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Hi all! I've created this thread to use as a campaign journal for my game of Quest for the Frozen Flame!
I'm a longtime lurker on this sub but I'm very excited to share my notes and findings here for two reasons:
1: I've been a huge fan of Paizo's APs for years but have always been daunted by their length, mostly in terms of successfully maintaining and scheduling a group of regulars for that long! The 3-volume AP approach excited me instantly. This will be my first go at an AP since a couple of short-lived attempts to run Crimson Throne in university and a very short-lived role as a PC in Carrion Crown (which started - and ended - in March of 2020).
2: I love making resources, handouts, props, etc. for my campaigns, and I want to share more of the materials I make online with other GMs, so they can be inspired or use them directly as they see fit. Hopefully adding my own commentary and experiences running the game are valuable to other people considering running this adventure (or just like reading campaign tales)!
The following post will be an intro to our characters, and our first session is scheduled for this Monday, so I'll report back soon with more notes!
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The PCs
The cast of characters at the start of our Frozen Flame campaign is as follows:
Valcarian Knarlhorn is the son of a Broken Tusk barbarian and a Mendevian Crusader Inquisitor of Irori who met amid the Fifth Crusade. Though his father and mother have moved to a less nomadic lifestyle, Valcarian has been sent to live among the following to learn the way of life of his father's people (and hopefully get him some fresh air and exercise).
Having taken the Haunted background, Valcarian's player asked if his first implement (an amulet) might be haunted, so I've told him that the amulet was recovered from a ruined fortress and contains the spirit of one of the Mendevian Crusaders slain there. Because this Crusader would have been killed by Metuak and Xeleria, I'm thinking I can use this object in place of ring found in Calamity Caves to fill in the storyline of Metuak and Xeleria's journey east in a way that fits more organically with this character.
Otherwise for Valcarian, I'm keen to pump up the Mendev content wherever it appears, and to give him a lot of spotlight moments in the final book at Castle Grimgorge (he's also suggested a rivalry with Pakano - this should be good…)
Dagomir is an Ex-Crusader, who saw his life reduced to ash after the assault on Kenabres. Awash with grief at the loss of comrades and his true love, he fled, wandering the realm in despair until re-establishing contact with his half-sister, Valcarian's mother.
She has encouraged Dagomir to find refuge in the following, both to rebuild his spirit and to look out for his nephew. He's taken her words to heart, also choosing to focus on worship of Sister Cinder in exchange for his devotion to Iomedae, in order to craft a new life for himself.
I'm a sucker for redemption stories, so I'm very excited to see what becomes of Dagomir. As with Valcarian, I'll be highlighting all the opportunities to discuss the impact of the Crusades on this setting, and I'd love to modify the stories of Vare and the Mendevians in Lost Mammoth Valley to add more personal stakes - how would your brother-in-arms feel upon finding out you'd deserted your fight, your nation, and your god..?
Ysbrylla has a complicated relationship with her druidic practice. Though she reveres nature and has ample aptitude for magic, her personal nature is a rigid, controlling one - she finds it much easier to mold stone into stable geometric patterns than to embrace the messiness of flora and fauna.
It's for this reason that her apprenticeship with the Hillcross Witches was cut short many years ago. After traveling the Realm for a bit, she too fell into the Broken Tusk following, where she helps teach those interested in druidic magic (though her lessons are fairly prescriptive).
Her player is interested in seeing Ysbrylla overcome her stubbornness and, knowing that the campaign will return to Hillcross, returning to the witches to demonstrate her growth and find closure. I'll also highlight any instances of magical or significant rock or stonework (which should be plentiful between magic caves, apakus, and Rockloom itself!)
|| || (pronounced as a double lateral click) is the only PC born into the following - we've altered things such that there's a family of Tengu living among the Broken Tusks, and Nakta has become a Tengu, though they retain their position as a Mammoth Lord and head of Moose House.
|| || is young, bubbly, optimistic, and more than a little reckless - this player loves to play characters who are high energy and can keep things moving. || || is a talented ranger, but a bit of a runt as far as her Tengu peers go. She wants to learn to fly, explore the Realm of the Mammoth Lords, and prove her worth to her community. She also has an adorable ferret-ish animal companion called Brassica.
This player is less interested than the others in digging deep into Golarion lore, so I'm still playing with what story beats might be enjoyable throughout the campaign. This player loves animals, so highlighting those interactions will be good, and I could see || || taking the lead in helping to liberate the Sutaki and drive that storyline in the second part of the campaign.
Those are the characters as they stand now, before the campaign has begun. What will happen next is up to them, and hopefully I'll have more to share soon!
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Session One
We played for about three hours on Monday April 17.
Our first Frozen Flame session went really well! The players were all excited to dive into a new adventure. One player was late, and there was a lot of going over character sheets, setting up binders, etc. that meant we played for a bit less than our usual four hours. Nonetheless, we covered a lot of ground in getting familiar with the following and had plenty of fun along the way.
The first encounter started with the PCs hesitantly engaging with the moose. There were some tough rolls on the initial checks to press the scouts' advantage, so they faced the moose at pretty full power. || ||, whose player has no problem with making risky choices if they feel true to the character, rushed in headfirst out of excitement, forgetting to mark her prey. Valcarian was taken down after a nasty critical, but Ysbrylla, finding her groove in the backline, was able to bring him up and buff Dagomir, who landed some solid blows.
In the end, Ysbrylla summoned an eagle to help dish out the last bit of damage needed to take down the moose. The players were very interested in helping Wipa butcher the body - I really like that this type of setting is so radically different to most fantasy RPGs, and the players were engaged the entire time with situating themselves in the following's way of life and thinking meaningfully about how their characters fit into this world.
After they returned to the following, I prompted the characters for a little scenelet of what they might get up to in the remainder of the day, to help flesh out their characters and establish more context of the setting.
|| || went to play with the other young tengu - in this campaign, a small portion of the following is comprised of a few generations of tengu that form a collective family unit. || || is small for her age, playful and naïve, and definitely wants her peers and elders to see her as a mature adult. Nakta, now also a tengu, comforted her and told her to be patient for her opportunity to grow.
Ysbrylla is closest to Wipa in the following, so she helped her back to her tent. They made cheerful conversation about Wipa's imminent childbirth, but Wipa grew serious and asked Ysbrylla to do her best to look after Pakano when they became proper scouts. I really wanted to display the social dynamics here, and also add some tension and friction around Pakano so there would be more to work with than just a flat bully, so Wipa talked about how she hoped that Weohotan would be a role model or even a father figure to the troubled youth, and how after his death she worries that he has no one left who will try to support him. Uneasily, Ysbrylla promised to look out for him.
On her way out of the tent, she bumped into Wipa's mother Argakoa, who I'm playing as a bit spunky and grouchy. She stressed the importance of the upcoming Night of the Green Moon.
Valcarian, who was not raised with the Broken Tusks and whose father no longer lives with the following, feels a bit of imposter syndrome which he tries to stifle by overworking himself, so he went to complete some more chores. This left him in a bit of an isolated spot, so Pakano came by to bother him, naturally.
My read on Pakano is that he values brute strength, which he associates with his warrior bloodline (not to mention the potential ego complex of having celestial blood), all of which mixes into a frustration of impatience and incredulity that so much time is wasted talking or thinking instead of taking action.
In young Valcarian's case, Pakano quite looked up to Val's father, an impressive barbarian, and can't believe the following in its sorry state has been shortchanged and left with a gangly thaumaturge to deal with. The two bickered, Valcarian threw a book at Pakano's head (point well made), and things were heating up before Letsua turned up to break up the fight.
As for Dagomir, he had a nice time regaling some of the animal tenders with the story of the moose hunt (a tale well attended by young Imek) before Merthig turned up. I've positioned him as the following's spiritual leader, and the one who helped Dagomir find the path of Sister Cinder after he fled the Crusades. Merthig, a quiet sort, simply returned a holy symbol he had repaired for Dagomir.
The next day, the party was summoned by Grandfather Eiwa, who gave them three tasks to complete before the Night of the Green Moon. After some discussion, they opted to scout out the location where tapirs who had been spotted, in the hopes they could be added to the herd.
Before the party left to find tapirs, Wipa hailed them. Wanting to offer some encouragement and guidance after the dicey moose hunt, she led them in the creation of some snares. || || was very interested, and the player is thinking of taking the Snare Crafting feat next level. The party was quite surprised and uneasy when Wipa asked them to step into their snares as a final test. They all did it, largely out of respect for Wipa I expect, and then met up with Imek to find the tapirs.
|| || is really proving to be the one to soak up all the skills in this campaign - she was the only one who followed Imek's stories and got the free Tame Animal feat, which immediately came in handy when the party snuck into the grove toward the tapirs. With a great roll, || || coaxed them into lowering their guard (and immediately named them Snuffle and Squeak), and eventually they were able to remove the barbs from the tapirs' feet.
All was going well when two mysterious hunters, with strange burn scars on their faces, charged into the clearing to attack! Valcarian was dropped again, and brought back by Ysbrylla again - this is sort of fun, as Dagomir and Ysbrylla are firmly middle-aged, and || || and Val are young adults, there's a parent/child theme starting to emerge. Eventually Valcarian struck the final blow, his amulet whispering to him with a mysterious voice, before he and || || totally freaked out over having killed some mysterious hunters in self-defense.
I stressed that the Tusks were a nonviolent following and that this kind of experience was quite rare (maybe pushing a bit too hard and needing to correct here), but the mood was quite somber as the party decided to carry the bodies back to the following on the tapirs and seek the wisdom of their leaders.
In terms of resources for this session, I made a handout for the players to keep track of some of the key players in the Broken Tusks. At least one of the names is poached from ShockAndAwe's great post here, I'm fairly certain.
Plans for next session: Bring in an NPC voice that emphasizes that there is danger present in this landscape (I'm thinking about Panuaku). Explore the other pre-Green Moon encounters. If we get to the ceremony, maybe have some fun with the players reciting myths (or making their own?), singing songs, or enjoying some "ceremonial spirits" of our own!
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Session Two
We played for our usual four hours on Monday April 24.
Picking up from last session, I tried to establish the tone: that though the party returning with two corpses in tow was certainly alarming, the feeling in the following was one of general unease, though not crisis. Dagomir caught an expression of recognition on Eiwa's face when he saw the bodies, but besides that, no one recognized the scars of the Burning Mammoth hunters.
Valcarian went to clean himself up, and Dagomir followed to check in with his nephew. They had a short exchange where Dagomir offered to lend an ear if Valcarian ever wanted to share how he was feeling.
Meanwhile, || ||, in a similar state, was comforted by a face new to the campaign - Wipa's sister, Panuaku. I played Panuaku as more of a flip, sarcastic, type, who gave the impressionable || || a little tough love. Panuaku gave an explainer of the Pursuants in the night sky to remind || || that being a warrior is sometimes an unwelcome but necessary part of scouting for the Broken Tusks.
Afterward, Dagomir approached Eiwa about what he observed when the bodies were returned. Eiwa was reticent, and asked Dagomir to return to him the instant there was any further evidence of more hunters or their ilk.
Valcarian also visited Nakta to ask for some advice about magical happenings. Just as the hunters approached, Valcarian's implement (an amulet he doesn't know was retrieved from Castle Grimgorge) warned him it was time to fight. Nervously, he asked Nakta if they knew anything about hearing voices, but with not much detail to provide, Nakta simply encouraged Val to be watchful for the next time it happened.
With unease lingering in the following, the party retired for the night.
The next day the party decided to scout out Rockloom. (I was somewhat relieved for this, because this encounter doesn't have any Burning Mammoth activity, which I thought would make the threat feel less looming. I thought if the party felt like the Burning Mammoths were actively closing in, it would be a lot harder to swallow Eiwa's decision not to cancel the upcoming ceremony!)
The party was excited to see Rockloom and things flowed pretty smoothly for the most part. They were ill-equipped for the Raven Swarm, having little in the way of area or splash damage, and only a couple of bludgeoning weapons between them. However, this was a good opportunity for Valcarian to flex his Thaumaturge skills and seek out those weaknesses, and then leveraged the mortal weakness feature to dish out some real damage.
Afterward, I subbed out the lensatic compass with a pot of tattoo ink in the treasure for this encounter. My goal is to customize some of the treasure throughout the adventure by incorporating a member of the following who can mark the players with magical tattoos. The party didn't have time to seek out Rumi, as I've named her, so we'll see what becomes of that next time.
Dealing with Shaggy was pretty delightful. I played him as a friendly but uncouth lout with a thick Scottish accent. He described his raven-woman love kind of…lustfully. Enough to make for an awkward conversation, especially with || ||. ("No, not a bird like you! She was different!") He was pretty quickly won over, and I was pleased that the party was eager to recruit Shaggy to the following without me even explaining that recruitment was a specific part of this encounter! Ysbrylla was particularly interested by Shaggy's earth-related abilities, too, which I think could be a fun dynamic to explore down the road.
The next day, the party embarked on their final task, gathering water from the Gornok River. No one was interested in dealing with Pakano, but I reminded Ysbrylla that she had promised Wipa to look out for him, so they all just gritted their teeth and set out.
Arriving at the river, Valcarian alone went for the spear, which was the perfect opportunity for Pakano to issue the wrestling challenge. Valcarian lost, and as Pakano held him under, the party flipped out: || || scratched and pecked at Pakano, Dagomir tried to get him in a headlock, and Ysbrylla shut the whole thing down with some tanglefoot vines.
Valcarian was thoroughly humiliated, letting Pakano keep the spear and beautifully cementing their rivalry. After Ysbrylla noticed ash floating on the water, the party decided to head upriver and investigate (they wanted Pakano to accompany them, mostly to keep him out of trouble, but he shrugged them off).
The Kalbo encounter unfortunately fell a bit flat in my opinion. Valcarian and Dagomir were both rather skeptical, and with some great roles they very quickly deduced that there was no river spirit, and that Kalbo's intentions were less than pure. The fight kicked off and was over pretty quickly. On the one hand, I'm glad the players got to express their agency and solve the encounter in their own way, but on the other, it feels like a pretty random and uninteresting fight this way.
Finding the Burning Mammoth corpse did pick things back up, though. Certain there was a problem in their midst, the party returned immediately to the following to speak with Eiwa who, now convinced of the Burning Mammoth presence, related his story.
Before we wrapped up for the night, I offered to speed us through the preparation activities - they seemed pretty succinct. I suppose I could have mined them for roleplaying, but this party has no shortage on that front. They succeeded on three and scored a crit on one, so with 8 points, they've got some decent odds against the upcoming ambush.
I've been prepping lots of ideas for the Night of the Green Moon, so I'll be excited to share that, and also to see how the arrival of our first hexploration section suits the group! Thanks for reading.
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Session Three
On Monday May 1 we played for four hours.
The party was excited to join the rest of the following for the Night of the Green Moon. We added lots of roleplay moments to continue to flesh out the setting and the character dynamics.
Ysbrylla chatted with Wipa and expressed her frustrations with trying to keep Pakano in line. I really like how much Ysbrylla's player has taken that to heart - it's added so much depth to the interactions with Pakano, and given it a more complex edge than just making him an annoying bully. Wipa dropped a bit of Pakano's backstory - his heritage and how he was brought in to the following - since I don't think there are many ways for the characters to learn that.
One bit I liked from the back matter of one of the volumes was a tidbit about how the Mammoth Lord followings believe that different foods eaten during pregnancy can influence the baby's traits, and there was an abundance of food at the ceremony. Wipa asked Ysbrylla if she should eat moose meat for a strong baby, hare and ferns for a quick and keen-eyed child, or a strange pickled egg for a baby with spiritual abilities. Ysbrylla, a staunch studier of the druidic arts, advised her to eat the egg.
Meanwhile, || || was approached by Imek, who wanted help sneaking extra food to make a better impression with the porcupine family. They hatched an inane plan to stash Imek in a tree, Imek almost fell out of the tree, || || panicked, Val had to save her - and much fun was had by all.
(I also served some themed food during these scenes, just for a bit of fun and immersion. :-) Fiddleheads are in season (quite briefly) where I am, so I served them up with some mushrooms from the farmer's market. There was a stew as well, featuring the "moose" they hunted in the opening encounter, and a hot-toddy-ish concoction for our ceremonial spirits!)
As the ceremony started, Argakoa led the following in telling a couple of stories, and Merthig led a prayer to Sister Cinder. Grandfather Eiwa celebrated the party and gave them their Broken Tusk Pendants, at which point Pakano threw his tantrum.
The alarm spell Ysbrylla placed on the outskirts of the stone circle sounded just as Val's amulet warned him to get down - and the Burning Mammoths appeared! Because they were so prepared, I had the raiders spend two of their actions moving into range to give the party a starting advantage.
The first wave was over quickly, but the party dawdled in heading to the second, and || || was particularly distracted, trying to track down Pakano - wondering if he had betrayed the following, or if he was okay. I underscored the urgency of the fight by showing another Tusk getting taken down by the second wave, and they became more motivated.
The longshield gave them a couple of strong hits, but it wasn't too much of a fight. Valcarian (with Amulet's Abeyance) and Dagomir (Glimpse of Redemption) both have reactions that can negate damage (and at level one, it's a big proportion of enemy damage sometimes). I'm trying to keep an eye on this as they level up, but for now they have the ability to shut down fights a bit if enemies aren't landing multiple hits.
