And the Campaign Ends Early . . .

So the group gave it a good shot.  We completed 7 sessions, but I was unable to fit the campaign arc in to the game in such a way as to invest the players and their characters.  It was a good lesson learned.  We didn't just give up at the first hint of issues, but after 7 sessions of 5 hours or so each, there was also no point in beating a dead horse.

So, we are on to a new story, beginning in July.  The group will run through our very first adventure path from Paizo:  The Mummy's Mask.  It will play more to my dm'ing skills of high adventure and "Indiana Jones" type gaming.  It will also be much less preparation each game for me, which is a good thing.

Running this game will give me more time to properly think through a new homemade campaign in the future which I can 1) prepare with my strengths in mind, 2) create for the players' personal areas of enjoyment, and 3) better integrate a campaign arc which will allow the players to be grabbed up as opposed to feeling like they are floating with no impetus to attach to the main arc.

We had great success with my first foray into homebrewed with my "Frozen Thunder" campaign.  I will endeavor to take the lessons of the successes from that campaign, the issues with "Reflections of Sin", and come up with something new and playable without stressing about whether it will be "as good as" Frozen Thunder felt.

I learn as many if not more lessons from failed attempts as I do from successes.  So onward!

Reflections of Sin - Session #6 Recap

Pathfinder adventure - Reflections of Sin

Session #6 Recap

Trufargus throws Robinn over his shoulder and yells at the party, “Go to the Hippogriffs on the Docks!  I will try to meet you there!”  He then runs down an alley with Robinn and is gone.  The party quickly begin to run, as the mob of town folks, enraged beyond reason, begin to swarm towards them.  A chase ensues among the rooftops and the narrow alleys of the Shingles, with the heroes jumping over sudden openings in the roof, dodging around chokers and stirges, quickly jumping walls and hiding while mobs of people run by, and, unfortunately, sometimes being caught by a mob or monster and having to extricate themselves, either by bowling past them, narrowly tumbling around them, or busting down doors and heading to the roof or ground.

And sometimes, they fall off the roof through to the ground or miss a heroic leap and end up crashing into a mob of frenzied people fighting in wider streets.

2 minutes of running and dodging seems to take a lifetime (or at least 4 hours).  Io reaches the Docks first and sees 5 hippogriffs tied to the ground, their riders, members of the Sable Company, dead at the creatures’ feet.  Crazed townfolk are now attacking the hippogriffs, who are wildly trying to escape and fly away.

Io quickly runs into combat, but is unfortunately overwhelmed by the wrath-filled attackers and falls unconscious to the ground, sorely wounded.  Morgrym arrives next, and he stealthily is able to get to Io and feed him a potion which heals some of his wounds.  By this point, almost everyone in the party is injured, some worse than others, by attacks, falls, and, for Morgrym, the events in the abandoned building earlier in the day from which he has yet to recover.  With Io now conscious, Morgrym sneaks over to one of the hippogriffs and, trying to calm the creature, unties its bonds.  Freed, it jumps into the air, taking Morgrym with it as the binding rope wrapped around Morgrym’s ankle and is still attached to the hippogriff’s saddle.  Morgrym is able to crawl into the saddle and secure himself, but all attempts at calming the beast fail as he is flown across the strait into Korvosa proper and towards what looks to be a citadel.

Io, as he is preparing to battle again after regaining consciousness, is joined by Juliet and Aean, who have finally reached the dock.  It is noticed that Quaithe has not arrived, nor has Trufargus or Robinn.  The 3 party members begin to battle against the raging town folk, but not before one of the hippogriffs is killed.

Morgrym lands in what seem to be the stables for the hippogriffs, and two men run out towards him.  After a brief conversation of how Morgrym came to be on the hippogriff and of the battle in the Shingles, the lead officer introduces himself as Commandant Marcus Endrin, Commandant of the Sable Company.  He jumps up behind Morgrym and they take off into the air.  While the Commandant flies the hippogriff back to the Shingles, Morgrym defends them from Sable company soldiers on hippogriffs who have also become enraged and seem to be battling their mounts as well as anything else in the air.

