Black Wings over the Valley

[Fouredged Sword]

Character sheet - for reference

Your name is G'Rashnar, a wyrmling black dragon, whelp of Grimjaw an adult black dragon and ruler of the swamps of despair. You are the fourth is a clutch of 10. Five of your siblings were still alive when you decided it was time to seek your fortune away from the lands of your sire. Two of them died to mortals who invaded the swamp to kill your sire, the other two died due to disappointing him. Over the past few months he has grown restless. You feared that he would being encouraging his children to move on and out. Lethal encouragement. Thus you left. There was little in the swamp to risk death over, and so long as you stayed there was no hope of building a horde that Grimjaw would not claim as his own. One night, when Grimjaw was away hunting, you stole into his horde and pilfered what you could: a bag of holding, a mostly depleted wand of stoneshape, and a traveler's anytool. Other than that, you managed to take a handful of gold (25). You left without another word.

Before leaving you learned of a secluded valley swamp, away from the dangers of humans and elves.

Stealth - (1d20+21)[34] +20 (for flying at night, yeah, nothing saw you)
You flew at night, a black shadow on a black sky. It has been 5 nights of long hours in the air, but you have finally reached the location you sought.

Knowledge (geo) - (1d20+4)[11]
You know this valley is a secluded one. It lies on the southeastern edge of the Normont range of mountains. The swamp of your father lies on the southern tip of the range, where the mountains turn into a swamp that extends for miles. To the east lies the human kingdom of Redcrest. To the West are the peaks of the mountains and the entrance to the dwarven mine Ironhold. You crossed the main road between the two, and it curves well south away from your valley.

Knowledge (nature) - (1d20+4)[14]
This is a temperate area, with few real extremes of weather. As far as animals are concerned, nothing threatens you. The biggest things capable of flight are not any larger than you, and bears and wolves are threats only until you can become airborn.

You arrive in the dead of night. Thick cloud cover blocks the moon and stars, and even your night vision is unable to see more than shadows. Luckily you are alert and notice a storm is brewing, a big thunderstorm. You notice it well ahead of it breaking.

What do you do?

- Take shelter in the hills and try to find a cave.
- Rush to the forests and take shelter in the trees.
- Make for the swamp - the waters will hide you.
- Fly to the lake, the storm can rage on the surface all it wants.

You have about an hour before the storm hits (survival 22). Winds will be strong enough that you will have trouble in the open (tiny creatures must roll to resist being blown away)

[AngryCyc]

G'Rashnar begins dipping in the air, making her way towards the large lake. The depths of the lake will provide her all the shelter she needs against a storm. She sets her heading towards off-center of the lake, aiming towards the depths on the west-side of the center. The waters will protect her, and she meant to explore the lake early anyway... As far as she cares doing so while a storm rages just kills two bird with one claw.

[Fouredged Sword]

The lake is a short flight away and you reach it in about a half hour of flight (5 miles). What would have been a day long slog through hills and bog to mere mortal races is a short flight for your ebon wings. The storm has yet to cross into the valley, but you can already feel the pressure dropping as the storm pushes uphill from the eastern coast. The western side of the valley is going to be drenched, though the east will fair only slightly better before it gets slammed by the flooding that is sure to follow.

This is of little concern to you. The lake is broad enough to absorb the swell without creating the currents that could threaten you is a river.

stealth roll 31

You slide into the water with fluid grace. Barely a ripple marks your falcon like dive into the black waters. You dive into the waters a fair distance from the shore, as you see beds of swamp reeds that could hide threats and would be a pain to search.

The water is dark. You are restricted to your blind senses (60ft) and your dark vision (120ft). You suspect that it will only get worse as the water begins to drag sediment from the swamps into the lake. You know that in as little as an hour the water will fog with silt and you will lose all but your blind sense.

Perception check 20

Your low light vision is superior to most, and you can make out things that even keen eyed elves would miss. Once your eyes adapt to the water you can vaguely see the lay of the land under the water. You can tell that the lake is shallow at this end, barely reaching a depth of 60ft. It slopes to the east though, and the east end of the lake is deep, stopping suddenly as the mountains rise into a natural dam.

You also spot something interesting.

