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Session 15: Man Down! (Almost), played 25-Jul-2017
I mean, let's be blunt: She's a bloodrager with a +1 Will save and had to hit a DC 18 just to be in the fight at all, so the fact that she made the Will save ensured there would be no more than one death (she does do a ton of damage). But two 5s on her first two attacks, then rolling a 4 on 2d6 three times in a row had her less-than-pleased with her dice's underperforming ways.
But Hero Points saved the day, and all in all, I was rather pleased at a deadly, terrifying, but not-quite-deadly encounter. I just would have liked a bit more background on the revenant. I'll fill some in next session, but all in all it happened a bit too fast for my liking. Yeah, it's on me as a GM to set the pace, but as a "minimal effort" campaign I'm relying more heavily on the AP for foreshadowing than usual.
As the group started to leave the fishmarket, they heard a mixed bag of comments about their defeat of the witch. Most of the fishermen were obviously pleased to have her dead, and pointed to her tattoos and strange hair as proof of her witchery. A few were nonplussed, and pointed out that there was no proof this band of cutthroat adventurers had done anything more than gone out, waylaid some poor strange-looking lass, and put her to the sword. Neirida growled that they'd gone to the cave that Toli had taken them to, battled the traps and fungal guardians that no "innocent" person would have put up, and killed a witch who introduced herself to them by trying to kill them.
If the naysayers had any more doubts, they did not express them.
A bit exasperated, the party returned to their makeshift inn, only to realize that they had no decent bedding (and the GM had completely forgotten that Hasok provided some). They headed back to the High Mart. As this late hour, with the sun already beginning to set, most people were off the streets and closing up their houses for the night. And it wasn't just, "Close the windows and the curtains and shut the door", it was, "Bar the door and lock the wooden shutters over the windows". The townspeople obviously feared the night.
Hurrying, they reached the High Mart just as most of the vendors were closing up shop. Fortunately, the merchant who specialized in adventuring gear took one look at them, stopped what he was doing immediately, beamed, and started showing them around his fine "establishment". We had a great deal of fun roleplaying the obsequious merchant foisting his wares on a gullible Helden, but at the end of it all he only managed to sell three bedrolls, four blankets, and two masterwork backpacks, along with the promise of more business on the morrow. He thanked them profusely, closed up his shop, and the party returned to Hasok's warehouse for a peaceful night's sleep. (Since I didn't see one associated with the various nighttime events that occur in Thrushmoor, I made up an encounter table that ratchets up rapidly as the party spends more and more nights in town. As this was only the second night, a 6 on 1d20 ensured a peaceful night's sleep.)
On day 3 in Thrushmoor, as Hans communed with the spirits he asked the party what skill they thought would be most useful for the day. They unanimously declared, "Diplomacy", so Hans bonded with a spirit of Diplomacy. After a very mediocre breakfast (Helden managed a Profession: Cook roll of 9, in spite of his +7 bonus), the party decided that their first order of business was to check in at the Sleepless Building. It took very little time to meet up with Cesadia, and they told her they planned on investigating Fort Hailcourse. She discouraged them; she and her agents had been there multiple times already, and Constable Cesyll had turned them away every time. At the moment, she was working on getting her agents into Iris Hill, and it would be better to wait for her to get her agents in position, taking care of other "menial" duties around town first.
The sarcasm positively oozed from Neirida as she asked, "Oh? And what menial duties would you have us perform, then?"
Cesadia's first annoyance was Elgrior Nasmeth, a local doomsayer who was predicting the return of the Briarstone Witch, the destruction of Thrushmoor, and other such nonsense. He was harmless, but he was upsetting the locals. Little did the PCs know, Cesadia also wanted to see how they would react to a situation where violence was not an answer. After that, if they were brave enough, they could arm themselves and expose themselves to the night, where there were rumors of hooded figures carrying knives leaping forth from the walls themselves to assail unsuspecting passersby, the ghost of Count Lowl's mother haunting the streets, and a strange cloaked rotten-smelling figure shuffling about town muttering, "Helden... Helden..." (Yes, I did roll a random die to determine the target. Or rather I had one of the players roll and didn't say anything about why they were rolling.) They asked about Lowl's mother, and I got to relate the whole horrific story of her coming home from university with Lowl's father, taking up a lover while he was away, then cursing him with a wasting disease when he finally caught her. Fortunately, she had inflicted the disease on herself as well, and she died a few weeks after Lowls the senior. And yes, no one ever saw her body.
After bidding farewell to Cesadia, their first order of business was to head straight for Fort Hailcourt. It took a couple of minutes, but Constable Cesyll finally opened the spyhole to speak with them. The conversation was as frustrating as Cesadia had suggested: Constable Cesyll insisted that, with the magistrate missing, Count Lowls gone, and the mercenaries she relied on all having deserted, she just didn't have the men to patrol the streets, and she had to protect her own. She'd sent messenger swallows (yeah, my bad, but a hilarious idea. African or European?) to nearby towns for assistance, but had so far received no responses. Neirida offered that even one or two men in uniform would help, or the constable could even loan the PCs some uniforms, and they'd happily take up the patrol. Cesyll politely declined and shut the spyhole. Hans, having an obscene Sense Motive, informed Neirida that Cesyll hadn't been listening at all, and was only trying to get rid of them.
In a, "Why no, I don't remember seeing two other familiars nearly meet their grisly ends in games just this week" moment (one died, one lived), Neirida suggested that Skitters climb the wall to get an idea as to what the guards' uniforms looked like, so they could go ahead and impersonate them with or without Cesyll's permission. Skitters dutifully made his Stealth roll, climbed up, and came back terrified and shaking.
In an epic moment of roleplay, I drew on a piece of paper what I believed a mongoose with an INT of 7 could sketch. Neirida immediately gasped. "There are undead in the fort?!?!?"
(I swear. The kids looked at the drawing and asked, "How could you see THAT?!?!?", and NobodysWife responded, "See? That's obviously a stick figure, and those are X's for its eyes?"
"No. We don't see that at all."
"Well, I do, and that's what's important.")
She quickly determined that armored undead were guarding all of the towers in the fort. This was too dangerous for a frontal assault at this point. ("Just give me a couple more levels....")
Abandoning the fort, the group tracked down Elgrion in front of the Silver Wagon. He was ranting and raving about the witch coming back, and Lowls having summoned her so she'd kill all the people and he could loot all the empty buildings and whatnot, but I didn't get to roleplay him much, as Neirida just said, "Go get 'im, Hans!", and Hans rolled well enough to make Elgrion go home for the day. The proprietor of the Silver Wagon, Dena Gellegos, came out wiping her apron as if to shake their hand and thank them, but as soon as she saw them her eyes narrowed. "What are you doing back here? Come to finally pay your tab?"
"Maybe," Neirida opined.
They quickly learned that not only had they run up a nearly 40 gold piece tab at the establishment, and not only had Hans pinched Dena's rear so often the bruises were only now clearing up (at this Neirida punched Hans in the head), but Hans had started a brawl that had resulted in the constabulatory having to come break things up. They had been banned for life. Neirida made Hans apologize (a 29 Diplomacy! He must have been truly sorry!), pay the tab, and assured Dena he wouldn't be a problem again.
They decided it was time to report to Cesadia, but on their way a human man accosted Blackwarm, insisting that his name was Blackwing and that they were old drinking buddies. A series of horrible rolls (two 3s and a 2) by the man (Keldrin Mon) on his Sense Motive, and he had no idea that Blackwarm had no idea who he was. He invited the party to the Stain for drinks, and they quickly learned that they were known (and feared) at the Stain, as all the barkeep (Emman Gulston) had to say was, "Make room for Lowl's gang!" and a table cleared for them. As they realized that the longer they stayed, the more likely their "cover" would be blown, they stayed only long enough for a single round of excellent whiskey from Gulston before insisting that they had to move on.
They reported the developments of the day to Cesadia; in particular, the undead in the fort. This distressed Cesadia no end; she had no idea how they could deal with it. Blackwarm just responded, "Give me a little while."
At that point the party split: Neirida and Hans went around town, buying minor trinkets and mentioning that they were staying in the warehouse by the New Chapel that night. Blackwarm and Helden picked up a couple of tanglefoot bags and alchemist's fires from the friendly merchant and spent the day setting up traps in the warehouse. As night fell, Neirida, Blackwarm, and Hans took their stations at the middle of the warehouse. Helden hid by the door, waiting to backstab anyone who came in.
Knowing that they were going to be facing creatures of the night, they set up a defensive front in the building: Tanglefoot bag traps 5' in from the door, then alchemist's fire traps by some of the windows.
As they heard the creature approaching, muttering, "Helden... Helden...", we went into initiatives. Hans put Bull's Strength on Neirida. The others waited. Unfortunately, the creature stepped into the building and let out a blood-curdling scream. Blackwarm and Helden were frozen in their tracks. Neirida ran up and swung at the creature, but missed. Hans put Protection from Evil on Blackwarm to try to snap him out of it, but it didn't work. On its turn, the creature did NOT go into the tanglefoot bag traps because Helden was off to its right.
The rest of the fight was pretty much pre-ordained. As the creature went after Helden Neirida got another swing but rolled horribly again (two 5s in a row). It hit and grabbed Helden, Hans moved in, and Neirida moved up and finally got in a resounding blow. Its double claw (Hasted) sent Helden to -11 hit points. Hans healed him to -4, Neirida hit it a second time, and I ruled that a revenant with an unconscious foe in its grasp would obviously coup de grace. The third hit from Neirida plus a crit from Hans dropped it to 5 remaining hit points, but that was enough to complete the coup de grace...
...except, we're playing with Hero Points, so Helden's player (Impus Minor) quickly burned 2 Hero Points and declared that the wood in Helden's neck from his peculiar diet saved him.
Neirida, finally sick of the whole thing, criticalled the revenant and sent it into oblivion.
And of course then Blackwarm woke up, identified the revenant as such, and asked for the body so he could turn it into a necrocraft.
Neirida sighed.
The party is going up to level 5 overnight.
And yes, that means there's going to be a level 5 necromancer loose in a fortress full of undead. I do not have any belief that things will go well... for me.
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It's easy to get cocky as a necromancer. Misjudge how many HD your newest acquisitions are, all of a sudden your favorite zombified scroll caddy attempts to eat your brains.
That's why wizard-necromancers get command undead spell. All the command over the undead without the HD limit...
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Downside is duration, dispellability and whatnot. That and the whole not guaranteed to work on the intelligent ones. "Friendly" does not mean "suicidal".
"Boss, no way. That dude in the armor with the glowing sword just made Dave explode. I'm out!"
You gain some, you lose some... Hopefully the necromancer's life is not among the things lost...
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No, not Dave...!
WHYYYY!!!
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*consoles Minion Bob*
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Session 16: Why are cultists never scary?, played 01-Aug-2017
So, your choices are to hammer the PCs with multiple hard encounters per night (do you really want to pile on once the revenant has nearly killed someone?), or try to limit it to 1-2 encounters per night, in which case, what do the PCs do during the day?
That was my players' dilemma as they faced the dawn of their third morning in Thrushmoor.
The moment the party woke up in the morning, Blackwarm insisted on heading straight for Brewster Tincture's stall of "tonics" and other sundries. When they first arrived, a couple of the foreign "nobles" were conversing quietly with Brewster, but Blackwarm wisely chose to wait for them to leave before he approached the stall. Unfortunately, if you recall (the GM did), Blackwarm was specifically hidden during the first meeting with the erstwhile alchemist and purveyor of questionable goods, so when Blackwarm started rambling on and on about how he wanted some special "tonics", Brewster just glared at him and asked, "Well, what d'ye want 'em to do?"
Sighing, Neirida finally showed herself, Blackwarm admitted he was looking for onyxes, not tonics, and very quickly had a half dozen shiny new 25 gp onyxes in his pouch.
This put the party in a spending mood, but for the most part they had very little cash. Neirida had already borrowed money from Hans to buy her composite bow. Helden was already bristling with weapons. And as a caster, Hans was waiting until he had enough money to buy something actually useful. So, it was up to Blackwarm.
And, in classic Blackwarm fashion, buy he did. He first wanted a wagon. Sold! Then I asked the fatal question: "So, who's going to pull it?"
"Neirida."
After Neirida quickly put the kibosh on THAT particular idea, Blackwarm bought a horse to pull the wagon. Then, sensing that the GM was going to ask more questions, asked, "Hey, does anybody know how to take care of a horse?"
Fortunately for him, all of the other party members had the requisite skills, and he quickly had 2 weeks of fodder and other gear for his horse. Then came my favorite moment:
"I need a bathtub."
"OK. Plastic or ceramic."
"Ceramic. And some acid."
"Acid? How much do you need?"
"Enough to cover a body in a bathtub."
So Blackwarm asked for a heavy tarp that was thick enough to hide bodies. And 6 very nice clubs, like zombies might use.
Subtle, Blackwarm, subtle.
Neirida corrected him again, he got his heavy tarp and his clubs, put all his goods in the wagon (good thinking!), and the party started getting ready to head back to the warehouse. Unfortunately, Blackwarm also overheard some of the merchants complaining that Elgrior was back and up to his old tricks outside the Silver Wagon. Sighing, they headed over. Rather than let Hans try again, Helden insisted, "I got this!"
And then rolled a natural 1 on his Diplomacy roll.