The two of them arrive and join battle with the other 3, including Juliet, who has also climbed on the back of a hippogriff and is having better luck handling the creature.  She is able to have the creature fly in the air close enough to the attackers so that she can club them with a longbow she finds next to the creature’s saddle.

When the group finally disposes of all of the attackers, the Commandant has the party members all get on the remaining hippogriffs and follow him back to the stables.  During flight, Juliet suddenly realizes that the priestly Urdefhan is sitting behind her, and he asks her what she thinks she is doing and what they hope to accomplish.  It is then gone as if never there.

Once at the stables, the Commandant quickly ushers them into the main building where they are met by a familiar face, Field Marshall Cressida Kroft, head of the Korvosan Guard and the person some of them talked with earlier in the day.  She asks them how they avoided the same fate as the townsfolk, and they relate that it is some kind of plague released on the city by the priestly Urdefhan.  They have been given a gift by Sarenrae which protects them from disease, and she relays that she too is protected from disease due to her abilities as a paladin of Abadar, the god of contracts and cities.  Actually, the only members of the military who remain unaffected are those with holy powers.  Together, they all conclude that the townsfolk have been infected with a plague which causes one of the seven deadly sins to manifest in some way within each person:  Wrath, pride, gluttony, sloth, avarice, envy and lust.

The Commandant, who left briefly to check on the hippogriffs and the remaining soldiers, returns with Quaithe trailing.  She ended up traveling by shadow to shadow through the city, and says that the entire city is impacted, no where being safe, especially in the nighttime darkness.  Cressida says that she has two important tasks which she like to entrust to the party, since they are unaffected by the plague and have some strength of ability.  The first is to go to a nearby orphanage and rescue children who were not able to be evacuated to safety.  The one thing the leadership was quick to realize is that children seem unaffected by the plague.  Juliet suggests that their innocence may be a natural barrier to the plague.

The second task is to go to the Bookmaker, a renowned bookstore in the city, and collect as many books as possible which can be used for research by the priests and sages who have been able to resist the effects of the plague, a very small number indeed.  Cressida gives the party 3 magical bags which can hold an enormously large amount of items without ever growing heavy, and she also says that if the owner of the bookstore is still there, Costa Serimus by name, that they should endeavor to bring him back as well.

As the party is tired and in need of rest and some chance to bandage their wounds, it is agreed that they will set out as soon as the sun rises and the darkness dissipates.  They all then are given rooms in the barracks to rest, and lay down to sleep and meditate.  Aean, as he lies down in his darkened room, hears a quiet tapping on glass, and he moves stealthily over to the window.  He looks out and sees nothing, but then realizes the tapping sound is not coming from the window but instead from the mirror on the table at the foot of the bed.

The session ends.

Session #5 Recap

Pathfinder Campaign Reflections of Sin:

Session #5 Recap

While recovering from the attack at the campsite, the party notices the bodyguard is missing and then hears a scream in the forest.  All but Quaithe go to investigate; Quaithe stays behind to make certain that Delix’s body doesn’t go missing.  Io goes invisible while traveling, and the party members come across a clearing in the forest.  A creature which appears to be a Uderfhan in priestly robes has the bodyguard nailed to a tree, with the bodyguard’s entrails pulled from his body and laid out to view, much like an augury viewing.

The creature turns around and asks the “Boy-Oracle Child-Robinn” what he discerns from the future laid out before them.  Robinn does not answer, but goes into a prophetic trance and calls out some kind of prophesy:

West of rest is sleep

East, dream

Where waters meet

North, emptiness,

South, wakefulness,

And out, rising up

To the stars,

Peace.

