Iron Gods: Medical Care

This is the second half of the session (Your brain on drugs) where Bort is still affected by the "good drugs" and is Chaotic Good.  They have Mikhel as a henchman, but since the alchemist player is away we decided that we'd come back with a little "retro" scene in the next session which will go over her reaction to the news of their new assistant.

 

They headed back through the caverns (hearing gremlins but seeing none) and through the corridors toward the big habitat dome.  Bort pointed out that he didn't need to worry about the trap with all the nozzles and Mikhel shrugged and said, "I'm not.  It's not a trap."  And he kept walking.

 

They headed through the sandy habitat cautiously and all was fine until someone mentioned that he should watch out for skeletons bursting out through the sands.  That made him a little worried so Luna took pity on him and let him ride her "medium" dragon.  The bonus of riding a medium creature is that you can stand up by just lowering your legs so it meant he could dismount easily in a fight.

 

They finally used their black card to get into the next session and were stunned by the sight of the foyer.  They'd never seen anything like it, especially in a fortress under a hill!  Sleek furniture, strange design!  They found another screen on a desk in the entrance but it just showed flashes of imagery. 

 

They took the bloodstained door and corridor and arched around to where the cerebric fungus spoke to them.  Nathaniel freaked out and telekinetically threw a rock at it (geology lab) but missed of wildly that the fungus didn't see it as anything but random chance of a falling stone.  The others spoke to it calmly and suddenly creeped out by its talks of red food send it down the blood smeared corridor to eat.

 

They entered a set of labs where a medical bot attacked them and tried to knock dear Maxx onto one of the medical terror chairs but she used her attack of opportunity (no Improved Reposition on the robot) to destroy it.  Mikhel stood back and watched them fight.

 

They kept wandering around that area and found a lab with a medical robot and a flying robot.  Luna just shut the door.  When no one followed them, they moved on.

 

I removed the boilborn oozes from one of the lab rooms as it wasn't as interesting as having the room be an empty wonder of broken bits and pieces, and I was rewarded when Maxx examined the history of the place and saw someone clinging to a desk for dear life as gravity jerked her toward a wall, broken glass raining down on her face.

 

I will remove creatures if they're not super interesting since my players aren't as super eager for fights as the typical party and would become bored if there were too many of them.

They then entered the elevator, determined which deck they were on and then in stunned disbelief discussed that decks must mean ships!  Of course, this being a fantasy land meant that the idea of sky ships wasn't too outlandish (unlikely, as they're super-rare in pathfinder, but not unheard of in myth and legend).

 

Finally they entered a room with a set of small stalls to one side with doors that didn't quite reach the top or the bottom….  Bort's player chortled at this, realising at once what it was.  The players marvelled the clean drinking fountains (made them all bidet toilets) and wondered at the easily shredded yet soft parchment that came out from beside them. 

 

During their wonder, they hear a flush in the toilet beside them as Mikhel comes out and uses the sink downward fountain (sink faucet) to wash his hands.  Being a pragmatic sort, he'd figured it was the best place to go to the toilet as it would remove it immediately.  Better than the skeleton-creation-sands that would normally be used!

 

After a few moments of telling him off, the party soon realised in dismay that his use just made too much damn sense and that it was likely an incredibly wonderful latrine.  Maxx and Bort then made use of it as well.

 

I tell you, there's nothing more surreal than playing characters wondering at something we take for granted on a daily basis!  And to be honest, their wonder only increased when they realised it was a sewerage system.  Toilets really are a marvel of engineering.  Next time you go and sit on the toilet seat you should think back to all the alternatives and thank your lucky stars that you get loo paper and a comfy spot.

 

And that's where we ended it.

 

Could there be a greater high point for a session conclusion?

Iron Gods: This is your brain on drugs

Maxx looks like the woman pictured above.

