So, my group has been wanting to play an evil campaign for awhile now, and I had some vague inspiration as to how I could get 5 evil adventurers to work together and do... evil... stuff.
I have planned the evil campaign to have 6 'chapters' and we are just beginning chapter 2, in game. Thus far, the game has been far more successful and fun than I had expected. So much so, that my players have been nagging me to post about it on the Pathfinder boards.
Besides doing that, however, I've found that this campaign is getting increasingly more labor intensive, and while I can keep up with it, I think it would be both easier for me, and more amusing for everybody as a whole, if I started 'recruiting' characters from the boards. I will post general 'rules' for character submissions later on in the post, if anybody is interested, and if I remember when I'm finished. (Also, it should be noted that I might start stealing characters from Ravingdork's Crazy Character Imporium, if they suit my needs.)
Anyway, I'll be grouping the different sections with spoiler tags to avoid a giant wall of text.
Also, it would do well to note that a lot of the text I'm copy and pasting from my own personal notes, which were not written to hold up to an editor's scrutiny, please forgive the typos, grammatical errors, and plot holes in advance. Thank you.
Campaign Overview:
Deep within the pits of Hell, a quarrel among Dukes sparked to life. Zaebos (BotD I pg 50) Prince of Broken Glass and Quindiovatos (BotD I pg 50), The Vicious Guest both set their sights on the untamed lands of Golarion. Both being Dukes of insatiable greed wanting to claim new spoils, a conflict ensued.
At the same time, a pair of nascent Demon Lords from the Abyss were engaged in the trappings of a similar contest. The Nightripper, Lamashtu's torturer was at odds with Shamira, the demon lord Nocticula's favorite lover concerning the fate of a powerful healing monk of Sarenrae, Jackie Chun. Shamira, trying to corrupt his soul, was irritated to find that Nightripper was attempting to engineer his death to please his master, Lamashtu.
The God of Secrets, Norgerber, gained insight on these two conflicts, and had an idea… a chance to cause chaos using the combined powers of the Abyss, Hell, and even Abaddon. Using various means he offered six entities a wager (extending an offer to Apollyon and Szuriel to provide true balance… to which both entities delegated the task to one of their lessers.)
The six players would set aside any squabbles and participate in a game. The winner of said game would be allowed free, uncontested reign to sack Golarion, and Norgorber himself would help them obtain any desire found in the realm if it is possible to do so.
Whether or not Norgorber was lying is irrelevant, as the six beings agreed and Norgorber laid out the rules and brought forth the Book of Villany, a magic tome containing information on the most vile souls from Golarion throughout its history.
The Book of Villany is a compendium of souls that reside in Hell, The Abyss, Abaddon, as well as the few, rare, vile souls that exist elsewhere. The means of which Norgorber uses to summon these souls from the book is just another of his many secrets.
Using the Book, the six players would select 5 commanders, and those five commanders would select and summon 5 souls to be their pawns in the world. Each soul has its own power, and each player would be allowed the same amount of power. Some players may choose to summon one powerful soul and 4 weak souls, while others may employ balance with five equal souls, or any combination in-between.
The souls summoned would also receive an award. For surviving, they would keep their mortality… for winning, however, they would be granted one true wish, if it was in Norgorber's power to provide it.
What Norgorber neglected to mention, however, was that he had a plan of his own.
The party is under the "control" of Crowley, and ambitious and ruthlessly intelligent Contract Devil working under the bored Prince Zaebos. Crowley, however, has his own plans in mind… plans that may even trump the mechanisms of Norgorber himself.
How the Game works:
The game is simple: There are six starting zones, players from each team are randomly selected to start in one of the six zones. Meaning each area has 5 different teams in it to start.
The starting nations are: Varisia, Lastwall, Brevoy, Taldor, The Shackles, and Jalmeray. And their paths will all take them to Absalom.
The paths each nation will take are as followed:
Varisia > Nirmathas> Molthune > Druma > Andoran > Absalom
Brevoy > River Kingdoms > Galt > Druma > Andoran > Absalom
Lastwall > Nirmathas > Nidal> Cheliax > Andoran > Absalom
The Shackles > Sodden Lands > Rahadoum > Thuvia > Osirion > Absalom
Jalmeray > Geb > Nex (through Mana Wastes) > Katapesh > Osirion > Absalom
Taldor > Qadria > Mwangi Expanse (through Mana Wastes) > Thuvia > Osirion > Absalom
For simplicity's sake, however, Crowley will start in Varisia, Sandpoint, to be exact, where there is about to be a grand festival to christen a church.
