"Kill it with Fire!" A Goblin Alchemists journal of the Carrion Crown

[Miscast_Mage]

Ahoy folks!

A friend is currently GMing through the Carrion Crown AP, and I've decided to try my hand at keeping a in-character journal of events as they happen. This started out as more of a note-keeping system for the other player, but then I found out the GM has been doing a synopsis of our adventure, which I'll be including as well for completions sake. It's since turned into a bit more of a roleplaying/creative writing exercise for myself. I might keep OOC notes of the adventure as well if the synopsis is too much hassle for the GM though.

Now, needless to say, as this is a playthrough and chronicle of the Carrion Crown adventure path,

Spoilers ahead!

The backdrop of the adventure is that all our characters were friends, students or associates to Professor Petrus Lorrimar, who has recently died, and we've been called to his funeral in Ravengro, within the rather xenophobic and downtrodden region of Ustulav. After that, we start to find things run *much* deeper than they initially seemed...

As for our party, we have:

Buumi Firewalker(yours truly), Goblin Alchemist and Fire Bomber specialist. Student of Alchemy at the University of Lepidstradt and student to Lorrimar. Has contact with some friends back at the University, primarly Fijit Underfoot, a knavish sorceress-in-training and partner in (prank-)crime, and Trent Durant, the fellow Alchemist who stumbled across Buumi. Carries enough explosives to level a small town, and can brew enough alchemical mixes to put it back together. Probably. A lover of all things caffinated and flammable. Also an endless font of Bad Ideas™.

Zaegan, an Aasimar Bloodrager, and a scary one at that. Friend to Lorrimar. Claws or greatsword, he's a beast in melee, and soon enough won't care about getting hit by stray bombs due to fire resistance. The best meatshield and walking blender a Fire Bomber could ask for! So far seems like the one most likely to babysit Buumi, keep him out of harms way from his Bad Ideas™ and to keep trouble out of his reach. Often literally. Height difference and all that.

Ashram, Elven Ranger of noble blood and crackshot with a longbow. Rich blood and noble up-bringing, Ashram was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. Has a penchant for fine jewelary, but a little on the snooty side when trying to sweet talk someone. Gets on surprisingly well with Thogar. Friend to Lorrimar.

Thogar, Dwarven Ranger, also trained in the longbow two-weapon fighter. Much more on the gruff side of life, and bears a few old battle wounds from dealing with undead. Seems to have a thorny sense of humour. Has made comment in particular about a nasty encounter with a Ghoul Sorceress in a ransacked monastery. Sought out aid from Lorrimar about undead after dealing with the Sorceress.

"Oats", Mightily-Praiseworthy-Are-Ye-Who-Exalteth-[Deity] Oats Human Cleric(can't recall of which god, unfortunately) with a "full" title that happens to be much more fuller than most. Has a penchant for trying to convert others to his religion, including the fellow Cleric in the party, to little success. Is really truely honestly a Good Guy™. No, really. Friend to Lorrimar.(Note: I'll try and get the player to email his full title. No way I'd remember it otherwise :P)

Aurianna, Human Cleric of Saranrae, a kind-hearted individual. Friend to Lorrimar. Could possibly change later on, as the player used the pre-gen cleric to start. Still haven't found out much about the character, so will update as the story progresses.

Spoiler: Table of contents

Show

1. First Impressions

[Miscast_Mage]

--Post incoming--

I suppose to start will be a bit of Buumis backstory, which I'll post bits and pieces of further down the line:

Spoiler

Show

And for the parties first day in Lepidstradt and half of our first session playing the campaign:

Spoiler

Show

First Impressions



The First Day

Note that the entire post can be read as an album, if people find that easier, here.

