A Kingdom of Their Own: A Trio of Tieflings Play Kingmaker

[Elricaltovilla]

Session 8
In Which Our Trio of Tieflings Battle a Bandit Lord in his Fell Fortress and Discover their Destiny

Day 28

The party, having finished their trading with Oleg and rested for the night, rises early in the morning to discuss their plans for removing the Stag Lord. The party is pretty much in agreement that, as tieflings, they would stand out too much for any kind of subtle infiltration to work. Instead, they'd be better served with a nighttime raid. The plan is to head south and visit Jhod, taking him to the recently discovered statue of Erastil, and then going to the Stag Lord's fort to scout out the area before beginning the assault.

The party travels to the Temple of Erastil where Jhod is busy hermiting, having just started cooking a late lunch. It seems he's started doing some work to pretty up the place. It's well maintained, but lacking in finer comforts. Jhod greets the party and invites them to join him for lunch. While eating they tell Jhod about the statue they found and he asks the party to escort him there and back.

The party arrives at the statue, and Jhod dismounts and begins praying. A long enough time goes by in awkward silence, that Ashena and Akaru make bets about how long it will be before Jhod is finished. After 20 minutes, Jhod stands up and calls the party over. He takes a bit of dirt and moss from the base of the statue and rubs it on each of the tiefling's foreheads.

"This is the blessing of Erastil, to aid you in your hunt. Until two sunrises pass, your weapons will bring swift death to your enemies. May your eyes be sharp and your aim true." The party's weapons each begin to glow (including their teeth, maybe Ol' Deadeye has a sense of humor after all?) a faint golden light. Jhod explains that all their weapons have been made supernaturally sharp and deadly, but only for a short time. The party offers to escort him back to the temple, but he assures them he'll be fine. As they part ways, the tieflings hear Jhod say to himself:

"Now how the **** am I supposed to get this back to the temple?"

The party enters the hex where the Stag Lord's fort is located from the western edge where the forest ends to take advantage of the setting sun to hopefully keep from being spotted. Skara, being the one with the "best eyes" and (more importantly) with the likeliest chance of being able to scout without alerting the entire greenbelt (Seriously, Akaru's a Stalker with a negative Dex modifier and no ranks in stealth). He determines that there are four guards usually posted, but can't give much more information as he was spotted before being able to finish scouting.

Day 29

The party rests and readies themselves for their infiltration and assault. They have three grappling hooks, and should have little issue getting up the walls. Ashena manages to craft some truly excellent camouflage for the party to aid in their approach (natural 20 on disguise check) with the help of Akaru. The sun sets and the party begins their approach. Aided by their camouflage and a good bit of luck, the party is able to successfully sneak up to the wall, throw the grappling hook, climb up the grappling hook and balance on the narrow ledge on the other side of the wall. All without being spotted.

On the ledge, the party needs to act quickly. It's tough to balance and they'll be spotted very soon unless they can take out the guards all in one go. Skara shoots one of the guards but misses his first shot and is unable to take him down. Akaru follows up the shot, leaping across the gap to the walkway the bandits use and cutting the wounded bandit low, activating murderous insight with a Ki point to ensure a hit. The attack is a critical hit and it activates Akaru's Brutal Strikes.

One of the other bandits raises the alarm and takes a shot at Ashena, narrowly missing her. His arrow is returned to him by Skara though, who scores a nasty critical hit and follows up with a second shot against one of the more distant bandits, badly wounding him as well. Akaru charges one of the original four bandits, laying into him with Momentum Crush and cleaving him in half. Ashena then nimbly jumps down to the ground and blesses herself and Skara with her divine magic. The last remaining watch bandit attempts to shoot Akaru but misses.

Shortly thereafter, three more bandits stumble out of one of the buildings and into the courtyard, along with one of the largest humans the party has every seen (hereafter referred to as Auchs). Skara drops down from the wall with a successful acrobatics check and kills one of the bandits just as they arrive. He fires a second shot as well, but it goes wide. Auchs crosses the courtyard and into cover from Skara's arrows, he begins banging frantically on the door to the room underneath that watchtower. Akaru charges and kills (with another nasty critical) the last of the bandits on the watchtower and activates his Combat Precognition. Ashena activates her Warsighted ability to gain Military Training, then covers the field in a blanket of cold mist. One of the three bandits that joined the battle runs into the largest building and disappears from view, while a different bandit sets up on the edge of the mist and readies himself for anyone coming out.

