| Bjørn Røyrvik |
Alternative titles: "OP pls er....wait, wrong group", "OP pls nerf 4 (or, Can't you think of better titles for these things?)
Part of Arlynith's quest for Immortality requires her to train at least six apprentices to at least 12th level. At least 12 BECMI levels, which probably ends up a bit lower than 12 PF1 levels, but there's nothing saying they can't go higher. Therefore we will run another AP to get them up to that instead of just handwaving it or merely throwing a ton of money at the problem. Yes, this means it will take longer to finally end this game but everyone wants a little break from the old characters, and playing low-level characters is fun. The characters did not roll quite so well as the last group - there's not an ability score of 20 in sight - and everyone is either a wizard or sorcerer. Considering they are legacy characters, I gave the players the option of having their primary PCs give them extra gear to start with. I thought it would be a good opportunity to get rid of all the low-level potions and scrolls and wands they have accumulated and don't use and haven't bothered to sell, as well as other gear they have a lot of, like bags of holding, various protection rings and cloaks, etc.. They were surprisingly reserved. Arly's excuse was that passive protective effects were fine but casting spells from wands didn't teach you how to cast spells properly, so no wands.
Dramatis Personae:
Arlynith's twin daughters Kat and Ravi.
Katherina Eliza van der Drachenflame
Firstborn daughter of Arlynith, heir to Drachenflamme, and Arcane Bloodline Sorcerer. Spoiled and can get away with things the others wouldn't but also put under a lot of pressure to live up to her parents' standards and show herself worthy of the family name and the throne of the kingdom.
Notable gear: Robe of Arcane Heritage, Sihedron Ring, Heward's Handy Haversack, a scroll of Plane Shift to Ranya's demiplane (in case of emergencies)
Ravinelle Leone van der Drachenflamme
Fire Wizard. A follower of Flame rather than the traditional Alphatian Air school. Also spoiled but to a lesser degree. Originally intended to inherit the fiefdom of Drachenfrost in Norwold, but the peace agreement between Thyatis and Alphatia nixed that idea and she's a little miffed. Also a wizard and not a proper sorcerer, so Arlynith considers her the lesser of the two. Lawful dumb.
Notable gear: Sihedron Ring, Sihedron Tome (Wrath/Evocation)
True to fiction, these twins like to dress the same and be mistaken for each other.
Iziora
Human Diviner. High Intelligence, high Charisma, dumped Constitution (8) because this player is physically incapable of not maxing Charisma regardless of utility to the class. The only reason he chose to play a wizard was so he could get the Initiative bonus from being a Diviner. Super nerd and because she's played by this particular player, cute and sexy and charismatic. Described as "basically Hermione". Izzie comes from a family of undead hunters and lost her parents to undead at a young age. She was taken in and raised in the same temple Ranya was raised in, and Ranya, who keeps the temple running and drops by on a regular basis, took a liking to the girl. When she showed an aptitude for arcane magic rather than divine, Ranya sent her off to train with her BFF Arlynith and gave her a few things she didn't need any more.
Notable gear: Sihedron Ring, HHH, Ring of Invisibility, a ton of cure potions of various levels, a few wands of CLW. Unfairly, was given no Sihedron tome.
Alexandra Tiril Lilly Sofie Tormod Askefjell Stubberud
Gnome ("I'm not a gnome, I'm a human!!") illusionist sorcerer. Likes pranks, good with machines and definitely not a gnome. One of Tomokato's war orphans but one who didn't show any aptitude for fanatical religious murder paladinhood so was forced to become a spellcaster instead. Always the one to break the rules and try to do fun things, and can't sit still. In another world she would be diagnosed with ADD.
Notable gear: Sihedron Ring, Bag of Holding type I with lesser Silent Metamagic Rod, potion of Shield of Faith, Potion of Invisibility x3, Potion of Jump x2, Potion of Cure Light Wounds x7, Potion of Cure Moderate Wounds x11, Potion of Cure Serious Wounds, Elixir of Truth, Potion of Blur, Potion of Fly, Potion of Lesser Restoration, Potion of Pass Without Trace x2, Wand of Cure Light Wounds 40c
Phaendar Earastil
Elf unicorn sorcerer with a focus on summoning. Quiet, reserved, the one student in class who never raised his hand. Also dumped Constitution. One of the orphans left behind after Scorch razed the Thunder Rift and taken in by Othariel. When his magical talents manifested he asked if he could train under Arlynith rather than the local Mage's Island. Phaendar only knew Ranya and Othariel from before but has seen Arlynith and Tomokato on occasion. He heard all the stories of the whole party. Ranya is a bit overbearing and weird with her insistence on looking 16 years old when she's in her 40s but still a nice person, and Othariel is the big shining hero all the stories about her indicate but very personable and fun to be around when she isn't princessing. tomokato was myserious, but Arlynith was imposing. Regal, powerful, magic oozing from every pore: she was what Phaendar aspired to be. Othariel put in a good word for the lad with her friend and Phaendar went to study with one of the most accomplished casters in the world. Living with Arlynith proved to Phaendar why you shouldn't meet your heroes. Arly is not cruel, but she is immensely proud and status conscious and not at all relaxed and fun like Othariel, and worst of all, Arly is seemingly blind to the injustices in the land she rules. Phaendar has a hard time believing that Othariel can be friends with this woman.
Notable gear: Sihedron Ring, Ring of Invisibility, lesser Rod of Extend Spell, Wand CLW, Wand of Ghost Sound, potion of Lesser Restoration, 2x potion CLW
Duncan
Human transmuter from Drachenflamme. Born a peasant and grew up with hard work and back-breaking labor. His family were dirt poor from harsh taxes under Arly's grand-uncle, and young Duncan saw his family's farm burned by a dragon Arly released. They resettled and there was a brief period of hope when a foreign hero came and slew the dragon Arly had let rampage for years. Then Arlynith killed the hero and took over. Then his family was dominated and by a newly arrived vampire Arlynith welcomed to her country, and Duncan barely managed to escape. Rampaging demons and a mini-wightpocalypse just a few years ago made him an orphan and killed the kind family that had taken him in. By pure chance Arlynith noticed the magical talent in the boy when passing by one day and took him under her wing. Duncan doesn't like Arlynith but is not going to let an opportunity like that slip away. Diligent, clever, and the only practically minded character in the group. Arly feels bad for the boy but doesn't understand that she needs to fix her country, not Duncan's life. This is why Arly is not Lawful Good yet.
Notable gear: Sihedron Ring, Sihedron tome (Greed/Transmutation), lesser Rod of Silent Spell, HHH, Wand of Identify
Common gear: 3x Spectacles of Understanding,
There's a bunch of other stuff I've already forgotten. A couple of us feel it was a bit unfair of Arly's player to only give Sihedron tomes to two of the three wizard's in the party. We will revisit this next session.
Again, set in Mystara with appropriate changes to divinities and cosmology. In the time of the Greater Carnifex empire, the serpentfolk were several reptilian races apart from the Carnifex, including troglodytes and serpentfolk. The serpentfolk were at least as old as the Carnifex but slower to change and adapt and less eager to grasp power at the expense of their souls. The serpents were conquered by the Carnifex and made into a slave race, though set above the troglodytes. The initially slow and sure nature of the serpentfolk lulled the Carnifex into a sense of security and the sauroids felt the chance of a slave from them revolt unlikely. However, the serpentfolk learned from their masters and soon a serpentfolk champion, Ydersius, emerged and quietly uplifted his people. He eventually organized a slave revolt. The revolt did not free all of the serpentfolk, but those freed escaped to Brun to establish a free city - Ilmurea - with Ydersius as its leader. He acended to Immortality and became known to many as Yig. The Carnifex were taken aback by the revolt and made a few minor attempts to destroy the upstart serpentfolk but to their surprise were repelled, mostly due to Ydersius' involvement. The Carnifex then made a concerted effort and with the help of their foul, nameless patrons, decapitated Ydersius, threw his body down a pit into the Shadowdeep and entombed his head, burying the serpentfolk city where this happened under the Carnifex city of Saveth-yhi. Saveth-yhi remained as a monument to the power of the Carnifex, and a warning to other slaves considering revolt while covering up the truth of how successful the initial revolt was and how powerful Ydersius had become. A few serpentfolk escaped Ilmurea as it fell and brought the story of Ydersius with them, creating small temples to their first Immortal and somehow receiving spells. They infiltrated back into serpentfolk slave society and carefully kept the memory of their brief glory alive. When the Carnifex were imprisoned in the Pits of Banishment by the Immortals, the free serpentfolk, having learned the lesson of speed and planning, quickly filled the power vacuum with the first Serpentine Empire. However, these few did not know the location of Saveth-yhi and most assumed it had disappeared with the Carnifex when they were banished.
The Smuggler's Shiv is an island in Thanegioth archipelago in the Sea of Dawn, near Isle of Dread.
In the wake of the return of the Runelords and their demise at the hands of the upstart apes...uh, that is, the heroes Othariel, Arlynith, Ranya and Tomokato, several ancient ruins were left only partially explored. Bands of lesser adventurers have braved these locations and cleaned out enemies the first PCs didn't bother with. Arlynith decides it is time for her students to get some practical experience and set them to gathering all the writings from the Thassilonian ruins they could find, the stuff Ranya didn't burn when she Conflagrated Sorshen's Eye of Lust, copy, collate and talk to members of various universities. After months of boring work, the PCs
are finally done and want to return home. They could call on Arly to come pick them up and save them the trip across an ocean and a two continents, but they are young and free and want to see some of the world. They hop on a boat from Magnimar and head towards Thyatis City.
Izzie immediately gets on the wrong side of almost every sailor there by getting in the way to get a good look at what they are doing, asking incessant questions, and generally being a pest. Captain Kovack does his best to steer her away from such things but he feels he can't get too pushy with obviously wealthy passengers like these, and he can't baby sit her all the time. Izzie does get to know one sailor, Ishirou, who blunt and poorly spoken though he is is flattered by any attention from an attractive woman and answers all Izzie's questions. Phaendar and Ravi spend the trip heaving their guts over the side. Kat saw the prisoner Jesk when he was brought aboard the ship and decides to investigate. Though initially told the cargo hold is off limits to passengers, the sailor nominally on guard can't be bothered to keep Kat and Duncan out when they pursue the matter and lets them in. Jask turns out to be an Alphatian citizen and a cleric of Palartarkan, and who uncovered corruption and crime in the upper circles of Magnimar's leadership and when he tried to bring this to light he was accused of being a foreign spy and troublemaker, clapped in irons and shipped off to Thyatis City. Finding another Alphatian on board raises Jask's spirits, especially one who is (or claims to be) related to the renowned Queen Arlynith. He hopes the PCs will free him.
The other travelers did not spark much interest in the players and wanting to hurry things along we got right to the cut scene where they wake up, nauseous and with a worse headache than when they stole some of Arly's extra strength whisky and got hammered (except Izzie didn't take part in that because she's a teacher's pet). They find themselves on a beach in burning sun.
WE had spent most of the session on finishing up the PCs so we didn't play much. On to the AP proper next session.
| Phillip Gastone |
Oh my goodness! Arly has kids?
Poor kids. Bad Arly! No slaying the heroes that slay the nasty dragons!
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
Arly and Ranya are married and have kids. Arly's husband is her cohort Othar. Ranya's husband is a guys she lost a bet to, then seduced and got pregnant by him.
Othariel has kids. One is adopted and already in the story, but her flesh and blood daughter may or may not be born yet; the joys of time travel and not paying too much attention to when things happen. In any case, Othariel likes Arly but doesn't consider her the right person for training her sorcerous daughter. Too much racial privilage and acceptance of undead and slavery for a paladin's taste. Tomokato is married with kids but they've never show up, and are probably still in Myoshima wondering where daddy went.
The truth of the the matter of Drachenflamme is that Arly's grand-uncle was a nasty sort. He didn't enjoy harming his subjects for mere entertainment, but that's the best you could say for him. Taxes were harsh, and the law was punishing. Arly didn't know any of this, being raised in contact only with the upper crust, Grand-uncle insisted she master diplomacy and rulership, until she ran away to find adventure. It turns out Arly was a magical experiment by Grand-uncle on how to infuse draconic power into humans - hence Arly's draconic sorcerer bloodline. Arly was kept magically unaware of this and assumed she was just born that way. At one point in her adventures Arly was kidnapped home and used for more experiments (Grand-uncle used a lot of Clones of Arly to test various changes and developments), and the other PCs came and rescued her, in the process setting free one of the dragons Grand-uncle kept captive to use as the source of Arly's power. The dragon let the PCs go but rampaged around the country.
Arly intended to go back and stop it at some point but years passed without her doing anything (Arly's player said Arly wanted to solo the dragon to show her might and right to rule) and eventually a distant relative from Glantri came and did the deed. He defeated Arly in a legal and witnessed duel for the right to rule Drachenflamme, and took over. The 'usurper' was kind and popular and started making things better. Grand-uncle came back in a clone body, killed the hero and lured Arly home to kill her and start his experiments over again. This time Arly defeated him, and being the only living person with a legal connection to Drachenflamme took the throne. Then all the stuff about undead citizens and demons and wightpocalypses happened.
The populace at large don't know of Grand-uncle's return, just that the hero ruler was there one day and dead the next with Arly taking over. The natural assumption was of course that Arly killed him.
| Phillip Gastone |
Shine on Arly, you crazy diamond you.
Hopefully puppy will be properly tuckered out this time. :)
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
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The session started with a rather annoyed GM forcing a couple of his players to finish making and gearing their characters since they were not at all finished despite what they said last time. So properly stat'ed twins and Izzie, and more gear for the PCs, including a bunch of things like Headbands of Mental Superiority +4, lesser Rods of Piercing/Intensified Spell/Silent Spell, Ring of Freedom of Movement, Belts of Physical Perfection +4 and Physical Supremacy +6, Rings of Wizardry 1, a bunch more wands, potions and scrolls, and two Staves of Teleportation. I'm pretty sure they already have more valuables than they will get during the AP itself. For the last campaign I gave everyone the Ancestral Relic from the BoED as a bonus campaign feat. This time around everyone gets Allied Spellcaster. This may end up with all the PCs having basically the same spells available just to get the maximum bonus.
Waking up on the beach, the PCs feel like shit. The heat, the humidity, the hangover from the poison, the biting flies; everything makes them feel like shit. They barely start to get a grip on their surroundings when Phaendar is attacked by a euryptid. Phaendar has a Con of 9 (there are only two PCs with a Con score above 9) and takes some damage. The twins and Alexandra decide to let the elf fend for himself and go after the two euryptids that they can get in a Burning Hands (which Allied Spellcaster doubles the damage of). This doesn't kill the sea scorpions but it does drive them off. The last sea scorpion deals more damage to Phaendar but the elf makes his save against the poison. Duncan one-shots it with a staff blow to the head. The PCs interact with the other survivors and manage to calm them down. They then head off to the wreck of the Jenever. On the way the twins discuss their situation and come to the conclusion that this is a great opportunity to have the adventures they've wanted. They can use their staves of Teleportation to get everyone off the island if need be, but for the nonce they keep that ability unknown to the others. Getting on board, the PCs easily dispatch the larger sea scorpion without taking damage and loot the ship. Freeing Jask and giving him back his holy symbol makes him Helpful. The survivors then set out to find and make a camp, which they manage quite well. During dinner Ishirou tells that he believes they are on the Smuggler's Shiv, which was where the sailors were afraid the ship was headed. For the moment he hasn't mentioned the treasure map he has but he will mention it to Izzie soon.
The game is then interrupted by some loud, weird static from Arly's player before he goes quiet; Puppy wanted attention and so chewed over the cord to the headphones-microphone set up.
One Arly gets back the PCs rest and then decide to go to the coast of the island and follow it west. There is a little drama when the other survivors object to the PCs leaving them, and the twins make the dumb-ass lie that 'they will be within shouting range', which doesn't convince anyone. For once it's not Ranya's player making dumb lies that make everything worse instead of telling the truth that would be easily accepted. Duncan manages to calm things down and the PCs move out. The first wreck they encounter apart from their own ship took at least 30 minutes of planning how to get 50 meters off shore without drowning. The lack of anything interesting on board was disappointing. They then make their way to the point on the northwestern bit of the Shiv and get a look at the bay. Then they head back to camp to report their findings.
And that was the session. I hope the rest of the AP goes faster or else we are in for a long haul.
