Skinsaw Murders: A Really Rushed Summary of the Entire First Half
In which I summarize six or seven weeks' worth of gameplay in one page or less!
No sooner (in game time, anyhow; nobody cares about those "bla bla weeks of peace and quiet bla bla nothing happens, fast-forward" intervals) did the PCs finish clearing out Thistletop than Sandpoint was beset by a new menace: a serial killer with a penchant for carving cool new body art into the corpses of his victims.
It didn't take long for the PCs to figure out the general outlines of the killer's scheme, even though they totally skipped Habe's Sanitorium. Luckily, the ghoulish murderers left so many other clues behind that they didn't need the crazy dude shrieking even more hints at them.
My original plan here was to use Alergast Barrett (remember him? guy who got mauled by the closet goblin, but survived as a faceless wreck in my campaign?) as a massive red-herring secondary serial killer. I was going to have him murdering people and making soup from their faces in a crazed attempt to reconstruct his own. Alas, what with one thing and another, I never had the time to develop my super-elaborate secondary storyline, so instead I just erased Rogors Craesby and inserted Alergast as the ghoul lieutenant in his place. The PCs stomped him into goo at the Hambley Farmstead (this wasn't even a fight, it was a Twinkies-'N-Cream cakewalk) and marched on to the Misgivings, and I quietly resolved to boost the later ghouls' stats a little.
So the PCs broke into Aldern's childhood home and got super grossed out by the mold and the rats and the moldy rats, admired the various improbably expensive and elaborate stained-glass windows (truly, one wonders what went through those workers' heads: "wow, this guy is commissioning some awfully gruesome and incriminating windows! I wonder what that is all about! Perhaps I should report it to... naaah"), and got haunted. A LOT.
When they were done reliving their various misfortunes as Iesha/Cyralie/Travers/the rats in the walls, the PCs went down to the basement and fought a bunch of dread ghouls and a dread ghoul bat and Buffalo Bill Foxglove, not all at the same time.
In my campaign, Aldern was obsessed with Aulus, but since Aulus didn't make it out of Burnt Offerings alive, he transferred that obsession to Thaldis and Taleek as the two big failure failypants who thoughtlessly allowed his good buddy Aulus (and the other half of the party, or possibly the other three-quarters, if we're counting by volume) to die. Aldern raged ferociously against those two, which was pretty stupid tactically since it meant he totally ignored Harker, the paladin with Smite Evil, who reduced him to Foxglove pate in about five rounds.
Then the PCs looted Aldern and grabbed the remnants of Vorel's phylactery and bade farewell to the Misgivings, at least until such time as they could come back and burn it to the ground.
Next week: Magnimar!
Anything new from over the summer?
Liane Merciel wrote: In my campaign, Aldern was obsessed with Aulus, but since Aulus didn't make it out of Burnt Offerings alive, he transferred that obsession to Thaldis and Taleek as the two big failure failypants who thoughtlessly allowed his good buddy Aulus (and the other half of the party, or possibly the other three-quarters, if we're counting by volume) to die. Aldern raged ferociously against those two, which was pretty stupid tactically since it meant he totally ignored Harker, the paladin with Smite Evil, who reduced him to Foxglove pate in about five rounds. Ooh. Nice save. I had a lot of trouble characterising Aldern in my first game so I'm looking forward to and meticulously planning a second shot at it. (I just keep finding excuses to delay. The Beginner Box, the hardback, holidays...)
I'm going to do some reading now as soon as a write this down somewhere.
And lo! Much of the adventuring party is still alive. I come here to fill in the gaps in the hopes that if things are caught up to speed Merciel might once again resume her updates.
We left off when the PCs had just cleaned out the Misgivings and headed down to Magnimar. They dropped off Tsuto with the guards, got the lay of the land from the Iomedans, figured out that Lucrecia was in the city under a false identity (but not much more than that about her), and rescued Sheriff Hemlock.
Continued investigations into the murders brought the party to the Shadow Clock. The party rolled through there in decent form, dispatching the Scarecrow and the Ugothols with no fatalities thanks in part to Harker's judicious preparation of Hero's Defiance. Upon reaching the top of the tower, they healed and burned their remaining prep spells after noticing something big up on the roof. Anticipating a tough but beatable fight, the adventurers disarmed the trap that would have blocked a retreat and emerged to face Lucrecia.
This encounter lasted about two rounds, featuring Lucrecia one-hit KOing Kurtz, the party's fighter, on a very low to-hit roll. After a couple whiffs and ineffective blows, the PCs realized they were out of their league. (Meanwhile, there was much b##!+ing among the players, all veteran gamers, about terrible unbalanced adventure design.) Harker, the Iomedan paladin, and Curondir, the Milanian cleric, briefly fought about which one of them would get to sacrifice themselves to buy the others a chance to retreat, an argument won/lost by Curondir in part due to Harker's DARK CHARACTER SECRET that makes him terrified of dying. So Harker ignominiously fled for his life, leaving a bleeding Kurtz and a soon-to-be-bleeding Curondir to be butchered.
