
donato Contributor |

Tonight begins my Razor Coast campaign. We're starting at level 1, with Curse of the Seabear before moving on to Souls for Smuggler's Shiv. They'll be level 5 just as they finish SfSS, perfect to continue on with RC. I'm quite excited to send the Seabear at my players, but also significantly worried about the deadliness of the adventure. It should be fun! ;)

Alex Cunningham |

Tonight begins my Razor Coast campaign. We're starting at level 1, with Curse of the Seabear before moving on to Souls for Smuggler's Shiv. They'll be level 5 just as they finish SfSS, perfect to continue on with RC. I'm quite excited to send the Seabear at my players, but also significantly worried about the deadliness of the adventure. It should be fun! ;)
What a perfect adventure for this close to Halloween! Enjoy the Seabear!

brvheart |

The party today was still exploring the sewers and were heading back from S9 and ran into 6 centipede swarms in S8. Most of them had nothing that could affect the swarms as they are immune to weapon damage. The sorcerer was carrying the Halfling bard as they were traversing 3' of scummy water. This became almost comical as neither of them could make the fort save vs distraction even half the time so they were constantly nauseated. This left only the cleric capable of doing any damage with a few alchemist fires that did almost as much damage to the party as it did the swarms.
They slowly drudged their way through with the monk and gunslinger leading the way. The monk got so far ahead that he got ambushed by Orthru and another scum at the T-intersection. Luckily on the second round of that sub fight the gunslinger crit Orthru so he went down in three rounds. After about 8 total rounds they managed to make it back to the entrance tunnel near S1 where they ran into Capt. Lester and his raft who brought them to safety. The bard was down 11 points of dex by this point and the sorcerer was almost as bad. The party has realized that they are woefully unprepared to deal with swarms!
They headed back to the chapter house of Quell for healing and refit. At this point Mercedeh says something about being a pirate and the Inquisitor and the gunslinger draw down on her! The High Priest had to break up the fight! He even offered to give letters of marque to the party. Between almost being TPK'ed and the PVP at the chapter house, it was not an auspicious day.

Power Word Unzip |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |

We finished off Bonegnaw's Cove last week. We were down one PC this week--Archibald's player went to see Rifftrax do "Night of the Living Dead", but he kinda sorta died last session so that was no big deal.
After freeing the slaves (I planted Miliauka in this group to advance the Tulita-related plot hooks for Ho Kan) and taking over Bonegnaw's ship, Lucin departed the party to seek penance for his murder of the necromancer, making room for that player's new PC: a foulbeaked red macaw they found in a cage inside Bonegnaw's lair. Now piloting the Dragon's Tail, the group was accosted by a Dragoon patrol vessel en route to safe harbor in Toe's Reach. All of the Dragoons onboard were agents of the Ring, and were largely interested in "taxing" the ship.
Orm, at this point, made an epic Bluff check in response to a serious oversight on his part: his name is known in Port Shaw as an escaped convict and he is currently a wanted man. With a result of 35+ on his Bluff check and a paltry 17 on the part of the sergeant, the following exchange occurred.
SERGEANT: "Orm Gunnarsson, is it? How convenient for us. We have a warrant out for your arrest, Captain."
ORM: "Orm Gunnarsson is actually quite a common name among the people of Ondur, m'lord."
SERGEANT: "Is that so? I've never traveled there, myself."
ORM: "Oh, then do come along with me sometime for a visit. I'll introduce you to my brother Orm Gunnarsson, my uncle Orm Gunnarsson, and my cousins Orm Gunnarsson and Orm Gunnarsson."
Captain Orm complied with their boarding party, even making a well-timed Diplomacy check to convince the Dragoons to take a greater cut of the treasure in exchange for letting them keep all of the slaves (they tried to seize the women). However, the Dragoon Sergeant refused to budge on the matter of taking Miliauka, a known political dissident and disturber of the peace, into custody. This caused Ho Kan to react violently and triggered a combat between the crew and the Dragoons.
Orm tried to stay out of the fight, even attempting to non-lethally subdue attacking Tulita so as not to further sully his reputation with the Dragoons, but Ho Kan and the parrot were less restrained, throwing Dragoons overboard and eliminating them easily in hand-to-hand combat. The parrot, dubbed Lucifer by Orm and now Ke Sii by Ho Kan, is actually a sea dwarf druid in wild shape form with a penchant for lightning-based evocations. (He's also reflavored many of his spells, such as tar ball, to lend themselves to some utterly scatological humor. I'll leave the details to your imagination.)
With the fight ended, the parrot dove beneath the waves and changed into a squid, ripping the skin off the back of the drowned Dragoon sergeant and casting create treasure map on the carrion... giving me a perfect hook for leading them down the primrose path in this week's game!
Orm's player will be retiring that character since he has few ties to the remaining PCs, and playing a fighter named Marlin Martigan instead... making the crew of the ship belonging to the original party a new cadre of NPCs for my own use! Party 2.0 is shaping up nicely, though! More next week!

