Two weeks ago, I began running Rise of the Runelords for my friends. I put a lot of prep work into the game and so far it's going well. Here's a run-down of the characters who will be adventuring in Sandpoint and regions further afield.
Aishwarya Zinta - Female Vudran human monk 1 - A wandering monk from Jalmeray, Aishwarya's walking the earth put her in Sandpoint the day of the Swallowtail Festival.
Delvar Quinn - Male Ulfen human fighter 1 - Adoptive son of Jargie Quinn, Delvar has lived in Sandpoint since he was very young and swings a mean scythe.
Sakti - Female half-elf druid 1 - Rude and full of goblin-hate, Sakti has traveled extensively with her druidic mentors, and only recently returned to Varisia.
Nathanael Aubade (aka Fritz Vomisa) - Male aasimar cleric 1 (Sarenrae) - Orphaned and separated from his brother years ago, Nathanael is truly touched by Sarenrae and has followed a mysterious message saying his brother could be found in Sandpoint.
Caasi Vomisa - Male Taldan human wizard 1 - Brother of Nathanael Aubade, Caasi is an odd, off-putting, and paranoid mage who sits firmly at the intersection of magic and mad science.
During character generation, I had the players go to TVTropes and pick three to six personality or appearance-related tropes to help define their characters.
As heroes, player characters a given a bit of an edge; we're using the Rise of the Runelords campaign bonus feats, achievement feats (modified from Legacy of Fire), and Hero Cards (inspired by James Jacobs' use in his campaigns). We're also using the GameMastery Critical Hit and Critical Fumble decks.
Here's a brief over view of the first two sessions.
Game 1 - May 15
Players are introduced to Sandpoint and the Swallowtail Festival, and given a selection of events to participate in (based on the games in the Burnt Offerings community created content). This continues through lunch, into the afternoon, up until the closing ceremony - which is, of course, interrupted by goblins.
Combat ensues. One of the goblins win first initiative, makes his attack roll, threatens and confirm a crit on the very first combat roll of the game. One Critical Hit Deck draw later, and Nathanael is hit for double damage and 4 points of bleed damage. Fortunately, the rest of the initial assault poses no major problems due to an effective color spray from Caasi.
The goblin pyros didn't go quite as well. An ill-considered entangle from Sakti bogged things down quite a bit (nobody had any ranged attacks handy). But eventually, the second set of goblins was dealt with.
Following the sound of screams, the players found the goblin commando and company menacing Aldern Foxglove. Delvar dispatched the commando in a single blow, before my poor raged-up goblin could do anything. The other goblins soon followed. Foxglove was thankful but obnoxious. With the characters' help, the goblin invasion had now been repelled and clean-up and celebration followed. As the party rested after a job well done, we closed the game for the evening.
Game 2 - May 22
Waking up the next day, the characters are introduced to Ameiko Kaijitsu (who gave the new local heroes free rooms), and arrange a lunch meeting with would-be playboy Aldern Foxglove. They meet Father Zanthus and Naffer Vosk, discover a grave robbery, inform Sheriff Hemlock, and investigate the graveyard.
Also, Sakti and Delvar squeeze in a game of Bounders (from Second Darkness) run by the local Sczarni. Sakti, for reasons known only to herself, buys a packet of flayleaf and a packet of pesh.
At lunch, Foxglove rewards them with 50 gp, and invites them on a boar hunt. He also continues attempting to charm the ladies. As lunch breaks up, Alma Avertin arrives and presents Caasi with a giant loaf of meat bread, claiming "he's so skinny!"
After lunch, the party gets a potion looted from one of the goblins identified by Ilsoari Gandethus (who has a theatrical streak intended to entertain children).
After leaving the academy, Shayliss Vinder approaches the party, singling out Nathanael and asking him to help her with a rat problem in the basement of the general store. At this point, things get... amusing.
First, my acting for Shayliss is terrible; I'm not that good at this kind of female NPC.
Second, the entire party except Nathanael's player made the Sense Motive check to figure out what Shayliss was doing.
Third, during the inevitable confrontation with Ven Vinder, Nathanael's player rolls natural 1's on two Diplomacy checks to defuse the situation. Further, one of the tropes that Nathanael's player chose was "Brutal Honesty" and he played this to the hilt.
