[Pathfinder] Reavers on the Seas of Fate

[mxyzplk]

Fifteenth Session (10 page pdf), “Terror in Riddleport” – The PCs get led into a deathtrap, the serpent temple is back in business, Avery Slyeg gets assassinated, the PCs get framed for it, the Gold Goblin is attacked, and Sindawe beats up Bojask for kicks! It’s an action packed session where death lurks around every corner.

My mashing up of the classic Freeport Trilogy and the first chapters of the Second Darkness Adventure Path hits full stride in this session. I was somewhat surprised, but my old gaming group in Memphis cited the deathtrap in Terror in Freeport (the second Freeport adventure) as one of their most vivid memories. I had been tempted to ax it, as I'm not a big trap guy, but I ran it pretty much as written instead, and had the assassination they happen upon afterwards be crimelord Avery Slyeg's. Jesswin (the assassin who tried to kill Saul, and then got tortured by Tommy) is both the lure to the trap and the hitter, and the Splithog Pauper in there too!

Then, both in Terror and in Shadow in the Sky (the first adventure in Second Darkness), the next part is defending a friendly building against a large scale assault - in this case the Gold Goblin. A whole load more of previously-encountered NPCs show up for the fight - Braddikar Faje, Angvar, and Thuvalia. Probably the most entertaining part of the assault was the hard fight against the raging orc barbarian, who got greased and reduced and otherwise tampered with for a long time before he went down. Anyway, they give them all a good killing.

Warning - Sensitive Topic! Don't proceed if you're not comfortable with the topic of rape in a RPG.



Then as "party HR manager," Sindawe throws Bojask a beating for raping Gold Goblin croupier/captive Lixy Parmenter; he had boasted about it to him last session. The quote:

On the way out of Saul's office Sindawe has a short conversation with Bojask where he makes a number of crude comments that indicate that while he is watching Lixy Parmenter and making sure she doesn't leave the Gold Goblin he is sexually abusing her as well. Sindawe makes no comment in reply.

After some subsequent investigation, though, the complexity of the situation came out a little more - it wasn't a total "overpower the woman with violence" kind of situation, it was more "Hey, that Sindawe guy totally has it out for you, but I can protect you." Lixy didn't want to but as he pushed her down she was too scared to cry out, for fear that he or Sindawe or someone else would do something even worse to her. Bojask was actually surprised that Sindawe cared about this; he's an all around bad guy and figured his fellow drug lords/killers are bad guys too, and if Sindawe had wanted her he would have taken her once he and the gang had basically kidnapped her back to the Gold Goblin to keep her from leaving.

So why include this? Not for prurient interest. In a game where people play "bad guys," I like to make them confront their badness and its implications. When Lixy was going to leave the Gold Goblin, they went and killed a bunch of guys and brought her back by main force. They're working for a crime lord, going on pirate raids, manufacturing drugs... They've built a reputation on violence. They've taken many a stripped captive down to the animal pits below the Gold Goblin. Heck, Tommy viciously tortured the assassin Jesswin down there. The PCs were surprised when they brought Lixy back to the Goblin that she was gibbering in fear and terrified they'd take her down there and do the same to her. "We're not monsters," they said. But so where's the line?

Bojask was confused by that too. They do all these other bad things and they're not prudes; heck, Sindawe and a pirate had group sex with prostitute (and Tommy's girlfriend) Lavender Lil last session. So when he boasted he was "getting a piece" from Lixy, he expected camaraderie and not condemnation from Sindawe.

In fact, I thought it was interesting that Sindawe didn't react at the time. Even he (and his player) had to think about that; he didn't get around to beating Bojask up for it till way later.

Once they become pirates, what will they do? Rape or not rape? What if the crew they're on does? If they become in charge, will they disallow it and face the repercussions of a frustrated crew? What if it's another PC?

I think it's an interesting topic that RPGs ignore as they basically promote mass murder. If your PCs are hired killers (and drug dealers, and torturers, and robbers, and...) then where do they draw the line? And why?