The game is broken up into 6 Chapters. Each chapter represents a nation that various teams will start in.
Each Chapter has two Parts. The first Part is the Chaos Act. The Chaos Act judges teams based on how much evil they manage to cause, using whatever means they deem necessary.
The second Part is called the Dominance Act. This act scores players based on specific objectives relative to the area they are in, and usually takes place in the most important region of the nation. Often the capital.
The Generals (characters such as Crowley) will assign their own objectives in the Chaos Phase, and will relay the directions for the Dominance Phase as they are received.
After a Chapter Ends, the players will have a set amount of time to make their way to the next Play Area before play starts. Members who are tardy will obviously miss out on precious evil opportunities as they only become valid once they are IN the target nation.
The rules for the game are simple:
You are not allowed to kill your own General or Handler.
You are not allowed to divulge information on the Game to outsiders.
Any actions out of pure goodness will negate evil acts at a 2 - 1 ratio.
Players who attempt to abandon the game will be hunted down and destroyed.
Rules can change at the Gamemaster's whim, and will be relayed through the Handler.
A player's body and starting possessions are bound to their soul and will return to their former state shortly after the death of the player. (Bodies will turn to ash, weapons will turn into broken and mundane versions of themselves, ect.)
For better or worse, I let the players play almost whatever they wanted, barring races that I viewed were too overpowered or simply didn't fit into the campaign comfortably.
The players are as followed (I'm posting their first names because in my notes I might have used the players name instead of the character's name):
Jereme - Starting Character (Azael, CE Aasimar Fighter 10)
Will - Starting Character (Nish'ka, CE Changeling Oracle of Life 10)
Sam - Starting Character CE (Captain Herman Issac Cain, Human Drunken Brute Barbarian 7/Rogue 3)
Ben - Starting Character LE(Mrs. Lovitz, Elf Witch 10)
Dik - Starting Character LE(Batik, Tiefling Zen Archer Monk 10)
Chapter 1: Sandpoint
The Setup:
The characters 'awaken' in an abandoned house in the forests near the village of Sandpoint. Their memories of where they were before (and more importantly, what 'hell' they were suffering in) are cloudy and vague. In their possession are the items they bore in life, and a few others that they half-remember bargaining for on their way back to the material world. The core objectives of this new game, however, are sharply engraved into the back of their mind, and are the only thing that is certain.
Each party member is in the same, mundane looking house. That boasts a kitchen, a living area (complete with a large solid desk and bookshelves full of books) and stairs that lead upward to the next floor.
To greet them is a sullen looking young lady with silvery hair and wearing a gothic-style black dress. The girl introduces herself as Lynn, and explains, aloofly that she is to be their Handler for this game. From the next room, as if he had been there the whole time (despite the fact that the players can attest to the fact he wasn't) a sharply dressed man sporting a black and red suit steps into the room. The players suddenly recognize this man as Crowley, their 'Manager', of sorts, and a little bit of the fog that covers their memories flits away.
They briefly, with almost humorous neglect, explain what the newly formed party is here to do: They will begin their quest in Sandpoint, where a grand festival is being held to christen a new cathedral. Their objective is simple, desecrate the temple, and cause as much havok as possible.
The party asks a few random questions, and the only fact they learn is that Lynn is capable of acquiring various equipment and providing a large array of services. How, she doesn't explain, but she does make it an extra point to note that any and all services from her will cost double that of which they would be able to find elsewhere. Quoting "rules of the game" and whatnot. Additionally, they are told that the house they are in is 'special'. Upstairs, they all have their own rooms, which are magically suited to fit any reasonable needs of the character. Mrs. Lovitz, liked to cook bodies and turn them into pies, for example, and found it much easier to do with her own little mini bakery. The fancy rooms came with a bit of a caveat, however, as the doors were impossible to lock or bar, by any means. Meaning, that if another team (or an angry teammate from the same team) stumbled into their room to cause any sort of mischief, they would at least be able to get through the door.
Lastly, Lynn makes note that, in each area that the team will go to, she will 'move' the house. And then contact them to inform them of the location when they arrive in whatever city or place they are in. Any items that are left in the rooms are transported with the house.
