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Last Tuesday my group started House on Hook Street. I figured I'd make a thread to help me kinda distill a session's events, and to perhaps entertain some other folks. I also welcome any feedback or ideas people might have!
The PCs
Jezidar is a slayer, cleaner archetype, focused on two-weapon fighting.
Atticus is a charming and earnest young man, with soft eyes under a nest of dark curls. While his coat and tie are threadbare and disheveled, his kind demeanor and soothing words more than make up for his appearance. When he speaks, people listen, and they know that he cares deeply about Bridgefront’s downtrodden population. He is a near-constant presence at the Korvosan Hope, a soup kitchen on the eastern end of Scuttling Way.
Atticus is a mesmerist, vox archetype, who focuses on social skills and party buffs.
Garvin is the older of the brothers, gruffer and more pragmatic, and this pragmatism is what keeps the doors of The Thirteen Moons open for business. He is often off-premises selling talismans or providing services, leaving Atticus in charge, and is frequently irked to return to closed doors and a “Be Back Soon” sign hanging from the handles. While his brother’s lack of practicality is frustrating, he values what he sees as their mother’s caring influence in Atticus.
Lately Garvin’s dreams have included strange visions. Vocally distrustful and dismissive of faith, Garvin has felt pulled towards worship of the goddess Desna, a change of which not even Atticus is aware.
Garvin is a psychic with a mix of mind-affecting spells and party buffs.
Erik cares deeply for Korvosa at large and Old Korvosa specifically, focusing almost all of his time, energy, and resources on improving his home. Few if any know that Erik was instrumental in the removal of Ileosa Arabasti from the Crimson Throne.
Erik is a ranger, urban ranger archetype, a switch hitter and strategist.
Jezidar is played but a less experienced player, and so I want to prompt them to do a bit more roleplay and expand their creative thinking. I think Jezidar’s faith is the key aspect of the character, and it’s very interesting to me that her take on Sarenrae’s doctrine is much more extreme than the greater church finds acceptable. I’m interested to see how Atticus’s and Erik’s altruism affects her.
Atticus is fairly straightforward, but he’s also not someone who gets into many fights. I’m excited to see how combat affects the character, and how he reacts once he starts encountering some of the sources of the problems he tries to address through community service.
Garvin’s hidden faith will be very interesting to reveal, especially since it’s a stark contrast to his outward persona.
Erik is played by a veteran player who’s very comfortable in the character’s skin, having played him through about half of Curse of the Crimson Throne. In CotCC, however, he was a bit of a vigilante, and he has mostly left that part of his life behind. I’m looking forward to see how the old Erik and the new Erik mix as the campaign’s tension ramps up.
Session 1 thoughts to be added soon!
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Session 1
I think this went really well. The PCs had plenty of breathing room to establish who they were and what they cared about, I was able to drop some good clues, there was a tense combat, and the PCs got to do additional character development at the end.
I do wish that I had highlighted more of the occult stuff, though. Next time I’ll try to include more descriptions of Harrow card readers, impromptu seance booths, that sort of thing.
Garvin grumpily made his way to the Hope expecting to extract his brother from community service, but was drawn in with pleas to help Mrs. Melbourne, who hurt her leg, make her way through the line.
Jezidar waited outside in the alley, expecting the usual bit of food to be passed to her by a frequent volunteer for whom she had… “cleaned up” a problem in the past. Jezidar’s reclusive, so she didn’t make her presence known to the others until later in the session.
One of my favorite little player generated details that sprang out of this was the fact that it was Bread Night at the Hope, a weekly occurrence that the guests look forward to. “It’s Bread Night!” became a bit of a refrain. Unfortunately we couldn’t remember the days of the week in Golarion, so it’s now campaign canon that Bread Night is on Flursday. (I’ve since decided Flursday is Old Korvosan slang for Oathday)
Erik heard a rumor about Sally Scrabblebones from some diners, Atticus heard from a child that her father wouldn’t let them get water from the Night Market well for fear of shiver contamination, followed by some exposition on shiver and its effects. I mentioned how tired everyone looked, but probably didn’t put enough emphasis on it. Easy enough to rectify in session 2.
Perception checks from the other three inside alerted them to the noises on the street. To their credit, the PCs acted like everything was fine and were able to get outside without raising alarm. Atticus stayed in and surreptitiously used a Silence spell to keep the sounds of fighting from spooking the Hope’s guests.
The fight itself was a bit odd. Erik’s player was a little confused as to what I was actually describing - I was trying to intimate that there were dream-shapes moving their way through the cloud, including the stereotypical nightmare image of someone falling from a great height. I think that specificity caused more problems than it solved. Jezidar’s player is used to ranged fighting, so didn’t initially use the +1 melee weapons that would’ve cut through part of its DR. I also totally forgot that it had DR 5/good or silver, but I think ultimately the fight was tense and interesting for the players. Erik’s bow skill, unusual for a soup kitchen proprietor, was revealed. Atticus almost died from negative energy, since he was standing in the ajar front door and the only one the cloud could reach after the others moved away.
Guards approached and asked PCs how they dispatched such a thing. They were distrustful of the guards, which really threw me for a loop, though I should have expected it given their backstories. They were about to spend great effort keeping the guards from viewing the body, so I committed a Cardinal GM Sin, broke the flow and said “hey y’all, it’s important the guards see this thing.” I was worried they’d break the chain of events that gets them to the Magistrate, who gives them the rest of the plot-relevant clues. I’m still a relatively new GM, so I think with experience I can better collect my thoughts and reweave stuff to fit the PCs’ actions.
The guards inspected the body, dropping the “hogslop” clues. Erik was able to slip a piece of Frell Tann’s red silk shirt past the eyes of the guards. Captain Crandon approached, complimented the PCs, and offered them employment. The PCs’ response was lukewarm to say the least. The guards left, leaving an open invitation for concerned citizens to seek out the Magistrate of Civic Order, and the tidbit that the victim was related to somebody important.
Atticus and Garvin returned to the Thirteen Moons. We learned a bit about how their shop is layed out, what they sell, and where they live (apartments above the store). Atticus had a one-sided conversation with the animated portrait of his adopted grandfather, questioning whether anything he did made a difference, and what his purpose was. I really liked that thread of doubt developing in contrast to Atticus’s very earnest and helpful outward personality.
Erik thanked the guests for coming, spent some time cleaning up the Hope after a successful Bread Night, and chatted with the last person to leave. He went back to his office, pulled up a floorboard, and brought out a box of mementos from his time saving Korvosa from its previous queen. He climbed to the roofs, his previous persona’s preferred means of travel, and contemplated what lay before him.
Jezidar retreated to her “fortress of solitude,” an old and forgotten Sarenite chapel now deep in one of Bridgefront’s tumorous urban growth. It also happens to be deep within the dreamstone’s influence! I left the session with a cliffhanger - Jezidar “waking up” to an eerily and subtly different Bridgefront, a screaming lucid dreamer plummeting towards her from above.
Great session! I think I could have dropped a few more clues, played up the occult nature of Bridgefront’s situation a bit more, and better emphasized the recent history of troubled sleep in the district. That’s all fairly minor and correctable, though. The players had plenty of room to inhabit their PCs skins and figure out what they’re like, they enjoyed the tension of keeping their first combat from affecting something they cared about, and are looking forward to what comes next.
For Session 2 I hope to accomplish the meeting with Drune and his exposition, then have the PCs investigate 2-3 of the leads (ideally Fever Dream Alley and Rook’s Roost among them)
I’m not 100% how to resolve Jezidar’s cliffhanger. Maybe she’ll wake up just before a nightgaunt or some other creature grabs her? Maybe the baku will drive something away? I don’t want to throw too many disparate clues at everyone.
Also, here’s something I’m incredibly excited to do! The Lantern Man is one of my favorite entries from the Bridgefront gazetteer, and I want to use him as a semi frequent session opener. Clearly he can see most of the PCs actions, so I plan to have him recount his observations in journal form. I won’t tell the PCs who is speaking, but I want it to be a consistent, sinister, eerie summary of some of their actions. That way should they reach a spot where they need more information or assistance, they can meet the Lantern Man and get that “aha!” moment when I speak using a voice they only know from session opener narratives.
We won’t be able to meet for another 2 weeks it seems like, but that gives me more time to familiarize myself with the moving parts of the plot. It’s very complex, and I still haven’t quite wrapped my head around things to the point where I can easily restructure events if PCs take unexpected paths.
Excited to forge ahead!
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So hey, as it turns out running a session every week doesn't leave as much time for post-session navel gazing! We're about to do session 7 and enter the titular house. I'll do a brief rundown of the previous sessions, my thoughts on them, and any mistakes I made that other GMs might learn from.
One PC within the dreamstone's radius had a lucid nightmare, and was almost carried off by nightgaunts before the baku drove them away. Proved to be a decent bit of foreshadowing.
PC's weren't suspicious of Drune at all, possibly because I described him as a Paul Giamatti-lookin' dude in a very disorganized office. Had him bumble a bit and knock over a stack of paperwork. I portrayed him as very serious when he started talking about the shiver deaths, however.
PC's live in Bridgefront, so I figured they would know about Rook's Roost as the "fanciest" of shiver establishments. Unfortunately, I really goofed on how I handled the locale. I dropped the Fever Dream Alley clues, but one PC was extremely suspicious of this "misdirection," so they decided to raid the Roost. Here's some mistakes I made:
1) Sharoosh was offering shiver for sale, which should not be the case by the book - his is strictly a BYOD establishment, and therefore legal.
2) I made it lightly guarded. Just Sharoosh and two mooks.
3) The hydrodaemon head was in the back room - by the timeline, Barvasi's Band should only be using Rook's Roost as a safe lucid dreaming location much later in the book.
Because I wasn't at all expecting them to kick down this particular door, the session was pretty clunky. I had Sharoosh reveal that Barvasi's Band was using the daemon's spittle to dream, but he didn't know exactly what they were doing.
We ended the session with the PC's expecting Barvasi's Band to show up for their nightly dream shift. I then spent the next week scrambling to reconcile all the mistakes I'd made with the information and events that needed to happen!
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Session 3 was mostly me figuring out what to do after what felt like a catastrophic Session 2. Many thanks to Mr. Hodge for his advice in making everything square! Ultimately things worked out, it was just stressful for a bit.
PCs interrogated Sharoosh a bit more, learned the language of the shiver trade (coinboys, vialmen, etc.) and learned of the importance of the Night Market. They ended up taking Sharoosh to get locked up with Captain Cressida Croft, an NPC from Curse of the Crimson Throne. Our ranger is a veteran of that AP, and has a personal relationship with the captain. This brought something into focus - the PCs don't particularly care about Drune, following the guidelines of their "employment" with him, or the Korvosan Guard at large. I mean, I did talk about how they were corrupt, so I can't say I blame them. I figure this also suits Drune fine - if they do something objectionable, they rarely check in with him so it's easy for him to distance himself.
Some decent RP developing characters, introduced a bit of an inside joke informant character who could offer info and take the part of Kestrel later, and we wrapped up the session. I was still recovering some from my confusion in Session 2, so I neglected to talk about Madame Carrington, or find a way to get the clues from the addicts in Fever Dream Alley. Luckily I was able to address that in...
I handled these via email between games. Our psychic went to talk to Madame Carrington about what she's up to, having heard the red herring that she's predicted some of the shiver deaths. The player and I both enjoyed the ouija board-style conversation. I statted her out a bit and gave her mindlink, which she used to convey all of her experiences in the dream Bridgefront within the last couple of weeks. The PC learned about Sally Scrabblebones, the baku, Carrington's Sanctuary, and saw through her eyes our slayer getting almost carried off by nightgaunts. There also emerged a thread of mutual respect between the two, as they're both less sound of body but have strong minds.
Meanwhile, our ranger staked out the Night Market. He saw the coinboys and vialmen doing their thing, but was very intent on following where the shiver actually came from - who stashed it for the vialmen to pick up? The book assumes a cult deacon drops it in the secret compartment near the well, but it also states that that shouldn't happen until after the ambush at Breakwater Pier. Therefore I decided that Barvasi's Band would outsource these dropoffs to mules who were just average folks kept mostly in the dark.
The ranger cornered one of these skittish mules, who didn't know much. He had, however, overheard one of the coinboys talk about moving the "storehouse" to "the pier." Which coinboy, asks the ranger. The GM makes some junk up on the fly - the one near the kebab stand, with the sideburns.
I also dropped the Fever Dream Alley info via Nigel, the informant I had introduced last session. He told them how Frell Tan had bartered for the shiver that ended his life, and gave them the list of items the alley addicts would normally have provided.
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The PCs follow up on the info the ranger got during the intersession. They head to the Night Market, spot Sideburns the Coinboy eating a kebab, and through some illusion and intimidation spook him into running into the alleys. Our slayer and ranger corner him and interrogate him, learning the exact location of the "storehouse" on the pier.
This was a really satisfying and fun encounter. The PCs got to feel like tough cool folks when they busted into the fake warehouse and knocked out the addicts real quick. A satisfying surprise when the water elemental appeared, then a 2nd and 3rd pull of the rug from beneath their feat when the water level rose and the hydrodaemon pounced. It was challenging and exciting, good twists 'n turns.
The PCs interrogated the one addict who hadn't drowned during the combat, and learned that she didn't know anything - just that Greeley paid her to wear a robe, wait for intruders, and draw them into an ambush. We ended the session with a bunch of strung-out, hungry-eyed figures emerging from the abandoned buildings along the waterfront.
