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DoctorProfessor
2015-02-02, 05:02 AM
Hello there forum goers!

I'll not waste your precious time and start by giving you a quick summary of what you're getting into here. A quick disclaimer though, I am typing this up at about 3 in the morning here while the last session is still fresh in my mind. We won't reach that point, mind you, with this first post, but I should catch up fairly quickly.

This is a pathfinder game, run by Jerynboe, that has been inspired by an old video game called Legends of Legaia. Our DM has handed me his own intro, so that will go into the first spoiler tag.

We are three sessions in, and currently at level two. Level advancement is mile-stone based. The campaign setting is very apocalyptic in nature, but is not a very highly optimized game by any means, as the DM, and one other player are the only ones with any level of experience with Pathfinder. I have done a one-shot with those two previously, but you might as well consider me going in blind with the other three. And among those three, this will be one of which's first roleplaying game, period. Go easy on us guys, but don't tune out just yet. This is probably the most absorbed I have ever been into a storyline as far as tabletop roleplaying goes. I will for the most part, be narrating to you as my character, but I will save that for after I lay the scene and give a quick introduction on the characters.

The game will be run on a weekly basis, but we are all college students. So while you should get fairly constant updates, we're unsure how carrying things on over the summer and into the next semester will pan out.

I think that's about all I have to say for now. I shall leave you in the capable hands of our DM, Jerynboe~!

Good evening, I’d like to start by giving credit to my inspiration. Legends of Legaia is a PS1 game I played when I was quite young, and have replayed half a dozen times. On my most recent play through, I found myself imagining it as a campaign run by me. I do this often, but this time I felt really inspired. Started elaborating. Making changes. I chose pathfinder because of personal preference.

I’m in college so I had to fiddle with it for a bit before I went back to my school and could start running it on a weekly basis. Finding people to play was thankfully easy, as I have apparently impressed with my last campaign (up to… 4 campaigns now). About two weeks in one of my players, inspired by campaign journals we found on this very forum, decided he wanted to record it in a journal and share it with the internet.

In my campaigns, balance is a present concern but very backseat. I try to focus on story and play it by ear. I like giving the PCs cool toys, and I know that this isn’t a super high op game. I freely alter or ignore rules if I think it would be fun. Homebrewed magic items and a custom prestige class that openly breaks the action economy come standard.

Finally, I am using the plot of a video game from 1998 as heavy inspiration. Which means blatantly stealing those plot points and ideas I find appealing. If you’ve played this game, which may be better for me do to nostalgia than it actually is, kindly keep my possible plot twists secret for me. None of my players have. I am not following the storyline blindly, but certain locations are generally the same. That said, I also make a wide variety of massive changes to many characters, expand on things, and add a lot of content. The original game only had humans, for example. I just hope my players, and indirectly maybe you guys, have fun and enjoy it.

As to what the seru are: They are all of the magical beasts, fey, outsiders, elementals, oozes, and dragons. Also a few other creatures. I took them and converted them into equipment/templates for when they are being used. So for example, a sprite is a Cr 1/3 fey but when it is worn it is a fingerless glove that lets you cast color spray once a day and dancing lights at will

Welcome back guys~! I suppose I should start out by setting the scene. After that, I will introduce you to your narrator and the rest of the cast. From there on, I'll mostly be paraphrasing from my character's campaign journal from a first person perspective, with the occasional breaking of the fourth wall. I find that this style is the most entertaining for me. :smalltongue:

To our knowledge, the world as we know it is a super continent divided up by liberally placed mountain ranges. There are some small islands here and there, but they're not a prominent feature of the world. We are officially dragging out the cultural level of world war two comparison to be shot. With that said, guns are a thing in Pathfinder, and it is to my knowledge that some countries are ahead of others in different things. In this world, magic and alchemy have largely been replaced by entities that functionally replace outsiders, angels, demons, etc. as

The Seru were what we called them, functionally having as much of an impact on our society as computers would in the real world. They were everywhere, with varying levels of sophistication, power, and spell-like abilities at their disposal. They powered our cities, added to our military might, and could even be bred to possess greater levels of power. They accomplished almost everything we could desire from providing musical entertainment to helping us survive in the wild. Anyone could bind a Seru to themselves and gain access to that Seru's abilities instantly. They were easy to use, abundant, and could be bred to increase their potential. What could possibly go wrong?

Fast forward to 20 years prior to the start of the campaign, the mist arrived. Wherever it went, it drove the Seru mad, causing them to attack anyone in sight. As for those who were bound to a Seru at the time? Well, those with strong will had been known to fight it for short periods of time, but possession by the Seru was inevitable. (I would like to point out that my will save is... no. :smalleek:) Worse case scenario, which actually isn't all that unlikely, it blanketed the entire super continent.

Consider for a moment the fact that to be a spell caster, or have an army that did not have seru-bound soldiers, would make you second rate. Replace 90% of technology in general with Seru, and go ahead and consider it already too late for those wearing watches, or carrying a mobile phone on them when the mist arrived. The mist was absolute, and it has been 20 years since it has arrived. Whatever it is, it is here to stay.

For these past 20 years, we have lived in a small town by the name of Rim Elm on the southern tip of the country of Drake and the super continent. Before the mist arrived, it was primarily a halfling settlement. Now for all we know it might as well be the last pocket of resistance in the world that hasn't been snuffed out by the intelligent mist. Yeah. You heard me. :smallannoyed: There have been incidents in the past where a squad on the wall abandoned its post to help out an adjacent squad. Bam, that abandoned section was suddenly hit hard. Yeah, we don't abandon our posts anymore. For any reason. We've learned from our mistakes, but Rim Elm started out with about 500 people when people first flocked to it for safety from the mist.

Now? We're sitting around the 300 number. There have been some births, but... well, yeah. :smalleek:

Rim Elm's story up to this point has been a bleak one. It is surrounded by a 20ft high wall that is patrolled in teams 24/7. All underbrush, trees, and anything else that might allow Seru the ability to sneak up to the wall have been cut down or cleared out for quite a distance. Rim Elm has a single heavy door, and a pulley as the only means of entering or exiting outside of the ports. Seeing as the mist is a gas, we have never had to worry about assaults from the sea. From the air? Well, we have standing orders to kill any and all flying creatures we see. Possessed or not. :smallfrown:

The only thing we have going in our favor? The coastal wind. For about 10 hours a day, sometimes more, sometimes less, the mist and all the seru-possessed creatures are pushed back a few miles. Just enough for us to be able to scavenge and give the town breathing room. Rim Elm never has to repel breaches, it just has to hold out until the wind picks up. In fact, the sheer majority of our contingency plans are just delaying tactics.

That just about covers the gist of the information we had going into our first session. Just know that about half the town is combat-capable, and small groups of people are assigned to teams of people that they will always work together with. We, the player characters, comprise Squad Seven.

I will be quick and brief for now. If you all want to hear more about the characters in-depth besides my own, let me know and I'll ask the other players to share some more info.

Quincy Aberforth Jones, your Narrator. Quincy is a 43 year old alchemist of no small note. With an intelligence of 20, and dexterity of 16, he was originally set up to be a jack of all trades and dexterity based skirmisher. Cause we all know how well jacks of all trades in the hands of newbies pan out. (But I must be able to do ALL THE THINGS! Also, I'm the only thing that passes for a healer in the party. :smalleek:) Quincy was born in the capital of Drake Kingdom, where he became a fairly prominent and well respected scholar. He is veryveryveryvery minor nobility and married to a fellow scholar by the name of Linda Anna Jones (Yeah, we went there.) whom he hasn't seen since the mist appeared, and hopes against all hope that she has found some way to stay alive all these years. Quincy's role in Rim Elm is that of an apothecary of sorts, with access to his own 'store' and private garden with which to grow any needed supplies.

John Warfield, Sergeant of Squad Seven. (He is basically the go to person for filing the reports and getting yelled at.) I had intended to put things delicately, but that would be an insult to the player's core character concept. To put it bluntly? This player was going to be damned if he wasn't going to play a space marine in a fantasy setting. Okay, not really, but that's what I like to think. He's a 45 year old dwarven gunslinger with the long term goal of rocking a two handed gun while wearing full plate. Metal... isn't exactly the most abundant thing in Rim Elm. We have silver though! Silver bullets. :smallbiggrin:

Honey Warfield, Like father like son, adopted daughter. A spellslinger fit to make her father proud. Honey is John's adopted daughter, and in John's words, "A sweet girl. Little disobedient, not going to complain." Unofficially a member of Squad Seven, due to the fact that she refuses to stay where it's safe. Not entirely sure how old she is. Looks to be about eight years old, but then again she did eight years go too. Actually, come to think about it, I don't think I've ever seen her eat, drink, or sleep. Huh. :smallconfused:

Regret "Red" Our friendly neighborhood tiefling! Okay, maybe he's a little awkward for conversation, but his heart is in the right place. Red is an anti-paladin seeking redemption, with a template tagged on titled a "Biron Monk." These are people in our campaign setting that vow to not make use of seru and any armor or weapons they did not make themselves. He gets more nice things, in exchange for vowing to not use the primary source of nice things native to this campaign. (See: Seru. See: Seru possesion. Hmmm) Red is the hero of Squad Seven, probably physically incapable of not dashing off towards the first cry for help that presents itself. Also, Red's immediate reaction to practically any threat is to tear off his shirt and intimidate as many targets as he can. I'm not sure how effective it will be in the long run, but his is probably my favorite character concept so far.

Olaf Zuuko.(Be nice. Don't judge.) I apologize, as I can't remember if he was an orc, or half-orc, but who knows? Maybe he doesn't remember himself! An amnesiac, and pyrokineticist. Again, I don't feel I know enough about him to do him justice with this character description. I may revisit it at some point, so check back in with me! What I do know is that between him and my firebombs, we have enough firepower to liberally see that it is applied to whatever problems we are faced with that is flammable. And that is always fun, right? I do know he over-works himself, and volunteers for extra shifts on the wall quite frequently.

Notes:

Also, for those of you that care: Honey Warfield is the only player we have that has prior experience with Pathfinder. If I remember right, she is REALLY experienced, and her character concept was one that was made to keep things interesting for her? Also, the player behind John typically works a lot better if he has someone to specifically play off of. Sooo, Honey! Regret is actually our newbie, who wanted a character that was built around ripping off his shirt and deflecting attacks off his marvelous abs. :smallcool: But he isn't the type of person you'd expect that out of, so don't be too quick to write him off. We're all a little green though, but we have a very fair DM who I have the utmost of faith in and respect for.

Welp, that about covers it! I will now reserve 2-3 posts for filling with the Campaign Journal itself. New journal entries will probably be added in a new post to the topic itself, and added to a spoiler tag in my reserved space. I'm still not 100% sure how I want to do it. Bear with me!

DoctorProfessor
2015-02-02, 05:03 AM
~Reserved space for Spoiler tags and the journal itself.~

Note: I've been organizing things roughly by level and quest... of sorts? 1.1 would be the first meaningful segment of the game and problem we are faced with at level one. 1.2 Is the second major event, and so on.

"Scientific name? Beedrus Ohs****icus" ~ Quincy

We, Rim Elm's Squad Seven, are on Bee duty today. Robert, our commanding officer, and effectively the man calling the shots in Rim Elm has assigned us our first mission of the campaign. While out in the hunting grounds oustide of Rim Elm, our scouts reported a sighting of a giant bee buzzing about. These bees, which I comically referred to as "Beedrus Ohs***icus," before informing him that these things can grow to the worrisome size of a dog. With that said, their queens have been reported to grow to the size of a small horse. The ones spotted in the hunting grounds were nowhere near that size, but it gives us all the more reason to head out there.

(I would like to take the time and point out that Robert and Aliza are halflings. Our DM slumps down in his chair so that his head is just poking above the table whenever he is speaking to us as a halfling.)

We were requisitioned some health potions, smoke sticks, and a smoke pellet, with instructions of going out and dealing with the problem. Preferably, by killing the bees. Later, the quartermaster and a good friend of mine, Aliza, requested that we preserve the bees and hive as best as possible. Giant bee honey has beneficial healing properties and the materials used in constructing their hive would be valuable to us. Unfortunately, none of us know how to tame giant bees. A bit of a niche skill in the apocalypse. Who knew?

Squad Seven then set out for the only door in and out of Rim Elm. It was about noon, which is when the mist has generally cleared up and it is considered safe to venture out. We had the general location of the hunting grounds and where the giant bee was spotted north of Rim Elm, but we had multiple routes that we could take. The most direct meant a trek through swampland, inconvenient. We elected to take the slightly longer and safer route over the hills which added roughly half an hour to the travel time.

After a few hours' excursion, we bagged some game and arrived at the hunting grounds where the giant bee was sighted. Let's see here, 5 of us, giant blatantly dangerous bees, only roughly 10 hours of safe time. How should we go about this? Oh, I know. LET'S SPLIT THE PARTY AT THE FIRST OPPORTUNITY WE GET! The Warfields and Olaf can go one way, while I take Red.

If I remember right, a nat 20 led Red and I find to what appeared to be an infant Giant Bee hive just north east of the hunting grounds. Thankfully, the Queen is young, and the size of their hive is likely incapable of sustaining anymore than maybe ten to twelve of the buggers. If there were anymore, we'd have been in serious trouble. Even still, fighting them all at once would have made a dangerous move.

It was in that moment of contemplation that Blue team, i.e. the one that doesn't have Red in it, encountered a single bee and opened fire. Did I mention guns were loud? And that Red and I were crouched in a bush not far from the bee hive? :smallmad:

Several bees responded to the gunfire and their fellow bee in need. Also, the Queen seemed to have recalled her drones from afar. One buzzed right over Red and me in our bush. We were not sure if it saw us, but we had no intention of sticking around to find out. Besides, Red cannot help but rush to the aid of anyone that needs it, especially if they're friends. I wasn't about to stick around to find out if we'd been seen alone.

By the time we had arrived, Blue team had scratched one bee. The three bees from the hive arrived before me and Red, but were currently hovering in confusion after John fired off a firecracker or some fireworks in their general direction. Seizing the moment, I hit them with a firebomb and pissed them off, for good reason. They all immediately made a bee-line for me. Oh had I wish I was already at level 2 with that extra poison resistance. I made use of my wrist mounted spring to bring my liquid blade to bare on one of the bees with the intent of immediately trying to stabilize it after it fell. No sooner had the thought crossed my mind, a second bee exploded into flames thanks to our friendly neighborhood pyro. As soon as they were both down for the count, I immediately dropped to provide them medical attention. They were still young bees, and I was unsure if we were capable of taming them. Besides, there is no guarantee there are larva in the hive yet. A shot from one of the Warfields clipped the wings off of the third.

After doing a little math in my head, I realized we only needed the two smoke sticks to cover the hive. With that said, it was time to find out how much smoke affected these giant bees. FOR SCIENCE! :smallbiggrin: The bee was immediately rendered rather docile, for a good thirty seconds after the smoke pellet dissipated. Intriguing.

(Why is a level one alchemist fighting with a Liquid blade you ask? Well, the DM and I both liked the idea of the Liquid blade, and I was attempting to give my character weapon finesse, and to eventually be able to apply my dex to damage as well. Think about the Dexterity mutagen for a second. I lacked the +1 BaB at level one along with a few other things, but long story short, the DM fudged a few things to allow me to be proficient in and have a FRAGILE SHORT SWORD. ...that I could refill as a full round action at the expenditure of one of my bomb charges. All very minor and flavorful tweaks. For what? A 1d6 for a handful of rounds that shatters on a 1? You all can give me that, can't ya?)

With the three bees all more or less stable, one being near BBQ'd, we will not speak of the failed surgical removal of one of the giant bee's stingers. Okay, maybe we will for completion's sake. The bee wasn't quite at negatives when I tried. After I did? We were both in the negatives. Only after wasting a valuable healing potion, it then occurs to me that Giant Bees aren't known for the medical attention they bestow to their fellow bees. My strength score isn't all that great, so we decide to call it there and carry our quarry back to town.

(It was also while I was trying to make this decision that I looked to the DM for confirmation after having done the rough math aloud for about how long it had been since we had left Rim Elm, and that if we headed back now we would get back with roughly two hours and some change to spare. I was met with a blank stare. Poker face. He the admitted he was not aware that any of us possessed any way of keeping track of the time, like a watch. :smalleek: A quick roll gauging the sun's position in the sky revealed my math to be more or less spot on. Whew.)

Soooooo yeah. Mission: Go kill dem bees yo!

Waaaaait a second. What are you all doing back so early? The bees needed medical attention! :smallamused:

Note: It was up until about the next part or so I was just keeping a personal log from solely Quincy's perspective. Up until the second session, things will largely be focused on Quincy. I have tried to shoe in some things the other party members did, but I can't remember everything in vivid detail.

(This is a much shorter section, but rounded out the first session with a glimpse into what Rim Elm faces every single night.)

We knew this well before today, but we were also scheduled for Wall duty above the gate for that night. As time passed, all the other squads and hunters sent out that day returned save for one, Juno's group. This was especially worrisome seeing how they were widely regarded as one of the better teams.

An hour before the mist usually edged back our way, the wind shifted. While not a common occurrence, it means a longer night and occasionally an especially violent one. The odds of Juno's squad returning were growing rather slim. It was at that point we heard cries to our right, as another group was coming under attack by some small flying creatures. Probably not a major threat, but that wasn't going to stop Red. Seeing how both John and I failed to trip or restrain him, we felt the need to be doubly vigilant in holding our position.

That was of course, when we heard familiar voices crying from outside the wall to open the door. (Or lower the pulley, fuzzy on that detail.) Regardless, it is standard procedure to not open the door at night, for any reason. It was Juno's group, carrying a heavily wounded Juno in tow.

Fast approaching from behind was a pack of small dogs buldging with muscles no doubt granted to them by the Seru possessing them. What led them however, was the really frightening entity of the bunch. It was a Crenshar... a Seru, and a rather terrifying one at that. With those things out there, opening the door was a no go. We were going to have to lift them up via the pulley, one at a time.

The Warfields and hunters fired off silver bullets and arrows, respectively, at the approaching Crenshar and pack of dogs while I lowered the pulley. I could only throw bombs so far. Besides, that pack of dogs was tightly knit, and I didn't want to scare them off by leveling a firebomb at the Crenshar. That firebomb was all I would get off for that fight, but it would be enough to reduce all the dogs to half health.

That was when the Crenshar peeled back the entirety of its flesh from its skull and let out a blood curdling roar. (Read. Will save. :smalleek:) John, Olaf, and I booked it, but only John had the sense to realize we were atop the wall and entirely safe from harm. (He only rolled a 1 for how many turns he would spend do nothing but put as much distance between himself and the Crenshar. Me and Olaf, not so lucky.)

Thankfully, it was at this point Red rejoined us at our position on the wall, as one jacka** hunter leaped onto the pulley and began crawling up it. Thankfully, it held up and Red kept the pulley from dropping the man's weight back onto the ground. Meanwhile, Juno's group fought as a team, covering any wounded they gained while the Warfields provided covering fire from above.

Honey put the training from her father to good use by making the Crenshar's head explode. It was an impressive crit...

...until John hit one of the last wolves for 44 damage on his crit. Guns are scary. So much so that our DM ruled that the last dog, all of which were immune to fear effects mind you, decided this fight just wasn't worth it and ran off in fear. :smalltongue:

Thankfully, there were no casualties in Juno's unit that night.

And with that, the first session draws to a close.


But before we get to that, we have a job outside the walls to finish. Round 2. Honey's player was going to be joining us late, so she ended up not taking part in the Bee Keeping duties.

Refreshed from last night's shift atop the wall, we waited for the mist to clear before setting out around noon. None of us were feeling particularly adventurous, although 20 years living this sort of life will do that to you. After a night to myself I had a general idea of how I wanted to deal with the bees, but it relied on a bit of luck and a few assumptions being true.

