| Bjørn Røyrvik |
It's official, I've run out of Adventure Paths to butcher.
Mostly.
I just scavenge for scraps now, in this case some elements from Hell's Rebels and Council of Thieves but not following the plot of either.
Othariel Ainamar the Silver Arm, Princess of the Principality of Thunder Rift, has come to the conclusion that she is too effective for the good of her domain. She did an amazing job of unifying the disparate races in the Rift under a single leader through a lot of charm and diplomacy, with a little force to enfore the peace. This meant her heirs had too much to live up to and a country based on what was in many ways a cult of personality fell to bad hands and external threats.
Having seen this future, she determined the strengthen the Rift militarily so that it is better equipped to withstand external threats. This resulted in her paladin order becoming a lot less paladin-y and a lot more mercenary, and while this protected the Rift against the first threat of Wendar and then Glantri trying to take over and preventing the rise of Ileosa, the Order were out of town when another invasion happened nearly a century later. Othariel defeated the invaders fairly handily but left afterwards, leaving the Rift to clean up the mess. The then-leader of the Rift (Othariel's daughter Rahnee) was the target of local ire - if the majority of the supposedly military might of the Rift was always out campaigning, who will protect the Rift against invaders? What were they for if not protection?
Giving in to pressure Rahnee abdicates and her most vocal opponent, Dengar Thrune, takes the throne. Initially well-meaning, Dengar enacts a number of reforms that strip out the Good of the Rift and strengthen the Law, all in the name of security. Having been through a brief but devestating invasion, most of the Rift agrees. 70 years later and the Thrune dynasty has been in power and kept it that way and the current ruler, Barzillai, is enacting harsher laws and increasing taxes. Lots of people take this the right way and rebellion is fomenting in the Rift, primarily in the capital city of Stormhold.
Though many gripe about the new laws, the one person who voices the complaints loudly and clearly is Arael, a young elf from abroad. Unbeknownst to the locals he is Rahnee's son, who came to see the realm his grandmother founded and mother abandoned. He dislikes it, having been raised on stories from his mother about the golden age, now some 400 years past. Barzillai arrested the young elf for rabble rousing and sentenced him to doghousing.
His friends - fellow young revolutionaries, to be precise - currently under the nominal leadership of Janiven, who runs the Sarcastic Goat Inn*, devise a plan to rescue him.
The PCs are:
Pattinathar (don't call him Patty), a bugbear with an arnarchistic streak who will go into Alchemist when he gets his first level.
Marianya - an elf Phoenix Sorcerer with no fire spells. She wants to loosen laws and ensure freedom for all.
Dru - a half-orc/half elf outcast Rogue/Liberator who is best friends, possibly family, with Marianya.
Cirion - a breath-takingly beautiful young human male, lacking his right hand, and who is a bit vague about his capabilities. Maybe he's bard or something. He is very quiet about what to do and how to go about it, following the others' lead.
Fortunately for the PCs. they know where the doghousing takes place - in the couryard of Stormhold Castle, which is mostly inside the city. With at least two decent sneaky bastards in the group decides to sneak over the wall and extract Arael before being discovered. They scout out the guard shifts and know they should have the better part of a minute to get over the wall unseen. Having done so, they hope to hide, rescue Arael, then use the next opening to exfiltrate him.
They start the operation by worrying how to climb the sheer wall, but Cirion casts Spider Climb on Patty. A couple of the players are rather curious as to how he has 2nd level spells at 1st level. Some mumbled explanation about how it used to be a 1st level spell and he didn't know that things had changed, and a final explanation of 'I have a wand' - how a wand of 2nd level spells is better at 1st level than a single spell was left unexplained.
Not questioning the useful spell, Patty climbs to the top of the wall, fastens a rope to help the others and turns around to find a guard coming up the stairs after having visited the jakes. They stare at each other in amazement. (low Stealth and Perception roll for Patty, high Perception roll for the guard, bad Luck die roll for the party).
Patty wins initiative, reverses the spear to do non-lethal damage on the guard, and rolls a 1 on his attack.
At this point one of the players puts on Yakety Sax.
The other PCs scale the wall and orc guard is defeated through a combination of stabbing and being bashed in the face with a puch of gold used as an improvised sap, but not before he yelled an alarm. The PCs are in the process of carrying the guard away when the rest come. Combat is swift but surprisingly easy for the PCs Patty takes a little damage but is fully healed by the cure spell Cirion casts. Patty's player wonders what the hell sort of class Cirion has that let's him roll a handful of dice to heal at 1st level. The first wave of guards are defeated by Cirion, Patty and MariRanya (as she soon cme to be known as) while Dru uses the combat as a distraction to get Arael out of the doghouse unseen. Though they try to avoid killing the guards, Patty does manage to crit a charging orc with a braced spear, tearing through his stomach and severing the spine.
With Arael rescued, Cirion tells the others to get him to safety while he provides a distraction, and proceeds to toss alchemists fires on the empty doghouses nad along the wall. The three other PCs get Arael safely to the Sarcastic Goat Inn.
Some time later, bruised and charred, Cirion shows up, and the session ends.
As one of you, probably my only reader, may have guessed, Cirion is Othariel in disguise. She came to see how the Rift was getting on after the Ironfang Invasion and was saddened to see the current state of affairs. She could charge in, force things back to what she wanted and spend some more time putting things straight, but she's on the path to becoming Immortal and cannot afford to get bogged down in micromanaging people. So she adopts a new persona - Cirion. Using her best friend Grund's Amulet of Disguise, she puts most of her gear in a portable hole and secrets it on her person, then wanders around the Rift seeing if any people are willing to take a stand against the budding tyrant Barzillai.
She quickly fell in with Arael's gang. Arael is quiet about his origin because he doesn't want people to follow him because of his grandmother but because the cause is just. Also, trying to live up to Othariel's name is a helluva big task. Othariel suspects Arael might be Rahnee's kid, but hasn't asked him so as not to tip her hand. In any case, she feels a strong desire for justice from the kid and suspects he might become a cleric of hers should she succeed in her Quest.
