I'm finally finishing this campaign after two years, and now that I've a better perspective on it...well, it might make for a fun story. Or a useful one.
Or just some content to procrastinate with, if you're like me!
First, the PCs!
Build constraints:
20 points build
2 traits (1 campaign, 1 other)
Possibility for a 3rd trait by taking a drawback.
All Paizo material legal until otherwise noted. I'm a big fan of using anything I can find to refine a character concept, and of helping others do so.
Medium XP, trying to stay to the books' progression rate. While there are 3 PCs, I count the two cohorts as a PC for encounter building and xp division, and NPC companions can alter this as well.
A few major houserules on Mythic, particularly regarding action economy: no additional action with Amazing initiative, no Legendary item. Can't remember the other ones, but that's essentially it.
Kasidra Faragil: female pitborn tiefling (half-succubus) cavalier Order of the Lion, and Mythic Marshal. She had been raised by a foster father in one of the noble families of Mendev, her real father having disappeared in a mission in the Worldwound, and her mother being - understandably - a sensitive subject. She had the stereotypical red skin and horns, but her father's aura was enough to enable her to earn at least a modicum of respect in the Mendevian army. She was just promoted to captain and was eager to prove her worth on the 5th Crusade. She is just, but harsh, and has an ingrained hatred for the trickery of demons.
Thoradin: male dwarf paladin of Torag, Mythic Champion. He was raised by the clergy of Torag, after he was saved from the experimentation of demonists, and enrolled with many others to fight the demons, far in the north. Has a magnificent beard, but his integrism and hatred of demons and any of their allies sometimes pushes him too far.
Note: this somewhat lacking backstory is the reason I now ask for a minimum of details before accepting a concept.
Rock Smuggler: can you sense the winner of the worst backstory? A male half-elf Swashbuckler, Mythic Trickster, was a mercenary, and was finding himself in Kenabres completely by accident, but decided to stay for the ceremony, looking for work opportunities. Apart from that, he was quite the womanizer, bringing a bit of fun into the party, but also a lot of sarcasm and overall was kind of annoying, especially to female NPCs.
Iques Unajoinus: Iques was a bit of a strange case. A male android witch, Mythic Archmage, he was found by a couple of Riftwardens who got interested in him, and managed to reactivate him, and also raise him as their son, even if he was an adult at the time. By the time the 5th campaign started, he was already an herborist and alchemist, but his powers came from the cat that was never far from him. He had trouble understanding emotions, but realized his best survival option was to help fight the demons. Over time, he came to learn about what humans call "feelings", though.
Zakir: a male sarkorian Hunter, Mythic Guardian. He was the sole survivor of his tribe, and heard about the 5th Crusade. He took it as the opportunity to help free his ancestral lands, and both him and his companion stag were on Kenabres main square to join the crusaders. Zakir was the moderating influence, and always thought of the justice of his decision before taking them. He was also the one stopping the most...murderous tendencies.
When I started this campaign, I was new to the Mythic rules and excited to use them. My players were also pretty much sold on the possibility of playing a very epic campaign, even if it was a bit too black/white in terms of morality.
So, afraid the first chapter does not differ much from the AP as written, at least until the end...
I should have taken the time to set at least one session in Kenabres before the fall, but we were all eager to jump into it.
The intro scene and the demonic attack, which I let my players time to describe their reactions to, had a huge impact! That was where it hit them that all bets were off, especially when Zakir and Kasidra were almost crushed by the fall of Terendelev.
In any case, when they woke up in a dark cave, bruised and shocked, they were quite glad to be out of the madness. But also, eager to learn what had happened and if the city was still there.
The underground encounters weren't easy...especially for Zakir, who had a lot of trouble to position himself and his stag companion, and was lagging behind in term of defenses. The cave vipers caused them a lot of grief, since they consistently missed them.
