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...who maxes out Linguistics?!?!?...
Bards, Investigators, Summoners, and Wizards? Particularly Conjurers and Enchanters so they can negotiate and issue orders as needed.
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Session 32: Paperwork! Played 08-Mar-2018
Similarly, the party wants a complete, consistent timeline that they can build against. Too bad I don't have one (though GMs in the thread have said they've built their own). The party wants a coherent list of the paperwork they found and what it tells them. Too bad, GM, you have to go through and take your own notes!
If this were a set of GM notes (such as a Campaign Setting) from which I was supposed to build a plot, I'd say it was great. As an AP module, there was just waaaaay too much research and notekeeping dumped in the GM's lap, typically in a fashion where it wasn't until I'd already ruined something (such as Inquisitor Omari's body) that I learned that, "Oh, no! It's somewhere else!"
So this session was several hours of prep work for me getting all the notes in a coherent order, and then a group of players saying, "Do we have to remember all this, or do you have a summary somewhere?" I think it was a fair request, as massive notetaking isn't most players' favorite thing to do.
The first order of business was to investigate the third Star Stela. What was it doing here? Why was it buried? Why was there so much blood around it? With a series of very poor Knowledge rolls and no one willing to risk touching the obviously-abhorrent thing, they decided to leave it for later research. Similarly, the strange barrel/tentacle creatures they'd fed a couple of Squeakers to needed to be dealt with, but how? They needed more information, which meant a lot of reading, which meant... Cesadia! They looted Melisenn's corpse (plus the family jewels, figuring that Lowls owed them that much), carefully wrapped Omari's body in a cloth, and went upstairs to gather the paperwork they had seen strewn all around the house. All told, they found:
With their loot, their paperwork, and their corpse, the party took leave of Iris Hill. It did not look like anyone had noticed their assault, and none of their victims had risen as undead, so they made haste to the Sleepless Building. Cesadia met with them almost immediately, and there was a wonderful exchange where Neirida tearfully told Cesadia of the loss of her "friend" and revealed Omari, only to have Cesadia reply, "She's not my friend! I only met her a couple of times!"
"Well, give me a break! My brain's been scrambled here! It's as if every half our of my life is being played out over two or three weeks! Is it any wonder I can't remember anything?"
Well played, GothBard, well played!
Cesadia promised she would notify Winter and the party set about selling everything they could. Blackwarm's black market connections helped immensely, and they had little trouble moving many of the count's more... "outre" items than they might otherwise have been able to. Unfortunately, once they were done they found that the city just didn't have that much gold in its coffers. So they took what they could and decided to do some spending...
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Hoo boy, here we go! Blackwarm went and bought a portable altar, set it up in his cave, bought a scroll of Desecrate, and Desecrated the altar to the dark, evil gods to empower his undead.
So yeah, I made him make a Will save to avoid an alignment shift, he biffed it, and he's now a CN necromancer.
But he has a cool bloody skeleton hound of tindalos to show for it! Can't wait 'til THAT monstrosity loses control!
Nah, animate dead creates fully obedient mindless skeletons, even bloody ones. It's no danger until someone wrests control of it from Blackwarm...
<.<
>.>
Of course it has no Intelligence to speak of, and can't deal with complex commands nor making serious decisions of its own. How good is Impus Major with issuing commands to his minions?
Impus Major is actually a little TOO good at issuing commands, to the point that I had to keep telling him, "Those are too complex for your skeletons. Simpler!"
But keep in mind that a simple death for Blackwarm, even one recovered from by Breath of Life, will release a whole lotta pain on the party...
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Necromancers don't die! They empathize with their minions!
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Session 33: Planning for a Trip Played 12-Mar-2018
So for the most part there was very little to report, until just after the session, when Impus Major informed me that Blackwarm had constructed an altar and Desecrated it in order to create more powerful undead.
So, I'm pretty easygoing on the whole, "Creating undead isn't necessarily evil" argument: Yes, negative energy is the antithesis of positive energy, hence undead seek to destroy life wherever they see it, but I can easily accept the argument that some necromancers view undead as something very much akin to nuclear energy: It is deadly, and unleashed it will kill many people, but properly harnessed it is extremely useful.
So I'm OK with a CG necromancer.
But when you start making dark pacts with evil gods (there are no good or neutral gods with negative energy or undeath in their domains) in order to empower your undead, those dark gods are going to try to sway you, and you have to resist them. Blackwarm rolled a mighty 10 on his Will save, and the dark ones won... this time. Blackwarm could feel it as his mind shifted from CG to CN. He's decided to put off casting Desectate again until he can heal his mind and figure out how to protect himself from such effects. Good plan, Blackwarm!
With a relatively small purchase limit in town and really no idea what they were going to do next, no one in the party really felt like shopping except Blackwarm, who went to his usual black marketers and bought a veritable case of onyx. While Blackwarm was off shopping Winter arrived, and once she had gathered Inquisitor Omari's body for burial Neirida asked if she wouldn't say a few words over Nemira Lowls as well. They buried the dead, said the appropriate words, spent time making sure the town was still in order, and returned to Cesadia to find out what she'd learned.
Most of the information was simply an enhancement of what they already knew: Lowls had taken to traveling in dreams to research the occult, and had sacrificed their minds to a man named The Mad Poet in order to learn the way to a forgotten city with a second trio of Star Stelae. For reasons that weren't clear, the Mad Poet had also instructed Lowls to obtain The Necronomicon, which was in Katheer in Qadira, and which Miacknian Mun would translate for him. Lowls was convinced that discovering a second trio of Stelae would "repair his academic reputation". The notes included a map of his trip to Cassomir, along with a list of the equipment, supplies, and slaves he'd need for his expedition to find the lost city. The most interesting aspect of the collection was the book they'd taken off of Melisenn's corpse. It was written in Aklo, a language Cesadia could neither read nor translate, but it had diagrams of many otherworldly creatures, including those they had fed Squeakers IV and V to. They needed Blackwarm to translate!
So Blackwarm purchased a scoll of Comprehend Languages and copied it into his spellbook. Hans used one of the scrolls of Restoration they'd found to restore Neirida's negative level, and she found a dwarven druid willing to cast Remove Disease on her. When both casts failed, he realized his reputation was at stake and assigned a nurse to take care of her. Helden purchased Squeakers VI and VII.
The party rested for the evening.
In the morning Hans communed with a Lore spirit and prepared two casts of Tongues, while Blackwarm prepared Comprehend Languages to study the books. Neirida failed her Fortitude save against the plague and took a point of Constitution and a point of Charisma damage. On seeing this, the nurse raced off to fetch the dwarf, who managed to cure her on his second cast, then cast two Lesser Restorations to restore her lost characteristics. He was very insistent that she acknowledge that, even if he hadn't managed to cure her the first time, he'd done right by her in the end. Neirida was a bit puzzled and put off by the bothersome, none-too-competent dwarf, but she had to admit that after she'd paid his exorbitant fee, he may have failed to cure her, but he made sure she was cared for and eventually did right by her. Satisfied, the dwarf stormed off.
After a bit of debate, the party decided that they should first research the creatures, and then meet with them. Blackwarm cast Comprehend Languages and studied the book. It was an amazing encyclopedia on portals, conjuration magic, otherworldly creatures, and even contained powerful spells such as Gate, Greater Teleport, and Greater Planar Binding. Unfortunately, Blackwarm was so distracted by all the information that he learned nothing about the barrel-shaped creatures in his 70 minutes of study (how else can you explain rolling a 3?), so Neirida sighed and decided to meet the creatures again.
Back to Iris Hill, and this time she had Hans put Tongues on both himself and her, and she once again approached the creatures, extending Squeakers VI as an offering. This time both creatures were stirring, and the original spoke to the other. "These are the creatures I told you about, brother! They make offerings of mediocre food, and ask for nothing in return!"
It took a short while to establish communication, but a natural 20 Diplomacy (GothBard rolling for Hans) and fantastic roleplay by GothBard got the party everything the elder things knew, for they were elder things. I'm sorry to say that Squeakers VII also perished during the conversation.
Millenia ago, flying polyps had finished ravaging a planet and headed for Golarion. They marked the planet for colonization using two trios of star stelae, one in Thrushmoor, and the other in Neruzavin. The elder things, figuring they could either loot artwork from the soon-to-be-dead civilization or make artwork of their own from the corpses, followed. Unfortunately, the polyps encountered "creatures like you, but with scales" (and the look on the Impii's faces when they realized I was talking about serpentfolk was priceless). The two armies wiped each other out, leaving the elder things with nothing to do but leave. They needed to rest first, so they went into hibernation. They were recently awoken by an "annoying talky lady" and they were glad she was dead. Neirida asked what they planned to do, and they indicated that they were going to leave. She promised to protect them until they did. They deemed this acceptable. She asked how to destroy the star stelae, and they informed her that she couldn't, but if she could take control of a flying polyp, it could.
And so the party rested another night.
The elder things departed in the morning, and the party knew what they needed to do: Pursue Lowls to Neruzavin and stop him from activating the second trio, for fear of bringing a massive invasion to Golarion. Cesadia knew of a fiesty halfling captain named Skywin Freeling who captained the Sellen Starling who could take them, and she was due to arrive in 2 days. Over the next 2 days, the party was amazed to find that they were heros. People gave them free food, and cheerfully hailed them as they passed. Everyone knew they had saved Thrushmoor from certain doom, but no one knew how. They visited their various haunts, talked to Keldrin Mon about what he knew about them (they had all arrived in Thrushmoor together, at the same time Weiralai had been seen), and generally basked in a city recovering. Winter was named high cleric of the city, and she immediately sent for aid. Cesadia was named magistrate, and quickly turned it down and named Dena Gallegos, owner of the Silver Wagon, magistrate in her stead. The town was improving by leaps and bounds every day. Blackwarm spent his time crafting tiny undead that he could easily hide on a ship, such as isitoqs and beheaded. He managed to use Desecrate to turn the hound of tindalos' body into a bloody skeleton, but how he'll sneak it on board ship is still to be answered.
As the morning of their departure arrived, Hans bonded with a water spirit and they headed to the docks. Blackwarm hid his undead, and they approached the dock. A halfling woman in high boots (generating a snort of disbelief from GothBard) was arguing with the harbormaster over the poor job his men had done loading her boat.
Leave it to Neirida.
"Ahem. I'm going to be going on that boat, and I am one of the heroes of Thrushmoor, and I am not going to ride on a boat that isn't properly loaded, so if you won't do it, I will," and then a 26 Intimidate roll.
The harbormaster and his men hastened to reload the boat properly, and Captain Freeling decided she liked Neirida very much. Arrangements were quickly made: The party members would pay 75 gold pieces each for passage to Cassomir, and would assist in the boat's defense as needed. Two more passengers, Gossa Kelkin and Wreben Malliver, also purchased passage. They had to pay 125 gold apiece, and weren't asked to help defend the boat.
It was time to set sail!
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Sessions 34: Starting the Trip Played 03-Apr-2018
Remember back in the early AP days, when right after "Adventure Background" there'd be an "Adventure Summary" section to give you an idea of what you needed to prep? Well, if you check the start of Dreams of the Yellow King, there's no such summary. It just dives right in to what seems like a very interesting boat journey. So I got the journey all prepared all the way through, came up with interesting random encounters and other such stuff, and was really ready to run a very enjoyable travelogue, which all of my players really enjoy. Just one thing really bothered me: The sentence on page 9, "A PC suffering madness resulting from trips to the Dreamlands might spark a confrontation." I was going to post in the GM thread, "Why on Earth would the PC be suffering madness from the Dreamlands when we haven't even been to that section yet?"
But, being a diligent GM, I decided I'd better read up on that section... the night I was supposed to run! And, oh, my! I was supposed to learn a new set of rules (ritual casting), be ready for either Dreamlands encounters or regular encounters, have the PCs do research, and... oh, ferknuffel!
So, I really like the way they wrote it, and it looks like it'll be a lot of fun to run. But seriously? Not even a single sentence warning me, "You have to prep sections 1 and 2 at the same time?"
Thanks, author! Gonna be grumpy at you all book now! (And don't even get me started on, "And use this madness table from a non-PRD source you don't own so we can sell more books.") Anyway, as a result of all of that, it was a very short session.
As the Sellen Starling set off from Thrushmoor and into Lake Encarthen, once Skywin was sure the crew could handle the navigation she invited the party over so she could go over the map of their journey with them. Gossa and Wreben, interested in hearing about their upcoming journey, joined them. Skywin pointed out the highlights (sailing along the border of Kyonin), the lowlights (passing Illmarsh), the dangerous areas (pretty much all of Razmiran), and encounters to expect and places to be cautious. Having now learned that the PCs did not have Cesadia finish all their research, but that they actually had to do a bunch of research on the boat (thanks, Book 2, for making that really clear after the ship had left port). Hans and Blackwarm set to the research, while Neirida and Helden kept watch on deck. Fortunately, ludicrous Knowledge rolls by both Hans and Blackwarm both days ensured that the research portion of the journey was done in time for them to be ready to make their first voyage into the Dreamlands on the second night.
Neirida didn't like it.
She didn't see a strong reason to go to the Dreamlands (unfortunately, neither did I), and she didn't like Hans' description of his chances of performing the ritual correctly (a little under 50/50). So they decided they'd perform the ritual on the 3rd night, right after their passby of Illmarsh. (Skywin didn't want to stop there, and for reasons they couldn't explain (maybe having played Carrion Crown?), neither did the PCs. In any case, as they moved past Illmarsh a thick fog rolled in, forcing them closer to shore, and they could see the residents putting barbed chains to prevent shipts from docking. Seemed like an odd thing to do, except everyone except Helden also spotted a longship with red sails 1/4 mile behind the Sellen Starling. As the others tried to warn Helden of the danger, something jumped out of the water to attack!
We ended the evening as we rolled initiatives...
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Yeah, I really dislike when they don't even give you a one-two sentence instruction at the beginning that says something along the lines of "Please note, Parts I and II are meant to happen simultaneously. Please plan accordingly."
