Good to see another update. I've been getting impatient for the next chapter - Play More!! Have fun putting them though some morally tough times.
Cheers
Mark
Thanks for keeping up with the thread! We certainly haven't kept up a very rigorous playing schedule here lately; it was a crazy summer. Hopefully we'll be able to get some more regular sessions in before the holiday season arrives to throw us off the rails again!
Having been accepted into House Vonnarc, the PCs were quickly put to work. Elvtlar Zarira and Thahallas were placed into the guard, while Maaoltra and Chalith became house servants. Maaoltra's charisma served him well among the other servants, and he quickly started to pick up bits of useful information from amongst the rumors and gossip passed around the laundry and kitchen. Most of the talk centered on who was sleeping with whom and for what advantages, but he also heard some other things: indications that First Daughter Alicavniss was taking an new interest in affairs outside Tower Solacas, allegations that Second Son Tiryin was carrying on an affair with a low-born gecko breeder, and rumors that House Azrinae had taken up a position somewhere deeper in the Darklands. In the evenings, after collecting their dinners to eat in their room, Maaoltra shared what he learned with his companions, and Thahallas passed it along to Caladrel when magically contacted.
Maaoltra also heard a story that the House handyman, Shiovom, had been seen casting a spell, despite the fact that no one knew him to be arcanely gifted. Wondering if he had found someone else keeping secrets from the House, Maaoltra decided to approach the handyman about these rumors. Seeing him when meals were handed out at night, he went up and baldly asked him to his face if he were a spellcaster. Shiovom hotly denied the rumors, obviously agitated. Attempting to be diplomatic, Maaoltra asked what harm the story could cause, even if it were true. Shiovom replied that rumors could destroy everything he had spent his lifetime achieving and walked out of the room.
After a few days, the PCs began to notice that Gadak Simiryin seemed to be shadowing them: Thahallas saw him watching from the stables while on drill in the courtyard, and Maaoltra found him loitering in the hallways and common areas of the house while he was performing his duties nearby. Discussing this in their room at night, the party wondered if he was an enemy or a potential ally. One day, when both Elvtlar and Thahallas were on patrol in the courtyard, they noticed his lizard cart unattended near the stables. Thahallas took the opportunity to examine it, under the pretense of being extra-vigilant; while there was nothing in the cart itself but some empty sacks, he noticed a small pouch attached to the lizard's collar. Elvtlar attempted to distract the gecko so Thahallas could make a grab for the pouch, but the well-trained lizard shied away from his touch, attracting the attention of others in the courtyard. They decided to save some food from their next supper to use the next time they had an opportunity to deal with the lizard.
A few days later, the PCs were returning to their room in the servants' quarters with their bowls when Thahallas noticed the door slightly ajar and heard a rustling noise from inside. Sneaking to the door, he saw Gadak in the room, apparently searching it. Thahallas put his rapier to the drow's back, and the party confronted him: What was he doing there? "What are you doing?" he flung back at them, holding up the food Elvtlar had hidden, hoping to distract his lizard. "Stealing food from the kitchens?"
Gadak insisted that he was only checking up on the party; after all, he had been the one to bring them to House Vonnarc, and if they were up to no good, he could take some of the blame. Pressed on the subject, he insisted that he was just following orders. Elvtlar suspected him of being a spy for House Azrinae, but Gadak insisted he served only House Vonnarc, and the perceptive Maaoltra, with a sinking heart, believed him. "What are the odds," Gadak asked, "that out of all the drow in Celwynvian, the four of you, a handful of nobodies, were the only ones to make it back? If there's any dirt to be found on you," he told them candidly, "the one who finds it will be rewarded."
It was at this point that Maaoltra blurted out, "Hey, you know that handyman Shiovom? Someone saw him casting a spell, and he doesn't want anyone to know!" Gadak found that tidbit interesting, and the PCs let him leave on the condition that he let whomever he was going to tell know where he got the information. Alone again with his companions, Maaoltra shared his fears that Gadak was investigating them on behalf of Alicavniss Vonnarc. They affirmed that they ought to leave nothing in their rooms that could implicate them in anything; Elvtlar resolved to carry his lizard-bribe on his person at all times.
The following day, Elvtlar found himself assigned to guard the quarters of Slavemother Undamesta. Partway through the day, from his station at her door, he saw the handyman Shiovom led by a heavy guard into the interrogation chamber across the hall; he went in, but Elvtlar never saw him come out. That evening in their room, the PCs felt a little uncomfortable about his misfortune but figured that, as a drow, he deserved whatever he got. The next morning, when it came time for them to receive their daily assignments, the party felt the benefit of their actions: instead of a summary command, the slavemother extended to them a bit of choice about their duties for the day. Given the opportunity to avoid their least favorite chores, the players began to feel pretty good about their decision to betray the handyman.
Elvtlar chose to stand guard in the house that day and found himself watching the cells where servants were held for punishment. On the other side of the door was a torture chamber, from which he heard screams of pain. Asking one of the prisoners who was being tortured, they told him it was Shiovom the handyman. Meanwhile, in another part of the house, Maaoltra was hearing the daily gossip which was all about the unfortunate handyman: He had concealed his arcane abilities because they were the manifestation of a celestial bloodline long unsuspected. It had taken generations, but his angels' blood had finally outed, and now he would be punished for it. In yet another location in House Vonnarc, Chalith was set to run errands in preparation for a sacrifice to the demon lord Areshkagal; when he asked about the intended victim, he was told only that it was a servant who had committed the ultimate betrayal.
The party was unable to reunite to put these pieces of information together until their duties were over for the day and they took their meals to their rooms. With the exception of Thahallas, for whom the only good drow was a dead drow, they were all feeling pretty bad about throwing Shiovom under the bus to save themselves. Chalith, who knew from his duties that day that the sacrifice would take place in two days (and who, in his real body, was the lawful good monk Dax), insisted that the party try to rescue him. Gambit, feeling guilty, agreed to use his spells, in particular his ability to make people invisible, to help; Elvtlar agreed to go along as a lookout/distraction; Thahallas knew that if the other three got caught his own cover would be blown, so went along to deal with locks and anything else that might fall under his range of abilities.
The party, all invisible except for Elvtlar, made it down the hallway and through the common room without meeting anyone. When Elvtlar opened the door to the lizard stables, however, they found two drow servants at work there. Elvtlar marched right in with a commanding air and ordered them to take the lizard dung out to the pile in the stable courtyards; used to taking orders, the servants obeyed, and the party moved quickly to the door on the opposite end of the stable, which led into the torture chamber. It was locked, but Thahallas succeeded in picking it.
