[Pathfinder] Reavers on the Seas of Fate

[mxyzplk]

Twenty-second Session (12 page pdf) – “A Dreadful Dawn” – After a daring and violent escape from Magnimar and the Hellknights, the party goes to find the cursed son of a dead pirate to get the secret to entering the smuggler’s caves under the Riddleport Light. When they find him running an inn near Korvosa, however, they have to contend with a squad of cultists conducting a nighttime slaughter off the staff and patrons! If only they weren’t all so drunk…

The first part of the session was inspired by Chris (Sindawe) telling me how much he enjoyed the pirate movie "Nate and Hayes" and described a running land/sea fight with the heroes running around under bombardment. So I set out to reproduce that feel with the send-off the Wandering Dagger got in Magnimar from the Hellknights!

I was half afraid that the PCs would go after the Paralictor himself, but they correctly divined that a Hellknight in bizarre armor with an enchanted adamantine halberd is probably more than, say, twice their level. They avoided that pier and headed down the other one to try to catch up with the Dagger - at first, they planned to commandeer a fishing boat but after a bit they saw there was no way they'd get it out in time so they fought their way onto a Magnimarian Navy ship that was firing on the Dagger and then boarded the Dagger from there. Very awesome!

The funniest part was when Tommy first leapt into the fishing boat and asked me, "Is there anyone in it?" As a DM, that is a cue to toss a random encounter into the mix, and rolled a fierce guard dog. This took Tommy aback, but Serpent jumped aboard and murdered the dog with a single shot. After that, the cries of "AND, they even KILLED the DOG!!!" were incessant.

So then they wanted to go back to the Riddleport Light to stop the evil deeds happening there, which I'm mixing together from Madness in Freeport, the third installment in Green Ronin's Freeport trilogy, and Shadow In The Sky, the first chapter in Paizo's Second Darkness Adventure Path. But I wanted them to have to work for it (and I needed more time to work up the grand finale) so Captain Clap sent them on the track of the man who could get them into the smuggler's caves under the Light - Jaren the Jinx.

There's all kinds of weird synergies in RPG products that make them entertaining to remix. In Freeport, the sea caves are Black Dog's Caves, named after a dead pirate. In the Pathfinder NPC Guide, there's a cursed pirate named Jaren the Jinx whose father is a dead pirate named Black Dog. Cha-ching! I decided he was trying to retire from pirating and was running an inn. I wanted to walk a narrow line with him - a bit of a sad sack that does have bad luck and some bad judgment (hence Thalios Dondrel's explanation of "Because he's a dumb , that's why!" to all queries about Jaren) but is also a, say, sixth level pirate who's the son of a really famous pirate. I think it came off OK. Also, I made it where Jaren was missing his arm, not only because it adds to the pathetic aspect but also because I'm using him as a hook to run the Wicked Fantasy Factory adventure "Throwdown with the Arm-Ripper" next time!

The whole serial killer thing in the inn is from the Atlas Games module A Dreadful Dawn (on sale for $2 on paizo.com!). They were basically there at the behest of a minion of the Shark God - something I'm using to bridge Jaren's backstory (a pirate called the Shark Lord was Black Dog's nemesis) and the upcoming Sinister Games release Razor Coast (if it ever actually releases). It wasn't intended to be too difficult, which is good because the PCs decided to drink themselves into abject stupors beforehand.

That whole thing was really entertaining. It wasn't a surprise - the bartender said "sip it!" and they quickly realized that drinking Grandma's Secret Recipe required continually escalating Fort saves with decent INT damage and being sickened for each one you miss - but they didn't care. Sindawe and Thalios quit and staggered away, INT-drained and vomiting, but Serpent and Wogan were determined to get to the bottom of the jar of moonshine or die trying, and they both drank themselves to 0 INT. This caused quite a stir at the bar, since basically four guys walked up to the bar, grabbed big jars of turpentine, and just slammed them and were vomiting and/or unconscious in less than a minute. And then, rather than be concerned about the pretty good likelihood that they'd die of alcohol poisoning, Thalios and Sindawe haul the two upstairs, strip them, put them in bed together, and scrawl things like "I Like C**k" on their faces. Pirates really are the medieval equivalent of frat boys. Luckily that was early afternoon, so by 2 AM when the killing started they were up to 2 INT and could stagger around and try to fight people.

