Degausser's Hell's Rebel's Log


Hell's Rebels

Scarab Sages

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Just started GMing a Hell's Rebels game, and I can already tell that our group is going to be super fun. I plan on updating this thread every time we play, if something fun happens.

Today we played the first third of the first book (Chapter 1, up to setting up the Silver Ravens)

The party:

-A'vara, Female 1/2 elf Magus with a Falcata
-Sergio Somewhat dim and unrefined manual laborer, Male human Brawler (Snakebite Striker). Best friends with Tad
-Felicia: Female Human cleric from the local Church of Shelyn
-"Tad" Male Investigator (Iniltrator), 'master' of disguise (well, he's only level 1, can't be that good.) He is in actuality a noble from House Jhaltero
-Roxy Female Gaultian Medium (spirit dancer) who worships Milani. Came to Kintargo to start her own revolution.

The protest went off surprisingly well, as our 'master' of disguise tried to dress up like a Dottari guard, but was spotted by the Chellish citizens' group because he rolled a 4 on the die. The Shelynite cast Obscuring mist to let everyone escape (including innocent NPCs)

The fun part though was when they encountered Rexus. The infiltrator drank his infusion of disguise self to have a better Dottari disguise and just told the Citizen's group to leave, that he'd arrest the man. He bluffed, they bought it, and they left, no violence.

Clearing the livery and the Wasps's nest went relatively painlessly, as the brawler scored a crit on the aligator while he had sneak attack and took it down in one hit (it had a bit of damage on it already, but he would have one shotted it anyway.) They then sold it to a zoo, for 100 GP, which let them give Cough's necklace to the Fushi Sisters, whom they persuaded easily. (and named the team "Raven Hood"). The cleric of Shelyn even performed last rites.

One minor change from the book I made, instead of the Wasp's Nest being under Longroad's cofeehouse, I made it under a nearby abandoned restaurant, as several of the PCs wanted to start a Bar as a cover. So they now have a local watering hole covering their hideout.

All in all, fun stuff.

They re-started the Silver Ravens, with the Secrecy focus
Starting Supporters: 3 (A'vara quieted the anarchists at the protest)
Starting money: 13 GP (A'vara donated some cash)
Bonuses: (Secrecy/Loyalty/Security) +5/+6/+5

A'vara is a stratagist
Sergio is a sentinel
Felicia is the partisan
Tad is the Spymaster
Roxy is the Demogauge

Scarab Sages

End of Book 1 went super fun today.

Spoiler:
So after clearing the top floor, Tad the Investigator disguised himself as the dead Raul, and the rest of the party wore the Asmodian redactor's robes. So there was no fight with the book guardian as they were wearing Chellaxian colors. As 'Raul' strode down the halls of the area, many of the redactors questioned why he was there, but didn't have the authority to question him directly. The PCs locked Mephry in his kennel (With a lock from the front door of the phantasmagorium), bluffed their way up to Nox, and started the fight. Sergio, the brawler, stayed behind in the library (f6) and took care of the mooks while the rest of the party went up against Nox.

She dropped the Magus in two hits, but the inquisitor (a new guy who joined us) dealt a bunch damage to her while Roxy and Tad kept her busy. Tad even managed to disarm her of her glaive (with some help), and she fled.

Super fun how the party managed it!

Scarab Sages

Additionally, we've had some fun with the Rebellion's teams.

1) The Tengu sisters have been recruited, (as I said before) and have been named team 'Raven Hood."

2) The next team recruited were a bunch of Halfling investigators who all have the feat that makes them look like human Children. They are Isabella, Adyson, Gretchenk, Katie, Ginger, and Bethany. They are the 'fireside girls' and they sell Seditious thin-mints throughout Kintargo (Merchants)

3) Harold Gardner, and his exiled friends from the Magic acadamy, Raymond, Hermila, Fredward, Jorge, and Nestor. They are Milani's army (and spellcasters), taken from Dumbledor's Army.