Also, for a fuller picture, here's the GMs synopsis of what's happened so far:

Spoiler: Synopsis

Show

Players present:
Tom – Oats, human cleric 1
Michael – Buumi, goblin alchemist 1
Jos – Zaegan, aasimar bloodrager 1
Erik – Aurianna, human cleric 1
Eric – Thogur, dwarf ranger 1
Steven – Ashran, elf ranger 1

The players arrived at the town of Ravengro on the day of the funeral of their old acquaintance – Professor Lorrimor, meeting the funeral procession just outside the restlands. The players made introductions to Kendra Lorrimor, the professor’s daughter and took up roles as pallbearers, carrying the coffin to the professor’s grave. They were accosted by a band of angry villagers led by a sour old farmer known as Gibs Hephenus, who accused the professor of necromancy, demanding that he be buried elsewhere. Violence seemed imminent but the players were able to calm the situation down and disperse the mob. The funeral proceeded as normal then, as Father Grimburrow greeted the funeral party at the graveside and gave a short sermon as the coffin was lowered into the grave. Kendra gave a eulogy and a few of the players took an opportunity to pay the respects – earning the approval of the other mourners.

Afterwards, the players returned with Kendra to her home where Councilman Vashian delivered the reading of the will. Lorrimor has left his home and possessions to his daughter, with the exception of a small trunk filled with books which he has asked the players to deliver to the University of Lepistadt. Finally he requests that the players remain in Ravengro for a month to make sure that his daughter is well and to help her as she decides whether or not to remain in Ravengro or if she wishes to sell her home and leave – perhaps moving back to Lepistadt where the professor once lived and taught. For performing this service, the professor has willed the sum of 100 platinum pieces to the players upon the delivery of the books not less than one month after the reading of the will. With his business concluded, the councilman takes his leave. Kendra then brings out the trunk to give it into the players keeping. They decide not to open it, in respect of Lorrimor’s wishes to protect his daughter from the darker side of his studies, instead storing it away unopened.

The players then decide to split up. Buumi and Zaegan remain behind to keep an eye on Kendra, while the rest of the party decide to head up to Harrowstone to take a look at the place where the professor died. There they find the statue that crushed the professor’s head, and could find no evidence that the professor was murdered. During the course of their investigations, the players disturbed a swarm of rats, which they managed to overcome without any casualties. Finding nothing else to indicate how the professor died, the players decided to reunite with their companions.

Back at Kendra’s home, the players again consider the trunk, but again decide not to open it. Instead they decide to see what they can find out in the town. They visit the local tavern – the Laughing Demon. There they sample some of the local cuisine and learn what they can of Harrowstone’s ruins. The tavern keeper, Zokar Elkarid, shares with them a rumor that he heard, “Now and then, if you visit Harrowstone near sundown, you can hear the ghost of the warden’s wife wailing and sobbing somewhere within the ruins. She haunts the prison now, forever mourning her husband and attempting to frighten anyone who intrudes on the prison.”

Eventually the players return to Kendra’s home and rest for the night.

And that's the first half of our first session. I'll see about posting the other half soon.

[Miscast_Mage]

Here's the second instalment of the adventure so far; second half of the first session.

Spoiler

Show

Or album on imgur is here.

The rest of the GMs notes for our first session:

Spoiler

Show

The next day the party decide to investigate the town some more and to learn what they can about Harrowstone. Buumi visits the local apothecary, but she doesn’t like the look of him and refuses to serve him. The other players engage in some research, learning that Harrowstone was once a prison used to house the most violent criminals in Ustalev and that most of Ustalev’s executions took place there. The fire that destroyed the prison was a blessing in disguise as the prisoners had rioted and gained control of the prison’s dungeons. Only for the self-sacrifice of Warden Hawkran, the prisoners might have escaped but he activated a deadfall trap that sealed the lower dungeons off from ground level, ensuring that he, twenty three of his guards and the prisoners would not escape the fire.

Unable to learn anything more specific, the party return to Kendra’s home to find her rooting around for her father’s journal. The players help by investigating his study but find no trace of it. They finally decide to open the trunk and see if it might be in there. Inside the trunk they find the professors journal, and learn more about the events surrounding his death – which indicate that he had been investigating activities of the Cult of the Whispering Way, and some interest that they seemed to have in Harrowstone. He believes that they were interested in one of the spirits within the ruin. He was investigating some runes that they had inscribed around the prison when he was driven off, but planned to return later with some tools for fighting spirits that the Temple of Pharasma concealed in a false crypt in the restlands.