Elvtlar opened the door only to find a guard sitting at the other end of the room. Once again all bluster, he said he'd been sent to check up on the drow and demanded to know why the door hadn't been locked. "It should have been," the other drow insisted and crossed the room to examine the door. Desperate to get the door shut before the lizardhandlers returned, Thahallas and Chalith struck from within their sphere of invisibility; Elvtlar attacked the guard as well, but they weren't able to silence him before he cried out, "Treachery!" Maaoltra shut the door and relocked it as Chalith and Elvtlar finished the guard. Finding a ring of keys hanging on the far wall, the party used them to enter the torture chamber proper, still stained with fresh blood and then unlock the door to the cells.
Maaoltra, the only person still invisible, walked down the hallway until he found Shiovom's cell. He was visibly injured and slumped against the wall, but when Maaoltra sent him a whispered message, he limped to the door. Maaoltra let him out and healed some of his injuries, then brought him down the hall to the rest of the party. They told the handyman that they would let him mount a gecko and turn the two of them invisible before he rode out the stable door to escape. Taking the dead guard's clothes and Vonnarc rune to open the door, Shiovom acceded to the plan. Leaving the keyring with the dead drow and hoping that it would seem that the guard was toying with the prisoner who used his secret angel powers to escape, Elvtlar again opened the door to the stables. Again finding it empty, Maaoltra made Shiovom and his lizard invisible before using his last invisibility spell to conceal the PCs once more. They opened the door into the common area, only to find the two stablehands within; the next moment, however, the outside doors from the stable burst open as Shiovom invisibly made his escape. The stablehands ran to discover a lizard missing, while the PCs quickly returned to their room, only to emerge visible again seconds later as the alarm was sounded.
The PCs had to pay the price for their late-night shenanigans the next day, when their fatigue made it harder for them to do their duties. In addition, all their superiors were furious due to the escape of the prisoner the previous night. The gossip going around was that a celestial being had appeared in the prison, slaughtered the guard, and carried the duplicitous Shiovom away in a puff of aether and burst of harpsong.
Later in the day, after his duties but before he could get his food and retreat to his room with his companions, Elvtlar was summoned to Slavemother Undamesta's interrogation chamber (a not entirely unexpected occurence, as he knew he was the only one seen near the scene of the incident). She informed him that the lizardhandlers had said he had entered the stable shortly before they thought they heard a shout from the guardroom. He insisted that he had taken it upon himself to go in and tell them to clean up the stable, knowing that a very important sacrifice was about to take place and feeling everything in the house should be in good condition. "I see," Undamesta replied, with narrowed eyes. "You're ... ambitious, are you?" He replied that he was, that he hoped to advance in the House, and insisted that after giving the order he had returned to his room. The slavemother dismissed him without any further questioning ... at this time.
The higher-ups of House Vonnarc were in a furor for several days over the escape of Shiovom, but apart from brusquer bad treatment (and their own anxiety over getting caught), life went on as normal for the PCs. They heard rumors that the Second Daughter had asked the First Daughter Alicavniss to look into the matter with her divinations, which made them sweat, but after a few days passed without further interrogation, they relaxed a bit. First Daughter Faidaeva sacrificed the House's entire population of troglodyte slaves in place of the handyman (going for quantity over quality), and the party seemed to be in the clear.
The PCs hadn't seen Gadak Simiryn since the night they found him in their room, but after about a week, Thahallas, on patrol in the yard, noticed a familiar lizard cart put away in the stable. Slipping inside, he succeeded in opening the mysterious pouch on the lizard's collar and withdrew a roll of papers. Unrolling them to read, he realized that the papers were an account of the PCs' doings in the House since the day they arrived. Fortunately, there was nothing more incriminating in Gadak's record than the food he had found hidden in Elvtlar's bed, and there were no further entries after that night they had betrayed Shiovom's secret.
The rest of the party went about their normal routines. Chalith was assigned to clean in House Vonnarc's art galleries one day and, among the gorily sadistic and sexually degrading art works, one small painting hanging in a corner caught his eye. Unlike the rest of the art in the gallery, it depicted an outdoor landscape on the surface world, and something about it seemed very familiar to Chalith. It wasn't until later, when he was telling his friends about it as they ate dinner, that he realized that it was one of the paintings Tessara Vonnarc had been rescuing from the Constellar Gallery in shadow-Celwynvian all those centuries ago; today it still hung in her descendents' halls.
Maaoltra, in the meantime, had heard another rumor in the laundry room: that Mellios, the cook, was stealing the nobles' food and blaming it on underlings who were too afraid of her to deny it. Thinking the rumor might come in handy if suspicion fell on them again, the party decided to keep it to themselves for the present.
The following day, Chalith was cleaning in the matron's audience hall, when he felt eyes upon him. Looking up, he saw Gadak Simiryin watching him from the balcony. When Gadak saw that he was discovered, he smiled and raised his hand in greeting, then came down the stairs to speak to Chalith. He was dressed in much more expensive and fashionable clothes than he had been before and told Chalith that he had been rewarded for turning in Shiovom with a promotion: he was now serving in Tower Solacas. With the condescending advice that if Chalith kept serving House Vonnarc well, one day he too might reach such heights, he bade the PC farewell.
From that day on, each of the PCs in turn noticed that Gadak's watchfulness had resumed. When they caught him spying on their daily work, he would greet them with a smile and a lame excuse why he was hanging around. Maaoltra and Chalith were both working in the kitchen together, hoping to find evidence to back up the rumor that Mellios was stealing the nobles' food; although they saw where she hid it, they also saw Gadak watching them from the hallway. When they moved to try to catch him in the act, they knocked over the pot of fungus soup, earning them a berating from Mellios and a job mopping up; by the time they could look into the hallway again, Gadak was gone.
The party, keeping track of the days since the recorporeal incarnation spell had been cast, was growing concerned that they weren't getting anywhere. Maaoltra decided to go ahead and turn in Mellios for thievery, hoping it would lead to a promotion. Slavemother Undamesta was initially unconvinced, knowing that he had been punished for spilling the soup that day and suspecting he was simply trying to take revenge on Mellios, but he was able to describe Mellios' hiding place. Further investigation revealed the truth of his accusation, and the Slavemother thanked him for his service to the House -- but no promotion was forthcoming.
The following evening, Thahallas was called into Undamesta's interrogation chamber. After needling him for some time, including a question about his "old-fashioned" name and whether his mother was a student of ancient history, she grudgingly told him that he had earned a promotion -- if he was brave enough to take it. Greater responsibility would lead to higher visibility, and the consequences of failure would be more severe. He accepted the promotion, agreeing to work as an attendent to the Vonnarc nobility, and Undamesta dismissed him, warning him not to tell his roommates of his advancement, as they might kill him in his sleep out of envy.
