Mushroom Ninja
2013-03-29, 12:44 AM
It's been a long times since I posted or read anything on these forums, but spring break isn't quite over yet, and I need a procrastination outlet, so I'm going to start a campaign journal. The group I run this campaign for meets irregularly, and I can be real lazy when it comes to writing, so don't expect frequent updates or anything. Anyway, without further ado, I present:
Saltmarsh Sandbox Shenanigans
The Setting:
As the name suggests, the setting of this campaign is the city of Saltmarsh as detailed in DMGII. However, I have made several major changes both to the city and to the world within which it exists which I suppose I ought to make mention of here. Those who wish to get straight to the action are encouraged to skip ahead.
Cosmology and Divinity:
It has always struck me that the D&D cosmology and pantheon is needlessly large, so I have pared down both by quite a lot.
Pantheon:
There are only 9 gods, one for each alignment.
LG Pelor, the sun More or less like standard 3.5 Pelor, but lawful good (I've always felt that the dependable rising and setting of the sun seems to imply lawfulness for a sun god). Add law and some stuff like that to his domains.
NG Freia, the earthmother Goddess of growth, nature, agriculture etc. Not much to be said here
CG Thor, the thunderhead I've never liked Kord, so I turned him into Thor and added on the weather-related things implied
Each neutral god has two aspect which are at times worshiped seperately
LN Tan, The Silver Knight/ The Ruby Mistress Tan is a mashup of St. Cuthbert and Wee Jas. Depicted as either a scarlet-clad woman or a knight in silver armor, Tan is the god/goddess of law and death.
TN Io, The Mage/The Earth Io is a mashup of Boccob and Obad-Hai. Depicted as either a cloaked, hooded figure or oak tree, he is a god of magic and natural forces.
CN Loki, The Traveler/The Trickster Loki is just about what you'd expect him to be, a god of luck, travel, trickery, and fire. A shape-changer, Loki is usually depicted as a raven, fox, coyote, or flame.
LE Vecna, the schemer Basically like Vecna from D&D but now lawful. He is said to have tens of thousands of plots to gain mastery over all.
NE Ara, the temptress A goddess of gluttony, greed, lust, and all that good stuff. Pretty self-explanatory.
CE Ba'al, the destroyer Mad god of destruction and murder.
The Gods dwell in the Aether (see cosmology). However, legend and common belief have it that the gods were not always sequestered away like this. In an absurdly ancient time, when there was but one sentient race (which would later spawn humans, goblins, elves, Djinni, lizardfolk, and all the other ridiculous races of the D&D world), it is said that the gods walked Terra. It was in this age that, supposedly, all of the myths which the religions teach actually happened (Vecna lost his hand and eye, Loki gave fire to the mortals for laughs, Freia invented agriculture, etc.). As with all myths, many things are unclear. Were the gods mortal at this time? Where did they come from? Why did they go to the Aether? It's certainly agreed that, even if they were mortal, the nine of them possessed great and mysterious powers, but beyond that it's not too clear.
Cosmology:
Instead of the traditional god-knows-how-many planes of existence in the multiverse, my setting has three.
Terra: Basically the prime materiel plane. Not much to be said here.
The Aether: This is the plane in which the gods, angels, demons, elementals, and most outsiders dwell. Quite different from Terra in that there is no physical extension within the Aether. One can think of it as a great swirling ocean of thoughts and souls. As far as anyone knows, nobody has been to the Aether. Some hypothesize that the souls of the living are absorbed into the Aether when they die, but it's not clear. Summoned outsiders have great difficulty explaining the Aether given how different it is from Terra.
Given the properties of the Aether, perhaps it would be reasonable to discuss summoning and calling spells at this point. Summoning spells (that is, spells with the "summoning" descriptor) contact a soul/mind on the Aether and encourage it to create a physical representation of itself on Terra. When that physical representation is destroyed or the duration of the spell expires, whatever essence of itself the soul on the Aether sent to Terra simply disperses and returns to its home. Calling spells work a little differently than summoning spells. Instead of causing a soul in the Aether to create a physical representation of itself on Terra, calling spells make the soul physically travel to Terra. A called soul must create a physical representation of itself and then live inside that representation on Terra. For instance, if you were to cast Gate to summon a Solar, you would be causing a powerful soul in the Aether to create a Solar body for itself on Terra and then go live in that body on Terra. Now, if a called creature is killed, it is believed that the soul itself is destroyed. This appears to be the only way to truly destroy something from the Aether. Below is a crappy MSPaint diagram explaining the distinction:
http://i513.photobucket.com/albums/t338/MushroomNinja/SummoningvsCallingSFW.png
The Between: This plain is sort of a mashup of the plain of Shadow and the Ethereal. It is a shadowy reflection of Terra inhabited by spooky **** like ghosts. Unlike the Aether, creatures living on Terra have been to the between. Many spells involve quick jaunts through it (Etherealness, Teleport, Dimension Door, etc).
