Feel free to. :) Seriously, the group was so "meh" on the "rescue the maiden" aspect but perked up when they found out there were children being held captive. But when they heard "princess who sings... when she's not swearing her head off" they loved it.
I mean, tropes aren't bad. But sometimes you need to mix things up. They love the little girl who threw marbles at the bugbear. It made the kids into something more than a plot token. Having the lady bard actually be useful? Hell, while she's going to stay a level below, I figure she can use her Bardic Song to give the group a small bonus in fighting the dragon.
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In fairness to Mr. Groves it's not like a same sex couple are typical of the story:-D
Still good job Tangent, always good to add quirks to the characters, I'm also totally using that if and when we ever re-start RoW (a big if with the popularity of Iron Gods:-D)
My group has a bard, so unfortunately I cannot use her bardic song ability. But I might let her sing something, or they can hear her swear, with an Italian accent :-)
In fairness to Mr. Groves it's not like a same sex couple are typical of the story:-D
Still good job Tangent, always good to add quirks to the characters, I'm also totally using that if and when we ever re-start RoW (a big if with the popularity of Iron Gods:-D)
Except that the character was shown to have warned her lover of the threat she was facing back home (causing that character to head to Irrisen and take up a new quieter form of resistance), so she's no coward. Sitting in a cell and sobbing is... no. Just no.
In addition, the same-sex relationship is a secret only revealed at the very end once you've freed her and returned her to her former lover.
So. On the cover of this "book" you have the stereotypical maiden in distress. When you look further into it, you see a character who should be stronger than how she was depicted, so to create the Maiden in Distress scenario with fluff to make it slightly different.
Far better to have the maiden an angry and fairly-controlled woman who only does the dragon's bidding to save the life of a little girl. That turns the singer into someone heroic while averting a number of tropes with unfortunate connotations. And hey, my players like what I did here, and from the sounds of it, other people like this version better as well. ;)
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Fair enough, I certainly can't argue with that, well said :-)
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So, I'm horribly evil.
We have three character engaged in a sort of love triangle. We have a Samurai named Shin that is being pursued by a female Barbarian named Karin (most known for stabber her own eyes out attempting to heal a Blindness spell) and a male Gunslinger/Inquisitor named Cherard (most known for being ridiculously gay). Cherard's player couldn't make it, so I was tasked with playing him.
We had just entered the hut and were trying to identify all the neat things we found. Cherard, having some ranks in Spellcraft, managed to be the only character to identify the Elixer of Love. The GM, feeling that it would be interesting to have only me know this, passed me this info in a note. I sent a text to the player informing him that he obtained this and was told that if I could get Shin to drink it, I would become his new god. Challenge accepted.
Opportunity struck a bit later when we engaged with the Bone Golem. Cherard was stuck in the cage with no real hope of getting out until the golem died. Shin, being our Samurai, is our main "takes hits" guy. Previously, we had given him some Potions of Enlarge Person that we found to make him even stronger. So I, as a player, bluffed that I had forgotten one that Cherard had on him. I convinced another character to give Shin the potion and requested that he look at me when he drank it, since Cherard claimed that he was going to die in the cage (which he almost did).
Shin drank the potion, but didn't look at Cherard. He looked at the Bone Golem. After all, he had just challenged it and needed to concentrate on it. It was at that point that I announced to the party that Shin was in love with the Bone Golem and the table exploded with laughter.
Unfortunately he made the will save needed to resist the effect, but I really kind of wish he hadn't. Either way, that was probably the most epic prank I ever pulled on the party.
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So, I'm horribly evil.
We have three character engaged in a sort of love triangle. We have a Samurai named Shin that is being pursued by a female Barbarian named Karin (most known for stabber her own eyes out attempting to heal a Blindness spell) and a male Gunslinger/Inquisitor named Cherard (most known for being ridiculously gay). Cherard's player couldn't make it, so I was tasked with playing him.