In the end, Jaren's girlfriend, staff, and some of his patrons were killed. Ah well, all's well that ends well! Next time, and old school dungeon crawl extraordinaire!

 

[mxyzplk]

Twenty-third Session (10 page pdf) – “The Baneful Depths” – Jaren the Jinx wants his arm back, so the party accompanies him to a dungeon his pirate father sometimes used to stash treasure. Random encounter chart – 01-25: serpent chickens; 26-50: rape bugs; 51-75: bad dogs; 76-00 women!

We’re closing in on the finale of the first plot arc of the Reavers on the Seas of Fate campaign. I comboed up three major things for this session. First, the cultists, including the halfling riding the easy-chair-headed zombie, were from the adventure I used last time, Green Ronin’s “A Dreadful Dawn,” from their Bleeding Edge line of d20 adventures. Then for the “arm recovery” plot, I was using Goodman Games’ “Throwdown with the Arm-Ripper,” from their Wicked Fantasy Factory line. Finally, for the meat of the dungeon, I used a randomly generated dungeon, courtesy of Dizzy Dragon Games’ awesome online Adventure Generator.

I really enjoyed using the random dungeon generator. The process of taking a completely random dungeon and turning it into something that seems ‘real’ is something I’ll post about separately because it’s a big topic, but I was very happy how it did most of the heavy lifting for me, and I just had to edit it and come up with the whys and wherefores. It turned into a pretty organic interconnected area, and since it was super old and all the doors had fallen down and everything, there was an interesting effect; instead of the “open a door, deal with that threat, open another door, deal with that threat” syndrome, there were a lot of locations with critters that could detect or be detected by the PCs at varying ranges. The hell hound mass rush, the rust monsters attacking when the PCs were investigating a pit, the rust monsters attacking while the group was ambushing some more hell hounds, and Sindawe running across the women adventurers while chasing a hell hound all contributed to a very free-roaming and dynamic environment. It was unlike an organized force, though, like attacking a castle where all the guards and stuff communicate and come after you with coherence. So, for example, the hell hounds ended up attacking some of the rust monsters as well.

The illusion of the adventuring party was entertaining. I use picture printouts clipped to my DM screen as visual aids for many NPCs and critters. For this one, I removed all the printouts and indicated the big raft of iconics that adorn the screen itself – Valeros, Seoni, Merisel, et cetera. it kinda tipped Sindawe off that the whole thing was an illusion, but the players’ initial reaction of “Really?!?” was worth it.

 

[mxyzplk]

Twenty-fourth Session (9 page pdf) – “Throwdown With the Arm-Ripper” – The party works their way through the ruined complex to an ancient druidic shrine, only to meet two of Jaren’s old friends – a witch and the Arm-Ripper! Is Jaren’s missing arm a coincidence? Hint: no!

We finished up with my randomly generated dungeon and kicked into Throwdown with the Arm-Ripper. I have a soft spot for those Wicked Fantasy Factory adventures – they need work, but they shine in the setpieces.

Before that, they ran across a sleeping cave bear. “We’ll sneak up on it and kill it,” they declared. I took a look at the dire bear stats and shuddered. Even with the sleeping perception penalty, there was a real good chance that with three PCs sneaking up, one of them would be heard, and if that thing woke up in close quarters with the three PCs, someone was going to get ripped to bits. But they all snuck up successfully and all executed coup de graces. The bear was tough, and it rolled TWO natural 20′s on its Fort saves – but luckily, it failed its third.