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Session 35: Well, We're Not Doing THAT Again Played 17-Apr-2018
- Lowls went to the Dreamlands a LOT to do his nefarious research
- While there, he met with the Mad Poet
- The Mad Poet made him sacrifice the PCs' minds to get what he wanted
- They learn the ritual to go there
- From their other research, they already know where Lowls is going and what he plans on doing there
So, the final bullet eliminates any need for the PCs to go to the Dreamlands. "We already know where he's going. We're already in pursuit of him. Why would we risk going to a chaotic and dangerous realm that might drive us insane when we already know what we're doing?"
The author is clearly familiar with Call of Cthulu GMing. In CoC, if you ignore a clue, you die and the world ends. It's that simple. In Pathfinder, the stakes aren't that high, so providing a clue with no motivation to pursue it frequently ends up with an ignored clue. Especially when attempting to follow up on the clue frequently ends up with you getting attacked by an incorporeal, stat-draining, curse-inducing monstrosity. Why on Golarion would you ever even try the ritual?
Even worse is the massive suspension of disbelief required to believe that Skywin and her crew wouldn't mind the party performing occult rituals on her ship instead of guarding it like they're supposed to. "Oh, I know I let you ride for a greatly-reduced rate in exchange for you defending the ship, but you want to perform some horrific occult ritual that may summon an abomination from another plane onto my ship? No worries!"
There's just too much suspension of disbelief and lack of motivation in this book. "Do it because the book says so" immediately renders a book disposable, in my mind. Add, "And the NPCs must behave in utterly unrealistic ways" and it's just a frustrating, frustrating book to run.
As the surprise round started, poor Impus Minor was horrified to learn that the attackers were none other than... vooniths! Those cute little adorable blobules of love he wanted to take as his animal companion. But no. They were bitey. Being strangely intellgent for multi-clawed, biting amphibians of death, two vooniths (voonii?) swam around the boat, one to the side on which Neirida was watching, and one to Hans' side. The other two stayed at the stern of the boat, one howling and causing Neirida and many of the crew members to freeze up, and the other clambering onto the deck to bite and trip poor Helden. The surprise round ended with Neirida coming undazed and Hans stabbing his voonith for minimal damage. The front of the boat was rather uneventful: Neirida traded blows with her voonith, while Skywin leapt over to help Hans with his. At the back of the boat, two vooniths against a prone Helden was an ugly, bloody mess. Gossa and Wreben, hearing the commotion outside, opened the cabin door and let loose with their wands of Scorching Ray, but Gossa's natural 1 ensured that his wand wouldn't be working for the rest of the day, but Wreben got in a solid hit. Blackwarm hesitated, not wanting to waste any spells, but Helden's pleas for help finally moved him and he dropped a Fireball behind the boat, seriously burning the two vooniths at the rear.
The voonith near Neirida howled, freezing her and Skywin, but Hans fought on, and Helden kept getting chewed to death. Gossa poured a potion of Cure Moderate Wounds down his gullet as Wreben and Blackwarm failed with Scorching Rays. All of the crewmen had run inside, except the guy next to Neirida, who kept using Aid Another in an attempt to help her hit, and to try to protect her from the voonith. (And because any retreat was blocked by attacks of opportunity, so he figured until he got bit he was safer where he was.) So Hans dropped his, Neirida, delayed by a bit because of the howls, finally dropped hers, and Helden, Blackwarm, and the scholars finally dropped theirs as Skywin arrived to assist. Neirida hit hers hard enough to split it in two, dissipating it, and as she realized they were summoned creatures she let out a primal scream of rage. Hans gathered everyone and channeled. Skywin was very pleased; in spite of the viciousness of the attack, only the party members who were being paid to fight had taken any damage, and none of them had fallen. The ship with red sails vanished into the mist, and soon even the mist itself dissipated.
I made the mistake of allowing Impus Minor to name the brave crewman who had stayed by Neirida's side for the entire battle. And thus, crewman #1 shall forevermore be known as Billy Bob Joe Steven Mann, a worshipper of Caydean Cailean from Taldor who used to make his living racing muscle wagons against his friends in the stick, but a bad rollover convinced him to look for greener pastures and he signed on as one of Skywin's shipmates.
*sigh*
Skywin fulfilled her promise of avoiding Illmarsh, and they traveled a bit farther before settling in for the night. I asked again about performing the Dreamlands ritual, and Neirida was dead-set against it, but Hans, Blackwarm, and Helden convinced her to try it once, just to see what things were like. Hans warned them that if he failed, it might summon some kind of hideous beast, so they buffed up as they could before the ritual started. Needless to say, Hans had failed the ritual by 40 minutes in, and the group was attacked by a hideous Animate Dream, an incorporeal creature that did significant negative energy damage and cursed those it hit. Neirida had to stay back to cast Magic Weapon on her blade to be able to affect it, so Hans and (poor) Helden took the brunt of the damage. They whittled it down, but not before both Helden and Neirida were cursed, and they had nothing to show for it.
Neirida swore she'd never participate in such a stupid ritual again!
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...so Hans and (poor) Helden took the brunt of the damage.
Helden didn't actually take any damage from that fight. He just was low from being at 2 HP left from the voonith fight, which he mostly
got healed from. I think you mean Blackwarm.
And don't even get me started on, "And use this madness table from a non-PRD source you don't own so we can sell more books."
I think that Horror Adventures were supposed to be added to PRD, but the (limited) web team got derailed and distracted by other things. The fact that they can be reached on d20pfsrd and Archives Of Nethys certainly reduced pressure on them to do so. Ditto Starfinder which hadn't got its own PRD yet either.
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And don't even get me started on, "And use this madness table from a non-PRD source you don't own so we can sell more books."I think that Horror Adventures were supposed to be added to PRD, but the (limited) web team got derailed and distracted by other things. The fact that they can be reached on d20pfsrd and Archives Of Nethys certainly reduced pressure on them to do so. Ditto Starfinder which hadn't got its own PRD yet either.
Far as I'm concerned, when someone else is doing your job for you, you pay 'em. d20pfsrd is for-profit, but Archives of Nethys is not. It is pretty sad that the Archives significantly outpace the publisher in updates.
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** spoiler omitted **
The PRD, as far as I can tell, is required as part of Pathfinder deriving its existence from the 3e OGL. All Open License Pathfinder material is supposed to be there - yet it is not. Based on the front page notes they have not updated it since May 2016, almost 2 years ago.
This is why I consider that Archives and to a different degree d20pfsrd have been "doing their job for them", because for all practical purposes they have been.
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Session 36: Hmm... I guess we are! Played 26-Apr-2018
As my friend Shiro (a long-time Call of Cthulu GM, having run since first edition, and running at cons several times a year) said, in Call of Cthulu games the GM will frequently put in horrific tomes or occult rituals just so that if the PCs are stupid enough to read/perform them, the world ends. So from a Call of Cthulu RPG/mythos point of view, any PC foolish enough to perform the ritual would suffer permanent madness at the very least, if not death, destruction of the soul, or the end of reality. So yeah, having an experienced CoC player at the table made things MUCH harder. The lack of any motivation beyond, "This is where Lowls went to get his information, and he drowned you to get it," isn't enough for any group of players that I play with.
So I threw them a bone and had the Yellow King extend outside of his little sphere of influence and it worked, but seriously, AP. Please start providing motivation for the players to do things, beyond a sad, "Well, the description said that there's a mountain off to the west, so obviously that's where we're supposed to go," approach to GMing.
(Facing similar frustrations in her Wednesday Mummy's Mask game, NobodysWife opined that perhaps many of the authors chosen to write APs have never actually run games, but only write for other people. Or have a group of players so well-trained to follow any lead, no matter how ephemeral, that, "You see a mountain," is justification enough for them.)
The other bit-o-GM'ing you need to think about is how to manage spells between the "real world" and the Dreamlands. The text is clear: Spells used in the Dreamlands are not used in the Material Plane. But what about spells used in the Material Plane? The party seriously buffed itself for the ritual, then the ritual succeeded so all those buffs were wasted, as I didn't let them carry them with them into the Dreamlands. Since the Dreamlands are so brutal anyway, I decided that it would be kindest to declare that spells used in the Material Plane aren't used in the Dreamlands. This lets the party enter the Dreamlands every time with a full spell set. Maybe not as easy to explain, but definitely better for the party considering the level of monsters they encounter once they get there.
Day 3: The party rested for the evening.
Day 4: In the morning, Hans prepared three Remove Curses and four Lesser Restorations. Due to bookkeeping errors (the GM hadn't noticed that the Curse Horse Animate Dream's curse ability is only once per day, and had cursed both Neirida and Blackwarm), the party spent two Hero Points (one from Neirida and one from Blackwarm), all three Remove Curses, and all four Lesser Restorations, and even then Helden was down two Strength. Hans told him to shake it off. Helden did not appreciate this attitude. The sky was grey and a light mist filled the air, but it wasn't a true rain, so Helden spent the day performing to entertain the crewmen, Neirida told tales of old-time Ustalav (pretty impressively, too; her natural roll of 18 supplemented her Perform: Oratory of +2 to have her spin some marvelous yarns), Blackwarm and Hans stood on watch, and the day passed uneventfully. The party set up its usual watches for the evening, but as each of them slept, each had an identical dream: A man looking like Count Lowls, but much thinner and much happier, dressed head to toe in yellow robes, smiled and greeted them. "Hello, friend! I sense you tried to pierce the veil but did not succeed! Well, you must! You must try again! I have much information to impart upon you!"
With that, the strange Lowls-not-Lowls faded away, and each person's dreams returned to normal.
Day 5: Skywin warned the party that this would probably be their last peaceful day, as they were approaching the Ustalav/Razmiran border, and once the waters were no longer protected by Ustalav, they got a lot "sketchier". Hans had prepared one final Lesser Restoration and cured Helden of his remaining Strength damage. Although they saw some other boats on the river that day, and some of them did indeed appear "sketchy", none approached, and Skywin and her crew were able to drop anchor and set up for the night. After a bit of consultation, the party decided they would try the ritual again. This time Hans had prepared Spirit-Bound Blade ensuring that Neirida would be able to make short work of any more Animate Dreams that appeared. Similarly, to ensure that the Dream would not be a threat to the other crew members, as Hans performed the ritual he set up an inward-facing Magic Circle Against Evil to trap the creature within, and placed Spirit-Bound Blade with the Mimetic special ability on Neirida's blade shortly before the ritual completed. And then, the GM rolled for Hans. With the note that as a primary spellcaster he gets a +2, he needed a 9 or better on five rolls.
I rolled a 3... and then an 8...
Inwardly, my heart sunk. Hans was going to fail again, they were going to get cursed again, and the whole AP was going to go off the rails again because of this stupid ritual.
Then came a 13... and a 14... and an 18!
Hans had done it! The staircase grew and grew, finally culminating in a staircase down into the unknown...
The Dreamlands, Day ???: Neirida took the lead, with Helden, Hans, and Blackwarm close behind. As they descended, they saw daylight at the bottom of the stairs, and it started getting hotter. At the bottom of the staircase was an opening leading to... a vast, featureless desert under a blistering sun. Impus Minor joked that it must be 140° F there! He was a bit alarmed when my response was, "Well, not quite that hot, but definitely in the 120s somewhere." About a hundred yards away from them across the sand they saw the caravanserai they had heard so much about. They stood still for a few minutes, wondering whether to approach. Blackwarm complained about the heat and asked, "Hey, Hans! Can't you do something about this?"
Hans used his only prepared Endure Elements on Blackwarm. Blackwarm sighed and said, "Aaaah! That's MUCH better!" Neirida glared daggers at both Blackwarm and Hans.
Since standing still for too long was not an option, the party moved towards the caravanserai. Helden used his cloak as a shield from the sun, but it didn't help much; the overwhelming heat seeped right into his very being. Even from a distance, the caravenserai had looked abandoned and delapidated. While the entry passage was intact and easily wide enough to fit a fairly large wagon, the northeast corner of the building (on their left facing in) was entirely collapsed, and the drifting sands and miraculously-alive tufts of weeds growing in the shade of the courtyard reinforced the notion that this caravanserie was long-abandoned.
Examining the courtyard, they saw long-abandoned stalls for animals, a couple of rotted and broken circular bins, and a dried-up trough for water. This was obviously originally a place visitors could stable their animals out of the brutal sun, but even out of the sun the heat was oppressive. Examining the available doors (opposing double doors at the entrance, a single door next to one of the double doors, and then two doors at the opposite end of the courtyard right next to the trough), the party decided to open the double doors next to the single door.
The moment they opened the door, cool air wafted over them. This half-collapsed room had a decorative basin held aloft by carvings of sleepwalkers, but the basin was long-dry. However, whatever magic was keeping the room cool was still functional, so the group spent several minutes cooling off before deciding to brave the heat again. During their hiatus they searched the room, but they found nothing of interest. They moved across the caravanserie's entryway and found an identical room through the other double doors, though this one wasn't collapsed, and had a passage leading farther back into the building's interior. At the back of the passage, just before it turned left, was a curtain covering an opening to the right. Showing remarkable caution, Helden stealthed up to the curtain and peeked beneath it.
At this point as a GM I was faced with a question: Did the animate dream spend its cursed eternity in shopkeep form, hoping to lure visitors to their doom, or did it spend most of its time bored stupid in its native form, waiting for something to happen? To me, the latter seemed more likely for a cursed entity. With its large Perception, it was obviously aware that the caravanserie had visitors, so it was impatiently waiting for them to approach so it could put on its disguise and start its ruse. Unfortunately, Helden's Stealth surpassed its Perception, so he spotted the Dream in its bored native state, waiting for the party to get closer. Helden returned to the party and after a bit of discussion they decided that they were going to kill the curse horse, because they hated the things and they deserved to die anyway. So Hans put Spirit-Bound Blade on Neidia's greatsword, once again giving it the Memetic special ability, then Magic Circle Against Evil, then the rest of the party buffed, and they raced in.
