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The Cerulean Teahouse was very dangerous for my party:
Name of PC: Shakawkaw
Class/Level: Tengu Thaumaturge 1
Adventure: The Summer that Never Was
Catalyst: Area C1: Warty's Swallow Whole
Story: Pretty straightforward: Shakawkaw was the target of Warty's bite, got hit, got swallowed whole, went unconscious inside the toad's belly, then died because it took too long for the rest of the party to defeat Warty and cut a way out of his belly.
The party decided to retreat to safety after that encounter. They rested at Old Matsuki's house for the rest of the night and rose to level 2. Returning to the Cerulean Teahouse as soon as they were ready, they faced death again in the very next room.
Name of PC: Fei
Class/Level: Human Witch 2
Adventure: The Summer that Never Was
Catalyst: Area C3: Mo Douqiu's reach AO and bleed damage
Story: The party ended up taking a huge amount of damage from Mo Douqiu because of the reach and bleed damage of his attacks of opportunity. At some point, three characters were close to death and bleeding. Two of them survived (one barely), but Fei bled to death (after getting critically hit twice in quick succession).
Mo Douqiu was a very rough opponent for my characters because they triggered many attacks of opportunity by not approaching him all at once. If they had still been level 1 when they encountered him, it would probably have been a TPK.
These two characters survived by using Hero Points, but I wanted to share my experience with these encounters nonetheless.
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Name of PC: The entire party. Yes, I TPKed them. My sincerest apologies to Andakarlos, Qing Mu, and Mo Yan Lee.
Class/Level: Barbarian, Monk, Thaumaturge; Level 1
Adventure: The Summer that Never Was
Catalyst: C3+C4: Stingy and Fluffy Whiskers.
Story: Mo Yan did take care of Warty with a single crit with a quarterstaff that's boosted with a potency crystal. Alas, the party did not check upstairs.
Mo Douqiu's bleed plus AOO was definitely a toughy, but Mo Yan soaked that up quite well. Andakarlos actually took him out with a crit too.
But then Fluffy Whiskers and Stingy were still alive. Stingy's poison was no threat but the hits still hurt. And Fluffy Whiskers just had to go for the jugular. Nothing is more humiliating than coming to consciousness, finding you are on your back, turn and see the weasel...
Before it sinks its teeth into your neck.
...Luckily the other secret plots I had took TPKs and deaths into account. We're just tracking deaths now for reasons. :3 I should also give the party a weasel to take their anger out on at some point.
Name of PC: Lam Mi-Cha
Class/Level: Elven Bard 1
Adventure: The Summer That Never Was
Catalyst: Her family home: Her childhood stuffed toy
Story: The party stopped at Mi-Cha's home to check on her family on the way to the Matsuki Estate to get Hai-Er to her husband. While there, Mi-Cha went to get her potions of healing. As she moved her stuffed unicorn that was sitting on top of them, it suddenly animated and gored her in the throat with its horn (Bloodthirsty Toy haunt, critical hit, death by massive damage).
Name of PC: Fuyuka Yuka
Class/Level: Nymph (Dryad) Druid 13
Adventure: To Bloom Below the Web (Conclusion)
Catalyst: Self-sacrifice to save the party.
Story: Yuka was a dryad bound to a tree in the outskirts of Willowshore, when the terrible winter storm that heralded the beginning of the Age of Lost Omens struck. During the storm, a falling object, later known as the Heart of Winter (Gelid Shard) struck her tree, shattering it, and embedding itself in the body of the dryad within.
Living on borrowed time, Yuka found herself slowly succumbing to the frost of the Heart of Winter, over the course of the next year, and would have perished before the following summer.
Instead, during the final moments of the last adventure, she drew upon the last vestiges of power, to bind the final foe, and reinforce the seal, cracking the Heart of Winter, and turning her remaining lifespan from weeks to minutes.
Yuka passed, sitting beneath the tree that was once her home, surrounded by friends and loved ones, a true hero of Willowshore.