Saturday, November 29, 2014

Shattered Star: The Second Shard

Game Date: 11/29/2014
Location: The Game Cave
Campaign: Shattered Star, Session 11
System: D&D 5e
DM: Rusty

The Party:
Bjertha Brawlbaker (Matt) - Dwarf Fighter
Looplily "Lilly" Timber (James) - Gnome Cleric/Fighter
Maruca (Daniel) - Human Ranger

The Session:
I missed last week's session, during which they explored an underwater shipwreck, found a brooch which they agreed to return to an undead guy's widow, fought some Darrows and a Dark Mantle, and rescued Fenster the Blight from a torture chamber.  They left off with a choice of two sets of stairs leading down.

Today we picked a stairway and headed for a small room.  As we approached, we were overcome with magical darkness.   We turned around and headed back up the stairs, out of the range of the darkness spell.  As we were moving, Bjertha felt a bolt glance off her armor.  We waited for the spell to end and then rushed back into the room.  We encountered a Darrow named Magister Khrysm, and her two Homunculus henchmen.

The first Homunculus went down easy.  Khrysm killed the second henchman herself, when she hit our party with a Thunderwave spell.  Kelson made the final blow against Khrysm, and we looted the room.  Between Khrysm and the room's closets, we found a few potions, a Wand of Spiritual Weapon (11 charges), 232 gold, 1423 silver, and 2100 copper pieces.  We took a long rest in this room.

We went back up and then down the other set of stairs.  These stairs ended suddenly, but on the way down there was a hidden door.  Slancio felt his piece of shard pulling him towards the next piece, and we followed the secret passage until we reached an altar room.  The second shard was guarded by two giant spiders called Shriezyxs.  But lets just call them spiders because it's easier to type.

The spiders didn't hit often but they hit hard.  They each got three attacks per round, and if they'd ever managed to hit with all three it would likely have killed their target.  Bjertha faced one while Lilly kept the other one occupied.  Lilly dodged each round, keeping the spider busy while Shemus fired damaging arrows at the creature.  Once Lilly's spider was dead, we all concentrated on Bjertha's, taking it out pretty quickly.  Shemus dropped it with an arrow, but it got back up.  Kelson dealt the final killing blow, and Bjertha hacked at the bodies to make sure they didn't get back up again.

The pedestal in the center of the room had grooves to fit all seven shards.  Since this meant we'd probably need to come back here in the future, we went around the rest of the Crow compound and made sure everything else was dead.  Lilly took a sample of some brown fungus which damaged her as she collected it.  She had to do a lot of clever things involving swords and barrels to keep the fungus doing her more harm as she dragged it back out of the dungeon.

We went back to town and headed for the mansion of Sheila Heidmarch.  We found out that the new shard was the Shard of Greed.  We are now taking 40 days of downtime in order to do more research.

Session rewards:
+983 XP each.
65.88 gp each.

Reminders:
As the holidays make a lot of us busy, we are considering taking the rest of December off and resuming sessions in January.

Sunday, November 16, 2014

Shattered Star: Follow The Lemure

Game Date: 11/15/2014
Location: The Game Cave
Campaign: Shattered Star, Session 9
System: D&D 5e
DM: Rusty

The Party:
Bjertha Brawlbaker (Matt) - Dwarf Fighter
Looplily "Lilly" Timber (James) - Gnome Cleric/Fighter
Maruca (Daniel) - Human Ranger
Shemus (Cliff) - Elf Ranger


The Session:
We're still exploring the dungeon beneath the former Tower Girls HQ.  Today started with us finding a wand inside a tapestry rod, but we didn't have any party members who could identify it.  We found a magic fountain, but it wasn't healing or anything; the magic just keeps it from overflowing.  In the fountain was a piece of green crystal, but we haven't found a use for it.  In one room we encountered a pair of Lemure Devils, and persuaded them to follow us.

Down one tunnel we found the skeleton of a Bulette.  A gray ooze attacked Bjertha from the mud, corroding her armor.  We all beat the ooze's initiative, and it went down before it got a turn.  Lilly fixed Bjertha's armor with a mending spell, and we kept going.

We reached a large room with about 30 feet of water in the middle.  There were columns along the sides that were shaped like tentacles.  In order to test the water's depth, we sent in one of the Lemures.  It sank and never came back.  So we sent in the other Lemure, which similarly disappeared.  We cast Light on an arrow and fired it into the murky water, and saw something moving down there.  We didn't feel up to this fight yet, so we tried one of the other tunnels.

We found a locked door with a bronze plaque, depicting runes we could not read.  Maruca and Kelson worked on picking the lock, and several die rolls later we finally got in.  The next room was full of cages, some of which held skeletal Fleshdregs.  The creatures attacked, and most of us fought back.  Lilly attacked the empty cages instead, because she had a sudden fear that we would lock her up.  Of course, we might not be tempted to lock her up if she wasn't always doing things like attacking cages, but that's one for the philosophers.

Once the Fleshdregs were dead, we left Lilly to her cage smashing, and looked into the next room.  There was a winch-operated portcullis, and a burnt corpse.  Fearing a fire trap, we used some rope to operate the winch from a distance, then headed on through the doorway.  The next hall appeared to be a nightmare of flame traps, so we held off.  We passed back through the cage room, tiptoed past the obsessed Lilly, and tried another hall.

The next passageway led to a maze.  As Lilly caught up to us we heard a growling, and we soon found ourselves face-to-face with a Hell Hound.  This demonic doggie hit us right away with fire breath, which did a fair amount of damage.  When the breath recharged, he used it a second time and dropped Bjertha.  The party healers patched her up and Shemus dealt the killing blow to the Hell Hound.

We took a short rest and headed into the maze.  We didn't find anything interesting in the maze, and the other end just took us back to the other side of the hallway full of fire traps.  We took out our current piece of the Shattered Star, hoping it would lead us to the next one.  It seemed to be pointing towards the water room we'd considered earlier, so we headed back that way.

We pondered at the edge of the water, not wanting to get our feet wet.  Lilly was the bravest (or most impulsive) of us.  She grabbed a rope and swam across, getting attacked a pair of Sinspawn.  Once Lilly got across Bjertha followed, and a third Sinspawn joined the fray.  Lilly grappled two Sinspawn simultaneously, as Bjertha made to the other side.  The rest of the party fired their ranged weapons at any monsters they could see.