Impus Minor's excuse was that Helden must have held forth about the powerful wood in his neck that protected him from revenants and witches alike, and since he was in town, it was impossible that the witch would come. Elgrior was unconvinced. Hans tried to make up for that fiasco, but could not overcome Elgrior's incredulity. Neirida tried threats, and the cowed Elgrior turned to flee. While his back was turned, Helden hit him with a silent Charm Person and he conveniently rolled a 2 on his Will save. So Helden convinced him that he'd done all he could to warn the clueless people of the village, so he should go eat and rest. Then handed him 10 gold pieces! I have to do some calculations to see how long THAT hangover is going to last. As Elgrior excitedly scurried off in search of someone willing to sell him alcohol, Helden commented, "Well, there goes THAT problem!"
Their next order of business was the asylum. They'd provided 2 days' worth of food to them, and it was now day 3. More flush with money than before, Hans spent 35 gold pieces for a variety of foodstuffs (Helden got an 18 on his Profession: Cook to help with the shopping) that should last the asylum at least a week. Doing some quick calculations in my head, it was over 1100 pounds of food!! Good thing they had a horse and wagon to transport it all to the landing, where Captain York and some of the more stable inmates could help transport everything to the asylum. As he and his men worked, Winter took the party aside and expressed concern that things were taking so long. Neirida confided in her as to the undead in the fort, the revenant attacking Helden, and the ghost that was patrolling the streets at night. Winter was torn; her duty as a cleric of Pharasma was to race off to Caliphas to get reinforcements. Her duty as a humanitarian was to stay at the asylum and maintain order until the party could purge the evil. She gave them a week, and a letter to bring to Caliphas in her stead if anything should happen.
Finally, she offered her opinion of Helden and the revenant: "You say that you were bad people. Well, whatever put you in that asylum erased all that. And from what I've seen of you, you're good people now. And that's all I care about. And I suggest that's what you do as well. Forget your pasts; whatever they were, if they were bad enough to bring revenants after you you don't want to go digging around there anyway. Understand that from here on out, your actions will determine who you are. And personally, I think you're good people."
Neirida thanked her, they wrapped up their work, and returned to the warehouse.
Then came my shame. The utter and complete fiasco and disaster that was my players at their finest... and their worst...
They didn't want to risk taking on a ghost yet, so they decided to go after the mysterious figures who sprang from the walls. So they had to set bait. Neirida would be that bait. Helden Disguised her as an old crone; albeit a 6'1" burly crone. Helden and Blackwarm had enough Stealth that they would hide in the shadows waiting for the attack. But what to do with Hans? Inspiration struck, like a spear through the GM's soul.
Helden disguised Hans as a bundle of sticks. With a 29 on his Disguise roll. And Neirida carried him. And he was within her load limit.
I dutifully made the encounter rolls, and sure enough, the cultists couldn't resist a lone woman on the streets at night, inexplicably carrying a huge bundle of sticks. They poured forth from the walls, surrounding the old lady and telling her that the King in Yellow would soon taste her blood. They rolled spectacularly well on initiative... but Helden rolled higher. Helden raced out from Stealth and backstabbed a cultist. The cultists, trying to knock out Neirida, rolled a 6, a 7, and 11, and a 1. Only one hit, and Neirida was able to shrug off the damage. Unfortunately, the 1 was the dreaded, "Crit nearest friend" card, and the nearest friend was... the cultist Helden had just hit. Down he went!
So yes, my players were already in stitches over Hans being forced to be disguised as a bundle of sticks, and now the cultists ran out, flailed helplessly, and one knocked another out, removing one of the two flanks on Neirida.
Not my bad guys' finest moment.
Before their next turn Blackwarm Magic Missiled one, Neirida dropped one, and Helden dropped a third. The fourth, not being an idiot, fled into the night. Neirida chased him down and one-shot him. Total combat time: Under 2 rounds.
Hans tried to stabilize the cultists, but for one he was too late. Blackwarm's eyes sparkled, he walked up, and Mr. Bones was born! Blackwarm handed him a nice club. Neirida protested, "Hey! What about his stuff?"
"Oh, it's all there! Mr. Bones, give Neirida your stuff!"
Neirida sighed. It was just going to be one of those nights.
They stuffed the unconscious victims into the cart, Blackwarm had Mr. Bones hide with them, used the heavy tarp to hide the mess, and they took everyone back to the warehouse.
Questioning started at the end of the session, but the GM hadn't read enough in advance so we stopped, and questioning will resume next week.
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Session 17: There's no such thing as "Too many Fireballs", played 08-Aug-2017
Then came Fort Hailcourse itself, where the party started having a very loud combat on the rooftops. Where were all the other monsters? Did they hear the combat? How do they react? I usually do all of that in Roll20 pre-session: I have all the monsters placed on the GM layer, have their Perception modifiers noted, and have an idea as to how they'll react. Instead, this session in the middle of combat I had to decide on the fly how half a dozen groups would respond to the combat and the alarm. Not fun.
So in spite of my promising to run this as a "no-prep" campaign, it just isn't working out for me, so I'm going to spend a couple of hours populating Hailcourse before the next session.
Other than that, everyone had lots of fun, so I can't really say it was all that bad of a session.
We resumed with the party questioning the three captured cultists about where they came from, how many of them there were, what they were doing, and so forth. They learned several important points:
Having heard enough, the party had no further questions. Considering what the cultists had done to an unknown number of innocent villagers, Neirida saw no issue in turning them over to Blackwarm. And thus did Bonesy McBoneface and Skeltel join Mr. Bones. Since they weren't sure they'd extracted all the information they possibly could out of the cultists, they left one alive to turn over to Cesadia in the morning, but they had him sleep in Blackwarm's cart surrounded by his now-undead former allies. Now THAT's motivation!
GM Aside: My favorite part of the questioning was when Blackwarm was trying to decide which two to take. He asked, "Which of you has the most calcium, eh?"
The two stupid ones answered, "I do! I do!"
The smart one answered, "They do! They do!"
So the smart one survived.
In the morning, they pulled their cart up to the Sleepless Building, quickly gained entry, and turned the final prisoner over to Cesadia for further questioning. With a great deal of new information and a full day open in front of them, the party had to decide what to do next. Cesadia (well, GothBard, actually) suggested that they might gain further intelligence on Iris Hill by investigating the undead fortress of Fort Hailcourse. Blackwarm had certainly seemed confident in his ability to storm the fort, so perhaps they should try it first.
A plan was quickly hatched: They would move to the northern side of the fort, away from prying eyes, stealthfully scale the walls, quietly take out the lookouts in the towers, and gain entry.
As they started executing the plan, things did not go well. Neirida easily made it to the top of the tower, but her resounding blow on the lookout did not drop him! These were no ordinary zombies! Even worse, Helden couldn't climb without a rope, and Hans couldn't climb at all! She was alone at the top of the tower, being shot by four ridiculously-accurate bowmen. (Their +7 to hit is bad enough, but for the first 2 rounds I was hard-pressed to roll anything under a 14.) Blackwarm flew up to assist her (yep, he took the tengu feat so he can fly for short distances. Hilarious), but ended up wasting his time having to lower a rope to Hans and Helden, then learning that the zombies couldn't roll under a 12 on their Will saves, either.
So Neirida took an immense amount of damage from the archers. Blackwarm couldn't control diddly-squat. Hans finally sent Skitters up to deliver a Cure Moderate Wounds on Neirida. Helden first tried to help with the firefight, but realized that the undead were much better shots than he was, so he helped cover Neirida as she manually hauled Hans up the side of the tower. So we had 4-5 rounds of the party desperately trying to haul Hans up the tower while they were being shot by zombies. Hilariously, I'd rolled Perception for the other denizens, and Itsqaal-Thoal heard the racket and came out onto the rooftops to see what was going on. One of the zombies immediately fumbled and hit Itsqaal dead in the forehead with an arrow for 1 point of damage. Cursing, Itsqaal yanked the arrow out of his forehead and left the zombies to their task. (It had already been 10-11 rounds and the party was still struggling atop the very first tower, so I figured Itsqaal would see them as not even enough of a threat to be interesting.)
The moment Hans arrived, things immediately changed course. The party raced down the stairs of the tower. The zombies, seeing a chance to enter much-more-lethal hand-to-hand combat, followed suit, joined by their brethren downstairs, who were undeterred by errant arrows. So after a couple of rounds of healing by Hans on Neirida, the 4-person party met the 9-zombie assault. Blackwarm finally got control of a zombie, but spent two rounds learning that zombies following too-specific instructions aren't all that useful.
"Go past us and over to that corner over there so you're safe." (The path was blocked by enemy zombies, so he just stood there.)
"Move into that square and provide flanks for Helden." (The square became occupied so he just stood there.)
This was not improving Helden's mood one bit, as he'd taken quite a bit of damage from arrow fire, and three sword hits had him close to single-digit hit points.
To everyone's surprise, Hans Fireballed the zombies. (Love that Wandering Spirit ability!) Blackwarm fireballed the zombies. The zombies' ability to roll above a 7 vanished. Neirida was dropping a zombie a round. Another Fireball from Blackwarm and a channeled positive energy from Hans and the fight was over.
And there we ended, with the party standing over a sea of dead zombies (Blackwarm's controlled one included), an image right out of the movies!
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Session 18: Ze Sleep Hex, She is Ze Broken!, played 22-Aug-2017
The fix would be soooooo easy, changing, "This hex can affect a creature of any HD" to "This hex can affect a creature of any HD, up to the witch's level", but I let it ride as-written, and boy was it a disaster!
My other "big entertainment" was prepping the map on Roll20 so I could have the other denizens of the castle moving about "realistically". Unfortunately, it became clear that the authors hadn't done the same when the id ooze in the basement sensed its twin's demise, led the skum upstairs into D6 as-written, and then in horror I noticed the red marks I'd placed on the map. To quote the AP: "All three doors to this hallway are locked... Itsqaal-Thoal carries the key to these doors."
So, er... without breaking down the doors of their own fort, how are the skum supposed to get out to join the fight?!?!? I was tired, the time frame was unrealistic (4 rounds to "hear" the fight, go upstairs, unlock the doors, go up the second set of stairs, and get there? With a movement of 10'? Seriously?), so I just left 'em locked downstairs.
For a couple of rounds, the party stayed in initiatives at Blackwarm's insistence. Then Impus Minor pointed out that it was really boring, and people seemed to be tired, so they came out of initiatives just long enough to have Blackwarm Open the door to the reading room. Other than a table, some comfortable chairs, and a large standing mirror, the room looked unthreatening, so the party moved on, leaving the door open.
And thus was the trap sprung. The id ooze "charged" the party at its massive move of 10' and hit Neirida with a Lesser Confusion. Unfortunately, she saved. Deggorhbaatha (let's call him "Deg", shall we?) hit her with a trio of Magic Missiles, but her own Shield spell was still up and they slid off harmlessly. Tilsitari, disguised as Helden, emerged from her mirror, ran up to the unsuspecting Blackwarm, and rolled a natural 2 on her surprise backstab. Way to go, Tilsitari! For a round, things were looking good for the bad guys: Neirida engaged the ooze, and while it only hit her once for 14 points of damage, it kept her engaged while Deg ripped Helden apart with Magic Missiles. Tilsitari engaged Blackwarm, but continued on her streak of bad rolls and only hit him for around 6 points of damage. But the bad guys had plenty of hit points, had the party split disadvantageously, and Helden was going to drop any minute. I looked at Hans' sheet to see whether he had anything that might possibly help. Aha! Slumber Hex on Tilsitari! I figured she'd shrug it off, rolled her save... and got a 3. Just sitting there on the table, mocking me.
Down went Tilsitari. Blackwarm, more brave than sensible, ran in to engage Deg. Helden, after taking another trio of Magic Missiles, fled Deg. Neirida finally downed the ooze, Hans coup de graced Tilsitari (stupid x3 crit spear!), and Deg knew he was in a bad place and turned Invisibile and opened the door to retreat. In a moment of utter brilliance, Helden came back around the room to close the door on Deg and hold it! Blackwarm filled the room with fire. Neirida approached, swung at the empty space, fumbled, failed her Reflex save, and handed Deg her weapon. Trapped in a corner, Dag invoked his Thunderstaff ability and prepared to fight. Once he attacked and was visible again, Hans came along and knocked him prone with a Hydraulic Push. Fortunately, his armor class was high enough to keep him safe from Neirida (she was rolling almost as poorly as I was). Helden added some amusement by popping open the door and backstabbing Deg, but unfortunately missed. Finally, Hans hit Deg with another Slumber hex, and his 7 wasn't much better than Tilsitari's 3, so down like a sack of potatoes he went. Blackwarm asked Neirida to knock him out. She failed her Will save, hit him for lethal damage, and sent him to negative hit points.
They quickly grabbed Deg, Tilsitari's body, and five more bodies, then clambered over the wall to retreat, regroup, and prepare ingredients for some monolithic undead monstrosity. At least that's what Blackwarm said he needed the bodies for...
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Session 19: No Quarter, played 18-Sep-2017
GM Notes for the Session (for some reason the spoiler tags aren't working today): One of the things that I really dislike about APs is their lack of guidance on how the NPCs/monsters react if a party comes in, kills a few troops, and then leaves. Some APs (Rise of the Runelords in particular) did a good job of, "If the NPCs are alerted to the PCs presence, they move around in this manner. If the PCs leave, they do yy. In xx days, they return to their normal routine."
