So I ran my first session on 9/30/11. It was... interesting.
First, our cast of heroes and ne'er do wells:
Nivia, female halfling rogue: An "acquisitions expert" who previously worked for Professor Lorrimor acquiring exotic goods. She has been deliberately close-mouthed about her past thus far, but she is clearly spirited, talented, and lucky.
Rya Trumblepot, female gnome summoner: A native of Kyonin who spent the last few years with a traveling circus, where she met George. She remembers the professor as a lecturer from her magecraft school with whom she corresponded frequently over the years. Her eidolon, Fidget, resembles a small kirin mixed with features of a mist dragon.
George, male half-orc barbarian: Kind and simple-minded, George was born on the border between Ustalav and the Hold of Belkzen and raised by his human mother. After her passing, he joined a traveling circus doing manual labor and occasionally guest-starring in their act as a strongman. He saved Petros Lorrimor's life when he fended off a pursuing group of wounded trolls a few years ago.
Arddun Benedict, female human investigator (rogue): Arddun hasn't disclosed her relationship to the Professor, but it's obvious she was on the payroll for some reason - she's the only party member Kendra has never heard about from her father. A native of Absalom, Arddun is brusque and unladylike, which has initially caused Kendra Lorrimor to balk at Arddun's presence.
Evan Nimblefoot: The son of Chelaxian slaves, Evan's uncle Arv called in a favor from the Professor to help free Evan from captivity when he was a youth, where he first manifested the favor of Sarenrae. Evan is stern and honest, and his adherence to protocol and sense of honesty have not exactly endeared him to his companions thus far, but he has earned the trust of many people in Ravengro.
Anya Petulovich: A wanderer, dancer, and actor from Varisia, Anya is constantly fidgeting with her mother's Harrow deck and loves to amp up the drama when conversing with others. Though she is seven years younger than the professor's daughter, Anya and Kendra knew each other as children, for Professor Lorrimor often contacted Anya's mother with questions about divination and folk magic.
Most of the adventurers decided to arrive in Ravengro on the evening before the funeral, with the exception of Arddun, who stayed across Lake Lias in a boarding house and arrived the next morning. I played up Kendra as the overnurturing host - having taken care of her father for years, she was going to the utmost extremes to show the same courtesy to her guests with an overabundance of food carried in from the Laughing Demon. George was happy to help finish off the leftovers.
Arddun made her appearance to the group at the entrance to the Restlands before the funeral, dropping from a nearby apple tree as Kendra and the PCs were coming to meet the undertakers. She immediately eyed George and began to flirt with him licentiously, and her casual disregard for manners, given the situation, soured Kendra's first impression of Arddun. They have interacted minimally since.
Evan was able to talk down the mob in the Restlands and avoid further confrontation; four of the PCs spoke at the funeral, and Evan offered a prayer to Sarenrae in his rememberance (with Father Grimburrow's prior permission). This earned them a considerable amount of Trust right off the bat.
For the reading of the will, I threw on my best Peter Lorre accent and changed one little detail: I had Kendra produce a perfectly square sealed envelope with a flat, shiny black disc made from an unknown material and covered in circular grooves, and place it onto a machine that looked like a box with knobs and buttons, a bugle-shaped ivory horn protruding from the side, and a similarly sized metal disc and suspended arm on top. She dropped an alchemical compound into a hole on the side of the box where gears were suspended in a clear, viscous liquid, and the compound reacted with the liquid, making the gears turn and causing the metal disc on top to spin. The professor's voice began to emanate from the ivory horn as the arm scraped across the surface of the grooved black disc.
After the reading, Anya and Evan began to pour through the contents of the box, perusing the journal and examining the books. Evan mentioned in passing that he should probably destroy the unholy books of Urgathoa and Zon Kuthon, but refrained from doing so in accordance with the professor's last wishes. Evan and Kendra spent the rest of the evening researching the Whispering Way, uncovering the DC 25 Knowledge in the wee hours of the morning.
The next day, Evan, Anya, Arddun, and Nivia headed into the village to run some errands for Kendra; Evan said he wanted to talk to Father Grimburrow and secure permission to search the Restlands for the weapons cache the professor mentioned in his journal, as well as request access to the church's records. On the way, they ran into the little girls skipping rope and heard the rhyme about the five prisoners; Evan and Anya befriended the girls and gained some Trust points in the process (Evan's diminutive stature and good Diplomacy rolls charmed the children, and Anya taught them some Varisian dance moves).
As Evan entered the Church of Pharasma, the three Chaotic Good characters with him smiled politely, promised not to disturb the graves before Evan consulted with the priest, and then of course promptly headed directly to the crypt indicated in the journal. After getting accosted by the centipedes and forcing open the doors into the inner crypt, the three women filled their pockets and bags with the magic treasure in the cache.
Unfortunately, Evan had returned in time to catch them in the act, suspecting they might act on their own, and without consulting them, he went directly back to the Church of Pharasma and reported that graverobbers were plundering the false crypt. The friar and seven acolytes accompanied Evan to the Restlands and accosted the other PCs, using detect magic to ferret out the objects and retrieve them, although all the mundane equipment was safely secreted in Nivia's ever-burgeoning pockets and (GM fiat) the sturdily-constructed darkwood box prevented the clerics from detecting the items inside of it. The more free-spirited PCs were quite irritated with their law-abiding cleric companion, and a rather frank discussion of ethics is sure to follow in our next session.
