terrycloth (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
terrycloth) wrote2017-07-01 10:35 pm
terrycloth) wrote2017-07-01 10:35 pm
Entry tags:
Yeah, we're here to party
Second session of the new Pathfinder game was today. It mostly consisted of us wasting time partying in inappropriate places, but eventually we stumbled across some enemy activity.
So, it started at breakfast the next day. Most of the party (except for June, the sorcerer, and Noggin the floating skull and his valet) were eating at the Iron Dragon because it was free and (for the Snarrot crew) better than shipboard accommodations.
During breakfast, they overheard a young couple talking about how their son had claimed to see a goblin in his closet, but when they checked, nothing was there. Phoof (the tree, I misspelled it last time) was quick to push her way into the conversation. "I'm great with kids! I can help him!"
Now, Altei (the Ninja) went with Phoof everywhere, since they were best friends, and Ash (the kitsune magus) seemed determined to stick to Phoof like glue. Val (the sea witch) followed Ash everywhere, and Kaito (the kitsune barbarian) followed her around when he had nothing better to do. Elsie (the monk), and Zakhar (the alchemist) also had nothing better to do.
The parents were unsure at the wisdom of such a huge group of people parading into their frightened child's room, but weren't willing to tell the heroes of Sandpoint to go away. So, they headed across town to their home.
On the way, they ran into June and Noggin's valet, accompanied by several other orphans that Noggin had decided to train to be his thieves' guild. They also ran into various grateful townsfolk, one of whom gave them each a baguette as thanks for 'saving the city from the goblins'. Noggin tried to get them to feed the bread to his orphans... Kaito took the bait, wielding his bread as if it was a rapier and lunging at the child's face. The child laughed and slipped a donut onto the end of it.
Once they arrived, the parents finally got up the courage not to let them all go inside. So a few went up to check on the kid (I think it was Phoof, Val, and Elsie?) while the rest hung around outside looking for any sign of goblin incursion.
However, just as they went inside, there was a scream, and the three ran upstairs to find the father mortally wounded, the family dog eviscerated, and suspicious gobbling noises coming from the closet. Phoof immediately went to work healing the father so that he wouldn't die, while Elsie threw open the closet and brutally murdered the goblin she found inside, stunning him with the first punch and then finishing him off with a second.
Further investigation determined that the goblin had likely snuck in through the chimney, and had hollowed out a hidey-hole in the back of the closet, behind a secret panel. The boy and the father were both badly hurt, but Zakhar and Phoof managed to save their lives and the boy's foot, which was partially eaten.
Still, the parents were far from grateful. "I guess these so-called heroes didn't do such a good job getting rid of the goblins after all!"
Since the guard was willing to do the grunt work of searching door to door for more signs of hidden goblins, the party wandered off for another lazy day of doing not much of anything.
A bunch of them ended up at the Happy Pillbug, a supposedly-always-closed store which the Snarrot crew suspected of being a front for a drug dealer. Altei got them inside, and managed to guess the extremely insecure challenge-and-response password, so the proprietor offered to sell them his wares, although he wouldn't tell them what they were.
"Name what you wish, or name your price range, and I will pick for you."
Kaito hadn't gone inside, instead sneaking around to the back where the store had a large garden growing a variety of plants.
Kaito: "I'll nibble on a few to see what they do."
GM: "Without even knowing what they are?"
Kaito: "Well, I know a bit about nature. Let me check... 17?"
GM: "You see Belladonna, Hemlock..."
Kaito: "Ooooh, not the sort of drugs we were thinking of, then."
Fortunately, those inside also managed to figure out that the dealer was selling poison in time to avoid embarrassing themselves horribly. I think Altei ended up buying a few doses?
They got a few other things done that day -- some went to see a play that old the history of the previous temple before it burned down, others gathered information about current events in the tavern frequented by the actors and musicians.
I think this was also where they ran into Shalalu, who told them about the surrounding goblin tribes and hoblin heroes, that she'd been hunting for ages. There was a tenuous kind-of-peace between the goblins and the town, which seemed to be fraying, and rumors that all five tribes were working together for some reason. Shalalu was going to go spy on a tribe to the south, and the party considered doing something similar, but the sheriff told them to stay in town to keep morale up and protect from any further attacks, while they waited for reinforcements from the south.