Making people think - the ability to do that is what really separates RPGs from board games, CRPGs, etc. I don't believe in "evil campaigns" that are just an excuse for indulging in demented fantasies - they're an opportunity to engage in moral questions, often at a deeper level than in a campaign where everyone plays thoughtlessly goody two-shoes. (Though in a game like that, I similarly try to show people's reactions to their behavior - the actions RPG characters define as "good" are still a lot like "crazed homicide" to bystanders.)

 

[mxyzplk]

Sixteenth Session (13 page pdf) - "The Sitdown" - A meeting of all Riddleport's crimelords is held and Saul and the PCs are invited. Saul is given Avery Slyeg's empty seat at the table and they engage in negotiations with Riddleport's other "serious people" and their demented minions. It seems like things go well, except when they get sent on a simple message-delivery mission afterward, it's a trap! Business as usual in this sixteenth game session of Reavers on the Seas of Fate!

This was a role-play heavy session, which I enjoy. The big crime lord sit-down was inspired by like very Mafia movie ever made. It was an adaptation of the opening scene of Madness in Freeport, the third module in the Freeport Trilogy - but in that one, the Freeport Captain's Council holds a ball. A ball? Jeez, this is Riddleport. So instead we have a standard "goons around a table" meeting. It served a couple purposes. One was to give the PCs a glimpse into the larger power dynamics of Riddleport and also to meet personally all the movers and shakers now that they're a respectable level (character level and level of Infamy they've gained). Another is to help set up explanations for what's about to happen. In the Second Darkness Adventure Path as written, there's this whole 'the drow are behind it' subplot that I'm not using a bit of, instead going for more of a motivation/plot from Freeport using the location and NPCs of Riddleport - although the perceptive will notice some Freeport originals making their way in (Milos, Anton Mescher, Karl the Kraken...) .

Running it all this way has let me use recurring characters a lot more. If you just run Freeport as written, there's a lot of "who the heck is this new guy" syndrome. But here, when Avery Slyeg (Riddleport's answer to Councilor Verlaine) is assassinated, it's two people the PCs are familiar with doing it. When they go to this crime lord sitdown, some of the people are new to them, but they know a lot of them. In fact the PCs were gratified to see that Clegg Zincher had to fill his third accompanying-minion slot with some low level goon since they took out his capp Braddikar Faje earlier. I worked in people they knew from earlier and tried to throw in other NPCs they'll be dealing with in the future like Captain Grudge.

One of my general rules of GMing is "use the same NPC when you can!" It's analagous to the theory of Chekov's Gun. That's the one place where I felt like the original Freeport trilogy kinda fell down - it kept putting in new hapless guys to rescue (Lucius, Egil, Thuron) and so I've collapsed all three of them into one character (Samaritha). Well, I had Vincenz standing on for Lucius but he got offed.

So now the PCs realize they're Marked for Death (tm)! They're not sure what to do. "Bust in and kill Saul" is one of the leading options under discussion, but I'm worried that's because two of the players know "that's what's supposed to happen next" in Second Darkness. Like I said, I'm using NPCs and encounters from SD but have pretty much already totally left its plot behind. But I guess we'll find out - tomorrow!

 

[Redwald]

Any chance of an update?

 

[mxyzplk]

One's definitely coming - we're still playing once every two weeks, but the guy writing the summaries during the session lost the 17th one (late May) in a disk formatting accident, so we're reconstructing it and adding it to the summary for the game after (early June), but I was on a business trip all this week so haven't had time to edit, PDF, and post it. Probably later this week (I am running session 19 tomorrow, and just got in from the airport, so I need to prioritize prep). It'll be a double session summary when it goes up, though!

 

[Redwald]

One's definitely coming - we're still playing once every two weeks, but the guy writing the summaries during the session lost the 17th one (late May) in a disk formatting accident, so we're reconstructing it and adding it to the summary for the game after (early June), but I was on a business trip all this week so haven't had time to edit, PDF, and post it. Probably later this week (I am running session 19 tomorrow, and just got in from the airport, so I need to prioritize prep). It'll be a double session summary when it goes up, though!

