PCs:
- Vili the 'Dodger', CG Halfling Rogue (Trapmaster, going Arcane Trickster)
- Thorsten, CN Dwarven Barbarian
- Hendal the Laughing, CG Human Cleric of Cayden Cailean
Background Notes
I spent considerable time ensuring all the PCs had a strong history with Sandpoint. As such I wanted them all to have some familiarity with the townsfolk including some rumors. So I let them know in advance about the Late Unpleasantness, so they knew that the town ceremony was in part to commemorate the new church after the fires which marked those events. (bit of foreshadowing). I also felt that after Tsuto's birth, that Longjiku would have been the talk of the town (gossipwise) and his wife's death would always make him look suspect, whether he was charged or not. Especially after Tsuto's birth and their clash at her funeral.
- The halfling, Vili was the child of halfling roaming merchants, orphaned in a goblin raid on the road near Sandpoint and adopted by Father Ezakien. He was also raised alongside Nualia - before the events of the Late Unpleasantness. He looked up to Nualia fondly as an elder sister (this idea was shamelessly ripped from these boards). He was then taken in by Father Zantus but it didn't work out. He will in with the Sczarni and started hanging with them before he was adopted by Ilsoari, head of the Tundarok Academy, hoping to get him to use his talents for more constructive pursuits (Ilsoari is a rogue/wizard so someone going Arcane Trickster it seemed fitting).
- The dwarf, Thorsten, fled from the Five Kingdoms with his mother after a mountain raid and being a nomadic tribe, they drifted and wound up settling with his uncle here in Sandpoint. Goblins wiped out his former tribe and killed his father so he REALLY hates them.
- The human, Hendal, is an Ulften by birth and a missionary who has come to spread the word of Cayden Cailean. Has met Father Zantus and spoke to him about building the faith in the town. Has spent extensive time in all the taverns and inns and decided to erect appropriate shrines to Cayden Cailean in all of them. Oh and he hates goblins.
NOTE: All three wrote goblins into their backstory without any prompting from me, which I found hillarious.
Also, I've chosen not to award XP - I'll just level the PCs up at the appropriate time. This makes levelling and XP management much more seemless and keeps them focused on the story.
BURNT OFFERINGS
[u]SESSION 1[/u]
The PCs attempted various games. The cleric spend considerable time paying homage at the beer tasting, as did the dwarf. The halfling tride the pole balancing competition but had a bad day. The irony being he beat the dwarf at the strongman competitions, much to the cleric's enjoyment.
I had Madame Muvashti bump into the dwarf and promise him a fortune telling at some point (when my damn Harrow deck comes in) but now was a bad time. She told him to gather his friends at the podium, Father Zantus was about to deliver a speech. At that point, the goblins struck. I was hoping this might reinforce the seer aspect to Muvashti but it was totally overlooked while they were keen to bash goblins (*sigh*).
The players handled the goblins without much difficulty although they exhausted their rage, spells and most of their healing by the time they saved Aldern. The dwarf slew the goblin which threatened his dog (the goblin botched his swing at the dog before the PCs charged) so I had Aldern immediately ingratiate himself to the dwarf. Ameiko offers them board and they try to interrogate the goblins but only learn that one of the "longshanks" was leading them.
That evening I had Longjiku turn up at the inn and start yelling at the PCs for interfering and causing the scene with the goblins, making the catastrophy worse. Ameiko came out and had her argument with her father and the PCs nearly interceded but she dealt with it. Aldern entered the inn not long thereafter and offers a reward, buys them around and offers to take them boar hunting the next day. The players already suspect Lonjiku's absence from the festival as highly suspicious, the show down with Ameiko and his rant against them as indicative of guilt and already talking about breaking into his manor and checking out the glass works (did I foreshadow too much??). I had Aldern intervene immediately as a pattern interrupt as I had no idea how to deal with this if they did this right then and now.
