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So, I've tried to get my players to write journals in all my campaigns, and they've always failed utterly because:
(a) Writing takes time, and
(b) People like my writing.
Imagine my surprise when Lady Heidmarch assigned journal-writing to the group, and the Red Sash actually produced a journal!!!
So I got his player's permission to post. Without further ado, here is the Red Sash's unedited, unadorned journal:
=======
The Crow
A Pathfinder Journal
by the Red Sash
The Pathfinder Society sends us to the crow to find a part of a seven pointed star. It is big magic and so we should have it. But taking the part makes you crazy so we have to be careful not to take it without being ready.
I am the Red Sash and I am going there with my friends Lans Sterling and Shondra. There is also a gnome called tussle. He is crazy and bad but he shoots his loud guns really good and kills lots of monsters with them.
We take a rowboat and I row us in the fog to find the crow. The crow is what they call part of the support structure for the old bridge in Magnamar. It is a huge pillar of old magic stone that also contains interior spaces from ancient times. The stone is very tough and that is why so much of the bridge still stands today even though it is very old.
We find a hidden landing where there are other boats tied up. We go in and fight some tower girls. Some of them are also wererats. They also keep ugly goblin rat pets. We tie up the tower girls that don’t die. Then later we let them go except for the wererat tower girls that we take to the arvensore prison.
Near the top of the crow tower we find magic doors made by Thassilonians that has letters that spell out words. The doors burn when you touch them. But we have to touch them to make new words to open the doors and go down.
The Thassilonians liked to walk up and down stairs a lot. The crow has stairs going up from the boats to the top, then down and down and down way below the water and very deep.
When we go through the magic doors and down many stairs and find gross water full of amoebas, and an old stable full of bats. I’m not sure why there is a stable here because I don’t think horses like stairs and there isn’t an easy way from the stable to outside without lots of stairs and jumping. But the bats are very difficult to smash with my earth-breaker so we have to go away and get some things to kill them.
We come back with some fire bottles and the goblin has a gun that shoots fire and Shondra has magic that can burn the bats. This makes a little mite guy angry so we catch him and ask questions. He only says lies and crazy talk like a gnome so we take him up to our scholar. He tells us mites are like bugs and rats and so we throw him off the tower but he can’t fly.
We go down the stairs more and find more mites and bugs. There is a king mite wearing a bracer on his head. Our goblin takes the bracer off his head and the king yells and all his mites and spiders come to fight us. But I am the Red Sash and they fall one by one to my hammer and the weapons of my friends. At last there are a few who realize they cannot face me so they run away. We get them later.
After the mite army we find more spiders and centipedes. The centipedes come toward our light but there are too many and we used all our fire on the bats. So we go away and get more fire. Lots of fire.
I make a big pool of lamp oil all over the room and then we lure the centipedes into it and set it all on fire. They die very fast that way.
We go down even more stairs and find huge ugly demon worms. There are statues all over of an old Thassilonian lady. The statues are pretty good and still holding up after all this time. I can tell she really liked statues of herself, because they are everywhere. We also find an invisible demon guy who is fighting with another demon guy. He wants us to help him but he’s a demon so we kill him instead and cut off his head.
We also find some flooded rooms here that we don’t want to go into yet. We find a maze of old magic that brings in demons. I smash the magic parts from the walls to break the summoning. When I do it there is a hell-hound that comes to fight us and stop us destroying it. But I am the Red Sash and it falls to my hammer and the weapons of my friends. The demon portal is no more.
We explore and find more statues of that lady. One of the statues blasts fire. Then we find a room with a statue of her and a statue of many other people we’ve never seen before. It’s got a riddle something like “What’s better, me or all these other people” so I know she wants us to touch her statue to get through. It works and it also makes me stronger. She doesn’t have to be here and already her weaknesses are plain.
After that we find more demons. At first we think they are the enemies of the first demon, but when we show them his head they get mad and fight us. But I am the Red Sash and they fall one by one to my hammer and the weapons of my friends. At last there is one who realizes he cannot face me so he runs away invisible. We get him later.
We find Lord Baz, an ugly half-fly demon guy who thinks he is important. The invisible guy who ran away is with him. They tell us about a demon named Stinky they don’t like. My friends trick him into promising to stay in his room for a long time. We find Stinky and he is another demon slug creature but he seems scared so we let him keep hiding in his room and eating demons.
We go back to the flooded rooms and kill those things. There is an ooze creature and old magic experiments called sin spawn that hide in the water and attack Tussle’s golem. Oh yeah we found an old metal golem thing in one room and Tussle found the key to make it go. Now he rides it around everywhere and shoots from its back. I think he wanted a friend so they make a good team.
We also find a room that peeks under the harbor. You can see out because there is magic keeping the water out. I see a sunken boat that is the Liza Jane I heard about when I was little. We find a magic scroll that lets us breathe and so we walk out into the water and find things that sunk with the ship. One of them is a pendant that belongs to someone we didn’t meet yet.
We went down even more stairs and meet the guy who had the pendant. His name is Lockerby and he is a ghoul now. He is trying not to eat everybody so he hides in the water when we come and he tells us who he is. He wants us to give the pendant to his wife so we say we will do that. He also tells us what other things are in the sewers and he watches to make sure we don’t die before bringing the pendant out.
We take the pendant to Liza Jane and she is sad but happy to know what happened. Oh that reminds me we found a dead guy up near the top and he was the father of the Princess of Sails in Magnamar. We brought him out to her and she was also sad and happy and she gave us good deals in the market. I wish I could find out what happened to
Anyway we go back in and tell Lockerby about his wife and he is also sad and happy about that, but getting hungry and doesn’t want us to get close to him. So we kill the other things in the sewers. There are eels and a green slime that Tussle blasts with his fire gun.
We find some blue derros that were kidnapping people from the city and doing experiments with them. We find the prisoners locked up naked in a dungeon so we kill the derros and set them free. One of them is Terisha who tried to kill us once. We take them all back to the city.
There is a long staircase that goes down into a cave full of icky slimes. We don’t go that way. Instead we find a stair that goes down to some skezy szicky spider-demon-things but we kill them because I am the Red Sash and everyone falls to my hammer and the weapons of my friends.
Behind the spider-demon-things is a pedestal with the part of the star we are looking for. We know it will make us crazy if we touch it so we tie up the gnome and make him hold it. He is already crazy so its okay. But it makes him dumb and greedy so Lans calms him down with coins and we drag him back to the city so Lady Heidmarch can put the thing in it that makes it okay. The I Own stone makes you less greedy when you hold it so they give it to me because it makes you stronger and who needs a stronger gnome?
And that’s how we find the part of the star and conquer the crow of Magnamar.
Signed,
Sash The Red Sash
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The tower
Tussle
I’m not entirely sure why I gotta write this so I don’t care if this is my job, you are getting very little effort whether you like it or not.
We went to the tower because I held a thing and saw the tower. I’m not even sure what I should call it because it’s pretty much just a pillar of a broken bridge but people live in it so I’m not sure.
The big guys rowed Xondra and I to the tower where we went in and beat up a lot of tower girls. Some were rats but I’m not really sure about what that means. I’m really smart but even I don’t understand why becoming a rat makes you stronger but I don’t really care.
After we finished with the tower girls I went and solved a puzzle on a hot door in a few seconds.
There was a long staircase but we had to leave because of… bats. I don’t know why there were, like, 100000 bats in that one room but I hate them.
After we dealt with the bats with lots of fire, Lance threw a mite out of the tower and headed downstairs.
That entire floor was just boring devil stuff but the best part of the entire mission by far was Gary. THINK OF THE THINGS YOU CAN DO WITH A CLOCKWORK SERVANT. He was just SITTING THERE waiting for someone to come save him. The cruelest part of that his crank was stuck in some fountain somewhere but through amazing deduction I was able to find it.
The rest of a tower was a blur and at the end after killing some spiders we found the shard of greed. We tied me up and I can’t remember the rest but I woke up in the manor with a lot of Lance’s money so I’m happy.
I have now finished this journal so I can get paid.
I’m very sleep deprived because I’ve been working on Gary all night so goodbye.
-Tussle & Gary
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Session 11, Played 09-Feb-2020
After a very short discussion, the party decided that they'd prefer to go on foot, considering that many of their number would decidedly sink in deep water (Lance fidgeted nervously, and Tussle hugged Geary tight). Lance then asked a very pointed question: "So, what can we expect to encounter in the Mushfens?"
It turned out that Xondra had been researching exactly this question as part of her work at Heidmarch Villa. The trip itself would be somewhat fraught with peril, as the entire area was marsh and quicksand, as the name implied. It was Spring, so it would be beautiful, with many flowers in bloom, but mosquitoes would be an issue for anyone with a hide thinner than an orc's. The primary creatures were amphibians (giant frogs and the like), reptiles (crocodiles, venomous snakes, constrictors, and the like), swarms of blood-sucking parasites (leeches, stirges, and the like), oozes, and carnivorous plants. And goblins and occasional undead, of course. Xondra said that rumor had it that even black dragons could be found in swamps, at which point Tussle got quite excited about the opportunity to meet one. Everyone else agreed that all in all, it didn't sound like a particularly fun journey, but they did have Jasper's map, and presumably it would let them circumnavigate the worst of the dangers.
Now that they had some idea of what they might be facing, they did a bit more shopping to be better prepared for the local flora, fauna, oozes, and undead, then set off. For the first day, they let the Red Sash take the lead, with everyone else helping to look for signs of danger. It worked well, and that night they set up watches, Tussle cooked an extraordinarily mediocre dinner, and they got a decent night's rest, especially since the mosquitoes let up at around 10 at night. At midnight, Lance got up and did his dance for Desna, requesting Deadeye's Lore for the next day. It wouldn't last the whole day, but it would last for most of their travel.
The next day Lance led the group using Deadeye's Lore, and they made it all the way to and past their lunch break without incident. Around 2 in the afternoon, the Red Sash brought them to a halt. He saw a large lion-like creature lying in wait ahead. It had planned its ambush rather well for near-sighted people, as the trail curved around to the right and into some brush before emerging at the creature, but from their vantage almost 300' away the creature was plain as day, at least to Tussle and the Red Sash.
They knelt down and had a discussion as to what it might be, and figured that it was a manticore, a fairly powerful predator that didn't seem native to the region. They were somewhat intelligent, but tended towards evil. They might frequently serve a powerful caster, but they were nowhere near the witch's house, and neither boggards nor troglodytes were intelligent enough to create such a creature. Considering their short life spans, this one had been born or created within the last few decades, and most likely in this area, so it most likely spoke Common. With no idea what to do until they determined the creature's disposition, they decided to walk directly into its ambush, but Xondra and the Red Sash readied their bows, and Tussle readied his pistol.
At around 200' away, the creature still hadn't noticed them, so Lance called out, asking it what it was waiting for and assuring it that the party only wanted to talk to it. Its response was to fly into the air and fire a volley of tail spikes at the party members holding bows. Xondra was hit twice and the Red Sash once, and at least Xondra decided that this had been a terrible plan. The rest of the plan was similarly curious: Xondra cast Fly on the Red Sash then fell prone to avoid further spikes. Lance walked over and healed Xondra. Tussle urged Geary into a full gallop over marshy terrain, only realizing after Geary started teetering and swerving wildly that perhaps riding a 400-pound block of machinery at high speed over treacherous terrain might not be the wisest course of action. The Red Sash flew at the manticore, and it rewarded him with a full volley of spikes, but this time his armor protected him rather well.
They played a game of cat-and-mouse for a couple of rounds, with the Red Sash going Total Defense and the manticore not wanting to waste its limited spikes on such a well-defended foe, hoping the Red Sash would make a mistake so it could rush in and tear him apart with teeth and claws. Unfortunately, Tussle is not a patient gnome. Tussle used his Feather Token: Floating Feather to sprout wings and start flying towards the manticore. The manticore did not consider Tussle to be even the slightest of threats, but when the Red Sash realized that he was being lured in to become the manticore's meal, he backed away, leaving Tussle within easy range.
The manticore raced up to Tussle and ripped at him with a claw, but somehow managed to miss the tiny gnome. Tussle casually flew back 5', took the attack of opportunity, and unloaded both barrels of his pistol into the manticore's face. Twice. Burning all of his grit points in the process to include Up Close and Personal. Oh, and including a crit.
The manticore's head exploded in a shower of blood and gore, and its lifeless corpse dropped to the ground. The rest of the party rendezvoused with Tussle as he recovered Geary. Searching around, they discovered the manticore's ploy: It had found a rather large, well-hidden plot of quicksand right in the middle of what looked like an established trail; in fact, a bit of study revealed that the manticore had significantly enhanced the trail so it would be the obvious path for intelligent creatures passing through the area. It had then lain in wait to pounce on and devour any travelers unlucky enough to become trapped in the quicksand. They found the remains of several such travelers and their belongings, including coins, a gold ring, some tattered clothing, a still-intact silk rope, and a potion that the Red Sash quickly identified as a Potion of Water Breathing. Since there were no markings on any of the loot, the party kept it and moved on. The party also skinned the manticore and Lance took its skin as a cape.
The second night was as uneventful as the first, and, other than the manticore, the mud, the open water, and the mosquitoes, it really wasn't such a bad trip after all. Tussle made an amazing dinner on the second night. The third day was similarly uneventful (Tussle was rolling the encounter die, and his dice were hot that day). By the early evening, they realized that they could either push on a bit after nightfall and reach the presumed location of the witch Maroux's hut, or they could camp for the night and greet her in the morning. They chose one more night of camping, Tussle forgot to cook, and in the morning they headed for the cape.
Finding Maroux's hut without the map would have been easy enough; with the map it was out-and-out obvious. They found the faint east-west trail between her hut and the foothills, headed west, and came to a rickety bridge decorated with bleached humanoid skulls with weird sigils painted on them in a crusty, reddish-brown pigment that looked very much like dried blood. A raven sat on the bridge, staring at them intently. "Oh, I got this," Tussle declared.
