The Crimson Echo (Curse of the Crimson Throne) Re-recruitment!

[Inspectre]

You thought you knew how this day was going to go. Although life had certainly gotten “interesting” in Korvosa lately, you thought you had gotten things under control and everything was looking relatively up. You were wrong, as it turned out, as the gods or something else completely upended the table on your head.

Today, you awake in a different Korvosa. Not different through your actions or anyone else’s, but a Korvosa that has fundamentally changed to something different from what you remember. Oh, the broad strokes are the same – King Eodred is dead, Queen Ileosa is poised on the Crimson Throne – but the little details that make up your personal history are suddenly simply different from what you remember. Like holding up two pictures with subtle details rearranged, you can simultaneously remember both your old life that you made and this new life that was thrust upon you, which you are not responsible for but nonetheless can remember just as clearly. For example, Gaedren Lamm was not just a two-bit criminal, but the leader of a revolution that seemed hellbent on toppling Korvosa’s nobility at any cost. Fortunately, the universe has returned to its constant state and Gaedren Lamm is again dead, slain by your own hand for the second time.

But Lamm’s death has proven the only constant between the two worlds you have known – and only you and the small handful of individuals Fate has drawn together with you seem to have this duality of memory. Whether you seek answers for this bizarre situation, wish to return things to how they were, or desire to simply make the best of your unexpected second chance, it seems that the only way forward will be to deal with the Curse of the Crimson Throne, and reach the end of this Crimson Echo.

Spoiler: What Is the Crimson Echo

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So, several years ago I took over a Curse of the Crimson Throne game run by Shizu. Rather than pick up right where Shizu left off, however, I decided to restart the game from the beginning so that I could put my own spin on events, and for fun rather than start the characters completely over again as blank slates I allowed them to essentially start over at the very beginning of the game again at their current level of experience (level three) and with their characters’ memories intact. Like some sort of twisted Groundhog Day mixed with Quantum Leap experience, they all simply woke up several weeks in the past, somewhat the same people but with slightly different backstories – the struggling playwright was instead a successful one, the disgraced Acadamae drop-out was the proprietor of a fledgling but profitable magic shop and with a man he had failed to save from Gaedren Lamm alive and well as a member of his staff, and so on.

Sadly, several of our players have stepped out of the game, and so we are now forced to seek replacements in order to keep the game going. I would like to extend the same opportunity I gave them to you, to not only get a second chance to play a character you submitted and played in a previous Curse of the Crimson Throne game that sadly died out, but also a chance to rewrite the history of their lives somewhat. Generally events within the course of the AP are off-limits – no retroactively saving King Eodred for instance, but if there is some failure that drove your character to start the AP, perhaps that has changed. Of course, just because the circumstances are now different (if you so choose) doesn’t mean that the same tragic end won’t still ultimately play out, and there are some things that are the same between your own universe and this new one (Gaedren Lamm still being an odious bastard, for one).

Likewise, some of the events of the AP may well play out very differently from how they went in your standard Curse of the Crimson Throne AP. For example, the party is currently on good terms with Queen Ileosa, and seems to be making a name for themselves as her personal team of problem solvers. Whether that particular development ends well for you all or not remains to be seen . . .

Note that while this gimmick works best with a character you have previously played in another Curse of the Crimson Throne game, that is not an absolute necessity. We'll happily take someone who's never played in a Curse of the Crimson Throne game too! You'll just have to come up with two slightly different backstories for your character!

Spoiler: The Big Sixteen

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1. What game system are you running (D&D, Call of Cthulu, Palladium, GURPS, etc.), and if applicable what edition (Original, Classic, Revised, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 10th, etc.)?

Pathfinder 1e

2. What 'type' or variant of game will it be (i.e. "Shadow Chasers" or "Agents of Psi" for d20 Modern)? What is the setting for the game (eg. historic period, published or homebrewed campaign setting, alternate reality, modern world, etc.)?

A heavily modified Curse of the Crimson Throne AP

3. How many Players are you looking for? Will you be taking alternates, and if so, how many?

Looking for two, POSSIBLY three characters to replace the two that stepped out.

4. What's the gaming medium (OOTS, chat, e-mail etc.)?

Play by Post Forum

5. What is the characters' starting status (i.e. experience level)?

Characters will begin the game at level 5 – expect leveling to be rather slow, and by milestone rather than exact XP count. The current party is level 4, but I expect them to level up by around the time you join the group.

6. How much gold or other starting funds will the characters begin with?

Standard wealth by level for level 5 characters.

7. Are there any particular character classes, professions, orders, etc. that you want... or do not want? What are your rules on 'prestige' and/or homebrewed classes?

Any official material published by Paizo for 1e is allowed. I will note that we currently have a wizard and bard cleric, and a whirling dervish sound striker bard. So something capable of standing on the frontlines, fighting from long range, and/or filling in for the party’s trap-finder/stealthy scout/underworld expert will probably be most appreciated!

8. What races, subraces, species, etc. are allowed for your game? Will you allow homebrewed races or species? 'Prestige' races or species?

Core races and featured races such as aasimar, tiefling, ratfolk, etc. should all be acceptable. Note that as a Chelish-colony, the people of Korvosa have inherited some of their motherland’s human-centric racism, so non-humans will be met with varying levels of curiosity, skepticism, and scorn depending on the person. Non-Chelish human ethnicities that are nonetheless common within the city, such as Varisian and Shaonti, also get to “enjoy” the benefits of Cheliax’s superiority complex.

9. By what method should Players generate their attributes/ability scores and Hit Points?

Ye olde 20 point buy. Max hit points at 1st level, and then you may either take the average HP/level for your class or take your chances at rolling. Be warned that gambling is a sin, and when the dice inevitably decide to punish your hubris with low rolls, your character will have to suffer for your poor decisions.

Two traits, one of which should be a Curse of the Crimson Throne campaign trait. Feel free to make it a different one from the first go-around for this character!


10. Does your game use alignment? What are your restrictions, if so?

Characters can be of any non-evil alignment, and should have some attachment to Korvosa that motivates them. Getting revenge on Gaedren Lamm (again?) is all well and good, but without something else to keep your character going beyond that it may be difficult to justify why your character is sticking around. Particularly as Gaedren is now, well, dead (again).


11. Do you allow multi-classing, or have any particular rules in regards to it?

Rules as written

12. Will you be doing all of the die rolling during the course of the game? Will die rolls be altered, or left to the honor system? If players can make die rolls, which ones do they make, how should they make the rolls, and how should they report them?

Players will roll their own dice, although I commonly try to roll hidden checks such as Perception and Sense Motive myself in a dice roller thread, and then narrate the results to you. You are welcome to call for rolling yourself for these checks if you wish, but if we haven’t worked out a standard policy on that beforehand then my roll will stand if it’s a one-time check (i.e. you don’t get to have the results of whatever I roll for you, and then declare you are rolling again to see if you can squeeze any more information out of the moment, unless it’s a repeatable check like Perception where you can stand around staring at something for several minutes if you so wish).

13. Are there any homebrewed or optional/variant rules that your Players should know about? If so, list and explain them, or provide relevant links to learn about these new rules.

Korvosa is a vibrant trade city with a magical academy present within the city and a magic-using order of Hellknights headquartered nearby. As such, magical gear according to a Metropolis is available for purchase during normal peace time (75% chance for any magic item worth 16,000 GP or less). Arcane spells 4th level and below are widely available for spellbook recording, generally requiring only the necessary ink and a very small fee to borrow an old spellbook to copy from. Higher-level arcane spells and divine spells are also available, although past 5th-level such services generally require connections as only the leaders of various organizations within the city are capable of such magic.

Expect a roughly Golarion experience with occasional significant changes to the lore as-written (much like the AP).

14. Is a character background required? If so, how big? Are you looking for anything in particular (i.e. the backgrounds all ending up with the characters in the same city)?

Yes, and bonus points will be awarded if your character was previously used in another Curse of the Crimson Throne game that was never completed (a link to said game, if possible, would be appreciated as well for me to get a feel for your character). Ideally a game that stalled out in Book One so that your character has no more idea what’s coming next than the rest of the party, but I can work around that so long as you’re willing to not have your character run around screaming potential spoilers or trying to metagame their knowledge of Korvosa’s potential future beyond Book One of the AP.

Even more bonus points will be awarded if you can spitball some potential ideas on what is different about your character’s life in this alternate universe that led them along a different path from the one they walked the last time around. Everything else is different in this new universe, so why not your character’s backstory’s well?

Of course, I’m not the one you really have to impress here. My three remaining players will be getting serious consideration as to who they want or don’t want in the party with them, so you definitely want them advocating on your behalf instead of against it!

