Greetings, so I am GMing my group through Age of Ashes and we will be going through book five soon so I figured I should start posting up what has transpired so far before everything becomes a distant fog.
Before we get into it though I feel I should mention. When it comes to my GMing style I enjoy adjusting things. I enjoy looking over an npc and breaking down their thoughts, why they were doing this, how they might think and feel about whats happening. I also enjoy shifting some things. So while the book might say 'this person fights to the death' I might go 'eh no that's not fun' and make them flee or even make them someone the group can redeem and recruit. When it comes to a certain boss I will cover my thoughts when we get there.
I'm also notoriously bad at taking good notes, my notes are often bullet points which usually means that I look at my notes and go 'what the heck happened here?' So if any of my players are reading this and want to throw their thoughts into the pool, clarify something, or add details that I missed go for it.
Obviously spoilers for Age of Ashes below.
Okay so for this book the group is as follows
Lai Ren - Kitsune Oracle - noble from Tian Xia who ran away to adventure when they were sent off on a political marriage to solve a family problem
Ernest - Indigo Dragon Summoner - Twin brother of Pendragon from the Verduan forest who ran away from a forced marriage to a mob boss' daughter (Summon is named Astra and is a flower dragon (a dragon made of flowers))
Pendragon - Indigo Dragon Druid - Twin brother of Ernest from the Verduan forest who ran away from a forced marriage to a mob boss' daughter (the daughters were also twins so different to the one his brother was going to be married to) (Also yes three characters running from marriage, hilariously for Ernest and Pendragon we did a random background and both rolled the 'ran away from important event' and 'married' so they just decided they ran away from the marriage, Lai was just coincidence)
Boba Fetch - Shoony Ranger - wanderer from Taldor
Griggs - Goblin Monk - Guard in Breachill
Thrash Milton - Orc Fighter - Orc from Katapesh
Book one opens with the fire, and instantly the group sets about trying to douse the fire, escort the civilians out, and fight the mephit. Thanks to the druids use of water magic (hydraulic push and chilling spray IIRC) and a decent number of good rolls the group managed to get everyone out and defeat the mephit.
When the group arrived at the citadel they peeked into the front door and immediately noped and closed the door when they saw the dogs. After trying the lower door the group then went up and entered through the hole leading to A13. They near instantly activated the graveshells and fought them pulled the warg in A16 (I think by trying to escape the graveshells)
They managed to survive but barely and defeated their enemies.
They found the puppies and contemplated keeping the pups but when they eventually left and saw the very angry mother glaring at them they opted to give the pups to the mother. Currently the warg mother lives near to the citadel in the forest and occasionally steals food from the citadel...kind of, technically Pib and Zarf have been feeding the 'big puppy' by leaving food out, and its mostly a plot point that I think the group forgot since it hasn't really come up since the start of book 3 but I do plan on having the warg assist in the defense during book 6 so maybe they will remember.
After clearing out some of the north of the citadel (hitting everything but A21 then circling back toward the end) they then split up, they heard some arguing from A22 but snuck past that and half the group went to A3 the other half went down the secret path of A11
The half that went to A3 kept getting attacked by Yoletcha and her bedfort, and eventually they opted to stealth through. The other half wound up barely dodging the spear launcher and the group eventually met up in the kitchen dealing with the spider swarms.
After that the group met Alak, helped him with the imps (a lot of the friendly NPC's wind up rolling garbage and he was no exception, I literally think he hit an imp once and only once in that combat and I had added two more imps for balance)
The group easily dealt with the Grauladon, and while Pendragon tried to talk Calmont down (he plays Pendragon as a high dragon and most of the time the attempt is to talk foes down first, offering them a pipe) Anyway two of the group (I think Griggs and Lai) went around the other way and captured him. He was arrested and is currently still in jail.
The bumblebrashers were very thankful and informed the group about the threat downstairs, along with their hopes that their mascot was not harmed.
The group, and Alak, made their way into the citadels vaults area through the secret door. I had the birds looking around so when the birds were looking away they had a -2 to their perception and toward they had their normal perception. Some of the group managed to sneak in and get eyes on where the cinderclaws were...then the fighting started.
This combat was long and hilarious. Three tight hallways where enemies funnel through one at a time to get bonked, one Alak who cant hit the broad side of a barn, one Pendragon who constantly has a shield raised to not get hit, a monk in the back rooms fighting the cindercalws from behind, a summoner who only hit one aoe that also hit his brother, the summon who was batting cinderclaws around like flies (obviously the summoner chose to only use the summons actions upon seeing this) and a ranger who also couldn't hit anything (using a longbow in tight areas didn't help but thankfully in book five this fact has been fixed and the ranger now has a shortbow (after literally being told many times to get a shortbow and finally me just putting a 'comparable to his longbow' shortbow in loot (also just for clarity I had put basic shortbows in a lot of loot and enemies he just never used them cause they weren't as good as his longbows runes))
Once the foes were all dead the group then explored the north. Finding Big Bumble and instantly noping out of there. They also found a tunnel in what they would learn is Pib and Zarfs room but they dont want to go in the tunnel, they do take the free gold though.