![]() |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |

I've got my second epic table group session coming up end of this month, but they are already prepared with ideas at least for alternates and a couple of builds ready from our character designer.
I'd say it was because we're playing Cthullhu as one of our other games, but the character designer loves building characters so it's normally more of an issue getting him to stick with one character.

brvheart |

Well the game today did not go any better. The two players that started the PVP last game started it up again against the rogue(pirate) and were added by the monk today refusing to follow the contract that they were hired on for and wanting to dump the captain. Well, it started to get personal so I had to step in and make some peace.
Finally we gamed for a few hours and they headed back into the sewers. They ran into a Ochre Jelly in the 5' passageway with the gas at the bottom. This wasn't too much of an issue until the gunslinger tried to shoot it! this exploded the gas and collapsed the sea wall! Fortunately it killed 2 of the 3 split jellies as the new cleric summoned a shark. Hmmm, here we are in Port Shaw, what I can do to throw a monkey wrench into the game? Well, I decided to give a 10% chance of it being a black shark wereshark and sure enough he rolls a 09! The new Halfling cleric of Quell gets bit during the fight! He has not that hard to defeat as they hit it with a number of magic missiles. Welcome to the campaign! They saw the body return to human form before it disappeared so the rogue (pirate) examined him and sure enough, a shark bite. The gunslinger and monk now want to kill the new cleric! Quell, please save me from lawful stupids! She had rescued Milliauka so she knows that he can cure the cleric so she tells the party he can be healed.
The party heads to the village and the 1/2 elf/1/2 Tulita ranger and the pirate get the Tulita to let them talk to Milliauka. Milliauka cures the Halfling, but lets him know he will be very sick for 2 days.

brvheart |

After resolving the interparty squabbling, the ftf party is seemingly lost for leads having cut one thread off and finding the sewers beyond them at present. It is not like they don't have about a dozen whispers and rumors to act on! Seems time for another inciting incident next session!
Meanwhile, the PBP session is exploring the cellar of Barrett's and about to find out what happened to the former priest.