The Sinspawn had the ability to enrage those they attacked, but we never really got to see this in action.  With Lilly holding two of them to keep them from escaping back below the water, we managed to finish them off quickly.  We ended the session there.  Some of us are about to level, so we've decided to take an extended rest if possible.

Saturday, November 8, 2014

Shattered Star: Baz the Great and Powerful

Game Date: 11/8/2014
Location: The Game Cave
Campaign: Shattered Star, Session 8
System: D&D 5e
DM: Rusty

The Party:
Bjertha Brawlbaker (Matt) - Dwarf Fighter
Kelson (Ben) - Half-Elf Warlock
Looplily "Lilly" Timber (James) - Gnome Cleric/Fighter
Maruca (Daniel) - Human Ranger
Shemus (Cliff) - Elf Ranger
Slancio Brioso (Thomas) - Human Bard 

Decent-sized party today, though Slancio didn't get to join in until the end.


The Session:
We're still making our way through the depths of the tower. We left off about to enter a door where we heard voices speaking in infernal.  We entered the room and got the creatures' attention  It was two lumpy Lemure Devils, which where easy to kill.  From behind a curtain on one wall, we heard a voice say, "Congratulations you have passed the first test!"  It was an imp who called himself "The Great Suzerain".  He asked us to recover some of his lost minions, and defeat a different devil called Lord Baz.

His deal:  He would have us sign a contract that would keep his own devils from attacking us while we made our way to Baz's territory.  When we returned, Suzerain would make us lieutenants in his army.  We tried to pass on the deal, but our leader/overlord Anya fell for Suzerain's compulsions and demanded that we take the deal.  So we followed her through the tunnels towards Baz's domain, flashing our contract at any of Suzerain's devils we passed.

In one hallway there was another of those statues of a polearm-wielding woman, and as usual Lilly decided to draw a mustache on it.  This statue turned out to be trapped, creating a fireball that did a lot of damage to our party.  Anya took the worst of it, taking a full 21 points of damage.  Even though the party was low on hit points, Lilly decided that this was our best chance to take out Anya once and for all.  The impulsive gnome attacked both Anya and Maruca, and the rest of us had to decide whether to join the battle.

Of course we fought alongside Lilly, though the rest of us avoided harming Maruca.  It was a long battle, and most of us went down at one point or another, to be revived by healing potions and goodberries.  Eventually Anya started to flee, but we kept after her.  It was Kelson who dealt the final blow, after which Bjertha savagely perforated her corpse with a silver dagger.  We looted the body and took a rest.

But Lilly wasn't ready to let things go with the final Tower Girl, Maruca.  It took a lot of work to get the gnome to calm down, and Maruca promised that her allegiance was to Natalya, not Anya.  Lilly still doesn't trust Maruca, but we managed to get them to work together for the remainder of the session.  Lilly is determined to push Maruca down the stairs at some point in the future.

Through another door we found a trail of salt.  Then we fought five devils, which were very easy.  Next we found a set of stairs leading down into the water, but didn't feel like drowning just yet.  In a round room we discovered an underwater observatory, which was the first time we realized how far down we'd come in our explorations.  From the observatory's windows we could see a shipwreck.  We also found a couple of scrolls of underwater breathing, which we will presumably use at some point in the future to explore the shipwreck.  But not today.

In one room we found a cowardly Lemure Devil, who begged us not to hurt him.  He was a bit of an artist, and had decorated the walls of his safe room.  We decided not to kill him, and kept looking for Baz.  The halls finally led us to a round room with a balcony.  Two devils sparred on the ground floor while a pair of imps conversed on the balcony.  Kelson, our infernal-speaking warlock, entered the room and asked to be taken to see Baz.  One persuasion check later, we were escorted to the master's room.

Baz, an Accuser Devil, had the body of a fly and the head of a bad cross-dresser.  Next to his desk was Silencio, our party's bard, who had been missing for several sessions.  The bard's fingers were bleeding from having been forced to strum an instrument for far too long.  Baz seemed happy to see us, probably because he craved more entertainment.  The foppish devil greeted us in an over-the-top manner, but we weren't in the mood to talk.  It wasn't long before initiative was rolled.

Baz turned invisible right off the bat.  We also faced two imps and two devils, and all our enemies were resistant to non-magical weapons.  On Kelson's turn he tried hitting three of the enemies with burning hands, but found they were immune to fire.  Baz dropped Silencio in one hit, but the rest of the party got him back on his feet.

Once Baz had taken enough damage, he indignantly teleported away.  Cleaning up the rest of the enemies was easy, the last one getting talked to death by one of Silencio's bardic powers.  We ended the session there. 

Saturday, November 1, 2014

Shattered Star: A Mustache Emergency

Game Date: 11/1/2014
Location: The Game Cave
Campaign: Shattered Star, Session 7
System: D&D 5e
DM: Rusty

The Party:
Bjertha Brawlbaker (Matt) - Dwarf Fighter
Kelson (Ben) - Half-Elf Warlock
Looplily Timber (James) - Gnome Cleric/Fighter
Maruca Notyet (Daniel) - Human Ranger

The Session:
We're still exploring the tower known as the Crow, under the leadership of the were-rat Anya.  In one room we found a familiar-looking statue of a woman with a polearm.  While Looplily drew a mustache on it, the party got attacked by a cavefisher.  Bjertha killed it in the first round.  We then realized we were being followed.  Kelson, a professional criminal, joined our party.  Anya gave him the same deal the rest of us received - Anya gets any loot we find, and we get to live.  Fair enough... for now.

In another area we found a room full of spiderwebs.  Looplily started burning the webs, which drew the attention of three giant spiders.  Once they were dead, we kept exploring.  In another room we found a pool of water, which detected as magical.  Looplily peed in it, and we kept going.

We found a room with several ovens built into the walls.  Bjertha heard some rustling coming from one oven, and went to investigate.  It was full of centipedes, which swarmed her.  Figuring centipedes would be afraid of spiders, Looplily cast an illusion of spiders crawling over Bjertha.  All this really accomplished was to freak Bjertha out.  She stopped, dropped, and rolled madly while the rest of the party helped kill off the swarm.

