Planning & Pre-Game Discussion
The group spent significant time finalizing character creation, backstories, and system mechanics before jumping into the narrative.
Character Updates
- Callie's Character (Valentine Meadowmane): A Tiefling Cleric of Izara who was abandoned in the woods and raised by gnomes. She is highly anxious, lacks survival skills despite growing up in a warren, and carries around her ratty baby blanket as a comfort item. She is the adoptive cousin to Pover.
- Alisha's Character (Chaonnon / "Chao"): A Scylithene Drow Occultist stolen from the deep Underdark. Their cult failed to free the god Calomnar. Because the Empire has a shoot-on-sight order for Scylithene Drow, they plan to use dust and debris from the Golden Sea to lighten their obsidian skin and hide their identity.
- Alistair's Character (Damien John Constantine Leduc II): A spoiled, lazy human noble from House Leduc. He has a very low Wisdom score, meaning he technically has no magical resources to cast spells until he sells his soul at level 3. He wields a longsword and shield and wears gothic, dark purple clothing.
- Maddy's Character ([[Elerra]]): A brothel worker in her early 20s who is blind in one eye from a nasty head wound she received when she was abandoned at the brothel 10 years ago. She wields a dagger and secretly poisons/infects abusive patrons.
- Kieran's Character (Pover Meadowmane): A gnome monk who fights with brass knuckles. He is Valentine's cousin and self-appointed guardian.
Lore Clarifications
- A "Dungeon" is simply a spawning ground for non-sapient magical beasts. However, "Great Dungeons" are well-cataloged Elder God ruins governed by an ambient, malevolent intelligence (genius loci) that can rearrange the dungeon's structure.
- The game utilizes four specialized magic knowledge skills: Arcana, Infernalia (covering hells, demons, shadow, and chaos), Divine, and Nature. To improvise magic outside of known spells, players use the Spellcraft skill.
Gameplay Summary
The campaign officially opens just past sunset in a podunk, no-name town in the Mathena province, located near the edge of the Golden Sea between Mathanon and Last Rock. The only notable building in town is the "Prairie Bloom," a cozy tavern and brothel decorated with fairy lights and a center stage.
Damien and Chao, who met while wandering aimlessly through the Golden Sea, arrive at the Prairie Bloom to take a break from their travels. Damien orders a house special Old Fashioned from Lenore, noting that it tastes weirdly sweet.
Meanwhile, Valentine is near the stage when a slobbish, dusty patron approaches and harasses her.
Combat erupts. Pover steps in, landing a devastating right hook with his brass knuckles that knocks the patron flat on his back. Seeing this, the patron's comrades draw their weapons, including a Bandit Leader positioned on the second-floor balcony armed with a Harker & Webb HW-3 Pocket wand.
The Bandit Leader fires the pocket wand down at Damien, blasting him in the chest for 9 damage. Damien tries to retaliate by throwing a heavy mug up at the balcony, but misses. Chao then unleashes their magic, firing green laser beams straight from their eyes that strike the Bandit Leader.
On the ground floor, another bandit slashes at the party. Chao seizes the moment, grabbing the man and casting Inflict Wounds. A green glow emanates from their hand as the bandit rapidly desiccates and ages, falling to the floor as a mummified, rotting husk.
Elerra is fighting one of the bandits with her dagger when Lenore — a fellow worker at the Prairie Bloom — passes her an Ironclad Arms IA-TB Thunderbuss. Elerra turns and fires at the Bandit Leader on the balcony.
Valentine rushes over to the heavily wounded Damien. She kneels down, kisses him on the mouth to cast Spare the Dying, and follows it up with a Healing Word on Pover. Turning her attention to the balcony, Valentine fires her shortbow at the Bandit Leader. The arrow hits him dead center in the forehead; his body tumbles out of the window and splats onto the tavern floor, ending the fight.
In the aftermath, Madam Dolly approaches the group. She tells them she cannot clean up the bodies and blood before the local Marshal arrives, meaning they will all be implicated in the murders. However, she offers a solution: she has an old friend named Jody at the Adventurer's Guild in Tirras who owes her favors. Dolly promises to write a letter to Jody asking her to backdate their registration as a bona fide adventuring party, which will allow them to claim the fight was sanctioned self-defense. Dolly tells the party to loot the dead bandits for gold, then instructs them to walk through the night to the nearest train station in Ferriston so they can catch a train to Tirras.