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Greetings Everyone. This is the Campaign Journal for my Legacy of Fire Campaign that I am GM’ing. I am, however, going to make it easy for you and give you the format on how I will present this game so you don’t waste your time reading something your not interested in. So if you can make it through the next several paragraphs, that will be all you have to read if your not hot to trot over this. Here are the main points:
Number1: This will be a significantly modified Legacy of Fire campaign designed to get the PC’s to reach 18th level before encountering Jahvhul, so there will be a lot of character story arc content included in this journal. I am doing this as the players want a chance to cast 9th level spells, so I am giving them the chance if they play a single class caster.
Number 2: All of the PC’s are Halflings. I don’t know how this transpired between the crafty little buggars (players), but it made my GM’ing life a lot more interesting (and difficult) with this decision. It has been fun watching them fight over who gets to play the Halfling fighter.
Number 3: I will post the information in standard diary type entries spanning a week of game time from the perspective of the Pc‘s, alternating each entry with a different pc. This will be supplemented by 3rd person narratives in those “in between” times to give the readers some great insight into the characters minds and their motivations. These entries will be co-written by Keil Hubert and myself.
Number 4: I will post below each entry a spoiler that will show what adjustments I made to the encounters, npc’s, and treasure. Since all my PC’s are small, this will be a very challenging task. You don’t have to read these entries, and I will hide them as they will take away from the feel of how I want to present this Journal, which will be like a novel.
With that done, allow me to introduce the players and DM:
My players are significant contributors to Paizo with their money, time, posting on the boards, etc… One is involved in a major way with the Psionics project for pathfinder.
1) Jon Cunningham (DM‘d us through RotRL and was Libonelle, Master Sorcerer and Mister Gnome in the Second Darkness Campaign).
2) Keil Hubert (DM‘d us through Second Darkness and played Siobahn, a playtest of the new Soul blade for Pathfinder Psionics in RotRL. (I can attest that this is a very nice revamping of that class)).
3) Me - Curtis Sheldon - will be Dm’ing Legacy of Fire as I was the Al Quadim lover from 2e in this group of misfits. I Played Hayman Dentur, A 3.5 bard/Lyric Thaumaturge/War Weaver in RotRL, and I played Ryo, A monk/Crane-Shen in Second Darkness.
4 & 5) We also have both of Keil’s sons, ages 14 and 11 Joining us on this Campaign. The oldest showed us what a rogue/master thrower can do in Second darkness, and then ran a Battle Cleric using the class modification from the first campaign guide in RotRL. His youngest started in RotRL as a Kobold Sorcerer with an undead bloodline.
As a side note, we will sadly miss my daughter, who played in both of the previous campaigns with us but graduated high school and is now in the Air Force serving her country. I know she will be reading this from where ever she gets stationed, so I wanted to give her a quick bit of recognition for her great game play and memorable characters in these other two campaigns. We will miss you in this one girl!
Now for what to expect from each of the AP’s.
AP#19 Howl of the Carrion King: The campaign will start in Solku having been hired by Almah’s major domo Garavel. Before heading out to the Sultan’s Claw, relationships will be forged and npc’s introduced that will be major players in the next two AP’s. The major event here will be a major sandstorm whipped up by the warring elementals of the land. This event triggers multiple future discoveries and drives the gnolls out of their homes, making the road to Kelmarane that much more dangerous to travel on. Characters will reach level 10 after defeating the final evil in Kelmarane and clearing the land of gnolls.
AP#20 House of the Beast: The Pc’s will be level 12 at the end of this AP. (Expansion of the info block for the next 5 ap’s will be filled in when it wont spoil the campaign, so please bear with me on this. I also dont have all the story arcs done yet).
AP#21 Jackals Price: The Pc’s will be level 13 at the end of this AP. (This is where I do the most editing to fit the story arcs and where the Pc’s will gain the least experience.)
AP#22 End of Eternity: The Pc’s will be level 16 at the end of this AP. (As with Howl, this AP has the second most expansion of encounters and back story revelations. The PC’s will come back to the material plane much more powerful than when they left, a much needed plot element for npc encounters and the impossible eye.