We started with the addict troop combat, which I didn't pull off very well. The PCs weren't willing to kill any of them since they were just desperate people, not out-and-out villains. I had a hard time conveying the addicts well, and one player remarked that it basically felt like they were fighting a gelatinous cube. The damage of the garbage barrage ability also felt a bit incongruous with the my depiction of what was going on - it's a bit hard to swallow that masonry and bottles and trash can do 4d4+4 damage. The PCs resolved the combat by breaking the pier so that the troop couldn't approach them, then using spells to scare them off. I probably broke RAW with that, but I think we were all ready to leave the encounter behind, so I think it worked out.
Since the PCs had learned where Greeley's Den was from their prior interrogation, they opted to strike while the iron was hot and head straight there.
This really, really worried me. They were hurt, down a decent number of spells, and about to walk straight into an encounter with 9 opponents. But in our discussions of the game we had come to the realization that I don't always challenge the players enough, so I just rolled with their plan.
It didn't turn out to be much of a plan, or at least not a well thought out one! The ranger took to the roof to scout out the den, spying 4 of Barvasi's Band in the courtyard. The other 3 PCs figured they could talk the situation out, a decision I still don't quite get - what were they going for, exactly!? In any case, the psychic acted like he was trying to get in on the shiver trade, and took one of the vials from their raid on Rook's Roost as proof of his intentions.
The guards at the door hurled plenty of verbal abuse and would have turned them away, but when our psychic produced a vial I figured the guard in charge would be suspicious. After all there's only one real shiver producer, and why would this guy have a vial with the Brotherhood's own label on it, offering to sell it back to Greeley? Figured he'd kick that situation up the chain of command, so ushered the PCs in to talk to Moses. They of course had to relinquish their weapons, and the slayer and mesmerist were left in the courtyard as collateral, knives and hand crossbows trained on them.
The psychic climbed the spiral stairs to talk to Moses, who basically told him he was an idiot for sticking his nose where it didn't belong. Some verbal and light physical abuse, three of the PCs are about to have all of their valuables taken before they're ejected, and the ranger decided to act!
Smoke sticks thrown into the courtyard, great initiative rolls, great tactical decisions, and the PCs manage to retrieve their weapons and defeat the assembled thugs. I was super, super worried that sneak attacks and poisoned weapons would lead to a TPK, but the ranger's initiative and deadly aim took out 2-3 of the Band in the first round. And though they basically mopped the floor, some misses from enemies thanks to concealment and other factors still made this feel like an incredibly tense, exciting combat.
Two cool moments:
First the psychic, a Desnan, got poisoned by shiver from Moses Greeley's sickle. Awesome fun narrating some nightmare stuff - I took the acid fog dream haunt suggestion and flavored that as a skull-faced butterfly swarm that engulfed the psychic while he was lucidly dreaming. He barely survived, and I let him out of the nightmare with a good Will save and some really inspired, faith-based RP on his part. Great character development moment for him.
Second, the cries of indignation when Greeley got spooked and cast invisibility and started escaping were great! That's how you know players are really into the game. They managed to stop him before he left, however. I also forgot that it says he fights to the death, so they tied him up and waited 'til Session 6 to question him.
Between sessions I realized I diverged from the book by letting Greeley live, so I played up the moral conflict he's described as undergoing. He was scared to go back to the house, and offered information if the PCs would keep him safe. The PCs learned:
- Shiver is moved through tunnels in the Old Wall
- The location of the House on Hook Street
- The Brotherhood sacrifices people to "the spider"
- Myra and Nahum had "some sort of ritual with that rock" - Greeley wasn't in attendance
- The ritual went awry, and ever since then "spirits have risen" and "something is moving within the hosue"
- The cult's sign - wrists crossed, fingers curled, palms upward
- The existence of guardians within the house, and that some could be avoided by showing the cult's sign - they know to use it at the entrance, but no real details otherwise
- What a hydrodaemon was! I honestly forgot about my earlier mistake in Rook's Roost, but the PCs certainly remembered. I fudged a Knowledge: Planes roll for Greeley, and had him reveal that the cult occasionally summoned extraplanar allies.
Towards the end of questioning, I offed Greeley; when he started to say Mog-Lathar, he choked on his words, 7 burning eyes popped into existence on his head and neck, and he started channeling negative energy as he shuddered. The ranger chopped his head off. A much more satisfying interrogation session than the unexpected one with Sharoosh in session 2!
PCs found the secret chamber, looted a bunch of stuff, got the link between some of the goods and the things Frell Tann bartered. They then went to go sleep, and meet up the next day to head into the tunnels and find the House. What followed was some really, really excellent RP and character development, but that's probably not super interesting to those who weren't there!
Our slayer decided once again to sleep within the radius of the dreamstone - no one seems to really want to investigate why she keeps having nightmares when others don't. She awoke to fatigue and 1 HP of damage.
The ranger fenced the goods from Greeley's Den and have a brief conversation with Drune, who praised their actions but expressed extreme displeasure with them not following the rules - getting a warrant, etc. The ranger was evasive on what exactly the PCs were up to. Once again, I figured that's fine with Drune - they have enough rope to hang themselves, all while furthering his agenda.
The PCs met up and went to Madame Carrington to deal with the slayer's fatigue and the psychic's shiver addiction. The psychic and the mesmerist, brothers who own a shop, left their establishment in the hands of Avigail Scutari, daughter of Diogorgio Scutari, the proprietor of the Winding Way bookshop. A little setup on my part for part 2 of the module. (I made up the last name since the book doesn't give any)
Madame Carrington's remove disease and lesser restoration seemed like fitting additions to her spells known, since she seems fairly benevolent. She succeeded at her rolls, the psychic's addiction was removed and the slayer's pep was back in her step. Some more good RP and character stuff from that encounter.
The PCs entered the outhouse near Greeley's Den, used their vermin repellent, and made their way through the tunnels. The ogre spiders shied away from them, and we ended the session with them spying torchlight shining through the thick cobwebs ahead of them. This evening we enter the House!
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FANTASTIC summaries. Very exciting to see all this come to life in your hands. Keep it up!
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Scheduling, the bane of tabletop folks the world over! After almost 3 weeks of calendar shuffleboard, we finally got into the house. I’ll give some stand-out points, then the detailed run down. A much longer post this time, since I'm not playing catch up on like 6 sessions!
The Good
- Played up the creepiness factor:
- Peripheral vision revealing the taxidermied animals in G4 were dripping blood, foreshadowing the dream haunt in H16, but when scrutinized there was no motion.
- Vulnadaemon footsteps in the dust and creepy child laughter in G11, detect thoughts from the PCs revealing nothing but the invisible stalker on the stage.
- Detect magic revealing the entire house had an undercurrent of transmutation (per the dreamstone's aura), which unsettled the PCs.
- Sally Scrabblebone's laughter "clawing at <their> heels" as the PCs move back upstairs after fighting in G12 (I forgot to trigger that dream haunt mid-combat, but I think I did a decent recovery)
- The Map! I tried something new: cutting each individual room out of gaming paper, and setting them down as PCs revealed or entered them. They said it really helped add tension!
- More excellent character stuff from PCs.
The Less Good: while we had a good time and I don’t think I made big errors ala Session 2, there’s some things I would’ve done a little differently.
- G4 Cultists’ initial reaction. I hadn’t considered the PCs bluffing their way in, so I didn’t have my ducks in a row. The deacons should’ve been more suspicious, or followed the PCs more closely as they moved through the house, especially given that the PCs let themselves through the portcullis.
- Bluff checks: I still have some uncertainty adjudicating high bluff rolls in crazy situations. Lotta factors to consider.
- Dream Haunt. Should I have let the mesmerist channel to damage it? Those under the effects of shiver are able to do so, so I figured someone with the Lucid Dreaming feat could too, but I dunno. Also, the HP and rules for them feel a little awkward sometimes - stabbing pacing dream shadows to “death” doesn’t quite fit. Edit: now I’m realizing they’re probably just supposed to fade after a certain number of rounds. Gotta read up on that, which leads to another Less Good Thing:
- Prep time! This is an intricate module, and I’ve never been particularly good at the “cramming” aspect of prep. Again, we’re all still having fun and I don’t feel like a lack of prep is really damaging things. But there’s definitely room for improvement here.
Session Details:
The PCs picked the lock on the portcullis in G2 and were able to lift it. The Brotherhood's dead spider handsign allowed them to pass without triggering the summon monster trap. They opted to bluff their way through, taking robes and sickles and moving into G4.
Our mesmerist has excellent bluff and did most of the talking, so the cult deacons in G4 weren't too suspicious once he spoke up. (In hindsight, they maybe should have been - the PCs got through a locked portcullis with no one to help them). The PCs convinced the deacons that they were "new recruits." A bit of PC-initiated conversation humanizing the cultists a bit: folks finding ways to escape the degradation of their lives in Bridgefront, just like those seeking other occult services. I think everyone still knows they’re Bad Guys, but I was happy to indulge the PCs' questions. PCs learn there's a library in the house, as well as the existence of a presbytery down the elevator where the "service" will take place.
PCs wanted an excuse to explore the house, and asked where the bathroom was... Threw me for a loop. Should've just said a chamberpot in Gwhatever, but I went with the oak in the yard outside. Oh well! PCs got a bit of a warning about the deathweb in G17, as well as the invisible stalker in G11 thanks to a good diplomacy roll and personal connection between a cultist and the mesmerist.
PCs head down the stairs into G12. Barvasi's Band members dealing with crates don't pay them any particular mind since they look like cultists, and continue their manual labor. PCs are a bit curious about the elevator cage but move on into G11. They give the brotherhood’s sign and avoid provoking the invisible stalker.
They really liked the description of the old Desnan temple, as the psychic and mesmerist have strong links to the faith. Creepy child footprints and laughter foreshadow the vulnadaemons in the Dream House. Slayer and ranger notice the dream spider webbing in G10 but couldn't see very far into the room, though the slayer did see Chittersnap retreating towards the back of that chamber.
Then the psychic and mesmerist cast detect thoughts to try and find the source of the footprints.
While the spell didn't help them find the vulnadaemons (as they're in another plane), it did ping off Chittersnap in G10, and most importantly, the invisible stalker. Before the slayer and the ranger got a chance to draw everyone's attention to the webbing and motion in G10, the mesmerist decided it'd be a good idea to glitterdust the stage. Welp.
This pissed off the stalker and draws in Barvasi's Band. Mesmerist tried to bluff again to get the Band to help, but that’s a hard pill to swallow, so he color sprayed them and knocked them out. The din attracted the deacons from upstairs, and though the mesmerist rolled very well on another bluff check, I figured there would be insane penalties since so much suspicious stuff is going on. One deacon charged in to channel, but the lie was enough to get the other two to spend a turn using their copycat domain ability while the assessed things. The PCs fairly quickly dispatched the stalker, the deacon, and the Band, which caused the other two deacons to cast invisibility and run upstairs for reinforcements.
While the combat’s over, I let everyone know I’m still tracking rounds. The PCs are now a bit frantic and start to diverge some: the mesmerist and psychic want to run down into the catacombs through the hole in the stage (which woulda been real fun!), the slayer wants to start hiding bodies, but with some OoC discussion the ranger convinces them their priority is to run after the deacons. There's the faint screech of metal above them as one of the aranea released the spider eater. The PCs charge upstairs. Still leery of the taxidermied heads in G4, the psychic and mesmerist keep watch down the hallway as the other two go up the spiral steps into...
Myra and Nahum’s bedroom. This took the rest of the session, despite it being probably ~30 seconds of actual Golarion time. Flickering shadows pop into being as the slayer and ranger enter, and the slayer fails her Will save against the dream haunt’s deep slumber. She falls unconscious and gets a glimpse of Nahum in all his finery, leaning against the desk with the quasit on his shoulder. (Nahum should’ve been pacing, whoops!)
Nahum sneers at her, she claws her way to consciousness through some visions of awful character-relevant stuff, fails the save against fear, and runs down the stairs. Mesmerist grabs her and does a bang-up flavorful job of casting remove fear. Errbody enters the bedroom, and stuff slows down a lot.
Everyone’s standing at the head of the stairs, just beyond the pacing figures. Until now, only the psychic has seen a dream haunt. Knowledge checks reveal this is some sort of strange manifestation, and that the barriers between planes are thin. Arrows and mage hand pull aside the leather curtains to reveal the House’s location in Bridgefront.
Everybody was pretty confused about how to deal with the dream haunt, so I pull on a character string: surprise, the mesmerist is a lucid dreamer! I let him channel to affect the haunt twice, and he’s able to disperse it. Folks find the secret door, and the ranger looks into the next room: NPC from the first session is tied up making weird noises, and a juvenile spider eater bursts out of her chest; cliffhanger, end ‘o session!
Considerations for next session:
The two escaped deacons will have gone to alert the two aranea. Chittersnap will most likely stay in his lair unless PCs move into the lab room or the ritual chamber. I thought about having the deacons and aranea attack the PCs in the bedroom, but I figure they’re probably too wary of it to enter - they’ll most likely hole up in the library.
Speaking of library, I have two plot things to bring out there: I traced the clavis somnus so that I can show the PCs the silhouette in the dust underneath one of the glass domes. I also want a mini dream haunt of pages blowing around when the ranger enters - there will be a partially-destroyed book whose significant contents are in the Dream House; a genealogy of the ranger’s as-yet unrevealed bloodline, linking him to one of Korvosa’s founders. (he has an uncertain background, but has always had a strong link to the city that he can’t quite explain)
Aside from those, I need to better study the rest of the house’s encounters. And now that I’m thinking about it, one of those deacons should take the elevator down to alert Myra while the PCs are distracted in the bedroom. Hmm….