The other contents of the trunk were four books – On Verified Madness, Serving Your Hunger, The Umbral Leaves and a fourth, untitled book with a rich purple cover bearing a brass scarab set with a single eye in its center. The book is locked and with an unusual lock that appears to require a key with a triangular shaft, but no key is in evidence. Each of the books has a note attached with instructions to be delivered to Montagnie Crowl, professor of antiquities at Lepidstadt University, except for the purple book whose instructions request that it be delivered discreetly to Embreth Daramid, a judge at the Lepidstadt courthouse. The note includes the home address for him.

Following their discovery, the players set off to look for the false crypt but are spotted searching for it by one of the acolytes of the Temple of Pharasma. He stops the players and they eventually convince him to bring Father Grimburrow so that they can get his permission to examine the crypt. Father Grimburrow comes and grudgingly agrees to bring some of the players back to the Temple of Pharasma to search for any records on the false crypt. The research turns up no information on the false crypt. They do however succeed in turning up some information on the Cult of the Whispering Way – a cult dedicated to discovering formulae for creating liches and engineering the release of the Whispering Tyrant. Their agents often travel to remote sites or areas plagued by notorious haunts or undead menaces in order to perform field research or capture unique monsters. Their symbol is a gagged skull and those who learn too many of the Way’s secrets are often murdered with their mouths mutilated in order to prevent their bodies from divulging secrets via speak with dead. Further research into Harrowstone reveals that at the time of its destruction by fire, its population of particularly violent prisoners was at an all-time high.

Both intrigued and disgruntled by the lack of records regarding the false crypt, Father Grimburrow allows the players to explore it with two acolytes to supervise. The players enter and are attacked by two giant centipedes which they dispatch with relative ease. The find a sarcophagus containing 12 silver arrows, 4 sun rods, 6 flasks of holy water, 10 +1 arrows, 5 +1 ghost touch arrows, 2 +1 undead bane arrows, 5 potions of cure light wounds, 2 potions of lesser restoration, a scroll of detect undead, 2 scrolls of hide from undead, a scroll of protection from evil and a darkwood case (value 50gp) decorated with the scarab-eye symbol which the players found on the purple book. Inside the case they find what looks like a magic Ouija board which resonates faintly of divination magic and 4 iron and glass vials that appear to contain tiny, churning clouds of vapor and resonate faintly of necromantic magic. Pleased with their haul, the players eagerly begin dividing the spoils while the acolytes look on in mild, although-mute disapproval. As the players left the crypt, a pair of panicked villagers came running up – they had just come from the Harrowstone memorial where they found the statue smeared with blood and written in blood on the statue, the letter V. The players took a look at the statue themselves but found no bodies nearby and no tracks that they could follow.

They then returned to Kendra’s home to begin planning their next foray to the ruins of Harrowstone…

And with that, the party leveled up to level 2, and we started preparing our adventure in the haunted prison of Harrowstone.

[Averis Vol]

I'm liking this story so far. I'm not really one for pre made modules, so i'm pretty stoked to see how it plays out piece by piece. Keep up the good work bud!

[Doorhandle]

I like how you're writing in charcter. It's not easy being green.

hope those ghost vials are useful...

[The_Werebear]

I look forward to seeing how this plays out.

[Miscast_Mage]

Hehe, thanks guys.

It's been a lot of fun writing from in an IC perspective, though sometimes details do go amiss(or "accentuated". Buumi might not end up being the most reliable narrator in the world ). I'm hoping to do some background/miscellaneous posts of Buumis journals if things get slow or a game gets delayed.

The haunt vials were actually pretty useful, though not strictly necessary with two clerics in the party, one of whom I think is thinking of focusing on channelling.

Honestly, we seem to be faring pretty well so far; ghosts seem like the scariest notion, and we have enough ways of handling them(2 previously mentioned clerics, Ashram still has ghost/magic arrows, everyone has some holy water, and Buumi will be crafting some ghost salts or holy balm first chance he gets, plus his bombs can still work in a pinch due to being magical.)