AP#23 The Impossible Eye: The Pc’s will be level 18 at the end of this AP and be ready to take on the Final Wish.
AP#24 The Final Wish: The Pc’s will, if they defeat Jhavhul, be level 19 at the end of this AP.
Now you know what to expect from this Journal and I hope you find it entertaining and helpful for any future games you might DM or play in. Scheduled time for the start of this Campaign is Christmas 2010, but there will be a lot of storyline updates and character concept posts way prior to that as we gear up for this Destiny in the Desert Campaign!
Thanks for reading in advance, (and yes, we over prepare in this group. hehe)
If you feel like posting in this Journal, please Spoiler the entry so the main text is not disrupted by your entry. I promise I will read everything, but the main point of this journal is for reference back to certain elements in the game that could be forgotten over time, as I expect this to take well over a year to complete.
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Ok, looks like things are getting started quicker than I thought. We just started LoF yesterday, about 6 months earlier than I thought we would, so things changed real fast.
As I cant edit the first post (for some reason). I will post the changes in the characters now, but thank goodness we are not doing an all small pc group. :D
Players and their characters: (here we have the PC’s)
Keil Hubert is playing Darvah Raff ibn Kazuma. We all call him Little Fox since that is his nickname. He is a CG male Dustwalker Elf Swordsage.
Morgan Hubert is playing Theradon, a LE male Div Tiefling Cavalier.
Austin Hubert is playing Theron, a LE male whisper Gnome Scout.
Monica Sheldon (since we started earlier than expected) is playing Rajah , a N Female Human Wizard.
Jon Cunningham is playing Talib Saalim, a N male Human Druid.
Backgrounds will be revealed throughout the journal as we reveal what happens to the heroes in Solku and beyond.
Next post will start the Journal.
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One of the first things I did was play out the hiring of the PC's in Solku by Almah and Garavel. I introduced the Lions of Senara, adding a few new characters that were not mentioned in the AP to fill out the group, giving the PC's some NPC's that were more accessable than the Aloof Almah and Garavel. Being as I have a mostly evil group to deal with, I had to change the dynamic of the introductions away from what was presented in the AP.
And so, the begining started in Solku, where the group were introduced to eachother as the new mercenary group that would take the place of the Lions of Senara as protection for Almah on her trip to Kelmarane.
I simply gave the players in-game background instead of just saying this from the begining of the AP...
"Before play begins in earnest, tell the players that their
characters have been traveling together for more than a
week on a dreary camel caravan from the town of Solku to an
unknown location in the northern scrublands of Katapesh." (pg9)
The contracts were signed by each of the PC's, which endentured them to Almah for the Liberation of Kelmarane from the hostile inhabitants that dwelt within its city limits.
In addition to this, the contract included that the PC's would also help rebuild Kelmarane (no matter how long that took) up to a year and a half. Almah would assign duties during that year and a half as she saw fit.
In Solku, the pc's are trained by the Lions of Senara, which have Andrus as the leader, Oxford as the Duty bound Cleric of Abadar, Philipped the bard who is documenting the liberation of kelmarane for historical purposes, a paladin of Iomedae named Claire (an absolute abrasive b#%!~), Durshkin the vermin druid/ranger who is the guide, and the mage Jandar who was consumed with the reclaiming of the temple of nethys.
Here the PC's develop relationships with several of these npc's of the Lions. At the same time they are being trained, some of the mercenaries that were not hired decide to take matters in their own hands and try to take out the PC's in hopes that with them dead, they would then be hired for the trek to northern katapesh. It is the first main battle for the group and battle tactics soon develop and first impressions are made.
The PC's prevail, and are soon called to defend the walls against a major assault against a horde of gnolls. Was looks like a suicide mission from the gnolls, as they throw themselves from the cliffs on makeshift sleds while others simply roll to their deaths. Within a 2 rounds after the attack begins, the wall of the sand storm that obviously drove the gnolls out of hiding crashes over the western mountains. It is here that the group is introduced to the harsh environs of the lands of katapesh, and they fight the gnoll survivors in the midst of the biting sand. As the rounds progress, the storm gets worse, and soon, Theron the gnome can not withstand the growing wind strength, and is blown across the map, finally rolling to a stop at the base of one of the tents. He is effectively out of the fight at this point. All the others see that the winds will soon be blowing them around, and after the gnome took some considerable damage from the storm, the other PC's decided that they would not endure that and retreated to the tents as well.