Throughout the fight with the guards - members of the Order of Thunder**, the paladin order she founded - Othariel has done her best to keep the orc guards alive. Patty killing one of them was unfortunate. When she sends the others off, she uses her Ultimate Mercy to bring the slain guard back before melting into the night.
The orc guard who got killed, Garguax, had his world changed forever. He died, and while his spirit was still getting used to the idea Othariel herself appeared and offered her hand to him, giving him a second chance at life. Garguax knew of Othariel of course. Legendary uniter of the Thunder Rift, founder of the Order of Thunder he is a proud member of. but according to modern history someone who got by on charm and luck more than strength of arms. Now he was face to spectral face with her in all her glory and he realized just how wrong the histories were. She was by far the most powerful warrior he could imagine. He realized just how utterly insignificant he and his friends were to her skills if she had decided to kill them. But she didn't want that. She just didn't want them to die and his death had been a mistake. She offered him a way back. In awe, he took her hand.
When Garguax woke up he saw no sign of Othariel. Nothing but his superiors yelling at him and his squadmates for having let the prisoner escape. In a daze he gives his report but omits the part where he died. Formerly an adherent of Vanya, Garguax found his pro forma faith gone and rote worship now entirely meaningless, replaced with a fascination with Othariel. He knows Vanya is a powerful god and Othariel nothing but a mortal, but he actually met Othariel and she sure as spit seemed like a god to him. For now he's wrestling with his feelings, trying quietly learn more about her and find out why he suddenly feels less at home in the Thunderknights than he used to.
*
The Sarcastic Goat Inn was originally run by the eponymously epitheted dwarf who founded it - unfailingly polite to newcomers, increasingly sarcastic to those he considered friends. This is where Othariel and her friends first met and used as a place to relax every time they came to Melnir. The Inn was sold by the Goat's son, the old place closed and the name moved to a new place in Stormhold. To Othariel it's a bit like walking into what was once your favorite pub and finding it has become a Wetherspoons.
**
The Order of Thunder started out as a paladin order but expanded to accept non-paladins and slowly became a mercenary company. More like Phelani Company from the Deed of Paksenarrion than Wagner, but still mercenaries. During this time the orcs and bugbears of the Rift entered in great numbers and make up a significant part of the Thunderknights now. Though Othariel founded the Order, as it became more warlike and less paladin-y, they took to idealizing Grund as the ultimate warrior - harsh, strong and lawful and great at forcing other people to do what he wanted. Grund himself would have been wracked with guilt it if he had ever learned that this was how people saw him
During their work abroad they came into contact with the Heldannic Knights and many Thunderknights turned to the worship of Vanya. The Thunderknights have somehow acquired the nickname Helknights, despite having nothing to do with Hel.
The current Order of Thunder is strongly LN, bordering on LE. No paladins left, and with people who enjoy exercising power and force of arms in charge.
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
The next morning after a few hours of fitful rest, the gang wakes up. Arael, looking much better now than he did when they rescued him, gives the PCs his heartfelt thanks for the rescue and a short speech about how his arrest and punishment was a perfect example of why Thrune needs to be deposed, the Order of Thunder disbanded or seriously reorganized, and better people put in charge. The first thing they need to do, apart from immediate escape, is determine exactly how many people they can call on to openly oppose Thrune and the Thunderknights.
Despite my best efforts I couldn't help but make him sound like someone one red flag away from being a full-on Marxist.
Whatever the actual politics involved, the gang feels it's best they head out of town. Stormhold isn't that big and they expect Thrune to send people to find them. They send Janiven out to shop for a few necessities, mostly some new clothes, food and some bedrolls, and try to get out of town before midday. Their suspicions are justified as they see squads of Thunderknights making their way through town interrogating people. A quick use of a disguise kit and some Bluff rolls let the PCs make their way to the town gate where they see one of the orcs they beat up the night before looking at the faces of everyone passing through.
Hoping that their disguises will hold, they try to go past. There aren't a lot of bugbears in Stormhold so the guard questions Patty closely. The disguise holds but when asked "Where were you last night?" Patty panics and answers "Uh, not beating you up." (nat 1 on Bluff roll). The guards draw weapons and demand that he lie down on the ground. Combat ensues. Cirion yells to the others to run and he'll extricate Patty, and she pulls a smokestick from her bag. Patty fails to hurt a guard, the leader rings an alarm bell, and one of the guards crits Patty, whose player is very grateful he started with 3 HD.
Arael and Marianya scream and run past, pretending to be scared of the situation. Dru runs up to one of the guards and attempts to club him into unconsciousness with a sap. The player first said he moved to flank position and later claims he tried to just hit one of the guards in passing. Marianya turns and fires off a Magic Missile at one of the guards, and Arael sighs, runs back and heals Patty. Cirion/Othariel is frustrated at the slow and inexperienced kids she's babysitting but realizes this is good for her so doesn't say anything.
The PCs manage to escape and head out into the Great Grasslands. It's not quite a praerie but the grass is tall and thick off the roads and away from the farms, so they manage to hide and sneak away before mounted troops catch up with them.
They had intended to head straight east to the big Gauntlin forest and talk to the elves but decide to cross a river and head north to the Wizardspire to try to get support of the wizards. The party finds their way up the mountain, subtly guided by Othariel who remembers the way from when she and her friends had dungeon crawled through the place in their youth. The wizards greet them and cast Detect Magic to determine if any of them have any magical effects on them. The greeter's eyes widen when he focuses on Cirion, whose player looks chagrined. The other players don't comment on this, possibly because they didn't catch that bit. Either way, the party is showed to guest quarters, which are student dorm rooms.
