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Yeah. Don't tempt fate. Sometimes fate will bite back.
For me, change "Sometimes" to "Very often" . . . .
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Session 17, Played 05-Apr-2020
Since Dawn of the Scarlet Sun is set in the "abandoned" temple of Sarenrae, and Brandi would be a slight impediment to that, I moved it to the Seven's Sawmill, which was quite effective except for the immediate, "How could we have missed this before?" from my RotRL players.
In the morning, the Red Sash decided to visit Brandi to see whether he could learn more about his "curse"; he didn't trust what everyone had told him and was convinced that he was cursed in some way. After all, he'd been with his mother and his sister all these years, and the clerics hadn't been able to cure them, nor even figure out what was wrong. But maybe Brandi would know.
As he approached the temple, it was obvious that something was wrong. The handful of people in the garden were heads-down and didn't look up to greet him, and Brandi was nowhere to be seen. As he approached the front of the temple, Francisco intercepted him. "Greetings, friend. How may I help you?"
As the Red Sash asked to see Brandi, Francisco explained that she was currently inside in inconsolable prayer; someone was murdering her followers, cutting out their hearts, and leaving taunting messages for her, and even when she'd gone out to deal with it personally this morning she hadn't been able to find the culprit, and another of her acolytes had died because of it. The Red Sash immediately offered to help, and Francisco recommended that he speak with Kasadei of the night watch at the Arvensoar, as she'd been given jurisdiction over the case.
The Red Sash got back to his original question: He was of the opinion that he'd been cursed, but none of his party members believed him, since they insisted that all curses had residual magic, and he didn't. Francisco listened earnestly, examined the Red Sash a bit, cast Detect Magic, and admitted that he couldn't see anything wrong with the Red Sash. He suggested that the Red Sash try a wizarding school and give them a complete description of everything that had happened, since this was more likely arcane magic than divine.
Since he was supposed to meet Tussle anyway later in the day to split their loot from the failed trip to the Lady's Light, he went to Dockway, sold their spoils, and headed for the Stone of the Seers, knowing that it was supposed to be the best wizarding school in Magnimar. An acolyte met him at the door, and as he explained his predicament the acolyte grew quite excited; this would test his mastery of Divination magic for sure! Unfortunately, the acolyte cast what few spells he had and could make heads nor tails of the tale. Dejectedly, he went to one of his instructors, who was similarly baffled by the "curse". They finally worked up the nerve to approach Master Nivlandis himself. After a thorough examination and a particularly acute series of questions about exactly what Xondra had described, Master Nivlandis declared, "I don't think you've been cursed; I think you've been Cloned."
The Red Sash asked what that meant. Master Nivlandis went cheerfully into full-blown teacher mode: From Xondra's description of a strong necromantic spell that left no trace, to the Red Sash's description of feeling things that happened to the woman's body (the Red Sash had not mentioned it was Sorshen), it certainly sounded to the master like a Clone spell. The fact that it had not behaved as intended was reinforced by the "blurriness" Xondra had described. Master Nivlandis was fairly sure the Red Sash now had a working clone.
The Red Sash's next question therefore took Master Nivlandis by surprise. "How do I destroy it?"
The master explained that all the Red Sash would need to do would be to destroy the body, but that would prevent him from being resuscitated should the need arise. Didn't the Red Sash like having the reassurance that he'd be able to come back if killed?
Considering just whose body it was, the Red Sash privately worried about exactly who would be in the body should he reawaken it, so he determined that he should destroy the body. He paid the extremely reasonable fee Master Nivlandis asked for (the Red Sash received a hefty, "Stumping my students" discount) and went to meet Tussle. He told Tussle about the murders, and Tussle immediately agreed that they should help. They headed to the Arvensoar, but learned that Kasadei's shift didn't start until 10:00 pm. With an entire day ahead of them, they parted ways again, and the Red Sash made sure he got plenty of sleep since he would be unlikely to get any sleep that evening, while Tussle worked on making himself a new gun.
At the appointed hour, Tussle and the Red Sash met up again and proceeded to the Arvensoar. They arrived a few minutes early and were politely asked by a guard to wait until Kasadei was ready for them. Already there were two obvious adventurers: A gaunt, cloaked figure with a pair of odd-looking goggles propped on his forehead like some kind of gnome tinker. Without having to think twice, both Tussle and the Red Sash thought, "Wizard." With him was an attractive young woman with bright eyes and pale skin who might have passed as human if it weren't for her brilliant amber eyes. She perked up as soon as she saw them. "Oh, hi! Are you here about the case? Are you fighters? You look like a fighter!" She looked at the Red Sash. "What do you think, Percy?"
The gaunt man eyed Tussle and the Red Sash appraisingly. "Well, the big one will certainly do, but I don't know that we need a gnome, or what use he'd be…"
Amazingly, neither the Red Sash nor Tussle took offense. They learned that they were talking to Percy (the wizard) and Killia (the enthusiastic). Percy and Killia had been in another adventuring party and had suffered a similar, much closer-to-home mishap. Their fighter, one Tank by name, had been regaling them with a tale of derring-do, and while gesturing extravagantly had backed into the street, only to be hit by a carriage. He probably would have been fine, but they were on a seaside road and his tumble down the embankment and into deep water while wearing heavy armor had spelled his doom; Percy and Killia had not even managed to retrieve his body. The party rogue, already tired of (true) accusations that he'd been stealing from the party fund, took his split and left, leaving Percy and Killia a pair of casters with no one to stand in front of them and provide the blocking they needed. The Red Sash seemed like a rather fortuitous, perfect fit. Percy was still dubious about Tussle, but Tussle remained quiet.
At that moment, Kasadei signaled that she was ready for them, and the quartet went into her office. Kasadei performed the introductions, although they'd already performed them outside, then got to business. Two nights ago, one of Brandi's acolytes of Sarenrae had been murdered in Underbridge. While this would have been unusual in and of itself, as Brandi was considered somewhat "sacred" by the locals for providing free healing and disease removal for anyone who would spend an afternoon gardening with her chatting about Sarenrae, it was even more unusual in its flagrant brutality: The acolyte had been murdered at close range with a dagger, then had her heart cut out, and then her blood was used to scrawl a message in Common: "Your weak goddess cannot protect them. Their deaths will power the coming of my lord."
Brandi had contacted the Arvensoar immediately, Speak with Dead was cast, and all they learned from the victim was that the world went silent just before she was stabbed, and she was stabbed from behind. The message indicated that more victims would be forthcoming, so Brandi immediately volunteered herself as bait. The staff of the Arvensoar did their level best to disguise her as a mere acolyte, and she even went unarmed and with nothing but a wooden holy symbol, but the assassin had somehow managed to figure out it was her and had chosen a different victim, this time a man. Even worse, Kasadei had put the night guard in strategic positions around Underbridge to ensure no one could escape, but somehow the perpetrator got past them, and Locate Object could not find either victim's heart. (They weren't sure it would work on an organic object, but they felt it was worth trying.)
It was shortly after this that the Red Sash had visited, which explained why Brandi had been unavailable. A bit after that, she'd regained her composure and headed straight to the Lord Mayor's office. Rumors were flying around the city that a smashed desk and the unheard-of sounds of Brandi screaming in anger were heard, but the Mayor was obviously "moved", as he promptly released 3000 gold pieces in city funds as a reward for finding the murderer, plus put every night guard at Kasadei's disposal until the criminal was caught.
Kasadei had several theories: First, to have avoided an obvious target like Brandi the perpetrator would have either had to have very good Perception skills and to know Brandi (not all that unlikely), or to be using a spell such as Detect Good. Kasadei felt it was important to take the latter into consideration, so she didn't want a cleric or a paladin as bait. A mid-level good-aligned PC would have just about exactly the right aura for Detect Good to register them having the same aura strength as a cleric.
Second, in order to have avoided the guards the perpetrator would have had to have either invisibility, flight, or teleportation. So the group would have to plan for that. Finally, since Kasadei had to try to protect the other worshippers of Sarenrae, whom Brandi had already advised to travel in groups of at least two, she could only spare herself and three guards to assist the group in setting up their ambush.
Since it was relatively early, and the group didn't suspect that the assassin spent all night every night watching the streets of Underbridge, they decided to check on the murder sites. Percy also wanted a bit of time to prepare a few extra spells, so by around 11:30 pm they were finally in Underbridge, checking on the murder sites. While there were clearly signs of combat, blood stains and the like, the Red Sash was looking for something different. Searching the perimeter of the disturbed area, the Red Sash checked for signs of blood outside of the region, hoping to determine whether the murderer had flown or teleported away. Finding no signs of blood, his initial inclination was to believe that he or she had teleported, but he couldn't be sure because of the disturbances of the day and the investigation. However, near a wall near the murder scene he did find a pair of small-but-deep footprints in the mud, as if someone had landed there fairly heavily. His belief was that they were looking for a medium-sized female perpetrator who could fly. When the party pressed him as to whether she might have jumped off the roof rather than landing from flying, he couldn't be sure.
Now that they had some idea of what they were dealing with, they set and baited the trap. They dressed Tussle as an acolyte of Sarenrae, odd though that might have been, then asked him to act like one. They weren't 100% sure he was convincing. Kasadei, the guards, and Percy took up obvious positions at the perimeter, hoping to make it obvious that they were on watch, just like in all other areas of Underbridge. Killia took cover in a recessed niche, and the Red Sash hit under the eaves of a water tower. Tussle started his drunken, rambling walk through Underbridge, murmuring would-be prayers to Sarenrae. And he walked. And he walked. And he walked…
...half an hour after dawn the next victim was found. He was a down-on-his-luck acolyte who'd paid no heed to Brandi's warning, and had paid the ultimate price. Although he was murdered only a few blocks away, no one had heard a sound, nor seen anything.
The party was livid.
They spent the day poring over their plans: What had they done wrong? What could they do differently? The first, most obvious choice was to use a human instead of Tussle. The Red Sash volunteered, and no one argued with him. Killia revealed that she was a kitsune, and could take fox form, which would greatly enhance her stealth. Percy would prepare even more spells to prevent the assassin's flight. Now bound and determined to atone for missing their chance the previous night, they returned to Underbridge at around 1:00 am. The Red Sash carefully checked the murder locations and times; in all likelihood the murderer was coming from the south southeast. With that tiny bit of additional information, they got the Red Sash set up, chose a path most likely to generate an ambush instead of Tussle's absolutely random path of the night before, and waited.
An hour before dawn, the Red Sash started walking. Within minutes, both he and Killia spotted the horned head poking up from the rooftops, obviously eyeing the Red Sash with evil intent. The dim flash of spellcasting started on a nearby rooftop, yet not a sound could be heard. Their quarry had arrived.
Killia darted across the street to resume human form, then silently cast Magic Circle Against Evil on herself. The murderer wasn't the only one who could cast silently! The Red Sash slowed his pace, hoping to provide the perfect target at the perfect time, as the murderer took her time, casting silent spell after silent spell in preparation. Finally, she struck!
An enormous gargoyle carrying a robed female humanoid dropped her right next to the Red Sash and completed its flight to the rooftop just above him. Silence surrounded the Red Sash as she stabbed him from behind. Very unfortunately for her, the perfectly-executed assassination attempt bounced harmlessly off of the armor under his robes. The jig was up, but only Killia and the Red Sash knew about the attack. What of Tussle and Percy and the guards?
As if on cue, Tussle, dressed as a drunken beggar, staggered out from an alley and pretended (poorly) not to see the combat. The Red Sash pulled out his scimitar and slashed the assassin, but she took only minor damage. The gargoyle jumped down to her rescue, grasping her in its claws as it prepared to take off. Killia abandoned all pretext of stealth, and, not being in the Silence field, screamed for Percy and the others. Percy, having been waiting for the call, cast Haste on himself and Kasadei and the two of them raced to the scene. Now surrounded, the assassin sneered at the crowd and channeled negative energy to harm all around her, her gargoyle companion included. She was going to get away, and all of these meddlers would pay!
As usual, Tussle happened.
Three point-blank Up Close And Deadly Holy Evil Outsider Bane bullets slammed into the gargoyle. Bits and pieces of its ribcage skittered down the street in pursuit of most of its internal organs. Flight was no longer an option.
With the gargoyle down, the battle was a foregone conclusion. Even though Percy missed her with a Dimensional Anchor, she was out of Silent spells and trapped in her own Silence field with the Red Sash, Percy, Kasadei, and even Killia. They rapidly beat her into unconsciousness, then Killia used a Silent Stabilize to keep her alive for questioning. Once the Silence field dissipated Percy suggested that Speak with Dead would be just as effective, but now that she was captured it was all moot.
Percy turned to Tussle. "I owe you an apology. I thought you would be useless in combat but," (with a glance back at the gargoyle), "you're obviously not. You're welcome to be in our group!"
Tussle was remarkably diplomatic in his response, thanking Percy for the compliment and not shooting him or anything.
The gargoyle's remains told them very little: The only gear it had on was an Amulet of Natural Armor +1, and other than being obviously a half-fiend and a bit larger and stronger than the usual gargoyle, it did not seem particularly remarkable. The unconscious cleric's gear proved significantly more informative; in addition to her +1 Dagger (claimed by Killia), +1 Studded Leather, Cloak of Elvenkind, buckler, and wooden unholy symbol of Shax, she was carrying a key.
Killia, having grown up in Magnimar exploring the monuments, and even managing on occasion to spot the Heros of Varisia riding by in their magnificent carriage trips (it was rumored that they never paid less than a full platinum piece to travel anywhere in the city), instantly recognized the key with a thrill. Of all the ghost stories about the Heros and Magnimar, from the battle against the Scarecrow in the clock tower, to the death of Halek the strong at the hands of the vicious snake woman, to Sant Rae'Sheleth's rebuke of the mayor and the use of his reward to establish the now-flourishing temple of Sarenrae in Underbridge, one of the most chilling was that of the cult of Norgorber in the Sevens Sawmill, run by one of Magnimar's own justices, no less! The notion that right in the middle of the city was a cult of murder, performing human sacrifices to power their god, had always been particularly resonant with her.
And there, in the Red Sash's hand, was a key clearly stamped with the insignia of the Seven's Sawmill. With its history of bloodshed, murder, and torment, it was an absolutely ideal place to start a new cult to a demon lord. They knew where they were going. And it was directly south southeast from Underbridge.
It took almost no time at all for the group to decide that they had to get there as quickly as possible, before the master (or mistress) knew that their plans had gone awry. Unfortunately for Tussle, he didn't argue. He was out of grit, out of bullets, and didn't know that he'd be much good to the group. But he gamely went with them, figuring time was of the essence.
They arrived at the sawmill shortly after dawn, with the sun still blood red and low in the sky. The sawmill was still closed from the events from years ago, and showed signs of its abandonment. A tattered rope and sign cordoned off the area, and one brass plaque listed the names of the victims of the Skinsaw Cult, and the other listed the names of the Heroes of Varisia. Shiro the Generous. Saint Rae'Sheleth. Halek the Strong. Hi the Pyromagnificent. This was the group in whose footsteps they followed. Killia got a little choked up.