A bit later we encountered six skeletons.  It wasn't a terrible fight but it took Bjertha down to zero hit points, so the party took a long rest afterwards.  Some of us had earned enough xp to level last session, but it wasn't until this rest that we were allowed to take the level.  Now fully healed and feeling a bit more powerful, we continued our explorations.

We went down some stairs and found an octagonal room.  Four of the walls had double doors, and the floor was covered in slime.  There was another statue of the woman with the polearm, but before Looplily could draw on it we saw the creature who had generated the slime.  It was a giant, maggot-spitting larva.  After killing it we went through the left door.

At the end of a narrow hallway there were two undead.  As Bjertha and Kelson fought them, Looplily tried to run the opposite direction.  Anya and Maruca kept Looplily from running past, instructing her to get back in there and fight.  Looplily wouldn't comply and kept fighting them while trying to run past.  Bjertha and Kelson finished off the undead and turned around to see what the ruckus was.

Bjertha tried to talk everyone down, rolling 20 on persuasion, which was enough to convince Anya not to kill Looplily.  Looplily finally broke through, and ran back to the statue in the octagonal room so she could finally draw a mustache on it.  Apparently it was very important.

In another hall we found a circle of runes, with some dancing flames inside.  Looplily stepped into the circle and was attacked by two small flame beings.  Reasoning that the creatures couldn't leave the circle, we opted to run through and get to the other side of the room.  We did kill one of them as we made our way through, and left the other one alive.

In the next hallway there was a door on the right, from which we could hear a conversation.  Kelson informed us that someone was speaking in the infernal language, but he couldn't make out what they were saying.  We were about to burst in when we ended the session.

Sunday, October 12, 2014

Shattered Star: Mite and Magic

Game Date: 10/11/2014
Location: The Game Cave
Campaign: Shattered Star, Session 6
System: D&D 5e
DM: Rusty

The Party:
Bjertha Brawlbaker (Matt) - Dwarf Fighter
Looplily Timber (James) - Gnome Cleric/Fighter
Maruca Notyet (Daniel) - Human Ranger
Sneex (Cliff) - Dwarf Rogue

The Session:
When we left off last week, we had just been defeated by Anya, the were-rat leader of Tower Girls.  We started today's session still tied up.  Anya probably would have killed us, but she was impressed that we'd been able to solve a puzzle last session, when we opened a door they'd been trying to get through.  Now short-staffed (thanks to us), she needed our help exploring the corridors beyond the door.  So Bjertha, Sneex, Looplily, Anya, and Maruca (Anya's last remaining minion) proceeded to explore the halls.

A few corridors in, we came to a room with a balcony overlooking a scum-covered pool.  We saw one side tunnel that was too small for us to explore, with tiny footprints inside.  We decided to worry about that later.  As we searched the room, a couple of pseudopods erupted from the pool, and we had to fight a pair of oozes.  Bjertha tried to bypass the fight entirely, but Anya reprimanded her.  The oozes weren't particularly difficult, but they did split into two when damaged, prolonging the battle.  When the oozes were finally destroyed, we went down the next hallway.

In the next room, we awoke a swarm of bats.  Bjertha fended them off until a few got into her armor, sending her into a panic.  Finally Looplilly used her magic to make a loud noise that drove them off.  Sneex found a bracelet in a fountain, and attempted to pocket it without the rest of the party seeing.  Some of the party did see, but we didn't make an issue out of it.  We went through more corridors and down some stairs.

We came out into a room filled with large mounds of dirt.  Bjertha disturbed one of the mounds, and a giant ant climbed out.  Four more ants eventually joined the battle, some of which had scorpion-like stingers.  Bjertha and Sneex lost a lot of hit points that fight, so we took a short rest afterwards.  In one wall there was another one of those tiny passages.  Then in the next hall we found a tiny secret door, scaled the same as the other tiny tunnels.  We wondered what little creatures could be living here.

We found out in the next room.  We encountered several pint-sized goblinoids called mites, two of which were riding giant spiders.  They didn't do a lot of damage, but since there were a lot of them, they still inflicted their share of pain.  Some of the mites could cast Bane, which gives you a negative d4 to attack rolls and saving throws.  Anya finally helped out in this battle, killing a few of the mites, which made it go a lot easier.  The final two mites tried to flee, but we killed them on their way out the door.  We kept one of their bodies and took it with us.

We went down a spiral staircase and had a choice of two directions.  The corridor we picked led us to some halls lined with empty cells.  We reached a large room with a heavy stone door and torture instruments.  There was one more cell, but this one actually had someone in it.  There was a crazed humanoid with a half-melted face, attacking the bars.  Looplilly lobbed a couple of spells at him, and we considered finishing him off, but then decided to leave him alone for now.  We ended the session there.

Saturday, October 4, 2014

Shattered Star: Hide and Sneakx

Game Date: 10/4/2014
Location: The Game Cave
Campaign: Shattered Star, Session 5
System: D&D 5e
DM: Rusty

The Party:
Bjertha Brawlbaker (Matt) - Dwarf Fighter
Bugg (Daniel) - Human Warlock
Looplily Timber (James) - Gnome Cleric/Fighter
Sneakx (Cliff) - Dwarf Rogue

The Session:
There was a bit of confusion about the order of last session's encounters.  Some of the rooms couldn't have been conquered in the order we did them, requiring a small amount of retcon.  This session began with us entering a room containing five enemies - three Tower Girls and two rats.  Bjertha lost initiative, but she still managed to kill both rats before the rest of the party did much of anything.  Then Natalia, Bugg, and Looplily each killed one of the Tower Girls.  Sneakx spent most of the battle finding places to hide to set up a sneak attack, but missed when the time finally came.

The room contained a life-size statue of a beautiful woman, wielding a polearm.  We all failed our history/arcana checks to identify the subject, so naturally Looplily drew a mustache on it instead.  There was also a barrel of whiskey in the room, which Looplily took with us.  Rolling the barrel through the hallways and bouncing it down the stairs didn't do any favors for our stealth checks.

A later room contained several doors.  One set of doors had the words LISTEN and THE EYES written on them, on moveable tiles.  We rearranged the letters to spell SILENT THEY SEE and the doors unlocked.  We decided to rest for an hour before proceeding through the doors, but we failed our stealth check and drew some unwanted attention.  Three were rats, one of which was much larger than the others, burst into the room and attacked us.

