Recently I started running Second darkness. this is the second campaign I have ever GMed (The first being RotRL with the same group immediately prior)and from reading these boards, I knew that SD had some problems. however, I thought the story sounded really cool, so I decided to make it better; you can judge whether or not I succeeded.
This is going to be mostly a campaign journal, combined with notes on what I changed and why. I hope some of this is useful or at least entertaining; enjoy.
Session 1
Our story begins, with five strangers, who were told to meet at the publican house for a job; they were
Thrasher: a Skinwalker(Seascarred) Oracle of Stone come to Riddleport following the whispers of the stones.
Taz: an Invulnerable Rager Barbarian; I cant quite remember what her backstory was, it was a while ago, and I don't have all my notes.
Puss: a Catfolk Swashbuckler, searching for glory and coin, and trying to keep his brother out of trouble.
Ignus: a Fire Kineticist who was in Riddleport seeking power while on the run from some criminals he had pissed off.
and Professor Paelius Hawkfrost: an Empiricist investigator with an unhealthy interest in the Dark Tapestry.
After giving them time to get to know each other, they were approached by a clocked an hooded figure, whose only discernible facial feature was a long white beard. He greeted the party and explained that he had a job for them; His old business associate, Saul Vancaskerian had cheated him out of his share of the newly opened Gold Goblin gambling hall, He wanted them to rob the place on opening night, recovering his investment, and embarrassing his rival. After some haggling, the PC's accepted the job, but not before Hawkfrost insisted on being given a tome of lore on the Dark Tapestry, this caught me a bit by surprise so I had the employer agree just to get him on board. at the time I was planning to have the tome turn out to be a elaborate fake, but by then I had had a better idea. the party spent the rest of the session casing the Goblin, and asking around town about Saul's history, they uncovered most of it, thanks to the investigator, and decided to seek out Clegg Zincher, reasoning that the enemy of their enemy might help them out.
After some asking around town they figure that the best way to get in touch with Zincher was to fight in his arena, so I generated a couple of fights, during which two thing happened, all of the metal they were carrying became slightly magantized for some unknown reason(they assumed it was a hostile spell) and Ignus started referring to the professor as Hawksauce. after a couple reasonably challenging fights they got the opportunity to meet Zicher as he presented them with their winnings, at which point the asked for his support against Saul, while Zincher was unwilling to do anything directly, he did agree to encourage some of his men to spend their evening at the goblin, and make sure any trouble that started escalated. The party thanked Clegg and we ended the first session.
Session 2
At the beginning of the second session, the party put their plan into motion, they had decided to rob the goblin on opening night, while they were waiting for night to fall, puss and thrasher fought in the arena, and Hawkfrost studied the blot, becoming very exited when all of the weather vanes in Riddleport suddenly turned to point directly at the blot. There was one other interesting development, and I cant acrually remember if it happened this session or the previous one. Puss tries to diplomicize one of the guards outside the Goblin to get more information, and he roll s a 4, so I decide that it would be funny to have the guard think puss was trying to flirt with him and respond in kind. Now I expected puss's player to be a little uncomfortable, and maybe roll another check to fix it, instead, he flirts back, and so I quickly create a name for someone who was supposed to be a random NPC, its Jacob, and Puss rolls quite highly to seduce Jacob, who goes for it, and after some drinks and a night of passion, puss convinces him to help their robbery; needless to say, the other characters were not amused that Puss had jeopardized the mission like this, but I was feeling kind, so it worked out. (not that I told them that, its fun to watch players get paranoid)
The robbery itself went off more or less like it did in the book, except this time there were no interfering heroes to stop the robbery. Ignus used his powers to create blinding flashes of light, and clouds of smoke, while Hawkfrost and puss fought off the guards and zinchers men pushed the place into a full blown riot, meanwhile, rather than bother trying to open the chest, Taz and thrasher simply picked it up and carried it out of their, there was a brief combat with the cook which ended badly for him, the party was away. They met up with Saul and he gave them their payment for the job, including a Tome for Hawkfrost, and told them that he might have work for them in the future. and that was where we ended for the day.
Session 3
The next job their mysterious employer had for the party was to break into the cypher lodge and steal their research on the blot; I also intended for him to have them find evidence that the cyphermages were working with Saul, but unfortunately for him, one of the PCs rolled really well on their perception check and realized that his beard was fake. They decided that the best thing to do was to confront their employer about it, which almost led to combat when they successfully unmasked him as Saul Vankaserin; but with some good diplomacy rolls they managed to avoid combat. Thinking fast, Saul explained that may factions in riddleport wanted him to fail, so if he appeared to be robbed, they would underestimate his recorses; he rolled quite well on his bluff, so the party accepted this story at face value. however, having just been paid, the party decided to go shopping before takeing on the cyphermages. They upgraded their gear, then most of the party decided to visit the Silken Veil to "Gather information" while Hawkfrost remained behind to study the blot some more. I used the SV to introduce the players to some of the backstory/political situation in Riddleport. Having exhausted the sources there, the party proceeded to the next Logical step, have Hawkfrost enter the library during the day to do some basic reconnaissance, and then that evening, jump a Cyphermage on his was back from the city proper. The cyphermage almost escaped thanks to a high initiative, but the party managed to chase him down and grapple him, at which point he was pretty much helpless. Taz quickly intimidated him into giving them some basic information about the cypher lodges defenses and where the information they were looking for would be located, at which point, one of them (I think it was Taz) decided that their captive had outlived his usefulness, and killed him, shocking the rest of the party. at that point, it was getting late, so I decided to save the heist itself for another time.