The bandit who disappeared returns shortly with another unusual looking fellow, this one dressed in garishly cut black finery and wielding a slender rapier (this is Dovan from Nisroch, the party never learned his name but I don't care if you know it). He's joined by two more bandits (not including the returned bandit) one of which Akaru identifies as Falgrim Sneeg (the target of a bounty from Kesten Garess). Dovan moves away from the building he came out of and into the center of the other bandits, which proved his undoing. Skara shoots one of the bandits and wounding him, while Akaru leaps down from on high, executing three flips and slashing through Dovan with a critical blow. Dovan, also a martial initiator, attempts to slip by the attack but his feint fails and he's cut down and left bleeding out before being able to do anything cool. Ashena moves to the edge of her obscuring mist, and nearly eats a readied attack for doing so but is able to dodge out of the way. She counter attacks the offending bandit and crushes his skull with her morningstar. One of the banits attempts to attack Ashena but he fails to hit her as well, while the last bandit tries to charge Akaru but is nimbly dodged.

The door that Auchs is banging on finally opens, and reveals a hooded woman. Looking around the courtyard and seeing the attackers, she gasps, pulls back her hood and reveals herself to be a young female tiefling. She immediately draws her daggers, and turns on Auchs, leaving him dumbfounded as he tries to fend her off.

Suddenly, it's made clear why all the bandits kept away from the doorway of the main building. The wall bursts open as an owlbear tears its way out and enters the fray. Skara fires at the owlbear using his best maneuvers, Sudden Gust and Horizon Wind Lancet to deal a significant blow to the fearsome creature. Falgrim Sneeg tries to flank Akaru with the help of another bandit, but Akaru's incredible footwork (thanks to circular stance) keeps them from gaining the edge necessary to land a hit. Akaru slaughters the other bandit with a critical hit from Resonance Strike dealing 32 damage with a bonus 19 force damage. Ashena tries to bite and smash the bandit she's engaged with but fails to land a blow. Fortunately, the bandit is unable to successfully strike Ashena either. The owlbear charges Skara and hits him with a claw, pulling the unfortunate archer into a deadly grapple.

Spoiler: DM's Notes

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So I forgot to roll the Sleight of Hand Check to trip the Owlbear when Skara used Sudden Gust, and as a result he ended up grappled.

Note to self: always remember to roll your Sleight of Hand Checks!

Skara's getting grappled could not have come at a worse time, as the Stag Lord comes roaring out of his room, a bottle in one hand and a longbow in the other. He drains the bottle in one swig, smashes it on the ground and joins the fight. Ilisse tries to break combat from Auchs to help the rest of the Tieflings. Skara is able to escape the grapple he's in and steps back to get some distance between himself and the owlbear. The Stag Lord unleashes a mighty shot from his bow that nearly sends Akaru stumbling backwards (Solar Lance) and deals a significant chunk of damage to the tiefling. Akaru is quick to return the offense double though, critting with Rising Zenith Strike on the Stag Lord and doing almost half his health in damage. Ashena engages the owlbear in combat, biting and striking it with her morningstar. One of the bandits manages to wound Ilisse.

Ilisse kills the bandit who wounded her and Skara shoots twice at the owlbear, but only manages to land one shot. The Stag Lord drops his bow and draws a longsword too quick for Akaru to stop him. The Stag Lord attacks Akaru twice, but fails to land a blow. Falgrim Sneeg moves in to flank Akaru with the Stag Lord and tries to attack Akaru but fails. Akaru's attacks prove much more accurate, landing a powerful bite and a sword slash and refreshing his Murderous Insight. Ashena heals herself with Lay on Hands and then channels energy to heal herself, Ilisse and Skara, excluding the owlbear from the healing. The owlbear then attacks Ashena in the grapple, dealing a critical hit that takes away most of what she healed.

Ilisse finally kills Auchs with a dagger to the throat. Skara imparts another two arrows into the owlbear, trying to bring it down before it can eat Ashena. The Stag Lord full attacks Akaru, who tries to counter with Sanguine Barrier but the Stag Lord proves too strong to block his attack. Sneeg tries again to strike Akaru but fails. Akaru refreshes his Combat Precognition and full attacks the Stag Lord. He clamps down on the Stag Lord's arm as he unleashes a powerful swing that cuts the Stag Lord's head from his shoulders. At the same time, Ashena tears into the owlbear with a fury, her tiefling fangs clamping down on the beast's throat and causing it to bleed out.