Knowledge Nature check 9

Two large fish appear to be sleeping along the bottom. They are massive beasts, easily 7 feet long each. Your mouth waters after so many days of dreaming of food for sustenance. You don't supposes you HAVE to eat them, but they missed your entry into the water entirely.

You could also explore the reeds along the shore. Visibility would be low, but it will be low once the silt hits the lake anyway.

You could travel deeper into the lake, see what lurks in the depths. You have about an hour before you lose sight entirely. You do a bit of exploring while you can still see.

Or whatever else takes your fancy. You expect the storm to blow over by midnight (5 hours), though once it passes, it will take a great deal of time for the water to become clear once more (1-2 days)

Side note - It is mid spring. I forgot to mention this earlier. Not major importance just yet, but this game will track seasons.

- Looking at your character sheet, I noticed you didn't mark the penalty for wasting on your charisma based skills. I will try to do as much rolling in my posts as possible, so having those accurate is somewhat important. I would suggest a quick change to your character sheet though. Unless there is a specific reason for wanting the wasting curse, you may be better suited with the Cold-Blooded Lizardfolk curse unless you want to completely shun diplomacy. While I will be running diplomacy with a heavy dose of DM modifiers based on situations and how things are phrased, wasting will make it hard to interact with other races. Even Kobolds will grimace at the sight of your rotting scales. First impressions will be hard. Fair warning and a chance to change things if you like.

Of course the Very young age category comes with +2 int and charisma. If you so desire, you can boost those skills then.

[AngryCyc]

She lets her hunger and desire for the hunt overtake her curiosity about the lake depths. Approaching her prey from behind, she triggers her ability to hide in plain sight with the water to get closer without them being aware of her presence.

Spoiler

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Aquatic Survivalist trait for the above ability. Hide in plain sight underwater, blocking abilities like blind sense and junk. If a new stealth roll is required (1d20+21)[40]

As she creeps along the bed of the lake, she gets just within reach of one of the creatures, before readying herself to pounce on it. She studies the fish for just a second to locate prime locations to strike, before jumping on it and attacking!

She bites deeply into it's back with her sharp teeth.

Spoiler

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If required, initiative (1d20+4)[20]

5 ft stepping into it's space while it is flatfooted should mean no AoO unless they have combat reflexes...

Single attack during surprise round

Bite (1d20+8)[10]
Confirm crit (1d20+8)[16]
Damage (1d4+2)[6] + (2d6)[12] SA
Crit (1d4+2)[6]


If she also wins initiative, next attack is full attack action:

Bite (1d20+8)[25]
Confirm crit (1d20+8)[22]
Damage (1d4+2)[5] + (2d6)[4] SA
Crit (1d4+2)[3]

Claw (1d20+6)[21]
Confirm crit (1d20+6)[9]
Damage (1d3+1)[2] + (2d6)[4] SA
Crit (1d3+1)[2]

Claw (1d20+6)[24]
Confirm crit (1d20+6)[17]
Damage (1d3+1)[2] + (2d6)[3] SA
Crit (1d3+1)[3]

[AngryCyc]

-skills are fixed. Wasting was preferred because a black rotting dragon living in a fetid swamp is awesome. Sure it'll make things a little more difficult diplomatically, but CE would probably prefer intimidating to diplomacy anyway. I did forget that having rotten scales makes you somehow worse at using magic devices though, but that's no matter. I dropped 1 rank in UMD to put in intimidate.

The general idea is big scary dragon, Rawr.

[Fouredged Sword]

You slide up to the fish. The water flows around you with nary a ripple. The fish never had a chance to even notice you. You drift right up next to the closest to shore and bite down (the fish is asleep, changing your action to a bite CdG)

Damage 12, fails the DC 22 fort save, dies.

Stealth check (I'm going to call this sniping, fuzzy rule use) result 7 vs perception check -1.

Your bite finds it's way into the spine of the first fish, killing it instantly. It dies with a twitch. The second fish fails to wake, allowing you to glide over and end it's life as well.

Not even rolling stealth, it can't pass the check

You bite this one as well, killing it outright (22 damage)

You savor your small victory, and ponder what you are going to do with your bounty of fish meat. (each Gar is 200lbs (total 400). About 150lbs (total 300) of it is edible meat and organ.