The Swallowtail Havok of Sandpoint:
With explanations out of the way, the party leaves to go towards Sandpoint. Given a barely helpful, crudely drawn map from Lynn, they arrive at the city in short time. The mismatched band of villains entered the city among the droves of pilgrims and spectators, the hats of disguises helped, too.
The first thing everybody did was scout the town and the events. Various games were played, meals were eaten, and nefarious plans were in the making.
Before any of the real havok began, Nish'ka discovered these mysteriously covered wagons near the town square, and approached them to investigate. The wagons were being 'defended' by a decrepit old soldier, maybe a cleric, it was hard to tell since a lot of soldiers sport markings of their god, but nevertheless, Nish'ka bothered the man anyway. She learned that, in the wagon, were large cages of Swallowtail butterflies. The voices in her head, caused in part, by eating a lot of questionable mushrooms as a feral child in the caves that she once called home (or the link she had with her god, Lamashtu, Mother of Monsters), instantly urged her to give the creatures their true form.
Her odd conversational skills flagged her as 'more than a little touched in the head' by the old man, but he disregarded her as harmless and continued his duties. It was at that time that Captain Hermann Issac Cain approached him, at Nish'ka's request, to provide a suitable distraction as she snuck around to the other side of the wagon and doused a large portion of the creatures with her one usage of Waters of Lamashtu that was allowed at character creation.
Later, during the release of the butterflies at noon, as the party had rejoined to check out the event, the shenanigans began. The swarm of butterflies shot into the sky upon their release, and then immediately, as a cohesive force, arched downward, into the crowd of unsuspecting bystanders. The air echoed with the chilling screams of the common folk as the mutated butterflies (now equipped with deadly, deadly neurotoxin) set about stinging (with their fancy, new mutant butterfly stingers) men, women, and children without prejudice. A dozen or two people lie dead in the streets before adventurers and clerics alike were able to put a stop to the swallowtail rampage.
Some events were postponed as the people acting as security for the event attempted to investigate, disguises were changed, and there was a dark mood cast upon the entire event.
The Circus:
Next up was the 'circus'. (Please note: Fans of the Rise of the Runelords campaign, which this starting event was mimicking, if you hadn't noticed, may realize that there was no circus in the original campaign. That's because I do what I want.)
Docked at the port, was a rather large, lavishly decorated ship, spouting "Barnum Circus" on the side. They were allowed to provide entertainment before the christening. And entertain they did. During their first of two (scheduled) events for the night, commonfolk and villain alike gathered to watch the festivities. At some point, it was time for the tiger tamers to come out. This was a perfect opportunity for the tag-team of Nish'ka and The Captain to shine again. The Captain picked out the most irritated looking food vendor in the crowd he could find and set out to pick a fight. Being a Drunken Brute Barbarian, it wasn't hard for him to pose as a wasted patron, arguing about the price.
Insults were slung (with the help of the Antagonize feat), then a punch was thrown.
It was then that Nish'ka cast Murderous Command on the tiger, who was currently giving the trainer a trained, friendly hug.
Which suddenly became a bad friend hug, and the crowd was horrified by the gore.
One of the spell-casters that worked for the Barnum circus, managed to play off to the crowd that the whole scene was an intended stunt, showing a major image of the trainer 'alive and well'. And the event continued... until an incident happened with another trainer and an elephant.
One of the party members noticed a woman talk to one of the trainers near the fence, and then touch him on the arm.
What the party didn't know, was that the ice witch Falisandra, who was also in Sandpoint to wreak havok for her own team, had cast Nature's Exile on the man, at which point, the elephant decided towards vigilante justice, disregarding the now-traumatized children (and the drunken Captain, who was allowed to ride the elephant for fun) on its back and crushing the poor, hapless fool.
And the circus decided to pack it in until they were able to ascertain exactly what went wrong.
The Main Event (Part One):
Now that the fun and games were out of the way, the party began to act on a plan that was roughly drawn during the course of the day. Azael, Ms. Lovitz, and Batik would show up at the speech that was to be given by various town leaders, and assassinate the Mayor, as soon as the chaos began to spread, Nish'ka and The Captain would begin setting fires, starting from the Lumbermill and working inward.
As the crowd gathered at the Cathedral, Batik picked out his sniping perch, in full view of the speaker's podium, and loitered around at the base of the building, knowing that he could easily get to the top at a moment's notice. Azael placed himself directly in the crowd, with the intention to pretend to be a 'hero' and 'shoot back' at Batik as he filled the stage full of arrows, getting closer to the Mayor in his actions so he could manipulate the battlefield. Mrs. Lovitz took a support role, planning to cause panick and chaos using witch magic, starting from the White Deer Inn, and heading towards the cathedral.