They made short work of the Huecuva and Millorn, but surprisingly, while very suspicious of the first mongrels, they saved Crel, breaking the glaive of Kasidra by using it as a lever. The mongrels were very thankful, though, and led them to their lair without any trouble. Which was fortunate, they were pretty much exhausted by that point.
Thoradin and Iques didn't trust the mongrels at all, but Kasidra made at least an attempt at diplomacy, and since they saved one of them, the mongrels were relatively friendly, promising help if they cleared the traitor's nest.
New Friends
The three NPCs received very different reactions.
Anevia was well-liked, and Zakir took time to help her walk, lending her his spear as additionnal support. They became fast friends, and Kasidra joined them soon after. Rock started hitting on her after they had the opportunity to rest at Neatholm, but she mostly ignored him (for good reasons as he learned later on).
Aravashnial's attempt to take direction of the group went very poorly, and they pretty much laughed him off, until he eventually shut down in sullen silence. However, they realized after a few remarks that he at least knew useful things.
Horgus Gwerm almost got killed. Thoradin's patience was already very thin, and after one too many insults the paladin suggested that Gwerm shut up before someone else shut him up. During his suggestion that Anevia was slowing them down, Zakir immediately punched him in the face, and they added that if he was unhappy, he could go on without them. That stopped him from complaining aloud, but he pretty much became hostile at that point.
At that point I started making changes in the AP. Apart from the vipers, they crushed every encounter without much trouble.
They took the guard by surprise, and charged, but Thoradin was slow enough that he almost impaled himself on a charge reception by one of the guard. Once again, they cluttered the place, cutting any retreat from the guards.
Rock proved his deadly efficiency in that fight, using his parade at any opportunity, and killing most of the guards by himself. Thoradin and Kasidra were pretty much supporting him, and Iques was throwing hexes from the rear lines, helped by a few arrows from Anevia.
Zakir was still struggling from a combination of bad luck and inability to set up flanking with his stag. The guards still had time to raise the alarm, and to make things worse, the sarkorian hunter was taken by surprise by the Monitor Lizard (which I made an Advanced Lizard). The poison from three bites almost killed him, but Thoradin kept him alive, and thankfully, the paladin was also trained in Heal to help him resist the toxin.
However, the time taken to help him gave the mongrels time to reorganize. Once they entered the place, they found no one...Until the Lower Guard post, where the mongrels had an ambush set up, and did a number on Kasidra who was on point. Rock, Thoradin and Zakir rushed to help her, while Wenduag (who was very stealthy thanks to good rolls) attacked Iques, almost killing him with a lucky shot.
They made it out alive, but they were pissed at that point, and didn't even attempt to negotiate with Hosilla, the two cultists and Uziel (who had two rogue levels). The cultists got killed in the first & second round, and Kasidra took a new glaive and started piling on the hurt, protected by Thoradin.
On the other side, Rock was dueling Uziel, and proved the better swordsman, denying the tiefling any opportunity to flank one of his weaker companion. A couple very bad rolls later, Uziel was dead.
Hosilla couldn't even get her wand of Spiritual Weapon. Zakir, angry after all the failures he went through, decided to bull rush the table in her face. Natural 20, he blocked her against the wall, where she couldn't use her glaive effectively. She kept failing her attempts at getting away, and he started equalizing his bad karma with an other crit. The inquisitor didn't survive her bodyguard very long.
Eager to finally get out of the caves, they quickly searched the place, and took good note of the presence of other cultists in the city, didn't even slow down for the dretches, and got out in the streets, using the potions and scrolls they found to heal themselves, as well as Iques' cure light wounds spells. They were tired, but they were out, and discovered the ruins that Kenabres had become.
EDIT: formatting.
At this point, I read the first few threads from DMs about how broken the Mythic rules were, and I decided to attempt at keeping the opponents relevant. And since my player were already pretty much running roughshod over the opposition, I started upping the ante when they got back to the surface.
So...