I'm relieved to hear that the game didn't fall apart. Looking forward to the further adventures!

 

[mxyzplk]

Seventeenth and Eighteenth Sessions (14 page pdf) – “Fleeing Riddleport” and “Beyond the Towers” – In this special double summary, the PCs flee Riddleport with shadows, gendarmes, and half-orc enforcers on their heels. Samaritha suddenly comes out with a whole bunch of information about how they need to go to an ancient ruin deep inland in Varisia called Viperwall. They are suspicious, but go anyway. The trip is pleasant, and an old voodoo mambo living in the swamp gives them some aid. Then, it’s into the ancient trap-infested ruins of a lost culture!

Seventeen

Sadly, Session Seventeen's original writeup was lost in an untoward laptop OS reinstall incident. We put it back together as best as we could, but of course it is a bit more brief. The PCs fled Riddleport after discovering all the crime lords voted to have them whacked. The group disagreed as to how guilty Saul was in all this. Some felt that he had betrayed them and should die; others felt that he was stuck in a situation where he had no choice and did the best he could.

The trip, though reasonably uneventful, was fun. There are two things that PCs can't get enough of - shopping and goblins. I had the new Adventurer's Armory book and threw in some random weird stuff for them to find - naturally, they bought about everything. I think their favorite was Sindawe's purchase of a set of cold iron brass knuckles crudely engraved with "Elf Puncher" - ELFPU on one hand and NCHER on the other.

I don't let PCs buy just anything they want; common equipment is readily available but if you're looking for people to have unusual stuff (especially magic) "on hand" then there's a lot of random chance involved. You can commission things, if you plan to be around and not be dead or in jail in a week or so, which is a sadly uncommon state for player characters.

They then had a pretty calm trip upriver. So calm that they were getting a little stir crazy, when a batch of goblins appeared. They were all stuffed into a washtub they were using as a boat to tow a bloated cow corpse somewhere. There was a fire going in the tub for unspecified reasons. This captured the PCs' imagination like no one's business, and they ended up betting on who could shoot the most goblins. There was zero danger in this encounter; goblins are incompetent in general and they only had a couple bows between the lot of them. Good old redneck style fun.

Everyone really enjoyed the session. I find that to often be the case - shopping and travel and the other "mundane" parts of life bring out the role-playing and world immersion in folks, and they really get into it. It never fails to surprise me, but in previous campaigns as well I've had PCs have a great time going through bazaars and shops finding random stuff to buy. It's a popular recreation in real life too, I reckon.

Eighteen

I had a little fun with this one. After the previous session, I remembered the other thing besides shopping and goblin abuse that groups always love - and that's hating gnomes. Nilbog the trapper is the typical crazy gnome, and I borrowed liberally from various movies to spice it up.

Nilbog's Trapper Song was taken from the awesome Cannibal: The Musical (Trey Parker's first feature length film). Watch it to get the full experience! (I replaced "Eskimo" with "Wendigo" to make it more Golarion friendly but otherwise it was usable as written!)

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xKl0e8jALY"]Watch the Trapper Song[/ame]

And his crazed raccoon and trunk full of rabbits in his boat was taken from another great movie, Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (Clint Eastwood, Jeff Bridges). [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFIgKk-k9N8"]Start watching about 4 minutes in.[/ame]

And to be honest some of this adventure was inspired by the Disney movie "The Princess and the Frog." The voodoo mambo who was living in the boat in the tree was inspired by Mama Odie, and Glapion is inspired by Doctor Faciler (at least in part).

I combined two adventures as part of the dungeon - Beyond the Towers, a Green Ronin adventure, which served as the layout for the swamp and the human temple of Viperwall, and Madness in Freeport, which gave us the serpent temple. And replaced the lizard guys in the swamp in BtT with boggards, the classic Varisian marsh threat.

More next time!