They sat through a few unimportant speeches, and as soon as the mayor began talking, the villains took to action.
And so did the goblins, but nobody ever expects the goblins.
Mrs. Lovitz kicked off the main event, by creating a magical image of the evil butterfly swarm that murdered a group of commoners early in the day, and had it fly over the cathedral and into the crowd. Naturally, people began to panic. Simultaneously, Batik jumped on top of the building that he chose, and began firing arrows at the mayor. Azael, stayed calm and reacted as any 'good hero' should. Firing arrows back at Batik but missing.
As things turned out, Azael and Batik didn't actually communicate their plan to one another. So when Azael started shooting arrows at Batik, the monk saw this as a betrayal, and sent a few arrows flying at his comrade in earnest. Which started an actual shootout. Greatly helping Azael's disguise, ironically.
During the course of this, goblins, in their idiotic glory, started sewing additional chaos in the crowd. Killing a poor dog and then setting their blades into bigger flesh.
The poor souls that ran north, found themselves in the midst of a cloudkill spell as Ms. Lovitz calmly walked down the street behind the slow moving cloud. (The spell was relatively ineffectual, as it only killed a few people, not being fast enough to catch up to the commoners, now fleeing... not North. At the same time, however, the cloud covered the entire street, and Ms. Lovitz had to wait a few rounds in combat before she could even get around it to help out in combat.
Back to the shootout, as the Mayor tried to scramble to the Cathedral doors, Batik had enough presence of mind to fill her full of arrows, accomplishing that which they had set out to do. Using a message spell, the two villains were also able to sort out that they were not, in fact, enemies, and had more pressing matters to deal with. The Cathedral was now in lockdown, whoever was inside had consigned the people on the outside to whatever chaos that plagued them.
Azael 'helped' a wounded guard to safety, dragging him around the corner of the building towards the graveyard area, however, Batik made sure that anybody in guard armor was no longer among the living before making his way, carefully, around to Azael's location. Needless to say, Azael's new friend was dead at this point. Mrs. Lovitz finally arrived on the scene, using her Hat of Disguise to appear as a guard as she walked around a building, making sure to note to Batik that she was not an actual guard.
Headstrong, Azael continued around the side of the building, hoping that the shrine to Pharasma, located in the cemetary, held an entrance to the main Cathedral. As he rounded the last corner, however, he noticed a strange combination, a half-elven man and several goblins wielding crude shovels. At the sight of him, the half-elf ran. And the goblins came charging at Azael. Luckily, he spoke goblin, and, after hearing their battle shout, which venerated "Their Lady", he interjected, quickly convincing them that he, too, was sent by the Lady to help them, and that their orders were now to kill whatever longshanks they saw.
Gleefully the goblins ran past Azael, and he continued into the crypt. Only to encounter a truly terrifying foe. Somehow, somebody in the realms above, caught wind of what was to transpire, and left an unlikely guardian. Despite finding the dead abhorrent, Pharasma's champion was a repetant Grave Knight named Carsseus.
Once a great warrior that exploited necromancy and undeath, he was charged with being the same treatment. Forced to serve unwillingly as an undead abomination. Over time, however, his soul softened, and he began preforming duties willingly. But before he could rest in peace, he had to see the end result of this mysterious chaos that was beginning to spread in the Inner Sea Region. And he was to start in Sandpoint, where the powers that be simply knew that he had to be here.
So there they squared off, Carsseus versus Azael. After exchanging dry dialogue, the two clashed, pitting Carsseus's greatsword against Azael's deadly scythe. (As a GM, I had planned for this to be at least a 1 v 3 encounter, but as my players know, I don't pull punches if they split themselves, if they want to fight the deadly, deadly monsters on their own, let em.) The battle was quick, but the victor was unexpected. Due to some mysterious hand of fate (IE: my dice hate me, a lot) Carsseus blows failed to land, where Azaels strikes were nearly perfect. And right before Azael cleaved the head off of the Grave Knight, the abominated showed him a chilling grin. Wishing him well in his 'little game'.
As for Batik and Ms. Lovitz, still dressed like a guard, as they chased after Azael, they found, instead, a band of goblins charging towards them. In broken common they heard "KILL THE LONGSHANKS FOR OUR LADY!"