Now comes the soulbound doll fight and the argument from me that a crazed doll speaking only infernal (a language none of them knows) would not calm down if held in the dragons hands. Pendragon goes down.
Up next the gelatinous cube fight. It is long, grueling, and the group learns that doors do not slow down oozes. Thrash and pendragon go down.
They then meet Pib and Zarf, the instantly love the little mitey dragons (who I played up as being very young kobolds that the bumblebrashers found as eggs (which hatched when they were about to cook the eggs)) Pib and Zarf instantly love the two dragons (side note Earnest is in human form and at this point the group had no clue (in character) they were a dragon but do have suspicions as Pendragon keeps calling them bro) They escort the two back to their room, both kobolds start crying and eventually cry to the dragons that their hoard was stolen...they do return the kobolds hoard when they learn it is the 'mitey dragons' hoard and not the cinderclaws...they do not tell the kobolds they took it but instead say they 'found it on some monkeys'. The two love the group forever now.
Time for another splitting the party. Due to not paying attention to movements, half the group goes down to B12 with Alak and half the group winds up at B15 despite it being a secret passage that clearly had not been opened.
Thrash goes down again, I ruled that the wights do not leave B15 so the group fled back and regrouped.
Thanks to Alak leading them through the area the undead guardians do not attack. Thrash manages to hold back his urge to attack the skeletons. The group loots the Vault, and finds the religious symbol of Alseta
They do note the necromancer ritual that occurred and follow the trail backwards into the Pickled Ear. They then start their investigations...by immediately not questioning Roxie and instead questioning random tavern goers. They do question Roxie when she asks them why they are bugging her patrons.
Griggs and another (do not remember who) go to the town guard to get a warrant to search the Reliant Book Company, the rest of the group go right there to stake the place out.
Thrash starts causing a scene near the book store while Lai breaks in (in fox form). I determined that Voz while in a rush to leave did set a trap for the party in the form of an inkbomb. This is set off but some quick thinking by Lai does manage to save the information on the Guardians way.
The Bloody Blades, this is where a big change was made. So they are a mercenary group hired by Voz, Dmiri hates Isger. However I decided that the group used to be far larger than five people, Voz has been using the rest of the group to dig out the route into where Alseta's ring is, along with fighting the spiders. Her two skeleton guards are two of the Bloody Blades. Voz has her suspicions but isn't willing to back out of a contract.
The party talk to her (while two sneak by) and eventually convince her to let them deal with Voz and the Bloody Blades can leave without any troubles.
The fight against Voz is quick, with Voz winding up captured but eventually let go by Pendragon (much to Griggs players annoyance)
They met and decided not to fight the Tixitog, instead feeding her (Pendragon carries a lot of rations), and she happily lets the group know about the 'unpleasant spiders' and the 'strange spider lady'
They do not see the golden scale
They deal with the spiders (not wanting them to bother Tixitog) and decide not to tough the strange web tent. Thrash is also prevented from burning the tent down.
The group meet Ralldar, talk with Ralldar, give him gifts, roll great deception, then go by to see who could possibly 'be making all that racket down the tunnel', with Lai sneaking behind the throne and stealing everything back there.
The mushrooms sicken and stupify half the group.
Down below the group then fight Malarunk. And on turn 2 they hear a very angry roar from up the hole. Lai immediately spends his entire turn throwing his entire stolen inventory out at the feet of Malarunk. Ralldar arrives in barghest form and starts viciously attacking the thieves, who the group manages to convince him was not them.
Once Malarunk is dead Ralldar leaves and decides to start traveling and build up a new goblin tribe with him as their god (he leaves the stuff they gifted him but does take the stuff from his treasury)
The group then proceed to take 4 turns ignoring the hints I was dropping about the doorwarden having the symbol of alseta on its shield. Thrash, Boba, and Lai drops.
Renali does introduce herself after this.
Lai Ren - Kitsune Oracle
Ernest - Indigo Dragon Summoner
Pendragon - Indigo Dragon Druid
Boba Fetch - Shoony Ranger
Griggs - Goblin Monk
Kogarashi - Tengu Oracle - Player of Griggs - Tengu from Tian Xia, worshiper of Hei Feng, writes the parties story down in his book which he plans to offer to Hei Feng
Thrash Milton - Orc Fighter
Red "The Fuse" Kaczynski - Goblin Alchemist - Player of Thrash - Slave who used to own a business selling potions and bombs, biggest client was the Scarlet Triad. Business partner betrayed him, took the business, and he was taken down to the jungle to die mining for the Cinderclaws.