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
Their second day on the island sees the weather as dark as the castaways' spirits. Heavy rain which manages to find all the little cracks in their canvas shelter, wind which just barely doesn't tear the shelter down, and eleven people crammed into a very tight space. They manage to avoid killing each other but Aerys's withdrawal makes her extra snappish. The PCs try to lift spirits by sharing stories, like Kat's story of the time that Mommy stopped a war between Thyatis and Alphatia and kicked the butt of an Entropic Immortal to boot. Ravi helps by constantly interrupting with statements like 'that's not what happened', or 'actually, it was X that did Y', and 'that happened on another adventure'. Izzie shares her knowledge of the world which is less David Attenborough and more like a lecturer who has a Power Point presentation and does nothing but read the slides. Phaendar sings old elvish hymns. Jask offers to lead the others in meditation, which all PCs but Duncan agree to - no +2 to concentration for him. Everyone but Izzie was infected by Mindfire the previous day and its effects made themselves known. Jask and Phaendar, the only ones with the Heal skill, identify the symptoms and start treating people. A couple days later, everyone is fine. In the mean time, they still go adventuring, because they don't have enough food to hang around resting for some days.
The next day the PCs convince the others that they need to move camp. They will never find enough food staying in one place, and crawling through the jungle at a snail's pace then coming back in the evening is not going to allow a full exploration of the island. To a chorus of complaints the NPCs come along. A trek through the jungle leads to a small path, probably made by goats or sheep. This being slightly easier to navigate than the unbroken jungle and hopefully leading to food, the party follows it. They walk right into the path of a giant viper that also tried to follow the goat trails. Duncan gets off a Magic Missile before getting bitten. No one else does anything useful since they all try Acid Splash and keep forgetting they are 1st level, and -8 (cover + engaged in melee) makes even easy touch attacks difficult. On Duncan's next turn he swings his staff and kills the snake. Duncan is also only one of the party with any ranks in Survival, the only one with any ranks in Perception and the only one with a decent Strength score. In short, he's the MVP here. Alex is the least useful since she is a sorcerer that only has the type of spells that don't work on mindless or undead creatures. Dinner that night is snake soup, not good but filling.
The next day they follow the goat trail even when it loops northwards again. They come to the north-eastern beach and find Yarzoth's camp and deduce that it's not more than a few days old, and they correctly assume that the person who convinced the captain of the Jenever to head to the island landed here. They cannot find tracks from the campsite, however. They find the wreck of the Brine Demon, and find the ghost of the captain. He mistakes the twins for his love but is puzzled why there are two of them. When he shakes off his fascination he yells imprecations at them. unfortunately for the PCs, this is all in Slag, a language they don't know. Izzie casts Comprehend Languages and get things like 'hussies! harpies! you aren't her!", and they all misinterpret his anger as aggressiveness, and attack him. They easily defeat the ghost, who rolled rather poorly on his attack rolls, then camp nearby. When the ghost recovers he stands in the surf and yells at the PCs. Having found the locket in the chest and put a few things together, especially the repetition of what sounds like a name. Phaendar becomes Invisible and sneaks down to the wreck with the locket, hangs it on a visible place, then uses Ghost Sound to attract the attention of the ghost. The dead captain sees the locket and is laid to rest. I award the PCs double XP, for defeating in combat and then laying the spirit to rest.
After this the group decides to follow the beach with the reasoning that any useful ships would be near the water instead of the center of the island, and moving along the beach and rocks will be faster than trekking through the jungle. The next couple of days they follow the eastern beach south and into the curly bay, straight to the Tide Stone and the barely visible ruins of the serpentfolk temple. As usual, my players manage to avoid most of the fun stuff on the map to go straight to the final boss. They're still 1st level. I may allow them to level to 2nd but even so I think they will probably not be able to defeat Yarzoth. Had Arly given the players a lot of wands like I had intended, this might have worked out anyway, but now... we'll see.
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
A player's journal of the AP. She does it so well I may just stop recording here. We'll see.
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
I start the session by telling the players they can level to 2nd. They are barely half way to 2nd level xp-wise and I don't want them to die or have to crawl through everything in the island before coming back to the temple. Plus I now have time to eat dinner since game night starts just about as I come home from work. I will probably just use milestone leveling for this AP, something Duncan/Phanedar's player had been telling me to do ever since I first announced I would run this AP. Lesson: always listen to your better half, especially when they have more AP experience than you.
The discovery of a semi-submerged temple sparks interest and fear in the castaways - the PCs are interested and the NPCs know that ancient buildings of possibly non-human design hidden in the wilderness are always Bad News for sane people. The twins instantly decide to explore and the rest tag along. The fact that the temple shows some architectural similarities to the Thassilonian ruins and that there seems to be zero sign of plant growth on it does not dissuade them. Ishirou had commented on unnatural waves here - no tide and incessant waves hitting the shore which has wrecked many ships - and now this temple without even a hint of algae or moss growing on it in this sort of weather; the bad vibes are obvious. Phanedar, with his keen elven eyes, looks directly into the sun when scanning the surrounding area but Dunca, always practically minded, shades his eyes and spots a formation of standing stones on the opposite bank. This is promptly forgotten while the PCs focus on the building.
Gelik makes a comment that going inside is probably a bad idea.
"Nonsense," Kat says. "What sort of problems could we find in there?"
"Oh, I don't know. What sort of things would your mother find in a ruin like that, do you think?" he asks.
"Adventure!" say the twins with glee.
"Exactly!"
For some reason, Sasha, despite her professed interest in adventure, has not tagged along with the PCs on any adventure so far. OOC this is because I can't be arsed to run another NPC in addition to monsters, and six PCs is already a bit of a handful. IC it makes little sense. Perhaps she's convinced she wants adventure but when it comes right down to it she is a bit of a wimp. While they look for a way into the temple they are surprised by the Red Mountain Devil, which ignores some damage from spells while diving towards the PCs, pounces on Tormod and reduces her to 0 hp in one go. Duncan slaps it with his staff and the others deal some damage with spells. Having taken only 15 points of damage before its second turn the RMD decides to full attack Duncan and reduces him to negative hit points. In desperation, Izzie pulls her Wand of Magic Missiles (9th level) and fires off dealing a respectable 18 damage. Phandar's summoned dog just bounces and yaps at the RMD but Tormod is brought back to positive HP thanks to Unicorn bloodline power, and the twins try to maneuver so they can use Burning Hands (which thanks to various feats, does 5d4 points of damage from Kat). The RMD is killed without the chance to run away. The Wands of CLW are put to good use to bringing people back to full HP.
The players then spend an hour or so trying to figure out ways to get on the top of the ruins or find another way in around the side, not helped by the weird heavy waves that exist even in this sheltered bay. In desperation, Kat uses 5 charges from her Staff of Teleportation to get a bunch of the PCs on top of the ruin, and finds nothing. Detect Secret Doors reveals nothing, not so much as an exhaust port. Eventually the players head over to the standing stones, and Indentify it, then use Summon Monster to get a venomous snake and activate it. They then head into the temple through the newly revealed double doors which show serpentfolk being crushed under the heels some strange lizardy folk that look something like vaguely humanoid dinonychus. They enter and walk down the steep stairs to the first room and spot two serpentfolk skeletons on a bridge above them. The skeletons are out of range of most spells except Duncan's Snapdragon Fireworks and Magic Missile. The skeletons roll well on their attacks and reduce Duncan to negatives. Phaendar becomes invisible so he can heal people and avoid being targeted. The twins run under the bridge and so are out of the line of sight of the skeletons. Tormod fires a Magic Missile and runs after the twins, and Izzie decides to stand in the open and fire her BFMMG (Big F&&$ing Magic Missile Gun). No one can quite understand why, especially when the player had previously declared he wanted to conserve ammo as much as possible. Some more damage to the PCs and the skeletons are defeated, and the PCs make it behind the large double doors at the end of the chamber. We end the session here. Hopefully we'll finish the thing next session, but the PCs being level 2 for nothing but CR 3-6 encounters can be brutal. The only reason they have survived so far is their ridiculous gear.
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
The PCs get across the pit trap the twin narrowly avoided last session by clever use of Acrobatics rolls to jump over and rope to help those less athletically inclined. Surprising me they refuse to follow Aunty Ranya's insistence that you always go left in a dungeon and bypass another pit trap and enter a room with an ominous pool of blood in the floor. They gingerly move around it and look at the carvings in the room that show more scenes of dino-folk glory over serpentfolk. While investigating, large bronze sheets of metal crash down, completely blocking the doors out of the room. Soon a giant scythe blade starts whooshing through the air, glancing off Ravi a couple of times. Ravi is very grateful for the magical protections she has. The PCs look around desperately for a way out but to no avail. Izzie was closest to making the DC 30 Perception check, rolling a 29 thanks to having Detect Magic running, which gave a +10 to this particular roll. After a few rounds of this and Duncan taking a nasty hit, Tormod recalls she has a Staff of Size Alteration and uses Shrink Item on one of the bronze sheets blocking the door. It shrinks down, falls out of the grooves holding it in place, and crashes like a badly-tuned gong to the floor, leaving the doors further in to the complex available to the PCs. Shrink Item is one of the most underappreciated spells in the game to my mind.
The twins open them and come face to face with more serpentfolk skeletons. These are thankfully not as tough as the first ones they met. Kat fails a concentration check to get off a Burning Hands but Ravi succeeds, removing the skeletons from the map. Getting into the temple room proper, the PCs see a serpentfolk. They are well aware of many of the details of their innate powers thanks to lots of study of old Thassilonian texts and they conclude that they can take Yarzoth down. The PCs roll fairly well initially, getting past Yarzoth's not inconsiderable spell resistance for Jolt and hitting her in the face with Snowballs, but the twins fail to get past SR for the Burning Hands attempts, which does nothing but torch the collection of papers Yarzoth had in her hands. She tries desperately to save her papers but the twins keep blasting with Burning Hands throughout the fight. She Suggests Duncan 'keep them busy', and does her level best to put out fires and gather her belongings.
Duncan smacks the twins with his stick as they move past, uses Burning Hands to try to attract their attention and manages to disrupt Phaendar's summoning. Undeterred, Phaendar tries to summon another creature and the twins keep blasting. Tormod uses a Color Spray to knock Duncan out and resists an attempt to Dominate her. The PCs refocus their efforst on Yarzoth and ed up with the destruction of her notes, Yarzoth decides to channel negative energy and hopefully drive the PCs off. Kat and Izzie go to negative HP from this. Ravi, seeing how badly things are going now and realizing that adventure means your life is in actual danger, takes Kat, Duncan and Tormod and teleports home, leaving Kat's staff of Teleports and Izzie and Phaendar behind since she couldn't reach them this round. Phaendar manages to get Izzie back on her feet while the dog he summoned annoys Yarzoth. Izzie pulls out her big Wand of Magic Missile and thanks to her Diviner ability Prescience gets through SR three attacks. 5d4+5 per round is a respectable amount of damage. During these rounds Phaendar keeps healing them, and the dog mostly fails to hurt the serpentfolk. Yarzoth just barely manages to grab a handful of mostly unharmed papers, fight off the summoned dog, and activate the Gaseous Form ability of the statue to escape, with only the few GM-given cheating hp left.
Cut to the other castaways, sitting outside in the shade, absentmindedly swatting biting flies and bonding in the misery of their situation and wondering just what sort of mother Arlynith is that wouldn't give her kids some method of contacting her in case of events such as these. The damn fool twins and their entourage haven't been gone 15 minutes before a tall, imposing lady in ridiculously rich attire and obviously magical make up comes striding out of the ruins. She introduces herself as Queen Arlynith and wonders if they would like to accompany her to her kingdom. Tripping over their own tongues in haste, they indicate this would be fine.
Cut back to the escaping PCs a few minutes before the previous scene. Ravi arrived in Mommy's study and not seeing anyone here, pulled out a potion of CLW and stuffed it down Kat's throat. The twins then run around the palace trying to find Arlynith and burst into the private dining room where their parents are eating. Arly looks at the dirty, disheveled and wounded group, raises an eyebrow and coldly asks "Where are the others?"
Othar (not to be confused with Othariel) keeps his mouth shut despite his desire to assure his wife that the children are obviously alive and well so there really is nothing to worry about.
The twins give a breathless description of where the others are, and once she has enough information Arlynith leaves to save Phaendar and Izzie. She comes, eyes the depictions of Carnifex and serpentfolk illustrations on the walls of the temple, and asks what happened to the creature they were fighting. When told it ran away, she relaxes a bit and tells her students to gather what useful information is left here and get ready to leave. Phaendar tells Arly of the other castaways, and Arly goes to get them.
"How did the twins get hold of Arlynith?" Phaendar wonders. "Where did they disappear to?" The elf is notoriously bad at identifying spell effects and knows little about magic outside his own capabilities (0 ranks in Spellcraft or K. (Arcana).
"They probably had an item to teleport them home," Izzie responds.
"Gasp! You mean they could have gotten us all safely home ages ago? We didn't have to spend these days on this horrid island?" He responds in a horrified voice.
"Yup."
Phaendar doesn't quite go so far as to curse the twins but his faith in them is severely reduced.
In Drachenflamme everyone is healed, given baths and proper meals, and the students are interrogated told to write essays about what happened and what they found and why the twins did not at least contact Arlynith the moment something bad happened, and why Duncan thought that attacking his fellows was a good idea. Duncan's protests that he was mind controlled are not considered sufficient excuse to absolve him of everything. Arly recharges Ravi's staff over the next week and a half as well as making another Staff of Teleports for teacher's pet Izzie, who asked if she could write everyone else's essays as well as her own and is now in charge of the group since the twins proved themselves untrustworthy. The guests are happy to be off the island and be guests of such an august person, but soon think about trying to get home. They are after all a good continent away from where they wanted to be. The students, minus the twins since their wishes are ignored by the unhappy mother, plead with Arlynith to let them go back to the island and finish exploring it and the temple. There is after all some interesting stuff there, and if a snakeperson is interested in this stuff then it obviously can't be good. Especially considering how recently the Runelords came back and the fact that one of them is still out there. Despite her misgivings, Arly allows the kids to form an expedition back there.
This time they will be given proper adventuring gear, like a lot more wands and scrolls of useful spells.
The way things are going we may skip the bit of the AP where various factions woo the PCs to lead the expedition to Saventh-yhi. Yarzoth is on her own and will charm her way on board a passing ship and try to piece together useful information from her memory, the ruins of her notes, and some serpentfolk lore the PCs do not have access to. The reason she didn't kill the PCs was because she found out who they were on the ship and not being an idiot she didn't want to personally kill them. That would likely lead to the PCs getting returned to life and an angry Arlynith hunting her down. If the PCs drowned when the ship went aground or fell to monsters on the island, chances are she would be in the clear. When the PCs made a bee-line to her they ruined her plans to have at least a week or two to fully explore the temple. Even so she tried to avoid killing them, hence her command to Duncan was to 'keep them busy' rather than 'kill them'. Since she was basically just tanking damage and not doing much offensively, I don't feel too bad about giving her a few extra HP in order to make sure she escaped. Her one offensive action was purely because she was taking a lot of damage and needed a few moments to get her stuff together before leaving.
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
The first hour of the session went to levelling up the PCs and waiting for everyone to arrive. Izzie's player has a crappy old machine which he claims is newer than mine, but which is very slow and prone to crashing.
In the two weeks of downtime after being rescued from the Smuggler's Shiv, the PCs are expected to spend some time in the lab creating scrolls or potions. Some fail, some succeed, some can't even attempt it since he doesn't have anyranks in Spellcraft. He is given a horse and taught how to ride instead. The other castasways are teleported to Thyatis City, where they were initially headed.
The PCs are then teleported back to the temple on the Shiv to do some proper research. They discover that the architectural similarities to Thassilonian ruins are not accidental but can't make sense of the decor, which shows a tale of Carnifex subjugating serpentfolk and killing what appears to be a divine snake. Closer examination shows traces of alterations made to the original decor and decyphering the few written texts on the walls of the sanctum indicates that the original temple was to Ydersius but Carnifex found it, killed the inhabitants and made them into undead as punishment. The PCs encounter the gibbering mouther and shudder at the pictures of what looks like really big gibbering mouthers fighting Ydersius as he is being decapitated. Most importantly, they find references to a city called Tazion, listed on the bragging text the Carnifex left behind ("We are mighty, we killed Ydersius and razed Saventh-yhi, as well as Tazion, Hiizo, and more, fear us, foolish mortals, etc." ). The city of Tazion was something the PCs came across in their research in the Thassilonian ruins. Not much information was there but it was listed as a 'key city' or 'finding city' or 'map city' - the details of serpentfolk language do not map perfectly to [s]English/Norwegian[/b] Alphatian. They think that between the notes they have from before and the new information they can find a way to Tazion. They return home to inform Arlynith, ignoring the rest of the island. Poor Phaendar was never able to mee the dryad who I would have allowed to be a summoned creature if they became friends with her.