The next day they are granted an audience with the masters of Wizardspire, which include an aged elf by the name of Phaendar. The masters listen to the impassioned speech given by Arael but decline to give any aid since they have a mutual non-interference agreement with the government of the Thunder Rift. Plus, taking lessons from the Wizard War centuries before Othariel's time, they are reluctant to get involved with mundanes and ignite a new war. Disappointed, the party makes ready to leave Wizardspire to visit the elves.
The night before this meeting, Phanedar had a quiet meeting with Othariel. Using True Seeing he had recognized her, and wanted to talk. He filled her in on some details of the past 400 years that she did not know, and she told him of her attempts to quietly guide and aid the young heroes in their attempt to put the Thunder Rift on the right track again. They share a moment of exasperation at how difficult it is to be patient and let the young and ignorant learn rather than expect them to be super accomplished right off the bat. Phaendar informs Othariel of the outcome of the next day's meeting in advance and assures her that Wizardspire will remain neutral unless attacked by Thrune. Though Othariel would have appreciated the magical might of Phaendar she accepts this decision. She is somewhat relieved to learn that Thrune has little arcane might to back him up, though there is a notable contingent of Vanya clergy. He does give Othariel some hope by mentioning that the elves are generally less pleased with Thrune's rule and they will most likely support any effort to reform the leadership of the Rift.
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
The heroes catch a riverboat from the base of Wizardspire to the middle of the Gauntlin Forest, home of the elves and gnolls. Marianya is from the orest so she shows the party the way to the home settlement of the elves.
They are met on the way by an advance guard of three gnolls, who recognize Marianya and let the PCs pass without comment. The elves are unused to having non-elves in their home, even after all these centuries of greater participation with the other races of the Thunder Rift, but they are cautiously welcomed since they are in the company of one of their own. Marianya asks for an audience with Ronorin Silvercrest, de facto leader of the community.
Othariel remembers Ronorin from before, though she is old. Marianya sets forth the current condition of the Rift and Thrune's latest misdeeds. The elves are not fans of Thrune or the current iteration of the Thunder Knights, but are cautious about doing anything about it. They hope that Thrune will just die of old age before things get too bad and hope that the next Prince is better. The PCs make impassioned arguments against this, and reluctntly Ronorin agrees. The elves and their allies the gnolls (ancestral enemies, recently enough that both Othariel and Ronorin remember this vividly) are united in their distaste for Thrune's greater and greater demands on their resources and loyalty.
Ronorin points out that if the party really wants to get a revolution going, they need some form of leadership. The natural choice is Arael, who has the highest Charisma and Diplomacy and Perform (oratory) skills, and has been speaking out against Thrune for years. Arael is reluctan; he isn't a local and does not want to be a leader. The PCs ask if Ronorin would consider the job, given her wisdom.
"Kid, I'm 700 years old. I'm tired, I could die at any moment and I'm too concerned with the elves to be a good leader for the whole Rift. Pick your young firebrand here."
With no other obvious choice, Arael concedes. Ronorin wishes to speak to him alone and shoos the PCs out.
Though she has never seen him, Ronorin is pretty sure Arael is Rahnee's son and wants to make sure of that. He admits to this, and has to confess to some resentment towards his mother for abandoning the Rift and letting things get so bad. Ronorin is of much the same mind but is pleased to see he takes his new job seriousloy. Much of Arael's reluctance to be a leader is because he wants the people of the Rift to choose a leader based on dedication and competency, not because of ancestry. He has a lot to live up to and for better or worse wants to be acknowledged for who he is, not who his mother or grandmother are.
While this is going on the PCs are taken to Marianya's modest home and fed and given a place to sleep for the night. When Arael comes back they start planning for the future. They stay up long into the night.
This being my players, someone has some very odd ideas about what to do about the Thunder Knights. Marianya wonders if flat out 'disappearing' small patrols would be a good way to start. Arael frowns and says that even ignoring ethics this would be bad. Cue a long tangent about the "I'm not evil, I'm Chaotic Neutral" Marianya argues with the rest of the PCs about ultimate goals and how to accomplish these. Almost before the group has been formally organized it threatens to split into two directions. This, coupled with trying to figure out what name the group should have, leads to many jokes about "The People's Front of the Thunder Rift" vs "The Thunder Rift People's Front" vs. "The Popular Front of the Thunder Rift" were made.
Marianya backs down and goes along with rest of the party, Name Pending.
Once this tangent is done there is a discussion IC and OOC about what form of government to have once Thrune is ousted. Cue many references to strange women lying in ponds distributing swords (someone showing up with Othariel's sword would have a fair amount of legitimacy to any claim) and anarcho-syndiclist communes (Arael would like people to choose Good and cooperation of their own accord rather than be lorded over by an autocrat).
The rest of the session is hammering out what to do next in the short term, which is find out what sort of support they can expect from the rest of the Rift, and try to get some information about the inner workings of the Thunder Knights, who are notoriously tight-lipped to outsiders. Some plan to infiltrate under the guise of recruits and gain information that way, possibly convert some people to their cause.
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
Not too much happened last night. The first 20 minutes were spent arguing about party name, to no decision.
The PCs spend the better part of a couple of months wandering the northern bit of the Rift, talking to the people who live there. Even after the centuries since unification there is still a strong racial divide in where people live, though not as absolute as it used to be. The kobolds and goblins eked out a living on the fringes. They have been ignored and overlooked for quite some time now. They are used to this at an almost genetic level and despite being rather poor, are content to not rock the boat and attract actual hostilities from the ruler of the Rift. Still, the PCs got the idea they would be amenable to a change in leadership and fairer living conditions. Cirion left behind a small pile of gold at each farm they visited, in Arael's name
The halfling farmers disliked the taxes and oppressive nature of the Thunder Knights but had to admit they were better than bandits, and banditry was down when the Thunder Knights were around.
The human villagers of Kleine and the surrounding human farmers and ranchers seemed happy to leave things as they were, with much the same opinion as the halflings.