The interaction with Gilmy the ettin was entertaining. They thought he was maybe some druidic guardian, and that his forehead scars were maybe lobotomy scars – they weren’t, they were a plot point, and he had been turned from a human into a mutated ettin by Mythra and the altar (also used the same way to make the Arm-Ripper).

And then it was The Big Fight. A freaky altar! An Arm-Ripper! A witch (druid, really)! A wolf! The Arm-Ripper and Mythra weren’t all that hard per se, but the altar goes nuts when there’s violence and strong emotions going on and it kept affecting the environment, raising and/or animating dead foes, etc.

In the end, it resurrected Mythra but everyone else was dead and she didn’t have the starch to keep fighting. She surrendered and helped them regrow Jaren’s arm and make the dragon helm (it’s probably for the best that they didn’t have to rely on their Knowledge skills).

So, mission successful! Now it’s back to Riddleport for the grand finale of the first main plot arc.

 

[mxyzplk]

Twenty-fifth Session (8 page pdf) – “Return to Madness” – First, a bunch of goblins attacks our brave heroes’ genital regions. Then, they sail back to Riddleport, where the re-dedication of the Riddleport Light is set to begin. It’s into Black Dog’s caves and thence to the lighthouse! But as you’d suspect, it’s not going to be that easy. Thrill to this, the twenty-fifth session of our Pathfinder pirate campaign, Reavers on the Seas of Fate!

The “Junk-Kicker” tribe is from the Goodman Games/Wicked Fantasy Factory adventure Throwdown with the Arm-Ripper. Strangely, in that adventure, they don’t actually kick anyone in the balls. This is a significant oversight in my opinion, so I rectified it. And a quick Google search for “goblins with big iron boots” got an image I used for their chief, Krik Junk-Kick [pdf character sheet].

His tribe surrounded the PCs like the natives surrounded Indy in Raiders of the Lost Ark; then half of them shrieked fiercely and kicked the other half in the balls as a show of force. This made a big impression on the PCs. And itheir “junk-kicking” attack even has a simple in-game implementation, the new “Dirty Trick” maneuver from the new Advanced Player’s Guide! Yay Pathfinder!

(Careful readers will note that I foreshadowed this with the story the two doppleganger “girls” told the PCs when they met them in the dungeon, that all the men of their village were too scared to fight the Junk-Kicker goblins so they had to go.)

You’d think 30 goblins would be a challenge, but I know my PCs. Sure, they’re fourth level, but I had confidence that it would be a pretty easy fight. The most dangerous part, really, was that one goblin tried to run off with Sindawe’s thrown magic spear during the battle. Threaten their gear, that’ll get them motivated! And this encounter threatened their gear in several different ways, if you get my meaning.

After that, they sailed back to Riddleport. I did up some random encounters on the way there using some of the tables in the also-new GameMastery Guide, including the stranded “Heartbreak” Hinsin, who immediately started to compete with Jaren the Jinx for the favor of Hatshepsut. She didn’t really groove on either one, but was more favorable towards Jaren. Although there’s a little episode that didn’t get into the summary; Jaren and Hatshepsut went ashore in Roderick’s Cove and he put some moves on her and she didn’t like it; she went back to the ship upset and Sindawe tried to figure out what was wrong and comfort her, in his own somewhat clumsy way.

Then they get into Black Dog’s Caves! More about that next time, but they fight a tojanida, which just about takes out Sindawe – Hatshepsut comes to his rescue and lifeguards him to shore – and then a dread allip comes for them.

It ended with them finding the fake treasure room. The dialogue there isn’t made up; when Sindawe and Tommy scouted ahead and saw all those treasure chests, Sindawe immediately started shouting, “Don’t come in here! We’re having gay sex! Really gay sex! We’ll be out in a while!” Of course, that caused the rest of them to come running.

Next time – Reavers turns one year old!

