The last Pathfinder session I ran for my group's Council of Thieves lasted quite a while. This is a session that began at around 10pm one night and ran until 4am. It then recommenced at 10-10.30am and ran to around 3pm. Quite a long (and difficult to run) session.
After the heroes had successfully survived The Six Trials of Larazod (well, some did and one was resurrected at the mayor's expense), they were invited to a decadent party to celebrate the play - thrown by none other than the mayor.
This was the entire point of the party acting the play in the first place. Let me back up a bit and explain. The city of Westcrown used to be the capital of Cheliax - until their deity Aroden died. How exactly a God can die is a bit beyond me, but anyway what followed was years of civil war - eventually with the House of Thrune - followers of Asmodeus (a Lawful Evil deity) won. They moved the capital north - leaving Westcrown as a shadow of its former glory.
Even worse, in recent years shadow beasts have taken to the streets of Westcrown - preying on all that venture outdoors after sundown. People are generally unhappy with the way things are in the city, which is where the campaign begins. The players are contacted by Janiven Key, a ranger who is also among the leadership for a revolutionary group that is attempting, at first nyway, to "make Westcrown a better place to live".
After rescuing the group's true leader (a half-elf cleric named Arael) from the incredibly fascist Hellknight Order of the Rack, the group has been beginning to fight for the people. First off they defeated the Bastards of Erebus. Though if you've read my earlier Pathfinder posts you'd know what they've done!
So an undercover Pathfinder requested that the players investigate the Westfall Pathfinder lodge (named Delvehaven) since there may be some clue there to the cause of the shadow beast scourge. However, data about Delvehaven is stored in a Chelish Crux (essentially a puzzle box mixed with a bag of holding), in the Asmodean Knot, which is a demonic pocket dimension attached to the mayor's home in Westcrown. They infiltrate the mayor's house by performing in the play.
So, surviving the play got them invited to the Cornucopia - a party held by the mayor at his home. The group attends, and tries to get as much information as possible about the Asmodean knot via rumours and such (they didn't learn much) before everyone gets too drunk and passes out - allowing the players to explore the house, find the knot, and enter it. Of course, it wasn't quite this simple.
Kynan was busy having ~fun~ with Calseinica (an actress from the play they were involved in). This kind of fun involved a pregnancy die roll. I will not reveal the results of said roll at the moment!
Also, Azelia decided it was a great idea to draw a smiley face on the passed out mayor. He woke up and summoned his guards, who threw her out.
Being 2am, she was promptly attacked by a shadow beast (finally confirming to the group that their existence was not simply rumour). The rest of the group heroically exited the mansion to save her, and then reentered. It shouldn't have been so easy to let them back in, but I let them do it simply due to them having done the right thing in rescuing her! Besides, the guards may well have gotten drunk too :P
When they eventually "found" the entrance to the knot (with some nudging from yours truly), Azelia was quite quickly cursed with a scroll. Within a day, a bone devil was doomed to come find her, and annihilate her unless she could get a Remove Curse spell cast on her, or get someone else to willingly accept the scroll. Luckily, she was able to pawn it off to an insane bearded devil later on in the dungeon.
The Asmodean Knot is a strange place. Constructed by the first mayor of Westcrown (after the civil war), it was orginally used simply as a vault. The second mayor expanded on this, by using it to conduct experiments in sadism using demons and prisoners. This, of course, left a lot of random monsters in the knot - as well as some traps (most of which were already disarmed). The knot itself had many a room which didn't adhere to the laws of physics - rooms that had staircases that folded in on themselves, leading the party back to where they originally were, rooms where the gravity was slower than usual, and falling off the bridge meant a slow fall downwards, and reappearing above the party as if in some kind of twisted video-game world!
The current mayor is the third mayor of Westcrown, and had no interest in the knot whatsoever, and never really explored it. Lucky for him, as the knot is a dangerous place!
When they found the prison, Azelia cleverly palmed the cursed scroll off to a clearly insane bearded devil. The devil was insane due to having spent decades in its cell. Once it was killed by the bone demon, they searched the dead devil, to find a spear made out of pure malice. This was taken by Dorn, who now owns an intelligent magical item!
This spear worships Asmodeus, and casts bleed upon any fallen creature - including other allies! (unless the wielder also worships Asmodeus - which Dorn does not... yet). Fun times for all.
Eventually the group encountered a giant poison devil, beat it down and acquired the Crux. As they were leaving, Crux and new treasures in hand, they were ambushed by a tiefling named Sian. After dealing heavy damage to Arael, and almost getting annihilated by Kynan and Dorn's combination of summoned Stirges and giant weaponry, she escaped. Dorn is very unhappy with letting her live - and it seems he will not rest until she is safely not-breathing-anymore.
Next up, the group has to figure out how to open the crux, and then glean as much information from it as they can before entering Delvehaven, looking for the cause behind the shadow beasts.