Looking forward to Session 8!
Bit of an odd session this week, mostly due to some interesting character decisions. Still fun, just… interesting!
I intro’d with a recap narrative of the last session’s events, then did a “freeze frame” description of the scene: ranger in the doorway to the spider eater’s lair, poor NPC’s ribcage exploding outwards, a glistening pony-sized thing shape emerging from it and rocketing towards the PCs. Combat was tense but not too difficult. Folks took some damage, mama spider eater came in through the open window in round 2. Psychic’s id insinuation made her off her offspring, and she herself was slain shortly thereafter.
PCs found the contents of the secret room. They were interested in the locket, the signed prognostication manual, and the book of cultists’ names. They didn’t get much time to consider them, however, as the ranger started going down the hatch from the spider eater’s lair into the larder. Folks were pretty scared of that - a rickety ladder down to a dark room that smelled like blood. The slayer and ranger decided to head down anyways, detecting and disabling the scythe trap in the wall.
The psychic and the mesmerist decided they didn’t want to mess with that, despite the slayer and ranger assuring them the room was safe. They opted to go down the spiral staircase and head down the hallway - this is the one I had previously described as having phantom blood dripping from the taxidermied animals along the side.
They were extremely suspicious of this hallway. So rather than waltz down its length and meet up with their friends, they decided to stop and use the prognostication manual to do an 8 minute osteomancy ritual in the hopes of determining whether or not walking down that hallway would be good or bad. I reminded them a few times that the ritual would take quite a while, but that was their decision and they stuck with it. (Which frustrated the slayer and ranger)
In the meantime, the slayer and the ranger found the secret door leading from the larder, through the closet, and into the library. They snuck in, found one of the cultists who had previously fled to warn the aranea, and attacked him. This drew the attention of the aranea hiding in the webs in the remains of the ritual room. Spectral hand/ghoul touch paralyzed the slayer for a full 8 rounds, and hideous laughter dropped the ranger for 4.
At this point they were freakin’ out: party was split, they were disabled, and a spectral hand was delivering shocking grasps. The psychic and mesmerist, alerted by the ranger’s manic laughter, interrupted their osteomancy and rushed into the room. Mesmerist dragged the slayer to safety, and the psychic cast haunting mists into the ritual room, blocking line of sight and driving the aranea and their dream spider companions down into the shiver stills (they didn’t want to deal with spooky illusory mists or Wis damage) Pyrotechnics on the fireplace further disrupted line of sight, while also giving our poor laughing ranger a coughing fit.
Thread more or less neutralized, the PCs had a contentious discussion about splitting the group and some other issues. Afterwards they checked the library and found a few different books, as well as the silhouettes in the dust beneath empty glass domes of the paginarium lethargica and the clavis somnus. I was super duper peeved at myself, here: I had gone through all the trouble of tracing the silhouette of the clavis somnus, but was unable to find the drawing when I needed it :|
I also introduced a ranger-specific plot element: a section of a book titled Faith of the Founders, an apocryphal tome detailing the purported occult histories of several of Korvosa’s notable historical figures. One of whom is the ranger’s direct ancestor, and the reason this character is so tied to the city of Korvosa, and able to cast ranger spells. The pages detailing that relationship are of course missing, waiting for him in the dream house after being ripped from the book during the dreamstone ritual! That revelation done, we ended the session.
The Good:
- PCs enjoyed the spider eater combat.
- Good tension when the slayer and the ranger got dropped by the aranea.
The Less Good:
- PCs were kind of split/directionless for much of the session - they weren’t all focused on the same goal.
- Didn’t investigate the Nahum/Myra clues from the secret room very much, but I expect they’ll pick up that thread later.
- I was a bit off-kilter the whole session, and didn’t have my room descriptions down. I missed a few important details in the library, as well as failing to mention the open door to the ritual chamber until the araneas started attacking from their place amongst the webs. The PCs perception checks weren’t high enough to detect them anyways, but it’s still not my finest GMing moment.
- Revealing information; a player gave me good feedback on this. There were a few situations where players seemed confused on what they were seeing or experiencing, and because I was feeling off-kilter, I clarified things rather than letting them stew. For example, I said “yeah those shutters kept the spider eater in, and the cult released it as a guard animal.” Shoulda just let that one sit and be mysterious!
- Inter-player tension: the party split, the psychic characters’ decision to do some osteomancy, etc.
- The ranger’s plot hook: I think I hit him over the head with this. I described the book as shedding illusory pages that only he could see. I plan on the full book existing in the dream house for him to find later, but I should’ve had the weirdness visible to the whole party. Otherwise it’s a bit too obvious that it was an after-market add-in for the player’s character.
- The aranea’s behavior: one of the PCs thought I pulled punches by having them retreat, and that my decisions to do so was a result of the party being split and the resulting player tension. That wasn’t how I thought of it. I just figured the aranea were smart, and wouldn’t charge through spooky dream stuff towards unidentified adversaries. I think I made the right call, but I still wonder if maybe I should’ve had the two aranea and 6 dream spiders charge through the mist and smoke at the PCs. Ah well!
Considerations for next session:
- The other escaped cultist will have taken the elevator down to alert Myra in the drowned presbytery.
- Behavior of the aranea, the dream spiders, and Chittersnap. I’m not quite sure what to do with these folks. I’ve set the aranea up as ambushed predators, so I still think they won’t engage unless they’re in a favorable position. Now that they’re in the basement, maybe they’ll warn the cultists in the smoky shiver processing room? That raises the question, will the PCs have effectively aggroed the entire house at this point? I don’t think they can survive a fight with two aranea, three lesser cultists, one cult deacon, and probably 6 dream spiders. Chittersnap and the remaining spiders will most likely hang out near the shiver still.
- I need to prep more. I haven’t put as much work into session lately, and though the players say they haven’t really noticed, I certainly feel less capable.
In any case, still plenty of mystery and creepiness left in the house! Looking forward to the eventual revelation of Mog Lathar, and the greater perils facing Bridgefront!
Turns out moving into a new (non-Hook Street, non-dream realm) house takes a lot of time, but we had a very good session after a month-long break! Combat-focused but with enough spooky stuff to keep players on their toes. Party shakeup as well - our ranger bowed out of the game and we have an oracle replacement. I’m interested to see how the group’s much lower damage and preponderance of mind-affecting things treats them when they hit Mog-Lathar…
Exeunt Erik Ensign:
As mentioned, our ranger peaced out. Given the character’s unhappiness at being disabled by the aranea and his frustration with the less professional members of his group, he left to go solo. Our remaining PCs (mesmerist, psychic, slayer) braved the “I still don’t get why you guys are so spooked by this” hallway in G4 to no ill effect and checked a few of the rooms they had not yet seen: the southern balcony outside the library, the balcony and courtyard of the burned-out northern quarter, and the small balcony in the northwest corner. Nothing momentous.
Storming the Still
Meanwhile Chittersnap, the aranea, and all 12 dream spiders arrayed themselves for potential intrusion; the PCs did not disappoint. They ignored the Desnan temple's unsettling laughter and vulnadaemon footsteps as best they could and posted up at the archway leading into G10's stills. Dancing lights flew in and put all 15 enemies on alert, but the PCs won handily despite awful initiative rolls. Silence and loathsome veil from the mesmerist disabled everyone but the spiders, which the slayer absolutely wrecked. No one walked under Chittersnap’s deadfall trap, nor did they set any webbing on fire. The only damage was from the one spectral hand/shocking grasp combo Raizel was able to get off before being nauseated and silenced a second time. Both aranea were able to escape, however - I’ll see if they show back up, but they might be understandably wary of tussling with the PCs again.
They also discovered the new 4th PC, enclosed in a cocoon in the same room. Some good RP with his introduction; looking forward to seeing how his addition changes the party dynamic!
Vexed Vial Station Vision
The next bit had me inwardly cackling with glee. As the mesmerist, oracle, and psychic conversed, the slayer got impatient and opened the door to the vial station in G15. The party had made a ton of noise in G10, so the 4 acolytes and 1 deacon were ready for them.
The door swung open to reveal a wall of mist, and the slayer immediately made Reflex saves for three burning hands. She passed and didn’t take much damage, but everybody was terrified of entering that room, especially as the casters passed their Spellcraft checks to determine that multiple entities inside were buffing: just dosing their sickles with shiver, bless, and divine favor, but still. Probably didn’t help that I coded the bless a bit to resemble Mog-Lathar’s influence: 7 burning red eyes appearing one by one and glowing through the mist before fading, which has previously meant a deacon’s about to channel negative energy. Nice how uncertainty turns 1st level spell molehills into mountains!
The PCs waffled some as the adversaries buffed and threw darts, finally settling on using the barrel of corn alcohol from the shiver still as a makeshift bomb. Dream spider webbing was the fuse, spark provided the fire. I didn’t figure that would be enough heat to explode the thing, but a nat 20 on the slayer’s flaming arrow sealed the deal. BOOM! 4 dead acolytes and a fleeing invisible deacon.
The oracle’s Diplomacy check was met with the receding sound of boots, but also with banging and yelling from the dream haunt in G14. The PCs ended on a cliffhanger, unsure if they should enter the still-present obscuring mist in search of this person in distress.
Considerations for Next Session
- The PCs are wondering whether to press on or to go rest before tackling the remainder of the house. They’ve talked about sleeping in Madame Carrington’s sanctuary if they retreat: prep some cryptic dialogue from her.
- Prep for the corpse closet in G14, and perhaps the cacophonous call haunt in G16 - remember to mention Nahum’s portrait and how they recognize it from the pendant they found in Myra/Nahum’s bedroom.
- PCs have expressed interest in descending the stairs in the stage in the old Desnan temple: prep some good stuff for the descent past the mummies and the dream haunt in the well.
- Get a good handle on phase spiders, Myra, the cult rabble, and Mog-Lathar for that inevitable confrontation, particularly the details that might be revealed from Myra and the clavis somnus.
- The Lantern Man! Gotta ready another cryptic fireside journal entry from him for the next narrative pause.
No real complaints on this one! Energy was high, all the PCs were engaged, the combat was fun, and I still got to freak everyone out with environmental details and spooky dream things. We’re all happy to be back in the saddle, and I’m looking forward to Session 10!
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Session 9 Addendum:
I remembered Chittersnap's regeneration, but not his DR 5/good or silver!
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Another long break between sessions thanks to real life issues, but I think I've got a devoted group who'll stick with this 'til the end. Bit of a low energy session, unfortunately.
The Good:
Spooky dream stuff! Running a monster with Awesome Blow is super fun! A character almost died, which adds good narrative tension!
The Less Good:
Maybe too much spooky dream stuff, to the point that PCs just seem confused by what's happening in the house. General PC indecision, and uncertainty on my part for how to steer them in the right direction, or if I've properly presented necessary information over the course of this module.
Session details:
PCs started in the shiver stills, having just blown up the vial station next door with a barrel of corn alcohol and heard the commotion from the corpse closet. They didn't get much further than that!
This was a ~3-4 hour session, most of which was spent with the PCs trying to figure out how to help the half elf calling out from the stabilized dreamscape. Long story short, they couldn't. They were super perplexed by the blood biography effect, spent a lot of effort trying to communicate with the half elf, and just generally spent a long time puttering around in that room.
Our lucid dreaming mesmerist briefly considered falling asleep in the house to try to reach the trapped person, but decided against it. GOOD THING! I didn't relish a lone PC encountering the myriad threats in the dream house.
After quite a while in the vial station they moved on and encountered the mass cacophonous call haunt in the next room. Little bit of a clue from the Nahum portrait and the poisoned Bridgefronters, but the PCs mostly remained just as baffled as ever by what was going on in the house.
They stealthily opened the door to the deathweb's room and spent a good long while discussing whether they, a party with basically 0 spells and resources left, should fight it. Despite my extremely strong insinuation that this was a Bad Idea, they decided to give it a shot; they quickly learned that it was a poor decision.
Everybody fled, but the psychic was dropped by a crit attack of opportunity. Not quite sure I handled this properly; I had the deathweb retreat from its prey since the party had damaged it a fair amount before fleeing. Perhaps I shouldn't have pulled that punch, but oh well.
The extremely exhausted party made their way out of the house and back to Madame Carrington to recuperate. They slept, our slayer avoided yet another restless night thanks to the oneiromancer's sanctuary, and I dropped a bit more unsettling Lantern Man narrative. We also had an RP scene with our lucid dreaming mesmerist who learned a bit more about what he could do (Charisma checks to alter the dreamscape and the like)
He plumbed Madame Carrington for information, which highlights something I'm struggling with with this party: nobody's particularly keeping track of clues or connecting dots. The mesmerist ended up asking Madame Carrington questions to which the PCs already knew the answers.
After that scene I had a bit of a sit-down with the group. I told them that while I'm happy to help them keep track of things, it's much harder if I'm the only one collating information and putting together the puzzle. I've got the entire book in front of me and it's hard to remember what has and has not been revealed.