Thahallas almost instantly regretted his decision to accept the promotion, as his first task as an attendant servitor was to drive Faidaeva Vonnarc into town in her lizard cart. Completely inexperienced at handling animals or driving carts, he scraped the side of her ornate cart against the gate on his way out of House Vonnarc's grounds. Irate, the Second Daughter demanded a competent driver and ordered Thahallas flogged. (He was the second PC to be flogged, as Elvtlar had earlier earned the wrath of Paingiver Drovoanis by talking back to him, mistakenly believing that the Paingiver would admire his pluck.)
Thahallas' next task would prove simpler, as he was tasked with riding a lizard into Zirnakaynin to run errands for a few of the minor nobles. The geckos from the servants' kennels were much less high-strung than Faidaeva's purebred lizard, and as he was strapped into the saddle, he had to do little more than sit still and let the lizard do the work as he tried to keep down his food while climbing the sheer walls and ceilings. He took the opportunity to learn a little about Zirnakaynin proper, asking about the Kardinnyr Azrinae, the First Son and only member of the House still in the city, as the rest had gone off on a mysterious mission. He was directed to Venom Kiss, which he was told was the First Son's frequent location, but was unable to get past the bouncers at the door. He did, however, notice Gadak Simiryin following him in the marketplace of Ovessia. He was able to give him the slip and turn the tables on him, following the drow until he gave up the search and returned to his lizard cart.
Gadak was really tormenting the rest of the party, however, questioning them about why Thahallas had been promoted and they hadn't, trying to find a weak link and persuade him to give up some dirt on the rest of the party. Maaoltra, after catching Gadak watching him once again, took the opportunity to ask a drider on security detail in the matron's audience chamber about him. He was surprised when the drider replied with hatred in his voice that Gadak was the reason he was the abomination he had become. Gadak made his career on betraying his fellow drow, the drider said, informing on them in exchange for advancement in the House. He himself had been turned in for the murder of a lesser noble; he hadn't done it, but Gadak had framed him. This gave Maaoltra an idea: Rather than hoping to find some real dirt on Gadak to get him off their case, the party needed only to frame him.
In the meantime, Gadak was pressing Chalith hard. Having come across him in the course of his duties, the drow began asking questions about Chalith's time on the surface world. "I've never been far from Zirnakaynin," Gadak admitted, "but I've heard that the surface world can change you. Do you ever feel like that, Chalith? Do you ever feel like you went up to the surface and then came back a whole... different... person?"
The Slavemother called Maaoltra and Elvtlar Zarira into her chamber and, after some more needling to make them uncomfortable, told them that their work had earned them a promotion. Maaoltra's first day of higher duties had him working on forgeries of documents dealing with Tower Solacas's work on realigning the elfgates in the Darklands. The false documents he was working on had false information to be secretly leaked to the other Houses, but he was able to read the original manuscript and learn that the nearest elfgate to Zirnakaynin, other than the one through which they had traveled from Celwynvian (and which Thahallas had informed them had been taken offline by the drow), was about a day and a half's journey from the city. It presently leads to Kyonin, but the drow hope to twist the magical ley-lines enough to seize control of the gate. The party are now aware that this is their most likely escape route.
The following day, Maaoltra was given the task of destroying all documentation that Shiovom the handyman and any of his ancestors with their treacherous bloodline ever had anything to do with House Vonnarc, and the day after that, he was assigned to organize documents in the library, an occasion he seized to do some research on the exact route to the elfgate, the rise of Allevrah Azrinae, and the precise location of Zirnakaynin and other drow cities in relation to the surface nations of Golarion.
Elvtlar Zarira, meanwhile, was given the duty of attending the First Son as a bodyguard to a production at The Irresistible by the Double Dagger Players. The play was based on the abandonment of Golarion by the cowardly surface elves (played by drow actors in white face paint) and the heroism of the ancestors of the drow. It ended, to wild applause, with the assassination of the female drow in the box of House Misraria by the white-faced actors who had left the stage a few moments earlier. The post-production chatter was full of excitement at being present for an actual assassination; several patrons approached members of the Players for an autograph and fingerprint in Misraria blood.
Chalith, in the mean time, had finally been called to see the Slavemother and receive his promotion. Undamesta eyed him severely and told him that he could have received the honor earlier except that she had been specifically requested to delay his promotion. With a smile both cruel and amused, she told him he had an enemy. His first foray into Zirnakaynin proper was to deliver a clandestine payment to a female derro in the mushroom groves on the shores of Lake Tymisgana. Having passed secret lovers of various races and beings involved in all kinds of shady business dealings, Chalith also caught sight of someone standing behind a fleshy mushroom stalk and watching him: Gadak Simiryin. The drow approached him again and tried to convince him to betray information about the other three: "Your friends are going down," he told him; "you don't have to go down with them." When Chalith refused to play along, Gadak angrily warned him to watch his back.
The following day, when the four of them were called into the Slavemother's chamber for a "special assignment," Gadak's warnings had all the players fully paranoid. Told that three of the House driders had escaped and they were being sent with two other House soldiers to deal with them, the party immediately assumed that they were being set up: that, once they were outside the city, the "missing" driders would ambush them with the help of the two guards. When they arrived in the cavern where they were told scouts had tracked the driders, the players largely focussed on positioning themselves so their two drow allies couldn't get the drop on them. When they actually found the driders who shouted that they just wanted to be left alone and no longer enslaved, the party was faced with a tough decision. Thahallas turned his bow on the drow soldiers rather than the driders, and the party's choice was made. They killed the two drow, gave the driders a potion they took from the soldiers' bodies, and told them to keep moving away from the city. All that remained was to decide what story they would tell when they returned to House Vonnarc.
The party decided to claim that the two dead drow guards had turned on them when they were caught between them and the driders and that their perfidy had allowed the driders to escape. They received a severe dressing down from the Slavemother, who angrily asked for explanations for their failure; she was unconcerned about the death of the guards but furious about the escape of the driders. The response that went over best was Thahallas', who simply said, "There is no explanation. We failed."
The PCs were taken to the dungeon and locked in separate cells with a guard in the hallway to avoid collusion on their story. One by one, they were led away to the formal torture chamber, where they found a pole with manacles, Paingiver Drovoanis with his whip ... and seated in a comfortable chair, Gadak Simiryin with a smile on his face. Once the PC was locked into the manacles, Gadak casually got up and strolled over to the pole, telling him that he could avoid any punishment whatsoever if he only answered some questions; the others would never have to know he had talked. After the first PC (Elvtlar Zarira), the others were all told that one of the previous had told everything he knew but they could still get in on the deal by joining him in informing. Gadak asked where each was born, what was his real name, what was his mission, and what had happened with the driders. When the PCs refused to give him straight answers, Gadak angrily told the Paingiver to begin his work.
After their floggings, the PCs also found that their decision to let the driders go had cost them their privilege of choosing which tasks to do each day. Elvtlar and Chalith accompanied one of the nobles to the Council of Widows in Ileccinoc one day and saw Kardinnyr Azrinae with hired bodyguards. He seemed to be drugged, and they recognized the rune on the uniforms of the men accompanying him as the symbol of Venom Kiss. Another day, on an errand into Cocyrdavarin, Elvtlar managed to gain admittance to the place but was unable to locate the First Son of House Azrinae.
