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.