After we were a good ways out, I thought I would give the rest of Squad Seven a chance to share any ideas they had. Seeing as no one else had any better ideas, I pitched mine. In the process, I probably scared away any potential game the DM might have allowed us to stumble upon. Whoops.

Anywhoo, my plan was as follows. We have two smoke sticks between us, and in my assessment of the hive I wagered that the two smoke sticks would be roughly enough to envelop it entirely in smoke with what we had. Our neighborhood pyro could then go in add to the smoke to buy me more time to crawl into the hive. What I hoped to find was two-fold: Royal Jelly, a necessary component to be able to raise a queen of our own, and larva bees that would be the easiest to raise. I figured the Queen was too dangerous to even attempt to tame, but if I could not find any royal jelly within a reasonable stretch of time, the plan was to deal with as many of the bees as possible while they were rendered tame by the smoke.

This of course assumes the bees are all physically in the hive, or at least clustered enough to be rendered mostly tame by our two smoke sticks. That, and we can sneak up on the hive, close enough to lob the smoke sticks. It goes without saying we actually have to land our throws accurately. Starting to see all the holes in this plan? Yeeeeeah, we were effectively all jumping into a boat and immediately casting off. We knew full well there were holes in the boat but hoping there weren't too many that could be plugged before we sank.

But no one else can really come up with anything better. Worst case scenario? We drug a handful of them for a minute or two and end up just having to kill the rest, hoping the hive has some salvageable resources. It isn't much, but we proceed hoping it will be enough.

On the way, we encounter a single drone buzzing about. Not wanting to risk combat and drawing the bees out of their hive, we elect to circle around at a safe distance. We arrive at the hive without further incident.

As we sneak closer to assess the scene and make amendments to our plan, we find the hive in rather prime condition for what I have in mind. We spot the queen and two drones on the hive itself, with another patrolling about. Seeing as John had the best throwing arm besides me, he volunteers to throw the other one.

We both edge forward, the rest of the party vigilant, ready to spring to our aid should things turn south. Just outside throwing distance, we're spotted. Thankfully, we win the initiative and land both our smoke sticks. From there, the rest of the party leaps in to deal with the free bee.

It is as John's second round comes up, and seeing how no bees have yet stormed out of the smoke, we realize a hole in our plan. None of us have any way of seeing through the smoke. And so John and I blindly crawl in, at the mercy of the DM's dice determining what we run into. John finds the Bee Queen, and tries to tie the thing up. Unfortunately for him, the Queen was not subdued enough to give up without a fight. As John fails to grapple and restrain the arge ized Bee Queen, he gets a VERY NASTY sting for his efforts.

I on the other hand, luck out in finding some royal jelly. I only find enough to fill a single vial, but it's primarily what I came here. I attempt to retrace my steps at a crawl to find that John has run cursing from the hive with a very nasty bee sting. The rest of the party is struggling to deal with the first bee. Okay, things could be going better, but it could also be much worse.

It as this point I reassess the situation. The hive isn't entirely enveloped by smoke, but all the bees inside it are within the smoke cloud. Restraining the queen didn't work, so it was time to cheese our first boss fight of the game. For the duration of the smoke, I began to hurl firebombs towards the Queen's general location, concentrating my efforts on what I knew to be the greatest threat. John assists in dropping the other bee, and at that point the smoke begins to dissipate.

The Bee Queen darts directly for me, seeing as I have been torching her and her hive. With just the first sting, my health plummets to 0. The DM allowed me a bluff check to pretend the Bee dropped me with the first hit. Naturally, I roll a 1 and in a fit of method acting I drop to the ground like a stone, taking a point of damage and sinking into the negatives. Convincing enough?

Meanwhile, shenanigans with the rest of the party continue. Olaf had been failing to ignite the hive up until that point. Seeing how the Queen just impaled me, she leveled a bit of fire the Queen's way. Responding immediately to any and all sources of flame, the Queen turned to her. Lucky for Olaf, Red was there to land an attack of opportunity, clothes lining the Queen and bringing her down for the count.

It was at this point the fight was practically won. There was a point where a bee whose wings had been shredded was attempting to cling to Red's leg and failing twice to pierce his thighs with its stinger. Red was mostly deflecting things off of his glorious abs for the entire fight, while going to town with his claws.

There as call for a knowledge check having to do with the Queen Bee, but the only one capable of making it was still unconscious. This was also when Honey arrived because her player got off of work. After bringing me back, we set to salvaging what we could of the hive. My firebombs had singed and melted quite a bit of the thing, but there was still plenty of salvage to be had.

Effective barrels of honeycomb filled with honey could be carried back, along with a handful of larva. All in all, it was a good haul. What we couldn't carry could be salvaged by other people on return trips. There was at least another bee out and about, but it was to our understanding that we had eliminated the threat. And with that, we set out for Rim Elm.

In hindsight, I probably should have harvested what Giant Bee poison I could, but it completely slipped my mind.

Note: Beforehand, I would like to note that I call Aliza, the halfling alchemist and quartermaster of Rim Elm Lizzy. I will make it uniformly one or the other after posting this entry, but for now I thought I would make a note of it.

The trip home was thankfully uneventful. As much as I tried to save as many as I could, my opinion on the matter could be surmised in three words. "F*** Giant Bees." From a meta game perspective, it was a boss fight we were most likely coming into at full strength, with an ability to disable the boss for so many rounds handed to us no questions asked. Besides, we were not scheduled for night duty tonight. Everything should be peachy, right? :smallsmile:

We hauled our quarry back to Rim Elm, but elected to not inform our Commanding Officer, Robert, of the results. He probably would not have been too happy with the thought of raising giant bees inside the town. Even if it didn't pan out, we came out ahead for the most part. Instead, we elected to head straight for Aliza's, the quartermaster and my alchemist friend whom requested we spare the bees in the first place. After garnering a little praise and thanks, there was still the matter of how to apply the Royal Jelly to convert one of the normal giant bees into a queen. Aliza's husband may no longer be with us, and the more experienced alchemist of the couple, but some of his books were still lying around.

I scooped up what I thought to be relevant and spent the rest of my free time for the day researching how best to approach the problem. My results were thus: The younger the better, and vague impressions that sticking the larval form itself in the jelly would work. And so with a shrug, I did just that. For you know, scientific reasons. Taming the young bees on the other hand, would be beyond me, left in the hands of other NPCs. If that failed to pan out, there was always this batch of larva to place our hopes on.

And so our bee keeping duties were at an end... for now.

Okay, what follows are two versions of the second half of the second session. The first, I typed up in the middle of the night after half a day of hiking and an evening of playing in the fourth session. It is riddled with mistakes and flows a little oddly, but something possessed me to post it regardless. When I went back to correct it, I found myself making a lot more corrections than I thought I would, and with the suggestion of the DM, I will keep both versions up for those willing to suffer through both to see where the differences appear.

There are not exactly a lot of opportunities for advancing ourselves in equipment. Our first quest coupled with our average night on the wall had yet to earn us level two, which seemed reasonable. And so Squad Seven retired for the night, each in their respective locations.

It was not long until I awoke, not too sure about the others, but there was a loud rumbling. The earth itself was shaking, and so I sprinted out of the house without hesitating, grabbing anything and everything that I normally brought to bear for a night on the wall. It was thus that a level one alchemist with no prepared extracts and the little girl, Honey, set out to investigate the disturbance seeing how we were the only ones to be roused from our slumber by the shaking earth.

In the darkness, I spotted a gigantic shape, shaking the each with each step it took towards Rim Elm. We were worried, not entirely sure what could be done to fend off against such a monstrosity. Honey sent off an unseen servant, unbeknownst to anyone else, to rouse the rest of Squad Seven.

It was then a figure, dressed in all manner of fine clothes and elegant armor appeared on the wall. Just like that. A bit of examination told me that he was blatantly a noble of some sort, but from where I had no idea. But his armor... there was no doubt in my mind that it was a Seru. What happened next, defied everything we thought we knew. Lord Zito... introduced himself. appeared. I did what I could to question this entity, but he was here for a purpose. Any question posed to him was brushed off in a roundabout way. He was here for one thing, "Just to check on something of course." He moved with a purpose, approaching the center of town.

I had a bad feeling about this guy, but I was not the only one. Upon reaching his objective, confirmed whatever it was he was checking in on and politely allowed us all roughly twenty minutes to abandon the town and die on the run instead of forcing him to go to the trouble of besieging the town. I had suspicions, but his ultimatum made my jaw hit the floor.

I only had one reply to that. Adhesive spittle to root him on the spot. Final Boss engaged. Zito effortlessly danced out of being rooted to the spot, before firing back at me "I LIKED those shoes. They're irreplaceable. The guy who made them is dead!"

And without any effort on Zito's part, a giant ball of water appeared out of nowhere, wasting no time in enveloping me. As the rest of Squad Seven that had arrived followed suit in reacting to Zito's aggressive actions, they fell in short order into the same predicament I was in. Had it not been for a well timed "pretty please" from Honey, half of us could have drowned then and there. To make things interesting, I will have you note that the ONLY picture I had of my wife was in my pocket at the time, and Zito damaged it! The fact that he nearly knocked me unconscious without so much of a gesture in my direction meant nothing to me. I was throwing all logic out the window in chasing him back to the top of the North Wall. And as soon as he reached the top, he vanished as suddenly as he had appeared. :smallannoyed:

That was it, we had 20 minutes. The clock was ticking...

I suppose at this point now would be as good a time as any to go into detail Rim Elm's general plans in case of a siege. Step one was to hold the line at all costs. If another section of the wall was suspected to be breached, if you could spare a few men they were welcome to attempt to address the situation. Aside from that, holding the wall meant just about everything. Runners would be sent to wake any and everyone as well as keep groups updated on the overall status of the siege. Non combatants were to be evacuated to the southern tip of the town, onto the docks where what we passed off as rafts were stored. Worst case scenario? We set the rafts off a bit and wait out as much of the night as we can aboard the rafts. Until that point? It was all about hit and run, harassment, and doing just about anything to buy time.

Honey hit the ground running, assisting with waking people up and pushing to evacuate. The rest of us? We took up positions at the nearest section of the wall, with no intent at all to allow anyone in or out of that door. That placed Olaf, John, and myself at the North wall. Red followed the Biron monk he looked up to towards the West wall. Thankfully, not many took Honey seriously, being a little girl, but she got people awake. Protocol was followed to the letter, and we were prepared to dig in for what we assumed to be a hard-fought night. All we had to do was hold out.

And then, the Juggernaut happened. There was a bright flash of light, as the giant figure in the distance initiated the assault by [FIRING IT'S LAZOR!!! :smallcool: *ahem*] blowing a giant hole into the Northern wall, the laser going on to incinerate the first house immediately behind the wall. :smalleek: There was nothing left but a crater. :smallfrown:

A rallying call from Commander Robert came up as he took up a position in front of a line of men with locked shields and spears. "At this point, we ARE the wall!" As I looked out from the top of a part of the North wall that was still standing, I saw with horror what was coming our way. A large naked bear, a seru, and a small horde of dogs were charging our position. We were level 1, not even at full strength, and already taking part in mass combat. :smalleek: Thankfully, Honey joined us atop the wall before things got bad.

Behind us, the central tree seemed to be glowing oddly. Red was dispatched to investigate, and I fully intended to do the same... but that was a small army approaching a hole in the wall. I was not about to abandon a fight I could help out with, especially with such a tightly knit pack just ripe for some firebombs. I recognized the bear Seru, but did not know a lot of the details, but I knew it would be resilient. Besides, if I hit it with an explosion of fire, the wolves would scatter prematurely. As it barreled through the wide gap in the wall and crashed into a volley of spears that amounted to little to no damage, I grimaced.

I pitched in all I could, making each and every firebomb count. As the horde met the line of defenders, with our Commander letting out an extra attack with every ranged attack that was fired upon an enemy he was engaged with, I aimed to maximize my damage while avoid harming friendlies. It meant lobbing firebombs at dogs at the back of the ranks, but I managed to contribute quite a lot for all I was capable of doing.

Thankfully, it was noticed very keenly that a silver bullet that embedded itself in the bear was met with a fairly nasty spurt of blood. I called this out, to ensure the bear was left to the Warfields, and sure enough, Honey brought it down fairly quickly to be finished by Robert with a coup de grace. :smallamused: I had spent my firebombs though, but thankfully I had a backup.

Time to bust out the acid flasks, #RainingAcidB****es. At this point, they're manageable. With this section of the wall a manageable threat, no way of knowing how the other walls are faring, we decided to split the party even more. The Warfields and Olaf rotated to another portion of the wall while I retired from the battle. All I had left was a single acid flask, my extended liquid blade, and a dexterity extract I had downed, fully prepared to leap down and join the fight in mopping up the dogs. Seeing as I was no longer necessary, now was as good a time as any to investigate the tree.

Simultaneously while all of this happened, Red arrived at the tree, and found it acting strangely. As he approached it, the tree spat out a perfectly spherical orb of sorts into his hands. It had the same look and feel of the crystal tree, but Red had no idea what to do with it. He was getting vague impressions from it that amounted to, "Not you." Seeing how I was generally regarded as one of the more knowledgeable ones, Red made for the north wall, which was the closest section of the wall to my house with hopes to find either me or anyone that could figure out what to do with the orb.

The Warfields and Olaf reached the next section of the wall, to find multiple plant-esque Seru known as Leshy firing vines up and over the side of the wall. With liberal application of fire and gunfire, they began to deal with the problem while Red and I happened upon each other somewhere between the north wall and the tree. The exchange was surmised unedited, as follows:

A funny thing happened on the way to the forum, errr, glowing tree. Red had this egg, that just... came from the tree. It... wanted something, so he handed it to me and the thing IMMEDIATELY SHATTERED. #WhatTheF***WereYouThinkingRed? This see-through, thing, latches onto my left arm. I am convinced it is a Seru, WHICH IS BAD SEEING HOW I AM STANDING IN THE ****ING MIST! My arm at this point is now being RAPIDLY covered in blue oily scales.

It wants something. But I know better. There is a safe area by the tree, a few feet worth that the mist does not envelop. I need to get there and until then I am rejecting anything this Seru spreading up my arm has to say. I'm running. Red is right behind me. I have no idea what is going on with the rest of the town, but right now I am more concerned with not being possessed by a seru gifted to us by a tree we have taken for granted for so long.

My initiative comes up again for the first time since the egg burst and seru threw itself onto my arm. My second sense motive, which I might remind you is a +1 to start, and is being shot because I am hemorrhaging my wisdom in exchange for dexterity. Cause mutagens. Also, no skill points in it. Not my best roll, but from what I can tell the Seru is... ELATED!? High dice rolls be damned, that CAN'T BE A GOOD THING! :smallfrown: Sooo, I'm already half thinking of a new character concept in the back of my mind while I am running towards the tree. Worrisome. That I am running towards the tree. I can see it, it's close now. It contradicts everything I thought I knew about these things, which isn't much, and I am probably among the MOST LEARNED people in the town!!! If I'm doomed to turn into a horrible monster, hopefully red can put me down. Right? RIGHT? It rejected big Red here, maybe it's afraid of Tieflings! :smallannoyed:

"I'm gonna touch the tree with my left arm." Response? From the peanut gallery attatched to my arm? "PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE OH PLEASE TOUCH THE TREE!" Are these even my thoughts anymore? The moment my left hand comes int contact with the tree, I am suddenly flooded with energy, which then abandons me, and I am drained of all that energy and more, taking my health in subdual damage. May I remind you I already have some, which means a bit of lethal. I pass out, and things go dark. F***.

I am not aware of this at the time, but a BRIGHT FLASH OF LIGHT explodes outward, repelling the mist, and subdues all the seru-possessed creatures. The mist is gone. To a range that isn't visible from the wall, although it IS nighttime so that may not account for much.

So yeah. That happened. Also, the tree is now twice as tall as it used to be, and instead of possessing the appearance of a dormant tree in winter, this one is now in bloom, with crystal formations in the likeness of leaves. YEAH. THAT just happened.

Soooo, while the rest of the party is figuring out that mess... the session ends and we all advance to level 2. Yes, even unconscious me who now has access to the class: Seru Master.

Functionally? On the first level my seru gains its own action during my turn. I delay advancing alchemist for a level to allow my newly hatched Seru its own action, instead of me taking part of my turn to channel any ability it possesses. That, and I get to pick one from any number of other templates. I decide on the activation that applies the simple Wizard template to who I later decide on naming Caspian. Soooo yeah, between sessions I have gained a scale bracer that gets its own turn, and is a wizard. The spells he gets per day is laughable until I have 4 hit dice, but I'm breaking the action economy with free cantrips! 1d3 Ray of frost from my water Seru every turn! It is also worth mentioning that some of the levels in Seru Master simply advance any of my previous classes as far as feats, extract selection, and such is concerned, but I get the saves and attack bonus of Seru Master.

Meanwhile, the aftermath. Although this was touched on again at the start of the third session.

I had a dream, MLK mode engaged, that I encountered a dragon, nodded respectfully to it. I then saw much like the same tree we're familiar with at Rim Elm, only larger and covered with leaves. I would like to note I had not seen the tree's transformation yet. I look around for a reference point, but where I recognize there to be hills, there are mountains. There is also no Rim Elm to speak of... was this a vision of the past?

While I'm out, which is roughly for a day. John heads to the south to the docks, where there was a bit of a massacre. It is generally where the non-combatants go, and not how the animals get into Rim Elm. Apparently, with the aid of some swim-bestowing seru, that they willingly put on. Some Gnolls came in from the south catching those at the docks by surprise. The casualties... seeing how they were primarily non-combatants and caught completely by surprise, numbered probably around 50. Bringing us down to a population of 250. :smalleek:

There are not exactly a lot of opportunities for advancing ourselves in equipment. Our first quest coupled with our average night on the wall had yet to earn us level two, which seemed reasonable. And so Squad Seven retired for the night, each in their respective locations. As night rolled in along with the mist, I found myself working long into the night, working on some bottled lightning.

All of a sudden there was a sudden rumbling of the very earth. I dropped everything in favor of arming myself, and rushed out to the closest section of the wall to my little shop. Everyone else that was asleep failed their perception check to wake up, leaving just Honey and I bound for the north wall. It was thus that a level one alchemist with no prepared extracts and the little girl, Honey, set out to investigate the source of the rumbling disturbance.

In the darkness, I spotted a gigantic shape, shaking the each with each step it took towards Rim Elm. We were worried, not entirely sure what could be done to fend off against such a monstrosity. Honey sent off an unseen servant, unbeknownst to anyone else, to rouse the rest of Squad Seven.

It was then a figure, dressed in all manner of fine clothes and elegant armor appeared on the wall. Just like that. A bit of examination told me that he was blatantly a noble of some sort, but from where I had no idea. But his armor... there was no doubt in my mind that it was a Seru. What happened next, defied everything we thought we knew. Lord Zito... introduced himself. That was unheard of. He was supposed to be POSSESSED, and mindlessly attacking us, not introducing himself to us as if we were peasants. I did what I could to question this entity, but any question leveled at him was largely brushed off in a dismissive manner. Any question posed to him was brushed off in a roundabout way. He was here for one thing, "Just to check on something of course." He moved with a purpose, making straight the center of town. With a steadily increasing number of Squad Seven flanking him, of course.

Asked specifically about how he wasn't being possessed by his Seru returned this. "Clearly. You have poor quality Seru." I knew they could be bred, but the more he spoke, the more I began to think of ways to disrupt whatever he intended to do. Adhesive spittle, while he's at the center of town, yeah that should work.

