Laric's Crimson Throne Campaign - Session Reports [SPOILERS]


Curse of the Crimson Throne


I’m currently running a Curse of the Crimson Throne game whenever we aren't playing Rise of the Runelords.

As we play through CotCT, my plan is to write up my impression of how each session went, what was good in the written adventure and what I decided to change. Hopefully this will be helpful for anyone else who might decide to run this AP.

Also, I welcome other DMs to share their own stories, comments and advice.

Finally, please note that, although I took detailed notes at the end of every session, it's taken me a while to get around to posting them here. We're almost finished Edge of Anarchy as I write this, but I hope to eventually catch up and post reports after each session.


SESSION 1 - EDGE OF ANARCHY

Despite a great deal of discussion beforehand, character creation still took up the bulk of the first session.

The players had had a few weeks to look over the Player's Guide and I made good use of the Guide to Korvosa to emphasize the uniqueness of the different sections of the city. By the way, the Guide to Korvosa is an indispensable resource for anyone who is going to run this AP.

The players then took turns introducing their characters and explaining how Gaedren Lamm had wronged each of them.

The Characters:

Varamus Farrer
LG Male Human Paladin
Varamus' mother died in childbirth and Gaedren murdered his father a few years later. After a short time spent in a city orphanage, he was adopted by a paladin of Iomedae.

Lithia Tarbox
NG Female Human Wizard (Evoker)
A noble scion of House Tarbox (replaces House Zenderholm in our campaign with Zenobia Tarbox being her mother), she was framed for murder by Gaedren and was expulsed from the Acadamae.

Davis Gahan (and yes, this player is a fan of Depeche Mode)
CG Male Elf Alchemist
Adopted by Varisians after his family was killed, Davis has lived in Old Korvosa for the last one hundred years. Estranged from his children as a result of his addiction to the drug shiver, Davis only recently got back in touch with his daughter. He now seeks his grand-son who has been kidnapped and put to work as one of Lamm’s Little Lambs.

Vahak
CG Male Human (Shoanti) Oracle of Battle
A wasting giant of a man, he has lived in the shadow of the Great Mastaba for all of his life. His cousin recently overdosed on shiver sold by Gaedren.

Haunted Fortunes
Character creation having taken longer than expected, we had little time left to actually start the adventure. I did want to give the players a taste of what to expect at the next session though so I decided to go ahead and introduce the Harrow Cards knowing that we were not going to get very far. I'm glad I did because the mysterious appearance of the Harrow Cards and their cryptic message seemed to generate immediate interest and excitement from the players.

The PCs made their way to Zellara's home as instructed, and one thing that surprised me was how cautious and hesitant each of them was being. And then it dawned on me that they were expecting a trap or an ambush by Gaedren. Finding the shop empty, they read the note from Zellara but did not want to partake of any food or drink that was offered. They just sat themselves down at the table and decided to wait for Zellara so we ended the session there.

COMMENTS

House Tarbox?!?
The reason we replaced House Zenderholm with House Tarbox is purely that the player had already settled on the name "Lithia Tarbox" and only decided towards the end of character creation that Lithia was in fact a noble, and by that point the name was there to stay.

Prequel
Finally, I should mention that I briefly considered starting the campaign by playing a "prequel" adventure of some sort in Korvosa like a few other DMs have done. The advantage of doing this is that it gives the players more of a taste of what Korvosa is really like prior to the city going nuts when King Eodred dies. It can also be used to build up the Gaedren storyline so that it doesn't come across as being over too quickly.

However, I realized that I really liked having the players first meet up as a result of Zellara having brought them together for a common purpose. In my opinion, it provides one of the strongest and most memorable starts that I've seen in an AP. I did warn my players ahead of time that the Gaedren plotline was not going to be a major part of the campaign.


SESSION 2 - EDGE OF ANARCHY

In between sessions, Lithia's player had an idea and asked me if Lithia could cast detect magic while sitting at the table to see if the Harrow Card was magical. Knowing that this might lead to him [Lithia's player is a guy] discovering Zellara's true nature early, I simply asked him to remind me that he would be doing that at the start of the next session.

The Characters
Davis, Elf Alchemist 1
Lithia, Korvosan Wizard (Evoker) 1
Vahak, Shoan-ti Oracle of Battle 1
Varamus, Korvosan Paladin 1

And at the last minute, one more player showed up, so I had to come up with a pre-gen character on short notice:

Graun Quor (Based on concept from NPC Codex)
CN Male Half-Orc Fighter 1
Background: Graun Quor spent the last 20 years as a Pit Fighter slave in Kaer Maga, and traveled extensively through the Storval Plateau and Hold of Belkzen. He was sold into slavery by Gaedren Lamm and had recently been able to buy back his freedom.