The orcs in the Farolas Hills were fine with the way things were going. They have a strong cultural admiration for violence and forceful leadership, and as many orcs enter the Order of Thunder they do pretty well for themselves.
The dwarves of Hearth-Home kept the door closed and told the PCs to go away and stop making a nuisance of themselves. Dejected, the PCs head south again, stopping by Stormhold to check out the rumors they heard about some fires.
Arael and Patty stay hidden well outside the city (because they are too well known and bad at lying) while the rest enter and try to find out what has happened while they were gone. It seems that just a day or so after their escape from STornmhold, a number of fires erupted in various parts of the city, killing a few people and several others being unaccounted for afterwards. Among these are the Sarcastic Goat and Janiven. People do not want to talk too much about it but targets were all places or people known to be critical of Thrune and the current regime. Cirion tracks down Janiven, who has lived on the street and in the sewers since the fires, and smuggler her out. Marianya immediately calls for retribution, wanting to burn down a few of Thrune's allies. "You can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs", she says.
"You don't have to burn down the entire coop, though," Arael responds, nixing the idea of more arson. Cue another argument about 'disappearing' Thunder Knights and Marianya not quite understanding that even ignoring moral issues, that's poking a bear the PCs can't handle.
The group makes their way to Melnir, narrowly avoiding a Thunder Knight patrol on the way. Melnir is a quiet, old town, eclipsed by Stormhold. It boasts a surprising number of cathedrals - a total of three, which is kind of a lot for a town with barely a couple hundred inhabitants. All of them were built because of Ranya - one to her patron Valerias, one to herself, and one to her husband's, and later Othariel's, patron Khoronus. The cathedrals to Valerias and Ranya no longer belong to those faiths, having been repossessed by the government for failure to pay taxes. Valerias' cathedral has been taken over by Vanya's faith and Ranya's temple looks abandoned and full of grafitti.
For reasons unknown to her, Marianya feels deeply and personally offended by this.
Next time, The PCs decide to stop gathering info and start building an actual power base, including stronghold and doing good to show people things can be better than Thrune's regime.
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
Short session with lots of OOG talk and one player who had to take care of his kid and couldn't make game night, another who had to quit early because of lack of sleep the previous night.
The PCs find Janiven's contacts and secure a temporary HQ where Arael can hide out of sight of the Thunder Knights. Once this is done they spend the day asking about town to see if there are any specific problems they could conceivably handle. Apart from the usual griping about excessive taxation - a common complaint driven home by their current abode being a coffeehouse that sees precious little by the way of customers due to people not having money to go out and drink - they are told of a gang of punks called the Bastards. Said gang is a collection of youths (mostly with minimal or no parental figures) somewhere between an annoyance and a terror. They rough up people going home late at night, are blamed for a string of minor burglaries and robberies, are generally unpleasant when encountered, etc. The Thunder Knights curb their worst excesses since the gang doesn't want to tangle with them, and so the population of Melnir has a generally grudging preference for the TKs and Thrune's arguments that one needs a strong armed presence to preserve Law and Order.
The PCs decide to try to find the Bastards. They start off by sending Dru to scout out the abandoned Ranya temple which has been boarded up and is covered in grafitti, most of if making unflattering remarks about Ranya.
Dru cannot find a way in that is easily accessible and fails to quietly pry some boards away from the windows, and decides to leave rather than risk making noise trying to enter. He did determine that the places was not empty, however.
Out on the town the PCs easily find the Bastards going around acting like dumb gangs and teens everywhere: thinking that they are cool and tough because they are crude, loud and walk with an unearned swagger. The PCs confront them and easily Intimidate them with threats of the wrath of the Immortals for their desecration of a temple, though Marianya's excessively aggressive attitude provokes them into fighting. The PCs easily knock out half of the gang in the first round and the rest run for their lives. They heal up the little damage they took and follow the escaping Bastards to a secret entrance leading in to Ranya's temple. Here they overhear the remaining Bastards babble about their encounter with the PCs. The PCs show themselves and a fight occurs.
Low-level fights have a charm about them. Pattinathar spent almost the entire combat fighting a single skeleton, with both of them either missing or not doing significant damage to fell the other. Dru was quite effective with his sneak attacking rapier. Cirion spent most of the time fighting the Bastard's leader. The cleric of Nyx the Bastards were working with proved difficult - 4th level vs a bunch of 2nd levels, after all. The PCs made most of their saves but the negative energy channels were punishing, dropping all but Patty, who after having finally taken out the skeleton he'd been working on all night managed to drop the cleric and heal up the dying PCs. Choosing to retreat and rest rather than explore the rest of the temple, the PCs leave and the session ends.
Othariel really feels the frustrtion of watching what are in effect little kids fumbling aboutm, trying to accomplish things she could do in fraction of the time it takes them. She knows this is what being an Immortal and working through mortal followers must be like, but it doesn't make this any more enjoyable. She would break cover to save the lives of any PC in danger, but is glad she hasn't had to yet.
Next session, return to the temple and see if they can find some clues.
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
Cirion stabilizes the surviving Bastard before the PCs loot the bodies and look into the secret door in the temple. They find a nice little stash of loot and a discussion about whether it's ok to take stuff from the temple of an Immortal they all like is OK takes place. Cirion(Othariel) obviously thinks it's ok, knowing that Ranya would be fine with it, and 'he' argues that they should take the stuff in case someone less nice should come along and find it. They retreat to Arael, get healed up, and Arael concludes that for the moment they should use the stuff. They can confess their sins to any Ranya cultist they happen to meet later and worry about trying to fix the problems of the Rift now. Though he never met Ranya, he heard enough about her from his mother that he feels confident She would be OK with the group putting the stuff to good use.
