The conclusion of the Cult (Nirmathas Campaign)

Friday, May 18th, 2012

In case you forgot how the game even started, read the previous post.

Event Information:

READ THIS FIRST!  I wrote up what happened in the last two games below but before you start, it is extremely important that you read this part of the post.
Game start time: 2:00 PM – 2:30 PM
Dinner Break: 5:00 PM – 7:00 PM
Game end time: 9:30 PM

Please note that I will begin wrapping up the adventure at 9:00 PM.  I recommend everybody to show up before 2 PM as that is the only time I will allow everybody to shop.  After 2PM comes around, I will be closing all the shops and you will not be able to buy anything at all afterwards.  I recommend that everybody reads what their characters are capable of.  If you have the time, try to read what your class does and re-familiarize with the rules.

The Story so far:
After the meeting with Reginar, the adventurers finally decided to take action and investigate the temple in order to find hard evidence of the cult’s criminal activities.  They started this plan after midnight.  From there, they explored the basement and parts of the first floor.  They ran into some resistances along the way but it was nothing that they couldn’t handle.  From a hungry Krant stealing food to a trap door that led them to a poisonous snake, there was nothing that could stand in their way.  Eventually, they arrived to the stairs that would lead them up to the second floor.  Unfortunately, by climbing up the steps, the cultists guarding the stairs activated an audible alarm that alerted the entire temple.  Fortunately for the adventurers, the cultists were afraid of climbing upstairs due to the fact that only high ranking officials were allowed.  Unfortunately, the party was separated into two groups with two members being stuck on the first floor and the rest of the party stuck on the second floor.

Kala had enough inaction and decided to take things into her own hands.  She proceeded to jump down from the second floor, surprising the group below and the party members above.  The battle was fierce and would have been swift if it weren’t for the sudden arrival of Egarthis and his hell hounds.  It was a very close battle as two party members fell unconscious in the brawl.  Kala was almost gone for good but, thanks to her strong will and the adventurers, she managed to survive.  As soon as Egarthis fell in battle, the party made a hasty retreat upstairs to Iramine’s quarters and grabbed all the evidence and loot.  While they were in her room, they found a strange note that read:

Now that I have the completed amulet, I shall return to the City of Golden Death to finish what was started all those years ago.  At the time, I thought Kassen was a fool for insisting that we abandon such wealth but now I must thank him.  The treasure shall enrich the Living God, so that he will never die.  Such is the price of immortality.  Now I must return to the Isle of Terror and I cannot say that my journey will be without terrible danger.  May Razmir protect me.

They escaped the temple by using the secret underground passageway.  From there, they met up with Razmir at the Forest Bounty.  As soon as they delivered evidence of the temple’s foul deeds to Reginar, he immediately stormed off to speak with his contacts.  Within hours, Forest Marshal Gavrik has the Razmir faith outlawed in all of Tamran as a garrison of rangers moves in on the temple to arrest the remaining cultists.  Later in that evening, the garrison pulls down the entire building and put it to the torch.  With the Razmir threat eliminated from Tamran, Reginar meets up with the party moments later and congratulates everybody on a job well done.  While Reginar’s job is over, he hopes the adventurers will plan on chasing after the leader of the cult so that they can put an end to this menace once and for all as Tamran and Nirmathas will never be the same unless this threat is dealt with.

Important Characters:
Ekat Kassen – Famous crusader and fortune seeker.  The founder of the town of Kassen.  Used to be allied with Asar and Iramine until they split off after acquiring a great deal of treasure from an ancient treasure vault.  He used to have an amulet that matched with three other amulet pieces that would open the vault.  Died after Asar mortally wounded him in battle.

Asar Vergas – An old companion of Ekat who went his separate ways after splitting the treasure acquired from the ancient treasure vault.  Was killed by Ekat after Asar tried to raid the town of Kassen but not before mortally wounding Ekat.  Used to have the 2nd amulet piece that opened the way to the treasure vault.

Iramine  - The elven maiden who used to be companions with Asar Vergas and Ekat Kassen before they split up.  She is now the leader of the Razmir cult in Tamran.  She has sailed away from Tamran in search of the City of Death in order to reclaim her treasure in the name of the Living God.

Cygar Anravis – Mysterious member of the Pathfinder society who tries to find adventurers worthy enough to join his cause.  He sends the party off to Tamran.

Captain Welren – Captain of the Black Mist.  Loves fishes.

Reginar Lacklan – The pathfinder associate who resides in Tamran.  Gives the group vital information regarding the cult of Razmir and gives them a quest to find any incriminating evidence against the cult.

The Cult of Razmir – The faithful who worships the living god, Razmir.  They aim to corrupt the people and the government of Tamran and to increase the power of Razmir.  As of right now, the cult has been disbanded in Tamran.

Egarthis – The current leader of the temple and the first high ranking leader the party members meet.  Responsible for overseeing the ceremonies.  The party kills him in an epic final battle at the temple.