The group spends some downtime fixing up the citadel (this is the last time they do anything involving the citadel) They also repair the Huntergate.
Traveling through the Huntersgate they encounter the Vision, fight the vision, and flee from the vision, they did not like the teleport and breath attack.
Upon getting to Akrivel Griggs leaves the group, Kogarashi joins the group. Pendragon becomes a taxi for excited and curious children.
The events occur as follows, Event 1 the dance, the players meet some girls who are dancing, the girls excitedly challenge the party to a dance game. Kogarashi, Pendragon and Ren participate. They succeed and are then challenged by the adults, they still succeed.
Event 2 Harriet. So my notes is REALLY bad here, what I have is that one of the group managed to get close to Harriet, earning their approval but one of the group also threatened to light the lioness on fire which removed the approval. I have literally no clue why I did not write names down for this part.
Event 3 the hunt, the group manages to earn a bit of Akosa's respect, some of the group go out looking for fruit and some go out hunting. I ran both as the hunt, and gave each of them a check, averaging the results. They succeed on the seek, fail on the position, and succeed on the hunt.
Event 4 the twins, they meet the leaders and show off their best skill or 'combat maneuver'. None of them succeed in beating the dc 25 (they all do the easier ac/dc) but none critically fail, the group also had to convince Boba to show off to the leaders instead of offending the leaders. (he was concerned shooting one with a bow would be bad and I had to convince him they would give him a training bow and arrow)
Event 5 matchmakers, the group is all in on getting Jahsi and Akosa together and actually plan who would be best at what checks to get the best result, they also burn all of their hero points here. Over all, I'd say a good use of their hero points.
Event 6 Pepper eating, Thrash absolutely dominates here.
Event 7 Storyteller circle, Pendragon tells a story about meeting an old woman in the woods, rolls quite well.
After that the group buys some herd masks (only like three of them and they are constantly forgetting who has one and who doesn't)
They then set out into the forest. Their path is as follows
A5 A tough fight against Racharak but the group barely manages to survive. Pillar destroyed. Thrash leaves the party.
A9 the group encounters a run away slave named Red and wind up encountering a group of Gripplis who are hypnotized by the pillar. The group destroy the pillar but two of the Grippli dies.
For the next few locations Reds player has him wander off but always wind up back with the group when they enter a map (basically plays him as constantly getting lost trying to get back to civilization and winding up where the party is)
A14 the group was not prepared. So first they aggroed the Vrock, getting chased by it deep into the jungle where they fought it and barely won, I did have the Vrock dance, and the Tengu happily joined the dance (it didn't do anything but the player found it fun and I had it give the Vrock stupified 1)
A14 again, still not prepared. This was its own session, and it was the ENTIRE 6 hour session.
The group fought literally everything, aggroing the entire pit including the voidworms and naunets, the sabosan, the boggards, Red had snuck off to the north and freed the Mokele-Mbembe and did his absolute best to avoid its feet as it rampaged its way south. The spiders came out to attack Red when he tried to hide there, he fled and the spiders noped the hell out when their chase led them to the mokele.
Now when it comes to Hezle, I had her be a worried Kobold grandma who was a bit sociopathic but cares deeply for her kobolds. She was only doing what the Cinderclaws wanted because she knew they had done something to Kyrion (I reasoned that she suspected something happened to the figurehead since she hadn't seen him in a while) Originally she was going to need to be convinced to help out, however thanks to the vicious stomping the pcs were getting I decided to instead have her come out and start helping. Basically have her decide 'good time to rebel and find where my kobolds went and free my dragon'. She healed Red, before proceeding to help out the group fighting literally everything else.
One of the group (I think Pendragon) managed to calm down the Mokele and convince it to take out the Charau-ka warriors that were attacking their flank while they dealt with the pit.
Ultimately the group succeeded, but Pendragon, Red, Boba, Ernest and Lai all went down at least once. Hezle grumpily made her way off to find her kobolds, Pendragon wanted to follow the old kobold but the group really needed a rest, so rest it was. Also yes, the pillar was destroyed.
A15 the group then proceeded into the biloko area, Pendragon arguing that they shouldn't kill the Biloko as they are natives of the area. The group destroy the pillar and leave, all the while getting constantly attacked by the Biloko, Red nearly snapping and killing one.
A12 Here the group encounters the Sabosans, yet again Pendragon tries to argue against violence, but a language barrier means that hostilities break out. Sabosans die, pillar destroyed.