Finally, Caasi eventually came in to help extract his brother. After a few rounds he hits on a solution...
"MY BROTHER IS A EUNUCH!"
...and aces his Bluff roll.
Ven, naturally, rolls a very low Sense Motive, and believes this outrageous story.
After everyone finishes laughing, the situation is defused. However, Nathanael now has a nasty rumor that's going to follow him.
The party, with the exception of Caasi, visited the Hagfish after this, and Sakti tried to drink Norah's water. She failed. After this, they returned to the Rusty Dragon. While the rest of the party was at the Hagfish, Caasi visited Alma Avertin and was plied with cake before returning to the Rusty Dragon.
During the night, Shayliss Vinder snuck into Nathanael's room and bed, waking him and informing him that she still hadn't given up on him. She arranged for a dinner date the following evening, and after a check to make sure the eunuch rumor wasn't true, she left, at which point the session ended.
The next game is set for tomorrow night. I'm a bit worried about the amount of introduction and set-up that still remains; I've had at least one player complain about the low amount of combat so far.
Hopefully, my players will post here giving their version of the sessions, character backgrounds, campaign diaries and so forth.
Nathanael Aubade, Deputy of Sandpoint
Initial field report for the investigation of the Sandpoint Glassworks:
After Deputies Sakti and Quinn interrogated one of the goblin captives, it was decided we would take the prisoner to retrace his steps of the night of the attack in order to discover how so many goblins got into Sandpoint so quickly and undetected.
The prisoner lead us through the streets of Sandpoint pausing at various buildings to sniff and lick said buildings. It took us to the glassworks where it again licked the building and then lead us down to the beach and to a cave. Here it claimed it had entered Sandpoint the night of the attack.
We took the goblin back to the jail, then made our way back to the cave to investigate. As it turned out it was a cave that was housing a giant coconut shell crab, as Sakti informed us. We needed to check the cave for any possible branching tunnels, since the goblin mentioned tunnels, and as a result had to kill the crab. Though we found no additional tunnels, we did take the time to carry the crab meat back up to the Hagfish to be prepared for a nice dinner later this evening.
We then obtained a writ of investigation giving us access to the glassworks. This was due to the attitude of the prisoner outside the walls of the works.
Quinn watched the back doors that lead down to the beach, Sakti went in the north doors to the lobby, while Zinta and I entered the showroom.
Deputy Zinta and I asked to see the owner and were shown to a conference room where we found Sakti and another clerk. They then took us to a larger conference room. Mr. Kaijitsu was unhappy about the investigation, but seeing as how it was possible that the goblins entered through the building without his knowledge we insisted on investigating. Mr. Kaijitsu grudgingly agreed to show us the facility.
We were able to question a few of the employees who lived on the premises, but none were there the night of the attack.
When asked if the glassworks had a basement that could have been tunneled into, Mr. Kaijitsu lied and said there was no basement. I then insisted on seeing the basement, and one of the employees showed us to the entrance. At this time Mr. Kaijitsu made some colorful remarks as to the character of Deputies Quinn and Sakti, as well as reiterating unfounded rumors about myself and as far as I can tell, fabricating his own rumors concerning Deputy Zinta. As rumor and lies can do no real damage, I simply reminded Mr. Kaijitsu we were not there to steal from him, but to insure his safety as the goblins could have tunneled into his basement without his knowledge. As we entered the basement, Mr. Kaijitsu continued his constant rant until, not paying attention to what he was doing, he took a stumble past Sakti and fell down the stairs. The tough old man was uninjured, but did quiet down a bit.
Deputies Quinn and Zinta discovered there had been some tunnels that had been uncovered in the basement of the glassworks. Sakti found evidence that the goblins could have been in the basement, so when the Sheriff Baylor arrived with Caasi, Mr. Kaijitsu was taken into custody.
Caasi and I continued on into the tunnel system to catch up with the others who had gone on to investigate. It turned out to be quite an extensive tunnel system under the town. Probably used by smugglers long before the goblins used them to enter the city the night of the attack. We also found evidence of "something" else that makes strange footprints.
We continued on into the tunnels.
I will continue my report when we arrive back at the garrison.