Here's the first part of our second session; the group headed back to the prison, and decided to search the dilapidated house, and found little apart from a few bruises.

Spoiler

Show

[A Tad Insane]

Is the rope going to be a thing? Please make it a thing

[Q. Flestrin]

As a man with a soft spot for goblins and fire, I will be following this thread avidly. It's shaping up to be a good story.

Also, would the full name of this "Oats" character by any chance sound something like "Mightily-Praiseworthy-Are-Ye-Who-Exalteth-[Deity] Oats"? Because that's one of the most awesome priests on the Discworld, and why, yes, I did not have to look the full name up.

[Miscast_Mage]

Is the rope going to be a thing? Please make it a thing

It probably most definitely is going to be a thing. Thogur's realised it's the best way to keep Buumi from initiating any of his Good Ideas™, often literally dragging him from room to room in the next post. Doesn't hurt that it's bit of an in-joke between the players too.

Somehow I get the feeling that it'll be a running gag, despite the fact that it failed at it's original intent(i.e. stop Buumi falling through a floor in the abandoned house, but Thogur failed to grab the rope in time).

Edit: Wow I left this in draft for a while.

As a man with a soft spot for goblins and fire, I will be following this thread avidly. It's shaping up to be a good story.

Also, would the full name of this "Oats" character by any chance sound something like "Mightily-Praiseworthy-Are-Ye-Who-Exalteth-[Deity] Oats"? Because that's one of the most awesome priests on the Discworld, and why, yes, I did not have to look the full name up.

That is exactly it! One of the players(Thogurs) managed to catch it, and I've been meaning to edit his title into the first post for a while now.

[TheJudicator]

I am most DEFINITELY subscribing to this log to see how it goes. As IC journals go, this one you have is of very good quality, and thoroughly entertaining to boot. And saying the name Buumi with it being a pyrotechnic goblin just brings a smile to the face.

That being said, I am definitely interested in reading this out because of my own group, seeing as my group's run of Carrion Crown (I GMed) ended few months back. Don't worry, no spoilers will happen from me, since my interest lies with seeing how a different group plays through the events. Anyhow, enjoying the read, best of luck, look forward to seeing more!

[Miscast_Mage]

Hehe, thanks. It's been pretty fun going through it so far. And the paper background is fairly easy to do when I got the hang out of it; it's just using a paper texture(found here) as a background in Powerpoint, save it as a PDF, export the PDF to image here

And sorry things have been a bit slow guys, been swamped with a con coming up this weekend, and our next game was postponed because of it as well. Still have another section of the last session to post before then, though.

Album on imgur here.

Spoiler: 4. Second Session pt II - Prison level 1 pt I

Show

Also, fun little tidbit; Goblins don't speak common as a language automatically, and judging by Goblin culture's views on written words, it's unlikely they'd have an actual written language. Buumi's been writing his journal in Common, but sometimes he might not have the translation exactly right.

[Miscast_Mage]

It's been a while; sorry for disappearing guys, things got a bit hectic there. Here's the next instalment!

Spoiler: 5. Second Session pt III - Prison level 1 pt II

Show

[Miscast_Mage]

Spoiler: 6. Session 3 - Prison Second Floor

Show

Aaaand we're back on schedule.

Funny enough, I was skimming through other journals/posts about the Carrion Crown, and every other person doing a journal was either also an alchemist or at least had an alchemist in the group. I didn't realise how popular the class was.

[TheJudicator]

Funny enough, I was skimming through other journals/posts about the Carrion Crown, and every other person doing a journal was either also an alchemist or at least had an alchemist in the group. I didn't realise how popular the class was.

I can attest that this was also very much true for my group as well. He was quite cheeky, smart, and curious. A much loved member of the party right until the incident with the REDACTED.

Good times~

[Miscast_Mage]

I can attest that this was also very much true for my group as well. He was quite cheeky, smart, and curious. A much loved member of the party right until the incident with the REDACTED.