As the Red Sash started examining the building, looking at the entrances, and discussing possible tactics to both successfully invade the building and prevent any inside from escaping, Percy donned his odd goggles, adjusted them a bit, and said, "Oh, there's a secret door in the ground right there, right at the start of the dock."
The Red Sash checked and, sure enough, there was a well-hidden piece of dock that could be lifted out from the rest of it. He asked Killia for the key, she handed it over, and it unlocked and lifted the door perfectly.
The stairs down were unlit, but relatively clear of debris, indicating recent use. The Red Sash drank his potion of Darkvision, then crept down and peeked around the corner. There, standing in ambush for any who could come, were a pair of wights, each standing in a nook that might once have held a coffin. While they hadn't noticed the Red Sash, his quick glance had revealed multiple nooks that could hold many more, and wights tended to hunt in packs. A single wight wouldn't be a challenge to the whole group, but a whole pack of them could be quite dangerous.
They moved away from the entrance so that Percy could cast Communal Darkvision on the rest of the group, while Killia put a Magic Circle Against Evil on herself. As ready as they would ever be, they went back down the stairs to confront the wights.
It was a relative slaughter. Sure enough, the wights couldn't hit the Red Sash, while he could kill each one in turn in just a couple of hits. In spite of the bottleneck on the stairs, Percy summoned a hound archon who proceeded to teleport behind the wights to attack them from the rear. Tussle and Killia didn't have to do much, as their frontline fighters did their jobs and slaughtered them all. There were 4 wights in total, and the most notable thing about the fight was not that there were wights in an obvious catacomb, but that they had screamed maniacally the whole time they had fought, as if trying to warn people deeper in the catacombs that intruders were coming.
Since time was now obviously of the essence, the party quickly moved through the cobweb-strewn catacombs dotted with yellow mushrooms, passing many more nooks, until they saw a double door at the end of a short hallway. The ten foot square in front of the door had Abyssal scrawlings and unholy symbols drawn in blood all around it. The hound archon stomped through the blood, getting hit by a Glyph of Warding for his trouble, but easily absorbed the sonic damage and opened the door.
Beyond the door was an unholy cathedral. Spiky runes had been written on all the walls in blood, and the three missing hearts were on a large boulder that was passing for an altar. There were dozens of mutilated birds providing further macabre decoration, and a single unholy symbol of Shax was painted on the back wall. There were cells to the left (north) and right (south).
A man's voice cried out from the northern cell, "Help me! Help me! I'm Lex! Lex Avai! I'm a noble! You must have heard of me!"
Avalexi's ruse might have worked if she hadn't been talking to a group of well-informed Magnimarians (none of them had ever heard of Lex Avai, and they found that rather suspicious) led by a hound archon whose always-on Detect Evil told him of the overwhelming aura of evil coming from "Lex". As the archon reported this information to Percy, Percy translated for the rest of the group and told the hound to go ahead and kill good old "Lex".
This fight was significantly longer. Unlike the derro alchemist in the previous book, I felt this fight was well done because a teleporting, bow-using succubus against a fairly mobile party with high perception rolls keeps things moving. My party might disagree, solely because Tussle was out of ammunition and really wasn't in the fight, so there was a LOT of chasing going on.
It started with the hound archon hitting "Lex" and learning that he had fairly high damage reduction. "Lex" teleported to the other cell and retrieved a bow that he'd hidden among a pile of trash. Percy summoned a cheetah to harass "Lex", Killia learned to her sorrow that "Lex" was fireproof, and the Red Sash used his ranseur to poke at "him" a bit. Tussle just decided to toss a grenade into the cell with "him". After shooting Percy a bit, "Lex" realized that "he" was going to lose this war of attrition so he teleported away, but the Red Sash heard him appear at the other end of the crypt. Instead of pursuing immediately, the party put up some additional defenses, including a Protection from Evil on the Red Sash in case he ever moved out of the archon's Circle. The Red Sash decided to spent some time smashing the altar in the hopes of drawing her back to them. Unfortunately, this let Avalexi return to her true form and summon a babau demon, who then went in as a shock troop for her, and also conveniently showed her where all the Protection from Evils were so she didn't waste her precious, precious, almost-impossible-to-resist-but-only-once-a-day Dominate. (Yeah, I could have been spamming her at-will Suggestions, but given a bow with Deadly Aim and Vital Strike versus a chance of making someone do something "reasonable", the bow seemed like a much better bet. (And yes, I was surprised to learn that Vital Strike works with bows, too.)
Avalexi did manage to drop Percy to negative hit points (only my house rule that it's greater than negative hit points instead of greater than or equal to saved him, but the bad guys get the same benefit so I see no issue, and I like getting rid of the "equals"). Unfortunately, in a moment of amazing bravery the entire rest of the team got between him and her so the -8 from shooting at a prone target with cover made her miss the finishing shot. (I did love Killia healing him and THEN blocking for him. Damn good oracle.) And needless to say Percy provided the finishing touch on her, using Dimension Door to drop the entire team around her with the babau still trapped outside of a circle he hadn't yet breached. I was really impressed with the positioning, and it let the archon and the Red Sash finally carve her down into negative hit points.
At which point Percy summoned celestial weasels to chew her to death right in front of her babau. Which makes you wonder: If you summon celestial creatures to kill an abyssal creature, can you suffer an alignment shift if you do it in a cruel enough way?
Anyhoo, with Avalexi dead they simply waited for the babau to evaporate, and we called it an evening.
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Hmmm...so, I'm gonna guess that Killia is GothBard's new character and Percy is Shiro's new character.
I think Oracles are great, by the way. A good blend of offense, defense, and healing. What mystery did Killia take?
Correct on the players, and she's a Loracle, providing much-needed Knowledge skills to the party.
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Oh, and I forgot the single-most important event in all of Session 17: Kyllia, worried that Avalexi would regenerate and wake up after being knocked to negative hit points, grappled her to make sure she stayed down.
Yes. She had a succubus in a grapple.
Correct on the players, and she's a Loracle, providing much-needed Knowledge skills to the party.Hmmm...so, I'm gonna guess that Killia is GothBard's new character and Percy is Shiro's new character.
I think Oracles are great, by the way. A good blend of offense, defense, and healing. What mystery did Killia take?
And what's her Curse?
And what kind of Wizard is Percy?
Correct on the players, and she's a Loracle, providing much-needed Knowledge skills to the party.Hmmm...so, I'm gonna guess that Killia is GothBard's new character and Percy is Shiro's new character.
I think Oracles are great, by the way. A good blend of offense, defense, and healing. What mystery did Killia take?
And what's her Curse?
And what kind of Wizard is Percy?
Kyllia has the blackened curse, while Percy is a conjuration specialist.
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Oh, and I forgot the single-most important event in all of Session 17: Kyllia, worried that Avalexi would regenerate and wake up after being knocked to negative hit points, grappled her to make sure she stayed down.
Yes. She had a succubus in a grapple.
Proud Freehold is proud.
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Kyllia has the blackened curse, while Percy is a conjuration specialist.Correct on the players, and she's a Loracle, providing much-needed Knowledge skills to the party.Hmmm...so, I'm gonna guess that Killia is GothBard's new character and Percy is Shiro's new character.
I think Oracles are great, by the way. A good blend of offense, defense, and healing. What mystery did Killia take?
And what's her Curse?
And what kind of Wizard is Percy?
Interesting -- are her burn scars yet visible to the other PCs?
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Kyllia has the blackened curse, while Percy is a conjuration specialist.Correct on the players, and she's a Loracle, providing much-needed Knowledge skills to the party.Hmmm...so, I'm gonna guess that Killia is GothBard's new character and Percy is Shiro's new character.
I think Oracles are great, by the way. A good blend of offense, defense, and healing. What mystery did Killia take?
And what's her Curse?
And what kind of Wizard is Percy?
Interesting -- are her burn scars yet visible to the other PCs?
Her chosen "special effect" is that in her kitsune form her arms are shriveled and blackened, while in her human form they're still weak but they appear normal. And since it's just a special effect, I'm perfectly OK with that.
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Session 18, Played 12-Apr-2020
I think my proudest moments as a GM come when the players are convinced that something I threw in is actually part of the AP. The best-ever was Tolmar-Kai in my Rise of the Runelords campaign; the party there was horrified when he died, and thought they'd seriously messed up the AP. For this session, there'd been a new moon while the PCs were away (yes, they'd asked me about the full moon in a previous session and I mapped it out, because obsessive-compulsive), so "Sorshen" got to run amok on the cape. She even managed to find a marsh giant, but unlike AP writers who always assume success, she failed to Dominate it (stupid high-rolling giants!) so she simply lured it with food and left it where it would do the most harm. And my players kept saying, "Man, the AP writer is a jerk! Why won't he leave those poor troglodytes alone?"
Yeah, I was happy.
And yeah, while posting the Session 17 writeup I noticed that Percy's summoned hound archon had teleported, and they can't do that, but he only did it once and it wasn't all that important. It'd be a lot easier if Pathfinder didn't have to write in exceptions to the rules for every single situation. *sigh*.
Final note/complaint: Shiro commented on the author's absolute love of monsters that use area effect debuffs, and how frustrating he was finding it. I started trying to argue, but then I realized: From the moment they start, the encounters are:
An underwater battle with skeletons (so 1/2 damage against DR 5 creatures)
A cave battle with troglodytes (pretty much auto-sickened, even without the -4 for fighting in the cave)
A pyrohydra that can be skipped, but at least it's straightforward
A swamp battle with boggards (if they all fight at once an almost-certainly panicked party, no matter their hit dice. Even dragons aren't as scary as boggards)
Solifugids than can be skipped
Caryatid columns (auto-break weapons, even magical ones)
Water elementals that can be skipped
A glass golem that can be skipped
A magus that might possibly be able to be skipped
Marble sentinels that auto-send an Alarm if they're in a fight
An absolutely normal fight with an incubus. Notice that this is the very first non-skippable fight where the bad guys don't have some kind of debilitating/disadvantaging special ability
4 cacodaemons that can be skipped
Grey oozes that at least can be skipped (acid damage to weapons that hit them)
A fiendish seugathi that can be skipped
8 lacedons (save or paralyze)
A cave giant and two monitor lizards that can be skipped
2 skavelings (area effect stun, plus bite paralysis)
1 sea hag and minions (area effect strength damage)
In short, a careful party that avoids unnecessary combat would face 9 fights, 8 of which have debilitating special abilities. And as a player, yeah, being told, "Nope, you failed one of the three saves I just made you roll, you don't get to participate in this combat," is no fun. Even less fun is, "If you want to participate you have to take 1d6 Strength damage." I mean,what the heck, sea hag?
The occasional special ability keeps a party on its toes. When every darned opponent has a really annoying special ability, it gets… really annoying.
Once the babau and the weasels had departed, it was time to search for personal belongings, clues, loot, or anything else that might be useful. Percy donned his goggles once more and promptly spotted a loose stone in the southern cell. After the Red Sash verified that it wasn't trapped, they pulled it loose and found a significant cache of gold and platinum, plus four scrolls. All four were divine: Cure Critical Wounds, Remove Disease, Divination, and Restoration. Kyllia took them all.
Even more surprisingly, Kyllia scooped up the corpse of the succubus for delivery to the Arvensoar. As the others looked at her in surprise, she gestured at her belt. "A gift from my grandfather! He said I wasn't very good at carrying things so I should have it."
They also gathered up the three hearts for delivery to Brandi, made sure the altar was properly broken, and double-checked to make sure they'd collected all the gear carried by the succubus and her wights, then headed for the Arvensoar. Even in the early morning rush to market, the city's residents knew better than to harass a group of obvious adventurers carrying a dead demon, so it took very little time for a group of guards to approach them and escort them to the Arvensoar. Kasadei had gone off shift, but a runner was sent off to wake her, over the party's protestations.
It took about 20 minutes for Kasadei to arrive, disheveled but happy, and she listened the the party's description of the events, determined herself satisfied, and rewarded them with the 3000 gold pieces from the mayor, plus four potions of Cure Serious Wounds from Brandi's temple. Once they'd closed out the case and handed over the body (and the cleanup) to Kasadei, they headed for the temple of Sarenrae in Underbridge. Brandi was already back to her bubbly self, exulting in the group's victory, and asking them for all the details. She made a note of the sawmill; she assured them she'd go there personally with Francisco and ensure it had been purged of all corruption. The party gave them the hearts, and she saddened a bit, but then assured them that she would see them off that evening, and their ashes would be used to fertilize the garden they so loved. Whatever worked.
Their next trip was to Heidmarch Villa, where the guards let them in without question, and Mary was a bit taken aback to see the four of them together. "Oh? Red Sash? Tussle? You've already found people to make up for your losses? And Percy, Kyllia? I thought you were a bit more into bounty hunting and a bit less into delving?"
The Red Sash hesitated a bit at this conclusion, and asked to see the Lady Heidmarch. Mary rang a bell and Giles arrived with sandwiches and tea.
For reasons unknown to anyone but himself, Tussle eyed the salmon sandwiches suspiciously, as if they were of some alien origin, then tasted one, decided they met with his approval, and started devouring them. The Lady Heidmarch joined them in the parlor shortly thereafter, and the Red Sash explained their predicament: They needed new party members, and Percy and Kyllia had proven quite capable, but since their mission was "secret", he wasn't comfortable telling them about it without the Lady's approval.
The Lady Heidmarch was impressed with the Red Sash's caution. She assured him that Percy and Kyllia were absolutely acceptable replacements for Lance and Xondra, but then the Red Sash surprised her by asking her to explain the details of the mission to the pair. Never one to shy away from orating, the lady detailed the mission: Recovering the various Shards of Xin without making it public that that was what they were going about. Percy and Kyllia agreed to join the group, and Tussle gave Percy the Shard of Pride for the valuable Intelligence bonus the ioun stone provided.
Once they'd all agreed to travel back to the Lady's Light together, they agreed to spend a night in preparation, and while everyone else shopped, Tussle spent his time crafting more bullets. Because it was rather obvious that he'd be needing them. At midnight, the Red Sash danced to Desna in honor of Lance. Unfortunately, his dreams thereafter were fitful. He was some kind of inhuman creature; bipedal, but not a man. In fact, he was certain he was female. Even in the darkness of the thin crescent of the waxing moon, he could see perfectly as he and his companions stepped out of the undergrowth and saw the troglodytes' cave. And finally recognition dawned: He was Azoresh, and around him (her?) were the other troglodytes who had accompanied her on her mission. As they neared the cave, they called out a greeting, but there was no response. Worried, Azoresh sent two warriors on ahead to determine what had happened. As they cried out in woe that their tribe had been slaughtered, a huge rock crushed one of them. As the other tried to flee, a massive giant moved forward and clubbed him to death. Knowing that they were outclassed in every way, Azoresh sounded a retreat back into the swamp.
As the Red Sash woke, he knew the troglodytes had been slaughtered by a marsh giant. But why? Where had it come from? Marsh giants weren't cave dwellers, and the troglodytes should have had a significant advantage against it in the narrow caves of their compound. How had it found them? How had it won against them?