He cast Speak with Animals and started trying to converse with the raven. The raven made it clear that the party wasn't welcome here. Tussle tried to ingratiate himself with the raven, but failed miserably. He turned to the party and started speaking with them in Common. "I speak Common too, you know," the raven said.
The party almost laughed out loud at Tussle's discomfiture, but they repeated Jasper's words to the raven, and it was visibly displeased but went to get its mistress.
As Maroux came out, Lance's immediate reaction was, "Oh, she's kind of cute. I don't mind if that's part of the service."
The rest of the party just didn't want to hear it.
Maroux's first words were less than welcoming. “Who be you fools? I’ve always room in my stew pot for more meat, you know. Unless you want to join the turnips in my soup, get off my island!”
Lance immediately pointed out that they hadn't crossed the bridge yet, so they technically weren't on her island, and they were honestly trying to be polite. She immediately looked at him, admitted that he was a cute one, and asked what the party wanted. They started talking about the Lady's Light and Jasper and finding their way around the cape, so she cut them off and pointed out that if it was information they were after, they would have to work for it by fetching her some seaweed (kelpie's hair, to be exact) from a shipwreck off the northern coast of the island just beyond hers. The party readily agreed to do it, so she mentioned that the wreck might be haunted. Undaunted, the party said that was fine, and headed off in the direction of the shipwreck.
Even though Maroux had been a bit less-than-forthcoming (the ship was actually off the west coast of the island), the Red Sash's sharp eyes spotted the wreck soon enough, and the party used their second scroll of Water Breathing to prepare and go on down. Xondra didn't want to go in the water again, so was hoping to fly above them as they explored, but the wreck was in at least twenty-five feet of water, so she'd be a long way off, and she finally agreed to go down. As they approached the shipwreck, the most slow-motion, pathetic fight imaginable played out. With most of the group either in heavy armor (the Red Sash and Lance) or personally heavy (Geary), the group walked at a quarter speed along the floor of the ocean. The skeletons that poured out of the wreck similarly couldn't swim, and had to run along the floor of the ocean. The Red Sash had his ranseur out, and as each skeleton finally got close to him, he destroyed it. Once enough had gathered within visibility range, Lance channeled and killed all but one of them. He'd come from the deck instead of the ocean floor and had the rags of a captain on him, plus an unrusted rapier in his hand, so the group figured he was the leader. As he finally managed to get closer, the Red Sash poked him and Lance channeled again to wipe out the rest of the undead. Lance suggested using Ant Haul to bring back a ridiculous amount of seaweed, but the rest of the party felt that would just annoy Maroux, so they should just do what they were asked to do.
The captain's weapon turned out to be a +1 rapier, which was a nice find, but the rest of the ship proved to have nothing of value beyond the seaweed.
Returning to Maroux's hut, the raven (Tussle learned that his name was Hosco) warned Maroux they were coming, and she seemed honestly pleased that not only had they done the work, but they'd cleaned out the shipwreck of undead as well. Maroux set to work cooking, and of course Tussle immediately offered to help. Maroux tried to shoo him off, but he persisted, and she started getting overtly angry with him, so Xondra took him aside and explained that some people liked to do their own cooking in their own houses, and he shouldn't interfere. As she cooked, Maroux indicated that the party was welcome to sleep on the ground outside, except Lance, who could sleep in her bed. He insisted that he couldn't possibly displace her, and once she pointed out that she wouldn't be getting displaced, Lance understood and accepted his role.
Dinner was terrible. Except for Lance, who recognized it as good old-fashioned home orc cooking, just like mom used to make. The Red Sash, accustomed to eating whatever he could find on the streets, found it perfectly palatable. Xondra, being polite, used Sleight of Hand to pour the contents of her bowl into Lance's. Lance didn't mind at all. Spotting Xondra getting rid of her food without having to eat it, Tussle used Sleight of Hand to pour his stew out as well.
Once they were done with dinner, Maroux described the situation on the cape: The boggards and troglodytes (or frogs 'n' trogs, as she called them) had been fighting over the cape for many years; long before she arrived. They had a fairly even balance of power until a troop of women knights in plate mail and red-plumed helms arrived, led by a scar-faced woman named Oriana. Oriana met with Maroux, gave her a wand, and told her that the troop was from Korvosa and seeking a way into the Lady's Light to retrieve the treasure they were sure was inside it. Maroux assured the party she knew of no treasure, but she did know of dozens of treasure-seekers who'd tried and failed to find a way in. Maroux admitted that even she herself had tried, but the boggards "and bigger critters" had dissuaded her from trying to get too far.
After their meeting, Oriana made an alliance with the boggards by providing them with weapons and tactics to defeat the trogs, and managed to get into the Lady's Light, where she met Sorshen herself and became her follower! Maroux' guess was that either Oriana was crazy, Oriana was lying, or Oriana met a fake Sorshen.
Once she was done talking, Maroux gave the group a simple map of the cape, including three caves that led to the tunnels under the cape: The northern one being used by the trogs, the southern by the frogs, and the one in between by something nasty enough to keep the two groups apart for the most part.
The group thanked her courteously and asked whether she'd be interested in participating in some herbal trade with Magnimar, and she politely declined. Everyone went to bed. For most of the party, it was an uneventful evening.
In the morning, the group decided that it would be best to try negotiating with the troglodytes, as they'd been defeated by the boggards and were more likely to be looking for alliances. Approaching the gigantic cave opening (over 50' wide and 30' high), the party saw that the troglodytes had piled the entrance high with brush so that anyone trying to get in would have to fight their way through neck-high leaves and branches. Lance joked that the Red Sash should just throw some alchemist's fire to get the brush out of the way, but Xondra pointed out that smoking the trogs out of their cave was unlikely to make them willing to listen to diplomatic overtures. Instead Xondra cast Tongues and started trying to get the trogs' attention.
First, she called out and said they were there to negotiate. She got no answer. Next, she tried saying that if the trogs weren't interested in help, then they wouldn't be getting any. Finally, she commented on how weak and cowardly the trogs must be to hide silently in a cave from all who came by. That at least got a response of a threat on her personage, so she at least knew they were listening.
Xondra tried very hard to get the trogs to understand that they were there to try to help, but it was no use; the trogs had been betrayed by Oriana's group and did not trust humans at all. Finally, fed up with negotiations that were going nowhere, Xondra issued a challenge: Her best warrior would face their best warrior in one-on-one combat. If her man won, the trogs had to listen. If their man won, they didn't.
The trogs at the gate loved this idea. It seemed like a fantastic way to get fresh meat with little effort. One of them ran back and reported the challenge to their leader, Uggilo, a cleric of Zevgavizeb, demon lord of hunger and god of the troglodytes. This put Uggilo in a horribly uncomfortable position: Refusing to take the challenge outright would be viewed as cowardly, and would most likely be his final act as leader. Taking his tribe on the attack outside of the cave might get his tribe killed, as it could likely be a trap. Accepting the challenge and then attacking immediately might be seen as either weak or clever by his followers, but he could not afford to look weak.
No, the best option was clearly to accept the challenge, face their champion, and then call on his minions to attack if things went poorly for him. That would lead to the best outcomes of all. So Uggilo gathered all of the troglodytes who could still fight, and they moved to the entrance chamber, and invited the party in. As Uggilo buffed himself, the Red Sash walked ceremonially into the cave, shaking his earthbreaker as he did for his combats in Serpent's Run. The troglodytes booed and hissed, and the stench of their masses sickened everyone in the party. But they stopped and let the Red Sash move forward to confront Uggilo.
As expected, it wasn't much of a fight. The Red Sash moved forward and tripped Uggilo, then hit him as he stood up. Uggilo tried twice to cast spells and failed both times, and the Red Sash hit him a second time for nonlethal damage and knocked him out.
Unacceptable! His most ardent followers charged the Red Sash, along with his pet alligator, and the rest of the party, having expected this, announced (through Xondra) that any who attacked would die, and any who held their hand would live. There was some hesitation, and then, as always happens, Tussle happened and one of the trogs exploded in a shower of gore. There were only three more trogs willing to fight after that, plus the alligator, and they engaged Lance and the Red Sash as Xondra and Tussle provided support. As they fought, another trog approached Tussle. Tussle had no idea what he was doing, but didn't shoot him. The trog raised his hand in a peaceful gesture. Tussle gave him a high-five and said, "Bang!" Once the trog had Tussle's attention, he loudly announced, "I am Sulgesh! I am the new chieftain! This small one and his deadly contraption protect me! All bow down to me!"
The other trogs were unimpressed. Xondra told Tussle to defend him. Another trog exploded. More trogs started declaring themselves chieftain. By the time the fight was over, no fewer than four trogs had declared themselves chieftain, but at least no more were attacking the party.
Since the party had clearly won the challenge, the trogs listened. The party wanted them to pick plants. This was beneath them! But Xondra persisted. If they picked the plants and gave them to the humans up north, the humans would give them steel weapons with which they could fight the boggards. This appealed to them a lot more. Unfortunately, Sulgesh pointed out that Uggilo would never agree to such a bargain. Xondra had Lance behead him. Problem solved. The other trogs listened more intently. When they learned they could get steel armor as well by doing the trading, they agreed to pick plants and trade with the humans, as long as it was the non-lying humans in the golden armor who wouldn't betray you and wouldn't attack unless attacked. The party agreed, figuring they'd found another job for Barry, paladin of Abadar, and his endless quest to civilize the barbarians. He had his work cut out for him with the trogs.
The trogs then led the party through their cave to show them their state of affairs. There was the infirmary, with fourteen trogs dying of Filth Fever. There was the converted pyre room, where they were burning their dead. There was the nursery, with all of the eggs smashed by a small group of boggards taught by the ironclad maidens. And then the requisite shrine to Zevgavizeb, which was quickly taken down.
At the end of their tour, the group decided that they should help care for the sick trogs for the day. As they tended the dying, they asked about the final cave. What was keeping the two groups from open warfare?
A pyrohydra.
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Session 12, Played 23-Feb-2020
Warning: My description of the captured and tortured troglodyte towards the end of the post is fairly graphic. I've spoilered it just in case.
As the party tended to the sick trogs, they asked the healthy trogs about the cape. They showed the trogs Maroux's map, and the trogs indicated the approximate location of the boggard camp, the location of the pyrohydra's cave (Uggilo had named it "Gegganallag", or "Many Mouths" in Draconic), and, in much more eventful news, an almost-complete map of the caves underneath the cape!
At the back of the troglodytes' cave, protected by a trio of violet fungi, was a cave that led all the way to a chamber under the middle of the lagoon that was now infested with "crab spiders", but that had previously been a way for the troglodytes to attack the boggards from below. The boggards had some substance that rendered the crab spiders dormant, but in spite of their best efforts the troglodytes had not been able to reproduce it.
From that chamber, assuming the party could get past the spiders, they could access all the areas of the cape: One passage led to the pyrohydra's den. A second led to the boggard's temple. The party immediately seized on this as a way to mount a surprise attack on the boggards, but the trogs pointed out that they had thought this as well, and had led many surprise forays against the temple, hence the boggards kept it well-defended with clerics, frogs, and powerful boggards. Perhaps after their most recent battle there wouldn't be as many boggards guarding the temple, but it wouldn't be an easy, sneaky way in. A third passage led to a chamber below the Lady's Light, but the trogs assured them that this was a dead end: There was nothing in that chamber except a pit so black that they could not see into that they dared not approach.
As their time with Tongues was nearly used up, Lance, Xondra, and the trogs worked out a set of hand signals they could use to communicate, and Tussle and the Red Sash worked hard at learning a few words of Draconic. For the rest of the day, the party boiled water, applied bandages, soothed the sick trogs, and dealt with their own queasy stomachs. Lance saw the warrior's pyre and said words of Desna over the fallen. Unfortunately, no one knew of any herbs or plants in the area that might assist more than simple bed rest, fluids, and compresses, so by dinnertime the party felt they'd done what they could for the sick troglodytes and went outside to eat and sleep in the fresh air.
It was a massive relief.
Before going to bed, Lance remembered that he had prepared Create Food and Water for the party in case they'd become lost, and went in and used it for the trogs. While it wouldn't feed all of them, it had a massive impact on how long their current supplies would last; hopefully until enough of the sick trogs were healthy enough to go hunting again.
The night was uneventful, and in the morning the group first had breakfast, then went in to check on the trogs. On encountering the stench yet again, they were wondering whether breakfast first had been the best of ideas. Nevertheless, they checked on the sick trogs and found that nine of the fourteen afflicted showed signs of improvement, while the other five were closer to death. Lance got out his wand of Lesser Restoration and used it to keep those five alive for another day. While the trogs didn't understand the magic that was being used, they knew that these humans were now using magic to keep their compatriots alive, and knew they had chosen well.
Unfortunately, the party was a bit more worried: Of the 23 remaining troglodytes, only 4 were females. As egg-laying reptiles, this wasn't quite as bad as such a ratio would have been with mammals, but the long-term future of the troglodytes was in doubt if they couldn't move nor attract more females.
As they checked on their patients, Lance used Share Language with Sulgath to keep him apprised of the situation: Nine of his compatriots were doing better, but still needed bed rest. The other five would survive the day thanks to Lance's magic, but would still need at least eight hours of care by a trained healer to have any chance of recovering. The party was going to go out and deal with the pyrohydra, but would be back by noon-ish to help care for the sick trogs once more. Sulgath described the ritual Uggili used to summon the hydra, banging on a holy stick to attract it while the victims struggled against their bonds. The party searched Uggili's room and found the stick. Tussle got curious, pulled out his Lens of Detection, and started searching the room. He found a secret cache of pearls, an unholy symbol of Zevgavizeb, masterwork bolas (which Tussle immediately claimed for Geary), and a second Lens of Detection.