15. Does your game involve a lot of hack & slash, puzzle solving, roleplaying, or a combination of the above?

I would say that you should expect a mix of all three, although with a slight lean towards roleplaying and finding other solutions to problems besides straight combat. Which doesn’t mean there isn’t a fair amount of bloodshed as well, just that it is currently a city game with a fair amount of intrigue afoot.

16. Are your Players restricted to particular rulebooks and supplements, or will you be allowing access to non-standard material? What sources can Players use for their characters?

As mentioned above, Paizo-only content please.



Selections will be made on Sunday, January 28th. Please try to have your character done and submitted by that time!

[Inspectre]

For those who are interested and/or have never played Curse of the Crimson Throne before, here is a rough outline of how Book One usually goes (with some variations).
Obviously, there are spoilers here for the Curse of the Crimson Throne AP, as this is the outline for the first book of that AP.
But hopefully this will be somewhat useful to you in crafting your own backstory if you don't actually have a character who has made it through the first Book of that AP!

And if you have a character who dropped out/game died at some point after Book One, certainly they can join in this new game from some point further along in the AP, essentially time traveling back to just before the end of Book One, in much the same way as the original Shizu-verse cast found themselves back at the start of Book One. In order not to spoil events past the end of Book One for anyone else, however, I would appreciate some care being taken with just how much your character actually remembers and is able to actually act on as the party moves into Book Two and beyond - perhaps feeling their original life was just a dream or having only a vague sense that things are "familiar" as they come in game moving forward. We can certainly discuss things if you have something in mind!

Spoiler: How It Normally Goes

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(This is loosely how things happened in the very first go around – Shizu’s CotCT game. It’s more or less how the first book of the AP runs as-written, but feel free to decide if something went slightly differently in your “original” world!)

• The party is brought together by Zellara, a middle-aged Varisian woman who is a Harrow (fortune) reader. She claims Lamm has wronged her too, and has brought all of you together to take revenge against the old criminal who has wronged each of you in some way.
• Following intel provided by Zellara, the party goes to an old fishery that has been serving as Gaedren Lamm’s base of operations. After fighting through the couple members of Lamm’s gang, you confront the old man in his lair and kill him.
• Searching Lamm’s lair reveals Zellara’s severed head, leading to the revelation and confession from her that she is a ghost and has been this entire time. She brought you together after her death to take revenge on Lamm, and selected all of you because she sensed that you had some greater fate to play beyond just killing Lamm.
• Amongst Lamm’s possessions is an incredibly detailed and expensive brooch that is the property of Queen Ileosa, King Eodred’s wife – how it came to be in Lamm’s possession is a mystery, although theft by one of his little lambs seems most likely.
• Later that night, King Eodred dies and the city is thrown into chaos. The party is forced to seek shelter indoors, perhaps back at Zellara’s old house, or perhaps at your own nearby residence. Along the way, the party has to deal with angry rioters, rambunctious imps enjoying the chaos, and possibly even a hungry otyugh.
• After the city has calmed, the party eventually goes to the royal palace to return the brooch to Queen Ileosa. After a brief meeting with the solemn queen-in-mourning, the party is generously rewarded and asked to meet with the head of Korvosa’s city guard, Field Marshall Cressidia Kroft, to aid the city further.
• After meeting with Korvosa’s most overworked civil officer, Field Marshall Kroft asks the party to investigate a group of city guardsmen who deserted their posts and have taken up shop in a butcher shop known as All the World’s Meat.
• Investigating the butcher’s shop reveals that while the ringleader of the deserters, Verik Vancasterkin, is indeed knowingly guilty of desertion, he is unaware that his men have set up a murder-for-hire business on the side, disposing of the bodies of their victims as part of the free meat distributed out to the desperate citizens of Old Korvosa.
• Following the party’s success in capturing Verik and his gang of miscreants, Kroft assigns a new task to the party – dealing with the smarmy ambassador from Cheliax, Darvayne Amprei. Amprei has been taking advantage of the chaos following Eodred’s death and his position as ambassador to enrich himself at the cost of the city, and Kroft wishes to convince him to back-off. How she intends to do this is acquire evidence of his misdeeds, or at least compromising information that could undermine his position back in Cheliax.
• A friend of Field Marshall Kroft, Vencarlo Orsini, is present at this meeting and explains that he is aware of someone who likely has such damning evidence on Damprei, and who probably would be willing to part with said information in exchange for a good amount of coin – Devargo Bravarsi, the so-called King of Spiders, who is a major crime boss running a den of sin and inequity known as Eel’s End in Old Korvosa.
• The party travels to Eel’s End, bargains with Devargo, and convinces him to part with his evidence against Damprei – a series of love letters between him and his mistress, which also includes details of several occasions where he has exploited his position as the Chelish ambassador for his own personal gain.
• By this point, there is a growing belief that Eodred was murdered rather than simply died of advanced age, and one popular suspect in his murder is Queen Ileosa herself. Another potential suspect is a young painter that King Eodred hired a few months ago, Trinia Sabor, who Kroft asks the party to quietly bring in for the girl’s protection.
• Despite the party’s best efforts, the apprehension of Trinia Sabor goes sideways, with the young painter proving to also be a talented acrobat as she leaps out of her apartment and races out onto the Shingles, the twisting maze of roofs, clotheslines, and bridges that span across the top of Korvosa’s slums.
• Things tend to go one of three different ways here - the party manages to catch Trinia, Trinia eludes the party long enough to run directly into a wandering patrol of Hellknights who promptly arrest her, or previously unknown assailants attack Trinia in the streets, killing her before the party can intervene.
• In the Shizu-verse, which is where two of our PCs are from, unknown assailants fire crossbows at the fleeing painter, wounding her at a critical moment and sending her tumbling to her death on the streets far below. The world shifted into its new state shortly after her death, and the party had no idea what follows this point, as they abruptly found themselves in a new world, with a similar but much different set of memories sitting alongside their memories from this first world. They have jumped to different worlds several times since then, as we have recruited new people a couple times before this recruitment drive.
• You may wish your character to come from a world where one of the other two outcomes with Trinia happened instead.
• If your PC caught Trinia, and decided that she was innocent of the King's murder and thus should be protected:
• You hid Trinia away, to attempt to smuggle her to safety later as the city at-large is now aware of the accusation from Queen Ileosa that Trinia murdered the King. Several days later, it was announced that Trinia Sabor was apprehended and would be publicly executed, under the orders of Queen Ileosa. The real Trinia was safe where you put her, so this was an either a fake or a case of mistaken identity.
• If Trinia got away from your PC (until she blundered into the Hellknights, anyway) or iff your PC caught Trinia, and decided that she was guilty of the King's murder and handed her over to the guard for punishment:
• You handed Trinia over to the guard, letting Field Marshall Kroft, who had approached you about finding Trinia in the first place to learn the truth, decide what was to be done with her. Several days later, it was announced that Trinia Sabor was apprehended and would be publicly executed, under the orders of Queen Ileosa - and against Kroft's protests.
• Your last assignment from Field Marshall Cressida Kroft, who you had been working with over the past couple weeks since returning the Queen's pendant to her, was to resolve a potentially severe diplomatic incident with the Shaonti, the native "barbarians" who had originally lived here before Korvosa was founded (and driven off by the Chelish settlers). It seems during the riots a prominent Shaonti, Kynndor Thok, was murdered and rather than his body being handed over to his father for burial in the Shaonti tradition, it had been carted off to the Grey District to be dumped in an unmarked mass grave with everyone else who had died during the recent unpleasantness. As his father was a leader amongst the Shaonti people, this was going to be a serious diplomatic incident and could push the already unfriendly remaining Shaonti towards war - which in Korvosa's weakened state due to the succession crisis following King Eodred's death, would likely not end well for anyone.
• Your attempts to locate the body of Kynndor Thok hit an additional roadblock when you learn that his body was stolen from its mass grave, apparently by a group of derro for experiments with necromancy, a school of magic all but forbidden in Korvosa. You venture down into their lair beneath the Grey District, in a warren of catacombs known as the Dead Warrens, eventually dispatching their leader Vreeg and recovering Thok's body. You return to Kroft triumphant, only to be greeted with the news of (fake or real) Trinia Sabor's scheduled execution.
• Your last memory is of attending the execution of the hapless painter, Queen Ileosa addressing the crowd and rallying them against Trinia, promising her blood as a balm for their recent sorrows caused Eodred's death and the riots. Perhaps you attempt to rescue the painter from the executioner's axe, sway the crowd and the Queen to mercy as the painter girl is innocent, or simply watch on helplessly. In any event, it all goes wrong and much as during the Shizu-verse chase in the alley, Trinia dies in front of you despite any attempts to help her. Your perception shifts to your new world shortly thereafter.