And so it was that Graun Quor barged into Zellara's home, a harrow card clutched in his fist and proceeded to insult most of the other characters in the room. A fight almost broke out, but weapons were put away when Zellara made her entrance. [And in all the commotion, Lithia's player completely forgot to cast detect magic.]

The Harrowing
Our group plays via Skype and Maptool (a Virtual Tabletop), which makes certain things easier (no need to draw maps on a battlemat) but makes other things much more tedious (such as doing a Harrow Deck reading). In the end it worked out okay, but took much longer and I suspect was a little less effective than it would have been face to face. Having said that, the players loved having a card assigned to each of them, even though they still had no clue what the purpose of it was.

City on Edge
So with the Harrowing complete, they were on their way to the Old Fishery which I had relocated to a pier on the North-Eastern section of Old Korvosa. As they crossed the main bridge to Old Korvosa, I took a moment to describe how the players had been so completely consumed by their revenge against Gaedren that they hadn't noticed the changes that had happened to their beautiful city, but now with their goal so close at hand, the veil had suddenly been lifted and they felt the tension of the city, Hellknights in the streets, disgruntled and angry looking workers, etc... The people of Korvosa had had enough of the law against workers' guilds and only rumors that King Eodred might repeal it was keeping the city from erupting in bloodshed.

Scouting out the Old Fishery
As the group reached the Old Fishery, they realized that they stood out quite conspicuously from the rest of the populace: a shoan-ti, a scrawny elf, a towering half-orc, a shining knight and an expensively dressed noble all out together for a late evening stroll in Old Korvosa, yeah right!

So most of them hid in a nearby alley while they sent Davis to scout out the fishery alone. Unfortunately, Davis found that most of the windows of the fishery were extremely dirty from exposure to the fumes coming from the slurry vats inside the building (and thus couldn't be wiped clean from the outside). So Davis decided that he would "quickly" scout out the boardwalk leading to the boat before returning to the others. This proved to be a bad idea as Davis fell through the old wooden planks and narrowly avoided falling into the waters below by catching himself on the edge of the boardwalk. Too bad, he would have made a good meal for the jigsaw shark.

And that was it for our second session. We usually play 3 to 4 hour sessions, and our group is heavy into roleplaying, storytelling and planning things out so it does take time for us to work through these adventures. Our Runelord game as been running on and off for about 4 years now and we're only on adventure 4. But we have fun and that's what counts.

COMMENTS

More on Graun Quor
Graun Quor was a last minute addition to the party and then just as quickly became an NPC. He is based on a barbarian of the same name who appears in the NPC Codex. I changed his class to Fighter so things would be easier for the player running him.

Moving the Fishery to Old Korvosa
The reason for moving the old fishery to Old Korvosa was for the PCs to see a bit more of the city as they made their way to face Gaedren, and to see things more clearly for the first time in weeks. I also wanted to give some rationale for why they might be greeted by rioting mobs upon exiting the Old Fishery: the people of Korvosa are the city's most downtrodden folk and they would have the least to lose and the most to gain from bringing down the government.


SESSION 3 - EDGE OF ANARCHY

In which the PCs begin their assault on the Old Fishery.

The Characters
Davis, Elf Alchemist 1
Graun Quor, Half-Orc Fighter 1
Lithia, Korvosan Wizard (Evoker) 1
Vahak, Shoan-ti Oracle of Battle 1
Varamus, Korvosan Paladin 1

The Old Fishery
Davis returned to the group and reported what he had seen. The group debated the best approach and then decided that they should boost Davis onto the roof to see if there were any skylights that he could spy from. There wasn't, but Davis did manage to fall through the roof of the fishery, and was left dangling above the large vat of slurry. He was quickly spotted by Giggles who sounded the alarm and pushed Davis' grandson (David) into the open bay shouting at him to go warn Gaedren.

Varamus and Vahak raced down the stairs to the door leading to the fishery floor while Graun Quor, with Lithia at his side tried unsuccessfully to break down the double doors to the upper workfloor. Varamus broke down his door on the first try and made quick work of Giggles. Vahak was surprised to have a child attack him with a kukri until he recognized that it was in fact a gnome dressed like a child (Hookshanks). One blow from Vahak's falchion was enough to convince Hookshanks that he was in over his head and so he fled up the stairs and out the front doors.