The first thing the Red Sash wanted to know was whether or not the dream was true. He met up with Percy, Kyllia, and Tussle and told Percy that he thought he'd received a message from Azoresh, and could Percy please check to make sure it wasn't a trap. Percy cast Detect Magic and even the stoic wizard nearly gasped. Hours after the effect, the overwhelming aura of the Dream spell was beyond obvious. "I don't know how to tell you this, Red Sash, but yes, you got a Dream, but I don't think it was Azoresh who cast it…"
Even the less-religious members of the group agreed: When a goddess tells you to go do something, you'd better go do it.
Without further ado, the party finished shopping and headed for the Mushfens. Percy offered to prepare a group of Phantom Steeds to speed up their trip, but the Red Sash pointed out that unless they could travel easily on marshlands, they probably wouldn't be any faster, as the twisted swampy ground was not well-suited to riding. Percy seemed almost offended that the swamp should be so biased against his steeds, but he agreed to prepare different spells and the party set off. The first two days of the trip were blissfully uneventful, although the mosquitoes were still miserable and as the weather warmed the smell of the swamps seemed to be getting even worse. As they traveled, the Red Sash kept one eye on the path and the other on the horizon, hoping to spot the white skins of their allies at some point.
On the third day he was rewarded for his diligence, seeing the unmistakable shambling movement of a pack of troglodytes moving northwards. He hailed them and they stopped, got a good look at him, and approached. Azoresh stepped forward. "What are you doing here, Red Sash? All that we have is already lost."
The Red Sash performed introductions for Percy and Kyllia, then consulted with Azoresh and confirmed everything he'd seen in his dream: Their escort party had returned to their lair, only to be confronted by a marsh giant who had slain their two forward scouts and driven the rest of them off. At a loss and nearing despair, Azoresh had been visited in a dream by a "pretty butterfly-winged human woman" who had reassured her that permanent homes made one a target, and movement would keep her safe. They were now moving towards a large open field, where they would be joined by an older human woman who would guide them on the next leg of their journey. The Red Sash tried to offer her some reassuring words, but that had been Lance's forte, so he managed to wish her good luck and hoped that the old woman would be a good guide. Azoresh spoke one final time. "Red Sash. I know it is not the way of my new goddess, and I do not know whether Lance would approve. But I want you to promise me that you will find this giant, and you will kill it for me."
The Red Sash readily agreed to this promise.
The party continued their journey southward, and once again arrived at the northern end of the cape just as night was falling. Once again, they chose to camp rather than approach the cave in the dark. In the morning, they went straight to the cave. The Red Sash first listened outside of the mouth of the cave and confirmed that he heard something large and bipedal moving deep within the cave. Not wanting to risk peeking in, he informed the party and they backed up so that Percy could cast Fly on himself. They agreed on a tactic: Percy would lure the giant out with an illusion, the Red Sash would wait invisibly and ambush it, and Killya and Tussle would provide backup as the plan unfolded.
Other than the giant being astonishingly lucky (a 19 on initial Perception, then an 18 on initiative, then TWO natural 20 Will saves, one against the illusion and one against Kyllia's first spell, and I'm pretty sure Percy tried to put it in a pit and it made that save as well), the plan went "almost" smoothly. Percy created an illusion of a group of troglodyte warriors just outside the entrance, while the Red Sash stood invisibly waiting to ambush the giant as it ran by to attack the troglodytes. The giant took the bait, but immediately disbelieved the illusion and turned its attentions to the Red Sash. Kyllia used Oracle's Burden to share her blackened hands with the giant, but it took two casts to get it to take. Fortunately, once it took it made the giant miss the Red Sash. Tussle provided basic fire support, and as mentioned, Percy tried and failed to drop the giant in a pit. Fortunately, good preparation overcame unbelievably lucky rolling, and the giant finally went down.
Checking the giant, there were no signs of anything untoward. It had no unusual wounds, and Detect Magic didn't detect any charms or compulsions. Even its club was just an ordinary club. So, what was it doing here? Why had it moved into the cave?
The half-eaten troglodytes in the entry hall provided no clue, but moving deeper and finding more troglodyte bodies, the Red Sash made a startling discovery: They had all been killed either by blades or by claws; none of them showed signs of having been crushed by a giant. In short, the giant hadn't arrived until they were all already dead. Examining the bodies more closely, some of them showed signs of having been drained. The party couldn't make out the type of drain, but it was clear that something had reached the troglodytes, slaughtered them all, then lured the marsh giants in to cover its tracks.
Pretty much the whole party was betting on a succubus from the Lady's Light.
With no treasure to loot, the party simply put as many trog bodies as they could on the pyre they'd been using during the Filth Fever epidemic, started it up, and headed for the pyrohydra's cave to get to the Lady's Light. With no soporific nor any way to make any, they regretfully slaughtered the solifugids. On the other hand, with the trogs gone, the solifugids weren't really protecting anything any more, so they didn't need to be alive.
Moving on to the entrance to the Lady's Light, nothing had changed. The statue warriors were still dead, the pit still had its permanent Silence, Darkness, and Feather Fall spells, and it seemed like whoever had come out of the Light had not come this way. Dropping down, they uncovered Sorshen's corpse so that the Red Sash could kill it. Percy mentioned that she was a true Azlanti, so she might be a bit stronger and faster than the Red Sash. The Red Sash didn't care, and wanted the clone dead. But he just couldn't bring himself to do it.
They verified the potion of Gaseous Form was still there, made sure Sorshen was resting comfortably, and re-sealed the sarcophagus.
As they moved to the first red door, the Red Sash played tour guide, explaining to Percy and Kyllia everything they'd encountered. Percy was particularly interested in the red door, and explained very carefully to the party (using small words so they'd be sure to understand) how the door depicted Runelord Sorshen conjuring succubi and binding them into all matter of objects, structures, and carvings. Percy went on to explain that this was likely to power magical effects and traps, to serve as guardians, or simply to punish the succubi. The central panel was showing Sorshen binding a particularly powerful-looking succubus into what would seem to be the scepter held aloft by the Lady’s Light.
Percy immediately became concerned. "So, your plan is to kill Ashamintallu and put out the light? Is that really a good idea? What about all the ships that rely on the light to avoid all the rocks on the cape?"
"Oh. Well, the sailors all probably know that the rocks are there by now."
"Oh, OK."
With that amazing bit of deduction, they got into the (magical) boats, poled themselves past the glass golem to the beach (Percy couldn't resist confirming that it was a glass golem and explaining their construction, all their features, their abilities, and their weaknesses to the group), and landed. While the lascivious mural just beyond the beach was unscatched, moving into the room where they'd met Gnaeus and left the maidens' corpses, they were rather alarmed to see that the maidens' corpses had been horrifically mutilated, torn apart by clawed hands and strewn about the room in what could be described as nothing short of a violent temper tantrum by a medium-sized, clawed individual. More and more, it looked like the "Sorshen" they were seeking was indeed a succubus, and most likely Ashamintallu.
The passage with the marble sentinels was unchanged, the dead incubus showed similar signs of "Sorshen"'s wrath, and the chamber of the gray flame was untouched. Returning to the statue of Sorshen and kissing her feet, the group returned to the (nonmagical) boats. Unfortunately, the one they had carried off to take Lance back to Magnimar was missing. Fortunately, there were still two boats remaining. Knowing that the lacedons were dead, the group rowed across to the next red door. On the bright side, the party learned nothing new about this door: Xondra had already told them all about Sorshen dominating all manner of powerful monsters, including giants. Unfortunately, Percy still felt the need to explain the door's meaning to the party, so they let him. Checking on the cave giant's lair, its body was still there but surprisingly unharmed. If anything, someone might have laid it in a more peaceful position and crossed its arms over its chest.
Since this was the end of the known area, Percy suggested that the party rest here so he could recuperate his spells. Kyllia agreed that she was somewhat tapped as well, and a rest would do her good. Tussle and the Red Sash wanted to move on just a bit farther, so Percy and Kyllia acquiesced and the party rowed onwards.
Yet again, die rolling turned a fairly routine fight into something near-disastrous. A pair of skavelings, spotting the party from far away, flew straight at them during the surprise round, then won the initiative battle and moved in, one biting and paralyzing Percy, and the other screaming to stun everyone except Tussle. Tussle decided to attract the skavelings' attention by opening up with his mounted double hackbut, probably saving the other party members' lives because, "Shooting a large repeating gun at us," is a heck of a lot more threatening than, "Not moving for a few rounds, and then we've got another scream to paralyze them a second time."
This gave the Red Sash and Kyllia time to recover their bearings from the first scream, but the Red Sash quickly learned that fighting with a reach weapon while standing in a rowboat isn't the most successful of strategies. On the bright side, his acrobatics training served him well as he leapt from one boat to the other trying to get into a decent position. Tussle had Geary firing nets and managed to entangle one and slow it down, but eventually the skavelings wised up, realized that Tussle was the only real threat, and flew in to carry him off. One died to the Red Sash's ranseur in its attempt, but the other succeeded and made off with Tussle.
Unfortunately, Kyllia was now free to open up with Scorching Rays, and the crispy critter plunged into the water, Tussle still clutched in its claws.
While no one else could swim well enough to save him, Geary didn't hesitate, plunged into the water, sank to the bottom, propelled itself under Tussle, and rose back up, returning him to the boats. Percy came unparalyzed just in time to watch the end of the fight.
Instead of resting, the party continued onwards.
They passed the skavelings' nests, with dozens of skeletons manacled to the walls to indicate just what the skavelings ate when there weren't any adventurers around to snack on, and Detect Magic didn't detect anything of interest. The Red Sash insisted on pulling the boats against the wall just to make a more thorough check, but he didn't find anything of value. Kyllia, worried about what had just happened, put a Magic Circle Against Evil on Tussle (she already had one on herself).
She quickly became happy she had, as each one of them heard strangely familiar, seductive whispers in their native language. As they proceeded, the urgings became more and more urgent, trying to convince the party to shed their clothes and swim naked to the shore, then prostrate themselves at the northeastern wall. Being protected from such mental meddling by their Magic Circles, no one except Tussle was tempted.
They landed at the beach that Gnaeus had described to them, making sure to land as far away from the secret door as they could. Percy used his goggles to verify the location of the secret door, but both Tussle and the Red Sash heard a woman's cries of anguish and pain coming from the southern tunnel, only to be abruptly cut off.
Tussle spurred Geary around the corner (or at least told him to go), only to see a horrific scene: A nude woman was chained to a stone post on a rocky island in the middle of a water-filled cavern. Openly-bleeding wounds on her torso and legs indicated that she might still be alive, but a hideous hunchbacked humanoid creature was poking her with the butt of a spear. Around the creature's legs swarmed several crab-handed, maned, bipedal little dog-like creatures, cackling at the humanoid's cruelty. The hideous woman(?) turned to Tussle and started in on a long-winded speech about how much Sorshen loved Daefu and how Daefu was going to torment the party to death. Tussle recognized the name. She was the sea hag that punished disobedient gray maidens. Kyllia warned the party that her ugliness was so horrific that getting within sixty feet of her would drain your strength. (Really, writers? An area-effect ability damage effect on a CR 4 creature?)
Other than my rolling yet another huge initiative for her (it was just that kind of day), the fight was amazingly anticlimactic. The Red Sash initially ran in, then closed his eyes to try to avoid the strength damage. Tussle went ahead and took the damage and started mowing down her minions with his double hackbut. Yes. He was machine-gunning CR 1 gremlins in a narrow passage as they tried to approach the party's position. I'm sure they deserved it, but… eeew…
Percy summoned a group of lantern archons, and in a hilarious bit of irony his Augment Summoning feat (+4 STR and CON to summoned creatures) kept them from falling helplessly to the floor when they saw the hag (and yes, we had quite a discussion about lantern archons finding something so ugly that they lost strength, plus whether or not a lantern archon could fire its lasers light rays after losing all its strength, but it became moot when all of them kept at least 1 point of strength).
The Red Sash eventually opened his eyes, but the lantern archons were at least as devastating as the hackbut. Percy finally dumped them all in a pit and summoned some celestial weasels to finish off any survivors.
It was that kind of a day.
In a final, epic moment, the party raced to try to save the prisoner. Tussle urged Geary to new heights, and he leapt the pit with ease, then fell just short of the island. Tussle leapt from Geary's back, eager to be first…
...but rolled low on his Acrobatics and then failed his Swim check to end up just out of reach of shore. The Red Sash followed and almost got there. It was a dead even race…
...until Percy put Communal Ant Haul on his archons and told them to carry Kyllia to the victim. They'd been Hasted during the fight, so it was a no-brainer for them to deposit Kyllia in the needed location, and Kyllia stabilized the victim as Tussle looked on, horrified.
He'd been so close!!!
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Yeah, the problem is that the writeups take me about a week, then I send them to the players and give them a week to respond, so the writeups are about 2 weeks behind the obits.
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Session 19, Played 19-Apr-2020
In terms of this session there was really nothing unusual. Other than the party's immediate and active dislike for Helandia, everything ran fairly normally.
As Tussle clambered onto the island to join Kyllia and the Red Sash, Kyllia asked the rescued prisoner about herself: Who was she, and what had she done to deserve such a fate?
It took the woman a few moments to regain her orientation, and to realize that she was with rescuers, rather than more tormentors. Once she realized that freedom was at hand as long as she was helpful, she willingly spilled everything she knew. She was Helandia Mertien, a gray maiden out of Korvosa. Like hundreds of others, they had fled Korvosa when the rightful queen was usurped by the promiscuous Varisian bard Tirri, who was so wanton as to have relationships with goblins just to garner their alliances. It was clear to the party that Helandia had little use for Varisians, but as she was being rescued by several, she was biting her tongue. She did manage to direct some of her wrath towards the vile Vudran seneschal who had plotted with Tirri against the queen.
Once they were out of Korvosa, the groups split up to seek out sources of Sorshen's old magic, figuring that the Runelord of Lust must have many relics that would allow them to overthrow the upstart pretender. Oriana chose to take her band of 32 maidens through the Mushfens to the Lady's Light. Oriana instructed them to decorate their shields with the rune of Lust, as it would likely protect them from many of the Light's defenders and traps. Finding the boggards and troglodytes trapped in an endless and useless struggle because neither one of them was willing to go far enough to exterminate the other, the Maidens had taught the boggards the ways of efficient genocide to speed things up. It did not help Helandia's case at all that she seemed rather proud and delighted with their "efficient" solution to the problem. With the boggards' alliance, they were able to get past the solifugids and into the Light proper. They had no issues with any statues attacking them, and Helandia assumed that had something to do with the rune of Lust they were using. They did not disturb the sarcophagus, but tried to investigate the glass golem and lost two of their number to it before managing to flee. Moving on, Gnaeus was not yet on guard (he'd been sent down after Sorshen had met Oriana), the pit was easy to bypass, and they ended up in a fight with three incubi. One teleported away and they managed to defeat the other two, but not without significant losses, and before they recovered Sorshen herself appeared and ordered Oriana to surrender. Much to the Maidens' surprise, Oriana dropped her weapons and pledged allegiance to Sorshen, encouraging all of her Maidens to do the same.