I had a bad feeling about this guy, but I was not the only one. Upon reaching his objective, which was the giant crystal tree at the center of town, confirmed whatever it was he was checking in on. He then politely allowed us all, and by all I mean doing something with his voice so that all of Rim Elm's residents heard him, roughly twenty minutes to abandon the town and die on the run instead of forcing him to go to the trouble of besieging the town. I had suspicions, but his ultimatum made my jaw hit the floor.

I only had one reply to that. Adhesive spittle to root him on the spot. Turns out I just initiated combat with the final boss. Zito effortlessly danced out of being rooted to the spot, before firing back at me, "I LIKED those shoes. They're irreplaceable! The guy who made them is dead!"

And without any effort on Zito's part, a giant ball of water appeared out of nowhere, wasting no time in enveloping me. As the rest of Squad Seven that had arrived followed suit in reacting to Zito's aggressive actions, they fell in short order into the same predicament I was in. Had it not been for a well timed "pretty please" from Honey, half of us could have drowned then and there inside the massive sphere of water. To make things interesting, I will have you note that the ONLY picture I had of my wife was in my pocket at the time, and Zito damaged it! The fact that he nearly knocked me unconscious without so much of a gesture in my direction meant nothing to me. I was throwing all logic out the window in chasing him back to the top of the North Wall. And as soon as he reached the top, he vanished as suddenly as he had appeared. :smallannoyed:

That was it, we had 20 minutes. The clock was ticking...

I suppose at this point now would be as good a time as any to go into detail Rim Elm's general plans in case of a siege. Step one was to hold the line at all costs. If another section of the wall was suspected to be breached, if your section could spare a few men, they were welcome to attempt to address the situation. Aside from that, holding the wall meant just about everything. Runners would be sent to wake any and everyone as well as keep groups updated on the overall status of the siege. Non combatants were to be evacuated to the southern tip of the town, onto the docks where what we passed off as rafts were stored. Worst case scenario? We set the rafts off a bit and wait out as much of the night as we can aboard the rafts. Until that point? It was all about hit and run, harassment, and doing just about anything to buy time.

Back to the present, Honey hit the ground running, assisting with waking people up and pushing to evacuate. The rest of us? We took up positions at the nearest section of the wall, with no intent at all to allow anyone in or out of that door. That placed Olaf, John, and myself at the North wall. Red followed the Biron monk he looked up to towards the West wall. Thankfully, not many took Honey seriously, being a little girl, but she got people awake. Protocol was followed to the letter, and we were prepared to dig in for what we assumed to be a hard-fought night. All we had to do was hold out.

And then, the Juggernaut happened. There was a bright flash of light, as the giant figure in the distance initiated the assault by [FIRING IT'S LAZOR!!! :smallcool: *ahem*] blowing a giant hole into the Northern wall, the laser going on to incinerate the first house immediately behind the wall. :smalleek: There was nothing left but a crater. :smallfrown:

A rallying call from Commander Robert came up as he took up a position in front of a line of men with locked shields and spears. "At this point, we ARE the wall!"

As I looked out from the top of a part of the North wall that was still standing, I saw with horror what was coming our way. A large naked bear, which was a Seru, and a small horde of dogs were charging our position. We were level 1, not even at full strength, and already taking part in mass combat. :smalleek: Thankfully, Honey joined us atop the wall before things got bad.

Behind us, the central tree seemed to be glowing oddly. Red was dispatched by his mentor to investigate, and I fully intended to do the same... but that was a small army approaching a hole in the wall. I was not about to abandon a fight I could help out with, especially with such a tightly knit pack just ripe for some firebombs. I recognized the bear Seru, but did not know a lot of the details. All I knew was that it would be resilient, and this is a fairly common trait among Seru. Besides, if I hit it with an explosion of fire, the wolves would scatter prematurely. As it barreled through the wide gap in the wall and crashed into a volley of spears that amounted to little to no damage, I grimaced.

I pitched in all I could, making each and every firebomb count. As the horde of dogs met the line of defenders, with our Commander letting out an extra attack with every ranged attack that was fired upon an enemy he was engaged with, I aimed to maximize my damage while avoid harming friendlies. It meant lobbing firebombs at dogs at the back of the ranks, but I managed to contribute quite a lot for what little I was capable of doing.

Thankfully, it was noticed very keenly that a silver bullet that embedded itself in the bear was met with a fairly nasty spurt of blood. I called this out, to ensure the bear was left to the Warfields who possessed nothing but silver bullets. Sure enough, Honey brought it down fairly quickly, as their bullets in fact tore right through the DR of the bear. Robert finished off the beast with a coup de grace. :smallamused: I had spent my firebombs though, but thankfully I had a backup.

It was time to bust out the few acid flasks I held in reserve. At this point, what remained of the dogs was more than manageable. With this section of the wall more or less safe and no way of knowing how the other walls are faring, we decided to split the party even more. The Warfields and Olaf rotated to another portion of the wall while I retired from the battle. All I had left was a single acid flask, my extended liquid blade, and a dexterity extract I had downed as I was fully prepared to leap down and join the fight in mopping up the dogs. Seeing as I was no longer necessary, now was as good a time as any to investigate the tree.

Simultaneously while all of this happened, Red arrived at the tree, and found it acting strangely. For one, for a few feet outside every direction of the tree, the mist was repelled. After he approached it, the tree spat out a perfectly spherical orb of sorts into his hands. It was round, with a blue and scaled appearance, but Red had no idea what to do with it. He was getting vague impressions from it that amounted to, "Not you." Seeing how I was generally regarded as one of the more knowledgeable ones, Red made for the north wall, which was the closest section of the wall to my house with hopes to find either me or anyone that could figure out what to do with the orb.

The Warfields and Olaf reached the next section of the wall, to find multiple plant-esque Seru known as Leshy firing vines up and over the side of the wall. A single application of burning hands from Honey's gun and a well placed shot from John practically solved the encounter then and there. The leshy could only build the vine ladder a piece at a time. Both their hard work and part of their output were put down within the first round.

Red and I happened upon each other somewhere between the north wall and the tree. The exchange was surmised unedited, as follows:

A funny thing happened on the way to the forum, errr, glowing tree. Red had this blue egg, that just... came from the tree. It... wanted something, so he handed it to me and the thing IMMEDIATELY SHATTERED. WhatTheF***WereYouThinkingRed? This see-through, thing, latches onto my left arm. I am convinced it is a Seru, WHICH IS BAD SEEING HOW I AM STANDING IN THE F***ING MIST! My arm at this point is now being RAPIDLY covered in blue oily scales.

It is trying to tell me that it wants something, but I know better. Red claims there is a safe area where the mist is repelled near the tree. And with that we take off at a sprint for the tree, and until we arrive I am rejecting anything this Seru spreading up my arm has to say. I'm running. Red is right behind me. I have no idea what is going on with the rest of the town, but right now I am more concerned with not being possessed by a seru gifted to us by a tree we have taken for granted for so long.

My initiative comes up again for the first time since the egg burst and seru threw itself onto my arm. My second sense motive, which I might remind you is a +1 to start, and is being shot because I am hemorrhaging my wisdom in exchange for dexterity. Cause mutagens. Also, I have no skill points in it, so it is nott my best roll, but from what I can tell the Seru is... ELATED!? High dice rolls be damned, that CAN'T BE A GOOD THING! :smallfrown: Sooo, I'm already half thinking of a new character concept in the back of my mind while I am running towards the tree. Worrisome. This Seru is clinging to my arm, edging me onward to the tree, contradicting everything I thought I knew about these things, which isn't much, and I am probably among the MOST LEARNED people in the town!!! If I'm doomed to turn into a horrible monster, hopefully red can put me down. Right? RIGHT? It rejected big Red here, maybe it's afraid of Tieflings! :smallannoyed:

"I'm gonna touch the tree with my left arm." Response from the peanut gallery attached to my arm? [I[PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE OH PLEASE TOUCH THE TREE![/I] Are these even my thoughts anymore? The moment my left hand comes into contact with the tree, I am suddenly flooded with energy, which then abandons me, and I am drained of all that energy and more, taking my health in subdual damage. May I remind you I already have some subdual damage left over from Zito's ball of water? That translates into quite a bit of lethal damage to boot. My consciousness fades... :smalleek:

I am not aware of this at the time, but a BRIGHT FLASH OF LIGHT then explodes outward, repelling the mist, and subdues all the seru-possessed creatures. The mist is gone. To a range that isn't visible from the wall, although it IS nighttime so that may not account for much. All the Seru atop or around the wall are suddenly subdued, no longer acting possessed.

So yeah. That happened. Also, the tree is now twice as tall as it used to be, and instead of possessing the appearance of a dormant tree in winter, this one is now in bloom, with crystal formations in the likeness of leaves.

Soooo, while the rest of the party is figuring out that mess... the session ends and we all advance to level 2. Yes, even unconscious me who now has access to the home brewed prestige class: Seru Master.

Functionally? On the first level my seru gains its own action during my turn. I delay advancing alchemist for a level to allow my newly hatched Seru its own action, instead of me taking part of my turn to channel any ability it possesses. That, and I get to pick one from any number of other templates. I decide on the activation that applies the simple Wizard template to who I later decide on naming Caspian. Soooo yeah, between sessions I have gained a scale bracer that gets its own turn, and is a wizard. The spells he gets per day is laughable until I have 4 hit dice, but I'm breaking the action economy with free cantrips! 1d3 Ray of frost from my water Seru every turn! It is also worth mentioning that some of the levels in Seru Master simply advance any of my previous classes as far as feats, extract selection, and such is concerned, but I get the saves and attack bonus of Seru Master.

Meanwhile, the aftermath. Although this was touched on again at the start of the third session.

I had a dream, MLK mode engaged, that I encountered a dragon, nodded respectfully to it. I then saw much like the same tree we're familiar with at Rim Elm, only larger and covered with leaves. I would like to note I had not seen the tree's transformation yet. I look around for a reference point, but where I recognize there to be hills, there are mountains. There is also no Rim Elm to speak of... was this a vision of the past?

While I'm out, which is roughly for a day. John heads to the south end of the city where the docks are, and has been the site of a massacre. It is generally where the non-combatants go, and not how the animals get into Rim Elm. The people that fled to the south were assaulted by a pack of Gnolls that entered the city with the aid of swim-speed granting Seru. Seeing how they were primarily non-combatants and caught completely by surprise, the casualties numbered roughly in the 50s. This brought Rim Elm down to a population of roughly 250. :smalleek:

Disclaimer: I am new to these forums. I knew there was likely a character limit for posts. I just did not know that...
1. These journals would be so long, and
2. I would hit that limit so early.

Seeing how I have already hit it with level 1's adventures, I am going to discontinue trying to compile them all on the first page.

DoctorProfessor
2015-02-02, 05:07 AM
~Reserved space for spoiler tags and the journal itself.~

Two reserved spots should be good! Update: Not even close~

Since I will not be using this space for compiling journals in one spot any longer, I'll just leave a few personal announcements here.

1.) Please no spoilers for those of you that have played Legends of Legaia. Only our DM has even heard of it, let alone played it, and we're unsure as to how much or little of that is translating into his campaign world.

2.) I would LOVE to hear from you all, as I have been very quickly growing fond of the community here. Constructive criticism, advice, discussion, all of it is welcome! Also, if there are things you all would like me to take more of a note of, like more in depth builds of the Pathfinder Newbies, please just say so! I'm more than happy to go out of my way to acquire such information from my fellow players.

3.) If you MUST leave criticism, try and aim it a bit more at me and improving my writing. C'mon guys, this is honestly for you all. We're all fairly new to roleplaying, this being most of our first forray into pathfinder, and in Red's case, his first roleplaying game. We're here to have fun, have built character concepts that interest us, and are here to have fun navigating the world and plot our DM has come up with. With that said, I am ALWAYS looking to hear more about and learn as writing and roleplaying are becoming a bit of a passion of mine~ :smallsmile:

Miscast_Mage
2015-02-02, 10:27 AM
A first mission involving bees? And orders not to kill the bees at that? Evil. I love it!

The setting sounds incredibly fun to play in; I've always been a fan of apocalyptic scavenger-style games(and writing up a home campaign myself, at the moment). It sounds like the players are having fun with it.

"Open the gates!" is always a fun situation to be in, too. Even more fun if you're the one locked outside. :smallamused:

Quite a fun read so far, I'll be keeping an eye on this journal!

(I'm surprised there was no screaming of THE BEEEEEEES).

DoctorProfessor
2015-02-02, 02:23 PM
(I'm surprised there was no screaming of THE BEEEEEEES).

Okay. I have finally got some sleep. Now that you bring it up, I forgot to mention our first session had the best combat music I have ever heard at the table.

Flight of the Bees. Every, single, time, we fought bees.

But yeah, I really enjoyed how there was some serious reason to keep the bees alive. And I sorta worked as close with the DM as I could to give Quincy strong personal reasons to blindly chase after plot carrots. Like a good little PC rabbit! :smallbiggrin:

I actually enjoyed trying to stabilize bees and transport them back to town where I could provide them dedicated medical attention. Oh, and then cage the little buggers. For safety reasons I assure you.

Also, if any of us wanted an animal companion from Rim Elm, Giant Bees were our only option at the moment. Not that I'm complaining. I would totally go for one, but I have a lot of other Alchemist things I want.

Examples of things I worked out with the DM to give him ideas include:

Aliza, and her deceased husband, were the only other alchemists with any ability in Rim Elm, so we are naturally friends. I also had knowledge that she is very well respected, despite her frequent dangerous ideas that are attempting to provide some more long term sustainability to Rim Elm. Domesticated Giant Bees? We went for it.

I basically gave the DM my wife and very young child to do with as he pleased, leaving their character creation and fates up to him but add personal reasons to eventually leave the safety of Rim Elm and chase plot carrots. Not sure if anything is being done with the kid, as he was one-two when the mist appeared, but I do know something is being done about my wife. It is apparently enough that our DM is sharing it with everyone he knows that is not playing in his campaign, and it is causing these friends of ours to laugh at me. I'm not sure what to think about this development, but I suppose I will find out sooner or later. For better or worse, right? :smalleek:

Anywhoo, the second session's journal has nowhere near as much editing and combing over as the second one had. I will probably need a day or two to collect my thoughts on it all and put it into a narrative format. :smallsmile:

Edit: Oh yes, and my DM corrected me in one regard. We were not on a technilogical level of World War one. That sounded a little absurd, but a CULTURAL level.

Kendrix
2015-02-03, 01:14 AM
This is Honey! ... ... ... BUMP

DoctorProfessor
2015-02-05, 02:07 AM
Sorry for the delay on this one guys. Now that we've gotten a feel for what life in Rim Elm has generally been like, the DM decided it was time to introduce what would be in the running for one of the worst nights Rim Elm has experienced.

But before we get to that, we have a job outside the walls to finish. Round 2. Honey's player was going to be joining us late, so she ended up not taking part in the Bee Keeping duties.

Refreshed from last night's shift atop the wall, we waited for the mist to clear before setting out around noon. None of us were feeling particularly adventurous, although 20 years living this sort of life will do that to you. After a night to myself I had a general idea of how I wanted to deal with the bees, but it relied on a bit of luck and a few assumptions being true.

After we were a good ways out, I thought I would give the rest of Squad Seven a chance to share any ideas they had. Seeing as no one else had any better ideas, I pitched mine. In the process, I probably scared away any potential game the DM might have allowed us to stumble upon. Whoops.

Anywhoo, my plan was as follows. We have two smoke sticks between us, and in my assessment of the hive I wagered that the two smoke sticks would be roughly enough to envelop it entirely in smoke with what we had. Our neighborhood pyro could then go in add to the smoke to buy me more time to crawl into the hive. What I hoped to find was two-fold: Royal Jelly, a necessary component to be able to raise a queen of our own, and larva bees that would be the easiest to raise. I figured the Queen was too dangerous to even attempt to tame, but if I could not find any royal jelly within a reasonable stretch of time, the plan was to deal with as many of the bees as possible while they were rendered tame by the smoke.

This of course assumes the bees are all physically in the hive, or at least clustered enough to be rendered mostly tame by our two smoke sticks. That, and we can sneak up on the hive, close enough to lob the smoke sticks. It goes without saying we actually have to land our throws accurately. Starting to see all the holes in this plan? :smalleek: Yeeeeeah, we were effectively all jumping into a boat and immediately casting off. We knew full well there were holes in the boat but hoping there weren't too many that could be plugged before we sank. :smallwink:

But no one else can really come up with anything better. Worst case scenario? We drug a handful of them for a minute or two and end up just having to kill the rest, hoping the hive has some salvageable resources. It isn't much, but we proceed hoping it will be enough.

On the way, we encounter a single drone buzzing about. Not wanting to risk combat and drawing the bees out of their hive, we elect to circle around at a safe distance. We arrive at the hive without further incident.

As we sneak closer to assess the scene and make amendments to our plan, we find the hive in rather prime condition for what I have in mind. We spot the queen and two drones on the hive itself, with another patrolling about. Seeing as John had the best throwing arm besides me, he volunteers to throw the other one.

We both edge forward, the rest of the party vigilant, ready to spring to our aid should things turn south. Just outside throwing distance, we're spotted. Thankfully, we win the initiative and land both our smoke sticks. From there, the rest of the party leaps in to deal with the free bee.

It is as John's second round comes up, and seeing how no bees have yet stormed out of the smoke, we realize a hole in our plan. None of us have any way of seeing through the smoke. And so John and I blindly crawl in, at the mercy of the DM's dice determining what we run into. John finds the Bee Queen, and tries to tie the thing up. Unfortunately for him, the Queen was not subdued enough to give up without a fight. As John fails to grapple and restrain the arge ized Bee Queen, he gets a VERY NASTY sting for his efforts.

I on the other hand, luck out in finding some royal jelly. I only find enough to fill a single vial, but it's primarily what I came here. I attempt to retrace my steps at a crawl to find that John has run cursing from the hive with a very nasty bee sting. The rest of the party is struggling to deal with the first bee. Okay, things could be going better, but it could also be much worse.

It as this point I reassess the situation. The hive isn't entirely enveloped by smoke, but all the bees inside it are within the smoke cloud. Restraining the queen didn't work, so it was time to cheese our first boss fight of the game. For the duration of the smoke, I began to hurl firebombs towards the Queen's general location, concentrating my efforts on what I knew to be the greatest threat. John assists in dropping the other bee, and at that point the smoke begins to dissipate.

The Bee Queen darts directly for me, seeing as I have been torching her and her hive. With just the first sting, my health plummets to 0. :smalleek: The DM allowed me a bluff check to pretend the Bee dropped me with the first hit. Naturally, I roll a 1 and in a fit of method acting I drop to the ground like a stone, taking a point of damage and sinking into the negatives. Convincing enough? :smallannoyed:

Meanwhile, shenanigans with the rest of the party continue. Olaf had been failing to ignite the hive up until that point. Seeing how the Queen just impaled me, she leveled a bit of fire the Queen's way. Responding immediately to any and all sources of flame, the Queen turned to her. Lucky for Olaf, Red was there to land an attack of opportunity, clothes lining the Queen and bringing her down for the count.

It was at this point the fight was practically won. There was a point where a bee whose wings had been shredded was attempting to cling to Red's leg and failing twice to pierce his thighs with its stinger. Red was mostly deflecting things off of his glorious abs for the entire fight, while going to town with his claws.

There as call for a knowledge check having to do with the Queen Bee, but the only one capable of making it was still unconscious. This was also when Honey arrived because her player got off of work. After bringing me back, we set to salvaging what we could of the hive. My firebombs had singed and melted quite a bit of the thing, but there was still plenty of salvage to be had.

Effective barrels of honeycomb filled with honey could be carried back, along with a handful of larva. All in all, it was a good haul. What we couldn't carry could be salvaged by other people on return trips. There was at least another bee out and about, but it was to our understanding that we had eliminated the threat. And with that, we set out for Rim Elm.