The party didn't want to take away the trogs' defenses until the frogs had been dealt with, so they left the violet fungi alone and took the surface route to the pyrohydra's lair. Along the way they spotted a well-trodden path only a few days old that indicated large numbers of both trogs and frogs headed to the east. With the drag marks, blood, and other indications of battle, it was clear that the two sides had engaged in battle some distance to the east. The party decided to investigate, and found a field littered with corpses of both boggards and troglodytes. However, all of the troglodyte corpses had been beheaded and the heads were nowhere to be seen, while all the boggard heads were intact.
Searching the field for any telltale clues, the party found a broken masterwork dagger of Korvosan make, coated with filth as the trogs had described. They also found a holy symbol of Zevgavizeb, but the trogs were on a different path now.
Moving on to the pyrohydra's cave, the party carefully buffed before they approached. Lance protected the group from fire and Xondra made the Red Sash fly. The Red Sash took up an ambush position to the side of the cave while Xondra created an illusion of a pile of dead bodies just outside the mouth of the cave, and Lance started banging the holy stick. Gegganallag took a few moments to wake from his slumber, then came crawling out of the cave, eager to dig in to his snack and wondering why it had taken his benefactors so long to feed him. They might look and smell a bit different, but they were following the ritual and the food was there, so he didn't suspect anything was different…
...until he poked his head out of the cave and spotted the Red Sash there, weapons out, ready to pounce. He roared in anger and the Red Sash flew over and behind him, ready to provide a flank and absorb the breath weapon(s).
Tussle rode up on Geary and shot the hydra. A crit and three more hits. Very similar to the chimera, the hydra's torso exploded in a shower of blood, its ruptured heart tumbled out of the gaping chest wound, and its dead body collapsed to the ground. The Red Sash was nonplussed. This was not how glorious combat was supposed to go!
He spent some time searching for a suitable trophy from their prey, and finally decided on a good-sized tooth. Xondra asked whether there were any smaller teeth she could use as earrings, and Lance carefully went over, reached down its throat, and cut out several tooth-like appendages made of cartilage that worked very much like a bird's craw. They were the right size, shape, and color, so Xondra meekishly said, "Thanks?"
Tussle saw everyone else grabbing trophies, took out his knife, and started cutting viciously at one of the hydra's legs. "It's already dead, Tussle. Stop desecrating its corpse," Lance instructed.
While Tussle immediately started gathering the shiny shiny coins he saw littered about the room, Lance did the far more meticulous job of finding all the humanoid bones he could, putting them all in a pile, and saying words over them. Tussle was done far before he was, and had found quite a few coins, an ordinary gold ring, a necklace, and then (identified by Xondra) a wand of Acid Arrow, an Amulet of Mighty Fists +1, and a Ring of Swimming. Tussle was rather insistent on giving the amulet to Geary, but the party assured him that a construct couldn't use it, and they'd be better off selling it. Lance grabbed one of the hydra's heads and they returned to the trogs as promised, then spent the rest of the day taking care of the sick. Once again, Lance cast Create Food and Water to feed most of the trogs so they didn't have to deplete their own stores.
In the morning, Lance was happy to report that fully half of the troglodytes were cured, four of the five who had been very sick were recovering, and they only had three truly sick patients that day. Once again, he used his wand of Lesser Restoration to keep the sick alive for another day, and then he asked Xondra to give him Tongues so he could address the troglodytes.
He spoke of the wonders of Desna, and her battle with the demon lord, and her capabilities in battle, and he was amazingly inspiring. The trogs were convinced: This Desna was more than a match for Zevgavizeb, and would protect them from his hunger, so they eagerly proclaimed their fealty to Desna and spoke their first prayers in her name. Lance felt the brushing of wings against his cheek, and knew that he was blessed (+1 Sacred bonus for the day), and Xondra, another Desna worshipper, was similarly blessed (1 reroll for the day).
In spite of the fact that the frogs were probably recovering from the battle and preparing for another assault, Lance was unwilling to leave the sick trogs alone. He insisted on spending the entire day caring for them, and Xondra "donated" her reroll to one of the trogs. The next morning, ALL of the trogs were disease-free.
It was time to deal with the frogs.
Lance did not mince words: Although the troglodytes had been demon-worshippers, they had not resorted to atrocities. They did not intentionally use filth to spread disease. They did not murder babies. The frogs had crossed the line into irredeemable territory, and this would not be a negotiation, it would be an extermination. No one argued with this decision. They fully buffed before marching straight into the village. The first boggard to charge out of his hut managed a feeble throw of a filth-covered dagger at Lance before Tussle introduced him to a double hackbut to the chest. Had the boggard remained conscious, he would Not Have Liked. As boggards poured forth, croaking in an attempt to panic the party and using their swamp movement to try to surround the party, the Enlarged Red Sash, Lance, and Xondra held them off, while Tussle retreated slowly in the opposite direction on Geary, mowing them down with brutal gunfire as they tried to overwhelm him.
As more boggards dropped, a massive female boggard with a wicked-looking composite bow appeared from around a corner. Lance cast Calm Emotions and she and one of her compatriots lost the will to fight. The rest of the boggards were mopped up as she stood there, wondering what the fuss was about. She didn't manage to shake off the spell before she and her companion were surrounded by Lance and the Red Sash, and Tussle was well-positioned to shoot them, then the Red Sash obliterated them. The boggards had fallen.
Xondra flew straight up to get a better vantage of the village, and saw a horrible tentacled thing in a spiked pit just ahead of the Red Sash. The Red Sash moved up to engage it and it shot one of its larvae at him. The larva attached itself and started draining blood, but Tussle rode up and pistol-whipped it off. Three muscular female boggards opened the curtain of a larger-than-average hut and barked orders at the party, obviously upset that they were attacking the tentacled abomination.
At that point, they'd identified the creature as a bogwid: A horrific aberration that reproduced by hurling its larvae at living creatures and letting them burrow in and eat the creature alive. It had to die. Hence the boggards had to die. Unfortunately for them, Lance and Xondra were ready. Lance blocked the door so they could not pass, and Xondra dropped a swarm of bats in the hut with them. They were… displeased. Tussle couldn't see the baby-hurler, so he decided to amuse himself by shooting the muscular boggards. The Red Sash did battle with the bogwid. Soon enough, all of their enemies had fallen a second time, and Lance channeled to heal everyone else up, then healed himself a bit more as the muscular boggards had hit him a few times (but he had not gone down).
They were curious about the muscular boggards: They had disdained the soiled daggers and used their more traditional morningstars and javelins, and they were obviously far stronger than the other boggards. Who were they? What were they doing here? Lance kept one alive, just in case. (He would have saved the other two, but the bats' bleed damage had done its job all too well.)
It was time to explore the village.
The large hut with the muscular females seemed to be the chieftan's hut. They found a basket full of valuables (coins and a few gems), plus signs of a comfortable lifestyle. None of the three females were obviously marked as the chieftan, though, so they wondered about that. Most of the huts were simple dwellings that could house 2-3 boggards, and many were empty, so it looked like they had only taken on perhaps a quarter of the tribe. Where were the rest?
The bogwid pit was obviously used for sacrifices (mostly troglodytes, but also some boggards), and the second-largest hut in the village (from which the boggard with the bow had come) was full of charms and fetishes and looked like some kind of religious place, but no one recognized any of the religious symbols.
Xondra had seen many boggard-sized tadpoles in the lagoon, and Lance didn't want the party to become baby-killers, so they left them be.
Finally, one hut in the corner simply reeked beyond all reason; worse than the troglodyte cave. It smelled like death and feces and troglodyte and rotting vegetation and filth and who knew what else all rolled into one. Xondra was wondering whether there might be troglodyte prisoners in there, but there was no way to tell from the stench. Lance made sure no one had any open wounds, everyone prepared, and the Red Sash got ready to open the door.
Lance turned around, took a look at the prisoner, and said, "This, we shall not stand," and beheaded her.
The braced themselves and opened the door.
And they were still unprepared.
Chunks of troglodyte (obviously hastily chopped up), troglodyte heads, rotting meat, boggard feces, and any stinking bit of filth or rot imaginable had been thrown into this hut to putrefy into something beyond foul.
...until the Red Sash realized it was a troglodyte, and it was alive. The boggards had been using it as a latrine.
Xondra, deciding that her hair was a loss, deftly cut it off, figuring it was better to sacrifice it and grow it out later rather than try to deal with it. Tussle used Prestidigitation to clean off the naked troglodyte, and they now at least knew that it was a female, though grossly emaciated. Without the filth, the evidence against the boggards was even worse
Lance used his wand of Lesser Restoration on her twice to restore both her dexterity and her constitution, then channeled to heal her. Her eyes fluttered open and expressed fear and alarm. The Red Sash spoke the only draconic he knew. "I'm gonna barf!"
She winced and curled into a ball, clearly fearing that he meant to do so on her. The Red Sash felt quite ashamed. Lance spoke the only Draconic he knew: "Help!"
He picked her up and was rather alarmed that she weighed next to nothing. The group really wanted to find the rest of the boggards and end them quite violently, but the troglodyte needed to be saved. They carried her back towards the cave, and as they neared Xondra cast Comprehend Languages, since they did not have any other translation spells prepared that day.
As they neared the cave, the female troglodyte called out weakly: "It is Azoresh! These humans have killed the boggards and saved me! They are friends! They are heros! Do not attack them!"
The party stepped just a little bit lighter as they entered the cave.
Laying Azoresh down in the sick ward and making sure she would be comfortable and safe for the day, the party had only one question on their minds: Did they exterminate the rest of the boggards today, or tomorrow?
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I've just got to say that it takes real effort to make troglodytes into a sympathetic group of victims. Well done NH, and...well...done...boggards? Do I compliment the boggards on that? I'm...just kill the boggards. They've done enough to justify a local genocide.
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I've just got to say that it takes real effort to make troglodytes into a sympathetic group of victims. Well done NH, and...well...done...boggards? Do I compliment the boggards on that? I'm...just kill the boggards. They've done enough to justify a local genocide.
After all the mud I'm slinging at the authors of Strange Aeons Books 3 and 4, I'm going to give credit where credit is due and just say that Mike Shel is a d**ned good author in the first place, and his GMing style obviously meshes with mine so well it's kind of scary.
His entire approach to the book is, "Here is each group. Here is their history, their motivations, their current events, and their morale. Here is their likely reaction to the party. OK, your sandbox is set up. Go nuts!"
So he made the trogs a pathetic cause, with 2/3 of their survivors paralyzed by Filth Fever, at least half of the mobile ones so demoralized they were ready to quit, and he put Azoresh into the boggard filth hut and smashed all the trogs' eggs, not me.
But he's playing to both my and my player's best roleplaying strengths: Redemption and righteous vengeance against the wicked.
So h*** yes we're enjoying this book, and I'm rolling with it and "enhancing" all the juicy good parts in it.
And OMG are there a LOT. I have SO many ideas for the Lady's Light!!!
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Oh, yes, I love Shel's APs. I figured a lot of that was his setup, but I wasn't sure just how much. I haven't read this far into the AP. I think I said before that the only group I've ran this with got as far as the Tower Girls and Nat.
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So, I have to admit, I have no idea what the Paizo guys were thinking when they came up with gunslingers.
When they first came out with Pathfinder, they very meticulously enforced action economy, since that always proves to be the undoing of every RPG. "If one side gets more actions, that side wins."
An archer's DPS numbers bore this out: Once you get a bow-based full BAB PC who takes Point Blank Shot and Rapid Shot, the PC is getting an extra attack over anyone else at the cost of -1 to hit. That's a LOT of extra damage already. Then the feat chain gets plain stupid: Precise Shot and Improved Precise Shot so now you're a frontline fighter with a bow, Deadly Aim so you don't lose out to the Power Attack crew, and Manyshot so you're now doing TWO extra attacks per round. Oh, and Clustered Shots to bypass DR, which melee characters don't get at all.
So, you're getting nearly all of the benefits of a melee character, plus two attacks per round, plus bypassing DR. I don't understand why every frontliner in the game who gets bonus feats isn't an archer.
Then comes the Gunslinger.
"Oh, let's give them double-barreled guns so that they can double their number of attacks per round! PLUS let's make them go against touch AC instead of regular AC!"
Er, excuse me? WTF??!?!?
Impus Minor is honestly feeling bad about the whole thing. At 5th level he was doing 10d6+16 to single targets with very little chance of missing. (Even with all the multi-shooting penalties he was at +5 to hit against touch AC, which is almost always 10-12 so at worst he's hitting on 70% of all his shots.)
6th level is adding ANOTHER attack to the mix. He's starting to say, "Maybe I should stop taking combat feats."
When you have to nerf yourself because the rules give you (2n+4) attacks instead of n attacks, there's an issue.
EDIT: And I think I might prohibit Manyshot from working with guns. What are you doing? Loading two bullets each barrel at once?
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...
EDIT: And I think I might prohibit Manyshot from working with guns. What are you doing? Loading two...
It's been done, it's called a double ball load.
In regards to your larger issue, I personally prefer not to get guns into my fantasy RPG's...
I really hate mixing sci-fi with fantasy; it just doesn't work for me. I wasn't particularly happy when Deady McDeaddead wanted to play a gunslinger in our Serpent's Skull campaign, but kids, so I allowed it. He was so utterly useless I thought the class was broken bad. (Wasn't that a TV show?)
When Impus Minor wanted to play one, I figured I'd get to see how a real gunslinger played out.
So far at 5th level they're utter death machines. Even though he got an extra attack for 6th level, it just isn't the exponential damage growth I'd been seeing up 'til now, so hopefully he levels off a bit.