![]() |

Another long session with my tabletop group yesterday.
Their focus as well was setting up a chapterhouse of the Church of Pekko and the Cleric got the group talking to the local floozies to get information on the Salty Dogs, the dubious places to go to and also to try and get interest started in them working for her.
Whilst the group split in two to conduct enquiries Timmy the halfling cabin boy was down on the docks as the Blood Orphan encounter happened. Lots of tooing and froing as he tried to figure a way to help Eddie, but then also keep the schooner for their use. Eddie was eventually taken back to see Zalen. The Schooner was then moved to be looked after by Jenks until the morning.
The group had found out about Garreg about the Barnacle and went to visit him - splitting into 2 groups again - this time Cleric, Wizard and their son, Timmy, whilst the Gunslinger and Tulita went with her cat. The Gunslinger ended up smoking Dragonsmoke with Garreg, who they managed to get to spill the beans about what Barett had been up to in the back of the Barnacle. The Cleric was unimpressed with the Barnacle, particularly the barmaid.
They went back to the schooner to look over it. Whilst there they overheard the Midnight deal going on and sailed the Schooner over to investigate. They then ended up in a standoff with the smugglers on the refuge schiff, until the Tulita shouted out they wanted to join them smuggling. The smugglers started to sail off and fired on the schooner. Timmy got off the boat and swam to the schiff to take a bit of the ship as they had been taking bits off ships to be able to track them later. Eventually the smugglers got away, the pushers resolved to keep a watch out for who was on the schooner and most of the party except Timmy slept on the Schooner over night.
Next morning they headed off with Captain Montgomery up to Toe's Reach to investigate what happened with Harok. There they saved Jessica, got confused as to which Wereshark said what to whom. They bought her and Relgin back and were concerned about dealing with any bites especially as the Tulita got bitten.
Back on the docks they encountered Mili'kau confronting Darenar and much like the PBP game they fluked getting the Tulita Shaman away from being arrested. They took him to the Chapter house and he started to help Eddie.
The group then went to Fort Stormshield to try and get Harok released and without any goodwill from the Dragoons they managed to get the execution stopped until the Inquisitor could visit Toe's reach.
They then went to visit the Barnacle. The Cleric went in to try and get a job as the new Barmaid which didn't go well with Barrett. They others started investigating the outside of the Barnacle. I added a lock to the cellar because I couldn't see why he wouldn't lock it. In the end they broke into the Still. Blister was aware and waited to ambush them as he only became aware once they were inside. They made their way down and the Cleric spotted him as the last person descending. She managed to cast Hold person on him and he failed his will rolls so they had him bound before it wore off. They then warned him they would kill him if he tried to shout out, but he didn't believe them so shouted. The Tulita promptly killed him and they went to deal with Barrett who had heard the loud shout.
They fought in the cellar, with Barret taking down the Tulita, but as the session ended they had just taken him down, saved their friend and were ready to interrogate him.
Some lucky rolls and they are now massively interested in seeing people's chests to check for the mark of the Ring. They do want to keep going with trying to take over the underworld, set up a place of worship to Pekko and replace Dragonsmoke probably with something less dangerous and with a better profit margin.
Now I have questions about the Weresharks.
In terms of cure once past the brief period where the poultice might work then it needs to be a 12th Level cleric casting to remove the bite? Can Mili'auka do it even though he's an 11th level adept? Otherwise there is no one I can spot as Zalen is 9th level and the party won't hit 12th level in time.
It would have been very useful to have had a sidebar about the Bite and collecting all the information on cures etc together.

![]() |

That's a good question. I think a sidebar on the Bite would be an excellent addition, and we should have done one.
As for curing, because the wereshark curse plays such a central role in the minor plot arc, the intent was to let cures play out in the cinematic realm. The notion is that GMs allow cures -- in the form of potions, scrolls, or sudden divine gifts to Zalen (or another NPC or a PC) -- in the special cases when the PCs earn a cure (through their cleverness, their heroics, or through whatever behavior generates the most fun for everyone playing when the GM rewards that behavior with a cure).
It is also the intent that curing _everyone_ before the Night of the Shark proves...extremely difficult. I never want to say impossible, but its hard to imagine a campaign where the PCs pull that off.
Beyond doubt, this too should have been explained in a sidebar. Good catch. Hope that helps.

brvheart |

Yesterday, they got back on track by deciding to go after information on the Dragonsmoke pushers. It took several tries as the first pair of players declined to buy the smoke! One due to being LN and the other being 15 and his mother was at the table, me thinks! It got a little comical at that point! They sent another pair later in the evening. They bought some and smoke it failing both saves<G>! They tried diplomacy and bluff, failed and finally intimidate to get some information from them. They got the info on Garreg.
The following day the 1/2 orc cleric and fighter and they went to Barrett's. They weren't able to learn much, but did learn the layout and the fact that off duty Dragoons hangout there.