As the twins were less than impressive in their handling of the castaway situation, Izzie was given charge of the group for this expedition. The twins are a bit resentful and while they worked hard so Izzie couldn't tattle to Mommy that they wer slacking off, they also tried to subtly influence Izzie to make mistakes so she looks incompetent. Ravi casts Compulsive Liar on Izzie just as she's off to make her report to Arly. "We just came back from Drachenflamme where we did nothing but laze about all day! We found nothing of interest. Honestly." She stutters and sees if writing helps, which it doesn't, then runs off to her room to cry. Arly sighs and gets on with her queening. Later when the spell has worn off Izzie comes back and makes a tearful apology and protestations that she doesn't know what was going on. Arly is displeased with Izzie and expects a 15 page essay on what she did wrong. Izzie tries to excuse herself by saying she didn't really mean those things she said. Arly increases the page count to 20. Arly is not displeased because Izzie was subject to the spell but that she failed to recognize the spell and failed to figure out ways to circumvent the effects. Izzie comes back with a 28 page essay and is immediately assigned another 10 pages, standing upright outside in the cold, on why one follows instructions precisely.
Research indictes that Tazion is somewhere on Skothar, though due to her flaw and a failed K. Geography roll, Ravi insists that it's actually in Davania. "It's obvious, she says. "Snakepeople are there, Thassilon was there, the only remnants of the Carnifex were there, and Blackmoor altered the axis of the planet so what they knew as the eastern continent is now the southern continent." The rest are not convinced. They spend most of the rest of the session trying to figure out where on Skothar, how to get there and how to proceed once there. Arly supplies them with a travel chest of 2000 gp (in Phaendar's care, much to his dismay) a ship and a guide that takes them around Esterhold, down Bellissaria and along the Minean Coast, to the Bay of Tangor and to Eleder. Contrary to all expectation and what some people suspect is a law of nature, the ship has a quiet, uneventful journey with no storms, shipwrecks or attacks by pirates, sea monsters or ghost ships.
Eleder is actually an Alphatian colony that is mostly independent of the motherland. Unlike previous colonization efforts in places like Norwold which died out, this colony has clung to life. It's official status is a bit murky. Eleder likes to pretend they are Alphatian, and have maintained much of the Alphatian language, culture and mindset, such as being a magiocracy and keeping slaves, but the crown in Sundsvall doesn't receive any taxes or reports, and will offer no aid in the case of attack. The PCs come ashore and are struck by the sense of former glory and decay. Lots of poor people, the smell of unfamiliar fruit (pineapples) and fish. They spend some time exploring pineapples, getting ripped off at the market and looking around town. The players expressed some sounds of disbelief at the description of the mostly white master race and the mostly dark-skinned native subjects. I'm going to play up this angle in hopes that the twins get the idea that slavery is bad and mommy should do something about it. They find the Baron's home and try to arrange a meeting. Since everyone but Izzie is intentionally dressing down - the twins are dressed as sailors but don't get the shabbiness and grime right (causing visions of red-head anime girls in sailor fuku), Phaendar is wrapped head to toe in thick swathes, and Tormod is normal. The guards tell them to find an inn and they will be sent for if the Baron Utilinius - forever after known as Baron Utility despite me being clear on the pronunciation and spelling it out in the Discord chat - desires. We end the session there. Little actual progress but lots of roleplaying, and that makes everyone happy.
In addition to other changes, Eleder is now set on a river instead of being 100 miles north of one with no other obvious signs of fresh water. The PCs can, if they want, take a river boat almost all the way instead of trekking cross country. It will cost more and take nearly as long but they will be able to bypass most of the encounters in RtR this way and it is far more comfortable.
| Phillip Gastone |
As the twins were less than impressive in their handling of the castaway situation, Izzie was given charge of the group for this expedition. The twins are a bit resentful and while they worked hard so Izzie couldn't tattle to Mommy that they wer slacking off, they also tried to subtly influence Izzie to make mistakes so she looks incompetent. Ravi casts Compulsive Liar on Izzie just as she's off to make her report to Arly. "We just came back from Drachenflamme where we did nothing but laze about all day! We found nothing of interest. Honestly." She stutters and sees if writing helps, which it doesn't, then runs off to her room to cry. Arly sighs and gets on with her queening. Later when the spell has worn off Izzie comes back and makes a tearful apology and protestations that she doesn't know what was going on. Arly is displeased with Izzie and expects a 15 page essay on what she did wrong. Izzie tries to excuse herself by saying she didn't really mean those things she said. Arly increases the page count to 20. Arly is not displeased because Izzie was subject to the spell but that she failed to recognize the spell and failed to figure out ways to circumvent the effects. Izzie comes back with a 28 page essay and is immediately assigned another 10 pages, standing upright outside in the cold, on why one follows instructions precisely.
And thus this is another reason Arly isn't Lawful Good.
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
The gang gets rooms at the local inn The Lord and Loyal Servant, a moderately decent place with a sign showing a caricatured pure Alphatian with a long mustache and an grossly overburdened henchman with a comically large nose. The next day they split up to look around town. The girls, still dressed in their almost entirely inaccurate 'sailor uniforms' go down to the roughest docks. The catcalls (from both sexes - we are following Golarion's lead of being egalitarian) are many and quite suggestive. They don't take a hint. They are met by a group of obviously unsavory types - smelly, unwashed, coarse in every sense of the word and follow them to what can only charitably be called a dive bar. The grime and filth, the smell of booze - raw, digested and half-digested - and the dangerous look of the clientele still doesn't convince the twins this is a bad idea. Despite some rather heavy hinting on my part that this is a Bad Idea, they persist. I ramp up the unpleasantness until they get the Idea. With a few minor spells and some good Diplomacy rolls, they escape with only a fair amount of groping. They run back to the inn and have a good bath.
Duncan and Phaendar look around for a library of some sort and find the Colonial Archives. They pay a scholar to research anything they have on ancient ruins. Izzie was busy doing something (player taking care of his kids) and Tormod wanders around town and meets a little local girl, Kibi. She's scrawny, wears clothes that are too big and little more than rags, and has a hard, jaded look. Kibi offers her services as a tout. "Do you know anything about any ruins?" Tormod asks. "Nope. Never been outta th' city." She suggests all manner of things to find out what the gang might be interested in, even weaseling some fresh dates from the market out of Tormod. Somehow Tormod finds herself guided to the main building of the Aspis Consortium. Kibi, unbeknownst to the players, is in the employ of the AC to find out about the recently arrived noble. Tormod slips the girl a whole gold piece and Kibi gawks at it for a brief moment before disappearing. Inside the AC main office, Tormod is subtly interrogated about the party's reasons for being in town and they are slightly disappointed to find out these are stupid young adventurers out to find ruins instead of potential trading partners. Still, the PCs are significantly richer than most you idiots off to find their fortune (and likely a messy death), so there is a chance the Consortium can make a profit. They offer to find out about local ruins for Tormod, a service they normally wouldn't provide.
When the PCs return to the inn they have message from Baron Utilinus inviting them to his house the next day. That evening as the gang is eating supper they observe a commotion in the common room: a group of adventurers is making life difficult for the landlord. The group consists of a middling height woman in silk robes and red hair, an elf with a silvery arm and a greatsword on her shoulder, a rakasta with a bow and what looks like a young slut. At the descriptions Othariel/Duncan/Phaendar's player starts looking a bit confused. Then one of the troublemakers opens her mouth: "Don't you know who I am? I'm Arlynith Dragenflame! How dare your lowly estblishment insult me in this manner!"
The biggest hint that these are impostors is the fact that there's barely a positive Charisma modifier in the group, never mind that the rakasta was the wrong species, the elf looked suspiciously manly and the slut's holy symbol was wrong.
The players find this incredibly amusing but the PCs can't let this attempt at besmirching the good name of their benefactors and/or parents go unchallenged. A brief confrontation ensues in which the impostors try to bluff and bluster their way through but the PCs do not give up. Various references to things the actual Arly & co. have done, an invisible Phaendar touching the elf's arm and exclaiming "It's not silver, it's just flesh", and an Intimidate roll of 30 along with "I wonder what Queen Arlynith would say to your stealing her name" sends the impostors out the door with their tails between their legs.
The next day the party in their finest clothes (and we keep having to remind Izzie's player that she's wearing a courtier's outfit, not a courtesan's) meet up with the Baron. He is middle of the road in pretty much every respect. Middle-aged, midling ability, midling attractive and of midling interest. His Alphatian is very careful and very archaic, the local nobles having been very careful to retain exact pronounciation of their mother tongue in the colonies over the past centuries - unlike the almost creole-ized Alphatian spoken in the rest of the city. His house is in need of some renovation. It isn't falling apart but it is showing its age and the shine is gone. The interior is full of minor magis, like Continual flames in various colors and shapes, permanent Invisible Servants to take care of clothing and doors that automatically open and close with a loud K'TSHHHHH noise. Once the PCs let slip they are Arlynith's children and students, the Baron invites them to dinner and gives them the use of his house for the rest of the day. The twins and Izzie peruse the library while Duncan and Phanedar and Tormod head back to the Colonial Archives and the Aspis Consortium to see if there are any results. The Archives have some records of local ruins but they are almost certainly not old enough to be of interest to the PCs. The Aspis Consortium has similar results for Tormod.
Dinner is a tedious affair despite the fancy table with a complicated Whispering Wind effect so people can easily communicate with everyone else at the table without having to shout or interrupt other conversations. The food is decent - Alphatian wines and meat rather than the fish and pineapple and dates that dominate the local cuisine - but the company is less so. The boring Baron; the snooty and racist Lady Madrona with her tiresome remarks about adventurers; the dull and dreary Praetor Egorius who looks almost precisely like a Victorian British officer complete with mutton-chops and impressive mustache and likes to drone on about his time in the Guard, which amounted to little more than bullying of the natives (Blackadder jokes were made). The only interesting character is Commander Arodatus, who is an old elf and gives off the kind of calm assurance and confidence the party has only seen in Arly & co. The elf is also bored though polite enough to not make a scene of it. When engaged in conversation she reveals she was part of the initial colonization attempt, and readily if not eagerly tells of her struggles 'civilizing' the natives and putting down revolts and killing off the 'army' of treants and elementals the local witch doctors sent at the town. "Treants?!" Phaendar exclaims loudly, having ignored all other conversation so far. This makes things slightly awkward, and Phaendar, oblivious to the disturbance, asks about the treants. Arodatus tells the story of how she killed a bunch of them, leaving Phaendar crestfallen and his llusions shattered - it seems not all elves are particularly nice. The only real issue of contention is when, upon hearing the PCs reasons for being here (fieldwork), Lady Madrona claims that all adventurers are idiots and should be ashamed of themselves and raising children in that manner. Kat mentions that her mother, a queen and in good graces with the Empress, is a noted adventurer and would the lady like to amend her statement. Madrona doesn't take a hint but the baron manages to smooth things over, everyone but Arodatus breathing a sigh of relief. Dinner finishes without any more incidents.
The next day the party split up again to prepare for the trip. The twins head down to the docks again, to another ratty bar, and start a drinking game. Duncan/Phaendar's player, the only woman in the group, literally cringes at the stupidity and spells out exactly what the people in that place have in mind and will do if given half a chance. The twins' player intentionally plays them as naive, doing stuff that is obviously a Bad Idea, but this is going too far. Rape is one of those things I generally avoid inflicting on PCs but in this case they are asking for it. The twins also lack non-lethal options to get out of trouble. A desperate use of a scroll of Deep Slumber and a few disctracting lights and I allow them to escape; I didn't want half the city blown up when a vengeful Arlynith comes around.
Kibi finds Tormod again and asks if she can find her some more stuff. Tormod entirely misses the opportunity to ask Kibi for adventuring supplies but does ask for a guide up-river. She thinks the Aspis can provide such a thing, but Kibi, who has no reason to like the Consortium and can probably get more money out of Tormod, recommends the crazy hermit Nkechi. Tormod notices the old bruises on the girl and asks about them. She shrugs and says 'it happens'. Tormod asks what Kibi wants if she could have it; "big house, lotsa slaves and lotsa food". Tormod then offers to do 'adventurer stuff' to those who gave Kibi the bruises. Kibi shrugs and says "that's life". Tormod then offers to take Kibi along with the gang, telling her about what adventurers do. Kibi looks at her in disbelief and says "I'm not stupid! That's dangerous!" Without noticing it Kibi has lead Tormod to the edge of town and points out the cliff where Nkechi lives. Tormod tips Kibi another gp, gathers Duncan and Phaendar and head out. They circumvent the giant crabs and Nkechi receives them. He tells the PCs to go pearl diving. Aboleth Lung makes it easy to stay under, so they find the black pearl they are supposed to with a minimum of effort - only a few bruises and cuts from the coral. This exhausts most of Duncan's spells for the day. Then Nkechi sends them off to find the ercinee feather. Using his last decent spell, a Levitate, the PCs make their way to the top of the cliff and find the giant nest. They start rooting around for a feather and attract attention of the stormbird. Duncan and Tormod make their Knowledge Arcana rolls to identify the ercinee and run, but Phanedar tries to talk to the bird and fails his Diplomacy roll. He retreats, and the plan is to come back the next day with the rest of the party and try to talk to the bird.
No combat or much by the way of planning this session, only roleplaying. I had hoped the PCs would be on their way by now but that will have to be next session. I had thought that the boat the PCs took here was going to turn around but apparently Arly had given it to the PCs for the entire adventure, so they don't have to trek over land quite so muchor hire a riverboat/barge to take them upstream. That will make things easier on their money-pouches. Going by river will allow them to bypass most of the encounters on the way, and since we do milestone levelling we won't need to spend ages in combat to harvest necessary xp. I might want to add the spirit dancer encounter, but the rest is pretty easily ignored. Maybe, just maybe, we can finish this book next time.
The PCs left the Smuggler's Shiv without encountering the drayd, whom I had hoped Phaendar could make friends with and use as a summoned creature. I'm hoping the PCs can manage to get the ercinee friendly so he could have that as a summon.
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
The session starts with the twins' player trying to convince me that the Breeze cantrip can move a ship and not accepting my word that a) the Gentle Breeze spell that was published in an official source is better than the version from a blog post, and b) no 1st level spell, let alone a cantrip, is going move a whole ship, and c) I was too tired and in too much pain to bother thinking about this right then. It took many tries to get him to shut up.
Duncan, Phaendar and Alex retreat from the ercinee's nest to find the others. By the time they make it back to the city, find the others, and get back to the cliff it's late evening. They decide to press on, spending the extra hours going around the back of the small island and climbing up that instead of using their last Levitate to get one person up. They all agree to get the feather and leave without harming the bird. Phanedar becomes invisible and creeps stealthily towards the bird, which seems to be sleeping. He manages to get into the nest unnoticed and pulls a feather from the ercinee's wing. Needless to say the bird wakes up and is less than pleased, and bites Phaendar for more than half of his hit points. The others try to distract the bird with loud noises. Phanedar becomes invisible and runs, so the ercinee targets the rest of the party. The twins instantly forget the whole 'try to avoid hurting it' thing and start blasting with Admonishing Ray and Magic Missile, while Alex creates a Ghost Sound of predators in the nest. All this combines to get the PCs clean away with a feather. Nkechi is less than pleased that they had to resort to violence to get away with the feather, but is somewhat mollified that the bird is not killed. He agrees to be the PCs' guide to Tazion.
They come back to town in the wee hours of the morning and annoy their innkeeper by banging on the door and demanding to be let in. Later that day they are sought out by a member of the Aspis Consortium who, having learned of the PCs' identity and purpose in town, proposes to help fund the expedition in return for a 'fair' share of the profits. The PCs try to haggle him down but stagnate at 60-40 in the Consortium's favor. The PCs reject this final offer and hurry to get their ship supplied and off. The captain of their ship balks at Izi's demand that they have everything bought, stowed and ready to go at 5 in the morning the next day. Cue way too much time spend on figuring out how long they will be gone, how much food they need and what this will cost, Izi's countless mentions of the fact that the crew will need grog, the twins wasting most of their personal allowance on fancy food for the voyage, and trying to find out how fast a longship will travel upstream. I try telling them that we'll just handwave it if they use up most of their travel funds, but this takes a couple of attempts to get across.