But Strange Aeons has no such guidance, so after the party killed Tilsitari and all the zombies, captured the truly unfortunate Deggohhbaatha, and then fled back to their warehouse to rest, I was left stuck figuring out exactly what Itsqaal-Thoal and his sizeable army was going to do. There were two logical approaches: Use his good Survival skill to track the party down that evening and attack them in their sleep, or load for bear and lure the party back in. Both approaches had distinct advantages and disadvantages, especially since he knew the party had had an entire afternoon and evening to prepare for his attack. So, being a jerk, I had my party roll a d20 to determine whether he'd go with "hunt-n-smite" or "prep-n-crush". He chose the latter. In hindsight, he probably chose really, really poorly, but how was he to know that Neirida's die was going to catch fire and turn her into a skum-killing machine?
And so, skum became chum...
The Session:
The party had no issues returning with their cart to the warehouse, at which point they had to decide what to do.
GM Note: I was actually worried we weren't going to have a session at all at this point. The whole family seemed distracted and disinterested, and we spent a good half an hour just hemming and hawing and not doing anything. We went over who needed how long to rest (neither Blackwarm nor Hans could get a second set of spells for the day, alas), and then the wheels finally started rolling.
The first order of business was to deal with the captured Dag. Hans used a Cure Light Wounds to wake him up, and then they learned the bad news: Of the three languages the fishman spoke, only Blackwarm spoke any of them, hence Blackwarm would be the "face man" of the party. Not good!
Needless to say, Blackwarm's attempts at intimidation, even wtih Neirida's assistance, yielded nothing but curses, threats, and the very specific threat that, "My people will come for me." After a fairly lengthy interrogation marked by a couple of really awful rolls by Blackwarm, Helden lost patience and punched him (Dag, not Blackwarm) in the head, knocking him back into unconsciousness. (Impus Minor really needs to learn that saying, "I do xxx" frequently results in the GM responding, "OK, yyy happens", at which point his usual response is, "NO! I didn't really mean that I did that!!!")
Live and learn.
Neirida decided that they were going to get nowhere with their captive, and he could only possibly be a liability: He wouldn't give them any information, yet if his peers rescued him, he would come after them again. Thus, she quickly and cleanly executed him. Blackwarm practically started drooling. Neirida glared at him. "I don't care what you're going to do, Blackwarm. Just do it outside!"
Blackwarm eagerly dragged Dag and Tilsitari's corpses outside. He first turned Dag into a zombie he named Gillmore. He tried to raise Tilsitari, but it turned out she had too many hit dice for the amount of onyx he had, so he'd have to wait until he could buy more onyx.
Then started the discussion of what to do next. After determining that Hans and Blackwarm were spent for the day, the group decided to head for the High Market, sell their wares, and pick up some additional gear. Unfortunately, their total sales only amounted to 60 gold apiece; they really hadn't found much in the fortress so far. However, while they were there Blackwarm purchased more onyx and a rowboat. He had Gillmore row him and his accumulated corpses to the witch's cave where he could safely store them until he had time and inclination to raise them.
Yes, the party has a tengu storing corpses in a cave for future use. What's wrong with that?
Once their selling and shopping was complete and Blackwarm had safely ensconced his corpses, they decided to prepare the warehouse traps as they did before, set up watches, and wait for the inevitable attack from the skum.
At one point during the final watch, Neirida heard faint sounds, just at the edge of her hearing (I'd set a DC of 20 and she rolled a 17 and then a 19), but they never approached.
The party safely rested for the night.
First thing in the morning there was a banging on the door. Blackwarm had his skeletons and Gillmore hide as Neirida answered the door. It was Cesadia. There had been an attack from the fortress the night before; two families were slaughtered and a house had been burned down. Had the party not dealt with the fortress? What had happened?
Neirida was honest: They had gone into the fortress and killed a large number of zombies and some kind of fish man, but their casters had run out of spells and they had been forced to retreat. "So, you'll deal with it?" Cesadia demanded.
Neirida returned a steely-eyed glare.
Blackwarm decided it was time to take his undead horde on an outing.
As they approached the fortress, they saw the carnage: Five corpses lay in the street. One house was burned to its foundation. Another was obviously smashed into and ransacked. To Neirida's horror, every victim was an adult male. "The sick bastards took the women and children as hostages."
They climbed into the fortress using the same approach as before and encountered no resistance. Searching the rooms they'd only glanced into previously, they quickly started accumulating loot: In the topmost room they found the magistrate's journal, its incompleteness indicating she had vanished far earlier than they had supposed. In the room from whence Dag had come they found 5 scrolls. A hidden cache in another room yielded another 1000 gold pieces or so, at which point they descended to the kitchen and the smell of freshly-cooked meat.
In one of my favorite moments, Blackwarm told one of his skeletons to look into the cauldron and tell him what it saw. It dutifully looked into the cauldron, turned back to Blackwarm, and I made a clackety-clack sound for him. The group rolled its communal eyes as Blackwarm decided to look in the caulron himself. The remains of two cooked and half-eaten human male adolescents greeted him. Fortunately, it was Blackwarm, so there wasn't even a Fortitude roll involved. "All in a day's work" and all that. Neirida's face became even grimmer. "From this point forward, nothing in this building lives. Except for us."
Hans looked dark. "Agreed."
Blackwarm and Helden agreed. There would be no survivors this day.
The next room was the magistrate's office, where Hans spotted a needle trap on the magistrate's cabinet, and Helden yet again proved that he could do anything with a toothpick, rolling a 29 Disable Device to remove the trap and a 27 to open the cabinet. It was as if the thing hadn't been locked at all. Inside was Helden's personal paradise: A Cloak of Elvenkind and a +1 Returning Dagger, along with quite a bit of gold that the rest of the party was welcome to.
As Helden and Neirida wrapped up, Hans warned them that he heard noises in the next room. My hopeless Skum had rolled 8, 1, 6, 1 on their Perception rolls, and just didn't understand how close to death they were. The party and undead lined up, Blackwarm cast Open on the door, and the carnage began.
Helden used the Returning Dagger brutally. His first couple of throws did backstab damage as well. At one amazingly awesome point during the fight he rolled a natural 20 Acrobatics to tumble right through the square of one of the skum to stab it in the back. Neirida missed on her first swing. And never again. Blackwarm cast spells as if this would be the only fight of the day, and Scorching Rays and Magic Missiles wreaked havoc. Hans buffed Neirida with Bull's Strength and Barkskin and then started healing the relatively minor damage the skum were doing. Blackwarm's undead got in on the act, blocking escape routes, guarding the party's back, and also getting in Neirida's way.
By the end of the fight, seven skum lay dead, their hopeless ambush crushed by the sheer brutality of a party that apparently could not miss. Those who were unconscious were quickly put to the sword, no questions asked.
As Blackwarm prepared to increase his army with the skum's own number, we ended the session for the evening.
It was NOT a good night to be a skum...
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Session 20: Skum Flambé, played 26-Sep-2017
Anyway, on we go...
Surveying the wreckage of the former skum, the group decided to explore the rest of the building. There was of course some discussion as to whether or not Blackwarm would animate a couple more of the skum to assist in their endeavors, but in the end Neirida convinced him not to by suggesting that maybe, just maybe, he'd find better stuff to animate later. In one of those, "I can't believe how well they designed this building" moments, the party proceeded counterclockwise around the rest of the floor, starting with the archives. Yes, this does indeed mean that they completely explored the top two floors before proceeding down to the basement.
In the archives, Helden had no trouble at all picking the first lock to access the files: Shipping records, criminal trials, city financial records, and the like, all sorted first by category and then by date. While Neirida had the brilliant idea to search for Count Lowls' name in the records, their particular arrangement was not conducive to searching for a specific person, so she decided they'd have to wait, as their buffs, they were a-burnin'. In the first of several "weird moments of the night", Blackwarm ordered Tom Bones to carry the one of the file cabinets. Considering they were still looking for prisoners, and therefore they were likely to encounter enemies, Neirida nixed this idea. So Helden tried to pick up the cabinet. Neirida's glare was enough to get him to behave. Helden snuck upstairs and confirmed that they were indeed just below the reading room.
The next "interesting" room they encountered was the front lobby, where three juju zombies still dutifully stood guard. Helden took the unusual tactic of going in, then hiding behind the cart oh-so-conveniently provided. Why was it unusual? Because he could have just backstabbed a zombie, so it was an unnecessary extra turn. Neirida raced in, and, as has become depressingly typical, missed on her first swing. They hit her for decent damage, though one fumbled and got entangled in his own gear. Hans moved in to heal Neirida. And of course Blackwarm waltzed right in, hit them with Command Undead, and the very first one failed its save. At the top of the order, Helden tried to grapple the entangled zombie from stealth. And failed. Leading to all kinds of questions as to exactly why he'd done it, and Impus Minor felt bad about it, but I thought it was pretty funny. Sometimes, you just gotta try something different.
So the sole remaining heathy zombie crit Neirida, but the other, distracted by Helden, stabbed the wily rogue instead. Neirida found her swing, Hans healed, Helden stopped fooling around, and Blackwarm Acid Splashed, and the fight was quickly over.
Knowing the zombies carried good gear, they took the time to loot them before moving on.
The rest of the first floor was primarily barracks, where they found plenty of arrows, a quiver full of tindertwigs, and some other mundane gear. Finishing off the building, they came to their first locked door. Helden was unable to open it in a reasonable amount of time, and their minute-per-level buffs had already worn off, so they went ahead and waited for him to take 20. The room beyond had clear evidence of muddy, webbed footprints leading down a narrow flight of stairs to a door below. They lined up, Blackwarm cast Open on the door, and my skum got off the worst... ambush... EVER!!!
The ooze at the door swung at Neirida and missed. The three skum hurled their tridents... and missed! The other skum and Itsqaal-Thoal weren't in good positions in the overcrowded room... and waited. The rest was a horrific mess of the party delaying to go off in picture-perfect order. Blackwarm Closed the door. Neirida buffed herself and did a tactical withdrawal up the stairs. Helden went into Stealth upstairs. A skum opened the door, triggering Hans' declared Fireball. He rolled 23 on 5d6. Since I wasn't using Roll20 for dice rolling, I had the players roll. In a dark tapestry of things to come, NobodysWife rolled 5d20 and... every single skum failed its Reflex save and dropped. The ONE skum Impus Minor rolled for remained standing, but Itsqaal-Thoal failed his save as well (I rolled for him, so I can't blame anyone but myself for that one). So yeah, bad day at skum rock.
So, the next few rounds were a mess. Blackwarm dropped a second Fireball, Itsqaal-Thoal failed his save again, and Hans hit him with Burning Hands, and he failed his save a third time. He had to run and hide to heal, and Neirida pursued him, while Mr. Bones and Tom Bones engaged the ooze. Neirida's die went stone cold, and she missed him three times in a row. She even burned a Hero Point for a reroll and THAT missed!
So Itsqaal-Thoal hit Neirida for a lot of damage, but then switched to Helden. He hit once, then fumbled and hit himself hard enough to knock himself to negative hit points. This was not a "classic" battle. On the ooze front, Tom Bones got obliterated, and it honestly looked bad for ALL of Blackwarm's undead until Neirida showed up. Once Itsqaal-Thoal was down she made short work of the ooze, and the party was triumphant!
Blackwarm, of course, just HAD to have more skum zombies, but the rest of the group explored the rest of the underground. They found the wood storage, and Helden declared, "Just leave me here forever!" The distracted Helden missed the trap protecting the well, but Hans was able to heal himself and Neirida of the damage. They searched the wood room and the well, but still no prisoners.
They finally went to the opposite door in the "dead burned skum" room (as good a title as any), found it locked, Helden opened it effortlessly, and they found the prisoners: Two adult women, a teenage girl, and a younger girl and boy. It was obvious that they had been subjected to the particular depredations of the skum, so Neirida wanted to get them out as quickly as possible... but there was one room left to check; a room that, curiously, the skum had taken great pains to avoid. They searched Itsqaal-Thoal's body for a key, found it, unlocked the door to the musty cellar, and went in. As Hans examined the cracked plaster wall in the back of the room, a full-blooded ghost emerged and attacked him, draining him of half his hit points in a single hit. Fortunately, Hans made a massive Knowledge: Religion roll to declare the ghost out of the party's league, and the ghost rolled a pathetic initiative, so the party was able to flee the room, one by one. (Speaking of Hero Points, if Neirida hadn't already been maxed out she would have earned another one for being first out of the room, but then putting Oil of Magic Weapon on her weapon and being ready to go in and sacrifice herself if need be to get her companions out. I really think I need to increase the max to 5.)
We wrapped up the night with Blackwarm adding yet more corpses to his collection, Neirida escorting the victims to the Sleepless Building and telling Cesadia in no uncertain terms that she'd done HER job, and it was now time for Cesadia to step up and do HERS, and the party leveling up to 6th level.
CR 7 ghost's actual threat and combat effectivness is really wildly variable depending on its class abilities and the special abilities it got, and the number of spellcasters in the group.
CR 7 ghost's actual threat and combat effectivness is really wildly variable depending on its class abilities and the special abilities it got, and the number of spellcasters in the group.
Well, in the AP so far no PC has received enough money to buy a magic weapon, so their options were:
With all doing 1/2 damage and none of the spellcasters having any remaining "boom" spells, it would have been a very close thing against a ghost doing 7d6 on a +7 touch attack.
I mean yeah, for a well-rested 5th level party that's ready for incorporeals it's not a bad fight. At the very end of a dungeon with no hints that there might be a ghost in the room so it gets a free surprise round (and adds +1d6 sneak attack damage to that)? Ouch!
The number of casters in each party makes a wild difference when dealing with incorporeal undead at early levels, as does presence of characters capable of channeling positive energy.
