ZEITGEIST The chronicles of Team Big-hearted And Determined (B.A.D.)

[Echolocation]

Post-Session 2 Discussion:

It's going well. I think the players are well-imbued with a sense of mystery, and are eager to understand the Duchess' motives. For anyone interested, I've attached the King's Speech as well as the "Water Breathing through a unique, guided meditation style ritual", which took constables off the Impossible and to Letmas' tea party along the ocean floor.

 

[arkwright]

Were you able to complete the Water Breathing sequence without your party singing 'under the sea'?

 

[Echolocation]

Fortunately, yes! Two players really enjoyed it, and one felt like screaming. So nobody was really in a singing mood.

If I ever run the book with another group, I'll need to include Letmas singing the song as the scene fades out..

 

[Echolocation]

Session 3 recap, thanks to Jae (Lissandra's player)

The group began exiting the cave they had entered through with a newfound ally, onto a scene of carnage of man and jungle. As Nicholas fought his terror at the fate that befell his people, B.A.D. squad formulated a plan on how they would reach the fortress on the other side of the island and make sure that the infiltrator squad, and their faithful doggo, did not die in vain.

The group decided to have Lisandra take point, scouting ahead for any patrols or hazard on the road ahead, periodically meeting up along the way to check in and confirm tactics. Along the way they were met with several curiosities and horrors, from potentially possessed metal golems, curious ancient carvings of shadow gorillas and even the regrettable sounds of Danoran villagers under attack nearby. Resolute that retaking the island was the best way to help, and hyper-aware that there was a countdown to declarations of war on the line, the group pushed ahead toward the fortress, choosing to remain on the road rather than crossing through the mountains.

As they reached where the road curved off along the coast line, they were greeted by the silhouette of a tower in the distance that drew their attention, likely a lighthouse by the vague design. Lightheadedness took the group over, and the world around them began to shift and morph. A sudden vertigo plunged them into a strange flickering environment of a wooded marsh, with a blue sun setting in a violet sky. Not a second later, the environment appeared normal again, and the only proof that what they had seen was real, was the swamp water that filled their shoes. Unbeknownst to the group, Ella’s shoe also contained a pebble that only she could see and as the group collected their wits about them, they remembered the goblin's raving about a purple swamp and anxiously pushed forward, determined to finish their mission and get the hell off this island.

As they neared the narrowed path ahead, a patrol came down from the Fortress. Avakir hid to the side of the road, while Nicholas lead the rest of the group into a thicket of trees off the road that they could hide in while the patrol passes. While hiding, a young tiefling child snuck into the clearing to pick berries. Ella quietly approached the child and learned there were more Danoran survivors nearby. Adorable introductions were made before little Sarah lead the group to the survivors camp. After taking some time to speak with and reassure the survivors that help was on the way, B.A.D. squad left Nicholas with the villagers to help keep them safe.

Regrouping at the point of the road where they parted ways, the group carefully approached the winding coastal path the Fortress, but were unable to follow the route laid out by the Infiltrators when they discovered none of them could use the scroll required to pass through the walls. Instead, they scouted the gate and decided to try to approach the further point on land, scaling the wall and heading directly to the wall where the lighthouse stood.

The first guard on the wall fell to an ambush, but his fellow quickly took notice and combat erupted. Ella’s elemental friend was felled in the fray by a glaive-wielding mercenary, as Avvakir rushed in to oppose the man and Lisandra took a more stealthy approach, biding her time to ambush the approaching druid. As Ella caught up and joined the fray, she was met with a small, and highly enthusiastic little dragon who began harassing her to little result. The small investigator drew her shortbow and hurried to support Avvakir as a man in robes joined the conflict, slinging bolts of ice at the group as they approached.

Though Lisandra’s patience paid off, and she sprang an attack, making quick work of the druid, as she joined her fellows in the conflict ahead, her misstep with the glaive man lead to a grievous wound and she fell bleeding to the flagstone. Though Ella was able to rouse Lisandra from the brink of death, the woman came too with a vision in her head of the strangest dream, in which a gently smiling Ruki appeared, sitting at a picnic table in a forest as the old bird-woman begins to cut a slice of cake.