The group then traveled back to A1 to unload all of their loot. I allowed the group to trade for the local currency.
A3 the group finds the bodies of many Charau-Ka and the graves for a few Kobolds. They realize that Hezle has been here
A4 One of the group (I think Lai) sneaks over to the unconscious person and feeds the man a potion, then frees his leg (unless my notes have the order wrong) Edka calms the elephants and after warning the group about A13 he sets off to seek help from the Leopard clan
A7 It is time to meet the Dashing and Daring Gerhard Penderghast, brave pioneer of these lawless jungles. The group proceeds to make fun of his name, secretly sabotage the dragon pillar then watch him leave. His pillar is now in a museum in Absolom, and he later publishes a book about his dangerous exploits, should the party read the book (they will find it during book 5 so we will see) they will find themselves within described in silly ways as his loyal helpers.
A6 The group encounter the strange 'merchant' within the jungle dragging a bloody sack. He fails to convince them that the sack is simply his hunted fowl for dinner. A fight breaks out and he barely manages to flee...they track him down and beat him up once more in his 'shop' (an old building that he found and would 'trade' wares he had (goods taken from tribes and dead adventurers)
Chioma is freed during the first scuffle and thanks the group before setting off to continue his task.
A8 So with a very social dragon encountering two dragonoid creatures. This became a social combat, with Pendragon needing to convince the pair that if he can deactivate their 'centerpiece of their home' he will find and bring them more. Rather than his plan of bringing all of them to the drakes I had them agree to only wanting one other one, for some reason they dont go with one they already deactivated and instead choose to bring the one at A16.
A10 Now it is time to meet the Grand and Wise Erhard Penderghast, brave Archaeologist who is absolutely offended that someone dared to build an affront to the gods. They clearly built this to try and throw shade on his treatise of Mwangi history, ignore the fact that the temple was clearly ancient. The group was not going to let this happen and douses his attempts at lighting the black powder, beat him up, and take him to the elves so they can deal with him. He is still in their prisons. Boba stole his gun, and I allowed him to fix it so it has a reduced chance of backfiring and he has been slowly upgrading its damage and save dc.
A11 The group encounter the Orcs fighting the Quetzalcoatlus, and realize that there isn't enoguh time to try and calm the hungry beasts down. So they fight, doing enough damage that the creatures flee. Ifiok tells the party about the Kishi and this is when the party do the above track him down part. They do spend a bit of time convincing her not to try and take on the beast by herself, telling her that she needs to tend to her injured allies. Upon returning they are thanked and they decline the spear but do take the alcohol.
A16 Unlike all other times Pendragon does not negotiate with the Bida (he might not had been in the session) The Bida is killed, the pillar deactivated and taken back to A8, I believe they also paint it green.
A13 They passed by the area on the way to A16 and saw a dead massive deinosuchus, along with various guards on the roof walkways. Upon their return they see that with the red aura down there are now many dead guards on the walkways, and inspecting the dead creature they find evidence of it being killed with alchemical weaponry. (For those wondering, basically I had been doing some rolls behind the scenes for Hezles progress)
The group then entered the building and Pendragon used the Cinderclaw Gauntlet to convince the golem they were part of the Cinderclaws. The trap in C6 was deactivated by one of the group. Then Pendragon proceeded to get an insane critical success on the dragon priest to convince them they were Cinderclaws and needed in the ritual room, along with another to convince them to not go in if they hear anything odd.
They had to fight the chimeras, no attempts to convince them not to fight worked (I had made it a very hard check)
Now the group then proceeded into the final fight. Red spent much of his actions trying to free Kyrion, Hezle joining in. Lai went to solo Belmazog while the rest of the group fought the dragon priests, dealt with the skull, and fought Izolith when she was called for aid (this lasted until the next part where the warhound saw what happened, laughed (as best as a dog can) then peaced out)
Lai decided best way to deal with Belmazog was to get her into the molten gold. Crit success on the grapple, then jump so both go into the molten gold. There is some rules arguments (mostly the player arguing that they should be able to use their final action to get back to safty instead of falling) I rule it that both the player and Belmazog gets to try and grab the edge. Both succeed and Lai decides to just go into the molten gold with Belmazog, dragging her into the gold. Belmazog dies horribly in the molten gold, Lai manages to escape with low health (dice were NOT kind to Belmazog)
I had Kyrion be extremely grateful that the party kept Hezle alive, but upset that the other kobolds did not make it. Beyond that their interactions with Kyrion was from the book, though Kyrion did visit their citadel after the adventure during downtime to thank the group and give them some gold (basically the hoard that was in the place since the group didn't trust the gold wasn't poisoned)
At some point in the book, I do not remember when, Ernest revealed his dragon form to the party thanks to being angry at his brother. He remained in dragon form until he calmed down near the end of book 3.