We quickly killed the two smaller rats, but the big one gave us a lot of trouble.  It was resistant to ordinary weapons, so we had to get creative to damage it.  Sneakx kept throwing dirt in the rat's eyes, causing temporary blindness.  Bjertha had a silver dagger she'd picked up in a previous session, which helped a lot.  She rolled well on the next couple of hits, but so did the rat, and soon Bjertha was making death saves.  While Bjertha was down, Sneakx grabbed her dagger, and took over dealing damage.

Meanwhile, our guide Natalia fled the room and braced the door closed behind her.  Thanks to a heal from Looplily, Bjertha got back up, but without the dagger she could no longer damage the were rat.  As the fight went on, Bjertha went down again, along with Bugg and Looplily.   Now alone, Sneakx ran out another of the room's doors, followed closely by the rat.  Natalia came back into the room and healed Looplily a little bit.

Sneakx fled out a door into an X-shaped hallway, which contained another door back into the room we'd been fighting in.  The were rat proceeded to chase Sneakx in a circle - through the first door, down the hall, through the second door, back through the battle room, and so on.  Meanwhile, Natalia started rolling the barrel into the hallway, no doubt with some clever plan involving igniting the whiskey.  This plan would never come to fruition, however, as the were rat killed Natalia on the next pass.  Eventually Sneakx fell as well, finishing off our party.

We woke up a few hours later, all tied up.  One by one the were rat interrogated us.  When Bugg refused to answer any questions, the were rat killed him.  Looplily, on the other hand, was much more cooperative, spilling the beans on our entire operation.  We ended the session there.

Next session:
There are several questions we need to ponder before going forward.  For starters, the party Bard, Slancio, wasn't present this session.  We need to decide where he was in the hopes he might be able to rescue us.  With most (or all) of the Tower Girls dead, the were rat seems like she wants to recruit us.  Daniel will have to bring a new character next week, so that might also be a factor in our escape.

Saturday, September 6, 2014

Shattered Star: My God, It's Full Of Stairs

Game Date: 9/6/2014
Location: The Game Cave
Campaign: Shattered Star, Session 4
System: D&D 5e
DM: Rusty

The Party:
Bjertha (Matt) - Dwarf Fighter
Bugg (Daniel) - Human Warlock
Looplily Timber (James) - Gnome Cleric/Fighter
Natalya Vancaskerkin (Lanessa) -Human Rogue/Sorcerer
Slancio Brioso (Thomas) - Human Bard

The Session:
Last session we found the first shard that will eventually make up the Shattered Star.  Then our characters took a week off to do more research.  During this week, Slancio had a vision about the location of the next piece.  It was at a place called the Crow, a piling in the waters of Outcast Cove.  Natalya led the way, knowing that her former friends the Tower Girls were using the Crow as a hideout.

We had to take a rowboat there.  When we docked, we spent a while bickering about whether to damage the other docked rowboats, but finally decided against it.  Natalya led us through a secret tunnel, where we passed the privy and headed up some stairs.  On one landing we saw some empty stone boxes and some yellow dust, along with some human and rat footprints. 

The waaiiting is the hardest part...
Up more stairs, and on the next floor we saw a giant rat flee up the next set of steps.  We figured it was going to warn the others an come back, so we set up an ambush.  We had Natalya stand in the middle of the room and announce her presence, while the rest of us hid off to the side.  Then we waited.  And waited.  And waited.  Well, it was a good plan anyway.  We finally got bored and continued up the stairs.  Natalya led us up landing after landing, checking for traps on the way. 

At the top of one flight of stairs, Natalya was attacked by some Tower Girls.  Because of the stairs, it took an extra turn for the rest of us to catch up to the fight.  It was an odd-shaped room, with several nooks and crannies to hide in.  Two of the Tower Girls hid behind an overturned table, firing at us.  Each of our party members rushed from one side of the room to the next to get closer to our enemies, while taking cover behind the corner.  Finally Bjertha took point and rushed the table.  She got some good hits in, but a were-rat joined the fight.

The were-rat was tough because she was resistant to non-magical damage, could make both bite and claw attacks each round, and could disengage as a bonus action.  Still, our party eventually surrounded her, hacking at her from all sides. Bugg tried to hit her with Eldritch blast, but was at disadvantage due to using a ranged attack at melee.  He rolled a 20 and a 1.  What a waste of a potential crit!  Still, he hit anyway by using an inspiration die.  The were-rat attacked the Warlock back, and Bugg's Hellish Rebuke reaction finished off the creature.  When she died, she reverted to her human form.

Afterward, we looked around a bit and found a secret door.  Well, it wasn't that secret, seeing as how the door was propped open with a dagger.  Knowing it could be a trap, we followed the secret passage.

In another room we had to cross a rickety rope bridge, suspended 200 feet above some boats.  It was nerve-wracking but we made it across safely.  Next passage, Bjertha triggered a tripwire, setting off some warning bells.  A couple of sleepy Tower Girls attacked us, fleeing down the hall as they fired their crossbows at us.  We caught up to them and killed them quickly.

A half-collapsed side room contained a sealed amphora, and a small statue.  At the end of the hall was another set of stairs, going down.  We were about to head down the stairs, but it was getting late so we ended the session there.

Next week (spoiler alert):  More stairs!

Afterthoughts:
This is the second time I've been a Pathfinder campaign that switched systems a few sessions in.  Last time it was the Unlikely Heroes campaign, where we switched to D&D 4e after a couple of months.  I believe some of the players were disappointed in a few aspects of Pathfinder, such as the slow healing.  This time we're switching to 5e, but it's not due to any failing of Pathfinder, it's because we're excited about D&D's new edition.  Only time will tell if we stick with 5e or switch back.

Bjertha was the only character in the party that directly converted, because she's the only one with a race/class combination found in the 5e PHB.  Some of the others are similar in spirit, but it's still a very different party.

Funniest roll of the day.  Too bad he had disadvantage.

XP:
Since the numbers don't really convert easily, we just decided to start this session with everyone at level 2 (300 xp).  We earned 160 xp for the session, bringing us up to 460 xp.