In hindsight, I probably should have harvested what Giant Bee poison I could, but it completely slipped my mind.

Note: While I am thinking about it, I would like to note that I call Aliza, the halfling alchemist and quartermaster of Rim Elm Lizzy. I will make it uniformly one or the other after posting this entry, but for now I thought I would make a note of it.

The trip home was thankfully uneventful. As much as I tried to save as many as I could, my opinion on the matter could be surmised in three words. "F*** Giant Bees." From a meta game perspective, it was a boss fight we were most likely coming into at full strength, with an ability to disable the boss for so many rounds handed to us no questions asked. Besides, we were not scheduled for night duty tonight. Everything should be peachy, right? :smallsmile:

We hauled our quarry back to Rim Elm, but elected to not inform our Commanding Officer, Robert, of the results. He probably would not have been too happy with the thought of raising giant bees inside the town. Even if it didn't pan out, we came out ahead for the most part. Instead, we elected to head straight for Aliza's, the quartermaster and my alchemist friend whom requested we spare the bees in the first place. After garnering a little praise and thanks, there was still the matter of how to apply the Royal Jelly to convert one of the normal giant bees into a queen. Aliza's husband may no longer be with us, and the more experienced alchemist of the couple, but some of his books were still lying around.

I scooped up what I thought to be relevant and spent the rest of my free time for the day researching how best to approach the problem. My results were thus: The younger the better, and vague impressions that sticking the larval form itself in the jelly would work. And so with a shrug, I did just that. For you know, scientific reasons. Taming the young bees on the other hand, would be beyond me, left in the hands of other NPCs. If that failed to pan out, there was always this batch of larva to place our hopes on.

And so our bee keeping duties were at an end... for now.


That was about half the second session. I'm heading to bed now, but my goal is to get caught up before our fourth session on Sunday. :smallsmile:

DoctorProfessor
2015-02-09, 04:51 AM
Okay, so I half fulfilled my promise. I mostly caught up before the session tonight. I just had a surprise hiking trip sprung on me by my girlfriend at last minute that prevented me from polishing up the journals and uploading them. :smallbiggrin: So without further adieu, here is the first of my rapid fire entries to catch you ladies and gents up to speed.

Also, I would like to make an important note in regards that there was about 2 paragraphs and a line of info regarding some closure on the Bee situation. I went ahead and edited it onto the end of 1.3. Sorry for any inconvenience!

There are not exactly a lot of opportunities for advancing ourselves in equipment. Our first quest coupled with our average night on the wall had yet to earn us level two, which seemed reasonable. And so Squad Seven retired for the night, each in their respective locations.

It was not long until I awoke, not too sure about the others, but there was a loud rumbling. The earth itself was shaking, and so I sprinted out of the house without hesitating, grabbing anything and everything that I normally brought to bear for a night on the wall. It was thus that a level one alchemist with no prepared extracts and the little girl, Honey, set out to investigate the disturbance seeing how we were the only ones to be roused from our slumber by the shaking earth.

In the darkness, I spotted a gigantic shape, shaking the each with each step it took towards Rim Elm. We were worried, not entirely sure what could be done to fend off against such a monstrosity. Honey sent off an unseen servant, unbeknownst to anyone else, to rouse the rest of Squad Seven.

It was then a figure, dressed in all manner of fine clothes and elegant armor appeared on the wall. Just like that. A bit of examination told me that he was blatantly a noble of some sort, but from where I had no idea. But his armor... there was no doubt in my mind that it was a Seru. What happened next, defied everything we thought we knew. Lord Zito... introduced himself. appeared. I did what I could to question this entity, but he was here for a purpose. Any question posed to him was brushed off in a roundabout way. He was here for one thing, "Just to check on something of course." He moved with a purpose, approaching the center of town.

I had a bad feeling about this guy, but I was not the only one. Upon reaching his objective, confirmed whatever it was he was checking in on and politely allowed us all roughly twenty minutes to abandon the town and die on the run instead of forcing him to go to the trouble of besieging the town. I had suspicions, but his ultimatum made my jaw hit the floor.

I only had one reply to that. Adhesive spittle to root him on the spot. Final Boss engaged. Zito effortlessly danced out of being rooted to the spot, before firing back at me "I LIKED those shoes. They're irreplaceable. The guy who made them is dead!"

And without any effort on Zito's part, a giant ball of water appeared out of nowhere, wasting no time in enveloping me. As the rest of Squad Seven that had arrived followed suit in reacting to Zito's aggressive actions, they fell in short order into the same predicament I was in. Had it not been for a well timed "pretty please" from Honey, half of us could have drowned then and there. To make things interesting, I will have you note that the ONLY picture I had of my wife was in my pocket at the time, and Zito damaged it! The fact that he nearly knocked me unconscious without so much of a gesture in my direction meant nothing to me. I was throwing all logic out the window in chasing him back to the top of the North Wall. And as soon as he reached the top, he vanished as suddenly as he had appeared. :smallannoyed:

That was it, we had 20 minutes. The clock was ticking...

I suppose at this point now would be as good a time as any to go into detail Rim Elm's general plans in case of a siege. Step one was to hold the line at all costs. If another section of the wall was suspected to be breached, if you could spare a few men they were welcome to attempt to address the situation. Aside from that, holding the wall meant just about everything. Runners would be sent to wake any and everyone as well as keep groups updated on the overall status of the siege. Non combatants were to be evacuated to the southern tip of the town, onto the docks where what we passed off as rafts were stored. Worst case scenario? We set the rafts off a bit and wait out as much of the night as we can aboard the rafts. Until that point? It was all about hit and run, harassment, and doing just about anything to buy time.

Honey hit the ground running, assisting with waking people up and pushing to evacuate. The rest of us? We took up positions at the nearest section of the wall, with no intent at all to allow anyone in or out of that door. That placed Olaf, John, and myself at the North wall. Red followed the Biron monk he looked up to towards the West wall. Thankfully, not many took Honey seriously, being a little girl, but she got people awake. Protocol was followed to the letter, and we were prepared to dig in for what we assumed to be a hard-fought night. All we had to do was hold out.

And then, the Juggernaut happened. There was a bright flash of light, as the giant figure in the distance initiated the assault by [FIRING IT'S LAZOR!!! :smallcool: *ahem*] blowing a giant hole into the Northern wall, the laser going on to incinerate the first house immediately behind the wall. :smalleek: There was nothing left but a crater. :smallfrown:

A rallying call from Commander Robert came up as he took up a position in front of a line of men with locked shields and spears. "At this point, we ARE the wall!" As I looked out from the top of a part of the North wall that was still standing, I saw with horror what was coming our way. A large naked bear, a seru, and a small horde of dogs were charging our position. We were level 1, not even at full strength, and already taking part in mass combat. :smalleek: Thankfully, Honey joined us atop the wall before things got bad.

Behind us, the central tree seemed to be glowing oddly. Red was dispatched to investigate, and I fully intended to do the same... but that was a small army approaching a hole in the wall. I was not about to abandon a fight I could help out with, especially with such a tightly knit pack just ripe for some firebombs. I recognized the bear Seru, but did not know a lot of the details, but I knew it would be resilient. Besides, if I hit it with an explosion of fire, the wolves would scatter prematurely. As it barreled through the wide gap in the wall and crashed into a volley of spears that amounted to little to no damage, I grimaced.

I pitched in all I could, making each and every firebomb count. As the horde met the line of defenders, with our Commander letting out an extra attack with every ranged attack that was fired upon an enemy he was engaged with, I aimed to maximize my damage while avoid harming friendlies. It meant lobbing firebombs at dogs at the back of the ranks, but I managed to contribute quite a lot for all I was capable of doing.

Thankfully, it was noticed very keenly that a silver bullet that embedded itself in the bear was met with a fairly nasty spurt of blood. I called this out, to ensure the bear was left to the Warfields, and sure enough, Honey brought it down fairly quickly to be finished by Robert with a coup de grace. :smallamused: I had spent my firebombs though, but thankfully I had a backup.

Time to bust out the acid flasks, #RainingAcidB****es. At this point, they're manageable. With this section of the wall a manageable threat, no way of knowing how the other walls are faring, we decided to split the party even more. The Warfields and Olaf rotated to another portion of the wall while I retired from the battle. All I had left was a single acid flask, my extended liquid blade, and a dexterity extract I had downed, fully prepared to leap down and join the fight in mopping up the dogs. Seeing as I was no longer necessary, now was as good a time as any to investigate the tree.

Simultaneously while all of this happened, Red arrived at the tree, and found it acting strangely. As he approached it, the tree spat out a perfectly spherical orb of sorts into his hands. It had the same look and feel of the crystal tree, but Red had no idea what to do with it. He was getting vague impressions from it that amounted to, "Not you." Seeing how I was generally regarded as one of the more knowledgeable ones, Red made for the north wall, which was the closest section of the wall to my house with hopes to find either me or anyone that could figure out what to do with the orb.

The Warfields and Olaf reached the next section of the wall, to find multiple plant-esque Seru known as Leshy firing vines up and over the side of the wall. With liberal application of fire and gunfire, they began to deal with the problem while Red and I happened upon each other somewhere between the north wall and the tree. The exchange was surmised unedited, as follows:

A funny thing happened on the way to the forum, errr, glowing tree. Red had this egg, that just... came from the tree. It... wanted something, so he handed it to me and the thing IMMEDIATELY SHATTERED. #WhatTheF***WereYouThinkingRed? This see-through, thing, latches onto my left arm. I am convinced it is a Seru, WHICH IS BAD SEEING HOW I AM STANDING IN THE ****ING MIST! My arm at this point is now being RAPIDLY covered in blue oily scales.

It wants something. But I know better. There is a safe area by the tree, a few feet worth that the mist does not envelop. I need to get there and until then I am rejecting anything this Seru spreading up my arm has to say. I'm running. Red is right behind me. I have no idea what is going on with the rest of the town, but right now I am more concerned with not being possessed by a seru gifted to us by a tree we have taken for granted for so long.

My initiative comes up again for the first time since the egg burst and seru threw itself onto my arm. My second sense motive, which I might remind you is a +1 to start, and is being shot because I am hemorrhaging my wisdom in exchange for dexterity. Cause mutagens. Also, no skill points in it. Not my best roll, but from what I can tell the Seru is... ELATED!? High dice rolls be damned, that CAN'T BE A GOOD THING! :smallfrown: Sooo, I'm already half thinking of a new character concept in the back of my mind while I am running towards the tree. Worrisome. That I am running towards the tree. I can see it, it's close now. It contradicts everything I thought I knew about these things, which isn't much, and I am probably among the MOST LEARNED people in the town!!! If I'm doomed to turn into a horrible monster, hopefully red can put me down. Right? RIGHT? It rejected big Red here, maybe it's afraid of Tieflings! :smallannoyed:

"I'm gonna touch the tree with my left arm." Response? From the peanut gallery attatched to my arm? "PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE OH PLEASE TOUCH THE TREE!" Are these even my thoughts anymore? The moment my left hand comes int contact with the tree, I am suddenly flooded with energy, which then abandons me, and I am drained of all that energy and more, taking my health in subdual damage. May I remind you I already have some, which means a bit of lethal. I pass out, and things go dark. F***.

I am not aware of this at the time, but a BRIGHT FLASH OF LIGHT explodes outward, repelling the mist, and subdues all the seru-possessed creatures. The mist is gone. To a range that isn't visible from the wall, although it IS nighttime so that may not account for much.

So yeah. That happened. Also, the tree is now twice as tall as it used to be, and instead of possessing the appearance of a dormant tree in winter, this one is now in bloom, with crystal formations in the likeness of leaves. YEAH. THAT just happened.

Soooo, while the rest of the party is figuring out that mess... the session ends and we all advance to level 2. Yes, even unconscious me who now has access to the class: Seru Master.

Functionally? On the first level my seru gains its own action during my turn. I delay advancing alchemist for a level to allow my newly hatched Seru its own action, instead of me taking part of my turn to channel any ability it possesses. That, and I get to pick one from any number of other templates. I decide on the activation that applies the simple Wizard template to who I later decide on naming Caspian. Soooo yeah, between sessions I have gained a scale bracer that gets its own turn, and is a wizard. The spells he gets per day is laughable until I have 4 hit dice, but I'm breaking the action economy with free cantrips! 1d3 Ray of frost from my water Seru every turn! It is also worth mentioning that some of the levels in Seru Master simply advance any of my previous classes as far as feats, extract selection, and such is concerned, but I get the saves and attack bonus of Seru Master.

Meanwhile, the aftermath. Although this was touched on again at the start of the third session.

I had a dream, MLK mode engaged, that I encountered a dragon, nodded respectfully to it. I then saw much like the same tree we're familiar with at Rim Elm, only larger and covered with leaves. I would like to note I had not seen the tree's transformation yet. I look around for a reference point, but where I recognize there to be hills, there are mountains. There is also no Rim Elm to speak of... was this a vision of the past?

While I'm out, which is roughly for a day. John heads to the south to the docks, where there was a bit of a massacre. It is generally where the non-combatants go, and not how the animals get into Rim Elm. Apparently, with the aid of some swim-bestowing seru, that they willingly put on. Some Gnolls came in from the south catching those at the docks by surprise. The casualties... seeing how they were primarily non-combatants and caught completely by surprise, numbered probably around 50. Bringing us down to a population of 250. :smalleek:

DoctorProfessor
2015-02-15, 12:54 AM
Gah, this update is a lot later than expected isn't it? Well, I was honest in the fact that I got caught up before the next session. I was just not happy with the last post that went up in the middle of the night. It has since been edited and revised a bit in the overall log of sessions at the top of the forum topic. In order to not repeat the last crappy quality post, I wanted to make sure the rest of these journals received a bit more attention and editing before posting them. :smallamused:

Que college being college, and the piling up of homework, my editing plans were set back a bit. Now that my homework queue is empty and Valentines day is over, I can roll out the final versions of everything I have for you guys! :smallbiggrin:

The party is now at level 2. I am not entirely sure of the party's selection as far as advancement is concerned, but I was all over taking a level in Seru Master. Sure, I was sacrificing my favored class bonus and first discovery, but the next three levels in Seru Master would advance Alchemist, albeit sans the favored class bonus. Effectively, my Seru was now capable of taking an action on its own independent of me, and gained the ability of a simple aquatic wizard class template. I regret nothing!

I awoke in my bed. Not only was John kind enough to see me back into the comfort of my own bed, he dragged my nice reading chair from an adjacent room to keep an eye on me. Groggy and sore, I am informed that I have been out for nearly a whole day. I soon learned that Red too was knocked unconscious, but we were playing this game at the same time as the Superbowl. Expect other characters to trickle in, as we really played up for time to make people feel included on major events.

Before long I find myself at the front entrance to my shop, attempting to communicate with the Seru strapped to my arm. At this point, I realized that the Seru had on the form of a scaly blue bracer. It is worth noting that when he first attached itself to me, it was the size of a watch and slowly spreading from there. The fact that the Seru is a full bracer now is a curious development that I do not question. It is fairly normal that the Seru take on forms of equipment. On a side note, my newly hatched Seru seems very capable of clarifying that its name is Caspian, but aside from that I only get vague impressions or emotions from it. After making a mental note to ask it simple questions from then on, I find myself curious to follow up on my dream, and Caspian is capable of expressing approval in my approaching the tree. The tree's appearance now matches the same one I saw in my dream, having gone from dormant to twice its size and in full crystalline bloom.

When I arrive at the tree, flanked by John and Olaf, we find that Reeve, the equivalent to a Mayor, Fairwater seems to have quarantined the tree by making use of the few men that are loyal to him. Fairwater should by all rights be the one making all the big decisions. Unfortunately, when the mist arrived he was only 2 years old, and since his father died shortly after, Robert took over. While Fairwater has grown up in Rim Elm's post mist state, he is only slightly upset with his lack of actual power. To take power would send waves through the community that Rim Elm frankly does not need. For now he contents himself with the few men who have pledged their lives in his service and a rather modest estate in Rim Elm. As far as we can tell, they are pretty in the dark and just trying to keep people away from the tree.

Upon noticing my bracer and recounting to Fairwater my take on last night's events, he commended me on my will. :smallwink: HA! Adorable~! I have a will save of "No." Which gives me all the more reason to investigate this tree. Being one of the more intelligent minds in town, it doesn't take much coaxing to be allowed access to the tree.

I approach the tree, with the intent of starting off by pressing my left hand to it. I get a mental image, of a line that feels like it should be connected to something, like a path, but it isn't. It is blatantly magic, but I can't really discern where it is supposed to be leading. I press my head to it as well, and it strengthens the connection. The more physical contact, the clearer the images, but I am unable to make out neither head nor tail of what I should be taking away from this information. I come away with a clear idea of where the tree is in relation to me, along with two lines leading off into the distance. As we move on, I find that whenever I concentrate I am always capable of pinpointing the compass direction of Rim Elm's tree in relation to where I currently am.

Following up another lead, I make my way to the north wall where I recall that the royal family sometimes manifests magic of various kinds, along with the occasional skin condition of possessing white scales that match the description of the dragon I saw in my dream. After looking from the top of the wall, I can confirm with the aid of a natural 20 that this is exactly the same place in my dream. That WAS the same tree as the one in my dream and those hills WERE the mountains. I am getting somewhere.

Next up is to visit our commanding officer, Robert, who likely wants to hear from me after last night's events. Besides, he sent out squads to find out how far the mist was pushed back, as it does not seem to have rolled back in after last night. Seeing how we are curious to hear this information ourselves, we put it off for later. Instead, Squad Seven pitches in to assist in the setup and later attend the service for those we lost, which is actually held outside of the wall. We decide to visit Robter afterwards. Upon meeting him, his attention turns immediately to the Seru strapped to my arm.

At this point, I would like to touch base on a little more knowledge about Seru. NORMALLY, you would simply have to will it, or remove the physical component if it has one, and voila~! The Seru has been removed from you. Caspian seems, adamant, that he remains bonded to me. I had no intention of removing Caspian permanently, only to ease Robert's worries and concerns, but this development was likely going to add to them.

Later that night, while working on a flask of bottled lightning, I take a moment to reflect quietly and rest my eyes. Off in the distance I make out a speck of light. Then two. They are in two separate directions. At this point, I decide it is likely best to dump everything that has been on my mind to other people to see if they can provide any insight. Not being the religious sort, I attempt to try a religious approach with Red, as the trees have some minor religious significance I am oblivious to.

It is worth mentioning that the moon is out. It's... pretty. I'll have you know that the mist has never failed to block out the moon for over 20 years. :smallfrown:

[First off, I'm going to apologize for a bit of meta gaming that came up here. It just sort of... slipped out, as my common sense was just screaming. If it makes ya feel better, chalk the idea up to the party of NPCs carrying bows.] Seeing as the mist had still rolled back in, another group was sent out and John volunteered to go out with them. Night operations were strictly on the wall gigs, so this was something special. The coastal wind recedes during the evening, so it was worth sending out another scouting party to see just how much of a safe zone Rim Elm had gained. Along the way, the group came across a handful of normal, not-possessed-by-Seru owls. Being the first night op in forever, these owls had probably not seen hide nor tail of our kind for 20 years. With that said, most of us in Rim Elm had probably not tasted owl in just as long. John raised his rifle to shoot, aaaand then it slipped out that the rest of the NPC party was carrying bows. Sorry, common sense. :smalltongue:

Many owls died that night. Besides, Owls were good eating right? Errr, John brought up the question as to whether or not there were still standing orders to kill flying animals on sight, lest they be possessed.

The rest of the night was uneventful, and the party reported that the mist is spread out about 8 miles in every direction. Judging by the landmarks on the hunters' handmade map, we are wagering that this radius is more or less perfectly circular around Rim Elm's crystal tree.