It would be easy to eat your (tiny) fill and leave, or you could store the fish somewhere, but that would take time. Ether way, you are in the same position as before. The storm grows closer and your options remain much the same. (combat took all of 1-2 minutes)

The meat won't last long in the water. You could take it to land, but even then it won't last more than a day or so before going bad unless you prepare it somehow. The old black dragon method is to soak it in a pool of diluted acid (makes it inedible to anything without acid resistance, but it's quick and easy, no fire needed), but you could smoke it in the manner of most other races (need a fire, hard with the storm).

[AngryCyc]

G'Rashnar is very pleased with her work. With dawning comprehension that she now has way too much meat and no place to store it, she makes a mental note of their location goes back to exploring the depths. Even if she doesn't eat any of them, she's satisfied that she has displayed her dominance over nature.

Swimming along the bottom, she starts heading towards the deeper waters near the natural dam of the mountains east. She swims in a straight line so as to better find her way back to her kill, but she heads off looking for any solid rock with natural features that she might use as a shelter, or even to start Stone Shaping into her lair.

[Fouredged Sword]

Do you attempt to hide as you move (much slower) or do you swim openly (faster). Mind you, it's near pitch black. You can only really see with darkvision and it will only get worse as the storm hits in full.

[AngryCyc]

She moves at full speed. Her observation of fish sleeping out in the open has made her feel this lake features no strong threats, and her swift ending of their life has filled her with confidence.

[Fouredged Sword]

Rolling

Perception 16

You swim swiftly along the bottom of the lake. You hear the sound of water striking water as the storm rages overhead. The area is silty soil that is slowly sloping away from the swamps. You don't spot anything too interesting until you find a outcropping of rock that forms what looks like a natural overhang jutting from the floor of the lake. It is serving as the anchor for a number of the aquatic plants that dot the bottom of the lake.

[AngryCyc]

She slows down and begins to really explore the overhang. Taking 20 on perception and survival to really explore the area. She looks for all possible places to tunnel into the rock, as well as for signs of any other substantial creatures who might live around.

[Fouredged Sword]

As you swim closer, you are startled to discover this spit of rock is occupied in a most unplesent way. A large brutish creature charges out of the weeds, razor claws raised to attack.

It's claw misses your tiny body.

You recognize the creature as a Scrag, a large very dangerous cousin of the troll that likes to live in aquatic situations. It's regeneration is suppressed by acid.

Luckily you are not totally caught off guard, and beat the Scrag's initiative. You are 90 feet from the surface, 30 feet from the bottom of the lake. Besides the outcropping of rock is 30ft east and 10ft bellow you. (about 30x30x20) the area around you is a flat plane broken up by small plants along the silty bottom. The troll is swimming so you are level with it's head and are 10ft away (within it's reach).

- By the way, don't feel compelled to fight everything you run across. Some fights may be very hard without preperation. You can always return later, but the world is dynamic. Being alone means many threats will be very hard to beat.

[AngryCyc]

She is briefly startled by the attack, but quickly recovers and flees up towards the surface, swimming 60 feet up, before turning to face the troll and readying an action to use her acid breath as soon as it gets within 30 feet of her.

[Fouredged Sword]

The scrag charges you. Your belt out a line of acid directly in the snarling face of the scrag as it grimaces in pain. 11 damage. The acid melts away the trollkin's face!

The scrag claws at you as it completes it's charge. You take 11 damage. The claws rake through your skin like tissue paper.

You notice that the Scrag, while a good swimmer, is significantly slower than you (it has a 40ft swim compared to your 60). You can hear the whipping wind blowing across the surface of the water just above you.

[AngryCyc]

Not risking breaking the surface, she levels out and swims immediately away from the scrag again, swimming a full 60 ft away before turning and readying the same acid breath, hoping the beast is stupid enough to not learn from it's mistake.

[Fouredged Sword]

- Huh, learn something every day. Pathfinder dragons can breathe each round.

The Scrag is clearly both reckless and angry. Though the beast isn't healing from your acid attacks it still charges forward headless of the damage you are inflicting.