 

[mxyzplk]

Whoops, double post.

 

[mxyzplk]

Nineteenth Session (10 page pdf) – “Viperwall” – The ancient human ruins of Viperwall give way to even more ancient serpentfolk ruins beneath. And a shadow-cursed high priest of that race asks Serpent for help! Traps, shadows, demons, and ancient artifacts abound, but there is nothing more dangerous than another PC. Check out the hot PvP action in this installment.

This episode is a good example of how to successfully weave together published scenarios into a campaign. I combined two adventures as part of the dungeon - Beyond the Towers, a Green Ronin adventure, which served as the layout for the swamp and the human temple of Viperwall, and Madness in Freeport, which gave us the subterranean serpent temple. (I'm doing the same thing with Second Darkness in general... Riddleport yay, meteor and drow nonsense boo).

Where they have elements that support your themes - like the shadows in the serpent temple - you keep it. Where they have elements that don't - like the lizardy guys BtT placed in the swamp - you change it (to boggards, the classic Varisian swamp threat, in my case). The players were surprised to find out that the upper/human temple and the lower/serpent temple were taken from completely different adventures, and that's the way you want it.

The PCs faced some decent fights this session, but the biggest one was when Wogan got dominated by a statue magic trap thingy and unloaded on the party. He wasn't going to kill anyone, but they had to be careful with hurting their priest, and he was blowing valuable spells and channels on them.

Next time, the dungeon crawl reaches its conclusion! I am not really a huge dungeon fan, truth be told, but they're good as one element in a complete mix.

 

[mxyzplk]

Twentieth Session (10 page pdf) - "The Lower Temple" - As the party continues to wind deeper into the ancient serpentfolk temple beneath Viperwall, there's investigation, puzzles, and loads of undead threat. Then the group faces the avatar of the semi-dead god Ydersius. Death looms near for our favorite Ulfen snake lover... All in the latest installment of [url="http://mxyzplk.wordpress.com/session-summaries/reavers-on-the-seas-of-fate/"Reavers on the Seas of Fate[/url]!

Beware, there are plenty of spoilers for Green Ronin's Madness in Freeport adventure, from which the serpent temple was taken. And you may want to brush up on the previous couple summaries; there's a lot in here that ties in with previous events but it's not expanded on in the summary all the time.

After many levels of the "Upper Temple," what was the human area of Viperwall, the Reavers have made it down into the "Lower Temple," of ancient serpentfolk provenance. And it's big. Last time they hit four of its levels, and each one gets larger as they descend. This time, it's levels five and six.

I think it was a bit unexpected to the PCs that the shadows (which usually attack them) of the serpent men (which usually attack them) were only sometimes hostile; mostly they were caught in their own mildly crazed, shade-trapped existence and the group talked with some of them, ignored some of them, and fought some of them. It was a lot more interesting than a "kill a billion shadows" dungeon crawl.

Here's one weakness I have though - I'm terrible at riddles. I knew the riddle in the scenario sucked, but I couldn't think a better one up (and had been off the plane from California for only like 8 hours when I had to run the session and hadn't had prep time to search something out). And it was made worse by Wogan legitimately guessing "egg!" even before Sseth spouted his riddle (fricking Gollum...). Ah well, an easy win for Wogan.

The group finally released the high priestess trapped in the mirror. She's from thousands of years ago. In traditional adventurer style they went through fits of just wanting to kill her and take her stuff despite her not being overly hostile (she wasn't overly friendly either - last time she knew she was high priestess of a huge civilization, and now suddenly she's among a bunch of scruffy nerf herders in skull makeup looting the place). They settled for beating her down and taking her stuff. Things were going OK with only threats of violence until Serpent rolled a 1 on his Diplomacy roll trying to convince her of the situation; that made her decide they were just tomb robbers. Her high level spells are gone since her god is mostly-dead (they nearly crapped themselves when they realized she tried to cast dictum on them) but her low-level ones and her serpent style kung fu made a decent showing of it.