Feeling drained and with few cure potions to spare, they retreated back to town and found themselves cheered by the crowds gathered at the lake.  They had nothing to identify, really, but still found themselves talking to Sanvil Trett regarding the location and how he knew so much about technology.  During this time our dear alchemist wandered off (as the player couldn't attend) to try to brew some cure potions on her own.

A few Heal and Perception checks later and Luna noted that he was a regular user of different drugs, which she quietly related to the others as they headed with Sanvil to the Copper Coin for some food. 

They queried him on his drug use and he pointed out that he was an intermittent user of some high quality drugs and revealed his current stash included Devil Weed (basically marijuana), Powderlite (cocaine) and a mysterious golden liquid called Sarenrae's Tears that had to be injected into the carotid artery to work.  They asked him whether he was with the Technic League since they were the most likely to have such elaborate drugs but he demurred and claimed that he had met all kinds of interesting people and who was he to say who they worked for?  They left it at that.

Since Bort had a history with Sarenrae, having forbid Maxx from selling his cold iron scimitar with its Sarenrae mark, he immediately decided he wanted the Tears which were 10gp per dose (at this stage) but lacked the resources to pay.  Luna bought five doses for him, gave him one and one for Maxx.  She also bought 10 doses of devilweed at 1gp per dose (at this stage).  The devilweed had no impact on Maxx.

The Sarenrae's Tears certainly did.

When Bort took it he felt … different.  Lighter.  He felt that people were innately good, and merely led astray.  He felt that one good turn deserved another and that there was never an excuse for cruelty.  In short his alignment was changed from Chaotic Neutral to Chaotic Good.

Maxx's impression was less emotive, and more intellectual.  There was a certain way of doing things and it felt wrong to divert from that.  She became Lawful Good.  Immediately she thought of the death-bet they had thus far failed to gain their winnings from way back in Session 1 when they bet against their own survival at the odds of 72 to 1.  They had failed to find that fine fellow, Mikhel, in their last foray to the gambling hall so they decided to try again after lunch.

Leaving Sanvil Trett behind, and with Nathaniel none the wiser of their deals since they'd taken Sanvil aside to make the purchases, they head back to the Silverdisk Hall and find themselves barred at the entrance by a half-orc because the hall opened later in the day.  She also refused to give them Mikhel's home address.

So Maxx offered a bet -- 50gp for a competition of strength (arm wrestle) and should she win, she'd gain the information and 50gp.  The half-orc refused the amount and offered instead 25gp and the information, since Maxx stood to earn more than she did.  They ended up talking her up to 40gp, but they wouldn't tell anyone she'd lost the arm wrestle should she lose.  She accepted those terms, and luckily Maxx won the arm wrestle.

Off they went to the edge of town only to discover Mikhel living the high life in his hovel, groggy from being woken by them at his door, and as naked as the day he was born.  There was also a man and a woman in his bed.  His masterwork studded leather armour over a stool, his gear on a chest.

First they demanded their gold but Mikhel claimed to have banked it on their behalf in a town a few days away (since he assumed that one of their frequent forays would slay them all he had to do was delay them).  Maxx served him a Notice of Intent to Sue which he gleefully accepted since that would also take a few days to organise and by then he was sure they would be dead.  Luna then threatened him, which had more of an effect, but Maxx was adamant that the law should be invoked and that his fraudulent ways should land him in prison.

Mikhel scoffed at this.  Prison?  Here a misdemeanour meant a brand on the back, theft meant a lost finger or hand, and anything greater meant death.  Prisons were far too rare and expensive to operate.  Still they dragged him before the dwarven mayor, so they could at least confiscate his gear, hoping she would shake the remaining gold out of him, but it turned out that Mikhel merely didn't have the gold to give them.

Instead the weary dwarven mayor, outraged that a local would attempt to hoodwink their town's only hope, and meaning to make a lesson out of him, took them to another room where a single heavy still manacle sat bolted to a heavy table.  Mikhel was quiet now, resigned, but the drug-induced goodness in the party prevented them from allowing it.