The time since then has been a blur. Sorshen teleported them one by one to their current barracks just north of where the party was now. One by one, Sorshen has been "interviewing" each maiden to ensure her loyalty, and many of Helandia's sisters fell prey to Daifu and her gremlin minions. They were already down to only a dozen maidens left in the makeshift barracks when Quinelle took a couple of them to investigate an intrusion. Since Quinelle had already "passed" Sorshen's test, Helandia knew that there were other Maidens still alive elsewhere in the Light, though she couldn't fathom where they might be.
The last straw for Helandia was a few nights ago when the new moon came. Sorshen had been asking the group about Quinelle, when suddenly she raged as if possessed, much like Helandia heard werewolves behave, and transformed into a horrifying demon-woman who howled in rage and teleported away. She returned hours later, soaked in blood, and none of the Maidens dared question what she was nor where she'd been. At that point Helandia knew: Their leader was not Sorshen. It was a trapped demon driven mad by the aeons, who believed that she was Sorshen. It was time to escape. Helandia conspired with several of her sisters to find evidence as to who the demon really was, at which point their plan was to confront the demon with this evidence, drive it once more into its madness, and attack it while it was thus disabled. Unfortunately, her sisters had betrayed her, and she'd been handed over to Daefu, and if it weren't for the party she would have joined the other Maidens who had died to the demon's madness.
She thanked them, but after hearing her story, the party wasn't all that happy that they'd saved her. They asked her whether she'd found any such evidence, but she hadn't, so they simply told her to go. She left, stark naked, and rowed away in one of the boats. For a moment the party considered forcing her to swim because they'd need the boats, but then they saw there were enough for them to let her take one. They were happy to see the back of her, and not in a good way.
Even though they were at their limits, the Red Sash wanted to check just one more room so he swam around the corner and discovered Daifu's lair, a very pleasant (if underwater) little living area complete with glow-in-the-dark curtains. Searching, he found a bundle of loot he returned to the party. At that point the party really felt they needed to rest, so they exited the Light, returned to the pyrohydra's lair, and slept there. As they were preparing in the morning, a Sending came to Tussle: "Tussle, this is Bevaluu. I'm taking the trogs into the city today. Wish me luck!"
"Good luck!"
Tussle reported this to the party, then asked who the heck Bevaluu was again? On being reminded that she was the priestess of Desna in Magnimar, it all made sense: The "older human woman" Azoresh mentioned must have been Bevaluu, and she'd escorted the trogs to the relative safety of Magnimar. Though how the city would react to nearly a dozen new reeking reptilian residents was anyone's guess. They trusted Bevaluu to work it all out, since they were all now worshippers of Desna, after all.
Returning to the beach just outside the Maiden's barracks, the Red Sash listened and determined there were no maidens just beyond the secret door, so they opened it quietly and slipped in. The first room was an obvious cooking area, with fishing poles and a pile of refuse indicating that the Maidens were existing primarily off of fish from the underground lake. The Red Sash gestured that there was a card game going on in the next room, so the party used the element of surprise to burst in on the Maidens.
With surprise on their side and the Red Sash willing to jump up on the table among all the Maidens, the result was a foregone conclusion. Percy preserved his spells, as did Kyllia, though she did have to cast a healing spell or two, as the Red Sash reveled in being in the thick of things. Tussle tested out his Human Bane bullets on a couple of the Maidens with spectacularly-devastating results, then started conserving his bullets when he realized the fight really wasn't going to be particularly difficult, and sat on Geary letting Geary do the work of entangling maidens who tried to attack the Red Sash. Even the four naked maidens who streamed in from the next room, still steaming from the bath but ready to lay down their lives for their sisters, provided little impediment. Even after hearing Helandia's description of the Maidens' atrocities in getting here, when they found a lone Maiden still alive after the carnage Kyllia stabilized her, figuring they'd figure out what to do with her later.
The Maidens' quarters themselves weren't particularly interesting: A main social hall complete with a gargantuan table that could probably seat 20, six large and comfortable "bedrooms", and a bathing hall with a permanently hot-and-self-cleaning bath. No wonder the maidens hadn't been too keen on moving on; other than sheer boredom, they had everything a soldier might need, right in these nine rooms. There wasn't anything particularly valuable other than the Maidens' gear, so the Red Sash set all that aside so they'd be able to pick it up easily on the way out, except for the masterwork swords, which all went into his Bag of Holding. After distributing the large number of potions of Cure Light Wounds, the party was feeling pretty good about itself and checked the room beyond the bath.
This room was extraordinarily puzzling: There were four statues of Sorshen, each inscribed with the phrase, "By my touch may you enter the shining glory of my inner sanctum." There were also three recessed golden plates on the floor. Percy could work out that it was some kind of teleportation mechanism, but the exact key (and destination) were beyond him. The final clue was that the two plates at the ends of the room were dull, while the plate in the center was brightly polished.
Not wanting to teleport anywhere at the moment, the party searched for secret doors. With Percy's goggles, it was easy to find the door on the south side of the bath room. Moving through, a winding passage led to another door. Once again, Percy scanned around him and found a secret door. The Red Sash peeked in and saw bloodstained walls and some kind of altar, plus roiling smoke at the ceiling, so he stepped in to see what would happen…
...and three Shadow Mastiffs appeared to defend their temple, baying horrifically.
Everyone except Tussle panicked and ran. Fortunately, the hounds did not pursue anyone out of the temple, so everyone had time to regain their wits. For round 2, Percy summoned some lantern archons to help. This time Tussle and Percy ran, but Xondra, the Red Sash, and one of the archons remained. The fight was slow until the hounds' bays wore off, but then between the archons, the Red Sash, and Tussle, they were quickly put down.
And we ended just before the party stepped into the temple proper…
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Session 20, Played 26-Apr-2020
The answer is more complicated than a simple, "I forgot." Geary was "deceased" the first time they kissed Sorshen's feet, so it wasn't an issue. After they left the first time and got Geary repaired, it'd been so long that I hadn't realized that that little teleporter really is the main way to get to the second level of the dungeon. So technically Geary shouldn't have been along on all the lake stuff. On the other hand, he can tumble down the waterfall and self-repair easily enough, so there are a lot of easy explanations as to how he'd get to the lake. On the other hand, the ballroom's completely sealed with no way to get in other than teleportation, so I stand by decision to exclude poor Geary.
Especially because it led to some of the most epic, ludicrous, and hilarious play of the campaign so far.
The temple was amazingly opulent for a well-hidden shrine to some unknown goddess or demon lord. The walls were of black marble, with a similarly-black rectangular altar at the end of the room, shot through with blood-red streaks. Behind the altar was a detailed mural of a voluptuous demonic woman with bat wings, a serrated tail, legs of molten stone, and a crown of seven horns. Both of her hands were held out to her sides, palms turned up toward the ceiling, with a globe of blackness hovering above each palm. The ceiling was lost in shimmering black fog.
The group had no idea who the woman in the mural was, but this was obviously some kind of shrine to her. Percy mansplained that although the Runelords pretended to be secular, they frequently worshipped gods or demon lords as a convenience in order to further their own ends. Since this was obviously some kind of succubus demon lord, Sorshen had given her a shrine in exchange for binding succubi. The Red Sash asked whether he could destroy the altar, but the party decided to check it for valuables first. On the altar itself was a golden cup besmirched with ancient bloodstains, a similarly-stained +1 adamantine dagger, an incense burner enchanted to eternally emit cinnamon-scented smoke, two doses of incense of meditation, a scroll of Heal, and an onyx and pearl unholy symbol depicting a seven-pointed crown wrapped with thorny vines.
Yes, GothBard appreciates Nocticula's decorating.
As the Red Sash was removing the items from the altar, Percy pointed out that the black globes over the demon lord's hands were illusions. The Red Sash noticed what appeared to be etched writing behind the dark globes. As he started trying to mansplain how Moira had taught him to take rubbings of such writings so you could read them without activating their magic, Tussle poked one of the illusions and easily disbelieved it. "Yeah. I can't read it," he admitted disappointedly, but it looks like a list that only has one item left on it."
Using some of Kyllia's chalk and parchment, they first took rubbings of the writing under the left hand. The title read, “In deference to Our Lady of Shadows, the following are hereby consigned to servitude within the Lady’s Light.” The space below seemed like it might have once contained a long list, but there was only a single name left: Ashamintallu. The party recognized her as the demon who was supposedly bound for eternity inside of the glass golem. The obviously-malfunctioning, murderous glass golem.
Quickly taking a rubbing of the space under the right hand, they read, “Those who
would seek my inner sanctum need only speak my artist’s name.”
The Red Sash perked up! Tussle had noticed an artist's name on the erotic mural they'd studied just before meeting Gnaeus (yes, I really want to put "studied" in quotes), and Xondra had noted it down. Pulling out Xondra's notes, he found the name: Amivadeus Yasrin.
What followed was a delightful bit of roleplay vaguely reminiscent of the old Abbot and Costello "Who's on First?" sketch, except much, much shorter. Percy asked, "Do you have the name of the artist?"
"Yes, I do."
"So, you only have to speak the name to be teleported?"
"I guess so."
"So what's the name?"
"Amivadeus Yasrin."
*POOF*
You get the idea, but it was a bit longer than that and had a bit more nuanced interplay. I liked it, even if one player was making the other one teleport to certain doom. If it's funny, why not?
The Red Sash found himself in an opulent chamber with marble walls, a domed ceiling frescoed with an image of a starry night sky, a thick rug carpeting the floor, and black marble benches carved to resemble coiling serpents against the near walls. The Red Sash didn't have a lot of time to take in the scenery, however, as he was being attacked by four sinspawn. Although these were similar to the wrathspawn he'd seen in The Crow, these had the torsos of fit young women, topped the the same ugly manibled heads, with the same clawed arms and gangly legs as the wrathspawn. Even with his limited knowledge of sinspawn, the Red Sash guessed that these were lustspawn. The fight was rather anticlimactic as the other party members started teleporting in and the lustspawn couldn't hit anyone, while the Red Sash could dispatch them relatively easily. Once the sinspawn were dispatched, Kyllia used her wand to perform the minimal healing people required and Percy scanned the room with Detect Magic, as the Red Sash searched for traps.
On the opposite side of the room was a staircase leading to double doors, and Percy spotted a Programmed Image that would be triggered if they got within 20 feet of the door. Cue yet another rules discussion as to whether a Programmed Image constituted a magical trap that could be disarmed by a rogue. (And yes, it gets pretty frustrating. An Alarm spell causes no harm, but is intended to warn someone so it's a trap. A Programmed Image spell that isn't intended to alert anyone, but might happen to do so if there happen to be people in the area, isn't a trap? How do rogues figure out the "intent" of a spell to know whether or not it's a trap?)
Anyhoo, tirade aside, I didn't let the Red Sash disarm the Programmed Image, so the group decided to avoid the double doors and take the southern passage instead. As the group described it, this was the "handicapped ramp" to the room beyond, but it had the same Programmed Image, so Tussle volunteered to trigger it. As he did, a grand masked ball in full swing appeared before him. The Red Sash reported that a caster in the back of the hall was using the noise from the ball as cover for their casting. Percy recommended moving back until the caster's spells wore out. Tussle wanted to watch the ball.
The next 15 minutes were a fairly tedious exercise in, "How long will it take for the caster to run out of spells?"
Once the caster was fully buffed, she started sending summoned dretch and giant spiders to harass the party, but the party had little difficulty doing away with them (except one dretch got off one Stinking Cloud, because a fight without at least one area effect disable isn't a real fight), and once she was out of summoned creatures the party chose not to go in until her Invisibility wore off, at which point they heard her re-cast it. Eventually, realizing that she had all the time in the world, the caster left out a door the group hadn't seen.
Going into the ballroom, the Programmed Image finally finished its portrayal of Sorshen hosting a grand ball, then turning on the party and threatening to devour them, but no one except Tussle was impressed. Tussle didn't like the looks of the long hall, and since Geary hadn't teleported with him, he asked to ride on Percy. Percy obliged. They went into the ballroom, found nothing of particular interest, did some random vandalism (Percy used all of his ink to vandalize the statues of Sorshen), spotted the secret door the caster had fled through, and opened it to reveal an octagonal antechamber. There was an Alarm spell on it, but the Red Sash quickly disarmed it. Moving across the antechamber, they opened the next door to face… a small group of Gray Maidens, backed by the caster: A sinspawn sorceress!
The fight might have been routine except for Tussle's antics. As the gray maidens fought the Red Sash in the doorway, with the sinspawn sorceress providing spell support from the back, Percy decided to clear things up a bit and opened a pit underneath the maidens. Three of them fell in. Tussle, wanting to do something spectacular, tried (and failed) to do a quick dismount from Geary Percy, using up his move action. He then opened up with some dragon shot, damaging the maidens who hadn't fallen. Finally, he wanted to do a quick remount, but realized that he didn't have a move action left and failed. Then fell into the pit with the grey maidens. Percy, concerned for Tussle, jumped in with him, taking little damage thanks to his Boots of the Cat. After a round or two (and one of the maidens dropping), Kyllia jumped in as well. The battle in the pit was by far and away the more interesting of the two battles. The maidens were easily beating Tussle to death, and he was having trouble getting shots off while prone and surrounded by maidens, but Percy cast and held a touch spell, and every fighter knows you disrupt the caster if you can, so he drew attacks away from Tussle to keep him alive. Kyllia dove in (another pair of Boots of the Cat) and healed Tussle because oracles have nothing better to do than build up huge ACs.
Topside, the Red Sash kept approaching the sorceress, and she kept backing up and casting at him, while the lone gray maiden tried to provide her with a flank. Just as the party in the pit emerged victorious, the Red Sash managed to defeat the sorceress and the remaining maiden.
The group looted the corpses and spent some time healing up (Tussle got reduced to single-digit hit points and both Percy and the Red Sash got dropped to under half, so it was definitely a hard fight). Percy spotted a secret door to the southeast, and, peeking through, the Red Sash spotted bloody murals being fed upon by vampiric mists. The party decided that they had just enough resources to clear out that room, so, knowing that vampiric mists were vulnerable to fire, Tussle loaded up his dragon shot, Percy summoned a small fire elemental, Kyllia summoned a Flaming Sphere, and the Red Sash was just going to be bait… again.
The fight went fairly smoothly. Percy Hasted the party, then Opened the door. The fire elemental and Flaming Sphere went in and engaged the six vampiric mists which, as expected, fled the burny things to attack… the Red Sash. Fortunately, he was far enough away that only one of them managed to start draining his blood before dragon shot, Burning Hands, the fire elemental, and the Red Sash managed to finish them all off.
Moving into the room, Percy quickly set up a Secure Shelter against the passage on the other side of the room, blocking it off, the group closed the secret door, and they all settled in to rest for the night.
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Session 21, Played 10-May-2020
One final complaint about this section: About the only useful thing rogues have is their ability to spot "traps". And the amazing specificity with which authors define traps starts defying all logic. Last week we had, "Why is an Alarm spell a trap, but a Programmed Image not a trap?"