They were only feet away from Nakta helping deliver Wipa's children, and at the end of the fight, they were very emotional - exhausted, scared, angry, but grateful and excited to have protected Wipa. (A very funny moment occurred when the party concluded that Ysbrylla encouraging Wipa to eat the pickled egg an hour before she went into labour must have been what caused her to bear triplets.)
We transitioned into the next few days of life in the following, which was fairly bleak. It seems tough to follow up the attack on the ceremony with Eiwa's death, but I like that it elevates the party in importance somewhat abruptly. The gang feels in over their heads, the other Mammoth Lords are worried, no one knows what's going to happen next - it's like the moment of realizing that all of the grown-ups in your lives are just people.
Dagomir, having seen a lot of senseless death in the Crusades, felt strongly about honouring Eiwa's wish. || || feels agonized over the idea that her following committed great atrocities in the past, and then kept them a secret. Ysbrylla feels she failed to watch over Pakano well enough, and even Valcarian feels conflicted - though nobody liked Pakano, they fear he charged off to prove his might against the Burning Mammoths and got captured (or even killed). I don't think they'll be happy when they discover the truth…
Eiwa's funeral was a sober affair. Ysbrylla and Dagomir both talked about Eiwa's tolerance and acceptance of new members of the following - one theme that is emerging with this party comp is that of new followers vs. those born to the following, and how they perceive the community and their roles differently.
For the last chunk of the session, we went over the hexploration rules and started our journey east toward Red Cat Cave. They hadn't leveled up, so I let them find the petrified mammoth as it was a non-combat encounter, even though it will be a long while before they approach Ardissa's camp. They brought in Shaggy Shemven as some kind of forensic geologist and we played up a bit of a weird CSI-type interaction.
They seem reluctant to do much exploring besides making a beeline for the cave - have other GMs had experiences with parties straight up avoiding any river or hills hex? They're moving south 'underneath' everything, and I didn't specify which part of Gleaming Sun Lake needed to be visited…I can always move the encounters to different hexes, I suppose, but I'll also mention to them that once they put some more space between them and the Burning Mammoths.
Resources: I wrote out a more detailed script for the Night of the Green Moon: two fables (Argakoa recited one, and the players took turns reading the second one out loud). I thought it was a fun way to more organically incorporate the material on Mammoth Lord religions - stuff about Fandarra and Sister Cinder, mostly.
Next time: We'll head east on our hex map! I've written some specific daily events to sprinkle in alongside the regular encounters, and I'm excited to see how this party fares following their own instincts this time!
Session Four
On Monday May 22 we played for four hours.
The entire session was spent moving eastward through the Gornok plain toward Red Cat Cave, and getting more familiar with the hexploration system. I ran a few of the encounters from the book, and added a few smaller scenes and encounters of my own to flesh out the experience. The party seemed to enjoy the more vignette-style setup as a break to following the action hour by hour.
I've separated the notes below by whether they are directly pulled from the book or unique to our table, so they may not be presented in chronological order.
We ran two of the book encounters during this session: one of the random encounters, and the encounter at Gleaming Sun Lake.
Poison Bringers: The party explored a river hex fairly early on, and I liked this encounter over the Quiet Ones to keep the focus on the threat of the Burning Mammoth, and to help fill in or foreshadow any upcoming plot elements.
The party was thoroughly disgusted by the rime ooze; otherwise, the battle with Tusks was fairly familiar. I'm still mastering the finer points of combat in PF2E and I feel I'm missing a bit with things like using the Longshield effectively. After they shove an opponent - then what? It's useful if there is a hazard in the terrain, or if they can cut off a weak character from support, but outside of those circumstances they feel a little toothless.
The other thing that gave me cause to kick myself was my forgotten intention to have Valcarian's amulet speak to him the next time he encountered Mammoths. I'll have to push it very strongly next time, and in Red Cat Cave, to keep up that association.
The most interesting part of the encounter was the party's plan to capture a Burning Mammoth for interrogation, which they did with a nice non-lethal final blow. They took the hunter back to camp and questioned him under the watchful supervision of Merthig. When the Mammoth claimed that Pakano had joined the Mammoth following, delivered by Ivarsa, Valcarian lost his temper and belted the prisoner before storming out of the tent. Ysbrylla struggled to talk sense into him, and he definitely lost some respect with the Mammoth Lords - all really great character stuff.
(The party as a whole is rather fixated on Pakano, and the potential of redeeming him - It's a topic they discuss regularly. From my initial reading I was dissatisfied at his total absence between Rimecrag Pass and the very end of the campaign, but now I'm convinced I'll need to include him in some role in Lost Mammoth Valley.)
Gleaming Sun Lake: This was the last major encounter of the night and it was a real thrill! Seeing the kelpie's display, Valcarian and Dagomir charged right in, while || || and Ysbrylla supported from the shore. This meant the kelpie had fewer targets to work with and downed Valcarian quite handily. Ysbrylla burned a spell slot casting Air Bubble on the "drowning Kellid". Later she summoned a snapping turtle for support, and the kelpie simply swallowed it whole. Dagomir focused on evasion and healing Valcarian with Lay On Hands as the kelpie chomped away at him too. || || managed to get two natural 20s in one turn (I ruled the second one as a 3x modifier for the sake of drama) and the party only just barely managed to defeat the beast, with Dagomir knocked out in the water as well. It was tactically interesting and had thrilling highs and lows - a very successful encounter!
Afterward, || || supervised a recovering Dagomir on the beach as Valcarian and Ysbrylla explored the kelpie lair. It seemed unwise to split the party, but it turned out quite well for them as they uncovered the kelpie's stash. I'm certain that ghost touch rune will be crucial during the battle with Syarstik.
Ysbrylla and Shaggy: Early in the journey, Shaggy Shemven told Ysbrylla (who had early expressed an interest in his magical earth abilities) about some magically resonant land nearby that might make a good spot for them to share their powers and offer feedback.
Ysbrylla's tightly-wound personality caused her crushing ground spells to manifest as sharply carved geometric fissures. This being Shaggy's first time seeing Ysbrylla's magic, he was surprised, and offered some bald criticism that set Ysbrylla off--namely, that she exerts extra force in her controlled style of magic which holds her back from progressing her ability. Ysbrylla stormed away in a fury, leaving a precisely sculpted chasm in her wake.
Later, she found a trinity geode left at the food of her bed, presumably by Shaggy, but she is taking her time to consider if and how she wishes to reconcile with him.
Dagomir's Horse Training: We had a short interlude to establish one part of Dagomir's backstory: his warhorse from the Crusades has since given birth to a foal, and later died. This foal is meant to serve as a mount for Dagomir, which his player has indicated he wants to take at level 3.
Dagomir was asked by the herder Inig to help train the horse to wear a saddle and support a rider. He critically failed on the role to Command an Animal and was the subject of much ribbing in the following.
Valcarian and Kale: Valcarian had a nice moment after the battle of Gleaming Sun Lake where he finally struck up a conversation with Kale, his crush. She serves the following by making ceramic goods, and offered to make him a container for trail rations as a thank-you for his hard work protecting the following.
|| || and Panuaku: Finally, I ran a scene where Panuaku asked || || to accompany her on a hunt for some nearby elk. This served to give || ||'s player a chance to practice her new snare abilities, and to keep Panuaku present in the narrative. I play her as a keen hunter - if not a little fixated on hunting - who runs really hot and cold, and I like keeping her around to be a source of friction if needed.
Next time, we'll be clearing out the other half of the map - my intention is to reach Red Cat Cave by the end of the session, and hype up this party's first dungeon crawl of the campaign!
Session Five
We played for about four and a half hours on Monday June 5.
My goal was to pace us through the rest of the Gornok Plain hexploration during this session - two full sessions and change felt like an okay amount for this first hexploration section, and I wanted to change things up by running Red Cat Cave sooner rather than later.
To that end, I cut the Quiet Ones encounter (see the "Harbinna" section) and I'm going to save the Crested Dinosaur section for the next leg of the journey - maybe it can replace the kind of underwritten Panuaku hunt event, since modified that idea last session…
This was simple and effective, and went just about how I thought it would. In the first round of combat with the swords, Dagomir investigated the apaku to see if he could get them to un-animate, which stirred the Effigy of Yaguun and made things a lot more dramatic. There were many fails on Yaguun's fear effect, which made things an interesting challenge. || ||'s player also is getting more comfortable using their animal companion, Brassica, in combat, and did a good job setting up flanks in battle.
Afterward, Dagomir claimed the cold iron shield and Ysbrylla and Valcarian stayed to study the apaku, bonding a little as they learned the Animate Objects ritual.
(Ysbrylla and || || both failed their save against the animated blades' tetanus. The block said it takes ten days for the disease to set in, so I'll have to take a look at the rules for that. It might cause some exciting complications in Red Cat Cave…)
The Amulet: After offering some healing, Nakta asked || || to tell Valcarian he was wanted in Nakta's tent. || || decided to eavesdrop and learned that Valcarian had been consulting Nakta about the strange voices he was hearing from his amulet. || || was surprised and a little outraged that Valcarian was keeping secrets, but he calmed her down by telling her it was a secret they shared. They decided to bring in Dagomir on the news, who examined the amulet and noted that a patch of what was thought to be rust was in fact demon blood! This unnerved Valcarian, but his only option was to wait and see what happens next.
Nakta also asked him to gather any material left behind after encounters with the Mammoths, since both times the amulet spoke was during encounters with the hostile following. I'm thinking that after another fight with the mammoths in chapter 3, Nakta will maybe be able to summon the image of the ghostly Mendevian noble for a moment to stir up some suspense.
Ysbrylla's Class: Ysbrylla went on a walk with Wipa, who is starting to recover from her traumatic childbirth. Wipa was quite curious about how the scouts have been getting on, and the players enjoyed Ysbrylla sharing her in-character opinions about them without any of them around.
Ysbrylla gathered some materials and returned to the following to teach a lesson on some of the youths some of her druidcraft. We introduced a new character in one of || ||'s siblings - the rather intimidatingly named ɽrɽr (it sounds like a cooing pigeon, somewhat). This NPC might be able to support Ysbrylla's arc as a strict teacher learning to let her hair down, and also serve as a mouthpiece (beakpiece?) for the rest of the tengu cohort in the following.
After some roleplay events at camp, the party returned to the trail. As I mentioned above, I declined to run the Quiet Ones random encounter. Personally, I found the worldbuilding implied in it rather jarring - this previously unmentioned hostile force of slavers and guides that then never reappears in the adventure didn't add up to much for me. Additionally, after the loblobi and kelpie encounters, there's odd pattern of betrayal-and-water themed encounters that I think would feel a little repetitive. I don't want to train the players into thinking that every time they meet a stranger they're guaranteed to end up in a fight.
So here's what I did instead: the party discovered a recently-abandoned campsite with a hasty attempt to cover up tracks. || || was excited to have another hunt and took off immediately with Brassica in tow. They found a halfling woman hiding in the distance and immediately tackled her to the ground as she screamed in fear in desperation.
The encounter then shifted into a bit of a diplomacy challenge, to calm down || ||, calm down Harbinna, and see what could be gleaned from the interaction. Valcarian took the lead in getting to the bottom of things. I played Harbinna as enthusiastic and excitable. She had a grasp of some Hallit but there were gaps, so we played out her broken Common very explicitly - I wanted to create a contrast with Ardissa, which is also why I placed these encounters back-to-back.
I altered Harbinna's backstory slightly, informing the players that her grandfather willed her a map to a secret cache of his, though she was completely unbothered that the players had beat her to Gleaming Sun Lake, considering it all part of the sport of exploring.
Unprompted, the party returned the backpack to her, earning her trust, and warned her of the dangers of heading west toward the Mammoths. Harbinna revealed that she had already encountered one of their parties, which is why she fled her camp when she heard the party coming. She was very happy to accept an invitation to travel with the following - the players felt her cartography knowledge could work well with Argakoa's understanding of astronomy. I'm not sure if or how that will develop further, but I wonder if there's opportunity there with the star chart chamber in Red Cat Cave.
Valcarian clambered on to a nearby ledge to get a better view, but when Ysbrylla and Dagomir tried to Stealth closer, Ardissa noticed them with some confusion and annoyance. The conversation with Ardissa was awkward, and not least of all because she didn't speak a word of Hallit and had no interest in trying. (I had her babbling in a sort of Simlish meant to represent her cultured Taldane.)
Eventually, they were able to discern her intentions, but Valcarian laughed in her face when she offered useless trinkets for a mammoth. In retaliation she dropped a fireball on the party, and we were off. This was their first time fighting against a spellcaster, and she was pretty vicious with her magic missiles as well - at different points throughout the fight, Dagomir, Valcarian, and Ysbrylla all went down. (|| || has the highest AC and is tough to land hits on.)
I think this was a good fight that really demonstrated the strengths of this party. With Ysbrylla's casting and Dago's Lay On Hands, they're able to keep the party up (or not down for long) and keep the action economy from tipping out of their favour. || || is built for steady damage over time, and Valcarian's Thaumaturge abilities help get a grip on any magical or unusual enemies. Even though it was a tough fight, they pulled through, and as Ardissa cast an obscuring mist to cover her escape, Ysbrylla dispelled it with a gust of wind and Dago leapt forward to deliver a killing blow.
We'd gone a little late, so we sped through clearing out Ardissa's camp (I cut the cockatrice) and called it a night, with everyone ready to finally head to Red Cat Cave next time! I'm working on one or two extra things to heighten the experience, so hopefully I'll have some neat stuff to share!
Session Six
On Monday, June 19 we played for three and a half hours.
I was hopeful we might charge through Red Cat Cave in a single session, but it was not to be. We started later than usual, and some of the roleplaying went on long--not a complaint, but it definitely took longer to gain momentum, and when it did, some unfortunate dice rolls contributed to a sluggishness. We'll just have to take another run at it next time!
There were some character and roleplaying moments that the party wanted to take care of before heading to the cave proper.
Ysbrylla, having cooled down after her blow up at Shaggy a few weeks ago, sought him out to make amends. I've played him very blunt and unafraid to call out behaviour: he accepted Ysbrylla's apology, but when she asked if he had further advice for her goal of mastering druidic magic, he suggested that she hadn't done a great job of learning from the following. From Shaggy's perspective, the Tusks understand the underlying interdependence of humanity and nature, whereas Ysbrylla feels more comfortable putting herself at a distance and above the world around her. To her credit, Ysbrylla humbled herself here and thanked Shaggy for his feedback, severe as it was.
Valcarian asked Argakoa for any advice entering Red Cat Cave--not much new information was shared, but it was good to refresh on the party's mission before venturing forth. I also dropped a hint about "shiny rocks" to foreshadow the cavern at the end of the cave, though Argakoa couldn't remember much about them.
Dagomir took another pot of ink (recovered from Ardissa's supplies) to the tattooist Rumi, who indicated that he should return for a longer tattooing session after Red Cat Cave--and that he should bring his horse (who Dago's player finally named: Bryla). Rumi is old, stubborn, disinterested, and doesn't speak much, so she felt no need to offer an explanation, but the party is very confused and excited by why Dago needs his horse to have a tattoo. (He'll be receiving the familiar tattoo.)
After everything was dealt with, it was time to approach Red Cat Cave!
First approach: Before entering the cave, two important things happened:
Firstly, it had been about ten days since the battle with the animated blades at the apaku site. As a result, Ysbrylla and || || had concluded their onset period for the tetanus they'd contracted during the fight. I described them feeling clumsier than normal, stumbling or dropping things, but given the proximity to an important magical site, they were inclined to believe it was some power of the cave's.
This misapprehension was furthered by Valcarian actually being magically affected by the cave: his amulet turned icy cold, and he experienced a vision where is hands were replaced by Xeleria's shadowy claws, causing him to faint in the front of the cave. Dagomir, the only one who felt normal, was quite offput.
Still, they continued to approach. Val got hit pretty square by the animated cave painting--|| ||'s player had pitched the idea of cave paintings at the top of the session, so everyone was shocked and amused that they found one right away, and that it could attack!
When they headed inside, I switched from our hex map to printouts of artjuice's Red Cat Cave map, rasterized, cut into individual rooms, and mounted onto pieces of cardboard. This took some extra effort, but because there are so few dungeons in this campaign, it seemed like a worthy endeavour. It definitely made the cave feel mysterious and constricted, and we were able to keep the table clear and only have one or two rooms laid down at a time. I'll most likely do this again for things like Calamity Caves.
In the first blindheim fight, || || critically failed the save against the flashing eyes, and was blinded for one hour! Even the dazzle was hugely impactful; many attacks failed the flat DC 5 check and were wasted. This was entertaining, and made for some memorable encounters, but certainly contributed to a sense of slowness in the session. At this point I also formally inflicted Ysbrylla and || || with their clumsy conditions, and panic really set in.
Retreat: At this point, Valcarian insisted everyone leave the cave and figure out what the hell was going on. || || recovered slowly from her blindness and Ysbrylla diagnosed herself with tetanus - since it had been a couple of weeks since the apaku fight, the realization of how Ysbrylla got sick dawned in real time and was quite enjoyable.