The Animate Dream, being fully aware of what they had been doing, was ready for them. Helden, Hans, and Neirida ran in as Blackwarm stayed back and pelted it with Magic Missiles. Neirida was just a sea of orneriness this fight. The curse horse hit her, but she resisted it. Helden ran around it to provide a flank and it hit him, but this time I remembered that whole "once a day" thing. Since Neirida was hitting it pretty hard, it hit her with Phantasmal Killer but she saved against that as well. (And these were requiring rolls of 18 or 19; not just, "Oh, I made it!") Its Confusion was defeated by the Magic Circle (except Blackwarm, who Neirida then put in the circle to let him re-save). All in all, it was just a sad curse horse leading to a very boring fight as the flanking, raging Neirida beat it down with her now Ghost Touch weapon. Searching the abandoned shop they found themselves in, they found a Gem of Seeing and five enormous emeralds. The Dreamlands were rich indeed!
They went back out of the shop and into the passage, heading a long distance south. The next room was similarly behind a curtained door, so they used the same tactics. Helden reported the room clear of any obvious enemies, so the party entered the large dining room. The moment they entered, three of the four of them heard the sounds of conspirational whispering but made nothing of it, so the haunt hit them full force. They saw ghostly forms appear throughout the room, mimicking the conversations of the past. The conversations grew louder and more strident, into a disturbing, unintelligible cacaphony that targeted everyone with a Song of Discord. GothBard neglected to remind me of the Magic Circle, which was pretty important in this context, but oh, well, no (permanent) harm done! Neirida and Helden saved, but Hans and Blackwarm failed. Blackwarm, being a sensible bird, fled the room and was immediately freed of the haunt. Hans, being Hans, chose to attack Neirida. Neirida, being Neirida, attacked back, but for nonlethal damage. Helden ineffectually tried to help Neirida. After a couple of fun rounds where Hans miraculously managed to hit Neirida every round, and she failed to grapple him to stop him, he got the dreaded "act normally" and fled the room, breaking the spell. Neirida was still much displeased; she definitely holds a grudge! Neirida and Helden searched the room and found a handy Decanter of Endless Water, which they immediately purloined, considering the desert outside.
Neirida was fed up. Fed up with curse horses. Fed up with haunts. She just wanted to find the stupid Lowls-not-Lowls, hear him out, and get the heck out of this place. So when the next curtain led into an empty-looking bath, she just re-closed it and moved on. They made it all the way around the caravanserie to the long passage on the eastern side, and this time the southern room was closed off by a door, rather than a curtain. They took the usual precautions, and discovered a bookkeeper's office. It didn't seem to have anything of any interest, as the records were unintelligible, but there were precious, precious stairs up in the room! Climing the stairs, they came into a tidy office, tastefully decorated with paintings of foreign landscapes, desks, and chairs. Standing behind a desk, his eyes locked on a book, was Lowls-not-Lowls.
His speech was long, rambling, and disjointed. He welcomed the party, expressed happiness that they had reached him, and described both himself and them as "deconstructed from a greater whole". He wanted them to trace Lowl's path, figuring out the gifts he had planned to give the Mad Poet, obtaining them, and visiting the Mad Poet themselves in an attempt to become whole again. His hope was that this process would also make him whole again. The group asked why they would want such a thing, as they had obviously not been very nice people. The Yellow King, as he styled himself, told them that only by becoming whole could they hope to become powerful enough to stop Lowls and his plans. As the party questioned him, they found themselves going around and around in circles; he'd repeat verbatim answers he'd given them before, forget things he'd told them or they told him, and otherwise indicated that while quite intelligent and insightful, his mind was certainly not all it could be. After getting as much information from him as they thought they could extract, they decided to take their leave.
In a surprise move, Neirida decided that they should search the rest of the caravanserai. "Well, I certainly don't want to have to come back here ever again, and I don't want to miss anything that might have been left behind."
So they went downstairs, moved to the entry to the bathhouse, and started to go in...
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Did they get eaten? Tell us they were eaten.
Yeah, that's happening tonight, and I'm not looking forward to it.
I'll take, "Things far beyond a 7th-level party's ability to deal with" for 200, Alex!
But honestly, live or die, they'll have wrapped up the first foray into the Dreamlands and the first real-world river encounter, so seems like a good time to push them to 8th level.
"Well, you all died in the Dreamlands, so you're all slightly mad now, but on the bright side, you can all go up a level."
Whee?
I must have missed something when I last read that chapter. Hrmmmm
Or, putting it another way: "All experience is experience."
I must have missed something when I last read that chapter. Hrmmmm
Or, putting it another way: "All experience is experience."
You missed which door they were opening at the end of last writeup?
And now I'm in trouble, because it looks like we won't play tonight after all, giving Impus Minor a chance to see this and sway their course.
Ah, well...
I must have missed something when I last read that chapter. Hrmmmm
Or, putting it another way: "All experience is experience."
You missed which door they were opening at the end of last writeup?
And now I'm in trouble, because it looks like we won't play tonight after all, giving Impus Minor a chance to see this and sway their course.
Ah, well...
Last time I read Strange Aeons was the month after its sixth chapter was available in PDF via subscription. :)
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Session 37: We Can Dance If We Want To Played 24-May-2018
Instead, the group took one look at the map, asked, "Why are we still hanging around the caravanserai again?", and sekdaddled, avoiding any further encounters. So I had to run one of the other dream sequences totally unprepped. So of course it was the best sequence of the book so far.
Similarly, the as-written Gossa and Wreben are kind of jerks: "Well, we're scholars with nothing to do on a long boat voyage, but heck if we're going to help YOU without getting paid an absolutely trivial amount!" (5 gold pieces a day each for entire 90-day journey would be all of... 900 gold pieces. For 7th-level characters, that's just under 4% of a single PC's wealth by level.) And in return, the scholars get to look like jerks and are FAR more likely to die in shipboard encounters where the PCs just don't quite have the time to save them. Nah, I had them willingly and eagerly help the PCs, and they even asked to see the ritual, so that whole, "No matter their roles, Gossa and Wreben do not participate in the Dreamlands excursion occult ritual and do not accompany the PCs into the Dreamlands" went out the window, and they're much more likable, active members of the overall NPC party as a result. Don't have your NPCs stand around being unhelpful. It's likely to get them killed.
Instead, I've got Skywin, Gossa, Wreben, and Billy Bob Joe Steven Mann (*sigh*) to brighten up an otherwise dull ship journey.
The Dreamlands, Day ???: Reconsidering the bathhouse, Neirida asked, "Why are we exploring this place again?"
"I dunno," was the collective response.
So Neirida, frustrated, turned around and walked away from the bathhouse, the rest of the party following in her wake. They proceeded back to the store where they had slain the Animate Dream, figuring it was probably the safest place in the caravanserai, and decided to practice waking themselves up. Hans, figuring that as the primary spellcaster he probably had the best chance of waking himself up, volunteered to go last. Neirida, Blackwarm, and Helden set to trying to wake up. Neirida made it on her second attempt. Blackwarm made it on his third attempt. Helden... was SO amazingly Helden that it defied all laws of probability. Roll after roll after rolll, and Helden just could not awaken himself. Hans suggested that maybe they should just walk out, but Helden insisted, "No, I got this!"
It took Helden twenty tries to wake up. Talk about your sound sleeper! Hans concentrated for a moment and woke himself up as well, on his first try. He said nothing disparaging about Helden, nor did Helden say anything about Hans.
Day 5: The party woke up in the depths of the ship's hold and clambered back topside. Examining the stars, as far as they could tell no time had passed in the "real world". They set up the watches for the rest of the evening, and enjoyed a quiet night devoid of dangers.
Day 6: Proving that he wasn't going to roll that badly for the entire evening, Helden whipped up an amazing breakfast for the passengers and crew, and spirits were high. The sky was clear, there was a light breeze, and the view of Lake Encarthen was breathtaking. So of course Blackwarm and Hans got to work studying indoors to avoid all that sunshine and fresh air. Gossa and Wreben, bored from almost a week on ship with nothing much to do, offered to join in, so Hans and Gossa got to work researching the viscount's signet ring (since it was all written in Common), and Blackwarm and Wreben researched the green stone idol of a water lizard (again, mainly because all the research could be done in Common). Blackwarm and Wreben made significantly more progress than Hans and Gossa; they learned that the idol represented the Great Old One Bokrug, he lived in a vast lake, and a bunch of creatures that worshipped him founded the city of Ib on the shore of the lake and used the green idol in their ceremonies. All Hans and Wreben learned was that the viscount's name was Pietro Brellin, and he was from the Dreamlands city of Celephais.
As usual for our encounter rolling, the day and the evening were uneventful, and the party saw no reason to travel to the Dreamlands that night.
Day 7: Another day, another period of Helden cooking, Neirida keeping watch, and Blackwarm, Hans, Wreben, and Gossa holed up with a mountain of dusty old tomes. Blackwarm and Wreben continued their ludicrous pace, deciphering the rest of the clues: Humans from the city of Sarnath wiped out the vile Bokrug-workshippers of Ib and took the idol back to Sarnath with them. While it disappeared soon thereafter, it seemed like Sarnath was the best place to start the investigation, and Blackwarm and Wreben had little difficulty figuring out the passphrase to travel to Sarnath instead of the caravanserai. Hans and Gossa had similar luck, learning that Celephais was an opulent and populous city that would not seem out of place on Golarion, except for the fact that time does not seem to pass there; in spite of hours spent haggling with the count for his ring, Lowls noted in one of his journals that the sun did not move at all. Lowls' final note in the travelogue provided an excellent hint as to how he obtained the ring: The count was very fond of courtly and lavish events, and attendees, fearful of looking ignorant or stupid, would ignore all manner of strange occurrences for fear that they might have been planned by the count. However, Hans and Gossa could not figure out a way to arrive at or near one of these events.
With the passcode at the ready, the party decided that they would once again journey to the Dreamlands and attempt to explore Sarnath. Wreben and Gossa, fascinated, wanted to participate and at least get a glimpse into the Dreamlands. Neirida was dead-set against it, but Blackwarm gave her the big, beady, clueless raven eyes and Hans opined that if the curse horse Animate Dream should attack them again he could probably protect them, so Neirida reluctantly agreed. With the additional participants, Hans had little trouble opening the portal (honestly, the rolls of 17, 8, 13, 19 didn't hurt, either), and they heard the sounds of festivities below.
Neirida headed down first...
The Dreamlands, Day ???: ...and heard the unmistakable sounds of festivities: Music playing. Laughter. Singing. The slaps of dancing bare feet. The aroma of cooking meat drew Neirida to proceed downwards. As Neirida emerged, she found herself in a vast feasting hall with golden filigree, high arched windows, and sumptuous tapestries. What must have been thousands of brown-skinned people celebrated something or someone, dancing and cavorting in various states of dress or undress, while tables piled high with food dotted the landscape. Waiters and waitresses clad in form-fitting leather carried trays to serve those too lazy or distracted to serve themselves. A young man approached and greeted Neirida warmly. "Welcome, welcome, my friend! I am Nardan! And who might you be?"
With no dangers apparent, the rest of the party entered, save Gossa and Wreben, who came down the stairs just far enough to peer out into the festivities, then scurried back upstairs to safety, as Neirida had warned them of the dangers lurking in the Dreamlands. As the party mingled, the number of people who greeted them was overwhelming, but they learned a few things:
Unfortunately, as things began to get interesting for Neirida, there were screams from the upper levels of the palace, and panicked revelers came streaming out of a nearby archway, followed closely by flowing water and four faintly-glowing, translucent fish-like creatures. They were clearly incorporeal. Which made Blackwarm very, very happy. Unfortunately, they were focused on slaughtering all revelers within their reach. Not so good.
Neirida stepped in and engaged one, while Helden handed Margan one of his magic blades. Hans channeled to heal, saving many guests' lives. Blackwarm demanded that the creatures dance to his tune. One obliged. Blackwarm didn't bother to name it, since he probably wouldn't be able to take it with him, so he dutifully had it set about attacking its comrades.
The fight took longer than it should have, as Helden couldn't do significant damage to the incorporeal monsters, Blackwarm hadn't prepared many Magic Missiles, and after channeling twice for damage Hans wanted to try to conserve a few for whatever came next. Fortunately, Neirida was able to slaughter the weakened creatures with some ease, and while Margan wasn't nearly the fighter Neirida was, he at least wasn't a liability.
Considering that the Ib Shades were determined to kill the revelers and through the party's actions all the revelers got away (even Nardan, who had been brave enough to take one swing before fleeing in terror), I decided to award the party 1 Hero Point each.
The group raced up the stairs, Margan in the lead, so he took the full brunt of the attack when three will-o-wisps ambushed him. Blackwarm used a precious Fireball to soften them up, and again Neirida did the majority of the damage, while Helden and Margan provided a small amount of support, and Blackwarm's controlled shade continued to contribute. Hans was utterly useless, as he'd prepared nothing but water-based spells. Finally, the will-o-wisps dropped and the party was able to crest the stairs.
They stood atop a massive seawall that should have been overlooking a lake. Except the lake had risen to the level of the seawall, and water was spilling over into the castle. Five more eerie undead creatures (Ib Shades) rose from the water. One of them was clutching a dripping green stone idol...
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LOLOL. Finished off the Bokrug session tonight and they managed to get the idol! As Impus Major described it, "It's like signing on to Minecraft, stealing someone's diamonds, and then disconnecting before they can kill you!"
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Session 38: Escape from Bokrug Played 05-Jul-2018
Reality, Night 7: The party started the session already in the Dreamlands.