This week we had, "Is a special effect that isn't even defined within the rules mechanics for the game a trap?"
According to the book, "These demons served more as placeholders than as the final intended guardians, but still dwell within the carving, and as soon as anyone approaches within 20 feet, they seem to emerge from the walls as if stepping through nothing more than a curtain of fog. The three demons have waited long for something to trigger their release, and eagerly attack all who stand before them."
So… what? They're in an extradimensional space and the opening is triggered by PC proximity? They're in some kind of quasi-calling that's triggered by PC proximity? Notice that I keep using the phrase "triggered by PC proximity" because in my opinion, that's a "trap" and the Red Sash should have been able to "somehow" sense it from 10' away. The fact that he managed to not do that is moot; the point is that the author keeps putting in things that are very obviously intended to be "traps" without defining them as traps in yet more eternal hate for the rogue. The *only* reason the whole encounter ended up being rules-legal was the shape of the room. Percy's Detect Magic was blocked by more than 1 foot of stone so he didn't see the "calling walls", and the Red Sash first checked for traps from more than 40' away and then used a move action to move to the entrance of the room (within 20' of the babaus). So in this particular circumstance it wasn't an issue, but I've never had an AP book that played so fast and free with the definition of a "trap", and with what spells can and can't do. (So many "this spell is frozen in the middle of calling a monster so that a monster conveniently appears when the PCs show up and trap sense doesn't work" that it's embarrassing.)
As I like to point out, I'm the GM. I'm all-powerful. If I want to kill the party I can and there's nothing they can do about it. My job is to provide them with a visceral world that exists within the framework of the rules that they can explore and interact with. This particular book ignores the bolded part. "I think this would be a better story, so the rules can go hang themselves."
Sorry. Rules-bending doesn't "wow" players with your cleverness. It frustrates them with your pettiness.
As the party got up and prepared for the day, Percy dismissed his Secure Shelter to reveal the passage to the east. The Red Sash took the lead, checking for traps along the way. Ahead, he saw the passage widening into a room. On the opposite wall was a detailed carving of a stone pyramid looming over a coastline. Sensing no traps in the entrance to the passage, the Red Sash moved to the other end to see whether he could see any in the room proper as Percy cast Detect Magic behind him, just to be sure.
As the Red Sash peered into the room, three emaciated figures emerged from the walls, looking like horned human skeletons smothered within bone-tight hides of slimy leather. The Red Sash recognized them immediately: babau demons. They were good melee fighters who could also do sneak attack damage. Although they preferred to stay at range and use their spears, they were even more dangerous with their claws and bite, so closing with them could be costly. They had excellent damage reduction except against cold iron or good-aligned weapons. As with all demons, they were immune to electricity and poison, and resistant to most other elements. They had a small amount of spell resistance. Finally, their skin was acidic, so striking them with a non-magical weapon could wear it out and break it over time. Magical weapons had enough resistance to ignore this effect.
Going through all this information in his head, the Red Sash decided that the most obvious thing to do was to rush into the room and engage them. He moved in, stabbed at one of the three with his cold iron ranseur, and drew first blood. Unfortunately for him, this put him within a 5' step-and-flank for two of the babaus, so both dropped their spears, the first moved in and attacked relatively ineffectually, but the second moved in and used its claws and bite to hit the Red Sash twice for a large amount of damage. The third started summoning.
Not wanting more company, Percy dropped the summoning babau into a pit, ending its attempt. Tussle shot one of the ones flanking the Red Sash, while Kyllia first protected herself with Shield of Faith, then moved next to the Red Sash to provide him with an opportunity to escape the flank. The Red Sash, not wanting to miss a chance to down one of his foes, took a 5' step into a corner to stab at one. Unfortunately for him, he only hit once, it didn't drop, and the two babau took 5' steps forward, attacked 6 times, hit 4 times, and dropped the Red Sash to negative hit points. They called out to their companion (in Abyssal) that the spaces they had just vacated were clear, and the third babau Greater Teleported to one of the empty spaces.
Things were looking dicey. Things got worse as Tussle failed to drop one on his next turn, Kyllia couldn't get in to reach the Red Sash (and to add to the indignity as she held the spell one of the babau managed to roll a natural 20 to hit her and disperse it), and Percy didn't have anything that would stop them in their tracks. So, as the babaus moved into the hallway with the party, Percy realized the survivors just didn't have the remaining damage output it would take to drop all three demons. He apologized to the Red Sash, invoked his arcane bond, cast defensively, and Dimension Doored himself, Tussle, and Kyllia to the surface.
Out of immediate danger, the party could better prepare and plan for the assault. Tussle could load up with more powerful ammo and go all out. Percy could make him Fly so he would be out of reach of the babaus' claws and spears. Kyllia could do her best to defend herself and keep herself and Percy alive, and Percy could summon in help. Once they had their tactics prepared, they re-entered the Light, used Stealth to approach the unsuspecting babau (who were using the Red Sash's entrails to decorate the stone carving), and unleashed havoc. Percy brought in several lantern archons who delighted in blasting away at the babaus, while Tussle burned through grit points and special ammo with abandon, and Kyllia provided a needed stopper the babaus couldn't get past. The party was victorious with only "minor" scratches, and rushed to the Red Sash.
He had not survived the babau's ministrations.
As Tussle and Kyllia prepared the Red Sash's body for transport back to Magnimar (they didn't have a Gentle Repose spell, so time was an issue), Percy examined the carving. The "pyramid" was clearly the Grand Mastaba of Korvosa, and the cutaway view of its interior showed blood flowing through all of its lower chambers and into the mouth of a reclining Sorshen. Percy realized what this meant in an instant, though it took him several minutes to mansplain it to Kyllia and Tussle: They had discovered Sorshen's final resting place: The pyramid under Castle Korvosa!
This was important-enough news that Kyllia spent some time carefully sketching the drawing to share with the Pathfinders. Once she was done, they started the long journey home. Tussle wanted to go back into the other part of the Light and retrieve Geary, but Percy wouldn't hear of it: They were low on resources, already had a dead party member, and were in no shape to take on even a patrol of Gray Maidens, much less the mistress of the Light.
As they packed, a Sending from a woman Tussle didn't recognize came in.
"Tussle of the Pathfinder Society? Lord Mayor Groboras demands that you report to his office immediately!"
"Uh, we're kind of having some trouble here, so, uh, no."
They set off, but unfortunately, as they trekked northwards they quickly came to the realization that it had been the Red Sash who had been guiding them through the marshland, and it would be up to Tussle to get them home. Their lives, and the Red Sash's resurrection, all lay in the hands of a gunslinging gnome.
Tussle continued to lead them along when he was distracted by some other spell that he resisted. (I believe I told him he'd resisted a Scrying attempt, but I see that he wouldn't have known that. So now I know.) A few hours later, he got a Sending from a different woman, and this one's voice he recognized.
"Tussle, this is Bevaluu. Please allow the next scrying attempt through. We're trying to rescue you. Where's the Red Sash?"
"Wait. Who are you again? And we don't need to be rescued. We're fine. And he can't talk right now."
There was a pause, and then a second Sending came. "The head cleric of Desna in Magnimar, remember? So when do you expect to be back?"
"Well, Percy needs to get his spells back, so we'll be back tomorrow."
At that point, Percy mansplained to Tussle that he didn't have any spells that would get them back to Magnimar any faster, so they'd more likely be three days. Although the party avoided encounters (including an entertaining moment where they avoided an ochre jelly, only to have it reappear outside their Secure Shelter that evening), Tussle did manage to get them lost for a day, so the journey took four days instead of three. They got another worried couple of Sendings from Bevaluu checking on their progress, but Tussle kept assuring her that everything was fine, and eventually they emerged from the marshlands to spy Ordellia.
A bit more surprising and concerning was the reception they saw headed their way. Knights clad in steel and gold, with red, white, and gold banners advanced on them quickly. Fortunately, Tussle recognized Brandi in the fore of the group, with Bevaluu close behind. This wasn't an attack, it was a welcome!
In addition to Brandi and Bevaluu, Tussle recognized Francisco, Brandi's cleric. There was either a cleric or a paladin of Abadar, an obvious paladin of Iomedae, and some poor young man dressed in the livery of the Lord Mayor's staff who seemed to be attempting to approach the party yet was having difficulty getting past all the steel.
Brandi bounded forward, bubbling. "You did it! I can't believe you did it! You brought them home!"
Bevaluu smiled. "Your 'guests' here in Magnimar have caused quite the stir, I'm afraid. We've had to put them up in Ordellia at the moment, but neither the residents there nor the mayor are pleased with the arrangement. It is taking the combined power of the four churches to keep them safe."
The mayor's page called out, "You are to report to the Lord Mayor immediately!"
Percy, never one to let others ramble on, interjected, "Can we get the Red Sash raised first?"
The gathered paladins (and cleric) immediately declared that this was of paramount importance, and the mayor would have to wait. The page looked distraught, but there was little he could do. As they headed for the temple of Desna, Bevaluu explained what had happened in Magnimar while the party was gone: She'd brought the troglodytes into Magnimar, and, on being challenged by the guards, invoked Abadar's dogma of bringing the light of civilization to the uncivilized and stated that the troglodytes wished to learn to be civilized. Azoresh immediately confirmed this (it's good to be Chaotic) and the guards' hands were tied. A paladin of Abadar was fetched, he questioned Azoresh, determined that she indeed wanted to redeem her entire tribe, and if "civilization" was what it required then she'd do it, decided that this was also of the domain of Sarenrae, and brought Brandi in for consultation. On her way, Brandi stopped by to taunt Chaplain Tira that she was redeeming demon worshippers instead of slaying them, and Tira immediately decided this deserved Iomedae's notice, either to purge the lying troglodytes or to hold them up as an example that those of good enough soul could throw off the bonds of the demon lords, hence those who didn't deserved to die. Either way, the troglodytes could prove a valuable political victory for the temple. With four major churches taking an interest in allowing the troglodytes into town, the Lord Mayor's hands were tied and he had to grant them temporary lodgings at an unused warehouse in Ordellia.
The local residents were nonplussed by the presence of nocturnal stinking reptiles in their borough and made their displeasure (and loss of business) clear to the mayor. There might have been some violence or vandalism, but with at least three paladins (including an Iomedaen) in the neighborhood of the troglodytes at all time, such acts seemed outright foolhardy. The mayor's last hope was to try to figure out some way to pin all of the blame on the party, and make it their job to get rid of them.
The churches would not cooperate with this, of course, because the troglodytes clearly fell under the domains of Sarenrae (redemption) and Abadar (civilizing the barbarians), Azoresh had been god-touched by Desna herself, and the temple of Iomedae viewed the troglodytes as an excellent example of, "If you kill all the bad ones, you can pick out the good ones and cut off the demon lord's power."
Not exactly a beneficent attitude, but it did get much of the military on the troglodytes' side, which further strengthened their position.
While Francisco was explaining all of this to the group, Bevaluu cast Raise Dead on the Red Sash, and Brandi cast Restoration. Amusingly, even though he woke up mid-conversation the first person who spoke to him as he asked where he was was Percy. "Hush, Red Sash. Don't interrupt."
The mayor's page was still waiting for the group to come with him to see the mayor, and both the Iomdean and the Abadarian said they needed to make arrangements and they'd meet them at the mayor's office.
Still confused and disoriented, the Red Sash joined the rest of the group as they headed for the Pediment Building. Brandi and Zevaluu accompanied them. At the entrance, they met a dark-skinned Abadarian who smiled, greeted them warmly, and identified himself as Proctor Jyron Imikar, high cleric of Abadar in Magnimar. A stern-looking woman in battered plate introduced herself as Chaplain Tira Ronmova, high cleric/paladin of Iomedae in Magnimar. Although the party might not have been particularly impressed, having the heads of four major churches walk into the Pediment Building at the same time certainly put the receptionist out. She quickly summoned Valanni Krinst, the Lord Mayor's personal assistant. If Mr. Krinst smirked slightly at what was about to befall his employer, no one was rude enough to mention it.
The mayor was in a state. He had a massive plate of bread, fruits, and cheese on his desk, and he was stuffing his face with great abandon as the crowd squeezed into his office. He attempted to lay into the party, complaining about the stink, the wild nature, and the danger of the troglodytes in town, and how the party needed to find a new home for them. Unfortunately, Proctor Imikar was particularly insistent that having civilized troglodytes in town would raise Magnimar's esteem in the eyes of the world, and the Church would look down on ousting them. Brandi was silent, but the Lord Mayor's desk looked like it was in mortal danger a second time. Kyllia took the lead for the party. First, she pointed out that as soon as Proctor Imikar felt they were ready for citizenship, they would be a dozen new voters who would well remember the Lord Mayor's treatment of them. Next, she pointed out that as natural cave-dwellers they could be invaluable to the city guard in helping to patrol the sewers where the party had in the last few weeks found goblin, wererat, and derro infestations. It was obvious that Chaplain Tira was sold at that moment, and the Lord Mayor was lost.
Once Kyllia had finished, Bevaluu leaned in, grabbed a grape, popped it in her mouth, and reminded the Lord Mayor that the Varisians' matron goddess was Desna, and the leader of the troglodytes had been personally touched by Desna, so an insult to the troglodytes would be an insult to the Varisian Council and all Varisians living in Magnimar. The Lord Mayor turned an uncomfortable shade of purple, but did not seem in danger of choking… yet.
He gave up. The troglodytes could stay in Magnimar… for now. But they needed to move somewhere the stench wouldn't affect so many businesses. Maybe the old Seven's Sawmill.
Years of discipline and good nature prevented Brandi from punching the Lord Mayor square in the face.
As they started taking their leave, Kyllia mentioned sadly that she hadn't had a chance to have lunch. Bevaluu smiled, reached down, and took the mayor's lunch tray. The mayor was apoplectic. Proctor Imikar couldn't help himself. He laughed out loud and assured the mayor that the bank of Abadar would personally reimburse him for the loss of his lunch. And they made off, "stolen" lunch in hand.
With the troglodyte issue at least temporarily resolved, the various paladins and clerics bid the party farewell and went back to their business, except Bevaluu, who really had no particular business, but once the party started going through their bags to determine what was sellable she got bored and went back to her temple.
And then, the shopping began...
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I was giggling while reading this :) And honestly? It's not you as a GM because reading this? It shows you are a truly awesome GM. It's just that sometimes APs end up so bad that you either need a huge rewrite of entire sections of it to work (like Second Darkness) or you end up wading through the Runeforge of Sloth.
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Unfortunately, this journal will likely be passing on simply because of the time commitment of writing. I don't have as much free time as I used to, and what time I have is eaten up by helping the kids and working on prep for the two games I'm running.
I polled the players about whether or not to keep the journal running, and the general apathy ("Sure, if you want to,") was a good indicator that they're better served by my spending more time in prep and less time in writeups.
Apologies to those who want to see how this plays out, but 2020 is playing out as one of the worst years on record and we're not even halfway through it. It's time to start prioritizing my time...