[Inspectre]

And if those walls of intro text or the bizarre twist of multiple universes haven't scared you off yet, let's give it one more try . . .

Below is a bullet-point outline of what has happened in the Crimson Echo thus far "this time around". Despite a few shifts to "new" worlds to accommodate recruited players, it is generally assumed that what has already happened in this canon remains the same, minus very slight changes (i.e. the new people have been part of the party since the beginning).

I do NOT expect anyone applying to actually read down through this entire outline to submit an application to the game.
However, some people in the past have asked for a recap, and to spare anyone from having to read through the ~2,000 posts for this game thus far (along with another ~1k from Shizu's original game), I've prepared the below outline.
So . . . here you go - you've been warned!

Spoiler: How Its Gone This Time

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(A similarly rough, general summary of the Crimson Echo, Seasons One and Two, is provided below. While there are probably some slight differences from this in the world that you now all co-exist in, it’s safe to assume that this is basically the exact course of events the new party has jointly experienced in this new world you all find yourselves in. There’s . . . rather a lot of history here, but hopefully it will prove a useful primer on most of the various important movers and shakers in the game world, and how they all intersect with each other.)

• Seeking to avoid a repeat of the original disaster, Silas goes to Trinia’s apartment first thing before King Eodred is even announced dead. Silas and Trinia are attacked by several gang members who seem intent on kidnapping the girl as part of some wider conspiracy. While Trinia is knocked unconscious by a poisoned crossbow bolt, she survives the ambush and Silas gets her to safety back at his place. A bit later on, corrupt guards show up at Silas’s place looking for her, seemingly part of the same conspiracy. Silas and Trinia again escape from harm and releasing the girl is in more terrible danger than previously believed, he takes her to Vencarlo Orsini’s house to hideout. While not happy to get a babysitting job dumped in his lap, Vencarlo agrees to keep the girl safe and out-of-harm’s way for now.
• Eventually, the party is once again assembled by Zellara, who again sets them on the trail of Gaedren Lamm as his old fishery base, although she notes that the threads of Fate seem oddly out-of-alignment.
• Arriving at the old fishery, the party once again fights through Lamm’s goons, albeit considerably more of them this time as Lamm seems to have found the money to hire a local gang for protection. Lamm ultimately escapes from the party aboard the old boat he has moored at the back of the old fishery, a previously ruined derelict that he has suddenly found the money to repair into a sailable vessel. While Lamm makes his escape, the party has to contend with the leader of the hired gang, who consumes a vial of shimmering orange liquid, promptly gains magical powers, and starts ranting at the party about how the city was all going to burn and rot.
• The drug that the local tough consumed was almost certainly a new drug called Shudder, a potent substance that (apparently truly does!) gives the drinker magical powers – albeit at the cost of going stark-raving mad. Lamm is apparently the sole distributor of the drug currently, which is certainly one reason he could be considerably richer and more powerful in this brave new world.
• The party still finds Zellara’s severed head, along with his stash – although the queen’s special brooch is notably absent from the minor hoard.
• King Eodred dies, and the city again plunges into chaos. The party deals with angry rioters, a few obnoxious imps, and a squad of Hellknights, members of the local mercenary band of the Order of the Nail, who are brutally putting down every rioter in sight with horrific amounts of violence. The party manages to largely steer clear of the Hellknights, although Aliani sends one of their officers – a dead-eyed Hellknight named Xerxes – chasing after Lamm.
• Through the chaos in the streets, the party rescues several people – a local fisherman known only as Fishguts Jim from some reefclaws, Nadine - a ballerina who is old friends with Aliani - from some thugs, and Beautrice – Nadine’s twin sister – from the psychotic leader of a street gang known as the Dusters who had burned Beautrice’s face with acid, leaving her gravely ill and on the edge of death.
• As things begin to calm down, the party is approached by Field Marshall Cressidia Kroft, who is aware of the party’s existence thanks to Vencarlo Orsini as well as Dalen approaching her prior to the riots to offer his services.
• The Field Marshall is badly overworked, and lacks the resources to attend to a request from Queen Ileosa, namely to see to the safety of the Chelish Ambassador, a woman known only Lady Andaisin. The ambassador has a small nondescript home in Old Korvosa, and with the riots still ongoing, the party is being asked to find her and escort her to the royal castle for her own protection.
• Ambassador Andaisin is unharmed, although the party finds her unsetting and suspicious, particularly after noticing that there seems to be blood and signs of a struggle inside the house (seen through the open front door) despite the ambassador claiming nothing happened the previous night. Nonetheless, the party obediently escort her to the royal palace, where they briefly meet with the ambassador’s old and close friend, Queen Ileosa Arabasti. The queen thanks the party for their efforts at protecting the ambassador, and offers them a new task – escorting her elven handmaiden Elliana, around the city tomorrow to survey the damage from the rioters and present her with a list of problems the crown could attempt to solve.
• During the meeting with the queen, Aliani brings up Beautrice’s condition, leading the queen to dispatch her personal physician, Dr. Reiner Davaulus, to attend to her now infected injuries. Dr. Reiner manages to cure Beautrice, although he is unable to remove the scars left on her face from the acid.
• While having some misgivings about the entire thing, the party ultimately agrees and returns to the palace the next morning to pick up the curious handmaiden. The queen’s personal bodyguard Sabrina Merrin, believed to be the city’s most skilled warrior, is very insistent that no harm come to the handmaiden.
• In the course of escorting the handmaiden around the city, the party comes across the handiwork of the Order of the Nail, in the form of numerous impaled and crucified bodies left in the middle of the street. They also meet the drunk and demoralized guard sergeant Grau Saldado, eventually managing to convince him to pull himself together for the good of the city despite the horrors he had witnessed the previous evening, both from the rioters and the Hellknights.
• The tour of Korvosa goes sideways when Aliani suggests to go investigate the suspicious Ambassador Lady Andaisin’s house, which handmaiden Elliana reluctantly but finally agrees to do.
  [*}The inside of Lady Andaisin’s house is a death trap full of horrors, including animated furniture that attempts to murder the party (Elliana included), and the re-animated bodies of a kill squad Lamm sent after the ambassador (and surely the source of the blood upstairs that led to this suspicion in the first place). Worst of all, the party discovers a booby-trapped shrine to Urgathoa, goddess of disease, gluttony, and undeath which ultimately sets the entire house ablaze in an attempt to destroy the evidence. The party ultimately escapes, but Handmaiden Elliana is badly shaken and vows to inform Queen Ileosa of this discovery.
• While down in the basement the party also learns a bit about Elliana’s backstory - that she grew up as an orphan on the streets of Westcrown in Cheliax, that she came to Korvosa along with Queen Ileosa and Lady Andaisin, and that she is a worshiper of the Empyean Lord Lorris the Savior Hound (with a small medallion of Lorris tucked under her clothes)
• On the way back to the palace, the party comes across a group of Hellknights who are publicly executing a group of civilians that they had supposedly caught rioting and looting the previous night. Handmaiden Elliana marches forward to confront the Hellknights and challenge their legal authority to summarily execute Korvosan citizens, when the whole thing is rendered moot by the arrival of Korvosa’s most famous vigilante and masked hero, Blackjack, who frees the civilians and engages the Hellknights in a duel to keep them busy while the remaining prisoners make good on their escape. The party aids Blackjack discretely, and Elliana is injured by a stray lightning bolt after she pushes aside a child who would have otherwise been caught in the bolt and killed. Miraculously, Elliana sustains only minor injuries as well (nothing a few CLW spells can’t fix!), although Sabrina is less than amused when the party arrives back at the palace and Elliana’s injuries are discovered.
• The party handles various personal business over the next few days, before they again meet with Field Marshall Kroft. Kroft introduces the party to one of her top detectives, a clean-shaven man named Rhev (who was also a drunk slob, disgraced ex-guardsman, and member of the party in the original timeline). Rhev had been assigned tracking down Gaedren Lamm, due to his Shudder business, his apparent involvement in Eodred’s death, and his stated intention to lead a revolt against the city’s nobility and topple its government. Rhev announces that he is looking into several potential leads into Lamm’s business, including references to a “painter” that he apparently used, possibly to poison Eodred. The trail of evidence Rhev has found so far seems to lead directly back around to Trinia Sabor.