House Rules:
No dead-raising spells because they make plot devices like assassination, hostages, etc rather silly. I'll probably make exception for Revivify and Last Breath (or whatever the pathfinder versions of those are), since they cause no such trouble.
Planar travel is different given the nature of the cosmology. If the party should reach high enough levels for it to matter, I'll work out something.
Anything in the Pathfinder SRD is fair game (including a bunch of random 3rd party stuff). I'm fairly sure I can out powergame my PCs if they get silly.
The City of Saltmarsh:
To those of you who don't have DMGII, I would recommend you not to buy it if you're interested in anything other than the city of Saltmarsh. Apart from that one chapter it's an almost completely useless waste of paper. However, Saltmarsh is a fairly fun and well-worked out town that can make a great place for a sandboxy adventure. I've decided to embellish a bit here and there. Below are some of the more major changes:
As far as temples go, there are some changes to fit with the changes in the pantheon. The cathedral of pelor is still a cathedral to pelor, but the cathedral to Kord is now to Thor, the temple to Fhar'lahng is now a temple to the traveler aspect of Loki, the shrines to Obad-Hai and Elhonna are now Io and Freia respectively. Etc.
The fairly-recent sacking of the nearby city, Seaton, has led to a larger population growth than in the DMGII. As a result, Saltmarsh has expanded beyond the boundaries of the walls. A small refugee town of shanties and shacks has grown up just outside the east gate of the city. Several things have changed as a result. Firstly, town guard policy has changed with respect to charging fees to people coming and going at the east gate. As most Seaton refugees are not yet citizens of Saltmarsh, the guard are very lenient about the toll to go through the east gate and only really charges if it looks like a merchant or someone coming to town. Secondly, the Wicker Goat has changed in character. It has now become the go-to bar for refugees living in the shanty-town, and its prices and selection has changed as a result. None of the major criminal organizations have moved in on shanty-town yet, but the Assassins and Thieves are both considering it.
The Lassiter family is now called the Tarnill family. Too many Song of Ice and Fire fans in my group for the name Lassiter to not immediately become Lanister. Also, they're led by a Shadow dragon named Sithis, who was the secret lover of Moira Tarnill (one of the founders of Saltmarsh). The Tarnills had something to do with the sacking of Seaton, but I've not quite decided what yet.
I've come up with various tribes of lizardfolk in the swamps to the north of Saltmarsh. If they become important to the campaign (or if I feel like typing walls of text) I'll put them up.
There are other changes as well, but I don't recall them at the moment.
Characters:
Now that we have the preliminaries out of the way, time to introduce the characters.
Akakack, Tengu Barbarian/Alchemist: I think he's TN, but the player suggested that, after the events of our second session he might actually be NE. Anyway, we'll see where the alignment falls once everyone has fully figured out who their character is. Akakack lived for a number of years in Seaton before it's burning a few months ago. He currently lives in the shanty-town and works as a bartender in the Wicker Goat a few nights a week.
Nibs, Ratfolk Rogue: Former sewer-dweller in Seaton, Nibs moved to Saltmarsh after the attack. An excellent pickpocket, I'm expecting there will eventually be some fun interaction between him and the Thieves' Guild. Nibs currently lives somewhere in the shanty-town and harbors a massive anti-human prejudice.
Sliznak, Goblin Oracle (Fire): An enterprising goblin obsessed with fire, Sliznak recently came to Saltmarsh with the hopes of setting up shop as some sort of merchant. Before his life as an entrepreneur, Sliznak lived in a village with other goblins, but that village mysteriously burned to the ground, leaving him the sole survivor. Coincidentally he is haunted by the souls of his kin.
The Number Two Wizard, Human Enchanter: A mysterious traveling enchanter who has recently come to Saltmarsh in search of god-knows-what and currently rooms at the Wicker Goat. No one knows his true name or who the Number One Wizard is (if such a being even exists).