I will personally run hell rebel in 2 months.
Love to read how it goes for other DM in the meantime.

Continue your good work here!

Scarab Sages

The best part of the night was when they confronted Yilliv:

She sees an Asmodian priest and several redactors come down the stairs, and yells at them, basically asking "What, more barbarians here to destroy sacred books." Sergio pulls back his robe and says:

"No, we're not Asmodians, we're just sneaking in, we didn't mean to alarm you."

"Oh, I wish you hadn't said that. I'm contractually bound to stop you if you try to go any further. I don't want to, but I have to."

Investigator- "Uhhh, that was just a test . . . and you failed! SLAVE!." (Bluff check 31, -20 for unbelievable lie for an 11)

Yilliv: "Oh, uh, you got me. (takes 1 on sense motive, fails). "Oh, I'm not going to think about that to much. (drops loot). Oh no, I seem to have misplaced all the gear I was keeping for my masters. I hope no one finds it and uses it against them."

Scarab Sages

Another session, more stuff my player's did.

At the start of book 2, they started off with the part to find Octavius. They tracked him down to the shrine, where one of the players figured out to breathe on the drowned man without even getting the clue. (I think that player has also officially converted to worshipping St. Senix)

They assuaged the Lictor's fears by using stealth to break into the holding house. They rescued the first three easily, and when they heard that the last one was in the torture room, they bluffed that they were sending the first three out 'to their guards outside' (and then one of the players ran out and used his Silver Raven to have a team 'activate safe house' and hide the first three Armigers).

Then they obliterating the Kyton (she did manage an order's wrath and a critical hit, but died in 3 rounds.) and still blamed things on Roul, whom they have now built up as the leader of the Silver Ravens.

The kicker was when they were hired by the Chellish captain to rescue the Poison Pen. Instead of the 'break in' route, Tad disguised himself as a visiting Henderthane here to buy silver for his weapons buisness, and used that as an excuse to gain access to the estate with his 'entourage.' Then the Medium slipped upstairs, picked the lock to the boy's door, cast invisibility on him, and walked out the front door with him (he has the ability to hid in plain sight.) The rest of the party made promises they couldn't keep about opening up trade negotiations, and left.

Scarab Sages

Okay, most of the way through book two. My players cleared out the top half of the Grey Spider's den, taking a few rests (two of my players got addicted to opium from the wretch-ghosts and had to get remove diseases).

In order to get them to stop exploring the dungeon and instead go up to the surface, I had the guildmaster's desk simply have a note that said "Hell's Coda, Verse three, lines one and two." They left, tracked down a copy of the poem, and figured out what the code was, but by that time Haace had shown up to request their help dealing with the murders. They didn't need Haace's help though, because the Medium just channeled the murdered woman's spirit at the location of her death and they got all the information they needed.

I decided to have the PCs fight Vex at level 5 instead of six, just because they were doing so well, and they still took him down without too much of a problem. The archery inquisitor did 90% of the damage by humanbaning his merciful longbow.

The fun part of that fight was that the players had wrapped the kukri in the 500 GP carpet in the small alcove in order to transport it. Then the cleric cast calm emotions, which Vex saved against but the inquisitor (who was in the area of effect) failed. The inquisitor just layed on top of the rug to try and prevent vex from taking the Kukri inside (Vex new where it was because of the Empathic bond he has with it), but Vex used the steal combat maneuver to get it anyway. Fun times. He managed to knife one PC before the party inquisitor took him down.

They turned the Kukri over to the Shelynites (after all, the party cleric is a Shelynite) but didn't want to turn Vex over to the Dottari because they don't recognize the city guard as 'legitimate.' Then one PC stumbled on the idea of turning him over to the Chellish Naval captain (Sargava? Something like that.) I decided that one of Vex's victims had been a member of his crew, so he held a very public trial for Vex on his ship while it was docked at port, then locked the criminal up in the brig. The PCs were quite happy with that arrangement.