Feros |
6 people marked this as a favorite. |

Well, my last session in the old campaign is tonight. I'm almost ready for my mash-up campaign to begin. I've posted the map of the Razor and Freeport on Golarion HERE.
Comments and critiques are welcome. I see the Eye of Abendego creating an easterly air stream through the wreckage of southern Azlant, thus allowing rapid passage through to the Razor Sea. However, this conflicts with the natural winds and produces very unstable conditions. The passage has been called Gozreh's Passage as the continual prayers to the nature god can be heard on almost every sailor making the trip.
The northern route goes right past Freeport and is thus responsible for much of that city's current prosperity. The route has been called the Serpent's Run as it starts at the Serpent's Teeth islands and passes through a sea of broken islands and sharp stones like the teeth of a viper. It also passes near one of the larger remaining chunks of the lost continent, and many a sailor has been lured away by the harpies and sirens that have made the rough cliff faces their home.
All in all, the journey to the Razor can be very profitable because of the plentiful whale oil and rare woods that can be gotten there...as long as you survive the trip.

Feros |

Dude - that just rocks! Well done! Now pop Carcass somewhere in the archipelago between Gozreth's Passage and the Razor Sea for complete scum and villainy.
Thank you! As for Carcass, if I had info on it I might just do that...
That was hint, Mr. Logue. ;)

Elorebaen |

Well, my last session in the old campaign is tonight. I'm almost ready for my mash-up campaign to begin. I've posted the map of the Razor and Freeport on Golarion HERE.
Comments and critiques are welcome. I see the Eye of Abendego creating an easterly air stream through the wreckage of southern Azlant, thus allowing rapid passage through to the Razor Sea. However, this conflicts with the natural winds and produces very unstable conditions. The passage has been called Gozreh's Passage as the continual prayers to the nature god can be heard on almost every sailor making the trip.
The northern route goes right past Freeport and is thus responsible for much of that city's current prosperity. The route has been called the Serpent's Run as it starts at the Serpent's Teeth islands and passes through a sea of broken islands and sharp stones like the teeth of a viper. It also passes near one of the larger remaining chunks of the lost continent, and many a sailor has been lured away by the harpies and sirens that have made the rough cliff faces their home.
All in all, the journey to the Razor can be very profitable because of the plentiful whale oil and rare woods that can be gotten there...as long as you survive the trip.
Awesome, and thank you for sharing!!

donato Contributor |

Here's a question. The Mad-Tiki feat reads as such:
You can temporarily increase one of your tikiman’s HD, however you risk losing control of your tikiman.
Prerequisite: the ability to control two tikimen
Benefit: When you gain an additional tikiman, you can imbue it with a bonus number of Hit Dice equal to your Charisma modifier. However, this procedure is not without cost. Whenever you roll a 1 to determine the actions of your tikiman, the creation goes haywire and tries to hid in the shadows, stalk you and your companions, and tries to kill them all off.Special: You can take this feat multiple times, each time applying the effect to a new tikiman
However, to my understanding, there's no check to give the tiki an order.
The tikiman is bonded to his creator, can understand and follow his instructions, and does so without question.
Was the intent for the Yohunga to give orders to the tiki similar to a druid doing so for an animal companion? If so, what would be the check required? If not, would there be a different mechanic in place to determine the tiki going mad or is there no longer a chance of that happening?