The Dreamlands, Day ???: Hans looked at the five figures ahead of him and "raced" forward (let's be blunt, nobody "races" 20 feet) and, on advice from the group, cast Control Water in case he could use it to tactical advantage later. Neirida came to back up Hans and cast Shield on herself, and Blackwarm, in a moment of brilliance, sent Kermit (his shade of Ib) straight towards to the shade with the idol. The other shades had their orders, and they surged forward to attack Kermit. Kermit survived the onslaught, and prevented anyone important from getting hit, and made the shades arrange themselves in a nice little group that Blackwarm could Fireball. The priest(?) with the idol, seeing everything well in hand, cast Shield of Faith on himself, just in case. Helden, still complaining about having to fight incorporeal enemies who couldn't be backstabbed (the GM is playing a rogue in an all-undead campaign, and has very little sympathy), threw a dagger and missed. In the distance, a huge form matching the statue rose from the depths. Bokrug had arrived. Needless to say, all the PCs failed their saves. Neirida ordered her dance partner to get downstairs, as this was no place for him. He obeyed wordlessly.
It was now a race against time, and the party knew it. Rather than healing Neirida, Hans gave her Fly and moved to between the shades of Ib and their priest. Blackwarm ran through the crowd, taking all the attacks of opportunity and ending up just 10 feet from the priest. In our first twofer, Neirida moved over to the priest (they presumed) and grabbed at the idol, with no attacks of opportunity along the way, thanks to Blackwarm. Hans burned a Hero Point to give her +8 to her roll. Neirida rolled a 5 and spent a Hero Point to reroll. A bit of an argument ensued as to whether or not the +8 applied, but eventually the GM ceded the point and Neirida rerolled and succeeded, which made for a much better story anyway. The shades of Ib slaughtered Kermit and started mobbing Hans, but the priest failed in his attempt to grab back the idol. Helden threw a knife. Bokrug himself summoned a massive wave that crushed the staircase and swamed the courtyard in at least 10 feet of water. The party really hoped that most of the revelers could swim.
Then came the game of hot potato. Neirida handed the idol to Blackwarm, Hans burned a second Hero Point to give Blackwarm a +8 to his roll, and POOF! Blackwarm succeeded! The party had won no matter what happened next. Hans told Neirida, "You have to escape," and put Slipstream on her. So... my bad guys... What the ever-living frick, bad guys? Hans has a touch AC of 11. The shades of Ib are +6 to hit. TWO fumbles, including one shade going blind! Another two misses! Hans lived to see another round as the creatures proved utterly horrific at anything having to do with Hans. Unfortunately, they rolled much better against Neirida and she was starting to wobble. The enraged priest cast Call Lightning and should have dropped her, but rolling 3d10 and getting a whopping 8 points of damage isn't going to drop anyone. Helden threw a knife.
Bokrug continued his approach, destroying more of the city and further flooding the courtyard. Neirida took a magnificent swan dive into the water, survived the falling damage (yes, every single person at the table forgot she could fly at the moment), and, with Slipstream active, had no issues swimming to the staircase and escaping. Helden, seeing Neirida's escape, dove off himself. The trouble was, he had no swimming spells on him, hence needed to roll TWO 18's to get out. Miraculously, on the second round he rolled a 19 and on the third round he burned a Hero Point to make the final roll (a 14 + 8 = 22), and Helden got away. All that was left was to slaughter Hans. And most of them missed again!!!! It was just uncanny how much my dice wanted Hans to live. He still had 30 hit points left when he plummeted from the wall into the water, but because he was an all-water shaman that day he had a massive Swim roll plus Monkey Fish, and even Hans managed to escape.
The scenario ended with all 4 PCs escaping alive, no permanent conditions (I read in one of the GM threads that curses aren't "mental conditions"), and waffles all around.
The party went up to level 8.
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WAFFLES!
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Session 39: A Creepy Party Played 26-Jul-2018
Reality, Night 7: The group returned to reality jubilant and triumphant! Gossa and Wreben demanded a full accounting, which the party was only too happy to provide. Then they went to bed.
Reality, Day + Night 8: In a precursor of things to come, Blackwarm and Wreben's research into the hag's heartstone went poorly, with a natural 2 on Wreben's die for the assist, and a natural 1 on Blackwarm's die for a complete failure. On the other hand, Gossa rolled a 1 for his assist of Hans, and Hans' 3 ensured they wouldn't make any progress on the Viscount's ring research, either. So while the research dice were wallowing in the 1-3 range, the encounter dice were wallowing in the 10-15 range, ensuring a pleasant-but-boring day on the water. Oh, and Helden jumped in the river just to prove he could now swim.
Reality, Day + Night 9: Both groups succeeded in their research, but Blackwarm's natural 1 on the progress die ensured they learned very little about the hag's heartstone, other than that Lowls had been seeking the heartstone of a hag named Quaveandra, in particular because her heartstone keeps its magic for 1 month after leaving her possession, rather than 1 day. Fortunately, Hans did a bit better, and the party learned the passphrase to get to Viscount Pietro Brellin's manor. So, with Gossa and Wreben interested in helping again, Hans had a ludicrous +21 to his roll. So 5d20, needing a 4 or better. 8, 1, 3, 2, 3
So, they fought another animate dream, and I didn't even roleplay it out, because Hans keeps a set of spells prepared just for slaughtering the things (Magic Circle Against Evil and Spirit-Bound Blade on Neirida pretty much end the things without much ado). But I was really beginning to despair for the dice that evening.
Reality, Day 10: Another boring day with no encounters, and after the fight with the animate dream Gossa and Wreben were no longer interested in participating in the ritual. Somehow summoning extraplanar abominations that threaten your life do that to you. So Hans was down to a "mere" +17, and needed a whopping 8. Rolls of 13, 18, 17 showed that the dice were finally in a cooperative mood.
The Dreamlands, Day ???: Once again, the party heard the sounds of a party below, but this time the party sounded far more formal. Rather than the loud, drunken revelry of Sarnath, the music coming from the stairs was formal; more strings than drums, if you will. The conversations were also quiet and dignified. Proceeding downstairs, the group found themselves in a massive ballroom, hundreds of feet across. Even more astonishing than the sheer size of the ballroom or the fiery red glow of the (presumed) sunset out the western-facing windows was the sheer number of people packed into the room; there must have been thousands. Almost all of them were formally-dressed, but here and there the party spotted guests in rags, or armor, or very little at all. Liveried servants somehow moved nimbly among the throng, providing hors d'oeuvres to all and sundry. While the group certainly looked out of place among most of the guests, especially having just come down a staircase that materialized in the middle of the ballroom, there were enough outlandishly-dressed guests that they didn't stand out too much, and the other guests acted as if the staircase had always been there.
Neirida, scanning about, spotted slim, gray cats winding their way among the dancing or mingling partygoers.
Neirida, being Neirida, was most interested in the cats, and managed to lure one over to her with a bit of dried meat from her trail rations (a barbarian with Handle Animal; go figure). As she petted the small purring creature, the group noticed a grey ropelike appendage drip slimily down from the ceiling, engulf a guest perhaps 100 feet away, and carry him, screaming, up into the darkness 60 feet above. None of the other guests seemed to notice this appalling scene, and the party couldn't think of any way to save him (thankfully Blackwarm did NOT try a Fireball). Perhaps a minute or two later, the party thought they spotted dark liquid dripping down, and from her height (she's a tall girl) Neirida could see the party-goers beneath the dripping spread out to avoid being dripped on, but otherwise act as if the spectacle had not happened.
Deciding there was nothing for it, the party decided to approach the Viscount himself. They moved forward, and the Viscount spotted them, recognized them as foreigners, and excitedly invited them to join him around his throne. He welcomed them and asked them where they were from, and at first things were going swimmingly as they admitted they were from the Material Plane and he expressed a great deal of interest in them. Then, for reasons unknown, Neirida started to spin a tale. And not just a little lie; a whole, big, whopping, "We're trying to satisfy a rich patron who's collecting curios on the Material Plane, and we heard you had all kinds of interesting items, so do you have anything you think would satisfy him?"
I was honestly worried she wasn't even going to mention the ring.
She finally got around to, "Such as a signet ring, perhaps?" so I winced and made her make her Bluff roll. Natural 20! With her bonus there was actually a remote chance the Viscount would believe her. Natural 1! The Viscount believed her story hook, line, and sinker, and told her he'd love to help in any way he could, but if she could help him in return, he'd be most grateful. He had already promised three individuals that he would dance with them at the Sunset Waltz, and he just learned that his beloved would be arriving in time to join him, so he was hoping that they could discreetly and diplomatically convince the other people on the dance card to withdraw so that he could dance with his beloved. As he spoke, black phlegm shot out and spattered the floor. He wiped some off on his handkerchief, and the party suddenly noticed the spots of phlegm everywhere around the platform; in fact, his guards were strategically positioned to be just outside the range of his expectorations, while those within range were all discreetly carrying fans or kerchiefs or other ways to keep themselves clean and protected. The party asked no questions, but scurried away to try to find the party guests.
In another curious choice, the party chose not to attempt to garner any information from other guests. First, knowing that one of the guests was a beautiful commoner named Maudette, they spent nearly an hour searching the entire massive ballroom for all the female commoners, and asked them directly whether they were named Maudette. They uniformly took great offense at being asked such a direct question, and none of them were Maudette. With such antisocial party-goers, the group next had Helden move about the room, eavesdropping in on conversations to try to find the other two guests, but what he discovered was perhaps even more alarming: Every conversation was absolutely vanilla: No names were dropped. No controversial topics were discussed. In fact, almost all of the conversations were about the weather (or lack thereof), as if the guests were terrified of speaking about anything of substance. They finally had Hans use his Diplomacy to politely ask the other guests about the whereabouts of Ardvin Telgriette, a wealthy and influential trader, since Neirida found that she seemed to be extremely charming to men in the Dreamlands. Hans not only successfully got directions, but learned that he was surrounded by business rivals who probably did not have his best interests at heart.
Neirida tried to go to work. She politely broke in on Ardvin pontificating on his trading brillance and asked him whether he would care to dance, and he scoffed and her and bade her begone. She responded that the Viscount had found her quite charming, and he was suprised Ardvin wouldn't believe the same, and Ardvin was even more derogatory. Growing frustrated, she told him she had a message that had to be delivered in private and he needed to move away from his entourage. At this point he felt quite threatened and told her that if she didn't leave he'd have the guards called on her. She called his bluff, so he raised his hand to call over the guards as she turned around and went silent. Realizing that this would make a dreadful scene and likely have him removed, Ardvin lowered his hand, but told Neirida to begone. She pondered beating him senseless and dragging him away, but instead chose the slightly more discreet route of trying to deal with him later.
Still fuming, Neirida asked Hans to ask after Maudette. They quickly learned that she'd been pulled up into the rafters. Helden and Blackwarm immediately opined, "Oh, I guess she won't want the dance after all, then," but Neirida insisted that they head up to check on her well-being. Helden climbed up first, with Neirida behind him and Hans in the back. Blackwarm, confident in his wings, said he'd catch up if they found anything. Hans first cast Fly on Neirida, then, as they reached the top of the 60' ladder and encountered an area of supernatural darkness, cast Daylight on her sword.
The scene above was one of horror. Dozens of web-wrapped bodies littered the catwalks. A few of the cocoons still groaned and moved a bit, indicating that not all of the people up here were dead. Four giant spiders and four ettercaps populated the rafters, ready to discourage any newcomers.
The fight could have been ugly. An ettercap successfully used Suggestion on Helden to convince him to climb back down the ladder as if nothing had ever happened. Then, Hans and Neirida happened. Hans put Magic Circle Against Evil on Neirida, freeing Helden as well. Neirida flew up and killed a spider. Hearing the fight begin, Blackwarm took off from the ballroom floor. Entertainingly enough, a tengu's wings only provide a Fly speed of 30', so since Blackwarm was buffing himself as he flew up, he took a full 4 rounds to get up. Unfortunately for the ettercaps, they were subject to flanking, much to Helden's delight, and Neirida was a one-woman wrecking machine. There was a slight bit of peril as Hans got poisoned, but it was mostly a walkover fight.
As they unwrapped the living victims, they were ecstatic to learn that one of the survivors was Maudette.
Then Helden put an exclamation mark in the party's evening of unsuccessful Diplomacy by simply saying, "So, I guess this means you don't want to dance with the Viscount, right?"
Subtle, Helden. Subtle.
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Session 40: Everything Goes Right For Once, Just About... Played 09-Aug-2018
And I have to say, the interview with the vampire was the highlight of the evening. I played Urdrenda as an urbane, sophisticated noble vampire with an endless desire to experience new things. As a necromancer voluntarily gave up his blood to her, she looked favorably on the party. It ended up being one of the best sessions so far, because the party decided they liked and trusted her, and she got necromancer blood. Win-win!
I was also pretty proud of my description of "timeless" Celephais: When they decided they were going to skip the final dance because sunset would never occur, I responded, "No; 'timeless' means that time only passes when you will it to. You could have spent weeks trying to perform the diplomacy, because you didn't want time to pass. As soon as you want it to be time for the dance, it will be."
Worked out well!
The Dreamlands, Day ???: While Helden was being completely undiplomatic with Maudette, Hans was quickly finding himself becoming paralyzed. Fortunately, he had a vial of antitoxin he quickly swallowed and it managed to save him... barely. (I swear; he only needed a 10 or better, but couldn't even make ONE save, much less two in a row.) Hans spent the rest of the evening at a whopping Dexterity of 3. While Hans was dealing with his demons, the rest of the party cut loose the five living captives. Of them, only Maudette was capable of movement. Neirida told them that she was horribly sorry about their ordeal, and perhaps they should go home and recuperate and return to the count's ball another night. As for Maudette, she explained that the viscount's beloved was unexpectedly arriving, and so it would be very kind of Maudette if she would excuse the viscount from his promised dance. Neirida's untrained Diplomacy roll was a 16 (with only a +1 bonus), plenty enough to convince all of the guests to agree to leave, and to convince Maudette to cede her dance with the viscount. Mission #1 accomplished!