Now on to the second half of the Grey Spider's lair and then the PCs will be done with book 2!

Scarab Sages

Book 2 finished up today.

The PCs cleared out the second level of the Lucky bones. It was a slog, but they did it all in one go. The only reason they were able to make it all in one go was the brawler who was wearing the cloak of the manta ray, giving him ridiculous damage.

I noticed that some of the fights underwater were particularly tough, such as the globster (immune to piercing and bludgeoning damage, and slashing damage is halved underwater) and the Shell Sentenels (who had fast healing 5, high defenses, and a bunch of other BS with them. Plus everyone's movements (except the Brawler's) were slowed to a crawl while underwater.

The PCs were initially reticent to go to Thrune's speech, but I had Lictor Octivo point out that the PCs were the best equipped to catch on to what was going on (they have the best Perception, Will Saves, and Sense Motives in the rebellion.) If they had refused after that, I would have have let them skip it, but I thought it fair to at least give them a hint that they should go.

Thrune gave the Magus a Strength belt (decorated with beautiful embossed swordfighting scene), the Cleric a Caster's Shield with a scroll of Remove Curse on it (she already had a headband of Wisdom), the Medium a headband of charisma (decorated with roses), the Brawler a belt of strength (with a scene of many people enjoying drinks at a bar) and the inquisitor a belt of Dex (again, with Roses.) As the Investigator took the headband of int from the Skum Wizard (instead of the Magus, which is what I figured they'd do) I kind of panicked and had Thrune give him a belt of con decorated with a bunch of arcane formulas.

A couple of the PCs correctly guessed that Thrune was going to use the items as a focus for Scrying, but because of how often they'd been found out (Octivo's sister, Haace, the Naval captain), they figured Thrune already knew where they were and how to find them. One tried to sell his, but I simply said that the item was immediately recognizable as a gift from Thrune, and no one in town would take it. He now has it as a decoration in a place of 'honor' in his bar. I think the Medium also chose not to wear hers.

Oh, one funny thing did happen. They 'identified' the Robe of Bones (but not that it was a robe of powerlessness) and sold it without ever putting it on. An angry shopkeep came back the next day saying that he sold it to someone who put it on and immediately became cursed. He demanded the PCs remedy the situation. So the cleric cast remove curse repeatedly until it came off the poor sap, then they had to buy a scroll of HEAL to fix him. They got into a big huff with the store owner about it, and now the owner of the War Cage refuses to do business with them.

Silver Crusade

Chuko being mad at them will lose them some benefits come A Song of Silver...

Scarab Sages

Eliandra Giltessan wrote:
Chuko being mad at them will lose them some benefits come A Song of Silver...

Well then they shouldn't have made fun of him for buying the robe in the first place, tried to weasel out of paying reparations for fixing the dude, and then sent Chucko an ultimatum that they were only going to try and activate the heal scroll once (and if there was a mishap, they washed their hands of the situation). There wasn't a spell misshap, but they were quite rude to him and treated him like dirt.

Silver Crusade

1 person marked this as a favorite.
VampByDay wrote:
Eliandra Giltessan wrote:
Chuko being mad at them will lose them some benefits come A Song of Silver...
Well then they shouldn't have made fun of him for buying the robe in the first place, tried to weasel out of paying reparations for fixing the dude, and then sent Chucko an ultimatum that they were only going to try and activate the heal scroll once (and if there was a mishap, they washed their hands of the situation). There wasn't a spell misshap, but they were quite rude to him and treated him like dirt.

Ah. Then I fully support Chuko telling his brother to help murder them all on the bridge.

Scarab Sages

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Yet more fun with my party.

So boring stuff out of the way first, they went to the Aquatic Elf village and killed the Aboleth, though not without some grumbling.