Instead Maxx suggested indentured servitude, which surprise the mayor.  What use was Mikhel?  She agreed easily enough, though, being Lawful Neutral she'd take off his hand but take no joy in it. 

Maxx asked why they had no prison and she mentioned the expense in making a good one, that bad ones were soul-destroying, and that good ones would be too comfortable.  He asked why they didn't use indentured servitude more often and she pointed out that the Technic League did all the time … for decades at a time (i.e. slavery).

Unsettled at the lack of an easy option in Numeria, but confidant that she herself would release the man, Maxx offered Mikhel the chance to pay off his debts and he agreed.  They still took his potion and armour, giving him the alchemists non-masterwork armour instead, and brought him back into the strange fortress under the hill on their foray the following morning.

Mikhel probably would have tried to escape, but he had no Disable Device (same stats used as for any Ropefist) plus Maxx didn't need to sleep so watched him all night.  The drugs wore off Maxx early (natural 20 on her Fortitude save) but not from Bort which was lucky because Maxx started having second thoughts about Mikhel's usefulness.

They had their breakfast and then headed back inside, and that's where I'll leave it, though it's only half the session told but this is the part that our dear alchemist missed.

Iron Gods: Another delve in the dungeon

So the group returned to the caves and found a group of Jinkin Gremlins dancing around a pile of torn up huts covered in the bodies of the half-orc and dead skulks.  Our resident alchemist went to throw a bomb at them, planning on excluding the central square full of bodies, to instantly cremate the gremlins. 

This made me realise that they didn't actually have any evidence the Jinkin Gremlins were evil so killing them all could be considered an evil act.  Now since Pathfinder is a game of killing people based on small evidence and people dancing around bodies would pretty much always mean evil on Golarion rather than a diverse funerary rite it would be unfair to suddenly unleash that onto the players after the fact.  So I let them all roll Sense Motive checks and have the chance to react afterward.  I had them all roll Sense Motive checks to see if they worked it out.

The alchemist rolled a Natural 20 on her Sense Motive check and so could tell they were decidedly evil.  Most of the others were pretty sure, except for Nathaniel who thought otherwise.  So when the Alchemist threw her fiery bomb as before and wiped out all the gremlins with splash damage, Nathaniel did make a token, "No wait," but then let it go because the deed had been done.

While Maxx took the body of the half-orc back to the village and was greeted by a disappointing lack of public crying, just quiet and solemn acceptance, the others heard a soft voice crying for help.  They headed into the one section of the cave they had yet to explore and found the place covered with a brown mold that sapped the air of heat.  There were two bodies up against the far wall … a female skulk who was still alive and the dead fiancé mentioned by the weaponsmith.

At first I thought the players were trying to hook out the dead fiancé, which seemed a bit callous but not too much since they'd killed all the other skulks for being clearly of the murderous variety.  It turned out they had meant to pull free the still living one by having the alchemist throw forth her rope and the telekinetic to tie it around her ankle.  When they dragged her out, Maxx sprayed her clean of the mould using Create Water and Luna went over her gear since her cold resistance made her immune to the 1d6 dealt by the remaining spores.

Once she was cleaned up, they woke her up with a Cure Light Wounds potion and I got to lay down on the couch and play a particularly snarky skulk speaking only in Undercommon -- which by some strange twist of fate our alchemist could speak.  They also discovered that the other purple-haired woman (pictured on the cover of the book) who looks identical to Maxx is actually called Meyanda and that she had a deal with the skulks to keep all interlopers out.

There was a lot of laughter from the players at the snark coming from the skulk, where they threatened to kill her (and she cheerfully requested being flung down the hole rather than killed by pins and needles, since Maxx had lifted her by her arms and had cut off partial circulation to her arms) before they all decided to send her to the judge instead.