The trip itself is uneventful. I had determined early on that if they wanted to use a boat and pay for the food and all, they would avoid the encounters ther module has between Eleder and Tazion. Which is fine by everyone because the encounters don't really add to the story, would take too long to play to be worth it (several sessions at least) and we do have a lot more to do before the original PCs reach Immortality. The most eventful thing on the journey is Izi's continual attemtps to learn more about how a ship is run by pestering the crew with questions, getting in the way of their work and generally driving people around the bend until the captain asks twins to tell their friend to stop being a pain in the arse.
At the appropriate place the PCs leave the boat, send it back downstream with what little food remains, and set off to Tazion, guided by Nkechi. We end the session with the PCs outside the city, somewhat concerned by the fact that the supposedly abandoned city appears to have rather new walls. We ended the session nearly an hour early because it was a good place to do so and because I was not feeling terribly good.
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
Addendum: Tired as I am because of basically no sleep last night, I forgot to mention the attack of crazy cultists the last night in town. As they were heading back to the inn the PCs were set upon by half a dozen people in hoods resembøling serpent's maws, with a red band around their throats. I had a cat on my lap at the time and running the encounter would be very difficult, so I just cut-scened it. It didn't really matter much because the snake cultists were all 1st level. I just wanted to have a little more connection to serpentfolk and all instead of the freedomfighter/factional theme the AP had going for the encounter in Eleder.
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
Standing outside the walls of Tazion, the PCs are slightly concerned. Their guide, Nkechi, told them the place was abandoned when he was there 'some years ago'. The new wall, thouh only a couple meters tall and crudely made, shows someone lives here. A circumference of the wall shows no obvious points of entry, so the PCs climb over. They soon come across a field of fruit on the outskirts of the ruins that show recent excavation. Sharp eyes and ears mean they are not surprised by the trio of charau-ka that come to challenge the intruders. Izzie curtsies and bows and tries to talk to them over their loud shrieking and capering. Ravi fails her Knowledge roll to identify and, thanks to her Flaw, confidently states that these are demon ape-men from the Abyss and should be destroyed. Duncan and Izzie are pretty sure these are just normal mundane ape-folks. The twins respond with their own intimidating display and Alex starts casting Sleep. The ape-folk reply with rocks to the face, disrupting Alex's spell and bloodying Duncan's nose. Izzie tries some more curtseies, to no avail. The gang handles the apes easily enough - a few Magic Missiles and Duncan hitting them hard with his staff (he does more damage with that than spells), letting one survivor get away.
This proves to be a problem for the PCs. I had already determined that the shrieking of the patrol would draw more charau-ka to the area at certain intervals, which would have been in smaller groups. As it was the survivor met the others, gathered everyone but the girallon and its handlers, and headed back to find the party. The group sneaks up on the PCs, failing to take them by surprise only thanks to Duncan's owl familiar, Willow. Duncan had cast Protection from Arrows after the first encounter and lead the way, which saved his bacon when 25 charau-ka haste themselves and pelt him with stones. The babboon-men keep their distance and fling rocks, and the PCs sling Magic Missiles at the obvious boss hiding behind the rest. After two rounds of Duncan ignoring all damage, Raogru (sp?) commands the other charau-ka to focus on the women (and elf), and charges ahead, hoping to get the PCs in a Sound Burst and some channels. Duncan rushes to meet and misses, taking a nasty crit in return. Cath is reduced to negatives in the first volley, which prompts her sister to abandon her and retreat behind the other PCs; isn't sibling love wonderful? Maybe Ravi hopes to inherit Drachenflamme if her sister doesn't make it...
The rest of the combat is taxing. Duncan goes down and both he and Cath are revived and reduced a couple of times before it's all over. The constant flow of Magic Missiles and the faun summoned by Phaendar (DR 2 helps a lot at this level) reduce the charau-ka numbers enough to send some of them fleeing to a failed morale check and the rest die. Fortunately for the PCs, they all have quite decent Armor Classes, thanks to Mage Armor, Sihedron Rings and stat boosters, which prevented much of the potential damage from the hail of rocks. The PCs have four rounds before the girallon and it's handlers appear. Ostensibly this is because the girallon took a few minutes to rouse and move towards the PCs. The real reason is I forgot about it when planning the collective encounter. THe PCs avoid a lot of nasty stuff because I forget things. Also luckily for them, Phaendar manages to summon another faun to hold its attention while the level 9 Magic Missile wands Arly gave the party run hot. Issilar had been observing everything from a safe distance and beats a hasty retreat when the charau-ka flee.
The PCs then investigate the rest of the ruins, find the ziggurat and explore it, looting it and finding out how to make the magic map work. They raid the stores of food the charau-ka left behind and leave, heading towards Saventh-yhi, which is surprisingly close now.
As usual I changed a few things. I cleared out the rest of the threats in Tazion because it makes little sense to have dangerous predators hanging around in your home, and the charau-ka were definitely tough enough to clear out the rest of the things. I also don't like the default dungeon assumption that enemies just stay in their little rooms until PCs enter their line of sight. Issilar is from the (Third) Serpentine Empire on Davania (where Xanderghul and Krune returned and tried to take over, as well as the site of Emperor' Xin's tomb) and is an associate of Yarzoth in this version, not an exile from Saventh-yhi. After the Smuggler's Shiv, Yarzoth returned to her empire and with almost appaling haste for snakefolk put together an expedition to Tazion knowing they would have to work fast to beat the mammals to the prize. Issilar was part of the expedition and stayed behind in Tazion after the rest moved on to Saventh-yhi, to see if the baboon-men could be useful pawns in killing the PCs, who the serpentfolk assumed would make their way here sooner or later. Like Yarzoth he doesn't want to get directly involved with the PCs in case Arly decides to get involved as well. He will hurry to Saventh-yhi and try to warn the others in his expedition that the PCs are coming.
The session was fun, despite being pretty much non-stop action. Arly's player has had a lot of fun with Ravis' flaw of getting wrong information on failed Knowledge rolls. The fact that charau-ka are canonically in Golarion made from a demon and speak Abyssal sparked much mirth. The PCs are now 5th level, two levels behind the 7 they should be for the start of the next book.
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
The PCs, with a little OOC metagaming encouragement, ask Nkechi if he wishes to continue on their journey to Saventh-Yhi. I said he wouldn't be a combatant if he could help it, but that as a druid of at least equal level of the PCs could be useful for tracking, pathfinding, and minor divne support. I had to encourage them to make a choice that wasn't "you decide", mostly since I hadn't fully figured out why he wants to join them on this journey. Some wanderlust, certainly, but other than that I couldn't really give any good reason he would turn around and trek home the thousand or so miles alone, nor any really good reason he'd want to follow the PCs into almost certain peril. So the players decided. Nkechi comes along for the ride.
The trip to Saventh-Yhi is mostly uneventful. The punishing near-tropical rain at the start was an inauspicious start. A couple days later Nkechi remarks that there are people ahead of the PCs, by a couple of days. They seemed to be human, or near human, except he found one mark of a large, scaled tail. Soon after this the party notices they are being followed. The jungle is thick, dense and loud, so the followers could get quite close unnoticed. The PCs quickly set up an ambush in case the pursuers are hostile. Sharp-eared Duncan and his sharp-eyed familiar Willow notice a pursuer stop just a little ways away and retreat - it seems their ambush was noticed. Izzie then breaks cover to go try to talk to them. The dense jungle masks her approach so she gets quite close without being noticed. She spies a handful of people a little ahead of her and calls out "Hi" instead of her (and her player's) regular "greetings" just as an arrow bounces off her Mage Armor. She responds with a Fireball in the direction of the arrow. The other PCs hear "Hi" immediately followed by a Fireball but don't hear the arrow, causing them to wonder if Izzie habitually greets strangers with damage spells. The fight that follows is a stomp for the PCs. The jungle is hampered terrain meaning the melee focused enemies can't close with the PCs before they are downed, and I rolled only a single hit this encounter, so the purusers go down hard. Ravi took one alive for interrogation.
A Nat 20 on Intimidate makes even the big brawny orc piss his pants (literally) and spill the beans (figuratively). The pursuers were cultists of Ydersius - mostly locals who felt powerless in the face of the Alphatian dominance in Eleder - and they were contacted by a "messenger from the god: Issilar" and ordered to kill the PCs. The PCs strip the orc of his belongings and leave him for the jungle. Fanatical religious nut as he is, the Intimidate is going to wear off and he initially promised to leave the the PCs alone, but secretly wanted to follow and kill them later. He failed due to sucky Survival and Stealth, and is just one more nameless casualty of the vast jungles of Skothar. The rest of the trip to the lost city is cut scened - punishing climbs through rocky terrain, maddening geography that is hard to navigate, and many false turns. The quickly get the feeling that there is some force trying to mislead them because the map indicates they should be heading back the way they thought they came instead of forward. Eventually they start walking along a river, through what appears to be a desolate, immensely craggy and blasted valley and suddenly find themselves overlooking a lush green valley with a large city at the bottom. This is just at sundown so they camp for the night.
The next day they move down the valley. A little outside the city proper they cast an extended Invisibility on Willow and send her flying over the city to scout things out. She returns with news of several groups of creatures living here, including lizardfolk, troglodytes, ape-folk, frog-folk, and 'green gnomes'. Izzie and Phaendar, the two with Rings of Invisibility, decide to move into the city for some more detailed scouting. They head towards the charu-ka's sector. On the way they notice something interesting about the architecture. The outermost parts of the city are made of smooth, sandy stone, with no angles or edges, and decorated with coiling, spiraling motifs. Abruptly the style changes to dark red and green stone with sharp angles, and buildings and streets with triangular (and multiples of triangles) bases rather than the generally rectangular bases humans and their ilk prefer. They follow a couple of charau-ka, trying to get a feeling for what they are up to but soon give it up so they don't get too far into enemy territory without the rest. Then they go to investigate the bridges in the lake leading to the central district. They really notice how a big, empty city that has supposedly been here many thousands of years, is in surprisingly good repair, with only minimal damage and jungle enroachment. Here we call it a night.
Unexpectedly, everyone was on just a little after nominal starting time, which is quite unusual. Expectedly, levelling up was not finished by the time the game started so we wasted nearly an hour there. I really would like my players to be done before the game starts but after all these years I've pretty much given up. The worst offender in this regard does have two small children and a busy job, so I don't get too upset. Worse was the fact that they wasted over half an hour divvying the little loot from Tazion. Duncan/Phanedar/Othariel's player asked several times what people wanted and basically got cricket noises in response.
I'm rather annoyed at the small size of Saventh-Yhi, which is smaller than my insignificant home town, and seriously too small to be mostly empty with small groups of inhabitants. Also, no sign of agriculture in the surrounding area, leaving me wondering how the authors intended the inhbitants to eat. I've already answered that in my personal notes, but I'm seriously considering upgrading the scale of the city. Lastly, the AP as written has too little involvement from snakefolk from the beginning. Yarzoth is preseumed dead after book 1, and the next one is at the end of book 2 and is an exile form SY, with no connection to the former. I have remedied this in that Yarzoth got away and back to her people on Davania, told them of her findings and got an expedition going with Vyr-Azul as the leader, with Yarzoth and Issilar along for the ride. The Davanian serpentfolk reach SY a little ahead of the PCs and immediately try to make contact with the local serpentfolk.
The APs whole multiple factions coming to the city at once and trying to compete with each other and the locals thing is out the window. Now there are two groups, and the PCs are playing catch-up since the serpentfolk know what they are looking for but the PCs don't.
Anyway, next session is in the new year. This gives me plenty of time to do nothing until last minute.
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
Phaendar and Izzie move towards the bridge in the north section of the city (which is suddenly many times larger than it used to be - the map is now more a rough impression than an accurate representation). They see two other bridges, one of which, like the one they are currently at, is broken and one which seems to be whole. They stand on the edge of the bridge for some time observing the little island in the lake. They notice movement on the island and suspect the creatures they see are serpentfolk. The two decide to return to the others and report their findings. The entire group then decides to head to the big ziggurat in the northwest part of town. The manage to avoid any random encounters and make it to the ziggurat. They start by climbing to the top and examining the pillar, which radiates strong Transmutation magic and upon identification has two effects. One is a city-wide buff, the other is something telekinetic. They look for a way in and Duncan's familiar lets them know of a big hole around the side.
They go to it and look down and get a strong whiff of big animal and animal droppings. I mention that it smells of saltpeter. They group still decides to go into the water. A Fortitude save and some Swim checks later and Duncan Enlarges and grabs hold of Alexandra to keep her from drowning in the sewage. One of the twins - the rest of the party can't tell who - casts Tenser's Floating Disc and gets on it (thanks to Magic Trick) and bobs along in the liquid. They meet the giant bat and handily defeat it - thanks to Alexandra's Blinding Ray preventing it from hitting the first round. A ton of Burning Hands and Magic Missiles do the trick.
After defeating the bat they explore the rest of the cave and find more of the pillar but no obvious indication that the ziggurat is hollow. They leave and head towards another ziggurat they see further south. They cut through the jungle near the little 'river' and since they are in the jungle and have sharp eyes, they avoid the dire crocodile (which Ravi insists is a demon from the Abyss rather than a normal animal). They do not escape the notice of the chimerae in the half-sunken watch tower and the two lesser charge out to eat the PCs. The PCs spot them, roll well on their initiative scores, and start Fireballing. The poor chimerae are down 1/3 of their hp by the time they manage to charge in, and on their next turn, one is dead and the other turns to flee and is struck down by Duncan from an AoO. The greater chimera watch this happen and decided that it would just stay hidden. The PCs don't bother to try to loot the chimera's lair. They come down the riverbank and spot a shining statue, depicting a Carnifex holding the disembodied head of a giant snake, standing on its corpse. The statue is surrounded by a ton of snakes of all kinds. They are mostly docile but the PCs decide discretion is the better part of valor and don't try to step among them. Another TFD ride brings one of the twins (the other PCs can't tell which) to the statue, which seems to be made of solid gold and has some powerful protective magic on it. They spy some lizardfolk in the city and the lizardfolk spy them. The PCs return to Nkechi and their camp north of the city. That night they dream strange dreams. Ydersius' psyche still tells the story of his emancipation of some of his people, his journey to a distant land where they can rule rather than serve, his ascenion, and his fight against the Carnifex and their Outer Being' allies and finally his fall. Each PC only dreams a randomly chosen fraciton of the this story.
We end the session there. Alex's player and I were rather tired, one of the players had been playing single dad to his two little girls and so was gone much of the time, and puppy, though she has gotten much better now that she is nearly grown, still demands walkies half-way through the session. I was surprised at how little exploring of the city the PCs wished to do. At this rate they will get very little treasure. As we've already established they are not only well above WBL but probably have more wealth than the AP gives in its entirety, but having enough has never stopped people wanting more.
This was the first session of 2022, and marks the 10th anniversary of the start of the campaign. Ranya, Arlynith and Othariel have been with us from the start, but Tomokato had several predecessors. We've had a few breaks where we've played other games over the years and actual time is probably more like 8-8.5 years. Still, ten years is noteworthy, and I'm truly thankful for my awesome players and their patience with me.
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
During the night all the PCs, including the ones on watch, had strange dreams. They dreamed of being serpentfolk, doing various things such as serving the Carnifex, leading serpentfolk away from Carnifex lands to a place where they can be free, and killing Carnifex and their servitors. Upon waking they shared the experience with the others. Ravi, unlike the rest, dreamed of being a Carnifex master, having torn off the head of the betrayer-god, casting the body and the city he built into a vast hole in the ground. She merely said she dreamed of being a Carnifex and didn't think it either strange or worth going into the details. This is seen as a bit suspicious by everyone but her sister.
Last session the PCs spied the humans lizardfolk in the southwest portion of the city and were in turn spotted by the locals, and returned to their camp up north with the intent of going back the next day. Unusually for me, I had actually prepared a fair amount for what was going to occur in that district. This session they decided to go through the charau-ka territory instead, which meant scrambling and winging it as usual. Sometimes my players annoy me. One of the major issues of running Saventh-Yhi is that you have a map with interesting features and basically none of it listed in the description of the module. Since I gave my players a copy of the city so they can have some idea what it looks like and we can communicate clearly where they want to go, it means I have to come up with ideas for a bunch of the things on the fly. Good practice but it throws me off a bit when they suddenly detour and ask about something while I'm in the middle of getting them to their original destination. This time they found something that I determined was a big ramp up to a giant pedestal with statues of Carnifex in various poses of murdering serpentfolk. Big, impressive, and put the PCs square in the sights of the charau-ka fortress just a couple hundred meters away. This was all after they had assured me they were trying to be a bit stealthy.