EDIT: To mess things more, the best magic weapons in your party are in hands of a rogue... Ooops, incorporeal creatures are one of the few things in Pathfinder that are immune to sneak attacks.
I agree with Drejk in principle. It's one of those times when magic missile becomes really useful yet you don't have a wand of it.
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Session 21: A Brief Respite, played 03-Oct-2017
Once they'd safely dropped off the victims, the group decided it was time to search the rest of the Fort. There were still mysteries to be solved: Two entire file cabinets full of untapped information, the dogs in the courtyard, and the fact that they still hadn't found Accuser Omari's body. They stopped by the Fish Market to stock up on 20 pounds of meat suitable for dogs, and returned to the Fort. Neirida very cautiously proffered some meat to the dogs, and, with a natural 20 on her Handle Animal roll, quite literally had them eating out of the palm of her hand. She cut up her brand new rope to make leashes for them, then rolled a natural 19 to get them to allow her to put the leashes on them. I figured that at that point, after those two rolls, the dogs had just decided that Neirida was their new master and were totally willing to follow her. Neirida loved them! After getting them fed and leashed, she tried to get them to play. Chase. Hide-and-seek. Fetch. Anything. Unfortunately, they were well-trained guard dogs, and didn't seem particularly interested in playing at the moment. Neirida didn't mind. She named them McClane, Connor, Ripley, and Indiana. While none of them were eager to play, Neirida thought she detected the fainest of wags in Ripley's tail. Helden immediately started arguing with Neirida that he wanted a dog, so after some debate, Neirida handed Indiana over to Helden.
Once the dog situation was well in hand, they searched the courtyard. There, in a shallow grave the dogs had dug up and had at in their hunger, lay the remains of Accuser Omari and her contingent. While they didn't know the woman, they found the requisite holy symbol of Pharasma. Hans said a few words over them and the party went to the Sleepless Building and asked Cesadia to accompany them back to the Fort. Cesadia was more excited than they'd ever seen her at the file cabinets. She promised that if they could get the cabinets to her office, she'd tell them everything she found. Cesadia then confirmed their fears: The bodies were indeed Omari and her fellows. Cesadia said she'd notify Winter. They returned to the Sleepless Building, Neirida dutifully carried one file cabinet, while Helden and Hans carried the other. By the time they got back, they had another visitor: A young girl of perhaps 13, with a huge shield in her lap.
She was Holissa, sister of Sholn, and wanted to know who had saved her brother. When Neirida admitted that it had been her, Holissa handed her the shield and a small white stone. "My grandfather was an adventurer, and he always said that you have to help people. And if I didn't grow up big and strong enough to help people, then my duty was to find someone strong enough, and give her this shield and this stone so that she could go out and do good for me. And you're strong, and you do good. So I have to give you this shield. That's my duty."
Neirida was touched, and formally thanked the young woman. The shield was a beauty; a heavy mythril shield of exquisite make. Neirida couldn't figure out the stone, other than that it had twenty numbers inscribed on it. She handed it to Hans, and he assured her it was magical, but he couldn't figure it out either. They handed the stone to Blackwarm.
Of course.
And of course the tengu rolled a natural 20 on Spellcraft to identify a magical item.
They were holding nothing less than a Knucklebone of Fickle Fortune, an artifact-level wondrous item capable of even raising the dead! But, as the name implied, the effects could be good, or could be bad.
As both Helden and Blackwarm's eyed widened in anticipation of rolling the stone, Neirida snatched it away from them. There would be no stone-rolling this day!
Blackwarm and Helden were disappointed, as was the GM.
They spent the rest of the afternoon selling and shopping and retired for the evening. There was a knock at the door. Cesadia was there, and provided them with what she'd learned from the files:
After Cesadia left, just before sundown there was another knock. It was a group of villagers with food: Roast chickens, fresh bread, potatoes, vegetables; a vertiable feast for 15-20. The villagers wanted to thank the PCs for all they'd done for the city so far: The kidnappings had ceased, the witch had no longer been sighted, and the slaughter of the skum made everyone respect the PCs a bit more. They asked when the PCs planned on dealing with the ghost that wandered the street. "Tonight, if we can," was Neirida's reply.
Sure enough, that night on Neirida's watch she heard the mutterings of an old woman cursing the town and wishing death on all within. She went out, we went into initiatives, and had a loooooong, sloooooow, uneventful fight. Neirida did... 3 points of damage a round to the spirit. Hans added another 2-3 with his Flame Touches. Blackwarm got her with a Magic Missile, but otherwise kind of waited for something to happen. And Helden went all the way around the back of all the buildings to try to get a flank, then learned that incorporeal creatures can't be flanked, then learned he couldn't hurt the creature, so finally wandered off to get a torch to hurt it with that. The spirit finally fell after uglifying Hans a bit, but his wand of Lesser Restoration cleared it right up.
The party went to bed for the evening and finally got their spells back and got up to level 6.
====
In one of the more humorous aspects of the evening, Impus Minor really wanted to show off that he'd taken Fast Stealth for his 6th level rogue talent. Unfortunately, the die absolutely, positively did not want to cooperate with him, so his rolls of 1, then 3, then 5, failed to impress anyone, so we roleplayed out everyone staring at Helden as he pranced about, acting stealthy. Think the Invisible Man sketch from Amazon Women on the Moon.
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Gods, I LOVE having tactically-savvy players.
"So, there's a ghost in there that's going to ambush whoever goes in first."
"Do ghosts have Lifesense?"
"No."
Cue a set of declared actions and Mr. Bones running into the room.
The poor ghost didn't even last 2 rounds.
Good job, players!
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Oh, and Neirida's player corrected me last night: It's McClane who wags his tail.
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Session 22: Ghost Toast, played 10-Oct-2017
The group started the morning by deciding that they needed to find an artist to sketch the apparition they encountered the night before. Conveniently enough, they were staying in an artist's warehouse right then! They moseyed over to the chapel, knocked on the door, and asked Lelwyn Hasok whether he was willing to help them. After all they'd done for him in restoring his name and giving him peace to work on his art, he was more than happy to work with them to produce a rough sketch of the creature/woman. (It was fun coming up with rolls to determine how good the sketch was, but I figured they had to use Diplomacy, Bluff, or Perform: Orate to give him the description, and he had to use Craft: Art to draw it. Their 22 wasn't spectacular, but his 28 gave them a pretty decent drawing.)
Once they had the drawing, they needed to show it to someone local. Neirida suggested the man at the Stain who had claimed to be an old friend of Blackwarm's. They went over, and in an amazing bit of roleplay and poor die rolling, kept messing up (Helden kept calling Blackwarm "Blackwarm" instead of "Blackwing", Blackwarm didn't know anything about Lowls even though Lowls was his employer, and so forth), yet Keldrin Mon's Sense Motive rolls were in the low teens. When Keldrin finally rolled high enough to figure out that something was wrong, Helden's opposing check was a natural 20. Poor Keldrin! He just couldn't win!
To make a long conversation short, Keldrin first suspected Blackwarm of wanting to date the old crone, then admitted he had no idea who she was. In another mess of roleplay, Blackwarm and Helden went in and out of the Stain, trying to figure out what to do next. They finally went back in to ask the proprietor, Emman Gulston, and with an amazing roll Emman was able to not only recognize her, but tell them all about her sordid history.
She was Nemira Lowls, Count Lowls' mother. Born in Kerse, she had met Lowls' father in the Sincomakti School of Sciences. As is typical in such stories, they fell in love, got married, and she came home with him. Unfortunately, at that point he had to take up his duties as count, and was away from the estate frequently. So, she took up a lover, one Clymes Prett. The party immediately recognized the name as that of the man who had been executed for treason underneath the fort. When the count confronted them, they poisoned him. While he was dying, he had Prett "executed" (well, sealed away to die). Unfortunately for Nemira, she somehow got some of the taint she'd used to poison her husband on herself, and she passed away a few days after her husband, shortly after her son, the current Count Lowls, had gotten home. Count Lowls had her buried in a private ceremony with a closed casket in Iris Hill proper, raising quite a ruckus from her family.
The party thanked Gulston, and made a fairly poor Knowledge: Religion roll to figure out that the most likely way to put both ghosts to rest would be to retrieve both bodies and inter them properly side-by-side in the chapel graveyard.
First came Prett. In a bit of tactical hilarity, the party went downstairs, buffed up, and sent Mr. Bones in. Prett, not having Lifesense, pounced on Mr. Bones, doing... absolutely nothing at all, since Mr. Bones is immune to aging! Neirida raced in past Mr. Bones, taking the attack of opportunity but Prett rolled horrifically against her again (he never once rolled over a 5 to hit her). She hit him for significant damage, as did Blackwarm's Magic Missile. Hans added to the insult by hitting him with Cure Serious Wounds. To his slight relief, Helden missed. On his one chance to do anything, he hit Hans for half his hit points outright. Blackwarm Magic Missiled him again, then Neirida hit him twice for "all she wrote" time.
They quicly broke down the plaster wall and the masonry wall behind it, then moved the hay bales out of the way to reveal a cell. There, still locked away, was Clymes Prett's mummified body. Helden unlocked the door as if it wasn't there (I swear the boy can't roll under a 30 on Disable Device), Hans checked the body and removed a red-and-blue marble from its throat, and they loaded up Blackwarm's cart with Mr. Bones and Prett's body and took it back to the chapel for a proper burial.
As soon as Hans said the proper rites over the body, it dissolved into dust. The ghost had been defeated.
It didn't matter. They still needed to get Nemira's body! (I love my group!) They didn't want to assault Iris Hill by day, so they waited until nightfall, Neirida, Hans, and Helden training the dogs, and Blackwarm copying spells into his spellbook. No one thought to check out the red-and-blue marble until the GM threw enough hints to turn blue in the face, at which point a Detect Magic and a couple of Spellcraft rolls (one aided by Guidance) revealed it to be a Scarlet and Blue Spherical Ioun Stone, granting +2 Intelligence and Knowledge: Nobility. After quite a bit of Sleight of Hand tomfoolery, they let Blackwarm carry it around. He didn't put it on.
After nightfall, they approached Iris Hill, went around the back, and Neirida climbed the hedge wall. (OK, I have to admit, I posted my complaint in the GM thread about the PCs being able to just walk through the wall, but my group treated it as a barrier, and I appreciated it.) Peering around, she couldn't see any sign of a graveyard. Helden climbed up in the very same place and also couldn't see a graveyard. They had Blackwarm use the ioun stone to figure out where the graveyard might be in such a compound (Knowledge: Nobility seems like the appropriate skill, after all). A natural 19 and he told them it would be a tomb, not a graveyard. Not seeing a tomb, they decided to approach Iris Hill from the other side to see whether they could see one there. Rather than going around, they pushed their way through the bushes and entered the grounds proper.
And that's where we ended for the night.
Unfortunately, Impus Minor was feeling pretty tired last night, so we sat down, set up the game, and as I waited for them to put their figures on the map so they could start exploring Iris Hill, Impus Minor wouldn't come to the table, Impus Major sat there waiting for someone else to do something, and NobodysWife was working on her Halloween costume (looking awesome, BTW).
So instead we watched My Hero Acadamae, which is a really good series, even if the protagonist is astonishingly, amazingly whiny.
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Session 23: That's NOT Subtle, Hans! played 24-Oct-2017
Oh, I did? Just last session, even?
Wow...
So why is everyone in Iris Hill written to just sit there and wait to die? I have no idea. So I had them react rationally. As a result, the party is in big, big trouble.
I'd really like another AP like Rise of the Runelords or Crimson Throne, where there was actually space between encounters, or good reasons for NPCs to stay where they were. As it is, having to either have hordes of bad guys descend on the PCs at once, or ignore the rules so that somehow that NPC with the +23 Perception can't tell there's a fight 30' away, or justify the NPCs not moving, is... grating...
The first part of the evening was a wonderful cat-and-mouse game between the PCs' attempts at stealth (while Hans took it as his spirit skill and managed a halfway-decent +7, Neirida was still at -3) and the living topiaries' Perception rolls. (I assumed that as plants on guard duty, they were eternally taking 10.) As Helden suggested walking straight towards the center of the compound, Blackwarm suggested moving around the outside, figuring the crypt would be somewhere near the boundary. Blackwarm won the argument, so the party avoided an immediate fight with the foliage. They managed to go all the way around the carriage house, kitchen, and main estate undetected, until Helden, intrigued by the enormous pile of firewood outside the bathhouse, just had to move in for a closer look. This put him on the same side of the bathhouse as the topiaries with no cover, and we finally moved into initiatives.
Helden was rather surprised when a human-shaped, human-sized bush ran up to him and whacked him with some force. He and Neirida engaged the bush, while Hans and Blackwarm held back and provided minimal spell support (after all, how dangerous can a bush be?). As Neirida hacked huge chunks out of the first bush, it fled into the darkness, and a second and third bush assaulted the party. Blackwarm used Flaming Hands to try to shoo one of the bushes away from him, but it only seemed to anger it. Neirida and Helden finished off a second bush (bushes can be backstabbed. Who knew?), and just as Helden went to assist Hans and Blackwarm with the final bush, three men arrived: One done up like a well-dressed gatekeep, and the other like guards. Unfortunately for them, Neirida's natural 19 gave her a Perception roll of 28, so she spotted the holy symbol of Hastur on the gatekeep and sounded the alarm. Helden raced to assist Neirida, leaving... Blackwarm and Hans to face down the "guards" and one of the bushes. Hans panicked, stepped back, and hit the crowd in front of him with a Fireball. So much for subtlety! Blackwarm followed suit with Fire Breath, dropping the bush. The guards, nonplussed, raged and hit Blackwarm prodigiously, one even going so far as to bite a chunk out of Blackwarm's "warm" and swallow it. The cultist channeled negative energy.