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In the face to face Kingmaker game I was a player in, our Gunslinger ended up multiclassing out of the class after...I wanna say level 7, into Investigator. He also started using the Targeting deed on the Arms a lot in combat instead of just dealing damage.
Personally, I like the Bolt Ace archetype of Gunslinger, since it makes the crossbow a weapon more on par with the longbow. Maybe ask Impus Minor if he'd like to switch gun to crossbow?
The archetype is out of the Advanced Class Guide. I know you have a limited list of books allowed, so I don't know if you allow that book.
The better statement is, "If you are trying to use something that's not in this list of books, you need explicit permission from me before you use it."
Champions of Purity is 90% ludicrous overpowered splat; it's #1 on my list of "Books I will never allow." (The Advanced Class Guide is rapidly climbing to #2.) But the other 10% of the stuff is actually pretty cool flavor stuff and I'd allow it if asked.
My favorite example of how bad Champions of Purity is is to turn it on for people's 5th level level-ups.
100% of all feats and spells are immediately taken from CoP.
When a book's so broken that every player chooses from it exclusively, you know it's a good ban.
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OK. I've been praising Mike Shel up and down (and at the same time ripping the author of Strange Aeons Book 4, though not naming him through a mild sense of courtesy). But in the first dungeon level of the Lady's Light I see why people are having an issue with his XP and loot totals.
It's not so much, "You have to murderhobo every being you see, diplomatic solutions aren't an option," as it is, "There's no reason for the party to bother with any of this."
From the water elementals to the glass golem to the mysterious sarcophagus in the landing area, the entire approach of the PCs is, "We're just looking to rout the Gray Maidens and recover the Shard of Lust, so we should leave everything else undisturbed."
Yes, it's a really odd attitude for members of the Pathfinder Society to have, but I'd like to let my players play the way they want to play, and we're using level-up points so it's not a major issue (Shel's pretty good about putting loot in obvious, "This is stuff you can take guilt-free" locations), but after yesterday's session I'm beginning to feel like it's going to be:
Session 13: "OK, you just leveled up to 6."
Session 14: "So, I know this is odd because you only had one fight, but please level up to 7."
It's not going to make a lot of sense, but it is what it is...
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I'm the other end of things. I ban almost nothing that's Paizo published and have them ask about 3rd party stuff. Sometimes I have a player ask to do something that I think is...out of character...using Phntm888's example of burst of radiance, one of my players was a warpriest of a neutral deity that operated out of the shadows. I said "I know what you're going for is effectively a flashbang grenade, but do you really think a neutral deity devoted to secrecy and shadows is going to grant a spell that specifically damages only evil creatures with holy light? There are other ways to do the flashbang grenade. Check for an alchemical item."
For my group, this approach works pretty well.
I'm the other end of things. I ban almost nothing that's Paizo published and have them ask about 3rd party stuff. Sometimes I have a player ask to do something that I think is...out of character...using Phntm888's example of burst of radiance, one of my players was a warpriest of a neutral deity that operated out of the shadows. I said "I know what you're going for is effectively a flashbang grenade, but do you really think a neutral deity devoted to secrecy and shadows is going to grant a spell that specifically damages only evil creatures with holy light? There are other ways to do the flashbang grenade. Check for an alchemical item."
For my group, this approach works pretty well.
For homebrew you really don't need to ban anything.
For APs, which are basically "Pathfinder on Easy mode", if you don't ban stuff, some players go for power builds and then people get bitter quickly as everyone else stands around doing nothing but support and the power build one-shots everything in the AP.
(Or the even worse Control builds, where all the bad guys spend eternity standing around doing nothing because of yet another, "Even if you save you're disabled for a round" area effect abilities that can be spammed.)
I'm the other end of things. I ban almost nothing that's Paizo published and have them ask about 3rd party stuff. Sometimes I have a player ask to do something that I think is...out of character...using Phntm888's example of burst of radiance, one of my players was a warpriest of a neutral deity that operated out of the shadows. I said "I know what you're going for is effectively a flashbang grenade, but do you really think a neutral deity devoted to secrecy and shadows is going to grant a spell that specifically damages only evil creatures with holy light? There are other ways to do the flashbang grenade. Check for an alchemical item."
For my group, this approach works pretty well.
For homebrew you really don't need to ban anything.
For APs, which are basically "Pathfinder on Easy mode", if you don't ban stuff, some players go for power builds and then people get bitter quickly as everyone else stands around doing nothing but support and the power build one-shots everything in the AP.
I completely agree with you for your group and situation. I know time constraints are a thing, and they are for me too, so running the AP as written saves a ton of time in prep to better deal with the sections of the APs where you should be more worried about motivations, consequences, and overall plot.
But...for my group...I still take the time to intentionally up the difficulty of the APs to suit our style (and house rules) better. If we didn't have some of the house rules we do, then some of this extra prep would go away.
I still stick to the spirit of the AP. I generally stick to their written tactics, unless they're patently absurd, rule breaking, or generally lacking situational awareness. I still have to deal with some of the motivations and plot issues, not to mention those bizarre twists that are foisted upon me by the group decisions.
I largely get around my time constraint issues by starting with prepping Books 1-3 a month (or two) before we start playing, and then I'm merely adjusting a little here and there on the fly or in the time between sessions. Usually I start prepping even before I know for sure what characters are involved (adjust later as necessary, adjust on the fly, or sometimes just eat the repercussions). That ultimately gives me a time buffer to work on Books 4-6 as they go through 1-3, or they don't make it that far and I don't spend that time on 4-6 at all. However, my group(s) also tend to not move quickly through an AP.
(Or the even worse Control builds, where all the bad guys spend eternity standing around doing nothing because of yet another, "Even if you save you're disabled for a round" area effect abilities that can be spammed.)
Irresistible Dance was the spell that ended my Karzoug fight in Rise of the Runelords. It's in the CRB, but the party wizard came into the fight with a bunch of scrolls of it and spammed it.
Pass your saving throw? Doesn't matter! You're still forced to dance for 1 round and can't move while the swashbuckler, two-weapon fighter, and summoned deva move into melee range and wallop the trapped wizard who can't take an action.
After burning Karzoug's contingency dealing with the first attempt, I got caught on the second one, and that pretty much spelled the end of the Runelord of Greed.
Did you factor in his Spell Resistance of 24? Also, he's under the effect of a Ring of Freedom of Movement. Wouldn't that negate the Irresistible Dance? (Also I could have sworn he was immune to Mind Effects which is why I didn't allow him to be Intimidated by the Sorceress with a bloody high Intimidate score.)
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Session 13, Played 01-Mar-2020
After ensuring that Azoresh was resting soundly and the rest of the troglodytes had what they needed, the party decided that it was time to deal with the rest of the boggards. After some discussion as to whether to attack them from the caves or from the surface, Lance finally suggested that the "tasty spider crabs" were most likely providing a valuable service by keeping anything from traveling through their lair, so they should be left alone until and unless the party absolutely had to kill them. So, overland it was.
They picked their way through the swamp and made it back to the boggard village in time to see the "tadpoles" feasting on the boggard corpses they'd left behind. Now that she could see them clearly, Xondra identified them not as boggard young but as "bogwiggles", boggards that were intentionally poisoned to turn them into unintelligent guard beasts. Xondra was appalled that the boggards would do such an appalling thing to their own children, and wanted to kill them immediately. Lance noted that they were probably protecting the boggards' eggs from tasty food crabs reefclaws and other predators, so even if they were monstrosities, they were performing a "good" deed by protecting the eggs. Xondra pointed out that once they were out of food, they'd eat the eggs, then kill each other. Lance declared this the "circle of life" and there was nothing they had to do here. They moved on.
The path out of the other side of the village was well-worn, and it took under a minute for the Red Sash to hear the unmistakable sounds of off-duty soldiers gambling their time away several hundred feet away. How these soldiers could possibly have missed the fight in the village, and especially Tussle's double hackbut, was anyone's guess, but they were clearly still unaware that anything was wrong. The party moved as stealthily as Lance would allow, with the Red Sash moving 40' ahead of the rest of the party, listening intently for any signs that they had been heard.
When he got to the opening of the cave mouth and the boggards still hadn't heard him, he had to roll his eyes and motioned for the rest of the party to stop. Now came the hard part: He'd been able to tell from the "speaking" that there were more than two boggards in the cave, but with their croaky voices and alien language, he hadn't been able to get much better of a figure than that, though he was sure it was under ten. He decided to risk peeking into the cave, and saw four boggards sitting at a stone table, gambling what looked like gold coins and valuable gems! Unfortunately, they saw him as well, and the fight was on!
Thinking tactically, Lance instructed the Red Sash to help him block off the cave entrance as Tussle rode up on Geary, double hackbut blazing. Xondra started blessing the party members with witch's luck in case the frogs started croaking, but by the time they'd stood up from the table, moved to within 30' of the party, and gotten another round, Tussle's onslaught had done its damage and only two of the four boggards were still conscious. One croaked and the other moved in to take advantage of any weaknesses, but to no avail. The party heard the sound of many flapping feet approaching, and were unsurprised when a raging barbarian boggard came charging towards them from out of the blackness. The three giant frogs following him? Those were surprising! Even more surprising was how well-trained they were: As the party dropped one of the two remaining boggards in the entryway, the three frogs ran up and each targeted a different party member with its tongue! They were trying to entangle the entire group so that their master would have an easier time hitting them!
Unfortunately, the frogs' enthusiasm and training was only matched by their incompetence; all of them missed by a large margin. Fortunately (for them), their master had no such issues, and his Cleave managed to hit both the Red Sash and Lance for significant damage. To make matters worse, when Tussle tried to shoot him his gun broke and he had to spend a round clearing it. Lance had to channel to heal the party, and he couldn't help but heal the standing boggard, giving it more time to try to inflict damage on the party.
Unfortunately for the boggard chieftan, that's when the wheels fell off. All three of his frogs missed again, he missed, and Xondra reached out with her hair and gave him a touch of Frostbite, fatiguing him instantly. And that was all she wrote. The party had little trouble mopping up the remaining boggard and the now-fatigued, non-raging barbarian, and Tussle used Speak with Animals to miraculously convince the frogs to stop attacking. As they blinked at him, amazed that he could both communicate with him and that he made sense, they asked him what he was going to do for them. Unthinking, Tussle told them to go ahead and go outside and search for bugs to eat.
Outside?!? Really?!?!? With no master?!?
"Sure!"
Freed of any obligations, the frogs happily hopped off into the swamp, never to be seen by the party again. (I'm sorry. They're Int 1. It's not like they're dogs and can have massive loyalty to their masters. I figured they were there because they got fed by the boggards and beaten if they tried to leave, so a simple, "Go forth and be free," was an awfully nice bargain for them.)
Checking where they were, the cave had a massive wall carving of an enormous multiheaded frog demon crouched on a mound of skulls. This was enough for Lance: The boggards were obviously demon-worshippers and needed to be destroyed, so they did away with the survivors and defaced the carving. Much to their amazement, the boggard guards had been gambling with thousands of gold pieces' worth of coins, gems, and jewelry, so the party gathered all of that, as well as the boggard's gear. The Red Sash helped himself to the chieftan's +1 warhammer, as it was an upgrade over his nonmagical one.
The next room was a damp, nasty room with an altar to the frog demon, a couple of large jars of a substance that smelled like rotten lemons, and two passages leading deeper underground, both of which were smeared with the yellow substance. The Red Sash first smashed up the altar, then he and Xondra set about identifying the substance. Sure enough, it was some kind of soporific designed to put arachnids to sleep. They'd found the substance the troglodytes had told them about! Even better, the Red Sash thought he'd worked out the ingredients well enough to tell the troglodytes how to make it! Lance put Ant Haul on the Red Sash, and the Red Sash picked up the two jars. They checked a bit deeper into the cave, verified that it headed for the chamber under the lake the troglodytes had told them about, and decided it was time to return to the troglodytes.
They spent a pleasant afternoon outside of the troglodytes' cave, though the Red Sash had to spend quite a bit of time with them trying to show them how to make the yellow goop, since they weren't sharing a language at the moment, and that didn't help his sense of smell much at all. They were pleased to see that Azoresh was awake and alert, though still nigh-immobile from her ordeal, but others of the sickened were beginning to move. The troglodytes would recover! Now if only they could follow through on their commitment to change to a less-evil path!
As usual, after dinner the party set up watches, and they were rather alarmed when a bit before midnight the troglodytes began emerging from the cave. They carried their sick-but-conscious on litters, and soon nearly two dozen troglodytes were gathered around the party. They gazed at Lance expectantly with black eyes. Unfazed, Lance began to dance to Desna. The Red Sash, understanding the importance of the moment, joined in. Tussle and Xondra, seeing a trend, danced as well. And the troglodytes all joined in! They were terrible at it, of course, but they were doing their best, and Lance was pleased.
No one could quite remember what happened next. The stars blurred, they slept…
The Red Sash opened his eyes to see the most amazing display of stars he'd ever seen. As he gazed in amazement, they slowly grew in size and started fluttering, until the entire sky was a blur of flapping shining butterfly wings against a black background. As the butterflies cleared, so did the background. He was looking at the parlor of a house. The owner was clearly Varisian, from the decor to the bright silks to the various implements of Harrow reading and other fortunetelling gear littering shelves, tables, chairs, and any other horizontal surfaces around the room. A name came into his mind: "Sandpoint". As he watched, an elderly Varisian woman, old beyond imagining, sat in a rocking chair and placed a quilt in her lap. She seemed very kindly, and smiled, and Moira's arman jumped into her lap! The name "Mvashti" echoed in his mind and the dream ended.