We went through the clues they've gathered and a few lightbulbs seemed to go on. I believe these were the main points:
- The key and the book that keep getting referenced are important; Frell Tann had them, Madame Carrington encountered them, Greeley had the key, the PCs saw evidence of both in the house's library
- There was some sort of ritual inside the house, and since then strange things have been happening
- Lucid dreamers are in danger when they sleep, and non-lucid dreamers are being "forced" to be lucid or dying, either through shiver or the dreamscape's predators
- Myra and Nahum are figures of import
It's hard to tell, but I believe they've got a better handle on what's up. They're headed back into the house and want to go down the elevator, which means they'll confront Myra and her cult refugees. I strongly expect they'll take a diplomatic approach, which means I can offer lots of information to help get them on a better track. Should they attack her before she can speak or offer much information, I've got a cultist NPC I introduced who may experience some slight repentance and help the PCs. For whatever reason the party really likes her, so I'm happy to pull on that thread!
Looking forward to the next session! I'm a little worried that if they fight Myra and the rabble that they'll not have enough resources or damage to deal with Mog-Lathar. Hardness 8 won't be kind to the slayer's two-weapon fighting or the psychic's spiritual weapon, and since it's a construct their other damage sources won't do squat. Guess we'll just have to play to see what happens!
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Still loving all of these updates! I think it's going great. One tip on the Mog-lathar confrontation:
Remember that your out to call an end to the final conflict is the glass ceiling giving way. If your PCs get overwhelmed, get the water flowing in there as strong encouragement for them to flee. The adventure covers this option, so keep it in your back pocket!
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Session 11: Delving the Domicile’s Depths
Oh man, what a great session!
The Good:
- Great character development and RP in the opener!
- The party followed up on clues and made smart decisions, bypassing the phase spiders in G20 using the Brotherhood’s hand signal and negotiating with Myra.
- An awesome, unexpected turn of events with Myra and her followers!
- The PCs were terrified of Mog-Lathar, but managed to handily defeat him without things feeling too easy.
The Less Good:
We were all too hyped 'n excited and goofed on some rules stuff:
- The slayer’s misdirection SLA is not a swift action to use!
- Everything in G21/the presbytery should’ve had a +2 deflection bonus to AC against the party from the unhallow effect.
- Constructs aren’t immune to crits! Not sure why I thought that, especially when I knew the slayer's sneak attacks worked.
- Perhaps hamfisted foreshadowing of the clavis somnus’s importance; I was too hopped up on enthusiasm by the session’s end to be subtle.
I knew ahead of time that this was the session where’d they’d face Mog-Lathar, so I wanted a strong opener that reinforced the themes of the game and highlighted events so far. I’ve included it below in another spoiler, should anyone be brave enough to read my prose! I also let everyone know that while I’d give them space for roleplay, I knew they wanted to get to the action; I wasn’t expecting much character development before we hit the House again. But the players surprised me with some really great stuff!
Our first scene was in Madame Carrington’s Oneiromancy, in a back storeroom I’d invented that’s been turned into a makeshift dormitory. (She offers her establishment as sanctuary for lucid dreamers, so I figured an extra room fit the fiction)
Marok, our new oracle, has the wasting curse. Before the others woke he removed his armor, the plague doctor’s mask he always wears, and layers of bandage wrap. He cast create water to basically perform ritual ablutions, trying to treat his leprous flesh which never fully heals. Great performance by his player!
Jezidar and Garvin, our slayer and psychic, each had private moments for reflection. Jezidar went back to the abandoned Sarenite temple where she lives and thought about whether or not she was on the right path: particularly happy with that choice, as Jezidar’s player often expresses difficulty embracing roleplay and getting into character. Garvin returned to the Thirteen Moons, the Paraga brothers’ shop, and checked up on things. The place has been left in the care of Avigail Scutari - setup for the Winding Way/paginarum lethargica stuff that’ll be introduced soon, as her father Diogorgio owns the bookshop. Some good RP on his part about family ties, though the details probably aren’t interesting to readers here. Long story short, their grandfather was an occultist who’s passed away, and his legacy’s a big deal to the Moon Brothers.
The rays linger on those peaks, resting, before they reach outwards. Before they reach downwards, towards Old Korvosa to the north and far below. The light strains, grasping in thin morning air, but cannot extend to the benighted district in the Acadamae’s shadow. Bridgefront’s dreams were troubled last night, as they have been for some weeks. Persistent doubts and fears, once harmless, now made tangible. Creatures from another realm stalk the shifting streets of a neighborhood besieged.
It was an Oathday evening when one of those same creatures stepped out of dream and into material reality. It manifested before a humble soup kitchen nestled beneath the teetering heights of tawdry Shingles tenements. It dragged the corpse of the addict Frell Tann,and the dream-thing’s hunger set an unlikely group on an unlikely path. One which lead through political intrigue, a city’s illicit underbelly, through knots of esoteric belief and bloody ritual, and via unfamiliar avenues, through a twisted dream realm.
A path that also lead into a certain house on a certain street. The Caligaro family home, or the House on Hook Street, as you have come to know it, is a dwelling steeped in centuries of religious practice and occult study. A dwelling at the heart of the shiver trade, Bridgefront’s dreaming drug, and a dwelling crawling with the schemes and presence of the Brotherhood of the Spider. Much was discovered within, at great cost, but much remains unknown. And without that knowledge, the path ahead leads only towards an uncertain, nightmare-cloaked future.
There is one place, at least, that is safe from the spiders’ somnolent sickness; Madame Carrington’s Oneiromancy. The shop of crumbling brick and its paralyzed proprietor both offer solace to the lucid and mundane alike. The dignified spiritualist extends her mastery over the Dreamscape to unlikely guests; the Moon Brothers, Atticus and Garvin Paraga, the reclusive Jezidar Khorshed, and a man named Marok Delkano, his features hidden behind a plague doctor’s mask.
The four lie on cots in this unlikely sanctuary. It is the early hours of Moonday, 28th Lamashan, a scant four days since a monstrous encounter at the Korvosa’s Hope. Cracked and clouded windows keep blind watch over these exhausted people, bodies and souls worn from moving blindly through worlds they scarcely understand. The room smells of old linens and strange herbs, of the myriad trappings of the oneiromancer’s trade. It is still and quiet, its inhabitants protected from the horrors of sleeping Bridgefront.
And for now there is only one person awake to appreciate this rare moment of peace. This morning, Marok Delkano, you lean against the tawdry wall of an occult establishment’s back room. You are cloaked in your robes, your mask, and in temporary solitude. What do you do?
The departure of Erik Ensign, the ranger, has left a bit of a leadership vacuum. That character really drove the group forward and no one had really taken up that same role. I spoke to Atticus the mesmerist’s player and he wanted to don that mantle.
The party made their way back to Greeley’s lair and the tunnel entrance via Scuttling Way. They passed by the Korvosa’s Hope, the soup kitchen founded by Erik Ensign, site of our first session and an establishment where Atticus frequently volunteers. People were packed against its walls and under its eaves. The Hope is one of Bridgefront’s few symbols of, well, hope, and I figured weary Bridgefronters would flock to it under the stress of the nightmare plague.
Atticus really stepped up here, speaking to everyone present and promising to heal what ails the district. He addressed the party and pulled on their motivations, urging them to keep fighting, to go back to the House and get to the bottom of things, and invoked his grandfather’s example to sway his brother. Atticus stepped into that leadership role in a big way, and his player gave a great performance.
Also, to my surprise his brother Garvin suggested that those assembled at the Hope stay at the Thirteen Moons! The players have finally figured out that location plays an important part of who has dangerous nightmares, and the dreamstone’s radius has yet to extend to the brothers’ shop. Keyword yet :) Really cool character development for Garvin there, as he’s traditionally been much less empathetic than his brother, and I think this was a great story development. The “emotional focus” of the campaign is now shifted from the Hope, whose main links are to a character who’s no longer in the game, to the Thirteen Moons, something much more resonant and meaningful to the focus characters. Really happy with what the narrative options that opens!
The PCs were intent on going down the elevator and arrived at the device unmolested. Appreciative nod to the phantom trap effect on the elevator’s crank - it didn’t come into play, but I like it as a deterrent if the PCs want to go down “too soon.” Light and dancing lights active, they descended.
The elevator opened up into the long, dark hallway of G20. I described the smell of seawater and the play of light off small pools, damp webs, and water trickling down stone walls. Dancing lights sent down the hallway revealed the outline of double stone doors carved with images of Gozreh - a lithe watery woman on the left extending a hand to a broad-shouldered man on the right with flashing eyes and a stormcloud mantle. Gotta drive home that Caligaro religious/occult history!
I was so, so pleased with the PCs in this part. They moved cautiously down the hallway, and just as I was going to describe the slayer getting ambushed by phase spiders, the mesmerist and psychic remembered the Brotherhood’s hand signal. Creepy humanface spider flickered into reality for a second before seeing the sign, at which the monster promptly returned to the Ethereal Plane. Hooray for players remembering clues and things! Scared the hell out of Jezidar too, which was fun.
Myra stood up from a pew and turned to address the PCs. I’m not sure I portrayed her super compellingly, but basically:
- She’d been expecting the PCs: Beth, the cultist NPC the PCs are strangely attached to, had escaped to notify Myra.
- Myra’s cultists were the hunted, not the hunters.
- She explained a bit about the excommunicates, and their attempt to enter the dream realm and awaken an artifact, and her disruption of their ritual.
- She was unrepentant and unflinching about using shiver to feed Mog-Lathar and gain power.
- She offered the PCs the lesser of two evils - take the clavis somnus and use it to stop the heretics before Bridgefront is swallowed by nightmares.
Great party cohesion here. Atticus stepped up to negotiate, and Jezidar stuck with him as a bodyguard. A small detail, but a big step on her player’s path to stronger roleplay. Marok the oracle kept an eye on everyone, and Garvin tried to figure out what was up with this strange misty key.
Atticus, though! He was ready to kill Myra when she said she didn’t care that shiver was destroying the community, but he took a different tack. He bypassed Myra and offered repentance to the assembled cultists. Sessions ago, using Beth as a mouthpiece, I’d said that many turned to the Brotherhood for the same reasons others turn to drugs or seances or whatever else: solace and some comfort, a refuge from a neglected neighborhood and a bad life. Atticus appealed to those same emotions and had an excellent Diplomacy roll - 50% of the cultists moved to join the party as Garvin took the clavis somnus from Myra. Super unexpected turn of events, but character driven and a really cool turn for the story!
I was super looking forward to this fight, and I put a lot of effort into narrating Mog-Lathar’s animation; I’ll drop those details in the next spoiler section.
As I said above, the players were terrified. One, giant spider-thing with burning eyes. Two, cracked glass pouring water into the presbytery. Character driven choices meant the first round was mostly everybody ushering the turncloak cultists into the hallway beyond. The players’ fear was fulfilled when Mog-Lathar trampled everyone for ~25 damage each: fun narrating the players' injuries, including Marok’s plague mask ripping and giving the other PCs a glimpse of his wasted flesh. Almost everyone wanted to hightail it.
Jezidar, though, wasn’t gonna run. She stood her ground and fought, and she managed to kill Mog-Lathar by herself in two rounds of full attack actions - excellent, excellent dice rolls on her part! Some goofs on rules and action economy mean she probably shouldn’t have been able down the spider-thing, but she did get some crits that I negated ‘cause of my own rules goofs. I think it’s all a wash. At the end of the day, the story worked and no one was disappointed or felt cheapened: they fought a horrifying godling and won against the odds. They abandoned an unconscious Myra and her cultists to the rising waters, took their new allies(?), and fled.
Quick notes on the combat and my tactics:
- I narrated some psychic feedback/mind intrusion stuff from Mog-Lathar when he animated: I didn’t see him speaking, but I did see the PCs feeling waves of hunger and disdain. I mean, the dude eats dreams, so surely he’s got to have some sort of menacing mental aura, yeah? The PCs thought they were going to have to roll Will saves after my animation narration, but I thought it was worth it despite that confusion. I hope it gave them a bit of a window into why he was suddenly animating despite his priestess giving the PCs an out.
- Myra didn’t fight the PCs, just cackled and cast invisibility: she’d made her deal with them, and if her god didn’t like it, she was just going to sit and watch his power manifest. The PCs did get some parting shots on her before leaving, though.
- The cult rabble didn’t come into play: they stood in awe and supplication before the animated form of their god. Maybe that’s a little lazy of me, as I had trouble really selling the last Troop block I ran, but I think it fit and the PCs didn’t complain. Especially given that half of them had joined the PCs.
- I forgot all the adversaries would have a +2 deflection bonus to AC vs the party because of the chamber’s unhallow effect; nuts.
- At that, the great shape above you begins to move.
- 7 legs shudder and unfurl, curling outwards to reveal a carapace of dark stone.
- 7 eyes flare to life and burn with syncopated, baleful light.
- Something… (0:22)claws… at your minds, some voice from deepest subconscious gibbering upwards from mental depths you’ve never plumbed.
- Moon Brothers, otherworldly emotions scour your psyches. You struggle against the alien tide, barely holding your sense of self together, and identify these new desires that are. not. yours.:
- Anger, disdain, but above all, hunger.
- Sharp, brittle sounds cascade throughout the presbytery: cracks appear in the glass above as the monstrous weight shifts on its silver strand.
- Water starts to pour into the chamber.
- The spider-thing turns above you.
- The dreamsilk snaps.
- The shape falls, and SLAMS into the tiled floor.
- (1:05) Water, wood, and ceramic fly in all directions. The impossible shape sways on towering legs, water stream down its sides, and burning eyes drill into you.
- The seven-fold gaze of Mog-Lathar... is upon you.
- ROLL FOR INITIATIVE!