The party felt their best bet would be to return to camp and recover. This promised to really slow things down, so we tried to abstract as much as possible, and I had Nakta offer to support the treatment to reduce the risk of things getting much worse. I did, however, use the few days passing to emphasize that the Mammoths were still following, and taking time like this only made their lead more tenuous. As Ysbrylla recovered, she also treated || ||, and critically succeeded on the roll, which offered a nice character moment.
Second approach: After their tetanus time-out, the party again approached Red Cat Cave. Valcarian and || || stealthed through to the blindheim nest, which was nice: it gave me the opportunity to demonstrate that despite how territorial and defensive the first pair was, these were animals that didn't necessarily need force to be dealt with.
However, in the next room, the blindheim leader and its groplit friend came out swinging and landed some heavy blows, so the potential truce was short-lived. After the groplit fell, the blindheim leader managed a few lucky dodges and fled down the tunnel, jumping into the lake to escape pursuit.
The party--now rather exhausted and peeved at how challenging navigating the cave was turning out to be, still calmly observed the fishing blindheim at the lakeshore. || ||, getting more comfortable with her snares, placed some alarm snares in the corridors running back so nothing could sneak up on the party. As the blindheim caught its fish and retreated to the nest, it tripped the alarm snare (despite Ysbrylla awkwardly trying to herd it with her dancing lights) and that seemed like a perfect opportunity to introduce Gathganara.
After a few sticky fights, the party was grateful to end the session with a calmer roleplaying encounter. Though they're of course more interested in tracking down the Primordial Flame, they found Gathganara's request reasonable, and we ended our session with their pledge to help confront the morlock lurking in the caves.
Our next date is on a holiday, so we intend to run two back-to-back sessions! We'll certainly finish Red Cat Cave, so I'm already starting to prep ahead for the next section of hexploration as the party learns about the secrets of Lost Mammoth Valley!
Session Seven
Monday, July 3 was a holiday we played for eight hours(!) in two blocks, with a nice dinner in between. :-) I'll be posting my account of each block separately.
Regrettably, Brassy triggered one of the razor stone traps, which cleared almost all of her HP. (Given the look on || ||'s player's face, she won't be scouting ahead any time soon…) Ysbrylla healed her and the party headed north. They failed to spot the second trap and Dagomir took a hit as well. This definitely injected some tension back into the session and put the players back in the mindset of a dark, dangerous cave!
In Hobji's lair, Dagomir spotted the next trap and disabled it, but still not fully healed, Valcarian opted to go ahead and investigate the mysterious glow ahead. I replaced the candlecap with a custom artifact called the Cap of the Frog, which instead is made of a slick, rubbery material with glowing eyes.
(|| ||'s player had expressed a desire for a frog-themed magic item that would allow her to leap along walls and things. The froggish blindheims seemed like a good fit for introducing this idea, and the candlecap, while charming, is slightly underwhelming as one of the only pieces of loot in the dungeon, IMO.
I thought it would be neat to try making a very simple item, so it's basically a hat that allow a once-per-day spell effect, starting with jump at level 2 and adding more options over time. I'll post the full details if people are interested!)
Valcarian failed to spot Hobji crouched in his niche, and he descended aggressively on the isolated Val. A tense fight followed, but I allowed Val's Recall Knowledge to pick up on Hobji's light sensitivity so he could attempt to blind him with a torch. Once blinded, things tipped in the party's favour, and they were able to overwhelm him, with || || bringing up the rear to take the morlock down with a final shot.
Triumphantly bringing the cap (and Hobji's body) back to the lake, Gathganara summoned her blindheim friends with an echoey song. Though the party had taken down a few of their number last session, this act had clearly won them a truce, and when they offered the slimy cap to Val as a token of their thanks, he happily handed it over to || ||.
I also had Gathganara grant the party a boon and add a potency rune to one of their weapons. My understanding is that QftFF is light on runes, and that in PF2e each character should have access to a +1 weapon by end of second level. At this point, I've handed out extras such that each character except Ysbrylla (who does not typically make weapon attacks) has at least one +1 weapon.
Valcarian and Ysbrylla learned the spells embedded in the paintings. I also pointed out that Valcarian's Esoteric Lore could be used with haunts, specifically. Even though the tiger had already been activated, I encouraged the party to disable it to practice the relevant rules. This led to a rather nice moment for Ysbrylla's character to delve into and describe her magic practice more, in this case channelling the energy in the painting out of the tiger and into a harmless little painted mouse off to the side.
With that done, they ventured into Syarstik's cave. The party is very used to pushing Dago to the front and keeping the rest in the backline, so it they were quite shocked (and I was very amused) when Syarstik appeared and animated a painting behind them, chomping a huge chunk of Val's HP. When Syarstik managed a heavy swipe against Dagomir in the next round, and Val didn't manage any of his Lore rolls, the party decided to beat a tactical retreat.
This hasn’t happened yet in our campaign, and I was interested to see how the party would handle it. They rested by the pool and healed everyone up, while Valcarian created some potency crystals, and they strategized quite effectively based on what they had seen in the fight.
The next day, they went in very tactically, making a sort of phalanx in the centre of the room to avoid touching the walls as much as possible. Though Syarstik could pass through them easily, I was impressed by their planning and kept him near the front of the group, throwing attacks at Val and Dago. With Brassica flanking from atop the altar, he still dealt a ton of damage, but a well-placed hit from Valcarian (who had his potency crystal active, plus the ghost touch rune from the kelpie cave) brought the tiger down.
The parley with him proceeded largely as written, and inside the party was quite excited to explore the navigation chamber. I played up how confusing and complex the markings were. Since they had made a big point earlier about Harbinna and Argakoa collaborating on their knowledge of astronomy and cartography, I thought they might bring her in to consult. They did as I expected, and we ended the session with Harbinna advising them to wait until midnight, and the moonlight glittering across the mica to reveal the location of Lost Mammoth Valley!
Session Eight
(See above: this was the second half of our July 3 super-session!)
After supper we played for another four hours. We also had an additional player present as a guest for this session - he rolled up a sheet for Harbinna Farwander as an Investigator to accompany the party.
I think this was a good choice - the party really cemented how they felt about going east instead of continuing north, and it creates the feeling of the party driving the story rather than feeling like they are being pushed around by questgivers.
After they decided to head east, there was a bit of light roleplaying around incorporating Harbinna. Harbinna's player had her really emphasizing her role as an outsider from Varisia, asking lots of questions about life in the following, and attempting to share some of her experiences (including a scene of Harbinna attempting to explain money and commerce to || || with little success).
[spoiler=Gremlins:] I moved the pugwampi encounter to this section, for no other reason than the natural flow of my game. When it started, the party was not very interested in anything besides the dinosaur they spotted in the distance, so they were quite shocked when a ranged attack flew from the shrubbery out to them.
Ybsrylla had cast ]speak with animals to persuade the dino to join them (though she had to deal with her low Charisma), so she and || || tried to keep it from fleeing while Valcarian and Harbinna explored the underbrush. The encounter was a bit frantic and ultimately short, seeing as it was from an earlier level and I was running 5 PCs. My only real regret was that no one failed the unluck save, meaning no one got to see the most unique element of this encounter.
Eventually they disposed of the enemies and recruited the hadrosaurid, quite excited to bring an actual dinosaur into the fold.
|| || managed to pass the check to spot the ambush, so I had them start at the mouth of the river, spotting the Burning Mammoths behind the bushes. I placed a hunter on each of the ridges on either side to provide some more dimension to the combat, and we let loose.
As it was, only the Reavers posed any threat, and between a couple of poor rolls on their part, and Dagomir's Glimpse of Redemption and Valcarian's Amulet's Abeyance nerfing damage regularly, they were only able to get a couple of nice hits in. The hunters rolled terribly, missing most of their hits, and mostly standing around as fodder.
An optimistic take on this is that after a tough time against the blindheims and Syarstik in the cave, the party was empowered and glad to mow down some low-level mooks, so I chalked this up to them having a hero moment.
As a final scene for the session, Nakta brought everyone into his tent, chanting and clutching the spoils of their fight, until a spirit emerged in the haze of incense smoke! It took the form of a beautiful young Mendevian woman in a state of confusion and alarm. She uttered a ghostly wail and begged to be released to death - then vanished, as the implements everyone held charred into ash.
(Note: Whoops, I've fallen far behind on posting my session notes! Rest assured we are still playing and enjoying this campaign. I will make an effort to catch up on my notes!)
Session Nine
On Monday July 25 we played for three and a half hours.
I thought this was an interesting development, and I thought it was time to push the amulet storyline further, so Argakoa asked to borrow the amulet for a few days to do some research. She floated the idea of removing the magic's amulet entirely - I knew Valcarian's player wouldn't give up such a central object, but I liked the narrative weight of giving him the choice. Valcarian agreed to consider it while Argakoa worked - so for the rest of the session, Valcarian didn't have his implement with him, which I thought was a very interesting decision. We didn't quite to RAW - I let him use Exploit Vulnerability, but he didn't have Amulet's Abeyance to help mitigate party damage.
Some tactical decisions made this fight a lot dicier than it might have been otherwise. After some bad hits, Ysbrylla moved toward the apaku, hoping it could aid her in battle, only to learn it was charged with interesting, but not mighty, divination magic. || || climbed the standing stones but had difficulty with the glyptodon's tough natural armour. Valcarian fell in battle and Dagomir dragged him out of the creature's territory, leaving the party weakened and scattered.
This led to a very interesting climax as the beast bore down on Ysbrylla, who was the closest to its territory, and knocked her out far from the rest of the party. Dagomir summoned his horse familiar and charged in, scooping up Ysbrylla like a prince charming figure and only managing to deflect some deadly blows with his Glimpse of Redemption.
It was a thrilling retreat, and the party huffed and puffed (in character), arguing over who had made mistakes when. Ysbrylla felt quite guilty for leaving her party to investigate the apaku and needing to be rescued. I also have Wipakoa, her closest friend in the party, as a bit of sounding board to offer GM advice on strategy - Wipa's a great scout, but busy with her newborn kids, so she can provide tips or point out their mistakes as part of their scout training. It keeps them humble. ;)
The next day, the party attempted this encounter again, with a different strategy. Ysbrylla's character is very excited to have access to an increasing variety of summoning spells, and knowing her own Charisma holds her back when attempting to befriend animals, she instead summoned a Naiad to help, which we framed as sort of a mediator between the party and the glyptodon.
I think Ysbrylla's player was very chuffed to be able to roll with the Naiad's much higher modifier, and after some respectful greetings and offers of food, this already weakened and annoyed glyptodon decided to follow its nose and clear the barrow for the party to explore.
Ysbrylla was excited to learn more about how the apaku could be used. (The party felt so accomplished in revealing so many hexes at once! There was some OOC discussion about what she should ask about, and Val's player suggested she consult the stone regarding the status of Pakano. I thought about this and wanted to foreshadow a bit more about how Pakano had been in direct contact with Ivarsa specifically, so I the apaku communicated feelings of fiery passion and arousal to Ysbrylla - who was quite mortified!
On reflection, it might have been nice to communicate feelings of pain, to make more ambiguous Pakano's safety (perhaps the feeling of being subjected to the Mammoth's burns, with an open question of whether or not Pakano was a willing participant). But I'm happy with the choice I made too - it added a bit of levity what was a somewhat emotional session already, and I think that including grounded elements of day-to-day life (we talk a lot about what the following is eating, what chores need doing, etc.) help make the following feel really actualized.
Ysbrylla was uncomfortable telling Dagomir what happened, but the two resolved to next explore the barrow. I felt it was a bit awkward running these two wights who are willing to talk peacefully, but also compelled to chase out intruders…? I had them acting sort of like they were possessed, saying one thing but without control over their bodies. Regardless, with half the party gone, Ysbrylla and Dagomir opted to retreat and meet back up with the rest of the party at the following.
Dagomir sought out Merthig to learn about the possibility of consecration. At this point, it didn't seem productive to give them a non-answer, then wait for them to find the cache, then make them go back--so I just had Merthig offer to lead the ritual. I played it up as being a bit of a character choice for Dagomir, given the casting time of the ritual - did this mean enough for him to ask the following to wait in place for three days? It was a good opportunity for him to express his character's beliefs and values, and he asked the party if they were willing to support his endeavour.
In the end, we did a montage of these three days of consecrating (because what you actually do for three days? A lot of chanting, I suppose…). During that time I had the cairn wights speaking through the stone rubble at the entrance to the barrow, relating the story of Yaguun and Hiajor (since there was no other way for the PCs to get that information) and I think it helped colour in the world a little further - and the Yaguun encounter had been quite memorable, so it was cool to feel like there was a connection in these random-seeming encounters across sessions.
This encounter also really cemented interest in the apakus - I think I'll need to continue their presence in the rest of the campaign, particularly with a stone-themed character like Ysbrylla around! It's a shame only three are encountered in the whole campaign, as far as I can tell - does anyone have any experience adding more abilities keyed to the other schools, or choosing locations for them? I'll brainstorm…
In a nutshell - thanks, but no thanks! The idea of the apaku map revealing a secret cache is great, but that's the where the excitement ended for us. If I were to do this again I would put something else here, and also maybe add some treasure to the inside of the barrow so it feels like there is a direct reward for concluding that story.
Next time, we'll continue onward and make quite a good pace exploring the eastern half of the region!
Session Ten
On Monday, July 31 we played for 3 and a half hours. Dagomir's player was out of the country, so he tagged along on "autopilot" as it were, to keep the party composition.
This encounter was short and sweet! My roleplay-heavy group was happy to try to adjudicate matters between the twigjacks and the quicklings, and these chaotic, evil (but not actively hostile) fey felt like a really different type of encounter to play through.
Valcarian's player was quite quick to hit on the idea of pitting the fey against the incoming Burning Mammoths. He had strong diplomacy rolls and a great argument - I let this play out without too much fuss.
At the start of the session, Valcarian found his amulet returned to his bedroll, with a note from Argakoa advising him she would be seeing him soon. I waited a few days until the forest encounter wrapped up before running this encounter - Argakoa explained that the new moon was the time where she was able to draw the energy out from the amulet most safely.
In a clearing away from the camp, Argakoa led Valcarian in a nighttime ritual that summoned the ghostly form of the spirit who had been trapped inside the amulet. This spirit is Caledonia of House Frostmire, a minor Mendevian noble slaughtered by Metuak and Xeleria in a grisly massacre at Castle Grimgorge.
Caledonia has a tenuous connection to this realm, and during this scene she believed she was attending a dance at the castle, shortly before the massacre. Valcarian, confused but fascinated, danced with Caledonia's ghost, trying to keep her calm but also hoping to gather any additional info. He was able to pin down the time period she was from (the first crusade) and a couple of clues ("The castle? G…green…grim…"), but it wasn't long before her image faded into nothingness.
I was really happy with this scene - the tone was mystical, strange, and melancholy, and it was great to find a way to bring more Mendev content to the first book, as well as a great character spotlight for Valcarian.
The following moved quickly through this part of the map and soon found themselves in the Cold Lake Camp encounter. The major event during this encounter was Ysbrylla using wild shape to turn into a bear during combat, much to the surprise of the rest of the party. I love that this party can find roleplaying moments even in combat - they were quite surprised and a little offended that Ybsrylla has been so cagey about her druidic abilities!
This fight was otherwise pretty uneventful - no Mammoths were captured or interrogated. I tried to sprinkle some clues (like the presence of certain animal pelts) to suggest that the Mammoths had been spending time north of the lake, because I wanted to give a fair shot at luring them into the false pass, without being overly pushy. However, they decided to continue around the lake to the south. I think moving this encounter further along the river might make the correct path a little more ambiguous here, but as it was, they had little reason not to try to make a beeline to LMV.
I wanted to move the Punishment by Fire encounter to the end of the chapter because I wanted to be sparing with the presence of the Mammoths. Overall, that's how I've felt about running this book - I want the party to be motivated to travel and anxious of what's behind them, but no so much that it lessens their interest in exploring and interacting with the region and with the following. I also wanted to play up the tension of keeping Pakano's status unknown, and Aklep's story really cements a few points that I wanted the party to worry over first.
Upon encountering him lashed to the rock, Dagomir used Lay on Hands to keep him alive until they brought him back into Nakta's care. Valcarian felt that this scene may have been a message sent from the Mammoths to intimidate the party.
There had been some conversations this session about digging into the history of the schism more (it's a shame they hadn't had the foresight to ask much of Eiwa while he was still alive…), and in particular, I think there was a sense that in the story as communicated by book, there's not a ton of justification for why the Tusks hid the Flame away - ostensibly to keep it safe, or keep it from being used for evil, sure, but it does feel kind of cowardly when the opposing camp wanted to ride into glorious demon war with a deific artefact…
Anyhow, Valcarian's player pitched the idea that there is a faction of the Tusks who have contributed to the Mendevian Crusades throughout the century - including Valcarian's father - and that they have the symbol of the missing mammoth tusk set alight like a torch. Obviously we all loved this, and Val left that symbol inscribed on the rock where Aklep was found in case any Mammoths came across - a gesture toward their commonalities and a way forward.
Next time we'll cover Rimecrag Pass, the drama and tension of which took an entire four hour session to play through!
Session Eleven
On Monday, August 21 we played for around four hours, and finished Book One!