After healing up the gang returns to Ranya's temple and explore the rest of it. The temple needs a good cleaning: the various artwork depicting Ranya has been painted with garish colors, lewdly emphasizing her 'attributes', and the rest of the place looks like a bunch of careless teens have been sleeping, eating, and f!$#ing for a few years without cleaning up. Then follows a discussion about what to do with the surviving Bastsard. Marianya says that the punks would probably kill the PCs if given a chance and she sees no reason not to do the same to them - pretty soon her CN will become CE if she's not careful. The rest of the PCs do not agree and they heal and wake up the surviving youth and question him. He tells of how the Bastards teamed up with the Nyx priest for mutual interests and how they have an agreement with a couple of mages - the mages use the Bastards as cheap muscle and in return the mages tell keep the temple magically protected so that the Thunder Knights won't bother the Bastards there, and the mages also warn the Bastards of impending TK patrols in the area so they can avoid them. They don't know exactly where the mages spend most of their time, though they assume it's Mage's Island, but they know they have something going on at the abandoned mines just north of Melnir, since the Bastards moved a few carts of stuff to the mines a few days ago. With some stern warnings to not go back to a life of crime and hooliganism, the PCs let the Bastard go.
Not know what else to do with the corpses, the PCs hide them in the secret room in the Temple, hoping they won't decay too much before they can come back and do something about them. Jokes about getting flasks of acid and a bathtub were made.
Secretly, Othariel returns to the temple and attempts to Raise the dead Bastards. She leaves the Nyx priest and the leader, both who struck her as being unlikely to respond to her offers of a better life. The young Bastards deserve a second chance, however. The kids accept and are brought back to life. The youths accept in awe and in fear and shame listen to her stern lecture about Not Being Bastards, and then she gives them a few coins and some advice about how to improve their lot in life. It remains to be seen how they will react to this but they will not be an issue for the rest of the campaign. Othariel is all about second chances, giving people the opporunity to repent and improve themselves. She isn't much for third chances, however, so she hopes the kids get it right this time around.
The next day, after a good rest, the PCs set out to the abandoned mines. The mines were abandoned in Othariel's time, and in the intervening centuries has been used as bandit hideout, storage area, shelter from invading armies, haunted by minor undead, and finally marked as off-limits because of danger of collapse. The PCs see signs of activity in the area despite the signposts warning against entering. The wall blocking the entrance is on closer examination easily moved and they enter. The wander about a short while before finding the right tunnels to follow. With no one on the team who knows about mining they don't know if the mines actually are unstable, but they see no signs of it. They find an area with some light, a barred area and a couple of guards lounging outside. The PCs have surprise but Marianya descies that the best thing to do is walk out and try to talk to them. This is the player's normal MO. It doesn't work this, as the guards do wht guards are supposed to do and raise the alarm. The fight that follows is basically Pattinathar killing half the guards while Marianya insists on using her crossbow and misses all the time. To be fair, the player rolls s$@*, as usual, and refuses to use Mari's spells, which is unusual. Once Mari ignores her bow and uses Magic Missile, she actually helps in combat.
The guards, the mages and the dwarf leader of the gang eventually fall, and the PCs stabilize the survivors (again, to Mari's suggestions that they should just gank them). They keep the survivors alive and go in to explore the area. There they find some prisoners, who they recoginize as some of the people who went missing in the fires weeks ago.
At this point we end the session.
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
The PCs do what they can for the prisoners but one of them is dead. After giving them some food and water, the PCs begin to question them. Their stories are basically the same: they were at home when a bunch of thugs burst in, beat them up, and spirited them away, and set fire to their homes. The kidnappers were all foreign mercenaries and none would say who orderd the operation, but the victims were all people who were loudly critical of Thrune and his policies.
The PCs escort the victims to Melnir and sneak them into the coffe house they use as a temporary hideout. They are desperately feeling the need to find a bigger stronghold and a more secret one. This will probably be the next item on the list.
The PCs suddenly remember that they had taken a couple of the mercenaries alive and rush back to the mines. Fortunately, two of them were still there, groaning and nearing consciousness. The third was nowhere to be seen. The two remaining, which include the leader, are questioned. Marianya and Dru and Pattinathar fail miserably at their Intimidate rolls but Cirion succeeds despite the failed initial rolls giving the prisoners a bonus to resist.
The mercenaries admit they have done a variety of smuggling and bandit work in the Rift for a while. They have a contact, and they suspect said contact has contacts in the Thunder Knights, since the bandits are always given notice where it is safe to raid. All useful information recovered, the PCs decide to kill the prisoners. This really sticks in Cirioni's craw but they cannot see a viable alterntive.
The gang then plans some more.
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
After some discussion the PCs plan to escort the freed political prisoners to the elves in the Gauntlin forest, in hopes that they will be safe there for a while at least. On their way they stop by Torlynn, which has been haunted by some shadowy monsters the last week. Four people have gone missing and the residents have sent for the Thunder Knights to aid. When the PCs offer to look into things the villagers gratefully accept.
The PCs hang around until the beasts show up some time after nightfall. The fight is intense - shadow mastiffs are nasty against a 3rd level party. Half of them flee at the baying and the rest take a lot of damage. They are saved by GM brain fog (I was rather tired throughout the session) since I forgot the 50% miss chance throughout the fight and only one of the hounds bayed. Still, it was a close thing with two PCs falling unconscious and the rest saved only because there were two NPC clerics healing them. They survive and slay the beasts.
Some time after sunrise, rested and replenished, they head out. Luckily the shadow mastiffs left a track to follow, which leads straight to Barrik's Keep (a house, really), where Othariel and her friends had saved one of her clanmates and the town of Torlynn from eternal winter. The place is clean and mostly empty, with a few books in the study. No fire wood, no food, no sign of anything in the kitchen other than a glass with some disturbingly red congealed remnants in the bottom. When the PCs find four hastily made boxes about the size and shape of a coffin,containing four pale and seemingly unwounded corpses, their Knowledge (religion) checks go into overdrive.