Saturday, August 23, 2014

D&D 5e: Web of Doom

Game Date: 8/23/2014
Location: The Game Cave
Campaign: N/A
System: D&D 5e
DM: Rusty

The Party:
Looplily Timber (James) - Gnome Cleric
Moe (Thomas) - Human Monk
Ramas (Daniel) - Human Warlock
Torgga (Matt) - Dwarf Fighter

The Session:
Last week I couldn't make it, so the remaining players tried out D&D 5e.  Today we were still down one player, and didn't feel like returning to our Shattered Star campaign quite yet.  So we continued the story they started last week.

They'd left off in a narrow hallway, outside a room full of giant spiders.  It was a large cavern, filled with approximately sixty giant spiders.  There was a cage in the center of the room, with skeletons in it.  We knew there was something important about the cage, but couldn't agree on a plan to get to it.  Among our assets was a sample of purple mold, which reproduces quickly and puts nearby creatures to sleep.

We decided to... well, we never actually decided anything, which was our downfall.  We tried a bunch of different stuff, had some communication issues, and generally got our asses kicked.  We threw some mold in there, letting it spread so that it would put some spiders to sleep.  Then we tied a rope around the monk, and had him tiptoe through the room to reach the cage.  Problem was, he kept failing his saves against the mold, and we'd have to pull him back out again.

So we tried it again with the fighter, who had better saves against poison.  She managed to reach the cage, but got attacked by a spider.  As she started to come back out, she found herself trapped by two spiders and restrained by webbing.  The monk tried to help, but he got knocked out again.  Both the monk and the fighter were covered in spores, and due to suffocate within a few rounds.

The cleric and warlock managed to save the monk, but they couldn't make it to the fighter.  As the cleric pulled the monk to safety, the warlock got caught up in the webs, and couldn't make it out.  The fighter and the warlock both died, but the monk and the cleric lived to fight another day.

Reminders:
There's no game next week.  Our next session will be on 9/6.

Saturday, August 9, 2014

Shattered Star: Pride Cometh Before The Fall

Game Date: 8/9/2014
Location: The Game Cave
Campaign: Shattered Star, Session 3
System: Pathfinder
DM: Rusty

The Party:
Bjertha Brawlbaker (Matt) - Dwarf Fighter
Bugg (Daniel) - Goblin Alchemist
Sneex (Cliff) - Sylph Rogue
Toad the Toad Summoner (James) - Human Barbarian/Wizard
Henric Slidell (Thomas) - Human Oracle

The Session:
When we left off, Bjertha had found Natalia in the rafters of a ruined building.  Holding a crossbow trained on Bjertha, Natalia informed the Dwarf that she would rather not return to the Pathfinder Society, because they might take the trinket she had found.  Natlia held a metal shard, which seemed to possess magical properties.  To keep the rest of the party from climbing up to help, Natalia used the shard to set the ladder on fire.  Then she used the trinket's power to charm Bjertha into being her new bodyguard.

It turned out the fire was an illusion, but Natalia proceeded to charm Slidell, and asked us to take her to Heidmarch Manor... not to turn in the artifact, but in the hopes of making it her new home base.  She gathered a group of charmed goblin followers, and ordered us to lead the way to the mansion.  Sneex tried to run off, but Natalia charmed her as well.

This left only Toad and Bugg free from her influence, but those two followed along anyway - Bugg was happy to be in the company of goblins again, and Toad just enjoys chaos.  Besides, let's face it, our mission was to return Natalia and the artifact, so in a way she was playing right into our hands.  As we approached the next section of town, the town watch stopped us.  They were a bit concerned about us leading a bunch of goblins through town in the middle of the night.  Such worrywarts.  We told them that we meant no harm, but they escorted us through the area just to play it safe.

We arrived at the mansion of Sheila Heidmarch and knocked on the door.  A manservant answered, but was repulsed by our gaggle of goblins, and shut the door in our face.  He opened a slot on the door and asked us what we wanted, and we ordered him to fetch Sheila.  An impatient Sneex climbed up the wall and broke in through a second story window.  Two of the goblins worked on setting up a crossbow to fire as if it were a mortar, while the rest of the goblins got into general hijinks.  When Sheila finally answered the door, Natalia ordered her goblin minions to attack.

Because of all the charming going on, this battle was a bit confusing.  Several of the goblins ran around the sides of the mansion to cause more mischief, so we didn't have to fight them.  Bjertha broke her charm and tackled Natalia, pinning her to the ground.  Toad killed a couple of goblins, shouting "I surrender!" after each one.   Bugg killed a goblin or two with his crossbow.  Sheila attacked Toad and took him down on one turn, using nonlethal damage.  Slidell managed to wrestle the artifact away from Natalia, only to succumb to its effects himself.

His mind suddenly affected by delusions of grandeur, Slidell refused to turn the amulet over.  Sheila managed to convince him to combine it with an Ioun stone, which broke the spell.  Now that no one was being affected, we cleaned up and let Sheila lead us to a meeting room.  She briefed us on the artifact we'd recovered.

It turns out this trinket was just one piece of a powerful relic.  When complete, the Shattered Star had seven points, each made of a different metal.  Now in pieces, each shard represents a different one of the seven deadly sins.  The one we recovered represents pride.  We also learned that properly used, each shard could guide its wielder to the location of the next shard. 

Looks like our mission is obvious.  We're taking a week of downtime while Sheila does more research on the shards.  We ended the session there.

Rewards:
+336 XP each
+200 Gold each

Reminder:
Next week I will not be there, and the remaining players are planning to try D&D 5e instead.

Sunday, August 3, 2014

Shattered Star: Choked and Grappled by Grappling Chokers

Game Date: 8/2/2014
Location: The Game Cave
Campaign: Shattered Star, Session 2
System: Pathfinder
DM: Rusty

The Party:
Bjertha Brawlbaker (Matt) - Dwarf Fighter
Bugg (Daniel) - Goblin Alchemist
Sneex (Cliff) - Sylph Rogue
Toad the Wet Sprocket Toad Summoner (James) - Human Barbarian/Wizard
Henric Slidell (Thomas) - Human Oracle

The Party
The Session:
When we left off last session, we were trying to learn Natalia's whereabouts from a disgusting informant called Fenster the Blight.  We took a quick trip back to the Pathfinder Society so we could enjoy a nice dinner and added Sneex to the party.  Then we went back to the Underbridge district to take another crack at Fenster.