It wasn't much for them to dispatch the goblins, however, when Ms. Lovitz felt a blade pierce her back, things suddenly got a little harder.
What she didn't know, was that, during the chaos, standing on top of the cathedral, was one of her competitors: A kobold paragon (having wings and a breath weapon) ninja by the name of Stab-Face. Stab-Face witnessed all of her actions and deemed her as the first target. Miraculously, Ms. Lovitz failed to die from the assassination attempt.
Sadly for them, they were unable to see their attacker, as he benefited from the equivalent of Greater Invisibility. He harried them with attacks, but with clever usage of area of effect spells and readied actions, the duo managed to route Stab-Face, and he clumsily fled into the sky, living to fight another day.
The two reunited with a very heavily injured Azael...
The Main Event (Part Two):
As soon as the sounds of people fleeing en masse hit the ears of Captain Herman Issac Cain and Nish'ka, they set about inacting their own operations. They were already near the Lumbermill, and as they approached to set about with their pyromantic mischief, a pair of less than shady members of the local crime family emerged from a side door of the main building. Beyonce and Shy Ronnie were two cutthoats hired to protect this particular criminal interest, and the two that approached were very noticeable. After some quick banter, Nish'ka convinced them that they were just very strange and eccentric siblings. And the two thugs let them leave without incident. Naturally, the villains didn't give up, and quickly went around to the other side of the building. Expecting this, however, they were encountered by the cutthroats, and forced to fight. The two heroic villain characters made short work of the stock NPC Codex, underleveled NPCs. And set about causing a fire. And then they went across the town, causing more fires.
Upon meeting the goblins, Nish'ka presented herself as a follower of the Mother of Monsters, showing them her unholy markings, which they recognized. One of the goblins gave her their torch and they continued with their chaos. In turn, Nish'ka made it a point to magically buff any goblins she encountered while burning.
Halfway through the town, they encountered a group of heroic adventurers being set upon by skilled goblin fighters. Naturally, the villains moved to help their goblin friends. The adventuring party was made up of a dark skinned paladin, a halfling bard, wielding a flute, a female elf rogue, a middle eastern looking cleric, and a tough looking human fighter wielding two swords.
The fight was rather intense, but thanks to the element of surprise, and invisibility magic that the adventuring party wasn't quite strong enough to thwart, the goblins and villains prevailed, killing all but the bard, who fled in terror in the midst of battle. After looting and unceremoniously burning the bodies, the pair made their way to the circus tents, by their ship in the docks, in hopes of freeing the animals and causing more chaos. Sadly, the circus was much better defended than they had hoped, Barnum had a stock of mercenaries on retainer, and the two didn't feel they could accomplish much.
To The Cathedral!:
After rendezvousing with one another, both parties combined and though it best to work as a team to find a way into the cathedral, which was now being more heavily guarded by the town militia.
Moving along the coastline, their first surprise came from a smoking arrow at their feet. Followed by cannonfire from the waters off of the coast. The description of the Captain had been quickly spread through the less savory of Sandpoint's citizens (who's criminal assets were now mostly in flames) and he was marked as kill on sight. The criminal syndicate, who had friends with ships that had cannons on them, were making it a point to fire upon anything they saw as a threat to their assets, using smoke arrows as target markers. In another of MANY strokes of luck, the cannon fire was a bit errant, and didn't splash the party with several direct hits.
The protagonist villains were able to flee north before things became too bad for them. As they headed back towards the Cathedral on their new route (as their old route was in flames) they came across the Academy, a large stone building that was noted as a place for citizens to run in case of an emergency. Knowing this, Nish'ka went to the door and pleaded for them to let her in, tricking them into believing that she was a panic stricken unfortunate citizen. As soon as they opened the door, the cleric tossed her remaining supply of alchemist fire into the hallway, forcing the door shut and tying the handle to an object, barring the door from opening. The wooden interior of the building caught flame and soon the screams of burning refugees filled the air.
(The party also witnessed child versions of their beloved Rise of the Runelords characters escaping through a high window, naturally they were gone before the villains could catch them.)
The party made it to the town hall, where a grizzly scene was displayed. Several bodies were in the street, cut to pieces, while on the steps of the building there were frost bitten corpses, as well as a cold mist eminating from the building itself.