 

[mxyzplk]

Twenty-sixth Session (8 page pdf) – “Black Dog’s Caves” – The haunting is thick in the sea caves used by infamous pirate Black Dog to hide his treasure. Last time, the group fought Redlegs his first mate (now a dread allip); this time they face the ghost of Black Dog himself! And huge chests of loot hang in the balance! It’s the anniversary installment of our Pathfinder pirate campaign, Reavers on the Seas of Fate!

You know how in Ghostbusters, Egon describes the increase in ghost activity in Twinkie terms? “Well, let’s say this Twinkie represents the normal amount of psychokinetic energy in the New York area. Based on this morning’s sample, it would be a Twinkie… thirty-five feet long, weighing approximately six hundred pounds.” Well, it’s becoming clear to our heroes (and I use the term loosely) that they are in Big Twinkie territory.

I didn’t actually expect them to fight the ghost of Black Dog, and when they did, I didn’t really expect them to win, as he was like a twelfth level guy as a ghost… But they did! Good on them. They got a huge amount of loot out of it. On the other hand, I knew exactly who was going to respond to Black Dog’s geas – “WHICH ONE OF YE WANTS TO BE A PIRATE THEY WILL SING SONGS ABOUT AFTER HE’S DEAD?!?” has Tommy Blacktoes written all over it. They’re all violent psychopaths (well, maybe not Wogan) and Sindawe has emerged as the group’s leader, but Tommy is the one who is balls out on board with being a pirate.

Here’s Black Dog’s ghost courtesy of one of my Google image searches; I think it’s from one of the Monkey Island games or something.

I may have mentioned it before, but it is fascinating to me how Black Dog has emerged in my game. In the Madness in Freeport adventure, these sea caves are referred to as “Black Dog’s caves” but it doesn’t go into that much. But then, in the Pathfinder NPC Guide supplement, the pirate “Jaren the Jinx” has a backstory where his father was “the infamous pirate Black Dog.” That tells me that fate is at work. As a result, it let me foreshadow Black Dog via Jaren for months now, which gives his appearance more impact, and now his geas makes him an ongoing part of the game. Woot DMing!

Then, Samaritha kisses Serpent! And ghost bat swarms nearly kill him! And tentacle monsters attack! You know, a day in the life.

Finally they reach the Riddleport Light and head into it, only to be accosted by a five-headed hydra sporting a Tiamat color scheme. More on the lighthouse next time… Enjoy the session summary!

 

[mxyzplk]

Twenty-seventh Session (11 page pdf) – “Rumble in the Wizard’s Tower” – It’s a mixed field of angels, demons, and ghosts as the PCs sweep and clear the Riddleport Light looking for an evil ritual. I mean, an evil ritual besides the ones they are performing. That’s a big Twinkie. Welcome to the one year anniversary of our Pathfinder pirate campaign, Reavers on the Seas of Fate!

As my adaptation of Madness in Freeport progresses, I used the Goodman Games/Wicked Fantasy Factory adventure “Rumble in the Wizard’s Tower” to flesh out the lighthouse. In MiF it’s just a boring new lighthouse, but the Riddleport Light is old and was the hangout of a demon summoning sorcerer. Which calls for some “zazz!”

May I note that a lot of the Goodman stuff is on super-sale at Paizo.com, the WFF adventures are currently $2 a pop – go get them! They’re good stuff.

Anyway, there’s all kinds of weirdness going on. Time is speeding up and slowing down. Everyone that has ever died in the zip code seems to be coming back as a ghost. Every weird little altar seems to have a direct line to Deity Central. Who ya gonna call? The Reavers!

First we had a big setpiece fight with a mess of Riddleport gendarmes guarding the inside of the tower, which was fun. Then they find the Naughty Box. I don’t even remember which movie I saw this scene in; I remember an iron box in a big room simply surrounded with crosses and stuff. Here, it was surrounded with all kinds of evil stuff. They freed an angel from it but it was a little crazy. Wogan did a good job of wrangling it; Tommy and Sindawe are evil after all so it tended to shoot at them when in doubt. Then when the imp showed up, it made for some good roleplaying. Sindawe made the call to give the succubus to the imp after having her kill the angel. Wogan wasn’t all that happy with it but everyone defers to Sindawe. Even if he is a little demon-possessed and crazy.