Eventually, they all met up for dinner at the Iron Dragon, got really drunk, and decided to go party in the graveyard, since it was near the church and they hadn't checked it yet. Except for Noggin and June, who had, and caught them on the way and decided to give their midnight graveyard party a more directed objective.
Noggin: "First, we have to rearrange the gravestones to open the crypt door."
Kaito: "Oh, clever. How do we know which ones to rearrange?"
Noggin: "Just pick any of them, it's magic."
Everyone else: "Stop! He's obviously lying to you!"
Inside the crypt, June pointed out the chamber where the previous priest's bones had been stolen, and the still-sealed crypt next to it that Noggin wanted them to break into.
Then, the skeletons attacked. It was only four of them, though, and they managed to defeat them easily even though Kaito was drunk enough that he forgot he was still wielding a baguette instead of a rapier (light improvised weapon, -4 to hit, 1d4+1 damage, halved because it's made out of bread). He was going to leave it lodged in a skeleton's ribcage, but was informed about the 30-second rule which meant it was still good to eat.
Noggin then tried to convince them to break into the sealed crypt, which they discovered was the crypt of an evil necromancer. "Clearly, he's summoning these skeletons! We need to deal with him once and for all."
Altei: "The crypt is magically sealed. If we break the seal, he will escape."
Noggin: "Not if we defeat him!"
Zakhar: "Do you really want to release this evil, and have to fight?"
Kaito: "Yeah, kinda."
June convinced them to wait -- he'd go (with Val, I think?) to find the sheriff who they'd met in the crypt a couple nights back, and ask if he knew why the crypt was sealed, before they unsealed it and possibly made things worse.
The rest stayed behind to guard the crypt, which they did by setting up camp around Phoof's fireless heat-stone and telling ghost stories until they fell asleep (except for Phoof herself, who didn't sleep).
June and Val couldn't find the sheriff (suspicious!) but they did find the new priest, who was shocked to hear that the crypt had been violated. Why hadn't the sheriff told him?
At any rate, he told them that the crypt was sealed so that no undead could ever open it, and only a living creature could break the seal, so even if the necromancer was summoning the skeletons, they'd be powerless to release him. He set a proper guard on it nonetheless, and let the slumber-party move on back to the Iron Dragon to get some real sleep.
But it was not to be -- when they arrived, a flustered employee told them that Ameiko was missing! Searching her room, they found a crumpled letter from her brother that told her to come to the glassworks at midnight. SUSPICIOUS.
It was morning by the time they reached the glassworks, which was closed up and supposedly abandoned, but then why were the kilns running full blast? They were warned not to break in, since the glassworks' owners' family were wealthy and respected, and could get them in a lot of trouble, so they tried knocking on the doors (no response) and peeking in through the windows (no sign of anyone, although they couldn't see into the main glassworking chamber).
Phoof was about to head off to get permission to enter, but first several of them climbed onto the roof to look down through the skylights. Oh look! Goblins!
Lots of goblins! And an ogre! Building some weird glass statue in the middle of the room, while smashing everything else to bits!
Phoof and Ash ran off to get the guards, while Altei picked a lock to let most of them enter, and Elsie smashed open a skylight for herself and June.
The floor of the long, thin room was covered in broken glass, making it hard to move around for everyone but Elsie. The ogre cast a darkness spell on the end of the room where Altei, Kaito, and Val were entering, but it didn't slow them down much since there was plenty of dim light available from elsewhere in the room. They started slaughtering the goblins methodically, alongside Elsie jumping down from above, while Noggin flew across the room taunting the goblins with insults.
The ogre didn't move to engage, however. Instead, he ran to the other end of the room and start summoning something. Seeing that, June jumped down and tried to magic-missle him to disrupt it, but some unseen force (spell resistance) dissipated the attack before it could strike. FOOSH! A gush of fire washed out of the furnace, burning Kaito, as a large fire elemental emerged and punched him, burning him more but failing to set him on fire.