Meanwhile, Graun Quor finally broke down the door only to be attacked by an angry dog (Bloo) and his foppish master (Yargin). Because I had 5 PCs, I had upgraded Bloo's stats to that of a Riding Dog, but Graun Quor's orc double axe and Lithia's magic missiles made short work of it anyway, and Davis arrived just in time to launch a bomb in Yargin's face.

With the main floor of fishery cleared, the PCs took stock of the orphans and Varamus managed to befriend them. Looking down into the open bay they saw the barge that Davis' Grandson had used to row to the underpier. They also spotted the fin of the jigsaw shark swimming around the underpier.

Kraken's Folly
After convincing the orphans to stay put with some good diplomacy rolls, the group decided to go investigate the Kraken's Folly. They decided to walk slowly and with lots of space separating each of them on the boardwalk to minimize the risk of falling through. Good strategy, but it also meant that when the first PC entered the cabin of the Kraken's Folly and was attacked by the drain spider, half the group was still on the boardwalk.

Initiative was rolled and Vahak, who was still on the boardwalk, decided that he wanted to be in the thick of things and so ran towards the sounds of combat. Running on the boardwalk once again proved to be a bad idea as Vahak fell through the boards into the water below. It didn't take long for the Jigsaw Shark to notice and start moving in. Luckily, Lithia was able to summon a dolphin to swim Vahak to safety. In the meantime, the others had made short work of the spiders and were able to find the secret door.

As the PCs stepped out onto the underpier and saw the door to Gaedren's den, the sky seemed to darken and the wind began to pick up, there was a flash of lightning and the distant rumble of thunder. A mighty storm was brewing.

COMMENTS

Lamm's Little Lambs
One thing that surprised me about this session is that although the PCs were very careful not to attack any of the orphans during combat and then tried very hard to befriend them, they didn't try to get any information from them. If they had, they might have understood a bit more what was to happen later after their showdown with Gaedren. (For my campaign, I am using this idea from the boards to fill in Gaedren's background)


SESSION 4 - EDGE OF ANARCHY

In which the PCs confront the man who wronged them.

The Characters
Davis, Elf Alchemist 1
Graun Quor, Half-Orc Fighter 1
Lithia, Korvosan Wizard (Evoker) 1
Vahak, Shoan-ti Oracle of Battle 1
Varamus, Korvosan Paladin 1

Showdown with Gaedren

Graun Quor burst through the door to Gaedren's sanctum only to be sneak attacked by Hookshanks who was waiting in ambush inside. Graun Quor was quickly distracted from his anger at Hookshanks when he saw Gaedren Lamm at the other end of the room, who had just finished putting manacles on David. As Graun Quor charged, Gaedren smiled and kicked the boy off the ledge and into the Gobblegut's pool.

The rest of the group came in and Varamus made short work of Hookshanks by smiting him with his bastard sword. Davis lept into the pool and put himself between Gobblegut and the boy. Vahak joined Davis and sliced through the alligator's thick hide with a mighty blow from his falchion. A magic missile from Lithia finally convinced the beast to flee.

Meanwhile, Graun Quor and Varamus had Gaedren cornered. Feeling desperate, Gaedren used a feint to put Graun Quor off-balance and sneak attack him. Graun Quor was at negative hit points but his orc ferocity kept him up and now it was his turn and he would strike back at Gaedren with all he had left. He hefted his orc double axe and with a snarl cut Gaedren in half before collapsing from his wounds.

Moments after Gaedren died, three ghostly figures shrouded in green flame appeared and surrounded Gaedren's body. They were incorporeal and shimmering but seemed to be dressed like adventurers. The PCs looked on as they witnessed Gaedren's spirit being ripped from his corpse by the three figures and then being carried away through a portal to some unknown place.

Recovering from their shock, the PCs sorted through Gaedren's loot and Lithia recognized the Queen's Brooch and remembered the reward that was being offered for its return. Meanwhile, Vahak brought Graun Quor back to consciousness with some healing spells.

The PCs were then quite shocked to discover Zellara's severed head and Harrow Deck in the hatbox. They really weren't sure what to do after that and were starting to think that this might be a good place to spend the night when they heard panicked cries from the orphans upstairs. Seemingly the fishery had been set ablaze by some rioters outside.

It was going to be a very long night.