Showing posts with label arael. Show all posts
Showing posts with label arael. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Pathfinder - The Sixfold Trial
Yesterday marked another session of the Pathfinder campaign that I am running - The Council of Thieves Adventure Path.
Yesterday, our intrepid group (Azelia played by Sarah, Dorn played by Mark, and Kynan of the Grove played by Andrew) had to perform in an uncensored version of "The Six Trials of Larazod" - a play which none of the main cast (with the exception of the part of Haanderthal - but more on that later) have ever survived performing.
The reason for this, is that the trials in the uncut version are real. Or at least emulate the goings on in the play.
The plot follows Larazod - a tiefling in the service of Asmodeus (an evil deity), undergoing a trial for apparent misdeeds done against Haanderthal - a judge. In reality, Haanderthal is a traitor attempting to cover up his own actions. The trial forces Larazod and his two friends to undergo six trials to prove their honesty and loyalty to Asmodeus.
The first trial involved the trio being whipped by a torturer, as well as Larazod being strapped to a "device" - which in this case was a typical "stretch them til they hurt lots, probably die" rack. After enduring this trial, the torturer actually joins the group - he has a change of heart, knowing that his whips have never failed to extract the truth, and as a result of their unbreakable will, believe that they are telling the truth. haanderthal, being a bastard and all, makes him undergo the trials alongside Larazod.
This fourth character was played by an important NPC by the name of Arael. He is the leader of the city rebels, and came along for this since the play demanded at least four player characters - and having a cleric along to heal the group up between acts would be useful. In fact, they never would have survived without him - despite his ridiculously horrible act rolls during the game!
The second trial would be the trial by pleasure. They had "Flukes of Asmodeus" inserted into them, and had to resist them. These "flukes" were, as per the plot, supposedly capable of delivering orgasmic pleasure beyond that of what a thousand succubi could. In the play, however, they emulated this by using ROT GRUBS (since Asmodean flukes don't actually exist).
Unsurprsingly true to their name, rot grubs cause disease - and dealt two points of Constitution damage per round, and also made it quite difficult to pretend to be in ecstasy while they are busy damaging the players.
For the uninitiated, Constitution determines how much endurance a character has, so a lowered constitution results in the player having less health to work with. Hitting zero hit points causes unconsciousness, and hitting a negative number of hit points equal to their constitution score causes death.
Kynan, playing the main role as Larazod, suffered greatly here.
The third trial is known as the Trial in the Belly of the Beast - where the group is eaten by a beast, and claws themselves out of it. This was emulated by a device which looked like a serpent, that they had to climb into. Then the "beast" was moved into a position where the only escape was climbing up the throat, and they had to get out. The "belly" was full of acid, as well. Also, because this wasn't deadly enough, they had an extra character from here on to deal with (a noncombatant by the name of Ilsandra), and there were spikes n the throat - which both served as handholds, but threatened to cut anyone climbing up.
They survived this without *too* much trouble, though Dorn did take a fair bit of damage.
The fourth trial is where things turn potentially dangerous for the crowd, as well as the actors. The Birthing trial involved the characters eating eggs, which then causes demons born of their own power to escape through their mouths. These demons would then attack them. This resulted in 5 lemures to deal with. While not particularly tough creatures, the act of vomiting the eggs up caused all sorts of trouble for the group, since they were weakened. (To be clear, they did not actually give birth to the creatures - the creatures were summoned into the egg leftovers by a hidden cleric)
Once that was dealt with, the Trial by Combat and Love began. This was essentially a boss fight, with two large troll skeletons for the group to fight (the love came from the group's solidarity, as well as Ilsandra and Larazod forming a relationship).
This is where there were difficulties, since both charge Larazod and attack him until either they die, or he does. And coupled with a fairly hefty constitution penalty from the rot grubs earlier, Kynan simply did not have the health to deal with two of these creatures at once - they hit hard, and they hit often.
He was bitten in half by a troll skeleton.
He may have not been, had Dorn not critically failed in the turn just prior - and had his sword stick in the stage.
After the death, combat continued, and due to two awesome critical crossbow shots by Arael, the skeletons fell without any more deaths. Of course, Arael was not allowed to heal in combat, in order to stay in character as the torturer!
The final trial was "Trial by His Own Dark Hand" - safe for the actors. Asmodeus himself (which was performed by the director of the play!) speaks to the party members (Kynan at this point being replaced by an illusion of himself so that the show can go on), and judges them himself. haanderthal is found out as the traitor, and dragged to hell, as the others are set free.
Luckily, the aftermath of the show left the mayor of the city in such awe that he paid for the resurrection of Kynan - and with some convincing, he also paid for the restoration spell that was required to undo the negative level penalty that the resurrection spell imparts. (This actually wasn't fudged by me - this is actually stated in the book as part of the story flow. It was the Mayor's idea to havethis particular play be performed in the first place, and the point of the play was to get invited to a celebration party of his in order to infiltrate his corrupt government).