I am up for suggestions here actually - so far she's still with them, and I'd like to depict well someone who is from a wildly different, ancient culture. She only speaks Aklo of course, so communication is only via Samaritha (and Serpent, in this chapter) - I'm trying to come up with less verbal stuff for her to do - I don't know, weird habits, eating rituals, smacking people for weird stuff - to help depict that she's very different.

The snake fight is short in the summary but the thing did horrific amounts of damage to people - bite, grab, and constrict and away go the hit points. Serpent had to spend an Infamy Point to not die (he wanted to get a lot more out of it, but he waited until he had taken enough damage to go past -10, so an emergency save is all it got him). I think Sindawe might have spent one too. Well, that's what they're for.

In the end, they broke the curse, freed the shades of the serpent priests, collapsed the temple, and got the idol! Wictory! So now with idol and priestess in tow, and a delay poison wand to get them safely past the poison gas the ruin weeps outside, they're heading out to return to Riddleport and prevent the arcane nastiness! But it's not going to be that simple...

 

[mxyzplk]

Twenty-first Session (9 page pdf) - "Voodoo Man" - As the party departs the ruins of Viperwall, the voodoo bokor Glapion catches up with them. He summons forces from the spirit world to destroy them; in an epic battle they defeat him by main force and a little voodoo of their own. Then it's back to Magnimar where they meet up with some old friends!

The fight with Glapion took about three hours. He kept summoning shadows and shadow creatures, and the players fought and fought. It was an excellent endurance fight. I did some voodoo research to prepare for the big event; he invoked various Petro loas during the battle (like Kalfou, Samedi, and various Simbi loa) to trigger appropriate powers.

Here's Glapion's character sheet. I wanted him to be able to summon shadow spirits, as that's one of the themes of the campaign, so I made him an Oracle of Bones (from the Paizo Advanced Player's Guide preview) with levels in the 3.5e prestige class "Master of Shrouds."

I think he came off very well. Even though the spark of inspiration, I will admit, was from seeing Disney's "Princess and the Frog" with my daughter, this is how he appeared (the art is from a comic called Doctor Voodoo). Reskinning foes is so easy, you can find the core of an idea and then hang whatever visuals you want on it. I made him very exotic, from his hunga munga to his gunpowder-infused bottle of rum.

Once he reached the end of his powers and the shadow demon came into play, things got hairy. It magic jarred Tommy and started to telekinetically toss around other PCs. That was entertaining.

Then the rest of the session was travel and roleplay. They went back to the interracial-friendly town of Nybor and interacted with their semi-insane gnomish swamp guide, then went back to Magnimar where they met their good old buddy, Thalios Dondrel, son of Mordekai!

There was also an important development with Sindawe. He had an Angel Heart-esque sexual encounter (walls bleeding, snakes writhing, etc.) with a kava store clerk who turned out to be Mama Watanna, the "old voodoo mambo" from the ship in the tree at the beginning of their foray into Viperwall. This is also courtesy of my research; Mama Watanna is effectively a Golarion-ized aspect of Mami Wata, well-known African water deity. Mami Wata is known to take lovers, and give them good luck in exchange for their fidelity; that's basically what happened to Sindawe.

Sindawe is Mwangi (Golarion's Africa) and venerates Shimye-Magalla, a janiform deity that is also partially goddess of the water, but he hasn't put 2 and 2 together on that yet.

You know, there's a lot of people out there apparently, grown adults, that don't do any kind of adult themes or "icky sex" in their games. And that's their huge loss. The vast majority of real world myth, fiction, etc. strongly incorporates sex/love/romance, human frailties, the horrors that men do, etc. - that's what gives them their impact. I mean, if you just want to "play casual" and kick down doors and kill orcs, fine, but I got over that after my first ten years of playing RPGs...

Anyway, the session went really well - hardcore combat, hardcore roleplay. Can you believe it's 21 sessions? We're nearly at a year. As I keep telling them, "you'll be done with the first chapter of Second Darkness any session now..."