They couldn't have FAILED to notice the fact that what's his name (aquatic Elf Ranger) was under the effects of a dominate person spell, as there was an inquisitor in the group with +19 to sense motive, so they were able to turn off his dominate long enough to figure out what was going on, then the brawler knocked him unconscious with his consent, but not before he relayed to him that he was controlled by a 'huge three-eyed fish monster' which they instantly identified as an Aboleth.

They bum-rushed the 'scary death-hole' as they put it. They put up haste, freedom of movement (on two people), protection from evil on 5/6ths of the party, and touch of the sea. They took out the Dragur, zombie shark, and more dragur no problem, then beat the ever-loving crap out of the Aboleth (it didn't get a chance to escape.) They used Kryton's Perusal to quickly read the cave-wall drawings and figured out what was going on.

In other, more "player characters will always surprise you" news, the group brawler has officially jumped the rails. He has begun 'raising' the two surviving young Otyughs that they spared in front of the Grey Spider's Den. The party has spent 900 gold to rebuild the gambling house on top of the Grey Spider's Den (though they turned it into a bar.)

They have named the pair Romeo and Anastasia, and have purchased for them headbands of vast intelect +2 (bringing their int to 7.) Romeo's headband came with profession-merchant (for accounting purposes) and Anastasia's with profession-barkeep. They both also gained sign language as their new language so they can communicate. They now run the bar.

The inquisitor of Milani uses roses and perfume to make them smell nice, and the brawler has been using diplomacy to try and convert them to being good.

Oh, players will be players, I suppose.

Scarab Sages Contributor

1 person marked this as a favorite.
VampByDay wrote:


In other, more "player characters will always surprise you" news, the group brawler has officially jumped the rails. He has begun 'raising' the two surviving young Otyughs that they spared in front of the Grey Spider's Den. The party has spent 900 gold to rebuild the gambling house on top of the Grey Spider's Den (though they turned it into a bar.)

They have named the pair Romeo and Anastasia, and have purchased for them headbands of vast intelect +2 (bringing their int to 7.) Romeo's headband came with profession-merchant (for accounting purposes) and Anastasia's with profession-barkeep. They both also gained sign language as their new language so they can communicate. They now run the bar.

The inquisitor of Milani uses roses and perfume to make them smell nice, and the brawler has been using diplomacy to try and convert them to being good.

Oh, players will be players, I suppose.

I cannot favorite this post enough, as it contains otyughs NOT being slaughtered. It even shows them being nurtured - huzzah! They can speak Common normally, though. But giving them headbands is <3

Scarab Sages

UllarWarlord wrote:
VampByDay wrote:


In other, more "player characters will always surprise you" news, the group brawler has officially jumped the rails. He has begun 'raising' the two surviving young Otyughs that they spared in front of the Grey Spider's Den. The party has spent 900 gold to rebuild the gambling house on top of the Grey Spider's Den (though they turned it into a bar.)

They have named the pair Romeo and Anastasia, and have purchased for them headbands of vast intelect +2 (bringing their int to 7.) Romeo's headband came with profession-merchant (for accounting purposes) and Anastasia's with profession-barkeep. They both also gained sign language as their new language so they can communicate. They now run the bar.

The inquisitor of Milani uses roses and perfume to make them smell nice, and the brawler has been using diplomacy to try and convert them to being good.

Oh, players will be players, I suppose.

I cannot favorite this post enough, as it contains otyughs NOT being slaughtered. It even shows them being nurtured - huzzah! They can speak Common normally, though. But giving them headbands is <3

It specifically says in the young statblocks for them that they understand common, but cannot speak it.

Silver Crusade

As a perennial otyugh fan, I also <3 this so much


2 people marked this as a favorite.

I just can't endorse one preparing food. The health inspector's head will a'splode.

But I am loving these writeups.

Scarab Sages

Today the PCs just went through Lady Kelekii (sp)'s banquet, and prepped for taking on the the Mendor Gap Fortress. Nothing too exciting.