The corpses do not react to the noise going on around them so Cirion pours a bottle of holy water on one. The corpse sits up screaming and the PCs nearly panic. The heroes win the initiative and ll cleric types channel and the corpses turn to mist, swirl about a moment, then start to reform. During this time the group hurridly makes stakes and stake the creatures.
A brief discussion about the creatures follows. They quickly come to the conclusion that these four vampires were the unfortunates that disappeared and that they were in turn created by a more powerful vampire. They wonder if they should pull back and prepare but decide to keep going, since the spawn went down easily enough and they still (hopefully) have the element of surprise. They find the coffin of the master and attack but the master knew of their coming. Dru is hit once and beats a hasty retreat. Cirion decides to tank and is hit but keeps it busy. All the clerics channel two rounds later the vampire is mist, then staked.
Cirion did seriously consider smiting the bloodsucker but was glad he could maintain cover a bit longer by keeping it focused on him.
The staked vampires are dragged out into the sun and the place thoroughly searched. The PCs now feel they have a safe place as their base, return to Torlynn with the sad news about the four missing youths, and we end the session.
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
The party secures some supplies for Arael and leave him at Barrik's Keep House, send the elf they rescued back to the elves, and escort the last three people back to Stormhold. One is a cleric of Ranya who ministers to the less fortunate in the city. Though technically held accountable for his orders supposed debt, he is obviously of poor means and quite popular, so any overt action against him by the authorities would drastically increase unrest.
The second is a young dandy who was caught when his mother was assaulted. His mother died in captivity and he is now very much out for blood. He will leverage his connections with the well-to-do in the Rift and try to sawy opinion against the Prince.
The last is an orc grocer who has been loudly disapproving of his kind being used as troops for the Thunder Knights.
The trip starts off well enough but they soon encounter a band of Thunder Knights who inquire what the situation in Torlynn is like. The PCs, under Marianya's lead, start prevaricating for no adequate reason, things like 'just a bunch of overly exciteable youths who were pulling a prank', were made. The cleric of Ranya, despite being a local, does his patron proud by adding a completely unnecessary and unbelievable story about how he's a tourist who has heard so much about the Rift and wants to see it, and the rest of the group are his guides/guards.
I got some vague answer about the players not wanting the Thunder Knights to go to Torlynn because they might conceivably follow the trail to their new secret hideout, but failed to make clear that at the beginning of their mumblings. In any case, Bluff is not a skill they are particularly good at and even without any ranks in Sense Motive, the Thunder Knight in charge could tell something was off. She questioned the PCs closely individually and then let them go, which they found rather disconcerting. In short, the Thunder Knight thinks they are hella suspicious but has no idea about specifics and doesn't want to increase trouble for herself on the grounds of 'they seemed to be hiding somthing'. For the moment she has their fake names and their faces and will be keeping an eye out for them later on.
Back in Stormhold the PCs get a room in one of the dive bars, and wait for a bit, trying to discretely gather information about what life is like now. The dandy they escorted home is given a place to stay by a friend, announces his survival and the mostly true story of his abduction and rescue (carefully edited to leave out any suspicions of the Prince's involvement), and starts the process of trying to get his family's fortunes handed over to him. This will prove to be a bit more troublesome than hoped since the law moved quickly to seize his family's assets and give them to 'the Rift' (i.e. the Prince).
While this is going on the dandy asks the PCs to look into one of his family's estates which was sold off recently. He hopes to prevent its looting. The PCs face off against a number of undead, leading them to suspect that the church of Nyx is going to be one of the main antagonists in their quest to free the Rift from tyranny. The undead were far more impressive opponents than the cleric and his monk bodyguards.
Before leaving Barrik's 'Keep', Othariel in her guise of Cirion, discretely pocketed the strange artifact thehead vampire had in hand when the PCs defeated him. As close to Immortality as she is, she could identify it and most of its properties far more easily than most mortals. It turns out it was an artifact of Nyx' that turns the bearer into a vampire and enhances their vampiric abilities. Othariel is pretty sure she'd be immune to the effect but doesn't the other PCs to fall prey to it, so she stuffs it in her Portable Hole. She briefly considers destroying it but destroying artifacts is often difficult and tends to piss off the god who made it. She keeps it for later, hoping to get a minor favor from Nyx for its eventual return.
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
The PCs clear out the building and start interrogating the Vanya cleric they took alive. He tries to brazen it out but cannot resist their Intimidate check and starts talking. He claims he is here on behalf of one of the richest people in town, doing an inventory and preventing any looters like the PCs. He keeps throwing glances over the PCs' shoulders and they notice this. A short while later the PCs hear the grind of stone on stone and the priest yells for help. They rush out into the hall to see a previously secret door now open and a surprised looter looking at them. They beat him up, tie him up with the rest, and three of the PCs head down the now revealed secret staircase, leaving Dru to watch over the captives.
The stairs go down a surprising distance and opens up into a pleasant underground complex. The PCs try to sneak their way through it but the first group of enemies they come across roll very well on Perception. The looters are dangerous enough and pummel the PCs hard but their boss who manages to sneak up on the PCs from behind is far worse. I roll abysmally, so she only gets in two hits over the course of a minute or more of in game combat. The PCs are concerned to see she has regeneration but after a tough fight manage to subdue her. She Dimension Doors away when she wakes up, leaving the PCs to quickly gather what stuff they can from the complex and high-tail it out of town, Cirion staying behind to inform their employer about the result of their little adventure.
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
The PCs left the Vanyaists alive but bound, hoping to get time to get out of town before they are found. Cirion reports the result if the investigation to their patron, who fills them in on a few details about the information they had uncovered. The existence of the secret underground complex was news to him and really drives home exactly why his mother was targetd by the Prince in the first place. He expands a little more on the legal problems he is facing and likely outcomes. Cirion then escapes the city and the PCs head back to Arael in Barrik's Keep.