Dagomir and Aklep: After a few days of recovering in Nakta's tent, the Burning Mammoth castout Aklep was now steadily conscious. After Valcarian and Ysbrylla's disastrous questioning of a Mammoth in session four, Nakta elected Dagomir to speak to this new stranger in the camp.
The conversation focused mostly on the differences between the followings, and how Aklep felt about his situation. Dagomir is certainly a high-minded character, and he had little interest in pumping Aklep for information - he stayed true to his character, but I wonder if the party realizes how valuable an opportunity this was to speak to someone willing to share some of the history and current attitudes of the Mammoths, Ivarsa, Pakano, etc.
Dagomir told Aklep that there could be a place in the Tusks if he wanted it, and left it at that.
Val's Fencing Lessons: Valcarian received a gift from Kale, a Tusk around his age with whom he had been flirting on and off through the past book. (After his somewhat romantic dance with Caledonia's ghost, I wanted to bring this character back to the forefront to see how Val might respond to a bit of a love triangle starting to form.) Her work in the following involves crafting ceramic goods, so she made for him a little traveling set to carry rations in.
In exchange, Val gave Kale Ardissa's rapier and offered to teach her a little swordfighting. I wanted to underscore one of the emerging themes of this campaign - being born into the Realm of the Mammoth Lords vs. finding another way into the following - and I emphasized that Kale was struggling with this truly foreign style of combat. Valcarian made a roll to instruct her but rolled terribly, and the lesson petered out awkwardly. Maybe Val might end up finding a ghostly Mendevian companion to be more his speed going forward..?
Ysbrylla's Notes: Ysbrylla has been feeling somewhat guilty about not being very communicative with the rest of the party. She's uncomfortable talking about her history, and she's selective about when she shares information, even if it's very relevant - this has caused tension between her and || || particularly, who recently saw her tengu sibling studying druidic magic with Shaggy Shemven instead of Ysbrylla, but opted not to tell her.
Ysbrylla has decided she wants to be more open and foster greater trust, so she left notes for the party members requesting their presence the next day so she could share information with them. Little did she know what kind of day was in store for the entirety of the Broken Tusks!
This was a really funny moment - I've been playing Shaggy as very blunt and sometimes crude, and the party was mostly keen to coach him into impressing Yraka (|| || is still rather offput by him). Eventually, Yraka agreed to join the following and see where this relationship might take her.
Afterward, the party opted to explore the cave that Yraka had mentioned earlier and discovered the scene inside. They acquired the treasure, but didn't get around to asking Yraka about the raven armband, so they don't know its properties - that will have to be disclosed later.
|| || was the first to encounter Pakano, and her player really committed to the character - || || was distraught and confused, not understanding what Pakano was really doing there, or why he bore the facial burns of the Mammoths.
As the others arrived and the Mammoths launched into their attack, Valcarian flew into a rage (particularly after Pakano used Hunt Prey on him and taunted him in particular!). Ysbrylla, having been charged by Wipakoa to look out for Pakano, spent several actions trying to convince him to surrender - when she was successful, I had Pakano waste actions hesitating or responding to her in particular - though I also noted that he seemed visibly afraid of Ivarsa when she appeared. Dagomir and || || both focused on keeping the other Mammoths at bay - everyone besides Val was truly reluctant to attack Pakano directly!
Ivarsa's arrival was also really intense - the flashiness of the teleportation and fireball certainly had the intended effect on the party. Although they had been suspicious of an avalanche since entering the pass, they had no idea how things would actually play out - and certainly they were not expecting to see Ivarsa at this point in the adventure!
I moved up the severity of the avalanche by several rounds and described the rest of the Tusks rounding the bend around the frozen stream as chunks of debris started to shake loose. The party agonized over killing, capturing, or pleading with Pakano, trying to stop or slow the avalanche, running through the pass, or convincing the whole following to turn backwards! (I had to try my best to steer them away from that one - after all, then they'd just be sitting ducks for the Mammoths!)
Ultimately, Ysbrylla made a final attempt to persuade Pakano. He stepped up to her, told her to hurry the following through the pass, and used his mad mammoth's juke to teleport away. The rest of the party frantically worked to the lead the following through the pass, and we ended on a fade to a complete whiteout of falling snow.
Next time we'll jump into Book 2, check in on the aftermath of the fateful encounter at Rimecrag Pass, and dip a toe into Calamity Caves!
Session Twelve
On Monday, September 4 we played for four hours, starting Book 2 of Quest for the Frozen Flame!
We began our session in the aftermath of the treacherous journey through Rimecrag Pass. I had the party roll at the end of the last session to determine casualties - I think it's odd that there aren't any notes for that in the adventure, given that this is the climax of the first part. In the end, our Broken Tusks lost Eiwa's mammoth (who was already growing weaker and despondent without its lifelong master), Merthig's husband Kopua, and Rumi, an NPC specific to our campaign who tattoos the following with magical ink.
The time had come for Ysbrylla to tell the rest of the party about her backstory. She had just taken sheltering cave for level 4, so it seemed like a fun way to find some privacy in the following. Inside her little cave, Ysbrylla told them her backstory: that she had once been apprenticed to the Hillcross witches, but had disagreed with their methods, and in an explosive incident had damaged a monument to Brogan and fled the encampment in shame.
Ysbrylla also explained that Wipakoa had asked her to look out for Pakano, which explained her actions during the encounter in Rimecrag Pass. Valcarian, as Pakano's nemesis, was livid, insisting to everyone that Pakano had made his choice and should be treated as a mortal enemy from now on. Dagomir defended Ybsrylla, since no one knew the full truth of what had happened to Pakano, and || || was upset with everyone, for not sharing with her these secret conversations or the interrogations of the Burning Mammoths.
There was a lot of in-character tension as the party attended funeral rites for the fallen Tusks, and met with Argakoa, who apprised them of the situation with the nearby cave system. Aware that they needed to reamin focused on the safety of the following, the party prepared to enter Calamity Cave.
If you've read any of the prior accounts of this campaign, it will not surprise you that || || triggered the cave-in pretty immediately. She also managed to clamber about and discover the cold iron ammunition, which came in handy not long after. The team also managed to scout out most of the stalactite locations, though they were wary after taking them down after one struck Dagomir.
After strategizing over where to go, Ysbrylla used painted scout to explore the corridor to the east.
Dago took some bad hits, and his armour was shredded by the smilodon's special ability. Valcarian had been exploring the plateau around the corner, so he tried to provide long-range cover, but struggled to get a bead on the creature. Ysbrylla and || || typically play more backline, but as a result there was no one besides Dago taking these hits, and he quickly dropped.
The party was scattered and frantic. They tried luring the smilodon into falling stalactites, which was very cool and creative of them. Because they hadn't seen the trick with the furs, everyone was gobsmacked when the smilodon was crushed under the rubble, only to emerge as a skinless demon clutching a gory fur.
Based on my reading of the demon, and to avoid slaughtering them brutally, I had the roru compulsively follow || || so it could attempt to control her familiar Brassica. Eventually it dominated the stoat, and || || was heartbroken to see her familiar taking vicious bites out of Valcarian - who, unluckily, took several attempts to Exploit Vulnerability before he was able to get some cold iron action going. At least || || had grabbed the ammunition, so she could start making bigger dents in the thing.
Dagomir had been down on the far side of the cave for some time, so Ysbrylla cleverly summoned a fey creature to fly over and deploy a heal to bring him up. After that, it was a matter of whittling away at this thing until || || felled it with one last cold iron blow. The gang was pretty spooked after this one!
Anyway, they rested here, which gave || || a bonus to her attempts to recruit the smilodon cubs. Valcarian rappeled down to the nearby corpse and recovered some useful gear, and Ysbrylla experimented with some cantrips and discovered she could use ray of frost to effectively clear out the brown mold. We were all excited to keep exploring the cave system (especially as I knew Vare was nearby) but alas, we were low on spell slots and time. || || has now taken Snare Specialist and littered the place with signalling snares, so I'm excited to show them being triggered to make this environment feel really active!
Next time: more spelunking in Calamity Caves!
Session Thirteen
On Monday, September 18 we played for four hours. Valcarian's player missed the session, so we autopiloted him for the duration.
Dagomir: With his armour shredded by the roru in smilodon's clothing, Dagomir wanted to know if a new set could be created using materials from Eiwa's recently deceased mammoth, Thunder. I had Panuaku and Wipakoa working to process the carcass, since Dagomir had not interacted much with either character (and the two sisters had rarely interacted on-camera with each other, to think of it). Everyone agreed Dagomir of course needed new armour to do his work, but Panuaku admitted it would take some time to construct.
She nudged Wipakoa, who bashfully took Dagomir to her tent and showed him a set of hide armor that had belonged to Weohotan. Dagomir gratefully accepted it, and had a nice moment with Wipakoa, revealing some of his insecurities about the party's progress and his own strength of character. My plan here is to have the mammoth-hide armour serve as a set of +1 hide around the conclusion of Calamity Caves.
|| ||: Shaggy found || || gathering snare supplies, and let her know that Yraka desired to speak with her. The kadlaka was roosting on a mountain ledge high above, but when she called her up, || || (who still isn't able to fly) declined with a weak excuse. Yraka pressed the issue, offering to reveal the secret of the raven band recovered from Rimecrag Pass if || || told her the truth.
I'd been talking with || ||'s player about her having a bit of a darker or destructive arc in this book, reflecting on how impressionable she is and how the party hasn't trusted her with sensitive information. I had Yraka lean into this a bit, suggesting maybe that part of || ||'s problem was how dependent upon, and obedient toward, humans. With those seeds sown, the scene ended on a lighter note as || || played with the newfound abilities of the raven band.
Ysbrylla: Ysbrylla's character wanted to have a scene with her students in the following. Last session, || || admitted that these students were also seeking tutelage from Shaggy, since Ysbrylla had been so distracted with the need to scout for the following. She coaxed the truth out of her students, and told the students they weren't in trouble, and were allowed to learn from Shaggy whenever they wished - coming full circle to the small rivalry between these characters in book one.
Valcarian was meant to have another encounter with the ghost within his amulet, but as his player was absent, we'll have to do that later!
As written, Metuak's pendant is found here, but in our game I'm incorporating those plot points and effects into Valcarian's amulet implement. He approached the altar in a daze and experienced the vision of Metuak's past. Concerned, || || aggressively pulled him away from the altar, and his resulting cry alerted the lagofirs.
This fight was pretty quick - the lagofirs are quite large to fit in this cramped space (I suppose they try to attack and then retreat into the water), so Ysbrylla cast an obscuring mist to try to make some space. After a few strong hits from Dagomir, they retreated to their lair.
Ybsrylla summoned a naiad to track the lagofirs through the water (she used a similar tactic on the glyptodon in book 1), but with only a minute duration, I had the naiad swim through the tunnel and swim back to report, without any time to really interact with the lagofirs. To me this was kind of a burn of a spell slot, especially since the party then decided they weren't interested in recruiting the lagofirs or exploring the site any further, but oh well.
|| || clambered through the tunnel near the ceiling, and was stunned by the glimpse of Venexus and the mysterious voice telling her to get down. Valcarian wasn't far behind, so he went back to warn the party while || || crept forward along the ledge into Vare's lair. Vare was terse and threatening (|| ||, if you can believe it, was cheerful and inquisitive), but the tone change once the rest of the party joined, as Vare recognized Dagomir from their time together in Kenabres!
I rewrote the storyline of the Mendevians in this book to have them be active soldiers stranded in the valley as opposed to deserters - I feel like there's more interesting tension and conflict with the Ex-Crusader background this way. I want the factions in the valley to have different tones and emotions to them - as written, the Mendevians are just another neutral group with no reason to have a strong reaction to the PCs either way, which also feels like a waste of the potential in that PC background!
Anyway, Vare was furious to learn that Dagomir had deserted - she assumed he had died at Kenabres, and while they weren't especially close, her principled, severe nature caused her to take this revelation very personally. Dagomir expressed no regret, protesting that he was traumatized by the horrors of Kenabres, while Vare did not mince words and coldly informed the rest of the party they were traveling with a traitor. I was wondering if Dagomir would break down - his player is pretty reserved with roleplaying, but also has not had much direct attention to him or his backstory - but instead Dagomir insulted Vare right back, which was an interesting turn.
Regardless, Vare curtly dismissed the party, though she did offer the shelter for use after she departed the cave. The gang resolved to explore a little further while there was still time in the session.
The ambush was frightening, but after exchanging some heated words and blows in the first round, || || attempted to explain that the party wasn't a threat ("whatever 'corpse-lovers' are, we're not that") and got a natural 20 on her Diplomacy check. Though this had been my plan all along, the party definitely thought the Sutaki's sudden flip in attitude was solely a result of the roll: once they realized they were in the presence of a tengu, they hailed her as an emissary of Tanagaar, sent to help liberate the Sutaki people!
(I've tweaked the story here just slightly - Tanagaar will be a raven instead of an owl, and the Sutaki rebels will call themselves the Blood Ravens. Easy peasy.)
The party was totally flabbergasted, and || || struggled with what to do, before deciding to go with the flow and see what the Sutaki were talking about. They got a lot of information about the state of the valley (though they missed a couple of more urgent connections, like the name "Venexus" with the dragon they saw), but it was getting to the end of the session, so we ended with the party resolving to find what happened to the missing seer elsewhere in the caves.
Session Fourteen
(I'm on my holiday break, and hoping to use this time to catch up on the - eek! - three months of sessions we've had since I last posted here.)
Monday, October 9 was Canadian Thanksgiving! We played another double session, which let us finish up Chapter One of Book Two and jump into some hexploration.
The fight was fun - rescuing the strangled warrior added a fun dimension to it - and it was a great moment for Valcarian, a thaumaturge who wields a hatchet, to shine. Upon bringing the victim and survivor back to the camp, the party resolved to bring Onak along with them as they cleared out the rest of the cave.
Val and his uncle encountered Eokoe, Tedanu, and Dini in the shrine - this went well, though I wish || || had been there to play up the Tanagaar stuff more. V and D's players both do a great job of asking pertinent questions to flesh out the table's understanding of new plot points, so a lot of the Ashen Swale and Venexus stuff was clarified and cemented.
Meanwhile, || ||, Onak, and Ysbrylla explored the cavern and had a tough time with the beaver encounter! The Mendevians usually provide the bulk of the front line support, and || || tends to wander all over the map as she pleases, so as it was, Ysbrylla got swarmed and took a ton of hits. Though her player might have been annoyed, things soon improved, as I loaded the necromancer corpse with a bunch of additional magic loot for Ysbrylla to use.
(I never thought I'd have this problem, but the party has been too pious to loot items from places like offering sites or graves - they ignored the items at the mammoth skull site and the shrine to Fandarra, for instance. I've had to move a bunch of treasure accordingly, haha.)
After those encounters, the groups reunited and we paused before finishing up Calamity Caves in the next block.
Session Fifteen
(This was the second half of our October 9 double-session.)
The first order of business was to deal with the caves above the scree slope. || ||'s Cap of the Frog (a modified artifact version of the blindheim's candlecap from Red Cat Cave) allows her spider climb, so she snuck ahead and discovered the gargoyle roost. With some great stealth checks, she returned to inform the party and they decided to lure them into Vare's hideout with a summoned creature and trigger the deadfall to wipe them out.
I thought this was a fantastic idea, and handwaved most of the rolls, allowing them a little moment of uncontested victory. (I also swapped out some of the treasure here for a jug of fond remembrance for Valcarian, and the gang enjoyed thinking about what their character's favourite drinks might be.)
The only other unexplored parts of the caves was the far southwest corner, which went relatively smoothly. The shrine to Venexus seeded some clues about events to come in the rest of the book, and in trying to exit after the encounter with the beheaded, Dagomir ended up falling off the bridge and attracting the attention of the wolves.
The dynamic in that encounter was quite interesting, as Dagomir was getting swarmed and knocked down as the others attempted to support from the bridge above and debated wading in - the only downside was that even with the wolves swarming, they couldn't get enough damage in over time to really threaten our tankiest party member.
Regardless, they managed to intimidate the wolf pack and clear the cave once and for all!
At this point, the rescued Burning Mammoth Aklep was recovered from his injuries and able to start participating more in camp life. Aklep as written is happy to be recruited, but I tried to give him some grit here - he feels resentful of how he was treated, but also blames it largely on Pakano, who he sees as not so much of a real Burning Mammoth anyhow. He told Dagomir that he was a skilled hunter with the Mammoths, but that the Mammoth Lords of the Burning Tusks were wary about letting Aklep wander more freely, given his past alliances.
Ysbrylla made time for her friend Wipakoa, and vented a little about the tribulations of working with her scouts, especially with the blow up they'd had at the beginning of Book Two. Wipakoa encouraged her to find ways to connect with Val and || || outside of their role as scouts.
Lastly, we did a touch of hexploration, ending up at the Lea of Honored Souls. Val had taken Read Psychometric Resonance recently and wanted a chance to use it, so it was the perfect opportunity for me to dovetail in the griffon vision - giving him far more than he bargained for! As the poltergeists manifested, the party decided to beat a hasty retreat and potentially follow the flight of the griffon before returning.
Session Sixteen
On October 23, we played for four hours.
After the battle, the party was excited to adopt the griffon babies, along with butchering the adults to bolster their rations. Val used his psychometric resonance on the amulet found in the nest, so I gave him a free pass on the check connecting it back to the lea.