The PCs started off by heading up to Vyre, which they have basically built up as "Las Vegas for Chelliax." They handed over the deeds to Molly Mayapple (the investigator had previously pondered using the linguistics skill to forge them into his name, even though I told him that the city must have claimed the warehouses and the contents YEARS ago, and they only had sentimental value.)

The Investigator almost blew the entire session when he randomly decided to intimidate her (WTF?!) into 'sticking to her word' (even though she had already agreed) making her unfriendly as soon as he left the room (which would mean she wouldn't help them get into the banquet.) Luckily the other PCs found out what he did and forced him to go back and apologize, with chocolates and roses (and a DC 30 diplomacy check.) I still ruled that she was put off by them and offered no assistance at the banquet.

The PCs all bought good clothes, with two PCs taking the chance to buy sleeves of many garments so that they would always have fashionable clothes. One PC bought 'Vyre accessories' (something I didn't know about, but apparantly you can buy 50gp worth of accessories within a city to gain a +2 bonus to diplomacy for denizens of that city?)

The party inquisitor makes liberal use of the 'ears of the city' spell and rolled a 37 on one of his gather information checks, netting most of the 'secret list of gifts' that the Queen of Delights likes. The PCs all got good gifts for her, including the investigator paying to have the pearl earnings he got back in book 1 to have a spider theme worked into them. The Inquisitor of Milani got her a bouquet of black roses, plus, like 200 GP worth of SCULPTURES of black roses. The Shelynite actually Crafted her own salacious painting (a woman and man strung up on spider-webs, 'pleasing' each other.) The Magus got a 10GP crystal potion vial filled with a potion of polypurpose pancea. The spirit-dancer medium just got her some spider-silk lacy gloves. The player for the brawler/slayer was out, and so his character stayed back in Kintargo.

The dinner started off poorly. In Medium (Spirit-Dancer) almost channeled the dead husband ('for fun') but the Shelynite cleric kicked him under the table to get him to stop. The Investigator surprisingly failed his knowledge check to recognize quick soup, and so he (and the inquisitor, who was using solo tactics-collective recollection to crib off of the investigator's check) both failed, and the cleric and magus rolled terribly and got no fish. The Spirit dancer managed to get 4 fish by channeling his trickster spirit for slight of hand, but it was a poor start.

Most of the PCs made up for it by talking about how awesome rebellions are, and roasting the chellish patriot. The Shelynite rolled poorly and lost some points, but it started to turn around here.
The Squash course was much better, as the investigator (and by extention, inquisitor) identified it. The spirit dancer decided to get in on the action, failed his check, and used the sauce as a dipping sauce for a bit. Everyone made their fort saves though, and I think everyone also passed the talking check (except for the magus, who kept his trap shut.)

A bunch of people were confused about the invisible stalker meat course until they figured it out, about half passed and half didn't. again, most people passed the relevant talking checks. Their answers to the 'greatest sin' question were actually pretty interesting.
Cleric of Shelyn- Willful destruction of other's works.
Magus- I can't remember (I think it was just 'speaking too much' because he didn't have any social skills and didn't want to talk.)
Inquisitor- Being unwilling to give others a chance to be redeemed.
Investigator- Willfull inaction in the face of a great tragedy (an outright lie designed to be a shot taken at the Queen if she didn't aid them)
Spirit Dancer- Not standing up to injustice.

The PCs passed (actually earned 31 points, so she joined them, the gifts put them over the top.)

The returned to Kintargo and tried to recruit a noble family (I can't remember their name- the father of the poison pen) but refused to return his son and didn't have 20,000 to spend on him, so the got some infamy and he firmly joined Thrune. The PCs now hate him for how much of a Jerk he is (I may have played up that part) and really want him to be the second with his back to the wall when the revolution comes. (They were even considering assassinating him . . . interesting development considering what comes later.)

