in this fight for several reasons. First, I had an unmarred painting of Iesha there, as well as the rotten meat covered one(I wanted to halt her so that he could still monologue some, but to have it be in a way that the players could remove easily, to use her as an advantage in the fight). Second, I extended the range of his ability to control ghouls and added some further mook ghouls in some of the side rooms. My group is tough and he is a sneak attacker, so I wanted to be able to have him call for support in the battle. Third, I went a bit adimarchus from shackled city and gave each of his three personalities their own set of abilities. I basically let him shift as a free action at the start of his turn to one of the personalities to use that turn.
His lordship- combat expertise and high defense, pleading with the object of his obsession to save him from the hurter, or to stop beating on him.
The hurter- power attack, bruiser type of fighter.
The skinsaw man- imp trip and feint, toying with his victims type.
We really started the battle off on a memorable note though, because I prepared a little surprise for my players as well. When they entered the room I described him as standing up, holding his war razor and a mask that looked to be made of human skin, barely recognizable as Aldern.
He pulled on his mask, and as he did so I pulled out a mask I had created and put it on(just a quickly thrown together thing of cardboard, with crumpled paper wrapped around it to vaguely look like skin). He called out to his obsession, talking of how he knew she would come to him, then I announced he reached up and tore away what looked like some of the flesh from the mask and revealed her face beneath it(disguise self). As he did that I pulled off the paper that covered the mask and had a picture of her face beneath it, which brought out a muffled yelp from her and everyone else's jaws dropped.
It was truly a classic session and likely one that will always be remembered among my group. So kudos Pett, if you bother to read through all the nonsense above. We had a great adventure. Hopefully I'll have such tales to tell a couple sessions down the line for Logue so I don't appear to be taking sides.
-Tarlane
Ha! Brilliant to put on the mask with the player's face underneath. Well played.
As a player in Tarlane's games, I have to say that the session described above was excellently done. The Haunts were fun and very creepy.
The cardboard mask with our female player's real face on it was downright awesome. She was so creeped out (in a good, In Character, way) and most was very well role-played. The Skinsaw Man was suitably deranged and scary.
Finding the little shrine with all her discarded things on it was icing on the cake. I think she was genuinely surprised and disgusted by finding the little things like a lock of her hair, or even an empty potion bottle (we can only assume it was one she drank at some point before) on the shrine.
A well executed session and a good game. I'm hooked.
Personally, I think I'm starting to see a trend in the style of game that the Rise of the Runelords campaign is following. They seem more.... darker, more grittier, more mature, and I'm totally diggin' that.
My hat's off to you Richard Pett. This module is feeling as awesome as Sea Wyvern's Wake in the Savage Tide Adventure Path. Man, I can't wait to start that module soon in my own game.
I also can't wait to start the next Runelord Module which Tarlane has only hinted that "is Creepy too, not like Skinsaw Murders, but more like 'The Hills Have Eyes' creepy." That sounds great. I can't wait.
tarlane,
it's awesome sesions like that that are the icing on the cake, you have a very cool set of players and obviously enjoyed running the session. I'm glad you're enjoying the adventure path, and it sounds like as events progress, thinsg will get a lot worse for your players:)
and Crowheart, thanks for bringing back dungeon memories by mentioning Sea Wyvern - that was tricky adventure to write but fun:)
Rich
|
|
Right now crowheart and I are alternating the DMs chair on the weekends, between my RotRL and his Savage Tide campaign. He's spoken glowingly(if vaguely) of his excitement about some of the upcoming modules and seems rather eager for us to see it all. I look forward to getting to experience all of Paizo's talents as a player as well.
-Tarlane
Right now crowheart and I are alternating the DMs chair on the weekends, between my RotRL and his Savage Tide campaign. He's spoken glowingly(if vaguely) of his excitement about some of the upcoming modules and seems rather eager for us to see it all. I look forward to getting to experience all of Paizo's talents as a player as well.
-Tarlane
Best to speak about anything by Logue vaguely:)
Have fun.
Rich
or just saving up the m'naaaaaaars for something...
something bad