![]() |

Here's a question. The Mad-Tiki feat reads as such:
Freebooter's Guide wrote:You can temporarily increase one of your tikiman’s HD, however you risk losing control of your tikiman.
Prerequisite: the ability to control two tikimen
Benefit: When you gain an additional tikiman, you can imbue it with a bonus number of Hit Dice equal to your Charisma modifier. However, this procedure is not without cost. Whenever you roll a 1 to determine the actions of your tikiman, the creation goes haywire and tries to hid in the shadows, stalk you and your companions, and tries to kill them all off.Special: You can take this feat multiple times, each time applying the effect to a new tikiman
However, to my understanding, there's no check to give the tiki an order.
Tikiman wrote:The tikiman is bonded to his creator, can understand and follow his instructions, and does so without question.Was the intent for the Yohunga to give orders to the tiki similar to a druid doing so for an animal companion? If so, what would be the check required? If not, would there be a different mechanic in place to determine the tiki going mad or is there no longer a chance of that happening?
Hey Donato, I'll double check this, but I don't believe the "roll a 1" in question relates to giving an order. Rather whenever the tikiman does something (from attacking to a stealth check) if you roll a 1? Haywire. "to determine the actions of your tikiman" might have been better written as "when your tikiman takes an action requiring a d20." That's how I'm reading it, anyway. Have to check with Tim to be certain.
Hope that helps.

Power Word Unzip |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |

Hiya, kiddies! Long time no update. Here's what you missed:
Party 2.0 kicked off with a romp into the sewers of Port Shaw to find the first of two treasures marked on the parrot-druid's magic map: a big X marked in Fort Stormshield. Miliauka told them to keep an eye out for a stolen Tulita artifact, the jawbone of Kaho Ali'i, while they were there, explaining that the thief who took the item fled into the sewers and was never seen again.
They hired Lester Farrows to guide them through the sewers, cleaning out Section 1 and finding the Tulita artifact, much to Ho Kan's pleasure. They then proceeded toward Section 4, which the previous party had mostly cleaned out, finding telltale signs of their predecessors' passing along the way (and even recovering a little bit of treasure from the bodies of their fallen PCs).
After a short skirmish with the gibbering mouthers, they found the secret door into the Fort Stormshield harbor and immediately began plotting to blow up Bonedeuce's Pride as a distraction to allow them to sneak into the fort. The parrot-druid was largely unnoticed, and his air walk and gaseous form spells allowed the monk and the fighter to sneak aboard the ship safely while the necromancer guarded the secret passageway (since his player was out that night to go see RiffTrax!). They raided some charts and maps and a few other pieces of loot (since the recent quests had been very light on treasure, I inserted a decanter of endless water and portable hole in the Commandant's cabin, which were being used as Bonedeuce's shower and privy, respectively) from the Pride before lighting off some strategically-placed powder kegs in the ship's hold.
With the distraction executed, it was easy for them to penetrate the fort given the remaining duration of their spells. They beelined toward the map room and broke into Aeron Chambers' room, setting off the traps and alarms as they did so, and in the process they drew the wrath of the three officers quartered nearby. The officers fought defensively, holding the PCs in the map room until Chambers and his Dragoon Sorcerers could arrive to deal with the threat. The parrot-druid dropped an obscuring mist to cover their exit, using another round of air walk and gaseous form to give his allies the means to escape while he pelted the Dragoons with call lightning... and they made off with the Sorcerer Supreme's crystal ball.
The party retreated to their hideout in Bonegnaw's Cove to spend a few days laying low and scrying on Chambers and Bonedeuce, then sold the crystal ball at Sagacious Samuel's. This drew the attention of Xander Brim, who confronted the party in the streets of Port Shaw to size them up. Once he'd determined they were on the right side of the conflict, he offered to join them as their ship's wizard.
The PCs decided to sail south to Kakeou to convince the natives there to join their rebellion against the Dragoons, using the jawbone as a bargaining chip. Along the way they had a brief scuttle with frost giant pirates and fought the Draconic Tyrant (half-dragon tyrannosaur) on the beaches of Kakeou, quickly earning the respect of the Tulita warriors there and claiming the Tyrant's eggs as their prize. I decided that Kakeou was ruled by an ancient chieftain who was blind and half-mad--and being controlled by a smarmy Tulita advisor with Dragoon sympathies who dresses in the style of the "paleskins".
After a great feast of t-rex omelets prepared by the Tulita women, a council of the Kakeou elders convened, and Ho Kan outlined his plan to organize a Tulita rebellion. The chieftain--through his intermediary--declared that the heroes should undertake a trial to prove their worth and honor. He sent them and any warriors who would follow to the west side of Kakeou to seek out and destroy a small cabal of Dajobas worshipers and the obscene god-totem they revere in their dark rituals. Along the way, they got bitten by mosquito swarms--taking some Dex penalties as a result--and ran into some girallon-sired greenskin orcs that I pulled from Richard Pett's "Angry Waters". This encounter wiped out half the Tulita who followed the party, but the necromancer plans to animate the fallen orcs to serve as battle fodder in the fight against the Dajobas cultists.
As always... to be continued next week!