This time it blocks the stream of acid with it's arm, reducing the damage significantly (5 damage). It attempts to capture you with it's gaping maw. The scent of rotting fish billows from the foul mouth of the beast, but the teeth miss by a good distance as you nimbly dance away from the danger.

(You have the thing raging mad and as long as it can get a swing in, it's going to chase you for a while. It knows so long as it can kill you, it will heal in minutes (and it's none too bright). Do you want me to do this pattern for the next few rounds, see where things end up? I can stop when ether you hit a HP amount or the Scrag decides to run)

[AngryCyc]

-Had to look myself to see how many rounds I had to wait. I was expecting 1d4 but black dragons at least have every round.

Being faster and having a bit of a ranged attack, yeah she's going to keep doing the same action, making sure to stay outside of it's reach while pelting it with acid. She's going to try to steer it such that it doesn't have any cover and that she's in between it and rock overhang it came out of. Other than that, yeah, swim away, turn and shoot breath!

Edit: unless it manages to get her down to 10 hp or less. Then some fleeing is in order. It seems like she has the advantage though.

[Fouredged Sword]

Ok, here we go.

Spoiler

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fail save - 6 damage (41)
Fail attack
Fail save - 6 damage (35)
Fail attack
Make save - 3 damage (32)
Make attack - 8 damage (22)
Make save - 3 damage (28)
Make attack - 6 damage (15)
Fail save - 9 damage (19)
Fail attack
Fail save - 4 damage (15)
Fail attack
Fail save - 10 damage (5)
Makes attack - 11 damage (4)
The troll then attempts to run and dies to your parting breath attack. (6 damage)

Wow, you actually beat the scrag. Wasn't expecting that really. That thing was CR 5

For several minutes you and the scrag play a very dangerous game of tag. You dart across the water, giving the troll-kin just enough room to chase you. Slowly your acid begins to eat away at it, first melting the skin, then eating away at muscle and bone. While you are left battered and bruised, it is left a half melted husk. You bathe the corpse in acid until the skull is laid bare and bleached white.

Though you are victorious, you are also half clawed to death (that last hit put you at 4hp before the troll turned and ran). You slink back to the Scrag's layer and search it carefully.

You find a small cavern 20x20x10 with a 10ft entrance that the trollkin lived in under the rock formation. Inside the watery cove is the bodies of several humanoids long since decayed. You search them carefully. You find the following still in good condition.

Potion of Shield of Faith (cr, 50 gp)
Padded Armor (+1 armor) (1155 gp)
Gems worth 300gp
1300 silver pieces (130gp)
315 gold pieces
35 platinum (350 gp)

Knowledge arc and eng - 12

You see several ways to shape the stone here to form a lair. You could ether shrink the large opening to tiny with a thin layer of stone (12" thick per use), and thus gain the largest area possible, or, alternatively, you could carve yourself a private pocket into the rock elsewhere, leaving the opening much longer and thus stronger, but at the expense of smaller living area.

[AngryCyc]

The young dragon breathes a sigh of relief. This was the most challenging fight she'd ever put herself through but she was proud of her tactical superiority over such a powerful foe. She took this as a sign that here should her home be.

Unsure of what to do exactly with it yet, she heals herself with a few cure light wounds spells to patch up some damage the scrag did to her, and then swims back to the fish she had slain earlier, chewing and aciding them into small enough chunks for her to carry back to her new cavern while she makes some plans.

Spoiler

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CLW (1d8+1)[6]
CLW (1d8+1)[3]
CLW (1d8+1)[4]

3/4 spells used for the day.

[Fouredged Sword]

About half way back to the fish, you swim directly into a rolling wall of silt that is spreading like a bank of fog. You lose your sight entirely.

survival check - 17

You find the location of the fish you stashed earlier. You had threaded a reed through the gills and tied it so they couldn't float off. You snap the reed and determine that dragging the fish will be easy enough even in one piece (they are neutrally buoyant and you are underwater)

Survival check - 23

Once there, you fill your cove with acid breath and watch as the fish cook in the caustic mixture. This also has the side effect of cleansing the inside of the cave of any lingering scent of Scrag.

The storm abates above, and you can hear the rain become a drizzle, and then stop all together.