Falgrim Sneeg immediately surrenders to the party, who are glad that they don't have to kill him and take the lesser reward. Akaru knocks Sneeg unconscious as Ilisse walks over and introduces herself to the party. She explains that while she's wandered the world and done things she's not proud of, she could never turn her back on fellow Tieflings and seeing the party engaged in combat with the bandits she decided to side with them. She then proceeds to expertly tie up the unconscious Falgrim Sneeg as she continues conversing with the party. Ilisse mentions that she is originally from Tian Xia, which is the same place as Akaru and that she learned her martial maneuvers in a monastery in Tianjing. Akaru recognizes the name Tianjing as a region almost entirely populated by Aasimar, where Tieflings would never be welcome.

Ilisse confirms the existence of a creepy old man who lives in the basement and who serves the Stag Lord. The party along with Ilisse ventures into the basement, but they don't find anyone there. The party hears a loud scream as a naked man drops from the ceiling and immediately grapples Ashena, who promptly wets herself with fear. Skara buries two arrows in the man's side as Ilisse trips him and slips a dagger under his falling back, killing him in one blow. The rest of the party is impressed. They begin collecting and cataloging the bandits' spoils, which total 6850 gp in mundane goods, 1992 gp in coins, and 2,900 gp in jewels.

The party now only has a few minor things left to do in The Stolen Lands AP, and this is where we end for the night. This fight totaled 2,115 XP per PC, not too shabby.

Spoiler: DM's Notes- Rebuilding Characters

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Auchs and Dovan were unchanged except that I gave both of them a few maneuvers to use in combat, not that it ever came up. I expected the party to try and take out Auchs and secure Ilisse's help earlier in the fight, but they didn't and ultimately it didn't matter much.

Ilisse is my replacement for Akiros Ismort, who I just don't like very much. She's meant to be run pretty straightforward. I had her mostly engaging Auchs in cinematic fashion until either the Stag Lord joined the fight or one of the PCs helped her kill Auchs.

The Stag Lord I rebuilt as a Warlord 8. I focused mostly on ranged attacks with him, but gave a few Primal Fury maneuvers to give him some edge in Melee. I used the same build rules for him that I used for the PCs (25 pt buy and Max HP) something I'll probably continue doing for bosses from here on. Tactically, he should have been attacking mostly from range, but since C closed with him so quickly I opted to have him fight in melee. Unfortunately, his build was lacking in non-charge maneuvers. C managed to inadvertently (I think) hit all the conditions necessary to shut him down, by engaging him in melee and backing him into a corner where he couldn't get room to move for a charge. Since the Stag Lord's Helm is pretty useless for him after the rebuild, I'm going to have to update it at some point.

The Owlbear was also given maximum health, and I ran it such that it always targeted the last person to attack it. It just so happens that was pretty much the same person every time.

This was my first real attempt at using initiating enemies, and I think it went well. I still think the trick is to avoid the highest damage maneuvers there are in favor of counters, boosts and lower level strikes, but despite tactical errors on my part and a great deal of luck for my party, the fight went well and everyone got a chance to be awesome (except the bandit grunts).

We've got another session planned next week but it will mostly consist of discussing what changes we want to make to the Kingdom building rules. I'll post the journal for that session too, so stay tuned for bad math and incomplete homebrew!

[Elricaltovilla]

Session 9
In which our party adds "Prussia" to the list of European Country Expies in Golarion

This actually covers two sessions, although one of them was strictly a 3 hour long argument of trying to figure out what we were going to do with kingdom building rules since we all agreed that the kingdom building rules in Kingmaker and Ultimate Campaign suck.

This is what we ended up using. It's mostly complete, although it lacks Mass Combat rules (I'll get to them eventually). We tested out the system a bit before closing up for the night, but I asked J and C if we could reset the counter on that so that I could have more time to polish things a bit and make some final adjustments. The document is still live, and I'll be adding to it as the campaign goes on.

The actual next session covers about 8 months of kingdom building, in addition to a 3 or so month break during which time, everyone bought +1 Mithral armor of some sort, +1 weapons, a handy haversack for the group and barding for the Felhangst. The reward for slaying the Stag Lord, along with the sale of goods from the Stag Lord's keep paid for the majority of these items, leaving the party with a little over 1,000 GP.

The party did level, and they've gained a significant amount of power. Ashena took her first level of warlord, Skara learned Tempest Gale Stance and focused his martial style on the discipline, and Akaru began experimenting with Primal Fury Stance in addition to Scarlet Throne and Veiled Moon maneuvers.

