NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Piratecat" data-source="post: 5290133" data-attributes="member: 2">It's my writeup this week, as (a) Sagiro is super-busy and (b) we had no combat, and most of his analysis is tactical. I'm not sure why I love the non-combat sessions so much. This particular game was heavily roleplaying, temporarily tying several plot threads (and pushing the plot forwards) while introducing some puzzle elements to the next game or two. I did my regular "what do you want to see more of in the game?" question recently, and "more puzzles" were mentioned by several people. I'm working to rectify that.We'd left the PCs headed north to the city of Iskendam, with about 15 people under their guard amidst the tens of thousands of refugees fleeing the crushed city of Bressail. This game started with Eli Caldwell having a near-shouting argument with his father. In his backstory, Caldwell had been forced into the Grey Guard because he was "working on a patient who died under his care" (what that means is slightly unclear.) He probably could have avoided joining the Guard if a noblewoman named Dierdre Graceburn hadn't forced the issue. Caldwell wanted to know why; his parents said that she had claimed it was a "religious issue." Caldwell's house was recently burned by the illegal chaos-embracing cult of Vodis, and the cult leader claimed that it had been his sister whom Caldwell had been doctoring; if so, could the Graceburns be Vodisians as well? Caldwell's father Obidiah planned to use this rumor to extort assistance from the Graceburn warehouse in Iskendam.Instead, Caldwell and the PCs started spreading the rumor that the Graceburns worshipped Vodis; a petty revenge, and one that made Obidiah furious. He gave Eli a lecture about how to play "the game." Eli took it badly. I got to have a bitter in-character argument with Blackjack (Caldwell's player) where all sorts of bitter acrimony and buried resentment bubbled up to the surface. Caldwell is in a deep state of denial about why he's in the guard, and it's a delight to watch it play out in game.While in line to enter the city, a fellow refugee sold Cobalt a treasure map and a riddle-inscribed plaque for 50 GP. (There's a certain delight in having a character be utterly impulsive. Cobalt will leap at every shiny adventure opportunity I dangle in front of him.) The group was fairly sure the map was legitimate, though, and it was said to be stolen from a flooded basement in the swamp more or less on their way east, guarded by some sort of crazed swamp man. I supplied about 4/5ths of the rhyme on the plaque, with the last few lines broken off. After some debate they decided to make a detour to check it out.Iskendam is a city at the southern edge of Rusted Lake, the large body of water where most of the refugees are hoping to find someplace to hide from the advancing imperial troops. This is where my players wowed me. "We can't find or afford a boat, but we have this boat-fixing ritual we got from the halflings at first level. Can we find a sunken boat and buy that?" Brilliant. They lowered water, hired 50 people for a copper a piece to haul the sunken boat out of the lake, cast the ritual, and voila! had their own ship. Then they charged little more than expenses to fix seven other sunken boats in the city. When they were finished the PCs were local heroes and several hundred previously-stranded refugees could get the hell out of Iskendam. A note here about treasure parcels. I love these things. If I want to give the group an award for their heroism, or a PC says "are there any alchemical reagents out here in the swamp?", I have a simple and convenient method to assign value and track the reward. The only trick is keeping track on a master list, so I pre-write them and check each parcel off when it is rewarded.The PCs avoided the Graceburn warehouse - this time - and left the city the next day. They got to Mudtunnel, the town situated inside a vast elemental vortex, and found that only refugees who knew someone important / had a place to stay / could afford a bribe were being ferried inside. Luckily the Grey Guard could say yes to all three, so they got their friends and family into relative safety. We tied off some dangling plotlines here; the local Grey Guard assassin had sobered up and was doing vital research on mirrors in witchwater towers, and homes and/or jobs were found for all of the NPCs that were traveling with the heroes. This was really rewarding to me; the province is falling apart, but the PCs took the time to get their loved ones (as many as possible, at least) to a defensible town. Cool.Heading east into the swamp, the group nailed a navigation skill challenge with no failures and found the sunken basement first try. It turned out to be guarded by an elderly half-elven Grey Guard member named Grimble Thimbletick. Grimble had been stationed here, in the swamp, for 130 years; a little crazy, he thought there was still an empress. He was delighted the PCs had come to relieve him of duty. He was appalled that wasn't why they were there. Grimble spoke at length about how nature itself had told him all about the dark squirming things from Outside that want to get in. Cobalt is fairly sure that Grimble is hosting a "devourer of intellect," since all the symptoms of possession (odd pauses, absent mindedness, eccentricity) turn out to be symptoms that Grimble is showing. then again, he has lived in the swamp for 130 years.Much roleplaying ensued as the PCs lowered water on the witchwater foundation, clearing it out from accumulated muck and debris (via a fast skill challenge) and finding a large iron drain at the bottom. The plaque riddle said:"When mirrors are notand shadow reignsshould sunlight fallupon the drainthe vault will crackand open widethe riches tumbledeath abides."Turns out the big drain wasn't the one mentioned in the riddle; ripping it apart and swimming down the tunnel revealed a much larger room underneath. We'll start next game with a question: how do you reflect sunlight onto a spot 50' underground when there's muddy water in the way, and bringing mirrors into a witchwater structure can somehow summon monsters?</blockquote>

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