Lai Ren - Kitsune Kineticist - overhaul respec when RoE released
Ernest - Indigo Dragon Summoner
Pendragon - Indigo Dragon Druid
Boba Fetch - Shoony Ranger
Kogarashi - Tengu Kineticist - overhaul respec when RoE released
Red "The Fuse" Kaczynski - Goblin Alchemist
Above is where the players stand for the remaining books
During downtime Lai learned that he was being tracked by a member of his family. Pendragon received a doll from his elderly friend in a forest, she is a hag who he befriended in his backstory and I had her send pendragon voodoo (soulbound) dolls of the people hunting him. Red also learned that his old business closed down and moved, he doesn't know where to.
When Heuberk Thropp shows up the group goes to the Wainwrights shop, negotiate, combat begins, the trap is set off. Fadelby is rescued by wind kineticist power and Heuberk Thropp gets Lathed by wind kineticist power (Flinging Updraft both times)
When it comes to Dreamgate the group managed to talk Kelleni down after a brief fight, and agree to allow the hag to leave. Her and Coalgnasher leave, seeking a better coven elsewhere, perhaps with her as leader.
During the fight against Rusty Mae and Senna the party realizes that the hag is still trying to negotiate and make their own counter offer. Haznazak doesn't have time to make his own offer to the party as one offers up 200 gold and he instantly accepts.
The group defeat the hags, take the bountiful cauldron, the two dreamstones, and use one on the beds in B3. They manage to use the correct one and their sleep goes normal. Before leaving though they go to check out the rest of the waystation, encountering, activating, and having three people instantly grabbed by the tree. Through the use of the fire and wind kineticist the grabbed group is saved and they decide the tree isn't worth it nor is using the dreamstone worth trying to get close enough to the tree (I do not think they ever realized that dreamstone was the bad one and I think they eventually sell it)
When it comes to the town of Cypress point they instantly deal with the slaver patrol then make their way to the boat. The slavers on the boat laugh as the poor guard who is still on the dock gets beaten up and eventually flee into the water. Their tune changes when they are attacked also. Bullbutcher is dangerous but both kinetisists keep using their abilities to just keep out of his reach and eventually he flees below deck. (after all if you are fighting individuals who basically have flight best to get them into a more confined area)
The group fights him in this confined area, but only after some debating on if they could sink the boat and still keep all the civilians from drowning, I ruled that no, they could not even with constant use of base kinesis by the air kinetisist.
Eventually, after several people go down the two kinetisists decide to use pacifying infusion and nuke the hold. This does not kill Bullbutcher but does allow Red to get the kill.
After this Red opts to sneak up on the leader within the city (Amnin) and free the prisoners. This does not work and he winds up joining the prisoners within the Nine Shields. Meanwile the rest of the group had noticed the Flame Drakes. Kogarashi, Pendragon and Lai go to try and talk to the drake and bring them to their side.
After several difficult rolls they succeed and during the fight against Amnin the drakes betray him. Currently the Drakes have made their nest on the tower of their Citadel (though one that named Big Red is the traveling mount of Kogarashi (using a customized riding drake statblock, though he recently (book 5) retrained away from the archtype he was using so Big Red will probably return to the nest))
They then stole the ship, went to Kintargo, convinced Sedranni to let them check out her warehouse. They snuck around the stone golem (kind of) and watched the scarlet triad. Pendragon decided to use a spell on a spot on the other-side of some boxes he could see. He didn't know where the prisoner was, and I don't remember what spell it was, but it injured the two scarlet triad and killed the prisoner.
They fought, the stone golem got involved, and the group barely won, really only succeeding because half the group was basically on the ceiling and couldn't really be hurt (flight (Kineticists) and spiderclimb (Alchemist))
Pendragon then spent all of his gold (and a bit of others gold (offered willingly)) to revive poor Hundy. They got the information about Kite Hill and after a short downtime (which I allowed despite the time sensitive part of the book) went there.
The party helps send the messages (except Boba who does get chided and agrees) then they are attacked. Thanks to resistances and immunities the ice devil takes the group an exceedingly long time to eventually bring down.
They all then make their way to Lady Docur's. They see that the school has already been attacked and are informed that Mialari has prisoners...well...a prisoner. Unlike the Coffeehouse and Kite Hill which I delayed during the short downtime, Docur's I had occur when it 'should have'. Yes I had informed the group that one of the locations would be attacked if they took the downtime.