Good times~

Good gods, it almost happened in this one too. Last session we almost lost Buumi; we broke the golden rule of Never Split The Party™, Buumi and Ashram were hunting down some zombies, and he got knocked into the negatives. The kicker was that it was definitely going to be the last session of the night and Buumi would have dodged at least one hit if I had remembered to use his mutagen for +4 AC.

It's made me realise I should have a back-up character prepped, and I figured Professor Harkonnen would be an interesting viewpoint to come inspect the death of a fellow educator and now also a student.

Is it bad that I'm almost half-excited if Buumi dies, so that we have a new character to continue and write his on journal on the campaign?

[A Tad Insane]

Before you get too excite, ask yourself this; could you write as a character more interesting than a goblin alchemist who's into bondage?

[illyahr]

Before you get too excite, ask yourself this; could you write as a character more interesting than a goblin alchemist who's into bondage?

Speak for yourself. This is hilarious.

[A Tad Insane]

Speak for yourself. This is hilarious.

I find it funny too, I was referring to how Miscast wanted to kill of the goblin alchemist who's into bondage for a character who isn't a goblin alchemist who's into bondage

[illyahr]

I find it funny too, I was referring to how Miscast wanted to kill of the goblin alchemist who's into bondage for a character who isn't a goblin alchemist who's into bondage

Ah, I see. My mistake.

[Miscast_Mage]

Before you get too excite, ask yourself this; could you write as a character more interesting than a goblin alchemist who's into bondage?

An over-bearing father-figure elven lecturer who carries his pet dinosaur in a baby carrier around as a surrogate baby because his daughter won't get around to giving him grandchildren already?

But in all seriousness, it's to have a back-up "just in case". Our GM isn't evil, but he also doesn't pull his punches. He rolls out in the open and if the enemy crits, they crit. That, and I have I horrible case of Alt-itis; this back-up character was going to be my sixth PFS character. I have folders full of character ideas and builds, or even just portraits to base a character or an NPC on.

I must say, I'm surprised how many people seem to be into Buumis interest with bondage, Thogurs player included; it originally started as a little off-hand joke by him, but now it feels like it'll be a long running gag.

Also, just out of curiosity, does anyone have any advice or experience using the mundane crafting rules, especially during an adventuring day? I've been wracking my brains trying to find what the time frame of crafting is, apart from just "A week" or "a day". I've accepted that they're ridiculously long; a single alchemists fire takes on average five days, assuming I'm casting a spell to get an extra +5 to my craft checks, but I can poop out a potion of enlarge person in two hours, or four hours if specifically on the go and adventuring.

[Miscast_Mage]

Turns out when I lose my session notes, they're right where I left them. In my character folder. D'oh!

Spoiler: 7. Session 4 - Zombies!

Show

[A Tad Insane]

Turns out when I lose my session notes, they're right where I left them. In my character folder. D'oh!

Spoiler: 7. Session 4 - Zombies!

Show

*slow clap*

[Citrakayah]

How do you get that formatting and background and such?

Ignore that. Teaches me to look more closely.

[Miscast_Mage]

@A Tad Insane

With the amount of caffeine going through Buumi, there's nothing slow about his clapping.

@Citrakayah
I posted some info on how I do the formatting in this post here, if you were asking about that. For the "Coffee Buumi", it was just randomly picking any fonts that could pass as hand-written, styles, effects and different sizes and mashing them together to get the "crazy" effect.

Also, meat dinosaur incoming.

You have been warned.

[Miscast_Mage]

Spoiler: 8. Reapers Hold

Show

I really need to update this faster...

[illyahr]

Is there no more? I was thoroughly enjoying these updates.

[A Tad Insane]

Is there no more? I was thoroughly enjoying these updates.

I got so excited when I saw this was updated, but now I'm sad. I need more caffeine filled bondage goblin =(

[illyahr]

I got so excited when I saw this was updated, but now I'm sad. I need more caffeine filled bondage goblin =(

Ya, I know what you mean. Just wanting to keep the thread alive until the next story update.