(Source:  a poem by Jeffrey Yang)

Morgrym steps up and shoots a crossbow bolt at the creature, nicking it.  The creature waves at Morgrym, who is suddenly frozen in place.  The creature talks about the wrath of the dwarf and the lust of Aean as well as “the obviousness” of Juliet.  It speaks to the fact that it cannot directly kill the party, but then reaches into its robes and pulls out a glowing piece of the blue mineral as well as a golden pyramid.  It says it can at least make things difficult for the party, and then twists the pyramid in its hands.

The creature disappears and the party is left standing in the dark.  Meanwhile, back at the camp, the campfire suddenly goes out and the body of Delix is now just bones and rotted bits of clothing; the horses are gone.  Quaithe goes in search of the rest of the party, who also notice the body of the guard is now a rotting skeleton.  Morgrym realizes through signs in the clearing and the positioning of the stars that a couple of years have passed; the party has been pushed forward in time.  The blue gem which the creature was holding now lies on the ground, no longer pulsing with light.

Morgrym and Io decide to go back to the village with the bore in the side of the hill to see what has happened in the couple of years they have been “gone.”  The village is now completely abandoned from all looks, with the bore standing wide open and a sense of evil and doom radiating from the village.  Io goes in deeper into the village, and thinks he sees a child in a white shift running around the corner.  They both decide to go back to the rest of the party and go around the village.

The journey south towards Korvosa is now on foot through the snowy landscape, and they see no one on the road during their travels.  At one point, they see off of the road to the east a glint, and upon investigation, find a pool of water from a small creek which holds a box engraved with the symbol of Sarenrae.  Inside the box are 5 teardrop-shaped vials holding a magical liquid.  Upon research, the liquid, when swallowed, gives the person protection from disease permanently, and each of the members except Robinn swallow one of the vials.

Upon finally coming up to Korvosa, the party notices very little traffic, all going into Korvosa and not coming out, with many guards vigorously checking those entering the city.  When they approach the gates, they are questioned as to from where they are refugees, and then written into a journal and told where an Inn has space available, a place with a man on the sign next to another man on the sign in a frame.  The Inn is in Old Korvosa, the more run-down area of the city.

The party go to the Inn, which is a large tavern/ inn with mirrors all around the inside of the tavern walls, and they rent the last 4 rooms available.  They spend the night, and then split up the next morning to figure out what is going on in the city, shop, and discover what they have missed in the intervening years.

Juliet, Robinn and Io go to the main church of Sarenrae and find out that the strange symbol the party found at the conjuring site next to the lake and on the bodies of the Urdefhan are being worn by many daemons who have filled the country surrounding the city, almost like a holy symbol.  The city has been taking in refugees from the surrounding villages, and ships from other countries come once a week to take loads of these refugees away from Korvosa and Varisia, away from the daemons which are terrorizing the land.  This appears to be happening all around Varisia, although very little news has come in from Magnimar or other parts of the country.  And most of the villages surrounding Korvosa are now cut off.  Also, not all the daemons are wearing these symbols, and there appears to be infighting among factions of daemons.

Morgrym goes by the Academia to discover what he can about the blue mineral gem and see if there are leads to his missing brother, but the Academia is closed to all outsiders and the guards will answer no questions nor pass on information for Morgrym, who is gruff in his approach.  Morgrym also discovers word of the refugees from word on the street, which explains why there are refugees but not so many as to overwhelm the city or to show much signs of starvation.

Juliet, Io and Robinn also stop by the watchhouse for the Korvosan Guard, where they meet the Captain of the Guard, Field Marshal Cressida Kroft, a human female who is gracious but obviously harried from the large number of refugees.  She has no information on Delix being missing or any ramifications, and truthfully, with the daemonic invasion, would not be a priority at this time.  She does tell about the timetable of the ships coming in to take the refugees away, as well as being watchful for ships full of wrathful raiders who try to land in the port city.  She also says that if the party is interested, she would be very grateful for any assistance they might provide to the city.