The boar hunt really dragged on. My PCs were very suspicious of Aldern and his generosity and it wasn't until a few Sense Motive checks later they accepted he wasn't the "longshanks" behind the raid and he was just an indebted albeit eccentric guy. But based on his behaviour they thought he was "wierd". (I haven't figured out if this is a good thing or bad yet). The dwarf wasn't having a bar of Aldern's hero worship and gave him little. The halfling however chatted away, giving as much as he could to Aldern. The fact the dwarf was a dour, uncharismatic blockhead with Aldern (and his refusal to ride horses) made it quite difficult for me to have Aldern see anything of interest in him, so I made it that his hero worship was so extreme that he overwrote the dwarf's utter indifference towards him as modesty.
That evening, back at the Rusty Dragon, the PCs met with Sherriff Hemlock, who arrived at the request of Father Zantus, to meet at the Boneyard. I had the PCs hit it off with the Sherriff. Being he is Chaotic Good and a Shoanti native, I felt he would appeal more to the teachings of Cayden Cailean and so he is starting to bond with the cleric rather well. I think having the Sherriff become a strong ally quickly helps. He mentions that Shalelu is coming (ranger & goblin expert) is coming soon (more foreshadowing) and she might be able to give some advice on what tribes they came from and what bought them here.
The PCs head to the Boneyard and quickly worked out that the bones of Father Ezakien were stolen, the animated skeletons were the aftermath of whoever broke in to steal the bones of the dead Father and goblin tracks and a humanoid was involved. They screwed their Survival test so I just had it that Hemlock deduced that they came in and exited over the wall during the raid (the plot at this bit seems weak here, if he is the Sherriff why would he not investigate this himself? If he can solve the Chopper murders I don't think one disturbed crypt would be an issue).
The PCs realise that the goblin raid was a diversion, but why someone would want the bones of the father, they did not know.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Not sure what will happen next but I'm pretty sure they will be on Longjiku in a flash, whatever happens. That is concerning, given Ameiko hasn't even gone missing yet. Any idea how to handle this?
Also suspect they'll be getting a Harrow reading at some point. Hope my damned cards arrived soon.
Second session
This time around the player of Vili the Halfling was absent. This immediately killed any thoughts of breaking into the Kaijutsu manor to interrogate Lonjiku. So instead they began talking to the locals.
Shayliss Vinder was rebuffed almost immediately. I had her hitting onto the human priest Hendal, but he was adamant "where I go, the dwarf follows" (both passed Sense Motive checks and knew exactly what she wanted and were keen to see where it would go but she wasn't going to have a bar of it - pardon the pun).
They spoke at length with the Sheriff about Longjiku and Tsuto (having learned about their open disagreement at the funeral of Longjiku's wife during The Late Unpleasantness). The two players deduced that either Longjiku or Tsuto were involved in the goblin raid but needed further proof and decided to narrow their questions to them.
At the Tundarok Academy (where Vili and Tsuto was raised) they spoke to Ilsoari about Tsuto (given that he raised him). He explained that the half-elf never really found peace in the town and always was at odds his mother's husband (Longjiku). Ilsoari also offered some insight into Father Tobyn (as the PCs suspect that there were more to Father Tobyn & Father Zantus) and Nualia. As these two PCs hadn't been in the town until after the Late Unpleasantness, they never really learned of Nualia until now.
It wasn't until they started asking questions about who or what else was buried in the tomb with Father Tobyn. They learned that Nualia was also buried but only her 'ashes' were gathered. Directed to Nualia's midwife (a half senile old woman in my game) she explained that Nualia gave birth to a 'monster' and fell into a coma and that in truth her body could not be found. They believe that Nualia survived and suspect that somehow she was connected to Tsuto, but how they weren't sure. They learned that the father of her child was in Magnimar somewhere but beyond that, they did not know and were directed to speak with Zantus to learn his identity.
Realising that they lacked the thief to break into the Kaijitsu manor they hoped that Longjiku would be at the Glassworks and decided to pay it a visit (NOTE: this occured BEFORE Ameiko's disappearance which I had planned for that evening but I had planned that goblins were already in the Glassworks and Tsuto had promptly lured Longjiku there after the raid the day before).