About 3 months later, the party received a new charter from the city of Restov, along with a large amount of raw goods and colonists. Their job is now to found and expand a colony in the Greenbelt to increase Restov's holdings and to help bring order to the stolen lands. This amounts to 50 BP worth of starting funds for the kingdom, and places Akaru, Ashena and Skara in positions of power within the new colony (may the gods have mercy on us all). The party decides to build their starting village in the ruins of the Stag Lord's Keep, which nets them an extra +1 to Economy, Stability and Loyalty due to its excellent position and safety. Thus begins the founding of the country of Teufelheim.

The first thing the party does, is decide on their governmental positions and recruit some NPCs to join the government. Skara becomes the kingdom's Justicar, in charge of ruling on the laws of the kingdom. Ashena becomes the kingdom's Councilor, who will advise the goverment on the will of its people. Akaru takes over the position of Spymaster, whose influence can be used to enhance any number of aspects of the kingdom.

The party then discusses adding other people to their government. And things get a little bit racist. All of a sudden, the relationships that the party has been building with Oleg, Svetlana, Jhod, and the others mean nothing because they aren't Tieflings. Instead, Ilisse, whom the party has known for only three months (and only for one game session) is offered the position of Royal Enforcer. The only other person they recruit is Kesten Garess, to whom they offer the position of Warden. He accepts as well after a good diplomacy roll and the promise of being allowed to design his own hat.

Spoiler: DM's Notes

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It's probably apparent above, but I was really surprised by the party's complete dismissal of any non-tiefling characters for positions of leadership. When your players response to "Why not recruit Oleg to be treasurer?" is "Well he's not a tiefling, so I don't want him touching our gold." There really isn't any other way to react.

There isn't an issue of confusion about how tieflings work in Golarion. The whole party knows, both in character and out, that tieflings don't breed true and that they can crop up in any population at almost any time. I may have to make adjustments to that in order to better accommodate the players, but it was definitely surprising to see this sudden turn of opinion.

With that, allow me to introduce the newly founded "nation" of Teufelheim, a small, scrappy country serving as a vassal state of Brevoy. For now...

Spoiler: TEUFELHEIM

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Capitol City: Wahrengaard

Teufelheim is a vassal city state of Brevoy established as a colony in the Greenbelt region of the Stolen Lands. Founded by three tieflings, Teufelheim has stated an intended goal of being a refuge and promised home for tieflings everywhere. The fledgeling state is ruled by the Triumvirate, with other members of the government filling the lower house.

Triumvirate: Councilor Ashena, Justicar Skara Windbane and Spymaster Akaru

Lower House: Royal Enforcer Ilisse, Warden Kesten Garess

Population: Mostly composed of humans, a few dwarfs and elves, not many tieflings.

Kingdom Turn 1
Teufelheim begins rapidly expanding its holdings outside its first city of Wahrengaard, claiming nearby land for resources and rapidly increasing the size of its capital city. The first month sees the country invest much of its resources into growing the economy, and growing the kingdom. Akaru focuses his efforts on increasing the size of Wahrengaard, while Ashena and Skara claim nearby lands to feed their growing population. Nothing of enough note to warrant the government's attention happens during this first month, which is a lucky break. The kingdom ends the month with 40 BP saved up.

Kingdom Turn 2
With a larger town and more labor to put to tasks, Teufelheim's government decides to increase their focus on economic growth, while their spymaster focuses his efforts on ensuring the people trust the government. Akaru and Skara work on increasing the defense of the Wahrengaard, while Ashena claims another hex to serve as a source for resources. During construction on the town's defenses, they discover ruins of the old Taldan city that the Stag Lord's Fort used to be part of. This historic discovery raises national pride and brings in some wealth to add to the kingdom's coffers. The kingdom ends the month with 41 BP saved up.

Spoiler: DM's Notes- Why I hate this AP

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Out of Character there's some discussion about which hex the party should claim for resources. J wanted to claim a hex that they'd explored before during "The Stolen Lands" that, in "The Stolen Lands," is marked as empty. In "Rivers Run Red" however, there's a nest of Wargs there, and it's supposed to be explored by the party in "Rivers Run Red." Only, NOWHERE in "Stolen Lands" is this stated explicitly or implicitly, the authors apparently just assume that you would know what happens in the next part of the AP and thus railroad your party so they don't go past the invisible lines the authors never tell you about.

So J and I had to have a talk about what to do with the hex. I ended up moving the events in the hexes they explored already to different hexes, and J picked a more northern hex to serve as the new resource hex.

In short, read ahead.

Kingdom Turn 3
Still focusing on Economic growth, Teufelheim continues to be a surprisingly productive little colony. That is, until a monster on the loose starts rampaging through their lands, destroying one of their farming towns and causing the people to worry. The party is quick to act though, and they immediately set out to slay the beast. Akaru leads the party in hunting down the monster, a Bulette that is tearing its way through their territory.