After a protracted discussion of how much meat an adult griffon yields and the carrying capacity of a horse mount, the party returned to camp to share their bounty.
|| || elected to bring the griffon babies to Yraka, who I've played as a little grand and egoistic, so she was uninterested in playing brood mother. In continuing the theme of influencing || ||, Yraka offered some unsolicited opinions about the state of the following, and how she understands bird creatures like herself and || || as being naturally superior to featherless humanoids.
Dagomir, ever the caregiver, checked in on the new Sutaki companions, including Tedanu. The party hadn't learned much about him, so this was a good moment to bring in some information about the Sutaki and Ashen Swale that hadn't been covered in the caves - like Dini's mother Nukiak.
He also appealed to the Mammoth Lords to be more lenient with Aklep, and with a very strong Diplomacy roll, they agreed to give Aklep some more responsibility as a hunter among the following.
Valcarian, meanwhile, sought counsel from Argakoa. He's becoming increasingly worried about the effects the amulet is having on him, having triggered fainting spells and visions throughout the caves and beyond in the valley. Argakoa had little to offer him besides comfort that he could always take it off if necessary, and that she had a strong feeling that powerful forces had called the following into the valley.
[spoiler=The Lea of Honored Souls]Lastly, the party returned to the Lea of Honored Souls, now in possession of the amulet. They were humbled to meet Jodren, and he was able to provide lots of context for what the party has already seen in LMV, including confirmation that the dragon Venexus wields the Primordial Flame! The party also seems to really believe in the possibility of reunification with the Mammoths, so they were heartened to have a positive interaction with this spirit that predates the schism entirely.
At the end of the session, the party moved into the hex of the darkened campsite. When they stumbled across the curious scene, || || charged in, only to be set upon by the fearsome shadows, leaving us on a gripping cliffhanger ending to the session!
Session Seventeen
On November 6, we played for four hours.
For the Metuak vision moments in LMV, I move the actual vision to the end of the encounter, to make it feel more like a reward for exploring and clearing the encounter. This one convinced his player that the shadow-spewing monolith that possessed Metuak is somewhere in the valley. We'll see where that leads him…
Other than that, this encounter just offered an early puzzle piece of what happened with Metuak and his journey through the valley.
Valcarian, preparing to conduct another ritual to summon the spirit inside his amulet, approaches Dagomir to ask about how he should conduct himself with a Mendevian noble, which morphs into something of an awkward parental conversation about how to deal with (ghost) ladies. Their discussion meanders to Dagomir's slight disapproval of Val's mother's role as a (potentially bloodthirsty and torturous) inquisitor, and Val also admits that he wanted to kill Pakano during their fight over the spear, and Dagomir continues to insist that Pakano has potential to redeem himself, wherever he is.
Val then met with Argakoa, who channeled her energy to summon another vision of Caledonia of House Frostmire. Their last encounter was a dreamlike and overwhelming dance, so this time I concocted a scene at the same party, later in the night, as Caledonia refreshed herself in her quarters.
Valcarian tried to glean more information about where they were and what was happening - I offered some teases that they were clearly in a large stone structure quite uncommon in this region - but eventually a tremor sent them both tumbling violently to the ground. Val, unable to help Caledonia up or wipe the blood off her face, watched as her demeanour changed; seemingly recognizing his presence for the first time, she warned him against demonic forces in the valley, namely "poetry written in blood [the babau], goats born of fire [the brimoraks] and a skinwalker in the herd [the second roru]."
Val tore off at this point, abandoning Argakoa and seeking his fellow scouts. Convinced that this warning referred to a traitor among the Tusks, he begged the group to help him route out the skinwalker hiding within the ranks of his following.
(I had not expected this outcome and tried to keep a poker face during the extended discussion that followed! Dagomir's player felt that, given the rest of the warnings clearly referred to demon encounters, that there might be another roru instead, but I'm not sure how well they heard him. Oops!)
Eventually the party decided to start an inquisition of their own (an irony not lost on Dagomir) with tactics like || || surreptitiously pressing a piece of cold iron against members of the following. Sent on that charge, she immediately got distracted by starting with the Sutaki, who were eager to continue their veneration of the Herald of Tanagaar. (At the very least, I had them explain some more basic information about Lyuba, Venexus, and Ashen Swale that hadn't been covered yet.)
Lastly, the party opted to move the following forward. I'm not sure how exactly this is meant to work - the book mentions that the following is obviously not going to be closely tailing the scouts in LMV, given the dangers present in every hex. I told my players that they could instruct the party to move to a directed hex whenever they were there, and it was up to them to determine a safe route for the Tusks to traverse the valley, like in Calamity Cave. I think there are interesting ideas in the book about a tension between clearing away dangers to the east while keeping away from the Mammoths in the West, but mostly I've had to just keep it vague and implied, as no Mammoths will appear until several months have passed.
Luckily for them, these soldiers were quite calm and diplomatic, though it was definitely a hard sell from a RP perspective to have these warriors too scared to enter a small hollow under a tree. Even if the Mendevians are superstitious, they're also all meant to be fervent demon-slayers, and I wanted something a little less helpless than the overwhelming malaise of the Mendevians as written - it just makes them less dynamic and contributes to a static world where the PCs are the only ones who do anything. Anyway, I pinned the cowardice on Belguese in particular and had the other soldiers in turns exasperated by and concerned for her.
The party headed in and dealt with the leshies with no problem, but before they wrapped up here, || || was desperate to climb the giant tree - Valcarian gleefully followed. This made for a fun moment to drop Daphelia's appearance as a surprise, as she jolted out of the trunk toward the top of the tree to beg for aid. The party was quite intrigued, I think because they've so far received little direction about what lies ahead in the valley, whereas this quest gives them a solid target.
In any case, they regrouped at the base of the tree and accepted the Mendevian's offer to visit their encampment, which is where we called the session.
Session Eighteen
On Nov 20, we played for four hours.
In terms of changes, as I mentioned in my previous notes, I felt the Mendevians were so downtrodden and miserable as written that they almost felt burdensome - dozens of depressed, helpless NPCs waiting on the PCs to save them. I really strived to make them feel active, and like they were good at their jobs, but that morale was faltering and some sudden demonic surprises had hamstrung them.
Oh, they're also not ex-crusaders specifically - I wanted to challenge Dagomir by surrounding him with people who still upheld the virtues of his past. I felt if they all had fled the war same as him, it would be pretty pat for him to invite them into the Tusks with no issue. These Mendevian soldiers were sent to clear demons from the western edge of the Scar, tracked the energy of a powerful demon (unknowingly also following Metuak's trail), and wound up stuck in the valley, surrounded on all sides after some key losses, and languishing for a couple of years.
Anyway, the soldiers who brought them to the camp told them to wait while they informed the Commander. || || proceeded to wander around and bother people, including an attempt at understanding how to barter with a Mendevian arms master for a snapleaf. Eventually, dinner was announced, and the soldiers reappeared to announce that Montgrim sought the players' company for dinner in his tent.
He was also useful in offering some lore (the current state of Mendevian politics, though that may have been for my own amusement - I'm not sure how much the players cared. Oops!), a general overview of what the valley is like, and I figured it was fair to help him identify Val's amulet as a seal of a noble house - I'm really trying to walk the line between dribbling out clues without giving Val enough info that might get him to Castle Grimgorge too early.
They also asked Montgrim about Vare, but a failed Diplomacy roll kept him tight-lipped, not sure it was his story to tell. I think the framing I'm going to go with is that Vare's departure after her brother's death was one of the bigger blows the unit faced, so if they opt to help her reunite with her troop, they'll be much better equipped to carry out their work.
Lastly, they talked more concretely about coming to an agreement. A lot of what I'd read about this AP suggested it had some limitations around appropriate treasure, so I corrected for that by having the Mendevians equipped with quite a lot of supplies they were willing to trade, including rune services.
Agreeing to help Montgrim with the tatzlwyrms and the necromancers nearby, the party set off, hoping to do a counterclockwise loop around Mount Galeok and return to the camp.
Session Nineteen
On December 11, we played for four hours.
They then continued around Mount Galeok - I axed the pyre encounter to keep things moving, and described the hyenaedons at a distance, which the PCs felt they could return to later if desired. Soon they arrived at the Corrupted Tree encounter.
Because Daphelia lived inside of her tree, the PCs naturally assumed the same of Bargott, and they sent a || || and a summon from Ysbrylla up there. While it may have fudged the intensity and intention of the encounter, it made perfect sense to me, so I had Bargott show up much sooner to engage the two, while the other PCs were ambushed at the back by an awakened tree.
|| || felt the most expeditious way to deal with this situation was to tackle Bargott out of the tree from hundreds of feet up (?!). This activated her snapleaf, which in turn forced her to drop Bargott, who sustained a horrendous amount of damage (I had him Grab an Edge on a lower branch to avoid killing him outright). On his next turn, he merged into the tree and used hit-and-run tactics to throw spells and effects at the party, and though the party made attempts to convince him of their intention, he was not very open to those lines of conversation.
The encounter shifted into a mode of trying to take down the tree (which was hitting heavily and consistently) and trying to focus some poke damage on Bargott, and I felt the multiple objectives made the encounter fairly dynamic, so I'm glad we brought Bargott in as early as we did.
Eventually they took down the tree and subdued Bodill, whose sickly condition convinced them to abandon their planned path and speed back the way they came to the Daphelia's tree.
When they did, I chose to make this a bit of a spotlight moment for Ysbrylla (who had also been attending to Bargott during the journey). Daphelia brought her into the hollow under the tree, and I ruled the effort to bring Bargott into a new home as a ritual with Ysbrylla as a secondary caster. This was a nice character moment for her as well, as her player described her experiences making her more comfortable with relaxing control and expressing her magic more organically.
Afterward, Daphelia gifted a druid's crown to Ysbrylla, and as she left, she found herself followed by a half-dozen pine leshies. At that point, the party decided it was time to return to the following and check-in.
Dagomir was approached by Aklep, who has now been granted the Mammoth Lords' permission to move more freely and hunt game for the following. In doing so, he discovered Elan Eridge's grave, and felt most comfortable telling Dagomir about his find, perhaps also realizing Dagomir's connection to Mendevian culture. This felt like a nice way to reward Dag's player for taking time to support this NPC, and flagging an interesting spot that the party overlooked their first time through. Dagomir hung his Broken Tusk pendant on the grave as tribute and resolved to return and explore the pathway near the grave.
|| || was approached by Panuaku, annoyed that || || seemed to have been avoiding her lately. She grilled her about her journeys in the valley, her team, and her tactics, before deciding she was satisfied. She showed || || flowers that could be collected to make dream pollen snares (since I cut that encounter in Book One) and told her to stop hiding. We'd lost the thread of || ||'s increasing recklessness, so this was my attempt to keep it active as a plotline.
Lastly, the vision a the corrupted tree (of the demon exercising control over Metuak's body) startled Valcarian greatly, and he sought the advice of Argakoa and the other Mammoth Lords. I took this as an opportunity to define things a little more clearly, since I wasn't sure the players were picking up on the story the visions were attempting to communicate. The Mammoth Lords consulted together - it sort of had the cadence of an embarrassing doctor's visit - and Nakta had the idea to bring in Aklep, since no one had asked him in eight sessions if he might know anything about the Burning Mammoth's side of the story.
I had him explain a little more about Metuak agreeing to be possessed by a demon in order to recover the Flame, and we kind of spelled out more about what Valcarian was experiencing in his visions - namely, I wanted to cool down on the idea that the amulet was hugely dangerous, since the visions were not going to let up any time soon.
Still, Valcarian remains bothered by his role in this, and at the end of the session he wondered aloud whether or not his parents knew what they were doing when they gifted him the amulet.
Session Twenty
On December 18, we played for four hours.
We started with a bit of uncertainty, as the events of the last session had really thrown the players for a loop in terms of their hexploration plan. Their goals included the unexplored hex to the northeast (the Blood Geyser), helping the Mendevians with the wyrm infestation, or following the mysterious path from Elan Eridge's grave and potentially locating Vare. Eventually, the party agreed to split: Dagomir and || || would follow the path, and Valcarian and Ysbrylla would map the hex to the north, which had been heretofore unexplored.
After a brief stop at the hunting blind, they arrived at Vare's homestead. Though she was unimpressed to see them, Vare had to acknowledge the effort they'd put in tracking her down, so she was willing to hear them out. Dagomir wisely borrowed the jug of fond remembrance to boost his Diplomacy rolls, which prompted Vare to speak a little more openly about her brother's death.
Dagomir's player is usually a little quiet in group roleplay scenes, so it was nice to give him a chance to shine as he slowly got Vare to warm up to him, asking the right questions and learning more about how she left the Mendevians to hunt down the chimera. He also agreed without hesitation to join her quest.
Meanwhile, Valcarian and Ysbrylla had a more pleasant time, chatting about what Hillcross is like as they explored the same hex. I had Ysbrylla remember a weyko liked to House Frostmire (quite the stretch since they are a Mendevian noble family, and doubly so that I have no idea what to put in it…), and Valcarian feels inclined to visit Hillcross in the future - which works well enough for me anyhow, since there's little lead up to it outside of a final vision.
There was a fun scene where Ysbrylla and Valcarian ran into some snares set by || || the next morning, who cheerfully informed them that they were about to set out and hunt a deadly beast.
Funnily enough, I kept Vare on her Guiding Words buff consistently, and there were several moments where it pushed rolls high enough to land a Strike - hopefully a lesson forcibly reminded about buffs? Sometimes these players act very independently of each other. Maybe Vare can offer them some feedback as they go…
My favourite moment was Ysbrylla spotting the chimera attempting to flee into its cave, beating it there with longstrider, and using a gust of wind to stop it from flying any further. That gave the party the chance it needed to get a few more hits in, and Captain Eridge ended up being the one to deliver the final blow, which felt fitting.
After a tender roleplaying moment of Vare breaking down after avenging her brother's death, she wordlessly collected his effects from the cave, and the PCs descended the mountain, deeply exhausted by a long and dangerous fight, but happy to have seen this quest to the end, and maybe provided a bit of absolution for Dagomir.
(Phew! It took a few days' work to write that all up! Cheers to anyone who's reading these accounts - consider it my gift for the holidays!)
Its fascinating seeing how other groups handle the valley exploration. I've run this adventure twice, and both times the party decided to go looking for Vare immediately after leaving the caves. Its nice to see someone else having a different experience in leaving that thread for later.
Its fascinating seeing how other groups handle the valley exploration. I've run this adventure twice, and both times the party decided to go looking for Vare immediately after leaving the caves. Its nice to see someone else having a different experience in leaving that thread for later.
In order to play up the consequences of Dagomir's backstory, I played Vare in the caves as a lot more hostile and unpleasant to the party, which I'm sure affected their decision - plus them overlooking the clues pointing to her hideout was pure chance!
I'm surprised to hear you had two parties make a beeline for her instead of following the path of least resistance (and the waymarkers) through the plains! That kind of thing is why comparing notes with other GMs is super fun, so thanks for reading!
Session Twenty-One
On December 30, we played for roughly seven hours, owing to the holidays.
Approaching the Mendevian encampment territory, Vare was uncomfortable seeing her former comrades, fearing their judgment or accusations of desertion. Though it was an awkward reunion, the soldiers preferred to focus on the upcoming battle with the tatzlwyrms in their lair.
It was decided that || || and Vare would sneak ahead to lay some snares at the mouth of the cave, but halfway through their trip, they spotted the wyrms hiding amongst the trees. Vare insisted on a retreat, but || || rebuffed her, and the battle started with her isolated from her friends.
The party felt pretty good tearing through the smaller tatzlwyrms, but || || moved into the caves and found more than she bargained for as one of the larger wyrms pounced on her. After Brassi quickly fell she made a desperate retreat from the cave, where the party was dealing with the other.
Still, once everyone was regrouped, the battle was still difficult as the worms flitted from place to place to taunt the party. Dagomir remembered an unidentified magic item from many sessions ago (an antler arrow) which pinned one of the wyrms and helped eat up its actions. It also helped that they focused only one - the other had most of its HP when it saw its sibling slain and decided to parley.
Valcarian was the only one present who spoke Draconic - and this was fun for him too, since his player really likes diplomacy and negotiation. His rolls were rough, and while the wyrm was amenable to his terms (and really had few options), the soldiers were displeased by what they saw as compromising with the energy. Vare vouched for him enough to quiet the situation.
After bathing in the blessed pool to receive a boon from Gorum, they returned to the camp to share their news.
After a nourishing dinner, he once more summoned the PCs to his tent. He started by thanking them for helping with the soldiers' issues and for facilitating Vare's return (she sort of ended up feeling like a "bonus quest" for the Mendevians rather than her own independent faction, but I see no issue with that.)
I added a specific element here: Bodill revealed that the reason he was patrolling northeast of the camp is that Montgrim had him observing the Ashen Tower. He relayed to everyone that Ashen Swale was believed to be traveling to Lyuba for the time being, leaven the Tower relatively unprotected. I wanted to give the initial Bodill encounter a little more purpose, and also impress on the party that they should really head over to the Tower, as we were well into Arodus at this point. (They didn't ask about specific inhabitants, so I think I'll let them learn about Turkek in person…)
Lastly, I had Montgrim grant the party some rewards for their help. I severely upped this from what's listed in the book - they burned a bunch of consumables on the chimera fight, and they hadn't done every encounter, so I did what felt reasonable. I've also made the Mendevians a good source of runes, so the party was able to catch up on their potency and striking runes to be level-appropriate going forward.