Neirida Did Not Approve, and let the cultist know it with two hits for 48 points of damage. The cultist responded by dying. Helden, being cowardly, did not engage the barbarian guards directly, but instead stayed 10' away and threw his returning dagger at them. Blackwarm took a withdraw to get behind Helden and Hans. Hans, seeing his duty, cast Call Lightning, hit one of the guards, and got between them and Blackwarm. They repaid him by taking 80% of his hit points. (At the end of the round he had 3 hit points left, while Blackwarm was at a sturdy 11.)
Neirida turned her attention to the barbarians, ran up, and dropped one. Helden, now backed by Neirida, engaged the other. The bush attacked Helden. Hans, seeing that either he or Blackwarm was going to die that round, chose to use a Hero Point to not die that day. He cast Fly, then used a Hero Point to gain a second action so he could grapple Blackwarm. As his move action, he flew as fast as he could upwards (which honestly isn't very fast when in medium armor and laden with a tengu), getting out of reach of the remaining barbarian. The barbarian cut Helden viciously, but Neirida and Helden cut him down (barbarians can definitely be backstabbed), and the lone bush didn't manage to drop Helden before Hans' second lightning strike rolled near-maximum damage (28 on 3d10) and created bush flambe.
So, the party was victorious, but everyone is gravely wounded, and considering the number of fireballs and lightning strikes that went off, they're pretty sure Iris Hill is now on alert...
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So, the party was victorious, but everyone is gravely wounded,
Wouldn't that be gravely victorious with Blackwarm around? Had he risen any of the cultists yet?
and considering the number of fireballs and lightning strikes that went off, they're pretty sure Iris Hill is now on alert...
"Nah, maybe it's just a fireball and lightning storm raging outside. No point in checking out!"
So, the party was victorious, but everyone is gravely wounded,Wouldn't that be gravely victorious with Blackwarm around? Had he risen any of the cultists yet?
and considering the number of fireballs and lightning strikes that went off, they're pretty sure Iris Hill is now on alert..."Nah, maybe it's just a fireball and lightning storm raging outside. No point in checking out!"
Yeah, as the others are healing up, Blackwarm is providing reinforcements...
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Session 23.5: We're Leaving! played 06-Nov-2017
This wasn't so much of a "session" per se, but rather a tactical retreat. Impus Minor is sick, and got sicker as the night progressed, so we started at around 6:55 pm and ended at 7:35 pm when he said he had too much of a headache to continue.
The party spent about 15 rounds with Hans healing himself and Blackwarm as Helden scouted the rest of the grounds. Not finding a separate crypt, Neirida concluded that it must be under the house proper. She also felt that the party wasn't ready to assault what may well be an innocent house that evening, so they should retreat.
At Blackwarm's insistence, they took the corpses with them. Imagine my delight in informing them that the entire "Terror of Thrushmoor" was the disappearance of townspeople without a trace, and yet here they were, making the cultists disappear without a trace. Apparently, turnabout is fair play!
They set up watches for the evening but it was all for naught; I asked Neirida to roll 1d20 to determine whether the cultists had figured out it was them and traced them back to their hideaway (low being bad for the party), and her natural 20 ensured that they had a restful night's sleep.
In the morning, they prepared with a new plan: Approach Iris Hill ready to storm it, but first knock at the door to determine whether there were any innocents remaining within.
Blackwarm, anticipating the answer, went to his cave-o-rotting-corpses and brought back Gill Murray, Gill Clinton, and Fergillson, a trio of scum zombies to help with the assault.
I've never run a necromancer before. The swarm of minis on the map as the army of undead approached Iris Hill was... daunting.
Though next week I do look forward to asking him, "How are you getting half a dozen armed and armored undead through the city without anyone noticing?"
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Those zombie names are awesome. : ) and for you NPR fans, what about Gill Kurtis?
Also, may I suggest Gill T. Pleasure? ; )
Just an update for those following: On the 14th I was sick and couldn't run. Last night I got everything set up, but seeing as to how it was the kids' first evening of vacation they had "better" things to do (i.e., play video games until the wee hours of the morning), so again no session. Hopefully next week!
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Session 24: Mr. Bones Calling, played 28-Nov-2017
The party spent an... interesting day relaxing around town waiting for sunset.
Their first order of business was to investigate Iris Hill by day. Helden tried to disguise Hans as an old woman but rolled horrifically (a 4 on the die, which admittedly ended up being a 15 or so); our description ended up being an old mop shoved on top of his head and a welcome mat as a shawl. Once he'd utterly humiliated Hans, he asked whether he could take 20 on his Disguise check, and I responded that of course he could. So Neirida was made up magnificently, making Hans look even worse. Blackwarm and Helden hid up the road as Hans and Neirida approached the gatehouse. To my horror, the cultist who opened the viewhole at their knock rolled even worse on his Perception check than Helden had on his Disguise (he got a natural 1), so he believed their ruse. Neirida showed him Hasok's drawing of Nemira Lowls and told him that they were trying to put her spirit to rest, and wondered whether he knew her or had seen her. He grumpily shooed her away, but not before Hans rolled a gargantuan Perception check to see the sharpened teeth of the other "guards" in the gatehouse. That was enough for Neirida: They would assault Iris Hill at night, and wipe out the cultists and barbarians who had most likely done away with Count Lowls and come up with a cock-and-bull story about him going on a trip to cover their tracks.
On the way back from Iris Hill, Blackwarm asked Neirida whether he could borrow money to buy more onyx. While she hated the undead and thought they were disgusting, she had to admit that Blackwarm was indeed doing good with them, so she loaned him the cash and he cheerfully bought more onyx. "Being a necromancer is expensive," Blackwarm complained.
For reasons beyond my understanding, Neirida decided she wanted an owl. I decided it was a perfectly reasonable thing to be able to purchase in Ustalav, so she bought herself a petite white owl and named it Bogart. Only 10 gold pieces! What a bargain! Not to be outdone, Helden promptly bought a rat. A 1 copper piece rat. And named it Squeakers. Squeakers lasted just long enough for NobodysWife to pantomine an owl swallowing a rat. "Oh, no! Squeakers!"
Helden purchased Squeakers II. Hans asked to borrow Squeakers II. Helden obliged. Hans put Squeakers II in his familiar pouch with Skitters. Helden bought Squeakers III and IV (just in case). As Blackwarm started complaining, Helden threw Squeakers III at him. He bought Squeakers V. (Yes, I am dutifully recording this. Some day I will tell the tale of Lucky the Hamster. Not today...)
Helden cooked them a wonderful lunch (he rolled a 22 on Profession: Cook). Squeakers was not on the menu. Blackwarm moved all his undead to their cave. He put up a sign that read, "Caution: Witch's Curse" outside the cave to make sure no one would go exploring (as if "Caution: Zombies Ahead" wouldn't have worked equally well) and spent some time trying to construct a gate. With no craft skills to speak of, he finally had to turn to Helden, who fashioned a little undead corral for him.
As night fell, the party blessedly finally moved on to Iris Hill (this is an Adventure Path, not a Buy Rats and Feed them to Familiars Path, after all). Blackwarm had his entire contingent of undead: 4 skum zombies and 2 human skeletons. As the zombies waited in the bushes outside the manor, Blackwarm sent Mr. Bones to go knock on the front door while the rest of the party snuck through the hedge. (Another natural 2 on their Perception roll meant those guards really weren't paying attention.)
The plan was executed flawlessly. Or at least everything went flawlessly, even if it wasn't planned. At the knock, the cultist slid back the viewhole to see, "Aaah! A skeleton!" Neirida and Hans approached the back door of the building and knocked. The kuru thug there slid back the viewhole and got... a faceful of spear from Hans, who rolled incredibly well and got a solid hit in spite of the AC bonus for full cover. The thug, being a brutish sort, threw the doors open wide to do battle with his attackers. And thus Neirida, Hans, and Helden did lay waste to everyone within, with the undead preventing anyone from escaping. Hans did use a Burning Hands at the start of combat, but rolling an 18 on 5d4 made it well worth the cost, and no other resources were used. (Hans also used a Slumber Hex on the cultist, but those are free.)
So at the end of the night the party had flawlessly eliminated the guards in the gatehouse, kept the house intact (a hilarious moment was Blackwarm's two skeletons pounding on the door and not managing to get through its hardness of 5 even once), pulled the guards inside, and were planning their next move, undetected.
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You know, I half expecteed Blackwarm to eat Squeakers the third. Or reanimate it as a rat-skeleton... Or both...
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That was a fun session... I will never forget Squeakers I, II and III but Squeakers IV and V live on...
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*Edges away from necromancers*
My party dressed as cultists then talked their way in...right until they ran into someone wanting to sacrifice the magus they brought in as part of whole act.
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Session 25: The Number of the Day Shall be Two, played 18-Dec-2017
It seems that every AP book has at least one caster who somehow, miraculously, has Silent, Still spells with invisible effects without having to pay any feats. In The Thrushmoor Terror, it’s Daelene’s bizarre decision to cast Suggestion at the dinner table surrounded by PCs. They’ll somehow not notice this!??!?!
It’s a very common problem. “When the caster hears the PCs in the next room, he starts casting.” Well, if he can hear them, then they can hear him. And on, and on, and on, in every AP. It’s as if none of the authors has ever played at a table where, “Well, whatever you do as a GM is fine with us, as long as the same rules apply to the PCs as well.”
Rant over.
So, what can I say about last night, other than, “If this is what happens when you let Impus Minor play a non-ranger, maybe I should just kill him and make him ranger up.”
On the other hand, so… frigging… hilarious!
We started the fiasco evening with the party crowding into the small gatehouse to heal up and make plans. Blackwarm’s undead milled about aimlessly in the misting rain outside. Fortunately, the majority of the combat had taken place inside the gatehouse itself, and they did not seem to have set off any alarms.
The next house over on the grounds was a decent-sized, well-appointed, two story house with a tree conveniently situated nearby, so the party decided to let Helden sneak over and peek in the windows. As Helden snuck (I know, I know, “sneaked” is proper English, but “snuck” sounds better) up to the house, the party was horrified to see him pull out Squeakers IV and reach for the window, obviously intending to throw Squeakers IV at the miscreants inside. Neirida rushed under the tree and vehemently disparaged Helden. He acquiesced (it’s SAT night, folks!), and grudgingly put Squeakers IV away and reported to the party that in the house was a well-dressed couple: The woman was pacing nervously across the floor, obviously waiting for someone, while the man sat patiently in an overstuffed chair, sipping at what looked like a glass of cognac. Neirida suggested that Helden go back, climb the wall, and check the upstairs.
“Climb?”, asked the rogue, querulously (whee!).
“Yes. You’re a rogue! You can climb, right? Go up to the upper floor and peek in the windows!”
By miracle, Helden rolled a 13, making the DC 20 Climb roll exactly. Unfortunately, peeking in the window, he saw… the top of the stairwell. Trying to shimmy along to the next window, Helden rolled much lower (a 7, I think), and plummeted to the ground, taking 6 points of damage and letting out a massive squeal. As the door flew open, I counted squares. The undead horde, milling about in the middle of the courtyard, was just beyond Daelene’s range of vision. Helden continued letting out piteous wails from the ground underneath the tree. Neirida had had enough. “Excuse me! We’re here to check in on you!”
In one of the most epic moments of hilarity of the evening (and there were many), as Neirida had Daelene distracted, Blackwarm hissed, “Guys! Guys! Hide! Go!” and Impus Major gathered his ludicrous horde (I think it’s up to 4 skum zombies and 2 human skeletons) and dragged them desperately off the map, shielding them from Daelene’s figure’s sight as if the mini really could see. We all practically fell out of our chairs laughing at Impus Major’s desperation to get the undead “belowdecks”.
Neirida’s ploy fell well in line with Asa and Daelene’s. She pretended to be an envoy of Count Lowls, there to check on the health and well-being of his guests while he was away. In the first 2-count I remember, Neirida rolled a natural 20 on her Bluff check, while Daelene rolled a 2 on Sense Motive. On the other hand, Asa and Daelene pretended to be noble guests of the Count, put out by his rude departure, but welcoming the Count’s minions as guests and offering them wine and a place by the fire. Of course this time it was Neirida’s turn to roll a 2 on her Sense Motive, so it was all chummy and cozy as Blackwarm (Daelene was delighted to meet a real live tengu) and the mud-covered, whining, bloody Helden staggered in. Hans, hampered by his slow movement (stupid shaman in medium armor) and Impus Major’s bizarre counting of squares (he didn’t want to deal with diagonals, so Hans staggered drunkenly toward the building in a kind of left-right-left-right shift that avoided diagonals), hadn’t arrived yet.
Daelene, not wanting to lose the upper hand should things go amiss, asked whether Helden needed healing and offered to heal him, pulling out a wand.
Things were going perfectly swell, if a bit awkwardly, as Asa approached the party with the wine and Daelene pointed the wand at Helden. Then Hans walked in. Another natural 2 on Asa’s Bluff against Hans’ natural 18 on Sense motive put the contest at 12 to 31. Hans, being utterly clueless that there were any machinations going on, blurted out, “He’s obviously poisoned the wine! And that’s not a healing wand!”
Daelene took advantage of the surprise to fire a Scorching Ray at Helden, but of course, another natural 2 meant the ray went wide. Nerida hit her. Helden hit her. Blackwarm touched her with Grave Touch and she was Shaken.