The PCs continue their trek into CK territory and almost immediately meet a couple of gibbering mouthers. Since the GMs are slow and the PCs have Willow the owl to scout ahead, little takes them by surprise and they can prepare. Duncan puts in earplugs, Ravi does not have earplugs but pulls out a pineapple and starts tearing it apart to stuff bits in her ears. Alexandra uses her fingers and the rest don't care. The twins fail their saves against the babble but other than a Magic Missile in Kath's back, nothing comes of it. The Lovecraftian abominations chomp on Duncan a little but ultimately they are defeated with little trouble. Ravi concludes that pineapple doesn't make good earplugs as she fends off wasps trying to crawl into her ears and eat the stuff within.
The PCs continue on and soon run into a patrol of charau-ka. Izzie starts the encounter by Fireballing them, killing four of six. The other two die before their first turn. I had expected the PCs to at least try to talk to them because they usually do, but this time there would be none of that. So much for trying to get through the district peacefully. Since the charau-ka fortress is not far off, the PCs soon hear sounds of a big gate being opened and soon after they hear a large group of creatures coming towards them, starting silent but war cries gradually increasing in volume. The PCs think the best thing to do now is to cast Invisibility and run full tilt through the town towards the ziggurat that dominates the district. They run through the big open plaza and see it's full of charau-ka and girallons who know something is afoot, then get to the ziggurat just as Invisibility expires. The ziggurat has two CKs on guard who don't see the PCs yet. The PCs start things off by casting two Fireballs. These CKs are tougher than the last bunch and survive, but run off. The PCs run up the steps and are confronted by a giant scorpion that comes around a corner. It deals minimal damage before being killed, but the same cannot be said for the giant ape that shows up next round. High AC means unlucky Izzie is only struck twice over two rounds but that still hurts a 5th level Wizard. Soon the charau-ka guards appear and throw axes at Kat, whose AC while good (27) still can't stop a double 20 and so nearly goes down. The charau-ka cleric appears when he casts Unholy Blight on the party. Duncan and Phaendar are concerned at how little it affects the twins. Alexandra puts a Haunting Mists on the dire ape and the charau-ka guards and everyone fails their saves, and Ravi gets off a Fireball on the CKs, downing one and hurting all but the cleric. The cleric, out of good ranged spells, moves down through the mist to channel on his next turn.
We have to end the session there because combat always takes long with this group, especially the twins' player whose turns tend to be filled with a lot of hemming and hawing and "should I.....but what if I......maybe another spell would be better...." and long pauses. We've played together for 20 years or so and it doesn't get less irritating. Still, I shouldn't complain too much since I'm probably only slightly less time consuming than he, and not all of that is due to the fact that I'm the GM. Next time, finishing this combat and me just having to imagine the looks of panic on the players' faces when they realize a hundred charau-kas, some girallons, and their boss are charging straight at them.
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
The PCs take out the group they are fighting with fairly easily, grateful that the charau-ka cleric only got off a single channel. They notice the big horde of 100+ charau-kas, with a few dire apes and girallon charging straight towards them. Despite the fact that Izzie is nominally in charge of the mission, the twins have ignored this and decided what to do, and Izzie has made no attempt to step up to the role. It was the twins who decided that the best thing to do when they spotted large horde of dangerous opponents was to charge into the heart of their territory, the twins who decided to attack the guards at the ziggurat, and the twins who now decide that the best thing to do is retreat behind the Haunting Mists and wait for the charau-ka horde to reach them. Granted, the PCs were rather lucky with the horde being so piled up on each other, so their Fireballs takes out ca. 60 of the ape people. Overconfidence is a recurring theme it seems, and the PCs stand their ground waiting for the large apefolk to arrive. Good gear prevents the PCs from taking too much damage since most of the attacks directed against them miss, but Olujimi's Spell Resistance poses a problem for the PCs, as does his ability to see invisible.
In spite of some OK tactics and useful spells, the PCs are on the ropes and all it takes to make the realize this is one girallon getting in a few attacks on Alex and rending her to pieces. The PCs realize they are doomed if they stay here and teleport home. Arlynith is less than pleased to see one of her students dead and ruthlessly grills the party. Izzie is demoted and her library card withdrawn for failing to show any leadership at all, and the twins are also punished for not assuming command and screwing up like this. Arly pays for the Raise Dead of Izzie and expects the Restorations to come out of Izzie's pocket. Since the PCs haven't bothered to explore at all and only looted a few folks on the way to Saventh-yhi, she doesn't have a lot. Leadership is now passed to Duncan (Phaendar is so obviously unsuited that even Arlynith noticed). Everyone levels to 6th, and we end there.
Combat takes a long time in our group, so we didn't get anything else done, especially with people coming late and Alex's player forgetting all about game night because of his having a visitor. Now I have plenty of time to prepare for next session but covid has me feeling rather lethargic so we'll see how much I can get done.
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
Queen Arlynith is really beginning to wonder if her students are worthy of that position. This is the second time in a couple of months they've come home tails between their legs. Extra lessons all around, and as well as having no library privilages and paying for Alex's Restorations, Izzie has to craft two scrolls for Alex. She is told to make them useful, with no other instructions than that. Part of the test is for Izzie to know her companions well enough to know what is good for any individual. She makes a scroll of Air Bubble and one of ...Levitate, IIRC.
Five days later the teleport staves are recharged and the group heads back to Saventh-Yhi. Now it's Duncan's time to lead. He is deliberate, unlike the flighty twins, and actually leads, unlike Izzie. He turns the crew back to the Merchant District and wants to thoroughly investigate it before heading to a new district. The party spends a couple of days exploring old houses, chasing out or avoiding masses of snakes and the occasional gibbering mouther, and finding the old city vaults, now full of undead shadows. The shadows, despite getting the drop on half the group, roll poorly and cannot hit the PCs, and go down hard without draining a single point of Strength. Since we got started late, spent a long time levelling from last time (choosing spells takes forever) and half the group just sat around doing nothing, that was it for the session, as well as breaks for taking care of kids and puppies.
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
Queen Arlynith is doing some paperwork. It is quite incredible, she muses as she scans yet another report of undead activity in a remote village, how long the effects of certain events take to fade away. A hesitant knock at her door breaks her already flimsy concentration.
"Come!"
A subdued face peaks in, and a slave - she can't remeber his name without effort - peeks in. "Um, your daughters are back, m'lady..."
Arlynith rushes to the main room where they showed up the last two times. Ravi is down and badly burned, a sensation Arly barely remembers. Cath who slightly less burned is busy pumping Cure Light Wounds into her, and Alex, also burned, stands aside and tries to look her proper gnome size rather than the human she always claims to be. Once Arly has made sure Ravi is alive and recovering, she looks at Cath. "Where is the other half of your party?", she asks, her calm voice not betraying the fear she had at the thought of something happening to her kids.
"Well, you see," Cath begins.
A couple hours earlier:
Under Duncan's leadership they decide to try infiltrating the district of the charau-ka again. This time they try to do it with a bit more stealth and a bit less running blindly to the center of things and getting surrounded. A sharp-eyed Willow is invaluable in scouting ahead, so long as no one thinks to connect her with the party, and they manage to avoid being spotted by the ape-folk. Their good luck lasts until they make it down to the water-front, just south of the charau-ka fortress, and look across to the island. They see a bridge from the island to the charau-ka district and see it has a large barricade across it, and serpentfolk and charau-ka lookouts at either end. At this point they are noticed and the charau-ka start screaming, eliciting responding screams from the fortress. The PCs high tail it back to the district they've previously explored and hide. Some time later and no signs of pursuit, and Duncan decides today would be a good day to head south west to the district where they saw lizardfolk a week ago. They move down carefully through the jungle, avoiding most of the ubiquitous snakes in the area and smacking the few that they can't avoid, and get to the Artisan district. They spot something hidden in a cave in the large pit in the middle of the district and decide not to go and investigate. Instead they head to the edge of the district which, like the rest of the city, has ruined serpentfolk architecture at the edge and mostly intact Carnifex architecture in the rest of the area. They go through a few houses finding little of interest other than the rotting remains of furniture (if that). The largest and most interesting building on the outskirts is a big tower/keep.
The PCs go to it and find it closed, and the windows little more than arrow slits. Still, Duncan (whose choice to invest in Perception has been almost ridiculously successful) notes some sounds which indicate something inside is peering at them through one of the slits. He sends Willow up to get a look and the poor owl gives off a cartoonish squawk and feathers puff out as she freezes up and falls to the ground. Using Tongues the PCs announce their presence and desire to talk. They hear something move away from the window and they stand around for nearly a minute before they hear someone come to the door. The door opens and the PCs crowd around and are met with a terrible sight. Fortunately, only Alex fails her Will save against the mummy's frightful presence. Also luckily, the sight of the mummy kicks in before the ghast stench - otherwise at least half the party would have been paralyzed. Many fail their saves to Sozothala's Waves of Fatigue. The mummy hits Ravi for 18 hp, a sizeable chunk of her total, but the ghasts that can reach her fail. Thanks to the PCs crowding the entrance the rest of the undead (total of one mummy, four wights, eight ghasts, one ghast necromancer, all lizardfolk apart from the necromancer) inside can't reach them. Izzie starts off with a Fireball, followed by another from Cath, and only the serpentfolk ghast necromancer remains standing. With Shield the ghast is immune to Magic Missiles from Phaendar, and he responds with a Lightning Bolt which fells Izzie and Phaendar. I had initially rolled one too many damage dice, the result of which would have killed Phaendar. Fortunately I caught it and rerolled so he was only mostly dead. Duncan tries to dispel the Shield but fails. Cath casts Call Stone to hopefully hinder the ghast from advancing, and Ravi heals Phaendar.
A Wall of Fire from the necromancer catches three of the PCs full on and traps two more between it and the keep. Phaendar goes down again, as does Ravi. The PCs realize this is a bad match and Alex, finally able to move again, dumps a Haunting Mists on top of the ghast in hopes that that will buy them some time. It buys them exactly one round, but that is enough to pull the two fallen out of the flames. A poor roll from Sozothala means he misses when trying to Vampiric Touch Cath. The twin still standing grabs her sister's staff, reaches out to Alex and gets the three of them home. Duncan takes the other three people and returns to their campsite.
Arly gets her daughters to describe the area carefully and Greater Teleports to it with Cath. She sees a Wall of Fire but no sign of the other students. Trace Teleport leads her to the camp. She retrieves the rest of the students, teleports them back to Sozothala and the PCs are witness to how Arly takes care of things when she's not messing around. Sozothala has exactly as much chance against Arly as you'd expect from a single 9th level wizard with suboptimal spell choice - everyone is surprised it takes two rounds. The PCs are then taken home. Again.
That was it for the evening. I had hoped to have some more actual roleplaying because the lizardfolk replacing the adventures original Azlanti are perfectly willing to talk. Technically the adventure says that Soz shouldn't be in that place until the end if the exploration of the city, but it made sense to have him here at this point in my game. The session was delayed by the normal things: kids, Covid-19 (one player and his family got it agains this year), and playful ex-puppies. Will Duncan remain in charge or will it be Alex's turn? Will Arly allow them to return (probably, if she wants to achieve Immortality)? Will we finally be able to get on with this?
Tune in next session.
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
Yesterday was, as I feared, yet another session where very little happened. People coming late and getting distracted by kids of both the hairy and non-hairy varieties, taking way too long to decide what to do and then getting to it, and more.
After having killed Sozothla, Arly took the rest of the party home without bothering to look into his lair. At home the staves are recharged and the group is subjected to more teaching. This time around we roleplay some teaching stuff, partially because Arly's player is studying to become a teacher and is eager to put some of the theory into practice. The group is asked what they liked and disliked about the leadership shown so far, what they feel leaderhip means, and the difference between leading and following. Then Phaendar is put in charge, nearly giving the poor elf a heart attack. Since Arly now knows where Saventh-yhi is, she plays taxi instead of having the staves spend charges, and the PCs once again set out. Nkechi is tired of sticking around in the outskirts of the city for a couple of days and then returning home for a week or more, and decides to leave. Phanedar suggests they leave the city alone and just explore the rest of the valley. This is shot down and he desperately looks around for advice. He doesn't like leadership so he immediately turns the group into a democracy. "After all," he reasons," Arly and her group never had a leader, so why should we?"
It is decided that they will pick up where they left off last time: trying to contact the lizardfolk natives (who replace the remnant Azlanti tribe). The lizardfolk are rather surprised at the appearance of the PCs, both their existence and how they look. Since the PCs come openly and ask permission to cross the little river to the lizardfolk, they are cautious but peaceful. There is a little confusion among the lizardfolk as the party identifies as human (including the gnome), elf, and Alphatian (nationality and ethnicity rather than a race, though human they are not from this planet or plane), and the party soon make some interesting discoveries. 1. The lizardfolk have no concept of food or eating. 2. They claim to be the descendants of the Carnifex. After having surreptitiously made sure the lizardfolk aren't undead, the PCs correctly infer that there is some magic similar to a Ring of Sustenance keeping the reptiles alive. For the second point, they don't really know what to think, since the Carnifex in art and by Arly's descriptions, look more like a deinonychus than lizardflok. On the other hand, the Carnifex were a long time ago and you never know how things have changed over time.
The PCs, thanks to a good Diplomacy roll, are granted an audience with the Radiant Muse,. who is a bit nonplussed by the whole thing. She makes it clear she is here to preserve the lizardfolk and the city, and that the ziggurat is a 'two-edged sword' but she doesn't elaborate on it. She mentions the other inhabitants of the various districts and how she is the protector of the lizardfolk. She abruptly ends the audience and decides to observe the PCs as they wander around her district. The PCs are a bit creeped out by the 'ancestors', an almost overwhelming mass of statues of lizardfolk that fills the district in their thousands, all with their eyes open and mostly standing at attention or something like it. These statues are 'the preserved ancestors' and when told that 'the preservers' are in the big pits the PCs passed on their way here, they put two and two together and are very relieved they didn't go down into the pits to check them out.
The final conclusion the PCs come to is that the city is almost certainly a large artifact of some sort. The powerful preservation magic is one thing, and the fact that they have now found two ziggurats with different pictures on them, one showing greed and the other envy, they assume that this is similar to the Thassilonian sin magic Arly & co. were up against. The ziggurat of greed did indeed radiate powerful Transumtation, and the PCs assume the ziggurat of envy radiates Abjuration, though they do not confirm this in any way. After having walked around the district a bit and tried desperately to make some conversation, the PCs leave and go back to the lair of the undead they fought last week. The corpses are no longer there, having been removed by the Radiant Muse. When the PCs mentioned they had fought the undead, her attitude towards them lightened considerably, though she gave no sign of this. In the lair they find a captured, Feebleminded Juliver, a troglodyte in this version of the AP.
We end the session there and hope to get more done next session (ha!). The PCs level up for having discovered more stuff about Saventh-yhi, which means 4th level spells for the Wizards. Since I don't have any Pathfinder Society in my setting and have changed the baddies somewhat, Juliver needs a change of race and background to fit in. She is still useful for infodumping so I'm keeping her instead of having some other NPCs fill the role. I also changed the background and nature of the Radiant Muse. Since demons in Mystara are not a race but a form given to 'worthy' souls by more powerful Immortals, it stands to reason that most of the celestials follow the same path. In this case the Radiant Muse was a servant of Ka the Preserver who came in the wake of the Banishment of the Carnifex to preserve the cultures of the locals. She went a bit mad over time and thanks to the psychic impressions left by Ydersius and the Carnifex and has take 'preservation' to mean turning the locals to stone.
Next session, the PCs will learn that there is more going on here than they first assumed and there is suddenly a timer.
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
Game night started auspiciously with everyone present and ready by 15 minutes past nominal starting time, unlike the normal 30-60 minutes past time. Even more impressively, everyone was done leveling up from last time bar one feat choice, which was decided in under two minutes. Will wonders never cease? Then the players proceeded to spend the better part of an hour discussing what to do next. The main issue was the captive and Feebleminded troglodyte they found in Sozothla's lair last time. No one is powerful enough to remove the Feeblemind and they are far away from support and reluctant to use the Teleport staves for this. After some discussion about the use of Charm Person to make the hostile trog friendly, they finally decide to leave her where they found her and ask the Radiant Muse for help, on the off chance she could do something. They left the troglodyte captive instead of letting it run free because they suspect they would never see her again. The troglodyte has taken the place of Juliver in the AP, since I don't have any PFS or factions or whatever in my version. The lizardfolk inform the PCs that the Radiant Muse has so far never given an audience more than once a day to any individual, and rather than push their luck with her the PCs push into the boggard district to explore further.