Krant – A brutish priest who is second in command.  He is responsible for overseeing the group and making sure they complete their tasks effectively.  He also enjoys a little bloodsport as he forces the group to fight amongst each other.  Status: Owned and dead.

Evlar – A homeless acolyte who joins the cult at the same time the party does.  His father beats him.  The party ends up killing him when he took party in the final battle at the temple.

Krox – transcended time and space in order to have lunch with Judgement Dave in Norrath.

 

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Pathfinder Godsmouth Heresy Post-Mortem: Package of Double Stuf Oreos Takes 10d10 Damage

Tuesday, May 1st, 2012

Hi everyone,

Great job on completing the Godsmouth Ossuary! I hope everyone had a good time despite the loooooooong length.

First:

These were the main complaints I got:

- Monsters were a bit too easy

- Length

I’ll work on both of those for the next module. Next time we’ll put 5-6 hours as a cutoff point. Another complaint was that people kinda spent a lot of time acting OOC and getting tied in knots on combat/exploration decisions which is fine up to a point, but it tied into the length complaint.

People really liked the challenges and not the spot XP system (get a stone for every passed skill check) so much, so I’ll definitely continue the former and discontinue the latter.

Second:

Here is the full list of stuff you guys found sans pure treasure/gold items (blue means it was magic, the unidentified forms are in red):

- cloak of resistance +1 (a silky, grey cloak)
- phylactery of faithfulness (an odd leather headband with a tiny wooden box inset in the middle)
- bracers of armor +1 (iron bracers curiously free of rust)
- Sihedron medallion (a seven-pointed star medallion)
- set of masterwork banded mail
- masterwork bastard sword
- 2 curved daggers
- stone tablet of Identify (a tablet that reads EVAD TNEMGDUJ)
- stone tablet of Hold Portal (a tablet that reads DLEIFRAG)
- stone tablet of Remove Disease (a tablet that reads AKUSA)
- stone tablet of Shatter (a tablet that reads GOOBLE GOBBLE)
- 2 scrolls of Delay Poison (a scroll that reads EM DAER)

- feather token (feather) (a green feather)
- feather token (whip) (a red feather)
- scroll of Remove Paralysis (scroll of FOOBIE BLETCH)
- bag of tarnished silver powder (worth 1 GP)
- a potion of love (a pink potion that tastes like strawberries and cream)
- a potion of Eagle’s Splendor (a clear, brown potion with white specks that tastes like old licorice)
- masterwork ranseur
- half-plate armor inscribed with the Rune of Wrath (cosmetic)
- 2 potions of Hide from Undead (a milky potion that tastes of chalk)
- wand of Disrupt Undead (a wand made of segmented animal bones)
- 2 potions of Cure Light Wounds (clear green potion that tastes like lime)
- 2 potions of Enlarge Person (dark red potion that has a slight fishy taste)
- wand of Command Undead  (wand made of black iron)
- 1 flask of acid
- 2 flasks of alchemist’s fire
- 2 smokesticks
- 1 tanglefoot bag
- 1 thunderstone
- a set of masterwork studded leather
- a +1 spear
- an alchemist’s kit
- a set of masterwork embalming tools
- an alchemist’s formula book
- thieves’ tools
- a scroll of Ghoul Touch (a scroll of SALADBWL)
- a scroll of Mage Armor (a scroll of GUFF)

Third:

Here are the full lists of challenges:

Like I said, people liked these a lot, so I’ll definitely make more next module… and I just realized that I missed a golden opportunity to have a skeleton-centric challenge called ‘Charnel Knowledge.’ Dammit!

Fourth:

Here are the Pharasma encounter cards. Initially, the one statue in the Cathedral was only supposed to give you an Aid spell, but I thought that was kind of boring so I changed it into more of a meeting with Pharasma to add drama to the Esme encounter.

Fifth:

Rather than a synopsis of the entire module, because that would take a while to write, here’s a list of the encounters you had instead:

Encounter 11: 4 skeleton archers

Encounter 12: 3 crawling hands

Encounter 13: brown mold

Encounter 14: Erdikhaan (skeletal champion of Wrath)

Encounter 15: lemure

Encounter 16: 2 ghouls

Encounter 17: bloody skeleton

Encounter 18: 2 tengus (negotiated)

Encounter 19: lustspawn

Encounter 20: gasburst zombie

Encounter 21: alchemical skeleton and alchemical zombie

Encounter 22: Svilennius Tripe, Mr. Morrow, vat zombie

Encounter 23: Esme and her 2 skeletal handmaidens (Lulu and Fiona)

Encounter 24: 4 alchemical skeletons

Finally:

Please update your DNDsheets. I’d like to see what new stuff you get and it helps me make challenges. See you all next time!