As well, I had || || find the Sutaki far from their usual spot, talking alone with Yraka and even giving her a couple of gifts. || || didn't have a problem with this, and no one batted an eye, so I'm thinking of escalating things the next time the party returns home - Yraka has spirited some of the soldiers away for some unknown purpose, perhaps…?
Lastly, it was almost time for a full moon, meaning Valcarian was going to conduct another ritual date with his ghost girlfriend. The only problem was that I hadn’t fully written one yet! I had to go off super rough notes and really think on the spot - the trickiest part is that I want each vision to be valuable, but I don't want them to arrive at Hillcross and blow past things to head straight to Castle Grimgorge. I'll have to play things with the witches and the frost giants really carefully…
Anyway, I ran a scene of Caledonia hunting with her uncle in the Tamarnian Tar Forest and being attacked by some hodags. I don't really think I gave too many hints that they didn't already have, but Val arrived at the conclusion that Metuak killed Caledonia, causing their spirits to be linked in the amulet. I sort of thought the players had suspected that by this point, but they really experienced it as a revelation - so I let them! (One of the most important parts of GMing is knowing when to shut up, isn't it?)
They shifted south and ended up facing the lower-ranking necromancer encounter, which was a bit of a cake walk for them. I didn’t really mind, especially as it was their first chance to test out any new level abilities. || || has matured her stoat companion Brassica, Ysbrylla pulled out some spells she hadn't tried yet (her player was simply delighted to obliterate a zombie in one hit with searing light and after a longer session full of role-playing and combat, it was nice to end things on a bit of a high note.
Next time: come hell or high water, we're heading to the Ashen Tower! One big twist is that in our game, Pakano (not seen since escaping Rimecrag Pass) might just make an appearance…
Its fascinating seeing how other groups handle the valley exploration. I've run this adventure twice, and both times the party decided to go looking for Vare immediately after leaving the caves. Its nice to see someone else having a different experience in leaving that thread for later.In order to play up the consequences of Dagomir's backstory, I played Vare in the caves as a lot more hostile and unpleasant to the party, which I'm sure affected their decision - plus them overlooking the clues pointing to her hideout was pure chance!
I'm surprised to hear you had two parties make a beeline for her instead of following the path of least resistance (and the waymarkers) through the plains! That kind of thing is why comparing notes with other GMs is super fun, so thanks for reading!
Yeah, I didn't think to link her to the ex-crusaders in the party (great idea!) and more played up the grumpy taciturn person who used words very sparingly, and that was a hit with the first group.
The other group didn't go after her intentionally, they just went into the mountains to scout them out (can't recall why exactly anymore, maybe to make sure there wasn't another way for the Burning Mammoths to come through?) and stumbled across her homestead.
Session Twenty-Two
On Sunday January 7 we played for four hours - our first session of 2024!
This kind of worked. Val whiffed the first deception roll, so the bone warriors were very on guard, and insisted on Zombie-Dago and || || being thrown in one of the empty pens. Val and Ysbrylla stalled for time, exploring the warriors' quarters, until Ysbrylla made a break for it and threw open the animal pens.
At this point, chaos exploded. This fight was really interesting and dynamic, but quite long. I had the animals bully the skeletal hulk, while Val tried to chase down a fleeing warrior in the tunnel, and Ysbrylla ran back into the sleeping quarters to cast spells. Even without them really having to deal with the hulk (I liked the animal thing and wanted to reward them for it), I think it took well over an hour to resolve this.
Eventually the battle was won - quite lucky for them there's such a huge distance between the bottom and top of the tower, as any reinforcements might have put them in quite the scrape.
Because they've taken their time in LMV - we're just about at the end of Arodus - I figured it was appropriate that Ivarsa's presence could be felt by now. Nukiak, once she was freed, explained that a mysterious woman showed up with a badly beaten Pakano (the Mammoths also burned his face more severely, destroying his good looks entirely) and essentially sold him to Ashen Swale in exchange for some unknown goods. The players also found a scar on Pakano's chest above his heart - I'm basically creating a scenario where Swale harvested the hatred and self-loathing from Pakano for further necromantic experiments, and used some of that energy to give Ivarsa a wormling seed that will eventually grow into the monster in the final encounter - sort of like a Heartless for Pakano, haha. It's a big change, but I think it's what will track with my group!
Regardless, it was a tense discovery, and the party was unsure what they wanted to do. After they let Pakano out, it was clear that he was not in his right mind - unresponsive and seemingly not recognizing the party. Though their emotions were mixed, it was clear Pakano was not a threat, and they decided to leave him in his cage until they had cleared the tower.
The fight with the severed hands happened here as well - no one cast a spell, so they didn't get to do their one cool thing, and it was over quite quickly anyway. Oh, well!
The group scouted up the tunnel and spotted the exit to the pinnacle of the tower, but then we ran out of time. I had really hoped we would get through the Ashen Tower in a single session, but it was not in the cards! We'll wrap it up next time and keep moving through the valley - I'm excited for our party to finally step into Chapter 3 of this book!
Session Twenty-Three
On Sunday January 14 we played for four hours.
The fight was a little dicey at times, especially with the hits sustained from the zombies. They were smart to bring Nukiak, who helped keep one of the necromancers occupied (though she almost fell herself) and Dagomir and Val opted to rush Turkek and overwhelm her with grapples and trips to deny her actions, which was very effective. Still, she managed to get a few good hits in and dealt a lot of bleed damage to || || and her stoat familiar Brassica especially who ended up losing dozens of HP to bleed - I think that at least got the theme of the encounter across.
The party also brought Wipakoa into the conversation, as I'd really made her Pakano's sole champion among the following - I think this is all detailed more in earlier notes. Regardless, it was a great scene, and the conclusion was to quietly bring in Pakano and separately explain to everyone what had happened. (We'll have to see next time what the responses will be to a decision like this…)
Blood and Feathers: The other major drama at camp involved the Sutaki warriors traveling with the following. When the party returned, || || was keen to bring Nukiak to her husband and child. But when she did, those two were the only Sutaki present at camp - they mentioned that Yraka had asked the rest of them to accompany her on an errand in the nearby mountains.
(For those who don't remember, I've swapped Tanagaar to be a raven god instead of an owl, and the Sutaki view || || as Tanagaar's Herald. And when they met the vainglorious Yraka, they pretty much fell over themselves to venerate her. We've seen the Sutaki spending more time under her influence as we've visited the camp in recent sessions.)
Nervous, || || tracked Yraka and the Sutaki to a nearby mountainside crevice, where she had ordered them to extract some precious stones for her - however, the rock had partially collapsed and killed one of the Sutaki. || || was distraught, but Yraka had little regard for the fallen warrior. Wracked with guilt, || || turned to her party for advice, who sternly encouraged her to admit to the Sutaki she was not, in fact, a herald of Tanagaar.
This was some great character development for || || (underscored by a loss of a few of their Reputation Points as well). As a bit of a climax to this session, || || also resolved to order Yraka to leave the following. This was undercut with a bit of a humorous moment - since Yraka was mostly traveling with the following to be close to Shaggy, we constructed a scene where Ysbrylla learned that Shaggy was deeply unhappy being ordered around by his bossy paramour. On a windswept mountain outcropping, Yraka screamed at || || and Ysbrylla as they broke the news, and with a sonically charged clap of her wings, flew off into the distance.
I loved the character choices the party made this session, but I'm also trying to urge them further into the valley to pick up steam into Book 3, by mentioning Burning Mammoths starting to pop up. Here's hoping they can set aside their urge to clear every hex before the valley starts crawling with enemies!
Session Twenty-Four
On Sunday February 4 we played for four hours. Admittedly, we covered less ground than we normally might have - it was the day after we celebrated my birthday, and most of us were very tired.
Meanwhile, Ysbrylla had an idea for how to learn more about what condition had befallen Pakano. With Wipakoa keeping him under her close supervision, and still slowly releasing word to the rest of the following, they opted to bring him through the mountain pass where they experienced visions of their ancestral following.
I thought this was a super cool idea that could go in a lot of different ways, so I asked Ysbrylla for a Religion roll, which went poorly. As a result, Pakano had something of a panic attack as the ancestors seemed to be repulsed by some aspect of him. The wound on his chest reopened and started bleeding as Argakoa and Wipakoa ushered him out of the passageway.
Later, Valcarian opted to spend some time doing what research he could (equipped with a scroll of Pocket Library) on what necromantic effects Pakano might be suffering. As mentioned in previous entries, Ashen Swale has used Pakano's intense hatred as fuel for more emotionally/mentally-powered necromantic experiments, so I intimated that whatever was missing from Pakano was being used somewhere…else. I'll have to think about how to plant more seeds of this in Lyuba, since the party is going to be keen to gather more information on this the closer they get to Ashen Swale.
After this, they opted to continue moving east into the valley.
Reikar almost fled, too, downing Valcarian as he did so, but he was simply no match for Dagomir's speed atop his horse when out on the open plain. The Sutaki captives were freed, but things got a little messy: Val pushed some Mammoths into them during the fight, and the melee sort of flowed through them at several points as they worked to unshackle themselves. I ruled that one or two of them went down, and only awarded one Reputation Point for this encounter.
After the fight, || || insisted they let the injured Fezerod out of his cage. Val, being the only party member who speaks Draconic, tried to parley with the injured dragon, but they were rather coldly rebuffed. Fezerod made only two things known: he has no love for Venexus, and in exchange for the party's help, he would not mention to anyone his encounter with them.
With some more information under the belt and yet more hexes to go, the party continued on, drawing ever closer to the swamp-encircled settlement of Lyuba.
Please let me know how you deal with the
Session Twenty-Five
On Monday February 19, we played a double session as it was a holiday. The first session lasted around three and a half hours.
Afterward, Otalak explained a bit more of Lyuba's history to them. I tried to stress with his reaction to the party that most Sutaki are too fearful of reprisal to risk working openly against Ashen Swale - while he was happy to chat and commiserate about Lyuba's problems, he became quite uncomfortable as the party brazenly discussed their intentions to confront the necromancer. Hopefully a lesson learned? Otalak answered some of their specific questions and encouraged them to seek out Soulsinger Kotasi, but the gang wanted to visit the plains hexes to the north first.
I thought this was a pretty solid and clever plan of action, so I let them continue unimpeded. || ||, ever the fan of shiny rocks, was delighted to have one floating around her head. Feeling empowered, the party continued north.
Instead, our Fenak was a young but spirited and ambitious demon hunter who wore a carved wooden mask. I used him to sprinkle in some more explanation about Sutaki god-calling, since the party hadn't really put the pieces together there yet. He was determined to hunt the roru, so he and some of his fellows joined the party upriver.
This ended up being a good thing, as the group found the encounter quite difficult. They'd had a hard time with the roru in Calamity Caves, and though they were stronger now, the herd of moose - with low attacks but reach and good speed - made it much harder for them to single focus the roru. Dago and Ysbrylla both went down at different times, and || || ended up deploying the Sutaki to do some stabilizing - which I rather liked, I don't like NPCs feeling useless in combat.
After a hard-won fight, the party caught their breath before they headed northwest, to the hex where they'd earlier seen smoke rising out of a dense forest - with Fenak in tow, excited as he was about joining a group of more equipped demon hunters. As they did, they heard and saw in the distance Venexus learning about her shrine's desecration, fire shining in the night as she torched the whole area.
Upon their return, the party was surprised to learn that Merthig had convinced the Mendevians to join the following, at least in their current eastward trajectory. The following was now larger and livelier than it had been in recent memory, as new community members worked together and intermingled for the first time.
At that point, we paused for a dinner break, then returned for the second part of the session.
Session Twenty-Six
This was the second part of our Monday February 19 double session.
|| || talked to Panuaku about the unfortunate events surrounding Kohak's death and the expulsion of Yraka from the following. Panuaku was disappointed that || || was unwilling to ask for help, and || || offered her some ivory pieces of the Venexus shrine as a peace offering.
Valcarian spoke to Montgrim about the Mendevians joining up with the following - the party was a little suspicious of the whole thing, which I was a little confused by. They felt that Montgrim was abandoning his orders, which didn't square with the kind of man they pictured him to be. He tried to clarify that their mission was a bit more open-ended - that they were meant to follow trails of demonic energy and wipe out remaining fiends, but not indefinitely - and described Montgrim as having wanted a long mission away from Mendev after the Crusade, and eventually becoming overwhelmed by the valley.
The other thing the party picked up on, which eventually satisfied them, was Merthig. Dagomir and Ysbrylla pressed him until he admitted that he and Montgrim had found some companionship in each other, both widowers as they were. It was a surprisingly warm and comic scene for the two older PCs, whose players usually lend them a more serious air. But uncovering a secret romance explained the whole thing perfectly in their eyes, so Merthig scolded them for their nosy nature but sent them on their way.
Additionally, Fenak was introduced to the Mendevians to exchange knowledge about demon hunting, and Nukiak was asked about Sutaki tattooists (I invented one called Nusaka who they'll find in Lyuba, since the following's tattoo artist died in the avalanche at Rimecrag Pass.)
After a bit of discussion about where to go next, the party decided to follow Otalak's advice and seek out Soulsinger Kotasi in the swamp.
He explained that if they wanted to join the forces already working to liberate Lyuba, their biggest challenge would be to earn as much trust as possible from the villagers themselves. Happy that they had already helped Otalak with his hunt and Fenak with the roru, he sent them north to investigate the rumours of disappearances at the fishing camp.
Quite interestingly, they had seen simple barges at Kotasi's hunt and asked to borrow one; I thought this was a very fun bit of flavour for navigating the swamp, so they actually entered this combat on a 3x3 platform above the water, and they ended up kind of dancing around it during the fight with the nabasu.
This was a tough encounter, with Dagomir paralyzed for several rounds, and some hasty reminders of the Avert Gaze action. Eventually the party prevailed and limped out of the hex on their barge - dubbed the S. S. Grandfather Eiwa.
After returning back to Soulsinger Kotasi, he formally inducted the group into the Blood Owls Ravens, and we called the session there.
Please let me know how you deal with the ** spoiler omitted **
I'm still working on the notes, but the party has just arrived in Lyuba. I agree that the scale is peculiar. I used the interactive maps file to remove the grid layer and just handed them a printout of the gridless map, which I also told them to imagine as 20-30% bigger and busier. The easiest thing seems to be to just use other maps or sketches for the few combat encounters that happen directly within Lyuba.
Thanks. In one of the other threads someone replied that
Session Twenty-Seven
On Sunday March 10 we played for about three and a half hours. Since I expected the players would be entering Lyuba very soon, we started this session at Level 7.
Getting into the last bits of chapter 2 and the start of chapter 3, I found myself a little challenged by the presentation of some elements. For instance - why are there three entries for this hex that kind of amount to the same thing? Which is the party meant to encounter first? Obviously it's fine for the encounters to be open-ended or sandbox-y, I just can't really understand how these entries are meant to inform one another.
My group is very lore-heavy and plan-heavy; they love interrogating NPCs with lots of detailed questions. This meant they knew just about everything they could know going in, so I decided it made more sense to have them meet Dhannen first at her cottage. Another weird quibble here - she's mentioned as wanting to talk about her home and her wife, but to be unhappy to talk about Lyuba or Ashen Swale - so what's supposed to happen here? What party wouldn't bring up these topics within moments of meeting her…?
None of this was especially problematic, but it felt a little muddy and I usually find the explanation of encounters much clearer. Anyway, here's how we did it: Dhannen was very traumatized and grief-stricken. The party wanted to return the head to Dhannen (because they didn't know Wonoak was a dullahan yet), which was enjoyably uncomfortable. I played Dhannen as less happy about her undead wife, whereas the text is more neutral - surely the defiant Sutaki don't like undead, and how could she see this as anything other than a symbol of her wife's murder?
They were able to persuade Dhannen of their good intentions, so she basically hid in her house while the party waited for Wonoak to manifest at sundown (Val's been using Read Psychometric Resonance a lot, so I had this trigger her appearance a little early). This part also feels a little climactic if it doesn't get into a fight, so I tried to amp up the descriptions of this spectre coalescing and bursting forth from the woods. (They did love her character art, as do I!) I also had the head snap to life as Valcarian handed it over, to add a little macabre touch.
After a bit of roleplay, the party concluded that Wonoak was an incredible spectral badass, and they encouraged her to move on to the next world once her people her avenged. They relayed her final message to Dhannen, who was still pretty unhappy - who wouldn't be? - and decided to move on for now.
The gang helped the kids, and after talking to Gavaga almost instantly let slip what had happened with Wonoak. I think if I were to do this again, I might consider moving Gavaga somewhere else to avoid what happened, which was an immediate return to a hex they'd just come from. The party took it in stride, though: Val and Dago accompanied Gavaga, while Ysbrylla and || || stayed behind to help train the kids. This made for some fun roleplay opportunities - || || adopted Wipakoa's technique of having the students step into their own snares, which quite upset Ysone. Val and Dago adopted a more serious tone, impressing upon Gavaga their intent to liberate the Sutaki and earning his support.