The next day, there was more fun to be had in an encounter with the Leshy. Leshy being plant-like creatures the frequently generated edible seeds. These ones were wild, but I concocted a plan to steal a seed from one and plant it in my private garden. Besides, domesticated ones would be a useful renewable food source if contained and they are largely considered an invasive species. Leshy have a tendency to uproot other weeds and plants if they are in the way. That, and these Leshy were just putting down roots right outside the wall where they had been in the attack two nights before. Now that the tree's blinding explosion of plot had expelled the Seru possessing them, they were back to being plain ole invasive Leshy.

As I crept closer, a curious crowd gathered atop the wall to watch. I realized there were actually two variants of Leshy present, having no idea which is which, I went for the bigger one. With my liquid blade in my right hand and at the ready, I sneak up on a recently planted seed. After digging the seed up, I pluck my prize with my free hand. Suddenly, Navi, err, Caspian begins to bug me. He is asking me for something, but my sense motive is again, no. I give him my consent, as he wants to do 'the thing,' and I want him to do 'the thing' for science. Having no idea what he intends to do, I am more than curious. He then... absorbs it. The bracer on my arm that is Caspian becomes greener, and gains 5 notches. Later on, a seed fills one of the notches. Seeing how Caspian can't effectively communicate, I need to pick my words carefully. I settle on asking it Caspian can demonstrate what the seed does. My left arm orients itself a bit, and the seed disappears as the bracer discharges shot of vines that rapidly spread out to fill a 5x5 area with them.

"Well, okay. Fine. I'll steal a seed from the small one for my garden. Probably easier to domesticate anyways."

Now that Red's player has joined us, and seeing as my two attempts at sensing motive to obtain plot were failing miserably, I resumed my attempt at taking religious angle to my questions. I more or less regurgitated all the relevant information I could to Red, to see if he could offer some insight. Apparently, a long long time ago, the gods waged a war on the planet. Their presence alone caused the planet harm, natural disasters and the like. When all was said and done, they appointed guardians. There was an equal number of these guardians as there are guardians stored for later.

His retelling doesn't make a LOT of sense, but for a comparison, imagine he is paraphrasing to me passages from Revelations, and trying to link it to my bare-bones understanding of plot. This allows me a third roll of sense motive, which is spoon feeding me just enough to work with. With a minor leap of logic and sound reasoning, I equate the trees and Caspian to these guardians being stored for the future.

Quincy: "So uhh... Caspian, how do you feel about becoming a guardian of the galaxy?"
Caspian: -I get the impression he is more or less ready, but there is a feeling of unease-

Upon focusing on these two threads of light, I am able to get a rough idea that they are serving as a guideline. It takes a little poking around town, but the party determines the rough location of some known crystal trees. There are three for soure: Two are to the east, slightly south-east and north-west of the Biron Monestary. The other is in the next country over, Ratayu, in the town of Jeremi, but this one is a little too far away to be concerned with as right now. Holding these rough locations in mind, I find that one of the leads is heading in the general direction of the Biron Monestary, but the other is leading North West, which is the direction of the Capital of Drake...

...My home, my wife and family lived.

Time to uhh... get the approval of superiors to skip town. I'm going to gloss over this part though, and list what preparations we made before heading out.

Reeve Fairwater: "Worst case scenario? Less mouths to feed. Best? If you guys pull this off, you could save the freaking world, or something."

Aliza offered us a hug and some healing supplies. In exchange, I entrusted her with my shop and ingredients garden while I was away.
5 worth of traveling rations.
4 Potions of Cure Light Wounds for the party.
4 Healing salves salvaged from the Giant Bee Honey.

Honey was never intended to go, but she only pretends to eat food. Possessing a PC halo, she is coming with us anyway.

John personally requested:
Bedroll x2
Blanket x2
Fishhook
Compass
Rope
Flare x4
Starcandle
Firecracker x2

I already had some of the basics lying around my house, pack, bedroll, blanket and all that. I did forget to pack up the implements, apparatuses, and all that jazz that would effectively amount to a portable alchemy station. Whoops~

Red approached some of the various religious figures in the town for their blessings, as we were going to need it. One of them, a priestess of Tohn/Ferti. The God/goddess of change, chaos, transitions, storms, etc. gave him this curious object.

A small ceramic ball: After shooting lightning into it, she handed it to him as what was assumed to be a grenade of sorts that would channel whatever she put into it. Seeing how she had been tending to those still wounded by the gnoll attack, it was the best she could do at short notice. Tohn/Ferti is not the patron deity of anyone in the party, but I feel he/she would at least be owed some thanks for his/her contribution.

Fearing Robert would be the most difficult for this whole permission thing to blow over with, we arrived fully kitted out for travel. We arrived to find him after his third bottle of a beverage we perceived to be alcoholic in nature. Quick reminder, Robert is a halfling, and Rim Elm is still recovering from a massacre of a sixth of our population. Robert was smashed.

Robert: "F*** it, do whatever."

And with that, we Squad Seven bids Rim Elm farewell.

The rest of our adventures are largely more or less typed up, as I took VERY copious notes, and have added things as I recalled them. If they do not come up tonight, they will before our next session tomorrow.

UPDATE: I have just realized I have already reached the limit of how much I can have in one post. I will probably no longer be compiling the entire logs into the first page of the topic. Two posts is nowhere near enough. XD New to the forums and all~!

Coidzor
2015-02-15, 08:45 PM
Nice idea, loved that game, but reading through the OP I have one burning question.

Where does he keep getting all of those shirts he's tearing up all the time?

I suppose I should start reading the campaign journal proper to find out? :smallamused:

Jerynboe
2015-02-15, 11:33 PM
Nice idea, loved that game, but reading through the OP I have one burning question.

Where does he keep getting all of those shirts he's tearing up all the time?

I suppose I should start reading the campaign journal proper to find out? :smallamused:

Well, in time he transitions to merely throwing his robe open/off. Works about as well.

DoctorProfessor
2015-02-15, 11:53 PM
Nice idea, loved that game, but reading through the OP I have one burning question.

Where does he keep getting all of those shirts he's tearing up all the time?

I suppose I should start reading the campaign journal proper to find out? :smallamused:

Unfortunately, this is all WELL before I started keeping a whole campaign journal, and the sheer majority of it was from Quincy's perspective. You will probably not find it in the journal, but his player DID mention off-handedly that he was stock piling shirts. Again, I love his character concept.

We just got out of the 5th session though, and there is a DRASTIC shift in focus of the party's actions being recorded over just mine. So the journals improve in that regard. There is also a lot more exploration cross country in the latest session, so I will probably hold off on the journal I intended to post before this session until tomorrow for extra editing.

What follows is what you can expect in the update tomorrow. Nothing really spoiler heavy, but I wrapped it in spoiler tags just in case. Just an idea of what the content includes and why it makes more sense for them to all be uploaded at once.

The journal as is, ends with us leaving Rim Elm, but we got our first random encounter in before that session ended. The next session, the 4th, is all exploration and random encounters, but our journey through the mist carries into the 5th session. I must say, they were far more interesting than I would expect of random encounters. The 5th session? Lots of character development and some expanding on the main plot. Just to give you an idea of what to expect, no major spoilers.

DoctorProfessor
2015-02-16, 08:42 PM
Fair warning, what follows is roughly one and a half session's worth of events. :smalltongue: Soooo, I'm gonna break them up into smaller chunks.

Enjoy~!

No sooner had we exited the safety of Rim Elm, it occurred to us that we had yet to decide on a direction. We knew we were out to hunt for more of these crystal trees, but we had yet to pool together everything we knew to come to a conclusion. Okay okay, I cheated a bit. What follows are the bulleted points for and against heading to North North-West to the East that we had laid out on the table. You'll find that while all of them were on the table, Quincy refused to share a few personal tid bits of information.

North North-West

I felt a faint line leading in this direction.
I felt a faint line leading in this direction.
No NPC in Rim Elm we spoke to had heard of a crystal tree in that direction.
Drake's Capital city and castle were in this direction, the castle supplied for 30 year sieges.
There is a potential link connecting the Royal family to these so called 'guardians' and the white dragon in my dream.
The feeling tugging me in this direction feels slightly closer, but not enough to be a deciding factor
I grew up here, and am familiar with the area.
If there was a chance researchers at the academy learned ANYTHING about the mist, either they or their notes would be here.


East

I felt a faint line leading in this direction.
NPCs gave us the impression there were two trees, despite me only feeling a single line.
A Biron Monk Monastery was in this direction, acting as a halfway point between two of the trees.
[DM allowed me to roll for leverage] I recall there being a rather sizable river in this direction that requires a crossing of sorts, enough for the added distance to be a concern.


Quincy's Knowledge of North North-East

My family and wife were located at the Capital, and the hope for reuniting with any of them is a powerful drive for my character
Despite being closer, I get the feeling I am being tugged rather higher up, and I know the capital is at the base of a mountain range.


As you can likely tell, Quincy probably has some very strong motivators to head North North-East, and being the only one with what I can only guess to be a plot radar, it works out in my favor. John has his suspicions, but as far as he can tell I am telling the truth, which I am. I genuinely want to save the world, but I have a few selfish reasons that amount to 'while we're in the neighborhood... why not look around?' Also, I am exclusively aware that there is difficult terrain in both directions, but only I am aware of the terrain in both directions. Because of this, I can neglect to mention it until we get closer to the North North West. It's almost as if I'm one of the most learned people in Rim Elm... or something. :P

At the edge of the mist we are set upon by 4 brownies. It is a shame they are not the chocolate pastry, but they were a luxury even before the mist arrived. Brownies are these little things that come up to a knee height, carry short swords, and can cast spells. Confusions are cast all around, hitting everyone but John. Amazingly enough, I'm the only one to make the will save. John, the only one not hit a confusion spell, is the target of a color spray fired by Honey at the closest target. At the whim of our DM, dice were rolled to determine who else the spray hit. Thankfully, RNGesus declared that two of the brownies were knocked out too. I'll have you know this is being recounted by someone with NO ranks in religion. The other two gathered around my feet and are attempting to stab me. Thankfully, they don't do a lot of damage.

In Red's confusion, Red spent the first round ripping off his shirt. The brownies chalked this up to a successful confusion, when he was in fact acting of his own free will for the turn. Second round? Also spent by attempting to rip off his shirt again, this time controlled by confusion and causing his claws to dig into his own skin. Aside from that, Red was probably one of the most effective party members in this fight by virtue of not harming anyone else, and was the only one really successfully hitting the little buggers.

In a fit of making the action economy and statistics cry, simultaneously, I began the turn by springing my liquid blade and dexterity mutagen into my hand by using my wrist mounted springs. Who needs quick draw when you have these beauties? Thanks to the accelerated drinker trait and a ruling on the DM's part, I drank my mutagen as a move action to buff my dex and gain natural armor. I then extend the liquid blade in an attack, the blade shatters on a roll of a natural 1 due to its fragile quality. In the following two turns both my thrown firebombs have rolled natural 1's as well. In effect, I have hit the whole party with my AoE's from fire bombs that have slipped from my grasp. With me being the effective target of the bombs I am knocked unconscious from the full damage. Thankfully Red has some fire resistance. In exchange, Red lathered my body with a healing salve, bringing me back to positives. Honey was also knocked unconscious from just the bomb's splash damage alone. The only silver lining? The two non-color sprayed brownies were dropped by the splash damage as well.

I will spare you the rest of the derp fest, but long story short, the sheer majority of damage dealt to the party was done not by the brownies, but by yours truly. 1D6+5 centered on me, with the 6 minimum damage hitting the rest of the party for two rounds. The brownies? Aside from the confusion they only had DR and were capable of doing a 1d2-2, with a minimum of 1 damage. There was a flurry of coup de gracing color sprayed brownies.

The entirety of my extracts for the day were devoted to extracts of cure light wounds.

Of all the brownies, one seems to be very far from death, but is still knocked out. While personally looting the things, I feel I can absorb one. "Caspian? Do your thing." Om nom nom. :smallamused: I now have brownies as a Seru option. Not sure what they do yet, but we'll figure things out as we go.


As we continue, we notice that the mist seems to be rather light. Caspian doesn't like being in here, but he doesn't seem to be attempting to take over my brain. Mental thumbs up from way of phrasing it from Caspian. John is under the impression that the Seru were largely trying to patrol the border of the mist to box us in. Hopefully, we will be able to cover some ground in peace.

Long story short? We do. Hell, the only thing we encounter is a goat towards the evening. Seeing this as an opportunity, I attempt to try and aim one of the vine shots at the thing, but it springs out of the way. The vines DID actively try and tangle it, but apparently the goat is a small animal that is living in a world where just about everything is trying to eat or possess it. Huh. Olaf sets it on fire though, and oddly enough, I noticed she heals some of her wounds in the process.

It is at this point, AFTER I waste a perfectly good liquid blade skinning the goat, [yeah. NONE of us have a knife. Fail.] we debate where we are trying to decide to set up camp and cook the evening's meal. We find a decent spot between some hills, which will do for now. I wager we should be alright, given that the world is perpetually covered in mist, we should be alright unless something stumbles upon us. It is over the campfire we discuss watch duties... Honey doesn't sleep, but we're not sure she would make the best guard.

Red takes the first watch, through which Honey is a chatterbox the entire time. John's comes next, and because daddy is watching, both stand vigilant over the campsite. When my turn comes around, I get an innate feeling from the brownie that I can craft a little better, make sounds, fix things, move incredibly fast, and make lights. After waking, I find Caspian's texture has gained more of a leathery texture. Wanting to test things out, I will out the creation of light in the campsite, pulling a Groot.

Wondering how much faster I can get for the speed, I travel 480 feet north-ward in an instant. Upon retreating to find the group, as the sound of their confusion seems to travel far in the mist. It is after I explain the experimentation of my newfound powers that I eat a sting in the shoulder. Honey, on the other hand, falls to the ground. We see one of them kneeling down, and a chest-plate sort of thing appearing on her chest.

We're fighting two Pseudo-Dragons, tiny creatures that are the smallest members of the draconic family possessing a knock-out poison. I only know this because it just happened, right in front of me, to Honey. Also. I feel drowsy. My immediate reaction, "Caspian! Can you do anything?" He nods, but we fail to do much good.

The second Psuedo-Dragons, the one that stung me, makes for Red, and the two of them begin to exchange blows, with the Pseudo-Dragon out maneuvering him. John takes aim to aid Red, but his gun jams. Olaf also fails to hit it with a ball of fire. I am starting to get the feeling that these things are just playing with us at this point. That Psuedo-Dragon lashes out at Red with a bite this time, Red knows to dodge the stinger at least.

Thankfully, Honey's will flat out overpowers the Psuedo-Dragon attempting to possess her. I need no more incentive than the Seru being expelled from her body. I swing in with my liquid blade, while beseeching Caspian to aim a ray of frost at the thing. John clears the jam, only to have it misfire once again. I aim a rebuttal about yesterday, and the DM declares that our derp fest that we for some reason both recall so clearly, happened at the same time. There was apparently a night on the wall years ago where it was raining where John and I were both failing miserably at hitting things with our bombs and gun.

Red eats another stinger, but is somehow still standing. Olaf sets the little bastard on fire. This sends the Psuedo-Dragon flying away. And in a fit of rage, I order Caspian to drop the retreating one with a ray of frost while critting the Pseudo-Dragon atop of Honey with my liquid blade, killing both combatants. Red moves to finish off the unconscious Pseudo-Dragon, only to see me absorb the thing before he can reach it.

It then occurs to me that I can use the corpse of the burnt Pseudo-Dragon to attempt to make certain alchemical items. Before I can run to appropriate the second corpse for science... only to find John take a bit of the thing. "Tastes like s****, but feels good." The dragon's blood properties tops off his health. Thankfully, the corpse is still salvageable... mostly. They will go bad in about 10 hours, but it should last long enough to make it til we camp for the night.

In about 6 hours' time, we encounter a small little cave. Not deep by any stretch of the imagination, but it is defensible and I can get setup. I have the stomach, liver, and screw up up on the flask of dragon's gut. Acid damage ho~! The liver? A flash bang of sorts. Boom. I HAVE NEVER WORKED WITH IMPROPER UTENSILS AND WORK SPACE MY ENTIRE LIFE! A cave? Pffft! I am no self-taught basement alchemist. My place is in a collegiate envrionment! I then proceed to curl up in the back of the cave and go to sleep while nursing my wounded pride. Meanwhile, John salvages the hide of the dark pink Pseudo-Dragon to craft a very nice grip. Seeing as it was pink, he gives it to Honey.

The rest of the party notes that while I sleep, Caspian begins to, quite literally, grow on me. John's observations: "It seems like it grows every time he absorbs something with it." I wake to find that Caspian feels lighter, and has faintly draconic wings that will allow me to glide. Effectively an arm-hang glider, although I have yet to test how effective it is. Hopefully it is enough to fall and not get hurt. There is also a long thin spine jutting out of the bracer, like a singular Wolverine claw. I also hear, murmuring, coming from the other members of Squad Seven. Detecting life? I cannot jump to any conclusions yet, but there is only a fainter murmer coming from Honey. I chalk it up to just her being younger.

We set out for our third day, and come across a large field. I perceptively note that the red flowers are Xtabay. An INCREDIBLY expensive cash-crop seru. They were often used as perfume and knock-out gas. Olaf seems determined to set the flowers on fire, and desiring one of the floral seru for myself, rush into the middle of the field... right after stopping the party from approaching the flowers in the first place, and giving them the break down on what they are. For science?

Unfortunately for me, the pollen is a will save, not a fort save. I drop. Red charges in at my side, in complete ignorance of the danger. Good ole Red. John wants us to hold the things there, while Honey jumps to the assistance of her uncle Quincy with a color spray to about half the Xtabay... to no effect. I could have told her that, but I'm asleep.

Red declares me to be under his protection, and lobs a clay pellet of sorts at the Xtabay, which exploded with several bolts of lightning arcing outward in a cone. The Xtabay were not amused. Even less amused when Olaf set the strongest of the group on fire. I then wake up, to find the Xtabay have wrapped some of their vines around my arms and legs. Red comes to my rescue, by tearing the first, and then injures the second. Now that all the still living Xtaby are surrounding me and Red, John lobs a bomb at me, who is in the center of the crowd of Xtabay. It's your turn John. "DAMN IT JOHN!" Another Xtabay bursts into flames and dies. Only one Xtabay is left NOT writhing in pain, and Honey misfires.

Now fully awake and unrestrained, I have Caspian fire a ray of frost on the last remaining Xtabay, and then feed it to Caspian. Unfortunately...


Caspian has gained a level!
Caspian wants to learn Xtabay's Stun Spore, but it already knows 3 moves! Should a move forgotten to make space for Xtabay's Stun Spore?
>Yes No
Which move will Caspian forget?
>Leshy's Leech Seed. Brownie's Confuse Ray. Pseudo Dragon's Poison Sting.
Forget Leshy's Leech Seed and learn Xtabay's Sun Spore?
>Yes No
Caspian has forgotten Leshy's Leech Seed and learned Xtabay's Stun Spore!


In hindsight, I feel like this was a bad move. Also, these are not entirely accurate, just picked moves at random for my amusement.

Also, Xtabay pollen can be gathered and used as knock-out gas bomb. Not as effective, a DC10, but they are splash bombs that cause sleep for 1d3 minutes. I manage to salvage 4 pouches of the powder. They ARE inhaled though... :smallamused:

While I do alchemy and Seru things, the rest of the party approaches the farm house that was on the other side of the field. Curiously enough, there is a 5ft dome surrounding the house that is free of the mist. I am still harvesting the powder, so the rest of the party is very faintly hearing a child sobbing. John, Honey, and Red head into the house. Olaf is amused by Red's terrible attempt at stealth, while John and Honey sweep the house. Red notices immediately that the front door has slammed shut behind them. It then dawns on the party that all the windows are boarded up. Perception checks guys. :smallfrown:

The DM's words exactly: "It's. A house." I'd love to meta-game, but this just screamed a trap, and I was mildly curious as to what they would find. Totally content to sit this one out.