Then they talk down the ghost of Gebediah Crix and meet their two cop friends. I wanted to throw in a familiar face to reassert that they are in Riddleport and not just some remote dungeon location. Next time, it’s the big finale! They’re prepared to bust through the door and take on Elias Tammerhawk. Will it be that simple? Hint: no! Mmmmwah hah ha ha ha haaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!

 

[mxyzplk]

Twenty-eighth Session (13 page pdf) - "Madness in Riddleport" - The PCs confront Elias Tammerhawk and his evil ritual in an epic battle atop the Riddleport Light. But that's nothing compared to the secrets they uncover after they are sucked into the spirit world! Will Riddleport, and our Reavers, survive? Find out in the grand finale of the first season of Reavers on the Seas of Fate!

Go read the summary first, there's surprises a-plenty, and you don't want to find them out from my behind the scenes commentary here.

No really, read the summary first.

Back? OK! I mashed up a bunch of stuff for this finale. The boss fight itself combines the Green Ronin classic Madness in Freeport, where it's a serpent man posing as the Sea Lord in the lighthouse conducting a Cthulhuoid ritual to drive everyone in Freeport crazy, with the first chapter of Paizo's Second Darkness Adventure Path, where it's a drow using the Cyphergate to bring down a meteor and cause an incidental tsunami. "Which one should I use?" is a question only suckers ask. A hardcore GM says, "Both, bitch, and here's a third thing too!"

In this case, my third thing was the PCs' jaunt into the spirit world. Whatever you want to call it - shadow Riddleport, the ghostlands, the spirit realm - it's what has been tying together the shadows and voodoo stuff going on in the campaign. And in terms of good places to go into the shadowlands, Riddleport is one of those places with a lot of restless souls per capita. In fact, the PCs sent a lot of them there.

It was inspired by two things. In Denizens of Freeport, there is an NPC, a crazy elven vampire named Lord Bonewrack, who reigns over a shadow Freeport. Tammerhawk just being dead is lame, but being the vampiric overlord of an alternate Riddleport is cool. And then also the Miyazaki movie Spirited Away inspired some of the visuals and experiences in the city. (My daughter wanted the tasty food stand from the movie to be in the adventure; she was disappointed that Wogan resisted its lure and thus didn't get attacked by the "fire-barfing piggies." Those who have seen the movie know about the food stand and the pigs, but she added in the "fire-barfing" part to kick it up a notch. A girl after her father's heart.

The shadow Riddleport scene served several important purposes. Sure, it gave them some valuable intel on Tammerhawk. But it was also an opportunity to reinforce important story elements, especially past successes and failures and how past choices and experience have shaped the PCs' lives.

They talked about going into the Gold Goblin's basement but thought better of it when they remembered that was where the fighting pit was. Which was good thinking, because just going down there and seeing the ghostly horror resulting from that would have been a 1d4 Wis loss!

Then they got to meet the "real" Elias Tammerhawk. I'm glad they didn't attack him, that could have been messy.Facing the dead assassin Jesswin (who was technically a "blast shadow," a new Pathfinder monster) was lively - Tommy had to spend an Infamy Point to not die under her flaming claws. (A lot of Infamy Points got spent - Wogan used one to knock the serpent head out of the column of light, for example.)

And then bang, right back into the fight! I liked the "You're in the middle of a huge combat and... Now you're somewhere weird. NOW YOU'RE BACK GO!" The time dilation of the spirit world meant I didn't need to worry about their buffs expiring or whatnot.

Here's a funny game table moment - when Thorgrim shattered the glass of the lighthouse letting the storm in, Wogan did proclaim the power of Gozreh was unleashed.