COMMENTS

Rebuilding Gaedren
When updating Gaedren to Pathfinder rules I decided to replace his Skill Focus (Bluff) feat with Improved Feint. That way, Gaedren was better able to add sneak attack damage to his measley 1d4-3 melee damage! (Come on Paizo, even the orphans hit harder than Gaedren)

Head In A Box (insert SNL reference here)
The reveal of Zellara's severed head was one of the most enjoyable moments of the first adventure for me. It was a lot of fun to watch their reactions as they slowly realized that they had been brought together by a ghost in order to get revenge on a common enemy. From what I could judge, the players also seemed to think that it had been quite cleverly done and appeared amused rather than upset by the fact that they had been fooled.


SESSION 5 - EDGE OF ANARCHY

In which the PCs face a city in turmoil.

The Characters
Davis, Elf Alchemist 1
Graun Quor, Half-Orc Fighter 1
Lithia, Korvosan Wizard (Evoker) 1
Vahak, Shoan-ti Oracle of Battle 1
Varamus, Korvosan Paladin 1

The Longest Night

The PCs ran out of the burning fishery with Varamus running back in to rescue two orphans who were trapped by the blaze on the top floor. The group was told that the rest of the orphans had managed to make it out and had quickly scattered through the streets.

The storm finally broke, thunder rumbled and lightning flashed. The PCs saw mobs in the streets and heard shouts that King Eodred was dead. Rioters, hellknights, sable marines, pseudodragons and imps clashed in the streets and skies above Korvosa.

The PCs decided that their first priority was to find shelter somewhere in Old Korvosa. They settled on Fort Korvosa on Garrison Hill reasoning that training ground for the guards would likely be one of the safest places in Old Korvosa. They set out and on their way rescued a young noble named Amin Jalento from a group of thugs. Amin was training at Orisini Academy which was also located on Garrison Hill and offered to have the PCs stay there with him. The PCs then met a drunken watch sergeant named Grau Soldado and decided to escort him back to safety.

They were then ambushed by four imps who attempted to tempt Varamus into making a deal with them. In exchange for giving them one of the orphans of his choosing they would let the rest of the group go in peace. Varamus refused and so the imps attacked. Fortunately, the group was rescued by a group of pseudodragons who chased off the imps.

The PCs made it to Davis' daughter's house and reunited David with his mother. They took the family with them and that was the last straw for Graun Quor who decided to bail because he was getting annoyed at having so many people in tow.

Fort Korvosa

The group reached Fort Korvosa, delivered Grau and met Vencarlo who took them in. Lithia managed to use her noble status to talk her way into meeting Marcus Thalassimus Endrin who was organizing the efforts to get the riots under control. She learned more information regarding the King's death and also that Neolandus Kalepopolis was missing.

Varamus was recruited to lead Grau's group of guards to stop a riot (which he did without using force by rolling a natural 20 on his diplomacy check). Davis, accompanied by Vencarlo, went out into the streets of Old Korvosa to try and see if he could somehow find his other estranged daughter and bring her to safety. Their efforts were unsuccessful but Davis did scatter a mob using one of his alchemist bombs.

COMMENTS

Too Long a Night?
My intention with setting fire to the Old Fishery and running all those "City in Turmoil" encounters in a row was to instill in the group a sense a panic and force them to think of their feet when low on resources. This wasn't simply a 15-minute adventuring day where you could exit the dungeon and sleep for 8 hours. They were in the middle of a city in chaos and the riots wouldn't wait for them to rest. I found a lot of inspiration for this session in this image and I think it worked fairly well in the end but I hadn't accounted for the fact that the party would swell up to such monstrous proportions by accumulating so many NPCs. Also the fight with Gaedren had really drained the party's resources and so the imps offer to Varamus was met with some surprising haggling instead of the flat out refusal that I had expected. To be fair, the haggling revolved around Varamus trying to convince the imps to take him instead of one of the orphans and let the rest of the group go free.

Exit Graun Quor
I really liked Graun Quor (who was by this point an NPC rather than a PC) but after the encounter with the imps, it was time for him to go. He didn't strike me as the altruistic type and so when the group ballooned up to eleven people (4 PCs, Grau, Amin, David, his parents and the two orphans) I used that as an excuse to have him leave.