Altara, Half-Djinni Cleric of Thor: The only good-aligned party member (the others are all neutral except for the Number Two Wizard), Altara is a well-meaning if somewhat spacy traveling cleric who has recently come to Saltmarsh to worship at the cathedral of Thor.
First Session
Most of the first session was stragglers finishing up character creation and figuring out some way to tie the party together. In the end we decided that, in the last week, they've all struck up a friendship around the fire at the Wicker Goat. By that point, we were almost out of time, but I was able to drop a plot hook. In general, my goal for this campaign will be to have plenty of interesting things to do an people to meet in Saltmarsh and let the drama/action evolve from that, but I thought it might be a decent idea to introduce a good old-fashioned quest first, just to get the party introduced to the town and some of its people.
With this in mind, the party, relaxing around a table at the Wicker Goat, was contacted by Anmeh of none other than Anmeh's Hall of Oddities. Anmeh explained that he had a problem he wished to solve discreetly and that he had been referred to them by the owner of the Goat. Expressing interest, the party followed Anmeh back to the Hall. After some confusion getting the door open (Nibs had picked the keys from Anmeh's pocket on the way there), Anmeh let them. He and his assistant Mack (a deformed 3-armed Kobold who spends most of his days pretending to be a ferocious creature for the awed visitors) explained the problem. A little over a month ago, an egg Anmeh had bought for the Hall hatched, but instead of a large spider, a baby ettercap came out. The ettercap escaped into the night, and Anmeh hoped it had died. However, recent mysterious deaths and disappearances in the slums made Anmeh worried. He asked the PCs to find and slay the beast, preferably bringing its corpse back to him semi-intact so that he might stuff it and put it on display.
The PCs agreed, and after some haggling over price went back to the Goat to plan. We ended session there, but from what they've said, it seems like at least half the party (Nibs, The Number Two Wizard, and Sliznak) are interested in somehow fleecing Anmeh out of money and property, so we'll see where that goes.
Second Session
The PCs began by devising a plan to catch the Ettercap, which they assumed to be lurking somewhere around the slums. They ended up deciding to use The Number Two Wizard as bait, leaving him in some sketchy alleyway and hiding around the corner to jump the ettercap when it came to eat him. Not a particularly refined plan in my opinion, but certainly the sort of thing that could get interesting.
Anyway it turned out that their plan would have to change somewhat before they even started. It just so happens that Mack, Anmeh's Kobold assistant, is actually an informant for the Assassin's Guild (led by Ned Shakeshaft of the Flounder Pounder). The Assassins love poisonous creatures and had been wanting to capture the ettercap themselves for a few weeks. Unfortunately, the slums were Thieves' Guild territory, and the two guilds have been on the edge of conflict for months. Not wanting to start all-out war, the Assassins hoped to find a neutral party to extract the ettercap for them. The PCs seem to fit the job description perfectly.
And so, on the way to the slums, the party was given a note by Tarn, a halfling member of the Assassins guild. The note offered the PCs a sizable amount of cash (more than Anmeh was paying at least) for the ettercap alive and gave a dropoff place. Pretending to be a drunk carrying the message for coin, Tarn gave the party the note and was about to leave when The Number Two Wizard decided to Charm Person him for ****s and giggles (and naturally the dice-gods decided that it was time to screw over Tarn). Against his better judgment, Tarn agreed to stroll along with the party through the slums.
At this point, Altara was beginning to get a little suspicious of Tarn (she succeeded a sense motive check against one of his attempts to appear drunk), but the rest of the party ignored her. The party found a nice sketchy alley in the slums to hunker down in and hope the ettercap would show up. Nibs and Altara were stationed at the entrance to the alley, The Number Two Wizard and Tarn lounged about somewhere in the middle as squishy-looking bait, and Akakack and Sliznak hid around a corner, hoping to pounce on the ettercap.
Now, this plan was rather lacking. If the ettercap was even out prowling tonight, why would the party suspect that it might find them. Anyway, in the interest of moving action along, I gave the ettercap something like a 50-50 chance of noticing them and trying to pick off dinner. The dice decided that he did.
So, after the sun set (the party had been waiting around about an hour), the ettercap slunk across a nearby rooftop clad in a blue robe and wide-brimmed hat stolen from a victim and surveyed the situation. To his 6-int brain, it seemed like there was an easy enough kill. An old man and an intoxicated halfling were sitting around and talking in an alley. The only nearby people didn't seem interested, and he had every reason to belive that his usual escape routes would work should thins go South. So the ettercap decided to try and pick off the halfling with the longbow he had stolen off one of his victims. The shot missed by a mile and combat began.