Xondra was in battle. She, Lance, and other companions were fighting for their lives against a horde of demons? Devils? Underdwellers? It was unclear what they were, yet they exuded Evil and there were a multitude of them. Lance grabbed his holy symbol and spoke a word of power; a Holy Word. Xondra tried to cry out that Lance didn't understand, that she would be burned as well, as the creatures were burned to ash in holy fire, and yet as the battle ended and the enemy fell, she was… unharmed?
Lance "awoke" to find himself walking side-by-side with Desna herself. He was a bit taken aback that she had butterfly wings instead of bat wings, for weren't bats just butterflies of the night? She looked at him with starlit eyes and asked, "Did you have a question of me, Lance?"
Lance asked something, but the question trailed off into the aether. Desna smiled. "I'm sorry, Lance. It has to be a yes/no question. I cannot answer anything more complex than that."
"Am I doing well?"
She smiled even more broadly. "Yes, Lance. Yes, you are."
As dawn broke in reality, the group became aware of many things: After their hours of interacting with the troglodytes, Xondra and the Red Sash were finding that they could communicate effectively in Draconic. For Xondra this wasn't a surprise, as she'd always been quick to pick up new languages. The Red Sash chalked it up to hard work trying to figure out exactly what they were saying when other party members were using Tongues. There was a commotion among the troglodytes back in their cave. Xondra and the Red Sash could hear the worried whisperings, "You cannot go out there! Something has happened to you!" "No, go back to your bed! You are still sick!"
Azoresh emerged from the cave, walking confidently under her own power, though still painfully emaciated. Every scar on her body had been replaced by a midnight blue tattoo. Her eyes were no longer black, but deep, inky blue, and some might suspect a flick of starlight behind them. Across her face and snout was a similarly midnight-blue tattoo of a butterfly, almost too intricate to have been crafted by human hands. She blinked as she approached, gazed at Lance reproachfully, and in Common asked, "What have you done to me, Lance Sterling?"
"I don't think I had much to do with it."
Now that Azoresh could speak Common, it took very little time to figure out what had happened, even if the why might never be known: Azoresh was now a divine caster of Desna, though no one could tell whether she was an oracle or a cleric. Even more importantly, she could channel positive energy using the tattoo on her face as a holy symbol, indicating that she was no longer an evil creature (if she had ever been one). The message she had received in her dream was far less cryptic: She was to remain in the caves of the Mushfens, growing stronger, until such time as she was able to cure her people of their diseases with her own power. At that point, she was to seek a place called the Darklands and find others of her kind, and lead them to "freedom from their demon lord's tyrrany".
Azoresh did not know what any of this meant, and told Lance that he must visit her at least once each year to explain such things to her, and to test her strength. Lance said he'd visit her far more often than that. He tried to take her arm to assist her in her weakness, but realized far later than he should have that someone had cast a full Restoration on her and she was as healthy as she could possibly be until she regained her missing weight. Everyone could guess who that someone might have been.
The party agreed that this solved many of their problems immediately: Azoresh would be the religious leader of the troglodytes. As she was still physically quite frail, Sulgesh could be her co-leader and help protect the tribe. Neither Sulgesh nor the rest of the tribe liked this idea, but Azoresh already started showing the willpower of a cleric by stating that it would be done as the group asked, and the troglodytes, still terrified of her transformation, went silent. The next question was one of Barry: Did they really want to send a paladin of Abadar to this newly-fledged, barely-functional group of Desnans? Almost certainly not. And Brandi would most likely overwhelm them with her personality. They asked whether it had to be a paladin that dealt with them, and Azoresh assured the party that anyone who came with Lance, and whom Lance vouched for, would be an acceptable trading parter. Lance was sure the Princess of Sails would provide him with a suitable negotiator.
It was time to explore the Lady's Light. Not wanting to deprive the trogs of their violet defenders, they decided to approach the "crab spiders" through the pyrohydra's cave. As they got closer to the chamber they'd been told about, they saw a handful of finger-sized white spiders that they quickly identified as immature albino cave solifugids. The adults would be roughly 5 feet across (including legs), weigh 100 points, and would most likely be in a group of 3-6. The good news was that they were neither web-spinners nor poisonous; they were ambush predators that relied on their pounce ability to quickly capture and incapacitate prey, and the party's heavy armor and steel weapons would likely make short work of them. Once again, Lance didn't want to risk destroying the trogs' defenses, so he suggested trying the yellow goo and seeing whether it worked before they killed the solifugids.
The Red Sash dutifully hurled one of the jars into the cave, the party went in to investigate the aftermath, and, sure enough, the three full-sized solifugids had become quite torpid, and didn't move to attack the party at all. Before moving on, they investigated the large seven-sided monument made of polished black basalt that dominated the center of the chamber. There was no writing to indicate what it was; just a large Lust rune on each side. The monument had been broken open from the inside, and the reverse image of a humanoid female indicated that something had been trapped inside and had gotten out. Further investigation revealed the dessicated corpses of several troglodytes; Lance guessed that they had tried to break into the statue or monument looking for treasure, had released something, and she'd drained the troglodytes to death and moved on. Examining the stone, the Red Sash suggested that this had happened months ago. Lance recommended being wary of anything that might drain levels, as at the moment they had no defenses against such a foe.
Since there was no sign of the escapee, nor any inscription to indicate who it might have been, they continued on their way towards the Lady's Light. It did not take long for them to reach the chamber the troglodytes had warned them about: A large chamber of worked stone, with walls made of blue-veined white marble. The entire chamber was decorated with columns depicting voluptuous warrior-women armed with guisarmes, and every column was strikingly detailed and unique. In the center of the room was the black shaft that even Lance's darkvision couldn't penetrate.
The party proceeded cautiously, with the Red Sash moving ahead looking for traps. Once he came within 10' of the shaft, the party was surprised when four of the columns came to life and attacked. Tussle figured they wouldn't be much trouble until he had Geary strike one, and Geary's arm shattered! Oh no, Geary! The Red Sash struck another, and his hammer shattered as well! It was clear they had to use another tactic!
Xondra spent her time cursing the statues so that they couldn't hit very well at all, while Lance healed any damage they did. The Red Sash tried to grapple them and eventually succeeded, but then had no idea what to do with the one he caught, so he finally just pinned it and tied it up while waiting for Tussle. Tussle, upset about Geary's arm, shot as fast as he could, and it took quite a few rounds, but he eventually reduced the four animated columns to rubble without anyone else losing a weapon. Once the fight was over, Geary set about repairing himself, and Tussle was ecstatic to see that Geary was able to rebuild his own arm.
Xondra examined the shaft: She could identify the permanent Deeper Darkness and the permanent Feather Fall but the third spell, an illusion of some kind, escaped her. Tussle volunteered to be lowered into the shaft and could not be dissuaded, so eventually they prepared 100' of rope and started lowering him down. He pulled on the rope almost immediately and they pulled him up. The third effect was Silence. The party made contingency plans in case the rope went slack and lowered Tussle again.
Tussle found himself in a well-lit grand hall, with polished gray marble walls, ornate columns carved to resemble Sorshen herself, and a wide platform on which stood a white marble sarcophagus with Sorshen's likeness painted on the lid. Tussle managed to resist his baser urges and pulled the rope to get pulled back up. Once they knew what they were facing, the party attached two ropes to columns in the entry room and lowered themselves down. Tussle just jumped, because Tussle.
Xondra cast Detect Magic on the sarcophagus and detected several spell effects, but couldn't identify them because they were all inside the sarcophagus proper. The Red Sash determined that the sarcophagus wasn't trapped, and that it didn't look like it had been opened in 10,000 years. Unfortunately, due to GM error (I thought an inch of stone blocked Detect Magic, not a foot), Lance suggested that there was no reason to go about disturbing the peacefully-resting dead and so they should move on. There were two passages going north, so they chose the western one first. It led to an elegant balcony overlooking a slowly-flowing underground river. The entire area was well-lit, the air was fresh, and it was all in all very relaxing and beautiful. To the west they could make out some kind of waterfall, while to the east was a beach with some rowboats.
Not wanting to swim, they went back to the sarcophagus chamber and took the eastern passage. This one led to a large red wall with many, many panels. Tussle worked out that it was a door, and that each panel was a button (because of COURSE gnomes have no trouble recognizing big red buttons), and that the central button would open the door. Each panel depicted a beautiful woman engaged in a magical incantation involving some sort of winged creatures. Xondra said that it looked like some kind of summoning or binding, but she couldn't exactly make out what was going on. The central panel depicted the beautiful woman (probably Sorshen) summoning a winged woman (a succubus) and somehow relating her to the torch of the Lady's Light, but that was as much as the party could get out of it. Pressing the panel, a set of Thassilonian runes appeared. "Ayandamahla is bound to the Light for all ages.”
The door swung open, and the party reached the beach with the rowboats.
Except there were no oars. These were actually "pole boats", since each one could hold three Medium creatures and could be poled along the gentle river. Splitting into two groups and taking both boats, the party poled west until they arrived just underneath the "falls", which were actually just water pouring through a grating over a large hole at the top of the wall. The whole thing was carefully built and decorated, however, and the overall aesthetic effect was pleasing. A platform just before the grate had a pier on which to tie the boats, so the party got off and investigated the platform.
At the back of the platform was an alcove with a 12' statue of Sorshen raising her arms in the air. The statue radiated enchantment magic, and the Red Sash saw that the eyes were hollow. Tussle was curious, so Red Sash lifted Tussle up and held him within arm’s reach of the eyes. Tussle peeked in and saw that the statue was hollow and almost completely filled with water. Against the party's wishes, he insisted on pouring some water into the eyes. The water poured out again. Tussle tasted it. It tasted fine. Xondra determined that it wasn't magical. Tussle poured in some alcohol. A watery tendril popped out of the eyehole and smacked him. Xondra and the Red Sash immediately identified it as belonging to a large water elemental (and yes, I love that you can identify a water elemental as "large" by seeing a bit of making it and making a high enough Knowledge roll).
They spoke respectfully to the elemental in Thassilonian. "What are you doing in there? Can we help you?"
The elemental was not the best conversationalist in the world. "Do not hurt the grate. Do not hurt the statue."
"OK. We can do that."
Satisfied that there was nothing particularly interesting nor dangerous about the statue nor its denizen(s?), the party decided to pole back downriver.
{. . .} Xondra reached out with her hair and gave him a touch of Frostbite, fatiguing him instantly. And that was all she wrote. The party had little trouble mopping up the remaining boggard and the now-fatigued, non-raging barbarian {. . .}
I already knew that you can't enter a Rage when Fatigued, but I didn't know that Fatigue would drop you out of an already running Rage.
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{. . .} Xondra reached out with her hair and gave him a touch of Frostbite, fatiguing him instantly. And that was all she wrote. The party had little trouble mopping up the remaining boggard and the now-fatigued, non-raging barbarian {. . .}I already knew that you can't enter a Rage when Fatigued, but I didn't know that Fatigue would drop you out of an already running Rage.
It garnered some discussion at the table, but the conclusion was that you can't rage while fatigued. No idea whether it's RAW, but we did have the discussion and decided to play it that way at our table.
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It's the sort of thing that you could make a case for either way. As long as the table agrees to play it that way, and it applies equally to PCs and NPCs, it's the right decision.
Well, I just found the rules thread on it that pointed out that:
(1) By RAW it's simply not true, and(2) Considering the sheer number of spells that cause fatigue with no save, it really hoses barbarians.
I'm going to revisit with the group. I think I'd prefer it the RAW way simply to protect barbarians. Otherwise carrying around a 1st-level wand disables all barbarians ever, which really is amazingly bad.
It's the sort of thing that you could make a case for either way. As long as the table agrees to play it that way, and it applies equally to PCs and NPCs, it's the right decision.Well, I just found the rules thread on it that pointed out that:
(1) By RAW it's simply not true, and
(2) Considering the sheer number of spells that cause fatigue with no save, it really hoses barbarians.I'm going to revisit with the group. I think I'd prefer it the RAW way simply to protect barbarians. Otherwise carrying around a 1st-level wand disables all barbarians ever, which really is amazingly bad.
Actually a 0-level (for touch of fatigue), but still has a Fort save to it, so that really shouldn't be much of an impediment as leveling occurs. A wand of a 0-level spell is going to carry a DC 10 by default, so again, I wouldn't worry too much about that over the long run. Your house rule of a 1 carrying a -5 penalty to the roll might crop up for it though should someone decide that stopping the barbarian rage is really the most important thing they could be doing and spamming it every round.
EDIT: Yeah, the no save ones cause a much bigger issue if you keep that ruling.
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It's the sort of thing that you could make a case for either way. As long as the table agrees to play it that way, and it applies equally to PCs and NPCs, it's the right decision.Well, I just found the rules thread on it that pointed out that:
(1) By RAW it's simply not true, and
(2) Considering the sheer number of spells that cause fatigue with no save, it really hoses barbarians.I'm going to revisit with the group. I think I'd prefer it the RAW way simply to protect barbarians. Otherwise carrying around a 1st-level wand disables all barbarians ever, which really is amazingly bad.
Actually a 0-level (for touch of fatigue), but still has a Fort save to it, so that really shouldn't be much of an impediment as leveling occurs. A wand of a 0-level spell is going to carry a DC 10 by default, so again, I wouldn't worry too much about that over the long run. Your house rule of a 1 carrying a -5 penalty to the roll might crop up for it though should someone decide that stopping the barbarian rage is really the most important thing they could be doing and spamming it every round.
EDIT: Yeah, the no save ones cause a much bigger issue if you keep that ruling.
It's Frostbite, so it would be a barbarian killer. Level 1 spell in a wand with no save, so 50 touch attacks against barbarians with no AoOs allowed to send them straight to exhausted. So I'm reversing the ruling.
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{. . .}
It's Frostbite, so it would be a barbarian killer. Level 1 spell in a wand with no save, so 50 touch attacks against barbarians with no AoOs allowed to send them straight to exhausted. So I'm reversing the ruling.