You have several points you could break off from this. You have a safe shelter, food, and water. You can safely rest here. You can modify this area with shape stone.

Do you go exploring again, do you rest until the next day when you can recover your healing spells , or do you sleep through this underwater siltstorm?

What precautions do you take before heading out or resting?

[AngryCyc]

Coming back to the rather open cavern, she decides she needs to modify it a bit. Fortifying it for the time being might be useful, but not so much for long term habitation. She therefor gets out her wand of Stone Shape to begin carving her own little pocket into one corner of the lair. She goes to the back most corner, and commands the rocks carve out a 15'x5' tunnel angling up through the ceiling, into the adjoining mountainside at about a 45 degree angle. Where it meets the cavern, she wants a hinged door with a simple sliding latch that can be operated from the inside to lock it while she is inside.

Spoiler

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30% chance moving objects don't work, so 1-30 fails: (1d100)[32] in which case she casts another time to get the door to work (1d100)[70]

Craft check if needed (1d20+4)[16]

The rest of the stone being displaced is pulled out to reinforce the entrance, keeping the large opening but adding reinforcement to it to strengthen it and make it more sturdy and stable. At the top of the newly formed tunnel she casts another 4 times to carve out a 15'x10'x10' chamber, pulling the spare stone out to the front of the reinforced opening and several high spiked pillars spaced sporadically around the entrance to make it difficult for larger creature to brute-force their way into the open chamber.

Spoiler

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Final cavern + lair should look something like this:

With her inner chamber built, she goes inside, shutting the door behind her, and makes a nice little bed from all the coins and gems she found and goes to sleep.

[Fouredged Sword]

Two issues with your plan.

Stoneshape effects 10+1/cl cubic feet of stone. Your specific wand alters 15 cubic feet of stone a casting. A 5ft cube contains 125 cubic feet and will take 9 uses of stoneshape to fill/empty.

It would be east to carve a 1ftx1ftx3ft tunnel (3ft^3) (plenty large for your tiny size) that opens into a 2ftx3ftx2ft (12ft^2) chamber. You can expand the tunnel or chamber with more uses (mind the footage). Creating a door would be part of this. (1 use)

Closing up the main entrance would be a single use (10ftx1ft wall). It is already structurally secure, but restricting the entrance can prevent large creatures from entering and you could add at door at this location. (1 use)

Creating pillars of rock (6" thick) would allow you to create difficult terrain in 2 squares for creatures larger than small. (1 use)

The other issue is that you are on a spur of rock sticking up from a relatively flat bed of the lake. I will scan a picture later, but the cave is down and sideways rather than straight sideways. You are sill in the silt beds of the lake, the major incline comes further towards the east.

[AngryCyc]

You know, I think you're right. I was doing fast math in my head and was like "Oh 15 cubic feet so three 5 ft cubes!" Once I actually sat and did the math I realized my mistake.

Alright in that case let's do the 1x1x3 tunnel leading to the 2x3x2 chamber (1 use) no door because it's pretty small, and the difficult terrain in front of the entrance (1 use). That at least gets a secure bedding chamber.

Also, she's going to fill the bag of holding up with water in the chamber, swim up to the surface, empty the water and fill the bag with air, come back and empty the air into the chamber, filling it up with more water, and repeating until the chamber is now dry. That should work unless the stone is pretty porous.

[Fouredged Sword]

That works well. You have an air filled chamber now. A massive burst of bubbles followed the release of air, but it harmlessly dissipates.

Now secure in your new home, you can decide when you want to venture forth. Do you set out at once (it is nearing midnight), wait until your magic refreshes (by the way, pick a time of day you pray, I suggest sunset or dawn), or do you wait until the silt clears (1-2 days)?

[AngryCyc]

No prayer necessary, it just resets each day, but I'll pick sunrise for the reset time. She's going to sleep for 8 hours then, cast 3 more CLW's, and if it's still silty, she'll go to flying low across the waters of the lake to survey the valley in the sunlight. She'll fly fast, and not worry too much about stealth when she's far away from her new lair, but while leaving and approaching the lair, she swims out a ways in the lake before becoming airborn.

If she doesn't spot anything particularly interesting around the lake itself, she heads up stream to survey the swamp and forest, doing high fly-by's and circling down lower to spot anything interesting that catches her eye.