• Shortly thereafter, the party is invited back to the royal palace for a luncheon with Queen Ileosa. There the queen presents the party with several personal gifts as a reward for escorting her handmaiden around the city on what the queen felt was a most productive survey. While there, the party broke the news that they believed King Eodred was murdered via poison, leaving Queen Ileosa distraught as she had apparently been uninformed of Kroft’s suspicions.
• The topic of Trinia Sabor came up during the conversation, and the party advocated for the girl’s innocence, learning in turn of another possible suspect – King Eodred’s tiefling brother Venster, a quiet embarrassment for the Arabasti family due to his heritage, and thus his somewhat secret existence within the castle. Investigating Venster’s tower also revealed Trinia Sabor’s work area, where she had indeed been diligently working on a secret painting, still half-finished, commissioned by King Eodred to be a gift for Ileosa, rather than anything illicit.
• This seemed to be enough to convince the queen of Trinia’s innocence, and ultimately led Silas to petition the queen to protect Trinia, as it was believed she would be better able to protect the girl than Vencarlo. Wishing Trinia to finish the painting that Eodred had commissioned, Ileosa promised to ensure her safety and asked the party to bring her here, which the party did (over Aliani’s protests).
• Around this same time, Aliani’s mentor, Haeluna Summersun, had recruited him fully into her secret organization of Milani worshippers. Aliani reluctantly accepted her offer to become a leader within the movement, and encouraged the party to come with him and meet the other leaders at an upcoming secret meeting. During this meeting, Gaedren Lamm made an appearance, announcing his intentions to topple Korvosa’s government, and requesting – as a former member of the Milani group – their formal assistance in his revolution. With Lamm is a certain dead-eyed Hellknight – Xerxes, the same Hellknight Aliani directed to chase after Lamm the night of the riots. Ultimately, thanks to the party’s arguments, the other Milani leaders voted against supporting Lamm, and the criminal leader stormed off.
• There were some insinuations from Haleuna that Gaedren Lamm may in fact be Aliani’s father as he was apparently close with Aliani’s mother several decades ago when he, Haeluna, and Aliani’s mother were all leaders within the Milani group – but no one really believed this to be true.
• The party has another brief meeting with Queen Ileosa at this point, escorting Trinia Sabor to the palace. They arrive just in time to overhear the queen formally hiring the Order of the Nail to conduct a series of extensive patrols of the roads outside of Korvosa, which will effectively remove nearly all members of the Order of the Nail from Korvosa for an extended period of time.
• Shortly thereafter, the party was again approached by Rhev, who had apparently found the drug lab where Gaedren Lamm was currently manufacturing Shudder. Wanting to shut the drug lab down, Rhev offered the party the opportunity to participate in the bust.
• The party approached the lab from the sewers, discovering an underground entrance guarded by several wererats. After a brief fight, the party secured that exit and then decided after barricading the door to go back up and enter the lab from the top rather than this secret underground entrance, believing that with this hidden exit now sealed, anyone inside the lab would be trapped.
• While the human guards on the ground floor of the lab were easily subdued, what was waiting for the party in the actual lab down in the basement was a much different story. Here the source of Lamm’s Shudder was revealed – a group of derro, insane little blue men that most believed to be urban legend rather than real. Their leader, a derro known as Vreeg, wielded a strange artifact he referred to only as The Eye – a literal eyeball impaled upon an iron spike that slowly leaked a black liquid. While the derro themselves were not that frightful, Vreeg’s pet, a giant cytillipede mutated by Shudder into a fire-breathing abomination that he called Odium, certainly put the party to the test. Ultimately, Vreeg escaped with the Eye through a tunnel smashed out by Odium, and the badly wounded party elected not to follow the two as they made good their escape.
• Returning from the drug bust not being a total success, the party yet again gets summoned to the royal palace, only to learn from Sabrina Merrin that Queen Ileosa was missing. Apparently she had slipped out with her Handmaiden Elliana, obstenibly in order to carry out an ill-conceived plan to hunt down Gaedren Lamm and kill him. Sabrina asked the party to find the two and convince them to return to the castle before they got hurt. Worse still, the council of nobles had announced they would be meeting tomorrow to determine the city’s new seneschal, a position with a great deal of influence over confirming Queen Ileosa as the city’s new monarch, or removing her in a favor of a new candidate (and likely sparking a civil war). The front-runner for that position was currently Chelish Ambassador Lady Andaisin.
• The party is unable to discover Queen Ileosa’s whereabouts, but they do eventually track down a trail left by her Handmaiden Elliana, a trail leading to Eel’s End and Devargo Bravarsi, King of Spiders. The good news was that Devargo had established himself as a rival and enemy of Gaedren Lamm’s, and had reached out to the party to meet for discussing a mutually beneficial relationship.
• With the open invitation to meet, the party is able to be shown into Devargo’s presence with relative ease, and they are eventually able to establish that Handmaiden Elliana had been here as well. Unfortunately, Handmaiden Elliana had been rather rude to the King of Spiders in demanding information on Lamm’s whereabouts from him, including attempting to charm him. Devargo had not been amused, and had his pet spiders capture the handmaiden with the intention of teaching her a lesson in respect, although the party was eventually able to convince him that laying a hand on the queen’s personal handmaiden was a *bad* idea.
• As Devargo was going down into the spider-infested hold to convince his pets to give up their prize, his warship came under attack by water elementals summoned by Lamm, who was seeking to eliminate his rival ahead of a meeting amongst all of the heads of the criminal underworld later that night (Lamm had apparently taken to recruiting the crime lords across the city, having failed to recruit the Milanites).
• The party battled into the spider-infested hold of the ship has it began to take on water, fighting through several frightened Dream Spiders and invading water elementals, cutting Handmaiden Elliana free and escaping from the hold before it flooded.
• Undeterred by her near-death experience, Elliana continued to advocate that the party move on to this meeting of the underworld, being held beneath the Kendell Ampitheater, rather than return immediately to the palace. This resolve softens somewhat when the handmaiden learns why the queen’s immediate return is so pressing (to advocate before the council of nobles tomorrow to try and block Andaisin’s nomination). Ultimately during this discussion, the handmaiden excuses herself and returns to reintroduce herself to the party sans disguise – as Queen Ileosa Arabasti.
• Here Queen Ileosa now reveals her reasons for running off alone to attempt to track down Gaedren Lamm – she did not believe that the council of nobles would support her selection for monarch, and she would either be shuffled off into exile or placed in a gilded cage for the winner of the following civil war to claim as a literal trophy wife. As such, she wanted to do one final good thing for the city – purging it of Gaedren lamm, the murderer of her husband King Eodred.
• Queen Ileosa also explains that Elliana was a real person, a fellow orphan in Westcrown who looked after her until she disappeared while trying to acquire medicine & food for a gravely ill Ileosa. Shortly thereafter she was found by Lady Andaisin, leading into her relationship as Andaisin’s pupil. In memory of Elliana, Ileosa uses her likeness now as a disguise as a way to honor her first friend.
• Queen Ileosa further reveals the nature of her close relationship with Lady Andaisin. More than just a mentor, Andaisin created Ileosa the noblewoman – the real Ileosa was nothing more than a commoner street rat from the streets of Westcrown in Cheliax that Lady Andaisin found and adopted. They came to Korvosa as a pair of grifters, and Ileosa seduced King Eodred into marrying her, and then manipulating him to enact various policies by whispering into his ear – many such policies which were in turn whispered into Ileosa’s ear by Andaisin. Ileosa’s true nature was therefore a secret which could destroy her if it ever got out, and Lady Andaisin was very much aware of that fact.
• Despite her misgivings, the party is ultimately able to convince Ileosa to stand against Andaisin at tomorrow’s trial, destroying her candidacy by revealing her status as a worshipper of Urgathoa, technically not illegal within Korvosa but nonetheless strongly frowned upon.
• Despite the party’s misgivings, Ileosa is eventually able to convince the party to go forward with interfering with Lamm’s meeting with the various Underworld bosses.
• The party sneaks and fights their way inside to the meeting, overhearing that the reason Lamm has called this meeting to get their assistance and fealty, and to prove his capability of becoming the new overlord of Korvosa’s underworld, he will rob the impenetrable Bank of Abadar, a feat of daring that would certainly prove his skill, if he could pull such an impossible task off.