They are quickly intercepted by a boggard patrol, and despite the unsavory reputation of the frogfolk the PCs attempt to make friendly contact. The Cultural Adaptation spell indicates that the correct way to greet boggards is to perform It's Not That Easy Being Green. They are escorted to the presence of the chief, who is not convinced by the PCs and decides to feed them to the Green God. Despite Alexandra getting a bad vibe from this guy, the other PCs ignore her and gladly follow the chief. Jokes are made about the true name of said green frog god and the possible existence of a swinish consort.
Duncan and Izzie get to act in the surprise round and Izzie's Fireball does minimal damage and Duncan's sword only a bit more. The froghemoth grapples Ravi and gets ready to swallow her on its next turn. Alex is lucky and her Color Spray stuns the beast, freeing Ravi who retreats to what she thinks is a safe distance. Magic Missiles, Intensified Shocking Grasp and Snowball hammer into the hapless beast. On its next turn it again decides to eat Ravi and re-grapples her. The Green God has good saves and ignores everything else Alex tries to do this combat, to the player's great annoyance. The froghemoth is about to swallow Ravi when the following exchange takes place:
Phanedar: I cast Grease on Ravi. That should make it easier for her to escape.
GM: You're going to lube up a school girl in the clutches of a tentacle monster?
Things don't go quite so badly as feared but Ravi still disappears into the gullet of the frog god. After a failed attack on the other twin it has taken enough damage that it wants to run. It tries to flee but a Jolt from Phaendar, some more Magic Missiles and Fireball that actually does 42 damage (before save and resistance) is enough to fell the beast. It's not enough to save Ravi from dying. The boggards flee upon witnessing the death of their god. Cath, in what is becoming a cliche in this game, takes her sister and teleports away without a word, leaving the rest of the party behind. The others are annoyed at being left behind in enemy territory but take comfort in the fact that they too have a Teleport staff. They wait. and they wait. And they wait some more. Well after nightfall there is no sign of the twins or Arlynith, which leads some to speculate that Arly has finally grown annoyed enough with her students that she has abandoned them.
In actuality, Cath heads to the Thunder Rift and in tears pleads with auntie Ranya to save her sister. One Miracle and a Restoration later and Ravi is back in the land of the living. They spend the night, fillling Ranya in on their adventures, and the next morning Ranya plays taxi by means of an Interplanetary Teleport, and while there she looks around a bit, cures the troglodyte, and decides to leave the children to their adventure.
The MVP this combat was electricity spells, which prevented the froghemoth from getting a full attack on anyone, which would have been a Bad Thing.
It is remarked upon for the umpteenth time that knowing powerful people makes everything easier. That was it for the session, and next time they get an infodump about what the Vyr-Azul and his cronies have been doing.
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
After the twins disappeared and it became obvious Arlynith would not show up the remaining PCs made their way to the lair of Sozothala and claimed it as their own. Getting rid of the reek of undead, gathering soft fronds and leaves to put under their bedrolls, continue putting together the work space that Soz had started, and keeping an eye on Juliver. Of course, the stench of troglodyte did nothing to enhance the place. Still, they manage to sleep and their dreams are again of the creation of Saventh-yhi, the war against the Carnifex, and the ultimate defeat of Ydersius.
In the middle of the night Ranya and the twins appear in the swamp where they left the other PCs and they spend the rest of the cloudy night trying to find their way back to the lizardfolk. Early that morning the two parties meet up and Ranya easily makes the stench DC and casts Heal on Juliver and a Diplomacy roll of 53 means the otherwise hostile troglodyte is very friendly. She tells of how some fancily dressed serpentfolk came to her tribe's lands, used powerful magic to control the minds of many and by threat of violence forced many more into following the serpentfolk to the Monument to Troglodyte Victory (known in another world as Savith's Crypt). The Monument is a large building that rises out of the ground, not quite so high as the ziggurats and their Spears, showing a Carnifex holding aloft Ydersius' head and standing on the headless corpse. The scene is eerily similar to one of the dreams the PCs had. Questions about how the troglodytes explain the differences in appearance between Carnifex and troglodytes are avoided. There the snakes opened the tomb and drove the troglodytes ahead of them to trigger traps and die in droves to the various guardians left here. Eventually, many deaths later, the serpentfolk made it to the heart of the tomb and retrieved a giant snake skull. From here they found an entrance to an underground complex. While travelling through this area the snakes and trogs slowly began to grow suspicious of each other and soon fights broke out. Seizing an opportunity to escape, Juliver ran through a portal, ended up in a crypt where she managed to wake up Sozothala, and was Feebleminded. This all started a week or so ago, maybe two. Time lost meaning when Juliver was undeground and even more so when she was Feebleminded, so this more of a guess than an accurate estimate. Having told her story, Juliver is eager to go back to what remains of her tribe and see what is left.
This major bit of exposition done, Ranya gives Izzie an item with Refuge cast on it (or as it is known in this campaign: a twig of Summon Ranya) and goes home to stare at her 100 foot tall statue some more. The twins are tired and sleep until after noon. The PCs discuss a bit and decide to head to the Monument. They consider dropping by the boggard's ziggurat but avoid it after seeing boggards gathering to defend it. The have no way of knowing that a few spells would probably see them off, but they aren't particularly interested in killing the frogs, so they head straight to the troglodyte district. The Promenade elicits exclamations of disgust, as they show various Lovecraftian horrors. They notice they are being watched and call out to the watchers. A single troglodyte comes forth. Though they cannot tell the difference by sight it soon becomes apparent to the PCs that this is Juliver. Juliver agrees to lead them to the Monument but refuses to enter again. The PCs ignore the trogs' ziggurat and head to the Monument. The inside is fancy, full of complicated abstract patterns on all surfaces, but done in colors and ways that make it hard for the eyes to concentrate on and give a vauge sense of unease, like there is something unpleasant lurking in the corner of their eyes, waiting to be noticed.
At this point the GM confesses he had expected them to follow the serpentfolk underground and not go to the mostly empty Monument so he hasn't prepared any more for the session. I could have said the Monument/Tomb was empty and safe but I had already decided the place was not completely emptied and there are a few traps and creatures still lurking, and that the PCs would go back there at some later date. That later date will have to be next time.
Again, not a lot happened because most of my players are terrible at getting things moving. I supposed I could handle this by spoonfeeding them plot points and leading them around by the nose, but I hate doing that. Next time, a minor dungeon crawl. I'll probably dig out some old megadungeon and remove most of the encounters and treasure but leave enough to make it dangerous and worthwhile.
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
I spent most of the week preceding last session looking through my collection of dungeons for an appropriate one for the Monument and settle on Maure Castle from Mordenkainen's Fantastic Adventure. I think it's going to be a fairly easy thing to rewrite some flavor text but make the mistake of falling down the rabbit hole and end up spending most of the week digging up everything I can on the place and precious little actually working on converting it. I end up mostly winging the session.
The PCs enter the Monument and almost immediately realize space is screwy inside - the number of turns they make and the length of the halls they wander don't jive with the dimensions of the monument outside. The oppressive green-black stone used throughout the rest of the city and the fact that the place is oppressively silent. The PCs follow their noses, since a bunch of troglodytes leave a lot of smell. The occasional piles of body parts or remnants of constructs also help point the way. I cut-scene most of the trip so as not to get bogged down in the entire dungeon, leaving only a handful of rooms with tantalizing things for them to find, like the purple stone and the tapestry. Perhaps they will investigate more mysteries of the Carnifex at some later point. They reach the bottom of the dungeon - at least as far as I want them to go now - and find a big display pedestal large enough to hold a big skull and with remnants of powerful magics, and a bunch more squashed troglodytes. They beat a hasty retreat then, getting tired of the feeling of being watched,
Outside they pay a visit to the vegepygmies and object to being fed to the russet mold and start blasting. They kill enough of the little greenies, including the boss, that the rest run away and they can start cleaning off the ziggurat in peace. They don't clean off much but enough to see depictions of sloth. They then pull back and start planning on how to infiltrate the serpentfolk island without being discovered. They suggest things like Veil and Invisibility and more. Then the session ends. They level to 8th and the game will go on hiatus for a month or so while the main player is off doing other stuff. The rest of us will play a short game of Wrath & Glory, Strike Legion, Laundry Files, Lancer or something.
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
Five weeks and two adventures in the Warhammer 40 000 universe with the Wrath and Glory system and I had entirely forgotten what we were doing in Serpent's Skull and was very grateful I had written these reports so I could find out. My usual GMing style of 'put off preparing for sessions until it's too late, then wing it' meant I barely bothered to read up on things before the session and while I have been reading the AP fairly consistently since I started it, I forgot almost everything in these few weeks. I was glad that book 4, The Vaults of Madness, was divided into simple, small dungeon areas I could basically read up on during play.
After having defeated the vegepygmies and leveled to 9th - Arly & co would be astounded to see how the kids have after a month gotten to a level that it took the elders a couple of years to reach. I told the PCs at the end of WanG that they could level, forgetting they had leveled at the end of the last SS session. Oh well. It makes for happy players. The PCs decide to take up the GM's strong hinting that The Plot Is Thattaway and head towards the first vault. I replaced the kech and sabosans with serpentfolk and remove Sozothla's lab, because it made sense for them to be exploring the city and following the trail of the escaped slave (Juliver). The serpentfolk are no match for a bunch of Fireballs and the first two encounters are handled without effort. The golem (now of a Carnifex warrior rather than Azlanti) activating and attacking the PCs when they try to enter the portal chamber was interesting. Golems are famously immune to most magic and in an all caster party this could have ended poorly. Fortunately the golem was slow, both in initiative and in movement. Kath cast Stone Call, hindering the golem. I wondered if I should just rule that it was big and heavy and hard enough to crush the stones to sand and be unhindered but decided against it. This bought the party some much needed time for Phaendar to summon a hound archon to tank the golem. The archon wiffed most of its attacks but soaked a lot of damage. Duncan used his arcane bond to manifest a TRansmute Rock to Mud to slow the golem, and most of the PCs pelted it with Acid Arrow and Acid Splash. After summoning the archon, Phaendar cast several Ice Spears at the golem, and while most of the damage was eaten up by the golem's DR, Phanedar managed to trip it once. In short, the golem did nothing but take a few hit points off the archon before dying, and the PCs (and players) felt happy they could defeat something they were not well equipped to handle. After defeating the golem the PCs enter the portal room and discover all the little things to find there, thanks to Duncan's excellent Perception, and head off to the next vault.
Since we spent much of the session levelling up there wasn't much to do after the first vault. We'll see how the others go.
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
Those who, against all odds, might still be reading these reports may have noticed a slight trend to our sessions: late starts due to kids, interruptions due to kids (furry and non-furry varieties), and more. Yesterday's session was yet another of this kind. Also, if you've noticed some inconsistent spelling of names, in one case this is the player's fault and me trying to choose whichever spelling is used most recently. In the other it's nothing but typos.
Having failed to get the focusing crystals working again with a mere Make Whole, the PCs decide to explore the rest of the city, starting with the government district. The islands in the center of the city are eerily quiet. Previously they've seen serpentfolk guarding the bridges and wandering around but now there is nothing. They search around and for the second time only they bothered to cast Identify on a ziggurat. They are a little nonplussed that the spear of Pride has little Illusion tied to it, other than the vast web of magics that surround the entire town. This time they activate the spear for the buff and are pleasantly surprised to get a +2 bonus to Will saves. Finding no living serpentfolk, they make a fairly thorough exploration of the islands. They are a bit concerned to find a clutch of large eggs in the serpentfolk domiciles with no guardians to be seen. They finally decide to check out the sunken amphitheater. Phaendar, who had been quiet and terse even by his standards, loudly protests when the PCs want him to go under the water, turns invisible and runs off. After failing to find him easily, the other PCs shrug and go under. Almost immediately they are attacked by the amphisbaena, which Alex casts Phantasmal Killer on before it can do more than take 2 Con off Cath. The snake monster fails its saves and the player can now boast of a 100% kill rate with the spell in his gaming career (cast it a grand total of twice).
After searching around the water for as long as Life Bubble lasts, they return to the surface to find Phaendar trying to convince Willow the owl to leave the rest of the party because they are acting super shady right now. A brief confrontation follows in which Invisibility and Glitterdust is cast and Duncan tackles Phaendar to keep him from escaping. They divest him of magic items and sit on him discussing what to do, accompanied all the while by girly crying and accusations that the rest of the party are out to get him. Magic reveals no odd effects so the rest of the party concludes he must be suffering from some natural ailment (for D&D values of 'natural'). Unable to cure him on their own they decide to being him to somewhere he feels safe and cure him there. The twins think this must be Drachenflamme despite Phaendar never concealing the fact that he doesn't like Drachenflamme much and feels most at home back in the woods in Thunder Rift. There is a lot of discussion about how to make Phaendar a willing participant in the Greater Teleport by either knocking him unconscious or casting Baleful Polymorph and the problems of this solution, or even petrifying him. This continues until I, unable to contain myself, point out they can just teleport without Phaendar and pick up Ranya or Arly and come back. This is done and Ranya heads home, town between relief at doing somethign other than sitting at home and annoyance at the little kids continually needing help. Having taken a quick walk in the neighborhood and caught up with what happened in the two days since she was last here, Ranya departs. The PCs are no closer to discovering the secret of black spores.
Phaendar failed his Will save against the spores last session but I felt the paranoia wouldn't kick in until he'd had a chance to rest a bit after the fights. We'll see how the rest of the party fares when they get to the other vaults, which they seem to have forgotten about since last time. Time for some good ol' railroading to get the adventure back on track. I'm also ruling that spells like Life Bubble will work to protect them, no matter what the AP claims.
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
Last night we got started at the usual time but had a surprisingly productive session. Interruptions were minimal, and apart from a quick break for brushing kids' teeth and taking ex-puppy for a quick walk, we could spend nearly all the session actually playing. Wonders will never cease.
After having fixed Phaendar, the party rests and heads out to look at the other ziggurats in more detail. They first head to the troglodytes and exchange some words, then get the buffs. Without much ability to activte the ziggurats in their intended fashion I've allowed the PCs to use UMD. Normally I dislike UMD for a variety of reasons but right now it makes things a little easier. After way too much time spent arguing about which way to go, the PCs decide to head south to the vegepygmies and explore that ziggurat in more detail. The vegepygmies, their numbers drastically reduced after all the Fireballs the PCs dumped in them at their first meeting, do not seem hostile or particularly fearful. They give the PCs a little space but otherwise about their inscrutable way. The boggards are convinced to let the PCs go to their ziggurat, but the chief protests when the PCs head up to his hut on top. Everyone but Izzie accepts his protestations that the hut is his and he seemingly doesn't want anyone inside. Izzie starts finding all sorts of reasons to ignore him and go inside but the other PCs manage to pull her away (almost literally). At the lizardfolk the PCs are met by the Radiant Muse who asks if they are behind the disappearance of her people. They proclaim their ignorance and offer to keep an eye out. When asked if they can examine the ziggurat, the RM says they can but warns them not to activate the pillar. When pressed, the RM explains that the powerful telekinetic effect the PCs have detected in the ziggurats is intended to drive the big spear deep into the earth. For what purpose she doesn't know and doesn't want to find out.
On their way out of the Artisan district the PCs search for clues to what might have happened to the missing lizardfolk. Duncan actually has Survival and thanks to some Aid Another and spells gets a result of 41. They easily follow the trail of a few lizardfolk into the jungle, where they meet up with charau-ka prints. The trail leads to the northwestern part of Saventh-Yhi, and once they get on to paved streets, the trail stops as soon as mud stops falling off the feet of the creatures. The PCs head up to the ziggurat and activate the buff, then try to rediscover the trail of the missing lizardfolk. More searching and as it starts getting dark the PCs find prints leading out of the city proper and into the cliff wall. Phaendar realizes that they have come to one of the places marked on the map they found in the first vault. They head up to the doors and open them, and Duncan, who as the strongest did the main job of opening the doors, gets a face full of javelins. Having learned several levels ago to have Protection from Normal Missiles Arrows up at all times, he takes no damage. The party then easily dispatches the charau-ka without taking any damage - Fireball and Ice Storm FTW. During the few brief rounds of combat the PCs noticed that the ape-folk made no noise and had dull, almost lifeless faces. The corpses leak a disgusting thick green liquid from their cranial orifices, and the ones killed by Ice Storm seemingly have no brains. The PCs don't have much time to consider the implications of this before the ogre mages attack.