Meanwhile, it is only at this point that I have just discovered the dome free of the mist, and upon entering it, Caspian no longer feels unsettled, but confused. Only Olaf can be seen.Having the common sense to not enter the creepy house, he reports that the front door of the curiously boarded up house had just slammed shut. I decide to circle around the house and assess the situation further. I've every ounce of confidence in the party inside, and it's not a particularly large house.

Honey finds the corpse of a little boy, and has a disturbing vision of imagining Red being possessed by a Seru and killing John. Red is suddenly overcome by something, as he is suddenly convinced the house is under attack by Seru. He. Must. Protect. His. House.

Olaf sets the front door on fire. To NO effect. Umm... :smallannoyed:

John is then convinced that Seru are trying to get inside the house as well, as a loud bang hit the front door. John finds a window slit, and sees a giant seru wreathed in flame assaulting the door, while a large reptilian seru is watching and waiting. John doesn't trust that scaley thing, and opens fire. :smallsigh:

We all roll initiative, amusingly enough, we are the only entities in combat. John misfires, and Honey attempts to take the door off its hinges, being magically locked. Red tackles her, but is allowed a save since Honey is appealing to reason. The extent of his roll allows Red to come to the conclusion he is acting irrationally for some reason. YA DON'T SAY? Olaf glances through the window to relay to me everything that is happening, so that "weird scaley creature" just breathed something into window. Really, I tried to lob a DC10 pouch in to knock out my friend who is trying to shoot me. I succeeded in accomplishing nothing, as we both passed the will save. The slits were not something I could easily throw a pouch through, soooo I tried to push it through the slit with us both in range. John is now at point blank range, but his gun misfires. Effectively, nothing has been accomplished. Red and Honey argue, but Red acknowledges that he was acting irrationally and lets her up. Honey makes an attempt to remove the hinges, but a magical force seems to be reinforcing the hinges as well.

With a round spent in contemplation, Biron monk style, it occurs to Red that there was crying, and a corpse in the back. Maybe the house is haunted? He immediately encounters a vision of John possessed by a Seru and shooting Honey. He knows it isn't real, but it was disturbing enough to inflict some Wisdom damage. Upon examining the body, he discerns that a spear was responsible for killing the corpse of the small boy. This is not the corpse in the leather armor, to be clear. There ARE two, but this whole scene was fairly confusing for all of us. That was kind of the point.

I try diplomacy, kind words, and polite knocking on the door.

John hears, "RABLABLARAGRAAA!!!" and clawing at the door. I take a bullet to the shoulder for my efforts. All is not at a loss, as Honey succeeds in opening the door.

John OOC: "How crazy am I now?"
DM: "Blood for the Blood God. Skulls for the Skull Throne."

Red figures out that it is easy, he just has to channel positive energy into... well s***. At this point in time, Red is a former paladin and incapable of channeling positive energy. The only other method, a far less reliable way to calm the spirits, would be to perform their last rites.

Olaf attempts to intimidate. The big fiery Seru is now the biggest threat. To this, John rolls a one... the gun misfires AND jams, losing a bullet in the process. I try and get Honey out of there, but she comes up with a most brilliant idea.

Honey: "Daddy is a danger to himself and others right now. He needs to see the rainbow."

John is not impressed by the rainbows. :smalleek:

Meanwhile, Red does his best to provide a very sentimental service, only half remembering a litany from Tieg, and then slips in a bit of Biron, but despite being a Biron monk, manages to include a few lines more in lieu of Tohn/Ferti . He makes up the last and nicest few lines he can come up with. Realizing his mistake, commends the little boy's spirit to all three of the gods mentioned. Amazingly enough, he succeeds!

DM: "The ghost is a child. Saying nice things to it makes it better."

Red has made it clear from further in the house that under no circumstances should we enter the house. Having a will save of no, and nothing else prepared to disable, not injure my friends I make a tactical retreat to use the mist as cover. Seeing how the door is off its hinges, John runs outside to attack Olaf, only to be released from his insanity as soon as he leaves the threshold of the house.

Red comes across the other corpse, and finds the figure in the leather armor is holding a spear. Which more likely than not killed the child. Red is then allowed to try and piece together a storyboard of sorts to piece together the events that transpired. His interpretation is thus.


Somewhat isolated farmstead caught off guard
The dad has some martial training, tries to hold the house till this blows over
Gets possessed and kills the child with spear
Stumbles into an adjacent room and dies... somehow.


He ended up coming close, and gets a bonus to his roll in calming the spirit. The body rises, and almost... sighs. The presence then leaves.

And now, to allow our faithful DM to explain:

There WAS a mother, who was possessed rather than the father. She mauled the father, and since his wounds were infected, leaving him with no means of survival, mercy killed his own son. He then resigned himself to his fate, dying from his wounds in another room. The inclusion of the mother was a bit of a leap of logic we did not make.

The fact that this was a haunted location, kept the mist at bay. As soon as Red succeeded in cleansing the spirits, the mist closed in around the house.

Red gave me the quick and dirty retelling, while I bandaged my bullet wound and prepped a healing extract. Being the only one that wears leather armor, and a basic weapon user, I get the Ghost Touch Spear and Armor from the father's corpse. They each have a +1 enchantment bonus to boot, not that the rest of the party knew anything about them other than the fact they were really nice in their construction. It wasn't until after I claimed them were they appraised. Not intentional I assure you, I have been trying to take copious notes of everything that has happened this session. There was very little to no editing up til this point, as I took really good narrative notes.

We close the fourth session by providing the two bodies a proper burial outside and decide to sleep in the house for the night.

We opened up the fifth session after advancing ourselves to level 3~! I took another level in Seru Master, which advanced my Alchemist class again, and gained Slashing Grace with my liquid blade! Yaaay! I can do melee effectively now, right? Rolls a 1 for the health gain. Nope. This is mitigated a bit by the Spontaneous healing discovery though. Upon rousing from his meditative state for the night, all three deities were present in Red's dreams. Tieg was disappointed. Biron facepalmed. Tohn/Ferdi gave him the thumbs up. Some things also happened behind the scenes that caused John to retcon his religion into worshiping the God Emperor of Dwarfkind. I'm sure that won't be relevant soon, right!? :smallamused:

We literally gloss over encounters that were nothing we could not handle or were any meaningful threat. Day 1: Around dusk, we stumble across a campsite... a recently used one. My perception roll of one demands I zero in straight on the bag. It contains stale bread, but salvageable, dried meats. Red wagers the camp is less than a day old. John notices hammocks, high up in the trees among the leaves. Genius~! Olaf finds footprints, belonging to more entities than we believe a camp of this size to support.

While the party discusses, Olaf takes initiative in following the tracks. She finds a fairly beaten corpse of a Half-Orc man. Where Olaf has a tattoo that reads 'fire,' there is a faded and illegible mark of a similar nature on the corpse. Honey follows Olaf and manages to translate the tattoo as 'nothing' or 'void.' "It says nothing!" There are other words carved into it, 'false one,' 'forsaken', and of the like. The body is riddled in cuts and burns, but we all agree that it was the burns that were fatal... but they were not fire burns. Lightning? With horrific mutilation of markings and cuts shortly following. We continue on, and find a half-orc woman's corpse next. The trail is becoming hard to track at this point. Given the nature of the tracks, we come to the conclusion a party of twenty or so has been trying to track a much smaller group. The trail goes cold at a river, before we discover evidence of a boat having been here. Unsure as to where they went from here.

I can offer her information about the Incarnate clan of orcs and half orcs, that have been in present Drake since before Drake was a kingdom. The natives of the peninsula so to speak. They eventually settled on owning much of the middle of Drake. They are comparatively nomadic, but they have larger camps that are more long term. They are not that friendly to outsiders, but known to trade. They generally dislike everyone else... justifiably so. They divide themselves up based off of elemental affinities. Fire, water, air, earth, and misc. i.e. void? Red can add that they worship Elementals, which are known as the oldest and most primal seru. Mayhaps a storm elemental Incarnate clan? Just speculation on my part. Whoever they are, they were far outside the territory meant for them.

With that said, it is worthy of note that

We camp at the end of the day in a cellar, and Honey transmutes an iron poker we find into 10 rounds of ammunition.

We continue on for Day 2, and John notices a pillar of smoke... like one you'd expect from a chimney or campfire. It might add a few hours to our travel time, but we decide to head in its direction. We arrive to find the fire is a little outside the town, but the town is in ruins. This is the first one we've come across in our travels, but is completely destroyed. We skirt around the town, and find that it is coming from a small manor house that a nobleman would live in. Red becomes unresponsive, mumbling and crying, refusing any assistance or consoling from the party.

I would expect a manor like this to be in terrible disrepair. It isn't, after 20 years. The garden is tended. Definite evidence of people living here, but we saw possessed entities in the town, from which we're spitting distance from. With paranoia levels skyrocketing through the roof, we approach. We knock on the door. It opens to reveal a perception check. Of which most of us fail. We see a Drow woman, although those that make the check make out that her skin is somewhat metallic. The construct introduces herself as "The Maid," and informs us the master is currently out. A successful nobility check on my part recalls that the owner of this mansion is Bob Rand.We went to the academy, and he graduated 2 years before me, specialized in creating constructs. That would explain her not needing food. Taking a chance, I introduce myself by full name and she promptly recognizes me despite the 20 year gap. I inquire as to the past 20 years, and find out she not seen Bob since the mist rolled in. Since then, she has kept the place spotless and... evicted the occasional intruder. Impressive. Her cooking? Best food I've had since before being imprisoned by the mist at Rim Elm.

Seeing she has not had guests for 20 years, I attempt to politely impose upon her for food for the road on the way to the Capital. Being the good adventurer I am, I offer to do a favor in return, but her response was "Service is its own reward." If her master were to have died, she supposed she would leave for the service of an inheritor. I offer to help with figuring out who it was or finding said person, to which she responded by naming off a list of people. I would like to note that for me to inherit this house and her, I would probably also have to inherit half of Drake kingdom, and just about everyone I know would be dead. )': In fact, I do believe my wife is a few steps above the line of inheriting this manor than I am. :smallfrown:

Meanwhile, Red up and approaches the ruined remains of the town on his own while the rest of us are visiting the mansion. Once we have determined the mansion to be of no threat, I mention that someone should go check on or fetch Red. John volunteers.

Red's first objective, is to make for the barracks. John finds his tracks leading towards the town, but they disappear once they lead to cobblestone roads. Knowing Red to be a Biron monk, John makes for the church. Luckily for him, the barracks is connected to the church. PALADINS! John finds some rusty armor, most of which is unusable, but he wagers he could salvage enough parts to fashion himself some field plate. Red makes for his own footlocker, and attempts to salvage personal belongings. He finds a necklace with the symbol of Rem, the god of mysticism, prophecy, time, and dreams. Non-concrete things. He also salvages his old journal and a nice set of clothes. Donning the masterwork armor would violate his beliefs as a Biron Monk. It is sitting here on one of the beds that John finds Red. Red seems upset by John's intent of disrespecting the paladin armor. It is worth noting that there were 5 bunks for paladins, but only 4 suits of armor. The mission one being, Red's.

Red would like to be left alone... leaving John alone in the barracks. John, being the good adventurer, finds some vials of liquid that he can't identify, but he scoops them up for me later. Red has a few more sentimental moments in the church, before finding and swiping the set of paper that detailed the town's defense strategy, with several marked locations dictating the paladins' positions. He also digs up his own file, plucking it from the rest of the paladins' paperwork, and hides it as it holds his birth name. There is little else of use here, as it has been 20 years and all the good equipment left the barracks/church to aid in the town's defense.

We all gather in the town, and keep a respectful distance from Red's backstory. He has shown open irritation toward our presence, but we follow him back to the spot he was stationed on the tower, and sit back to find out more about Red's backstory.

For the first hour, things were uneventful. And then, maybe 30 some Seru charged from the forest, but in his mind he saw a lot more. To Red, there was a tide of far too many for them to handle. Terrified, Red fled in terror. As he was running, he heard screaming from the townsfolk as the town guards were overrun. The feelings of failure, terror, and cowardice were causing Red to channel negative energy, not that he knew it at the time. His commander found him mid-flight, and dismissed him. So Red continued to run, and run, and run... leaving the town to be overwhelmed. Red returned to the find the commander's corpse, hoping to be able to face his past. He resolves that, to atone, he must see his current mission through to the end. :smallfrown:

We'd just happened upon the town where Red, no, Regret, turned away from his life of service as a Paladin in the service of Rem, god of sleep, mysticism, dreams, and a few other things. A quick reminder, Red is mechanically an Anti-Paladin, serving as a monk in service of Biron.

We then all meet back at the manor, where the Maid has prepared us rooms for the night.

And with that, you are all are about half a session behind us, the players!

Coidzor
2015-02-16, 10:03 PM
Well, in time he transitions to merely throwing his robe open/off. Works about as well.

That is more generally economical, aye.

Probably best not to think too hard on where they're getting the materials to make their clothing, really.


Unfortunately, this is all WELL before I started keeping a whole campaign journal, and the sheer majority of it was from Quincy's perspective. You will probably not find it in the journal, but his player DID mention off-handedly that he was stock piling shirts. Again, I love his character concept.

The shirt-hoarder. Dang. If the tree hadn't kicked up as quickly as it had, he might've been able to corner the market on spare clothing.

Might still be able to manage getting his own fashion label, though. :smallamused:


Edit: Oh yes, and my DM corrected me in one regard. We were not on a technilogical level of World War one. That sounded a little absurd, but a CULTURAL level.

So lots of jingoistic nationalism and a number of previously subjugated peoples clamoring for national independence or that had recently gained independence from a controlling empire?


We just got out of the 5th session though, and there is a DRASTIC shift in focus of the party's actions being recorded over just mine. So the journals improve in that regard. There is also a lot more exploration cross country in the latest session, so I will probably hold off on the journal I intended to post before this session until tomorrow for extra editing.

Borrowing from the Kingmaker rules about exploration? Either way, nifty idea, hope it's a fun one.


What follows is what you can expect in the update tomorrow. Nothing really spoiler heavy, but I wrapped it in spoiler tags just in case. Just an idea of what the content includes and why it makes more sense for them to all be uploaded at once.

The journal as is, ends with us leaving Rim Elm, but we got our first random encounter in before that session ended. The next session, the 4th, is all exploration and random encounters, but our journey through the mist carries into the 5th session. I must say, they were far more interesting than I would expect of random encounters. The 5th session? Lots of character development and some expanding on the main plot. Just to give you an idea of what to expect, no major spoilers.

Well, I already played through the game about... halfway I think when I was a kid, so it's quite interesting to me seeing what your DM is doing with it. :smallsmile:

The gnolls working for Zito who willingly cooperated with the Seru possessing them after they got out of the mist are an interesting plot hook that I hope you get to see more on, because I'm quite curious to find out what their deal was myself. I've only made it through acquiring Quincy's Wizard-Seru so far in my read through though, so I don't yet know if they all got kilt or if any information was able to get gleaned from them after they were defeated or if they decided to run away after the mist cleared and they all got away scot-free.

Jerynboe
2015-02-16, 11:06 PM
That is more generally economical, aye.

Probably best not to think too hard on where they're getting the materials to make their clothing, really.



The shirt-hoarder. Dang. If the tree hadn't kicked up as quickly as it had, he might've been able to corner the market on spare clothing.

Might still be able to manage getting his own fashion label, though. :smallamused:



So lots of jingoistic nationalism and a number of previously subjugated peoples clamoring for national independence or that had recently gained independence from a controlling empire?



Borrowing from the Kingmaker rules about exploration? Either way, nifty idea, hope it's a fun one.



Well, I already played through the game about... halfway I think when I was a kid, so it's quite interesting to me seeing what your DM is doing with it. :smallsmile:

The gnolls working for Zito who willingly cooperated with the Seru possessing them after they got out of the mist are an interesting plot hook that I hope you get to see more on, because I'm quite curious to find out what their deal was myself. I've only made it through acquiring Quincy's Wizard-Seru so far in my read through though, so I don't yet know if they all got kilt or if any information was able to get gleaned from them after they were defeated or if they decided to run away after the mist cleared and they all got away scot-free.

The gnolls are around. I may end up bringing them back, but I inadvertently swept them under the rug. Also... I'm afraid that the whole historical comparison is rapidly shot to hell :smallfrown:. Society is whatever seems like a good idea at the time honestly, and WW2 mostly came up in my explanations because one of the major factions has far and away the most advanced tech, which is about WW2 level. At the cost of very little focus on magic of any kind.

Oh, also, leather mostly, and not a lot of spare clothes.

Coidzor
2015-02-16, 11:58 PM
UPDATE: I have just realized I have already reached the limit of how much I can have in one post. I will probably no longer be compiling the entire logs into the first page of the topic. Two posts is nowhere near enough. XD New to the forums and all~!

Just have the chapter titles with hyperlinks to the post where the chapter is in the first post as a sort of Table of Contents, that should take care of the issue.


The gnolls are around. I may end up bringing them back, but I inadvertently swept them under the rug. Also... I'm afraid that the whole historical comparison is rapidly shot to hell :smallfrown:. Society is whatever seems like a good idea at the time honestly, and WW2 mostly came up in my explanations because one of the major factions has far and away the most advanced tech, which is about WW2 level. At the cost of very little focus on magic of any kind.

Oh, also, leather mostly, and not a lot of spare clothes.

Oh, rugs. Always getting things swept under 'em. :smallamused:

From what I recall of the games it did tend to vary dramatically from place to place before the Mist came anyway, though, as said, only ever got about halfway through the game.

DoctorProfessor
2015-02-17, 01:58 AM
Just have the chapter titles with hyperlinks to the post where the chapter is in the first post as a sort of Table of Contents, that should take care of the issue.

That's... actually quite a sound idea. Again, I'm a little new around here and haven't really paid much mind to the formats of some of the other journals. I just get absorbed in the stories. If it weren't 2AM and I didn't have my own World of Darkness campaign that I am running and making preparations for tomorrow, I would get on that. I'm not much of a forum goer, and when I am I do so fairly actively for a short period of time with long hiatuses in between.


Oh, rugs. Always getting things swept under 'em. :smallamused

:smallamused: This amuses me to no end~

I actually remember discussing the Gnolls with JerynBoe a few times over meals between sessions. There were supposedly a handful of Gnolls that sought safety in Rim Elm, because it was getting too weird in their own tribe. It never actually came up in game, and I never thought anything of it. Our group... sorta bumbles around a bit, and while I really enjoy getting into character and investigating things, I sacrifice a little bit of that with how extensive my note-taking is during the sessions.


From what I recall of the games it did tend to vary dramatically from place to place before the Mist came anyway, though, as said, only ever got about halfway through the game.

I actually thought the comparison seemed somewhat reasonable, but I only have a handful of scraps of knowledge about each of the deities and some of the countries. A lot of the information I know about the countries are purely out of character and they are blatantly not things we will get to within this school semester. Now that I am thinking about it, I may revisit that intro a little bit.

Coidzor
2015-02-17, 04:20 AM
That's... actually quite a sound idea. Again, I'm a little new around here and haven't really paid much mind to the formats of some of the other journals. I just get absorbed in the stories. If it weren't 2AM and I didn't have my own World of Darkness campaign that I am running and making preparations for tomorrow, I would get on that. I'm not much of a forum goer, and when I am I do so fairly actively for a short period of time with long hiatuses in between.

I don't recall the popular formats offhand, but it's the simplest solution I can think of offhand. And does massively cut down on the amount of text in your OP/second post.

SilverClawShift's stuff is probably still the gold standard, though, and if anyone's style or formatting was going to be cribbed or aped, that'd be the one.


