Hi all!
I recently started GM´ing a Carrion Crown campaign and thought I would share my experiences with the community since reading the various threads about it here was a tremendous help to me. My group returns to D&D(-ish) after several years of hiatus, having played with other people and/or other systems like D&D 4th, D&D next, DSA or even Star Wars. The confusion-level about several rules was high, but a good time was had by all and we will definitely continue playing. So without further ado, here´s what happened during our first session:
Day 1: It was a foggy day in Ravengro (as so many are), and a small group of people gathered outside the Restlands to lay to rest one Professor Lorrimor. His daughter Kendra made the introductions as the PC´s met each other for the first time.
Kumiko, Elf Ninja: An emissiary/exile from Tien who became stranded in Ustalav and found a friend in the Professor, who introduced her into the Esoteric Order of the Palatine Eye.
Beleak, Half-Orc Gunslinger: A tracker working for the Ascanor Lodge whose life the Professor once saved.
Horace P. Dingleberry, Halfling Alchemist: The Professor´s pet student at the University of Lepidstadt, who, at his tender age of 15, is one of the greatest minds the university has seen in a long time.
Murielle, Human Witch and her Thrush Familiar: A mysterious voodoo-woman from a land far, far away whom the Professor got to know on his extensive travels.
So, the PC´s are an odd bunch to say the least, especially for a little backwards village like Ravengro. Nonetheless, Kendra invited them to be coffin bearer´s, except for Horace, who she „needed to hold her hand so she would get through this“ to spare him the indignity of being to small to bear the coffin. He apparently decided in this moment that she was his girlfriend now.
They ran into the little hatemob Gibs Hephenus had assembled and chased them off with a few blows and some Diplomacy checks, then laid the Professor to rest. The testament wasn´t to be read until 4 days later, on Oathday, so afterwards, Kendra went home to lay down while the PC´s where invited along to dine in the Laughing Demon with the rest of the procession. Zokar´s weird sense of humor weirded them out a bit, but nowhere near as much as when a Harrow card suddenly burst into flames and Kumiko was temporarily blinded and could hear people burning. They tried to purchase the deck the card had come from, but Zokar insisted to pin the card on the wall as an attraction to his customers.
Murielle noticed the tavern cat running out scared some time after the incident, which was suspicious. She had her thrush follow the cat, and I was tempted to have the cat ambush it, but only joked about it in the end. Meanwhile, Beleak tried to befriend some of the locals, failed miserably on his Diplomacy check and was pretty rude to them, which they kind of respected him for!
This night, five people where visited by ghosts in their dreams. Horace heard a scratching underneath his bed, and saw the grimmacing visage of the Lopper before waking up covered in sweat. Kumiko dreamed she couldn´t move or breath during her trance, which is very odd indeed for an elf. Murielle felt something grazing her brow, and saw a holy symbol of Pharasma doing so before waking up. Beleak woke up to an intense pain in the back of his head and found a tiny scar where there had been none before.
Day 2: The last person visited in his dreams was Gibs Hephenus, whose first desecration of the monument of Hawkran the PC´s discovered in the morning together with the rest of the town. This is where they met Sherriff Benjan for the first time, who I played as always trying to be the coolest guy in the room, which hilariously Kumiko was the only one not to immediatley see through (natural 1 on Sense Motive). She thought he was awesome.
They tried to track the blood, which Benjan of course had already thought of, but failed to do so. Instead they noticed an odd-looking beggar in the crowd, but following him didn´t result in anything useful except a silver coin spent on him in the hopes for information he didn´t possess.
On their way back to Kendra´s they came across a group of children playing skip rope and singing an odd song. Kumiko and Horace convinced them to let them write it down. I added the following verse to the song:
„Take the Axe and lop him back.
Play the pipe to make a wreck.
Tear the pages out the book.
Bring the hammer to the crook.
Wear his symbols ´round your neck.
Careful or they´ll make it snap!“
I really like the idea of using the items of the 5 prisoners against them, but there´s no real way of finding out how, so hopefully this will prove useful. It also weirded them out immensely that the adults in town had apparently never heard of this song, which was really fun.
Kendra told them about some weird passages she found in her father´s journal (the first two entries given), and they started investigating the town and the prison especially, loving the idea of getting XP for Knowledge checks.
In the night, they had strange dreams again. Horace almost had his head lopped off by the Lopper („Give me your noggin so I can make delicious noggin soup!“). Kumiko heard music playing that turned into a threatening humming. Murielle woke to a symbol of Pharasma burning itself into her brow. And Beleak saw the Mosswater Marauder working at one of his victims skulls.
