Session Three: Rats might bite us, but we bite back! Skellies rise and we attack! Bring the shines back to tribe! Somebodies burned it; they pay with lives!
Once again, I used material from the Jade Regent adventure path to embellish and create the background and encounters. As always, SPOILERS AHEAD!
Spoiler: Our "Heroes":
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Broodadoo: Bringer of cheese and Boss of the Big Fire, this Licktoad slays his enemies and protects himself with his mind-material!
Ragnok: Worg-rider and proud owner of the fabled bird-attracting hat, he is looking forward to sticking his blades into creatures over and over! He named his worg Gir.
Ratpainter: Finally sleeping off the day-long hangover, the Master of the Pig Pit gets an early start on a day filled with mischief and the claiming of lives.
Previously, on We Be Goblins!
Spoiler: The cave and the journey south
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Hearing about a mysterious belt that no one could quite figure out, Ratpainter sneaks through a window into the Moot House in the wee hours of the morning to try it on for himself. She comes back a changed woman. Ironically, throughout the rest of the session, the other two players incorrectly call him by male pronouns. As the sun is rising, Slorb comes to beckon them into the moot house for their next assignment.
Upon entering the Moot House, they see His Mighty Girthness Chief Rendwaddle Gutwad sitting atop his teeter chair and pondering over a fan that Vorca had scribbled on, trying to make sense of it. Broodadoo offers to help ponder and takes it away from him, which gives the Chief just the change of perspective he needed! He sees that he had been looking at it upside-down, and suddenly it all makes sense. It’s another map! This one is much less intelligible than the one Scribbleface had, but appears to outline a path to a cave at the bottom of the southern cliffs that border the swamp, about one or two days journey by foot. Maybe there’s more fireworks? A goblin can only hope.
The Licktoad goblins have little awareness of the southern part of the marsh, since it is within the dominion of a dangerous swamp witch. However, it’s been a while since she has been spotted, so maybe she moved away. Nevertheless, their guard is up as they slug and slosh through the marsh, eventually reaching a path that apparently hadn’t seen travelers for a while and was on its way to being claimed by the swamp; The very same path that led to the swamp witch’s hut. Judging the path a quicker route, Ratpainter led the group towards the hut, throwing caution to the wind.
Spoiler: Rats, and the pop of burning wet wood
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Eventually they approach a hut that has fallen into disrepair. Holes in the roof where moisture can get in are readily apparent from the outside. Ratpainter climbs Broodadoo’s back to get a better view. Ragnok circles around, cautiously trying to open all of the doors, but they are jammed. Ragnok eventually quietly gets through the back door, as Ratpainter and Broodadoo force the front. They hear a whispering sound that appears to come from behind the shed that is apart from the house, and go to investigate, as Ragnok continues trying to open doors within the house. As Broodadoo and Ratpainter round the corner, they see a trio of dire rats within the shed through a collapsed wall!
Ratpainter jumps off Broodadoo’s back and they attack. Ratpainter gets momentarily surrounded, and Broodadoo takes a nasty bite that looks like it might get infected, but they dispatch the rats relatively quickly.
At the same time, Ragnok is carefully searching the house that apparently has many tiny footprints on the moss and fungus that covers the floor of the house. He opens another door to an apparent laboratory, when out of nowhere a tiny rat-like figure with human hands attacks him! Ragnok steps away and gives him a slicing, then the ratling runs away through a crack in the floor. Ragnok throws his torch into the lab in the hopes of setting the spilt alchemical reagents ablaze, then flees to the other side of the house to search the bedroom, hearing a satisfying explosion and the cracking of timbers from the laboratory.
From behind the house, the skittering of many feet suddenly becomes audible as a swarm of rats appear rolling around the corner coming at Broodadoo and Ratpainter just as they are finishing up their dire rat situation. Not sure of what to do, Ratpainter hurls alchemist’s fire at the roiling mass of rats and tells Broodadoo to hit them with his mystical stick, which Broodadoo does. The rats swarm over Broodadoo, delivering tiny bites all over, and Ratpainter throws more chemicals at them, eventually causing them to disperse.
In the house, the little rat with human hands reappears from the floor to attack Ragnok again, biting deep into his leg and nicking an artery. Ragnok screams and slashes at him again. Ratpainter throws acid into the house at the both of them, not caring so much for Ragnok’s safety, and Broodadoo steps up to finish it off, failing to do so. The ratling runs again down into the floor, but Ragnok has a supernatural sense of where he is and follows into the next room to attack him through the floor, smashing through some of the floorboards. Broodadoo follows Ragnok, assuming he knows what he’s doing, and stands directly over the floor as he smashes into it, ending up with his foot inside of the tiny ratling’s head.