Avvakir made short of the glaive wielder as Lisandra’s wounds were tended to and the group moved in together to incapacitate their final foe. The small dragon familiar persisted after their master was knocked out. They fumbled around, swatting at the creature before Avvakir promptly knocked them unconscious and seemingly adopted the creature himself.

Unconscious enemies were relocated to the control room of the Lighthouse and secured as Ella and Lisandra synchronized their pocket watches and readied themselves for the opening the sea gate and lighting the signal.

Once the Risuri forces were on the move, the Duchess’ forces began to advance on the Lighthouse. Avvakir busied himself with making blockades along the wall from furniture found inside the structure, while Ella used her cunning to set traps should the forces break through. Lisandra assisted where able, but found her skills best put to use distracting the guards, holding off their advancement for as long as able.

Blockades were smashed and traps trigger, sending mercenaries over the wall and into the ocean below, but the group held their ground and the navy entered the fort, their mission a success. The group watched as Rusuri forces made their advance below and were all relieved when the familiar figure of Captain Rutger of The Impossible was spotted making his way to their location.

What will happen next in the adventure of B.A.D. squad? Will Avvakir get to keep his adopted little dragon pet? Stay tuned to find out!

Session 3 discussion

The party is looking forward to interviewing the Duchess and are intrigued by the curiosities of Axis island. Lissandra's vision of a picnic with Ruki was the result of one of the PCs issuing Ruki a pebble on board the Coaltongue. Ruki was invited aboard the ship as a departure present for her recent retirement. When news of a sabotaged engine hit the main deck, Ruki wished she could do more for the constables. With that kindness, the party unknowingly received a blessing:
Time and distance are no barriers to Ruki's kindness. The next constable to fall unconscious will immediately be stablised as they are taken to a vision of a tea party. On said constable's rounds, for as long as the constable is unconscious, they may take a bite of illusory cake. Doing so heals 1d8+1 HP.

 

[Echolocation]

After looking over these session recaps, I noticed I failed to include a few other images. The first is the R.N.S. Impossible, equipped with Risuri flags. The second is an interview with the constable Lissandra, concerning the events of the Coaltongue. The Yerasol Veteran Avvakir Votyakov, who actively denies the Governer's recommendations to pursue politics, was dismayed to find a congratulatory clipping of the paper mailed to his office...

It goes without saying, anything I share here can be used by others.

We've been on break for a few weeks, but are hoping to start up this weekend. The session recaps are written by my players for the following session. As a result, the recaps lag behind our actual progress. We'll be starting Book #2 on the weekend, and I'm very excited to run my players through the streets of Flint.

 

[Echolocation]

Oh, I also made this terrible, terrible token for the party to move around the world map.

 

[Echolocation]

Recap courtesy of Saber (who plays Avvakir) and what I could salvage from Drift's (who plays Ella) notes.

Session 4

Stover Delft suspected there was more going on here than meets the eye. So keep your eyes peeled, senses sharp, and minds inquisitive.

Having defended the lighthouse, Captain Rutger of the RNS Impossible approached the party, asking for a report on the mission so far. Lissandra filled him in him on what occurred.

Premature congratulatory cigars were handed out to the group, and the party were told to light them up after finishing the mission. He indicated that Sergeant Glassman, who took a vow of total honesty during the most recent war, would be helping with investigations within the fort. Private Waterhouse, Vilton and Creed joined the group to help with their investigations

The fleet had cracked an outer wall, taken down some loyalist, with the remaining retreating to the inner wall.

As the group started to head to the brig, they noticed a ship explode with fire. A figure walked through the smoke, took his fiery weapon, transform it into a whip and use it to blow all the lanterns on the wall out before he launched himself to the wall. The party watched as people from the boat, jumped overboard to douse their burning clothes. Other boats in the harbour nudged the burning one out of the way to prevent the flames from spreading.

Further down into the harbour, the group spotted a soldier. Ella quickly running to him to boop him with a heal and asked him what happened. The soldier described the situation of a person who they all tried to shoot, but to no avail, they seemed invincible. And when a druid went to cast a spell, the person's shield turned into a lion and mauled them to death.