I took some liberties with the description of the city there. I depicted a city torn apart, a red tinge to the sky, weird stars in the falling night, and weird two-headed vultures picking at the charred corpses. As night fell, eerie fog started filling the streets.
Once they got over the shock of Kenabres being completely destroyed (almost), they decided that the first thing to do was to find shelter for the night and see if there were any survivors.
Mirrors and demons
As it happened, they ran across a couple of citizens who called for help from inside their store. They were selling mirrors, and were attacked by a duo of Abrikandilu.
I remembered seeing something about making the fight more dynamic by giving the abrikandilu the ability to pass from mirror to mirror. I don't remember from who I picked the idea, but thank you! It made for a great fight, with the party constantly on the edge to protect the civilians and their hurt teammates and NPCs from the demons, until the paladin managed to smash most of the mirrors. After that, the couple thanked them and gave them a potion of cure light wounds they had stashed, but prefered to stay hidden until things blew over.
The Blackwing Library
They pressed on and as per Aravashnial's request took a detour by the Blackwing Library, only to find it reduced to mostly rubble. However, they were in time to help the librarians stuck inside, about to be burned alive by half a dozen tielfing led by the mad Chaleb Sazomal.
Once again, they faced a difficult challenge, as the tiefling started the fire before engaging, and they had to both rescue the librarians and fight. Zakir, proving his courage once again, dived onto the pyre to cut the rope and free them, while Iques, out of spells by this point, helped quell the fire on their clothes.
Meanwhile, the others engaged the fight with the tiefling and the cavalier. Rock, incredibly lucky (I swear this guy had an average of 15 on his rolls!), was fighting three of them at once. Thoradin bull-rushed one into a wall, but got flanked by an other, and was pinned, while Kasidra was alone against Chaleb, two levels lower. Chaleb used his challenged and charged her before she could react, missing his attack by a couple points...and then, she critted him in the face after issuing her own challenge, taking him down in one round. The tiefling, seeing that, backed away, and two managed to get away.
The librarians and Aravashnial were extremely grateful, and the group started to feel a little bad about how poorly they treated the blind elf. Nevertheless, they took good note of the Worm that Walks who assaulted the library, thinking it would come in handy later (it did!). Rock took the opportunity to flirt with the youngest and prettiest of the two female librarians, before Kasidra reminded him that they had to be on their way. They left Aravashnial at the library, with the promise to send help as soon as they could.
Gwerm Manor
They managed to reach Gwerm Manor before the night was too advanced. Horgus pretty much hated them by that point, but he tolerated their presence for the night. He didn't give them anything, though, and almost threw them out as soon as he could the next morning. They left with grumbled threats.
It was only the third day of their journey, and our heroes were only discovering how ravaged Kenabres was. Nevertheless, they fared pretty well so far, and held their ground against the demonic invaders.
This was about to change...
House Tirabade
Led by Anevia (still helped by Zakir), they quickly reached the Tirabade house without encountering anything more dangerous than a mere quasit. Inside, Vagorg was waiting for them. He had cast his spells, prepared his weapons, and even summoned fiendish giant wasps to help him.
He lasted a whole two rounds, alone against the party. The wasps were wiped out by a couple of scorching rays, and Anevia put down the sorcerer with a particularly precise shot to the eye, helped by the Evil Eye that was staring at him thanks to Iques.
Anevia started panicking, however, but Zakir managed to find the cache left by Irabeth, which alleviated her fears. They had a new destination: Defender's Heart.
Defender's Heart
Everyone was relieved to reach the last stronghold of crusader influence within Kenabres. Toradin was welcomed with open arms, as well as Kasidra, a paladin and a crusader being rare sights at the time. Rock, Zakir and Iques attracted more intrigued gaze, but since Anevia was with them, they did not have any trouble entering the place, especially with the password.
Irabeth was overjoyed to see Anevia, and rushed to embrace her...and kiss her, which caused Rock to almost keel over from the surprise and shock, and everyone to laugh at him for thinking he had a chance with the rogue.