Yeah, it had occurred to me that a Frostbite Magus (especially with a whip) would be a real anti-Barbarian with this ruling.
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Just for the weekly update: No game this week, but last week's session went out for player review last night, so hopefully my players will find the extra time to review it over the weekend and there'll be a post by Monday.
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In case anyone is wondering how the lockdown will affect my journals:
(1) Trig's campaign is already over, so I'll continue to try to post those journals weekly.
(2) The Strange Aeons campaign is family-only, so it will continue, likely with longer sessions since the kids aren't as overwhelmed with homework and GothBard no longer has a commute.
(3) We're going to try to do the Shattered Star campaign using Roll20, but Shiro doesn't care for it all that much, and it'll be Lara Croft Guy's first Roll20 campaign, so we'll see how they react.
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^Tell Shiro it could be worse -- it could be Strange Aeons.
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Well, our first Roll20 session was a mixed bag: The "minor" map alignment issues you always get with Roll20 and Paizo maps turned out to be pretty bad in the room in which they fought, and just as we started Impus Major decided to have a really loud League of Legends match in the same room, leading to headache-inducing levels of noise. Impus Minor got stressed out and asked to end the session after only 90 minutes, and I can hardly blame him, but we've already set up better locations and headphones for everyone so next week should go better.
So while the writeup for the 22nd'll be short, I'll badger people about the writeup for the 8th, since I notice it's still unposted.
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Session 14, Played 08-Mar-2020
Lance was still worried about the water elementals. Were they bound here? Did they want freedom? He couldn't imagine anyone being happy sitting in a statue for eternity, never traveling anywhere. So he asked whether they needed anything, or whether there was anything he could do for them, or whether there was anything inside of the statue that was bothering them…
The water elementals, having no reason to mistrust Lance's motives, explained that they were guarding a portal to the Plane of Water, and as such their duty was an extreme honor and they would not give it up for anything he might have to offer. Confused but satisfied, Lance thanked them and the party moved back to the beach.
As they approached the sarcophagus a second time, the Red Sash explained that opening people's sarcophagi was bad luck, and he didn't think it was a good idea, and Lance agreed with him, but he pointed out that they were searching for a powerful magical artifact and Xondra had told them that there was powerful magic inside of the sarcophagus. The Red Sash still didn't want to have anything to do with it, so Tussle had Geary start sliding off the lid. It quickly became apparent that if Geary proceeded unaided, he would tumble the lid to the floor, at least damaging it and very likely shattering it. Reluctantly, the Red Sash helped Geary move the lid as Tussle was the first one to peek inside. And there, in all her glory, was Sorshen, Runelord of Lust.
She was perfectly-preserved, making Xondra suspect that one of the spell effects in place was a Gentle Repose, and another was likely a Permanency. Sorshen was clad in near-scandalous diaphanous flimsy robes and wore a significant amount of tasteful jewelry: A lapis lazuli necklace, emerald-studded earrings, various rings on her fingers, and a silver and pink pearl anklet. Lance started complaining that Runelords cheated in everything, and how could she be wearing seven rings, and Xondra patiently explained that maybe, just maybe, not all of the rings were magical.
In fact, Xondra only detected five magical auras. There was a potion tucked away in a padded pouch over Sorshen's head that radiated moderate Transmutation magic, and two of the spell effects she could see correlated with her idea of Permanency and Gentle Repose (moderate Universal and faint Necromancy, respectively). Unfortunately, the ancient Thassilonian magic was different enough from the magics she learned from Micu that she just couldn't be sure what any of the effects were. Even worse were the final two spells: While most spells had clear-cut "borders", like neatly-painted tiles on a bathroom wall, these two spells had somehow "smudged" together to become one: One was a moderate Illusion spell, and the other was the strong Necromancy she had sensed from outside of the sarcophagus, but again, she could make heads nor tails of the Thassilonian magic.
The discussion began as to whether or not it would be moral to loot her body. The jewelry was worth about 6000 gold pieces all told, and she was dead, as far as Lance could tell without touching her, but grave robbing was considered evil by most civilized folk. Lance asked Xondra about Pharasma's general feelings about grave robbing, and they corroborated his feelings quite well: Unless there was a grave immediate threat that the money from the belongings would help stave off, grave robbing was frowned upon. Tussle came up with the idea that if they didn't take it, the gray maidens would, and that would make the money fall into the wrong hands. They all agreed that they didn't want this to happen, and no one pointed out that the gray maidens had already been through and hadn't looted the sarcophagus, so the group asked the Red Sash to get to work disarming any possible traps.
He could see that one of the spells was a trap and set to work. As Xondra watched with Detect Magic, the Red Sash successfully dissipated the illusion spell. Unfortunately, whatever the necromancy spell had been intended to do then… happened, and a necromantic aura surrounded the Red Sash and seemed to sink into his skin. The Red Sash felt the spell affecting him in some way and saw Xondra looking at him both worriedly and expectantly, but when he didn't immediately die or start rotting, when he asked, "What?", she responded, "Oh, nothing."
The Red Sash was displeased.
He wanted nothing more to do with the sarcophagus, so he stepped away as Tussle clambered up to start looting Sorshen's corpse. As he pulled off her rings, the Red Sash felt ghostly tugs on his fingers. That was the last straw! He told Tussle he was going to close the lid, but Tussle insisted on continuing looting, so the Red Sash sealed Tussle in the sarcophagus with the corpse. A few seconds later, he felt inappropriate touching on his chest and ripped the lid open again to tell Tussle to stop and get out. This went on for a bit, with Tussle getting sealed in the sarcophagus one more time, before the Red Sash finally relented ("The spell has already affected you, whatever it is,") and let Tussle finish looting. Once he'd pulled out the potion, he couldn't identify it, but the Red Sash identified it as a potion of Gaseous Form. To get out of the sarcophagus, of course. With the Red Sash's mysterious "curse" and his link to the corpse, they decided to leave the potion with the corpse, just in case. The Red Sash sealed up the sarcophagus with some relief, as Lance kept reassuring him that curses would detect as magic, and Xondra didn't detect any magic on him, so obviously he was going to be just fine.
The Red Sash did not seem convinced.
To make matters worse, Micu chose that moment to sniff at the Red Sash's leg, then sniff at Sorshen, and he reported to Xondra that the Red Sash was starting to smell like her. "He smells better. More like her."
Xondra dutifully passed on this information to the Red Sash.
The Red Sash was even more displeased.
Going back to the rowboats (poleboats?), the party first explored the beach. Sure enough, in the areas they hadn't trampled there were signs of armored footprints in the sand. They had their first evidence that the gray maidens had been here! The party started poling downriver. The Red Sash very quickly noticed that the water was getting deeper and faster, and had Tussle have Geary stop the other boat as well. For a moment they pondered the physics of the situation: How could the river be wider and deeper, but faster? Ah, well, where there was one portal into the Plane of Water there were bound to be others, so it had to be some kind of magical effect.
The boats had stopped just outside of a truly breathtaking chamber. Dozens of tiny colored motes of light danced in the air between the water and the crystalline stalactites that hung gracefully from the ceiling 30' above a crystal-clear lake. There was a 7-sided stone island in the middle of the lake, decorated with a single glass statue of a beautiful woman, poised as if to leap into the water. To their right was a pleasant-looking sandy beach marred by what looked like two graves complete with makeshift gravestones, and beyond the island was a cataract leading into the catacombs below. Not wanting to proceed until they had a better idea of what they were looking at, they first looked carefully at the glass statue. Xondra confirmed that it was no statue, but a glass golem, and there were chips in it that indicated it had been in a fight and had never been repaired. Just to be sure, the Red Sash used his Golembane Scarab and confirmed that they were indeed looking at a golem.
Not wanting to approach the golem nor the cataract, the beach was the obvious choice, but Lance wanted more information. He asked Xondra to fly up out of reach of the golem and see what she could see. She saw that the cataract descended roughly sixty feet to another level below this one, while the island had Thassilonian writing on it that indicated it was a transportation hub for all of Eurythnia ("Where?" "Sorshen's domain." "Oh."). The most important phrase was, "Those who would use this platform should obey the commands of the glass guardian Ashamintallu," so now they knew the golem's name. Except golems didn't tend to have names nor issue commands, but that wasn't anything to worry about at the moment. It was obviously some kind of intelligent golem. Furthermore, there were blood splatters and glass chips on the island. There had been a battle there.
The beach looked safe enough, so they landed there and discussed what to do next. Going down the cataract seemed like a no-brainer: Since not everyone could fly or swim, it seemed like a good way to take significant damage and possibly drown, just to get down a level they were likely to find stairs to somewhere else. While Ashamintallu might be able to teleport them out of the Lady's Light, they were only just beginning to explore it so it seemed rather silly to ask her to teleport them somewhere when they didn't know where they were going. Especially in boats.
Which brought up the boat discussion. There were two graves and more gray maiden footprints, plus bloody trails to indicate that the gray maidens had most likely fought the glass golem, retreated here, and lost two of their members, but there were no boats. In fact, there were a couple of pitons and ropes driven into the sand as if there had been boats on the beach, but they'd somehow returned to their starting point. Were they magical? Did they teleport back? Did the golem get them? Where had the boats gone? All Xondra could contribute was that the boats did radiate strong Conjuration magic, which would correspond to teleportation.
Finally, they examined the graves. They were obviously two hastily-dug graves for victims of the golems, and each one had a heavy steel shield as a makeshift headstone. The shields were of Korvosan make, but had been painted over in white, with a red rune of Lust painted prominently on the white background. The group saw no reason to disturb the gray maidens' graves.
The Red Sash assured them that the next door was safe, so they opened it into a moderately-sized room whose walls were covered by detailed murals of otherworldly beings in wanton acts of passion. It was clearly exactly the sort of thing that Ayavah the artist had expressed an interest in, so Xondra dutifully started taking notes so that she'd be able to produce a Major Image of it later. As Xondra gazed at the lurid mural, Tussle noticed that it was signed by someone named Amivadeus Yasrin.
Proceeding out of the room and down a 5' wide passage, as the passage turned sharply to the left and widened to 10', a voice called out in common, "Greetings, friends or foes. Which be you? I’ll open the gate for you myself if you be the former, but fear I must prevent your passage if you be the latter. Would you speak the pass phrase for me?"
Ahead of them, the Red Sash and Lance saw a pale shirtless man with white hair, standing behind a locked iron gate. As they spent a moment trying to think of a suitable password, Tussle, still hidden from the man around the corner, cast Ghost Sound and from the area the man was in had a voice say, "Aw, I think we should let them in!"
"Fight it is, then!" The man responded, stepped out of sight, and started buffing himself. The party moved forward as Lance started a conversation with their opponent. While he was recalcitrant about revealing anything whatsoever about the inside of the Lady's Light, he was perfectly willing to discuss his history.
He was Gnaeus Gnaru, an adventurer originally from Pangolais in Nidal, but now working as a sellsword throughout the Inner Sea region. He'd spend a lot of time in Ustalav hunting down rogue undead, then traveled to Varisia. He met a wizard in Magnimar who promised him riches in exchange for helping explore the Lady's Light, and Gnaeus readily agreed. They used Dimension Door to enter the Light, but were very soon confronted by the Love of Gnaeus' life. He would not describe her to the party, but he threw down his sword and promised her his service in exchange for her love, and the cowardly wizard had fled, hopefully to his doom. He wouldn't speak of what occurred afterwards, but Lance did note that he seemed to be awfully far away from his lady love, down here in the dungeon guarding the entrance against intruders. Gnaeus did not respond to this barb.
Fortunately, Tussle shot off the lock to let everyone else into the room and the "combat" began in earnest. Unfortunately, before Gnaeus could do much of anything the Red Sash had him grappled and he managed only a couple of feeble stabs at Tussle before the Red Sash had him pinned, bound, and defeated.
Lance really wanted to help the guy. He seemed to be Charmed, but Lance had used up his Magic Circle Against Evil and the guy didn't seem likely to accept even something as simple as a Protection from Evil. Xondra confirmed that he was under the effects of Charm Monster, but they didn't have Dispel Magic ready, and Lance didn't want to risk wasting a spell on a man who wouldn't accept it. He offered to heal Gnaeus, but even that was met with hostility, and Xondra had to point out to Lance that Gnaeus was a dhampir, hence healing magic would hurt him. Xondra had Micu smell him, and Micu reported that he had no scent of Sorshen on him at all. Giving up, they decided to leave him tied up for the moment. They took all of his gear, because obviously he was going to be a troublemaker.
At the other end of the room was another door, leading to yet another passage lined with columns of beautiful women. The first column was missing its head, so the first thing the Red Sash did was to check whether the columns were load-bearing. It appeared that they weren't, so the Red Sash proceeded down the hallway. As soon as he was within 10 feet of the next column, something quite amazing happened: Its head sprouted little metallic legs and it skittered down its column to attack the Red Sash. Unfortunately, Tussle shot it with his double hackbut, its paralyzing gaze failed to affect Tussle, and the Red Sash ended it. Whatever these things were, they were nothing like the columns they'd fought in the room above.
Fortunately, Xondra had been doing her Thassilonian research and could identify these as "marble sentinels", and although they were very similar to golems in that they were constructs that were immune to magic (other than force magic), they were different enough that the Red Sash's Golembane Scarab wouldn't detect them. The party had already seen their major weapons: Claws that hit with remarkable accuracy and did a surprising amount of damage for their size and paralyzing eye bolts. The one thing that concerned Xondra was that marble sentinels also had an Alert ability so that they could mentally alert their creator (or a chosen delegate) the moment they detected intruders. Well, either they'd been noticed, or they hadn't.