And as soon as I said the last part, I started one of my absolute favorite “implacable villain” tracks.
So yeah. Forgive the lengthy description, but I was so happy with how that brief scene turned out that I wanted to share!
Implications for Future Sessions:
- Korvosa’s Hope patrons now live at the Thirteen Moons! Interested to see how people will react once the dreamstone’s influence expands and the establishment is no longer safe. Definitely going to be at least one ash-grey corpse in the future.
- Cultists now live at the Thirteen Moons! Man, I’m still figuring out how that’s going to shake out. How will Drune and the Korvosan guard react?
- The clavis somnus is about to reveal a ton of information to the PCs.
- How are the PCs vulnerable to the excommunicates? Lots of cool ways for me to build menace in Bridgefront’s streets as those trapped in the dreamscape start to hunt in earnest for the key and the paginarum lethargica.
- Time. Should I let the players know a few days are going to pass, and I want descriptions of what they’re up to before next session? My cliffhanger is a frozen moment, so that doesn’t quite mesh. Gotta chew on this one.
In any case. Awesome, awesome session that both I and the players are super pleased with. The plot’s ramping up, the PCs will start putting together the puzzle, and threats will increase. As always, looking forward to what’s next!
Low key session this week, lotta tired folks. Still some important steps forward!
The Good:
- More quality player-driven RP; this group’s real good for that!
- Plot advancement: players now understand the importance of the paginarum lethargica, and have an informant on the hunt for it and Barvasi’s Band.
- Interesting player choices re: the ex-cultists staying with them.
The Less Good:
- Player prep. My group doesn’t really do their homework between sessions, so it’s up to me to tally gold and hit them over the head with clues. A little frustrating, but ain’t no game perfect.
- Case in point for the above: players still think the well water might be poisoned, despite finding no supporting evidence and previously concluding that that was probably a red herring.
- I might’ve “cleaned up” the potential Guard tension about the PCs housing cultists a bit too quickly. At the same time, that situation isn’t the focus of the campaign, so I don’t mind the lack of verisimilitude. Players don’t much seem to care, either!
Session Overview:
We picked up with the PCs entering the Thirteen Moons and the clavis somnus going off - I flavored it as it reacting to the psychically-charged nature of the establishment. Unfortunately they totally flubbed the Appraise check to perform psychometry. The scene then transitioned into dealing with their new guests. Some cool stuff here:
- Atticus the mesmerist asked the ex-cultists to take off their Brotherhood robes and leave that part of their life behind.
- Jezidar the slayer immediately took them all out back and burned them!
- Marok the oracle checked everybody’s health and discovered some shiver addiction.
- Garvin the psychic decided to leave the addicts in Madame Carrington’s care in the hopes that restful sleep would ease their withdrawals.
Folks generally made the Thirteen Moons habitable for ~20 extra people. Some interaction with Avigail to build that relationship in preparation for the inevitable grisliness at The Winding Way bookshop. Good RP with Beth, the defacto ex-cultist leader. I’m playing her as skeptical and a bit aloof, unsure herself why she bothered to go along with Atticus’s hare-brained scheme. I’ll let the PCs’ interactions with her determine what she does.
Good scene when Garvin came back with soup ingredients. A bit of a speech about disparate ingredients creating a satisfying whole, pointedly ease tension between the Korvosa’s Hope folks and the ex-cultists. An uncharacteristic nat 20 on Diplomacy meant a few friends were made over the meal. Good stuff!
The party discussed the path forward and landed on talking to Drune, searching for the Band, and looking for the book. They summoned Nigel, the informant who gave them info on Frell Tann, and learned the Band is in deep hiding. Some financial lubricant convinced Nigel to see what he could drum up. Always fun for me to play Nigel, with his ridiculous accent and irreverent mannerisms.
Day 5 of the endeavor dawned. Atticus awoke to Avigail’s nervous call and came downstairs to see Captain Crandon and four members of the Korvosan Guard in his establishment. She explained that their acceptance of cultists was extremely troubling and that Drune needed to see them immediately. She marched them to Old City Hall and his office, where he expressed his displeasure over their acceptance of cultists. Atticus vouched for their reformation, and offered the cult’s book of names with the ex-cultists’ entries crossed out as proof. Interesting detail there, and Drune wanted the book anyways.
To reiterate my Drune approach: he likes his catspaws, and if the PCs are doing shady stuff then that gives him more plausible deniability should things go south. He begrudgingly “allowed” the cultists at the Moons and gave the PCs the agreed-upon reward. The PCs asked him about Myra, the band, and the book, but he didn’t have much to offer. He lied and said he hadn’t heard of Myra, but nobody’s ever asked to roll Sense Motive on him so they still don’t suspect anything!
Back to the Moons, past a cart of ash-grey corpses in the streets. Psychometry on the clavis somnus barely succeeded, but I invoked the presence of the brothers’ deceased occultist grandfather to give them all the key’s clues: Greeley returning it to Myra, Greeley snatching it and the book from the ritual chamber, Nahum and his compatriots getting pulled into the dream realm with the dreamstone wreathed in blue flame behind them, the catacomb well’s cap being removed and blue flame erupting from it along with an echoing call, and Nahum bent over the paginarum lethargica in the House’s library.
End ‘o session. Kind of an odd, rambling one, but I’ve once again hit folks on the head with the cluehammer so they should be on track.
Implications for Future Sessions:
- They’ll have to wait another day for the ashen body count to rise and for Nigel to return with information on the Band. Rook’s Roost has been effectively shut down, so the blood golem encounter will have to happen with other people in another place. Maybe Beth’ll provide location info to elaborate on what Nigel’s gathered?
- Think about the interior of The Winding Way and how to portray it.
- Need to keep getting on the PCs to do knowledge checks - they still don’t know about dreamstuff’s DR/silver.
- Reading up on dream encounters, especially with Atticus’s lucidity. Shadow mastiffs have been referenced a number of times so those need to pop up.
- Looking forward to the Hound of Tindalos and the excommunicate assassin harrying the party!
- In general looking forward to the PCs facing imminent threats, since they’re better at addressing those than being investigative!
Great! This will help in my CotCT campaign, where I plan to run this module. Thank you for sharing this!
Glad it's useful!
I was considering running this but I wasn't sure how these new occult rules played out and the story seems convoluted. I am enjoying reading your game sessions.
As a middle school teacher, a lot of the tricks I use also work with adults ;)
When playing long games where there are many weeks missing in between, I learned that repeating a clue many times works best. Don't be afraid to tell them to "take notes". People just forget things. I also have the players sometimes work together say what they think is happening and why.
I also abuse when players tend to forget things, because if I fudge an encounter as a GM, I can go back and fix my mistakes by introducing it a different way in the next session. Don't be afraid to abuse this sometimes.
GMs may not hear this often enough: but you're doing a great job! Good luck!
I was considering running this but I wasn't sure how these new occult rules played out and the story seems convoluted. I am enjoying reading your game sessions.
As a middle school teacher, a lot of the tricks I use also work with adults ;)
When playing long games where there are many weeks missing in between, I learned that repeating a clue many times works best. Don't be afraid to tell them to "take notes". People just forget things. I also have the players sometimes work together say what they think is happening and why.
I also abuse when players tend to forget things, because if I fudge an encounter as a GM, I can go back and fix my mistakes by introducing it a different way in the next session. Don't be afraid to abuse this sometimes.
GMs may not hear this often enough: but you're doing a great job! Good luck!
Yeah, so far the issue's been a lack of player notes. Probably doesn't help that I usually PC, and when I do I'm the records keeper... I think we've figured it out, but we'll see. We're also leaving the investigation-heavy portion of the module.
Thanks for the encouragement, and I'm glad you're enjoying the summaries! No real action this week thanks to Real Life, but they at least spent some of their lucre.
Back in the saddle after three weeks!
A few days’ narrative freedom, and a cliffhanger right before a fight!
The Good:
- Good character development: Mu’rok and Atticus got to know each other, Garvin did some well-flavored crafting, and Jezidar was self-reflective instead of just bein’ a murder machine!
- We mapped out the Thirteen Moons rather than leaving it as a nebulous theatre of the mind location!
- Dynamic Magic Item Creation from Pathfinder Unchained!
- Decent job building a sense of mounting dread and dead thanks to the Nightmare Plague.
The Less Good:
- A little slow paced, and some players were (understandably) less engaged when they didn’t have the spotlight.
- I could’ve had more descriptive details ready for my alternate Barvasi’s Band murder scene.
Session Overview:
We picked up just after Garvin’s object reading on the clavis somnus. A little gentle jogging of players’ memories, and we entered slightly more abstract “what do y’all do over the next few days territory.” I figured it’d take Nigel the informant about 4 days to discover the whereabouts of one cell of Barvasi’s Band. By the time the PCs hear the news and check the Band’s hideout, it’s only the start of the 8th day since the whole mess started!
I tried to be more expedient during this down time, and not ask for too too many details on what players were up to; I know folks wanted to get to the action. As has become a trend, however, I was surprised at how much people dived into their characters’ lives!
Toilday, 29th Lamashan, 4713 AR:
- Mu’rok: Starts some research, his goal being a “methadone” for shiver addicts. Decides to follow Atticus around Bridgefront the next day to see the city/get some shopping done.
- Atticus: Returns to his routine helping folks. He’s started to give Avigail more responsibility since she helped mind the Moons while the group was away; I’m expecting a big emotional impact when tragedy befalls her father.
- Jezidar: Distances herself from people. One of her closest friends was killed by a gestating spider-eater in the House, so she’s having a rough time.
- Garvin: Makes a shard of psychic power with inflict moderate wounds for Mu’rok. Flavored it as looking like a crystal mosquito - cool Ghlaunder reference from our Desnan PC!
Wealday, 30th Lamashan, 4713 AR:
I was planning on doing something with the Lamashan holiday of Allbirth, lucid dreaming deaths focused on body horror style nightmares or somesuch, but that got swept under the rug due to more interesting narrative threads. Mu’rok and Atticus see mounting evidence that dreaming deaths are increasing. I think we also decided to actually map out the Thirteen Moons at this point, which was very cool! I’m gonna meet with Atticus’s player In The Future to breathe more life into the place and give it a proper grid paper representation.
- Mu’rok: Out ‘n about with Atticus, made contacts to get his plague doctor’s mask repaired/enchanted.
- Atticus: Out ‘n about. Cool details on what he does in the community, very Boy Scout-y, but in a very heartfelt rather than cheesy way.
- Jezidar: Returned to the home of her deceased Sarenite friend. Bit of introspection on the “justice delivered at a scimitar’s edge” Sarenite thing - she doubles down on that axiom, seeking justice for Bridgefront in general and her friend in particular.
- Garvin: Still craftin’, some item from Psychic Anthology that I forget the name of!
Oathday, 31st Lamashan, 4713 AR:
- Mu’rok: Out ‘n about, more research. I let him know his “shiver methadone” line of inquiry didn’t pan out, as generally clerics &c help with disease. But he did go down some sidetracks that revealed that nightmarish creatures often have DR/good or silver. As the group rarely rolls Knowledge checks, I felt I needed to foist that detail upon them!
- Atticus: Out ‘n about, talking to Avigail more.
- Jezidar: Got flaming on her scimitar, still distancing herself from the group. In her wanderings, noticed that the Korvosan Guard is posted up outside the Caligaro family estate - she sat and watched for about an hour but didn’t see much of interest.
- Garvin: Dynamic Item Creation ahoy! Details at the bottom of the post, but Atticus and he worked together to bend a planar intrusion into quick completion of Garvin’s rod of psychic thingamajigs. I thought it was a pretty good scene, and Atticus’s player even asked afterwards “wait, that was a crafting thing!?”
Fireday, 1st Neth, 4713 AR:
Another morning of colorless corpses, but Nigel the informant showed up around breakfast. He’d heard from someone who’d heard from someone that they’d seen some strikingly Barvasi’s Band-like folks emerging from a disused tenement on the northern edge of Bridgefront.
Since earlier in the game I’d sunk the chances of using Rook’s Roost as written, the Band’s new sleepytime spot was a sub-basement room that had gotten cut off from the rest of the floorplan after several generations of building renovations. The party scrambled down a 20ft. shaft (maybe an old chimney or laundry chute?) into a cramped, damp “foyer” with a wooden door at the end.
On the other side was a 20ft. by 20ft. room with a familiar, but much more improvised, hydrodaemon head device. The head had wounds consistent with the specimen from the earlier pier ambush. The room was full of detritus and supplies indicating this was a temporary and not-too-comfortable home. And my group, bless their hearts, spent several confused minutes trying to figure what this dang device was - some gentle nudging helped them recall its somnolent purpose.
Jezidar went up to the 5 corpses arrayed around the thing, bleeding out onto the floor, ratty couches, and lounging chairs. As she tipped one over, Mu’rok and Garvin passed the Perception check to realize some spooky dream stuff was manifesting. The pooled blood rushed to the center of the room and erupted into a humanoid shape, and next time we’ll have to see who does what!
Implications for Future Sessions:
Should they survive their encounter with the blood golem, they’ll discover Diogorgio Scutari’s body on their way home, a distraught Avigail arguing with the guards. That should lead to the paginarum lethargica, the ritual, and a clear path forward. They’ll just have to survive the Hound of Tindalos and the excommunicate while Garvin does his research on the ritual! I’m thinking of tweaking the assassins - a little worried they’ll be quickly disabled and unable to do their hit-and-run. Although if the first ones perish, who’s to say there aren’t more..