Also, in an inspired move, they sent their "spellcasters" rebellion team to the Queen of Delights and asked her to make them a level 17 scroll of teleport, so that they could break into the Mendor Gap fort, and then teleport out. I had them pay full price, and basically treated it as a 'special order magic item' action that automatically succeeded (as she knows teleport)

And that was about it for this session. No session next week because several of my players will be gone.

Silver Crusade

Glad they made it through the banquet! (Even if they are apparently kind of jerks sometimes---nice to otyughs, mean to people who want to help them.) My players will be hitting that probably 2nd week of June, so I hope they do as well. I also have an investigator, and a bard, so hopefully the knowledge checks will work out for them.

Scarab Sages

I did want to mention that the PCs were actually disappointed that the Queen of delights was exactly what you'd expect (an overly sensual madam-of-the night type.). They were actually hoping she'd be an anime-style gothic lolicon with a black frilly dress and an attachment to a giant plush spider or somesuch.

One fun story I forgot to mention, the magus rolled. 5 on his dex check for the quick soup, and and we determined that after several minutes of trying to skewer fish unsuccessfully, he just shocking grasped the water, which flash-fried all the fish and exploded the fishbowl.

The running theme of the party was 'Why did we even bring him?!'

Scarab Sages

No surprise my PCs ROFL stomped the Mendor Keep, even after I upgraded Lucian to advanced and had him call the Devils immediately to account for the six-player adjust.

The party investigator disguised the party as an Asmodean deligation. They showed up demanding to see 'the artifact,' which, of course, Lucian and the guards knew nothing about. So they made a bluff check with a -15 penalty for having really wrong information, still easily succeeded (Lucian could not have made the sense motive check, or the perception check to see through their disguises even when he took 20).

So they claimed that the church divined that there was a blasfamous artifact on site, and demanded the right to scour the keep for it. Lucian didn't like that idea but couldn't refuse, so he gave them until sundown to find it before he kicked them out.

They immediately found the secret passage and fought the stone guardians (I dropped the medium, and the PCs had a hard time hitting, but otherwise the fight wasn't too bad, just tedious, even with an extra guardian for the six player adjust). Surprisingly, it was the Shelynite Magus who made the knowledge check to know how to do the proper prayer to Torag, and they talked to the Dwarf-Angel things. Basically they gave them a history lesson about Chelliax and told them about their connection to Asmodeus, and that convinced them that the Anvil should be used. The PCs decided to leave before triggering it and give the soldiers in the keep a chance to escape.

Back above ground, they found that Lucian had heard the sounds of battle but still hadn't found the secret door, so he had his men scouring the keep. They showed back up, said that they found the artifact. He tried to get them to leave so that he could contact a Thrune and have them study it, and they attacked. The Brawler used his surprise round action to blind him with greater dirty trick and combat started.

He got to do nothing, as the brawler applied every dirty trick status condition to him, then the inquisitor shot him full of arrows. He managed to call his Devils, which posed a bit of a problem, as did the Wyven when it busted through the doors, but they mostly whipped the floor with everyone.

They convinced the guards to surrender. Originally, they were going to let Lucian go (the inquisitor had knocked him out with his merciful bow) but after learning that he routinely sacrificed halflings to his Wyven, and was keeping a Jinn slave the inquisitor coup-de-graced him. (Despite Swearing to his god that he would let him go if LUcian gave the The information they sought. Still have to figure out what to do with that.).

They triggered the anvil, traveled back to the Oakrib inn, told the inn that they were going out of business because the gap was now closed, and left. They did get something like 65 infamy because they let a bunch of people live (and I added 2d6 extra for basically stopping to brag about it at the inn.)

They are in the fence about going to the Ruby Masquarade, as they know it's a trap, but I had Tayacett make contact and basically tell them that this was their one chance to get inside Thrune's house and figure out what's going on, and they agreed (mostly from a meta-game perspective.)

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