Ella, with the description of the person was able to work out that they were Asrabey Varal an Eladrin who works for the Unseen Court.

A courier walked up to the group indicating that there were 3 tieflings at the brig, and that they should investigate whether one of them is Nathan. At the makeshift brig, there was no sign of Nathan. Instead, the party found Lieutenant Hessar Mesan, a dranorian man who came from a military family. He had convinced the other dranorians prisoners to not speak.

With some negotiations, Hessar agreed to speak if he was supplied a musket, a pistol, and a sword. Going outside, the group discussed and decided to concede. Sergeant Glassman insisted Private Waterhouse offer up his pistol, claiming “you can’t use it anyway” Heading back in they handed the weapons to him without any ammo. He told the group how to get into the tower via the sewers, and that the only way for people to get in was the teleportation circle, and there must have been a traitor.

Suddenly, people started shouting in alarm and footsteps could be heard on the roof. Ankgarad and Ella heading outside, Lissandra and Avvakir headed in to make sure the civilians were evacuated. Outside, Ella and Ankgarad saw a man that looked like the description that the soldier gave on the person that attacked the boat before. He jumped down off the roof, placed an orb on the ground and activated it. With it, a world of a lightly wood field started to radiate out from the where the orb was placed it expanded out to the inner wall, defenders falling as it reached them. While this was happening, the Eldrain man rushed to the hole in the wall, the group just behind him. Ella swiped the orb and inspected it, whilst Avvakir swiped Ella and run with Lissandra and Angharad towards the wall.

The group now past the inner wall, the witnessed the Eldrain man jump over the maze, setting it on fire as he went, finally reaching the tower of the inner fort. He scaled the vertical walls, removed several bricks and removed a small, glinting object. Following this, he disappeared.

By the time the party made it to the maze, a humanoid creature with leaf for hair was attempting to put out the fire with a club. Angharad negotiated with the creature, discovering it to be Gillie Dhu. Gillie found Angharad’s honey words and honey cookies appealing, and granted them safe passage through his maze.

The party found themselves at the door of the central keep. Its handle warm to touch. The ground floor decorated with scorched bodies of Danorans. The party ascended, finding more charred bodies scattered across each floor. On the floor of the observatory, the party peaked through two large doors that rested ajar. Asrabey Varal had seemingly defeated the Duchess in battle, and Nathan Jierre cowered in a corner.

Asrabey and the party discussed each other’s intent, before negotiations failed. Asrabey, though injured, proved a fierce opponent. Thanks to a few musket shots and Angharad’s fire blasts, the eladrin was knocked unconscious. However, not before Sergeant Glasshouse and several Privates were felled.

The party interviewed Nathan and the Duchess. The Duchess claimed she was trying to protect Risur, citing a disturbing Skyseer prophecy.

Before handing back the Danoran land, the party visited a village on the opposite side of the Axis Island. The village, now abandoned, contained a factory for making perfectly-balanced gears. Nearby, there was a light excavation of an ancient structure.

Following their inspection of the village, the party met with Lya Jierre, and signed simple treaties to give Axis Island back to Danorans. In the exchange, Lya invited the party to her future wedding with the King in a year’s time. In the ensuing week, Nathan was put under house arrest at Conrad Keppler’s residence in Flint. Conrad Keppler is a NPC contact for the purposes of The Dying Skyseer. He is a minor noble who sponsors the disadvantage to attend Pardwight University. He paid from Ella's tuition. He's use Nathan's presence as an excuse to expand on his estate, and is in the process of adding an observatory to accompany his extensive library. The Duchess was found guilty, and was publicly stripped of her rank and powers by the King in the capital.

Post-Session Discussion

The players knew Asrabey would put up a hell of a fight, but refused to back down (damn good-aligned parties).

My players seemed to really enjoy the array of complex NPCs in a complex world. They loved talking to the NPCs on the Coaltongue, and are excited to talk to NPCs during downtime.

I talked to one player about their thoughts in detail. As aforementioned, we typically play Pazio Pathfinder adventures. This player emphasized that in such adventures, the heroes (i.e., PCs) are responsible for maintaining the status quo from being interrupted by villainy. In this book, the lines are blurred. There are positives and negatives to the primalists, technologists, peace-seekers, and warmongers alike. The player seemed to find themselves pleasantly confused and uneasy.