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Pathfinder Part 2: I’m Attacking the Dorkness (4/21/12)

Wednesday, April 18th, 2012

More spiders?

Alright, it’s been a while everyone, but now with our respective craziness out of the way, it’s time to finish up The Godsmouth Ossuary.

On my end, I just want to say I had a really good time the last time DM’ing, and everyone seemed to be really on the ball and enjoying themselves too, which was great. We got through a lot of encounters and secret stuff in a relatively short (for us) amount of time. Hopefully everyone will have an even better time this time, and to that end I’m trying to spice things up by making more fanciful room descriptions, think of combat descriptions, etc.

We’re going to try to start at 5:30 and hopefully not go later than 11 or 12. Let’s try to aim for a break between 8:30 – 9. I don’t have much else to say, so here’s a rundown of some other stuff.

Firstly, here are the challenges you’ve all completed so far. I got a lot of positive feedback from them, and I’m going to make some new ones for (hopefully) the last session in this particular part of the Ossuary. I have to think of more bad puns though! (Click to embiggenate):

Challenge set 1

Second, here is a down and dirty summary of the encounters and things that happened so far. I’ll go over what way you guys went when you get here:

Intro:
- Contracted with Church of Pharasma to find out what happened to missing bodies
- Went into the upper portion of the Godsmouth Ossuary that is normally not open to visitors (this is where bodies are interred for a high price)
- Church official gives you a Chime of Opening with 5 charges, along with a flask of holy water, a potion of cure light wounds, and adventuring supplies
- She mentions that you need to save a charge for the way back, since the church has no way of knowing what happened to you if you knock on the door

Game proper:
- Went down stairs, reached a chamber with 3 Pharasma-symbol doors
- ENCOUNTER 1: Darkmantle
- Went through the middle door using 1 charge of the Chime, into a corridor of alcoves
- ENCOUNTER 2: 4 skull spiders
- Went through door and onto a bridge overlooking a large chamber
- Saw various statues, 7 white and 1 black
- Went through door at end of bridge
- Go to a crossroads, heard a thumping noise from the east and determined it was an undead vargouille (floating head)
- ENCOUNTER 3: Undead vargouille
- Explored the room with the vargouille, then opened door to next room, whereupon the room went dark
- Determined with darkvision that the culprit was a dark creeper
- Managed to calm it down enough to realize that it was trapped in here by something in the room over and by the vargouille. The creeper leaves, leaving behind treasure for the party
- Leaving the next room (guarded by something snake-like according to Falk), the party goes back to the crossroads and heads down the other corridor going west
- Party finds two rooms facing each other that emanate a strong magical aura. When a pebble is tossed into one room, it comes back into the other.
- Party finds another crossroads and heads south.
- Party heads down corridor, finds a suit of armor and a skeleton. As the party gets close to the armor, a swarm of living cockroaches shoots out
- ENCOUNTER 4: Cockroach swarm
- Party heads back to the crossroads after the fight, enters a locked door nearby.
- Party enters a library filled with stone tablets. As they look up at the various runes, a rune detaches and flies towards them
- ENCOUNTER 5: Rune guardian
- Party closes the door and rests. However, something manages to find them.
- ENCOUNTER 6: Festrog
- The group heads back down to Falk’s room and opens the other door. They encounter a goblin snake creature named Yrix who offers to explain parts of the Ossuary. It’s evident Yrix is a liar and knows some about Godsmouth, but it’s not an expert. The party pays to pass into the next room.
- The next room has a staircase leading down, but it’s impassable.
- Gunnar flips the table over, causing Yrix to attack.
- ENCOUNTER 7: Yrix
- Party heads back west, and at the crossroads heads north.
- Party reaches another T-shaped crossroads, and heads west to the blocked Sihedron door.
- Party goes east to the Great Pit. As they split up and travel around the pit, something from down below comes out to attack.
- ENCOUNTER 8: Necrophidus
- Elorin detects a draft coming from the wall, and it’s a secret room. The room is small and has a sarcophagus, but also a guardian.
- ENCOUNTER 9: Iron cobra
- Opening the sarcophagus, the party finds an extremely well-preserved corpse being kept preserved (presumably) by the Sihedron medallion around his neck
- The party continues to head east into a foul kennel area.
- ENCOUNTER 10: 2 (3?) Festrogs
- Gunnar touches the menhir in the middle of the kennel, and is transported for a moment to the Dark Forest, whereupon he sees an Otyugh grappling with a dinosaur, a headless horseman on top a spire, and lights in the forest.
- End.