We considered several options, including beating the information out of him, but rejected that idea because it would involve touching him.  Finally we took the high road and bribed him with a garnet.  He told us that Natalia had been seen at a local boarding house.

We headed for the boarding house.  On the way, we were attacked by five chokers.  They won a surprise round, grabbing most of the party and dragging us in different directions.  Bugg the goblin was dragged up the wall.  Bugg broke and reversed the grapple, briefly grappling his grappler before the grappler regrappled the grappler's grappler on its next turn.  Or something.

Bjertha struggled against her choker, consistently failing to hit it with any attack rolls.  Toad fared much better, gradually killing chokers one at a time and freeing up other party members.  Sneex climbed the wall after Bugg's choker, attempting to save the goblin.  Just as Sneex reached the goblin, Bugg broke free and dropped to the ground, leaving Sneex alone with the choker.  Then Bugg threw a bomb at the choker.  It didn't do much to harm the choker, but the splash damage finished off Sneex.

We used some tokens to save Sneex's life, but the rogue was not happy with the goblin.  Bugg should sleep with one eye open for a while.  Once the chokers were all dead, we continued to the boarding house.  The building turned out to be in extremely poor shape.  After a few minutes of deliberation, Toad charged through the front door... and fell into a pit of sewage.  He climbed out of the collapsed floor, now covered in filth.

Much of the house's floor was similarly collapsed, so we decided not to just barrel through that part of the building.  Bjertha kicked in a side door, and encountered two angry thugs.  Bjertha attempted to apologize, but Toad taunted them and they attacked us.  On Slidell's turn, he convinced them to stop fighting.  We prodded them for a bit of information, then persuaded them to leave the premises.

Around the back of the house, we knocked out a few of the boarded-up windows.  We saw the same thing in all the rooms - collapsed floors, and some ladders leading up to the rafters.  In one room there was a chimney with a ladder in it.  Sneex climbed through the window and tried to climb up the chimney, but a Goblin Snake attacked her.  The rest of us gradually climbed through the window, and Bjertha dealt the final blow to the snake. 

Once it was dead, Bjertha climbed the ladder up to a landing.  At the top of the ladder, she found a crossbow aimed at her head.  The weapon was held by a gypsy woman, who we believe to be Natalia.  We ended the session there.

XP So Far:
+378 (7/19)
+760 (8/2)
= 1138


Saturday, July 19, 2014

Shattered Star: Bribing Your Way To Victory

Game Date: 7/19/2014
Location: The Game Cave
Campaign: Shattered Star, Session 1
System: Pathfinder
DM: Rusty

The Party:
Bjertha Brawlbaker (Matt) - Dwarf Fighter
Bugg (Daniel) - Goblin Alchemist
Toad the Toad Summoner (James) - Human Barbarian/Wizard
Henric Slidell (Thomas) - Human Oracle

The Session:
We each received a letter summoning us to Heidmarch Manor in the city of Magnimar.  We were to meet with Sheila Heidmarch of the Pathfinder Society, who had a proposition for us. Upon arrival, Sheila greeted us, and asked us to wait in the library while she tended to other matters.  To give us something to do while we waited, she gave us a puzzle box to figure out.

This "Pandora Box" had runes etched on some of its stone sides.  One side had runes that spelled out "CRUEL", but the letters could be rearranged.  Bjertha tried changing the word to "LUCRE", and the lid popped open.  Two Pugwampi (dog-faced gremlins) suddenly appeared, and started tearing up the library.  We tried to restrain them.

The Pugwampi weren't very powerful - their attacks did 1d2 minus 4 damage, so we weren't very scared.  But they did manage to damage Toad's weapon.  During the battle, Henric noticed some treasure was in the box, including three garnets, a scalloped ring, and a silver dagger.  (I wonder what would have been in the box if we'd spelled "ULCER".)  He stuffed everything in his pockets while the rest of us dealt with the gremlins.

We killed one of the pugwampi, and knocked the other out.  As we were tying up the survivor, Sheila came back into the room.  She was pleased that we had passed her test, and briefed us on our mission.  There was a missing informant named Natalia, who is connected to a gang called the Sczarni.  Rumor has it that she recently found a rare artifact, then disappeared.

It's possible Natalia wanted to keep the artifact for herself, and ran off with it.  Or perhaps the artifact had magic powers and disintegrated her.  Maybe someone else killed her and took the artifact.  It's our mission to find out.  Our party will receive 500 gold if we return the artifact.  If we also return Natalia alive, we'll get an extra 500.  And if possible, we're to try not to out Natalia as an informant.

Sheila also gave us a lead.  A fortune teller called The Amazing Zograthy had a business over on the poor side of town.  We headed for the docks, where we paid a kid some copper for directions to Zograthy.  We finally reached the seer's shop, and paid him 20 gold to tell us what he knew.  He told us that many people have been disappearing.  The Sczarni is also looking for Natalia, and there's rumors that she had gone mad.  Natalia had also been seen hanging out with a faction called the Tower Girls.

Once we'd learned all we could from Zograthy, we started looking for other people to ask.  Henric failed a diplomacy check and got mugged.  As he tried to flee his attackers, we tried out a card game mechanic that used skill checks to flee.  It was a pretty interesting game style, though it didn't work out very well for us today.  The muggers caught up to Henric and beat the crap out of him.  When the rest of us tried to help him, we got arrested by the town watch.

The guards took us back to police HQ to sort things out.  Eventually they let us go, and we stopped by the Heidmarch Manor.  We left a few of our valuables behind this time so we'd have less to steal, and all wore cloaks so we would look more impoverished.  We headed back to the slums to follow our next lead.  We met with Fenster the Blight, the disease-ridden landlord for the Tower Girls.  He required a bit of bribery before he would talk at all, and he still wants more before he'll tell us anything useful.  This is shaping up to be an expensive quest. 

We ended the session there. It's hard to say whether we'll acquiesce to his demands next week, or try threatening him.  Perhaps we'll find a third option.

Saturday, July 12, 2014

Character: Bjertha Brawlbaker

This my character for the "Shattered Star" Pathfinder Campaign.