Quaithe wanders around the city market and learns much the same information, while Aean goes to the temple of Calistria to check in as well as to see if there is word on Lady Eva, which there is not.  Very little communication has been available from Magnimar, which is where Aean last saw Lady Eva.  Each of the party members then wander towards the market where Quaithe already is.

On the way to the market, Juliet, Io and Robinn hear screaming down the street and come upon a large creature standing in a fountain, terrorizing the local people.  It appears to be a construct of the skin of faces sewn together with straw stuffing the insides.  They take the creature down, and afterwards, overhear one of the guards from the city who came to investigate that the faces seem to belong to missing people from the Academia.

The party all ends up in the market, although Morgrym never reconnects with the rest of the party.  Some party members go to local enchanters and such to have armor and weapons enchanted with magical power, and leave this gear overnight to be picked up the next day.

Morgrym ends up by himself in an abandoned area of the city, with derelict buildings all around.  He senses and then sees a child in a white shift, blood running down the front, on the third floor of one of the buildings, and it brings to mind the “child” Io saw in the abandoned village as well as occasional viewings by the party since then.  He goes into the building to investigate.  Inside, a staircase barely holding together goes up to the second floor, which is dark and has a real feel of evil and dread flowing down the steps.  The shaken Morgrym looks for the child in the rooms on the first floor, but then suddenly feels a hand grab his own and pain courses through his body as if life is sucked out of his body.  He looks and sees the little girl with the bloody shift, and as he stumbles away and out the door of the building, he looks back and sees many children standing on the staircase, all in bloody shifts and all staring at him.

The party all meet back at the Inn they are currently staying at with the strange sign.  Morgrym stumbles in after, and immediately orders a drink.  While the party is in the common room after eating, they hear in the corner two men arguing while pulling one of the barmaids from either side while the fire in the fireplace and all of the torches on the walls suddenly blaze an orange color.  It begins to get violent as they pull her arms harder and harder, trying to take her from the other while yelling, “She is mine!”  The barmaid, who should be screaming from pain, seems to be in the throes of ecstasy.  Io, Aean and Juliet rush over to help her, while Morgrym notices the tavern keeper seems to suddenly be getting angrier and angrier and Quaithe sees the minstrel slump over, drooling on himself while just sitting on the stage.  Morgrym looks into the next room, and a table of patrons is fighting with deadly effect. 

Quaithe notices that Robinn is looking around the room with a horrified expression, but not at the patrons:  at the mirrors.  She grabs him and suddenly sees a vision in the mirrors, which Robinn is likely seeing:  blue light is streaming all through the room, the mirrors do not show reflections but instead some shrine with humanoids “swimming” through the air, a terrible creature sitting on a throne but unable to move off of it.  One of the swimming creatures sees Quaithe and Robinn, smiles a pointy-toothed smile, and then starts pounding on the “mirror,” which begins to crack.

At this point, the party is trying to exit the tavern which has gone crazy.  Quaithe yells out a brief shout of what she saw, picks up Robinn, and runs out into the street.  In the distance, a dull roar is heard, and the street lamps at the end of the streets begin turning orange.  Everyone leaves the Inn, although Io is caught up as the mirrors crack open and flood the Inn with water, pushing him out into the street he was heading for anyway. 

Morgrym sees a man running up one of the streets at a dead run towards the party, and it turns out to be Trufargus, who grabs Robinn and yells, “Run!  Run, you fools!”  All of the streetlamps are now orange, and mobs of crazed people are coming up both streets straight at the party.  Up above their heads on the top of a building, the party see the strange priestly Uderfhan, and it shouts out gleefully, “Let the Plague of Sins begin!”

The session ends.

Aean

Session #4 - Nobody Home

Session #4 Recap:  Nobody Home

 

Gerrett runs up with a woman of dusky skin and yellow eyes.  Delix is dead, and this has thrown the village into a serious dilemma.  Gerrett will be going after the leukodaemon and other summoned creatures which are attacking the town and surrounding farms.  He is leading in farmers to the town to centralize against the attacks, and using friends of his to assist, including the woman, Quaithe, a ranger he is training.  He runs off after briefly talking with Cenn and the party, more concerned with those under his protection.