The alchemist took her out, since she had a spell to boost her own swim speed, and the skulk made comments about their future marriage.  She was finally passed into Joram Kyte's hands, where the skulk made a few choice comments that could be understood even with the language difference, and then Luna came forth with the body of the weaponsmith's  fiancé.  A fellow who had the strangest growths on his neck and torso.

They went back into the great big habitat chamber, destroyed the skeletons and the strange alien aberration they encountered, and went into the room where they could change the weather and turn on the sky.  There they then fought the main kasatha before he eventually died -- after many missed swings all over the place and Maxx being dropped to negative hit points no fewer than three times before being roused by telekinetically manoeuvred potions (thank you Nathaniel!).  Luna's dragon, proudly wearing mage armour, also soaked a lot of blows as the kasatha tried to hit it in vain.

Iron Gods: Gambling with the fake father

So their first session out of the caves for a nice moment of rest and relaxation saw them headed down to the casino run by Nathaniel's alleged "father", Garmen Ulreth.  Garmen is a dodgy fellow and head of the Ropefists who is utterly mistaken in his belief that Nathaniel is his son so in this campaign the motivation for his invitation to his casino comes in a way of celebrating his son's skill and bravery.

Luna, our darling tiefling summoner, ahem God Caller, chose to seduce Garmen Ulreth in a game of strip poker and the two are now officially an item with Garmen claiming Luna as his woman -- temporarily, of course, but what else would anyone expect from an elven tiefling and the commander of the thugs?

Watching Maxx, an android, deal with gambling in a very pragmatic manner was pretty fun but no more fun than seeing our dear alchemist put forth a low bid on her first gamble and then win so overwhelmingly she was inspired to bid more in later attempts.  We played the game from the Witcher using 5 six-sided dice where you aim to get patterns much like in Poker.

Inevitably Nathaniel was confronted by his mother, who in her haste to tear apart his adventuring party (verbally, I mean) showed more than a few of her insecurities and views on people.  You see Nathaniel had never told her that he was going to explore the ruins beneath the hill and she was quite upset at the fact he was risking life and limb on such a venture.  Many of her statements were incredibly inconsistent, but that's simply because what she wants most of all is her son to be safe so she will make up whatever convoluted argument she can to attempt it.  Equally naturally, it only further drove a wedge between them.

They also came across the local identifier of technological whatz-its, who also offered to move his stall to the lakefront so that he could more readily identify their gear.  As I didn't realise the book had named the price I estimated the value of his service to two silver per item, well below the 10 gold per item suggested in the book.  When I told the players what the true price was meant to be for that knowledge they looked less than impressed.

Finally they went to sell some of their gear and went to the weaponsmith who's fiancé had gone off on an expedition and never returned.  She pleaded for them to return the body and they were all quite bad at dealing with a grieving woman, either due to lack of knowledge or disinclination to be sympathetic.  However they did decide to start retrieving the adventurer's bodies.

All in all, a solid roleplaying session was had by all!

Iron Gods: Fires of Creation Caverns

This was a relatively simple stretch consisting of some caves, a few corridors and their first foray into the enclosed habitat.  Firstly they entered the Skulks living quarters where a Jinkin Gremlin danced in front of them for a moment with a pouch before disappearing.  They approached the circular door in the wall which slid open at their approach and shut when they stepped away.  Presuming it was some sort of timed mechanism, the Alchemist leapt through acrobatically only to find the door kept open behind them.

Continuing on they found some gear in the rubble -- which they only searched after I described it as including a desk and some girders, likely because searching rubble for gear isn't a prospect that's come up in any of my previous campaigns.  They only managed to recognise the two batteries, thought the other two items were medical equipment or something similar, and decided to take them to Torch's resident technology expert afterwards.

The next room was a fun one with a set of nozzles set in the walls and our main technology expert -- Maxx -- rolling a 1.  So naturally he thought it was some kind of acid trap or the like.  One of the others simply knew it was deactivated.  Nathaniel went to march on through so Maxx went to stop them.  After all, Maxx had heard about grief and wasn't too sure whether she was prepared to experience it.