Early Introductions
As written, Marcus Endrin doesn't appear in Edge of Anarchy, but when Lithia's player decided that he wanted to pull strings to speak to the one in charge I couldn't resist. There were three advantages to doing this as far as I was concerned:
1) it provided a PC-driven introduction to the character before Escape from Old Korvosa
2) it allowed me to give the players some additional information that they wanted but that would have otherwise been unavailable to most other NPCs in the city at this point
3) it gave me a suitable alternative avenue by which to introduce them to Cressida Kroft if the PCs chose not to return the Queen's Brooch (which I suspected would be the case as they had already begun to hint at the fact that they did not want to have anything to do with the Queen now that the King was dead)

The fact that the PCs went to Endrin Academy also led to an early introduction of Vencarlo which I was fine with. All in all, I was very glad to have moved the location of the Old Fishery from Midland to Old Korvosa.


SESSION 6 - EDGE OF ANARCHY

In which the PCs have a little downtime.

The Characters
Davis, Elf Alchemist 2
Lithia, Korvosan Wizard (Evoker) 2
Vahak, Shoan-ti Oracle of Battle 2
Varamus, Korvosan Paladin 2

Downtime and Decisions

The day after the start of the riot, Korvosa is still reeling. The PCs decide not to sell or return the Queen’s Brooch

A week goes by during which the following things occur:
-Zellara is given a proper burial by Varamus
-Grau thanks Varamus for helping him
-Vencarlo and Lithia become friends
-Davis makes potions of healing

As the riots are getting back under control, Marcus Endrin recruits the group to help with Cressida’s problem. He has them flown to Citadel Volshyenek where Cressida explains the situation of the Renegade Guards. She stresses that she would like Verik captured alive. Davis suggests that he could use sleep poison to capture Verik if a fight breaks out and Cressida accepts to cover the cost of a dose.

On the way to All The World's Meat, the group stops at the market to sell off Gaedren’s loot. Varamus is set upon by a mad prophet just before an Otyugh bursts out of a nearby sewer entrance. During the fight, Varamus is infected with “Filth Fever”.

COMMENTS

Queen's Brooch
When the PCs finally decided that they were not going to return the Queen's Brooch, I knew that I still wanted to give them a chance to "meet" the Queen at some point during the first part of Edge of Anarchy so that they could see some evolution in her character when they saw her again at the execution scene. So after this session was over I started thinking about how I could provide the PCs with an opportunity to see the Queen without actually having to interact with her.


Have the guard approach them. That brooch has been flagged as missing or stolen by the Queen and the jeweler gave description of the party to the abadarian tax regulators.

If they didn't sell it yet... Any jeweler would know that brooch is a hot item and best turned in for its reward and not sold.

Perhaps word of their involvement in saving the city reached her ears. Additionally perhaps The Queen has a personal interest in the heirloom. It was lost on the day she met he deceased husband and King.

Sabina or another emissary could be sent to talk to the PCs.


Thanks Olondir! Unfortunately, I am really behind on my session reports and this situation played out a while back, but I do appreciate your suggestions.

The PCs decided not to return the Queen's Brooch AND not to sell it as well. Additionally, they did not tell or show anyone that they had the brooch. They didn't even have it appraised by a jeweler because they already knew what it was worth.

For a while, I considered forcing their hand by having the Cerulean Society approach them with an offer to buy it. From the DM side of things I felt I could justify this by having it be that Grandmaster Boule (on behalf of Glorio) had arranged to buy it from Gaedren but the old fishery burned down before the exchange could happen. The orphans who survived the blaze could have described the PCs to Boule.

Later, when the PCs had the Raktavarna on them, I was thinking of having a similar scenario occur but this time it would have been to clue the PCs into the fact that they were being spied on.

In the end, I didn't do it because the players had made a conscious decision to keep the brooch a secret and had taken all the necessary precautions so I felt that they should be allowed to succeed.

Did your players return the brooch to the queen?


Hi Laric!

Rewarding your player's decision to keep that brooch under wraps is likely the right call. Revealing they're being spied on so early could make them paranoid for the wrong reasons. I'm curious to hear what your player's intentions are with that brooch.

It'd be a shame for them to miss the Queen's transition. Have you come up with any other ideas for introducing the Queen prior to the execution? Perhaps something to do with the Chelish ambassador?

My players have currently just begun their own prelude. The Ileosa has yet to even introduce herself to the King.

Good luck and happy gaming!


Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Hey Laric!

How is your game going? I haven't heard from you in awhile. Not going to lie, I'm looking forward to Book 3. Love me some Arkonas!


Hey Knick,

Thanks for checking in!

Yeah, we finished book 1 and it went really well but the game is on hold at the moment as our group alternates DMs.

Still planning to finish these session logs eventually and hope to continue the campaign at some point.

Your advice as I DM'ed part 1 was invaluable and greatly improved the campaign. I still check these boards regularly and really enjoy reading your posts.

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