Name: Bjertha Brawlbaker
Race: Dwarf
Class: Fighter (Armormaster)
Alignment: Neutral Good
Deity: Gorum
Age: 53
Height: 4'4"
Weight: 199 lbs
Eyes: Brown
Hair: Ruddy Brown






Rolled Background Details:
Homeland: Underground.  Janderhoff, Mindspin Mountains.
Parents: Both living, artisans.
Siblings: Two older, one younger.
Social Standing: Born middle class. 
Romance:  Bjertha has had several significant relationships, but they always fail.
Early Life: Bjertha was bullied on the street.  She was influenced by a mercenary.
Moral conflict: Bjertha told a lie to a gangster, because of jealousy.  She has mixed feelings about it.

Traits and Flaws:
Veteran of Battle (Religion) - +1 Initiative, If can act on surprise round, can draw weapon as free actionDefender of Society (Social, Shattered Star) - +1 AC

Known Associates:
Bugg (Daniel) - Goblin Alchemist, and Bjertha's hunting companion
Toad the Toad Summoner (James) - Human Barbarian/Wizard
Henric Slidell (Thomas) - Human Oracle, and drug dealer
Sneax (Cliff) - Sylvan Rogue

Mini - Dwarf Shieldmaiden (Dungeons of Dread #33)

Saturday, July 5, 2014

Dragon's Demand: The Final Chapter

Game Date: 7/5/2014
Location: The Game Keep
Campaign: Dragon's Demand, Session 16
System: Pathfinder
DM: Rusty

The Party:
Halfbeard (Cliff) - Dwarf Ranger
Lilith (James) - Tiefling Paladin
Raz Furian (Matt) - Human Sorcerer
Tanith Tularn (Thomas) - Human Cleric
Vires (Daniel) - Human Alchemist

The Session:
I missed a session,during which they followed a tunnel out of the monastery, rescued the Druid's wife, closed the Dark Portal, and fought a tree-like, charisma-draining Yangethe (which nearly killed them).  The session ended right as a large, green dragon made his appearance. 


Which meant today we jumped straight into battle with the final boss.  This dragon had a high AC and an impressive reach.  On the bright side, his defense against ranged touch attacks was pretty low... but his spell resistance still kept Raz from landing any of her best spells.

As the fight began, one of us played a Pathfinder plot card that summoned a Sea Hag... who didn't really affect the battle. On the dragon's first turn, he hit most of the party with some highly damaging acid breath.  Then he flew away through a hole in the roof so he could recharge his breath weapon.  We did a bit of healing while we waited for it to come back.  The Druid used this time to buff his wife with acid resistance.

When the dragon returned, Halfbeard let loose an Arrow of Dragonslaying, which he'd been saving for a while.  It did an extra 50 points of damage.  Good start!  The Druid cast entangle to keep the dragon from flying off again.  Tanith, Lilith, and Maffei boxed the monster in, taking lots of damage while using their best remaining attacks.  Tanith went down at one point, but stayed alive.  It was Halfbeard who finally took the dragon down, with a pair of Dragonsbane arrows.  

Our quest now over, we wrapped things up quickly.  The final battle felt a little bit anticlimactic, given how some of the previous bosses nearly killed us.  But then, we had prepared for this fight with all our anti-dragon arrows, so I'll chalk it up to good planning.


Coming Up:
Next week we start working on a new campaign, "Shattered Star".  Our characters are in various states of completion.  Here's what we know so far:
Bjertha (Matt) - Dwarf Fighter
Bugg (Daniel) - Goblin Alchemist
Toad the Toad Summoner (James) - Human Barbarian/Wizard
? (Thomas) - Drug-dealing Cleric
? (Cliff) - Possibly a Rogue or Rogue/Wizard


Saturday, May 31, 2014

Dragon's Demand: Are You My Mummy?

Game Date: 5/31/2014
Location: The Game Keep
Campaign: Dragon's Demand, Session 14
System: Pathfinder
DM: Rusty

The Party:
Halfbeard (Cliff) - Dwarf Ranger
Lilith (James) - Tiefling Paladin
Raz Furian (Matt) - Human Sorcerer
Tanith Tularn (Thomas) - Human Cleric
Vires (Daniel) - Human Alchemist

The Session:
When we left off, our party had just finished taking out Aeteperax's fourth lieutenant, a giant grioth.  Hurting from battle, we headed to the naga's room to rest.  During the night, we heard the sound of a large creature leaving the grounds, and returning an hour later.  It's hard to say for sure since our room had no windows, but we're pretty sure it was Aeteperax.  Or at least the dragon impersonating him.

We interrogated both of our prisoners - Thaena the now-blind naga, and Pentosh the nearly-dead alchemist.  We asked about the whereabouts of the druid's wife.  Apparently Aeteperax keeps her in his cave, which isn't far from here.  We learned that the naga had an unrequited crush on the dragon, but unfortunately for her Aeteperax is too obsessed with the "Dark Window" to notice Thaena.  We asked what the Window was, but she couldn't be more specific.

We visited our druid frenemy Azmur for more information.  He didn't know much more about the Dark Window, except that it was connected to the "Dark Tapestry", a term we'd heard before.  He did, however, offer to lead us to where it might be.  But first we headed to the monastery's kitchen to see if Pentosh had left any alchemy supplies that Vires could use.  We found some chemicals that, once combined with some dragon scales we'd collected, yielded five potions of acid resistance.

Continuing on to the Dark Window, we found a library that hardly had any books in it.  In one corner was a secret door, leading to a passage that circled the room before ending at a locked door.  (Crazy architects; putting the secret door on the opposite side of the room would have saved the poor monks a lot of walking.)  The door's lock was of the highest quality.  It resisted all attempts to pick it, and the door was too sturdy to force open.  We even tried knocking, but got no answer.  Though that's probably a good thing.  Eventually we turned around, resolving to explore more rooms in hope of finding a key.

Later we found a room full of metal coffins.  It wasn't what we initially thought, though.  These coffins were actually sensory deprivation tanks the monks used for meditation.  There were some rocks placed on one, which just screamed "plot related" to us.  We cleared the rocks and opened the coffin, revealing a dead human.   For once in our lives, the dead guy stayed inanimate rather than attacking us.  Azmur recognized him as one of Aeteperax's former lieutenants.

We used a Speak With Dead scroll, which allowed us to ask the corpse two questions.  First we asked what Aeteperax's real name was.  The corpse answered, "The name he used before is unimportant; he is Lord Aeteperax now."  Then we asked where the key was, and he answered, "Aeteperax never needed the key."  Well, that was a waste of a scroll.

