Episode 15

Another great week in gaming.  I have recently began running Pathfinder Society games as well, which for whatever reason I don't have a high comfort level with.  Its a mental block more than anything.  I don't feel like the NPC's are my NPC's, so I am hesitant to take liberty with them in how they act.  I have never really liked box text and I feel like I am forced to use it, and it doesn't come out naturally.

What I think I will be doing in the future is just getting a good idea for what the dialogue is, and wing it rather than read it, as long as I hit the big points it should be fine.  Regardless, we had another good session this week and as fast as we went last week we seemed to have slowed down slightly this week, which is fine we had fun.

Episode 15:

The party picked up back in the Dragon Cults lair.  After a little work they found his hoard of 35,000 copper pieces  (I love giving them copper pieces) a long with a bunch of other good stuff.  The town guard and the Paladins of Tyr were happy to see that this black mar in the city of Wisthaven had been erased.  So the party has once again endeared themselves to the townsfolk- though there is an angry dragon with no hoard somewhere out there.

Once the party headed back to the smoking hound they decided it was time to get back on track.  They took a couple of days to heal up and re-gear themselves.  During this time Lina got a note from Tian letting her know that their old friend Leanna had been asking for information about them.  Tian likes the party so gave them a heads-up but made sure they knew that he would still give Leanna information.... eventually.  Sam was with her and they also discovered that Leanna is now traveling with Athis, the Graveknight.

At the same time Typhus received a note from Xerxes, the head of the White Lodge (which is a guild of adventurers for hire) that let him know the bounty hunters hired by the Stoutfellow clan were spotted in town as well.  All that was going on while Sam was learning that the Travelers (the sorcerers who can shift between dimensions) are some how connected to Alanus, a being whose power once rivaled the gods'.

Taking all that in to account the party got together, shared their information, and poured their resources into.... throwing a party.

Yup they decided that with their recent fame and fortune they would garner some good will from the townsfolk by throwing a party in the city square.  I had no idea this was coming, but it was a great idea.  It really makes them popular, it got the Duke to come down and see them, it gave them a chance to try and spot the badguys that were looking for them, and Urz got drunk and got laid.  To be fair Damone got drunk and laid too.... By 3 girls and 1 guy... Damone has a freakishly high charisma score.

After they collected themselves and raked in some profit for the night they went to the Sunlight Keep.  This is where one of the Seals that Belfast (the main badguy if you still remember who he is) was after.  So they went there, found the place to be well guarded (and also found out some paladins have no love for inquisitors) and were asked to help with a problem.  You see there is a small town to the north of Sunlight Keep where no one has been heard from for days.  A scout ran up that way a few days ago and has not returned and the Paladin Lord Argus would like the party to look into it and make sure that everything was okay.

The party agreed and went up north to go figure out what the problem was.  From just outside the town they heard the sounds of battle and went to go see what was going on.  In the middle of the city center the Black Guard Cultists were fighting a number of demons in what appeared to be a deserted town.

This was around a CR8/9 encounter with 4 Dretches, 1 Nabasu, and the death cultists in the mix too.  This was not a tough fight the death cultists were helping (a Lvl 5 Cleric and 3 Lvl 4 warriors).  So a lot of the pressure was taken off of the party here.  They still got dinged up a little and 2 of the cultists died, but it set the stage.  Something was wrong in this town and there were demons afoot, and the Black Guard was there.

After the fight the party learns that the Black Guard is not all bad.  The cleric who is still left standing is LN and she is only interested in putting down demons.  She works for Belfast, and does not entirely trust the PC's, but if they are willing to help her end the Demon scourge in this town she will take their help while they offer it.

The party is then led to a winery, where it seems that the emanations of evil are coming from.  Inside is a Succubus and a Babau demon.  this is a pretty tough fight, no awful since there are 6 PC's and a cleric NPC, but difficult none-the-less.  The succubus is grappling people and draining levels, the Babau is smacking people with his long spear, but the party eventually brings them down with a couple of sneak attacks and cold iron.  They take a few minutes to rest and get some health back before heading down to take on the guy below.  The Black Guard, Charra, has explained that where an abyssal rift exists there is a source for that rift.  If they can eliminate that source the rift will vanish.  In the basement is that rift.

They head downstairs to face the CR11/12 demon of the homebrew variety.  This is a large sized demon that has an insect like visage.  It's basically a reskinned barbed devil, it has a grabby hand and a stabby hand.  It also lost most of its spell like abilities, but it gained the ability to summon a swarm of flies and it can flap its wings to spread a nauseating effect on any within 30' (DC24).

This was a very hard fight, the swarm was really messing up the party and this demon had HP and DR for days.  What made a big difference is that the Demon grabbed Urz with his pincer hand and then stabbed him with his stabby hand over and over.  Urz is now a 7th level barbarian 1/2 orc.  He has a sick amount of hp.  It took this demon (mind you barbed devil like in grappling and impaling) 4 rounds to get him to negative hp. Then Urz was still fighting.  Then Urz was healed so he had ANOTHER few rounds to get grabbed and stabed.  It took 6 rounds to get that barbarian unconcious, without that time the party would have died.

This may have realistically been too hard of an encounter for the group.  I was unsure, since they would have some additional help and it was a large group.  however, if I rolled well and they rolled average I would have wiped the party out.  Turns out no one died and everyone almost died, but it worked out.

This is where the night ended.  We had a party found out a lot of good information, learned about the tower, and killed a legitimately powerful demon.  All in all, a very good night.

Until Next Time!

-Ubercroz