That particular task in the city didn't turn out well for Elvtlar. He had been sent to deliver payment for a group of new slaves to a merchant in Ovessia and got turned around among the booths and aisles of the huge market. Having received directions from a street urchin, he delivered House Vonnarc's money to a female drow in a cave full of slaves, but when he returned, Undamesta upbraided him for not having obeyed his instructions. He had been scammed by the boy and woman, and the proper merchant had not been paid. He returned to the city to retrieve the House's money but was unable to find either the boy or the female drow, and the cave he had met her in was now empty; he ended up reimbursing the House out of his own treasure reserves. He did, however, find trouble in Ovessia: while searching down a blind alley, he was attacked by a decloaking invisible assassin. While the assassin didn't succeed in his objective, he did manage to get away.
The following day, Chalith was sent back to Ovessia to deliver the payment Elvtlar had botched. Having completed his task, he too was attacked. Recognizing the assassin from Elvtlar's account, he was able to use his monkish speed to seize hold of his attacker and prevent him from getting away. Threatening him, he succeeded in learning who had paid the assassin to target the group: Gadak Simiryin. Having taken his captive's magical gear in exchange for his life, he let the assassin go.
I take it your players are really enjoying their characters being involved with House Vonnarc?... :)
Honestly, the whole reason we're playing this AP -- or any AP whatsoever -- is because we all played Baldur's Gate 2 and loved the undercover-in-a-drow-city aspect. So, for all the people who don't like Second Darkness or drow in general, this is at least one person who became a Paizo subscriber as a direct result of this AP.
That said, I think the To Serve Evil section has just about run its course. As the PCs watch their days on my calendar fill up with random duties on the countdown to the end of the recorporeal incarnation spell and feel like they're not getting anywhere -- unaware that they're basically just waiting for an alarm to ding and a NPC to helpfully hand over the information they're looking for -- they're getting a little antsy and, thus, likely to do something big and stupid that will get themselves killed. Plus, the Lawful Good monk claims to be about to snap.
We've played another session I haven't gotten journaled yet wherein I rewarded their initiative with some information they "should" have had to wait to get from Alicavniss, so I'm planning to skip ahead a bit and get them back in the action instead of a holding pattern. I'll try to get that session up soon.
Elvtlar Zarira was assigned to go as a bodyguard with Eskervalla Vonnarc to a "ladies who lunch" event at The Irresistible, a social occasion featuring heavy drinking, strippers, and food served from the nude bodies of supine drow males. In the meantime, Thahallas was serving as waiter at the nobles' meal back at the House. In Eskervalla's absence, the lesser nobles were all complaining about how her addiction to fungus wine would surely eventually lead to embarrassment for the House, either through her drunken escapades or because she let slip a family secret while intoxicated; they discussed whether they could convince Faidaeva she posed enough of a threat to employ House funds and prestige to perform an assassination.
The following day, Elvtlar was sent to deliver a payment to the gecko breeder Safan Domvesia. He knew the way well, as he and Thahallas had both driven Second Son Tiryin Vonnarc to her stables on previous occasions and spent a long time waiting outside in the lizard cart while Tiryin was within. Having delivered the payment for the new gecko, Elvtlar tried to go the extra mile to ask if there was any message he could carry back to House Vonnarc. Safan told him with a smile he could tell the Second Son he should come back to the stables soon, as there was lizardflesh he would want to see.
Maaoltra was sent with a message to House Rasivrein, a complaint from Erdrinneir Vonnarc that a certain arcane component had not been available in Ovessia on a recent visit. After having completed his task, Maaoltra took the opportunity of being out of the House to go to Venom Kiss and seek out Kardinnyr Azrinae. Being told he couldn't go upstairs without renting a room, he paid for an hour's use, took the key, and headed straight to the room he had discovered the First Son was in. Knocking on the door, he insisted he had a message for Kardinnyr on behalf of House Azrinae. The Venom Kiss mercenaries within reluctantly left the room with suspicious glances back at the messenger. Kardinnyr himself was seated on a low chaise at the far end of the room, staring blankly at the wall and swaying slightly; the air was stickily sweet with the aroma of vayav.
Once Maaoltra had gotten his attention, Kardinnyr became concerned that the Matron Mother was checking up on him. He offered Maaoltra soem vayav and begged him not to tell Matron Mother Allevrah where he had been staying. Maaoltra successfully tricked the drugged First Son into telling him that Allevrah Azrinae and the rest of the House were in the Land of Black Blood, completing the ritual to call down destruction on the surface world.
The Venom Kiss mercenaries, however, were sober and much less easily outwitted. When Maaoltra opened the door to leave, he found one of them waiting -- and wanting to know why a messenger from House Azrinae was wearing the rune of House Vonnarc. The others had gone to Orvignato's apartment to alert him to the visit paid to his prize houseguest. Maaoltra agreed to go see Orvignato and discuss the purpose of his visit with him.
Due to the fact that the relationship between House Azrinae and House Vonnarc was common knowledge, Maaoltra was able to convince Orvignato that he was, actually, operating on behalf of Azrinae. Orvignato's main concern, like Kardinnyr's, was that Allevrah Azrinae not learn where the First Son was staying. He offered an exchange of favors: If Maaoltra would not mention Venom Kiss when he reported back to House Azrinae, Orvignato would offer him his choice of the allurements of Venom Kiss when needed. Maaoltra instead asked if Orvignato's operation extended to assassination. The mercenary nodded to one of his followers to bring a tray full of sand and an implement; when Maaoltra had traced the name in the sand of the target of his dislike -- Gadak Simiryin -- Orvignato read the name, nodded his head and used a small rake to smooth over the sand, erasing any record of the deal. He said his people would look into it, invited Maaoltra back to his establishment at his convenience, and bade him farewell.
This is great do you have notes with yourc Changes?
There are all kinds of ideas I want but I rather have your notes then dig though this story hour?
I will be taking stuff from void on
In all honesty, most of my changes were made "on the fly," when my players went a way I didn't expect and I ran with it. As such, I don't actually have "notes," nor do I have more than a vague idea of what might change in the future. It would be fairly easy to skim back through and make a list of the places I deviated from the plot-as-presented, though, if you'd like. It's the least I can do, as I've used your PfRPG conversions heavily. I could make a thread in the Second Darkness forum for it within the next day or two.
In all honesty, most of my changes were made "on the fly," when my players went a way I didn't expect and I ran with it. As such, I don't actually have "notes," nor do I have more than a vague idea of what might change in the future. It would be fairly easy to skim back through and make a list of the places I deviated from the plot-as-presented, though, if you'd like. It's the least I can do, as I've used your PfRPG conversions heavily. I could make a thread in the Second Darkness forum for it within the next day or two.