We had just entered the hut and were trying to identify all the neat things we found. Cherard, having some ranks in Spellcraft, managed to be the only character to identify the Elixer of Love. The GM, feeling that it would be interesting to have only me know this, passed me this info in a note. I sent a text to the player informing him that he obtained this and was told that if I could get Shin to drink it, I would become his new god. Challenge accepted.
Opportunity struck a bit later when we engaged with the Bone Golem. Cherard was stuck in the cage with no real hope of getting out until the golem died. Shin, being our Samurai, is our main "takes hits" guy. Previously, we had given him some Potions of Enlarge Person that we found to make him even stronger. So I, as a player, bluffed that I had forgotten one that Cherard had on him. I convinced another character to give Shin the potion and requested that he look at me when he drank it, since Cherard claimed that he was going to die in the cage (which he almost did).
Shin drank the potion, but didn't look at Cherard. He looked at the Bone Golem. After all, he had just challenged it and needed to concentrate on it. It was at that point that I announced to the party that Shin was in love with the Bone Golem and the table exploded with laughter.
Unfortunately he made the will save needed to resist the effect, but I really kind of wish he hadn't. Either way, that was probably the most epic prank I ever pulled on the party.
Delicious...
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For us, Our GM modified the boon we got during the first book, giving us the stats boost but also binding our sould and bodies to the quest. As such whenever we died we found ourselves reincarnated the next morning. This brought on one event.
As we finished exploring the three statues of book 3, the halfling sorceror had taken upon himself to be temporarily aged up and sent down the Aeon pit. As we're wondering how we could climb down the 3000ft statue, the halfling reminded us that he was still affected by the aging curse. Cue my Witch and the Warpriest(who was the sorceror's twin younger brother) looking at one another and commenting:"Well if he gets reincarnated all the effects on him are going to end" and "And I only got 2 potions of feather fall left so...". One ridiculously easy grapple check later and you can enjoy the screams of an ancient halfling falling down 3000ft to his deat- I mean cure.
Also a bit of a running gag until the player quut on us, but whenever we'd meet something that could blind us, the Barbarian would inevitably be blibded at the end of the battle(raven,magic, undead raven, you name it)
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And we return, after quite a while of silence, to our scheduled "Wait, what exactly did my crazed party do?" installments. All has been quiet, as the campaign is one of three that has been run off and on for some time, and frankly Book 2 was hilarious, what with the blue-skinned Samsaran posing as a winter-touched fey witch and such. Book 3 was, predictably, something of a slow point. We got through it, but the storyline is very limited.
Oh, but they did not disappoint in Book 4. And they are continuing to not disappoint. So, we're out of the introductory zone and onto part 1 and it starts out almost immediately going into crazy-town.
Nobody really knows any language other than draconic to parley with either side, and only one member knows draconic. And, while our blue-skinned little rogue turned ranger, turned Witchguard of the Orc Scarred witch is good at some things, their usual schtick just isn't working on another planet. The party decides to look for a way in. They've acquired a legitimate arcane spellcaster lately, and that spellcaster happens to know teleportation magic, so it seems like a brilliant idea to sneak in close enough to get to a teleportation point and try to get into the castle.
Smart, right? Well, the scouting team of Greta + Blue-Skinned Misty are thoroughly enough to find the location and assist getting past the General's patrols. They get to the desired point sufficient distance away and the arcane caster and everyone else fails to detect that something is horribly wrong and gets shunted into the teleportation trap.
The encounter with the Iron Golem is easily the most terrifying fight that they've had since I brought Hommelstaub back, armed with several levels more of Oracle, amplified gear, a few elementals and an axe to grind from book one. Nothing in Book 3 challenged them this way. But, their anti-adamantine DR was a liiiitttle under the weather, so they barely got through it. Afterwards, one silence spell and some care later, and they got the drop on the guards in the guard room of the prison cells. The spellcaster is one of those rare "I like enchantment spells a lot, and have a colossal caster stat" types, so one Deep Slumber and a Suggestion later after a botched initiative on the guards' parts, and they were locking themselves in a jail cell, out of combat.