Avigail and Atticus’s developing mentorship/student vibe should be interesting to see. Atticus also hasn’t spent any gold, and told me after the session he’s saving up to turn the Thirteen Moons into a sort of community center in the game’s epilogue. That’s pretty cool, and means I get to research Korvosan property pricing!
A little worried about the blood golem fight. Should Jezidar get grappled before she can attack, I think the group might be absolutely hosed - all of their other damage is magic-based. It’s got a +8 on attacks and Jezidar wears medium armor without a shield. 2d6+4+1d6bleed damage, and grapples at a +16. Huge chance of success, and when it succeeds, the golem heals for 5 and does 1d2 Con damage to its victim at the end of its turn. Should it maintain the grapple next turn (at a +21!) it deals 4d6+8+1d6bleed, with more healing and Con damage. Ouch.
Reckon that’s about it! Hope it’s not TPK Theatre next week!
I’ve been itching to use Pathfinder Unchained’s Dynamic Magic Item Creation system - I think it has great story potential. I ran the beginning and ending steps of Garvin’s crafting as-written, though I do have uncertainties on pricing. The events that can take place during crafting change the item’s crafting price, but the first step requires providing 25% of the cost up front. If the player’s already putting money up, then events that change the total crafting price require “retconning” that initial cost. I basically handwaved it so that any price adjustments will get figured and paid at the very end, but I could see that causing crunch and timing issues without that.
In any case, I mashed up some challenges from Unchained and made the following:
ONEIRIC INFLUENCE: Whorls of planar dreamstuff infiltrate the crafter’s carefully calibrated energies and begin to spiral out of control.
TASKS
Partition Rogue Energies Knowledge (planes): DC 20 + item's caster level
Integrate Oneiric Flux Use Magic Device: DC 20 + item's caster level
RESULTS
Critical Success Impromptu infusion. –3 days, –10% cost, 1 quirk: slowly floats 2” off a surface and spins when unattended
Success Inconsequential influence. No adjustment.
Failure Unrelenting interference. +5% cost, 1 quirk.
Critical Failure Catastrophic resonance. +3 days, +5% cost, 1 quirk, 1 flaw: Hallucinogenic; -2 penalty to Perception and Initiative rolls when carried
Players liked it! Definitely a system to explore more.
An incredibly intense session. Two and a half hours for one combat. Our first character death of the game. My first in ~5 years of playing Pathfinder.
So named because of the small sub-basement room where Jezidar lost her life to an advanced dreamspawn golem.
The Good:
- Tense, exciting session basically the whole way through.
- Natural one on the golem’s check to maintain a grapple, otherwise Atticus would’ve joined Jezidar.
- Incredible, gruesome fun for me to describe the monster’s blood drain and pursuit of the PCs.
- The party fleeing through Bridgefront, Atticus shouting for civilians to get out of the way, the dreamgolem’s detect thoughts meaning it kept pursuing Garvin (highest Int score).
- Cinematic “forget rolling a million dice” conclusion: two dozen Korvosan Guard, Madame Carrington’s phantom Giurescu, and the remaining party members finally banding together to stop the thing’s rampage.
- Serendipitously, a friend from previous games who’d moved away was back in town for a visit! Props to him for portraying the Korvosan Guard during the session’s finale.
The Less Good:
- Some rules uncertainties and mistakes: concentration checks, grappling (always grappling :|), I mistakenly doubled up the golem’s blood drain; thankfully, looking back at the rolls, it didn’t really swing the fight unfairly.
- I goofed on player agency for a hot second. Atticus was going to distract the golem so that others could escape, which I mistook as “I’m martyring myself, let’s switch into narrative mode.” We rewound and went back into initiative order and it was fine, but I’m still a bit embarrassed. First character death had me stressing!
- Probably waited a tad too long to switch to cinematic encounter resolution.
Session Details:
As noted, the whole session was fighting the blood golem, who got the highest initiative roll. The surprise round and round 1 were brutal. Jezidar struck, grappled, and blood drained before she could act. Back-to-back realizations by the other 3 members, all magic users, that oh, this thing doesn’t have a mind. OH, this thing has DR we can’t really deal with. OH, THIS THING’S IMMUNE TO MAGIC. Jezidar couldn’t escape the creature and was dead by the start of round 3, her blood pouring out of her to mingle with the Band’s and the dreamstuff swirling inside the golem’s form.
Garvin was able to pull her lifeless body from its grasp. Atticus stayed to distract the monster, yelled for everyone to run, and Mu’rok started hauling Jezidar’s body up the sub-basement chute to the streets.
Atticus shoulda died - there was no way for him to escape the grapple on his own, and no one had anything like liberating command. But a natural 1 on the golem’s check to maintain the grapple coupled with his brother’s aid another let him slip out. He and Garvin booked it (as best they could with low Strength scores) up the rope and out onto the street.
But that was still within 60 feet of the dreamspawn, still in range of its detect thoughts. It clambered up the chute after them, sloshing, scabrous plates scraping against the stone. A very stressful chase scene through Bridgefront as detailed at the start of the post above. They couldn’t hurt it, but they could outrun it. Mu’rok used command to get a stout Bridgefronter to carry Jezidar to Madame Carrington’s. The party lead the golem there, encountering some Korvosan Guard who lost their lives as speed bumps.
Showdown at Madame Carrington’s. Two dozen guards, PCs, and NPCs versus the golem. Statistically I figured there had to be enough arrows and nat 20s to take the thing down. Rolled a d20 to see how many guards ate it in the attempt, and counting the previous 4, 13 of Korvosa’s finest fell to stop the creature’s rampage. We ended with a furious Captain Crandon marching up to Atticus.
Implications for Future Sessions:
Who even knows! As written in the module, the Guard continually denies the importance of shiver deaths and spooky dream stuff, but I think that ain’t gonna fly given what just happened. We’ll see how the PCs' negotiation goes - maybe the Guard will just pull out entirely? I expect Atticus might be able to convince some to stay. This has definitely given the party a kick in the pants to address the greater dreamstone threat, though.
I was expecting the PCs to find some stuff in the Band’s hideout and had a letter handout ready. A missive from Josef Barvasi to one of his operatives explaining what to do with the book, as I figured Josef had quit the city after the excommunicates started hunting the Band (Plus I didn’t want tracking the band down to be another red herring for my occasionally unfocused PCs) I’ll probably have the letter and some loot caught up in the golem’s substance for them to recover from the street. Lord knows the party could use the money and stat boosts.
Next session starts with the Captain Crandon conversation. The party didn’t go down the street past the Winding Way, so they don’t yet know that Diogorgio Scutari has died after buying the paginarum lethargica. Part of the way through negotiations with Crandon I’ll have guards escort a struggling and sobbing Avigail in. Given the party’s connection with her, that should eventually lead them to the book.
Once they’ve got the book, Garvin can start researching the breach the veil of dreams ritual, the spooky dream stuff around them will ramp up, assassins will come after them, and eventually Madame Carrington will get snatched by Sally Scrabblebones. I think we’ve got an excellent setup for a tense climb to the module’s climax!
Short one this week. Most of us work in education, and it’s end of the year crunch time!
Not many things happened this session, but the party acquired the paginarum lethargica, so they finally learned what the heck’s going on.
The Good:
- Info dump! Barvasi’s Band has quit the town, PCs know what the dreamstone is, and Garvin’s starting to research the breach the veil of dreams ritual.
- Handouts, which are always fun. Wrote out Barvasi’s note and an excerpt from the paginarum, find ‘em at the bottom of the post!
- Interesting confrontation with Mu’rok and Atticus about Atticus being too altruistic.
The Less Good:
- Not 100% sure of my handling of Captain Crandon and the guard’s reactions. Given how many people witnessed the blood golem’s rampage through Bridgefront, it didn’t make sense to me to have Crandon continue the party line of “these are all hallucinations and shiver suicides.”
- Jezidar’s player was unable to make the session, so she stayed dead for now. Narratively, the Bank of Abadar was “on holiday” or somesuch - kind of a lame in-world reason to delay her resurrection, but whatevs.
Session Details:
Atticus spoke with Crandon while Garvin and Mu’rok helped ease the passing or tend to the wounds of the drained guards and townsfolk. Mu’rok also found some bloody parchments that were caught up in the golem’s mass: three scrolls and a note from Josef Barvasi.Crandon was pissed but worn out - unsure whether or not the PCs were causing the mess, distrustful of them for letting Brotherhood members into their home, but unable to deny that something was going on that was more than just the symptoms of a drug epidemic. Atticus spilled the beans to her on all the spooky dream stuff and the thinning planar boundaries. She’ll have to speak to Drune about things, but asked if the death of Atticus and Garvin’s neighbor might be related to this mess. Queue “Huh? Our neighbor?”
Mu’rok stayed to tend to Jezidar’s body. Maynard Colville used a wand of gentle repose once Mu’rok was done; spiritualists must keep those around for seances ‘n stuff, yeah? Atticus and Garvin headed to the Winding Way and found Diogorgio’s crumpled body outside. Crandon drew their attention to the suspicious cuts all over his exposed skin (the hound of Tindalos’s ripping gaze), and sent them to talk to Avigail inside. She was numb and in shock, but related her dream of some sort of skinless, large-eyed hound looking into the Winding Way, and sniffing sounds around the door jam. Atticus immediately offered her a place at Madame Carrington’s. Avigail went upstairs to pack her things and bumped the “recent acquisitions” shelf, knocking the paginarum lethargica to the floor and dislodging its bookmark of deception. Queue expletives from the PCs as a darkwood-bound collection of irregular pages materializes, blood red jewel on the cover practically winking at them.
They get Avigail situated at Madame Carrington’s, who expresses her concern that she’s reaching capacity and can’t offer sanctuary to many more lucid dreamers. The crew heads back to the Thirteen Moons and dives into the book. Garvin learns the dreamstone’s Earthfall origin, its history of attempted “redemption” and misuse, and the existence of the breach the veil of dreams ritual they’ll need to find and deal with it once and for all. Some mild confusion thinking that maybe Nahum was actually trying to deactivate it when Myra sabotaged his ritual. I did forget to say that the thing was dormant and would have been recently activated (as detailed in the adventure background on page 3), so adding that detail next session should help with Garvin’s opinion of Nahum.
Implications for Future Sessions:
- Next session will probably start with a Lantern Man monologue about the rising body count and the movements of the five Barvasi’s Band before they were killed and golem-ized. I believe that’ll be my 4th monologue from him. While I doubt the PCs will need to encounter him, he’s a good way to sum up events and add some creepiness to the game.
- Jezidar needs to be resurrected. The first major scene next session will mostly likely be them going to the Bank of Abadar to pay for a raise dead and two restorations; 8,010gp for materials and spellcasting service, as the Abadarans always get their due. I may allow some Knowledge (Religion) and Diplomacy rolls to lower that price, as the Inner Sea Gods entry on Abadar does say that clergy provide free or discounted services if it will serve the greater good.
- Items: the entry on the paginarum lethargica says it contains scrolls for sleep-related spells. I want to curate that list a bit, make sure I can give the PCs things that are useful but not overly powerful.
- Need to pace out additional revelations over the course of Garvin’s research.
- The assassins are going to start hunting; I’ll give the PCs some spooky dream stuff foreshadowing that tonight.
- The dreamstone’s influence will expand to the PC’s home base in probably another night or two. Will saves to avoid the nightmare effect the first night at least, and probably a “drawn into the lucid dream” style encounter a few nights later. Two shadow mastiffs and one or two medium air elementals (dreamstuff-infused Bridgefront street mist) should be about a CR 8 encounter.
- Cultists and vagrants living in the Thirteen Moons. Kinda forgot about them last session :( They’ll probably be a source of grey corpses once the dreamstone expands to reach the Moons, but I need to include them in the narrative next session.
- I also want a good “limbo” scene for Jezidar - probably her in her sanctuary hideout, but well kept instead of its contemporary state of disrepair. I’m planning a slightly cliche “choose light or shadow” thing: she’ll hear whatever magic is summoning her back, and can either take a path through the darkened sanctuary, or step into the light cast from the rose window above. No mechanical implications there, but hopefully good story moment and glimpse into Jezidar’s thought process. Need to refine that idea, though.
Lehrs-
Seems like it worked. Since your lot’s been at the old safe house, whatever was sniffing after us has given up. Or at least, no more bleached bodies at dawn.
The rest of the Band is dead, or quit the city like us. Pawn the book as soon and as discreetly as you can. Use the apparatus to make sure whatever it is is off our trail; after that, the book money should be enough to hire a ship. Mosta says you were with her a few years ago at some old hideaway near the Nidalese coast, so you know where to go. Ship’ll get you most of the way, then do what you need to make it the rest.
We’re done with this gods-damned dream business. Never should’ve taken the contract. We can’t wait for you long - don’t know if miles of water and a place with fewer eyes will be enough protection.
My whole life, such as it was, was in Korvosa. But that’s not worth losing our skins or our souls. Hope you all make it.
-Josef
Spherewalker,
It is with great sorrow and a great sense of responsibility that I write to you. Travellers Gireti and Torbyn have perished in their investigation of the relic, overwhelmed by visions and madness. Only by the Tender of Dream’s blessings were we able to glean anything from their horrific experience. Sadly, her gifts were not enough to safeguard our lost friends.
The trials of our ancient brethren detailed in the book are no accident, no result of misguided effort in Desna’s service. The stone’s very presence warps the song of spheres and twists the goddess’s realm to nightmare. No small wonder, given its origin.