They do a quick search of the rapidly crumbling house and Ratpainter finds a scroll tube with a detailed map of the swamp, a medium sized dagger, and a few scrolls which he hoards to himself. He shows them the map and tries to hide the writing, but Ragnok sees and promptly lights the map on fire. The Licktoads blow the joint, sparking the rest of the chemicals and bursting through the walls until it ends up a collapsed smoking heap of wet wood. They follow the trail from the back door which leads to a small rowboat, which Ratpainter thinks they can use to make better time towards the cave.
Spoiler: The moist, occupied cavern
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Navigating up the creeks that cover the marsh, the goblins make their way rather quickly to the cavern that sits at the bottom of a 50 foot high cliff at the southern edge of the swamp. Slightly obscured by poisonous nettles which Broodadoo pushes aside with his mind blade, the trio steps through into the dim, wet cavern and start to explore.
Almost immediately they stumble onto an occupied spider’s den, with a much less intimidating spider than Lotslegs. The spider never even gets a chance. Next, they find an island with many sparkling gems in a pool of dark water. Ragnok calls dibs and has Gir jump the water, when a giant amoeba suddenly attacks! Short work is made of this too, and Ragnok collects the gems and continues.
They come upon a few skeletons, one in the water at the edge of the cavern, and one filled with a huge nest of snakes, and Ratpainter throws a vial to break up the snake nest, only suddenly both snakes and skeletons go on the offensive! Two of the skeletons surround Ragnok and Gir and start to take slashes at him with their bony claws, and the mass of snakes come to cover Broodadoo and Ratpainter in bites. Ratpainter becomes nauseous from the feeling of snakes all over his body, as Broodadoo smashes messes of them at a time, dispersing the mass. Ragnok and Gir attack with less effectiveness than they would like at the skeletons, nicking and gnawing at their bones with their respective scimitar and dogslicer and teeth until they eventually fall. Out from the darkness at the end of the cave, a skeleton armed with a wakizashi steps up and hisses a challenge at Ragnok, the mounted goblin, suggesting that he should either leave or die. Broodadoo becomes upset that he wasn’t challenged, and whacks at the skeleton with his mind stick, while Gir charges up a wall in an arc that ends with a bite against the skeleton, who is a lot tougher than he looks. Ratpainter throws fire as Ragnok and Broodadoo fight him back, and Broodadoo delivers the perfect blow: CRACK! On the back of the neck, shattering the spine and throwing the bones everywhere. They see a chest, which the skeleton was apparently guarding, and take a few minutes to open it. After they do, they check the skeleton and find the key to the chest. All sorts of goodies are in the ornately carved chest, including more fireworks! Ratpainter licks his frog Stinky and realizes that time is just another dimension to capture souls in, and also that the sword the skeleton was wielding is magical, and can be used to protect others, if that were a thing that goblins really wanted to do. Close inspection of the chest reveals a ring that can magically mark things, a wand that tells what things are, another wakizashi, and a bunch of potions.
Spoiler: Hey, what happened to the village?
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After a successful day of fireworks hunting, they board their rowboat and venture back to the Licktoad village. On their way there, however, they hear the distant sounds of explosions coming from the village. It sounds like they’re having a party without them! They begin rowing furiously to get there faster, but the sound of distant fireworks stops before they reach the village. As they reach their home, they see it burning. Everyone’s house is on fire! They also see the aftermath of a battle near the pig pit: A bigsy dwarf with heavy armor and a long axe is surrounded by over a dozen goblin bodies. He’s very dead, and much burned. Around the rest of the town, more bodies are found, though the bodies of Slorb, Goopy Wartbits, Chief Gutwad, Buggy Bugeye, Poog of Zarongel, Mogmurch, and Squealy Nord are nowhere to be found. Broodadoo throws and empty ale bottle that the dwarf had in his backpack and hears a whimper from the underbrush. They go to inspect and find Mogmurch, who had hidden to survive the fight, unlike his wife Rempsy. He says that Chief Gutwad ran away when he saw the bigsy dwarf killing all of his underlings, and that he’s going to the Birdcrunchers, another tribe about two miles to the north in the mountains, to become part of their tribe. Gobs gotta stick together, after all. He invites them to come along, but they say they want to track down the Chief and save him first. Before Mogmurch gets too far up the road, though, they come back up the road to ask him a question. Ratpainter says, “there’s something in the Chief’s Moot house I want you to take a look at. We’ll go with you to the Birdcruncher’s after.” Trusting them as the brave and competent warriors they are, he agrees, but is dismayed when they throw him into the hut along with his wife’s corpse and set the building ablaze, laughing as they leave! I guess that’s what you get for not protecting the village, Mogmurch!