I suppose it's true Zeitgeist does have villainy who threatens the status quo. The players are just unaware of them.

The party were sympathetic to the Duchess' actions, but refused to believe such drastic action were required. They are enamored with the skyseer prophecy. They strongly believe the "man who has already died a thousand times" is a deva. After Alf (Angharad's player) mentioned Lya's warship, the Lux Profectusque, could vaguely relate to light (lux), the party became quite skeptical of Lya. This cumulated in Avvakir making a skill check to discern if Lya was in fact a Deva in disguise...

After saving the King and averting the war, the players are wondering how the stakes could be higher in the following books. I think they'll be pleasantly surprised by the sophisticated plot unraveled in the next book...

Attachments

I used the attached graphic to describe the "light excavation of an ancient structure". I told players that "this is what the structure would look like if fully excavated", so they could get a sense of history, architecture, and most importantly...awe.

 

[Echolocation]

Individual Downtime

Players were given opportunities to peruse their own activities during downtime. Of course, some ordered items for acquisition, retrained feats and such, but here's a snippet of more individualised activities.

• Lissandra was intrigued by news of Randall Pell conducting at the Navras Opera House. She consulted her noble 'friends' (i.e., marks) about the Opera house, and met a collector of enchanted instruments. In an effort to learn how to use wands for defensive spells, she was paid a visit by a Lieutenant Dale. Dale rambles a little about his thesis (Meditation, Coffee, and Cherry Pie: Unorthodox Salves Against the Supernatural. He claims:
  • contemporary understandings of magic are elitist, and built on the illegitimate pretense that fancy men with pointy hats are required to ward off the powers that loom beyond the veil. To combat wails of madness: the wizard will invoke rudimentary magic; the cleric, religious chants. But nothing sustains morale like a mundane but heartfelt song. Although the wizard and cleric may be concerned that the singing will only draw the attention of more dangerous powers, Dale counters that, in practice, the wails usually drown out song for all but those singing.
• Ella spent much of her stipend on attempting to create clockwork poppets using the Dynamic Crafting system in her NPC Contact's alchemy lab/ice cream parlor. Many attempts were failed. Some 'succeeded', such as a poppet which could not function in towns or cities... Eventually Ella crafted a 'functional' poppet, filled with dead cockroaches and made her ravenously hungry... She also spent time researching a pebble she acquired. Pebbles (as outlined in the supplement of the first post) are awarded to players (by other players) who roleplay in alignment with an self-nominated aspect (Ella's is discovery). Ella found out a wealth of information (see attachments), including a new power for her (and the other's) magically-enchanted RHC bade (also detailed in the supplement).
• Avvakir was furious when he saw the front page story of The Flint Times on the 53rd of Spring. He promptly found out that this was not illegal, but a rather grey area of the law which lagged behind the societal changes caused by technology. He accused his dearest friend, Governer Stanfield, of effectively allowing slavery. Stanfield's typical optimism wavers, saying he and his people have made a promise to the King to provide technology, and Flint was aware this is uncharted territory. Avvakir refused to sit idly by whilst the citizens of Flint suffered. He hoaxed an investigation, forcing a factory to open its doors. When head of the Flint RHC office, Margaret Saxby found out, she closed the investigation and scolded Avvakir.

• Angharad joined in on the dynamic crafting, making his own little owl poppet.

Downtime Session

After the end of Book #1, we ran a session of downtime. Here, we ran through a few scenes multiple players were interested in. Here is our recap:

(To the tune of “we didn’t start the fire”)
Stop for breaky, let's review, Ella's made a badge brew?,
Shady Avvakir saved workers, Liss got a wand,
Let's meet Ugen, can't be late, is that a bloody quake?,
We get a boat, see Dazza's grave, be all sad and bond.
Ruki's house, eat some food, ask questions, string was viewed,
Get Pete honey, door is ajar, seems like a threat,
Gary's tied onto bed, now waffle golem's dead,
Visit Shinebright, bear lets us in, give him new pet.