Power Word Unzip |

Yeah, I might have made that task a bit easier than it should have been. I did place an alarm spell in Chambers' cabin aboard the Pride, but it was never set off since the only person who went into the room did so in gaseous form, and it seemed unlikely that such an intrusion would set off the spell. Not so for his room in the fort, though (and I also added a note in the crystal ball chest saying, "I don't prepare spells but hecky-darn if I didn't cast explosive runes today" for good measure).
In any event, the damage they did to the Pride was incidental; there wasn't enough black powder on board to sink the ship entirely, so it'll just be in dry dock for a bit... and then you can bet that Bonedeuce and Chambers will pull out all the stops to find the PCs!

brvheart |

My PBP game is going about as well as my ftf game is going poorly. While both games cleared out Barrett's this last week my ftf game could not even identify what A.N. stood for after playing for almost six months and it being a central plot item. It has turned into a free for all of players bickering with other players and has ceased to be fun for anyone including the DM. I am seriously considering shutting it down. I have temporarily done so barring the players justifying continuing it. Meanwhile the PBP game is going well with all the players doing well cooperating with each other and in problem solving. About the only thing the ftf game players do better at is actual combat.

Arquestan |

Just completed our third session of Razor Coast so I thought I'd share experiences so far.
Started out with the party at 5th level arriving on Minerva's Joy, but the first week was a bit of a disaster. I tried giving them complete freedom to wander but the mix of new PC's, new town, whispers etc proved more than my 'Improvisational Bandwidth' could cope with.
Second week was much smoother - they followed up on Harok McFarrow and everyting flowed much more easily. One thing that did draw comment in Toe's Reach...
Third week finishing off in Toe's Reach before back to town and keeping up with the effects of whispers on party actions was again a bit of a challenge but better than the first time round. (For example they ended up talking to Gregory Bonedeuce in the Kraken's Gullet and instead of following the whisper I'd just fed them about Deepwarden's ring they flipped onto Zalen Trafalgar and I ended up relating the fate of the Waveriders.
So far they are bending over backwards to get in good with the dragoons...
Thoughts so far - the NPC's are working well so far and it's been a great read as DM. You really need to know your stuff though - the urban sandbox style can cover a very wide range quickly. In preparation I've also found the electronic version essential to run searches for key words. For example the full story of Harok McFarrow is spread over different sections of several chapters.

![]() |

Yes, that is something I have also noticed. Due to how it is organized most of the stories are split up over the various chapters. It makes for a great read, but sometimes it makes it hard at the table to follow the plot lines when the players go where you don't expect them to.
Good point.
For the purposes of improving this design approach, would summaries of every plot line in the appendix help? I'm thinking one sheet reference pages that put the outline of each story on a single page.
For example, imagine a page titled "Harok McFarrows." Then picture a paragraph per story chunk of Harok's tale. Add in a running column down the right hand side of the page that indicates the in-game location where that story chunk takes place (Port Shaw, Sewers, etc.) plus a chapter and page number -- so the GM can flip to it more easily.
Would a stack of bookmarked and tabbed summary sheets like that fix this problem, do you think?
EDIT: By tabbed I mean you can read "Harok" vertically on the edge of the Harok page; so when you have these in a stack you can see which page to grab just by staring at the pile. Sort of like the chapter designation tabs in the Razor Coast hard copy now.