Day 3: Again Gibs did his nightly work of painting on the monument. This time though, the PC´s managed to follow his tracks back home. It was a lot of fun to play the oblivious and outraged but obnoxious Gibs, who was arrested by Benjan, who of course had already pegged him as a suspect. The PC´s searched his house, but found nothing but a box of sweets, which the Thrush wanted Murielle to take, but which, as the Witch pointed out to her Familiar, didn´t belong to them, even if the owner was taken in by the sheriff.
The PC´s where attacked by some Stirges on their way to the Sherrif, which Horace successfully tanked (25 AC with his Mutagen und Shield!) but Murielle got stung by. They questioned the men playing the flute that lured them there, but of course he was entirely oblivious and obviously innocent.
They later questioned Gibs, who kept changing into his possessed self halfway through his pleading of innocence and insulting of foreigners, and promised to slit all of their throats. Now they where convinced he was possessed and had Benjan put a guard on him at all times, which Benjan had, of course, already thought of doing.
Again, the PC´s were visited in their dreams. Horace was chased through the house by the Lopper who finally cornered and beheaded (be-noggined?) him. Kumiko was slowly drained of her life by the Piper and his Stirges. Murielle was strangled to death by Father Charlatan with his holy symbols. And Beleak watched the Marauder do his grisly work again, only to wake screaming from the pain in the back of his head.
Day 4: No Monumental Desecration today, but Kendra gave them the rest of the passages from her fathers diaries. Murielle used the day to research the Whispering Way while the rest of the gang found out about the prison´s backstory and the Mosswater Marauder (by asking the only dwarf in town, the smith, which I hadn´t thought of and found very clever!) and Father Charlatan.
Father Grimburrow had already severly pissed them off by that point with his „lovely“ personality and stalwart refusal to let them use the temple´s archives, and they suspected him both of being Father Charlatan and what the Whispering Way is looking for in Ravengro. So of course they snuck into the Restlands at night to retrieve the hidden supplies the Professor had written about, and were promptly ambushed by the centipedes int he crypt and some recently risen Skeletons, which they disposed of quickly. Having found the motherload, the hauled their loot back to town and arrived just in time to save Kendra from the zombi-fied Professor Lorrimor. They alerted the sheriff and the Pharasman´s, who put up guards around the graveyard (Benjan had, of course, already planned to do so anyway).
Day 5: The PC´s woke up, relieved that they had had no more strange dreams that night, but were disconcerted by yet another desecration at the monument even though Hibs was under lock and key at the sheriff station.
At least they finally got the Professor´s will read to them, and got some bonus items I came up with. Beleak got an amulet that would let him turn into a water porpoise for 5 minutes per day, Horace got a quill that would never run out of ink and gives +2 to Linguistics, Murielle got a hairpin that gives a +1 bonus to attack rolls and skill checks made using her hair (she will take the Prehensile Hair hex later on) and finally Kumiko received scarf that gives her Resistance 5 to cold.
They also identified their swag from the Restlands, including a Ghost-Mask (basically the Spirit Planchette, except I´ve given Murielle a +10% bonus to getting the truth because her Witch Patron is Spirits). The Town Council, having come to the conclusion that something has to be going on at Harrowstone, offered to pay them a considerable sum to lay to rest whatever haunts the cursed prison, and gave them a small advance to do some shopping with.
Then they were off to Harrowstone, finally! They entered and immediately spotted the runes on the prison´s foundations. They crossed the yard and fought the rat swarm, which the Alchemist dropped with two bombs. Next they threw some stones in the lake and drew out some Skeletons, which the Gunslinger basically took out on his own („Bang! dead skeleton, down 12 gp. Bang! Dead skeleton, down another 12gp.“)
Of course they decided to enter the prison from behind, because f you GM, that´s why. They found out with a Knowledge (Local) check that in order to lay the Old Ember Maw haunt to rest for good, they needed to sift through the ashes for the old bones of a burned prisoners and Beleak almost dove into the stove as it was animating and heating up. Almost, as they took cover from it instead; it attacked and missed the Ninja by 1. Whoof, that could have been a dead (or at least dying) PC right there...
Next, they entered the Infirmary, and the Poltergeist managed to scare Kumiko, but not the rest of the gang. Murielle put on the Ghost Mask, and asked the Poltergeist why it was attacking them. „MY HATRED!“ was it´s answer. Lesson: be specific when asking a ghost for their sad, sad background story.
Murielle pointed the Gunslinger in the right direction though, and he shot a Ghost-Touch Bullet at the thing, almost killing it right there and then. Almost, but not quite, so Murielle had to concentrate on her Detect Magic to pin-point it while the others stood around posing defensively and getting shot at by various objects. 3 Holy Waters´s worth of splash damage later the Poltergeist was defeated and I was very proud of my PC´s for having managed to do so after reading about many a party fleeing it on this very board!