From here, secluded fights occur within the tents as gnolls also try to find shelter. After a few more rounds, the winds are so strong that the gnolls are being blown all over the place, most dying when they splat against fixed structures.
It is here where the skill challenges came into play. Saving the water supply, catching some of the guards as they rolled by, securing the slaves, and keeping the tents from being disoldged.
It was a frantic event, and after the storms started to calm down, they witnessed elemental creatures roaming around in the storm. Air and earth elementals shaped like animals of the area... goats, dogs, snakes, etc... There were some skirmishes with these as well, which required the pc's to use different tactics and change their full frontal assaults they were using on the gnolls.
This my introduction of the Aucturn Enigma coming to the area.
This was important as this would play a huge part in the future AP's.
And if you could not tell, all this happened last year in August. We are now on AP#20 House of the Beast. I am just getting caught up as I ended up not using this forum as I should have.
Although I rushed through this part (in this post), the PC's were level 2 when they left Solku for Kelmarane. The Lions were sent out a week earlier than Almah and the PC's as they would be doing a recon of the area around Kelmarane.
As the PC's travel towards the Sultan's Claw, they experience some left over elemental creatures, as well as a band from the Circle Tribe of Gnolls (whom I have working at an excavation site south west of the Monastery by two days travel.) It is here that I introduce the sorcerous scorpion riding leader of the Circle tribe called "The Witch".
She seems intently interested in destroying Rajah the PC Suli mage. At this time the PC have not encountered gnolls with PC levels. So these Barbarian 2 gnolls are quite nasty...
"Animal Fury (Ex): While raging, the barbarian gains a bite
attack. If used as part of a full attack action, the bite attack is
made at the barbarian’s full base attack bonus –5. If the bite
hits, it deals 1d4 points of damage (assuming the barbarian
is Medium; 1d3 points of damage if Small) plus half the
barbarian’s Strength modifier."
The Sorcerer casts lightning bolt on Rajah, which freaks out the group immediately because they are level 2. Of course, Rajah has resistance 6 vs. lightning, and she made her save, at the same time, she has a nice constitution, and rolled max hp. So a 6d6 roll that would have done 22pts of damage ends up doing 5. However, Rajah did not have Scorpion resistance, and took damage from one of the pincers.
At this point, the PC's are able to charge in on horseback, where Theradon is quite proficient at whipping the s!%& out of the gnolls while the rest of the group is able to concentrate ranged fire on the sorcerer.
Fennec rushes in as he is engages the Gnolls on foot as he does not have a trained mount. The battle ends up netting the PC's the leader of the Circle Tribe once the retreating scorpion is downed by a ranged critical by Theron at 2 range increments. The scorpion had picked up the Witch and was trying to get her to safety. It did not work.
The PC's had Allmah's guards to help with the ranged attacks, which was what helped take the Witch down and cause the retreat. Although the PC's actually delievered the blow that took the witch into negative hp's.
I used these events to help level up the guards so that if one ended up standing out, then the development of this guard could be used for leadership feats later on, etc...
This was a huge victory for the PC's and gave them the chance to participate in an interrogation. It introduced the Circle tribe, introduced a Key that the witch would not share the information on, which caused Almah to put her on a camel and bring her to the Sultans Claw, where the Lions might have the magic and expertise to interrogate this prisoner more effectively.
Of course, there was a rescue attempt with gnoll barbarians riding dire hyenas. This made the players look at me like I was insane as they were just getting level 3. Six barbarian 2's riding dire hyenas. A very nasty encounter indeed. One where Almah and Garavel got involved, bloddying their swords with gnoll blood, but it netted the death of the Witch, along with all six gnolls and 4 of 6 of the hyenas. The PC's did not persue them.
All of these initial encounters were set up to be very tough so the players would know this was a brutal land, and death would come if mistakes were made. To me, the players have to be wary of PC death and be concerned with every encounter because you never know what you will be facing.
To be continued...