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Campaign I
When
I was 10, Phantom Menace was released. And with it came the d20 Star
Wars starter set. Despite being confused and upset that I’d spent
£20 on an advert (and £20 didn’t come easy in those days!), I
really really
loved playing with the counters, maps, and scenery that were
included. I probably still have the map somewhere because I used it
with the LOTR SBG for years!
All
this to say that getting the Pathfinder Beginner’s Box made me want
to recapture some of that joy. At least, the Pathfinder Pawns did.
The game is too crunchy for my little old brain. Instead, I straight
up sat on the floor and drew maps in sharpie on A3 paper to use with
the Holmes blue book. They would be populated as I went using the
wandering monster tables in said book, and
each room contained d10*100 gold coins because I wanted to use my new
L5R Phoenix dice!
Over
two hours, I took a party of 3 through two dungeons and so this post
was born as a tribute to their adventures – which will hopefully
continue in my little exercise book if nowhere else!
Karrdestock
Karrdestock
is a small and begrudging mining town on the road between Allesheim
and Talorn. Its main claim to fame is its proximity to several
semi-submerged ruins of the lost dwarven empire. Among its current
denizens are three “mighty” adventurers:
Balesk
(Fighting Man)
HP:
4 STR13 INT9 WIS10 CON11 DEX12 CHA10 XP:
0
Equipment:
Plate, Helm, Two-handed Sword, Dagger, iron rations, steel mirror,
Wine x3, sack, 26gp
Eddorn
(Magic-User)
HP:
3 STR5 INT12 WIS7 CON11 DEX12 CHA12 XP:
0
Equipment:
Leather armour, “spear” (staff), 6 torches, silver mirror,
backpack, lantern, 10 oil flasks
Spells:
Charm Person
Yadoth
(Thief)
HP:
3 STR8 INT9 WIS13 CON14 DEX11 CHA12 XP:
0
Equipment:
quiver of 20 arrows, longbow, dagger, 50’ rope, 12 iron spikes,
large sack
|
Party entered bottom middle, ended on the stairs top middle.
|
Clifftop
Keep
Not
so much a keep as a tumble-down watchtower with pretensions of
largeur, Clifftop Keep was the trio’s first mission. In the
entryway, they found an ochre jelly. Luckily Eddorn had heard of such
beasts and knew to kill it with fire; it was weak from hunger so he
and Balesk dealt with it promptly.
Then
they found a locked door that neither Balesk nor Yadoth could barge
open. From behind it came a perfectly civil voice; an elf by the name
of Kelial who offered them all the fine goods in his chamber if they
would only let him out. With a bit of lateral thinking, the party
used Balesk’s steel mirror to pour the sizzling remains of the
ochre jelly onto the wood around the lock to effect Kelial’s
escape.
Impressed,
the elf offered to join the party a while if they would only give him
a fair share of what they found. When they agreed, Kelial took them
through a secret passageway to the rear of his room down a dark and
dusty corridor to a second door in the deep. Behind it were three
skeletons guarding a small mound of treasure. While Yadoth swiftly
shot one down, Kelial and Balesk engaged the other two but were hard
pressed by their unliving skill. Yadoth eventually managed to shoot a
second and Balesk slew the third, but not before taking 2 damage,
half killing him. When the party divided up the loot, Kelial took his
25% of the spoils in the form of one particular gem.
Balesk
eventually managed to pass a Reaction roll to convince the others to
take him back to town. Kelial left them on the road, uninterested in
the stink of a human settlement.
When
the group returned to Clifftop Keep a few days later, they discovered
that five bandits had made their home in the next chamber of the
ruin. Luckily, Yadoth managed to keep the group from alerting the
robbers and so when they fell upon them that night, the first three
were slain instantly. Failed DEX rolls woke the other two however,
who were agreeably intimidated by the Reaction roll and gratefully
agreed to flee with their lives. Yadoth went up the winding stair
from their lair and discovered the upper chamber to be inhabited by
displacer beasts, which none of the party wanted to tangle with. They
retreated to Karrdestock only slightly richer for their trouble.
Party
loot: 850gp
|
Party entered centre-left, were-rats far/top right.
|
Fellhanger
Abbey
This
despoiled ruin to the cthonic fertility goddess Ivreya was the site
of the party’s next quest. Turning right at random they found a
safe room, what were once traveller’s quarters. Going down the
other set of stairs next, they encountered a single skeleton (swiftly
dispatched by Yadoth). They had now found more gold than they had in
all of Clifftop Keep.