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While I'll miss seeing this journal... I've two campaign journals I've seriously procrastinated on writing up so I fully understand. You take care! And try to have fun with your games :)
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While I'll miss seeing this journal... I've two campaign journals I've seriously procrastinated on writing up so I fully understand. You take care! And try to have fun with your games :)
Yeah, and that's the problem. I was finding that I really wasn't liking this game not because of the game itself, but because of the hours of post-game work involved in doing the writeups.
When I did the RotRL campaign journal, my players raved over it and provided a multitude of edits.
For this journal, the response is, "I'm sorry, but I really don't care that much one way or the other."
So rather than spend 4-5 hours on a writeup, I'll spend 4-5 hours on prep, and I think it will vastly improve my and my players' experiences.
So, Shiro had pointed out that my "write-ups" had become little more than tirades about the appalling, punitive, "I'm the GM and there's nothing you can do about it" authorship of book 2.
Creatures with area effect "fail your save and you're out of the fight" abilities:
- Boggards
- Skavelings
- Shadow Mastiffs
- Seugathi (some call it the worst-written creature in Pathfinder)
(And that's not counting the trogs' stench nor the caryatid columns' "if you hit me even your magical weapon breaks" abilities).
Traps that somehow aren't traps
- A summon spell that drops a seugathi right on top of the PCs so they start the fight in its aura
- Shadow mastiffs "appearing" the moment a non-chaotic-evil being enters the shrine
- Babau demons similarly "emerging from the walls" as soon as the PCs enter the room
- A teleporter that dispels all the parties buffs
My favorite is the final one. If we look at the trap-building rules, we have:
- Perception DC: 30+ (you can't possibly sense it before it hits you): +3
- Disable Device DC: 30+ (Ditto): +3
- Automatic Reset (always hits people who use the teleporter): +1
- Multiple targets (dispel magic on everyone): +1
- Never miss: +2
- Spell level (has to be Greater Dispel Magic): +6
So, by my reckoning that's a CR 16 trap on a group of 7th-level PCs. Why not just hit them all with a DC 20 CL 20 Disintegrate and let the chips fall where they may. Wouldn't that be "fun", too?
Anyhoo, we finally finished Book 2 and I thought it was all behind me, but...
Encounter #1: Not one, but THREE seugathi who... you guessed it! Pop out of a wall so the PCs auto-start the fight in their auras! Because being auto-surprised for every fight is fun!
Encounter #2: It's a door! If you come within 5' of it a bunch of eyes open, a chime rings in a distant room, and an image of you is shown in that room. Sounds like an enhanced Alarm spell, right? But nope, not a trap! At least not according to the book!
As I've said before, all I want from my APs is to give me a coherent plot, and NPCs and monsters that follow the rules.
Both Strange Aeons and Shattered Star failed even that low bar. That's pretty bad.
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To be honest? It's a complaint I've got in places for Hell's Rebels - in Book 2 at least.
For instance, you have a guard house that you have three methods of getting into. One requires DC30 Disable Device checks to pick the locks. The players are at that point? Level 4. If you use average stats and have a Rogue, then at 4th level you probably have someone with an 18 Dex, 4 ranks of Disable Device, and a +13 to your Disable Device roll... meaning you need 17s to unlock each and every door in the setting. If you spend 50 gold for mastercrafted lockpicks, that does drop down to a 15 for each and every lock.
Let's say you go with Trickery instead of Stealth then. Fine! You pretend to be guards. You can get some TRULY fantastic (if expensive) (and by expensive I mean upward of 1,500 gold) forged documents! Seriously, these documents are almost impossible to realize they're forged. But the commander of the guard house is bored and chatty and tries to question EVERY member of the crew. She has NO reason to suspect the party. Her Sense Motive is 14. If half the crew fails their Bluff check, she suspects something and demands an additional signature from a Dottari guard (rather than, I don't know, ARRESTING and QUESTIONING them?) and sends the group on their way.
It's most likely that the average Bluff check for the group is 8, if you're lucky. Of my group, none is above a 12 at 4th level. Also, good luck disguising your group if some of them are halflings (who tend to be slaves in Cheliax), or pretty much any non-humans. Though oddly enough, not being human is NOT listed as a reason for the guard to be suspicious despite the fact Kintargo's dottari is not an equal opportunity employer.
Okay, let's say you actually DO bluff your way through. Oh hey, one of the people you have to rescue was snagged by a torturer who has the ability to detect lies, will see through the forged documents, and is a CR 7 encounter. But the guards hate the torturer and the room is soundproofed (despite not being built to being a torture chamber originally?) and thus no one will intervene.
It's like the entire situation is set up to ensure the party fails and has to fight their way through a bunch of guards. And if your group had been avoiding killing anyone up until this point? Well, that is going to feel just fine and dandy now, isn't it.
I mean, with the locks, I *could* understand the outer door being a DC 30. But every other door in the facility also being a DC 30 seems off somehow. Especially as there are PATROLS in the guard house. They seriously are going to unlock and relock every door as they patrol? Riiiiight. And maybe having the guard commander question the apparent leader of the dottari guard? But every single member of the group? Isn't that a bit excessive?
It's something I'll have to keep in mind when I eventually build my own AP.
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Well, I have half a writeup of the final session for Book 2, and I figure I can at least provide updates as to what's happening in the campaign.
Much to my delight, the party got to the base of the 1000' cliff and was given the choice between the Twilight Path and the "long way", and Percy just asked, "Why don't we fly?"
Not only did the AP not take Fly into account, but it gave them a wand of Fly as part of a treasure drop.
So I was pretty happy they skipped the seugathis, though I was quite unhappy that they missed out on meeting one of the more interesting NPCs of Book 3. I'll have to try to roll him in later.
And yeah, yeah, if I were a "decent" GM I'd've hit them with an airborne encounter of equivalent CR and treasure to make sure they had the "correct" number of XP and the "correct" amount of gold, but since we dumped both XP and WBL, we've been *so* much happier in not having to run random combats for the sake of arbitrary numbers.
It's been nice.
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Session 22, Played 31-May-2020
As I like to point out, I'm the GM. I'm all-powerful. If I want to kill the party I can and there's nothing they can do about it. My job is to provide them with a visceral world that exists within the framework of the rules that they can explore and interact with. This particular book ignores the bolded part. "I think this would be a better story, so the rules can go hang themselves."
Sorry. Rules-bending doesn't "wow" players with your cleverness. It frustrates them with your pettiness.
So you can imagine just how well the whole, "Teleport into the Light and get a targeted CL 20 Dispel Magic at every buff you have" went over. Completely illegal by the rules, but the author put it in just to be petty. Or "cool". Or something.
Otherwise the session pretty much went as expected. Ashamintallu's Phantasmal Killer didn't kill Tussle, but Tussle sure as heck killed her. We had more fun with the Red Sash and pits, and the party finally finished Book 2. Hopefully Book 3 will be a bit less of a rules-bending pain grind, but considering the very first encounter I'm skeptical already. "We just wanted players to know the kid gloves are off" is no excuse for, "Make three DC 20 Will saves every round for the entire fight or be disabled". That's just more <expletive>hattery that shows a hideous anti-player hatred I simply don't subscribe to.
Unfortunately, once the Red Sash converted all of the loot they'd recovered to cash, they found that they didn't have all that much, so shopping was a bust. There was also little to no discussion of waiting the week for the Red Sash to recover from his untimely demise, so the party set off again for the Light. Amusingly enough, the only thing that bothered them during their journey was the ever-persistent ochre jelly, which they once again circumnavigated with ease and left frustrated and hungry.
They took their usual route through the pyrohydra's cave, down the darkened drop to the sarcophagus, and kissing Sorshen's feet to arrive at the boat dock on the second level. At that point they realized they were generating an issue: There was only one boat left! They'd left the rest on the beach by the maidens' quarters. . Fortunately, the four of them were able to manage with just one boat, since Tussle could sit with Kyllia on the third seat, but it was a squeeze. Kyllia remembered to put up her Magic Circle, so once again the suggestions to cast off their clothing and swim to shore were ineffective, and the party was able to recover an unharmed Geary from his long stay in the temple to the horned demon lord. Kyllia put Ant Haul on the Red Sash, he picked up Geary, and Percy Dimension Doored the group to the babau room.
After careful preparation, they opened the secret door to the stairs going up into the Light and were rather pleased to discover that nothing had been disturbed in the week they'd been gone. The bodies were all still there, though quite pungent at this point, none of the gear had been looted, and it looked as if no one had investigated the missing maidens. It was time to go upwards.
And upwards.
And upwards.
They climbed nearly 200 feet before finding themselves in a curious circular room with 8 alcoves: 7 had statues of various people, while the 8th was empty. Thassilonian writing on the floor read, "She who desires to ascend the Lady’s Light must first deign to embrace the Lady and the Lie."
Percy set to work. He first identified that the seven statues were the seven Runelords: Alaznist (Wrath), Xanderghul (Pride), Karzoug (Greed), Sorshen (Lust), Belimarius (Envy), Krune (Sloth), and Zutha (Gluttony). He then identified that ALL of the statues radiated strong conjuration magic, so the mechanism was well-hidden.
Fortunately, the riddle was not so well-hidden. Each of the Runelords was in a pose befitting his or her sin except Karzoug, who was offering a golden rose instead of taking one away. Assuming that he was the lie, the party tested hugging him and then hugging Sorshen, and the empty alcove filled with golden mist. The party stepped in…
Tussle found himself in one room, the Red Sash in another with Geary, and Percy and Kyllia in a third. It didn't take them long to open the doors to their respective rooms and find that they had all arrived in generally the same location, but in separate rooms.
=============================
So, that's the end of the formal write-up. Shiro was pretty peeved about the whole, "This teleporter casts Greater Dispel Magic at CL 20 on everyone who uses it," so he had Percy just start opening doors and calling out to people, meaning the group gathered very quickly and there wasn't a lot of fun, "Where's everybody else?" roleplay.
Oriana didn't even get to make the decision to fight for herself; the party heard her breathing heavily and preparing to fight, so they opened the door, Percy biffed his Diplomacy roll, and they started the fight. Percy tried to drop her in a pit but the Red Sash was on the edge of it and fell in, too. (Shiro wasn't happy with that decision since there was a wall and a doorway, but the Red Sash had just attacked her with his ranseur, so my argument was that he had to be in line of sight). Needless to say, in spite of being shot by Tussle, Oriana probably would've won the fight one-on-one with the Red Sash, but Percy and Kyllia jumped down in there with him (Boots of the Cat) and managed to keep him alive long enough for Percy to Dimension Door them out, then as Tussle tossed a grenade in with her Oriana surrendered. (Yes, the grenade went off post-surrender, but there was nothing anyone could do about that.)
She spilled her guts (leader of the gray maidens, wanted to reform, needed Fake Sorshen (aka Ashamintallu) dead, wasn't willing to fight her), so the party moved on.
The Ashamintallu fight was appalling in that Tussle went full-bore, "This so-and-so needs to die," and what the rest of the party did ended up being pretty irrelevant. He ripped off half her hit points in the first volley, her Phantasmal Killer didn't do him in, so he got offended and hit her for something like 38d6+60 on his next round. (I just remember working out all the dice and add-ins and grit points, and holy evil outsider bane bullets and he used Roll20 to roll and said, "I do 172 points. Did I kill her?")
Er, yes. Yes, you did Tussle.
They found the Shard of Lust, rested in the Light, tromped back to Magnimar, turned Oriana over to Brandi for redemption (Brandi was ecstatic, and Oriana was happy to have an obvious purpose), and reported to the Lady Heidmarch.
It turned out the next shard was in Kaer Maga, so they leveled up and prepped to go.
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I do have to admit I like the journals because it points out the problems and fallacies of the APs so if I ever ran them, I'd be able to look over them and see what I should modify. But given that first, you have RL time constraints, and second, it's probably going to be five years before I run either this AP or Return of the Runelords for the remote group... yeah. It's not worth the time constraints.
Thank you for sharing this last bit btw. Though I do have one question...
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Session 23, Played 14-Jun-2020:
While I won't be doing full writeups, I'll be noting things so that you still get an idea as to how the AP is progressing.
Impus Minor (Tussle) wasn't feeling well, so we had a rather short session that I'd prepared especially for him, which was a disappointment since he wasn't there.
I did a day-by-day travelogue for all 14 days of the Lucky Jenny's trip to Kaer Maga, describing each town that they stopped at in turn. They had the requisite boggard fight, but the Red Sash rolled a natural 20 on his Perception roll (for a total of 42), meaning they didn't surprise anyone, and a Fireball from Percy eliminated all but the chief and the dragonfly before they got anywhere near, then Tussle (played by me) mopped them up with his double hackbut.
Once they'd looted the boggards, they found the belt with the Pathfinder insignia on it and decided they had to investigate the boggard town. There was almost a diplomatic solution, but the boggards were so obnoxious and Kyllia wouldn't cater to their egos so they ended up attacking and dying as well. And no, I didn't spam the half-dozen croaks because I think my group would have quit outright if I had.
Their favorite stops along the river were Wartle (getting drunk on Bog Brew) and Whistledown (I let them buy masterwork woodwinds that gave an additional +1, which is easy when there are no bards in the party).
Once they got to the base of the cliff below Kaer Maga, Percy was already talking about flying instead of walking when he tried to talk to Bolgar Grumm, whom I played as obnoxiously as he's written. As soon as the conversation was over, Percy used the wand of Fly to get the party to Kaer Maga without the obnoxious seugathi encounter, and we ended for the day.
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Session 24, Played 28-Jun-2020:
This session was essentially me doing my utmost to try to add flavor as the party blew through encounters like cannonballs through tissue paper.
- They first landed on the "roof" of Kaer Maga, which has no description that I can find, so I described it as an abandoned flat wasteland dotted with observatory "machine gun nests" where wizards and other scientists braved "rocs, wyrms, dragonnes, and even the occasional dragon" to make observations beyond the walls
- Not wanting to deal with that, the party flew to Downmarket, where they immediately set about finding a guide. Since they'd completely bypassed the Warrens, I had Percy's player roll 1d10 to determine the quality of the guide they'd get. So of course he rolled a 10 and I gave them Gav as a guide anyway
- Tussle rented a room at The Canary for 100 gold pieces. I feel that's just worth mentioning. Because Tussle. And his name is Known among high-end establishments now
- They followed the breadcrumbs nicely, asking Gav for help finding a major magic item, having him set up a meeting with Yargun the augur, and having her send them to rescue her brother from Berkanin Ardoc the construct maker/cat girl lover
- I did like that they did quite a bit of legwork learning everything they could about Berkanin before moving in, but that open ceiling in Berkanin's room is just too tempting. They flew in fully buffed with a surprise round on him, and about the only question was whether or not the Red Sash was going to die again as he got torn apart by two clockwork soldiers. But Tussle anti-personned Berkanin, Percy first Glitterdusted the soldiers (both went blind) then dropped them in a pit (which the Red Sash didn't go into because he was flying), Tussle had another round to annihilate Kanya before she even made it up the stairs, Herifax lasted all of two rounds, and Tussle grappled Petey the clockwork dragon, tied him up, and hopes to take control of him. (I have no idea how that works with clockwork familiars.)