Arael is going a bit spare being all alone and having nothing to do so he decides to travel with the PCs a bit. They head back into Torlynn and see how the town is getting on - much better now that monsters aren't preying on them. To their consternation, the Thunder Knights they met on the way asked for them and is now aware of the PCs' true names.
They then head to Melnir to see how things are going there. They are surprised to see one of the youths they killed up and about. Said youth's face drains of blood when he sees the PCs, he throws up his hands and yells "don't touch me, I'm not doing anything wrong" and runs off. The PCs find this a bit suspicious and spend a couple nights prowling the streets for him but don't find him. They conclude the most likely scenario is a rich parent raised him and he is keeping his head down from now on.
They head back to Stormhold, in new disguises, and make contact with their nob friend. He informs them that the Prince wishes to honor them for their daring rescue of 'valued citizens of the Rift' in a public ceremony. Everyone thinks this sounds hella sus, but can't decide if showing up and saying 'thanks but no thanks' to any honors or gifts is better or worse than not showing up at all.
The session ends here.
I felt rather sickly last night, had done no prep due to a minor family emergency that took up much of my time the last week, and the PCs immediately ran away from the one half-baked idea I had come up with beforehand. Fortunately Marianya's player did a great job of dragging stuff out of my foggy brain with his questions and actions, and I got the PCs at least introduced to the next hook by the end of the session.
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
The session started with some more discussion about whether to show up to the Prince's ceremony. They worry about traps, about legitimizing the Prince, about PR and politics, and all sorts of issues. Eventually decide they decide to attend. They have a week before the award ceremony takes place.
The PCs wake up that night to find Othariel standing over them, commending them for their desire for good and their resolve to make the Rift a better place. She grants them a Wish. Interestingly, none of the PCs tell the others of this visitation. Othariel also appears before the previously captured Vanyaists in disguise as an angel and tells them they are being very naughty in supporting the Prince and that they should stop it. She doesn't really hold much hope that they will change their mind but she is giving them a chance.
Othariel also visits a few Thunder Knights she has had her eye on and tries to convince them that the current situation is far from what she had intended when she founded the Order, and that they need to kick out the Vanyaists and become more paladin-y. They are in awe but will take some time to process the idea.
Lastly, Othariel visits Arael and gives him her stamp of approval. Arael is conflicted. On the one hand he finally gets to meet his legendary grandmother and is glad that she agrees with him on most things. On the other, he is pissed that she has never bothered to show up in his life before this, is angry at how she 'abandoned' the Rift and his mother when they could have used more stability and strength, and her seemingly capricious help now. He will need some time to process his emotions.
She gives him a Miracle.
Having the better part of a week before the award ceremony, the PCs spend time trying to scout out the site of the ceremony before hand. They can find no signs of nefarious activity. The actual ceremony is short and straightforward. It's an excuse for the Prince to look good, cast doubt on his connections to the events that necessitated this ceremony, and get a good look at his enemy. In addition to the Prince, the leader of the Thunder Knights and the archpriest of the Vanyaists in the Rift present. The Prince himself gives off a dangerous vibe and seems very comfortable with the sword he has on his hip. He has a one of the guards who was on duty the night the PCs rescued Arael, which the PCs correctly guess is there to hopefully recognize anyone who may have participated in that event. The PCs are not complete idiots (shocking, I know) and had disguised themselves well beforehand so said guard could not recognize them. They also left Patty behind (player was absent), so the racial composition of the group was not as singular.
The Prince made short speech about how horrible the fires were and how awful the whole captivity situation was, and how grateful the Rift is for heroes of such pluck and skill. He presents the PCs with some useful magic items, toasts them, and the crowd makes a polite golf clap. The Prince and his entourage return to the Keep, and the PCs melt into the crowd. The items seem legitimate, but since none of the PCs have Detect Curse or Arcane Sight they have to rely on Identify to see if things are ok. One assumes they are fine, a couple others are less convinced.
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
Shortly after the award ceremony, their noble contact informs the PCs that a new play is being put on. He knows the director and got an advanced copy of the script. The comedy is a thinly-veiled satire of Othariel and her companions, portrayed as a bunch of idiots, who take over a country and drive it to the brink of ruin with their smooth-brained policies. A character who is an obvious stand-in for the current Prince continually points out how the policies are going to end badly and has to clean up the mess when they inevitably do.
To paraphrase Sir Hmumphrey, plays criticizing the government are the second most boring form of theater, surpassed only by those that praise the government. The PCs decide to make this a memorably bad play and audition for roles in order to ruin the play. Many references to "The Producers" were made.
Cirion and Marianya impress the director with their acting skill and get the roles of "Othariel" (naturally) and the functionary who tells the main cast of the problems arising and the result of any policies.
The players use a variety of skill rolls to deftly convince the diva-ish lead role to make the role of the "Prince" even more dickish, subtly rewrite the "Othariel" character to come off less dumb and more forgiving, and last minute Dru disguises themself as the director and hands out a re-write that makes the Othariel-expy look better and the Prince-expy crueller.
On the opening night the Prince is in attendance, eager to have his ego stroked. The first act went mostly well though the director screamed quietly at the actors after the first act at the unauthorizd changest that had been made. He assumed so far that they had merely misspoken lines and ad libbed a bit.
Dru has spent his time in the crowd, moving around and heckling the "Prince" character, cheering on "Othariel" and making sure everyone has a supply of rotten tomatoes.
Cirion and Marianya, having two of the three most powerful roles, make a lot of unauthorized changes that have "othariel's" dicisions be far better and the "Prince"'s cruel and pointless. The other actors struggle to play along, being out of their depth and feeling the harsh gaze of the actual Prince on them as the play gradually turns into a farce.
The Prince and the director are visibly upset by the end of the second act, and behind stage the diva-lead has his ego crushed when he 'accidentally' ovrhears a conversation between the two PCs that disparages his acting ability and manliness. The third act is dreailed before the play is over by excessive boooing and rotten fruit directed at the "Prince" character and a short but powerful monologue by Cirion about how the people need kindness and support, not blood-sucking tyrants. Some minor pyrotechnics and the PCs beat a hasty retreat as a minor riot forms and the Prince demands his guards arrest the actors.