 

Cenn and the party have an uncomfortable discussion about what to do next.  Cenn is hoping the group of heroes will assist in one of two ways:  either keep to the task of going to the next villages on the tax collector’s route to let them know the tax collector will be delayed, or take Delix’s body to Korvosa and explain the situation.  Neither situation is optimal.  If the adventurers go to the villages, Cenn will go to Korvosa to explain the situation.  The city will definitely send in soldiers and investigators, which will likely mean some of the villagers or surrounding farmers will be conscripted.  Cenn can also visit the temple of Sarenrae to ask for a replacement priest.  If the adventurers instead go to Korvosa, Cenn will go to the villages and spread the word.  The adventurers might be able to calm the authorities in the city and prevent conscription, or they might make matters worse, depending upon how they are received and what they say.  In either case, Quaithe will join the group to help lead them through the countryside.

 

After much discussion, the group decides to go to Korvosa as they already have impetus to go there (i.e. research, need for resources, the need to search for Morgrym’s brother, etc.).  Cenn will write a letter explaining the situation, and one of Delix’s bodyguards will accompany them to help with backing up the details witnessed.  The other two bodyguards will go with Cenn as there are still summoned creatures in the surrounding areas as well as other dangers.  Robinn insists on going with the group as well.

 

Cenn, as a thank you to the group, arranges to have winter gear provided at no charge, especially since it is getting late in autumn and there is a real crispness in the air.  The blacksmith also provides Juliet with a very basic short sword.  Once outfitted and resting for a day, the group leaves the village and heads south towards Korvosa.

 

The first village, Hunnell, is located 1 ½ days away from Clearwater’s Gate.  The trip passes through country with several ruins and ancient buildings or keeps, sitting empty (hopefully) and broken in the empty lands around.  These ruins and spires in the distance remind of a prior age many eons passed, and lay as gravestones to those times forgotten.

 

Upon coming up to the Hunnell, the group finds the village to be eerily empty of anyone.  Doors are open, curtains thrown wide, but no one at all in the street.  The village is probably 3 times the size of Clearwater’s Gate, but not a soul in sight.  The only out of place thing seems to be large boulders near buildings which should likely have been cleared out of the village, but might be kept around for some other reason.  Also, a song is playing on the wind, a female singer and then female singers, but no particular direction from where it comes.  The group is uncomfortable and decide to just walk through the village and leave quickly, not spending the night.

 

As they hustle through the village, some party members see movement out of the corners of their eyes.  But when turning to see what caused the movement, they see nothing, just empty building and out-of-place boulders.  Morgrym, not liking the situation, takes a grenade and rolls it towards one of the boulders, but upon touching the boulder, the grenade is flung into the air and thrown hard into a nearby building where it explodes.  Something is definitely wrong with the boulders.  The party hurries on even more quickly.

 

Near the southern end of the village, a large townhall is standing, with a scaffold platform about fifteen feet in front of the building, likely where someone would get up and make a speech to a crowd.  On this scaffold is a stuffy man hanging by its arms from a cross of wood, a scarecrow not in the field.  Around its neck is a pale blue gem pulsing with an internal glow of power.  Morgrym recognizes this gem as the type he and his brother were tasked with mining before the mine they were in collapsed and his brother went missing along with the men who hired them.  Morgrym and Io climb the scaffolding to examine the gem more closely.  Reaching for the stone, Io and Morgrym awaking the scarecrow, but are so fascinated by it that they just stop and stare.  Juliet climbs up and tries to cover the gem, thinking this is causing the animation of the scarecrow and the magical fascination on her friends, but the scarecrow then attacks Juliet. 