They were only short a few XP from level 2 so they pressed on, entering the Foyer and encountering the Slamming Doors haunt. Murielle immediatly used her healing hex on it and that was that. What an unimpressive haunt! Of course, it´s supposed to be the very first haunt you encounter instead of Ember friggin´ Maw!
With that, we ended session one. I think everyone had a good time and hope we´ll play again soon.
Behind the GM screen:
+First off, I´m quite proud of my simple but effective solution of how to keep the PC´s in town longer by pushing the reading of the will back a few days from the funeral! It let them gather some background information, get to know the town a little and witness the weird events in Ravengro that they might have otherwise missed by heading straight for the prison.
+NPC´s of note were Zorkar the innkeeper who´s weird humor amused us all a bit; Sheriff Benjan, whose constant insistence to have thought of the PC`s ideas first hilariously impressed no one but Kumiko; and Father Grimburrow, who, thanks to their horrible Diplomacy rolls whenever they where talking to him, was the grumpiest old grump that ever grumped. Kendra had the PC´s sympathies, and Horace began thinking of her as his girlfriend, but sadly Horace´s player had to leave early so that development was left dangling.
+I liked introducing the main villains of the adventure through dreams/Gibs possession and it will make their encounters that much more memorable. They also connected the Skipping Song, their dreams, and what they could manage to research in a really satisfying fashion. The Splatter Man is still a bit of a mystery to them, but that´s alright, they´ll come to fear him soon enough!
+The other Events in town worked out nicely, especially Professor Zombie-mor, whose rising really saddened them, and the Skipping Song, which fascinated them and got them to desperatly ask anyone they made if they had heard it. The Harrow card bursting into flames on their first night in town put them on their toes from the beginning, and Gibs´ sudden mood change in mid-conversation with no warning whatsoever kind of threw them, hehehe.
+I changed the treasure in the Restlands a bit, and included an adamantine hatpin. The Ninja has the Caught Off-Guard feat, and suggested that she could use it with that for fun, but thought that by the time they´ll meet something with DR/Adamantine they´d have other means of disposing it. So I´m REALLY looking forward to them encountering the various animated objects of the dungeon. Muhahaha!
+In combat they have been beasts so far. The Gunslinger is really good at shooting Skeletons and the like (though he complains that every shot he fires is 12gp down the drain), while the Alchemist tanks and throws his bombs to good effect. The Witch has her CLW-hex, which is fantastic against the miriad of haunts and Undead they´ll encounter. And the Ninja is their main damage dealer against a lot of things with her sneak attack. Of course they haven´t met any real challenges yet, so we´ll see how it goes when the going gets tough.
+One thing that I can heartily recommend is the idea of the "101 Useless Spot checks" that I found browsing some message board and have used in all my games since then. Basically, whenever my PC´s want to use Perception but there´s nothing them for them to percept, I roll on one of three tables (Outdoors, Indoors, or City/Town). There´s various little tidbits there like "a cat jumps up as if it saw something scary" or "there´s a particularily beautiful butterfly flying by" or "there´s a box of sweets on the table", etc. What I love about those is that a. they make otherwise boring areas intersting, b. they make players who are used to everything you tell them to have a meaning totally paranoid and c. they help you tell little "mini-stories", especially if you´re good at improvising.
For example, the cat jumping out of the tavern came from such a roll, and it freaked Murielle out, gave her familiar something to do (I should have gone for the little mini-adventure of the cat trying to eat it...darn). It also was a little window into the world of Ravengro ("ah, it probably keeps the mice out of the tavern, makes sense"), and later, after the "town dog" Old River had been killed by Gibs to create his second desecration, Beleak, who had previously stroked the cat and quite liked it, publicly declared that he would personally hunt anyone down who even thought about harming it! All because I rolled on that little table instead of going "You find nothing of interest."
If people are interested I can post the table, though I´d have to translate it into english first.
Well, this post turned out vastly larger then anticipated; I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I´ve enjoyed GM´ing and then writing it down. Feel free to ask if you have any questions!
Cheers,
grifter
The Gunslinger is really good at shooting Skeletons and the like (though he complains that every shot he fires is 12gp down the drain)...
Does he not know about gunsmithing? "Crafting Ammunition: You can craft bullets, pellets, and black powder for a cost in raw materials equal to 10% of the price."
Thanks for pointing that out! (we´re new to PF, as I´ve said). We thought it was 50% of the price as with magic items, but at 10% it´s much more affordable!
Kind of too bad though, his laments were funny as heck. ;)
I am running Harrowstone right now. How has the rest of your campaign gone?
Thuv