Realising the Glassworks were silent and deciding to break in, the priest decided to alert one of the townsfolk to tell the Sheriff that 'goblins had taken over the glassworks' and they were 'going to investigate' (NOTE: they had NO IDEA goblins were ACTUALLY IN the glassworks). They were banking that their goodwill from the townsfolk would buy their lie some credibility.
Imagine their surprise when they realised the glassworks really did have goblins...
Anyway, they found Longjiku glazed, had a fight with a bunch of goblins and an epic showdown fight with Tsuto. During a brief exchange of words, they realised that he wasn't acting alone. He almost got away but because they had the foresight/fluke to alert the guards beforehand, I had them arrive and surround the glassworks just intime as a battered Tsuto tried to flee.
The PCs were able to knock Tsuto unconscious intime for Sheriff Hemlock to arrive. They found Tsuto's journal and realised that the journal was the connection they sought between their hunches over Nualia, giving birth to monsters and the connection to Tsuto. They also found the tunnels which lead to the Catacombs of Wrath. We decided that was a good place to stop for the session...
NOTES:
The Sheriff is due to interrogate Tsuto and eventually send him to Magnimar for trial, so I'm wondering how I'll handle that. I'm assuming Ironbriar will set him free and they'll meet again. I do like the idea that Ironbriar is Tsuto's father. I may use that.
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It is interesting that your party went into the Glassworks before Tsuto would take Ameiko.
It is interesting that your party went into the Glassworks before Tsuto would take Ameiko.
** spoiler omitted **
Your spoiler isn’t a point of information found in the original Skinsaw Murders - ISTR it was a change by one campaign’s GM. Not that that changes your point - or makes that early use of the character any less awesome. Imagine the PCs’ faces when they put that together!
I spent a lot of time getting the PCs to know one another and at least being passingly familiar with the events of The Late Unpleasantness before the start of the campaign because I had all of the PCs either being local or arriving within the past 5 years as I made it mandatory:
- all PCs had to be from Varisia somewhere;
- a reason to be within Sandpoint;
- PCs had to 'know' of each other, even if loosely, within the town prior to starting.
Because of the foreshadowing, and just roleplaying the town gossip, it was pretty easy for them to work out Longjiku had a fall out with his two kids, one of which had a very public blowup accusing him of murder. Then there is the argument with Ameiko in the inn. My players just didn't take a liking to him. The fact it occured after the goblin raid and after the tomb search, realising a longshanks accompanied them on the raid, they leapt to the conclusion one of the two them were involved. At that point, they were ready to break into Longjiku's manor (they're all Chaotic aligned) just to see if there was any evidence of wrong doing.
Breaking into the Glassworks was the next step when the party rogue didn't turn up that evening, otherwise they would have proceeded with their original plan.
Even they suspected they were just reaching but they now know.
They also realised they were missing something else, but after reading Tsuto's journal, talking to Ilsoari, they realised they had found the final piece of the puzzle and that Nuahlia and Thistletop are behind it all. They also know that Nuahlia is most likely survived the fire, birthed monsters and has given herself to Lamashtu.
Basically the confrontation with her has been sufficiently setup to make the showdown impressive...
OK - so tonight was a short session. I am tired and half dead writing this. Also, I hadn't run the game for like 9 months or something.
But basically my players managed to skip a good part of the dungeon and go straight to Erylium - apart from a fight with one sinspawn which alerted all the monsters in the dungeon to their presence. Fight went roughly like this:
Erylium summoned a sinspawn from the well, first round cast hold person on the barbarian as the cleric had just cast enlarge person on him. Cleric rushed the sinspawn and proceeded to shield bash it. Rogue proceeded to bar the room doors to stop other monsters from entering. Rogue kept peppering Erylium with arrows from Tsuto's composite shortbow, doing nothing for the rest of the fight. Barbarian broke free of hold person next round and Erylium proceeded to cast invisibility and flew away from the barbarian. Barbarian finished off the sinspawn.
