| Captain Marsh |
I just launched a brand new campaign based closely around the new ROTRL hardcover. The idea is to run a very slow-paced, sand-boxy version of the adventure path, that will unfold over a number of years in in-game time and about 18 months of play-sessions.
Part 1: I really wanted to give the players a sense of entering a new land that they didn't know at all, so that the sense of discovering a fantastic and dangerous landscape could be a big element of the story.
So all the PCs were told that whatever their other background details, they were also members of a Chelish military order called the White Yeomen, which had just been purged and mostly exterminated by House Thrune.
They had to flee from Korvosa, where they had been traveling as messengers for the Yeoman.
Fortunately, an envoy of the Masked Abbess named Moonsail appeared and offered them an out. If they could escape over the rooftops to Korvosa's harbor, they would find a boat waiting to set sail for a region called the Lost Coast.
There followed a very fun rooftop chase scene (though it went on about 20% too long), made up of a combination of nervous skill checks (acrobatics, climb) and some cool off-balance combat.
The adversaries were a gang of Hellknight Armigers borrowed from the "Bastards of Erebus" book.
My group has agreed that this is supposed to be a highly lethal campaign -- and I would have had at least two character deaths except that a player misread a feature of his Summoner and played him WAY overpowered.
So the PCs all escaped aboard ship by the skin of their teeth.
Aboard ship, they had a chance to role-play with Moonsail, quizzing him about this new land they were entering. They also got to see the coast of Varisia, including Magnimar and Sandpoint, from the deck of the ship.
In part 2, they will meet the Masked Abbess, have early foreshadowy encounters with several important NPCs, and hopefully make it to Sandpoint.
In game time, it's still several weeks before the Swallowtail Festival...my goal is to give the players a lot of free rein to shape their PCs lives. The main ROTRL plot points will begin to pop up bit by bit...
| Captain Marsh |
So the group met again last night -- 6 players. Still doing sand-boxy stuff leading up to the Swallowtail festival:
Part 2: The group holds an audience with the Masked Abbess at Windsong Abbey.
They learn a bit about the five years of trouble that are hopefully now over. They meet Shalelu Andosana and Aldern Foxglove, who are also waiting for an audience with the Abbess.
After collecting themselves, the group heads to Sandpoint, where they settle in, taking rooms at the Rusty Dragon.
A lot of really cool role-playing ensues, with the PCs gaining a really good familiarity with about 8 important local NPCs.
We needed one bit of dice-throwing, so I had the Sheriff ask the group to take care of one problem lingering from the troubled times.
The adventurers set off to hunt a rogue awakened giant skeleton that was haunting part of the Lost Coast road.
They found the creature and it turned out to be the skeleton of an ogre-kin son of Mammy Graul, sent to "keep an eye" on things in Sandpoint.
The group met Mammy Graul's familiar -- a raven -- and killed her undead son Festus.
On the way back to Sandpoint, the group also encountered a mysterious traveler in a Varisian wagon. This, a foreshadowing of later encounters with Denizens of Leng.
Next week, the Swallowtail Festival. I've assured the players that it will be entirely peaceful and uneventful. No need to even bring your weapons to the celebration... :)
| Trace Coburn |
Next week, the Swallowtail Festival. I've assured the players that it will be entirely peaceful and uneventful. No need to even bring your weapons to the celebration... :)
And if they're actually naive enough to take that at face value, they'll smarten up in a hurry, won't they? :D
I take it your players are relatively new to gaming, or don't have much int the way of metagaming instincts? Because generally speaking, as soon as a player with even a skerrick of experience hears the GM say something like "It'll be easy!", they immediately load for bear because they know the fix is in.(Remember, folks: it's not 'paranoia' if they really are out to get you....)
| Captain Marsh |
Captain Marsh ROTRL Campaign Diary, Pt 3
So we had our third weekly session, and finally the sandbox-structured campaign arrived at the big set piece of the Swallowtail Festival.