The first scene was Delft telling the team he has a surprise for them waiting down at the docks. They are to contact an eladrin called Ugen Sisk. On the way, the constables stop for a belated breakfast and discuss their recent activities outside of work. Ella shows everyone the new badge power by dunking her badge in a jug of water. A few coffees and jam doughnuts later, the party seeks out Ugen. They spot him sleeping shirtless, drooping off a chair with his hat covering his eyes. As they approach, the ground shakes as nearby dockers declare on earthquake. Ugen promptly wakes, surprised that his alarm clock went off so soon. Ugen is a sly character made by Angharad's player. In this campaign, he takes care of the RHC ships and will be the party's point of contact when borrowing boats. Delft's surprise is boating lessons under the self-proclaimed charming instructions of Ugen. After a few days of training, Ugen lets the party know Delft has allocated funds for the party to purchase their own boat. Currently, the characters are still deciding on a name for their vessel...

The second scene is a visit to the state memorial to provide an offering to Dazza, a city guard aboard the Coaltongue who perished in the Duchess' attack. The party bonded over the passing of an old mate. A few found Bazza (Dazza's best friend), and touched base with him. The ghostspeaker Lissandra mysteriously talked to a person who may or may not have been present in the physical world... Ella cried her eyes out.

The third scene was a visit to Ruki, an retired constable tengu whose house is always open to anyone who needs it. She was also aboard the Coaltongue as a retirement gift from the RHC. They meet an array of adopted children. Avvakir is tackled to the ground by children. A cute game of hide and seek ensues. The party discover Ruki come across a pebble, and used it to protect the party.

The fourth scene was the longest in play time. The story-telling constable Pete asks the party to purchase honey from Gary the Honey Merchant (a NPC who was formed out of the improvised Session 0). Excited to finally meet Gary (who they know makes cure light wounds potions in the form of honey biscuits), the party heads to his cottage in the Nettles. Strangely, they find the door slightly ajar and the storefront shutters closed. After some expert detective work, they find Gary tied to his bed by an imp sent by his wizard wife's nemesis. Gary looks seriously wounded, covered in dark bruises and dripping in red. After defeating the imp and untying Gary, they discover he is not covered in bruises and blood, but rather raspberry and blackberry sauce.

A story slowly comes together. Early this morning, Gary's wife left for her own duties. Gary himself cannot recall what these duties were, telling the party she must have thought he was listening as he kept repeating "Yes, honey". In fact, he was just talking to his ingredients. After his wife left, Gary scampered to the magic shed to see what artifacts he could use to make exciting new desserts. Upon discovering an elemental core, Gary infused waffles, berry sauces, and magic to create a an abomination---a waffle golem. When the imp stormed the house to capture Gary, it dislodged the elemental core from the waffle golem, sending it rampaging. In the chaos, Gary managed to trap it in his basement. He asks the party to dispose of the golem.

Gary knows the golem is slow, and I know the party has few ways to deal with foes from a distance, so Gary teaches the party a trick. After a few hours of instruction, each player got to add the following combat feat to their sheet for free:
That’s a Paddlin’ (Combat, Gary)
By the grace of Gary the Honey Merchant, you have obtained esoteric knowledge of how to harvest both bread and beatings with a bakery paddle.
Benefit: You do not suffer any penalties for using a bakery paddle as an improvised melee weapon.
Normal: You take a –4 penalty on attack rolls made with an improvised weapon.

The party tells Gary to stay put, and just to make sure, they lock him in his bedroom. Lissandra sets a trap atop the basement stairs with olive oil. Avvakir readies his newfound bakery paddle, and Ella sits in the corner of the kitchen ready to snipe with her shortbow. After the basement door is opened, a waffle golem storms into the kitchen, with each attack spurting dangerously hot berry sauce. During the fight, the party hears glass shatter, and spots a Gary peering from the outside of the kitchen, covered in broken glass. After the golem is felled, Gary's wife returns home. Both his wife and the party give Gary a scolding, the imp is banished, and Ella uses her pebble to wish Gary would listen to his wife more.

The final scene concerns a pseudodragon captured at the lighthouse on Axis Island. Avvakir intended to keep it as a pet, but Delft informed him that such a thing was not possible. It is protocol for familiars to either be released into the wild or allocated to sponsors deemed suitable by the government. Avvakir talked to the pseudodragon through a speak with animals spell, and learned it was sick of politics, and just wanted a master with a more predictable lifestyle.