Not able to attack the ogre directly, June started casting protection from fire on Kaito and Val, as Elsie and Altei moved across the room towards the ogre. The ogre -- who'd captured Noggin and was holding the tiny floating skull clenched in one clublike fist -- moved to meet them halfway, meeting Elsie alone because she was so much faster in the broken glass, and pummeling her badly.
Kaito shifted targets and risked hurting himself on the caltrops to charge across the room and join the attack on the ogre, and Altei finally caught up, turning invisible and stabbing at the ogre with a poisoned blade, but the ogre stayed focused on the monk, and reduced Elsie to a single hit point! But the monk was brave, and continued her assault, hoping that one more flurry of blows would drop the ogre at last...
It didn't.
But Zakhar, who'd spent the whole combat opening doors and running down hallways trying to get around to the other side of the giant room for an ill-advised flanking operation, finally arrived, and finished off the ogre with a firebomb -- defeated, the ogre turned to gas and started slowly trying to escape. The bomb also finished off the last goblin, so the fight was over, right?
Not quite. The elemental was still being annoying, since it summoner was just gaseous, not dead. And it wouldn't die! Val, who'd spent the whole fight drinking healing potion after healing potion trying to stay ahead of the incoming damage, finally lost her nerve and ran for it, running screaming out into the street.
Then Zakhar threw another bomb at the gas, which finished it off for good, and dispelled the summoned elemental.
Kaito and Elsie tried to scrape the molten glass off the 'statue', which they'd been able to see was actually a bunch of glass poured over and over a man -- Ameiko's father, the owner of the glassworks! Unfortunately, the inner foot or so of glass was already hardened, and the man was very, very dead.
They still had the rest of the building to search for signs of what was really going on, but at that point Phoof and Ahs returned with the guard, just in time to see Val notice that she was on fire (June had given her fire resistance earlier) and throw herself to the ground in the street and roll around, trying to put it out.
As you may have guessed, the Ogre Magi was not part of the original level-1 module. x.x Tom added it for some extra challenge. Then decided not to use a cone of cold to kill the entire party when we were all trapped in a small enclosed area, since we'd been expecting an ordinary ogre.
next
previous
So, it started at breakfast the next day. Most of the party (except for June, the sorcerer, and Noggin the floating skull and his valet) were eating at the Iron Dragon because it was free and (for the Snarrot crew) better than shipboard accommodations.
During breakfast, they overheard a young couple talking about how their son had claimed to see a goblin in his closet, but when they checked, nothing was there. Phoof (the tree, I misspelled it last time) was quick to push her way into the conversation. "I'm great with kids! I can help him!"
Now, Altei (the Ninja) went with Phoof everywhere, since they were best friends, and Ash (the kitsune magus) seemed determined to stick to Phoof like glue. Val (the sea witch) followed Ash everywhere, and Kaito (the kitsune barbarian) followed her around when he had nothing better to do. Elsie (the monk), and Zakhar (the alchemist) also had nothing better to do.
The parents were unsure at the wisdom of such a huge group of people parading into their frightened child's room, but weren't willing to tell the heroes of Sandpoint to go away. So, they headed across town to their home.
On the way, they ran into June and Noggin's valet, accompanied by several other orphans that Noggin had decided to train to be his thieves' guild. They also ran into various grateful townsfolk, one of whom gave them each a baguette as thanks for 'saving the city from the goblins'. Noggin tried to get them to feed the bread to his orphans... Kaito took the bait, wielding his bread as if it was a rapier and lunging at the child's face. The child laughed and slipped a donut onto the end of it.
Once they arrived, the parents finally got up the courage not to let them all go inside. So a few went up to check on the kid (I think it was Phoof, Val, and Elsie?) while the rest hung around outside looking for any sign of goblin incursion.
However, just as they went inside, there was a scream, and the three ran upstairs to find the father mortally wounded, the family dog eviscerated, and suspicious gobbling noises coming from the closet. Phoof immediately went to work healing the father so that he wouldn't die, while Elsie threw open the closet and brutally murdered the goblin she found inside, stunning him with the first punch and then finishing him off with a second.