NOTE: I hadn't played in ages and wasn't as prepared as I should have been. I couldn't remember if SLAs required concentration checks to be cast defensively or not. Thankfully my players are very cruisy with my lack of recollection with the rules. I also had Erylium do stupid stuff like throw her dagger and break invisibility. This fight could have been a lot harder if I had of played smarter but I was already tired.
Basically Erylium flew past a threatened square, barbarian rolled a natural 20 on a Perception test, heard where she was going, got off a lucky swing and the flow of hits and my ineffective use of Erylium resulted in her dying within about 5 rounds all up. I had her cast summon monster in her last round and I forgot to have the eagle appear but at that point, she died anyway so the fight against the eagle would have been academic. Ah well.
Also, for anyone interested in this fight - my PCs were not prepared to fight the quasit, they got lucky the cleric cast Enlarge Person and so the barbarian had range. Without that, it would have ended badly. Also my players rolled well on a few occasions. Also because I only have 3 players, I'm letting them get max HPs every level.
The PCs realised that they had found something of 'unholy evil', dedicated to Lamashtu. They were beat after this fight and decided to go back to town, rest up (level up) and go back. This time they brought back Sheriff Hemlock, Father Zantus and Ilsoari to investigate.
(Also, I forgot that it was Brodert Quink that is the Thassilonian expert, not Ilsoari but I was tired that I don't think it matters. The crux here is the PCs realised they could do with some help and weren't shy about engaging the locals, so I was going to throw them a bone). I figured that between Ilsoari, Zantus and Quink, they'd figure out what the runewell is and how to destroy it eventually while the PCs cleared out the rest of the dungeon.
Koruvus was taken out in one round - Hold person by the cleric, coup de grace by the barbarian - done.
Because the PCs had the foresight to engage the locals, I wanted them to be given some lore on what is going on. I felt it was fair for them to learn that the site was built on Thassilonian ruins and hasn't been seen in over 10,000 years and get some insight into the lost empire and the value of the runewell. At least to the extent that if this thing is fully fuelled Bad Things Will Happen(tm). They at least know if it is powered with enough souls they suspect that an army of sinspawn could be generated from it.
(Mental note: make sure I retcon what happened and let the players know that it was Brodert Quink was brought in to discover this much and it wasn't Ilsoari or give Ilsoari a fair amount of Thassilonian knowledge) realised that the entire site was built on Thassilonian ruins and that it was dedicated to Alaznist. However they have realised that the site was co-opted/re-dedicated to Lamashtu. They know that the quasit and/or Nualia is involved. But they suspect something else is at work and is responsible for the site. Something more powerful.
As Villi has now realised that Nualia - his adopted sister is still alive and slowly in the process of turning herself into a demon in Lamashtu's service, he's concerned and interested in finding her. I'm pretty sure Hendal and Thorsten just see XP numbers on her head.
They have already stocked up in town and so next session they aim to take on Thistletop and hopefully put a stop to this madness....
Your players are really smart! It also sounds like they are really into the story too :)
Today my PCs entered Thistletop:
Hendal - human, 3rd level cleric of Cayden Cailean.
Thorsten - dwarf, 3rd level barbarian.
Vili - halfling, 2nd level rogue/ 1st level wizard (evoker).
Scouting the thistlebush path, they determined that something was dragged along the trail. Being offered 250gp to retrieve Shadowmist they decided to follow the trail suspecting immediately that it was an unconscious horse. If true, they knew that the trail would be the most direct path into Thistletop. They decided the cliffs were too risky and certainly did not want to investigate the hole that lead to the (bunyip) cave. They came across the goblin dogs tethered near the bridge. Realising they had set them off, the PCs quickly massacred the animals. This led to Gogmurt becoming aware of intruders in the tunnels. As the PCs approached the bridge, none of them detected the stealthed Gogmurt and his cat, Tangletooth.