Paul, thinking this was a result of some actual game mechanic effect, asked Patrick "Oh, cool, what power do you get as a cleric of Gozreh when you're in a storm?"

Patrick replied, "I get wet."

The revelation of both the fake Tammerhawk and Samaritha worked out well. Serpent (well, his player) suspected it, but the rest of the guys didn't. They did catch on really quick that she wasn't in cahoots with Tammerhawk though. She fled in shame, Hatshepsut couldn't bring herself to attack a serpent person, Zincher bailed out to "go get reinforcements", and Thorgrim was convinced that the man he thought he was supposed to be protecting was really an impersonating monster freak! Sindawe and Wogan managed to rejoin it idol and the seven glyphs worth of charge in the Cyphergate shot out in a bolt of energy (in my mind, somewhat resembling the gravity-lens superweapons from the anime Super Atragon, if anyone has seen that) boiling the ocean as it streaked to the south.

It wasn't mandated that Tammerhawk get away - I actually thought they might pursue him down and do a chase across the Cyphergate, but then it turned out no one had any spider climb or feather fall or anything to do that. I was a little surprised; Tommy is always buying spider climb potions but I reckon he was out. And then their gendarme friend Salvadora showed up.

Interestingly enough it was Sindawe who chased down Samaritha to talk to her - sure, he's twice as fast as Serpent, but it didn't seem to even occur to Serpent. We'll see how it goes with him - she can run off, stay with the party, or do anything in between based on how things develop.

Tammerhawk's escape was a little bit of a letdown to the PCs, but the expected denouement didn't happen - instead, a tsunami came! Paul (Serpent) and Patrick (Wogan) knew what it means when the tide goes out like that, but Serpent made a poor Knowledge:Nature check and figured it was normal. Poor portly Wogan just about didn't make it to the top of the lighthouse. I actually thought they'd flee into the city instead, but they reckoned the lighthouse was far up enough on the bluff that it'd make it through.

So in the end of the first "season" of Reavers, they've succeeded but at a high cost - both personal (friends lost) and practical (Riddleport is in a very post-Katrina state at the moment).

And that's the end of my first big plot arc. Based on what's happened and what the PCs intend to do next will determine where I go with it. Piracy on the high seas, with Razor Coast and maybe Sunken Empires? Off to the Mwangi coast and head into the Serpent's Skull AP? Do more around Riddleport and use Freeport and Second Darkness adventures? We'll see, but I know what I'm doing next time - our next game day is on Halloween, so be prepared for a Very Special Episode (tm) of Reavers on the Seas of Fate!

 

[mxyzplk]

Welcome to the continued adventures of our bunch of salty dogs in Riddleport, the Reavers on the Seas of Fate!

Season One, a year-long combo of Shadow in the Sky, the Freeport trilogy, many of the Green Ronin Bleeding Edge and Goodman Games Wicked Fantasy Factory modules, and much more, finished with a bang as the PCs stopped a serpent man posing as Elias Tammerhawk, Speaker of the Order of Cyphers, from opening the Cyphergate using the Jade Serpent of Yig from the Riddleport Light. "Tammerhawk" fled, as did part ally Samaritha Beldusk, also unmasked as a serpent person. But success was not without price, as a tsunami hit Riddleport and left it in shambles.

Into this gap step our fierce and mostly-evilly-aligned party... And so opens Season Two!

First Session (14 page pdf) – “After the Flood” – Riddleport is rocked by a tsunami and the PCs find love and danger in the aftermath. And then there’s unexplained murders and Salvadora of the God Squad calls in her marker for the PCs to help investigate. It’s Katrina horror time in the kickoff of our second season of Reavers on the Seas of Fate!

Well, we finished out the first huge year-long plot arc of Reavers last time, a mashup of the Freeport Trilogy, Second Darkness: Shadow In The Sky, and a raft of good 3e/3.5e adventures. Everyone agreed to re-up for another run, so Season Two has begun!