Where things get hilarious is that the players very carefully used gloves of reconaissance and proper scouting techniques to, by sheer guesswork take the small likelihood of avoiding all of the heavily armed-guard frequenting points and go RIGHT FOR THE COMMANDERS' PERSONAL CHAMBERS. DC 30 locks? No problem. Hey, look. There's the key.
I finally had to make a hip shot choice between "Is the commander in that room, or is the siege beginning in earnest." Coin flip, and the General has begun their offensive. They have literally skipped the primary thrust of the first campaign arc and are trying to sneak out/fight their way through the siege as the general's forces engage, prepping a scroll-cast bubble of invisibility sphere and passwall to enable them to potentially get the party through the damned outer walls. Because I am allowing Mythic 1 for the characters (And believe me, fighting a Mythic Treant was a fun fight in the first part), the spellcaster has wild magic, which means that yes, you guessed it. They can actually attempt to passwall through this castle's walls successfully with two casts.
I now must re-write several encounters, create additional storyline and somehow address the massive gear issues, as their social approach eerily enough made them drastically undergeared at the start of this book, having avoided several key fights. So, it is time to start pulling things out of the posterior, because we're about the go off the grid.
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After clearing out the guards (and ice troll) on the first level of the Pale Tower at the end of book 1, the party I GM for asked Hatch what was in the two little rooms near the staircases. "They are like outhouses, but on the inside," the domovoi told them. "Very fancy-schmancy."
The female rogue (played by my wife) announced she had to try this for herself, and anyway she had been holding it since before they got off the dogsled. She marched into one of the privies (on her way, my GMPC -- a half-orc cleric of Cayden Cailean -- gave her a religious tract in case she wanted something to read), and took her time. When she was finished, she came out and told the other two female characters in the party -- the gnome sorcerer and the party's 1st level bard torchbearer who joined up in Waldsby, both played by our daughter -- "You've got to try one of these privies! It's amazing!" The bard used it in the usual way, and was suitably impressed.
The gnome tried to flush herself down the toilet, and ended up just spinning around in the "little tub" and clogging it, sending water all over the floor.
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So, it's been a few years. And after chatting with my players, they suggested that I shouldn't leave the campaign at Book 4, not without coming back to Book 5... and the fight with Rasputin.
Now, I mentioned that I gave them Mythic, right? Yeah, Mythic is NOT why they managed to get Rasputin to do the absolutely unthinkable. There's a bit of a Content Warning below for NPC getting so desperate as to commit self harm.
Right, so, most of the shenanigans were what you'd expect for this yahoos. We had lost the spellcaster from books 3 & 4, so it was our Samsaran Witchguard, Orc Witch and Valeros 2.0 tag-teaming to take on the forces of Russia and Rasputin. They primarily focused on stealth tactics, and in this? They'd developed quite a niche at getting where I didn't expect them with ridiculous rolls and decked the NPC healer out with enough crap to make sure she could keep pace.
Where things got interesting was the Rasputin fight. Predictably, because I'd read book six over and over again and decided I had to rework EVERYTHING (I have opinions about book 6), the fight with Rasputin ended up being climactic confrontation of the entire campaign. They were primed for it, and by giving him mythic tiers, it was a vicious, hellish fight ... right up until the moment that the Witch caused Rasputin to decide that killing himself was the appropriate tactic in that moment.
So... let's return to our Orc Witch for a moment. Gorch was .. no question? An odd character. He utilized mythic tiers but only so much. The other members of the party got more out of it, and even at the minimal levels cold do impressive things. But Gorch found his niche in just the basic tricks he had at his disposal, and recently, he'd taken two levels as an Arcane Archer. This had caused no small amount of confusion on my part and the rest of the party. We got it. He could imbue some of his curse spells in arrows and get some serious range. Great, nifty. But it didn't seem worth it. And truth? It didn't really alter any major fights enough to be worth it... you know...