Third, here is a list of the treasure you’ve found so far:

- adventuring accoutrements from the intro (holy water, cure light wounds potion, backpack, bedroll, trail rations, waterskin)
- cloak of resistance +1
- three freshwater pearls (10 GP a piece, known)
- engraved ivory bracelet (24 GP, appraised)
- 51 GP in total (24 from Yrix’s hoard, 27 from Falk’s)
- 32 SP in total
- phylactery of faithfulness
- a gold chalice (*Pharasman artifact)
- a gold bowl (*Pharasman artifact)
- 2 gold plates (*Pharasman artifact)
- a large gold holy symbol of Pharasma (*Pharasman artifact)
- bracers of armor +1
- Sihedron medallion (Special item: grants +1 resistance bonus on all saving throws, can use false life 1/day, can bestow gentle repose on a corpse)
- set of masterwork banded mail
- masterwork bastard sword
- 2 curved daggers
- stone tablet of identify
- stone tablet of hold portal
- stone tablet of remove disease
- stone tablet of shatter
- 2 scrolls of delay poison

 

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Pathfinder: Take Me Down to the Ossuary, Where the Mold is Green and the Bones are Gritty

Wednesday, January 25th, 2012

ROLL INITIATIVE

Ok, there’s one week left until the first Chesapeake Pathfinder game. I’ve been going over the rules, getting nickel and dimed on miniatures, and starting to formulate flavor text. Everything’s going pretty good but I have some house rule clarifications. Nothing major though, I actually think these will make things easier.

Please make your sheet on DNDsheets so I can look it over and make challenges for you.

Players:

- Bob: Valeria, Aasimar Cleric

- Jack: Gunnar Halftroll, Half-Orc Hunter

- Steven: Elorin Hawklight, Human Rogue

- Eric: Grifflebore Stuzen, Human Paladin

- Enoch: Shania Casa , Changeling Witch

House Rules:

- Identifying scrolls and potions – I’m going to use what I call ‘Nethack rules’ on these. You’ll find a potion with a different color/taste/smell or a scroll with an inscription of <RANDOM NONSENSE WORD OR PHRASE>, and once you identify it (using the normal methods) as a scroll of, say, cure light wounds, then any further scrolls of cure light wounds (even ones with +X enchantments) will be automatically identified.

It won’t tell you whether something’s cursed though, so watch out. This isn’t much of an issue in this dungeon though.

- Divine vs. Arcane scrolls - There’s a rule in the book that in order to read a scroll without a check, you need to fulfill these criteria:

1. You have to be the correct type of caster (Arcane or Divine) corresponding to the scroll.

2. You have to have the spell on your class list.

3. You have to have the minimum ability score.

4. You have to be at the minimum caster level for the spell (or else you make some easy check like DC = caster level needed + 1)/

I’m going to discard rule 1. There’s really one room in this dungeon where they specify one scroll as being divine and one as arcane, but  none of the other scrolls in the entire dungeon are identified as such. Rather than label some scrolls as arcane, some as divine, and some as both, all scrolls are going to be arcane/divine.

- Announcing Checks/Looting a Room – Pretty much I’ll give you most of the checks except for Perception in most cases. If you want to search the room for treasure, you’ll have to say you want to search it and I’ll probably have you roll a Perception check.

 

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Pathfinder: Rolling Bones for Pharasma

Friday, January 6th, 2012

Alright dorklords, here comes the first ever Chesapeake Team Butts Pathfinder game! It’s planned for 1/28/12 at 5:30ish. We’re pretty much well-versed in how Pathfinder goes down already (say we’ll start at 1 PM, start at 5 PM, turn into a scene from 12 Angry Men when it comes time to decide where to eat, etc.), but this game’s going to be a bit different. In an effort to be less work for the DM for the players, we’re going to have slightly different rules. First off though:

The Module:

Here is the module I’ll be running. It’s a well-regarded 1st-level module. Here’s the description:

“The priests of Pharasma in the strange city of Kaer Maga have long sold plots in their ossuary to those rich enough to afford them – a place of honor and stature for one’s bones to lie after death. Yet now, this mausoleum has become full, and it is time to break into a new and unexplored wing of the dungeons under Kaer Maga to create more room. To a band of fledgling heroes, eager to make names for themselves, this represents a singular opportunity – a chance to explore a heretofore sealed section of the Godsmouth Ossuary and perhaps make a fair amount of gold on the side. The only catch is that they’ll need to survive what strange and ancient mysteries lie within! An urban and dungeon adventure for 1st-level characters.”

So polish up on your boner puns dammit.

The Players:
These are the people I have signed up as definite so far:
Bob – Asaarnian cleric
Enoch – Changeling summoner
Steven – Leaning towards magus
Eric – Some sort of tank
Jack – Half-orc ranger
Rules: (more may be forthcoming)
1. Regarding Class/Race/Archetype - You can be any race/class/archetype from any of the Paizo-published books. No third party stuff. Now you can be that Tengu Druid you always wanted to be but if you pick Kitsune I swear to all the Gods in the Heavens that I will bring all my anime Ore wa baka neko yamate yo onii-chan Japanese down upon your head and play the Revolutionary Girl Utena soundtrack whenever you move. Nobody wants that.