- Within two rounds of starting combat Kyllia had Healed Augustille, and Percy had freed him from his bonds, so on top of everything else the party had an oratroll on their side
- They sent Augustille back to the augurs as they rightfully looted Berkanin's place, killed a few more constructs, but did not go into the garden for a bunch of fights against, "Why the heck did we even plant these?" carnivorous plants.
- Finally, they flew on down and decided to sell their loot and get some rest before returning to the augurs for their reward.
All in all, a straightforward, fun session, marred only by the fact that Tussle was quite literally rolling a crit every single round. With a x4 crit weapon.
It was uh-glee.
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So, after prepping another day of rules-ignoring a$$hattery, I think the punishment for all such AP writers is that if they violate the rules for no particular reason, they should be banned from writing or GMing ever again until such a point as they play through every such book they've written as a pregen character, just so they can learn how much "fun" it is to deal with this s*** session after session.
I just prepped Part 3, Area B. 15 rooms.
Rooms 1-2: Just flavor, no encounters.
Room 3: A by-the-book, by-the-rules trap. 1 for 1.
Room 4: A paladin trap. The Binding spell either lets you force a creature to do your bidding, OR be trapped forever. Because that's inconvenient, the author has it do both. Why? Because PCs at the level of this encounter can't possibly remove a Binding. And we'll put in a Lawful Good outsider who is forced to attack the PCs. Finally, we'll have a secret way that the Binding can be removed, but there's no reasonable way for the PCs to figure this out. (No DC is given for a Spellcraft check on that.). So, the PCs have to kill a LG outsider, and too many GMs would say, "Oh, there was a way to free the creature, so you fall." 1 for 2.
Room 5: A by-the-book, by-the-rules fight. 2 for 3.
Room 6: A trap that's not a trap; it's a "malfunctioning device". 2 for 4.
Room 7: A by-the-book, by-the-rules fight. 3 for 4.
Room 8: 3 creatures that spam party-disabling effects. Sorry, that's still a "no". However, they ARE rules-legal, so I have to accept 4 for 5 even though I don't like it.
Room 9: A trap that's not a trap because it's triggered by a person, and that person is so impossibly built that I couldn't even re-create them in Hero Labs; I had to import the portfolio from the user archives and the customization level is mind-boggling. 4 for 6.
Room 10: I'm hard-pressed on this one because of the creature involved, but I'll call it "by-the-book". 5 for 7.
Room 11: A room full of non-dispellable full daylight just to grant the creatures in it permanent invisibility. Again, something completely made up just to put the PCs at a significant disadvantage. 5 for 8.
Room 12: Yet another "trap that isn't a trap". 5 for 9.
Room 13: A by-the-book room. 6 for 10.
Room 14: This is a hard call, since the monsters are swimming in poisonous waters and those waters are being added as poison to their claw attacks. -But- if a PC applies poison to a weapon, that poison is good for a single hit. So, just like I had to allow the "spamming disabling abilities" as rules-legal, I'm going to flag this one as "not". I figure it balances out. 6 for 11.
Room 15: Not an encounter.
And there you have it. A full section of the book, and only 55% of the rooms manage to simply obey Pathfinder rules. The others all have exceptions to mess with paladins (Room 4), rogues (Rooms 6, 9, and 12), or everybody (Rooms 9, 11, and 14).
I don't know about you, but if someone was trying to sell me a pre-written adventure for a rules system and they told me, "We're over 50% compatible with the rules system," I would not be impressed.
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Session 25, Played 12-Jul-2020
Surprisingly, this wasn't a good session because of the rooms, but because of the setup. The AP has you run Koifa the Therassic Spire librarian as, "Heaping abuse on the PCs in an effort to get them to leave."
So they all just decided she was a horrible person and they should leave.
Except... plot.
And that's why I'm loving my homebrew so much right now: The PCs do whatever the heck they feel like and I roll with it; there's no overlying "plot" that's forcing them to do things. I keep dropping breadcrumbs, they keep ignoring them, and so it's a very silly, pointless, fun game.
In this case, after shopping they returned to the Augurs to get more information about the Shard, Augustille keeled over and had his prophecy, Vorgun interpreted it for them and offered to escort them to the Therassic Spire, and off they went.
So, we have, "[Koifa] does her best to heap abuse on them, but as soon as the PCs mention X, Y, or Z, she starts listening."
But of course, having abuse heaped on you doesn't put you in a mood to talk, so the party refused to talk to her, and we were at a standstill. The players knew getting into the Spire was important, so Percy Dimension Doored them in there, they got the rundown that a group of ancient librarians known as the caulborn were waiting for them in the Undercity, and another adventuring party had gone down and failed, and we were back on track. But not without a lot of bad feelings.
So they went down, ran into the purple Symbol of Weakness trap and Percy used a Force Wall to let them just walk around it, opened and closed the door on the bound coutl so they didn't have to fight it, and ignored the chain-wielding women in the other room. They found the orrery (S.A.T. word for the day: It's a model of a solar system!) so obviously Tussle had to ride the planets while Percy pulled the lever that activated it and then moved the wheel so they could see Kaer Maga's past. Which promptly summoned two hounds of Tindalos. One got Tussled, and the other got Red Sashed and then an amazing pair of Scorching Rays from Kyllia to drop it.
It was another short session, and we stopped there.
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And it's funny; after my tirade about expecting APs to be written within the framework of the rules, I got flak that making the monsters adhere to the same rules as the players isn't "fun", and in fact, Pathfinder 2E has different rules for monsters and PCs.
And I'm afraid I just don't see it. If I'm playing chess, the white side and the black side should play by the same rules. If I'm playing a board game, each faction might have different rules that apply to those, but those rules should apply consistently, rather than, "Oh, it's turn #5, I get to ignore rule #2 this turn."
It's needlessly complex, in my mind. Pathfinder rules are vast enough to accommodate virtually anything you want to do. So why constantly mess with them to create a universe of exceptions to everything?
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Session 26, Played 19-Jul-2020
So, letting the players have their head and not being a complete jerk to them is going a long way in terms of improving playability. I'm also consistently surprised at just how deadly hellwasp swarms are. I'm just used to, "OK, I'm a 5th-level wizard, I'm taking Lightning Bolt and Fireball," because doing different types of elemental damage is important in those critical levels before the cleric gets Flame Strike. But two APs have had hellwasp swarms now, and in both APs the PCs had nothing but fire, and had to resort to "unconventional" means to dispatch them. Unsurprisingly, since Impus Minor was in both games, it was the same "unconventional" means.
The party started off by going back into the orrery, and the Red Sash listened to the door to hear... yet another woman crying! The entire party rolled its collective eyes. Even Impus Minor said, "Just wait! Eventually we'll get to a door and it'll be a MAN crying!"
Anyhoo, they opened the door, spotted Hasari the Tian monk sobbing over her dead halfling husband Perotus' corpse, except the Red Sash could hear the "corpse" whispering horrible things to Hasari. She tried to attack the party, but Tussle hit her with salt shot for nonlethal damage, Percy's Stumble Gap knocked her prone, and the Red Sash finished her off as Kyllia put up Deathwatch and warned that the "corpse" was actually alive. Cue the hellwasp swarm coming out of the body, and Tussle learning that dragon shot doesn't kill everything. So Kyllia picked up Hasari and they all fled, but not before Tussle, the Red Sash, and Kyllia all got poisoned by the swarm, and Kyllia ended up paralyzed on the floor as the party discussed what to do about the swarm just beyond the door Percy had closed. (Poor swarms! No hands, so no way to turn a doorknob!)
The initiative order was perfect, so, after pouring a potion of Lesser Restoration down Kyllia's throat (more hilarious was the Red Sash putting it with her and telling her to drink it, then being puzzled when she didn't, being paralyzed and all), the group performed the, "Too bad you're stuck in that room," maneuver. The Red Sash opened the door, Tussle used his Boots of Speed to run all the way through the room, out the opposite side, and closed the opposite door, Percy dropped a Cloudkill in the room, and Kyllia closed the door. The Cloudkill filled the room, the wasps had no exit, and that was that.
The party went upstairs, turned over Hasari and Perotus, got their reward, even got apologies from Koifa, then went and visited the trolls (who were much nicer than anyone else) to get Hasari Healed and Perotus raised, all on the Therassic Order's dime. Vargun really wanted to know what was going on in the Therassic Spire, so in exchange for not charging them for any of the healing she was arranging for them, they told her everything. She felt she got the better end of the bargain, but agreed not to sell the information until the party told her they were done, as she still felt she owed them a favor.
They'd also asked Koifa about the couatl (first accusing her order of doing it), and she dug up some pictures of the old Therassic Order's robes, so the party had some made up. Then Kyllia bought a turkey on a leash, plus a few braces of pheasants.
And yes. She dragged that sorry turkey on a leash into the dungeon and fed it to the couatl. And yes, it was hard to run for a bit because there was so much giggling going on over Roll20. Since they were in the correct robes, Tsikinal the couatl told them they'd need a Thassilonian artifact to free him, and, considering they had a couple lying around, they let him go. He rewarded them by buffing them and giving each of them a feather of his so they could summon him at a later date if they needed to. They promised to summon him at least once a year to make sure he was OK.
So, they finally disarmed the Symbol of Weakness trap, taunted the kytons in the southern room some more (Tsikinal told them what they were), and listened at the next door along the path the previous party had taken, to finally hear... a chuckling man.
The fight against Luonim the Vast was exactly what you'd expect of an AP that puts a sorcerer within a single move of a doorway. Percy Opened the door and Tussle rode in on Geary, netted him, hit him with the butt of his gun, and tripped him. Then the Red Sash walked in and grappled him. They promptly pinned him, tied him up, and put him in a corner. After deducing that the controls Luonim had been trying to reach were to spin the room, everyone left so Tussle could spin the room a bit. Since no one was willing to come in and get thrown around, Tussle got bored after a bit and let everyone in.
The next room had an obviously-controlled grodair in it, so Percy summoned an octopus to steal the helmet that was obviously controlling it. Once it was free, they broke it loose. As they were talking to it, Silasni the dark naga (and final member of the party they were searching for) came out and demanded that they stop dithering about and help her get through the trapped door she was stuck at. They ignored her entirely, preferring to chat with the amicable grodair, so she Lightning Bolted the party, resulting in her getting grappled, pinned, and tied up by the Red Sash. It was that kind of day.
They took everyone out of the dungeon, introduced the grodair to Gav then turned him loose in the lake, had a fairly heated argument with the naga before earning her respect and promise not to seek vengeance, collected their reward, and we called it a day.
That sounds entirely too awesome a game. The AP can't be half that good from your earlier grousing, so you probably modified a bit of it. ;) (Nothing wrong with that btw as modifying games is part and parcel of being a good GM)
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I think it's not so much "modifying" the AP as actually allowing the PCs to use the skills they bought and paid for.
For example, the Red Sash multiclassed into Investigator just to be able to get the Trap Sense and to be able to find and disarm traps, including magical ones. As I've complained about on numerous occasions, Books 2 and 3 are chock full of "traps" that the AP doesn't treat as traps. (My favorite being the Programmed Image that behaved exactly like an Alarm spell, but because it wasn't specifically an Alarm spell it somehow wasn't a trap.)
There are spells that don't work the way they're supposed to because "Thassilonian magic", but then no DC on figuring out how they actually work, even if your Knowledge: Arcana is +20 or more. There are social interactions where Diplomacy isn't allowed, period. There's just a huge amount of writing where the authors clearly didn't want the PCs to be able to use their skills to get around the roadblocks placed in their paths, and there really is nothing quite so frustrating to a player as, "Oh, yeah. All that work you guys did to plan out your skills so you'd have a complimentary set? That doesn't matter, because this AP doesn't allow skills to work the way they're supposed to."
All I "changed" was that I set appropriate DCs for the Knowledge, Diplomacy, and Perception checks to know things, interact with people, and spot traps, and the players are much happier.
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Aways a pleasure to read your campaign journals, Nobodyhome!
Aways a pleasure to read your campaign journals, Nobodyhome!
Well, I appreciate that quite a bit, but this one has turned into, "What NobodysHome can type in 20-30 minutes," which isn't a ton.
But I figure I can at least keep the plot alive...
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Session 27, Played 02-Aug-2020
What's interesting to me now that I've taken a far more laissez-faire approach to the AP is that the players have done the same... which isn't always a good thing.
After finishing up with the grodair, the shopping, the trolls, healing up, and whatnot, the party headed back downstairs. In a surprise to me, instead of proceeding straight back to the mysterious door the naga hadn't been able to penetrate, they decided to search the rest of that level. The encounters were relaxingly straightforward:
- The Red Sash listened at a door and heard mindless gibbering from at least two creatures, so the party decided it was probably more insane people and opened the door, only to find themselves facing two gibbering mouthers and a brain ooze. So they closed the door. Unwilling to let its prey get away so easily, the ooze opened the door... to the waiting party, who made all their saves against all the auras (each gibbering mouther had its gibbering "aura" of confusion, and the brain ooze had its daze aura. So yep, yet again, a room full of creatures, all of whom had save-or-suck debilitating auras, which is pretty much the standard for this entire book, and the players are sick to death of it). Since everyone saved (I think the Red Sash failed, but Kyllia's Suppress Charms and Compulsions says it "suppresses all existing charm and compulsion effects affecting the targets", and Confusion is listed as a compulsion, so that was that), the fight was just, "Kill the ooze then kill the mouthers." Pretty easy.
- The party opened the door to see a huge moonlit room with a giant tree in it. Kyllia correctly identified it as a moonflower, so they chose not to enter the room. Which is a real running theme with this book. Any sensible party, mine included, opens the door to a room then looks inside, casts Detect Magic, and otherwise doesn't go in until they've thoroughly examined the room from outside the door. The book is written so that virtually every encounter starts, "When the party enters the room," so there was a lot of stupid. The moonflower was pretty easy: It's an ambush predator, it can't fit through the door, and if it blinds its prey outside the door they'll likely just wander off. So it patiently waited for anyone to come in, and the party just closed the door and left.
- My favorite room was the lurkers in light. If you really want to be a cheesy GM, write like this author. "Well, it's an underground room, but I want the party to have to face permanently-invisible rogues, so I'm going to put in a bunch of magic mirrors that provide full permanent daylight, then a bunch of lurkers in light to backstab the party."
In a bit of hilariousness, the party heard them talking and opened the door, they (invisibly) cried for help and said that someone had to come in and save them, Percy looked in and saw them (he always has See Invisibility up), and he Glitterdusted the room. And that was all she wrote for the lurkers in light. The saddest part was the one that was blinded by the Glitterdust for the entire fight.
- The door frustrated the players because of its complete and utter lack of clues, but eventually the Red Sash got impatient and poked the onyx gemstone. The moment it left a mark he just said, "Oh, OK. I trace the rune of Greed on the gem."
A frustrating but not particularly challenging puzzle, all in all.
- One past the door, the hydrodaemons were a solid fight, and I nearly got to drag the Red Sash back to the River Styx to drown him in it, but the hydrodaemon that had him grappled got Tussled.