Mialari already has all the information and uses this opportunity to figure out the party. She gives them her options, and the party goes for the Staged Escape. She agrees to wait until midnight so the group had time to go to the Coffeehouse before they trail the prisoner.
For some reason Kogarashi does not go with the group to the Coffeehouse but instead watches where the prisoner will be released.
The group have to fight the haunts and ghosts, and after several rounds of prodding by me they put the haunts to rest making the ghost fight easier.
All of the combat alerted the Rakshasas who tried their deceptions, when that fails they fall back into Laria's room, then tricked Pendragon into believing that Lai was in Laria's room as their prisoner thanks to change shape, and hallucination (One took Lais form and used hallucination to make him believe Lai was the other Rakshasa) Lai meanwhile flew outside and basically sniped the Rakshasas from outside the window while the rest of the group picked them off from the doorway.
They managed to find and calm Elianda down, learning that Laria was taken.
With the Coffeehouse done they then set off to the Tower. Rather than enter from the bottom and go up they decide to fly up to the top floor and enter through a wall. I don't remember how they made a hole in the wall but it was silent and didn't alert anyone.
They then proceeded to alert the entire tower anyway with fighting and yelling.
I did not fully read Collective transposition so it was cast, spell effect was pointed out and I decided that Barushak doesn't move the party that was outside his range but instead moves his Velstrac's into better positions to fight the party. He also gets a summon fiend spell out, and a black tentacles out before being forced to flee with dimension door. The group then fights the tower in reverse, deals with the poisoners and Ivena with no problems and struggles against the alchemical golems.
The Quarry, most of the group entered at J1 with the exception of Pendragon and Kogarashi. Kogarashi had basically permanent flight and invisibility at this point (until he attacked where his invisibility became concealed) Pendragon opened diplomacy with Aadrushian and the Giant thought the dragon was hilarious, and proceeded to start a Benny Hill moment of Aadrushian chasing Pendragon around the Quarry and Pendragon getting absolutely destroyed while trying to keep the giant busy and everyone distracted. A lot of the Triad watching from the alcoves finding the entire thing very funny.
Meanwhile Lai and Kogarashi made their way into the Lookout room and fought the Snipers within. One sniper fled warning Laslunn of the attack. The rest of the group snuck all the way around to the poisoners chambers where they met back up with Lai and Kogarashi and made short work of the enemies within.
The group then encountered Vaklish, and Red managed to convince the man to leave as there was no remaining profit here. He agreed but only if they let him take 'what would be lost', basically taking the slaves that covered his losses with the Quarry being 'removed from business options'.
So this is where things get...lets say 'fun'. So Pendragon is out in the central area distracting the giant, Lai goes invisible (I believe from an item) and sneaks into the sluice room. The Interlocutor leaves to fight Boba (who has been in a bow fight with Laslunn and the sniper) allowing Laslunn to hide around the corner to start trying to do some medicine. Lai's aura however causes fire damage to anyone in the aura, meaning that Laslunn and Barushak (who fled here from the tower) have to use their turns trying to seek out the invisible foe that is slowly burning them to death, neither of them ever roll high enough to find him except maybe once.
At some point Red and Kogarashi go out and use bottled Roc's, Red tossing his first, pulling the giant and Kogarashi high into the air, then Kogarashi uses his to lift the giant even further up while Kogarashi falls safely to the ground. The giant splats and the onlookers freak out and flee (rolled a moral check basically and there was a lot of failures and critical failures so I decided they all bolt for the hills)
The group then focuses the Interlocutor, except Pendragon who uses his heard mask to swap with Lai, and instantly gets utterly killed.
Laslunn then opts to use her 'final option' of opening the Sluiceway. Unfortunately while Lai was in the room he had been using his turns to freeze the Sluiceway gates and Laslunn could not roll the athletics check required to break the ice and open the gates.
Realizing they lost Barushak dimension doors out (and is killed by Uri for failure) while Laslunn remains behind to accept her fate.
The party however convince her to join their side, and work for them as their quartermaster (and technically person in charge of their entire citadel)
So some things that I had changed about Laslunn, instead of her being a Gnoll who bounced between various slave organizations using luck, brains and negotiation to eventually wind up as a higher up in the triad. I decided to make her a gnoll who worked her way up, using her brains and negotiations to go from being a runner and capturer for Vaklish and eventually the Triad to being the position of seniority she was.
This also allowed her to have observed Uri for longer and gotten to see the twisted ways that Uri viewed everyone, the people he selected to 'disappear' instead of being sold and his heightened ego. To her he is an egotistical human who believes he is the pinnacle of humanity and thus better than everyone else. He is someone who with proper planning she can eventually take down and with him gone she could run the operation far better.