Before they joined the River of Souls, the Travellers pierced the veil of millenia. We have all heard of Earthfall, but none I know have seen it. But we, through the now departed, bore witness to that cataclysm.
The vast blackness of the Dark Tapestry stretched above a small, blue dot. Desna’s lights glittering on a deep satin field. A wondrous sight, but one shortly rent by some profound and resonant conjuring call. Time passed: a moment? An age? The stars grew in number, burning brighter and closer, a spiteful swarm of terrific wrath. They plummeted past us to erupt against the surface of Golarion below. Its face consumed by fire, countless beings burning away…
All but one of those baleful missiles met its mark. Perhaps the goddess’s hand reached to pluck it from the heavens, seeking to lessen the devastation of our world. That plummeting stone, the same stone that has passed through generations of wanderers and clergy, pierced the fabric of the Prime Material Plane and fell through the Dimension of Dreams. Its destructive pace slowed, and its fury unraveled into swirling banks of half-formed dreamstuff. It was caught there for who knows how long, making its slow way through Mother Moon’s realm, until it fell into the lake from whence it was eventually reclaimed.
But not before absorbing something of the somnolent dimension. Its destructive purpose was unfulfilled, but the same medium that slowed its descent sunk into the meteorite’s very being. That dream substance has had millennia to roil within the rock. Earthfall’s hateful energy boiled and frothed around stolen Dream, eventually settling into the reality warping form our long dead brethren discovered.
It seems that bodies of water inhibits the thing’s power. Had it not come to rest in that lake in the Mindspin Mountains, perhaps none of us would be here. Perhaps the surface of this world would have been nothing more than twisting nightmares.
But Desna’s fortune shines on some of us, and on we who now know the stone’s true nature. Many have lost their lives over the ages attempting to cleanse it or set it on a more benevolent course. We must turn from that ill-conceived path. The Dreamer’s servants will wind their way back to you bearing this tainted relic; Densa guides you ever forward, and I trust you will know how best to dampen or halt the cursed thing’s influence.
Together in the journey,
Stargazer Alix Marcizia
8th Abadus, 1328 AR
- PCs encountered the hydrodaemon dreaming apparatus in Rook’s Roost way too early. Sharoosh was arrested and imprisoned, and the apparatus destroyed by a PC, necessitating…
- ...relocation of the Return to Roost (pg 34) encounter to an abandoned sub-basement hideaway in northeast Bridgefront, with a new hydrodaemon apparatus made from the creature the PCs slew in the wharf confrontation.
- PCs never checked out Fever Dream Alley (pg 10). I transferred that information to an informant NPC, which set up a relationship to use when PCs were searching for Barvasi’s Band in Part 2 of the book.
- PCs convinced some of the Brotherhood of the Spider to give up their evil ways; some of them now live in the PCs’ home base.
- Korvosan Guard behavior. They’re supposed to maintain the party line of “all this is shiver stuff and no spooky dream stuff is happening,” which didn’t make sense given they all just helped the PCs fight off an animated dream blood golem. Still working on the implications of Captain Crandon being told about thinning planar boundaries.
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Interesting.
Due to our missing 4th player in Giantslayer, I get to finish up our fill-in Ire of the Storm romp this Sunday which will segue into a trip to Korvosa to sell their loot. There are ships that run a rotation down to Sargava, and I'm just telling my guys the next big city visit will be Korvosa, which should get us into the city rather easily. Once there, I intend to lure them into Bridgefront (a tip regarding a shopkeep that pays above average), then con them out of all the extra loot they are attempting to sell. In general, Ire of the Storm is loot heavy and we're running it with only three in the party, so they're waaaaay to far ahead of WBL for my tastes.
Anyway, 15 sessions! Holy cow! I guess sandboxes can be rather manly if you let them. I'm looking forward to it even more. I'm still working up my notes for the first few parts, but the glass of Scotch I'm drinking is getting in the way of progress.
Thanks for this. As a new(ish) GM, I appreciate these writeups. My players are my son and his friend (14 and 15 respectively), and they've been learning Pathfinder through the Giantslayer AP for the past 18 months, with side trips to modules on occasion when our 4th player (uh, I run a PC, too) takes off for his job. They're getting pretty good, and I'm hoping this mixes things up a bit to make it interesting.
Our large number of sessions is due to a couple things!
- The players've really dived into character details and scenes that aren't plot related. As a result, our Bridgefront feels pretty real and emotionally resonant and the stakes are high, but we're definitely slower on module completion.
- We've had some issues following leads or keeping track of clues. That's exacerbated by this being my first long-term GMing gig, and never doing an investigation-heavy game before. I definitely could've helped keep the party on track more.
- As a very astute player mentioned the other night, I tend to reward character-focused things (how's Atticus feel about this? what's he do once he's back at the Thirteen Moons?) more than plot or mechanics-focused ones. More narrative time, more player prompting, etc. Balancing that RP heavier content with progression is something I for sure need to work on. But we're reaching the end of our rising action, and the players have a clear objective. I'm thinking things'll speed up now.
Glad my summaries have been helpful! It might be easier to keep your folks on track since their characters are transitioning from other adventures. Mine were purpose-made for the module, which means they all live in Bridgefront and have deeper connections. More scenes focusing on those non-plot elements, etc.
Good luck with your prep, and let me know if I can help!
Reading this module now and these notes are very helpful. Thanks, Andrew. Just curious reading this: when you say the ranger quit the party and was replaced by an Oracle, does that mean you lost and replaced a player, or do you mean he just couldn't see the character staying with the group anymore and replaced his PC with a new one?
Since my crew are young, they aren't nearly as big into the role-playing aspect. I don't mind, either, since RP is more difficult to GM than simple combat. Investigations, however... Giantslayer starts out with an investigation, as does Ire of the Storm (sort of), and Dragon's Demand, Mummy's Mask (Saturday group), and Gallows of Madness (Saturday sub-group) - I keep picking them for whatever reason.
We'll finish Ire of the Storm Sunday then head up to Korvosa. We only made it through the first part of Dragon's Demand and haven't gone back (they didn't like the pace, though Ire is pretty close). Investigations seem to be OK with these guys, but I do have to prod them a bit (even my experienced Saturday players need some prodding). As a GM, however, I've gotten rather used to them but still find others' approaches beneficial. It's easy to run through them too quickly or get sidetracked to the point of mayhem. I understand your struggles.
Our transition should be interesting. We have a bladebound hexcrafter magus, hunter (tiger AC), and a detective bard (my PC). I gave them 2 extra skill points per level and a third trait to counter having a party of 3. By the time we start this, they'll actually be right on the WBL (they won't get conned, maybe stolen on the ship ride). These guys are built to swim, however, and deal with the elements... not fear, or horror. It should be fun. I'll definitely see what I can do to play up the Bridgefront region since they won't know it and won't have any knowledge (local) to rely on.
I'm anticipating that they will probably pull multiple encounters at the same time in a few places which may actually help speed up play.
IMO, when running from official material, this is almost a necessity anyway, not just for speed, either. Paizo devs intentionally string out several smaller encounters to impose a light drain on resources making the final battle for an area a little more difficult. My players tend not to like the cakewalk as much so I often have the denizens of nearby areas show up to investigate in the few rounds after combat starts. The speedup in play is a happy side-effect.
(and I'm planning on only minimally using the many opportunities for guerrilla tactics or the same encounter happening multiple times after the NPCs escape. While fun for a long running game for a convention game that may just result in wasting time - hopefully the PCs just handle the challenges well and I don't need to fudge that too much)
That sounds like a good call. I'm very interested to hear how things go, I know you've been prepping for it for quite a while! Pretty impressive to me, given I have trouble prepping more than a day in advance.
Reading this module now and these notes are very helpful. Thanks, Andrew. Just curious reading this: when you say the ranger quit the party and was replaced by an Oracle, does that mean you lost and replaced a player, or do you mean he just couldn't see the character staying with the group anymore and replaced his PC with a new one?
Happy to help! And yep, lost and replaced a player, they weren't digging the style/tone of the game. No hard feelings either way!
These guys are built to swim, however, and deal with the elements... not fear, or horror. It should be fun.
So they'll be fish out of water, that should be fun and help amplify the spooky dream stuff going on. They might have an easier time than my group - more direct damage, less focus on mind-affecting offensive things. I encouraged my players to go for psychic classes given the overall flavor of the module, but that's given them a hard time in some key fights. 'course an almost pacifist mesmerist and a low AC solo frontline ain't helping...
I like our weird little mongrel party!
We ended up "killing off" the hunter (truly bred for wilderness and related) and replacing him with his brother, a warpriest. They are struggling with the investigation and the battle at the pier took longer than they were used to, but it went well overall.
Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending upon your viewpoint), our other player got back Sunday night so we switched back to Giantslayer and played a marathon Monday. We'll see Hook Street next time he leaves on a job.
Awesome, sounds like all your hard work paid off! I could see melee heavy hitters definitely speeding things up. Very nice of your friend to print maps as well - we're trying to start PFS here in Albuquerque and I'm already trying to avoid drawing the Overflow Archives map by hand. Too many curves and diagonals...
Any stuff in part 3 that was particularly challenging to run or keep track of? We'll probably get there in the next session or two. I know I need to start studying the final encounter, as it's a pretty complex enemy. I'm also considering
Another short one. Real life stuff meant we were down a player, but the show must go on! (speaking of shows, here’s us hamming it up for the Glass Cannon Podcast photo contest)
The Good:
- Jezidar’s back to life! Players enjoyed her resurrection scene.
- Progress learning the breach the veil of dreams ritual.
- The Lantern Man made his 4th “appearance” - still doubt they'll ever meet him, but they certainly perk up when I start the fireplace sounds.
- Assassins! Good cliffhanger.
- Got enough of the Thirteen Moons mapped out that I can build it in roll20 for next session!
The Less Good: Resurrection scene and Lantern Man monologue felt a little clunky to me, as they were mostly improvised - usually I type up my set piece notes beforehand. That’s it this time around!
Session Details:
Starday, 2nd Neth, 4713 AR. The whole shebang started on 24th Lamashan. Only 10 days!
The gang took Jezidar’s body to the Bank of Abadar. I played up the unrest/creepiness in the streets along the way, stating that now it was hard to tell those suffering from lack of sleep from people under the effects of shiver. I don’t want it to be a surprise when the Thirteen Moons is no longer a safe place to sleep (well, aside from the assassins, but we’ll get to that)
Bit of roleplay with the clerics at the Bank. I gave the PCs a DC 20 Knowledge (Religion) check to recall and leverage the Abadaran “greater good” caveat to charging full price for services, followed by a Diplomacy roll. They passed both and got a 15% discount on their raise dead and two restorations. A good time describing the interior of the Bank, the high cleric’s appearance, and the ritual casting of the spells. Jezidar came back; details below. Back to Madame Carrington for some lesser restoration, then folks going about gathering some of the ritual components that Garvin had researched. Folks go to sleep.
Perception checks - Garvin and Atticus pass and wake up unsettled. They hear footsteps in the hall, followed by a soft “thoomp” sound (excommunicate uncorking her potion of invisibility, though I don’t think they picked up on that). Garvin sends a silent image into the hallway as a decoy, but the excommunicate passes her save to disbelieve. Atticus shoots some dancing lights out hoping to see what’s there: nothing. Garvin begins detect magic, but before he can pinpoint or identify any auras, the hound of Tindalos makes an angled entry right behind him. 24 damage, and we’ll see y’all next week!
Implications for Future Sessions:
Gotta get the Thirteen Moons spiffed up on roll20 so that I can properly run this combat. I’m looking forward to the hound teleporting around and using its ripping gaze! The PCs are still unaware of the buffed excommunicate, so her appearance should be fun as well.
Bad positioning for the PCs - Garvin and Atticus sleep upstairs, Jezidar and Mu’rok downstairs. It’ll probably take the downstairs folks 2-3 rounds to come aid their friends, so I might have to pull a few punches before they arrive to keep this a satisfying combat. I ain’t tryna kill anyone else this soon. Also, my players like to flavor their psychic mind-affecting spells as having some small thought-reading component, e.g. mind thrust overwhelming enemies with traumatic memories or the like. That could be potentially tricky with the hound of Tindalos’s otherworldly mind ability, but he’s immune to mind-affecting anyways. I feel a little bad that I encouraged my PCs to play psychic classes; there’s so many things in this module that are immune to mind-affecting effects!
Next session’ll resolve the current combat, continue research with the paginarum lethargica, then probably a “pulled into nightmare Bridgefront” encounter for the PCs to realize the Thirteen Moons is no longer safe. I expect I’ll gloss over most of the daytime things. Probably one more assassin encounter, more research, and hopefully next session’s cliffhanger will be the ambush at Madame Carrington’s. Getting towards the end and feeling the need to speed up a bit!
All supposed to represent her choice between a more Cult of the Dawnflower-style take on Sarenrae (her preferred) and the goddess’s more mainstream redemption aspect. Honestly, a little hamfisted, but Jezidar doesn’t get many solo RP scenes. I just wanted to see how she reacted to the imagery, and she chose to stand in the light; I’ll try to tug on those scene details later in the module.
I also wanted to convey that Abadaran magic was calling her, but that she had some small Sarenite experience during the process. I think that came through. The vault door transporting her to her sanctuary, describing the high cleric’s restoration spells as putting her body into a pleasing order, some other small stuff.