- As I mentioned, the party doesn't particularly care any more. They met the cauldborn, the cauldborn said, "OK. We're going to send you to this alternate dimension to get the shard, and once you're there you're going to get attacked by swarms of grubs. Any questions?"
"No."
Yeah. That surprised me as well.
- They rested for the night, went down, and managed to defeat the rot grub swarms, but wow, what nightmarish little buggers!
- While they were fighting the rot grub swarms, they were attacked by three wyverns. The most significant part of that fight was the Red Sash taunting them in draconic while Percy played matador by dimensional stepping the party away from their flyby attacks every round. And with Poor flying, turning around when your prey keeps teleporting isn't easy.
- I played the great hall for laughs, as it so richly deserved. The manananggal (Stealth +3) and hungry fogs (Stealth -11) tried to hide. The Red Sash saw all of them the moment he opened the door. So the whole, "Once the party walks in, the door closes behind them and the manananggal makes a scary speech," just wasn't going to happen. The Red Sash ran in and started stabbing her, Kyllia put Death Ward on the Red Sash so the hungry fogs couldn't hurt him at all, and it was a quick mop-up fight.
Unfortunately, Impus Minor has decided to retire from the game (he's in five games a week, so we'll be introducing a new fourth character once Book 4 wraps up. (I ran Tussle for this session, and Impus Minor said he'd run him for the finale.)
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Session 28, played 16-Aug-2020
Impus Minor re-joined us just in time for everything the players loathe about the AP: Con drain, Con damage, and more Con drain. Isn't it fun to watch your PCs degenerate into useless feebs based on single failed rolls? Apparently not for my group...
The party first explored the wyvern's nest, picking up a bit of loot that made it seem like a low-level paladin had failed miserably here (a wand of Mount, some magic horseshoes, and a periapt to enhance channeling).
The next room was typical for this book: Four wraiths, no warning. So they just run out, get off a bunch of touch attacks, and unless your party rolls very, very well, you're down 20-30 points of Constitution drain before the first fight is over. Even worse, the more Con you lose, the more likely you are to fail the Fortitude save and lose more. There's a reason they're considered one of the most dangerous CR 5 creatures in the game.
Fortunately, the party had a few advantages:
- When they opened the door, the Red Sash was the one in front, and he had Death Ward on him, so the first round of wraith attacks was wasted. Abroget the pukwudgee tried to help the wraiths with an Enfeebling Ray, but he couldn't hit the broad side of a barn.
- As the wraiths fanned out to try to hit the rest of the party, Kyllia got out of sight of the pukwudgie before casting Death Ward on herself, so he didn't know what she was doing. Ditto Percy, so when Percy Force Walled the door the pukwudgie wasted a round trying to shoot through it.
- Percy made a series of miraculous Fortitude saves and didn't lose any Con in spite of being hit twice.
- Abroget's final command to the wraiths was, "Defend me to my death!", and Tussle only knocked him to negative hit points, so the wraiths had to remain and try to protect their fallen comrade in spite of the entire party now being Death Warded, preventing a second encounter with the remaining wraiths. (Two of them would have fled had it not been for that last command.)
All in all, it went OK and only Tussle lost any Con (1 point), but it was still a, "Wow! Any one of us could have died there!" battle.
As the party recovered, they tied up and healed Abroget, self-proclaimed seneschal of the keep. He was more than happy to tell them all about the other denizens in exchange for the honor of not being dead. There was Cassidy the crazy gunslinger in the stables, who was looking for her horse Buckeye. She seemed pretty crazy and unapproachable. Then there was Olanna the horse lady, self-proclaimed lover of the master. She didn't seem all that bad, but she didn't care about anyone other than the master. Across from her was Maligast of Eox, a guy with a big skull head who'd declared Abroget "insignificant and uninteresting" and stopped paying attention to him, so Abroget left him alone. And that was it!
As usual, the party had only been paying partial attention, and hadn't noticed that Abroget had completely avoided mentioning nor describing the main doors leading deeper into the keep. They decided to deal with the gunslinger first
Admittedly, a pale stranger's Aura of Fear is only 10'. But if she'd been in her right mind, she would have danced through the party, at least half of them would have missed the DC 21 Will saves and spent the next fifteen rounds running from her, and she likely would have finished off whoever hadn't run. Fortunately, the description of her is rather vivid: She's out of her mind, she's trying to capture the rustlers who took her horse, so making them run away from her for 15 rounds would be pretty darned dumb and out of character. So she didn't use her aura, which probably would have led to a pretty interesting combat except Tussle.
They opened the door, Kyllia tried (and failed) to convince her that they hadn't stolen Buckeye, and the Red Sash closed the door. So she burned a round shooting the door down, letting both Tussle and the Red Sash full-round her. So she didn't *quite* get to fill the Red Sash full of lead, which might have been interesting.
Tussle was livid that her pistols were just fancy masterwork and spent a lot of time complaining about undead gunslingers and their useless gear, but they verified the carriage room Abroget had told them about (and wondered aloud whether they could figure out a way to get the beautiful carriage back to Magnimar, though the Red Sash disapproved), then went to deal with Olanna.
They pulled the old, "Open the door, then close the door" trick again, but that just let Olanna set up to use her breath weapon on them all for 10d6 of damage and... you guessed it! More Con damage. This time Kyllia took 4 points and was very nearly killed.
There was a bit of cat-and-mouse as Percy put up Wind Walls to prevent her from breathing again, while she put up Obscuring Mist to protect herself from attacks, but the Red Sash was able to slowly whittle her down because without their breath weapons, nuckelavees really aren't that dangerous. She did get one more breath off on the Red Sash, but he made enough saves.
At that point the party was fed up and done, so they healed up as much as they could, Kyllia used Lesser Restoration on herself so they could use the portal, and they portaled back to the Material Plane for... more Con drain!
Honestly. When a party goes to all of 6 locations in a day of gaming, and 3 separate locations have things that cause Con damage or drain, the players might just have a valid complaint against the author.
Once the group was back in Kaer Maga they paid the trolls for Restorations and leveled up to 10.
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Well, today I'm going to apologize in advance to the players for the B.S. they're about to face, but I wouldn't be surprised if this ends the AP outright.
Encounter #1: A 60' Fear Aura. Save or run away for 10 rounds. Then if you try to come back, run away again. Oh, and the bad guy can use Dismissal on you, plus he's got Paralyzing Touch. Because letting the players take action is Bad. It's much more fun if they never get to do anything.
Encounter #2: Six creatures with 300' Fear effects. Yep. Hope you liked losing all your actions, because we're doing it to you again.
Encounter #3: Three creatures with ranged paralyzing attacks. "Oh, you have a good Will save and weren't out of the fight for all those Fear effects? Well, let's change things to Fortitude saves and see how you do."
I've been gaming for roughly 45 years now. I have never once met a player who enjoys losing control of their own PC. Some people love to play being Dominated or Charmed or secretly evil and working against the party, but no one wants to roleplay out, "I run away for 10 rounds with no hopes of recovery nor being in the combat."
Today's entire session is, "If you fail a single save you're out of the combat. Buh bye!"
It's going to be unpleasant.
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Well, I cheesed it, but it worked out since we had only *one* player nearly rage quit. I let them research Eoxians, told them about the fear aura, and let Kyllia swap out Protection from Evil for Remove Fear after learning that as part of her level up. Thus when 3 of 4 players failed their saves against him, she managed to keep them from running away. When 2 of 4 players failed against the next room, it wasn't a complete waste of an afternoon as the party ran away and then back.
Anyhoo, I'll type it up a bit later, as work calls and the Dark Rider deserves his own entry in the "Tsuto Hall of Shame", and for now work calls.
Isn't remove fear supposed to be commonplace? Or is that just me?
Isn't remove fear supposed to be commonplace? Or is that just me?
Speaking as the usual divine caster in our group, we pretty much never prepare it unless we have a cleric and we know we're going against a creature that generates fear. Or unless there's a fighter in the party. We've never met a fighter who can make a fear save.
Also, having one guy with an "even if you save you're not immune so it's a new saving throw every single round" aura, then SIX creatures who all spam at once, even if you have Remove Fear prepared the divine caster has to make those 7 saves. (She didn't.)
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Isn't remove fear supposed to be commonplace? Or is that just me?Speaking as the usual divine caster in our group, we pretty much never prepare it unless we have a cleric and we know we're going against a creature that generates fear. Or unless there's a fighter in the party. We've never met a fighter who can make a fear save.
{. . .}
So much for Bravery . . . .
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Session 29, played 30-Aug-2020
With some GM encouragement, the party decided to research what they could about the denizens of Eox, and, after Percy couldn't find the information in the Therassic Spire and called it a "useless library", Kyllia meditated and got the information they needed: Eoxians had turned themselves into something akin to "proto-liches": They were powerful undead casters with high damage reduction, a fear aura, and a paralyzing touch. This was enough to convince Kyllia to swap out Protection from Evil for Remove Fear that evening (as part of her level-up).
In the morning, the group returned to the cavern, barely said so much as, "Hi," to the cauldborn as they walked past them and touched the monolith to get to the Black Forest, and then quickly moved away from the monolith so Kyllia could surround it with a Wall of Fire. The rot grub swarms, being non-intelligent, Did Not Like and burned to death most satisfactorily.
There was a horrific rotting smell at the front door, so they went around to the side door they'd found the previous day, only to find that the Red Sash had conveniently re-locked it after peeking out of it, and now couldn't figure out how to open it from this side. Percy sighed and Dimensional Stepped the entire party in. Tussle and the Red Sash easily heard the bony creature in the main hall scuttling its way towards this door, so the Red Sash opened the door, saw the approaching rawbones, and closed the door.
It was kind of hilarious as the rawbones listened to the party planning how they were going to kill it as it sat there waiting to ambush them if they came through the door. I had it ready for all of their plans... except Percy simply suddenly Dimensional Stepped the entire party into the room behind the rawbones and trusted at least some members of the party to survive the stench. The Red Sash and Tussle both made their saves, so the rawbones met a messy end.
They went back to check on Abroget the pukwudgie and found that he'd been killed and dismembered, his entrails had been used to write the word "Traitor" on the wall in Undercommon, and his head was missing. "Good thing we're not paladins," was Percy's complete obituary for poor Abroget.
Next on the list was a pleasant conversation with Maligast of Eox, who welcomed them in, told them about the history of the Black Keep, the rider, and himself, and asked them about the surface world. On learning of Karzoug's death, he admitted that he'd kind of expected it. Percy offered to free him from his binding, but he admitted that as a simulacrum, it was likely that his original self had gone the way of Karzoug, so there was little left but for him to continue fulfilling his duty. Both sides knew exactly what was coming, so they had their battle, but his Dismissal failed against the Red Sash, Tussle hit him with a Named Bullet, and he really never got to get into his groove, because caster in a small room and Stumble Gap is just broken. (It has yet to fail to knock over anything Percy casts it on. Pretty good for a level 1 no SR spell.)
His fear aura did hit the Red Sash, but Kyllia's Remove Fear kept him in the fight.
And then came the Epic Stupid. Six baying shadow mastiffs. Because everybody likes making everyone in the party make six saves and if you fail a single one you're out of the fight, right?
And even if you recover after only a couple of rounds, they're still baying so you're still making saves until you make all six or the fight is over.
Anyhoo, since Tussle and the Red Sash made all six saves each so only Percy and Kyllia were running for the exit, they held the door and started slaughtering the hounds. You'd think with higher ground and a natural +10 bonus to hit they'd've been a threat, but they couldn't hit the broad side of a barn. Or the Red Sash. Or Tussle. But I can hardly complain. Shiro rolled no higher than a 3 for pretty much the entire session until after everything was over.
So... I'm not really 100% what happened next, because I've never heard of this series of feats or tricks before. But... the door across the way opened, the dogs parted, and the Dark Rider charged forth at the Red Sash... who promptly pulled a feat out of his butt that let him make a trip attack against anyone charging him. His incredible 37 CMB roll was enough to trip the horse, and the Dark Rider's natural 1 on his Ride roll put him prone next to his horse.
The Tussle shot him for 172 points of damage.
In one round.
While he was lying prone on the ground.
Soooo.... I tore up the rider's sheet (virtually) and the rest was mop-up.
The rest of the session was nothing more than a comedy of bad rolling. They went into a room that had a statue of the rider along with a skin harp and forgot to check for traps as Kyllia pulled it off the wall, but the trap rolled a 3 and the arrows bounced harmlessly off of her. They found the "trap that isn't a trap" shard on its pedestal, both Percy and the Red Sash failed the rolls that I explicitly gave them to spot the obvious trap ("If you remove the item you are permanently cursed. But it's not a trap." Seriously?). But the Red Sash made his save and didn't end up cursed.
I ignored the mohrg fight because I was tired and demoralized, and as the group headed out they had their requisite fight with the cauldborn. Which was utterly hilarious because I started reading the speech out of the book and didn't even get to the third sentence when Tussle called out, "I do a full-round attack on the brain!"
Yeah. Bad brain.
They killed the cauldborn and the brain, used the scroll of Plane Shift they found to return to the Material Plane, met up with the trolls to say their thanks and have a wonderful dinner and night at the best restaurant and hotel in Kaer Maga, then returned to Magnimar without ever telling the librarians of the Spire about the cauldborn's betrayal.
Of course, they HAD given the trolls all of this information, setting Vergun up as one of the most powerful information brokers in the city. Which made the trolls kind of like them.
A little.
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Isn't remove fear supposed to be commonplace? Or is that just me?Speaking as the usual divine caster in our group, we pretty much never prepare it unless we have a cleric and we know we're going against a creature that generates fear. Or unless there's a fighter in the party. We've never met a fighter who can make a fear save.
Also, having one guy with an "even if you save you're not immune so it's a new saving throw every single round" aura, then SIX creatures who all spam at once, even if you have Remove Fear prepared the divine caster has to make those 7 saves. (She didn't.)
hmm.
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{. . .} caster in a small room and Stumble Gap is just broken {. . .}
How did I miss THAT spell?
Well, prepping Book 4 I'm finally getting hopeful that we're getting out of the morass that was books 2-3:
- Monsters that don't spam disables, except one that the PCs get plenty of warning about so they can prepare
- Traps that are traps
- Intelligent monsters planning for an attack and preparing both their gear and their positioning appropriately.
It's going to be a seriously hard fight for the PCs. Not because I'm spamming cheese at them, but because the author went to the trouble of putting in an intelligent plan for the bad guys. What a concept! :-O
Ah, well.
The Good: The exact same trap from the previous books (if you enter this room a monster gets summoned) is actually treated as a trap in this book, so it has a Perception roll, a Disable roll, etc.
The Bad: Yep, it summons a creature that nauseates everyone on sight unless they make a DC 18 Will save. Then the next room has two more of them. Because yeah, apparently for everyone else in the universe disabling several of the PCs so they don't get to play the game at all is "fun".
(I like GothBard's comparison to bridge: In bridge, one person is the dummy so they can go into the kitchen and make sammies and tea and extra-strong mixed drinks. In Paizo APs, they throw out enough saves to make two or three people the "dummies" so that whoever's making sandwiches has company in the kitchen.)