NOTE: This fight turned out to be considerably harder for my PCs than it was Erylium. Gogmurt waited until one PC was on the bridge and could not disembark because the other two PCs were on the mainland side of the bridge.
Tanglefoot began to lay the smackdown on Villi (the rogue/wizard copped a beating this session). Thorsten and Villi managed to maneouver around and it was a very prolonged attack between the three of them. Gogmurt kept healing the cat and peppering the PCs with his sling and produce flame wand. Hendal didn't want to squander his big spells before even entering the fortress. I believe this was a mistake on his behalf but I can't really fault the call. This allowed Gogmurt to flee when the cat eventually went down.
The PCs managed to across the bridge but not before Villi used Disable Device and Perception to figure out how the bridge worked and set it up so he can pull the pin from either side of the bridge to cause it to collapse if the goblins try to pursue. After an aborted attempt to enter the courtyard which instead resulted in a botched stealth roll I had the goblin dogs go b+!$!@+ crazy. He quickly sneaked back around to the rest of the PCs and while the goblin guards at the front door went to investigate the disturbance in the courtyard, Villi snuck in over the gate and let in the other PCs, allowing them to enter undetected.
(MEANWHILE, unknown to the PCs, the goblins who entered the courtyard received the missive from an escaped Gogmurt that adventurers have crossed the bridge. They went to tell the Rippnugget to raise the alarm.)
The PCs proceed to literally kick the bejeezus out of everything that moves in the castle. Rippnugget and his throne room was the highlight. PCs enter and get the suprise round on the 4 goblins, including the warchanter. 3/4 are taken out in the suprise round. Rippnugget mounts the gecko. Then starts normal initiative. Thorsten decapitates the mount with one hit, Rippnugget botching his ride check to avoid the attack. Thorsten cleaves into Rippnugget. PCs assume flanking positions and 2 rounds later everything is dead. They move into Rippnugget's lair, ransack it and come back to the throne room as the goblins from the courtyard have returned to raise the alert with Rippnugget only to find them butchered. PCs then proceed to lay more smackdown into them, with Hendal casting Enlarge Person on Villi just so the rogue can feel more effective in combat.
Not content with killing two goblins, Villi goes on a roaring rampage of destruction and proceeds to own face with a spear, storming the rest of the rooms with the other PCs in tow. He now threatening so many squares as Huge and carried a spear. He was just charging everything and tactically withdrawing 5 feet to abuse AoOs as goblins have to close ranks to even hit. We realised this was becoming academic when they got to one of the guard towers and decided to kill the goblin dogs in the courtyard with bows and arrows. They had already slaughtered all the goblins in the castle, sweeping room to room after they cleared the throne room.
Anyway I've closed over a bit of the details. They have some really good Perception tests (Thorsten and Villi both have Perception) so they found all the loot and traps and freed Shadowmist, with Hendal both healing the horse and feeding it.
Next session they proceed to the second level of Thistletop and they know that Nualia awaits them...
RANDOM THOUGHTS:
Auto-levelling has really allowed the game to move at a much more reasonable pace. PCs are no longer squabbling over why so and so got more XP than someone. It means that levelling happens at the same time which means the game isn't bogged down when one person has to level ahead of someone else. This has taken soo much pressure off us.
I've also given all players max hit points at each level because there are only 3 players and the modules assume 4 players per group. Even so I've found that the encounters - to date - are not insurmountable using 3 players. Admittedly I have a good party balance overall.
I think I will stick with this format in future. I am amazed I didn't try this sooner. I think I will run all APs this way.
The party composition of a Barbarian, Cleric and Rogue/Wizard/Arcane Trickster actually seems a solid combination for a 3 man party. They aren't really optimised for anything but they know their roles and play them well.
I think that if the PCs start finding it really tough playing with only a party of 4 I will leave open options to recruit (e.g. Orik, Shalelu Andosana, allow the Leadership feat, etc). I am hoping my PCs try to redeem Nualia based on Vili's relationship but I suspect that woman is dogfood for the goblin dogs.