Right off the bat, Tarn spooked and ran charmed as he was, he knew that he was in the wrong part of town and he immediately assumed the ettercap was a killer from the Thieves' Guild out to kill him. The Number Two Wizard (I'm just gonna start abreviating it to NTW) fired off a spell or something at the ettercap ineffectively, and the others moved to get in a position where they could attack the ettercap on the roof. Sensing that things had indeed gone south, the ettercap dived from the roof into a small back yard (blocking LoS from the PCs) and ran into a nearby house.
.Hearing a door slam, Akakack drank an extract of Enlarge Person, raged, and tried to push his waya through a nearby shack to get at where he thought the ettercap was. He succeded in pushing his way through the front wall of the house, causing the roof to collapse and more than a little surprise to the house's ouccupants. Sliznack and NTW ran into nearby houses in hopes of spotting the ettercap while Nibs climbed onto Akakack's shoulder's for a better view, and Altara ran to the other end of the alley in hopes of blocking the ettercap's exit routes and catching a glimpse of Tarn (who she still did not trust).
Sliznack and NTW both chose the wrong houses for ettercap sightings and on his next round, the ettercap managed to slip by Nibs and Akakack with an excellent stealth check, running down a side-alley towards its lair. At this point, NTW's player asked me So is there a lamp in the shack I've run into? Taken aback, I say something to the effect of sure. Alright, I light it and smash it on the ground. I'm not quite sure whether NTW was hoping to smoke the ettercap out of hiding, or just wanted to cause chaos and destruction. Anyway, his action gave Akakack the bight idea of demolishing a nearby house because the ettercap might be in there (he wasn't). Pretty soon, the PCs had knocked down or ignited most of the nearby buildings out of a strange combination of tactical thinking and glee in destruction. As scared commoners began to flood the streets, the PCs decided it was time to go and split. Only Sliznak and NTW stayed behind in the general area, Sliznak pretending to help put out the fires (trying to build up a reputation as an upstanding member of the community), and NTW creating illusionary fires with silent image because he's a ****. The ettercap had escaped for the night.
The next day, the PCs met up again and, after Altara attempted to guilt-trip the prime demolisher, they went back to the drawing board with their plan. Altara finally convinced the party that Tarn was sketchy as hell, and NTW and Akakack decided to help her investigate him, while Nibs and Sliznak searched the slums for clues.
Having learned that Tarn frequented the Flounder Pounder (for those of you without DMGII, it's a sketchy dockside bar which is actually the front for the Assassin's Guild), the trio decided to ask around there. Disguising himself as a beautiful woman (Disguise Self is a handy little spell), NTW started asking patrons of the Pounder about Tarn and was eventually able to locate him. Ned and the other assassins weren't too suspicious, since strange women had come asking for Tarn before.
Eventually, the three caught up with Tarn and captured him. He admitted that he had been leading them on to some extent the night before, and claimed that he was actually an agent of the Thieves' Guild. He claimed that the Thieves' Guild wanted to capture the ettercap, but a dangerous street-gang controlled the slums and they didn't want to start a war. The PCs believed him this time, and agreed to get him the ettercap despite his earlier deception.
Meanwhile, Sliznak and Nibs asked around and found that there was a well-known distiller of illegal alcohol in the slums who wore a blue cloak and wide-brimmed straw hat (just like the ettercap). After some bluffing and convincing, they found their way to his house. Sneaking in through the chimney, they found the one-room house deserted, but a good perception check noticed a trap door to a basement. Down the stairs, Nibs and Sliznak found an old distillery now inhabited by the ettercap and his pet spiders. Luckily for them, the two were quite stealthy and got away unnoticed. Nibs and Sliznak pushed as much furniture as they could over the trap door and ran off to find the rest of the party.
That's where we ended session. I'm expecting our next session to be quite exciting. It turns out that, after the disturbance of the night before, the Thieves' Guild has been keeping an eye on the PCs. They've gathered that they're trying to capture some sort of creature for the Assassins and have decided to kill the beast before it can be delivered. They don't want to kill the PCs themselves, because they're not quite sure what their connections are and wouldn't like to start a war with the assassins just yet, but they'll send some people to try and pick off the ettercap as the PCs transport it (assuming they don't just get mauled to death by his spider minions). Anyway, I'm hoping that this will give the PCs some fun exposure to two of the main factions of the Saltmarsh underworld, and we'll see how things turn out.