After reuniting, the group decided it was time to move on into Lyuba. They're still quite fixated on the tribute site to the southeast - there's sort of a video game mentality of clearing every hex before entering Lyuba that I'm trying to gently dissuade them from - but it didn't make sense at all to go back around. I think they'll be pleased with themselves for pretty much wringing the valley dry by the end of the book, and fair enough, but I'm hoping to highlight that their thoroughness is also slowness, and that things in Lyuba are quite bad and rapidly approaching a head. My intent is not to punish them, but LMV definitely slows down a bit on campaign urgency as months pass in this section, and I want to pick the stakes and energy back up going into the finale.
On the note of disguise, I am still playing up the imagery of Tanagaar, who I've turned from an owl into a raven, causing our tengu || || to draw a lot of attention to herself. She used a potion of disguise to appear as a human, and the four of them entered the village and opted to try to find Hearth.
This encounter is still a little stiff, in that being attacked on sight communicates a lot about the settlement that doesn't feel reflected in the rest of its presentation. I tried to really play up that it was an interrogation bubbling over into violence, which I think read a little more coherently. It helped that the enemies weren't rolling great and the party slaughtered them, Ysbrylla taking advantage of their militaristic formation for a well-placed lightning bolt.
When two more warriors ran up, the party braced for an even tougher fight, and they were delighted when they revealed themselves to be supportive rebels who helped mop up the remaining bone warriors. I styled Zedak and Otehak as young, slightly goofy, shaggy-haired twin fighters, and they promised to guide the party to Eokoe, ending out session.
Next time we'll be meeting the Blood Ravens proper, doing a bit of exploration in Lyuba, and presumably gearing up for the final assault. I don't think the party realizes how short this section will be, particularly as they've been to every swamp hex already, but we've spent a good amount of time in the valley and I, for one, am excited to move on.
I'm also thinking about ways to beef up the tactical elements of the big push. Val's player in particular would respond well to a light dip into war gaming, and this could also foreshadow the giant ambush of Hillcross later on. When we gave our stars and wishes going into book 2, he asked for more opportunities for Val to be a leader, so I want to honour that here, and make the non-tengu party members feel special as well. So stay tuned for that!
Session Twenty-Eight
(I've fallen behind on posting these session notes yet again! I'll catch up this week as I have (eek!) two months' worth of sessions to recap.)
On Sunday, March 24 we played for four hours.
Arriving to the observatory, I had Ysbrylla notice (to her player's excitement) that the building was built around a massive apaku. When they went through the back and reached the door, I interpreted the passage here as being sort of puzzle-y, so I ran a "Light Up" puzzle at the table to simulate the arrangement, which I thought worked well.
The party was quite surprised to see a secret demiplane underneath the observatory! They met with the Ravens who were present, exciting to be racking up more points (and at this point really understanding what they were, since I'd been pretty vague on why I was handing them little stones throughout the book). When everyone showed up and Eokoe called the group to order, they were happy to take on the task of trying to make connections in Lyuba and drum up support for the incipient uprising.
The other thing that was tricky was the "rules of engagement" in Lyuba I mentioned in my last post. Valcarian used stolen necromancer robes to disguise himself as one of Ashen Swale's minions, || || (as I played up people's fascination with her tengu ancestry) used potions of disguise, and Ysbrylla decided there was work she could do from the observatory without going outside! Here's an overview of what they accomplished in the couple of days they had before Desiak was due to visit Hearth:
Nasanu: || || had noticed the sickly-looking lagofirs and wanted to help them. But when she and Val approached, Val's cultish demeanour (and some poor Diplomacy rolls) frightened Nasanu into wanting nothing to do with them. Later, I combined the "home sinking into the swamp" prompt into this character to avoid adding too many random NPCs, so Dagomir and || || went to help repair his house, only to crit fail and damage it further. This became sort of a running joke throughout the remainder of the book of the one Sutaki the party utterly failed to help.
Lahi and the Apaku: Ysbrylla stayed at the observatory to investigate the apaku there. (When I'm finished running the campaign I'll be sure to append my apaku expansion notes, as I think they've been a really fun part of our game.) In this case an apaku linked to conjuration was responsible for maintaining the Blood Ravens' demiplane, and as Ybsrylla communed with it, she gained access to its power, boosting her conjuration spells while she was nearby. Lahi was suitably impressed and gifted her some Sarkorian God-caller Garb, which I found and thought was quite fitting for this moment.
Nusaka: Whenever the players bemoaned the loss of their tattooist Rumi in the avalanche at Rimecrag Pass, I tried to nudge them in the direction of the Sutaki tattoos, and as they approached Lyuba, it started to click and they began to ask around. I created a Sutaki NPC called Nusaka, who was a young tattooist carrying on a family tradition. She was very gloomy and creepy when they first met them - she sort of cold read their personalities - and she gave them some tattoos related to their character arcs. I like the idea of keeping the tattoos limited in access and a little strange, so we'll see how things progress there.
Epaku: To switch things up here, I had Epaku respond very hesitantly to their subtle overtures, but once they made clear their intentions, she was happy to dump a bunch of supplies on the party. I cut the sister character just to keep things more manageable.
After all of those roleplaying and skill challenges, the party prepared to launch their assault. Their plan to distract Venexus was to send their "B-Squad" (I've described some other members of the following becoming a scout band themselves) along with the remaining tatzlwyrm to destroy her remaining offering post to the southeast. With that done, the quest to retake Lyuba began!
Session Twenty-Nine
On March 31 we played for four and a half hours. This session spanned the fight with Desiak, the march to the square, and the fight with Azi in the compound. I'm not particularly interested in writing round-by-round accounts of long combat sessions, so this post will be a condensed overview of events.
The party had over 30 Reputation Points in total, and I didn't want them to be able to reroll 30+ die rolls, so I created some attractive higher-value options to act as point sinks. This included things like forcing the enemy to reroll (an anti-hero point?), class features like Hunt Prey being reduced to free actions, replenishing of spell slots and focus points, etc.
The party was very excited by the novelty of this and overall it was quite successful - maybe even too successful, as they burned through well over half their total in a single session alone! It may be a bit of extra work, but GMs who want to add some additional weight to the quest to win over the Sutaki might try out this strategy.
Desiak's weird bone-spur-siphon ability was suitably intimidating, but eventually they wore him down and, in a nasty twist, pushed him into the central firepit. There's something to be said for a battle that makes use of the combat environment! I added a bit of flavour here: Iluin cast a handful of dust into the fire when Desiak fell, changing the colour of the flame and its smoke so all the rebels throughout Lyuba would see their signal to strike.
Outside of the slightly lopsided 3-man fights, they powered past the carrion golems and straight into the compound. I thought the Azi fight was rather fun - || || tried to snipe from atop one of the longhouses, and was quite shocked when Azi air walked up to her. Ysbrylla placed a wall of thorns across the space to provide cover, which made for some dicey poking around corners. Eventually, the longhouse was set aflame and collapsed under the weight of the skeletal giants - very dramatic!
After that fight, the party took ten minutes to recover before climbing the path that led to Venexus' glacial palace.
Session Thirty
On Monday April 1 we played for four hours.
This session was spent entirely in combat through Venexus' glacial palace. Here are a few highlights.
Speaking with Fezerod, they sort of tipped their hand a little in my opinion - Val fancies himself quite the diplomat, and told Fezerod that if he didn't interfere with their plans, he could claim Venexus' entire hoard and abscond to a different part of the mountains with them. This was a better deal then Fezerod is even hoping for as written, so he gladly agreed. I think the party has a (well-founded) big fear of dragons, and really didn't want him to be a problem.
I did cut the dragon babies encounter for time, which I would have loved to squeeze in - I think it's one of the most flavourful encounters in this section. But I felt like my players were getting a little fatigued (I certainly was), and I wanted to get as close to the end as I could.
The way the session timing wound up, Idovik had just been fatally speared by a stone lance when Venexus erupted through the open wall of her lair, the Primordial Flame gleaming in her claw!
Session Thirty-One
On April 22, we played for four hours and completed Book Two!
As Venexus fell and almost rolled out of the cavern, I described her last expelled frost breath glittering in the light of the rising run, casting a spray of rainbows over the room as the great dragon grew still.
At this point, the ghost of Caledonia (the spirit inside of Val's thaumaturge amulet, who I'm using as sort of a substitute for the Metuak visions) warned him not to touch the flame, and though the party was wary, ultimately Dagomir felt there was no choice but to take the flame, and the curse befell him.
Though bittersweet, the party was definitely feeling their victory as they descended from the glacial palace, flame in hand, to arrive in a liberated Lyuba.
The party first returned to Eokoe, who stressed that the newly freed Sutaki had a plurality of opinions about what to do next. Some wanted to stay and try to reconstruct Lyuba, where others wanted to more broadly reclaim the valley that had been taken from them. Some wanted to join the Tusks, and others wanted to hide in the mountains from the encroaching Burning Mammoth forces. The party insisted that all the Sutaki do everything to avoid the Mammoths, either by joining their numbers or staying out of sight.
Then, after the party slept, I ran a one-on-one scene with Eokoe and || || about || ||'s journey as the herald of Tanagaar. || || was insistent that she had lied, caused problems, and learned her lesson, but Eokoe countered that just because she didn't feel like a Herald didn't mean she knew what the gods had planned for her. This light theological debate I think helped deepen the resolution of || ||'s arc in this book and hopefully set her up to feel more confident in herself going into the final act of the campaign.
On that note, Valcarian's player pitched a fun moment that I thought made a great end to the session - everyone throwing a party at Hearth to celebrate the slaying of Venexus (in particular || ||'s killing blow!) Ysbrylla gifted || || with a necklace made of different shiny stones she had sourced through the book from NPCs like Shaggy Shemven and Wipakoa.
This was a good chance to check in on all the characters - it's a real challenge for me to get them all to have stage time, so we were able to check in on the Mammoth Lords, the Mendevians, some other Sutaki, etc.
I also asked the party which Sutaki they were most interested in having join their party, as sort of a highlight of the new faction joining their ranks. They were interested in Gavaga, Eokoe and Iluin, Tedanu/Nukiak/Dini, Epaku, and two original Sutaki: Nusaka (the gothy tattooist) and Barbok (Ysbrylla's newest apprentice).
With that sorted, we officially wrapped Book Two on an exciting high note, with an exciting journey to Hillcross ahead of us!
[b]Session Thirty-Two[b]
On May 6, we played for around three hours. Valcarian's player was unable to join us.
As || || helped Imek tend to the herd, she was visited by Nakta, leader of her house, who quite nervously interrogated her about her growth and development - in our story, all the other tengu members of the following are capable of least basic flight, while || || still struggles to stay aloft without magic. Unbeknownst to her, Nakta has been consulting with the other Mammoth Lords about bestowing their title to the party, and Nakta is concerned that || || is far too young and immature compared to the others.
Ysbrylla, who I plan to give a leading role in this book, was both quite apprehensive about returning to Hillcross and quite occupied with her student Barbok, a young Sutaki prodigy. Barbok was quite keen to see Hillcross, and unaware of Ysbrylla's troubled history with the place.
Dagomir chatted with Wipakoa about what might await them in Hillcross. Wipakoa mentioned that she had heard stories of powerful witches there, and wondered if they might be able to understand what had happened to Pakano. Dagomir mentioned that he feels some shame for being the one to carry the flame, feeling that a member of the following who had been there since birth should take up the mantle. Wipakoa scolded him for his self-doubt in the moment, but I thought it was a really interesting thought from the character - I wonder if I could push that insecurity later, say, in the encounter with Lomok toward the end of the book.
I think it's interesting that this book chose to jump ahead three months in the calendar. I think it creates a bit more of a sense of calm so that the party doesn't bang the doors of Hillcross down, which is good, but I also think my party is a little vague on how worried they have to be about the Burning Mammoths behind them - which ends up being even less of an issue from a player perspective because Ivarsa is then already ahead of them. I guess narratively it's justified that Ivarsa was hoping to get the flame, but didn't, and this is her next course of action, but I find the cause of effect of everything is just hard to get across to the players.
The other thing is that the book notes that it's a hard and challenging crossing through the Tusk Mountains to Hillcross - but the following has the Primordial Flame, which would absolutely negate the worst of the weather. Instead, I framed the narration here - having the Flame allowed the following to accomplish handily the difficult feat of crossing the Tusks in winter, underscoring how important and useful a tool it is.
I changed a couple of key things in Hillcross to fit into Ysbrylla's backstory: I had worked with her player to determine that she had fled from Hillcross after a tense and adversarial apprenticeship with the witches. The situation came to a head when Ysbrylla damaged the statue of Brogran the Grasswalker that marks the entrance of the Evening Gate.
To dovetail this further into Ysbrylla's story, I had this statue standing on the base of an apaku - the apaku of abjuration, which the witches had used for a century to help power the Summerland Spell. Ysbrylla's damage caused the magic to fade, causing Oga to pour and more and more of her own energy into the spell, ultimately leaving her in the position described in the book.
I'll be changing a lot of the setup of Chapter Two as well to further these themes, but one step at a time!
While Ysbrylla was very cagey and opted to hide out at the campground for the most part, || || delighted in the new sights and sounds at Hillcross. She quickly scaled the ravine walls to get a better view, so I had a NPC using the gliders described in the Hillcross article to further underscore her theme of flight and to foreshadow some of the upcoming giant battle interactions.
Dagomir wanted to poke around the neighbouring campsites, so I had their next door neighbours be none other than the Proudhawks. This worked really well, as I was able to get a little bit of lore about Hillcross across in a reasonable way, while generating sympathy for the overwhelmed Sela, all before the players would have any inkling about the weyko robbery - Dagomir even saw the following unpacking supplies from baskets and hide bags. Because this was all at the players' own self-direction, they had no idea they were being set up for a shocking reveal! ;)
After some other small pieces of exploration - filling in pieces like the Three Rights and the Ones Who Never Left - Kasan approached the campsite, having been sent by the witches who detected the presence of the Primordial Flame among the Tusks. Having no idea that Ysbrylla was among them, this scene quickly turned into a dramatic reunion.
Kasan was troubled, but followed orders, inviting the scouts to an audience with Oga the Grasswalker, leader of the witches. Though quite nervous, Ysbrylla agreed, and as they scaled the cliffside and approached the cave, we called our session, so as not to get too far without Val!
I don't like to always leave on cliffhangers - I think it can get tired quickly - but this was a good one for the players to stew over until next time, when things in Hillcross would really start to heat up!
Session Thirty-Three
Monday, May 22 was a holiday in Canada, so we played a double session. This is an account of the first half.
The party was otherwise amenable to helping with the ritual in exchange for information regarding Metuak. However, when it came time to leave, Kasan had one more thing to add. He confessed to the witches that he had sensed the presence of a powerful magic-user in the camp - referring to Barbok, Ysbrylla's new apprentice. Since in our campaign the Hillcross witches have this sort of prestigious but isolating apprenticeship program, Ysbrylla had an important decision to make - whether to continue her independent instruction of Barbok, which may have its limitations, or hand her over to the powerful but strict Hillcross witches for her education. She resolved to weigh the matter for now, and the party took their leave.
While the rest of the party did some shopping, Dagomir wanted to visit the Charging Rhinos and speak to Batla, having heard a bit about the commotion with the Cougar Claws. I think this set up is a little weird - as much as I like these events, there are a lot of contrivances to find different ways to recruit members to their following. With Batla I played this scene for a little comedy - she's a super hyped up warrior obsessed with honour and pride, and it was very funny for the calm and diplomatic Dagomir to wind up agreeing to a bloodthirsty battle in the Duelling Cave!
Since Batla's crew had no casters, I ruled it was a no magic fight - Ysbrylla decided to take Pakano up to the Hillcross witches in the hopes they could understand what had happened to him. Meanwhile, the fight went okay - unfortunately Batla rolled terribly, really defanging the urgency of the encounter, and happily yielded a few short rounds later.
Nonetheless, emerging from the cave at twilight with a clutch of new followers was a fun tableau to close of the first day in Hillcross and the session.
Session Thirty-Four
This was the second part of our double session on Monday, May 22.
Their next order of business was to track down the Burning Mammoth weyko. Val and || || decided to spearhead this one while Dagomir talked about his sword proposal with Vare and Ysbrylla met with Kasan to discuss Jesseri the Hailstorm's disappearance. The two younger members of the party were informed by Yana that the children of Hillcross liked to play in the weykos, and || ||'s player suggested - before they'd arrived on the scene - that they should strike up a game of catch with a ball to earn the kids' trust. Since that was almost the verbatim description of the events in the book, I waived her rolling and had her player describe exactly how she befriended Popo Koswalla.
After prompting him into a game of hide and seek, they were able to find the tunnels full of weykos and located the Burning Mammoth icon above one cave mouth. Val decided to go in along, bringing an animated lantern construct he uses from time to time in dark areas. This led to a really fun moment of the weykoward obliterating the lamp with its gaze and Val rushing out of the dark cave in a something of a horror-movie sequence.
Realizing they had a bigger threat in front of them, the party reconvened and launched into a purposeful fight with the weykoward, whose item-damaging properties were quite effective and made the fight a bit more interesting. Afterward, they stumbled upon the treasure-clad effigy (I added a collar of inconspicousness for || ||'s ferret familiar, Brassi) and the surprising emptiness of the weyko. Valcarian wanted to use his psychometric resonance to find the thief, and the party was very shocked when he experienced a vision of the Proudhawk leader, Sela!