She has no clue about Mengkare, Hermea, or anything like that. Instead she knows that Uri has a mysterious benifactor, that there is another member of senior leadership that she has never met, and that Uri has been gathering up an orb to use as a weapon. Also she is super disappointed when she learns that the mysterious 'Alsetas ring' that Uri had been looking for is not a weapon but a teleportation system.
In my mind the Scarlet Triad has no clue where any of the gates are, and honestly it makes sense.
Voz is hired to find the gate in Breachill since Uri knows it was Mengkare's original project.
One is in a jungle and found by accident by the Cinderclaws
One is in a forgotten cliffside cave along some random beach.
One is in a cave behind a wall behind a Gug hive
One is literally buried in sand (people keep saying 'this one they should know about' but why? Its buried in sand surrounded by old ruins, why the hell would they go 'yup thats important'?)
Finally one is in Mengkare's cave.
But yes Laslunn accepts their offer and has been working with Vaklish to rebuild the citadel into something defensible in case the triad goes with her 'take Breachill by force' idea. The triad though still believes that Laslunn was killed by the party and Uri is still too concerned about Mengkare finding out to do the assault.
Pendragon is brought back to life, Earnest paying for it and also this is when Earnest calmed down and returned to human form. While dead Pendragon did some shenanigans, earning Sunwukongs attention (crossing his and his brothers name out, I ruled it didn't work but is why he gained numb to death and even allowed him to 'share' the once per day ability with his brother (obviously the once per day part still applies no matter which one uses it)
So during the downtime for this book Lai's brother found them and after a duel to determine if Lai is broguht back to the family the brother is sent away with a broken sword. Lai also sent a letter to his mother and fiance. He also revealed his actual name, Lai Setsuen, but remains Lai to the group.
Pendragon is given two more dolls along with a letter that they are 'sending more to find him' but I admittedly forgot to tell Pendragon and me and the player eventually work out that the dolls wound up with Pib and Zarf and the two child kobolds simply forgot to give them to Pendragon.
Finally after more downtime the group travel into Jewelgate.
They encounter Talamira, realize something is up with the ghost elf, and use their abilities (and creative use of tuning forks) to destroy all of the crystals.
The group aggro and fight the worm after spending a while debating on if they could drop a paper with contact poison in such a way to have it land on the worm and poison it. Pendragon is eaten, Lai is eaten, Ernest goes underground to fight the worm.
They then fight against the Gugs and all goes fine until it becomes a 7 on 6 when Xevalorg and his other Gugs join in, then a 6 on 5 when Xevalorg uses wall of stone to block Boba and his arrows.
The group barely survives, most of them go down at least once, several go down twice, and Pendragon goes down three times.
The pair nope away from the Grikkitog, and free Deadmouth. They plan on following Deadmouth but eventually opt to go with Parjil to Kovlar.
The group manages to get all but one of the council to their side, getting most down to at least negative one and several to negative 4 and 5, despite the fact that several of them kept getting negatives to tehir rolls. They dont manage to shift Chiselrocks skepticism at all.
Each of them then split up for the tasks, doing the tasks that best suited their skills.
They get a success on the wall, a success on the missing persons, escort Nalruven to their citadel, successfully arrest Brigven, learn about the poisoning of the lake crabs and use a speak with animal to convince the lake serpents to stop violently attacking fishermen. Lai and Red then make an antidote to try and help the bluecrab population return to normal.
They successfully learn about the theft.
The group find the prison, dismantle it, find Algret, and Chiselrock is arrested.
Then the group goes to the Hidden forge They wind up fighting the stone golems, the duergar, and the triad agent at the same time.
They then fight the forge spurned and shove its body into the molten metal of the forge. This doesn't actually 'stop' (immunities to fire) but they feel comfortable...and eventually destroy the soul chain.
The group then fights the agents in E1 of the workshop (along with several agents from E4 though a few of them were sleeping in E3 and E5 (basically the fact doors kept opening and closing resulted in some going to check and joining the fight at E1)) while Kogarashi and Red sneak ahead, both invisible.
They find Zuferian who I adjusted to be the Scarlet Triads 'cleaner', the woman who deals with others when there is a leak, and removes any traces that the triad had been there. She had already dealt with the 'leak' in Kintargo, and she quickly pieced together that they were the group that had been giving her more work to do.
They succeed a difficult series of checks and Zuferian decides that their Kovlar cell needed to be cleaned and she would leave. By the time the group finally finishes dealing with the agents in E1 Zuferian has killed and 'disposed of' the rest of the triad.
Flight makes avoiding the cities dangers trivial
The group meet with King Harral, and agree to get his crown back. They also decide to go take the robes because it might be useful, flying and invisibility makes this trivial as well.