As Neirida carried each victim in turn down from the loft, placing them by the front door to the manor, other guests pretended not to see her. Blackwarm assembled the spiders and ettercaps and started cackling. Should he raise spiders, or ettercaps? Zombies, or skeletons? He'd finally have some minions in the Dreamlands, and this made him happy. Except... Neirida saw what he was doing, and strenuously objected. She didn't want him leading undead spider-things through the ball, no matter how much the guests were pretending to ignore such things! Blackwarm dug in his heels and insisted on at least one spider, and then asked Neirida whether she would carry a spider corpse in her Bag of Holding. She refused. Hans and Helden watched the exchange, and just stayed out of it. Eventually, Neirida and Blackwarm agreed that once they had the signet ring, Blackwarm could raise whatever creatures he wanted, and they could all quickly leave through the portal after that. (So, the interesting question Blackwarm never asked was, "If a necromancer travels to a different plane, do the undead on the original plane still remain under his control?")
Once THAT argument was done, Neirida returned to the guests at the door and started carrying them out. The doorman and the viscount's majordomo were there, and the majordomo quickly took charge, ordering carriages for each of the paralyzed guests, as well as a burly manservant to carry them to their residences for their required bed rest. As he worked, Neirida poured it on thick, saying to each groaning guest, "Oh, you say the viscount's party was the most marvelous you've ever been to, and you hope to return as soon as you are able after your convalescence? How lovely of you!"
I made her roll a Bluff roll to pull this off, and her die continued to cooperate, with a total of 17 (including her whopping +1). If the majordomo saw through her bluff, he did not let on, and most likely appreciated that she was trying to make the guests look good as they were carted off.
Their next target was the Lady Urdrenda Splinterbone, and, having learned their lesson about letting Helden open his mouth, had Hans ask after her. Helden insisted on assisting, and their combined result was a whopping 34. Not only were they pointed to a beautiful, raven-haired, pale-skinned, red-lipped woman in a blood red dress staring out the window at the sunset, but they were told she was a vampire! Blackwarm immediately thought of controlling her and making her abandon the dance that way. The other party members suggested that this might not be... Diplomatic. But she was undead, and Blackwarm was determined to make this work. As Helden hid among the crowd and Neirida and Hans watched from a distance, Blackwarm approached her. On the bright side, he was refreshingly blunt. She noted that a tengu was unusual in the Dreamlands, and asked what brought him. And he bluntly stated that the viscount wanted to break off his dance with her, and Blackwarm was just the messenger. Fortunately, Lady Splinterbone was a curious sort. What was a tengu doing here? The viscount did not have any tengu servants. So why was he doing this viscount this favor?
As she grilled Blackwarm, her Sense Motive more than a match for his poor Bluff, she learned of the party's mission to regain their memories from the Mad Poet. She was intrigued, and told him that his tale had worth, but he would have to pay a price: He would have to let her drink his blood.
Neirida and Hans moved in. She was not alarmed, but smiled welcomingly at both of them, and explained she had no desire to kill Blackwarm, but a dance with the viscount was of great value, so she needed something of similar value. She felt a necromancer's blood was easily of that value, so it seemed like a fair trade. Before she bit in, she asked about other guests they had to approach. They described their success with Maudette, and their failure with Ardvin. "If you let me drink twice, I will tell you how to deal with that little worm."
The derision in her voice was unmistakable. Blackwarm agreed.
Lady Splinterbone took Blackwarm in her arms. He noted that she was probably stronger than Neirida. She smoothed his feathers off his neck, bit in, and drank deeply. Some guests, unable to control themselves, looked openly at the spectacle. Neirida glared back at them. They quickly turned away. The Lady's body was rocked with spasms and she gasped a bit as she drank, then pulled back for a moment, looking into Blackwarm's eyes. "Are you well? May I drink again?"
"Sure."
She bit again, shuddering as she drank the powerful blood. By the time she had drunk her fill, she looked a bit weak in the knees and her cheeks were flushed. "Well, I believe I got the better part of this bargain, and for that I thank you."
She first willingly and formally declined the viscount's invitation to the dance. Then she told them about Ardvin: A greedy worm who would do anything for money, they could probably out-and-out bribe him for a fee of somewhere around 10,000 gold pieces, but it would be far more entertaining to trick him into thinking he would receive a bribe, then have him decline and lose out on both the money and the dance. That would delight Urdrenda the most. The party thanked her, but she insisted, "No, thank YOU! And come back and visit any time!"
They chatted a bit longer; Helden was curious about her immunity to the sunlight, so she admitted it was only possible in the Dreamlands, which was one of the reason she frequented the viscount's "intolerable" balls. As a vampire, the viscount gave her a great deal more leeway than he did other guests. She offered to Fireball Ardvin as a demonstration, but no, no, they thought they had enough information.
Fully armed with the information they needed, Helden and Hans approached Ardvin. My favorite moment of the night: "So, Ardvin is pontificating about his massive business acumen, and doesn't seem to be anywhere near stopping. How do you interrupt him?"
"MONEY!"
"That's what you say?"
"Yes. Yes, it is."
In spite of his reluctance to roleplay it out, Impus Minor did a brilliant job of getting Ardvin's complete and total attention, on the possibility of riches to be had if he were only to give up the dance with the viscount. There were a few hiccups (his first tactic was to promise direct payment from the viscount to Ardvin), but his natural Bluff roll was a 24, which beat Ardvin's 21 Sense Motive even before all the bonuses added on for using money as a lure, getting Ardvin's rivals involved, and so forth. Ardvin was snowed, and ceded his dance for the promise of possible business dealings at a future date. Ardvin's colleagues were delighted.
The party returned triumphant to the viscount, who was so pleased with their approach that he not only gave them the promised signet ring, but also a Belt of Mighty Constitution+2. Blackwarm immediately donned it, still feeling a bit anemic from his time with Lady Splinterbone.
Too curious not to stay, the party danced for a bit. Which was hilarious, since Dex 3 Hans rolled a 17, Blackwarm rolled an 18, Neirida rolled a natural 20, and poor Dex-based Helden rolled an 8. After they danced for a bit, they went upstairs, Blackwarm raised the 4 nightmare ettercaps as fast zombies, then brought them to the exit from the Dreamlands. As expected, the partygoers pretended not to notice a necromancer leading four horrific zombie creatures through the dance hall.
At the appointed hour, the viscount's beloved arrived: An engorged, enormous 7-legged spider descended from the darkness above. Blackwarm had his zombies make themselves as scarce as possible. Black drool spilled from the viscount's mouth as he welcomed his beloved, and they danced magnificently together to the appalled-but-polite applause of the guests. Neirida had the best reaction of the whole group: "If an abomination like that can find love, maybe I can, too."
After a bit of discussion about the possibility of the undead becoming uncontrolled, Blackwarm put them back in the rafters and the party returned to reality.
Reality, Day 10: The triumphant party slept well, with their job well done.
Reality, Day 11: Blackwarm continued to research the heartstone, and learned that Quaveandra the hag was registered as an ambassador to the city of Dylath-Llen, a lawless city of scum and villainy. And a notorious haven for vice. Hand continued to research the feline tail, and learned that Lowls had sought out the advice of the zoogs, rat-like creatures who particularly enjoy the taste of feline flesh. There were no encounters.
Reality, Day 12: Blackwarm finished his research on the heartstone, learning that Quaveandra has an insufferably imperious manner and keeps an unnecessarily large retinue of retainers. Hans finished his research on the feline tail. Blackwarm pointed out that the heartstone would put them on a time limit, while the feline tail wouldn't, so they performed the ritual (another success in a very successful night) and appeared in the Enchanted Forest...
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Session 41: A Pile of Embarrassments Played 23-Aug-2018
The only really interesting GM question here was: Are undead "possessions"? I'd already ruled that because undead are immune to sleep, they cannot travel with Blackwarm into the Dreamlands. So Impus Major's immediate follow-up question was, "What about undead that I create in the Dreamlands?"
So, while I'm rather surprised that Google didn't give me a thread discussing exactly such instances, I made a few on-the-spot rulings just to make everything I'd ruled so far consistent:
This let me manage Blackwarm's undead without neutering him as a PC, so I think we're both satisfied with the results.
Reality, Night 12: At the end of last session, the party had successfully completed the ritual to enter the Enchanted Forest.
The Dreamlands, Day ??: As Neirida led the group down the staircase towards a sunlit opening smelling of wet hot forest, she noticed a bit of movement on either side of the portal: Blackwarm's zombie ettercaps had indeed survived their departure, and waited for him at the entrance! However, just past the undead, whimpering and squirming in the middle of an enormous branch (perhaps 20' across), was a small, obviously-injured blue-furred creature that looked something like a cross between a star-nosed mole, some kind of feline, and a monkey. Neirida immediately took pity on the creature and moved in. We'd started in initiatives, so Neirida knew to be careful, but her Perception roll did not detect any dangers in the area, whereas her Will save revealed that the injured creature was an illusion. "Watch out, everybody! This is some kind of trap!"
Hans moved in, joined Neirida, and cast Magic Circle Against Evil on her, while at the same time making his Will save to see the creature as an illusion. Blackwarm moved in and surrounded himself with his undead minions for his own protection. Helden held back a little, crouching down on the branch to try to get a better view of whatever it was that might be threatening them.
And that was Helden's fatal mistake. Hans and Neirida were clearly well-armed and right next to each other. The ettercaps were obviously dead. Blackwarm was safe among his undead. So the invisible tikbalang made its pounce attack on Helden, power attacking because it wanted to get in a quick kill. And hit-hit-crit on the pounce did over 90 damage, and did indeed kill Helden outright on its very first attack. Helden burned two Hero Points to stay alive but unconscious and stable at -1 hit point, and Impus Minor declared, "Well, that was a stupid session! I never even rolled a die!"
It got worse. Neirida moved in to engage the tikbalang, but wasn't willing to give it a free attack of opportunity so she stayed back 10 feet. Hans, out of reach of doing anything useful, spammed a Slumber Hex at the creature. And my beautiful, bad-a$$ tikbalang rolled a 2 on its save and keeled over right on top of Helden's unconscious form. Blackwarm and his ettercaps just watched for other danger as a raging, power attacking Neirida delivered what would have been an almost-impossible-to-withstand coup de grace anyway (10' away = 5' step and CdG), but the tikbalang rolled another 2 on its save, and the fight was over. Stupid. And over.
On beheading the tikbalang, the party heard many small voices coming from the branches (I did my utmost to play them like the aliens from Toy Story). "Ooooooooh!"
Hans healed Helden back to consciousness and handed him half a dozen potions of Cure Moderate Wounds to heal up (yay! Old loot being used!). Much to my dismay, in spite of everyone in the room telling him to do so, Impus Major had forgotten to get Aklo for Blackwarm on his last level-up. So yet again, only Hans (who follows directions) could speak to them, as HE had taken Aklo.
The party learned that they had indeed found the zoogs Lowls had mentioned. The zoogs were grateful that the party had slain the tikbalang, but had unfortunately eaten all the pards in the area, thanks to Lowls helping them slaughter them all. However, the tails weren't good for eating, so the zoogs could be convinced to part with a tail or two... IF the party would do them a favor (cue collective eye roll from every player at the table): The zoogs craved more feline flesh, and there were just the kitties to satisfy their palates up in the levels above. Neirida was torn; she wanted to complete the task, and she wanted to help the zoogs, but did it have to be by killing cats and feeding them to the zoogs? She really didn't like it. However, on learning that the "kitties" in question were tiger-sized, and were, in fact, preying on any zoog foolish enough to go into the upper canopies, she agreed that they could kill one, hopefully driving the others away, and satisfy their end of the deal without too much unnecessasry kitty bloodshed.
Everyone found this arrangement tolerable, so the party set off in the direction the zoogs indicated, to hunt tree tigers.
Session 41: A Pile of Embarrassments Played 23-Aug-2018
Since undead have no consciousness, I counted them as "items", so, just like any other Dreamlands "possessions", they appear with the PC when he/she appears in the Dreamlands.
That's the only part of the ruling that's *technically* not correct, as undead are considered creatures and not objects (same rules argument comes up with constructs). However, since you're allowing Blackwarm to maintain control of 1 pool of undead HD across 2 planes (I don't disagree with this - it's fair), then this part is largely just semantics. Sure, it means they show up right where he enters the plane each and every time, but the very nature of the Dreamlands could probably do that without declaring them items.
And this next part is going to be pedantic-rabbit-hole-nonsense, because I know you have a brain.
If counted as items/objects, then by definition they are unattended objects since they aren't actually in his possession, and there's all sorts of bad things that can happen to unattended objects.
But I'm positive you aren't doing that.
The important part is that it works for both of you and doesn't cripple him.
Otherwise, this is such a weird AP.
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Session 42: Can You See the Light? Played 13-Sep-2018
If you're going to give a bad guy a PC-crippling spell, at least make the bad guys threatening rather than annoying. All in all it was a short, frustrating session.
Reality, Night 12: We ended last session in the Enchanted Forest.
The Dreamlands, Day ??: Leaving the zoogs, the party headed farther into the canopy, following the very simple directions the zoogs had given them. The party was not particularly surprised when they were ambushed. They were a bit surprised when even Hans' Perception roll of 36 wasn't enough to prevent the ambush. They were even more surprised when the ambushers turned out to be small flying fey armed with nasty poisoned daggers. Attempting to end the fight quickly with their strength-draining poison, the lurkers each targeted a single party member (and for the record I really do appreciate a situation where they don't all swarm the least-armored PC and end up in an, "OK, you're dead before you get an action. Hand me your character sheet," situation (like last time)). Unfortunately, their luck was not great. They managed to hit only half the party (Hans and Blackwarm), and only Hans ended up poisoned (I don't remember giving him "vulnerable to poisons" as a weakness...). Being fast little buggers, the lurkers got a second turn, and those who still had poison on their daggers flanked Neirida and did quite a bit of damage to her, but she shook off the poison. The others couldn't get a flank in, so one backed off to regain the benefit of Invisibility while re-applying poison to its dagger, and the other clawed at Helden ineffectually. So Neirida taught them how much more damage a greatsword can do than a dagger, even including their sneak attack damage. Hans hit one, and Blackwarm managed to crit one with Driven By Guilt turned on, so it took a massive amount of damage, but the party was obviously confused -- they evenly distributed the damage among the creatures, so not a single one dropped. Blackwarm's zombies didn't fare any better, so it seemed like the party was in real trouble.