The party engages the beast with Ashena readying herself for battle while Skara gets an early shot in with Sudden Gust and Horizon Wind Lancet (barely). The Bulette charges Akaru, but he dodges the attack with Sanguine Barrier. Akaru then hits the monster for almost half its hit points in damage with Rising Zenith Strike. Ashena takes an attack of opportunity for a good chunk of damage in order to move into position to flank. She uses Circling the Prey to help the party get into better position, and hits the bulette with Silver Knight's Blade healing herself back to full and slaying the monster.

Skara and Ashena use their kingdom actions to repair the damage to the hex caused by the monster and to increase their holdings in the area. The kingdom ends the month with 41 BP saved up.

Kingdom Turn 4
Teufelheim continues to prove itself an economic powerhouse, generating significant BP this turn. Thankfully, there's no major events which plague the kingdom. During this time, Akaru helps expand Wyngaard into a legitimate city while Ashena builds a mine thanks to her previous deal with the Sootscale Kobolds (converting the resource hex to a Mine hex) and Skara adds more territory to the kingdom. The Kingdom finishes the month with 25 BP.

Kingdom Turn 5
The growth of Teufelheim means that they now have improved Stability, and the party continues to focus most of their labor efforts on economy. In a terrible twist of irony, a group of adventurers go rampaging through the new country causing massive unrest among the citizens in their quest to acquire a unicorn horn to revive a dead companion (apparently led by an alcoholic dwarf). Akaru uses his kingdom action to see the adventurers on their way, succeeding on the loyalty check to do so. Ashena builds up the defenses of Wahrengaard and Skara adds another resource hex to the kingdom. Ilisse uses her actions as Royal Enforcer to reduce the Unrest in the kingdom by 2. The kingdom finishes the month with 27 BP.

Spoiler: DM's Notes

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The alcoholic dwarf is a reference to another character played by a friend of ours in the game J runs. 6 unrest is low for the kind of problems he (we) causes in that game.

Kingdom Turn 6
With the rapid growth of Wahrengaard, the small country of Teufelheim is able to greatly improve their economic output. Another quiet month goes by, allowing the party to focus on expanding the Kingdom. Akaru establishes a new village, Rhynegaard, on the Shrike River, while Skara increases Wahrengaard's defense and Ashena acquires a new resource hex to expand the kingdom. Ilisse spends her time reducing the kingdom's unrest by two. The kingdom finishes the month with 25 BP.

Kingdom Turn 7
This turn, the government goes all in on Economy. Another group of adventurers tears through the kingdom this turn, though these ones are much higher level. They buy up everything possible in Wahrengaard and create a great deal of unrest in the kingdom. Ilisse reduces this unrest as the Royal Enforcer, while Akaru sends the adventurers on their way with a Loyalty Check. Skara builds a highway to connect Wahrengaard and Rhynegaard, while Ashena increases the size of Wahrengaard. The kingdom finishes the month with 17 BP.

Kingdom Turn 8
The kingdom puts a bit of their labor points into Loyalty and Stability, but the majority still goes into Economy. The party discovers there is a spy loose in the kingdom and wants to engage the spy in an encounter. However it's getting late, so we agree to let the spy go for now and focus on building up the kingdom this turn instead. Akaru builds up Rhynegaard to a small town, while Skara claims a resource hex and Ashena establishes a Mine in the hex where the party found the original gold mine.

8 months in and there's been some rapid expansion for Teufelheim, which now looks like this:

Spoiler: Teufelheim

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All in all, things seem to be going well, and the country hasn't fallen apart yet. Maybe next year some tiefling citizens will start showing up, who knows?

I'd love to get some opinions on the new kingdom rules we're using as well as suggestions for random kingdom events if you have any.

[Swaoeaeieu]

came for the PoW characters, stayed for the cool campaign stories.
Keep it up Elric.

One question, you are the DM and one of the players, is that hard to do since you know what is going to happen next?

[Elricaltovilla]

came for the PoW characters, stayed for the cool campaign stories.
Keep it up Elric.

One question, you are the DM and one of the players, is that hard to do since you know what is going to happen next?

Who said I knew what was happening next?

It's really not that hard to be honest. I haven't read too far ahead into the AP, and I'm really only playing for the combat, which is my favorite part anyway. I'm totally fine taking a backseat until there's a need for Skara to step forward.