In the end they passed it without trouble and ended up in the large habitat.  Since the back story to this place was too good to waste, and considering the undead, I thought to include a haunt which gave them a flash back to the lives of those who had first arrived in the habitat.  I replaced the actual planet's details, though, with Golarion ones to help them get the point of what had happened here.

They faced the kasatha skeleton at first in a single, then a pair, then a group of four.  After they had defeated the pair, they had a flash of the rituals involved in taking one of the habitat creatures to the Forbidden Cave when it was injured.  This isn't included in the books but it worked a treat.  Of course, after all of these skeletons they were quite low on spells and the like and so decided to retreat and check out some more caves.

The Alchemist threw her last remaining alchemist's bombs around the corners of some of the caverns containing Jinkin Gremlins and killed them in sets of three because her base damage exceeded their hit points.  Once she was out of bombs, they looted the Gremlins (who had the gear normally kept in Sef's hut) and headed back to town.  That's where we stopped it.

Paradise Island -- Why a Mundane History is Vital

Some information for the players of my next likely LARP, Paradise Island, which I'm posting up here for both ease of reading and because my regular readers might be interested in some of my explanations.

So I've received a few character concepts for my likely upcoming rules-lite cross-genre campaign involving werewolves, vampires, mages and more.  Everyone plays either a mortal investigator into the supernatural *or* a brand new supernatural with little understanding of their kind.

While I've informed people that the supernaturals must have rather ordinary human histories while the mortals can have more exciting ones, a fair number of players have submitted some pretty epic concepts.  I understand why they have done this ... typically a bigger back story gets you more fun gameplay.  Unfortunately this won't be the case for the Paradise Island campaign.

The epic skills and specialties likely won't come up, fighting styles will lie dead on your sheet, and that epic history will only serve to further distance you from the more mundane characters in the group and the game itself.  Not the setting, but the game.

You see, this is a game about the ordinary brushing up against the extraordinary.  It's about exploring the sudden transformation of a normal person into some strange creature and finding ways to work that into your life as well as involving yourself in a pretty interesting setting.  It's about personal psychologies, social dynamics and interacting with the world around you in a simpler way than experienced in my previous campaigns.

There won't be a big meta-plot.  There won't be epic combats.  There won't be terrible political conflicts.  It will be about social interaction, mundane problem solving and the exploration of otherworldly locations simply for the sake of seeing them for the very first time.

If you take that campaign and play a supernatural with an epic back story, you will overshadow much of the present situation with equally big (or even bigger!) scenarios in their history and that's hardly much fun.  Plus it can be harder for your average person to relate to a Special Forces character or be wowed by their supernatural transformation, so you'll feel distanced from much of the story.

So let's talk plot using the example of a sullen teenage werewolf on holiday with her parents when she had her First Change.  Check out the following plot lines:

1. Kid sister rocks up at the supernatural gathering to see what Big Sis is up to.
2. Parents call partway through the game, wondering when she's done.
3. Mother drops her off, checks in with whoever is in charge of the "youth center."
4. Awkward flirty talk with the hot changeling.
5. Deciding whether to come out to parents.
6. Deciding whether to return home to an unknown situation or convince parents to move here.
7. Figuring out how to fight spirits when you've only been in a few fist fights in your life.
8. Realising that you can't eat chocolate anymore!
9. Deciding to get drunk for the first time, throwing up and not being able to transform for the rest of the night due to health risks.

Now if we take the elite special forces guy, sure, we can give him an existential crisis about their future of never ending violence, never being able to retire and the like, but those are very Big Questions that few of the other characters can really get involved in.  Sure we can give him plot through a mortal husband, but those challenges will be the same even if he were working in insurance so why go with the Special Forces history?  Especially as you won't have the experience points behind it.