Until he shot Rasputin with an arrow carrying Source Severence as a spell. And then did it again the next round to cut Rasputin, now the personal target of the spell because of Imbue Spell's rules that even personal spells are now targeted where the arrow landed (in Rasputin), causing Rasputin to become a walking Anti-Divine, Anti-Arcane magic field. He was getting focus fired, battered by repeated attacks and utterly, incomprehensibly unable to impact the fight. Rasputin looked with rage as I went through his options, hit upon his one unique trick, and he shouted in rage, venting epithets in Russian and killed himself.
...to come to life back a little later while some of his minions still alive, but all of his magic back. He proceeded to attempt to beat a fighting retreat so that he could get through to safety and teleport to Jadviga in the hopes of enacting elaborate plans for revenge, but they were having none of it. It's been a couple years, but I'm pretty sure that they managed to Source Severence him AGAIN from divine magic (Gorch was saving all of those level 6 spells ONLY for him) and I 'think' I remember they dimensionally anchored the bastard before he could attempt to teleport away with arcane magic.
In the end, the fight was legitimately brutal. I'd allowed them upgrades and went whole hog upgrading him, and it was to the wire, but they did manage to kill Rasputin. (Ironically, even upgraded heavily, Jadviga didn't stand an ice cube's chance. Her fight was deceptively brief comparatively. Rasputin hit that perfect mark of threat to player abilities.) But what still to this day makes all of us laugh evil tears is that they managed to get Rasputin to KILL HIMSELF in the middle of their fight just so he'd have a chance to beat them when he came back from the dead.
Oh... hah, and I carefully watch the use of Source Severance after that fight, haha. It's a horrifying spell, and they know my NPCs can have it too.
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I agree that Rasputin is the best antagonist of RoW. Well, there's this wonderful thing about a Level 20 Oracle of whatever type Rasputin is: when they die, a couple days later he comes back as a Ghost.
Rasputin is the perfect End Boss. Well, what if he manipulated Elvanna into thinking she was in charge while he was stealing Baba Yaga's Mythic Ranks to ascend into Godhood?
My old group self-destructed because one player felt game sessions should happen when he felt like it rather than when the group could meet, but I'm now co-GMing a new group through RoW. And my co-GM loves the idea of Rasputin being the Final Big Bad.
After the group faces Elvanna, Rasputin is going to Possess her, flee before the end, and then we'll put the group through the level 17 module concerning Elvanna's efforts to get a certain Torque... only level it up to 20 and have Elvanna/Rasputin as the end boss. With Mythic Tiers.
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So, it's been a few years. And after chatting with my players, they suggested that I shouldn't leave the campaign at Book 4, not without coming back to Book 5... and the fight with Rasputin.
Now, I mentioned that I gave them Mythic, right? Yeah, Mythic is NOT why they managed to get Rasputin to do the absolutely unthinkable. There's a bit of a Content Warning below for NPC getting so desperate as to commit self harm.
** spoiler omitted **...
Was nice after all this time to get to come back and finally read what you wrote contemporaneously when we were playing. Reign of Winter was a lot of fun and getting to bring back the memories feels good.
Shutting down Rasputin like that is something that I'll never forget.
Thanks for being our GM, I look forward to reading about our misadventures in Skulls & Shackles next. :)
So. The old game fizzled out years ago but I've a new group and we've been very much enjoying RoW (and I'm actually getting to run my own PC now, though I'm an Assistant GM this time around handling the technical details for Roll20). Little hijinks we've had happen include the Haunted Oracle's curse "meddling" with the Oracle's cooking to craft something hallucinogenic, an Atomie using Shrink Item on the Barbarian's favorite Axe, and best of all when the group was checking the bottom of a flying ship they were on (obviously some GM-crafted content!) for stowaways and found a Skeletal Lord and a bunch of zombies clinging to the back of the ship (a little story involving a necromancer and my new PC who was mentored by the necromancer) where the Skeletal Lord raised his bone finger to his mouth and said "I don't suppose you could pretend you didn't see me?"