The remainder of the game concentrated on George and Rya back at Kendra's house. Rya remained at the house for much of the day, being most interested in the Lorrimors' doorbell (an elaborate Rube Goldberg machine powered by cantrips and odd machinery) George had gone into town with Kendra early in the day and saved her from a marauding zombie that crawled from an alleyway, impressing some of the deputy sheriffs and earning a Trust point. When they returned to the Lorrimor estate, Rya took George out to the well to clean the gore off his arms and greatclub - and while they were washing up, three riders on black horses charged into Kendra's yard. Two of the riders were masked men wearing black capes and scale mail; the third was a sinister yet beautiful woman with jet black hair, pale skin, strange patterns of purple makeup across her left eye and cheek, and an elaborate black dress with a plunging neckline and high slits up the thighs. (I used generic thugs and an adept from the GMG; I could tell these two players were itching for a fight and wanted them to see some good action before we wrapped up for the night.)
The sorceress demanded that Kendra Lorrimor surrender the purple book with the gold scarab, and George and Rya retorted with greatclub and eidolon. The guards rolled very poorly and were quickly dispatched, though one attempted to escape on horseback until Rya slapped him with an enlarge person spell. The mage got off a few spells, singing her allies and the two heroes with a burning hands, but she was knocked unconscious by Fidget, and they plan to keep her captive and question her later.
Next session is Friday, 10/14/11. Can't wait to see what they do next... the fit is about to hit the shan with the villagers just now discovering the vandalism at the monument to Lyran Hawkran. More to come!
Session Two opened with a few of the PCs in the Laughing Demon, where they overheard Sheriff Caeller get word from a local that the Harrowstone monument had been vandalized. Evan Nimblefoot stopped the sheriff on his way past the Lorrimor place to report the attack on Kendra (and get the authorities to dispose of the bodies and the captured necromancer). The Sheriff, knowing the halfling's reputation by way of some friendly locals, asked Evan to come with him to the river bank to check out the desecration. A rat had been eviscerated, chopped up, and scattered over the statue of the warden, with a V painted in blood on the plaque that bore his name.
Kendra, meanwhile, ordered George and Rya to bind and gag the doomsayer that led the attack and took her to a broom closet in the house. She placed her magic sound machine in the room with the woman and put on another of those black discs that the professor had left in his study, and a horrible ululating sound akin to high-pitched arrhythmic throat singing blasted into the closet, which Kendra promptly locked. The PCs had the chance to interrogate the woman (she having been adequately softened up by repeated listenings of Professor Lorrimor's prized recordings of authentic mite folk music), but spent more time squabbling among one another than asking questions. Caeller lost his patience and said he was taking the woman to the jail, and he hauled away the doomsayer shortly thereafter.
While Evan and Anya tidied up details with the sheriff, who questioned them at length about the party's whereabouts the previous night, the others decided to go and investigate the prison while some daylight was still left. Nivia managed to find her way into the prison easily with an impressive Acrobatics check, but fell prey to the aura of despair that clung to the prison grounds. Rya soon followed, but George took some nonlethal damage picking his way over the crumbled southeast wall. Rya played a rather cruel prank on the jumpy Nivia, using mage hand to tap her on the shoulder and making her jump and squeal.
After unlocking the front gate for Arddun, they checked out the remains of the Hawkran residence. As they picked through the burned out house, finding only a few discarded portraits of Lyran and Vesorianna among the charred rubble, Rya noticed that the structural integrity of the ruins worsened with every step that George took. She suggested they get out, and as George barreled through the front door (luckily, behind all the others), the old house collapsed.
Anya and Evan had caught up by then, and regrouped with the others. They began checking the perimeter of the interior prison, finding strange runes carved along the base of the walls. Anya noted the repetition of Hawkran's name among the Varisian symbols. George, meanwhile, was anxious to explore the water, and wanted to check the depth with his pole. Evan and Rya protested this course of action, but George merely grabbed them both with one arm and lumbered out into the pond, stopping and turning back when it got more than waist deep on him.
Arddun, meanwhile, had managed to haul herself up to the west balcony and was investigating the execution site, gazing in horror at the old bloodstained block. The headman's scythe sprang up from its place on the opposite side of the block and attacked her. The others rushed to aid her, but it took them a round or two to find the stairs up. They handled the scythe fight well; I allowed Evan's channel energy to work on the scythe even though it was an animated object, because the scare I gave Arddun's player was more valuable than the combat, really.
Thinking they might be better off regrouping and pleading with Father Grimburrow for the use of some of the confiscated holy items from the Restlands, they decided to leave - but George had left his sodden boots and socks by the pond. He stalked off to retrieve them - running smack into a skeleton as he turned around the southeast corner of the prison. I sent a dozen after them, treating them more like bloody skeletons than burning ones, though I kept the cosmetic burning effect. George and Rya's eidolon, Fidget, handled the skeletons pretty deftly in hand to hand, and Anya took out one with a well-placed stumble gap. Nivia and Arddun aided the melee fighters with flanking and sneak attacks, but the few that Evan didn't nuke with channel energy started to stitch themselves back together after the combat, and the cleric burned out all of his channeling obliterating the last of them.
They've gone back to Ravengro to recoup and talked the Pharasman church into letting them use the artifacts with a pooled donation. And between bouts of research, they've also staked out the monument on the third night and discovered that the leader of the mob that greeted them when they arrived is the one desecrating Hawkran's statue. I told them to level on up to 2, and we pick up there on Friday.