If you have hero lab I learned how to zip files finaally (computer dumb im sorry) but I can email them to you if you have the program
Yeah maybe a thread so everyone can put how they changed the story to make it flow better
Like one thing im going to do now that I moved the teeth to in the cove and working with the drow like you
There will be a Draugr Ghostship if they stay at the pier on Devils Elbow at night
When the servants of the House were given their assignments the next day, Slavemother Undamesta saved the PCs for last. With a venomous smile quite unlike her dour warnings when they had been promoted before, she told them that their actions serving the House were being rewarded and that she was sure they were ready for greater responsibilities; if not, there would be greater consequences, should they fail. Each PC was assigned to a task he was highly unsuited for: Maaoltra as a bodyguard for Eskervalla, Chalith as a spy, Thahallas as an emissary with a delicate political message, and Elvtlar Zarira as an entertainer for Faidaeva and her guests. Ironically, all the PCs save Chalith (who quickly lost sight of the noble he was assigned to tail) made their DCs for the tasks; the end of the day found Undamesta sour that none of them had been punished.
Sometime after they had gone to sleep that night, the party was awakened by a pounding on their door. A servant told them that the Slavemother had summoned them. They geared up and followed him upstairs to the nobles' quarters, specifically, to Tiryin Vonnarc's chambers. Entering, the PCs found Undamesta standing crossly in the middle of the room next to two nude male drow bodies lying dead on the floor. A few servants were cleaning up the blood; on the other side of the room, Safan Domvesia the lizardbreeder was pinning up her hair and putting on a cloak, calm and unruffled.
Undamesta told the PCs that they were to escort Safan back to her home and make sure nothing happened to her. "But what happened here?" the PCs asked. "Nothing; just an accident," the Slavemother answered impatiently.
The PCs were fully convinced that this was a set-up for an ambush to have them killed; once again, their paranoia played right into my hands as, when gecko-riding drow came up through holes in the passage from a cavern ceiling below, they all leaped off their own mounts to make a stand -- and then watched, slack-jawed, as their attackers completely ignored them to chase after their real target, Safan Domvesia. She dashed on her gecko down into the lower cavern, and they followed, leaving the PCs standing alone and feeling foolish.
Fortunately, Chalith still had Depora Azrinae's slippers of spider climb and used them and his monkish speed to run down onto the ceiling of the cavern below and call to Safan to come back up to the top chamber where they could defend her. Safan ordered them to take the last attacker alive so she could question him and find out who was behind the attempt on her life. The battle won, PCs mounted up again (the lizards they had been riding were Safan's and stayed near her own gecko) and headed back to her lizard stables with their captive.
Back at her stables, Safan ordered the PCs to manacle the unconscious attacker to a metal grate against the wall in her paddock. They looted him first and found a vial which Maaoltra was able to identify as a CMW potion. The players were discussing which of them was going to keep it, when Safan demanded that they use it to bring the drow to consciousness; she didn't have time to sit around and wait for him to heal naturally. Hemming and hawing at the thought of giving up what they thought of as their loot, they produced a CLW potion instead, so as not to waste the more valuable one when they only needed a few HP of healing. "Fine," Safan replied, "then give me that one. I was injured in the attack."
She stood there, holding her hand out for the vial and fully expecting them to give it over meekly. The players were flabbergasted, but the PCs, interested in preserving their cover, complied. She went up to her personal quarters to get cleaned up, leaving the PCs behind with orders to feed the drow the potion and interrogate him.
They brought him to, and Elvtlar Zarira demanded to know who had sent him. "We're on the same side," he rasped out; he was working for House Vonnarc. He told them that Tiryin Vonnarc had sent the ambushers to eliminate Safan and that it wasn't too late to complete the mission and return for the reward: the target trusted the PCs so they could strike her down easily.
Talking amongst themselves, the party came to the conclusion that Slavemother Undamesta had set them up, knowing that the Second Son had sent the ambush team and hoping the PCs would end up dead as well. Even if they didn't, if Safan died, she could blame them for not performing their duty to protect her; if she lived, they were traitors to the House for interfering in the Second Son's assassination plot. Now they had to decide if they would help Safan or the manacled Vonnarc soldier.
They took too long to come to a decision, so Safan walked in on their discussion, wanting to know what they had learned. Trying to buy time before having to choose one side or the other, Maaoltra bluffed that the captive had refused to tell them anything. With a sneer, Safan upbraided them for being useless and put her own blade to the drow's flesh, threatening to cut bits of him off and feed them to her lizards if he didn't talk. The captive blurted out that Tiryin was tired of her presumptive ways and that she wasn't good enough to mix with the Vonnarcs, then gave the PCs a look that said Now's the time, guys; stab her!
After the players stared at each other like deer in headlights for a moment, Thahallas, unable to resist an invitation to kill his favored enemy, stabbed with his curved blade. The Rubicon crossed, the other PCs, with the exception of the chivalrous LG Chalith, drew their weapons to help the ranger. Safan coup-de-graced the helpless captive, then stepped to put her back to the wall and drew her other sword. Quickly sensing that she was outnumberd and outmatched, she held her blades before herself defensively and screamed out, "I am carrying Tiryin Vonnarc's child!" That was enough for Chalith who, already unhappy about attacking a woman who had done them no wrong, was not about to allow his friends to kill a pregnant lady; he stepped in front of her protectively and told them to put away their weapons.
In exchange for allowing her to go free, the party demanded that she leave Zirnakaynin quietly and immediately; that was what she had in mind already. All she wanted was to go away somewhere and raise her child, then come back in a few centuries to shake up House Vonnarc with her claims. She quickly packed her belongings and valuables and took several of her geckos to start her business again in some other city. As she was leaving, she gave Chalith a bundle with a magical dagger and several doses of vayav, along with the keys to her stable. "You may have to leave Zirnakaynin quickly too someday," she observed and told him about a crack in the ceiling of the cavern of Eirdrisseir she had found while looking for a runaway gecko; it leads to a secret tunnel which leads away from the city and eventually joins back up with one of the main roads.
The PCs decided not to return to House Vonnarc. One of the players suggested they follow Safan's lead and leave right away, but another didn't think they'd gotten enough information about the Azrinae's location yet. They decided to return to Venom Kiss and talk to Kardinnyr Azrinae again. He wasn't able to tell them exactly where Allevrah was, but while they were there, someone delivered a note for them to the bouncers. It was written not in Undercommon or Elven, but in surface Common, and it read: Return to House Vonnarc. You will be safe. We have the information that you seek.
When they walked back toward their old room in the House, Undamesta came out into the hallway and started loudly upbraiding them for not returning and not performing their duties. Before she got too far, however, another drow entered and told her the party had been summoned to Tower Solacas. Angrily, she had to let them go.