We explored a few more rooms, and when we were satisfied that we'd seen everything in this building, we headed to the next one.  We found a prayer room, with a large mosaic in the floor.  After a bit of searching we found a trap door under a rug.  A small tunnel led to a chamber, where a mummy sat on a throne.  We tried talking to the mummy.  It said it had to test us to see if we were powerful enough to prevail.  And then it attacked us.

It was a long, difficult battle.  I wish I could say it was an epic battle, but honestly it was just teeth-grindingly frustrating.  Seriously, if more battles were like this I would quit RPGs forever.  It made D&D 4e battles look brief by comparison, but at least in 4e you feel like you're accomplishing something during the fight.  This was a curbstomp battle.  Several times I thought it might turn out to be a "hopeless boss fight", the kind you're supposed to lose for plot reasons.

I mean, sure we survived, but only because we used up a lot of party resources.  We turned in several Pathfinder plot twist cards, and Lilith had to redeem some tokens to keep from dying.  The mummy had insanely high attack rolls, generally only missing if he fumbled.  He often did enough damage per round to flat-out kill a character.  As a monk, the mummy had flurry of blows, stunning fist, damage reduction, and a few other surprises.  Most of us could barely hit him, much less actually cause real damage.

On the bright side, he was vulnerable to fire.  Twice during the battle, Raz hit him with a maximized Scorching Ray, which did a good deal of damage.  One plot twist card caused him to become exhausted, and one fumble caused him to bleed very slightly.  We critted a few times, but never could confirm because of his high AC.  One final fumble left him fatigued, and he collapsed from his own bad die roll.  His last words were, "Finish what I could not, destroy the beast, and restore honor to the monastery." Gee, thanks, now that you've depleted a lot of the resources we were saving for Aeteperax.

As he died he handed us a key.  Hopefully the key will open the door to the Dark Window, but we haven't tried it yet.  On his body we also found an Amulet of Mighty Fists, and a Belt of Giant Strength.  We heard that something big is supposed to happen in town in the morning, so we wanted to get a move on.  However, we were just too beat up to risk running into another fight, so we took an extended rest.  And that's where we ended the session.

Saturday, May 17, 2014

Dragon's Demand: Mind Over Matter

Game Date: 5/17/2014
Location: The Game Keep
Campaign: Dragon's Demand, Session 13
System: Pathfinder
DM: Rusty

The Party:
Halfbeard (Cliff) - Dwarf Ranger
Lilith (James) - Tiefling Paladin
Raz Furian (Matt) - Human Sorcerer
Tanith Tularn (Thomas) - Human Cleric
Vires (Daniel) - Human Alchemist

The Session:
When we left off last session, we were underneath a monastery, in a room partly full of water.  Vires had just had a little exploratory swim.  As he attempted to climb out of the pool, a shark-shaped mass of water followed him to shore.  Two water elementals burst from the surface and attacked the party.  They had the ability to form vortexes, one of which sucked up Tanith and Halfbeard.  They were spun around in a vicious whirlwind, eventually bringing Tanith down to one hit point.  But we managed to kill the elementals, and got Tanith healed up.

It took a few minutes to negotiate all the pools of water in order to reach the tunnel on the other side of the room.  We made our way through a couple of harmless rooms full of statues (which didn't attack us for a change), and found a secret door.  A hallway led to a large chamber containing two large liquid-filled globes, along with the remains of a third.  There were two cabinets in the room.  The one on our end was full of satin cushions.  A note on the door read, "Herein lies safety, but know that to rely on such crutches is to fall from the path."  The cushions did not detect as magical, and we weren't sure of the purpose at first.

Lilith made her way to the opposite side of the room, to examine the other cabinet.  Meanwhile, some of the party members felt odd compulsions.  Halfbeard was overcome with the desire to approach the center globe, and attacked it until it shattered.  This released a flying tentacled Brain Ooze, which attacked the party.  Vires and Maffei were also soon dominated, and Tanith was dazed, staggered, and knocked out.

Meanwhile, Lilith opened the other cabinet.  This one's note said, "Return here what is no longer needed."  This cabinet also contained cushions, but sitting on these cushions were some pearls.  We theorized that these pearls were used to cross the room without getting dominated.  We attempted to get these pearls to some of the dominated party members.  At one point during the battle, the brain hit Raz with an mind-draining power, reducing her intelligence to 5.

Whenever a party member was forced to attack a friend, they got to make a will save to end the domination.  As we gradually regained control of the party, we gained the upper hand.  Halfbeard was particularly valuable, rolling multiple crits and giving chase when the brain finally tried to flee.  The brain flew down the hallway, too fast for us to keep up, and it looked like it was going to get away.  Luckily Halfbeard managed to finish it off with a long range shot.  After the fight, we took the far exit and explored the next tunnel.

We came to a dead end, but found another secret passage.  We passed through what looked like a training room. The tunnels finally looped around and we found ourselves on familiar ground.  We went back to some doors we'd passed up earlier, and wound up in a large room that radiated a feeling of serenity.  The corners of the room had octagonal alcoves with pillars in them, and most of the middle of the room was taken up by a shallow pool of water.  There were two Grioths in the room.

As soon as we attacked, one of the Grioths fled down a small carved tunnel.  We killed the other one pretty quickly.  Then we pursued the fleeing Grioth, but after following the tunnel for several hundred feet, we decided to go back.  The water seemed to radiate transmutation magic.  Lilith drank a little but nothing happened.  We headed back out the way we came, out of the basement and up some stairs.

In a book-filled room we encountered the last of Aeteperax's four lieutenants, a very large Grioth.  He attacked as soon as Lilith reached the top of the stairs.  It was difficult for all of us to get into the room, because the Grioth had reach and could make several opportunity attacks in a round.  He did massive amounts of damage, so getting to the top of the stairs to join the battle meant nearly dying.  He nearly killed Tanith (it was a bad day for Tanith), who had to redeem some campaign tokens to stay alive.  He lived, but was knocked down the stairs and out of the battle. 

All this danger convinced us to use our most powerful attacks.  Vires delivered the killing blow, and we tended to our wounds.  We ended the session there.

Reminder:
No game next week.  Next game should be on 5/31.