“Aaah! What did you DO to me!”
“I touched your butt.”
Yes, it was that kind of an evening.
Asa and Hans were useless, and Daelene managed to get off a Charm Person. Even with a +5, Helden’s roll of a 7 (apparently his die preferred 7s over 2s) wasn’t enough, and Helden suddenly wanted to protect her. He didn’t get much of a chance, as Neirida’s next blow sent her to negative hit points. (Caster in a small room syndrome.) Hans put Protection from Evil on Helden, but he (of course) rolled a natural 2 and remained charmed. Blackwarm tossed an Acid Splash at Asa but missed. Asa huddled in a corner and drank a Potion of Invisibility. I ruled that Helden had to try to save Daelene. With a Heal skill of +0, he dutifully failed to help her, but Impus Minor roleplayed it magnificently. “Daelene! Daelene! Please don’t die on me! You’re my best friend! I have to save you!”
So as the battle raged on, with Neirida missing Asa because of his invisibility, and him getting a nice backstab in on her, but thus sacrificing his invisibility, Helden continued to cry for Daelene, and fail his Heal checks.
Once Neirida had cut Asa down, Blackwarm grew tired of Helden’s wailing, walked up, invoked his Driven by Guilt trait (seriously? +1 damage per class level as a trait?), and coup de graced Daelene. Since Helden had dropped his weapons in his attempts to save Daelene, he had nothing with which to make an attack of opportunity to stop him. Daelene died there, in Helden’s arms.
Sobbing, he pulled out a banjo and declared, “I shall play a dirge for my love!”
Impus Major was puzzled. “Wait! You’re not a bard! Why do you have a banjo?”
“To play for my love!”
“I coup de grace the banjo!’
We had a brief intermission as NobodysWife looked up “banjo music” on Google and ended up finding a really awesome heavy metal banjo solo. So yeah, that exists.
Returning to the game, the party searched and looted Asa and Daelene, and then sent Helden ahead to search the upstairs. In yet another of “those moments”, as I brought up the upstairs map Impus Minor said, “Hey! I don’t want to be up here alone!”
Mr. Bones and the other skeleton (sorry, Impus Major -- I don’t know that you’ve named this one yet) promptly appeared on the stairwell next to Helden, “helping”.
Neirida snorted in frustration. “No, no, no! Shoo! Git! Blackwarm, get these things out of the way!”
She joined Helden at the door as they discovered the solarium (hilarious only in that the description has “warm sunlight pouring in the windows”. On a dark, rainy night), and Asa and Daelene’s bedroom. In the bedroom was a chest. Helden had a key he had recovered from dear, departed Daelene’s corpse. He went in alone and tried the key. The chest exploded. I rolled 30 points of damage on 6d6. Helden was… unhappy.
Neirida stormed down and coup de graced Asa for trapping his own stuff.
They found thousands of gold pieces’ worth of jewelry, clothing, wine, and other fineries. Neirida complained that they wouldn’t be able to carry it all. As skum zombies started coming up the stairs she said, “No, no, no! We’ll pick it up later!”
The zombies might have looked slightly disappointed. Blackwarm did want to get a noble’s outfit for Mr. Bones. The party ignored his request.
We ended for the evening with the group deciding which building to explore next.
And just for clarity, GothBard may retcon when, exactly, she killed Asa. But he was alive, stable, and tied up, and at some point after finding everything in the house, Neirida decided he no longer deserved to exist.
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RIP Banjo 2017-2017
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Session 26: Ohs, Noes, Mr. Bones!, played 4-Jan-2018
The other big issue for this session was the basidirond. NobodysWife has already complained about the sheer volume of save-or-sucks thrown at PCs in the AP so far, and we're only in Book 2. Yes, it's supposed to be a Call of Cthulu-style game, where "suck or suck" is the norm, but for a bloodrager whose die absolutely loathes her, NobodysWife is getting more than her fair share of frustration in failed saves and missed swings. As I said, I'm thinking increasing the cap on Hero Points and handing them out more often so people can choose rerolls on occasion will probably help with some of that.
With the guest manor secured, Blackwarm had his skum zombies and skeletons move on in and settle down upstairs. Like a happy little sick undead smelly inhuman family. Blackwarm felt right at home.
The next building over was the stables. There were no lights on there, so the party had Helden sneak over to take a peek. A natural 20 on his roll gave him a Stealth of 43, and all thoughts of minute-per-level buffs or haste went out the window as Helden the Stealth God proceeded to circumnavigate the entire facility, peeking into every single window with impunity. In a couple of windows, the creatures actually got a die roll. But no, Helden was effectively invisible for the duration, and the party got a fantastic tactical layout thanks to his one lucky roll. Nice one, Helden!
Anyway, the stable proper was blood-spattered and broken; the horses had obviously been violently slaughtered, but by what? There was a door across the room, so Helden entered... and heard a faint whinnying, seemingly from nowhere and everywhere at once.
Sometimes I really love naive players. I'm sure that many experienced players would have put, "Bloodstains + Perception Roll + Sensing Something Not There" together, immediately concluded, "Haunt", and jumped out of the room. Not Helden! Helden thought, "Invisible horse?"
Fortunately for Helden, my die was still pining for the good old days of nothing but 2's, so the Haunt rolled a 3 and the spectral hoof swung harmlessly by his head. Helden, being Helden, almost completely ignored it. "Hey, guys! There's an invisible horse here that tries to kick you in the head! Watch out for it!"
He moved around the rest of the building, seeing an attached carriage house complete with carriage and freshly-dug hole, but Neirida directed him to move on; they were more interested in finding and removing people than in inanimate objects. However, Helden indicated that there were stairs going up to a second floor in the carriage house, so Neirida decided that they would wait just outside the door of the carriage house while Helden explored the rest of the estate. Blackwarm brought Mr. Bones and Poor Unnamed Skeleton with him, and left his skum zombies lounging upstairs in the guest manor with instructions even I, a mathematician, could not quite parse. Something along the lines of, "Attack anyone who enters, unless it's one of us, or unless it may be one of us in disguise. Or I tell you not to. Even if you don't recognize me. But if you don't recognize me and it's not me then attack. Then..."
Impus Major made sure the zombies were going nowhere, their teensy little undead CPUs burning cycles on that little bit of convoluted logic.
Helden checked each building in turn: To their west was a kitchen in which four of the sharp-toothed kuru were tearing apart and somewhat cooking a horse. They were obviously far more interested in their meal than in anything happening in the rain outside, so the party was fairly confident they could wait on the kurus until they were good and ready to take them on. In the back of the building was a pantry with a window. Yeah, I like to let light and moisture in to the food I'm trying to store long-term, so all my pantries have windows. Anyway... In the northern wing of the manor proper were three bored-looking cultists of Hastur, apparently waiting for something to happen. Outside of their room was a hallway cluttered with dusty books, scrolls, curios, cases, art, and all manner of nonsense, like an estate sale for an insane 1000-year-old goth gnome. The southern wing of the manor proper housed a similarly-cluttered library, this one complete with manananggal fluttering about in it! For reasons known only to him, Helden skipped the final building (the bathhouse) and returned to the party. Maybe it was because the lights were off, and they'd already slaughtered everyone near the bathhouse the night before.
Now that they knew what they were up against, Neirida suggested a systematic exploration of the estate, and obliteration of all within. No one objected. They started by entering the carriage house (it wasn't locked) and moving up the stairs. Neirida, Hans, and Helden lined up at the door, with Mr. Bones and Poor Unnamed Skeleton behind him. Blackwarm, being Blackwarm, hid way in the back, a bit down the stairs. He peeked up just enough to cast Open on the door and ducked back down, just as the basidirond in the room unleashed its spores. Neirida rolled a natural 20 on her save, Hans mananged to save, and the skeletons were unaffected. Helden decided he was suffocating, much to Impus Minor's delight. (Basidironds are his favorite creature by far; he always hopes to fail his save and then run the cycle of all the effects, just so he can see what they all are.) Blackwarm was out of range. Neirida struck the basidirond for significant damage, but then learned that my reduction of house rules (they were really getting out of hand) included removing auto-immunity on a natural 20, so she had to save again. And of course she failed on her second roll, flailing about as if she was in quicksand. NobodysWife was significantly miffed, and it's hard to blame her: Not only had I removed the rule on a natural 20 granting immunity, but she'd rolled a natural 20 against one of the few creatures with a persistent, save-every-round effect, and to top it all off, her die rolled like garbage and she failed an almost-unmissable save. Hans, not to be outdone, failed his save, dropped everything, and ran away. Leaving... Blackwarm and his skeletons. The basidirond pounded on Neirida to little effect as she next ran away, joining Hans downstairs (at least she didn't run out of the building. Hans ended up in the middle of the courtyard, which might have been deadly had they not been so careful). Helden mirculously rolled three or four 4's in a row, much to Impus Minor's amusement and disappointment. He kept asking, "How long until I really suffocate?", to which I answered, "Still a LOOOOONG time to go." Mr. Bones bravely strode up, flailed at the basidirond, hit once, and BAM! The basidirond one-shot Mr. Bones. Poor Mr. Bones! We'll miss him! Up walked Poor Unnamed Skeleton. He didn't even get in a hit before the basidirond obliterated him. I was really beginning to worry about the party. But apparently killing all his skeletons makes Blackwarm cranky. He finally stepped onto the landing and launched a pair of Scorching Rays at the basidirond, hitting solidly both times. Considering Neirida had already done nearly 40 points to it, the basidirond expired in a gout of flamy death. Blackwarm proceeded to show off by easily making his Fortitude save against the spores, and wondered what was wrong with everybody else.
Once the rather grumpy group was re-gathered, Hans healed those who were injured and they explored the room. It was obviously someone's bedroom, but there was a poorly-hidden shrine to Hastur on one wall. Neirida tore down the tapestry on which his symbol was written and stole the incense. Just to incense whoever's shrine it was. Ba dum dum.
The next room was a library or reading room, and a quick scan with Detect Magic determined that one of the books, a journal of some sort, was protected with a Sepia Snake Sigil. Did I mention that spirit shamans get wicked-high Knowledge skills? Helden declared it "no problem at all", walked up as everyone winced, and easily disarmed the trap on his very first attempt.
Reading through the journal, the party learned that a few weeks ago, just before Count Lowls left, he had a number of occult books delivered to his residence, especially books associated with dreaming and alternative realities. Neirida's belief that Lowls might be innocent was slowly fading.
And we ended for the night.
I have been informed that "Poor Unnamed Skeleton" was actually Tom Bones.
R.I.P. Tom Bones.
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Session 27: I just fought a what?!?!?! And mangoes! Played 08-Jan-2018
As Hans healed the group of their wounds from the basidirond, Blackwarm retrieved his skum zombies to replenish his ranks while Helden and Neirida discussed tactics. After a bit of time, they decided that Helden would sneak up to the kitchen door and lock it, preventing the kuru from entering the fray whether or not they heard anything. They would then assault the cultists in the north wing of the manor. Blackwarm managed to utterly fail his Knowledge: Religion roll on manananggals (which the whole group gave up trying to pronounce and just resorted to "mango"). Fortunately, Hans was there, and actually rolled well enough to warn them of its general abilities, and even better, of its vulnerability to silver and light weapons. Helden, dual-wielding silver daggers, looked truly happy. So they would assault the cultists, Helden would drink a Potion of Invisibility when the manananggal joined in, get into flanking position, and tear it apart. (The most hilarious moment was Blackwarm trying to convince the party that manananggals couldn't use their short stubby arms to open doors, so they didn't have to worry about it. Kind of like t-rexes.)
Ah, when the best-laid plans meet reality!
It took Helden SIX TRIES to lock the door of the kuru's room, leading to Neirida's Protection from Evil wearing off. When Helden offered to lock other doors around the compound, the group said, "Oh, no, no! That's OK! You did such a great job, let's not push our luck!"
Blackwarm posted two of his zombies to hold the door closed, just in case.
To my horror, they managed to line up at the door outside of the cultists' room, zombies and all, without the cultists hearing them. Zombies can be quiet! Who knew?
The surprise round was a disappointing indicator of things to come: Blackwarm cast Open on the door and Neirida hit the cultist nearest it hard, but he didn't drop. The zombie trying to help her missed outright. Both Helden's Charm Person and Hans' Slumber hex failed. The cultists had a high enough initiative that they got to act at the top of the first round. Two of them got off their Shield of Faiths. The third took a 5' step away from Neirida, and learned to his misfortune that she had Step Up. He failed his Concentration check to cast defensively and lost his spell. The party spent a lot of time getting in each other's way: Helden dropped the one Neirida was on, she hit a second one, but then Hans slept him and the zombie knocked his sleeping form into negative hit points.
It seemed like it would be an easy, if clumsy, rout, when the weird dog thing appeared from a corner right next to Fergillson (the bloodthirsty zombie) and one-shot him. R.I.P. Fergillson. On the bright side, his being in the way spared any PCs a full-round attack. Hans dutifully rolled a 1 on his Knowledge: Planes roll, and no one else even had it, so the party had no idea whatsoever what they were up against. Even better, since I'd bought the Shattered Star mini set, I had an honest-to-goodness figure for it, but none of the players recognized it! They just said, "Ooh, what a cool figure!", which made me happy. Blackwarm said, "I want its corpse!" Which was kind of expected.