2. Regarding Alignment - Your alignment has to be above chaotic neutral. This is a conscious effort to promote less waffling on the DM’s part if you decide your character’s just going to start icing quest-givers and orphans better synergy and roleplaying amongst the group.
3. Regarding stats -  You get 75 points divvied up through the 6 stats. Minimum stat must be 8, no more than 2 stats at 18. This is before racials. This puts us at the ‘Standard Fantasy’ level. When we’ve played at 85 points pre-racial we’ve noticed that our Kroxes cause monsters to burst like they’ve been hit with a cannon, our spellcasters are basically Arks of the Covenant in robes, and watching our gunslingers fight is like watching the Zapruder film: Lord of the Rings edition. Our bards remained comically inept.
4. Regarding the first level -  You get 1 extra skill rank or 1 max HP at first level.
5. Regarding backstories -  A backstory would be appreciated, no matter how short. At the very minimum, you have to have a reason why you’re in Kaer Maga and agreeing to do a job like this in the first place.
6. Regarding traits -  To compensate for the lower stats, I’ll be allowing two traits at start. Try to work them into your backstory (it’s generally pretty easy).
7. Regarding cards/skill spreadsheets -  Not required but they are very useful and they help speed things along. At least bookmark or keep track of your skills in your books or smartphones.
8. Regarding buying stuff - Kaer Maga’s a pretty anarchic city and close to Korvosa, so you can buy what you want for starting gear with your starting wealth.
9. Regarding carrying capacity - Adding up weight and shit and calculating encumbrance detriments is a lot of work. I get that. So to make things smoother I’ll say this: For our purposes our rule is going to be (within reason) use the speed given by your armor stats, but as long as all your junk doesn’t take you over the max med. load, assume no encumbrance detriments. That sounds like a weird rule, but again, since we’re playing with lower stats than normal I’ll allow it.
10. Regarding character sheets – Make one on DNDsheets and send the link to me beforehand if you would. I might tinker with and add bonus checks/spot checks/rooms etc. if there are some checks that people have that the module doesn’t use. (I probably won’t subtract checks.)

Also, if you have a snack/drink/liquor/beer preference, send a shout out and I can get some.

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Gettin’ Hasty with Hastur: Tatters of the King part 1

Friday, December 30th, 2011

The Players:

Enoch P. as David Davis, Crown Prosecutor
Eric S. as Doctor Nikodemus Prosper, German Paleontologist
David K. as Doctor Rowan Legume, Renowned Psychologist
Justin H. as Genevieve “Gigi” Genovese, American Socialite by day and Con-Artist all the time

Notable People:

Talbot Estus – writer of “Carcosa”, an adaptation of “The King in Yellow” for English audiences; loaned investigators The King in Yellow and Der Wanderer durch den See.
Jean Hewart – an attractive young dilettante, acted in “Carcosa.” Daughter of Lord Hewart, the Lord Chief Justice of England. Befriended by Gigi.
Walter Paige – a handsome but sickly young man who acted in “Carcosa”, he’s an art student at University College London.
Dr. Charles Highsmith – superintendent at St. Agnes’ Asylum for the Deranged in Weobley, Herefordshire. Contacted Dr. Legume with a request for assistance determining whether a rather unusual patient of his, one Mr. Alexander Roby, should be recommended for release.
Alexander Roby – he and his brother, Grahame Roby, are the only surviving members of the Roby family following the brutal murder of their father and sister. Claims to be their murderer, though he was found in another room soon after the murders, which were committed in such a way that Alexander was eliminated as a suspect.
Mark Evans – orderly at the asylum who snuck Roby writing implements in exchange for future favors from the powerful Roby family. Was chastised and ceased.
Price – orderly at the asylum who escorts the investigators around the grounds, to both Roby and Harriwell’s cells.
Lucius Harriwell – fat mental patient in the cell next to Alexander Roby’s. Blamed for the horrible murder of an orderly, Cuthbert Yates.
Cuthbert Yates – orderly murdered about a year earlier. Seemed to be an unprovoked, senseless attack. Enough blood covered the room for two men, and there were two blood types found at the scene, though none of the other staff at St. Agnes’ were wounded in any way following the attack.
Grahame Roby – brother of Alexander, and a prominent merchant banker. In a meeting with Mr. Davis, showed himself to be a blunt and uncompromising man, wholly convinced of his brother’s insanity and willing to make the necessary calls to ensure that Roby remains at St. Agnes’. Suggested David speak with Inspector Stephens if he wished to know more of Alexander.