So here are some banned concepts and some reasons why:

• Special Forces / Mercenaries: Your deadly history overshadows current story.
• Private Investigators / Detectives: Some of the simpler mysteries will become too simple for someone with actual crime solving experience plus it will encourage the sorts of plot lines that focus on only a few individuals.
• Amnesiacs: Brilliant for a solo game but terrible in a game based on different people interacting with each other.  If you have no history, you have nothing to tie you into the experiences of other people.
• The Famous: While playing an aspiring musician can work just fine, if you're already famous you're going to have bigger things to worry about than anyone else and that will distance your character from them.

Fires of Creation: Initial Exploration of the Caves

Our last session involved Nathaniel leading everyone to meet with Val after they received her request to meet with them was passed along at the spot with the extinguished Torch by Kathy. Kathy is a ten-year-old girl whose greatest goal is to become the next generation Whispering Tyrant. Our lovely Blackfire Adept, Bort, thought Kathy was terrific and there was much talk of possible cohorts at later level. They reached the Foundry Tavern and heard Val's scream as the robot left there by Khonnir Baine lurched to life and attacked her. No one managed to hit it but the android who took it down in one very lucky and precise (i.e. critical hit) swing.

They then had a chat with Val where she recognised both the android, Maxx, and the Blackfire Adept's Mendevian accent and revealed some of her past journey near Mendev. They swapped a little gossip, Bort mentioned the Wardstones were down, and then they moved onto the issues of Khonnir Baine.

I ran Val as a very strange young woman of around fourteen whose time spent journeying along the Sellen River left her a bit peculiar. A mixture of off vocal tone, blackmailing Nathaniel into having lunch with her rather than darting off, offering to lie to the brothel to cover up Nathaniel going missing for awhile (since his mother wouldn't approve) and using apple and rhubarb pie as a bribe to ensure Bort brings Nathaniel back alive (others preferred, but optional) certainly ensured she'd be a memorable person. Especially when after she felt the conversation was done she ushered them out the Foundry Tavern to go and rescue Khonnir and barred the door behind them.  They discussed her a bit on the stoop, so she told them to hustle off through the shuttered windows.

And then they headed over to the Weeping Ponds to meet Joram Kyte who would cast Water Breathing on them all (four hours for the five PCs + owl familiar). There was already a crowd there, and someone placing bets (72 to 1) that they wouldn't make it alive. Our dear amnesiac took the bet with a gold piece as did Maxx since if they were to lose the bet they wouldn't need the gold anyway.

Finally they dove into the pond and everyone had to roll Swim checks since that skill never comes up and can always be amusing. They each made it in the end, though the Tiefling had to be dragged along by her summoned creature because she rolled a 1 and therefore plunged down too deep and was getting confused on which way was up. They enter the caves and reach the greatest obstacle of all -- a five foot wall.

 Eventually they all get up there and as Maxx is pulling Nathaniel up onto the ledge (after first disinfecting her hands with tea tree oil), three fire bugs attack! The amnesiac alchemist (whose name eludes me) harvested their glands which now hang in a tube at her belt. The Tiefling dropped down off the shelf to check along the water-logged tunnel and spotted a few moulds on the deceased Halfling party but surmised that they won't come after them if they don't get too close.

Upon heading further into the caves, they face the Blindheim and all but Maxx and Nathaniel are blinded in the first round. Naturally Bort simply freaks out and tries to retreat through the stalactites, wailing. They manage to take it out and retreat to the entrance of the caves, but Bort's loud whining attracts the attention of the moulds which are easily slain as they try to make their way up onto the shelf.

After an hour of waiting out the spell, they start to continue before being attacked by all four skulks who kept darting off again, luring them into traps (used Sef's gear to make traps). It was only when I re-read their section that I see there was meant to be a diplomatic option. No matter. I'm going to have Sef be a fifth skulk who is….

 No, you'll see. And that's where we left it.