The party was shown to a waiting room in the mage tower. Thahallas realized that there was a magical scrying trap in the room and that were most likely being watched. After almost an hour of waiting, as people walked back and forth going about their business, their old "friend" Gadak Simiryin came in and greeted them patronizingly, rubbing in how important he was and telling them he had just come from running an errand for the First Daughter herself.
While he was still speaking (and the PCs were deciding if they ought to just attack him), a hush and a cold presence fell over the room. In the open doorway stood a women who could only be First Daughter Alicavniss. Ignoring the PCs, she angrily asked why Gadak was wasting his time chatting when he was supposed to be reporting back to her. Chastened, he hurried over to her, and the party overheard their conversation. She asked if he had delivered the chest to Tarlith'eth as she had commanded, and he said he had. "Good," she replied. "That chest contains all the information I have about Allevrah Azrinae. It must not fall into the wrong hands." Then the pair swept away higher into the tower.
Ding! went a little bell in the PCs' heads as they smiled meaningfully at one another, but they still had to wait on whoever had summoned them to the tower. At the end of the day, however, the same servant who had led them there returned and said they could not be seen today and would be sent for at another time. Despite the fact that they had not slept the night before, they immediately went in search of Tarlith'eth and the chest.
A quick trip by Venom Kiss to speak to Orvignato revealed that Tarlith'eth was a drow known for his ability to keep documents secure without ever asking what he was hiding; he was believed to keep secrets for several of the Houses and lived with his gang in the Forest of Reflection on the two fungus islands in lake Cythvahei. The party rode their geckos there immediately and were able to rent a boat to venture into the polluted waters. Maaoltra used his smooth tongue to gain an audience with Tarlith'eth, but he refused to believe his story that Alicavniss had sent them to bring the chest back when the party could not provide her signet as proof. Combat ensued. The party was eventually able to locate the chest hidden on one of the islands and fled from his ghonhatine guard dog back to their boat with the help of invisibility and illusion.
Tha'hallas picked the lock on the chest. When he opened it, they found that it contained only a folded paper. When they picked it up, they recognized the same handwriting from the note that had been delivered to Venom Kiss. This note was also in surface Common, and it read: Come to my sanctum in the Tower, and I will tell you everything you want to know about Allevrah Azrinae. Alicavniss Vonnarc.
I cant wait to see how our Paladin Plays though this book
The party had neither slept nor eaten in 2 days, and the bard was out of spells so they decided to return to their "friend" Orvignato's place to eat and rest. Orvignato, in the meantime, had been growing uneasy about Maaoltra and his companions; his original intent in befriending him was to achieve some hold over him as he had over Kardinnyr Azrinae, but he had yet to find a chink in the bard's proverbial armor while the very fact that they were going to the Forest of Reflection to confront Tarlith'eth openly meant that the party was more powerful than he had suspected and was likely to bring down hostility by association on his own establishment. He came to the conclusion that if they returned unscathed, he would have to act immediately to gain the upper hand on them.
When they returned to Venom Kiss, therefore, Orvignato welcomed them warmly and arranged for a meal to be delivered to their room. They entered the room to find some kind of incense burning that overpowered the sickly smell of vayav otherwise heavy in the place and then enjoyed their first drow meal that wasn't a servant's repast of sliced fungus loaf; while it was utterly foreign, they were surprised to find that drow cuisine was quite pleasurable. Afterward, they accepted Orvignato's offer of a magical silence to be placed on their room to avoid being disturbed by the other patrons of the establishment and rested for 8 hours.
What they didn't know was that the incense filling their room was opium and that their meal had also been dosed with the drug. Orvignato hoped to get them addicted to the powerful drug, as he had with the First Son of House Azrinae, and get them under his control as their supplier. Three of the PCs awoke feeling weak and hung-over. As they exited their room to go meet with Alicavniss, Orvignato met them and noted that they didn't look very well. He offered them a "little pick-me-up" that would make them feel much better for the price of 25 gold. Only Elvtlar Zarira took him up on the offer and took the dose of opium he offered, which gave him a rush of energy and well-being (and, of course, added to the difficulty of later overcoming the addiction).
The PCs rode back to House Vonnarc on their geckos and left them tied up outside Tower Solacas. Everything seemed normal in the courtyard, but they entered the tower to find it eerily silent rather than filled with bustling mages and servants as it had been during their last visit. The bubbling of the lobby fountain seemed uncommonly loud in the empty tower and even seemed to be whispering; those in the party who understood Abyssal understood it to be burbling, The mistress is waiting for you. The party climbed the stairs back to the waiting room they had been detained in on their first visit; this time, as they walked past the busts of past masters and mistresses, the bust of Alicavniss spoke to them via a magic mouth spell: "Welcome, honored guests. The password is 'deception.'"
The PCs successfully bypassed the trapped portal to the negative energy plane by speaking the password and eventually summoned the courage to enter the fanged, crimson-smoked portal to Alicavniss' sanctum. They were immediately menaced by the First Daughter's guardian devourers, but she called them off: "Tut, tut. These are my guests. You may destroy them only if they fail to obey me." She invited them to approach but: "Mind the rug. It's new." In front of her massive desk lay something similar to a bearskin rug, its four limbs splayed in four directions and its stuffed head making a lump at one end. This was not a bearskin rug, however, but a drowskin rug, the black flesh smooth and hairless and the face that of Gadak Simiryin, staring sightlessly into Alicavniss' laboratory where she enjoyed the party's reaction from behind a worktable full of arcane tools and devices. "He served his purpose," she told them. "As will you."
“I was one of Ilaxdria’s oldest collaborators, not to mention Zirnakaynin’s most feared mage, and I made a potent ally. My dealings with the new Azrinae matron remained the same as those I shared with her predecessor -- my wisdom, counsel, and varied prowess in exchange for access to Azrinae’s vast libraries, records, and vaults, one of the most complete collections of ancient lore and artifacts in all Zirnakaynin. Simovara relied on fear of my displeasure to maintain her rule; where her mother had kept from me the family’s most potent and aged treasures, Simovara denied me nothing. And within the shadowed vaults of House Azrinae, I silently gloated, for it was through my secretive dark magic that I slew Ilaxdria from afar. My murderous intrigue advanced my understanding of varied magics not seen in Golarion for untold centuries.”
“But while I pored through our scholars’ greatest finds, an unexpected … ’treasure’ appeared in Zirnakaynin: a mysterious and potent cleric of Abraxas named Allevrah. It was only natural that House Azrinae would take into their service such a powerful priestess of their patron demon. And once she was within the house, she unveiled her secret: She was preposterously well-versed in the ways of our returned abandoners on the surface. She imparted great secrets of the magic our surface kin have perfected in recent centuries and used them to fuel her promotion within the house. She claimed that Abraxas granted her visions of the habits and desires of our degenerate kin because he desired the drow to rise up and overthrow them.”