The Story Thus Far…

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The Story so far… (Nirmathas Campaign)

Friday, December 2nd, 2011

Summary:  Our heroes meet up for the first time in a small town called Kassen in the country of Nirmathas.  Everybody except one are outsiders to the town.  In the past, the founder of the town, Ekat Kassen, protected the town from being destroyed by a group of mercenaries lead by a man named Asar Vergas.  In the final battle, Ekat managed to kill Asar but was mortally wounded in the process.  In honor of his sacrifice, the townsfolk buried him in an ancient crypt as well as the invader himself, Asar.  They placed an eternal flame above Kassen’s final resting place, so that all who visited might find warmth in the wilderness.  From then on, every year, the town celebrated the founding of their town by making a pilgrimage to the crypt.  There, they would light their lantern from the flame and bring it back to town.

Every few years, they would task outside adventurers to make the pilgrimage instead.  The quest was relatively simple at first but soon grew elaborate as the townsfolk start setting up simple traps and puzzles for the adventurers to overcome.  This year would have been no different from the other years.  As the adventurers ventured forth to the crypt, they slowly began to realize that something has gone terribly wrong.  As they reached the crypt, they found slaughtered horses outside and dead human bodies instead.  They were, then, forced into battle with the undead.  After the battle, they explored the crypt, avoiding traps (i.e. nearly getting killed by walking foolishly into them) and solving puzzles (no light or detect magic spells from the casters come onnnnnn).  They eventually stumbled into Roldare, one of the surviving members of the group that went ahead to prepare the crypt with booby traps.  He explains that the group was attacked two days ago by skeletons and his sister was taken by a skeleton in ancient mail armor.  He pleads with them to rescue her and the group agrees.

After navigating the two-story crypt, they finally arrived to the resting place of the awakened Asar.  They win the battle and secured Rolgare’s sister.  They lit the lantern given to them by the mayor and as they do that, the spirit of Kassen rises from his slumber and thanks the party members for a job well done.  There, the party finds out what really happened in the crypt and Kassen’s relationship with Asar.  Asar and Kassen used to be comrades in arms.  One day, they managed to acquire a great deal of treasure from an ancient vault.  They sealed the ancient vault up and the only way to open it is to combine three amulets together.  The amulets were split between Asar, Kassen, and an elven sorceress named Iramine and they all parted ways.  Asar, who felt cheated out of his share of the treasure, attacked the town that Kassen founded.  There, they killed themselves and the townsfolk buried them in the crypt.  Three months ago, a group of thieves broke into the sarcophaguses containing Asar and Ekat’s bodies.  They only stole the amulets from their bodies and, as a result, stirred the spirit of Asar.  After Kassen told his story, he granted each hero a boon and parts ways.

The heroes returned back to Kassen to deliver the sad news.  The celebration turns into a memorial of all the fallen townsfolk.  During the celebration, Cygar approaches the party and introduces himself as a Pathfinder.  He tells them that he has an idea of which group was responsible and offers them a job to get to the bottom of this.  The party accepts and they begin preparations to depart for Tamran, the capital city of Nirmathas.  Cygar pays a barge to take them down the river into the town.  There, they meet up with his associate, Renigar Lacklan.  He gives them some information about the cult of Razmiran and confirms that a group of them traveled north some time ago.  Reginar, concerned about the cult’s influence on the town, informs them to start gathering information on the cult.  They will return at a later time in order to plan their next action.  The group decided that the best way to gain information was to join the cult itself.

After spending a bit of time observing the faithful and their “good works”, the party attended a recruitment meeting at the Ranger’s Lament, a tavern that’s across the street from the tavern.  The entire group gets drugged and everybody wakes up in a cell.  From there, they performed a variety of ceremonies before becoming full fledge members of the cult.  The party was forced to take on missions that ranged from being tedious and mundane to downright criminal.  As they complete their tasks, they began to understand the inner workings of the cult and later on, one of the party members escapes in order to attend the scheduled meeting with Reginar.  Reginar comes to the conclusion that they must destroy the threat the cult represents before it gets out of hand.  He orders them to sneak inside the personal chambers of the high priest and steal any incriminating documents or ledgers so that the town officials can drive the cult away from Tamran.  He wants to get the information by any means possible as the time for subtlety is over.

Important Characters:
Ekat Kassen – Famous crusader and fortune seeker.  The founder of the town of Kassen.  Used to be allied with Asar and Iramine until they split off after acquiring a great deal of treasure from an ancient treasure vault.  He used to have an amulet that matched with three other amulet pieces that would open the vault.  Died after Asar mortally wounded him in battle.

Asar Vergas – An old companion of Ekat who went his separate ways after splitting the treasure acquired from the ancient treasure vault.  Was killed by Ekat after Asar tried to raid the town of Kassen but not before mortally wounding Ekat.  Used to have the 2nd amulet piece that opened the way to the treasure vault.

Iramine  - The mysterious elven maiden who held the 3rd piece of the amulet.

Cygar Anravis – Mysterious member of the Pathfinder society who tries to find adventurers worthy enough to join his cause.  He sends the party off to Tamran.

Captain Welren – Captain of the barge.  Loves fishes.