Early in the campaign, I ran a side mission with Avvakir and Angharad. During this side mission, a wizard polymorphed into a sheep stormed the RHC office. Long story short, the duo failed to reverse the polymorph, and the wizard is permanently trapped as a sheep. This wizard, Shinebright, remains in his treehouse/wizard tower in the Cloudwood. The party took the pseudodragon to Shinebright, who gladly accepted the arrangement.

Post-session discussion

What can I say? I'm a sucker for comic relief.

 

[Echolocation]

NPC contacts

The second book of Zeitgeist, The Dying Skyseer, requires players to create two contacts for their characters. We managed to get a contact for each of the nine districts, as I allocated a bonus contact to Angharad (Pazamu from the Cloudwood). See attached for more details.

 

[Echolocation]

I can't believe this is only Session 5 of the campaign, I feel like my players and myself are already immersed in this world. Regardless, here is Alf's (Angharad's player's) recap of the session. This session was only 2.5 hours long.

Session 5

Upon the first day of Summer, team B.A.D were heading towards their office, as Delft and Lady Saxby crossed path with the party, Saxby warning Delft that we mustn't cause an international incident, to which delft insisted that we wouldn't. But, for the past few weeks, B.A.D had been researching into Gale, with her finding and capturing to be our new Mission. But then, in an rapid change from our passive investigation, we were told that a young lady, identity unknown had jumped fro the 4th floor of the Danoran consulate, and impaled herself on the fence, maybe this woman thought she could fly, which has been a known trait of Gales underlings.

As the team rushed to the consulate via Carriage, Angharad handed out some masks in case the other members would have need to hide their face, but insisted that they would not tell people that he gave them. As they arrived at the consulate, a small crowd was nearby, as well as 4 uniformed officers fro the North Shore district police station, while one Alfred Belastair was in charge of them. Alfred told the party that the Danorians had taken the corpse inside by the time the police got there, while witnesses said they heard gunfire, saw this woman jump and then promptly be impaled. but apparently one person apparently stole stuff from her body and ran off, even as she was bleeding out. Once the party had entered the consulate, t hey met Julian LeBrix, the head of the security for the consulate. The staff was all shaken up as they were not soldiers, they hadnt seen war of death really before this. And it was Julian that told them who this lady was, one Nilasa Hume, who had been to the consulate a few times before, and was actually dating one fo the sercurity personnel, Braden. LeBrix had followed her upstairs today, on a hunch after she had brought food for everyone, and saw her pocketing some of the golden cutlery in her pockets, as he went to apprehend her, pistol drawn, she ran for the window, LeBrix apparently thinking she was going to commit suicide, shot her in the leg, but as thay happened, her feet lifted off the floor and she flew towards the window... LeBrix, worried she may actually get away, shot her in the back, which caused her to fall, landing on the spiked fence. As well as the cutlery, Lebrix is saying he found a valuble item that looked like an egg... Looking back as we fill out this report for Delft, if her body was ransacked, how did LeBrix find the egg.

After this, Team B.A.D spoke to Braden, who was crying by Nilasas body, who he had been dating for roughly 3 months now, and he informed us that they met at the 'Thinking Man's Tavern' where she has many friends and we should probably have a look there, while we should also visit her place of work, "Sechim's Alkahest and Alchemicals' who is known to be one of the more humane manufacturioes for its child workers. Braden said that Nilasa 'vanished' while people were eating, unclear on how that happened though. Ella, via use of magic, could discern that she had indeed made use of some type of flying magic, but not the source, as well as other magical auras that she could not identify. Hidden in a pocket on Nilasa's body was a empty elixir vial, that Ella worked out had previously had an extremely powerful potion of invisibility, potentially strong enough to be counted as illegal to civilians. Furthermore it was worked out that Nilasa did not have any magical skill of her own, but there was multiple lingering auras upon her body, as well as traces of illusion magic in her blood, such as from inbibing a potion. There was also healing and necromantic traces around a wound on her forehead, that seemed as if parts of it had regenerated Post-Mortem, and under the healed flesh, there was actually more wounds, LeBrix had no recollection of this head wound before she had gone through the window.