Session 4
After some discussion, the party decided that the best course of action would be to climb up to the second story of the library to break in to the upper story windows. Once there, they searched the windows for traps and found none, although they did detect a magical aura on the windows(it was an alarm spell, but no one thought to spellcraft it. the party discussed things for a while, during which time, there was a minor earthquake, everyone made reflex saves to avoid falling off the roof, and at around this point, Hawkfrost's player became convinced that the Drow were going to sink the city; I put on my best GM face and reassured him that I would not kill any of the characters without giving them something to do about it.
At around this point, Taz got tiered of all the discussion and went smashing through the window, this of course triggered the alarm spell that had been placed on it, and alerted the guardians. Three caryatid columns had been placed on this level to guard the research there, and two of them quickly engaged Taz; the other one, was slightly farther away, and would not join the fight for a few rounds. While Taz and the others held off the constructs, Hawkfrost and puss began exploring the upper floor; Hawkfrost because he had the best knowledge's, and Puss because his rapier couldn't do anything against the columns DR. Hawkfrost was immediately drawn to what appeared to be some kind of magical working; a rippling sphere of darkness was floating above a circle of interlocking runes, hawkfrosts knowledge arcana roll told him that it was some kind of scrying ritual attempting to gather information about the blot, so after a moments hesitation he entered the circle. Immediately he was throw into a vision of hurtling through a cold, black void, images flashed before him, a giant plume of fire, thousands of voices screaming in terror, and the face of an elven woman with dark skin and white hair(it was alleverah, but he doesn't know that yet.)and then he failed his will save to avoid confusion. meanwhile, puss was examining the bookcases at the far end of the room, and managed to find the information they were looking for on his second try. At this point the fight was looking grim, Taz had managed to destroy one of the columns, but was barely conscious; so I decided that this would be the best time to introduce another complication, suddenly a half elven woman fell from the ceiling, as her spider climb spell wore off. She yelled at them to hurry op and leave, as the cyphermages themselves would be here any minuet, so they hurried to the window, dragging the confused hawkfrost behind him. after some tense acrobatics checks, the party managed to escape with their loot and a new acquaintance.
Session 5
The party retreated from the cypher lodge and sat down to talk with their new acquaintance. She introduced herself as Samaritha Beldusk, a prospective Cyphermage. after some hesitation, she explains to the party that she was attempting to figure out what the Cyphermages current project was so that she could better impress them. after a little more conversation she left, promising to think of them if she ever needed help. when the part went to collect their reward from Saul the next day, they are given a message from Saul; telling them that he has discovered something important, and that he needs to meet them in the boneyard, just outside of town. on their way across town they are interrupted by a rain of stones from the sky, the quickly took shelter until the event had passed, except for Ignus, who decided that it would be more fun to run around dodging them; go figure.
By the time the party arrived at the boneyard, it was late evening; and the boneyard was shadowed, they could just make out a cloaked figure huddled under a hanging lantern. unfortunately at this pint one of the wererats rolled a 1 on their stealth check, and the party saw them, realizing that the ambush was up the wereats attacked. The battle was fairly one sided, while the wereats could deal decent damage, Ignus was able to just fry them from range while Hawkfrost, Taz, and thrasher engaged them in melee, unfortunately, their DR meant that puss was rather useless. I think I managed to drop Hawkfrost, but the party didn't really need rescuing from Samaritha, although her magic missiles helped take down their foes. by the time they finished off the last wererat it was getting late, so I saved the revelation of the letter and the resulting assault on the gold goblin for the next session.
Session 6
upon deciphering the letter, the party discovered that they had been betrayed; and while some of them thought that it might be a set up, they all agreed that the logical course of action was to rest and recover their spells and then go to the goblin to confront Saul. On their way back to the city, an gigantic aurora appeared in the sky over the city; Hawkfrost determined that it formed some kind of glyph or rune in the sky, but the scale was to much for him to get any more. Samaritha took her leave; saying that she had just wanted to make sure that they were all right after hearing rumors that they were to be killed, and she had no intention of getting caught up in their business with Saul.
The next day, fully restored the Party went back to the Golden Goblin to have words with Saul. Arriving at the Golden Goblin, they found it apparently deserted and closed. not to be deterred, they broke in, whereupon they were attacked by Saul's hired muscle. the fight did no go well for them at first, due to numbers and superior positioning, however once a couple of them managed to get up on the catwalks and engage the archers there directly, the tide began to turn.
Following the sound of Saul yelling at his minions the party made their way down to the basement to stop him. unfortunately for them, having been warned of their approach by old Scratch, Saul had prepared an ambush, he and one of his mercenaries were waiting on either side of the door to the arena and, when Taz walked in they both attacked, critted, and dropped her into negatives. Of course, having just seen Saul drop their barbarian in one hit, the party was understandably wary about entering, so the fight devolved into a weird standoff as the two groups shouted taunts at each other for several rounds. Eventually Puss acrobaticsed past the gauntlet and got into flanking position for Hawkfrost who came in after him. Saul tried to fight back,, but he was outnumbered and once he lost the advantage of the entrance, the fight turned against him. he told his companion to hold the party off, and jumped down into the pit to open the trapdoor. unfortunately for him, Ignus had entered the room by this point, and Saul just managed to clear away the sand from the secret door before the Kineticist set him on fire; killing him. The party looted the Goblin but decided to wait until the next day to return to full strength before braving the tunnels, probably a wise decision on their part.