Also, big ups to James L. Sutter’s book Death’s Heretic for his descriptions of the Boneyard and Pharasma’s spire - definitely pulled on those!
Helpful insights!
Cutting the golem entirely is probably the right call, maybe replace it with a thematically similar dream haunt - something based on etheric shards could be fun!
I'll take a look at Sally. The PCs haven't really latched onto the recurring hag thread, but I imagine the Carringtonapping will rekindle their interest.
Tracking buffs and the like shouldn't be too bad. When I played in Reign of Winter I was designated buff timer for our session-spanning combats in Rasputin's compound, so I'm mostly used to it.
Sounds like I might want to rebuild the last encounter from scratch, then, just to check math and understand how everything interacts. I really like the occultist, and have made a few occultist characters but never gotten to play them; Mr. Caligaro should finally give me the opportunity!
I'm quite looking forward to making that fight cinematic, almost a Final Fantasy-esque encounter space: walls crumbling, deep space backdrop, Earthfall meteors, flames, all that good stuff.
Yeah, he'll be a beast to manage. I'll print one of the minotaur.cc character sheets and track some things that way, but that doesn't help me with the mental space to remember his myriad abilities while managing the environment and PCs. Maybe I'll solo playtest the encounter, first time I've ever considered that.
ABQ! You're about 5 1/2 hours south of me.
I agree that curves on maps are difficult, but I still like my maps. Giantslayer has a few really big ones, too. The Mummy's Mask AP has some printable maps available that I did use, however.
@Rycaut: we put in a total of about 5 hours through the pier, though that included a 45 minute trip to get some BBQ for dinner. 21 hours seems about right. We'll do it quicker since there are only 3 PCs, and once we're out of the role-playing portion, things speed up a bit.
At the rate I'm going you could probably walk your way down here to sit in on a session before we finish ;)
LOL! Hey, my Hell's Rebels campaign is 18 months in the making. Rumor has it we'll begin Saturday, but I'm not convinced.
Quite frankly, I'm a bit jealous that you are able to get as much out of a single module as you are. I'm not good enough (yet) and my players are mostly either smash and grab, or newbies. HR should be a different experience.
Just realized that save Nahum, none of the enemies in this module with the frightful presence ability have enough HD to use it agains the PCs. (assuming your PCs are on the level track presented at the front of the book)
Excitement!
I actually hit my progression and roleplay goals in one session! Maybe I’m finally getting this GM thing.
The Good:
- Really solid session: 3 combats and meaningful roleplay.
- Progression and tension! The stakes are high, characters are stressed and scared, and it absolutely feels like we’re building towards a climax.
- Satisfying stabilized dreamscape combat; Atticus’s player learned how lucid dreaming rules work (though I fudged some stuff for the encounter)
- Folks’re gonna hit level 8 next session, and Atticus is making a choice I’m really excited about (see spoiler below!)
- I mapped the Thirteen Moons! The players have invested so much into the shop that it needed proper treatment. It’s just free assets on roll20.net, but I think it turned out well! (first floor / second floor)
The Less Good:
- More scatterbrained than usual on the combats, I really need to streamline my notes and reference materials.
- Some uncertainties about how I handled the dreamscape combat.
Session Details:
Evening of Starday, 2nd Neth, 4713AR: Ambush in the Thirteen Moons
Great fun narrating the hound’s angled entry and ripping gaze abilities, plus the players freaked out when the excommunicate appeared - I played up some visual details to bring across her nightmare template. Atticus and Garvin were upstairs and got hurt real, real bad (sneak attacks, vital strike bite) before Mu’rok and Jezidar could run up to help. Garvin’s mind thrust almost one-shot the excommunicate, and she was surrounded by dancing lights so couldn’t shadow walk away. Luckily for her, Atticus moved his lights and closed the door to the room she was in; she fled back through the shadows. Jezidar closed on the hound and resisted its ripping gaze. Discretion is the better part of valor; the hound fled as well. Good subsequent RP with the crew freaking out about the incident, trying to figure out what to do. A little interaction with the ex-cultists staying in the Thirteen Moons.
Sunday, 3rd Neth, 4713 AR: History Revealed, Connections Missed
More good RP during the day, Jezidar coming out of her shell a bit and trying to help others despite general social discomfort. She made tea for everyone, usually Atticus’s thing! It continues to be cool watching Jezidar’s player get more accustomed to roleplay and character development.
Garvin learned the recent history of the paginarum lethargica, the dreamstone, and the Caligaro family, including the details on the Brotherhood of the Spider’s rise and schism. One particular thing of note: he basically learned Drune was involved with the cult but didn’t realize it. While narrating Nahum’s entries in the paginarum I mentioned the “betrayal by a man named Stainton.” Though the PCs have heard Drune’s first name, nobody connected the dots. Garvin took notes on this information, then visited Drune and literally dropped the stuff on his desk before turning and walking away - he was too focused on his ritual research to stay and chat. Normally I’d have the players make an Int or Wis roll or something for their characters to remember a salient detail, but I think in this case Drune is just going to realize he’s been made and cheese it outta Korvosa. I could potentially do more with him, but the narrative is focused on other things and I think we all wanna progress the module plot as is. What an odd, odd turn of events...
Evening of Sunday, 3rd Neth, 4713 AR: Into the Dreamscape
Three goals with this scene: demonstrate that the dreamstone’s radius has expanded and the Thirteen Moons is no longer a safe place to sleep, ramp up the tension, and show Atticus how lucid dreaming rules work.
Atticus, Jezidar, and Mu’rok were pulled into the dreamscape. (I did some creative rules stuff, see spoiler below) Jezidar and Mu’rok were in alleyways being stalked by shadow mastiffs; Atticus could see them from his position in the Shingles above. I expanded on a detail (“the dreamscape roils with Nahum’s anger”) to set the scene: thunder rumbled, and above all of them churning clouds whorled into searching eyes.
Folks fought mastiffs, Atticus did a lucid dreamer thing to not splat when he jumped off the Shingles, Shingles clotheslines and curling street mist animated to entangle Jezidar and Mu’rok. Atticus used more lucid abilities to knock around the mastiffs and loosen the entanglement.
Then I might’ve overstepped some bounds: thunder turned into the deep laugh of Nahum Caligaro. Standard villainous “you have something I want, and I will have it” speech, and the mist and clotheslines once again attacked. I had Jezidar and Mu’rok straight up get torn apart only to wake up in cold sweats, exhausted. Atticus used his abilities against Nahum’s in a visually awesome kind of wizard’s duel before willing himself awake.
Main doubts here: I may have presented Nahum as too far-reaching in his influence and power within the dreamscape. I might also have set up unrealistic expectations and tweaked the fiction too much regarding how dream stuff works: RAW, those who fail their Will saves against the dreamstone just take damage and wake up fatigued (and arcane casters can’t prepare spells). That being said, I’m happy with how the scene played out, and I don’t mind breaking the 4th wall a bit to say “ok folks, I know last time you got torn apart in the dream, but y’all just gotta worry about some damage plus fatigue in the future.” Neither do I want to play out every one of Atticus’s lucid dreaming forays and will probably abstract it to a d%: 25 or lower, he takes some damage before he wakes. 26+, he’s able to evade threats or will himself awake without serious consequence.
Moonday, 4th Neth, 4713 AR: No More Sanctuary
Folks deal with their damage and status effects from the dream. Before they can head out for other things, a distraught Avigail arrives from Madame Carrington’s. Folks rush over to see what happened (Garvin even cast haste!) The scene was described and played out mostly as portrayed on pages 38-39 of the module, with one change: since no one has see invisibility, I let those who succumbed to the xtabay’s spores see brief visions of Sally Scrabblebones, the vulnudaemons, and the shadowy presence behind Maynard. The party was able to subdue Maynard (who is now blind, thanks Garvin), save Avigail, and head back to the Thirteen Moons. They realize that the baku is gone and their home is no longer safe, so have a lot to talk about next session.
Implications for Future Sessions:
- Assassins. My plan was to have them attack again this evening, possibly with the excommunicate using disguise self to impersonate Avigail. I think everyone’s resources are pretty spent, so I have to decide if I want to push the PCs that hard.
- Stainton Drune. Lordy, what a curveball. Maybe he’ll run? Maybe he’ll send a threatening letter before doing so? I don’t want to shift the plot and narrative focus to this particular detail, and I’m not 100% sure how he’d react. I think maybe he’d see Garvin’s note-dropping as a kind of “we know what you’re up to” threat, but I don’t know if he’d risk the political ramifications of getting the Korvosan Guard to act on the PCs. That would be especially difficult given their recent interactions with Captain Crandon, who definitely no longer thinks the shiver deaths are just overdoses and hallucinations.
- Maynard Colville. Not sure what to do with him, as I think RAW he should still be affected by Nahum's dominate person. I'm inclined to let that drop, but I did get a useful critique from a friend about my general shyness towards natural escalations/consequences based on PCs actions.
- Sleeping. Not sure what the PCs’ll do here, as I don’t think they’ll want to abandon the Thirteen Moons to sleep outside of Bridgefront.
- Ritual progress: 3 more days ‘til Garvin can make his Intelligence roll and hopefully learn to breach the veil of dreams.
- Level 8, but not until everybody gets a rest. That may be a big deal if I set the assassins on them again.
- DC 15 Will save to resist the dreamstone’s nightmare effect. I made Atticus immune because he’s a lucid dreamer. Only Garvin saved.
- Those who failed the save took the 1d10 nightmare damage and were pulled into the dreamscape.
- Had everyone do Charisma checks...
When a creature enters a dreamscape with a lucid body, it must make a Charisma check (DC 15) to prevent arriving in the Dimension of Dreams at a disadvantage…
... buuuut I forgot to add the consequences for Mu’rok and Jezidar failing the check :|
- Dropped into intiative, Jezidar fighting two shadow mastiffs and Mu’rok fighting one.
- Introduced Atticus’s player to the lucid dreaming rules (which are also on page 56 of the module)
As a standard action, a number of times during the dream equal to the creature’s Charisma bonus (minimum 1). The dreamer can attempt one impossible action, such as casting a spell, gaining an effect of a spell as if it were cast, or conjuring a magic item. This requires a successful Charisma check (DC 10 + the level of the spell being cast or spell effect replicated or half of the caster level of the item conjured; non-magical items are caster level 0). Other fantastic feats are also possible with GM approval and a Charisma check with a DC determined by the GM.
- Creative use of the dream haunt manifestation guidelines for the clothesline and mist black tentacles-style effect.
- Narrative handwaving for the black tentacles' continued existence and eventual dream-murder of Mu’rok and Jezidar.
- Non-lucid dreamers who die in the dreamscape wake up with the exhausted condition.
- Fast ‘n loose DC calculations for Nahum and Atticus’s lucid dreamer fantastical feats.
He’s going to multiclass paladin at level 8, specifically the Chosen One archetype! I think this is an awesome character choice and really reflects Atticus’s experiences over the course of the adventure. I’m working with the player to plan a lucid dreaming scene where the emissary familiar will appear, which should be a lot of fun and a big surprise to the other players! This choice just ties in so many campaign elements: the thread of Garvin’s Desnan faith, how his brother has embraced that, Atticus’s doubts about his ability to protect others. He also wants to talk to Jezidar about learning to use a sword. I can only assume Desna would take some notice of the dreamstone's reawakening, so seems totally plausible that a minor emissary would come to her faithful fighting the threat. Just a really great, unexpected development that I’m really excited about!
Well, HR postponned, again, and we'll be back at this come Sunday. I don't mind because I like it. So do the boys.
Just realized that save Nahum, none of the enemies in this module with the frightful presence ability have enough HD to use it agains the PCs. (assuming your PCs are on the level track presented at the front of the book)
Does it matter? At least, is there an expectation of it being used?
Does it matter? At least, is there an expectation of it being used?
Yeah, their tactics say things like "charge in to trigger frightful presence." Not a huge deal, they've got other cool abilities to use.
I decided to talk to the group about missing the Drune clue. I think it's fine to let players live with mistakes or missed opportunities, but I think with this group's lack of notes and detail recall it'd be lame to not tell them. We'll see what they do, and whether or not they want to retcon any actions based on the info!
Ok, thanks. I'll look out for that tonight while I'm prepping for Sunday. We're just done with the docks, so I need to look ahead a bit into the next few sections now that they'll be getting into the actual meat of the story. They still aren't quite sure what they have gotten themselves into (in or our of character) except that it's very strange.
I have no choice but to prod my guys with more information than I'd expect. They aren't real good at note-taking (used to video games, I guess), they're young (15 and 14), and new to the game (well, 18 months). I try to lead them to the answers when necessary, and I have to admit I get frustrated sometimes with their lack of focus, but it works out in the end.
I was definitely getting frustrated for a while, I think because when I PC I'm usually the person that tracks everything. As a GM, however, I don't have the mental space or prep time to pay detailed attention to what I know vs what the players know. I was getting grumpy about "having" to do that and seeing it as an unnecessary responsibility, which is just a bad attitude that started to lead me on an adversarial path. Definitely not a good thing!
Ultimately you're all there to have a good time; if 4 PCs vs 1 Myself don't approach the game in the same manner, it's my responsibility to make some accommodations. I can still urge them to keep better track of stuff, but it's silly to dig in my heals, fold my arms, and say "but it's supposed to be this way!" Drop my grumpiness and gently remind them on things their characters know but they've forgotten.
None of that's to say how you might or might not approach things! Just some personal reflections from my first experience GMing a longer running game.