The final cultist gestured to the dog to help him flank Neirida, so the party knew that whatever it was, it was intelligent. Helden turned to attack the creature and... suffered its Ripping Gaze, taking 15 hit points just for looking in its direction. He ran up and hit it, but his dagger slid uselessly off its hide. Helden was Unhappy. Neirida roared, stepped up to confront the dog, rolled a natural 20 on her Fortitude save against the gaze... and then fumbled. Poor Neirida! Her dice really know how to mess up a dramatic moment! She got blood in her eyes, and was -4 to hit for the next round. Hans put Bull’s Strength on Neirida to try to help her out. Blackwarm sent in another zombie and Magic Missiled the cultist, but it didn't drop him. The dog viciously attacked Helden, knocking off another 40 or so hit points and convincing Helden that it was time to flee. The cultist moved up and failed to bother Neirida. The next round Helden closed his eyes and 5’ stepped out of the building to avoid the dog’s gaze and drank a potion of Cure Light Wounds for a whopping 2 points of healing, Neirida 5’ stepped to block the dog’s path to Helden, then hit the dog for a solid thwack (it was not resistant to Neirida’s blade with Oil of Magic Weapon applied), so she gained its undivided attention, but on her second attack she fumbled again, giving the dog concealment against her for the next round. Hans ignored Helden’s plight and moved in to engage the cultist, missing him, and Blackwarm fired a hopeless crossbow bolt into the fray, missing anyone and everything. His zombie was similarly hopeless against the cultist. The final round saw the dog attack Neirida four times but hit only twice, and she crit it on her first hit (even with the concealment) but missed on the second. Helden wisely stayed outside, while Hans attempted to assist Neirida but missed the dog as well (Hans is amazingly bad with his weapons.) Blackwarm’s Acid Splash dropped the cultist to negative hit points, and his zombie cheerfully coup de graced it. More bodies for the undead mines! (As a side note, there was a third fumble by the other zombie, so the party had 3 fumbles in a row, but it was, "You are sickened," which doesn't much bother zomies.)
The dog, down to 9 hit points and with no allies left, teleported away, frustrating the party immensely. On the bright side, NobodysWife realized Neirida had gone toe-to-toe with a Hound of Tindalos and won and was pretty darned proud. They decided to vent their frustrations on the manananggal (mango), who had been shrieking the entire fight about how she’d been ordered to stay in the room but really wanted to kill them. The combat was short and brutal: Her Deep Slumber spell failed on Neirida, and Neirida’s greatsword was slowed by the damage resistance, but still did enough to be painful. Helden had one round of glory as he backstabbed her before she grappled him, started draining his blood, and pinned him. He failed his first Escape Artist check, and on his second he even burned a Hero Point for a reroll and failed. Neirida, downright cranky at this point, hit and then burned a Hero Point to get a bonus on her second attack. So of course she rolled a natural 20 on the first attack, and then a 16 on the second attack. The Hero Point was unneeded as the manananggal, crit and hit by a raging barbarian, exploded in a stream of gore. (If you're wondering what Blackwarm was doing during the combat, he was using his wand of Scorching Ray and rolling appallingly: Four shots, four misses, with not a single roll over a 7.) Blackwarm eagerly came in and picked up the pieces and put them in his sack.
Necromancers.
We called it an evening with the party regrouping, healing, and deciding how to proceed in the mango’s room.
Cthulesque weird dog?
EDIT: Ah, well, I was right.
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Session 28: Darn You and Your Perception Roll, Hans! Played 30-Jan-2018
The other thing that really surprised me was how little trouble they had with the encounters. I hit them with Risi, two cultists, and Rumatri all at once, and in spite of Neirida's frustrating rolls, it was mostly a steamroller.
After defeating the manananggal (mango), the party, not wanting to lose its buffs, decided to move on almost immediately rather than perform a thorough search. There was the requisite argument between Blackwarm and Neirida as to whether Blackwarm could have the manananggal's "body" ("She's just like any other corpse. They're a sack full of organs. She's just organs without the sack." "NO, Blackwarm!") Hans did the requisite Detect Magic, Helden looked over the desk, and they made off with a magical bookplate and what looked like some of Lowls' journals, though they didn't take the time to read them.
Taking the stairs up, the party found themselves in a small landing. Blackwarm cast Open on the door at the end of the landing, and Hans was perceptive enough to see the dozens (if not hundreds) of rats moving towards the undersides of the floorboards. Unfortunately for the rats, Hans rolled a massive initiative and hit them with a Fireball before they could escape. They failed their save and died miserably. Blackwarm asked, "Wow, Hans! Was that really necessary?"
"I hate rats. And I'm running out of healing resources."
"Oh. Don't tell Helden about the rat thing. Or Squeakers."
They entered the long hallway and opened the first door. It was a dusty bedroom, obviously once having been used by a child, but now long fallen into disuse. Neirida checked the lone chair in the room and it was still warm, as if recently vacated. Blackwarm eyed Hans. "Nice going! I wonder how they knew we were coming?"
They crossed the hall to the next door along, and as they approached it they heard a woman's voice starting a bardic performance inside. They threw the door open to see... nothing! Well, they saw the well-appointed master bedroom, but though they could hear the performer, they could not see her. At that point the cultists chose to strike, coming out of the next doorway down and hoping to get a surprise attack on Neirida's back. Unfortunately, Hans' natural 20 on his Perception roll allowed him to warn Neirida, so she spotted the cultist and his backstab missed the mark. A woman in rogue's clothing darted the other way, but Hans spotted her as well. She yelled, "Kill the guy who keeps seeing all of us!"
Yes. Hans was annoying them.
Speaking of annoying, the battle was a combination of epic and frustrating as extremely swingy dice made the combat go this way or that. Rumatri the penanggalen abandoned her Invisibility in favor of Glitterdusting the party, but this meant Neirida could run up and start hitting her. They engaged in a rather nasty battle where Neirida used Step Up and not one but TWO natural 20's on her Will save against Hold Person to keep Rumatri busy, but Rumatri's bardic performance, fast healing, and mobility kept her alive long enough to ensure the cultists and Risi were real threats. That, plus Neirida's die's decision to roll amazingly well on all her saves except one (she succumbed to a single Ear-Piercing Scream of all the save-or-suck spells Rumatri threw at her, and handily saved against all the rest), but amazingly terribly on her to hit rolls meant the combat went on for nine long rounds. Helden got involved where he could, but Fergillson the scum zombie and Hans kept getting in the way, and he almost never got a flank. Towards the end of the fight he was instrumental in helping down Rumatri, as she couldn't escape both him and Neirida. But he also fumbled and spent a round Confused, striking himself in the head something awful. Poor Blackwarm, almost out of spells, spent most of his time trying to use Spectral Hand and Grave Touch and missing horribly. He got in one Acid Splash on a cultist, and one Scorching Ray on Rumatri. I'm sure Impus Major will correct me if he did any more. But I do remember at the very end of the fight he managed to fumble and entangle himself in his gear. The fight was not Blackwarm's finest moment.
Speaking of not having a fine moment, let's talk about Risi. Hans kept spotting her, so she needed him dead. When she finally managed to evade his Perception roll, she chose a quick kill rather than waiting 3 rounds for a rather unlikely death strike (DC 13? With all the PCs having Hero Points? That just wasn't going to happen). She moved in, stabbed him well and got in her backstab damage and her Black Adder Venom, and Hans finally rolled a natural 1 on his save! Hooray! But wait! Hans has Defiant Luck, one of my favorite feats for a human! His reroll was a natural 20 (of course) and Hans was saved! Curses! Hans took a 5' step back, used a Slumber hex on Risi, and... another natural 2 on her save! Fergillson cheerfully coup de graced her, ending Risi as a threat. The cultists did well, flanking as they could, and had +10 to hit, but Neirida had an AC of 27 so they couldn't hit her, and Rumatri was screaming something awful that they needed to do something about this barbarian carving her to pieces. The final few rounds of the fight were one pathetic cultist channeling negative energy as the group pounded him to death.
The group spent a little time searching the room, but again wasn't particularly interested in loot at the moment. They opened the door to the private study, found some magical papers, a magic book, and a trunk, had Helden open the trunk to reveal more books, and decided to look it over at their leisure later. They found another staircase going up, and headed into the attic.
And this is where I screwed up as a GM. Neirida saw Nemira Lowls and desperately wanted to bring her back to sanity. She told her how they had found Clymes and put him to rest, and how they had intended to put her to rest, but now that they had found her alive they'd get her the help she needed. It could have been fun. It could have been an epic moment. Instead, a tired GM had Nemira attack. Totally my bad, and I admit I screwed up.
The fight was about what you'd expect from a bloodrager with a two-handed weapon against a caster. Except Hans hit her with a Slumber hex on the very first round, she keeled over, and they decided to put her out of her misery and coup de graced her.
After my screw-up, I decided to end the session so we'd be able to resume and do the follow-up when I was better-rested.
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They are getting to level 7? Blackwarm will be getting his very own animate dead now? Neirida gonna love that...
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Session 29: Oh, You Poor, Poor Thing! Played 06-Feb-2018
Yeah, it's been one of those weeks for dice for me. First we suffered a near-TPK in our Sunday game because my die couldn't roll over a 6. And on Tuesday night, using a different set, this fiasco happened.
With Nemira Lowls dead, the party first discussed what to do with her body. I won't mention Blackwarm's suggestions, but eventually they decided that they would proceed as planned, and bury her in the churchyard next to Clymes. My group are such suckers for a romance story! Even a hideous, deranged, murder-infused, undead-spawning romance story! Yay? Eew?
Once they'd decided on the fate of Nemira's corpse, they searched the rest of her musty old attic. Hans had little trouble finding her stash of jewels among the mouldering potted plants, and the party quickly decided that, considering the abominations they'd seen so far, there was nothing amoral about looting the manor entirely.
Moving downstairs, they started performing a thorough room-by-room search; not only had they rushed through previously, but they were still missing Melisenn and a hound of Tindalos. Something was missing. The master bedroom provided no further clues nor treasure beyond the paperwork they had already found (and not gone through yet -- there'd be time for that later). Similarly, they found nothing new in the private study, though they'd already looted a large stack of interesting-looking books, a spellbook, and some papers from there. Moving down the hall, the room Risi had been occupying seemed to be a long-disused child's bedroom, while the room the cultists had been in was a guest bedroom. In that room was a nice bit of loot the cultists had been hoarding, including another Pearl of Power. The party chose to give that one to Hans as well.
The final guest bedroom was far more interesting, with a vat of vinegar and the earthly remains of the manananggal and penananggalen. The penguin's body was still equipped with some fairly nice gear, and a cabinet contained several scrolls, including one of See Invisibility.
Done with the guest bedrooms, they crossed the hall. Through the door they could hear horrific tittering, as of a thousand insane weasels giggling at a clumsy man's fall. Neirida opened the door and saw... an empty room. Blackwarm raced across the entrance to hand her the scroll, so on her next round she cast it as she stepped in. The sight that confronted her was alarming: A huge mass of writhing claw-tipped tentacles floated, giggling in the center of the room. Its gaping maw sported rows of sharp teeth. It reached for her and...
...the GM rolled a 1. And another 1. And a 2. For an absolutely perfect double-fumble. Card #1: You are fatigued. Oh, well. I guess I can live with that. Card #2: Hit yourself and do normal damage. Well, that includes the bleed damage. Wait, what? Weakness to bleed? You're sickened when bleeding? Oh, c'mon!
As the hapless, pulsating mass of tentacles ripped itself open, Neirida thought she understood. "Oh, you poor thing! You used to be human, didn't you? And these monsters in the manor did this to you? Well, don't you worry! I'll take care of you!"
It was an even worse fight than it could have been because Hans had a wand of Cure Light Wounds just outside of the creature's reach, and every time it hit Neirida to give her bleed damage so it could start healing, Hans would cluelessly heal her because he didn't want her bleeding.
So it was nothing more than a, "Beat this fatigued, sickened abomination into mush," fight.
Neirida said some words over the creature's corpse, still convinced that it was an unfortunate victim who had run afoul of the cultists.
The group moved downstairs and searched the dining room (looted silverware), the hallway (Blackwarm took the Black Marketer feat, so selling that stuff is easy), where they learned that Lowls seemed to be afraid of kittens (Neirida explicitly forbade Blackwarm from raising an undead kitten army) and finally the library. Taking extra care to search the library more thoroughly this time, they found a trap door leading to the catacombs below.
They piled all the conveniently-provided furniture on the door, and added the dead tentacly thing for good measure. No one was getting out of that lair! As a quick side trip they went over to the kitchen and introduced the kurus there to Blackwarm's remaining Fireball and Burning Hands spells.
With the surface of Iris Hill secure and the underground denizens trapped for the moment, the party set up watches and rested for the night.
The Party Leveled Up to 7.
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(Neirida explicitly forbade Blackwarm from raising an undead kitten army)
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The Party Leveled Up to 7.
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The penguin's body was still equipped with some fairly nice gear
This is the best thing I have ever read.
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(Neirida explicitly forbade Blackwarm from raising an undead kitten army)
Our time will come. Soon.....
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Session 30: Ze Sleep Hex, She is Ze Broken! Part 2 Played 13-Feb-2018
Now rested, the party moved the furniture off the trap door and headed down. It was pitch black down below, so Hans used Light on his spear and they proceeded. The door at the bottom of the stairs was locked. Helden had no difficulty at all picking the lock, and the group found itself in a very fancy wine cellar, with many pretty bottles. Helden tried to appraise the value of the contents of the cellar, but his horrific roll meant he was appraising the bottles, not the liquor, so he got a very low number. Blackwarm, moving in, had the insight to actually open the bottles and sniff the wine, and declared that the spirits where quite valuable. They carefully packed the wine into their packs and moved on. Blackwarm tried the next door, finding it locked, and Impus Minor (Helden) declared, "I hurl a piece of wood from across the room and into the lock." His 32 on Disable Device meant I'm going to have to deal with this as a viable method of lockpicking for a looooong time.