I cribbed some of the fun festival games -- archery, pig-catching, and so on, created here on the message boards. Players loved them.
Then came the speeches and a massive battle. I restructured this a bit.
Rather than a series of small skirmishes, I had the PCs face a single huge wave of mobbing goblins, most with dog slicers, some with torches.
I have a big group -- 7 players -- so this adjustment was necessary and it went pretty well. Perhaps went on a bit too long.
One PC (a bard, sigh) was killed by three mobbing goblins. Several others were briefly unconscious before the group cleric hit them with healing magic.
There was a nice bit of role-playing after the battle. Justice Ironbriar visited Sandpoint to conduct an inquiry.
He concluded that there was no conspiracy or larger concern -- merely a problem with Sandpoint's diligence and security in the face of nuisance goblins.
But the PCs and Sheriff Hemlock are convinced otherwise, especially given the fact that the old priest's grave -- and that of his daughter -- were emptied in the graveyard.
Not to mention the fact that the goblins appeared to involve several usually-feuding tribes.
Hemlock is heading off to Magnimar to appeal Justice Ironbriar's decision, and to ask the other justices to reassign some of the Black Arrows from Turtleback Ferry to Sandpoint.
Meanwhile, the PCs will be left in charge of the town's defenses.
When we gather again, the group plans to search for tunnels along the shore, to find out how the goblins made it into the village without being spotted at the gate.
They also plan to investigate the "lighthouse" which has caught their attention...
-- Captain Marsh
| Captain Marsh |
Capt. Marsh ROTRL Campaign Diary, Week 4
Had seven gamers at the table tonight, for a session that was heavy on roleplaying. The PCs are now watching over Sandpoint while the Sheriff is away trying to enlist more aid to defend the coastal village.
Unfortunately, he's being thwarted by Justice Ironbriar, who appears intent on believing that rumors of threats have been exaggerated.
The PCs investigated the old lighthouse and discerned that it had old Thasillonian runes, including the name Alaznist, and was probably not originally a lighthouse.
They had their first encounter with the Sczarni crime family and one of the PCs offered to work for them.
They also discovered that the body of one of their dead comrades has been stolen from the boneyard near the cathedral.
The highlight of the session was a trip to Foxglove Manor, where an increasingly mad Aldern Foxglove entertained his guests in a setting cloaked in illusions.
(The mansion is described with such cool details that it was really fun to have the players experience it once before it turns really, really haunted...)
At his side was Iesha -- in fact, a faceless stalker taking her place. In his growing lunacy, Aldern half believed that she was the real thing.
After a lavish meal, Aldern led the group on a boar hunt. They were ambushed by a were-boar and a band of goblins, agents of Nualia.
The group survived, though one member of the party is infected with lycanthropy.
From a goblin captive, they learned that a "silver haired longshanks" is advising War Chief Rip Nugget and uniting the goblin tribes.
It's unclear to me whether the party has linked that description with my descriptions of Nualia.
Through the adventure, the group also grew increasingly suspicious of the glassworks factory.
Next week, the abduction of Ameiko Kaijitsu and the raid on the glassworks...
| Captain Marsh |
Capt Marsh ROTRL Campaign Diary Week 5-6
This is kind of a catch-up post. A lot has happened in Sandpoint.
First, the characters did a lot of exploring and gathering of intel around Sandpoint, with the fighter-rogue trying to establish contact with the Szarni and the alchemist going to visit Aldern Foxglove.
The magus, meanwhile, continued to develop his rudimentary understanding of the strange runes found around the village.
The visit to Foxglove's manor revealed that the place is actually in ruins. The dinner hosted by the young nobleman was apparently conducted under the guise of a powerful illusion.
The alchemist ventured inside alone and nearly died when attacked by what appeared to be an animated Varsian scarf.