• The party then interrupts the meeting, alongside of Blackjack who has also shown up to dispatch Gaedren Lamm. A fight breaks out, prompting Lamm to reveal a new pet spider infused with Shudder that had acid for venom, but the party succeeds in cutting the criminal mastermind down, only to discover that it is only a derro in magical disguise. Quite possibly this derro had also been appearing as Lamm during the previous times the party encountered him.
• As if Blackjack and the party themselves are not enough interlopers to this meeting, another group of cowled and masked spellcasters break into the meeting and start arresting various members of the criminal network. After convincing them that they were on the same anti-Lamm side, the party learns these cowled figures are a secretive sub-group of Hellknights, the Order of the Eye, essentially a black-ops splinter group of the Order of the Nail who are still operating within Korvosa and chasing after Lamm.
• While the party is dealing with the secret sect of Hellknights, Ileosa in her Elliana alter-ego is negotiating with one of the crime bosses who has not disappeared into the darkness just yet. She manages to strike a deal with the representative of the Scarzni at the meeting to come up with a holy symbol of Urgathoa, which she can present tomorrow as fabricated (since everything burned) evidence that Lady Andaisin is a worshipper of Urgathoa.
• The party eventually manages to extricate themselves and return to the palace with Elliana/Ileosa. The next morning, they are invited to the council of nobles meeting by Queen Ileosa to watch their fates play out.
• While intimidated by Lady Andaisin, Queen Ileosa ultimately testifies against her before the council of nobles, explaining the party’s presence as a group of investigators that she hired to look into possible misbehavior by the Ambassador. What they uncovered, of course, was a bunch of re-animated corpses, along with a shrine to Urgathoa, which the party testified to the council about while Andaisin futilely attempted to deny everything. Queen Ileosa’s final stroke was the presentation of the (forged by the Scarzni) holy symbol of Urgathoa, which she claimed the party unearthed from the wreckage of Andaisin’s house.
• Exposed as an Urgathoa, Lady Andaisin is publicly humiliated and quickly voted as dismissed from consideration by the council of nobles. With a final comment that she was very disappointed in Ileosa, Andaisin stormed out of the meeting, and the discussion turned to other potential candidates.
• Ultimately, the field of candidates is discarded for one reason or another, and as they near the end of the list Glorio Arkona of House Arkona finally breaks the stalemate by suggesting the mediocre – but neutral to all of the Great Houses – suggestion of Darvayne Amprei as Korvosa’s next seneschal. Furthermore, in a surprise move, and perhaps inspired by Ileosa’s initiative in exposing Andaisin (although almost certainly due to some ulterior motive), Glorio Arkona further proposes that in order to establish some degree of stability in Korvosa’s usual chaotic succession of rulers, that Queen Ileosa be coronated as Korvosa’s new official monarch. Amprei as his first action as the newly appointed seneschal agrees, and the motion is swiftly confirmed by the rest of the council – Queen Ileosa will be Korvosa’s next monarch, her coronation to be held one week from now, much to everyone’s surprise.
• Later that evening, while the party is celebrating their success with stopping Andaisin from becoming the city’s seneschal, they come across a rabble rouser attempting to incite a crowd to riot with the reveal that King Eodred had been murdered (poisoned), a fact which Field Marshall Kroft had been keeping quiet and was going to announce tomorrow. This rabble rouser, a scummy lawyer named Adonis Kreed, was challenged by the party and verbally thrashed, leading the crowd to abandon Kreed’s idea of marching on the castle to demand answers from the new monarch.
• The next morning, Field Marshall Kroft approaches the party to formally discuss the matter of King Eodred’s poisoning, which had been confirmed as fact after a second examination by Dr. Reiner. The second examination had revealed the source of the poison as Reaper’s Kiss, an exotic poison designed to make a slow death appear as a natural decline in health. Rather than be ingested, the poison is absorbed through the skin, and traces of it were found on Eodred’s fingers, left from frequently handling something that had been coated in the poison repeatedly over the course of weeks or months.
• This new information casts suspicion on both Queen Ileosa, who had regular access to Eodred, as well as Trinia Sabor who was a painter and thus could easily smuggle the poison into the castle amongst her painting supplies. With news of Eodred’s death being a murder rather than natural causes going public thanks to the efforts of rabble rouses like Adonis Kreed and others, there is a renewed potential for widespread riots and Kroft is under a tremendous amount of pressure to produce a guilty party to pin the blame for King Eodred’s murder on.
• In an attempt to help clear their names, Field Marshall Kroft requests the party’s help in convincing Trinia Sabor and Queen Ileosa to talk to her. They all return to the palace and Kroft interviews Trinia Sabor, leading to the revelation of several more pieces of circumstantial evidence against the painter – namely that her paint supplier had been found dead and had apparently been mixed up with Gaedren Lamm.
• While this meeting is going on, one of the few remaining maids in the castle, a young woman named Violet, suddenly panics and attempts to flee the party’s presence after she is asked a relatively innocuous question about who was working the night of Eodred’s death.
• Violet is swiftly apprehended by the party and Kroft, but the strange case takes a horrifying turn as a magical curse begins to cause acid to weep from the girl’s body, nearly killing her and reducing her body into sludge. Only the party and Kroft’s combined efforts manage to save the girl’s life, and from there they discover that Violet has been put under a Geas through ancient Thassilon runes carved into her skin. It is suspected that this may be the handiwork of Rolth, a dangerous and deranged necromancer who was imprisoned in Longacre several decades ago, and was believed to be executed . . . or perhaps not.
• Returning to the original conversation, Kroft also learns of the existence of Venster Arabasti, and investigates his residence inside the tower. Venster is presently not home, which is quite curious given he was essentially a reclusive shut-in. Around this time, the party also learns from the maid Violet that she saw Lady Andaisin pay a late night visit to Venster shortly before King Eodred’s death.
• Lady Andaisin, who is still living in the palace at this point, shows up, refuses to answer any of Kroft’s questions while citing diplomatic immunity thanks to her position as ambassador, and declares that after Ileosa’s betrayal, it’s clear she is unwelcome here and will be leaving to find another private residence. She then leaves and disappears to some location unknown to the party or Ileosa (and otherwise refuses to elaborate).
• Later that night Dalen attempts to learn more about the Eye by casting Pagebound Epiphany. He unexpectedly taps into an ancient trove of Thassilon knowledge about the Eye, claiming it is an ancient evil along with some research notes on the Eye’s involvement in blood magic that result in the transfer of magical traits, along with a seemingly unrelated set of research notes on the existence of parallel dimensions. Dalen’s research is interrupted by the triggering of an ancient magical booby trap as well, which interrupts his epiphany by casting Phantasmal Killer at him. Dalen manages to survive relatively unscathed save for some spontaneous bleeding from his right eye, but learns no more about the Eye.
• Additional research into what Lamm’s planning reveal that he has stolen a cache of weapons from Haeluna’s Milani group, and that he is going to do something at the Longacre Building, the city’s courthouse and civil center, or possibly the Deathshead Vault – the prison beneath Longacre. This could be a feint to distract from the bank robbery, or his main objective, and the party endeavors to pass along this information to their allies.
• The party attempts to contact Blackjack by leaving a note at a dead-drop the vigilante had told them to use to get in touch with him. Said dead-drop is outside Giotorri’s toy shop, and whoever dropped the note off across the street is approached by Pearl and Garnet Giotorri, his “daughters” who despite appearances do not appear to be human. They are nonetheless friendly and reveal that Blackjack is a “friend of the family”, hence their curiosity before excusing themselves and returning back into the toy shop.
• The party arrives at Longacre the next morning to find that the building is suspiciously closed, even the areas open to the public. The party investigates further and discovers that Lamm’s men have taken over the building after entering disguised as guards, and are now holding the civilians inside as hostages. Blackjack also shows up around this time, explaining that he received their message and that there had been an abortive attempt at robbing the Bank of Abadar just now – a couple men with crossbows running inside the bank and immediately getting taken down by the security. The bank robbery was the feint and Longacre or the prison beneath it was Lamm’s main objective.
• Breaking into the employee entrance at the back of the building, the party fights its way through corrupt guards and several Shudder-mutated dogs (Thunder hounds). Meanwhile, Blackjack breaks into the main courtroom through a skylight and begins fighting the men guarding the hostages there. The grand melee gets more desperate as a corrupt guardsman named Baldrago who has had several run-ins with the party before now joins the battle as a Shudder-corrupted madman.