:smallamused: This amuses me to no end~

I actually remember discussing the Gnolls with JerynBoe a few times over meals between sessions. There were supposedly a handful of Gnolls that sought safety in Rim Elm, because it was getting too weird in their own tribe. It never actually came up in game, and I never thought anything of it. Our group... sorta bumbles around a bit, and while I really enjoy getting into character and investigating things, I sacrifice a little bit of that with how extensive my note-taking is during the sessions.

Well, I'm sure you may eventually have cause to go back there. If for no other reason than to get your forgotten alchemy lab. :smallamused:

Between them and the orcs/half-orcs running around tribaling it up, seems like it'll be interesting to see how those have managed to survive out in the mist.


I actually thought the comparison seemed somewhat reasonable, but I only have a handful of scraps of knowledge about each of the deities and some of the countries. A lot of the information I know about the countries are purely out of character and they are blatantly not things we will get to within this school semester. Now that I am thinking about it, I may revisit that intro a little bit.

Memory is a funny thing, and adjustments are bread and butter with adaptations. :smallsmile:

DoctorProfessor
2015-02-22, 01:08 AM
This one will be brief, but I thought I'd bring everyone up to speed before the session.

Before we head out, "The Maid," if I wasn't clear before, I'm clearing things up now that The Maid IS her effective name and title. The Maid stops us at the door before we leave, protesting at our departing. She decides to join us, as our company has been pleasant. It has been a lonely 20 years. And in doing so, we gained a master chef! That, and a person capable of carrying things. No, seriously, I do believe she has one of the highest, if not the highest, strength in the party.

As we set out, we make an observation. Now, we've noticed random Seru every now and then, but as we approach the Capital, we're finding the encounters to be few and far in-between. Should we head straight there, we would get there around noon, but it is worth mentioning that my parent's estate is a noteworthy detour off to the side. We would still reach the castle by evening, and we had restocked on high quality provisions thanks to The Maid. After some begrudging argument and disputes over how immediately we should be heading towards the Capital, I feel it is worth noting my plot radar is getting a little fuzzier. What was a clear line I could make out in my head, is now a general 45 degree angle of a direction the tree is in. Hoping for a map to get an idea of the area, we finally elect to make a short stop at my parents' estate.

As we approach, the eerie silence of the mansion alarms us. It looks abandoned, so we approach with caution. We fan out, unable to locate a very detailed map, but we note that there is a large number of locked doors. Not too much of a problem, as Honey is fully capable of picking the lock, and John is more than willing to kick in a door. This IS my house though, and I split off from the party for my father's study in hopes of finding a spare key.

My father's study is empty, and along the way I rummage up enough supplies worthy of being called a portable alchemy apparatus. On my father's desk, I find both the master key, and a note that the DM hands me.

Meanwhile, seeing as the house is still deathly silent, and I am taking too long, Honey elects to pick one of the locks. It is still a quiet action, and whether I find the key or not, it will save us all time in the long run. As the party takes actions, I read the following:

To all who might receive this,

I regret to inform you of this, but we have come to the conclusion that there is no way to effectively fight the Mist, the subject of our last proclamation. We have, however, devised a strategy to minimize casualties.

Those subjected to the mist are in no direct danger from the mist, including starvation or age; as such, the only way to ensure life is to submit on our own terms. All who hear this proclamation are to don Seru, and provide any other individuals with Seru of their own. They are then to restrain themselves so they will not pose a threat to others. This last aspect may wait until the mist is rolling in, that any other preparations may be made.

Any who find themselves capable of traveling in the mist who read this, even years from now, I charge you with the saving of my people. I have done all within my power, as have my best researchers. If any succeed in this, I hereby cede to them the noble title of Marquis, and will grant any boon within my power and my honor to give.

By royal decree of King Francis Drake

I'll have you know, the party has opened the door to my sister's room at this point. :smalleek: I run as fast as I am able with note in hand to find Honey opening the door to my sister's room, and rousing her Seru-possessed form from inactivity. As quietly as I can I race back towards the party, assuming full well this house is packed with my family's servants, and quite possibly my family itself. I am not above dropping all the inhaled sleeping powder at once to shut everyone up.

Thankfully, it is unnecessary. My sister is alone, and unarmed. While a fencer of considerable skill, she is no threat to the party, but the resemblance to me is uncanny. Thankfully, I am able to arrive in time to seize my sister, Alicia, with my left arm and Caspian absorbs the Seru within her. I am informed later that it was a "Leaf Leshy," the smaller of the two variants I had obtained. And for those who have been paying attention to such things, I did NOT have to forget a Seru I already held for this one. After leveling up, my capacity apparently increased. Or, well, Caspian's.

The reunion with my bewildered sister is nothing like I'd imagined. The note was very accurate in that it they would not age a day, as Alicia looked 19, almost exactly as I'd last seen her. Me? Well, she mistook me for my father, Aberforth. This was likely to become a recurring theme, as a whole 20 years had passed. I now had the appearance of my father, although more on the thin and academic side of things where my father was every inch the military man.

This was also when I came to the realization that even if my wife, Linda was fine, I'd have grown old on her. :smallfrown:

We brought Alicia up to speed, and decided that it best we arm her and take our leave. We possessed a chance, if I was in fact being led to another crystal tree, that we could save everyone in Drake at once. The size may have been a bit off, but I give her Red's masterwork padded armor. In arming her with a rapier, we find my father's equipment missing and his chamber door open. :smalleek: My father, was probably not content with just rolling over and surrendering. A quick check with Alicia confirmed she was the second to last person to don a Seru, leaving only my father...

We depart from my parent's mansion and take a roundabout route to the castle, hoping to avoid the capital city. Even from afar, we can tell the city is a ghost town. As we approach, the castle appears to be equally deserted. Just past the castle gates we find a robed man lying face down. I identify the corpse, despite it only being a few years old, wearing the robe of a Biron monk. He only died a few years ago. The robe is intact, death by claw marks. 'Mercy, Judgement, Wrath' were intricately embroidered upon it. We set the body aside for now, to be buried later. A quick knowledge check tells us that Biron monks are to be buried naked unless they are wearing clothes we know clothes to be made themselves.

We designate the magic reading to Caspian, who can't talk. but is capable of detecting what the robe is capable of in a brief game of 20 questions.

"Is there magic?"
Duh.

"Is it useful to us?"
A swift nod.

"Who?"
Uhhh...

"Red?" Logical choice, being the Biron monk.
Another nod. Yes.

"Take it Red."

He tries it on, to discern whether or not he can tell what it can do. "Feels good." But he notices the sash for the robe is not present. So the robe is left to hang open, forever revealing his abs. Fitting~ :smallamused:

We then find a small sign. It reads "Free visitors." It is pointing to the second door on the right. Probably means free Seru. Thinking it to be a trap, I ignore it and head for the library, but Honey has other intentions.

What she finds is the feline familiar of a witch, named Daria. A tall human woman, studying at the capital to be a doctor. Realizing John has rushed to Honey's aid, the party is rerouted for another joyous reunion.

Quincy: "Snowball!" Tis the name of Daria's familiar, both of whom I would recognize anywhere. Through his emphatic link, he can inform us that both my wife and Daria are in the library. Eager to learn all I can, I inquire as to what he can feel through his empathetic link with Daria.

Snowball: "Helplessness, fear, and overwhelming anger."

The anger is most likely the Seru, but the rest? Great, it seems that means everyone is still there inside... so we're effectively facing curable zombies capable of doing most everything the people they'd infected were capable of. So we shouldn't kill ANYONE... if we can help it.

Although the DM has stated he would allow me to initiate PvP if anyone killed my wife. You're damn right I'm taking him upon that offer... 20 years to be killed by one of my friends? :smallfurious: I hope it doesn't come to that. :smallfrown:

Library is the second door on the left. Near the back are 4-5 wooden cages, all rather hastilly constructed. After I personally what is inside, the DM replies: "Yes. Oh, and initiative."

The scene before us? There are multiple cages full of people, only one of which seems to have people being a bit more active, including one woman who is strangely enough holding up a lamp, thrusting it at Red's direction. Red won the initiative by the way... DEFENSIVE POSTURING! Honey is throwing a color spray at the wooden cage of people. The unimportant adds drop. Daria and Linda are still active, both being spellcasters to a degree.

Lamp raised, a pony manifests out of nowhere to attack Honey, but the attack misses. I make a bee-line around the pony for my wife, downing my dexterity extract to help me avoid taking damage so I can figure out how to restrain my wife. Olaf sets fire to the celestial pony, crits, and causes the pony to explode. John misses a shot, pinging the wooden cage. Another color spray, brings the two shaken ones down. :smallcool: My wife focused onto a random lamp, but thankfully I know everything she can make a focus out of. Linda is an Occultist, another play testing class thrown into the mix for fun. Lamps, are associated with conjuration, soooo pony.

Honey launches another color spray and an experiment of the wolverine claw sticking out of Caspian from absorbing the Pseudo Dragon put the other people back to sleep while we restrained the whole lot. I stripped my wife of anything she can make a casting implement of. Don't worry, mostly vests, shoes, hats, lamps, and a few other things. She was still decent, but I left her things just out of reach outside the cage. After we'd seen to it those in the cage were deprived of anything usable and properly restrained, we were on our way.

While we're in the library, Red takes a little time to research the Biron robe he has, and comes up with that it will allow him to channel both negative and positive energy. To test this, we use touch of corruption on one of the four caged people with the intent of healing him from being stuck with my claw and John's pistol whip. And gosh darn it, it heals him. HOLY CRAP! Maybe you can have your cake AND eat it too! In hindsight, it was a good thing he didn't actually land a touch of corruption, or the faceless mook would have died.

Red can now channel positive, OR negative energy at will.

We backtrack to find Snowball is in a warded area, which takes a nat 20 from me to pass through with Caspian intact. It is... painful for the little guy, and while useful for the rest of the party, is not something I am in a hurry to put Caspian through again. Red and Olaf feel a little, on edge, like they are unwelcome in the warded area. For the rest, the feeling doesn't even register. I would like to point out that no one in this party thought to search this particular room or inquire further as to the nature of the ward set up.
I'll have to amend that~

Our next goal is the armory, for anything useful that might assist us in our progress in reaching the crystal tree.

Snowball offers to scout for us, as the few possessed soldiers on patrol ignore him. He's a familiar, so I suppose that makes him incapable of being possessed. He comes back carrying a gun in his mouth, whom we give to honey.

Quincy OOC: "You're gonna give your eight-year old daughter a pistol?" The moment I finish that question, my phone's text ringtone goes off, which is the sound you hear when Snake is detected in Metal Gear Solid. It was fairly priceless~

Between us and the armory is a hallway of caged soldiers, i.e. a hallway of attacks of opportunity. After pooling our options for a while, it is noted that my dexterity mutagen is still active. That alone gave me an AC of 21. After taking a minute to mix up a shield extract, I bring that AC to 25. What follows, is me charging down the hallway, pulling a matrix in dodging each and every attack of opportunity launched my way with all the other PCs save for Red close on my heals. In the armory, we all find a few small upgrades, but the most noticeable of which is given to John.

Kitted out with a set of black Seru Carapace Armor, which we were told was effectively equivalent to mythril plate mail.

Soooo, aside from some between session things, that just casually happened between me and the DM, you all are entirely caught up!

Snowball also offhandedly mentioned we didn't want to go to the audience chamber or the great hall. I.e. there are Seru possessed people in there. On the last minute or two of my dexterity mutagen, where I am temporarily hemorrhaging wisdom, I make the connection: Audience chamber, the king! Oh no! And rush off down the hall, throwing open the door to find...

...The Princess. Having a dice rolling app on my phone, I make just about all my checks, for the painting, the princess, and a... heal check.

The Princess? Is a bloodrager. Not a very commonly known fact, but one I made the roll for. The heal check? Was to make clear that this would be a fight we would have to be careful with... as if knocked out of her blood rage through lethal damage, she could drop further into the negatives and the shock could kill her.

On the wall, is a painting depicting a scene when Drake kingdom was founded. On the arm of what I can only assume to be royalty or some historic figure in Drake Kingdom's past... is a bracer with white scales.

Coidzor
2015-03-02, 12:41 AM
Ahh, splitting the party and breaking into places when there's the possibility of just picking up the master keys. Always fun.

Although I am starting to wonder if the group isn't intentionally making bad decisions just to see how they'll blow up in their faces. :smallamused:

Interesting to see how the Seru-possessed individuals are as threats, though one really does have to wonder what they were doing locking themselves up with weapons in a corridor.

Also, quite lucky that in 20 years the Seru-possessed ones never managed to wear through their cages, too.

Jerynboe
2015-03-02, 08:56 PM
Ahh, splitting the party and breaking into places when there's the possibility of just picking up the master keys. Always fun.

Although I am starting to wonder if the group isn't intentionally making bad decisions just to see how they'll blow up in their faces. :smallamused:

Interesting to see how the Seru-possessed individuals are as threats, though one really does have to wonder what they were doing locking themselves up with weapons in a corridor.

Also, quite lucky that in 20 years the Seru-possessed ones never managed to wear through their cages, too.

Doctorprofessor built a character around poor decision making last time I ran a campaign, and Honey's character once tried to drive a minivan in the form of a wolf (and succeeded). Regret's got a hero complex and his player knows how poor his decisions usually are. So... Yeah, I'd say you are probably right about them making poor decisions. At least when they stand to gain SOMETHING.

The weapons were locked up. Dr. Professor forgot that the door was ripped off its hinges. By the princess, as a side note.

And yes. Very convenient only one batch of 6 got out of their cages. The castle had the best cages. Because royalty. Sure. I'll go with that. :smalltongue:

DoctorProfessor
2015-03-03, 07:09 PM
I was expecting the castle to be a bit of a mini-dungeon crawl. Out of character? I'll be damned if I wasn't going to have at least another bout of combat, even if we discovered a familiar that was capable of doing recon for us.

The next journal update is 90% done, there was a bit of a retcon done to some information I had written down at the end of that stretch of the journal. What the end result became wasn't made clear to us until we got a good ways into the next session, because things didn't pan out the way we expected them to. :smallamused:

I just felt this last journal entry needed a lot more attention than most of the others. It should be up tomorrow~! [[I have been telling my group this for about a week now, but I am officially out of excuses. :smalltongue: Not really, just hadn't really felt up to going through the whole editing process. Now it's internet official, which means you can believe me when I say it, right? Riiiiiiight~!?]]

DoctorProfessor
2015-03-05, 03:40 PM
Welp, this post is a little later than I'd like it to be, but here you all go~!

Things are getting interesting. And I began to add a bit more of an effort in adding a more narrative effect at the beginning of the first combat. I'm having fun with these journals~ Even if they're more on the back burner behind school and planning for my own campaign.



I eye the rest of the party after closing the door to the audience chamber. The DM calls for initiative.

Quincy: "Guys? The Princess is here. She saw me. Oh, and she's a blood rager."

Not that many people in the party know what that entails. Guess who has the lowest initiative? The guy who is explaining to everyone how he f***'d up.

Olaf, curious to see what I'm talking about, wanders down the hall and opens the door I had just closed for our own safety. She sees the Princess of Drake kingdom, a woman who now seems to be surrounded by vines flanked my two guards possessing a rather wooden texture to their flesh.

Olaf: "Huh."

That is about the extent of her turn, which makes way for the Princess's next action. The princess lets out an enraged roar, growing in size and manifesting white scales as she channels her draconic bloodline. She then charges towards the half orc standing dumbfounded in the doorway, wasting no time in bringing her newly manifested claws to bare. She by takes a swipe at Olaf, just barely misses, but leaves the half orc wide eyed. Honey is next up, eager to land an ever useful color spray, but there's a bit of a cluster centered in the doorway with more friendlies than hostiles. This doesn't stop her from wading into fire off a color spray from point blank range, but she fails the check to do so.

The two guards flanking the princess join the ever growing mob centered in the doorway, but these jokers are packing reach weapons. They both level jabs at Olaf, their rolls being: 20 and 1. The jester taking a poke with his halberd doesn't quite confirm, but he still manages to roll out max damage, which is enough to make Olaf glad he didn't crit. I can't make this stuff up. :smallsigh: John and Red join the fray as well, but at least they have the sense to stand slightly out of the melee instead of jumping into the growing party in the doorway. Red fires off a glimpse of red abs to distract them long enough for John to line up a shot into one of the guards. How he fired through the entire melee to intentionally hit a guard on the other side of the doorway and all out brawl, I'll never know. Stubborn Dwarves~ :smallcool:

At the tail end of the initiative order I do a little analysis. I come up with a 20 on spellcraft, and confirm that the guards aren't quite under oakflesh, but recognize the wooden texture of their skin to be an effect that the Seru known as a Leaf Leshy provides. It only effectively gives them DR 1, so it's not too big of an issue, but I actually have one of those. I do not get to switch them out until the start of the day, but definitely a nice little effect to have. Before I can act, two bursts of shining blue liquid burst out of Caspian, hitting both guards square in the chest, exploding with a splash of magical energy.

This! Is what I came up with when I was told Caspian's magic missile could look like anything.

Seeing how the Princess is both the biggest threat, I elect to try and take a stab at her with my Pseudo Dragon stinger to put her to sleep. Oddly enough, an inept alchemist attempting to inject sleep poison into a blood raging blood rager doesn't work as well as I would have hoped. In short, I miss, terribly. In response, She takes swings with both her claws in short order, one connects with a 27 against my 25 AC. :smalleek: Impressive~

Olaf takes a five foot step away from the blood raging princess before setting one of the guards on fire. Honey elects to do the same before firing a color spray at the Princess to find is ALSO not impressed by the pretty colors. Thankfully, one of the guards is knocked unconscious. Unfortunately, because she stepped back, I'm in that arc too, leaving me blinded and stunned for a round. After that, I've another round of being stunned. Red grants me his loyal oath, just to give me that extra protection while I'm flat-footed. That and his charisma bonus added to any saves I would have to make.

John runs in to pistol whip the Princess, but misses. Despite being blinded, Caspian connects with a ray of frost, but the rest of the party sees that it has no effect. Energy resistance? The party also notes that despite being completely out of action, the fresh claw marks in my chest close thanks to my spontaneous healing discovery. One less daily extract I have to devote to healing~! :smallwink: Olaf causes the flames engulfing the burning guard to dance towards the Princess, which only seems to piss her off. The princess roars once more, and a blast of pollen floods the hallway. John is the only one to not make the save, and falls asleep. Were it not for the charisma bonus from Red's loyal oath, I would not have made the save either.

Honey knocks the Princess out with a color spray. With all the unconscious people on fire, Red is stealing takes this time to wake John with a swift kick. John, heeding my warning, smothers the Princess's flames first with a blanket before attempting to bind her. Olaf draws the flames of the first guard to her hand, and it disappears completely. :smallcool:

The second guard recovers from the color spray and moves to collect his halberd, right before a shot from John's gun sends him crashing back to ground. While unconscious from his wounds and out of the fight, the fact that this was achieved by a bullet earns John a complaint from me.

Quincy: "John! We're trying to NOT kill anyone!"
John: "I'M NAE IN THE MOOD QUINCY!"

I had no intention of arguing with the dwarf in his new black carapace armor.

Even still, there are more pressing concerns. Knowing full well the Princess was capable of ripping the ARMORY DOOR off its hinges, I assist Red in adequately tying up the Princess. Meanwhile, Olaf moves to stabilize the guard. We finish up, and I call attention to the portrait on the wall again. There is an armband on the person on the wall that looks a lot like Caspian, only white. While noted, we are quite anxious to remove ourselves from this room as there is no telling our restraints were enough to keep the princess tied up.