Now that they knew what to look for, the rest of the marble sentinels fell rather easily: Tussle would shoot it with his double hackbut, it would come running down the column, and either Tussle or the Red Sash would finish it off. As they finished with the sentinels, the Red Sash noticed that the extremely distracting mural in the alcove was intended to draw attention away from a covered pit trap blocking the passage. He had little trouble disarming the trap, Xondra made note of the mural, and they moved on.
The door at the end of the hall seemed innocuous enough, but the Red Sash studied it meticulously anyway. Not seeing any traps nor hearing anything in the room beyond, he opened the door… and the demon that had been standing there, holding its breath in anticipation, brought its scimitar down upon him, cutting him deeply. It then suggested in Thassilonian that the Red Sash go hide by the altar, as it was forbidden from approaching there and he would be safe, and the Red Sash thought this was a perfectly reasonable thing to do. Tussle had Geary entangle the creature in a net and then opened fire, barely getting through the winged creature's damage reduction, and Lance freed the Red Sash from his mind control as Xondra hexed the critter. it surprised everyone by teleporting down the hall to the back of the party, minus the net. Unfortunately for it, the party had healing and it didn't, and eventually it succumbed to their attacks, but not before reducing the Red Sash by two thirds of his hit points or more. Xondra identified it as an incubus, "But not a very good one," as it had shown no interest in her whatsoever. After looting the creature's scimitar, they scanned the room. It was clearly the site of a recent battle, as blood stains covered the floors and altar, though there were no bodies to be seen (except the lone incubus, of course). The mural was of Sorshen (of course), standing atop the mastaba in Korvosa. Now that was interesting!
The only exit from the room was a double door to the south, so they proceeded that way cautiously, being far more careful with the door this time. This large chamber was bizarre in a multitude of ways. The most obvious were the 3' tall steps leading up to a central firepit in which danced a mysterious gray flame. The entire room was unbearably hot and humid. To the west and south were octagonal alcoves, while to the east, a gray section of wall marred the otherwise-white perfection of the room. In that section was an unlit torch, with soot marks indicating that it had once been lit.
The group decided to circumnavigate the room counterclockwise, and so headed for the western alcove. There was a door in this alcove, but Xondra became suspicious and cast See Invisibility. There, floating in the flame, were four globular beings best described as mouths with wings. She immediately recognized them as cacodemons, and Lance insisted that they needed to die, and moved forward so they were all within range of his Invisibility Purge. Tussle unloaded his double hackbut into one. The fight was brutal and one-sided, with the cacodemons trying to tear Tussle to pieces as everyone else beat them to death. Once the daemons were defeated, a more thorough search of the room showed no other doors than the western one. However, the Red Sash could tell that the eastern section of wall was some kind of door mechanism, so Tussle did the obvious, lit the torch in the gray flame, put it on the wall, and the door opened. Stairs led down. The party didn't want to go to a new level until they'd finished exploring the one they were on, so they closed the door and extinguished the torch. Western door it was!
This door led to a rather interesting hallway: Ten wood and iron doors lined the hall; five to a side. Each door had an identical inscription in Thassilonian: "Thou wouldst enter? Then thou must touch!" There were two incongruities in the hallway. The first was that the first door on the right was caked with a sheen of frost and had a different inscription: "Thou wouldst enter to enjoy the company of the Runelord of Lust herself? Then thou must touch!" Also, the hallway extended beyond the final doors, and on the final wall was the same inscription as the other nine doors.
Tussle, unable to contain himself, rode up on Geary and touched the frosty door.
The explosion of frost caught everyone in the party, wounding them moderately. Even worse, when Tussle tried to ride Geary away, he wouldn't move. NO! The door had killed Geary!!!
Tussle examined Geary closely, and it looked like the Golemworks would be able to fix him relatively inexpensively, but he'd have to get him there. And no one was willing to carry 400 pounds of frozen steel at the moment. Reluctantly, Tussle agreed to part with Geary until they were able to leave the dungeon and take him in for repairs.
After Lance healed them, the Red Sash examined the next door far more carefully. It did not seem to be trapped. A simple touch of bare skin caused the door to silently open inwards, to a very comfortable bedroom complete with bed, bookcase, and writing desk. The other nine rooms were all the same. Xondra said that the books seemed to be on basic magic, so this area was probably some kind of school, and the rooms were dorm rooms for the students. Noting the soft beds and perfect temperatures, many party members had pleasant thoughts of being students here.
The "secret" door at the end of the hall led to a "master bedroom" of sorts, with a far larger bed, much more comfortable room, and more murals, this time of a woodland scene with leering satyrs peering from between the trees.
There was yet another double door to the north, and as the party was getting tired, especially dragging Geary around, they checked the next door (a simple clear pool of water) and the three doors after that (three laboratories), determined they were at a dead end, and decided to stay in the master bedroom for the night.
If there was an argument as to who would get the bed, the GM didn't hear it.
The party leveled up to level 7 during the night.
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Session 14, Played 08-Mar-2020 {. . .} Unfortunately, whatever the necromancy spell had been intended to do then… happened, and a necromantic aura surrounded the Red Sash and seemed to sink into his skin. The Red Sash felt the spell affecting him in some way and saw Xondra looking at him both worriedly and expectantly, but when he didn't immediately die or start rotting, when he asked, "What?", she responded, "Oh, nothing." {. . .}
This isn't going to end well . . . .
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^The two are not mutually exclusive.
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Plus, as long as the party had to return to Magnimar anyway, GothBard is choosing to retire Xondra as being rather dissatisfying to play; witches are one-trick ponies, and if you don't enjoy spending every round saying, "And now I hex that one," they're just not very fun.
^A 9/9 caster doesn't have to be a one-trick pony.
^A 9/9 caster doesn't have to be a one-trick pony.
Yes, but if you look at the witch's spell list, the lack of defensive spells (no Shield, Blur, Displacement, or Mirror Image), lack of offensive spells (no Magic Missile, Scorching Ray, or Fireball), and lack of battlefield control spells (no Grease, no pits, and I wouldn't exactly call Wall of Flesh a "solid" wall), plus no base Teleport, leads to what we consider the most restrictive spell list of any of the classes. (Even rangers, paladins, and magi get better options.)
Add to that the extremely limited "4 spells per level" that wizards overcome with lots of extra feats (including Scribe Scroll for free) and clerics overcome with domain spells, spell conversion, channeling, and domain abilities, and you have a caster with very little versatility, very few spells, and no "free" way to overcome these limitations.
I'll argue that because the spell list is so short and the class abilities are centered on hexing rather than casting, it really is a very limited class beyond hexing every round.
The Witch spell list is basically designed to be a Save or Suck/Die spell list. The playstyle generally seems to be "Evil Eye penalty on Saves (cackle), Misfortune Hex (cackle), spell designed to take that target out of the fight immediately." Lipstitch, a level 2 spell, is brutal to spell casters who don't have Silent Spell.
The Witch Spell list does have some minor battlefield control (Web, some of the fog spells), and a couple of weaker damage spells (burning hands, ear-piercing scream, snowball), with certain patrons giving more options, but otherwise is designed to be a single target debuff class. I think that if you're going to have a witch in the party, it works best if you have another 9 level arcane caster to pick up the slack on the other aspects of being a spellcaster so they can piggy back off your save-reducing hexes.
That was precisely GothBard's complaint -- a witch cannot shouldn't be the standalone arcane caster for a party.
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If you choose the Healing Patron, you could be a decent caster Cleric substitute, especially with the Hedge Witch archetype and/or Herb Witch(*).
(*)Alternatively, Hex Channeler, but use this only if you will depend upon rider effects (such as Command/Turn Undead and some types of Variant Channeling) on Channeling and not on the Chenneling dice, which are not worth spending more Hexes to increase -- non-damaging/healing rider effects DON'T cost more Hexes to increase. Also note that Hex Channeler is incompatible with Herb Witch.
If you choose the Elements Patron, you could be a passable blaster.
If you are willing to accept a limited set of spells known, you can use the Ley Line Guardian archetype to get Sorcerer-style casting (and spells per day), although this is incompatible with the above-mentioned archetypes other than Hex Channeler.
It would be possible, although not easy, to build a Witch as a substitute for your full divine caster or your full arcane caster, or maybe even for both, although of course you have to conserve limited spells per day by using Hexes to relieve yourself of some of the spellcasting load. Although of these options, I think it might be easiest to have a Witch concentrate on substituting for the full divine caster, but with the bonus of high Intelligence conferring a decent number of skill ranks per level.
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Session 15, Played 22-Mar-2020
The "evening" passed uneventfully, with the only real issue being figuring out how to turn off the lights. Didn't Runelord Sorshen sleep? But they all got their rest, and at approximately dawn decided to head out and give Gnaeus breakfast. Gnaeus seemed genuinely surprised and grateful that they had returned to take care of him, and willingly ate his breakfast without suspicion. Unfortunately, a few questions revealed that he was still under some sort of charm, so, after a few moments' discussion, Lance decided to burn his single Magic Circle Against Evil for the day to see whether they could free him. Before he did, Xondra cast her Fortune hex on Gnaeus. Gnaeus took his new saving throw and… he was FREE!!!!
His first act was to thank Lance and Xondra profusely for freeing him. He might have been near tears, but he hid it well. He confirmed that his "love" was indeed Sorshen, or someone claiming to be Sorshen with the power to twist his mind to her will. Gnaeus himself doubted that she was the "real deal", as she didn't exude power the way a Runelord should. She seemed more like someone playing at being Sorshen, and being rather petty besides. For example, even though she had asked him to defend the entrance, she'd taken away his breastplate, saying that it would be "a shame to cover up that incredible body". While that did sound like Sorshen, making him fight less than fully-equipped certainly didn't.
He further confirmed that the Gray Maidens had arrived and "Sorshen" had converted them to her cause; those who doubted her veracity or her goals were being slowly tortured to death and disposed of on the upper levels. Most of them had willingly converted, however, so he doubted the party would have as easy of a time with them, even if they removed any charm effects from them. Unfortunately, any further conversation was interrupted when the Red Sash informed them that he had just heard the gray door in the room of gray flames opening. The party went quiet, closed the door to the room, set up an ambush, and waited…
...the Red Sash kept listening, and confirmed that it was a group of women in heavy armor speaking Common.
As the group of gray maidens arrived at the door and knocked, asking, "Gnaeus, are you there?", he answered, "Yes, I am."
The gray maidens let down their guard and opened the door, and were immediately ambushed by the group. Lance fought them with his morning star, Red Sash his ranseur, Tussle tried to conserve his now-precious ammunition by firing only one regular bullet a round, and Xondra let fly with her hexes. Gnaeus surprised the party by providing them fairly robust spell support; on the first round he cast Bull's Strength on Lance, then used Scorching Ray to drop a maiden, and Magic Missile to drop a second. The four maidens at the door fell relatively quickly, though one of them, obviously the commander, took a bit more of a beating than the rest. They had called for help, and the Red Sash could hear more maidens approaching. The two remaining maidens had enough presence of mind to flee towards their brethren in the hopes of joining them, but Xondra took care of that with a ruthless description of their "Fake Sorshen" and how could they be so gullible to believe such an obvious lie and Fake Sorshen! Enraged, the maidens attacked her, causing her great damage, but dooming themselves in the process.
Unfortunately for the poor reinforcements, there were only two of them. Neither of them listened to Lance's orders to surrender, so by the end of the fight three were dead and three were unconscious but stable.
Now, what to do with them?
Lance polled the party. Gnaeus said they should be executed. Xondra and Lance agreed; they had not only thrown in their lot with the false Sorshen, but they'd trained the boggards in using atrocities against their enemies. Tussle didn't care one way or the other; the fight was over, his ammunition was running low, and until he could get back to Magnimar and stock up on ammunition and get Geary repaired his heart wasn't in the exploration. The Red Sash felt that it wasn't right to kill defeated enemies.
Since the vote wasn't unanimous, Lance decided to spare the maidens, and they tied them up.
As they prepared to move on, Gnaeus said, "Wait, there's more you should know."
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Session 16, Played 29-Mar-2020
Gnaeus first explained his belief that "Sorshen" wasn't really Sorshen. Three times during his stay in the Light, he spotted a beautiful but frightening demonic woman with bat wings and horns. In his charmed state he made nothing of the sightings, but now he realizes that he never saw "Sorshen" at the same time he saw the creature. Perhaps learning more about the nature of that creature would help them combat it.
Next, he sketched out what he knew of the way in to the Lady's Light. Unfortunately, it wasn't much. With the assistance of his wizard companion, they went down the cataract to a large underground lake lit by luminescent fungus. Crossing the lake, they reached a beach with several natural passageways branching off from it, but the wizard revealed a secret door. On opening it, the pair encountered the would-be Sorshen herself, and Gnaeus succumbed to her charms. The wizard fled, leaving him trapped with her for however long he'd been here. (He honestly couldn't remember.) She moved him about using Dimension Door, so he couldn't provide any additional details other than that there were chambers farther up in the Light where "Sorshen" had her lair.
Once he was done, he asked politely whether he could leave and have his belongings back. The party gave them over readily, and he gifted them his wand of Detect Secret Doors, since he couldn't really use it very well, and the wizard had mentioned that the Light was full of such doors.
Since Gnaeus hadn't prepared his spells yet, he assured the party he could prepare Invisibility and Spider Climb and escape on his own. Lance promised that he'd contact him with Sending within a week to make sure he was safe in Magnimar. Gnaeus assured Lance that he had no intention of returning to Magnimar, and he'd be heading back to Kaer Maga to "find himself" again. Xondra gave him a coy smile and said she might visit him there, and he smiled back and said that would be absolutely fine with him. Once he was preparing, the party turned their attention to the unconscious gray maidens. They tied the three of them to three pillars as far apart as they could, then Lance channeled energy to wake them up.
He tried to convince them to talk, but he wasn't very good at this. The dreaded Tussle, "I got this," arose. The rest of the party waited in anticipation to see what he'd do. The gray maiden looked at him defiantly. So he shot her. As she gasped at the sudden pain, Tussle said conversationally, "OK, let's talk."