Unfortunately, even dropping their daggers and using their claws the two creatures flanking Neirida didn't manage to drop her, and so the carnage began. Neirida dropped the one she'd hit before. Hans successfully used a Slumber Hex on one and Blackwarm's zombies coup de graced it. He scorched a third as Helden moved around, got a flank, and seriously wounded the lone remaining one they could see. The invisible one tried to fly in to the rescue, stabbing with its poisoned blade, but it was too little, too late. Neirida dropped the other one as Hans healed her and the zombies grappled the final remaining creature. In its last act of desperation it managed to make the two Concentration checks necessary to cast Blindness on Neirida... and she failed her save.
So they killed the remaining creature, but Neirida was blind. And angry. Very, very angry. They made sure the creatures were all dead and no more were coming, then finally noticed the bound-and-gagged man lying on a thorny leaf nearby. Blackwarm sent his zombies to free the man. The man shook his head desperately, and Blackwarm said, "Oh, it's OK! They're under MY control! They won't hurt you!"
The man desperately banged his head back against the leaf, so Helden asked Blackwarm to wait for a moment. He finally inspected the leaf and realized that it was a deadly trap, and would drop the bound-and-gagged man into a vat of acid, almost certainly killing him. "Well, whaddya know about that?"
He pulled out a block of wood, hurled it at the leaf, and successfully disarmed the trap. (Impus Minor insists that it is canon that Helden disarms traps with blocks of wood. I am... skeptical...)
They freed the man, and he identified himself as Nestor. Really, AP? You HAD to go there? "Well, we're going to have a man trapped in a tree. What should we name him? I know! Nestor! And we'll name the guy floating at sea Bob! And the one lying in front of the door Matt! It'll be awesome!"
So yeah, the party could not stop laughing openly at his name. It wasn't chuckles. It wasn't smirks. It was 5 minutes of real time of everyone in the group saying things like, "What were you doin' in the tree, man?" "Nestin'!"
They finally stopped laughing long enough to free him, and it was an extremely awkward conversation.
"Well, you see..."
"No. No, I don't. I'm blind."
It took a while.
Eventually they learned that Nestor Bindlay was an 'environmentalist' of sorts, opposed to cruel and/or brutal hunting techniques and acting as a self-appointed enforcer to prevent same. His nemesis was Kelvetta Brix, a Cheliaxian woman whose cruel and capricious hunting practices led her to wipe out all her local game and travel farther and farther in search of new and exciting kills, and she was now cutting a swath of death across the Dreamlands, and Nestor meant to stop her. He asked the party why they were in the Dreamlands, and they very refreshingly told the honest truth. (Are you listening, Serpent's Skull group?) Nestor found that he greatly appreciated Neirida's approach: Kill one tiger and make the rest disperse. He suggested that he could accompany them, identify the alpha tiger, they could kill that one to satisfy their quest, and that would likely cause the other tigers to disband and move to another area, protecting the zoogs. All in all, he considered it a fine plan. Unfortunately, with Neirida blinded, it was a plan they couldn't exactly carry out at the moment.
Nestor agreed to meet the party the next day at that spot, and the party returned to the material plane, restoring Neirida's sight, but not her mood.
Reality, Day 13: As usual, there were no encounters, as they were still in the relatively-safe section of the river. Hans successfully performed the ritual yet again, so we returned to...
The Dreamlands, Day ??: The party is ready to meet up with Nestor and continue their quest for tiger meat.
This week's update: Impus Minor is really tired this week, and I hadn't prepped beyond the tiger fight, so we agreed to postpone for a week so I could liven up the river for them. Whee!
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Session 43: An Unhappy Seaman Played 27-Sep-2018
Reality, Night 13: We ended last session with the party re-entering the Enchanted Forest to meet up with Nestor.
The Dreamlands, Day ??: The group proceeded cautiously, but did not encounter any further predators as they met up with Nestor. He smiled and greeted them warmly, offering Neirida a ring he had found among the remains of the trap. He identified it as a Ring of Psychic Mastery, and suggested that maybe Hans could use it. Hans responded that his magic was spiritual, not psychic in nature, so the ring wasn't of any use to him either. Neirida shrugged and tossed it in her handy haversack. If Nestor hoped to make any inroads with her, he had a LOOOOOOONG road ahead of him.
They moved on through the trees, spreading the zombie ettercaps in front to take the brunt of the tigers' assault, while Hans followed close behind them to provide his high Perception roll, and the rest of the group clustered behind them.
Sure enough, Hans' Perception roll saved them, as the tigers were spotted more than a move away, so their entire surprise round was spent covering the distance (pesky Hans), but the smilodon's top Initiative roll let it move again and pounce. Unfortunately, the party's tactics worked all too well. The smilodon pounced on a zombie, rolled a natural 1 (but not a fumble), then hit with both claws but rolled minimum damage on both. Unbelievably, a stupid ettercap zombie survived a pounce from a smilodon. Such things Should Not Be. Unfortunately, the fight very quickly degenerated into, "Can we manage NOT to kill all of these things?"
Neirida hit the smilodan, then used her reach to crit one of the tigers as it charged. Nestor hit the smilodon with all his Scorching Rays, as did Blackwarm, including a crit. The smilodon went down on the very first round. Helden got in a flank and backstabbed one of the other tigers. One tiger did get to pounce on a zombie and kill it, but that was about the extent of their damage. Hans successfully Slumber Hexed one, and the rest fell to a barrage of brutality except for one that Neirida intimidated into running away. In Yet Another Classic Helden Moment, I told them that one tiger was at significant negative hit points and bleeding out and needed a Heal check, so Helden declared, "I throw a block of wood at it, and yell, 'By the power of Wood, be healed!'"
And of course rolled a natural 20 on his Heal check. Because wood.
Once the fight was done, the smilodon and one other tiger lay dead. One tiger had fled, and they had unceremoniously dropped the sleeping tiger from the canopy. It survived the fall, but did not choose to return. Hans healed the final tiger back into positive hit points, and Neirida used her Handle Animal skill to drive it off into the forest. Mission accomplished! Neirida skinned the smilodon to get herself a nice big green tiger pelt. With that, they bid their farewells to Nestor, who was ecstatic that they had worked so hard to save as many tigers as they could, and returned to the ship and rested for the night. As they planned for the next day, they learned that Blackwarm didn't speak Necril, either (seriously, necromancer boy?) so he queued up enough Comprehend Languages for the day to be able to study what he could about the red webbed foot.
Reality, Day 14: In the morning, Blackwarm started studying what he could about the foot. Other than a few incomprehensible references to a being known as "Malek", he could make neither heads nor tails (nor webbed feet) of the documents.
Hans, on the other hand, chose to research the Captain's Tricorn with Greben's help. The moment they opened the book and started studying, a thin mist appeared on the river. Neirida, not being an idiot, immediately called for all the sailors (and Skywin) to get on the roof of the boat, while the party moved to the deck as the mist thickened. As the mist reached its thickest point, a voice whispered across the boat, "Weiralai sends her greetings!"
The entire party asked, "Who?"
It took several minutes of wracking their brains until they figured out it was the denizen of Leng that Hans had slumbered back in the basement of Iris Manor. But they didn't really remember anything about her. It was... sad...
Unfortunately, at that point the stupidity of a "hide in the fog and summon monsters at your foe" attack plan really came out and played ham-handed havoc with poor Captain Vadrock. Hans put up a Magic Circle Against Evil around the entire party, and the summoned elasmosaurus didn't have the brains to change its plans from, "Attack the party" to "attack the boat", so the captain had to yell the orders across the river. And of course Hans speaks Aklo, and since he had the Magic Circle up, he could easily follow the captain's orders and keep the circle between the elasmosaurus and the ship. Even worse, Blackwarm, being curious, sent one of his isitoqs up to see what was going on. So yeah, it saw the tips of the red sails, could give Blackwarm very precise directions, and Captain Vadrack and his crew ate a Fireball for their troubles. It was time to go.
They left, the mist dissipated, and the party decided that researching that tricorne was now priority #1.
Poor Captain Vadrack!
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The Power of Wood Compels You!
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Seriously, I want to see an exorcism performed by beating someone with a block of wood and lots of shouting.
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Just found this tonight (not sure how I missed it before when seeing your other campaign journals). Got through page 1 so far. Your Session 13 timeline will be very useful to other GMs. (Not that I expect ever to get any chance to run this myself, but on the off chance . . . .)
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Seriously, I want to see an exorcism performed by beating someone with a block of wood and lots of shouting.
I support this.
Seriously, I want to see an exorcism performed by beating someone with a block of wood and lots of shouting.I support this.
Well, you know, if you bean somebody who's possessed just the right way, it might knock the possessing entity out of them . . . .
All caught up!
Knowing America, somebody probably tried that... With less than pleasant effects.
Of course it is also kind-a traditional to perform exorcism with multiple blocks of wood involved. Except that instead of beating the patient, you put them all under their feet and set on fire...
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I'm beginning to understand why GMs instaban necromancers from AP campaigns.
Captain Vadrack: Well, that could have gone better! My nightgaunt did OK, but didn't kill anyone, but my shock troops were utterly useless! Nothing to do now but to stand here with my wight boatswain until they attempt to board...
...wait! Wight boatswain!?!?! What are you doing?!? Ow! Ow! Ow!
Not a good day for Captain Vadrack.
(I thought I'd read somewhere that ability damage to CON doesn't affect total hit points, but Hero Labs says it does, so that's what we're going with...)
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Session 44: The Captain's Day Gets Worse Played 25-Oct-2018
My only consolation is that it was a nice capper on his incompetence from last session. Otherwise the feargaunt was an amazingly hard fight, only mitigated by Hans' well-prepared spell list, but once the feargaunt went down it was over. The crew, the wraith, and the captain were nothing but mop-up
Reality, Day 14: In what has become a depressingly-uneventful journey, there were no encounters, and neither Hans nor Blackwarm succeeded in their research. The most notable event of the day was Helden getting a 27 on Profession: Cook, so at least everyone ate well that day. Unfortunately, none of the research involved cooking.
Reality, Day 15: Blackwarm, obviously struggling with the frequent interruptions of having to re-cast Comprehend Languages to continue his work, failed in his research a second time. However, Hans succeeded in learning more about the owner of the tricorne hat (a whopping 13 KP knocked off the research): The tricorne belonged to a denizen of Leng named Captain Vadrack, who captained a slave ship named the Bloodwind. However, whereas most slave ships actually deliver their slaves somewhere, slaves that boarded the Bloodwind were usually never seen again. The Bloodwind itself was a longship made of dark wood with distinctive red-colored sails. Its primary distinction was that while it normally sailed the rivers and seas of the Dreamlands, it could cross into other planes, and Captain Vadrack was rumored to be relentless in his pursuit of his "victims" (though they found no reference as to who or what they might be). The group immediately concluded that the red-sailed ship that kept appearing in the fog to attack them must be the Bloodwind, so obtaining the tricorne might not be nearly so difficult as they had imagined. Also, since Vadrack was a denizen of Leng, they figured Weiralai must be the same, so in comparing notes they decided she(?) had to have been the person who jumped out of the crypt at them, only to be Slumber Hexed by Hans and coup de graced by Blackwarm's undead. Helden admitted that he didn't think he'd even seen her. Yet again, the encounter dice were friendly to the group, so they had another peaceful night's sleep aboard the Sellen Starling.
Reality, Day 16: Considering that Blackwarm only needed an 11 or so to make progress, his failure a third day in a row was quite frustrating for him. Everyone started asking whether maybe the webbed red foot might be set aside or later and he might work on something a little bit easier less esoteric for him. To make matters worse, Hans, Gossa, and Wreben easily finished the research needed to enter the Dreamlands at the precise location of the Bloodwind, giving them a significant tactical advantage over the captain. Once again, there were no encounters day or night, so Hans, Gossa, and Wreben easily performed the ritual to open the portal, and Gossa and Wreben once again chose to return to their berths rather than risk entering an unknown area.
Even more curious, unlike previous times, this time the entry was dead black and silent. There were no sounds of celebration, nor light streaming in, nor smells of a wet rainforest. Nothing but... blackness. Neirida, ever-fearless, strode in first. The other party members waited to hear her say it was OK to proceed, but heard nothing. Helden rushed in to help her, as did Blackwarm, then Hans.
Reality, Day 17: The party woke up in their sleeping rolls, blinking, bleary-eyed, wondering what had just happened. Helden immediately declared that something was wrong and started searching around. The others, perhaps a bit more trusting, tried to go about their normal business. Unfortunately, Helden quickly found a sea chest at the rear of the ship that he did not remember being there. He asked Skywin about it, but she didn't answer immediately, and Hans told the group that she seemed to be distracted and talking to herself. Calling over the others, Blackwarm immediately sensed that his undead ettercaps were within... which should be impossible... unless...
a natural 19 on his INT roll plus the two clues was plenty enough for Blackwarm to blurt out, "We're in the Dreamlands!", triggering Skywin's transformation...
Reality, Day 17The Dreamlands?, Day ??: During the surprise round, Skywin threw back her head and howled. Her limbs darkened and enlongated as her mouth bristled with fangs. Once regular initiatives started she went first, so the feargaunt activated her Nightmare Aura (everyone except Helden was affected), cast Confusion on the party (both Neirida and Helden became confused), and flew to the roof to be out of reach of the melee combatants. Neirida hit herself; fortunately, since she had been unarmed when she was hit with the Confusion, I ruled that the damage was nonlethal. Blackwarm hit the creature with some Magic Missiles, Helden attacked Hans (Helden has a bizarre hatred of Hans), and Hans successfully put up a Magic Circle Against Evil, giving Neirida and Helden new saves against the Confusion. Neirida succeeded, but Helden failed.