Irabeth didn't resent him for that, however, and thanked them for saving her wife. Kasidra, who had a rank equal to Irabeth's, asked about the situation and how to make themselves useful, while Thoradin offered to heal those he could.
Irabeth led them to what passed for a command center, and exposed the situation to a worried party. The demons had essentially taken over the city, and even if the most powerful ones had left, there was only a handful of crusaders in the city. Worst, the demons were preparing something in the hold Gray Garrison. Irabeth was worried about that. However, the news of a possible alliance with the mongrelmen was met with a large smile from Irabeth. Any help was welcome, but it remained desperately small.
Worst yet when they brought her news of the Templar's safehouse in the tower of Estrod. She didn't have anyone to send there, but before she could ask, Kasidra volunteered. Zakir agreed, and Thoradin saw the opportunity to kill some more cultists. Iques had nothing better to do, and Rock realized he could not hit on the tavern wench if they were all dead, so they left the place towards the tower of Estrod and Topaz solutions.
Topaze solutions
There was nothing left here, but I had left a trap a bit more interesting than the mandragora. They found the secret passage towards the basement, and decided to be prudent and observe the place before going for the Baphomet statuette.
Rock was the only one to notice something was weird with the alley right in the middle of the basement, but ignored it. The floor was spring-loaded to extend violently upwards and throw the person walk on it towards the ceiling, and Rock almost broke his neck when hitting the wooden beams. And then, he kept going. Twice. Thrice even. By the time he reached the other side, he couldn't walk straight and was seeing stars, and the others started to wonder whether or not he had been drinking beforehand...
But since there was almost nothing there to find, they moved on after grabbing the statuette (and avoiding the poison). But what they had missed was going to bite them later on...
There was a poisoner among the Templars, using this basement as a laboratory, but no one (even Iques, the group amateur alchemist) noticed the trace of experiments.
Tower of Estrod
Finally, they almost met their match in the tower of Estrod. Since the cultists so far were wiped out almost immediately, these ones, especially Faxon, were a bit tougher. They decided to forgo any subtlety altogether and just smashed down the door...but lost initiative, and the cultists grabbed their glaive and started using a defensive strategy, blocking the way and the staircase, using their reach to keep their opponents at a distance.
Only Kasidra and Zakir could fight at the same reach, and Thoradin was having trouble finding a way to flank the cultists, reluctant as he was to risk attacks of opportunities. Rock wasn't so prudent, and rushed in, getting his left arm impaled by a glaive and promptly skewering the offending cultists.
Zakir had to withdraw to protect his stage who almost got butchered on a botched charge, and protect Iques who was throwing Hexes left and right, mostly Evil Eye to hamper their opponents defenses.
It took them almost four rounds to smash through the cultists, meaning Faxon had time to prepare. In the basement, they had way more trouble winning.
Faxon was a mere witch, and no match for five angry crusaders and their recently healed stage. But he wasn't alone: he had two small Magma Elemental to protect him...and these things were a bane to the party. Almost no one had any ranged weapon, and the magma elemental vomited lava puddle in the way to try and keep the crusaders from hitting Faxon.
Worse, the paladin was blinded on the first round by one of Faxon's spells, and spent the rest of the battle hitting blindly around him. Burning hands and burning gaze were also tearing apart the crusaders, and Iques fell, victim of a Magma elemental. Kasidra was hit by a curse when attacking the witch, and became unable to move around, too weak to bear her armor.
Rock was battling a magma elemental, and for once he was not dominating the fight. Zakir, however...his stag kept the elemental occupied, and he rushed through the molten floor, ignoring the damage. Taking him by surprise, he impaled Faxon through the chest, killing him. The two elemental fell the next round, and they decided to go back to Defender's heart for some much needed rest, and to find a way to cure Thoradin's blindness.
By that point, they were pressed for time. They barely had time to rest and heal from their wounds before being summoned by Irabeth once again.