• Baldrago and the corrupt guards are eventually all defeated, saving the hostages and allowing Chief Arbiter Zenobia Zenderholm to emerge from her locked office, which Lamm’s men had been attempting to break into when the party arrived.
• Several members of the Sable marines, Korvosa’s military arm, also arrive at this point to take control of the scene. Their commander, Marcus Endrin, is also present and explains he had provided himself and some of his men to the city guard today to serve as a rapid response team – Kroft and the other city guards were on their way over from the Bank of Abadar.
• While Lamm is not here, it seems he went down into the Deathshead Vault below to stage a prison break of some sort. The party, Blackjack, and Marcus Endrin descend down into the prison to attempt to find Lamm, despite the fact that the prisoners had been released and were now in a full-on riot.
• The party deal with a group of prisoners who have taken a some prison guards hostage, along with an acolyte of Pharasma, Kira Nightshade, who was there to provide medical aid. Blackjack personally rescues the acolyte, earning himself a fangirl in the process. From Kira and the guards, the party learns that Lamm had passed through here, freeing the prisoners on his way to Cell Block C, only a moderate security portion of the prison rather than Cell Block D where the more dangerous prisoners were kept. Apparently Lamm is looking for a Professor Hans Leithold, who is an expert of Thassilon lore and its language. Xerxes the Hellknight was also here, going into Cell Block D to apparently rescue his brother Darius, a notorious gunman and murderer-for-hire. The party elects to chase after Lamm rather than the disgraced Hellknight.
• The party catches up with Lamm just as he is breaking into the Professor’s cell and Vreeg unleashes a magical fog that begins to re-animate all of the dead guards and prisoners within Cell Block C into zombies. Despite planning to get away yet again through a secret derro tunnel, Lamm is caught by Silas and finally killed by the party. This time it’s apparently the real Gaedren Lamm, although thanks to the fog and the low doses of Shudder he’s been drinking, he gets back up as an undead abomination. Lamm is quickly killed again for the second and final time shortly thereafter.
• Despite the party’s best efforts, however, thanks to another appearance by Odium, Vreeg escapes along with the Professor. Still dealing with the rising undead and with wounded, the party wisely decides not to follow.
• Searching Lamm’s body, in a concealed pocket the party finds the queen’s brooch, along with a letter written by lamm and addressed “To my Killers”. The letter is a written confession that Lamm was indeed responsible for poisoning King Eodred, and exposes several other members of the conspiracy. First, Lady Andaisin as the apparently ringleader of the conspiracy, who provided Lamm with funding along with the queen’s brooch (actually given to her by Queen Ileosa as a gift) as insurance for Lamm’s safety. Adonis Kreed (contact between Lamm and Andaisin), Haeluna Summersun (provided the poison), and Trinia Sabor (smuggled the poison into the palace) are also listed as members of the conspiracy.
• With Lamm dead, his revolution is seemingly at an end, although Vreeg is still at large with the Professor. More troublingly, the party learns from Silas’s daughter Vjala – Blackjack’s mole within Lamm’s organization – that Lamm had discovered some sort of ancient Thassilon weapon and was planning on using it, but needed the Professor to translate the controls.
• Lamm’s allies are also still in play, as while emerging from Longacre the party overhears Lord Jeggare of House Jeggare berating Field Marshall Kroft over an apparently robbery at his museum, where the thieves stole his owlbear skeleton, which seems like something only a necromancer like Rolth would be interested in.
• Returning to the palace the party learns that Trinia Sabor has gone missing. Investigating reveals that it appears she was spirited away from the castle by agents of the Church of Asmodeus, and is now being kept within their great cathedral a short distance away from the castle.
• Seeking a diplomatic solution, the party returns to the castle to learn that while they were away Queen Ileosa had finally dealt with Ambassador Andaisin. After learning of her role as head of the conspiracy to murder Eodred, along with the proof via the brooch Ileosa had gifted Andaisin, Ileosa had finally snapped and confronted Andaisin with the evidence personally. This nearly backfires when Andaisin responds with physical violence, grabbing Ileosa and crushing her Lorris medallion, but Ileosa turns the tables when she reveals that she has spoken with Empress Abrogail Thrune of Cheliax about Andaisin’s worship of Urgathoa. In response Cheliax has revoked her ambassadorship, and is demanding that she return home immediately, likely to face a heretic’s death. Or, Andaisin could remain here and be imprisoned from her crimes against Korvosa. Faced with such a choice, Andaisin chooses quiet exile back to Cheliax over Ileosa’s “mercy” and leaves aboard the Direption which was already in the harbor.
• The next day, Queen Ileosa, Sabrina, and the party travel to the Cathedral of Asmodeus to negotiate Trinia Sabor’s release. The high priest of Asmodeus in the city, Ornher Reebs, reveals that they have already extracted a confession from Trinia as to her guilt in Eodred’s death (they are very efficient that way), and threatened that they had a secondary confession which implicated Queen Ileosa as the mastermind for this murder. In return for ensuring that the confession where Trinia claims she acted alone reaches the Arbiters, the Church of Asmodeus wanted Queen Ileosa to recall the Order of the Nail back to Korvosa.
• There is some negotiation back and forth for the Church to surrender Trinia into the party’s custody rather than execute her themselves, in return for further concessions from Ileosa, when the negotiations are entirely interrupted by a giant mechanic snake smashing through the roof. Lamm’s ancient Thassilon weapon has been activated, by Haeluna Summersun, who reveals that she was always on Lamm’s side, and that she was the one who had killed Aliani’s mother, not Lamm (and Aliani’s reason for going after Lamm in the first place).
• while Haeluna continues to smash up the church, the party attempts to free Sabrina from the rubble as Ileosa runs for safety (Orhner Reebs already having used Word of Recall to escape to elsewhere in the cathedral). Xerxes the Hellknight and Darius the gunslinger emerge from the metal snake construct to give chase to Ileosa, but are stopped by the party. Darius shoots Sabrina in the face with a dragon pistol, shredding her face but accomplishing little else but piss her off (thanks to the party’s efforts at freeing her from the rubble, otherwise it would have been a coup-de-grace).
• Darius falls in battle, alive but left by the party to be dealt with by the Church of Asmodeus. Xerxes swears revenge and escapes via invisbility.
• Haeluna manages to snatch up Queen Ileosa in the snake’s mouth and then flies the construct off, kidnapping the queen. Thanks to magic items produced by Dalen, Sabrina and the party are able to track Queen Ileosa’s location, leading them directly to lamm’s old base of operations within the Grey District, the city’s graveyard.
• Accompanied by Sabrina and Marcus Endrin, the party finds a way into the Dead Warrens, a network of tunnels beneath the graveyard, through the abandoned tomb of House Poryphia, a disgraced group of nobles who had been banished from Korvosa by King Eodred’s mother Queen Domina.
• Waiting for the party inside the tomb was more re-animating mist and a large group of exploding skeletons, although with Jeggare’s owlbear skeleton, repurposed by Rolth into a dangerous necrocraft.
• Overcoming the undead through clever spellwork by Dalen, Aliani’s channeling, and good teamwork (as well as Marcus and Sabrina slaughtering everything that came within reach), the party stands ready to proceed deeper into the tomb, Lamm’s apparent base of operations within the city, seeking Queen Ileosa, Haeluna, and the ancient Thassilon weapon.
• Moving deeper into the Dead Warrens, the party soon finds itself even further beneath Korvosa, in the underground region known locally as “the Vaults”. These ancient sewers and tunnels were made by parties unknown, with the extremely dangerous monsters living this far beneath the city making it difficult for scholars to make much progress in determining this information. However, the primary theory is that these were made by the servants of Runelord Sorshen, who ruled over this land many thousands of years ago. This theory seems to be correct as the party discovers a sanctuary and laboratory built by Sorshen.
• Sorshen’s laboratory, although haunted by some sort of psychic remnant, seems to finally offer a plausible cause for the multiverse hopping that has brought the party together – Sorshen was experimenting with a tenth-level spell to allow for multiversal travel. How this travel was accomplished, why she was researching such a thing, and what relevance this discovery from the ancient past has on your current situation all remain shrouded in mystery.
• Beyond the laboratory, the party discovers the hangar containing the ancient Thassilon snake construct that Sorshen had built, and Haeluna has co-opted, along with Queen Ileosa who is narrowly evading discovery and capture by Vreeg and Haeluna.
• The party ambushes Vreeg after reuniting with Ileosa, slaying the derro leader and escaping from pursuing derro reinforcements through an illusionary doorway to an even deeper still part of Sorshen’s hidden laboratory. What other strange secrets await discovery?