The hallway out of the room was very dimly lit by a lantern in a room roughly 40 feet to the north. There was a side door, but as the party moved forward they heard whispering ahead, so they chose to pass the door and move in to the room with the light. It was a very odd room, it might once have been used as an ossuary or other storage room, but now it was hung with yellow tapestries with the sign of Hastur boldly emblazoned on one of them. As they moved about the room trying to figure out its purpose, Neirida moved into line of sight with The Keeper of the Yellow Sign (the Keeper, since all that's a pain to write), and combat was on! Neirida resisted his Unsettling Aura, but Helden, moving into line of sight to throw a dagger, didn't. Hans succeeded as he moved over to add Bull's Strength to Neirida's Barkskin to take on this foe. Blackwarm was busy herding his zombies down the narrow corridor. Neirida moved in and struck a solid blow, but the Keeper took it and struck solidly back! Hearing the commotion, Weiralai the denizen of Leng opened the door at the end of the hall, declared, "You have made a grave mistake returning here. Lowls should have finished the job of sacrificing you instead of sending you to that... doctor," and more nonsense, then got hit with Hans' Slumber Hex and dropped like a sack of potatoes. In a display of sheer incompetent camaraderie, the two kuru thugs who heard the commotion broke open the door from the ice cellar to the rest of the basement, ran down the passage towards the commotion, and set off Melisenn's Glyph of Warding on themselves. (Y'know, they heard the fight, they do good damage, and that door isn't that solid.) Helden flung his dagger uselessly at the Keeper, but Blackwarm suddenly became The Most Dangerous Bird in the Room when he hit the Keeper with Command Undead, and they could both tell he was powerful enough to make it stick if he had half a chance. The Keeper was no longer sanguine, and started draining levels. He took a level from Neirida. She hit him back but didn't drop him, so Hans used Hydraulic Push to knock him against a wall, away from Neirida. Unfortunately, Helden had just moved there. Blackwarm herded his zombies over to Weiralai's unconscious form as he tried another Command Undead. The Keeper was getting nervous, so he drained a level from Helden. At some point in there the thugs arrived, but the first one who ran in got clotheslined by Neirida's greatsword (one AoO, one dead kuru), and the other did nothing of note through the entire fight. So, all three zombies tried to coup de grace Weiralai, and in a fitting end for such an encounter she failed her Fortitude save on the very first one and died, without a single attack roll of any sort. The Keeper soon fell to Neirida's blade, and they set to exploring the rooms the guardians had left behind, but not before Blackwarm checked on the corpses. Much to his dismay, Weiralai's corpse dissolved into nothingness before he could do anything with it.
The room they had passed was nothing but an empty cell. The room in which the keeper had been waiting was a storage room with nothing of interest save a bell-shaped object with Thrushmoor's crest engraved on its flat bottom and a ring for a string or ribbon at its top. No one in the party could figure out what it was, but they figured it was probably city property, so they should give it back. They took it. The room where the kuru thugs had been was just an ice cellar. In another "epic GM fail of unpreparedness" I missed the ladder, so I left all my players wondering why Melisenn had locked two thugs in an ice cellar and then put a Glyph of Warding between them and the rest of the basement. It may have been inaccurate, but it was certainly funnier.
The most interesting room was the one in which Weirilai had been lurking. It was the family crypt, wherein all the prior lords and ladies of Iris Hill were entombed. On top of one of the coffins was... a woman's corpse wearing the robes of a royal accuser, with a pair of metal plates attached to her chest! The cultists had faked Inquisitor Omari's body up above, so they could do something horrible to it down below! Blackwarm couldn't make heads nor tails of the device, but Neirida had a flash of a memory and identified them as Confabulation Plates, a device allowing a person to speak with the dead. Blackwarm became delighted, insisted he must have the device, and asked Inquisitor Omari, "Can you hear me?"
She responded with a hissing, whispering, "Yes."
He asked, "Are you Inquisitor Omari?" but got no response.
Neirida informed him that the device only allowed two questions per day, and they had overheard Weiralai asking the first. "But what was the second quest... ooooh..."
The whole table spent a good minute giggling over that one.
At that point Impus Minor was fading, so we stopped as the party approached the well room.
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A necromancer is not a necromancer if he isn't up to his warms in other folks body parts... :)
In a way, he is recycling.
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Hey, some necromancers are more into spiritual side of things!
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Session 31: Wait Your Turn! Played 01-Mar-2018
My only major complaint on the Iris Hill underground is the aqueducts. At the beginning of the section, we have, "Unless otherwise stated, the ceilings are 10 feet high." OK. No problem. Nothing about the aqueducts there. In the description of G6 it says, "The aqueduct tunnel is 4 feet wide and 6 feet high." So that's all great... except... how deep is the water? My PCs were asking, "Which direction is the water flowing? How deep is it? Can we traverse the aqueduct? We follow the passages off the map. Where do they go?"
So yeah, I had to do a lot of thinking on my feet because the author wanted to put in a creepy aqueduct, but didn't choose to actually describe the aqueduct. I let them traverse it, and had to conclude that it must be for overflow during the rains so the ducts led to grate-covered outlets on the sides of Iris Hill.
The beginning of the evening was anticlimactic as the party backed away from the well room to head back for the ice cellar. They still wanted to know why the kurus had been locked inside. After Helden determined that the Glyph of Warding was no more, they moved on into the room. Leading to a GM's favorite "be a PITA" moment.
"We search for secret doors. I get a... 28."
"You don't see any secret doors, but that big iron ladder leading up to a trap door in the ceiling might be blocking your view."
Helden tried to turn the ladder into wood, for... reasons. Blackwarm commented, "It's like Midas' touch, only stupider." The ladder did not change.
Scouting up the ladder, Neirida determined that it let to a kitchen full of burnt and hacked apart kurus. Ah. They'd been here before. Satisfied that they wouldn't be getting attacked from that direction, they moved on.
Returning to the well room, Helden said, "I search for traps on the well," and the group set Helden's mini all alone, at the side of the well, looking down. Hellooooo, surprise round! He was bitten both by the rat king and by one of the dire rats that came swarming out of the cracks and crevices around the well, and failed his saves for both Filth Fever and Bubonic Plague. You go, Helden! As normal rounds commenced, Helden learned that the rats were much faster than him as well, and he took attacks from all 5 of the dire rats, plus another 5 attacks from the rat king. Helden Did Not Like. Blackwarm, feeling helpful, called out, "You have Evasion, right?" Helden answered in the affirmative and a 28-hit-point Fireball exploded through the well. All the dire rats perished in flame. Helden failed his save and was dropped to 9 hit points. Only the rat king succeeded in its save. Of course. Helden did a full withdraw through the carnival train of zombies to reach Hans, who started ministering his wounds (and informed him of his infections). Neirida moved in to confront the rat king, and Blackwarm's zombies stumbled in after her (yay! Immune to disease and not breathing!). The battle between Neirida and the rat king was bloody and brutal, with Neirida hitting once a round for significant effect, and the king hitting 3 times a round and eventually getting her to fail her Fortitude save and contract Bubonic Plague as well. (GothBard put it really well: A creature that hits 5 times a round with a disease-inducing effect just sucks, and really isn't so much "fun" as "a jerk move by the creator".) Both Hans and Blackwarm failed their knowledge checks, so Blackwarm tossed ineffectual Acid Splashes at the rat king throughout, until Neirida eventually slew it. As Hans Channeled Energy to heal Helden and Neirida, Blackwarm noticed the rats' nest just off the well. They chose not to explore the nest, figuring whatever valuables the rats might have collected weren't worth the filth they'd have to go through to get them. Hans tried to use a scroll of Remove Disease on Helden, but of course, since there's a caster level check, such spells never work. I hate those spells!
Noticing the aqueducts, they first followed the one to the northeast, eventually coming to a well-lit chamber with two bizarre creatures standing in it. They were about 6 feet tall, with barrel-shaped bodied and star-shaped "heads". Tentacles protruded from all sides. In the ceiling was the bottom of a well, and the party correctly guessed that they were under the carriage house. The creatures did not move to attack, so Helden sent Squeakers IV (yeah, I'm not tracking the numbers. I'd give some made-up reason, but it really is because I don't care) to investigate. A 22 on his Handle Animal got Squeakers IV to head in the right direction. As it came near one of the creatures, the creature lashed out with a tentacle. A natural 1 followed by a natural 3 and the creature managed to fumble while trying to hit squeakers. 1d3 STR damage plus -2 to attacks for 1 minute. OK. Great. Now angry, the creature pursued the valiant, dangerous Squeakers IV. I kid you not, it missed THREE MORE TIMES before finally catching Squeakers IV in its grasp and dropping him into an opening in its top (presumably a mouth). The party discussed killing them. They obviously weren't very dangerous (*sigh*). But they also weren't attacking the party. Neidira asked Helden for Squeakers V. He grudgingly handed Squeakers V over, and Neirida approached the creature, proffering Squeakers V in her hand. This time it managed to eat a frigging rat without injuring itself. It burbled a bit at Neirida. Blackwarm's 25 on Linguistics (who maxes out Linguistics?!?!?) told him it was some kind of language, and Hans' 36 on Sense Motive told him it was not hostile, but trying to communicate. Since they were out of rats they decided to leave. Helden was not happy.
Exploring the rest of the aqueducts, the party found no other rooms. Melisenn had to be somewhere.
Retracing their steps, they searched every room (except the rats' nest, which for some reason they did not see fit to scour with their toothbrushes). Helden eventually found a secret door at the south end of the family crypt (because don't all families hide additional rooms in their crypts?). In a sense of things to come, the party let Helden slip ahead to scout. With a massive 31 Stealth, he was able to get down the stairs and peek into the hallway without being seen. To the north was a third star stela, this one glowing and covered with gallons of blood. A strange demon-like creature stood before it, watching the hallway intently. In the opposite direction was Melisenn in a garishly-decorated room, hound of tindalos at her side, also waiting for the party to arrive. Helden slipped back upstairs, they moved a couple of rooms away, and the plan for carnage began in earnest. Hans gave Neirida Spirit-Bound Blade, Bull's Strength, Magic Circle Against Evil, and Magic Weapon, then used his Pearl of Power to give Helden Barkskin. Blackwarm put Shield on himself. The party all prepared potions of Vanish. We went into initiatives as the party opened the door a second time.
Unfortunately for Melisenn, the initiatives couldn't have been worse. Every party member rolled a natural 15 or higher on Stealth except Hans, but he was at the bottom of the order. So each party member drank a potion of Vanish and then moved into the hallway. Neither she nor her allies had any idea they were there, and she hadn't heard the door to start buffing. So in her first, critical round, she was unaware anything was happening and did nothing. Then came clunky Hans and the zombies (that should be the name of a band) tumbling down the stairs like a crapalanche of used car parts. Blackwarm moved to the edge of the room. Helden ran into the room and set off the Glyph of Warding, and I proceeded to roll 3 damage on 3d8. That should have told me right there the kind of night the bad guys were going to have. The hound, preparing for combat, cast Haste on itself and Melisenn. Melisenn, finally aware that there were invisible enemies in the room, dropped Hypnotic Pattern in the area and took out Blackwarm. Neirida moved into the room, failing to avoid the hound's gaze attack but easily making her Fortitude save to ignore it. Poor hound! Hans and the zombies finally moved into the corridor and the byakhee moved to engage them, but its natural 3 ensured it wasn't going to scare anyone. Except... "Any potential threat, such as a hostile creature approaching, allows the fascinated creature a new saving throw against the fascinating effect." Stupid byakhee! Blackwarm made his save just in time to take his turn and blast at Melisenn with a Gloom Bolt. It missed, but the hound took the opportunity to charge the now-visible foe... right past Neirida, who whacked it for over a quarter of its hit points as it tried to run by! It bit at Neirida, but was obviously discombobulated as its gaze didn't affect her and her sword cut right through its damage resistance. Unhappy pup! Melisenn tried to return the favor to Blackwarm by Blinding him, but he saved. Hans turned towards the byakhee. "Wait your turn!" A Wall of Stone popped up across the passage, ending the dual threat. Helden, in an out-and-out cruel moment, stayed invisible to get up close and personal to Melisenn. "I declare that the moment she tries to cast a spell, I backstab her!"
So yep, she tried to cast and took 28 points of damage and lost her spell for it. The hound was duty-bound to try to save her, so took a nasty cut from Neirida before running up and doing some decent damage to Helden, but turning its back on the rest of the party.
With the threat of the gaze attack and the byakhee gone, it was a foregone conclusion. Neirida went up and flanked the hound with Helden, so when she didn't kill it he did. Melisenn knew the jig was up, hit Neirida and Helden with channeled negative energy, and tried to run. And Hans. Stupid, slow, "I can't hit anything to save my life" Hans, the last line of defense between the Hasted Melisenn and the door, walked up to her and rolled a natural 19 on his Grapple check. She was grabbed! It didn't much matter, because Neirida walked up and double-crit her for over 60 points of damage, but I was impressed with Hans anyway.
With the sheer amount of information the party is going to learn, I ended the session and next week is going to be an incredible data dump for them!
Plus recovering from disease! Yay!