 

Battle ensues, and while trying to stop the scarecrow, the “boulders” around the village begin to turn back into villagers and strange inhuman creatures called Urdefhan, creatures in the midst of attacking the villagers.  The group quickly put an end to the battle, even as more villagers and creatures “appear,” including a man who races to assist and appears to know Robinn.  The Urdefhan, per knowledge which Io has, are a servant race to the daemons, and try to “explode” with negative energy when close to dying, taking opponents with them.  The Urdefhan in the village all exploded, but the group and villagers survived.

 

Upon connecting with the mayor of the town, who now is freed from a magical effect along with the rest of the villagers (the song was being sung by members of the church of Sarenrae when the magical effect blanketed the village), everyone quickly realizes that in some way the scarecrow and the gem laid a time-delaying effect on the village, which had just begun to be attacked by the Uderfhan.  The scarecrow walked into the village at the beginning of the attack and walked onto the scaffold.  To the villagers, this was moments ago, but in reality, it was 3 days prior.  The gem seems to be tied in to the effect somehow, although nothing can be completely confirmed.

 

The man who knows Robinn is named Trufargus, who knows Robinn as one of the orphans in Clearwater’s Gate and wonders at him being here in the company of the adventurers.  Robinn just says that he needs to be with them for now.  Trufargus and Juliet have an argument concerning protecting Robinn.  Trufargus states that he has been hired by a patron in Korvosa to investigate rumors of strange happenings in local villages close to the city.  He is tasked to bring this information back soon, and is going to continue the investigation for a little while before heading back to Korvosa.

 

The mayor also points out that a small group of unsavory folks, 2 humans and a dwarf who seemed to be under stress from the 2 men, had come through the village earlier, right before the magical effect took place.  They were heading towards Korvosa.  Morgrym believes this is his brother in captivity with the former employers of the mine, and angrily insists upon going after them now, with or without help or the rest of the group.  Once pointed out that 3 days have passed, he calms down enough to wait for the rest of the group.

 

Trufargus points out to the mayor that the village was rescued by the adventurers, and in thanks, the mayor offers each party member a magical or mundane gift up to a certain amount in price.  Aean is also able to have the local priest cure him of his lingering disease from the summoned creatures by the lake.  They party gratefully chooses their rewards, and then set off again for Korvosa.

 

As they continue their journey to Korvosa, it begins to snow.  Winter has arrived.  It takes two days to reach the next village, Wilheim Lodge.  However, a couple of miles outside the logging community, the way is blocked by soldiers from Korvosa, who insist the village is quarantined and the group must find its own way around the village as no one is allowed access into or through.  They can return the way they came and take a western road a couple of miles back to get around the village easily.

 

The adventurers back track a ways and make camp.  Io, Morgrym and Quaithe decide to sneak into the village to see what this “quarantine” is about while the rest stay behind with the body of Delix.  When they sneak down into the village, the 3 see the village butted up against a rocky Cliffside and hill.  There is a 30 foot tall bore in the hill, closed up with a rock stopper/ gate of some type.  Before this gate, many soldiers are collected, as well as arcane and divine spellcasters who are using incredibly powerful abjuration magic in connection with each other.  As the group watches, some of the spellcasters pass out, and the stopper cracks open on one side slightly.  The adventurers see daemons and uderfhan escaping and attacking the people in front of the gate.  The spellcasters quickly get the stopper closed up again, but some of the creatures have escaped into the surrounding forests, including some towards the party’s campsite!

 

The 3 race back to the others, who are being attacked by Cacodaemons and Uderfhan.  Io, who has magically accelerated his pace, arrives to help first, assisting Juliet and Aean who are already deep in combat.  Quaithe arrives next, followed by Morgrym.  The party dispatches most of the creatures, with one Cacodaemon escaping, and while examining the bodies of the Uderfhan, who were not able to “explode” this time around, find amulets around their necks almost like holy symbols, with the strange rune from the lakeside etched into them:  the eye with 5 tendrils coming out from it.

 

The session ends.