Heading back to the surface to confront her, there was an emotional scene as she privately confessed and explained the dire straits her following had been in - circumstances not dissimilar to the Broken Tusks at their lowest. At first the party wanted to negotiate a repayment of the debt, but catching on to the themes of this chapter, they agreed to forgive the whole thing if the Proudhawks decided to follow the banner of the Broken Tusk, to which Sela readily agreed.
All in all, a pretty exciting and dramatic day for the Broken Tusk scouts!
Dagomir, having secured Vare's blessing to modify her brother's sword, had Janika combine the two blades - becoming a symbol of his former devotion to Sarenrae and his current pledge to Sister Cinder.
|| || stopped in by the Slushbomb goblin tribe, hearing that her unauthorized excursion with the young Popo Koswalla has set tongues wagging. Learning that these goblins have an alchemical bent, she asked Epaku to help her make a peace offering, and Popo Koswalla offered her an unmarked jar (containing a pucker pickle) in thanks.
I also ran the Hatli the Small encounter at this point, since I felt like the party had put in a lot of effort into fostering goodwill among the following of Hillcross.
Sadly (but in a suitably dramatic fashion), Ysbrylla tanked the ritual role, which meant that Oga failed the check - the ritual was a success, but at the cost of her life. Honestly, even if they hadn't rolled that result, I may have opted for it anyway - a big part of Ysbrylla's arc in this book is about coming face to face with the life she ran away from, and I want her to have the option to help the future of the witches - what better way than to have a shocking power vacuum open up? Whether or not Ysbrylla becomes involved, she'll still have an interesting choice to make.
I think I played this a little awkwardly - the witches were disappointed, but many saw this coming, so the grief was muted and it felt a little stiff I think. I wanted Kasan to be able to give them the information they were promised, and keep the energy focused on the great victory of using the Flame to complete the ritual, but I might have felt imbalanced.
Regardless, we moved along to the celebratory banquet - just in time for the scouts to interrup, bursting in on their smilodon mounts, warning of a force of hostile giants headed this way!
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Session Thirty-Five
On Monday June 3 we played for about four hours, finishing Chapter One of Book Three!
Their preparation revolved mostly around the gate, including one giant critically failing to detect a pit trap and an illusory wall created by the Hillcross witches. Still, by the end of the day, they were getting pretty low on resources by the time Balrakun showed up.
I'd given || ||'s player a heads up to do a little something early as a surprise for the table: as Balrakun soared in on his roc mount, the young tengu suddenly burst upward and took flight to face him head-on. || ||'s lack of flight had been a big part of her character arc over the course of the campaign, so this marked a huge moment of growth and maturity as a tengu and member of the following.
The battle itself was pretty dynamic, with Balrakun killing Yana and claiming the flame (the party had not suspected a thing). This led to a bit of a race against time - || || was trying to distract the roc with aerial combat as Bulrakun called his mount to return, and Dagomir and Val desperately chased him down to retrieve the flame.
This ended in a fantastic climax as || || frantically swooped down to pull the flame away from Bulrakun as he fell to a shower of blows. She collided into Dagomir on his horse, restoring the Primordial Flame to the Broken Tusks for the time being - but Ravager soared away, perhaps to inform the remaining giants of what happened in the first battle for Hillcross…
The last thing we did (in the last few minutes of the session) was the announcement of the party as new Mammoth Lords - I wanted to give the players the off-time to think about their options for their mounts. We'll probably revisit it in greater detail next session.
A fun session that closed out the beginning of the end - soon they'll be heading into the Tamarnian Tar Forest!
I for one always look forward to your updates. This is one of those adventures that I would love to play but none of my playgroup is interested in
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Well, I'm happy to say that last week we finished our game of Quest for the Frozen Flame! After nearly 50 sessions we had an amazing run and a stirring, emotional finale.
I'm less than happy to say I've really fallen off on these updates! I'm hoping I can get back to finishing my chronicle - maybe in an abbreviated form - of the final two chapters of this campaign.
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Session Thirty-Six
June 17, 2024
Dagomir: Our Champion simply advanced his longstanding mount Brylla, since they've been together since the beginning of the campaign.
|| ||: Our Ranger struggled with the decision to increase the size of her mustelid companion Brassica - she also liked the utility of having a small-sized minion. We compromised by throwing in a collar of inconspicuousness to close the deal.
Valcarian: Val took a ram from the nearby mountains as his mount, flavouring it as a rosethorn ram.
Ysbrylla: Ysbrylla's player wanted more of a scene for her mount, and after some back and forth decided on riding a giant beetle. I dovetailed her acquisition of "Sally" with another story beat the player was interested in - investigating the broken apaku that formed the foundation of the statue of Brogan the Grasswalker.
Along with Shaggy, she explored branching paths that led from the weyko caves all the way under Hillcross, eventually finding the chamber where the apaku jutted through the ceiling. Here she communed with it and learned the truth of what she had done when she damaged the statue many years ago, a humbling experience for our headstrong druid.
Pakano: Upon arriving in Hillcross, the party had left him with the witches in the hopes that they could discover more about what strange ritual Ashen Swale had conducted on the youth. They discovered that the necromancer had removed Pakano's heart, which was full of hatred, self-loathing, and envy, and used it as a power source for some distant evil, leaving Pakano a shell of his former self. The party was warned that even if they could recover Pakano's heart, he might be drastically changed by the experience, or never return to his former self (if that was even a desirable outcome…)
This was my solution to still wanting the frost worm finale but Pakano being alive in my game. (Honestly, writing this after finishing the campaign, I'm so glad I kept Pakano in the story for the entire thing. My players were absolutely obsessed with him from start to end.)
Jana: The party was confused about Jana's betrayal and wanted to investigate things a little further. Maybe this is on me for not cluing it hard enough, but I had Jana ask a lot of probing questions about the Flame, had different NPCs offer contradicting information about him, etc. and the PCs never really looked into it, so who knows! In any case, I offered some compromising clues in Jana's cave dwelling (which matched the location described by No Trail in fox form) and when the players were mostly clear on what was up, I showed them the kitsune art. I think my players are fine with missing stuff if they don't ask the right questions, so I don't feel badly - it added a little interesting texture to Hillcross, at any rate.
Caledonia: After Brindi Whitehair announced the impending wave of Burning Mammoths headed to Hillcross, the Mammoth Lords implored their new peers to track down Ivarsa and put an end to this conflict. As the party prepared to leave, Valcarian sought out Argakoa to once again channel the spirit of Caledonia from his amulet.
As the phantom appeared by Valcarian at his campfire, he bid her recount the story of her death. She described the demon-posessed Metuak rampaging through the castle, leaving broken bodies in his wake. (I let Metuak and the demons get a few more licks in before he was imprisoned below the castle).
I wanted to push one of the bigger themes of the final book here - laying to rest the tragedies of the past. Caledonia has become both more present and active as they move closer to the site of her death, and more morose as she contemplates her short life and the reality of moving on to the Boneyard. Still, she begged Valcarian to seek her out and release her from her twilight existence. As the two embraced by the fire, she suddenly transformed into a leering skeleton before fading from sight.
We started off the Tar Forest with a bang, revealing a brand new hex map and an encounter with some ooze. Because || || laid claim to the Primordial Flame during the giant ambush, Dagomir technically also bore Syarstik's curse - I resolved that the two of them would have to stay within 40ft of each other until this was resolved in order to suffer no ill effects. (A bit of a fudge, but the only practical solution I could see - there wasn't really any guidance on the party volleyball-ing the Flame around, nor could I find really reassuring rules about how non-casters could use the Flame effects. It seemed as though RAW only spellcasters could wield it, but thematically that felt a little limp; it's more than just another magic doohickey, it's something all the characters have an ancient, primal connection to! But I digress…)
I haven't gone into too much detail yet, but I've made some pretty substantial changes to the content of this chapter, reflavouring a large portion of the material. I just felt the stuff in the Tar Forest felt a little…random, in the way that sometimes later AP books get. I think maybe because they're being worked on simultaneously by different authors, it's hard to establish as much connective tissue as there could be. None of it was bad, but I took the opportunity to gleefully gut it and work in a bunch of stuff specific to my campaign.
To wit: we lost Adalemma and Brightfeather or whatever its name was, and I used it as an opportunity to expand Caledonia's role. She leapt out of the amulet to assist in the tar fight, becoming visible to everyone in the party, not just Valcarian. After the combat ended, she gave the directions to the party, explaining that she felt a great power that wished to see them, but she knew not what it was.
That's where we called the session! I'll try to get back to giving regular updates so you can keep up with the party on their journey through the Tar Forest!
Session Thirty-Seven
July 1st is a holiday in Canada, so we played another double session. This is an account of the first half. Dagomir's player couldn't make it to the session - we handwaved that he was still experiencing lingering effects of the Primordial Flame's curse.
I also like a balance that leans toward roleplay and narrative scenes, so random combat tables are not usually my favourite thing to work with. However, there was a lot to like about the Tar Forest: its gloomy, oppressive atmosphere; how the rest of the RotML have felt very natural and beautiful and the contrasting decay of this area; the opportunity to lead into the final dungeon with lots of different clues and trails to follow.
Ultimately I decided to rewrite much of the chapter to focus more closely on the plot threads relevant to my campaign, and I was fairly selective with what random encounters were pulled, focusing on ones that I felt strongest conveyed the atmosphere I was going for. That said, the first random encounter after the initial arrival in the forest was a roaming band of baykoks, which worked well - it was primal and spooky, and without their frontline Champion the party needed to be more wary and tactical. It helped communicate the inherent danger of the Tar Forest, and the group elected to cause a distraction and flee rather than deal with the lot of them.
They fled that encounter and made their way onto the frozen river, where they encountered the abandoned shelter and their first clue of Calcifda's presence. I kept Calcifda mostly as written, but largely because she made for a great foil for our stone-favouring druid Ysbrylla, whose arc was really maturing in this book. The biggest tweak I had was to focus less on Barkblood as a story element, and more on how Calcifda drew power from an apaku on the plateau to the south (though she couldn't draw near it, owing to the Ivory Behemoth).
In any case, faced with the option to follow Caledonia's words and head east, or explore this new lead to the south, the party chose the latter. Venturing into the tar sands, I foreshadowed an upcoming encounter: a witchfire, having observed the party for a little while, took the form of a tengu with a bone mask an an attempt to stir up || ||'s curiosity. It worked perfectly, and though || || didn't quite heed the creature's warnings of secrecy, immediately blabbing to her party about it, the witchfire did tell her she had something very important to show her - and only her - later on.
The encounter text mentions releasing the dinosaur instead of killing it, but nothing about recruiting it, so I extrapolated from some of the earlier parts of the campaign. As goofy as it is on the face of it for the party to tame a t-rex, the other two books have a heavy emphasis on recruiting a pretty wide range of animals into the following, so I figured this needn't be too different.
After a very convoluted plan in which Ysbrylla trapped the creature within a wall of stone and || || began throwing some meat to it - creating their own Jurassic Park, of sorts - they managed to calm and even commune with Kaxykka, as I named her. This meant I also had to explain from the dinosaur's perspective the experience of Hegremon encasing her in magical ice, which was quite the feat. Ultimately, the party was happy to have a victory in a deeply hostile environment, and Val stumbled upon Ivarsa's map, which started to shed some light on what exactly was going on in the Tamarnian Tar Forest.
Session Thirty-Eight
This accounts for the second half of our July 1st double session.
Regardless, it led to the most interesting outcome in my opinion. || || gullibly followed the witchfire to an isolated stone outcropping, where she was viciously attacked. She had the Primordial Flame on her person and attempted to leverage it, but the witchfire's nat 20 save really freaked her out. Her only recourse was to take to the air and fly away, already cloaked in purple flames due to the witchfire's curse.
This was a very solid character moment, as || || continues to mature over the course of the campaign. She complained about wanting to go home, worried what Argakoa and Panuaku would think of her, and Val and Ysbrylla tried in vain to disenchant her.
The witchfire had declared herself an envoy of the Stone Witch, so the party opted to try to track the witch down, heading in a southward direction.
(I completely axed the Azure Sphinx and pyramid here, and I have to imagine I'm not the only one. Maybe it's a lack of imagination on my part, or sphinxes are more tonally-neutral on Golarion, but it felt totally out of place for me. Instead, I had a mammoth spirit dwell here, an overseer of the graveyard, communicating the sanctity and spirituality of this place. We didn't dwell too much on the origin of the Ivory Behemoth - I think the players assumed Calcifda had cooked it up - but more on their responsibility as Mammoth Lords to allow souls to move through the afterlife in peace. I subbed out the pyramid for the final apaku: necromancy.)
Deciding to take yet another detour and help the mammoth spirit, the party faced off against the Ivory Behemoth…and got totally slammed. Not having Dagomir would have been bad enough, but Valcarian struggled to land a Recall Knowledge check, and the party was certain it was an undead creature. After barely two rounds and some slowed statuses, they hobbled off.
The fight with Calcifda was satisfying because while it was still tough for a party of three, they were able to work strategically and overcome the odds. They'd fought arboreals before (and Val happens to wield a hatchet), and || || even used her gem to summon a flame elemental. Playing smart, they used Brassy and a summon from Ysbrylla to run Calcifda ragged and bleed her actions while they dealt with the minions.
It was also fun to play up the spookiness of Calcifda. She really was a great "Wa-Ysbrylla" (as she was dubbed), also an outcast with an affinity for stone magic, who instead curdled into an evil creature. Though her nasty claws and spells were powerful, the table was hungry for a win, and they were immensely satisfied when she fell. Score one for the Mammoth Lords!
Session Thirty-Nine
We next played on July 15th, with the thankful return of Dagomir's player.
Before they left, they debated greatly over how to handle Barkblood's corpse - they were concerned as to whether it was the corpse of an evil creature, if it was a neutral power source that Calcifda had been using, if she had tainted it with her presence, and even how natural the presence of the Tar Forest was to begin with. I was fine to roll with whatever they concluded, and I appreciated the dramatics of their final decision to set the tar-choked corpse ablaze with the Primordial Flame, in the hopes of rejuvenating the landscape somewhat. I liked the element of land stewardship present here, a cool theme that we've worked to emphasize in this campaign.
Moving eastward, I felt I needed to keep on another plot thread, that of Hegremon's pursuit. I'd had Val notice a strange oversized silhouette as they first climbed up the cliffside to the mammoth graveyard, but I didn't want to overwhelm them as they ended up in a string of tough combats. Now that they were riding high off of the Calcifda encounter, I sprung some Mendevian undead on the surface of the frozen tar lake. As they moved into combat, Hegremon began sniping from the brushline along the shore.
Predictably confused and annoyed, the party opted to block Hegremon's sightline with magic rather than deal with two enemy forces, so the giant retreated. After neutralizing the undead, they attempted to track him, but many minutes had passed and they lost the trail.
At this point I wondered if they'd make it more of a priority to deal with, since they'd had some hard fights against giants in the last book, but they opted to keep moving, and didn't do anything in particular to confuse their path or cover their tracks. Ah, well!
This was Ser Jaim Mulwyn, a character of my own making. Ser Jaim was stationed at Castle Grimgorge at the time of Metuak's demon-powered raid, and he was part of a small band of survivors who fled west from the site. Wandering through the tar forest, most of them were picked off by monsters or died of starvation, but the remaining few were able to sanctify a tiny resting place in the Tar Forest before passing away themselves.
Ser Jaim was my replacement for Adalemma, who wasn't bad, but like the sphinx didn't fit tonally in my campaign. I have two Mendevian PCs, so giving them opportunities to connect with their home nation is an important part of my story. In our case, Ser Jaim was excited to meet an (ex) Crusader, and Dagomir and Val were able to inform him of the closure of the Worldwound, much to his existential relief.
(I also took this opportunity to inject some levity after some pretty grim sessions - Mulwyn was played as a sort of pompous British war dog, sizing up his recruits, and it was heightened by the fact that all of this was happening as he took the form of Caledonia. At one point he rambled on about a beautiful Mendevian noble, without realizing she was closer by than he thought!)
In any case, Ser Jaim was anxious about the missing crest, and delighted that Dagomir had retrieved it. He reactivated its dormant magic, which turned it into a sort of homing beacon tugging faintly toward Castle Grimgorge. With this and Ivarsa's map, the party was getting a pretty strong lay of the land and a sense of their remaining goals.
I intended Ser Jaim to make a single appearance in this scene, but the party was pretty excited about the idea of taking him with them. I figured this wouldn't cause too many problems - even in Ser Jaim could inform them of the general layout of Grimgorge, it's a pretty simple arrangement to begin with, and he had no idea of the current array of demons roaming the halls. I challenged the players to figure out how they would bring Mulwyn with them, and they ended up transporting his spirit into the seal itself, causing its icon (a gryphon rampant) to animate and take on Ser Jaim's persona. +1 to the following, I guess?
Valcarian spent some time doing research on the Ivory Behemoth, realizing it was a construct and preparing some options to test its weaknesses. Then, using the shadow walk scroll recovered from Calcifda's hut, the party made one last detour to the southern reaches of the Tar Forest.