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Book 5 is the best book in reign of winter yeah, though I don't think Rasputin should replace Elvanna just because of how amazing villain he is. Like Elvanna's main problem is having 0 screentime until showing up in final boss fight and no real strong reasons for players to feel strongly about them one way or another besides overall "yeah she is evil ice witch" <_<
(that said its much easier to use Rasputin instead that rewriting entire AP and Elvanna's lack of screentime)
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Actually, one method of having Elvanna show up more often is the use of the Simulacrum spell. This would allow for a Level 10 version of Elvanna causing mischief for the PCs in Maiden Mother Crone. Hell, a lower-level version of her (level 7 or 8) would work in place of Nazhena guarding the Hut in The Shackled Hut, and several Elvanna simulacrums working in tandem could even give a higher-level group difficulty in the one with the dragon riders.
That way the PCs can grow to hate her even before they encounter her in Book 6. Hell, if you have a couple Simulacrums working with Elvanna in the end of Book 6, you end up with versions of her able to use hexes on the group while the Queen becomes a more viable threat - and yes, the PCs can probably eliminate the Simulacrums within a round or two but that eats up their action economy - especially if they don't know WHICH one is the proper Queen Elvanna.
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Well simulacrums ARE made out of snow...
...Ya know in retrospect pretty weird they never used that.
Anyway, on sidenote, what is your preferred interpretation of what kind of villain Elvanna actually is personality wise? (my preference is from how my gm run her: ice cold and stoic)
Well simulacrums ARE made out of snow...
...Ya know in retrospect pretty weird they never used that.
Anyway, on sidenote, what is your preferred interpretation of what kind of villain Elvanna actually is personality wise? (my preference is from how my gm run her: ice cold and stoic)
I'd have her basically be "superior to thou" - she looks down her nose at your heroes, insults their accomplishments, tells them that they won't prevail, and acts as if she's lessening herself by talking to them.
Even when a simulacrum is about to die, have it never lose its calm. It has ice water in its veins. Literally. ;)
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Here. The Elvanna Simulacrum (lvl 10 version).
Elvanna Simulacrum lv 10
Human (Jadwiga) winter witch 5/witch (winter witch) 5 (Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Inner Sea Magic, Pathfinder RPG Advanced Player's Guide 65)
NE Medium humanoid (human)
Hero Points 1
Init +7; Senses Perception +18
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Defense
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AC 18, touch 17, flat-footed 15 (+2 deflection, +3 Dex, +2 enhancement, +1 natural)
hp 77 (10d6+35)
Fort +8, Ref +9, Will +10
Resist cold 10
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Offense
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Speed 30 ft.