When we last left our PCs, a tsunami had hit Riddleport. In Second Darkness, this is mostly brushed off as color and it’s on with the story. I wanted to dwell on it more. Coming from the Gulf Coast originally, natural disasters like Katrina’s flooding of New Orleans and Galveston’s regular destruction by hurricanes are real threats and I wanted to reflect that in game.

I did some description of the aftermath, but the players filled in a lot for me. They really got into the spirit of it. There were exchanges like “I bet it smells like that time my apartment’s parking lot flooded and water got into my car and the carpet molded.” “Ewwww!” It worked out pretty well and added a definite feel to the session.

Then it was time to meet up with all the people they left behind. They were clearly considering just up and killing Saul for hanging them out to dry, but no one acted on it. The rest of the Gold Goblin crew was in evidence too. And they went to rescue Lixy from her collapsed apartment, through the sewer grate she nearly threw Wogan’s gun down back in the day. There was a lot of stuff that recurred from previous sessions. They even got to talk with Clegg Zincher. Believe it or not, I didn’t realize what I was doing – Clegg owns this big coliseum and it made sense to me that they would put injured and homeless there, and then someone said “Oh, it’s the Superdome!” I actually wouldn’t have done it if I’d thought of that analogy just because it was a little too-Katrina.

And then it was time for girlfriend visits. Tommy’s visit to Lavender Lil was as usual intrigue and sex-soaked. And then Serpent went looking for Samaritha. That was more unexpected. He has always been a little ambivalent about her, and was really irate once it turned out she was a serpent person; I personally wasn’t sure if he’d just forget about her, or try to kill her, or what. I thought it was brilliant how he got drunk and decided to go tell her off. His interaction with the gendarmes guarding the Cypher Lodge was really funny. For some reason he kept rolling natural 1's this session, but it wasn’t ever really dangerous, just funny. After the gendarmes turned him away he wanted to sneak in, but rolled a 1, so he did the drunk-guy thing of wandering ten feet off and then trying to just walk by them again. Then he tried to climb up to her window and fell off the building.He wasn’t playing it for laughs, and that made it even funnier but also more real.

I was pretty proud of the role-playing. I know the player is somewhat uncomfortable with RPing relationships, and it wasn’t any more easy with the rest of the group kibitzing him (they were all really into this scene). When he got in her window, he declared, “I unload all over her!” Everyone collapsed in gales of laughter. “Uh… Physically, verbally, or sexually?” I inquired. “No, I mean I really let her have it!” More laughter. “Again, physically, verbally, or sexually?” Then he tried talking with her. It was tough, she was sure he would hate her and either Serpent or the player wasn’t letting much tenderness seep through, and so she was hard to convince. He rolled a couple Diplomacy checks that didn’t go anywhere. “You’re going to have to use the ‘L’ word!” the rest of the group advised him. He finally showed a little bit of intimacy and that convinced her; she was really looking hard for anything to prove he did like her, and it took him a while but he came through.

And then it’s off with Salvadora to investigate some weird problem. And with that we segue into the Richard Pett horror special, Carrion Hill. Mmmwah hah hah haaaaaa! Pucker factor is high!

 

[mxyzplk]

Second Session (11 page pdf) - "Carrion Hill" - The PCs discover that a cult seeking forbidden knowledge from beyond got more than they bargained for and have unleashed eldritch horror upon Riddleport. It's a race through the flooded streets of Riddleport to see who can murder everyone involved first!

In this episode, I'm using the Richard Pett adventure Carrion Hill, transplanted from its setting in Ustalav to Riddleport. With, of course, my own special touch.

Hatshepsut is getting some more character development, which is good. It's a little tough on me when there's always like two (or more!) NPCs along with the party, but it also adds an additional dynamic I like.

The PCs are good and into the post-disaster devastation of Riddleport, it seems like I've successfully activated their imagination as to what a tsunami-ruined city is like.

Some DVD extras for you...