Stone faced and leaking greenish liquid from their eyes, the OMs start off with two Cones of Cold and bring two PCs down and grievously hurt the others. Quick thinking Duncan casts Wall of Stone to try to buy the PCs a round or two while the monsters batter their way through but the OMs just fly over the wall. Ravi casts Baleful Polymorph and the first OM fails its Fortitude save and is now a cute little white bunny - a bunny with +11 BAB and Flurry of Blows. As Izzie is attacked and takes damage she gets the strangest feeling that this has happened before somewhere and thousands of people laugh at her plight.
The fight is a frantic mess and things look grim for the intrepid casters. The polymorphed OM is basically a non-issue, which really saved their bacon, but the other one is a right pain. Spell resistance and evasion help against most damage, and his regeneration makes things even less fun. Phaendar desperately tries to keep the party alive with his cure spells (Unicorn bloodline has been a lifesaver) but he can't stop the pain train. After taking down a couple more PCs the OMs seem on the brink of victory. Phanedar manages to get his hound archon into play and the closest OM instantly collapses like a marionette with its strings cut. A few Knowledges (planes and Spellcraft) later and most of the PCs twig to the idea that Protection from Evil does a great job of protecting against mental possession, and Phaendar casts PfE on the fallen OM while the hound archon moves into range on the bunny. The fight and the session ends there.
We got a lot more done this session than the previous few, and the final revelation of what the Spears do got the players thinking furiously. The Radiant Muse doesn't know, or has forgotten, why the spears were in place, she just knows that activating them will pretty much ruin the city. The AP's original intent of having several different outsider groups competing for loot and glory as well as having the Gorilla King show up was nixed in favor of the intellect devourers left behind by the Carnifex as a guard for Ilmurea, with M'deggog as the advanced scout above. More of them later on when the PCs make their way below.
Phanedar's player was stoked to be the winning factor in this battle. She chose Protection from Evil as his first spell because she felt it made sense for his personality, but given the obscene wealth the PCs started with, including Sihedron Rings, he never needed to cast it. Having it now makes everything seem worthwhile and I assume the PCs will protect themselves with it before delving deeper into this particular vault.
Finally, the players and PCs are beginning to understand that the ziggurats, despite being adorned with pictures of the seven virtues/sins of rule, having nothing to do with sin magic. By chance they came to Greed frist and when they identified Transmutation magic they assumed that all the rest of the ziggurats would have magic pertaining to the corresponding sin. When this is discovered to be wrong they think maybe the buffs are protections against the appropriate schools. The truth, that they failedtheir K. arcana rolls for at the start, is that Sni magic was invented by Xin, so while the virtues/sins are the same, tying them to magic came much later.
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
Got started more or less at normal time, which is to say about an hour after we should have. So much mental delay and pauses that it was maddening. All we managed to do was clear two more rooms in the intellect devourer's vault, and Ravi died to a Mind Thrust from the controlling creature. I just ruled that the ID is in control of everything in the vault and made it the psionic version - despite psionics not being a part of Mystara (those OBs are weird things). A fully augmented Mind Thrust killed Ravi. I'm used to everything making their saves against that power so I was more surprised than my players. 24 hours after Ranya was last in Saventh-Yhi, she is summoned with the Succor focus she had given Izzie earlier.
This time Ranya was in the bath when she was summoned and everyone is treated to the sight of naked, wet, really hot milf. I'm sure a couple of the PCs had secretly dreamed of something like this. Ravi is on her feet again the next morning and the PCs head back to SY. Phaendar had originally intended to show Duncan and Tormod around the place but I reminded the players that they were still on the trail of a super suspicious serpentfolk who had stolen a really big snake skull from the creepy dungeon-museum. After the encounter with the roper half the party is incapacitated due to Strength damage, all are frustrated by the high SR and they are running away when they finally manage to stop it with by summoning another hound archon, whose Circle of Protection from Evil again shuts down the ID's possession.
After retreating and resting for a day to regain some Strength, we end the session. I'm beginning to regret introducing Vyr-Azul so early in the AP. Now he has the skull of Ydersius and has had it for some time and I need to find out why he hasn't done the rejoining well before the PCs finally make it down to him. Oh well. I have a few ideas that may work. Better luck next session.
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
Back to normal: late start, kids being sick, puppies needing dinner, cats demanding lap time, etc.
Deciding to leave the Vault of the Body Thief alone for the moment, the PCs decide to investigate the last ziggurat. They head south and around, moving through the boggards' lands. While passing through they hear loud, paniced croaking and upon investigating find a Croaking Demon (known to young folks as a hezrou) preying upon the hapless frog people. What the PCs don't know is why it is here but they do know that Arly & co. would definitely kill such a monstrosity. The fight is short but fierce, with Blasphemy disabling a couple characters early on but I just now realized that while we remembered the weakness I immediately forgot about the daze - fortunately most people made their save so it wasn't a big deal. Duncan's Hold Monster ends the fight before it can get really nasty, since even a big nasty demon can't save against a CDG from a hound archon. The PCs then move on, not even trying to talk to the boggards. Had they bothered to ask they would have found out about the 'oracle in a jar' that the boggards had, and with the death of the Green God and the disappearance of many of their tribe, they consulted it one time too many.
They make their way to the Military Disctrict and use extended Invisibility Spheres to get to the ziggurat. Unlike last time they were here there doesn't seem to be anyone on guard. The PCs perform the ritual and notice they are being watched by visibly nervous charau-ka. The PCs approach and he grunts out that 'the boss wants to talk' in very broken Yhog-S*. The PCs follow and meet Olujimi. Olujimi seems impressed that Tormod is still alive since she was very dead the last time they met. He proposes an alliance - the disruption and disappearance of the serpentfolk in the Government District was quickly followed by the loss of several of his people. Assuming that mammals are more inclined to be friendly than reptiles or amphibians, Olujimi hopes to use the PCs to find out what is preying on his people and kill it. Olujimi doesn't really care for his people as such but as a king he can't accept any show of weakness or challenge to his authority. The PCs agree to an alliance of convenience. In the words of the players: "We finally have meat shields."
The PCs lead the demonic ape and a couple of girallon to the Vault of the Body Thief and are soon confronted by the Kaava Bush Devil. New background for the KBD: it's just a hastily created flesh golem, made of parts of the hosts the PCs have killed so far. The apes are basically useless, hardly able to hit its AC and not getting through DR to any degree. Fortunately, Tormod used Shadow Conjuration Create PIt, and it's stuck down there. Since it made its Will save, the pit is only 20% real, so only 10 feet deep. The summoned Hound Archon cast out M'deggog and the KBD went berserk, spending its slowed (thanks to Snapdragon Fireworks) rounds trying to hit the creatures at the lip of the pit. The KBD is slowly, slowy whittled down by Acid Arrows, Acid Splashes and one Solvent of Corrosion (basically a more powerful Acid Arrow).
The last of M'deggog's hosts appear one by one to channel the Intellect Devourer's mental might against the invading party. A combination of hound archon aura and angry Olujimi nixes most of this. Olujimi hears something more further on in the vault and charges in and starts wrecking M'deggog's equipment. The Intellect Devourer tries unsuccessfully to take over the ape for a few rounds before his set-up is ruined and he is gets out of his control apparatus and takes over the demon ape the normal way. A few confused rounds follow of ID-Olu commanding the girallons to attack the PCs, then Protectin from Evil freeing Olu, showing the PCs M'deggog's true form, and Olu ordering the girallons to attack it instead. In spite of not being particularly suited for melee, the intellect devourer is a tough opponent, too tough to defeat in one session. Well into overtime we finally realize we have to finish the fight next week.
All in all, much time was spent waiting each round for a couple of players to ask variations on "what's going on?" (because they never pay attention to stuff outside of their turn) and then taking way too long to decide what to cast. I should be used to this by now after many years of playing together, but it is still a bit annoying.
*Yhog-S. Working off other fanon, the only proper name we have for anything resembling the Carnifex is 'Yhog', which are lesser cousins that rose to power after the greater Carnifex were banished by the Immortals. Lacking a better name I assume that both versions called themselves Yhog, and the lesser did so trying to take over the glory of the Greater. The Carnifex' language, which we also call Yhog to make things ever more complicated, evolved into what I call Yhog-S(aventh-Yhi), which is what all the servitor races in the city speak. The charau-ka, as the only interlopers in the valley since the fall of the Carnifex and recent ones at that, don't speak it as a first language.
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
Two sessions this week! One of them was even fairly on point.
The first session saw the PCs and Olujimi finish M'deggog and loot his lair, carefully leaving the brains in jars where they were. Olujimi then suggested that since neither of them liked the serpentfolk, they should both head to the government district and look around some more. Nothing had changed since last time, and the fiendish ape broke open one of the eggs the PCs had found earlier and ate it, confirming it was serpentfolk brood. The group decides to enter the vault here and somehow we all forget Olujimi and his mooks at this point. Retconning, he slunk away unnoticed to prepare his forces for a complete takeover of the island, hoping the PCs die a bit in the mean time.
The PCs make it through the first two fights of the redoubt and then pull back to rest and come again the next day. Khalid-sha and his mephits are annoying but despite doing a fair amount of damage to Duncan, they whittle him down and he flees. The PCs then slay the mud elemental and claim the Argent Font. They send their own elemental down but he doesn't see anything at the bottom of the mud. No treasure from this vault for the PCs yet - though when they come back they may see Khalid-sha again...
On to the corpsespinner's vault. The PCs and players reacted with appropriate horror to the corpsespun creatures - things that have spider swarm breath weapons are Not Cool - and the corpsespinner herself was identified easily and had a Dimensional Anchor cast on her, and killed rather brutally. I ruled that she didn't care for the loot of her victims so it was all left littered about her lair rather than in the Astal Plane; I felt the PCs needed a little loot in what has been a pretty scarcely treasured AP. OTOH, they started with a ridiculous amount of wealth and have basically free health care from Arly and Ranya, so they're still way ahead of WBL and the expected treasure of the AP. Still, finding loot is fun, so they got a bit more.
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
Short little session wherein the PCs go back to the Impenetrable Redoubt and try to take on Khalid-sha again. Alex sneaked in first and tries to handle him with illusions, but fails to affect him enough, and he runs and hides again. Tongues and summoned elementals reveal his hiding place and the fact that he is a shaitan rather than a weird elemental (failed Knowledge rolls and fun descriptions lead to incorrect assumptions). The PCs try the novel approach of Diplomacy. Some very good rolls on their part and in their favor and they actually get him talking. He reveals his sorry state and they offer to try to help him in exchange for his key stones. They fail miserably on two Break Enchantment and one Greater Dispel Magic roll, even wasting a scroll trying to help him. They promise to come back the next day. Fortunately for them, he has enough Spellcraft to identify the spells they try to cast and sees they aren't trying to trick him, so he agrees.
They then go and clear out the Verdant Vault. Good scouting by the PCs and poor initiative rolls on my part and all enemies in the vault die before they can do anything to the PCs. 6 spellcasters blasting away do a lot of damage.
Arly's player is absent on account of exams and the interesting thing is that combat goes a lot faster without him, even when the other players have to take over running the twins. Ranya/Izzy's player had a rather depressing streak of sucky damage rolls, managing to roll at worst five 1s on a 10d6 roll (and the rest weren't), and not managing to roll even close to average damage the entire session.
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
Super short session, barely two hours, caused by kids being kids, i.e. difficult.
In short, the PCs cleared out the Vault of Silence, suffering a few negative levels from the surprise attack by the spectres but taking out the rawbones and terkow easily, despite spell resistance soaking surprising number of spells. The Vault was rewritten to be a tomb of punishment for the high-ups of Saventh-yhi, powerful priests and generals of the serpentfolk entombed in eternal punishment for the temerity of worshipping Ydersius and rebelling against the Carnifex. The PCs were appropriately creeped out and left most of the sarcophagi (a term more true to its origin than is usually the case) alone. The one that in the original was inhabited by the dead zombie cultist was in this case filled with Ydersius' high priest, withered, dried and helpless in eternal torment, still alive after all these milennia. The PCs mercifully ended his life.
Posted in the right thread this time.
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
Sick kids and demanding dogs gave us a short session. The PCs managed to cure Khalid-Sha of his curse and were rewarded with some loot and more key crystals, and a few more neato oddities. The final vault was hand-waved because we were all rather tired of them and there wasn't anything in there that was challenging or interesting. The PCs then got down to Ilmurea (or Saventh-Yhi proper as it is IMC, for reasons). They noted the serpentfolk architecture and finally got the hint of the name of the AP, the fact that a powerful serpentfolk dude took a giant serpent's skull from a museum, and the dreams of the headless body of Ydersius being cast down in a hole in the ground that Something Might Be Going On. They wandered around the place invisible, looking at the Towers of Virtue (Sin) (replacing the serpent gates of the original AP) and fought against one patrol of urdefhans and the vemerak. I have learned to hate Baleful Polymorph in PF1. I can understand the reasons they changed normal polymorphing but offensively it is just a pain in the arse and not at all fun to use. Turning someone into a turtle will give them more Dexterity, not less. I will probably house rule it to work like in previous editions, just to make things more fun and easier.
Changes from canon: no morlocks because no Azlanti (or mammals of any kind) were trapped down here, urdefhans are altered serpentfolk, trapped by the magic of the Carnifex and slowly altered by the blasphemous energies of their Outer Being allies. No drow infiltrators, urdefhans are intensely hostile to the invading serpentfolk, due to an envy-turned-hate for the unblemished form of the surface beings. Since his arrival in the city Vyr-Azul has been busy exploring, conquering, holding territory, setting up the ritual to resurrect Ydersius, and trying to keep his group together. The PCs don't know any of this yet but will find out some of it from the replacement for Eando Kline I will throw in. I will have to change things up because I doubt the PCs will bother trying to organize an army when they can just sneak in with a lightning raid and kill baddies. But this leaves me with the very great possibility that they will have to level up about once per in game day if they are to be of an appropriate level to take on VA and the resurrected Ydersius.
| Phillip Gastone |
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Considering that the PCs have parents who are getting near to taking the Immortal entry exams, perhaps start setting limits on the free Raise Deads. After a certain amount, mommy yoinks the PC out so they can go to military academy and learn how to be a responsible heir.
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
Come now, it's been nearly half a week since they last needed help - I'm sure they'll be fine from now on.
I couldn't write that with a straight face.
But yeah, Having the grown ups unavailable for a while would do them good. They are already planning on getting a Teleportation Circle to the Argental Font and encouraging healing tourism.
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
Some technical issues with Othariel's player's new computer nearly prevented her involvement yesterday but having tech-savvy friends helps. The new computer did not want to acknowledge the presence of a flash drive, and the Internet's recommended solution was to delete all USB drivers, restart the PC and wait for the drivers to be redownloaded and installed. The result was that upon restart the keyboard and mouse stopped working. We spent a while frantically trying to get things working again, going so far as to get out her old computer and set it up again for game night. Fortunately, the new computer got better enough to at least have the mouse and keyboard working correctly. Since this issue was partially my fault and since the players have complained about insufficient loot (never mind free health care) I decide that the vemerak the PCs just killed had some tailored loot. This put people in a little better mood.
The actual game part of the session was taken up with a brief exploration of the rest of the vemerak's hunting grounds, with no other interesting buits, then on to one of the Towers (serpent gates), which depicted scenes of serpentfolk revelling in the virtue of Gluttony. Unlike the ziggurats on the surface, these towers were obviously meant to be inhabited, so the PCs entert. The place, like the rest of the city, is made of the pale, sandstone-like substance and designed with the curves, spirals and rounded corners of serpentfolk art and architecture instead of the green-black stone and sharp corners of the Carnifex buildings on the surface. The place was littered with what they first thought was dark straw but soon realize is fur. Deadly silence reigned, there is a strong smell of something foul and unrecognizable, and the feeling of intense pressure in their mind as if some unseen presence is trying to crowd them out of their own bodies. Despite these warning signs, they cannot see anything and they decide to spend some time identifying the magical auras here and conclude that the city-wide buffs and the veiling aura of the city above actually comes from this city, and the ziggurats merely steal it and channel it above.
Soon, the inhabitants make themselves known. Four gugs come up from the level below and a flurry of spells and a useful summoned hound archon means gugs are basically useless. The player of Alex (who is an illusionist) has been complaining non-stop this AP about the number of creatures in the AP that are either immune to fear or immune to mind-affecting effects altogether. The gugs have no such immunities and Alex gets in a Phantasmal Killer, which the player crows about. Just after the last gug falls, the PCs see some giant, worm-like tentacles appear in the door of the room they are in, soon followed by the rest of the annelid. The neothelid had sent his minions up in advance to gauge the abilities of the PCs, and fancies its chances. Phanedar is the first to feel its psychic might and his own psyche is crushed, reducing the poor elf to negative hit points. I then pass the turn to the next player and almost immediately note I had forgotten to use the quickened Suggestion ability. I shrug inwardly and decide to not do anything - there's no way the PCs are going to kill this thing before it gets another turn, I think. Technically, I'm right.