Spoiler: The greenskin stalkers
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Following the trail was easy, as Ragnok recognized the footprints of his wife, and Slorb is terrible at covering his tracks. There were also other tracks interspersed with the goblin tracks. After a few hundred feet, they came to a section of the soggy river delta that was particularly wide, and saw a faintly glowing woman in the distance, with the faint glow illuminating a small bipedal frog, a Halfling, and a few bodies lying on the ground. The Halfling hears the goblins and turns his head, and in doing so the goblins also notice the red chest that the Licktoads had brought back from Vorca’s ship strapped on top of his backpack. The battle starts.
This was a long fight, and oog it was getting late into the night, but it was still fun, at least for me. Given these circumstances, I don’t remember the play-by-play, but I will try to highlight the most notable moments.
Ratpainter jumps upon Broodadoo’s back, and Broodadoo jumps halfway into the river, screaming, “I’m gonna f#&k you!” at his enemies, and the Halfling and frog pull out bows and start shooting at Broodadoo. Ragnok and Gir run up the river, over a downed tree that forms a bridge, Ragnok quickly jumps off, and then charges at the anti-goblin trio, and the woman pulls out a heavy pick and starts swinging at Ragnok. Broodadoo and Ratpainter spend their next turn swimming to the other side, and Ragnok attempts to corner the Halfling, while the frog drops his bow and pulls out two kukri to attack Ragnok, and Gir and the woman lock themselves in melee. Ratpainter summons a giant centipede to aid in Ragnok’s fight with the Halfling, giving him the flanking bonus to bring him down, as Broodadoo delivers a massive hit to the frog, but he remains standing. It appears as though the remaining enemies get a second wind every time they attack. Gir and the woman remain locked, trading blows back and forth. The frog attempts to attack Broodadoo but misses and his second attack slices at air as Broodadoo slides away. The lady steps out onto the water and the frog gets surrounded, eventually leaping into the river after her in an apparent bid to flee. Ratpainter summons a fiendish dolphin to attack the frog, and Broodadoo takes a moment to form his mindblade into something that can be thrown at them from the edge of the river, as Ragnok jumps on Gir and tries to run to the other side of the river to head off their escape. Broodadoo hurls his blade in vain, the frog swims to the other side, and the lady engages with Ragnok while still standing on the water. Ratpainter heads for the tree-bridge as his dolphin tries to bring the frog under and the Broodadoo follows in his speedskin. Ragnok and Gir attack the woman, but it seems to have little effect, and they run away to engage with a sling. The frog reaches the shore and begins flailing around with his blades, hitting Broodadoo with a butterfly’s sting, leaving an opening for the woman, and she casually steps off the water an pierces deep into Broodadoo with a critical hit, bringing him down hard, as she licks the point of her pick. Broodadoo’s suit saved his life, however, and he stabilizes. Ragnok reengages in melee with the frog, charging in and teaming up with Ratpainter to surround him. The frog drops to one knee, and tries to leap away, but is delivered two unlucky blows as he is not as quick as before, and is brought to death. Ragnok attacks the lady, and brings her down, but not out, and she delivers a final swing against him, but passes out in the middle of her swing.
They check the bodies that were by the mysterious goblin killers and found the corpses of Slorb, Chief Gutwad, and Goopy Wartbits. Ragnok takes the frogs’ belongings, Ratpainter takes the halfling’s, and Broodadoo, after being revived, takes the woman’s belongings and presumably eats part of her face. They find everything that the Chief had kept in the red chest, save some fireworks that were obviously used against the dwarf in the attack on the village.
Whew! Long session.
Spoiler: GM notes
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Ratpainter’s player pointed out that he’s gotten nauseous during every single session so far, including the one that he wasn’t even here for, which was amusing. Ragnok’s player said that the terrain of the final fight was annoying, but in a good way. I hadn’t actually planned on using the lady’s ability to walk on water, I just wanted both Sleeping Goddess stances because that’s what I would do if I just wanted extra power points. Then I went and accidentally used terrain that worked perfectly for that ability. The male frog was a Grippli Fighter 3//Stalker 3, and the slightly luminous woman was an Ifrit Paladin 3//Zealot 3. They both had Martial Power, and she had the beginnings of the whitelight shakes, a disease brought on by an overexposure to positive energy. I took away her Lay on Hands, power points, and spell-like abilities, and his ki pool, assuming that they would have been used up on the village fight. The Halfling was a Ranger 4 with goblinoid as favored enemy. It’s slightly less fun in combat when the enemies just take forever to die, but it made sense for the enemies that slaughtered the entire village to have a health battery and be hard to hit, so that’s what I went with. Tactics-wise, they kept attacking the dog to keep them from getting away, and were relishing in the deliverance of pain to the goblins.
I forgot some stuff in the loot, and some details about the battle, but I was tired. I mentioned bodies, but failed to identify them when they got close.
Re: We Be Best Goblins! -A Pathfinder Campaign Journal
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