The group then aggros the entire Sanctum of the Starved, fighting everything together. The Gashadokuro is the first to die, Falrok's corpses are then destroyed with fire, then the golems go down, and finally Falrok. Though Red is stunned for many rounds but Falrok cant capitalize on this thanks to party members.
I do not think anyone even hit zero in this fight.
When it comes to the Temple of All gods. The book says that the Duergar are currently in the middle of negotiating with the Scarlet Triad. However there is no negotiations happening. Yes there is some notes in area H6, but what did they just stop negotiations for the day? Instead I adjusted it so that currently they are negotiating up in Ilssrah's forge, and that Ilssrah is planning on getting a lot more tha just a bit of assistance in the Kovlar/Saggorak area. Planning on selling them the Guiding Chisel for their assistance in her plan of taking over the Triad.
Kogarashi sneaks ahead to spy on Ilssrah while the rest of the group slowly sneak inside the temple and start fighting the door guards then the glabrezus.
They all avoid the warsworn, and the Echoes (though one does peek in and see the dwarvish ghosts living out their last bloody day)
The fight against Ilssrah and her golems is fairly quick, especially once they figure out the acid harm and electricity slow effects on the golems.
Ilssrah is captured when she tries to flee, and currently is in their prison under the watchful (and gloating) eyes of Laslunn.
They happily chat with Kradolai, who after some talking decides that if they can beat her in a game of hot potato then she would let them pass. The hot potato being a lava bomb that is passed back and forth between members of the party and Kradolai (can never pass it back to the person who passed it to you) and they needed to make an athletics or reflex check to catch the rock or it drops. Each person (including Kradolai) has two 'lives'. Critical failure costs the person two lives thus dropping the rock and they lose, failure costs them 'one life' but they still catch the rock, a success means they catch the rock, and a critical success means the person they pass it to has a +5 to catch if ally or a -5 if its Kradolai. No matter what the catcher takes 4d6 fire damage, which obviously Kradolai is immune (but so is Lai and Red is highly resistant to fire so they were fine)
Kradolai eventually fails twice and bids them farewell (while also asking they eventually come visit her in her home volcano on the first world once she finishes her vacation)
Lai has Dream Logic so is quite easily able to bypass most problems, such as guards and especially low perception Magma guardians. Meaning the group is fairly easily able to get down to Veshumirix, and unfortunately for the dragon as much as he could try burrowing, breathing, and frenzying he couldn't handle the sheer ammount of cold a lot of the group could throw out there.
The crown was returned and after a very low d1000 roll the city will be dead free for the dwarves to take over in only 4 years.
So for downtime with this book Ernest and Pendragon have to fight the bounty hunter hired to bring them back (the only one smart enough not to go to Pendragon's hag friend). Unfortunately for the one who hired them the bounty hunter is a friend of Ernest and decides to make it a friendly challenge. If they beat her game she leaves, beat her fast enough and she gives them stuff. They win, and barely pass by her number of rounds challenge, and get various items of varying levels including some apex items.
Lai gets a letter from his mother and the group then decide to use their new dwarvish wizard ally to teleport to Tian Xia to visit Lai's family. They arrive, and after a short 10 mile walk arrive at Lai's home. Lai's mother happily greets him, understands why he cant stay, and his father reconciles with him for family trauma and explains his side of things (long and short, Lai's family was all ice, Lai is fire, they are nobles so Lai being fire casts some unsavory eyes toward Lai's mother and Lai's father had spent a lot of time crushing rumors of infidelity thus never was able to properly notice the trauma happening at home)
Kogarashi also absolutely sped through his personal story and learned that he was actually an air elemental who simply took the form of a tengu. (story and player reasoning for him (eventually) taking Elemental Apotheosis)
The group then entered Duskgate and after splitting the party again, Red going to A3, Kogarashi to A5 all before the rest of the group had even gathered their bearings. Well the fight was against the Stone golems (I called them Tapistry Golems) and the Zaramuun at the same time.
They slowly destroyed the golems while occasionally attacking the Zaramuun, and once the golems were gone they could focus down and kill the Zaramuun, it stood no chance.
Afterwards they explored a bit more, finding the Endless Aging haunted picture (which I didn't notice it was a mural until just now so...yea next part probably makes more sense if you view it as a portrait like I did) They shoved the haunted picture in a bag of holding and took the mitheral staff (which I decided to replace with a mitheral librarians staff) Its books had been cleaned out by the previous steward so it was empty, however they decided to put Kogarashi's book on the party within, and are joking about filling the rest of the spots up with bad fan fiction.
The most recent session ended with the group stepping into the portal and winding up in The Vision.
Well that is what has happened so far and I'll fill you all in on more as it progresses.