Since AP creatures never get Spellcraft, the feargaunt next dropped a Phantasmal Killer on Blackwarm. He made his save anyway, thanks to the Circle, so the fact that it wouldn't have worked anyway was lost on the feargaunt. Neirida started the long, slow process of hacking down the feargaunt, but its high AC and incorporeal nature made it a sloooooow process.
So, skipping over the blow-by-blow, it took exactly 6 rounds and 3 Hero points to kill the feargaunt: Hans burned one to ensure his Concentration check to get off Spirit-Bound Blade on Neirida would work (well worth it, to let her do full damage), plus he needed to use Unbreakable Heart to remove Neirida's fear, then a Pearl of Power and Unbreakable Heart again to free Helden. By the time he was done with all of that, everyone was fairly injured (the feargaunt started hitting people at 6d6 a round, and I was routinely rolling 27+ damage, because my dice were angry) and he channeled. Helden spent THREE ROUNDS BABBLING ABOUT WOOD, then hit Hans again before Hans finally freed him. I swear, Helden is one of the most bizarre PCs I've ever run. And I ran Malek! Plus, Helden had to spend two Hero points just to make the roll to become unconfused. Helden had a bad night. Blackwarm burned various spells trying to hurt the feargaunt, but as the Bloodwind started rolling up, he started dropping Fireballs on its deck. Ship-to-ship combat when only one side has ranged casters is Unfun.
The feargaunt finally dropped just as Captain Vadrock's crew stormed the deck. And I cannot emphasize enough just how hopeless they were. Helden went Total Defense so they ended up in a nice line doing nothing, giving Hans an opporunity to drop Wall of Fire on them while Blackwarm hit them with another Fireball. The crew members that got to the other side of the ship managed to end up facing Neirida, now with Barkskin and seriously, seriously, SERIOUSLY pissed off. She got crit-happy and started chopping them clean in half as they approached. How ANY mercenary would stand up to that, I don't know, but behind them were the ettercap zombies (Blackwarm had sent them over the roof once the feargaunt dropped) and then Hans' Firewall. Yeah, they all died. Their total damage? One dead ettercap zombie, one wounded ettercap zombie, and a couple of meaningless hits on Helden and Neirida that got cleared up by Hans' channeled energy.
It was time to deal with the captain. Everyone took to the air. Uh, Captain Vardock? What do you do against flying opponents? Answer: Nothing! It got worse. Blackwarm first Dimensional Anchored him. Because his life hadn't been bad enough beforehand. THEN Blackwarm took over Boatswain Ellish. Her Will save of a natural 1, followed up by a touch attack on Captain Vadrack of 19, dropped his CON by 6 points, doing 36 points of damage to him. THEN Neirida charged in. In TWO full rounds of attacks on her, I think he did about 40 points of damage. She more than doubled that. Helden shot him from stealth, he had to burn a round killing the wraith that was now killing him, and all in all it was just a Bad Day for the captain.
They took his hat. The fate of the Bloodwind is up in the air, but I'm not betting on it surviving the next session.
Once the party rests, they will go up to level 9. (They've only got a couple of objects left, and it's been quite a while, so I think it's about time.)
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Sessions 45-46: Twinsies! Played 19-20-Nov-2018
Then we get to the Royal Ghoul's Skull and Red Webbed Foot quests. BOTH of which are, "Negotiate with some ghouls, fight some constructs, fight the final bad guy(s), and get the reward, plus additional treasure." The story (and it really IS only one story) is the weakest of the bunch, and to have it appear twice is just weak writing. To have ended up playing it in back-to-back nights was even more unfortunate. The second night, the whole group was sitting around, laughing, asking, "Didn't we just do this?"
If you're reading this before running your own game, I strongly recommend rewriting one of the two quests wholesale. As it is, the party does virtually the exact same quest twice, and it really feels stupid. Even more so because they are also the weakest fights of all the dream quests. So you end up with weak fights with a repeated plotline and no mystery, and it's just boring to run and silly to play through. Though the image of Neirida using her reach to drop one wamp, then spin around and critically hit and kill another that was trying to get away was definitely one of those, "Movie moments" where you can picture the entire spectacularly-bloody scene in your mind. Except the wamps. 'Cause they can't. 'Cause they're dead.
The Dreamlands, Day ??: There really isn't much to tell: I tried to make the Bloodwind even creepier by having its hold full of half-absorbed slaves, but that made Neirida decide to destroy it. Hans' +12 Will save was more than enough to dominate the carp out of the poor boat as Neirida hacked it to pieces. R.I.P. Bloodwind. Then they returned to the waking world.
Reality, Day 17 (The real day 17): Even though Blackwarm now miraculously knew Necril (thanks to leveling up), he still couldn't make any progess on his research. Since Hans still didn't speak Necril (Hans had assumed that Blackwarm would have put some points into one of the required Knowledge skills), he researched denizens of Leng instead. What he told the party was rather disturbing: As long as denizens of Leng still had ties to their home dimension, they could not be killed, and would re-form in Leng with vengeance on their mind. A Dimensional Anchor wasn't heavy enough artillery to stop it; they would need an Antimagic Field or similar magic to permanently kill a denizen of Leng. Considering that now both Weiralai and Captain Vadrack were after them, they decided that a scroll would be in order the next time they came to a major port. As for the party being in an Antimagic Field, they figured a raging bloodrager against a rogue or a magus wouldn't be a fight they really needed to worry about. (And having just run the BBEG of Crimson Throne in an antimagic field against TWO fighters, it isn't pretty.)
Other than that, it was another quiet day.
As a side note, Impus Minor's dice are rather remarkable that way; along the shore of Lake Encarthan, I figure Skywin is smart enough not to go ashore to Razmiran, and the people there aren't likely to head out into the lake looking for plunder, so I've got the encounter chances at 1/20 during the day, and 2/20 during the evening. It took 41 rolls (the day of Day 21) to get their second random encounter (the first being the one with the Bloodwind where I negated the "randomness" of it).
Reality, Day 18: No encounters, no progress. Helden started taking 10 on his cooking to provide a standard meal with a DC of 26, so the crew was eating well. I had them being sociable with the party, and every evening their was singing and storytelling and Helden playing his banjo, but considering it's a 90-day journey, I didn't think anyone would enjoy a blow-by-blow of every single day and evening, so I just mentioned that they were getting along with the crew, Gossa, and Wreben splendidly.
Reality, Day 19: No encounters, but 12 points of progress on the Royal Ghoul's Skull research. The party learned that ghouls in the Dreamlands are far more social than ghouls in the waking world, forming large communities with rich histories, and many such communities are run by royalty.
Reality, Day 20: No encounters, and only 6 more points of progress gave them no new information.
Reality, Day 21: Saw amoeba. Sank same. Seriously, they're still way up north since they're making so much Dreamlands progress so quickly, and Impus Minor rolled a 19 on the encounter roll. Blackwarm actually made a roll for once, so once the amoeba was pointed out swimming towards the ship he Magic Missiled it into oblivion. It was a slight break from the tedium of crawling down the lakeshore, but not much of one. Unfortuantely, this obviously broke Blackwarm's concentration and he made no progress on his research.
Reality, Day 22: No encounters, no progress.
Reality, Day 23: Neirida announced that she was playing a mouth harp to help Blackwarm concentrate. Miraculously, it worked! Blackwarm learned that there are more powerful, more intelligent ghouls who inhabit the areas where the Dreamlands intersect Leng. In another sad day for science and naming of creatures, these hideous abominations were called, "Leng ghouls". They could have at least tried "graboids". But Blackwarm also figured out the passphrase to get to the ghouls' necropolis. Since they would likely be going up against ghouls, they decided to wait a day to allow Hans to prepare anti-ghoul spells such as Remove Paralysis.
Reality, Day 24: No encounters, so Hans performed the ritual.
The Dreamlands, Day ??: The group was immediately greeted by a dry, dusty smell and gutteral chanting. As the portal opened, the chanting stopped. Neirida stepped out. She was surrounded by dozens of ghouls in a makeshift war camp. Some were sitting around a fire, beating on drums that appeared to be made of bone and human skin. But on seeing her, all the ghouls bowed their foreheads to the ground toward her, and what looked like the lead ghoul called out, "Thank you, Nyarlathotep, for answering our prayers!"
The rest of the party followed Neirida into the Dreamlands, to the oohs and aahs of the assembled ghouls. Unfortunately, Neirida quickly learned that they weren't all that bright or useful; they hadn't actually expected the ritual to work, so they didn't quite know what to ask for. All she got out of them was that they needed help. Fortunately, a loud, "What's all this, then?" sent the lesser ghouls scurrying back as a much larger, green-skinned ghoul came striding confidently forward. (I played him as a British explorer, because why not?). He quickly summarized the situation for the party: He and his compatriots (a handful of other Leng ghouls) had moved out of the necropolis some years ago to search for richer feeding grounds, and a group of gugs had had the nerve to move in in their place. This was offensive, even to ghouls: Gugs have no place in ghoul society! They'd gathered all the lesser ghouls they could, but, as the party could plainly see, they weren't much of an army. Wilkins was quite direct, "So, since their summoning ritual worked after all, much to my astonishment, may I assume you'll help us with our little gug problem?"
Neirida was just as direct as Wilkins. She admitted that they were there for a skull of ghoul royalty. The interplay at this point was delightful: Neirida, having very little Sense Motive, did not sense the anger of the lesser ghouls, though Helden and Hans did. Wilkins didn't care in the least about the lesser ghouls' feelings, and readily agreed, telling Neirida that none of the ghouls in his troop were royalty, but if she didn't mind an old one there was one in a mausoleum that also just happened to be a tactically-sound chokepoint that he'd been hoping to capture. So if the party would go in, kill any gugs they found, make a lot of noise so the ghouls would know to start their attacks, and then hold the position until the all-clear was sounded, they were welcome to the skull and any loot they found along with it.
The other ghouls Did Not Like. Neither Neirida nor Wilkins cared for the other ghouls' feelings. This made them Sad.
The group traveled with Wilkins and the ghouls to the edge of the necropolis. Wilkins summoned over a hunchbacked ghoul with a backpack and proceeded to pull out a quill, ink, some parchment, and a writing board. The hunchbacked ghoul groveled to its hands and knees, providing a convenient surface on which to place the writing board as Wilkins expertly penned a map of the position he needed the party to take. He didn't think they would have any trouble, having been sent by Nyarlathotep and all, so he didn't even make arrangements for reinforcements for them if anything went wrong.
Now that they were alone and the map clearly indicated they only had a few hundred feet to go, they cast their usual buffs (Barkskin, Bull's Strength, and Magic Circle Against Evil on Neirida from Hans, plus Blur on her from Blackwarm), then Helden complained about getting no buffs so Hans put a Protection from Evil on him. Moving forward, they came to a wide columned passageway leading in to the mausoleum. Helden easily spotted the bony creatures hiding within the columns, but while Blackwarm readily identified the two necrophidii, he couldn't identify the bone golem, 'cause Blackwarm don't do Knowledge skills. (Impus Major is rather irritated about the whole Knowledge skill thing, but if you don't have a bard, everyone expects the wizard to keep up.) It would be nice to say that it was a good fight. But the party pretty much let Neirida run in and beat all the constructs to death in very short order. One of the necrophidii got to do its dance, but every single party member made his or her save, and Neirida smashed it just because. The bone golem, unhappy at being hit for nearly 50 points a round even through its DR, tried to throw a bone prison on her. Impus Major reminded me of her Blur. So I got to make an interesting call: Does Blur affect a bone prison? Since the description reads, "It must make a ranged touch attack to hit," and the description of Blur is that it provides concealment, and concealment is just a flat 20% miss chance, I ruled that Blur did indeed affect the cage, even though from the description it seems odd that it would, and of course rolled an 09 so the cage missed. Sad golem!
The party heard the sounds of fighting all around them; their fight with the constructs had been enough to signal all the other ghouls to start their assaults.
They moved forward into the bone-strewn courtyard containing the mausoleum proper, and Hans put Fly on Neirida, just in case. My lonely gug rushed out and did very little to Neirida before being Scorching Rayed and beaten to death. Poor Helden was so frustrated at dealing with constructs that he worked very hard to get around to the back of the gug, but it was dead before he got there.
With the only guardian gone, they examined the mausoleum. Helden missed the trap, but was fortunate in that he had the best touch AC of the group, and only got hit 7 times. The damage wasn't all that severe, so they collected the skull from the dessicated ghoul corpse they found inside, grabbed the rod as well (by miracle after Blackwarm failed to identify it, Hans rolled ludicrously well and identified it as a Rod of Lordly Might. The party let him keep it as a +3 spear), and listened for the signal that they could leave. Just before it was given, they were attacked by a group of ghouls angry at the desecration. Both Blackwarm and Hans had Fireballs left. Yeah. Ghouls. Meh.
The party heard the signal and chose not to walk back with the ghouls, but instead make their concentration checks to return to reality from where they were.
We ended for the evening, and continued the next day.
Reality, Day 25: No encounters. Blackwarm researched the Red Webbed Foot, knocked off 11 points, and learned that they were hunting wamps, bizarre aberrations with multiple legs ending in red webbed feet.
Reality, Day 26: No encounters, no progress.
Reality, Day 27: No encounters, but Blackwarm finished his research. Wamps carry many extremely-nasty diseases, eat carrion, and frequent cemetaries and necropolises. The group asked as one, "Again?!?!?" But they learned the passphrase to get to the necropolis ("Again?") and asked Hans whether he needed to prepare Remove Disease. Hans pointed out that diseases progress so slowly that there was no point in preparing any defenses; they would return to the waking world and recover from any diseases before they were affected by them. So they performed the ritual and returned to a necropolis.