Moments later, a beautiful human woman dressed in white stepped out into the night air. It was apparent that she was the cause of the frost, at the very least. Her cold eyes, stared down at the party and she greeted them as the "agents of fire". Tactfully, Azael, feeling that this was a foe that he need not tangle with, greeted her as "the agent of ice" and the two shared an intense moment before calling a temporary cease fire.
Falisandra, the witch, from earlier at the circus, was low on magic, and even with help waiting in the shadows in the form of her halfing, wolf-mounted barbarian comrade Rakasho, she knew that she probably would die in a direct fight with the players. Her calm demeanor paid off, however, as the players ran away, missing an opportunity to kill one of their major rivals.
Immediately afterward, a dragon passed overhead, carving a path of fire nearby as it made short work of a squadron of guards.
(Oh, by the way, I figured since I was only going to use Sandpoint this one time, I might as well just combine the Rise of the Runelords goblin raid, WITH the giant raid. Complete with a much larger dragon!)
The villains dodged through side streets, wisely avoiding the dragon while staying out of the path of the soldiers mobilized to fight it.
They came across the local alchemist's shop by chance and decided to bust in. The door was well decorated, boasting a large glass window on the door itself and two accent windows on the side, all with the blinds down. The description matters because as the party attempts to break in, the owner, Alliver "Pillbug" Podiker manually set off his arrow trap that he had on the counter which was pointed at the door. A 15 foot column of poisoned arrows tears through the door and the two side glass windows, pelting the entire party with the trap. Sadly only one person failed the poison fort safe, and took minor stat damage. After subduing the alchemist, the villains traded his life and his shop for his secret store of alchemy supplies! More alchemist fire and ice for everybody!
As the party tried to get around to the side of the cathedral, to go further into the crypt in hopes of finding a backdoor. They were assaulted by two stone giants and a fire giant. After a harrowing fight with the giants, Azael landed the killing blow on the fire giant, and in a show of force, allowed the rock giants to leave if they, instead, set their sights on the force that was gathered in front of the cathedral.
The giants did just that, and the party made their way up the cliff face that the cemetery overlooked and entered the crypts.
The Final Assault:
As luck would have it, there WAS a door in the crypt that lead to the Cathedral (Azael fled after killing Carsseus, fearing more enemies within, as he was SEVERELY injured.) The door was locked, but the party had no problem breaking it down. Inside were two low-tier paladins, acting as guards. One moved to inform the others of the intrusion, while the other, a Paladin from the nearby holy-college Blue Mountain City-State (BMCS) stood his ground.
(Side note: Blue Mountain City-State is a running joke in our gaming group as a college that trained really inept paladin recruits. It started when Jereme, one of our players, made a paladin named "Thad Paladin", basing him off of the popular character Thad of the Spike TV series Blue Mountain State, who was from a college aptly named Blue Mountain City State. And the joke ran from there.)
Regardless, the party made short work of the paladin. But before they killed him, Azael told the paladin that he would spare the man's life if he forever forsake his goddess, Imodae. Being a coward deep down at heart, the rookie paladin agreed, and as his goddess stripped him of his powers on the spot, Azael stripped his head from his body. Azael was chaotic evil, afterall.
The party moved onto the main course, greeting them in the main hall were the head priest of the cathedral, and three paladins, one more noticeably imposing than the other two.
Duval Klempt, Paladin of Imodae. Was leading the defensive in this building, citing that the holy ground must be protected at ANY cost. Wielding his holy greatsword, Durandal, Duval and his comrades battled the villains. Azael and The Captain worked to hold the paladins at bay, as Ms. Lovitz used her magic to manipulate the battlefield, creating illusionary walls to prevent being seen while allowing Batik to fire arrows into his enemies with impunity. Nish'ka set out to end the cleric, who was skirting around the opposite edge of the room, attempting to support Duval with divine magic.
Duval was hearty, but as his comrades fell, he too could not match the combined might of his foes. Though, even while prone and near death, he showed the villains fear as he made use of his lunge feat and the spell Inheritor's strike, to send the Captain flying.
As he was slain, Duval's blood soaked his holy greatsword, as well as his divine wrath. And the weapon's holy power grew exponentially. As a trophy Azael claimed Duval's head and attached it to his belt. He did the same with the greatsword Durandal, placing it in its sheathe and then into his bag of holding, to rid himself of its painful effects.
The party made a mess of the cathedral, crafting a symbol of Lamashtu using the body parts of the slain clergymen. And boldly left via the front entrance.
Outside was a scene of carnage, dead human, giant, and goblin bodies littered the ground.