Melee mwk icy burst quarterstaff +4 (1d6-1 plus 1d6 cold)
Special Attacks hexes (cackle[APG], evil eye[APG], frostfoot, frozen caress, ice tomb[UM])
Winter Witch Spell-Like Abilities (CL 5th; concentration +7)
2/day—sculpt ice and snow
Witch Spell-Like Abilities (CL 9th; concentration +14)
Constant—endure elements (cold only)
Witch (Winter Witch) Spells Prepared (CL 9th; concentration +14)
5th—baleful polymorph (DC 20), cone of cold (DC 22)
4th—charm monster (DC 19), crushing despair (DC 19), greater false life[UM]
3rd—dispel magic, howling agony[UM] (DC 18), ice spears (DC 20), lightning bolt (DC 18)
2nd—detect thoughts (DC 17), disfiguring touch[UM] (DC 17), flurry of snowballs (DC 19), frost fall[UC] (DC 19), spectral hand
1st—charm person (DC 16), chill touch (DC 16), ill omen[APG], lock gaze[UC] (DC 16), snowball[UW], unshakable chill[UM] (DC 18)
0 (at will)—detect magic, detect poison, message, ray of frost
Patron Winter
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Statistics
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Str 8, Dex 16, Con 14, Int 21, Wis 10, Cha 14
Base Atk +4; CMB +3; CMD 18
Feats Accursed Hex[UM], Alertness, Combat Casting, Elemental Focus (cold)[APG], Improved Initiative, Toughness
Traits seeker, world traveler
Skills Appraise +15, Bluff +15, Intimidate +17, Knowledge (arcana) +18, Knowledge (history) +18, Knowledge (nature) +18, Knowledge (nobility) +18, Perception +18, Sense Motive +18, Spellcraft +18
Languages Abyssal, Common, Draconic, Giant, Skald, Sylvan
SQ freeze and thaw, unnatural cold, witch's familiar (raven named Svoboda)
Other Gear mwk icy burst quarterstaff, cackling hag's blouse[UE], robe of components[UE], stone salve, 140 gp
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Special Abilities
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Accursed Hex Target a creature with a hex a second time that day if it made its save the first time
Cackle (Su) As a move action, extend the duration of other hexes by 1 rd.
Combat Casting +4 to Concentration checks to cast while on the defensive.
Deliver Touch Spells Through Familiar (Su) Your familiar can deliver touch spells for you.
Elemental Focus (Cold) +1 DC to spells that deal damage of the chosen energy.
Empathic Link with Familiar (Su) You have an empathic link with your Arcane Familiar.
Energy Resistance, Cold (10) You have the specified Energy Resistance against Cold attacks.
Evil Eye -4 (8 rounds, DC 20) (Su) Foe in 30 ft takes penalty to your choice of AC, attacks, saves, ability or skill checks (Will part).
Familiar Bonus: +3 to Appraise checks You gain the Alertness feat while your familiar is within arm's reach.
Freeze and Thaw (2/day) (Su) Freeze or thaw a 5-ft. cube of water or ice, or 10-ft cube of snow.
Frostfoot (Su) This ability works like the spider climb spell, but the surfaces the witch climbs must be icy. The witch can move across icy surfaces without penalty and does not need to make Acrobatics checks to run or charge on ice. She can move across regu
Frozen Caress (Su) Whenever the winter witch casts a touch spell, she can infuse the magic with cold as a swift action. This grants the spell the cold descriptor, and adds 1d4 points of cold damage to the spell’s effect. If the touch spell allows a saving throw, a su
Ice Tomb (DC 20) (Su) A storm of ice and freezing wind envelops the creature, which takes 3d8 points of cold damage (Fortitude half). If the target fails its save, it is paralyzed and unconscious but does not need to eat or breathe while the ice lasts. The ice has 20 hit
Sculpt Ice and Snow (stone shape, 2/day) (Sp) At 4th level, a winter witch can sculpt ice and snow into any shape that suits her purpose (as stone shape, except that it works with ice). This ability also works on snow, doubling the volume affected. At 7th level, this ability functions on
Share Spells with Familiar Can cast spells with a target of "You" on the familiar with a range of touch.
Speak with Animals (Ex) Your familiar can communicate with animals similar to itself.
Speak with Familiar (Ex) You can communicate verbally with your familiar.
Unnatural Cold (Su) Targets of your spells, spell-like abilities, supernatural abilities halve cold resistance.
Witch's Familiar (Ex) Gain the services of a special familiar that stores spells.
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In the case of Nazhena, I'd have a Level 8 version of a Elvanna Simalacrum with her (have the Icy Burst quarterstaff just be a Frost Quarterstaff). Best of all, it can easily walk through the Antilife Shell, so it even has a logical reason for being there - checking on Nazhena and giving her orders - and the *ability* to be there.