We've just had the two session so far, but as we play more, I'll try to update. Having never written a campaign journal before, I'm always up for suggestions -- I can focus more on the play-by-play of combat or gloss over that stuff etc.
Saltmarsh Sandbox Shenanigans
The Setting:
As the name suggests, the setting of this campaign is the city of Saltmarsh as detailed in DMGII. However, I have made several major changes both to the city and to the world within which it exists which I suppose I ought to make mention of here. Those who wish to get straight to the action are encouraged to skip ahead.
Cosmology and Divinity:
It has always struck me that the D&D cosmology and pantheon is needlessly large, so I have pared down both by quite a lot.
Pantheon:
There are only 9 gods, one for each alignment.
LG Pelor, the sun More or less like standard 3.5 Pelor, but lawful good (I've always felt that the dependable rising and setting of the sun seems to imply lawfulness for a sun god). Add law and some stuff like that to his domains.
NG Freia, the earthmother Goddess of growth, nature, agriculture etc. Not much to be said here
CG Thor, the thunderhead I've never liked Kord, so I turned him into Thor and added on the weather-related things implied
Each neutral god has two aspect which are at times worshiped seperately
LN Tan, The Silver Knight/ The Ruby Mistress Tan is a mashup of St. Cuthbert and Wee Jas. Depicted as either a scarlet-clad woman or a knight in silver armor, Tan is the god/goddess of law and death.
TN Io, The Mage/The Earth Io is a mashup of Boccob and Obad-Hai. Depicted as either a cloaked, hooded figure or oak tree, he is a god of magic and natural forces.
CN Loki, The Traveler/The Trickster Loki is just about what you'd expect him to be, a god of luck, travel, trickery, and fire. A shape-changer, Loki is usually depicted as a raven, fox, coyote, or flame.
LE Vecna, the schemer Basically like Vecna from D&D but now lawful. He is said to have tens of thousands of plots to gain mastery over all.
NE Ara, the temptress A goddess of gluttony, greed, lust, and all that good stuff. Pretty self-explanatory.
CE Ba'al, the destroyer Mad god of destruction and murder.
The Gods dwell in the Aether (see cosmology). However, legend and common belief have it that the gods were not always sequestered away like this. In an absurdly ancient time, when there was but one sentient race (which would later spawn humans, goblins, elves, Djinni, lizardfolk, and all the other ridiculous races of the D&D world), it is said that the gods walked Terra. It was in this age that, supposedly, all of the myths which the religions teach actually happened (Vecna lost his hand and eye, Loki gave fire to the mortals for laughs, Freia invented agriculture, etc.). As with all myths, many things are unclear. Were the gods mortal at this time? Where did they come from? Why did they go to the Aether? It's certainly agreed that, even if they were mortal, the nine of them possessed great and mysterious powers, but beyond that it's not too clear.
Cosmology:
Instead of the traditional god-knows-how-many planes of existence in the multiverse, my setting has three.
Terra: Basically the prime materiel plane. Not much to be said here.
The Aether: This is the plane in which the gods, angels, demons, elementals, and most outsiders dwell. Quite different from Terra in that there is no physical extension within the Aether. One can think of it as a great swirling ocean of thoughts and souls. As far as anyone knows, nobody has been to the Aether. Some hypothesize that the souls of the living are absorbed into the Aether when they die, but it's not clear. Summoned outsiders have great difficulty explaining the Aether given how different it is from Terra.
Given the properties of the Aether, perhaps it would be reasonable to discuss summoning and calling spells at this point. Summoning spells (that is, spells with the "summoning" descriptor) contact a soul/mind on the Aether and encourage it to create a physical representation of itself on Terra. When that physical representation is destroyed or the duration of the spell expires, whatever essence of itself the soul on the Aether sent to Terra simply disperses and returns to its home. Calling spells work a little differently than summoning spells. Instead of causing a soul in the Aether to create a physical representation of itself on Terra, calling spells make the soul physically travel to Terra. A called soul must create a physical representation of itself and then live inside that representation on Terra. For instance, if you were to cast Gate to summon a Solar, you would be causing a powerful soul in the Aether to create a Solar body for itself on Terra and then go live in that body on Terra. Now, if a called creature is killed, it is believed that the soul itself is destroyed. This appears to be the only way to truly destroy something from the Aether. Below is a crappy MSPaint diagram explaining the distinction:
http://i513.photobucket.com/albums/t338/MushroomNinja/SummoningvsCallingSFW.png
The Between: This plain is sort of a mashup of the plain of Shadow and the Ethereal. It is a shadowy reflection of Terra inhabited by spooky **** like ghosts. Unlike the Aether, creatures living on Terra have been to the between. Many spells involve quick jaunts through it (Etherealness, Teleport, Dimension Door, etc).