[Kol Korran]

Hey Elricaltovilla, I've just read the whole thing. I am interested in how people deal with exploration games, as well as kingdom managing games, for a future game I'm planning to run (Sometime! i have little time as it is... Still, one can hope, no?). This is quite interesting, though I skip over the PoW parts (I've played with ToB only a little, and never with PoW. Looks intriguing though... )

I'm also running a Paizo AP (Wrath of the Righteous), and I came to a similar problem you've mentioned in the last post- there is little continuity between the different modules, a lack of a consistent theme to the campaign, and carrying on of major themes. Basically, since each module is written by a different author, the APs mostly feel like a bunch of very loosely connected adventures, instead of one whole campaign. I highly suggest you read up as much as you can about the campaign, in order to connect, build up, foreshadow and give consistency to the campaign, major themes and NPCs.

I have no idea how your kingdom management rules will add up, since I've never played with such, and The Book keeping makes my head hurts. I do love that you focused on settlements, and threw away the micromanagement of buildings. A few suggestions though:
- In order to give settlements a bit more... flavor, uniqueness, I'd suggest two steps: The first, is that upon building a settlement, and when you expand it, the party allocates the labor points to FIXED roles. So one place gives more to loyalty, one more to stability, and so on. The points cannot be changed easily (maybe they require using BP? Or only 1 per turn?). Encourage the party (Or make it up yourself) how do these investment manifests itself. For example, A town that puts a lot in Economy, and is near a forest, may have a very active lumbering population, One who goes for stability may either have some army present, a famous military academy, or just good beer and brothels! I suggest giving a slight bonus to places that specialize (Say, if a place spends half of it's labor points on one endeavor, it gets a +1 to that or so. Don't get me on the actual numbers). This will encourage specialization, and thus give each place more flavor, more importance. Setting the labor points as fixed may seem restrictive, but some restrictions give rise to tougher decisions, and this make for a more interesting game.

- I suggest to enable building SOME buildings in a settlement, but not in lots or such, but rather in abstract- "The Great Cathedral of Big town". I suggest say... 1 building per settlement size? Maybe 2 extra per "city" size? (So it's 1/2/3/5/7/9 buildings per size) I think the benefits could be fairly abstract, but they give a bit more customization, and more importantly- they also add flavor, and a "feel" for a place. Not sure how to stat their benefits, these gave me a headache as well, but I'll drop a LOT of the Paizo buildings, and focus on 10-15 major ones. (Fort, Great market, Temple, Library, and so on)

- About Mass Combat: In the AP I'm playing there is also mass combat in the second module, only... with no hexes, and no management at the kingdom level. Basically just rolling the dice for the clashes of armies. Sucks BIG TIME! So... I've decided to make Mass Combat rules of my own, only for Tactical combat, instead of STRATEGICAL combat. The rules focus on the actual battlefield, using a regular battle grid (Each Square is 100ft), and they worked quite nicely for me. Not perfect, and may need some work, but a good start off if you want to play out the battles themselves with the characters in their armies (Not sure how it's supposed to work in the AP, never read it) You can check this thread.

Lastly, I have to say that the group is quite... bloodthirsty, on the verge of outright sadistic at times. The part with boiling the Shaman? Yikes! They do tend to go and kill nearly everything in their path... Oh well, different groups play differently. Heck, we like ourselves a good battle as well.

Hmmmm.. Come to think about it, 2 suggestions about battle: The first, is try to mix up enemies, 3 groups at least. Yeah, I know you've done so (Wolves with worgs, Mites with ticks, and mostly the last battle). Also, a suggestion I'm not sure if the AP supports- more limited fighting spaces, complex battle scenes, I find that large enclosed places, with many kinds of features/ obstacles/ covers in them make for exciting battles. Open terrain, and square empty rooms do not. Just my 2cc, do with it as you will.

Lastly (For real this time! ) I just wanted to say I quite enjoyed the read, It's interesting and light enough not to exhaust the reader (Unlike my logs! ) And you keep it quite intriguing! Keep up the good work! Time permitting, I will be reading this...

[Elricaltovilla]

Hey Elricaltovilla, I've just read the whole thing. I am interested in how people deal with exploration games, as well as kingdom managing games, for a future game I'm planning to run (Sometime! i have little time as it is... Still, one can hope, no?). This is quite interesting, though I skip over the PoW parts (I've played with ToB only a little, and never with PoW. Looks intriguing though... )

Thanks for taking the time to read it and the very thorough response! I'm one of the writers for PoW:E, so naturally I'm going to include it in my home games. If you liked Tome of Battle, Path of War will probably appeal to you. There's a great deal more variety and material than there was in ToB and I recommend it to a lot of people.