Reginar Lacklan – The pathfinder associate who resides in Tamran.  Gives the group vital information regarding the cult of Razmir and gives them a quest to find any incriminating evidence against the cult.

The Cult of Razmir – The faithful who worships the living god, Razmir.  They aim to corrupt the people and the government of Tamran and to increase the power of Razmir.

Egarthis – The current leader of the temple and the first high ranking leader the party members meet.  Responsible for overseeing the ceremonies.

Krant – A brutish priest who is second in command.  He is responsible for overseeing the group and making sure they complete their tasks effectively.  He also enjoys a little bloodsport as he forces the group to fight amongst each other.

Evlar – A homeless acolyte who joins the cult at the same time the party does.  His father beats him.

Krox – Doesn’t feel that Nirmathas is big enough to contain him.

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Pathfinder – How about you find your way out of this game (7/23)

Tuesday, August 9th, 2011

About two weeks ago we had a Pathfinder game! And people supposedly thought it was pretty fun? It’s entirely possible, nay probable, that they are a group of lying scum but since there’s no way for me to prove it yet I’ll just have to take their word at face value. I know a few people felt burned that they were asked to leave the group, but the truth is I felt this game went about ten thousand times more smoothly than the last one I ran, where we had seven players. I believe we started very close to on time, which is 2 PM, and we actually finished up what I had prepared (which was two parts of the six-part module) by around 6 or 7 iirc. Everyone wanted to keep going, and with Jack and Justin driving up from Chesapeake to play I suspected they might. So we broke for a few hours to eat and I read through the next section and then played that until 2 or 3 AM!

Starting off, the party had just finished off their initial purpose – defeating the rat-bastard Gaedren Lann at the behest of Zelarra, a local fortune teller whose son had died. At the conclusion of that task they learned that Zelarra was actually dead and manifesting herself through her deck of Harrow cards. Armed with a powerful new ghost ally the group exited the fishery Lann had been hiding in to discover a city gone mad. Riots, fires, screaming and violence were rampant, with Hellknights invited inside the city to restore order and mounted griffin riders of the Korvosan Sable Company dropping from the sky like drunken flies shot by arrows or fireballs or whatever. The ailing King has finally died, and the foreign (and ill-thought of) Queen has ascended to the throne. A lot of people weren’t happy about this, apparently.

After a little stop at Johnny Ikea’s House of Furniture ‘N Thangs to sell off the goodies found in Lann’s horde, a nearby blacksmith and neighboring scroll and potion shops owned by elderly twin brothers, the group discovered that one of the items taken by Lann was a brooch belonging to the Queen, who is now sitting pretty on the throne (she’s pretty and she’s also sitting pretty so you see I sdkfj;lkjeriou). After Mr. Ikea informed them about the reward the players went forth, but the riot made journeying through the beleaguered city difficult at best. After being accosted by a group of miniature devils (and saved by a nearby pack of pseudodragons), being manhandled by a grimy crazy man and diffusing an escalating confrontation between a noble and a gang of disillusioned laborers, the PCs made it to the castle and sought an audience with the Queen.

Queen Ileosa expressed her gratitude and rewarded the party with a hefty coffer of gold, then asked if they would be willing to help out the Korvosan Guard in the city’s time of need. They accepted, and after talking to the officer in charge at the Citadel, were put up in a local inn and told to come back tomorrow. That evening, the players encountered a drunken guard, whom they dragged back to the Citadel after listening to him count his woes over several pints. After returning, they met the sell-sword Krox, a lovable guy who offered his services as a mighty warrior should the party require it (at a very reasonable rate). The PCs, who were without a strong front-line fighter, gladly accepted, and so they decided to meet over breakfast the following morning.

The next day the same Citadel officer told the party about a silver-tongued deserter, who had taken advantage of the chaos to lure a few fellow guards into his plans. Holed up in a previously deserted butcher shop, the group was giving out meat to the poor for free. What a great bunch of fellows! But as the group discovered not all was as it seemed, and in a series of intense encounters the group snuck through the back of the shop during normal business hours and were greeted with a great deal of hostility and boars. In the course of hacking their way through jerks and traitors and thoroughly demoralizing animals, the group found the leader, one dude whose name I don’t remember. It was a tough fight, but after a hard battle he surrendered and permitted himself to be carted back to the Citadel for interrogation. The party was given a pat on the head and told to wait for further instructions. Then they went back to the meat shop and discovered the dismembered remains of humanoids in the sewers underneath. What is going on?!? I DON’T KNOW AND NEITHER DO THEY! I guess we’ll have to wait and see!

Highlights of the Adventure:
Darzzo telling animals exactly what he thought of them
Alora using her claws and eliciting an audible groan from the entire table
Kali forgetting a favorable rule for firearms and still managing to blow a head or two clean off
Sumak helping Darzzo up over a five-foot fence and face-first into a pile of manure
Xia stabbing a lotta dudes, like three dudes
Krox being the best character ever created

I hope everyone had a decent time and is prepared for the next Pathfinder game, which will take place on September 17th. Excelsior!