The PCs keep their heads down for a few days. They feel some guilt when they hear that the director is doghoused and the diva has disappeared.
All in all, the players enjoyed this session. Once they heard there was a play involved they took the adventure hook and ran with it.
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
Extra short session yesterday. The PCs discuss their plans for the future with Arael, the nominal leader of the resistance. The play was a hit and is the talk of the town for a few days and the Thunder Knights are in force trying to find the actors responsible for the affront to the Prince. Though a PR victory, the resistance needs some more to work with. They are slowly gathering allies but for the moment those willing to oppose the Prince and the Thunder Knights are too few, too poor, and too weak.
They need money, they need experience, and they will probably need weapons. With th Rift itself lacking any good adventure seeds, mostly thanks to Othariel and her friends clearing out the last of them when she was young, they decide they need to go abroad. They head to the Adri Varma plateau, where the Thunder Knights have made a name for themselves as mercenaries fighting for various city-states over the last several centuries.
One player mentioned she'd felt I pushed them in this direction while I was rather surprised by them heading out. Either way, the session had to end early since they bypassed what little I had prepared, and now I have to read up on the Adri Varma, advance it a few hundred years, and make all new adventures.
I could have forced the players into what I had prepared but I don't like doing that sort of thing once the players have actually decided to do something.
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
The PCs make their way out of the Rift, well laden with beer and wine, and follow the road through Wendar into the Adri Varma plateau. The plateau is well named: once they exit the Wendarian mountain range and head west they see the Adri Varma rise out of the horizon. It's an imposing sight, looking like nothing so much as a large bit of the continent that was raised and put on top of the rest. The road is one the Thunder Rift (primarily the Thunder Knights) have used to get to and from the AVP. Technically it goes through Wendar but old treaty means the Rift/TK can travel freely on it. The PCs stop in last town in Wendar before the AVP and get some information on the AVP. The map they bought is generally considered to be accurate enough (some people had a few quibbles about exact locations of certain things).
The top of the AVP is mostly a dry desert, often cold and with harsh winds and bright sun. They make it to the first town of Nurestani and ask around a bit to get a feel on local politics. Some suspicions are confirmed, some are not, but the most interesting bit was the ruins of a Thunder Knight fortress a ways outside the town. The PCs go there to investigate. They dungeon crawl through the first level, finding a Thunder Knight who happened to be there at the same time as them. They are wary but introduce themselves and make an alliance of convenience, and clear out the rest of the first floor of the crumbling fortress.
So I actually did do a bit of prep for this session. By 'prep' I of course mean 'did a little thinking about the background and setting and powerdynamics of political entities' instead of 'make adventure hooks or NPCs or locations for encounters'. The choice to leave the Rift and explore the AVP was a good one for me, because it will allow me to introduce a few aspects of the Thunder Knights and their history.
Now to whinge a bit: I stole the fortress and Thunder Knight/Hellknight encounter from the first book of Age of Ashes and if I had thought a little bit more about the details of the place before throwing the PCs into it I would have had an easier time last night. Man, that place is badly designed. It's almost like a 1e dungeon in how little thought was put into how things worked.
| Bjørn Røyrvik |
The PCs and their momentary Thunder Knight companion feel the fort they are currently exploring probably had a cellar of some sort and start looking for hidden doors but find none. After this the PCs pore over the few surviving papers they found and are annoyed to find it exclusively logistics and inventory. A small comment ignites their curiosity: a note about things to be moved to the basement. They search everything again and move their attention to the outside and find a hidden door in a nearby pile of rocks. Entering they find a half-finished subterranean stronghold with a few honored dead of the older Order of Thunder plus a few minor relics, including a banner bearing the Order's insignia and the legend "The Last Faithful".
This arouses the group's curiosity and their companion's consternation. They encounter a few undead warriors in Thunder Knight armor - amor of an older design that is much less fierce than the current design and without Vanya's holy symbol on it. The undead all attack the Thunder Knight for preference, which really puts him off. The skeletal champions are easily dispatched but the barrow wights' Insanity gaze affects everyone but Cirion. The PCs are a greater danger to themselves than the wights, who roll terribly on all attacks, and Marianya nearly dies and Dru is severely injured.
Cirioin sighs and mutters something about how this always happens, pulls out a Staff of Life, and bonks people on the head to cure them - putting a bit more oomph into the bonks than is strictly speaking necessary.
The rest of the complex is empty but for a small collection of papers which is a brief account of a schism within the Order of Thunder over a century ago. In short, while the OoT had slowly been moving away from its origins as a paladin order for quite a while, focusing more and more on mercenary work. At one point the faith of Vanya was introduced to the OoT though contact with Heldannic Knights and it found fertile ground in the minds of many in the Order. Many in the Order still held true to Othariel's original vision, especially amongst the leadership and most highly ranked and powerful members, but they were a minority. For a while the Vanyaists worked alongside the traditionalists without issue but as their number and influence grew the differences between Vanya's ideals and Othariel's became too pronounced for the Order to bear and they started disagreeing about how the Order was to conduct itself and the ultimate goals. The most extreme of the Vanyaists eventually turned to violence to purge the traditionalists and turn the Order fully to Vanya. The traditionalists had suspected this was coming and were making preparations to survive, including the secret hideout at this fort, but were unable to finish them before the Vanyaists struck.
The notes metion a few names of people and places, mostly of little current interest intriguingly the city of Tuma, where the bulk of the traditionalists were stationed and how they suddenly disappeared without trace.
Again, the dungeon design in Hellknight Hill was bad. Bad architecture, lots of things lacking (where are the latrines?), and little thought put into how certain monsters would affect the dungeon (the gelatinous cube, sepcifically).