In
the main hall of the abbey the oracle determined there were 3.5
hobgoblins (2d8/2 to mimic 2d4). The three whole hobgoblins were
standing over the remains of a fourth, arguing about whether he
really deserved to die. When one went out on patrol, Yadoth and
Balesk backstabbed him easily. When a second went looking they killed
him too, but Balesk failed his DEX roll, alerting the third. Yadoth’s
arrow went wide, but Balesk charged in and slew the hob after a
couple of tense combat rounds.
In
the next room, the party found 4 bugbears. Or rather, they heard 4
bugbears through the door as they relaxed, laughing over their
minion’s death. While Yadoth & Balesk debated what to do,
Eddorn simply lit an oil flask and hurled it into the small room,
following it with a second when the screams didn’t die down fast
enough for him.
Now
stinking of smoke and burnt grease, the party moved on to the next
room, which contained two bandits. The Reaction roll determined these
were not
the same bandits who had gratefully left the Keep – though
hopefully they were part of the same band, or Karrdestock’s ore
shipments are in serious
trouble. Given the smells and screams, they refused to believe the
party weren’t working with the monsters who’d eaten the other
prisoners. While Balesk and Eddorn argued about what to do with them,
Yadoth executed them both with his longbow.
Coldly
checking the next door, Yadoth determined there were 10 kobolds
behind it – enough to mob the party if they noticed them. Oil
flasks once again made short work of the foe. But when they moved on
to the next door, they realised that three were-rats – presumably
the chiefs of this whole affair – were lurking beyond it, and
decided to cut their losses.
Party
loot: 3350gp
Karrdestock
Back
in town, again without a scratch on them, the party assessed their
gains. Yadoth (fittingly, given he’d done the lion’s share of the
killing) levelled up and gained 2HP, making him officially tougher
than Balesk the fighting man! Since
it was a relatively poor town, I decided that nothing dearer than
15gp was available for purchase.
Looking
at their loot and knowing that they couldn’t possibly take on the
monsters they had ignored, the party congratulated themselves on a
successful week and decided to quit town and head west towards the
holy city of Allesheim. After all, where better to acquire the sort
of magic items they would need to make their mark on history? They
had no trouble securing a carriage in the next ore shipment out of
town, but it wasn’t for another five days… enough time to venture
into the forest and see what the Forest Fort had in store for
them!
After
spending some of their loot, the party now have...
Balesk
(Fighting Man)
HP:
4 STR13 INT9 WIS10 CON11 DEX12 CHA10 XP:
1470
Equipment:
Plate, helm,
two-handed
sword,
sword,
shield, dagger,
iron rations, steel mirror, wine
x3, leather
backpack,
lantern,
10 oil flasks, 1272gp
Eddorn
(Magic-User)
HP:
3 STR5 INT12 WIS7 CON11 DEX12 CHA12 XP:
1400
Equipment:
Leather armour, “spear” (staff), dagger
10
torches, silver mirror, leather
backpack,
lantern, 20
oil flasks, iron
rations, flask
1276gp
Spells:
Charm Person
Yadoth
(Thief)
HP:
5 STR8 INT9 WIS13 CON14 DEX11 CHA12 XP:
1400
Equipment:
Leather
armour, quiver
of 60
arrows, longbow, dagger, 50’ rope, 12 iron spikes, leather
backpack,
iron rations, flask
1255gp
Apart from the names of the characters and the town, all of this came up organically to answer questions posed by the shape of the maps and the results of the Wandering Monster table. I'm excited to discover what the trio learn about next!
World-building Notes
- There's a goddess called Ivreya. I figure there's tension between sky gods and earth gods, and depending on where you're from, each one's positive or negative side features more heavily.
- Allesheim exists. Is it dedicated to all species, all gods, or all something else?
- There's a place called Talorn. Sounds stabby, probably a keep of some kind?
- For a mining town to be near so many dungeons, the Predecessors must've liked mining and being underground... so the Dwarven Empire is the one that fell. Presumably they delved too greedily and too deep?
- The elf known as Kelial was once locked away, and is now free and in possession of a gem he values very highly (and a sword the party didn't realise was magic). What's he up to, and why?
- Two bandits fled with descriptions of the party's faces, and probably names. Will they seek revenge?
- There is still a family of were rats in Fellhanger Abbey. Yes they've lost most of their minions, but what are they up to?
- Who put displacer beasts upstairs in Clifftop Keep, and what were they guarding?
- I decided that the shield, leather armour, and sword that the party bought came as a set from Jowachà the tavern keeper, who was once a soldier. Whose sigil does Belask now carry? Who will it please and/or offend?
- The party's names aren't very Germanic. But Karrdestock is pretty Baltic; so what two cultures meet here, and will that affect the trio's reception in Allesheim?