Spoiler

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CLW's (3d8+3)[11]

[Fouredged Sword]

After your rough battle and your long days of travel through unsafe lands, you sleep deeply in your safe little cave. You wake with a belly full of dreamfood, and are ready to explore. It is mid morning, the sun is up, and you can see the rays cutting though the murky brown water. Your sight is still impaired (treat all water as within a fog cloud, but you water sight does nothing).

Perception 28

Something catches your blindsense as you exit your lair. An object has been washed from shore and is caught in the weeds of your home. On inspection it is a large basket woven of stiff reeds.

Knowledge Local - 24 (your rolling crazy right now)

It appears to be a fish trap basket. The chord that anchored it must have snapped in the storm. You recognize the make as Lizardfolk. There must be a tribe within the swamp. What you know of lizardfolk suggests that they would make their home near a current within the swamp, not too far from the lake, but far enough back to not be noticed off hand. They are not necessarily disposed to like or dislike black dragons, but rather tend to consider you a feature of the swamp to be respected and possibly feared. They are pragmatists though. If you are hostile, they will weight the cost of killing you vs the cost of letting you live. On the other hand, a local dragon who is friendly keeps the more developed races at arm's length... a great advantage as far as the lizardfolk are concerned. They will at least be easy to talk to, as they speak a form of low draconic. It's not as proper as the language of true dragons, but you can understand it without trouble.

You think you can find the likely spot for their village without too much trouble.

Knowledge Religion - 10

Lizardfolk follow a form of spirit worship rather than devote themselves to one of the major gods. Dragons are considered spirits made flesh, and are commonly given a great deal of respect. The Lizardfolk word for black dragon wyrmling is "little swamp king" if translated to high draconic.

[AngryCyc]

G'Rashnar once again sees this as as omen of good fortune. She was eager to see what sorts of creatures would be present in the swamps, and this new information was quite welcome to her. She decides to go visit the Lizardfolk, or at least try to find them, but first spends some time fishing for several decent-sized fish to put in the basket. She also grabs the magic armor she had found previously, and heads off to the swamp.

Return their basket full of fish, trade with them for magic armor, yes... that'll be the best way to start contact with these new servants. Let them know the queen is one to be treasured... she thinks as she gathers herself and starts flying towards where she believes the lizardfolk village might be.

Spoiler

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Survival to gather fish (1d20+6)[20]

[Fouredged Sword]

Thinking this over, post here is a bit....

Ok, to be clear, I am playing with the lizardfolk race a bit. Many of them will have lost their racial HD and gained class levels in their place. I want a more diverse tribe than RHD allows for a given average HD.

[AngryCyc]

You could always gestalt them the same way I'm gestalted.

[Fouredged Sword]

That is basically the result. Humanoid HD are basically useless in gestalt. I will be doing that for large HD monsters (maybe lizardkings, if you run into one). I don't have to worry about party balance so different races will be more or less powerful than others and I'm not going to worry about it.

---

Fish, as it turns out, are slow, stupid, and in this silt, blind. You are none of these things. You fill the fish basket to the brim with large lake fish in a matter of two hours. (+5 to survival due to favorable conditions). With the basket full, you load it and the enchanted armor into your bag of holding and set off for the swamp coast.

Perception 26

It is a bright sunny day. The stormclouds have passed, leaving the whole valley washed clean. You can see the path of multiple flash floods as they carved their way through the valley, but nothing seems too bad.

In the distance, far away above the norther mountains you see a large draconic flying creature circling as if hunting

Knowledge Arcana 12

It is too far away to make out the creature. It looks large though, and is clearly predatory. It looks brown though, so not a true dragon.

You also spot the lizardfolk village easily enough. It would have been hard to spot from the air without knowing right where is was due to the fact that it is built into a grove of trees. The buildings are suspended on platforms along the trunks, up and away from the potential floods that the swamp must see with regularity. Lizardfolk seem to be out and about, fixing nets and drying fish. A few stand guard, spears in hand. The village is fairly small by most standards. You estimate maybe 30 lizardfolk.

They don't appear to notice you yet. How do you want to approach them?