On the way back, I inquire as to the nature of the magical ward against Seru. Snowball recounts to me that was a joint venture, of which there are likely a handful of scrolls of still lying around. Scrolls of "Ward against Seru? Sign me up." Not wanting to cause Caspian anymore harm than necessary, I elect to stay outside the ward while Honey and Red enter it. Honey looks over some things, while Red just grabs a handful of things for me to look over.

We end up with two scrolls of Infernal Healing. Two scrolls of Goodberry. Five scrolls of Endure Elements. Two scrolls of Fastidiousness, and a scroll of Shield. The potions he brings back include five Cure Light Wounds, a single Cure Moderate Wounds, four Magic Weapon Oils, and... three Potions of Hide from Seru. The last item on the list? A scroll of Ward against Seru. :smallbiggrin:

I find an information kiosk, which contains notes, a copy of the royal proclamation, and research notes. It's about a month's worth of research, and a massive info dump, so I'll enclose it in a spoiler tag. If you elect to pass it over, I will call attention to the relevant information when they become important. They fairly quickly do too, so if you don't read it now, I encourage you to go over it before getting too much further in reading campaign journal entries.

Due to the situation in the western nations, we have mobilized all researchers available to analyze this threat that has ravaged four of our trading partners, including two economic and military superpowers. We have sent envoys to the north, but the Dwarves seem to be sealing off their lands defensively.

… An envoy from what remains of Conkram arrived recently, claiming to speak for the new king Cort. He was unable to enlighten us as to the source of the mist, but has requested that we provide materials to build a facility to help him to safely research a method to counter the mist. He claims that Conkram has created a variety of seru that can withstand the effects of the mist. These “Sim-Seru” are made through a process that hardens the seru against the effects of the mist. I do not understand the science behind it, but who am I to question an expert on the subject like Lord Zeto?...

… For the purposes of these tests, we have acquired the Mist in its liquid form from Ratayu. We were unable to contact Ran Saryu, but I’m certain he’ll not object to us taking samples of his nation’s mist. On skin contact it has the effects of exposure in its gaseous state, but accelerated by a factor of 10. This liquid, when exposed to air, evaporates rapidly. This in turn will quickly disperse in the air to undetectable levels…

… Those under the influence of seru do not appear to require additional subsistence beyond the mist itself. When we managed to make a sprite attach to an adult mayfly and then exposed both to mist in a glass container, the fly survived for over a week.
Personal note: The fly seemed to target its bursts of light at researchers currently holding fragile objects. We lost a sealed vial of mist elixir that way. Either it’s a lucky little bastard or it was choosing its targets….

… When under the influence of a typical seru (footnote: In this case the common Groob for its typical docility and lack of dangerous features) they retain their entire skillset; especially muscle memory and the like, but their ability to access such is limited. A wizard was observed to lack the ability to produce any but the most elementary effects of their school, those learned through rote early in the wizard’s career. A Fencer showed a marked reduction in technique and ability to improvise…

… Clerics seem unable to commune with their god, but do seem to be able to draw upon power from some source. However, this source seems to only be able to provide negative energy. It is unknown if they are able to mold the magic into more complex spells, but they are quite capable of releasing bursts of negative energy…

… Sentient Seru, after testing, display distressing properties. A Dryad removed from the vicinity of her tree, thus dampening her spell like capabilities, was chosen for this testing. When exposed to the mist in its liquid form she retained sentience and seemed to actively seek to disrupt testing. She had no prior knowledge of the purpose of the testing, but lashed out at those involved. She recovered from the effects of the mist a minute after the mist had evaporated off of her, three minutes after initial exposure.
Further testing discovered something far more unsettling: an intelligent seru controlling an individual has full access to the skills and knowledge of the individual possessed. The same Dryad was later placed onto a volunteer, a young student enchantress by the name of Andrea. We do not have detailed notes on this event, as she proceeded to make extensive use of charming spells to convince a number of individuals to start disposing of the research materials, including providing her with mist elixir. The ensuing fracas resulted in acute injuries in a number of researchers, and two broken bottles of the liquid mist. She consumed an entire bottle of the stuff, and remains in her altered state fully a day later.
Polling indicates that those targeted were exclusively individuals Andrea knew to be of comparatively weak will, or very junior researchers. She maintained her own mannerisms, but one who knows her personally and was able to shake off her spell claims that it felt less compelling than it typically does.

Addendum 1: Her body took five days to fully process and recover from the effects of the mist. She was capable of preparing a single spell, “charm person” from memory. Andrea has never displayed this ability, but it is noteworthy that dryads can produce this effect naturally when in the vicinity of their tree.

Addendum 2: I personally suggest the extermination of known sentient seru. Though distasteful, each and every one of them is a massive security breach waiting to happen.

While we work, John and Olaf head in the opposite direction of the remaining known problem area I warned them to avoid. They end up in a room filled with altars encased in cages. They are made to make 3 fort saves, causing John to take 10 damage, and Olaf 9 damage. John is then healed for 4 damage. From each altar, a raised hand fired rippling distortions in their direction. Turns out, a dwarf standing next to the altar dedicated to the God Emperor pointed a finger at him, confused by the fact it healed John. Dwarven Clerics have the ability to heal other dwarves. This same energy harms any other race, which probably explains the possessed cleric's confusion. The two quickly retreat before deciding to explore elsewhere and succeeds in finding the great hall, bathroom, barracks, and a hallway that has an odd pattern to it. Walking down it, they finds 4 doors, one of which has had it ripped off its hinges. Thinking it to be the Royal Family's wing, they decide it is time to head back.

With the maps now in our possession, and based off the general feeling I have, I think that there are three noteworthy mountains that could contain our objective. These are the mountains of Kurik, Rikora, and Galia. For those keeping score, we've reached 3 Valkyria Chronicle references kiddos~!

I feel it is also worth noting that if he continued on in a straight line from the castle past those mountains, we would reach the known surface lands claimed by the dwarves. I am also able to inform the party that Mount Rikora is a forbidden area, marked as private hunting grounds belonging to the royal family. All evidence points towards Rikora, so we intend to start our search.

Along the way out of the castle, we give the Biron Monk as proper a burial as we can manage.

Once we set up shop in my parents' mansion, I decide to equip the Leaf Leshy, and my flesh gains a little wooden tint to it. Caspian's changes? He now looks like he's made of blue bark. The other misc. powers I get from him are endure elements, and what is effectively the ability to conjure just enough nuts and such to feed me for a day. Trail mix ho~! It goes without saying that we really enjoy this night. It's not everyday adventurers get to sleep on REALLY FINE CARPETS AND COUCHES! It's good to be home. :smallcool:

On the road, I divy out potions and scrolls. Potion of hide seru: Similar to hide from undead. If they fail the will save, they CAN'T notice you, unless you come into physical contact with them. They last a few minutes.

The first day of travel, of three, towards the mountain is uneventful. Near the end of day two, we encounter a field filled with footprints. Honey discovers what appears to be the remains of lightning having struck some trees nearby. John recognizes something familiar about the footprints we find, as they are of dwarven war boots. There was a fight... between a group of dwarves and small creatures whose prints we can't identify. I add that there are a handful of Seru capable of conjuring lightning, but nothing springs immediately to mind that would match the footprints. We don't want to get anymore sidetracked than we already are, so we carry on. It just so happens the small clawed prints are heading in the direction we need to be going.

Day three: While relieving himself, Olaf isolates himself from the party before being greeted with a "Hello." He fails to see who spoke, and freaks out as the draconic voice is not one of ours. A little dull grey dragon is standing on its hind legs nearby. Olaf has no idea what is going on, and has literally been caught with his pants down. Surprised, he instinctively throws a ball of flame that goes wide. The dragon then... turns into an unusually short dwarf. Like, a midget dwarf. John and I come to investigate, and find Olaf facing this midget dwarven... drifter? John is convinced that, despite the fact he's convinced its a half dwarf, half gnome, the God Emperor would wish for us to help.

It, we're not sure of its gender, or if it even has one at this point, decides to drop the dwarf act at least to reveal its true form. Not its final form mind you, and recounts to us that its parents are wounded in a battle with dwarves, having barely escaped only to be separated. We are curious as to how they survived in the mist all this time, and it recounts to us that the mountain peak they lived on is free of the mist. John is convinced this little... thing, is stretching the truth a bit. Unfortunately, even with a map, it has no idea where we are, or which mountain belongs to its parents. Wonderful. :smallmad: We don't exactly want to bring it along on our quest to save the world, but we cannot in good conscious abandon the poor thing. With a rolled 17, and my 7 points coming from my knowledge skills, I know with almost absolute certainty that I have NO FREAKING CLUE what the thing is.

Kobolds... are a closely guarded secret in this world. We'd never even seen or heard of any reference to them, as they live in what is considered a restricted hunting ground belonging to the Royal Family of Drake.

The little guy introduces himself as a... kobold. Their kind in this world is almost extinct. With our low sense motive checks, it seems... reasonable. He LITERALLY looks like a mini dragon of a light grey hue. Just in case, Red detects the creature's neutrality. I.e. Detect Good and Evil come up with nothing.

You might think we're picking up a lot of NPCs. Normally, you'd be right~! But this time, you're wrong! Instead, we'd been joined by another person new to both Pathfinder and tabletop roleplaying. And just to be clear, the player is a girl, playing a male kobold. Her first session? She proceeds to force her way into the party after lying her a** off to us and getting a lot of confused glances from the DM. She WAS privy to some juicy knowledge, but she was keeping a pretty tight lid on that and instead stretching the truth as far as she could. While skeptical, we had very little reason to disbelieve her, and leave her here on her own. That is, until we learn more about whats going on.

We learn the little guy is named Sartorn, which is archaic draconic for, "Little Silver." Fitting. We intentionally avoid giving the little guy anymore information than we have to, especially the fact we're looking for a giant crystal tree. It is trying to nudge us away from the mountain we are heading for, and is willing to help be our guide, but we assure the little fella we're not going to stop searching until we find what we came for. For now? His cover story is that he was out here against its own will, forced to finally contribute in hunting and setting up traps. Hmmm... something about that just never personally added up to me. I'm more focused on the fact that Sartorn is trying to come up as many reasons he deems reasonable to serve as a guide to any of the mountains other than the one we're heading for.

A short way up the Rikora, Red spots a trip wire, and I detect what looks like a pitfall trap just further on. We elect to avoid them, leaving them to cover anyone that might come up behind us. It then occurs to me that this is a HUNTING GROUND FOR THE ROYAL FAMILY, and she got separated from her HUNTING PARTY. Upon confronting Sartorn with this, he claims she doesn't agree with the hunters, and admits he was forced to hunt/set up traps... which we have been avoiding with ease despite all the time that went into their setup.

John and I avoid a spot where a net would have dropped a number of rocks on us. Red unfortunately steps into a well hidden noose, but front flips away from it before spikes fly out of the ground, impaling where he would have been. Meanwhile, I prod Sartorn for more information since he isn't volunteering it. He claims there is more than just his mother and father at the mountain's peak. That, and that the distant cousins would not approve of his being friendly to us.

All of a sudden, we hear a dwarvern firearm amidst a discharge of guns. Hell, John made out the exact make and model of a dwarvern blunderbuss. We make haste to reach he source of the disturbance to find a group of three kobolds, looking a lot like Sartorn, making a fighting withdraw from a group of eight dwarves. We surmise that the kobolds are trying to lure the dwarves into traps. Already formulating a plan of action, I warn Red to keep Sartorn to keep Sartorn hidden from sight before we reveal ourselves... right as Sartorn promptly flies off into combat. :smallmad: So much for the best laid plans...

Initiatives! Although I can't really fault her. This IS her family, and I'd probably act just as irrationally in her place.

Red, John, and Olaf roll nat 1's.

Sartorn and I roll in the 20 and 19 range respectively. Never tell us the odds.

Sartorn downs a feral mutagen before taking wing to assault one of the dwarves. Her plan? Throw herself onto one of the dwarves and claw his face to shreds. For a newbie? This is more interesting than "I attack the dwarf with my claws." One of them, a priest to the god emperor, responds by firing a beam of energy at her, which she dodges.

The rest of us are in cover, and currently watching the scenes rather hidden from the sidelines. For all the dwarves know, there's more of the lizards about to spring out and ambush them. What they get? Is far more unusual. I spring out of cover, a tall yet graying haired human shouting warnings in Dwarven. I call out the locations of traps, and try and put myself between the dwarves and their prey. I succeed in alerting them to the location of imminent traps, but don't quite convince hem to let up their assault entirely. A pair of dwarves get past me, and the intent of pursuing while the rest turn their attention to Sartorn. A number of the dwarf priest's attendants take swings at Sartorn with clubs, to which she successfully dodges or is largely unaffected by most of them. Sartorn then eats a staggering blow from a masterwork light hammer. One of the dwarves catches up to the kobolds, which just so happens to be one of the few actual fighters among the kobolds, and takes a swing. Shouts for Sartorn can be heard from the retreating kobolds, begging her to flee.

John covers Honey while she runs in to fire a color spray aimed at all the dwarves taking swings at Sartorn, knocking out three of the priest's attendants, and the Priest of the god emperor. Sartorn goes down as well. The dwarf with the crossbow, and the rager, are the only ones that make the save. They promptly attempt to tie up Sartorn and Honey, but John puts himself between them and his daughter. Tense negotiations ensue while the rest of the kobolds escape.

The Priest of the God Emperor of Dwarfkind is wearing a seru chestplate. They had been commanded by the God Emperor to secure the top of the mountain, and in the process report that they were attacked by kobolds on sight. This confirms that there is a tree atop the mountain, so our goals for the moment align with the dwarves in reaching the mountain's peak. As a neural third party, they're begrudgingly willing to give us a day to make peaceful negotiations with the kobold tribe, since we DID assist the kobolds in there. Convincing them to bring Sartorn with us to smooth over the negotiations doesn't go over too well with them, but they eventually relent.

Incapable of speaking Dwarven: Red, Olaf, Satorn and the Maid slip away unnoticed from the heated argument and negotiations. Alicia was left largely in the background to negotiations, but she stuck by my side. We'll come back to the other group later.

It is at this point I find it worth noting that Dwarven Cleric, in fact holds the title of Inquisitor. To clarify, he doesn't have Inquisitor class levels, but a lot of, if not all, clerics to the God Emperor of Dwarfkind double up as Inquisitors. He zeroes in on Caspian on my arm, and very explicitly does not like what he sees. In response, I am getting the impression that Caspian is hissing at this priest's Seru. Honey forces her way into the negotiations by asking who the God Emperor is, and the cleric's retelling is not as... faithful as it should be. In fact, it almost seems phoned in, or rehearsed. This bothers us.

If you did not take the time to go over the research notes I'd found, they describe the revelation that intelligent Seru were capable of mimicking personalities. Not ALL of them are mindless and insane as we have assumed throughout the campaign. Some, it seems are capable of acting intelligently. :smalleek: ...Intelligently enough to mimic the personality of person they are controlling. :smallamused:

Our plan, is to try and turn the dwarves against their priest. We have on our side:
The knowledge we'd learned at the castle.
The poor quality of speech and lack of passion, or by the book, recitation of information about the God Information.
I am fully capable of assisting, but this argument ultimately HAS to come from a dwarf. Thus, leaving this in John's hands.

I'll have you know this party really lacks a face. The one with the best charisma is Red... and he is a bit too easily side tracked to serve as a strong negotiator. I'm not saying he'd do terrible, but if we consider for a moment if at any point in the conversation it would come up that Red is asked for help by the person he's talking with... well, that discussion is over. If anything, we defer to whoever we feel has the best idea or whose character would logically know best given the situation. Having the high intelligence and high personal investment in the fact we're currently trying to save my home city... I've been very active in matters as of late. I've no problem deferring to other characters and giving them all time in the spotlight while I mull matters over and try to piece together plot.

The dwarves reflect on their 5 year mission to take the mountain, and recount to us that their cleric has acted rather callously and has been rather ineffective in orchestrating their attempts to retake the mountain. They are willing to give John free reign for the short term, forming a barrier between us and the now offended Inquisitor. After coming away from this odd occurrence, I learn John's intent is to return and have this not only cleric, but a dedicated inquisitor, tried as a heretic. Not sure how that would work, but I'm respecting John on this.

Back to the rest of Squad Seven: On the way to the mountain's peak, Sartorn recounts to the group that her parents are the ones largely in control of things. The tribe largely knows the tree is capable of magic, but she isn't quite sure herself what it is capable of. It does not take them too terribly long to reach the top, where they find a huge white dragon curled up around the base of the crystal tree. Sartorn is willing to speak on the group's behalf, and earns them a chance to explain their purpose in coming here. Red is the one that speaks up for the group while the white dragon stretches a bit. He introduces himself as Ahune, the guardian of this region's trees. Midway through Red's retelling, Ahune interjects by recognizing our tree as the one containing Caspian, by name.

Soon after Red finishes his recounting, all involved parties elect to wait for the rest of Squad Seven to arrive before proceeding further. Almost immediately I get this impression from Caspian, before everyone is brought onto the same page.

Caspian's thought: "Oh yeah. This guy."

We very quickly learn that while Ahune is supposedly a guardian of sorts for the crystal trees in times of need, he is not going out of his way to do a whole lot of his guardian duties.

Ahune: "I didn't take this job to put up with people like you. Its for... her." The Seru in he tree. We connect the dots a little bit, and make out that this is more than likely the mother and father of the kobold tribe gathered at this mountain's peak.

At some point, it comes up that it is our hope that activating the tree will expel the Seru possessing the Dwarven Inquisitor/Cleric camped halfway down the mountain, before Ahune bursts our bubble.

Ahune: "You mean the one with the Mist Born."
Us: "Wait, what?"

Apparently, that plan isn't going to fly. Now we have:


Seru capable of possessing people and acting intelligently.
And these "Mist Born" Seru that are still capable of acting within the safe zones provided by the trees.


...great. :smallmad:

We are also informed us that the trees are vessels of sorts in which these guardians sleep until they are needed. The trees only 'wake up' in times of desperation, or another one of their kind. So I place my left hand upon the tree, and it puts on its light show just like Rim Elm's tree did. Again, the process knocks me unconscious. There is a light spot on the tree when it's done, and a silver egg is present.


Grey/Silver kobolds
Portrait of a white bracer on a historical figure in a painting of Drake's founding.
That, and there is a skin condition that pops up in the Royal family that looks a lot like... scales.
Ahune also offhandedly and frequently mentions 'cycles' and the fact that the trees play a pivotal part in them. Specifically, that entering a tree starts a new cycle.
I think I can confirm this from my dream, where I, likely in place of Caspian, nodded to a large white dragon before stepping into Rim Elm's tree and... shrunk in size.


We're on the right track. The egg shatters when John touches it, and a silver chain forms around his arm, squeezes, and begins to grow very quickly. It grows down to his elbow. John Warfield obtains the kobold's mother, Sif. It takes the form of a silver bracelet.

I wake to find that Caspian has grown all the way down to my elbow, with the addition of a pearl mounted upon my wrist. Neat~ :smallcool:

DM: "You see the mental image of a child drinking milk. Caspian's communication abilities have upgraded." I can now be provided mental images to understand what Caspian is trying to say.

Ahun walks over to Honey, and asks if she'd like to help protect her daddy. He then shrinks to a white egg, and allows Honey to absorb it. The explicit impression she gets, is that Ahune wants to close to Sif, which is something Honey would do naturally.

And with that, Ahun just ended his cycle of being a guardian, leaving the Kobolds defenseless. Red rips off his shirt to inspire them.

To tie up loose ends, we knock the Inquisitor unconscious, tear off his Mist Born Seru and the dwarves promptly crush the armor into fine powder. Thus, earning a little trust from this group of Dwarves.

We reach level 4!!!

As an aside, I kinda wanna bring Trail Mix to our sessions for whenever I make use of the Leaf Leshy's daily trail mix rations.