Before the rest of the party could investigate the meaning of this curious development, they learned that Ameiko Kaijitsu had been abducted - apparently by her brother.
They gave pursuit to the noble family's glass factory and found Lonjiku Kaijitus sealed in melted glass.
After a brief skirmish with Tsuto Kaijitsu, he fled through a secret tunnel into a pirate tunnel.
This gave way into a curious stone structure deep under Sandpoint - the entrance watched over by the statue of a woman with an expression of rage on her beautiful face.
Searching for Ameiko, the party gave battle first to a series of sinspawn, and then to a dretch demon and a warped, twisted goblin.
The battle went well, until several of the PCs were drawn magically by an enticement to drink from basins of water that sat under statues of three-eyed jackals.
They realized that they were in an ancient temple to Lamashtu.
The water of Lamashtu warped and damaged two of them badly. The party was then set upon by a powerful quasit.
The unlucky alchemist died horribly.
Left behind unconscious in a place that his fellow White Yeoman thought was safe, the quasit found him and slashed his throat.
The rest of the group - grievously wounded and nearly out of spells -- is still deep in the dungeon, confronted by the nasty little witch familiar with her silver dagger.
Meanwhile, from somewhere beneath, there is the sound of baying hellish hounds...
So far in the adventure thus far, two PCs have died, a bard and an alchemist. We resume Wednesday.
| NobodysHome |
Wow -- I have to admire your party's enthusiasm for exploring/interacting with anyone and everyone, but exploring Foxglove Manor pre-Ameiko? Leaving someone unconscious in the caverns below the glassworks? I'm surprised your death toll is only 2...
| Captain Marsh |
Capt. Marsh ROTRL Week 7
The adventurers resumed their battle against Erylium, with both sides scoring insignificant amounts of damage.
When Shalelu Andosana appeared with a squad of Black Arrows, the quasit turned invisible and fled.
What followed was a long session of role-playing, with some weird sand-box results.
1. When the fighter/rogue afflicted by lycanthropy was away, the group met with Erin Habe, head of Sandpoint's sanatorium, and agreed to have him committed. They feared his disease and were swayed by Habe's promises that the "specimen" would be cared for "as humanely as possible." This is still unresolved.
2. In a meeting with the Masked Abbess, the group agreed to keep quiet about discovering a shrine of Lamashtu under the feet of the good people of Sandpoint. With Justice Ironbriar advising her, the Abbess concluded that it would start a panic and ruin any chance of growing settlements along the Lost Coast.
3. During that meeting, the group met briefly with Aldern Foxglove, but they were unable to resolve the mystery about his mansion. When they attempted to cast detect magic and detect alignment upon him, they found that their scrying was blocked somehow.
4. During the meeting, the group also learned that a cleric of Pharasma had gone mad at Windsong Abbey, killing several people and stealing a variety of books dealing with the subject of "the evil that came before demons."
5. As a reward for their service, and a respite from their dark experience underground, the group was offered (and accepted) the chance to lead a trading mission upriver from Magnimar to Kaer Maga. Shalelu Andosana and the Black Arrows agreed to keep an eye on the local goblins, and on any machinations by Nualia while the group is away.
Finally, as the group prepared for their departure by ship to Magnimar, they were beset by a group of Hellknights, sent to Varisia to track down renegade members of the suppressed White Yeomen. The battle was bloody and violent, but all but one of the Hellknights were killed. One Chelish sorcerer escaped.
Conclusion: We now have a party made up of:
3rd level magus
2nd level barbarian
1st level fighter/1st level rogue/wereboar
3rd level summoner
3rd level gunslinger
3rd level inquisitor
3rd level cleric
DM NOTE: The shift from a party of 2nd level characters to the party of mostly 3rd level characters felt like a big tipping point. The power level of the group jumped more than I expected...
The group also found a cache of magic weapons and items (mostly fairly low powered) so that tipped things as well.
Next week: Off to Magnimar...