House Rules:
No dead-raising spells because they make plot devices like assassination, hostages, etc rather silly. I'll probably make exception for Revivify and Last Breath (or whatever the pathfinder versions of those are), since they cause no such trouble.
Planar travel is different given the nature of the cosmology. If the party should reach high enough levels for it to matter, I'll work out something.
Anything in the Pathfinder SRD is fair game (including a bunch of random 3rd party stuff). I'm fairly sure I can out powergame my PCs if they get silly.
The City of Saltmarsh:
To those of you who don't have DMGII, I would recommend you not to buy it if you're interested in anything other than the city of Saltmarsh. Apart from that one chapter it's an almost completely useless waste of paper. However, Saltmarsh is a fairly fun and well-worked out town that can make a great place for a sandboxy adventure. I've decided to embellish a bit here and there. Below are some of the more major changes:
As far as temples go, there are some changes to fit with the changes in the pantheon. The cathedral of pelor is still a cathedral to pelor, but the cathedral to Kord is now to Thor, the temple to Fhar'lahng is now a temple to the traveler aspect of Loki, the shrines to Obad-Hai and Elhonna are now Io and Freia respectively. Etc.
The fairly-recent sacking of the nearby city, Seaton, has led to a larger population growth than in the DMGII. As a result, Saltmarsh has expanded beyond the boundaries of the walls. A small refugee town of shanties and shacks has grown up just outside the east gate of the city. Several things have changed as a result. Firstly, town guard policy has changed with respect to charging fees to people coming and going at the east gate. As most Seaton refugees are not yet citizens of Saltmarsh, the guard are very lenient about the toll to go through the east gate and only really charges if it looks like a merchant or someone coming to town. Secondly, the Wicker Goat has changed in character. It has now become the go-to bar for refugees living in the shanty-town, and its prices and selection has changed as a result. None of the major criminal organizations have moved in on shanty-town yet, but the Assassins and Thieves are both considering it.
The Lassiter family is now called the Tarnill family. Too many Song of Ice and Fire fans in my group for the name Lassiter to not immediately become Lanister. Also, they're led by a Shadow dragon named Sithis, who was the secret lover of Moira Tarnill (one of the founders of Saltmarsh). The Tarnills had something to do with the sacking of Seaton, but I've not quite decided what yet.
I've come up with various tribes of lizardfolk in the swamps to the north of Saltmarsh. If they become important to the campaign (or if I feel like typing walls of text) I'll put them up.
There are other changes as well, but I don't recall them at the moment.
Characters:
Now that we have the preliminaries out of the way, time to introduce the characters.
Akakack, Tengu Barbarian/Alchemist: I think he's TN, but the player suggested that, after the events of our second session he might actually be NE. Anyway, we'll see where the alignment falls once everyone has fully figured out who their character is. Akakack lived for a number of years in Seaton before it's burning a few months ago. He currently lives in the shanty-town and works as a bartender in the Wicker Goat a few nights a week.
Nibs, Ratfolk Rogue: Former sewer-dweller in Seaton, Nibs moved to Saltmarsh after the attack. An excellent pickpocket, I'm expecting there will eventually be some fun interaction between him and the Thieves' Guild. Nibs currently lives somewhere in the shanty-town and harbors a massive anti-human prejudice.
Sliznak, Goblin Oracle (Fire): An enterprising goblin obsessed with fire, Sliznak recently came to Saltmarsh with the hopes of setting up shop as some sort of merchant. Before his life as an entrepreneur, Sliznak lived in a village with other goblins, but that village mysteriously burned to the ground, leaving him the sole survivor. Coincidentally he is haunted by the souls of his kin.
The Number Two Wizard, Human Enchanter: A mysterious traveling enchanter who has recently come to Saltmarsh in search of god-knows-what and currently rooms at the Wicker Goat. No one knows his true name or who the Number One Wizard is (if such a being even exists).
Altara, Half-Djinni Cleric of Thor: The only good-aligned party member (the others are all neutral except for the Number Two Wizard), Altara is a well-meaning if somewhat spacy traveling cleric who has recently come to Saltmarsh to worship at the cathedral of Thor.