It turns out that a giant alien worm with immense psychic abilities has no special protection against mind-affecting effects or even fear, which means it is fair game for much of Alex's repertoire. She would have killed the thing if she had cast Phantasmal Killer (I rolled several saves in advance and rolled poorly on all of them). Instead she cast Oneiric Horror, against which the damn worm not only failed its first save but every subsequent save the rest of the fight as well. Though its spell resistance soaked a few spells, two Ball Lightnings got through and since it just stood there and flailed at imaginary enemies for several rounds, it died without inconveniencing the PCs in any way (other than Phaendar). Had I used that Suggestion on its first turn things might have gone very differently. At least the players enjoyed steamrolling what was intended to be a difficult fight. To top it off, they got a lot of loot. All in all, a successful session in terms of enjoyment even if there wasn't a lot of story progress.
Since the PCs are now 12th level and this technically fulfills Arly's need to have raised apprentices to that level, I give the players the option to end the campaign now and get back to the primary PCs. Two want to continue and two don't care much either way, so we will keep going.
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
After having cleared out the true Tower of Gluttony, the PCs needed to rest. They discovered that teleportation did not bring them back to the surface, and so spent some time investigating and identifying the complex web of magic that covers the undercity. They determine that they are most likely in some form of pocket dimension, similar to Imprisonment, but one where time passes, and one which prevents serpentfolk from exiting or entering altogether - a Spellcraft roll of 52 leave little mystery in the effects at play here. The PCs make their way back to the portal above, managing to avoid combat with an urdefhan patrol through some clever use of illusions and stealth. They exit the portal, take a few portal keystones with them to prevent anyone else using the gate, and rest in the realtive saftey of their camp.
The next day they return to the sundercity and decide to investigate the rest of the Towers. They avoid the first tower they encountered and head on north, on the east side of town. They spy the central tower, the Fortress of a Thousand Fangs, being watched by several groups of udefhans. Intrigued, they send Duncan's familiar Willow over the water to scout. She reports that normal serpentfolk and troglodytes are patrolling the central structure on the little island over there. This seems like the most likely destination of the surface snakefolk with the head of a god. They buff and cross the water, and Alex the illusionist manages to distract the patrol outside and the guards inside with some clever illusions. Alex's player has been complaining about the amount of creatures immune to mind-affecting effects in the game and just needed some prodding to realize that illusions can be effective even if they aren't MA.
The PCs make their way through the inside slope of the Tower, ignoring the doors to the inner tower until they come to the big opening with a portcullis. They spend some time trying to open it with raw muscle power. They should be able to do it fairly easily since Duncan has a Strength of 24 (not bad for a pure Wizard, eh?) and is assisted by the rest, but poor rolls means this takes a while and makes some noise, enough noise to alert the guards stationed just a little bit away. I blame myself for not describing the guardpost well enough that the players understood this was as bad place to stop. The fight is pretty nasty, with Izzie being reduced to negatives twice and unable to do much of anything during the encounter. One of the guards manages to flee, sure to bring reinforcements.
The session ends here, with the group having a little Serious Talk about how to keep things moving quickly. Even taking into account constant interruptions by kids, pets, snacks and waste elimination, things take way too long to happen in this group. Part of it is definitely the online effect, without obvious social cues to react to, slight problems with the mic in picking up everything that's said (apparently I speak in a way that the mic hates, meaning half of what I say is lost). A few other semi-serious issues are brought up and we hope things will get better because as it is, a lot of time is wasted just waiting around for someone else to make descisions, and that means the AP will take forever to get done. Never mind that thanks to my changes the PCs are powering through it and will probably need to level once a session to be powerful enough for the final boss fight when they get there. I'll have to find some clever bullshit way to have them level quickly without too much belief suspencion.
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
Our normal Wednesday game was moved to Saturday last week because of me being busy with my sister and her kids. One player even sacrificed her other game night for this. Then Izzy's player remembered that was his birthday and was otherwise occupied. Oh well. The rest of us still got in nearly twice as much game time as normal, most of it spent in combat.
Short story shorter, they cleared out the rest of the first floor and went to the top of the fortress and fought the serpentfolk wizard and the gohl there. The gohl died to a Phantasmal Killer before it could do anything, making Alex's player very happy. The wizard, despite being only one level higher than the PCs and fighting alone, was a tough, gruelling fight. Some of it was his being buffed to the gills in preparation and the PCs less so, some of it was Evard's Black Tentacles being nasty against weak casters, much of it was his spell resistance. The two iron golems downstairs had proven no problem, the snake commander died quickly, and the succubus - despite being very suspicious - had gotten away without combat, but the wizard was tough enough that the PCs considered running away.
His initial spell was Pristmatic Spray, which petrified Izzy and would have sent Alex to another plane if it weren't for the Forbiddance in the area. Had I followed the suggested tactics of using EBT first rather than a few rounds into combat, the fight might have been far worse. As it was, the PCs made through, a few of them dropping to negatives or nearly so, with Phaendar's healing just barely keeping people alive. Unicorn Sorcerer is really, really nice in a wholly arcane group.
The rest of the fortress should be teeming with snakes but I determined that once they realized that the PCs were tough, they regrouped and holed up in the bottom of the fortress to prevent the PCs from going down there. Most of the degenerate serpentfolk are really dumb, especially compared to proper serpentfolk, so complex commands about what to do in different situations won't work so "if things are really bad, group up here" seems about the limit of their intelligence.
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
At the end of last session the PCs levelled to 13th which means Greater Teleport is now available, to the great delight of players and characters alike. They exited the fortress, Invisibility and Major Image getting them past the suddenly many serpentfolk guard patrols swarming the place (having been ordered back up by their smarter cousins), headed back to the surface and rested. The next morning they took a quick shopping trip to Sundsvall and then they head down again. This time they head to the sub level of the Fortress and instantly run afoul of the ghost Tsskath, whose gaze attack reduces Charisma of several PCs and whose touch deals a ton of damage. The few spells they try on him do nothing so they run away, hoping he doesn't follow. They are very relieved when their wish is granted.
The next room turns out to be a bunch of serpentfolk guards, with more on from the rest of the level coming every few rounds. Fortunately these are dumb and don't know much tactics beside 'move to enemy and hit', so they pile up nicely for area effect spells. Several PCs picked up Spell Penetration this level so they get most of their spells through. Unlike previous encounters, these guards do not break and run when they start taking casualties.
Since much of the session was taken up with the last bit of levelling, waiting for everyone to show up, and shopping trips, we only managed those two encounters before having to call it a night.
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
The third wave of serpentfolk guards fails to swarm the PCs thanks to good Perception rolls and little spells like Impossible Angles, Acid Cloud and Wall of Force to divide and conquer. There is plenty of blast to go around and the few that manage to attack the PCs miss because of Mirror Image. In all, it was a rout. The proper serpentfolk do not care about the lesser slaves, they are concerned with using the troglodytes and degenerate serpentfolk as fodder to keep the PCs busy until Ydersius has reassembled and can take over the world. The degenerates, though filled with fear and religious awe, do have to make morale checks when blasted to hell and back, and tend to fail them. The only danger was Ravi being Dominated by one of the pure serpentfolk leaders and using Prismatic Spray on her party. Alex was turned to stone but other than this no one was injured (good saves and Energy Resistance). Alex got better.
The PCs then investigate the rest of the bottom floor of the Fortress and find rooms stuffed to the brim with troglodytes, most of them seriously injured. They set them free, then find Asaam and defeat him with little trouble, mostly due to poor rolls on my part ensuring he only got in about one attack per round. After healing poor Eando, now a troglodyte to fit in with the rest of the story, they promptly ignore him and run off to kill the ghost they ignored the first time around.
That is as much as we managed to get in yesterday. In any case, once they have handled the ghost, they should be ready to head on to book 6. Hopefully this will go quickly but not too quickly. Knowing us, one of two things will happen: either the PCs will waffle about forever not finding their arse with two hands, or they will miraculously bypass every encounter, heading straight to the final showdown and be grossly underlevelled and unprepared, and wipe.
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
The fight against the ghost was medium in length and annoyance. No real threats, since all spells it cast were stopped by spell resistance, but its gaze and touch were dangerous enough that they couldn't just take things easy. Despite averting their eyes (O Lord) they still lost some Charisma, but one of their early investments when they had the money was a Wand of Lesser Restoration, so it wasn't a big deal.
They then talked to the troglodytes they released and found out that Vyr-Azul had gone down a big hole with the eponymous skull and his most trusted followers. The PCs thanked them and then left, ignoring the plight of the trogs. How will they get back to the surface? Who knows, who cares? Not the PCs, apparently.
Heading down the hole, they end up in the Hunter's Maze, meet a couple of meladaemons, which aren't a big threat thanks to Spell Resistance stopping Horrid Wilting. The damage taken is survivable. The mohrgs are more of a problem, and in a couple of rounds they manage to incapacitate four PCs (and CDG Alex) thanks to Strength reduction from Blasphemy and their paralytic tongues. None of mohrgs are taken out before the PCs manage to flee - thank goodness for Getaway and unclear spell texts.
That was it for the evening. The spell text of Getaway is a bit unclear what sort of things are required for the swift action activation. In interests of getting everyone to bed without delay I let it go as a purely mental action. On reading more thoroughly today, the text says 'trigger' which makes me think of spell trigger items, which require a command word. Oh well. At least we avoided a TPK.
The PCs are on the home stretch now. I plan to let them wander around a bit and hopefully find a something I put in there to artificially level them up quickly. In changes from canon, I put the Hunter's Maze and the Sanctum as lower levels below the Fortress, semi-collapsed and excavated by Vyr-Azul and his cronies, explaining in part why they spent as many days as they did from getting the skull to being able to perform the ritual of recombination. I've had to cheat a bit with the maps to make them fit together but it works well enough.
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
The PCs catch their breath after a narrow escape from the mohrgs. The zombified Alex is easily dispatched even in their weakened state, and a scroll of Raise Dead and dip in the Argental Font brings her back to full health. They sleep and recover, then head back down, fully buffed and with a new Getaway ready. They initially decide to head a different direction than they had gone the day before but still managed to meet up with the mohrgs almost instantly. The PCs may have recovered fully from their previous encounter but the mohrgs hadn't, and they died before managing to do anything to the PCs. A little more exploration, some encounters with a few serpentfolk temple guards (replacing the urdefhans in the original version) and some more meladaemons, and that was it for the session.
Combat takes a long time, and doing it online takes longer than it did IRL, so I may end up nixing a few encounters just so we don't spend several sessions with nothing but mindless combat and dungeon crawling. Keep the bigger bosses with a few more minions, fewer lesser encounters.
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
Yet another session with little else than fighting. Some more temple guards were defeated. The hezrou (replacing the hydrodaemons) that waited until the snakes were killed, were defeated - two dead and two running away. The encounter with the cyclops general was deftly avoided. I had put him in there, noting to the players that the bit of the dungeon he was in was of different materials and design than the rest of the Fortress/Sanctum, also noting the Carnifex design of his gear. The PCs thought it unwise to disturb the stasis-sleep of a punished (how they came to that conclusion I don't know) being and left him. They considered using Contact Other Plane to get more info, but the best question they could come up with was "Is waking him up a good idea?" Sometimes I despair of my players.
Anyway, they made their way to the final boss fight of the level, the astradaemon and retinue. The surviving hezrou had made their way here and given the big bad the info on the PCs. Alex tries another Phantasmal Killer, a spell he's had a surprising amount of success with (you'd think a neothelid and a proto-shoggoth would be immune to that sort of thing, but nooooo), but the daemon makes its save. The daemon responds by casting Finger of Death and killing Alex. The rest of the fight is a bit drawn out but not too difficult. Phaendar had summoned a deva, which conveniently is immune to energy drain and so could tank a bit. A Hold Monster paralyzes the astradaemon and before it can monve again a conveniently place Ravi in Dragonshape performs a coup de grace. The rest of the fight wasn't worth mentioning.
But another dead PC, another trip to a place with high level clerics to cast Resurrection, and another level of the sanctum cleared.
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
Yet yet another session with little advancement. In plot terms, that is. They raised Alex, sold some loot and got some new stuff, headed back to the Fortress. After some heavy hinting from me they took another look at the frozen cyclops, thawed him out and made him friendly with an impressive 44 Diplomacy check by Cath. A decent Bluff check convinced him that the fall of the Carnifex was the fault of the serpentfolk, and that Mommy and her friends had never encountered and defeated the last of the Carnifex. Though barely able to comprehend the might of the Carnifex being broken and the milennia that have passed since their day, the cyclops agrees to fulfill his duty: stop the ressurrection of Ydersius and punish the lowly serpentfolk.
They also give the planar gate another look and tune it to a nice place than it was keyed to, and a planetar steps through. The planetar introduces itself as Ayruzi, and tells the twins that she owes their mother a favor and wants to punish some snakes. Yes, this is the same planetar Arlynith freed just before the final showdown with Karzoug in Rise of the Runelords. I had kept her in mind the whole AP, in case of a TPK or other insoluable situation, she would swoop to the rescue the party and consider her debt fulfilled. I haven't needed to do that, forunately, but looking at the encounters to come I hinted rather strongly to the players that they should try to get some extra help.
Climbing down yet another hole they get to the first layer of the Sanctum itself. They are suitably impressed by the big adamantine doors and the exquisite cratsmanship. By 'impressed' I naturally mean their eyes lit up with greed. The trap on the door is easily avoided by Duncan, whose Knowledge (religion) roll of 46 easily allows him to recall an ancient obscure prayer he came across when working on the Thassilonian ruins on Davania. A Tongues spell allows him to convey it properly (things get lost in translation). This first hurdle overcome, the PCs walk straight into an ambush by a bunch of serpetfolk temple guards and a sandstone golem. Casters with 7th level spells can deal a ton of damage and a total of just over 1400 hp is dealt amongst a bunch of guards from two spells from the twins. Life Bubble takes care of the serpentstone golem's breath, and Phanedar's player is very happy to learn that Life Bubble saved everyone from the spores in the Vaults of Madness. They never connected the black dust with Phanedar's temporary bout of insanity.
Phase one of the fight sees the PCs take a lot of damage from Unholy Blight. Two PCs are reduced to negatives and more are seriously wounded. Still, half the party is Neutral and everyone makes most of their saves so it isn't too bad. Unholy Blight hasn't been an issue in previous encounters because the PCs all had Spell Resistance active and that stopped basically anything the temple guards tried. SR expired while fiddling with the gate and wasn't recast, so the PCs are hurting.
Still, the PCs have the upper hand. Aveshai hits hard, Ayruzi blinds many with Holy Word, and the golem is suborned by Cath and Apparant Master, and both twins and Izzie blast all day. Hitherto Izzie has used a LOt of wands, even when they keep failing to penetrate spell resistance. We have made a bit of fun of this when Izzie's rounds tend to be her using Magic Missile and failing to do anything. We have yet to figure out exactly what sort of spells a 14th level wizard has that means she feels the need to use a wand to do anything outside of Fireball in combat. Now Izzie has Staff-like Wand and is suddenly much more effective.
We have to end the session after most of the first wave is dead and the second wave is badly wounded, but the final wave, consisting of the rest of the temple guards, the sentinels and the Amphisbaenean spellcasters, is set to arrive next session. I hope this isn't too much for the PCs, but they still haven't used that much by the way of spells.
I hope to be done with the AP in another two sessions. We'll see how that goes.
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
Shortest session yet. just as I was getting ready to turn on Discord our Internet connection failed. It was down for an hour beforeit came back. This delay got us started at nearly normal time. The rest of the temple guards, plus the siege serpents and the amphisbaenean spellcasters came through a door, much to the dismay of the PCs. Another round of six Unholy Blights reduced Cath and Alex to negatives, staggered Ravi, dismissed the shedu, and left Duncan and Phanedar in very low double digits. Izzie had wisely turned invisible and gotten out of the way on her turn and so was spared. Ravi activated Getaway and left the planetar, the controlled golem and the cyclops to fend for themselves. Some hectic rounds of healing and buffing (Spell Resistance for everyone) and they teleport back. The serpentstone golem and the cyclops are dead and the planetar is badly wounded but still killing temple guards.
Just about this time our Internet connection fails a second time and we get a message from the provider that it will be out the rest of the evening. Bleh. Always annoying, but extra annoying since we are now very close to the end of this mini-campaign and we are all rather looking forward to it being done. We might possibly get this thing done next session.