[tonberryking]

I know I played, at some point, in a CotCT game, but it miiiight have lasted all of five minutes, or I didn't get in. I forgot.

This may be too weird, but is it possible my character was a different race in a previous dimension, and is now, like, a goblin or a grippli or otherwise very confused that the rest of the world assumes she'd always been that way.

[Yas392]

Interested. I built a melee vigilante that was not accepted. Not sure adding another vigilante will ruin the dynamics of the story given it has Blackjack in it.

P.S What did I just read, lol? It seems as if Desna is trolling multiple timelines by tearing her draft, creating another fanfic and inserting characters (taken from other timelines/dimensions) into them whenever she does not like the previous version of the events.

[Inspectre]

tonberryking - We've had people tweak their classes when doing previous jumps (had a dandy ranger switch over to a slayer and a swashbuckler come in as a paladin, if I remember correctly), although changing their race would certainly be a new one! I feel like dramatic physical changes, such as switching to an entirely new race, is something that would be in line with a D&D version of Quantum Leap, so sure!

Yas392 - The more vigilantes, the merrier I say! Although due to the level difference involved at this point, I imagine that your vigilante would be Robin to Blackjack's Batman. Still, he could be someone who was inspired by the legend of Blackjack, some sort of apprentice, or even casual rival to the city's folk hero. Whatever sounds like fun to you really, although the party is sort of allies-of-convenience with Blackjack at this point so outright hostility towards him is likely to cause some amount of party strife.

P.S. Well, the party is still trying to figure out why this is happening as sort of a subplot C to the game, although all they've discovered so far is that Sorshen, Runelord of Lust, ran various arcane experiments in a laboratory deep beneath Korvosa (linked to the aforementioned Dead Warrens that the party is currently running around in), and those experiments seemed to be efforts to develop travel between parallel universes. They also found a shrine to Desna linked up to those ruins down there, so Desna turning the world sideways to make her own fanfic version of events is not an entirely off-base prediction.

[Yas392]

Yas392 - The more vigilantes, the merrier I say! Although due to the level difference involved at this point, I imagine that your vigilante would be Robin to Blackjack's Batman. Still, he could be someone who was inspired by the legend of Blackjack, some sort of apprentice, or even casual rival to the city's folk hero. Whatever sounds like fun to you really, although the party is sort of allies-of-convenience with Blackjack at this point so outright hostility towards him is likely to cause some amount of party strife.

The bolded parts you posted is similar to what I am thinking especially him being the Robin to Blackjack's Batman, haha. That is what I am going with in the new reality. I can see him being Blackjack's representative/presence/proxy when he is not around and sending secret messages to his mentor to keep him up to date with what the party is doing.

[tonberryking]

I'm going to stick with my core idea of transforming into a new creature, but I may not go goblin since I have a PC gobbo already. A catfolk is a possibility (though I'm loathe to do THAT since that would be an unintentional shout out to Chrono Cross and I hate that game...) Decisions, decisions.

I'm gonna have to read those histories several times, though. Our characters aren't new hires or anything to the party, I take it?

[Inspectre]

How this has usually happened is that the game's history has been retconned so that new PCs were "always" part of the group, although we've had a few people introduced in a more standard fashion by having them be recommended to the group by Cressida Kroft (Field Marshall of the city guard) for various reasons. Since I am anticipating the party having a bit of downtime and (hopefully!) will be finished or nearly so with the current dungeon of the Dead Warrens by the end of January, there could certainly be an opportunity for others to walk up and join the party for some reason, rather than "appearing" in the middle of things as if they've always been there.

[tonberryking]

What (good) Deities would be invested in resolving this conflict? There’s got to be some Gods looking out their window wondering who keeps messing with their flower bed of reality.

I bring this up because while I’m sticking with goblin, I’m thinking of making her a paladin and toying with the idea that divine intervention saved her from being killed or completely written out of reality… but some things had to be given up in the process.

I can give this more layers too, like she wasn’t even a paladin before the rewrite, or that she’s now under a new name, is aware of who she used to be but someone else is in her place (and much more Evil) but of course she can’t prove it…

Edit: Is the deadly agility feat okay, even if it’s Path of war? Or could I employ the Agile weapon enchantment as part of my Divine bond?

[Stelio Kontos]

Plenty of them would probably have some interest. There's a cleric of Milani in the party (that's me -- hi!) and our resident halfling dervish of doom is on team Sarenrae.

[razorfloss]

I would like to post interest. Possibly as an ankou shadow, Gloomblade, shifter/Menhir Guardian, or warpriest or if homebrew is allowed I highly doubt it but have to ask Hexblade

[Darius Vibrtrar]

Hrm, this sounds interesting.

Maybe I'll build a thieves guild unchained rogue.

From a timeline where he was a hellknight.... but that lamman! Curse him! Ruined everything!

[Inspectre]

tonberryking - There are probably a lot of gods interested in this conflict, although from the good side Desna, Milani, Sarenrae, and Shelyn all come to mind. I could see a random crusader of Iomedae as well, although she doesn't have a large presence in Korvosa and She's still busy with the Worldworld at this point in the Golarion timeline.

While not the question asked, from the lawful side Abadar and Pharasma both have very large churches within the city, and probably would like to see this multiverse nonsense stopped.

Also from the evil side we have a large church of Asmodeus in the city rounding out the big three churches (Korvosa is a very Lawful with Evil tendencies city), and the party has encountered representatives of Norberger, Zon-Kuthon, and Urgathoa.

And there are a few others that the party has yet to encounter.


I would say that to keep my "no third-party stuff please" policy intact, I will allow the Agile property to be placed on appropriate weapons as part of a paladin's divine bond enchantment ability.

And are you offering me to have your past-life character still running around in Korvosa, only Evil now? Oh, I like that . . .



razorfloss - Oooh, an ankou shadow could be fun - those always looked like an interesting if difficult to use archetype. I will have to say "no" to the homebrew Hexblade, to maintain my policy of "only Paizo official products please".



Darius Vibtrar - The party has had a couple of Hellknights at times in its existence (one in the Shizu portion of the game and one in mine, I believe), so that would always be an interesting perspective to bring in. Don't think we've ever had a former Hellknight though, so that could also be interesting if he ever gets caught thieving by his not-former cowokers.

[razorfloss]

Final question before I decide on a build how are you ruling scorpion whips? Everyone rules that weapon differently.

[Inspectre]

Hrmm . . . from the weapon description, I would say that a scorpion whip is a 10' (regular whip is 15') reach weapon that can do the same things a whip can (i.e. disarm/trip, tricks with it), but it also deals lethal damage, even through armor. Whereas to achieve lethal damage with a normal whip, you need feats for that. Any other questions?

[tonberryking]

And are you offering me to have your past-life character still running around in Korvosa, only Evil now? Oh, I like that . . .

Yes.

Yes I am.

Arin was preciously a half elf magus and after the last reset, she is now both a very confused goblin Paladin aware of the reset and there’s a decidedly more evil and violent version of her previous self running around with whomever’s left of Lamm’s lackeys acting as if she’d always been a big jerk.

I’m still deciding on deity but I know exactly what the deal is between the two versions.

[Darius Vibrtrar]

How do you feel about [custom] magic items, like I want a wonderful item that gives +5 to diplomacy, not unlike a cloak of elven kind for pricing.

or The Helm that comes as part of the Hell Knight Leather armor have a Constant Detect Chaos, CL 1, Spell Level 1, should be 3000 gp gotta spot them dishonorable types.

[Chromascope3D]

Thinking about a Samsaran Inquisitor of Pharasma. I haven't played this AP before so the character would be new to this; he keeps getting dreams from The Lady of Graves to put an end to this cycle one way or another, and that's just what he's here to do. :p

[razorfloss]

Hrmm . . . from the weapon description, I would say that a scorpion whip is a 10' (regular whip is 15') reach weapon that can do the same things a whip can (i.e. disarm/trip, tricks with it), but it also deals lethal damage, even through armor. Whereas to achieve lethal damage with a normal whip, you need feats for that. Any other questions?

And this is why I ask because they're 50 million rulings on this weapon because paizo has changed it so many times.

[tonberryking]

https://og.myth-weavers.com/sheet.html#id=2864741

So here’s the working sheet for my Paladin. I went for a Warrior of the Holy Light archetype because of her Cha penalty so she’s kind of like a Holy pikachu. Dex tank, can unleash positive energy bursts and while she’s stuck to a d8 weapon, she has a very high damage mod with the agile enchantment.

[Darius Vibrtrar]

Here is Turk

I'm still tweaking equipment based on earlier questions.

Spoiler: background so far, work in progress

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He is varisean blooded, if not pure varisean. He's from a family that have many hell Knights from the godclaw order, so not exactly the same order as the hell Knights in power, that will likely have lent to why he fell from grace. He was orphaned, had to raise his younger siblings with the most evil of professions! Math! Well more specifically, bookkeeping. Balancing books, efficient records, and tallies would have been his most prominent skill to join any local.... rogue guild. Keeping records of what rogues have come into town, that they are paying dues, and if they are stealing in town they are paying the guild the proper percentage of their take. That they do not steal from the royals, that is a no no unless sanctioned by the crown. No robbing the hell Knights unless sanctioned by the crown, or they forsake their duties. And dozens of other rules and bylaws the guild has to follow in order to stay in the city. And of course, kickbacks to the crown, the hell Knights, and city officials has to be properly recorded, its an entire workload that has to be kept track of.

[Thunder999]

So one idea I've had is a character who didn't survive last timeline (you know how low levels can be, a bit of bad luck and you're a corpse) Would that fit? (If not we can just say he go alternate realitied before dieing).

Also you mention some returning player we need to impress, who are they?

[Inspectre]

tonberryking - Very nice so far - looks like you still need equipment, HP, and the backstory bits so I can reference those as needed! In another game I had a magus who ended up becoming a paladin (sort of a Cecil from FF4 black knight to paladin thing). I'll try to keep Arin's path a bit distinct from that in my head.