First Session
Most of the first session was stragglers finishing up character creation and figuring out some way to tie the party together. In the end we decided that, in the last week, they've all struck up a friendship around the fire at the Wicker Goat. By that point, we were almost out of time, but I was able to drop a plot hook. In general, my goal for this campaign will be to have plenty of interesting things to do an people to meet in Saltmarsh and let the drama/action evolve from that, but I thought it might be a decent idea to introduce a good old-fashioned quest first, just to get the party introduced to the town and some of its people.
With this in mind, the party, relaxing around a table at the Wicker Goat, was contacted by Anmeh of none other than Anmeh's Hall of Oddities. Anmeh explained that he had a problem he wished to solve discreetly and that he had been referred to them by the owner of the Goat. Expressing interest, the party followed Anmeh back to the Hall. After some confusion getting the door open (Nibs had picked the keys from Anmeh's pocket on the way there), Anmeh let them. He and his assistant Mack (a deformed 3-armed Kobold who spends most of his days pretending to be a ferocious creature for the awed visitors) explained the problem. A little over a month ago, an egg Anmeh had bought for the Hall hatched, but instead of a large spider, a baby ettercap came out. The ettercap escaped into the night, and Anmeh hoped it had died. However, recent mysterious deaths and disappearances in the slums made Anmeh worried. He asked the PCs to find and slay the beast, preferably bringing its corpse back to him semi-intact so that he might stuff it and put it on display.
The PCs agreed, and after some haggling over price went back to the Goat to plan. We ended session there, but from what they've said, it seems like at least half the party (Nibs, The Number Two Wizard, and Sliznak) are interested in somehow fleecing Anmeh out of money and property, so we'll see where that goes.
Second Session
The PCs began by devising a plan to catch the Ettercap, which they assumed to be lurking somewhere around the slums. They ended up deciding to use The Number Two Wizard as bait, leaving him in some sketchy alleyway and hiding around the corner to jump the ettercap when it came to eat him. Not a particularly refined plan in my opinion, but certainly the sort of thing that could get interesting.
Anyway it turned out that their plan would have to change somewhat before they even started. It just so happens that Mack, Anmeh's Kobold assistant, is actually an informant for the Assassin's Guild (led by Ned Shakeshaft of the Flounder Pounder). The Assassins love poisonous creatures and had been wanting to capture the ettercap themselves for a few weeks. Unfortunately, the slums were Thieves' Guild territory, and the two guilds have been on the edge of conflict for months. Not wanting to start all-out war, the Assassins hoped to find a neutral party to extract the ettercap for them. The PCs seem to fit the job description perfectly.
And so, on the way to the slums, the party was given a note by Tarn, a halfling member of the Assassins guild. The note offered the PCs a sizable amount of cash (more than Anmeh was paying at least) for the ettercap alive and gave a dropoff place. Pretending to be a drunk carrying the message for coin, Tarn gave the party the note and was about to leave when The Number Two Wizard decided to Charm Person him for ****s and giggles (and naturally the dice-gods decided that it was time to screw over Tarn). Against his better judgment, Tarn agreed to stroll along with the party through the slums.
At this point, Altara was beginning to get a little suspicious of Tarn (she succeeded a sense motive check against one of his attempts to appear drunk), but the rest of the party ignored her. The party found a nice sketchy alley in the slums to hunker down in and hope the ettercap would show up. Nibs and Altara were stationed at the entrance to the alley, The Number Two Wizard and Tarn lounged about somewhere in the middle as squishy-looking bait, and Akakack and Sliznak hid around a corner, hoping to pounce on the ettercap.
Now, this plan was rather lacking. If the ettercap was even out prowling tonight, why would the party suspect that it might find them. Anyway, in the interest of moving action along, I gave the ettercap something like a 50-50 chance of noticing them and trying to pick off dinner. The dice decided that he did.
So, after the sun set (the party had been waiting around about an hour), the ettercap slunk across a nearby rooftop clad in a blue robe and wide-brimmed hat stolen from a victim and surveyed the situation. To his 6-int brain, it seemed like there was an easy enough kill. An old man and an intoxicated halfling were sitting around and talking in an alley. The only nearby people didn't seem interested, and he had every reason to belive that his usual escape routes would work should thins go South. So the ettercap decided to try and pick off the halfling with the longbow he had stolen off one of his victims. The shot missed by a mile and combat began.