Paul (Serpent) was very unhappy about the high burst DC of doors and stuff. He's a big strong Viking and yet can't ever bust open doors. Sure enough, the burst DC for a "strong wooden" item (like the concealed shutters on the tannery) is 25, which is impossible even for someone with an 18 STR to make. It's a fair point. It did allow Tommy to make about a dozen jokes at his expense over the course of the session, though. Oddly, Paul didn't write any of those down in the session summary!

Wogan earned an Infamy Point for the extreme overkill of using Call Lightning to rid a tavern of a half dozen CR 1/2 giant cockroaches. After frying all the fleeing cockroaches, he and Sindawe wondered if the displaced locals would fall upon them as a tasty new food source. "The tsunami was only 24 hours ago, the populace is not quite to the point of gnawing on electrified giant bugs," I informed the disappointed pair.

None of the PCs have much in the way of Knowledge skills, which makes for some hilarious discussions about religion, disease, and other subjects. They toss in what they think and make some Knowledge rolls, which usually go badly, and I give them information (or disinformation, depending on the check results) then we all toss in random other thoughts into the mix. Here's an example of when they were all fascinated by Sindawe's bout of diarrhea...

"Maybe it's ghoul fever!"
"No, ghoul fever is a myth."
<One PC rolls a Heal check>
"I think he just can't hold his liquor."
"He's drunk way more than that before, I've seen it..."
"Well, this time he was drinking rag squeezin's at the Dead Duck."
"Fair point."
"Maybe it's cholera. Disaster area and all."
<Another PC rolls a Heal check>
"I think it's being caused by miasma. He needs to get some clean air."
"So get out of Riddleport, you mean."
"Do you have a fever? I check him for fever."
"Is he flushed?"
"Uh, I don't know, he's black. How do I tell?"
"Can we stop talking about my poo issues now? I feel fine to go on, really..."

 

[mxyzplk]

Third Session (9 page pdf) - "The Stink" - As they seek the cultists who summoned the creature, the PCs head into the city's garbage dump, freshly stirred by the tsunami, and discover some wonderful smells, as well as a friendly neighborhood serial killer!

I went onto the Paizo boards asking for good adventures to do a "Katrina horror" kind of scenario with, and both Greg Vaughan and Richard Pett checked in with some recommendations. As a result, I am combining the Pathfinder module Carrion Hill with the Dungeon Magazine #105 "The Stink." That whole run of Dungeon mags was gold.

Kevin, Tommy's player, was out sick. Which was fine, because his character was also afflicted with disease, one of the themes of the day. To tie it all together and fit it into larger campaign events, I retrofitted The Stink substantially. It was easy to inject by just making Riddleport's junkyard man slash serial killer, Hyrum Crooge, one of the Keepers from Carrion Hill, and then make him the principal of The Stink. The Stink suffered from not having a strong villain anyway. I changed the bad guy mobs to ghasts that spread the six new plagues in the adventure - in the original a lot of text was spent on those diseases but chances to contract them were few and far between. I remedied that by making the ghasts' bite transmit one at random. (Or, conversely, biting a ghoul, which unfortunately meant that Serpent's pet snake has like two different diseases now.) Two of the party members being monks means that's not as bad as it could be.

I like how when the players invest in the game world it pays off. They found the desecrated statue of Sarenrae and Paul (Serpent) immediately put two and two together - undead, disease, females desecrated from the waist down - and determined that the dark goddess Urgathoa was involved. Then, something started toying with them, attacking from the dark and melting away when they investigated... And left them a present, a female corpse mutilated to resemble the goddess. For anyone with a good bit of Knowledge: Local, the inevitable conclusion is that the victims of the Rotgut Ripper that have been found - usually effeminate men or elves left disembowled - are actually just this killer's rejects; the good ones he brings home and treats real nice...

I think it came across well; our gamer groupie Georgina was in attendance and she declared it "creepy."

Next time, more Stink, and then we recur back up a level to Carrion Hill for the finale! Then, on with Second Darkness.