Further investigation determined that the goblin had likely snuck in through the chimney, and had hollowed out a hidey-hole in the back of the closet, behind a secret panel. The boy and the father were both badly hurt, but Zakhar and Phoof managed to save their lives and the boy's foot, which was partially eaten.
Still, the parents were far from grateful. "I guess these so-called heroes didn't do such a good job getting rid of the goblins after all!"
Since the guard was willing to do the grunt work of searching door to door for more signs of hidden goblins, the party wandered off for another lazy day of doing not much of anything.
A bunch of them ended up at the Happy Pillbug, a supposedly-always-closed store which the Snarrot crew suspected of being a front for a drug dealer. Altei got them inside, and managed to guess the extremely insecure challenge-and-response password, so the proprietor offered to sell them his wares, although he wouldn't tell them what they were.
"Name what you wish, or name your price range, and I will pick for you."
Kaito hadn't gone inside, instead sneaking around to the back where the store had a large garden growing a variety of plants.
Kaito: "I'll nibble on a few to see what they do."
GM: "Without even knowing what they are?"
Kaito: "Well, I know a bit about nature. Let me check... 17?"
GM: "You see Belladonna, Hemlock..."
Kaito: "Ooooh, not the sort of drugs we were thinking of, then."
Fortunately, those inside also managed to figure out that the dealer was selling poison in time to avoid embarrassing themselves horribly. I think Altei ended up buying a few doses?
They got a few other things done that day -- some went to see a play that old the history of the previous temple before it burned down, others gathered information about current events in the tavern frequented by the actors and musicians.
I think this was also where they ran into Shalalu, who told them about the surrounding goblin tribes and hoblin heroes, that she'd been hunting for ages. There was a tenuous kind-of-peace between the goblins and the town, which seemed to be fraying, and rumors that all five tribes were working together for some reason. Shalalu was going to go spy on a tribe to the south, and the party considered doing something similar, but the sheriff told them to stay in town to keep morale up and protect from any further attacks, while they waited for reinforcements from the south.
Eventually, they all met up for dinner at the Iron Dragon, got really drunk, and decided to go party in the graveyard, since it was near the church and they hadn't checked it yet. Except for Noggin and June, who had, and caught them on the way and decided to give their midnight graveyard party a more directed objective.
Noggin: "First, we have to rearrange the gravestones to open the crypt door."
Kaito: "Oh, clever. How do we know which ones to rearrange?"
Noggin: "Just pick any of them, it's magic."
Everyone else: "Stop! He's obviously lying to you!"
Inside the crypt, June pointed out the chamber where the previous priest's bones had been stolen, and the still-sealed crypt next to it that Noggin wanted them to break into.
Then, the skeletons attacked. It was only four of them, though, and they managed to defeat them easily even though Kaito was drunk enough that he forgot he was still wielding a baguette instead of a rapier (light improvised weapon, -4 to hit, 1d4+1 damage, halved because it's made out of bread). He was going to leave it lodged in a skeleton's ribcage, but was informed about the 30-second rule which meant it was still good to eat.
Noggin then tried to convince them to break into the sealed crypt, which they discovered was the crypt of an evil necromancer. "Clearly, he's summoning these skeletons! We need to deal with him once and for all."
Altei: "The crypt is magically sealed. If we break the seal, he will escape."
Noggin: "Not if we defeat him!"
Zakhar: "Do you really want to release this evil, and have to fight?"
Kaito: "Yeah, kinda."
June convinced them to wait -- he'd go (with Val, I think?) to find the sheriff who they'd met in the crypt a couple nights back, and ask if he knew why the crypt was sealed, before they unsealed it and possibly made things worse.
The rest stayed behind to guard the crypt, which they did by setting up camp around Phoof's fireless heat-stone and telling ghost stories until they fell asleep (except for Phoof herself, who didn't sleep).
June and Val couldn't find the sheriff (suspicious!) but they did find the new priest, who was shocked to hear that the crypt had been violated. Why hadn't the sheriff told him?