As for exploration, there's a lot of ground to cover and if we were following the rules presented in Kingmaker for exploration it would have taken about 2-3 times as long (in IC terms) to explore the same area. The real issue is that the Exploration rules expect only one encounter per day unless you're dungeon delving, which takes up its own amount of time anyway. I don't like that as it makes it much harder to pressure the party and strongly encourages nova tactics, making encounters even more difficult to balance.

I'm also running a Paizo AP (Wrath of the Righteous), and I came to a similar problem you've mentioned in the last post- there is little continuity between the different modules, a lack of a consistent theme to the campaign, and carrying on of major themes. Basically, since each module is written by a different author, the APs mostly feel like a bunch of very loosely connected adventures, instead of one whole campaign. I highly suggest you read up as much as you can about the campaign, in order to connect, build up, foreshadow and give consistency to the campaign, major themes and NPCs.

I read up on future sections of the AP as much as I can, but they could stand to be a bit more consistent with their continuity. Especially since there are people who start playing the AP as soon as they come out and if the group finishes the AP early or does what my group wanted to do (go beyond the boundaries of the AP) it can cause a lot of issues.

I have no idea how your kingdom management rules will add up, since I've never played with such, and The Book keeping makes my head hurts. I do love that you focused on settlements, and threw away the micromanagement of buildings. A few suggestions though:
- In order to give settlements a bit more... flavor, uniqueness, I'd suggest two steps: The first, is that upon building a settlement, and when you expand it, the party allocates the labor points to FIXED roles. So one place gives more to loyalty, one more to stability, and so on. The points cannot be changed easily (maybe they require using BP? Or only 1 per turn?). Encourage the party (Or make it up yourself) how do these investment manifests itself. For example, A town that puts a lot in Economy, and is near a forest, may have a very active lumbering population, One who goes for stability may either have some army present, a famous military academy, or just good beer and brothels! I suggest giving a slight bonus to places that specialize (Say, if a place spends half of it's labor points on one endeavor, it gets a +1 to that or so. Don't get me on the actual numbers). This will encourage specialization, and thus give each place more flavor, more importance. Setting the labor points as fixed may seem restrictive, but some restrictions give rise to tougher decisions, and this make for a more interesting game.

- I suggest to enable building SOME buildings in a settlement, but not in lots or such, but rather in abstract- "The Great Cathedral of Big town". I suggest say... 1 building per settlement size? Maybe 2 extra per "city" size? (So it's 1/2/3/5/7/9 buildings per size) I think the benefits could be fairly abstract, but they give a bit more customization, and more importantly- they also add flavor, and a "feel" for a place. Not sure how to stat their benefits, these gave me a headache as well, but I'll drop a LOT of the Paizo buildings, and focus on 10-15 major ones. (Fort, Great market, Temple, Library, and so on)

The points offered by the settlements are called labor points for a reason. They're meant to represent the fluid assets generated by the villages, things like goods and services instead of structures and establishments. Making them permanent would be too inflexible for the kind of logistics management ruleset I'm trying to create and would make it extremely difficult to deal with the kingdom events and the rolls that come with them as the kingdom progresses.

I eliminated specific buildings altogether because they were too nitpicky. Adding them back in would run entirely counter to the point of trying to simplify the rules. Any buildings the party wants to have in the towns are going to be strictly roleplay and up to them. Anything else would just be too much for me to keep track of.

- About Mass Combat: In the AP I'm playing there is also mass combat in the second module, only... with no hexes, and no management at the kingdom level. Basically just rolling the dice for the clashes of armies. Sucks BIG TIME! So... I've decided to make Mass Combat rules of my own, only for Tactical combat, instead of STRATEGICAL combat. The rules focus on the actual battlefield, using a regular battle grid (Each Square is 100ft), and they worked quite nicely for me. Not perfect, and may need some work, but a good start off if you want to play out the battles themselves with the characters in their armies (Not sure how it's supposed to work in the AP, never read it) You can check this thread.

I'll take a look at your rules later tonight, thanks for the suggestion!

Lastly, I have to say that the group is quite... bloodthirsty, on the verge of outright sadistic at times. The part with boiling the Shaman? Yikes! They do tend to go and kill nearly everything in their path... Oh well, different groups play differently. Heck, we like ourselves a good battle as well.

The group is playing harsh characters and trying to impose order on an untamed wilderness rife with danger. I'm honestly surprised that more creatures didn't end up dead. They made peace with the Kobolds and even let a few bandits live. Their methods might seem harsh but looking at it through the lens of the game itself, it doesn't surprise me much.

I won't deny that we love combat though.