A loan soldier stood on the base of the steps, turning to meet the party. They recognized him as Belor Hemlock, the sheriff of Sandpoint.
But before he could engage them in battle, a hole erupted from his chest, the bloody outline of a kobold's tail weapon could be seen where Belor's heart once was. The players may have won the battle for that day, but Stab-Face had the last word... or stab.
Since this took longer to write than I had expected, I'm going to stop here for now. I intend to post more of the story at a later time, PROBABLY this weekend sometime, since we have a game session tomorrow after I get off work, and it might be too late for me to feel like writing again.
A brief overview of what's currently happening:
The party, now level 14, just entered Nirmathas via the bloodsworn vale (after making a deal with a dragon who lived there). Their objective is to go deep into the southern fangwood and destroy various druid groves to help spread the blight affecting the heart of the wood.
If anybody wishes, they can submit other competing villains. (25 point buy, normal gold value for level.) OR, they could submit ideas and characters that may oppose the villains in Nirmathas. I greatly underestimated how long it would take to post just the SANDPOINT events. But I hope it was enjoyable for you readers. Next post will have the Magnimar adventures.
Hello, i am actually one of Insanefox's players. i figured that i may as well post the current party in case people wish to build specific encounters against us. i am spoiler tagging the post in case anyone wants to wait to hear the whole story and doesn't want anything ruined. I have already gotten approval from Insanefox to read this and make this post. Anydangways the party is now
Current Party:
As i am posting this i only have access 3 character sheets so i can only be 100% sure of the levels for those but i'm pretty sure the levels are as follows.
Jereme - Antonious "Iornman" Stark (LE Human Fighter 5/ Hellknight 9)
Will - Tork Stoneshield (NE Dwarf martial artist 4/druid 10)
Sam - Herman Issac Cain (NE Human Drunken Brute Barb 10 / Pirate rogue 4)
Ben - Mrs. Lovitz (LE Elven Witch 14)
Dik - Vanni (LE Halfling Summoner 14)
I will also post everyone current preferred tactics as i want as much challenge and as a result fun as possible.
Jereme:
Iornman prefers not to enter into actual melee combat unless he must, even though he is far better at melee. he stays back firing arrows and using his ability to summon devils for bigger foes. he wears a custom crafted adamantine hell-knight folding plate. He is the crafter of the group using his ranks in craft armor and his crafting feats to make the wonderous party items, weapons, and armor.
Will:
This is me and so i can tell you a great deal about Tork's preferred tactics. Tork is a druid who prefers the "elemental forms of the forge". He uses Fire, Air, and Earth elementals primarily. He uses his martial artist levels and unarmed strikes(the RAW is unclear, but Insanefox houseruled that elementals can unarmed strike)for his primary damage using his stunning fist on bigger opponents in attempt to control their actions a bit. His druidic spell casting is mostly given over to healing spells.
Sam:
Hermans tactics are pretty variable. He has taken feats to be a fairly proficient attacker with thrown weapons, even going so far as to throw an earthbreaker that we found. in a more melee fight he uses drinking to maintain hi rage and vital strikes. if the party needs a person pulled of the caster he can use antagonize to get that person attacking him.
Ben:
Mrs. Lovits is an all around debuffer using misfortune hex, ice tomb, and sleep hex to help her control combat. she likes throwing up one way walls so that she can throw spells and range attackers are out of line of sight while still being able to attack through the illusion(as mentioned in the Duval fight above). She usually has one or two healing spells prepped and can craft wands that she tends to use over her actual spells. She also uses her cooking to create healing items such as cookies of remove curse.
Dik:
Vanni is a new character and has only really been in one fight. as far as i know vanni's eidolon is kinda minotaur looking and wields a earthbreaker that he gave it. He took the shadow form and shadow blend evolutions to make his eidolon able to meld with shadows. as for his current tactics i only know that he seems unwilling to bring out his eidolon very often but i think that will change after his being grappled by a green dragon.
I could make someone to oppose them, perhaps a metal oracle who dabbles in necromancy and who sends out constructs and undead to kill the party
Whatever you'd like me to use. If I catch up to the current story, I'm sure you're character would find its way into the game if they face him in-game.
Clearly I'm not trying to KILL the party. Just bring them as close to death as possible and then nurse them back to health. Like a crazy nurse with a God complex... either way, they have proven to be extremely resilient to the point where it's a little crazy.