Darius Vibrtrar - Assuming they follow the guidelines for pricing such custom magic items (and you run by me what you're looking for ahead of time), that all seems fine by me - both the +diplomacy item and the detect chaos helm. We do also have a wizard investing in magic item crafting, so it's possible you can get future items made by him for a discount!

And interesting backstory - there is indeed an "official" thieves guild in Korvosa, the Cerulean Society, and they are fairly lawful mob types, as they've got their fingers in everything in the underworld, and everybody needs to pay their percentages to the guild in order for things to go smoothly. If I remember correctly, they've even worked out a few discrete deals with the city guard where-in guild members are given reduced sentences for various thievery-related crimes (in exchange for not tolerating their members committing the more violent crimes such as murder). So book-keepers will be needed to keep all of that straight! And of course, Lamm spat on all that, which the Society was certainly not happy about.

And I will note that the Order of the Nail, while ostensibly still loyal to the House of Thrune, their first priority is Korvosa/Varisia and the Korvosan throne. So like Korvosa being a breakaway independent colony from Cheliax, the Order of the Nail is sort of its own little breakaway chapter of Hellknights, and they probably don't appreciate the other Hellknight orders stopping by to visit. Although they will probably nominally give someone from a different order such as the Godclaw some grudging respect, rather than see them as potential criminal scum like they view all the other citizenry so there is that, at least?


Chromascope3D - Sounds fun - Pharasma is definitely a major influence on the city, so he would have friends in high places. Good luck to him on bringing this cycle to an end though!


razorfloss - Yup. I believe that's the most recent set of rules on it, at least according to the SRD, and they seemed reasonable to me.


Thunder999 - Absolutely that would work! We sort of have that going on already with tonberryking's character Arin, who is effectively getting reincarnated after dying in her previous timeline (already have an idea how that happened, so as to feed into an as-yet introduced character to the current story). Certainly it would be nice to work out whatever allies and enemies your previous character had before their untimely death so that they have something to compare "now" against, but yes - the multiverse does seem to be attempting to give everyone a second chance to get things "right", and it's hard to top "dying" as a failure.

And the current three players we have, Stelio Kontos who is playing Aliani the bard cleric, Darvin who is playing Dalen the Wizard, and DarkoneRob who is playing Bellinda the actual bard, are the current party still around, and I will be weighing their opinions most heavily on who gets selected, assuming of course that we do indeed have more than 2-3 full applications completed. Which, at this current pace, seems we will have by the end of January! I figured since they will be the ones having to adventure with your characters, they should be the ones with the most input on who makes the cut. It also helps me, as I am horrible at making these sorts of decisions, and would just prefer to take EVERYONE, which would probably be a mess in Pathfinder as the system does tend to break out once you get past six people or so. Still, don't let that information discourage you!

[DarkOne-Rob]

For clarity sake, I will give my vote to Inspectre after a cue. If I'm honest, I'm mostly lost in the complexity of the storyline too, but having a good time anyway.

Bellinda is both the scout/infiltrator and a striker (Dancing/Whirling Dervish of Sarenrae), so anything that helps that might get my interest, though it isn't strictly necessary to get my vote.

I do a ton of DMing and PbP-playing, so if you want to catch my interest, make something that is both mechanically interesting/functional and seems like a real person. The RP and mechanics should compliment each other, IMO, and a unique idea, well executed, that results in an interesting character (RP) is most likely to appeal to me as a fellow player.

[razorfloss]

OK a final few questions before I start because I found out that bounty hunter and ankou don't stack(they really should) much to my immense disappointment. Is the Skulking Slayer racially locked in this game and if I take the faithful combat style of calistria can I take exotic proficiency scorpion whip?

[Kvard51]

Very interested as a Samsaran Reincarnated Druid who, after dying as an adventurer has become an herbalist in Korvosa. More details to follow.

[Yas392]

Withdrawing.

[Darius Vibrtrar]

More work on Background

Spoiler: Zandu 'Turqouise" Hellspire aka Turk

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Original timeline: Born to a Varisean father and local mother, Zandu Hellspire was born of two strong family lines. His mother came from a line of hell Knights from the godclaw. She joined with Zandus father, a Varisean whose family had settled down. His family's history was woven into a scarf, a turquoise clothe, that he now always wears, it spins together his mother and fathers history into one pattern which makes him. From his mother he inherited such strong convictions for order and to root put heresy. From his father, he inherited a streak of fey, a silver tongue and a magical knack, without any training. He joined the city watch, as a mercenary to protect the crown. He sought out heresy within the town as an inquisitor, learning how to speak eloquently without the need for threats of violence. But his down fall was Lamm. The chaotic knave had laid a trap and thrown him from favor, for his own profits. But.... that was just a dream? Right?

Current timeline: With his parents slain in a Hellknight Raid, Zandu, or Turk as he preferred to be called, would have to provide for his younger siblings. He would get pulled into the ranks of 'The Cerulean Society' as a book keeper. He was still an inheritor of some fey blood, granting him some magic, but he had learned some magic from the Cerulean Society as well. He still had a suit of leather armor that his grandfather owned, It allowed him to spot heresy and protected against damage. While he never really had to pull jobs for the Society, some of thier operatives had taught him some tricks of the trade, like how to pull wisps from the darkness to make tools of the trade, and how to pull on the Societies connections in order to get things done, the threat of an audit would often scare people more than the threat of violence. Recently though the Society was more concerned with rogue Hellknights. Its one thing when Hell Knights are out there up holding the law, and acting within the rules, but when those lawful types start acting in a chaotic fashion, it makes life difficult in the society.

[Enceladus]

I'll throw in one. Something a bit different.

Janice Rikerson, Cavalier (Spellscar Drifter)

Spoiler: Background

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Janice was born and raised in Korvosa in what would be known as the Shingles. Her whole life was one of living in destitution. She would not know who her father was for her mother was a mistress of the night. Growing up Janice essentially had to survive on her own for her mother was busy with a special “friend” and gone with most nights while sleeping or strung out on some type of drug circulating within the city. While Janice thankfully didn’t take up her mother’s profession it was unfortunate that she would succumb much to the same vice as her mother.

Janice was always looking for next high and would do almost anything to get her hands on something. But it appeared that her life was starting to turn around at the point she became inducted into the Grey Maidens. Janice knew at least how to do one thing right and that was fighting. It had seemed that however old demons would come back as she became hooked on drugs once again. It cost her everything as she was punished and kicked out of the Grey Maidens to live once again on the streets.

It was while attempting to rob a ship that she was caught by a most unusual individual carrying a strange weapon. This man was called Samuel Rikerson, who was a retired Shieldmarshal from some place called Alkenstar. He was hired on to the ship’s crew as something of a guard and mostly to fulfill a personal dream of running with a crew from the Shackles. Samuel took pity on the girl for he could see the effect drugs had on her as she was barely able to stand or muster any strength to fight back. Hearing her tale, Samuel began to take a liking to Janice and convened the captain of the ship to take her in as she was just someone who needed guidance and some personal intervention.

It was in that time Janice would be under the tutelage of Samuel who helped her get clean and also taught her how to use firearms. For two years she would stay under Samuel’s wing where he became something like a father figure for her. But his health was failing and eventually he passed away. His final act was to pass on his last name to Janice claiming her as his own daughter. In that Janice would travel aimlessly finding work as something of a bounty hunter or some type of law profession. In time however the past returns and the call of home would be sounded for she received a notice from someone calling themselves only Blackjack regarding some trouble to an old friend named Trinia Sabor.

Trinia and Janice grew up together and where something like sisters until Janice’s fall with drugs. The letter from this Blackjack held much personal details that on Janice and Trinia would know about given their once “close” former relation. Janice booked it back to Korvosa and through a long winding series of events encountered Trinia whom was running from a group of individuals intent on capturing her. Janice was able to secure a hiding place for Trinia where she came to learn of recent events and what was going on. It was while trying to figure out and searching around to clear Trinia’s name that Janice experienced something like shifting into a dream or perhaps waking up from one. The next moment she realized was seeing the execution of Trina and was in shock to stop it. In that Janice began to notice that things were not right for there were similar events and yet different ones from what she experienced. It was as if the world had changed and only she seemed to realize it.

At that moment, things were to out of whack to be normal thus Janice was resolved to figure out what is going on. And to her surprise it seems she isn’t the only one in the same situation.

Spoiler: Build Notes

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The build will focus on fulfilling the requested positions of front line and range combatant. Along with this, alchemical crafting bullets and potions for various needs in and out of combat. Later levels when spell casting via scrolls becomes available, spells to boost combat or provide more buffs to weapon/ammunition will be sought.