“Over the years, this prophetess became known as a seer of the world above and the driving force behind the most radical cries for revenge on our abandoners. Especially within House Azrinae itself, rumors spread that Abraxas had ordained that the drow should reclaim the surface of Golarion and wipe the surface civilizations from the face of the planet. Impressed by the newcomer, Matron Simovara granted Allevrah her family name, adopting the outsider into the ancient noble house -- against my counsel.” Alicavniss is becoming visibly enraged by recounting the tale.
“Allevrah Azrinae developed a near-fanatical following both within and without her house. On the day of a grand sacrifice and feast in honor of Abraxas over which she presided, she addressed her assembled sycophants and publicly declared war on the elves above. Claiming to possess the key to an ancient magic capable of wiping out the hated elves, she led her small army into the audience chamber of House Azrinae where she embraced Simovara as matron and mother one last time, then impaled her mistress upon her surface-forged blade. As her onetime matron gasped at her feet, Allevrah declared herself heir and matron of Azrinae. A few Azrinae scions fled the city, but most welcomed the coup and their popular leader.”
Hatred twists Alicavniss’s beautiful face. “All my decades of machinations undone by a brash action by a nothing and a nobody from who knows where! Oh, House Vonnarc stood by their old ally. Publicly to deny the prophecies of Abraxas would be folly, when so many desired to believe them. Before the public eye, House Vonnarc embraced the new matron and were first to volunteer to serve in her war. But here,” she taps a slender finger on the table before her, “in my private sanctum, I have watched carefully, as long and as painstakingly as I plotted Ilaxdria’s death, for a chance to upturn the upstart and watch her fall as far and far more quickly than she rose.”
Alicavniss smiles at you again. “And then the four of you appeared, the only four survivors of Nolveniss Azrinae’s fiasco in Celwynvian. How convenient that four soldiers of House Vonnarc should return together -- especially when they are four soldiers we never sent to the surface in the first place.” She holds up her hand imperiously to forestall your protests, and you are suddenly very aware of her servants hovering over your shoulders. “I have known you were imposters since shortly after you entered our grounds. You have never before been in Zirnakaynin. You are no one from nowhere, just like Allevrah.”
She narrows her eyes across the table at you. “At first, I thought you were her spies, sent to nose out Vonnarc’s secrets. It would have been folly to kill you; she would only have sent more infiltrators. Better to keep the enemy one recognizes. I had you watched; I hoped to discover who else in the house was a traitor by seeing with whom you conspired. At the very least, I could have fed you false information to confound her.” She shakes her head. “But you are not Allevrah’s servants, are you? You are her enemies, as much as I am. And the enemy of my enemy is, if not my ally, a very valuable commodity. So I will tell you what you do not yet know about her plans, and you, in return, will do one last thing for me.”
“Allevrah Azrinae’s plot to draw a knife from the stars and thrust it into the heart of the surface elves has entered its final stages. The Azrinaes departed our fair home for a realm far to the east, in the deepest reaches underground known as Orv. There, they conspire in a somewhat legendary cavern known as the Land of Black Blood to call down the very heavens and scour the lands of our frail kindred with the ancient aboleth glyph magic that caused Earthfall. Yet you do not know Allevrah’s target. I do, and it is that target I share with you now. She stabs at her foe’s very heart. The Land of Black Blood lies directly beneath the surface elf’s nation of Kyonin, and it is upon that nation that the star will fall. Unlike in the days before Earthfall, millennia ago, there will be no sages spouting prophecies, no mages offering warnings. There will be no time for cowardice, abandonment and retreat. The elves of the surface world will not escape this second darkness when it comes down upon them.” She smiles at you. “Unless, of course, someone were to find Allevrah and defeat her, bringing all her plans and prophecies to ruin.”
She looks down at her worktable and takes up the diamond. “You will excuse me a moment. I have been very hard at work since I realized the opportunity you represented. Only one thing remains to be done. When I have finished, I will tell you the final favor you will do for me.” She begins to intone arcane words and move her hands around the gem.
Instantaneously, you feel a wet, crawling sensation over all of your flesh, and the room goes black for everyone but Dax. He is the only one to see the look of revulsion on the face of Alicavniss as she stares at you. Over his shoulder, the undead dart forward, but the drow woman holds up her hand and they stop obediently. She continues speaking in a strangely-accented Common, “I suppose you need a light to see by.” She speaks a few arcane words and dancing lights spring into existence around you. To Red and Gambit, it is like being surrounded by torchlight, and the walls of the room remain enshrouded in darkness. You notice that the diamond is gone and in front of Alicavniss on the table are the four rings that bore your recorporeal animation spells. You are each standing within a putrid ring of rotting drow flesh that has fallen off your own bodies.
“You fools. I invented that spell, and it was stolen from me and given to my most hated enemy. I was furious when I thought she was using it against me, but it’s worse than that. Allevrah Azrinae stole my spell and then lost it to the surface elves! My own invention in the hands of those who abandoned and betrayed us! But she has blown the spores of her own defeat in her hubris, and it is I who shall gain.”
“Listen to me closely. I care not for your surface world, and unlike Allevrah I do not wish to own it any more than I wish to own a swamp full of sewage or a mountain of lizard dung. To the contrary, if her plan fails utterly, she is discredited and will be murdered and deposed; House Azrinae will be decimated, and House Vonnarc, with I at its head, will step into the void of power it will leave behind.”
“For years, I have catalogued every misstep made under my mother’s leadership. You did me a great favor by uncovering the line of celestial-blooded servants the house overlooked for centuries. My sister thinks she destroyed all the evidence of that mistake, but Gadak carried it here to me for safekeeping.” She gestures toward her desk. “I have nearly enough to discredit the matron, to overthrow her and claim the leadership of House Vonnarc myself. Only one more serious error in judgment, one very public failure, will deliver the house to me: a hideous incompetence like accepting into service disguised surface dwellers and letting them live among us for weeks. Even now, my agents stand ready to strike at my signal, as soon as I unmask the imposters and set them to flight.” She pauses. “You must be seen. I can promise you, you will not be taken alive to accuse me of ever having this conversation. If you are wise, you already have a plan of escape, but whether you succeed or not is of no great interest to me. If you do return to your surface realms, you may tell the elves there not to think they can use my spell against the drow again. I will publish your secret, and you may not expect to find us defenseless against the deception a second time. I will sound the alarm when you leave the tower. Run fast and run far, and never return to the Last Home of the Elves.”