It was worked out that the invisibility elixir's worth seemed to be more than everything that had been taken, even including that strange egg.. And as Team B.A.D went to move onto other avenues of investigation, the staff now seemed rather upbeat, some of them literally dancing around, while others seemed cheery now, with some acting more skittish, nothing magical could be detected, until Lissandra wondering aloud hit it on the head, asking 'what on earth was in that food', this food had come from the Thinking Man's Tavern, and the left over food was found to have been laced with fey pepper, a plant that when processed would induce euphoria in anyone who consumed that food, and processed fey pepper such as had been dusted over the food is highly illegal. Perhaps knowing Angharad's problem with addictive things, Ella stopped Angrahad from grabbing a sample.

Lissandra decided it was time they spoke to Nilasa's spirit before they moved the body away.To Lisandra's eyes, the world had become bleached, all in black and whites while Nilasa's spirit muttered 'In death there is life. May the scorching wind carry the seeds of my legacy', and looked directly as Lisandra. The first question, what did you come here for, was answered with she came to investigate before hesitating, leading Lissandra into asking what she came to investigate, 'when i first came here, it was just for Gale, i brought them this breakfast to distract them, running upstairs to where i thought they would keep their secret and important documents, which I'm sure i found, i didn't read them, there were a few heft reports, which i took and ran, hoping gale would be able to do something with it, those reports must've been a few hundred pages long. Interestingly, we didn't find those documents on her body, did that scoundrel take them, or did the consular staff. The last question, 'how did you meet Gale' to which Nilasa sighed, 'A few months ago, after the duchess failed to kill the king, Gale found me and recruited me, she gave me the task of the infiltrating this consulate, So i guess i didn't find her, she found me.' And with that, the spirit began to fade, but first, she jumped off the table, running up to Lisandra and pleading 'You have to protect Heward! I don't want any harm to come to him because of me!'

We think this may be Heward Sechim... Ella after hearing the phrase the spirit said, worked out it was tied to Seedism, but with vekeshi leanings added to it. Once again Team B.A.D spoke to Lebrix, asking what had been taken from Nilasa's body, he told us he saw a man briefly exchanging words with the dying NiIasa, taking the valuables and yanking a necklace from her neck, here we worked out that LeBrix was lying to us, about the cutlery, but didn't seem to being lying of his own volition, more like he was following orders he didn't agree with, and he denied that anything else was removed from her body after it was removed from the fence. Once again, apparently lying about the cutlery and the egg.

And that my friends, is what happened last time on Zeitgiest, The Dying Skyseer.

Post Session Discussion

I was a little worried about how the players would take to the investigatory aspects of Zeitgeist. However, the players adapted quickly, and were equally excited and overwhelmed by the information that slowly unraveled throughout the session. Things took a change in tone as one of the players finally attempted a sense motive check against LeBrix...

Personally, my favourite moment was the constables and LeBrix exiting a storeroom after conducting a field autopsy of the body. I played this music to describe the scene, as consulate staff danced throughout the corridors. LeBrix was gobsmacked.

To provide some scaffolding for this session, I provided the PCs with a task. They were to conduct a field autopsy report and return it to Delft by 5pm. This wasn't a huge deal throughout this session, but in the next session, it would help gently pressure the constables into figuring out what leads to prioritize and which could wait until tomorrow.

I've attached a handout which I gave players. I knew players would pass the "obvious" heal, perception, and spellcraft checks, so I worked these into a prop field autopsy report.

I've also attached a timeline of the events that transpire in The Dying Skyseer. Maybe others will find it useful?

Lastly, I coordinated with my players to set up a Trello board. This is an analogue for a similar board the constables have in their office. I've attached a screenshot of the board as it looked before starting the next session. For those that don't know, each column contains several cards with information on them. As an example, I've attached Gale's card (which contains information I gave PCs at the start of the day).

I am so hyped to run this book. When I first read of the adventure path, this book was the adventure I always wanted to play in Pathfinder, but never found. Eventually I decided if I couldn't play it, I'd just DM it instead!