At any rate, he told them that the crypt was sealed so that no undead could ever open it, and only a living creature could break the seal, so even if the necromancer was summoning the skeletons, they'd be powerless to release him. He set a proper guard on it nonetheless, and let the slumber-party move on back to the Iron Dragon to get some real sleep.
But it was not to be -- when they arrived, a flustered employee told them that Ameiko was missing! Searching her room, they found a crumpled letter from her brother that told her to come to the glassworks at midnight. SUSPICIOUS.
It was morning by the time they reached the glassworks, which was closed up and supposedly abandoned, but then why were the kilns running full blast? They were warned not to break in, since the glassworks' owners' family were wealthy and respected, and could get them in a lot of trouble, so they tried knocking on the doors (no response) and peeking in through the windows (no sign of anyone, although they couldn't see into the main glassworking chamber).
Phoof was about to head off to get permission to enter, but first several of them climbed onto the roof to look down through the skylights. Oh look! Goblins!
Lots of goblins! And an ogre! Building some weird glass statue in the middle of the room, while smashing everything else to bits!
Phoof and Ash ran off to get the guards, while Altei picked a lock to let most of them enter, and Elsie smashed open a skylight for herself and June.
The floor of the long, thin room was covered in broken glass, making it hard to move around for everyone but Elsie. The ogre cast a darkness spell on the end of the room where Altei, Kaito, and Val were entering, but it didn't slow them down much since there was plenty of dim light available from elsewhere in the room. They started slaughtering the goblins methodically, alongside Elsie jumping down from above, while Noggin flew across the room taunting the goblins with insults.
The ogre didn't move to engage, however. Instead, he ran to the other end of the room and start summoning something. Seeing that, June jumped down and tried to magic-missle him to disrupt it, but some unseen force (spell resistance) dissipated the attack before it could strike. FOOSH! A gush of fire washed out of the furnace, burning Kaito, as a large fire elemental emerged and punched him, burning him more but failing to set him on fire.
Not able to attack the ogre directly, June started casting protection from fire on Kaito and Val, as Elsie and Altei moved across the room towards the ogre. The ogre -- who'd captured Noggin and was holding the tiny floating skull clenched in one clublike fist -- moved to meet them halfway, meeting Elsie alone because she was so much faster in the broken glass, and pummeling her badly.
Kaito shifted targets and risked hurting himself on the caltrops to charge across the room and join the attack on the ogre, and Altei finally caught up, turning invisible and stabbing at the ogre with a poisoned blade, but the ogre stayed focused on the monk, and reduced Elsie to a single hit point! But the monk was brave, and continued her assault, hoping that one more flurry of blows would drop the ogre at last...
It didn't.
But Zakhar, who'd spent the whole combat opening doors and running down hallways trying to get around to the other side of the giant room for an ill-advised flanking operation, finally arrived, and finished off the ogre with a firebomb -- defeated, the ogre turned to gas and started slowly trying to escape. The bomb also finished off the last goblin, so the fight was over, right?
Not quite. The elemental was still being annoying, since it summoner was just gaseous, not dead. And it wouldn't die! Val, who'd spent the whole fight drinking healing potion after healing potion trying to stay ahead of the incoming damage, finally lost her nerve and ran for it, running screaming out into the street.
Then Zakhar threw another bomb at the gas, which finished it off for good, and dispelled the summoned elemental.
Kaito and Elsie tried to scrape the molten glass off the 'statue', which they'd been able to see was actually a bunch of glass poured over and over a man -- Ameiko's father, the owner of the glassworks! Unfortunately, the inner foot or so of glass was already hardened, and the man was very, very dead.
They still had the rest of the building to search for signs of what was really going on, but at that point Phoof and Ahs returned with the guard, just in time to see Val notice that she was on fire (June had given her fire resistance earlier) and throw herself to the ground in the street and roll around, trying to put it out.
As you may have guessed, the Ogre Magi was not part of the original level-1 module. x.x Tom added it for some extra challenge. Then decided not to use a cone of cold to kill the entire party when we were all trapped in a small enclosed area, since we'd been expecting an ordinary ogre.
next
previous