The Dreamlands, Day ?? The first fight really set the tone for the whole (mis)adventure. Everyone except Neirida made high enough Perception rolls to see the ghast ambush, and then high enough initiative rolls to beat the ghasts. Both Hans and Blackwarm declared actions, so the swarm of 8 ghasts rushed in, Hans channeled and killed 2 of them outright, then Blackwarm took control of 3 more. All during the surprise round. Sure, the ghasts sickened everyone, but their feeble attacks managed a single hit on Helden (and he made his save), and then Hans channeled a second time and killed the rest, except for the ONE ghast Blackwarm had told Helden, "Don't kill! That one is mine!"
Neirida never even got an action in the first fight.
After that annihilation, it was no surprise to see the timid ghasts come forward requesting a parlay. The only two bits of interest in the entire conversation were the history of the city (at some point every living thing had turned into a yellow ceramic, except for a few hundred residents who became ghasts instead, and now lived off the bodies in the graveyard, which also hadn't been converted), and the fact that, unlike Wilkins, these ghasts had to draw their maps in the dirt, like animals!
The party agreed to help them, because why not, and they seemed harmless enough. Blackwarm even released the last ghast back to its people, which was probably a kindness, considering the destruction that followed...
...they got to the graveyard again, buffed up again, were attacked by constructs again, Neirida destroyed them again, and they moved into the graveyard.
Oh, woe the wamps! I had two casters who hadn't been allowed to cut loose in two nights, plus a rogue who hadn't gotten to backstab anything. Fireballs, a large fire elemental, flanks of anything and everything for the rogue/duelist, and Neirida raging in the middle of it. The only danger was to Helden, whose armor class wasn't high enough to be in the big kids' pool. After the wamps rolled SIXTEEN ATTACKS on Neirida, ALL FLANKED, and ALL MISSES, they turned their attention to Helden. He lost a good 2/3 of his hit points. But while Hans' fire elemental and spiritual weapon were carving the living daylights out of the wamps that weren't being slaughtered by Neirida, he channeled to give Helden a helping hand. It was such a lopsided massacre that I tried to have the last two wamps run. Neirida killed one before its turn, and the other took a critical attack of opportunity from her (she has reach when raging) and fell clean in half.
The party had plenty of wamp feet, and all kinds of other loot as well as the ghasts piled rewards before them, and they got to loot any open graves.
We ended the second evening with the group both laughing about how easy the fights were, and openly marveling at doing the exact same quest two nights in a row...
Given how my dreams go, it seems to me that within the Dreamlands you shouldn't be able to count on things working the same way they did before (except when it's to your disadvantage), let alone being able to get back to where you were before . . . .
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Sessions 47: Hag Hash Played 15-Jan-2019
Considering that you have a CE night hag openly trying to move her business into the Dreamlands, plus a LE assassin trying to kill her, I would add the sentence, "Make sure none of your PCs are good-aligned, 'cause they just done goofed."
It's honestly hard for me to imagine any player learning of Quaveandra's plan and not shedding some hag blood. My players were no exception...
I've also put myself in a bit of a sticky wicket, GMwise. When the drug den erupted in violence and bloodshed (yeah, they didn't get the XP bonus. Did I mention that?), Kavriki saw the magical stairway the PCs had come in on as a marvelous escape opportunity and took it. Going back and re-reading the ritual, she shouldn't have been able to return to the Material Plane so I'll probably have to retcon it. But it was hilarious having her appear on the deck of the Sellen Starling thinking she'd just performed a magnificent getaway, only to ask, "Hey, what city are we in?"
"We're not in a city. We're on a boat."
"Er, how close is the nearest city?"
"A few weeks away, I think."
"..."
I'm sorry to have to retcon it because it was going to lead to much hilarity, but the ritual description makes it much more obvious why people aren't constantly popping back and forth through the staircase that the PCs left behind. Ah, well.
Reality, Day 28 Arriving back in the Material Plane on the 27th night, the party had plenty to time to discuss how to take on a night hag. Blackwarm described their major abilities: DR except against magical cold iron (so Hans's Rod of Lordly Might would work, but Neirida would have to just hack her way through it, and Helden and Blackwarm were pretty much out of it). A fairly high SR and immunity to fire and sleep further reduced Blackwarm's effectiveness, plus Hans' chance of just putting her to sleep and taking the heartstone peaceably. Night hags are formidable fighters, with two claws and a disease-bearing bite, though having the heartstone after the fight would render the disease rather meaningless, as the heartstone could cure diseases. Of far more concern were a hag's spell-like abilities: Invisibility, Deep Slumber, and especially Etherealness posed a nasty conundrum: Neirida could see invisible creatures, but not hurt ethereal ones. Hans' Spiritual Weapon could hurt an ethereal creature, but he couldn't see her. They decided that the first order of business, no matter what, would be to stop her from going ethereal. Helden would attempt either a Sleight of Hand (if he managed to hide from her) or a Steal combat maneuver (if he didn't) on her to take the heartstone, while Blackwarm would try to get a Dimensional Anchor on her. If either succeeded, it would allow Neirida to give her a solid beat-down. Their biggest question was how they were goig to approach her: Would they just attack her on sight, or would they first try negotiations? They decided they would have to play it by ear. The group made sure they had the proper spells prepared and spent a pleasant day fishing off the Sellen Starling until nightfall, and it was time for them to perform the ritual. (In a bit of fun, Blackwarm rolled an unnatural 1 on Survival and caught nothing (for a minute I thought he'd rolled a 1 for a total of -5 and fallen in the river trying to fish), while Helden's 12 was enough to catch a couple of fish, but nothing impressive. Hans and Neirida had rolls of 22 each, providing a feast for the entire crew. Unfortunately, Helden's natural 1 on Profession: Cook meant the total for dinner was only a 10. Helden claimed that all of the fish that everyone had caught were rotten, and the group shouldn't eat river fish any more (Bluff 19). Skywin and the crew were nonplussed, but believed him.
After dinner, once the ship was settled for the night, Hans had no trouble performing the ritual, and the group proceeded into the Dreamlands.
The Dreamlands, Day ???: The first thing Neirida noticed was the smell. A thick haze of flayleaf and opium smoke wafted up the staircase. Below, soft murmurings were punctuated by a bongo and tambourine softly playing in the dimness. As she stepped into the lavish drug den, she spotted at least a dozen partakers in various states of dress and undress, consciousness and unconsciousness. In addition to the clientele, a handful of well-dressed, attractive hosts and hostesses circulated the room, offering illicit substances (for a nominal fee), or checking to make sure this client or that one was still with the living. A shrill voice cut through the murmurings, "Because I'm an ambassador, did you know that?"
Glancing in the direction of the voice, Neirida spotted their quarry: Quaveandra sat apart from the riff raff, erect and clear-headed, and looking straight at Neirida. "You there! You are not from this place! Come here at once! I need to talk to you! Servants! Drag these others away! This conversation must be private!"
A few drug-addled servants dragged those who could not walk away from Quaveandra's chair, giving her a wide space in which she could converse privately with the party. She quickly described her dire circumstance: Someone was trying to kill her! In the last few weeks she had been poisoned, sent a Robe of Enfeeblement as an anonymous gift, and even brazenly attacked in the street by a group of thugs! In the third case she had been lucky to escape with her life! The assailant clearly had inside information on her, knowing her habits, her preferences, and even her travel routes. She had been watching her retinue closely since the last incident, and had narrowed the suspects down to three. She pointed to a harsh-looking tiefling woman guarding one of the curtains that led to a private room. This was Ammanetta, Quaveandra's steward, who, Quaveandra noted, seemed to have an almost compulsive obsession with Quaveandra's comings and goings. Yes, it was good to have a steward who was so well-informed, but if anyone knew how to target Quaveandra, Ammanetta did. Second, she pointed out the portly human in the hat and robes. Dol Theth was her personal fortuneteller, and predicted her future with such accuracy that either he was the real deal, or he knew more about her than he was letting on. Finally there was Kavriki, the human bongo-playing bard. Because you always suspect the bard.
The group decided to question the fortune-teller first. As they moved toward the private room and shooed Ammanetta away, Helden spotted the hastily-constructed tripline at the top of the curtain and Impus Minor cried out, "I throw a block of wood at it!"
Before I could say a word he'd rolled a die and... a natural 18, for a 33 Disable Device total.
Sighing heavily, I allowed it.
Dol Theth was alarmed at Helden's bizarre behavior, but his mistress had ordered him to cooperate with them, so he entered the room. They asked him what he did, and yet another natural 1 on the night (yep, just one of THOSE nights) meant his Bluff total was a whopping 12, and Blackwarm, Helden, and Hans saw right through him. Nerida's combination of not having enough skill points to buy Sense Motive and a poor roll meant she actually believed him, so she asked him to read her fortune and he put on a great show of reading her future, telling her that she was going to have great success in her next endeavor, and rolling a natural 2 so that Hans and Helden knew that the man was a complete and utter fraud in all areas. But at least he was harmless. It was not a good night for poor Mr. Theth.
They questioned Ammanetta next, especially about the trap, but a slight amount of pressure was all it took for all of them to know that, though annoying, she wasn't the culprit.
Finally, they summoned Kavriki, and she was the victim of the opposite problem: Hans' Sense Motive is +19. Hans did not roll below a 35 during their entire interview with her. It was a ruthless display of, "Yeah, I don't care what you're going to roll, I'm going to roll a 16 or higher every. Single. Time. You open your mouth."
Even Neirida rolled high enough to recognize that Kavriki was very carefully telling the truth, but only enough of the truth to answer the question, with no embellishments or additions to divulge anything that wasn't directly asked. The only time Kavriki got a break was when Helden asked her to perform on her instrument to prove that she really was a bard and she rolled a natural 20 for her Perform, outperforming Helden and irritating him no end.
So they learned that Quaveandra was attempting to expand her soul trade into the Dreamlands, and that many, many people wanted her stopped. They learned that Kavriki did not approve of Quaveandra's plan. They never directly asked about the trap (Hans spotted her glance at it when she came in), nor did they ask her whether she was the assassin. After talking to her for a little while, they all agreed that this whole "help Quaveandra for a reward" thing was stupid, and they were just going to kill her evil hag butt. Kavriki agreed that if they could call her in to the private room and attack her, she could prevent any reinforcements from coming to Quaveandra's aid. Neirida, quite taken with Kavriki's forthrightness, suggested that perhaps after the mission they could meet in a more relaxed atmosphere. Kavriki liked the idea, and said she'd love to.
The ambush was utterly and completely brutal. Helden successfully Bluffed Quaveandra to get her to come to the private room to hear their findings, then successfully used Stealth so he was hidden as she stepped through the curtain. During the surprise round, he successfully rolled a Sleight of Hand to steal her heartstone. Helden was on a roll. Similarly, during the surprise round Blackwarm successfully put a Dimensional Anchor on her. Quaveandra was sad. Neirida hit her, and Hans started buffing Neirida.
It all might have turned around when Quaveandra got her first action. Surrounded but unhurt by anyone except the bloodrager, she decided to take the bloodrager out of the combat with a Deep Slumber. She rolled her caster level check to cast defensively and... a 2. She needed a 3. She rolled a 2. She retreated out of Neirida's flank, but it wasn't enough. Hans kept buffing Neirida. Blackwarm blocked her from escaping. Helden providing Neirida with the flanks she needed to hit. A full-round attack from Quaveandra took nearly half Neirida's hit points, but Neirida returned the favor with a crit-hit that dropped Quaveandra to negative hit points. Blackwarm quickly fetched Kavriki, who was allowed to perform the killing blow to complete her contract. The party took the heartstone, Kavriki took the head, and they went their separate ways, fleeing the chaos they left behind in the drug den.
And we have to stop there, because in the heat of the moment I had Kavriki flee to the Sellen Starling because I thought it would be all kinds of fun to play the interactions between Kavriki and Neirida. Unfortunately, now that I've read on, I'm going to have to retcon a bit...
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I completely agree with UAE.
Sidebar...
UnArcaneElection...you have to change your capitilazations, because I cannot in good conscious agree with the United Arab Emirates on much of anything.
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I'm not the United Arab Emirates . . . .
I'm the Unrecoverable Application Error!
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I just noticed my phone autocorrected "conscience" to "conscious". Screw you phone. Screw you.
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Heyla, Nobodyshome! I'm rather enjoying your write-up for this campaign though I do feel bad that you're not able to play as often as you'd like. That said, I've two small suggestions concerning Hero Points.
First, I houseruled it that you only need spend one Hero Point to keep from dying. It makes things more interesting that way as you don't have players refusing to use Hero Points until they have three of them, just in case something goes wrong.
Second, I've started using Temporary Hero Points in my current "Reign of Winter" campaign. Basically, each game everyone gets one Hero Point. I no longer bother fudging rolls or the like as I used to (though sometimes I'll relent as to me it's about having fun, not fighting dice).
Also, I rather like your use of a GM Notes segment. I'll have to incorporate that in my Campaign Journal postings. :)
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Heyla, Nobodyshome! I'm rather enjoying your write-up for this campaign though I do feel bad that you're not able to play as often as you'd like. That said, I've two small suggestions concerning Hero Points.
First, I houseruled it that you only need spend one Hero Point to keep from dying. It makes things more interesting that way as you don't have players refusing to use Hero Points until they have three of them, just in case something goes wrong.
Second, I've started using Temporary Hero Points in my current "Reign of Winter" campaign. Basically, each game everyone gets one Hero Point. I no longer bother fudging rolls or the like as I used to (though sometimes I'll relent as to me it's about having fun, not fighting dice).
Also, I rather like your use of a GM Notes segment. I'll have to incorporate that in my Campaign Journal postings. :)
wow! Welcome to another odd thread-o-mine!
Let's see where this one goes!
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OK, gents, give me a hand here: I like the idea of Kavriki having an item that let her travel to the Material Plane, so I started trying to work up how she's going to get back to her employer...
...except...
...the AP never thought of such things.
So, a LE monk assassin of Irori who travels the planes to prevent the spread of Chaos. Where would she be from? Would the Dreamlands be her home plane, or just an assignment?
I have some ideas I'm toying with, but I'd love to hear others.
And please spoiler them, since Impus Minor reads this thread religiously (and is good enough to ignore spoilers if I ask him to).