She talked.
The gray maidens were indeed formerly under the command of one Oriana, but Oriana had been summoned to Sorshen's chambers days ago and had not been seen since. Quinelle Page had been in charge, but her corpse was lying among the dead, so they had no current leader. At the moment, the maidens were waiting Sorshen's "sorting", as she determined which of the maidens were loyal and which might betray her. Each "sorting" took hours, as Sorshen was very careful and thorough, and those deemed unworthy were handed over to the sea hag Daefu in the caves under the Light. Once Sorshen had finished her sorting, she and her most loyal cadre would stream forth from the Light and slaughter all in their path.
Xondra asked why the maidens had chosen to teach the boggards such atrocities, and she responded that it was simple convenience: The boggards and troglodytes were in the way, and weren't using every tool at their disposal to murder each other, so the maidens simply tipped the scale so they could get past with the least amount of resistance; the boggards meant nothing to them any more.
At that point, even the Red Sash lost all faith in their redemption. He loudly announced that he was going to go out of the room to sort their armor, then started banging it loudly around so he couldn't hear anything that was going on in the room. Xondra quickly and cleanly coup de graced the prisoners.
The next step was obviously to check the rooms they had only cursorily examined before. They returned to the master bedroom, then went to the inconveniently large pool in the next room. The grating at the bottom indicated that it likely connected with the river to the north. The Red Sash considered swimming down to examine the grating, but he asked Xondra to Detect Magic on it first. It definitely detected as having abjuration magic, and after a bit of studying Xondra recognized it as a pool of Dispel Magic: Anything submerged in the pool would have its magical effects dispelled. The Red Sash was glad he hadn't gone swimming.
They next examined the room to the east with the conjuration circle in it.
Adding to the mistake, I missed that Sorshen's book was in this room, so Xondra's initial Detect Magic only spotted the conjuration, and I had to add, "Oh, by the way, there's also an artifact in the room that you might be interested in."
All in all, considering the mistakes, it worked out, but it would have been fun to run the seugathi fight, as it's a bit of nastiness they would have had fun defeating. So yes, the proceedings don't match the book at all, and that's totally on me. So a bit of fuzziness in the retelling here, but otherwise it worked out.
Xondra cast Detect Magic again, and this time saw a moderate conjuration aura and an overwhelming evocation aura. Concentrating, the circle had a variant Summon Monster VI spell stuck in mid-cast. The evocation aura was attached to a large black tome next to an overturned bookstand against the back wall. The party decided to leave the room for last.
The room to the north was a strange room with six obvious bed-like slabs with manacles at the corners, but considering the Runelord's domain this seemed rather inappropriate. There was a book in the room titled Dreams and Desires, but that did nothing to determine the purpose of the room. A quick Detect Magic revealed three scrolls in the book: Dream, Symbol of Sleep, and Mind Fog. Xondra claimed the scroll of Dream for undisclosed purposes, though Gnaeus' name might have come up.
The room to the west was an alchemical lab with seven magical auras, so the Red Sash dutifully started examining each magical jar. He did find a potion of Displacement and an Elixir of Love, but he also found a jar that was so unstable that even the slightest touch might dislodge it and cause it to explode. He decided to be far more careful with the rest of the jars. Unfortunately, he wasn't quite as careful with the tables and clutter and managed to knock one of the explosive jars to the floor. (How else do you explain someone being "extremely careful" and then missing his roll by 10?) The resulting explosion didn't hurt the Red Sash much, but it did release a pair of gray oozes from a large jar in the corner of the room. The Red Sash quickly hurried out of the room, Lance closed the door, and then Lance put Resist Energy: Communal on the party to protect them from the oozes' acid. Without their acid damage, the oozes fell quite quickly to conventional weapons. Unfortunately, the rest of the potential treasure in the room was lost to the explosion.
It was time to deal with the conjuration room. They first sent Tussle in to grab the book, and he had no difficulty staying at least 5' from the circle. Xondra examined the book, and was surprised that it was penned by Sorshen herself, but couldn't figure out why it radiated such powerful magic. As for the circle, Lance wouldn't leave such a danger undealt with, so he had the Red Sash shoot an arrow into the circle, completing the summons and bringing forth a massive worm-like creature wielding a sword and a wand in two tiny handlike legs. It cast some kind of spell at Lance, but he was unaffected. It couldn't pierce his Magic Circle Against Evil, so it spent several rounds casting Dispel Magic to try to be able to approach the party, but to no avail. Lance was insulting enough to close the door on it. Once the summons ended, Lance opened the door and was rather surprised to find that the sword and wand remained. Even more surprising, it was quite good gear: A +1 keen longsword and a wand of Cure Critical Wounds with 10 charges left.
Packing up, the party moved back to the room with the gray flame and opened the gray door the gray maidens had come through. Yes, lots of gray. They proceeded down the staircase and were rather surprised when it came to an end at a statue of Sorshen with her arms outstretched, and an inscription reading, "Prostrate thyself and demonstrate proper devotion, my sweet slave, if you wish to enter my domain."
Sure enough, there was moderate conjuration magic on the mural, so the party tried bowing to the statue. That did no good, but the Red Sash noticed that her feet were unusually worn and polished. Sighing, he knelt down and kissed her feet and… vanished!
The rest of the party followed suit.
They found themselves on a stone dock overlooking an enormous lake lit by phosphorescent lichen, very much in keeping with Gnaeus' description of the lake he'd rowed across. Three rowboats were tied to posts attached to the dock, and a second dock was visible across the lake. Unfortunately, Tussle also spotted eight bobbing heads (four on each side of the lake) of undead-looking creatures, much like Lockerbie Brast. There was a brief discussion as to whether or not they might be friendly like Brast, but the party came to the conclusion that they likely weren't. Deciding to avoid the issue entirely, Xondra cast Fly on the Red Sash as Lance cast Ant Haul on him, then Tussle and Lance got into one of the rowboats, the Red Sash picked it up, and he and Xondra flew across the lake carrying Lance and Tussle. The Red Sash could see the creatures following them, so as he landed he pulled out his ranseur.
It was a slaughter. With his ranseur prepared and Combat Reflexes, the first three lacedons that tried to climb onto the dock died before even getting out of the water. The rest, not wanting to risk suicide, fled back into the depths.
In front of them was another red door, this one depicting Sorshen sitting on a throne as numerous strange monsters bowed before her. The center panel was of a giant bowing to Sorshen, and pushing it caused the words, "And so do the mighty Architects serve eternal" to appear. These words reminded Xondra that all of the Runelords had used giants extensively to do their construction for them; in particular Karzoug had used stone giants and Sorshen had used cave giants.
The door opened to reveal a looooong columned hallway with a throne at the other end. Upon the throne sat a cave giant, who bellowed in Common, "You dare enter my throne room, little mortals! If you kneel to me now, I, Sorshen, shall call off my pets and eat only one of you!”
As she spoke, two large and toothy lizards dashed forwards towards the party. Tussle warned the group that cave giants were excellent rock-throwers; while she would be dangerous in hand-to-hand combat, the alternative was to be pelted from hundreds of feet away by large boulders, so closing was probably the safer option, though it wasn't without its risks as well.
The party ignored the cave giant's demands and advanced, striking her lizards as they approached. Incensed, she picked up one of her treasure chests and hurled it at the party. It hit one of the intervening columns and exploded in a cloud of rotted meat, dung, and garbage.
The Red Sash called out, "The King of Giants demands gold. Throw better treasure!"
This version of "Sorshen" was displeased.
The party had little difficulty dispatching the lizards and dodging the chests (read, "The GM kept rolling 3s"), and the Red Sash kept up his unrelenting taunting, claiming, "The King of Giants is displeased."
If it affected "Sorshen", she did not show any indication.
The group finally got within fighting distance of "Sorshen", and she pulled out her axe. Contrary to Tussle's assurance that they were safer in hand-to-hand combat than they were at a distance, the creature hit the Red Sash for half his hit points in a single blow. (Yes. The dice hate me. They always make me a liar.) Figuring that the safest course of action was to take a hit for the team and provide the Red Sash with a much-needed flank to take the creature down in a single round, Lance moved across her space, right in front of her, daring her to hit him.
("I get an attack of opportunity." "Yeah, I know. She won't kill me." "She will if she crits." "Go ahead and roll.")
Needless to say, a natural 20 and then a barely-enough 12 to confirm was a x3 crit from a Power Attacking giant. Lance was killed instantly.
Tussle abandoned all thought of resource preservation, long-term strategy, or anything else. "Buh bye!"
Six shots, the first three Up Close and Deadly, all six with Point-Blank Shot and Deadly Aim. The damage from the giantess' crit was dwarfed by Tussle's retaliation. The instantly-dead giantess collapsed with a bowling-ball sized tunnel through her chest.
Xondra rushed to Lance's side, but she could tell that the wound had been instantly fatal.
Yet to his right he could see The Red Sash, and riding on his back with her arms and legs wrapped around him was a maniacally-grinning Sorshen. Instead of dying, he could choose that path, taking the Red Sash's place in whatever Sorshen had planned.
It didn't even take a moment. Lance turned and headed for the Boneyard.
She looked to the rest of the party. "I don't know about all of you, but I don't think we should go on."
Tussle evaluated his ever-dwindling ammunition supply. The Red Sash looked at his fallen comrade-in-arms. "You're right. We should go."
They checked the giantess for treasure, but all of the treasure chests were filled to the brim with similar filth, and they didn't feel like filtering through it in the hopes of finding something valuable. Her gear was similarly worthless, but attached to the throne she had been sitting on was a platinum plaque reading, "A gift for my Mistress Sorshen from her humble servant Ayandamahla, dedicated this celebrated day, the 25th anniversary of her ascension to rulership in Eurythnia. Present—Runelord Sorshen, Ayandamahla and her daughters Ashamintallu and Erixadallax, Lord & Lady of the Burning Bright, the Sisters of Charming & Delectation, and the Baron of Calamities, along with all slaves, servants, and supplicants in this, the Lady’s Light. May she reign unchallenged forever."
Recognizing the value of the plaque, the party pried it loose, the Red Sash picked up Lance's body, and they headed back to the docks.
Bloody and wounded, and with one of their own dead, they decided to deal with the lacedons once and for all. Xondra's successful Bluff led the lacedons to believe that they would get an easy meal and they came out of the water…
...and none of them survived.
The Red Sash flew back over with the boat and Xondra followed. They returned to where they had piled all the suits of armor and other treasure and piled it all into the boat. Even with Lance's corpse, there was plenty of room for all of the gear and even the bits of Geary. They returned to the sarcophagus, flew up the shaft, used their last bottle of soporific on the solifugids, came out of the pyrohydra's cave, and went straight to the troglodytes.
The trogs were dismayed at the state of the party; Azoresh clearly had tears in her eyes as she looked over Lance. "What can we do to help?"
The party asked to rest and recover in the troglodyte caves, and for Azoresh to prepare Ant Haul for the next day. She readily agreed, and gathered her twelve best warriors: She would travel with them to get Lance to his proper resting place.
The three-day trip back to Magnimar was a sad but uneventful affair; having a dozen troglodytes helping find the path and Azoresh providing Ant Haul to the Red Sash as needed so he could carry Lance and the gear made things proceed much more quickly. Whenever Ant Haul wore off, the trogs nearly came to blows fighting for the honor of being one of Lance's pallbearers, but Azoresh maintained order and every troglodyte got a turn. She simply walked alongside him, seemingly lost in thought the entire trip.
Once they reached the final river before Magnimar, both groups decided it would be better if the troglodytes did not cross this final barrier, so Azoresh gave the Red Sash a final Ant Haul wished them well, and turned to return to her people.
As they approached the outskirts of Magnimar, the guards recognized adventurers in need when they saw them and called for assistance. Lance was taken to the temple of Desna, where Priestess Zimantiu was more than willing to cast Speak with Dead to find out whether Lance wanted to return. "No. I've done a good job," was the only reply she needed. She told the party she would prepare the funeral rites, and they could return at midnight to see him off.
At that point, Xondra told the party that she had seen enough. When she was in Magnimar, she was doing good things, and helping people, and saw herself becoming a better person. She'd established relationships with Brandi and the Princess of Sails, and really saw great improvement in herself, and felt she was helping both herself and the city be better. Once they were in the Lady's Light, she'd lost her way again, and she'd lost one of her few friends on Golarion. She didn't want to go back. She regretfully resigned from being a Pathfinder, but the Lady Heidmarch took no offense, and even offered to keep her on as an information-gatherer in Magnimar proper. The Princess of Sails was similarly happy to have a new local ally.
The Red Sash returned to Serpent's Run. He was a bit alarmed when Moira reacted to him as she would a stranger, hissing at him and hiding under the bed. It took two to three minutes before she calmed down enough to sniff his outstretched fingers, but even then she growled a bit as if she didn't trust him. He picked her and all of her things up and took them to Xondra. "Here's her food. Here are her toys. And here are some dresses and books and quills and things she likes in case she ever turns back into a person."
Tussle took Geary to the Golemworks. They promised they'd have him up and running again overnight. Tussle pondered whether he wanted that, or whether he wanted to aim higher…
Lance's funeral was a quiet, somber affair. Priestess Zimantiu said a few words, but she seemed just as lost leading a formal gathering as Lance would have, and that gave the party comfort. As she lit the pyre, Xondra summoned a swarm of bats. "There you go, Lance! Your night butterflies! They'll show you the way!"
She cried a bit after that, and the rest of the ceremony was low-key and somber.
Everyone returned to their respective residences. The Red Sash was determined to finish the job, as was Tussle.
The Odd Couple music came on in the background...
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Yeah. Don't tempt fate. Sometimes fate will bite back.