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Call of Cthulhu – Dead Men Don’t Cry, They Only Go Insane (6/25)

Sunday, July 3rd, 2011

Last weekend was the first time in a very, very, very long time we’ve all gotten together for a good and proper p&p rpg, and what’s more it was Call of Cthulhu! We had a lot of fun, drank a lot of sugar, and even had a few special guest stars. Who were they? Well I’m glad you asked! Here was our rogue’s gallery:

Returning cast:

Bruce McPherson, Professor of Physics and Canes at Miskatonic U., played by Enoch
Johnny Ikea, Pilot with a Degree in Gastronomy (also Medicine), played by David
Harry Gallagher, Unstable Sergent in the U.S. Army, played by Kevin

New to the party were:

Micky “the Sticky” O’Houlihan, Former Boxing Champ and Currently Sort-Of Braindead, played by Justin
Salazzo Grizzlebee, Grizzled Forester with an Axe to Grind, played by Eric*
John Thompson, Merchant Banker and Dead-Eyed Wunderkind, played by Tony
Colin O’Shea, “Smooth” Talking Con-Man with a Heart of Bronze, played by Pedro*

* new failures

With this ragged group of players, we immediately set to work investi – oh, that’s right. Actually, since we couldn’t find anyone’s characters sheet we went to work recreating the existing characters to the best of our knowledge. Then we rolled the new dudes and everything worked out more or less for the best. I say “more or less” because in the grand scheme of things some damage was probably done but most of our investigators managed to get by with only severe cases of indefinite insanity, the breadth of which has yet to be determined. That’s what seeing a horde of the undead rise from their graves can do to a mind not carefully weaned on pop fiction since birth!

What we had was essentially an investigation centering around what appeared to be the sudden reanimation of a a man shot dead by a mob hitman. There were police officers, speakeasies, mobsters, more jazz musicians than an episode of The Cosby Show and even THE LIVING DEAD. How very exciting! Now let’s take a look at the catastrophe tally:

Pedro trying to brute-force negotiate with cop: 1
Pedro trying to brute-force negotiate with musician: 1
Two people (don’t remember who!) calling a Mr. Louis Armstrong’s manager and failing to talk their way past him: 2
Tony shooting an unarmed man: 1
Eric shooting an unarmed man: 1
Tony killing an unarmed man: 1
Kevin taking a ride on the insanity train and checking out early: 1
Unarmed (dead) man summoning an army of zombies: 100

Comedy of Errors Score: 107 – HILARIOUS

And then almost everyone got an indefinite insanity. Overall a good, if crowded, showing. That being the case, we are now finished with the tiny adventures in the core rulebook and will begin Tatters of the King after the next Pathfinder game. For which we will have to clear up some space because everyone seems agreed that seven players is far too many to run smoothly and efficiently. It’s gonna be tough.

As a bonus treat, we captured rare video footage of some nerd actually roleplaying Louie Armstrong (under great duress) on the phone with the investigators. He’s not worried about money; he just loves to help people!

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Pathfinder – (2/19) Curse of the Crimson Throne

Tuesday, February 15th, 2011

Game time is less than a week away! Holy Moses! One last update for you before we meet up, just to make sure everyone’s on the same page.

1) BACKSTORIES ARE IMPORTANT FOR THIS CAMPAIGN! You don’t need much, I keep saying this but I don’t think too many people have actually taken care of it yet. You can wait until the very last day if you want, but don’t expect me to work it into the story (because I won’t have the time). There is a Player’s Guide to the campaign we’re running which I will make available RIGHT HERE RIGHT HERE RIGHT HERE – download it, look it over, and at least go to the section on Character Traits so you know what we’re looking for. They give you sample stories to explain your connection to the Big Bad Guy this time around, with traits to go along with them. If you choose these stories/traits they will take up your one trait available, so if you want to have one of these stories and not choose the trait that’s fine. There are a lot of ways to tie yourself to this guy aside from what’s in the book so there’s no excuse!

2) We are nuking the last “adventure” (I invest that word with a great deal of scorn) we had, since it bore little to no relevance to this campaign. We could fit it in, but with people dropping in, out, and starting new characters, it just makes more sense to do it this way. We’ll go over gold totals before the game, but it’s of relatively little importance so don’t worry about it.

3) If everyone could bring around $4 for the first part of the campaign + the city guide that would be great. The guide was ~$12, the adventure was somewhere in the realm of $15-20. Anything over the cost of those two will be put towards future campaign books. If you decide you don’t want to keep playing you get your dollar back it’s that easy!

I hope to see everyone there on Saturday, and I hope we all have a good time. Going to aim for around a 2 PM start time. Please show up and be fed by 2 PM! PARTY ON

Downloads:

Curse of the Crimson Throne Player’s Guide

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