And that ended the chapter.
NEXT: The PCs fortuitously meet two new adventurers. One of them is Orn, an eccentric wizard. The other is Paxon, a disgraced knight.
The newly reinforced party then meets the Lord Mayor, who suitably scandalizes them while managing to ignore the Shoanti ranger Taleek deciding to forage for herbs among his flowerpots while the fancy folk chitchat. The PCs are duly charged with investigating Fort Rannick, After a stop in Sandpoint during which much armor-resizing and item-enchanting is done, they head off for Ogreland.
First up are the Grauls, who suffice to demonstrate how absurdly min-maxed Paxon is when he regularly outdamages them. Mammy Graul proves a bit more challenging but is driven off, uncovering a Graul prisoner who gladly joins up with his rescuers: Owl Dreamer, a Shoanti cleric. The addition of a healer to the group doesn't prevent the PCs from almost killing themselves fighting spiders in the barn, but judicious use of the Withdraw action saves them from fatalities.
Reaching Fort Rannick, the adventurers take a ridiculously slow-and-steady approach, taking out one group of ogres per night, with the help of collapsable towers and flammable barracks, before retreating to heal and recharge. Ogres being stupid, the adventurers get away with this siege before eventually moving into the inner keep. Many more ogres were slaughtered, more camping was done right under their noses, and then the PCs discovered their old friend Lucrecia camping out in the basement.
After a brief debate over whether to cower in terror from her or seek revenge for Kurtz and Curondir, the side of valor won and the PCs advanced down into the basement. Crucially, they dispatched one of their Fort Rannick Ranger lackeys to smoke out the shock lizards, who thoroughly annoyed Lucrecia and absorbed many of her most potent spells.
The battle thus equalized due to the death of many lizards, the PCs charged in and after a few close calls won a very satisfying victory.
There still remained more ogres to deal with, though, something that proved unfortunate for crit machine Paxon, who survived the fights against Lucrecia and Pappy Kreeg only to bite the dust courtesy of a Dorella Kreeg fireball.
Sorely missing the combat prowess of their slain comrade, the PCs made a cairn for Paxon overlooking the now-cleansed Fort Rannick and moved on to face new threats.
The adventurers particularly missed Paxon once they met his replacement, Uzzakk, a dwarf barbarian with fae blood that synergized really well with his other abilities but infuriated the fair GM to no end. Thaldis also recruited a henchman, a female cleric named Eolana who Thaldis swears up and down he has not slept with. Owl Dreamer, the party's primary healer, knows this improbably fact to be true due to Thaldis's particular medical condition.
No sooner had the party met these new faces whose abilities conveniently filled holes in the PCs' existing powers did Turtleback Ferry face the twin menaces of flood and Black Magga at the same time. By prompt action against the first and prompt retreat against the second, the adventurers saved most of the town but learned they needed to head north to Skull's Crossing Dam.
This is overcome surprisingly easily, with trolls proving less menacing than their ogre minions to this particular party. The exception is Grazuul the water troll, who is momentarily threatening until Owl gets lucky with a Hold Person spell and he is coup-de-graced into oblivion. The cleric proves his with again by summoning a monster to operate the dam, releasing the water and preventing its destruction. Huzzah!
At the entrance to the encampment at Hook Mountain, a series of terrible rolls by the PCs threaten them with defeat at the hands of the ogre gatekeeper minions, but they manage to survive despite themselves.
The fight against the Hook Mountain hags is much cooler all around, per this unbiased narrator. As the PCs advanced, they cast a spectral cage. Harker and Thaldis, the front line, both made their Dex saves and could choose which side of the cage they wanted to be on. Thaldis jumped away from the caves; Harker, in true paladinny fashion, charged forward, locked alone with the three of them, while only Orn is in a position to do anything to help.
Boosted by Smite and a Haste from Orn, Harker tanked the first hag, then shifted from Combat Expertise to Power Attack to down the second and third in quick succession, with assistance from a few Orn-y magic missiles.
The rest of Hook Mountain is pretty straightforward. Barl poses a moderate challenge, but Harker was immune to his fear spell and unleashed the power of Smite Evil in one-on-one battles with evil dudes to down him with moderate assistance from the rest of the party. (Don't like how it's going? Write your own recaps, fools. This is largely how it went, though.)
Ahaa I was wondering why this got bumped.
Good recaps, thanks for doing them. As your ever-beneficient GM is currently occupied writing Pathfinder stuff what she gets paid for, it's nice to have someone else pick up the thread.
I've just started running my own RotR campaign. This thread is going to be an IMMENSE help. Thank you so much for setting it up and keeping it going that far into the campaign.
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