The party fled. This time, the password 'deception' took them directly to the front steps of Tower Solacas; as they realized where they were, they heard a great clanging start to resound which must have been Alicavniss' promised alarm. Gambit cast a daylight spell on Red, both so the party could see and to hinder the drow guards who were beginning to spill into the courtyard. The PCs had to succeed at Handle Animal checks to mount their geckos which no longer recognized them. Thahallas fell victim to the sleep-tipped bolts of the drow soldiers, although fortunately he was already strapped into his saddle. Red successfully seized the elf's lizard's lead, and the party fled up the wall toward the crack in the ceiling Safan Domvesia had told them about. With the help of a haste spell from Gambit, the party successfully got out of Zirnakaynin (although the pursuit seemed half-hearted; no doubt Alicavniss had already put her assassins in motion to begin her coup, as the PCs had done their part by fleeing in a very public fashion).
Our newly-unmasked heroes paused once they were sure there was no immediate pursuit to prepare lanterns and oil now that they had lost their magical darkvision. They rode on through the Blood Pools, where they took on a tribe of morlocks , through an infestation of fungal flytraps (a carnivorous mold growing patchily over the floor and walls of one cavern), through a dip in the tunnel which housed a pocket of nightmare vapor, through a cavern inhabited by the numerous webby pits of a monstrous trapdoor spider, over a pile of loose rock and gravel where a cavern wall had collapsed, down a steep and stagmited slope slippery with water weeping out of the rock, and wading through the shallow end of an underground lake whose walls were overgrown with electrical azure fungus.
They found the elfgate guarded by Tarlith'eth, the information broker from whose island-vault they had stolen Alicavniss' planted note, along with a contingent of mercenaries and some sort of huge spider. Thahallas, Dax, and Gambit crept past the mooks and across the bridge to Tarlith'eth using a wand of invisibility; once they attacked, Red ran in to single-handedly take on his minions. Gambit encircled Tarlith'eth and the 3 PCs with a wall of sound that gave the spider pause enough for Dax and Thahallas to finish the drow. Already badly hurt by Tarlith'eth, Dax nevertheless managed to stay on his feet with the help of Gambit's cure spells to finish off the spider as well.
The last two surviving drow fled from Red's furor. Gambit, examining the elfgate for a clue about how to activate it, noticed carvings around it resembling the elven musical notation he had seen in the Conservatory back in Celwynvian. Remembering the drow's attempts to steal the Ode in Heaven, he played a few bars of the song and the elfgate responded. Happy at the prospect of being anywhere but in the Darklands, the party dove through.
After a nauseating trip through the hotwired elfgate, the first thing the PCs were aware of on the other side was the light: warm, golden sunlight filtered through green leaves. A soft breeze carried the scent of green, growing things; they heard the sweet sound of birdsong and felt the softness of earth and grass beneath them instead of hard stone. They were out of the Darklands.
Just as Gambit and Thahallas' stomachs were beginning to settle and before the aiudara deactivated, the party was surprised by two drow soldiers jumping through behind them. The drow hoped only to elude the PCs and escape into the forest to spy and wreak what havoc they could on the surface, but the first one wasn't aware that Dax could see in his sphere of darkness while the second one's was dispelled by Gambit's daylight spell.
From the climate and the size of the trees, Gambit was able to discern that they were in an old-growth forest, but whether they were in Nirmathas, Kyonin, or the Verduran Forest in Taldor he couldn't determine. The party decided to stay where they were and rest until Caladrel contacted Thahallas by sending that evening. Thahallas and Red were able to hunt and kill a boar, so they dined on real surface meat for the first time in over a month; Thahallas, mindful of his duty to keep the existence of the drow undercover, used the fire to burn the bodies of the two dark elves. When Thahallas received Caladrel's sending, he told him they were out of the Darklands and in a forest somewhere. Several minutes later, he received another message: We will find you. Remember your duty. A light against the darkness.
The group set off the next morning, travelling toward the west, having picked a direction at random. A viper vine growing in a clearing nearly ate them for breakfast, but Red managed to shake off its captivating spores in time to avoid being entangled and crushed it with his hammers. Further travel led them past an ancient monument to Findeladlara, and they stopped to rest for the evening at a crumbling shelter bearing the symbol of Ketephys. Caladrel's message to Thahallas that night confirmed what he already suspected: You are in Kyonin. They are looking for you. We will send an agent. Speak only to the Shin'Rakorath.
Now that they were out of immediate danger, the continuing symptoms shown by Red, Gambit, and Thahallas were of greater concern to them: weakness, fogginess of mind, and a jittery unease. Unaware that Orvignato had dosed them with opium, they were concerned about what kind of strange Darklands disease they might have picked up underground.
Later that night, while Thahallas was on watch, he heard the sound of something moving delicately through the forest and quietly went to investigate. He found a contingent of elves, their bows at the ready. Revealing his presence, he greeted them with the Shin'Rakorath passphrase but received no answer. Instead, they told him they were in search of trespassers that had been reported. Thahallas told them they were probably looking for him and his party. Surprised to find an elf travelling with outsiders within the borders of Kyonin, they returned to the clearing at the shrine to Ketephys with him and waited amicably for the morning. When the party awoke and found themselves surrounded by elves, they were happy to have been found, especially when they expressed concern about their worrying symptoms and were told that a cleric would be available to check them over. The elves told them they would take them back to the nearest settlement and then send them to the capital of Iadara, and the party cheerfully agreed. Only Thahallas knew that for outsiders to trespass within the borders of Kyonin was a serious crime and that they were going not as guests but as prisoners in custody.
I think i might be cursed with APs we had two players quit and one got a job so we went up to six and now back down to three
I think i might be cursed with APs we had two players quit and one got a job so we went up to six and now back down to three
I have 3 players, one playing 2 PCs, which isn't ideal but keeps everyone from dying. :) We've had 2 different 4th players drop out on us, and instead of dealing with repeatedly trying to find replacements, just decided to power through to the end with what we have.
Charles: I skimmed through the whole AP before I started just so I would know where the plotline was going, but when I did a more detailed read-through before beginning book 5, I hadn't realized how much the Shin'Rakorath are the bad guys! I'll be changing that, along with quite a bit of other stuff in this book. One thing was that I never really "got" elven society and had to come to terms with it before running this AP, so I made some decisions about their attitudes and motivations that aren't real canon for Golarion but that made sense to me so I could play the NPCs with some kind of consistency and verisimilitude.
See I think the higher ups should backstab the Shin'rakorath Pcs to push how out of touch the winter council are see its not so much the Shin'rakorath doing bad its the winter council and the guys they fight will be more loyal to the winter council then the Shin'rakorath
Im not sure any of that makes sense
So what ever happened in your game
We have been slowly trying to get through it we are half way through book 4
So what ever happened in your game
We have been slowly trying to get through it we are half way through book 4
On indefinite hiatus right now. One of my players is in college an hour away, working weekends, and planning a wedding for next summer so we just haven't had time to get together. I'm hoping we'll be able to get a session in after the holidays. I'm sure you'll end up lapping us, though. :)