Right off the bat, Tarn spooked and ran charmed as he was, he knew that he was in the wrong part of town and he immediately assumed the ettercap was a killer from the Thieves' Guild out to kill him. The Number Two Wizard (I'm just gonna start abreviating it to NTW) fired off a spell or something at the ettercap ineffectively, and the others moved to get in a position where they could attack the ettercap on the roof. Sensing that things had indeed gone south, the ettercap dived from the roof into a small back yard (blocking LoS from the PCs) and ran into a nearby house.
.Hearing a door slam, Akakack drank an extract of Enlarge Person, raged, and tried to push his waya through a nearby shack to get at where he thought the ettercap was. He succeded in pushing his way through the front wall of the house, causing the roof to collapse and more than a little surprise to the house's ouccupants. Sliznack and NTW ran into nearby houses in hopes of spotting the ettercap while Nibs climbed onto Akakack's shoulder's for a better view, and Altara ran to the other end of the alley in hopes of blocking the ettercap's exit routes and catching a glimpse of Tarn (who she still did not trust).
Sliznack and NTW both chose the wrong houses for ettercap sightings and on his next round, the ettercap managed to slip by Nibs and Akakack with an excellent stealth check, running down a side-alley towards its lair. At this point, NTW's player asked me So is there a lamp in the shack I've run into? Taken aback, I say something to the effect of sure. Alright, I light it and smash it on the ground. I'm not quite sure whether NTW was hoping to smoke the ettercap out of hiding, or just wanted to cause chaos and destruction. Anyway, his action gave Akakack the bight idea of demolishing a nearby house because the ettercap might be in there (he wasn't). Pretty soon, the PCs had knocked down or ignited most of the nearby buildings out of a strange combination of tactical thinking and glee in destruction. As scared commoners began to flood the streets, the PCs decided it was time to go and split. Only Sliznak and NTW stayed behind in the general area, Sliznak pretending to help put out the fires (trying to build up a reputation as an upstanding member of the community), and NTW creating illusionary fires with silent image because he's a ****. The ettercap had escaped for the night.
The next day, the PCs met up again and, after Altara attempted to guilt-trip the prime demolisher, they went back to the drawing board with their plan. Altara finally convinced the party that Tarn was sketchy as hell, and NTW and Akakack decided to help her investigate him, while Nibs and Sliznak searched the slums for clues.
Having learned that Tarn frequented the Flounder Pounder (for those of you without DMGII, it's a sketchy dockside bar which is actually the front for the Assassin's Guild), the trio decided to ask around there. Disguising himself as a beautiful woman (Disguise Self is a handy little spell), NTW started asking patrons of the Pounder about Tarn and was eventually able to locate him. Ned and the other assassins weren't too suspicious, since strange women had come asking for Tarn before.
Eventually, the three caught up with Tarn and captured him. He admitted that he had been leading them on to some extent the night before, and claimed that he was actually an agent of the Thieves' Guild. He claimed that the Thieves' Guild wanted to capture the ettercap, but a dangerous street-gang controlled the slums and they didn't want to start a war. The PCs believed him this time, and agreed to get him the ettercap despite his earlier deception.
Meanwhile, Sliznak and Nibs asked around and found that there was a well-known distiller of illegal alcohol in the slums who wore a blue cloak and wide-brimmed straw hat (just like the ettercap). After some bluffing and convincing, they found their way to his house. Sneaking in through the chimney, they found the one-room house deserted, but a good perception check noticed a trap door to a basement. Down the stairs, Nibs and Sliznak found an old distillery now inhabited by the ettercap and his pet spiders. Luckily for them, the two were quite stealthy and got away unnoticed. Nibs and Sliznak pushed as much furniture as they could over the trap door and ran off to find the rest of the party.
That's where we ended session. I'm expecting our next session to be quite exciting. It turns out that, after the disturbance of the night before, the Thieves' Guild has been keeping an eye on the PCs. They've gathered that they're trying to capture some sort of creature for the Assassins and have decided to kill the beast before it can be delivered. They don't want to kill the PCs themselves, because they're not quite sure what their connections are and wouldn't like to start a war with the assassins just yet, but they'll send some people to try and pick off the ettercap as the PCs transport it (assuming they don't just get mauled to death by his spider minions). Anyway, I'm hoping that this will give the PCs some fun exposure to two of the main factions of the Saltmarsh underworld, and we'll see how things turn out.
We've just had the two session so far, but as we play more, I'll try to update. Having never written a campaign journal before, I'm always up for suggestions -- I can focus more on the play-by-play of combat or gloss over that stuff etc.