So all was well in the end. Even if Kynan was dead for about 45 minutes.
Yesterday, our intrepid group (Azelia played by Sarah, Dorn played by Mark, and Kynan of the Grove played by Andrew) had to perform in an uncensored version of "The Six Trials of Larazod" - a play which none of the main cast (with the exception of the part of Haanderthal - but more on that later) have ever survived performing.
The reason for this, is that the trials in the uncut version are real. Or at least emulate the goings on in the play.
The plot follows Larazod - a tiefling in the service of Asmodeus (an evil deity), undergoing a trial for apparent misdeeds done against Haanderthal - a judge. In reality, Haanderthal is a traitor attempting to cover up his own actions. The trial forces Larazod and his two friends to undergo six trials to prove their honesty and loyalty to Asmodeus.
The first trial involved the trio being whipped by a torturer, as well as Larazod being strapped to a "device" - which in this case was a typical "stretch them til they hurt lots, probably die" rack. After enduring this trial, the torturer actually joins the group - he has a change of heart, knowing that his whips have never failed to extract the truth, and as a result of their unbreakable will, believe that they are telling the truth. haanderthal, being a bastard and all, makes him undergo the trials alongside Larazod.
This fourth character was played by an important NPC by the name of Arael. He is the leader of the city rebels, and came along for this since the play demanded at least four player characters - and having a cleric along to heal the group up between acts would be useful. In fact, they never would have survived without him - despite his ridiculously horrible act rolls during the game!
The second trial would be the trial by pleasure. They had "Flukes of Asmodeus" inserted into them, and had to resist them. These "flukes" were, as per the plot, supposedly capable of delivering orgasmic pleasure beyond that of what a thousand succubi could. In the play, however, they emulated this by using ROT GRUBS (since Asmodean flukes don't actually exist).
Unsurprsingly true to their name, rot grubs cause disease - and dealt two points of Constitution damage per round, and also made it quite difficult to pretend to be in ecstasy while they are busy damaging the players.
For the uninitiated, Constitution determines how much endurance a character has, so a lowered constitution results in the player having less health to work with. Hitting zero hit points causes unconsciousness, and hitting a negative number of hit points equal to their constitution score causes death.
Kynan, playing the main role as Larazod, suffered greatly here.
The third trial is known as the Trial in the Belly of the Beast - where the group is eaten by a beast, and claws themselves out of it. This was emulated by a device which looked like a serpent, that they had to climb into. Then the "beast" was moved into a position where the only escape was climbing up the throat, and they had to get out. The "belly" was full of acid, as well. Also, because this wasn't deadly enough, they had an extra character from here on to deal with (a noncombatant by the name of Ilsandra), and there were spikes n the throat - which both served as handholds, but threatened to cut anyone climbing up.
They survived this without *too* much trouble, though Dorn did take a fair bit of damage.
The fourth trial is where things turn potentially dangerous for the crowd, as well as the actors. The Birthing trial involved the characters eating eggs, which then causes demons born of their own power to escape through their mouths. These demons would then attack them. This resulted in 5 lemures to deal with. While not particularly tough creatures, the act of vomiting the eggs up caused all sorts of trouble for the group, since they were weakened. (To be clear, they did not actually give birth to the creatures - the creatures were summoned into the egg leftovers by a hidden cleric)
Once that was dealt with, the Trial by Combat and Love began. This was essentially a boss fight, with two large troll skeletons for the group to fight (the love came from the group's solidarity, as well as Ilsandra and Larazod forming a relationship).
This is where there were difficulties, since both charge Larazod and attack him until either they die, or he does. And coupled with a fairly hefty constitution penalty from the rot grubs earlier, Kynan simply did not have the health to deal with two of these creatures at once - they hit hard, and they hit often.
He was bitten in half by a troll skeleton.
He may have not been, had Dorn not critically failed in the turn just prior - and had his sword stick in the stage.
After the death, combat continued, and due to two awesome critical crossbow shots by Arael, the skeletons fell without any more deaths. Of course, Arael was not allowed to heal in combat, in order to stay in character as the torturer!
The final trial was "Trial by His Own Dark Hand" - safe for the actors. Asmodeus himself (which was performed by the director of the play!) speaks to the party members (Kynan at this point being replaced by an illusion of himself so that the show can go on), and judges them himself. haanderthal is found out as the traitor, and dragged to hell, as the others are set free.
Luckily, the aftermath of the show left the mayor of the city in such awe that he paid for the resurrection of Kynan - and with some convincing, he also paid for the restoration spell that was required to undo the negative level penalty that the resurrection spell imparts. (This actually wasn't fudged by me - this is actually stated in the book as part of the story flow. It was the Mayor's idea to havethis particular play be performed in the first place, and the point of the play was to get invited to a celebration party of his in order to infiltrate his corrupt government).
So all was well in the end. Even if Kynan was dead for about 45 minutes.
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