Hmmmm.. Come to think about it, 2 suggestions about battle: The first, is try to mix up enemies, 3 groups at least. Yeah, I know you've done so (Wolves with worgs, Mites with ticks, and mostly the last battle). Also, a suggestion I'm not sure if the AP supports- more limited fighting spaces, complex battle scenes, I find that large enclosed places, with many kinds of features/ obstacles/ covers in them make for exciting battles. Open terrain, and square empty rooms do not. Just my 2cc, do with it as you will.

A lot of the enemies fought were randomly rolled. When you have to roll for every hex the party explores to see if there's a combat, and the sheer number of hexes they go through, sometimes it's just easier to roll off of a table instead of designing unique encounters for every possible hex. I've customized several encounters but I just don't have the time to do it for all of them.

I didn't go into the terrain of the combats much, but not a single combat has been fought in a featureless white void. The Mites had elevation, difficult terrain and sharp corners. The Worgs and wolves had trees, rocks and other obstacles. The party used the river to pretty good effect in the fight with the Will o' Wisp.

Lastly (For real this time! ) I just wanted to say I quite enjoyed the read, It's interesting and light enough not to exhaust the reader (Unlike my logs! ) And you keep it quite intriguing! Keep up the good work! Time permitting, I will be reading this...

I'm glad you enjoy the campaign journal. I'm still feeling out how much detail is enough. I'm mostly just translating whatever notes I took during the session into complete sentences and then posting it.

[Seerow]

Looking at your kingdom building rules, the cost for leveling up a city seems to be on the low side. 105 BP as far as I can tell will get you from having nothing at all to having a metropolis....and with the ability to shift labor points straight into economy at whim, 105bp will likely be very easy to gain. May be fine for you, but personally I see larger cities as something that takes decades to build up even for an established nation, not something that you can plop down and build in a year or two from nothing.


Oh and regarding the issue with the players exploring a hex that was left off to the next part of the AP: I am pretty sure that boundary was supposed to be laid by the exploration charter from the Swordlords. The Stag Lord's fort is slightly outside of that charter, but all other hexes outside of it the players are expected to ignore for the time being.


Re: Reading ahead: It really does feel really necessary especially with this AP. Heck my personal plan is currently to completely swap around the orders of the modules going 1->2->(interludes drawn from parts 3 and 5)->4->5->(possibly more interludes here)->3->6.

Spoiler: Full Kingmaker Spoilers. Reader beware!

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Basically the current order has you go from forming your own kingdom, to battling an ancient lich who can take over the world, to going back to dealing with petty local politics, then going all in on fighting a Fae Queen who is seeking to steal the stolen land itself.

My order has you start out with founding and stabilizing your kingdom. First set of interudes is getting an invite to the Rushlight tournament and dealing with the centaurs over by Varnhold, and bringing Varnhold into the fold. Then proceed on to dealing with Drelev and Irovetti. After dealing with Irovetti the optional interludes depend entirely on how invested in the whole kingdom/conqueror thing the players are, because at that point they're tough enough to go out conquering the rest of the region at the very least (taking out the River Kingdoms and Brevoy). After they've had their fill of Kingdom stuff, the last two adventures come to the fore, with the players becoming aware of the full scope of Nyrissa's plans right around the same time that Vordakai gets awakened (in this case intentionally by Nyrissa as a distraction), so they get a mix of full on undead invasion and crazy first world blooms going on nearly simultaneously as they pull all of their resources to defend their kingdom against the most epic threats in the adventure path.

[Elricaltovilla]

Looking at your kingdom building rules, the cost for leveling up a city seems to be on the low side. 105 BP as far as I can tell will get you from having nothing at all to having a metropolis....and with the ability to shift labor points straight into economy at whim, 105bp will likely be very easy to gain. May be fine for you, but personally I see larger cities as something that takes decades to build up even for an established nation, not something that you can plop down and build in a year or two from nothing.

It's only 105 BP, but it also requires 10-14 hexes worth of space in order to support itself and in terms of Labor Points is inefficient compared to Small and Large cities.

[Elricaltovilla]

Session 10
In which the fledgling nation of Teufelheim faces its first real threat, and the party learns something new about an ally

Kingdom Turn 9

When last we left the party, they had received word of a spy in the kingdom causing unrest and stealing information about the kingdom. As Ashena and Skara handle the management of the kingdom itself, Akaru sends his little birds to locate the spy and allow the party to eliminate him.

At the start of the month, The kingdom continues to focus the majority of its resources on economy and generates 11 BP. The kingdom's loyalty is in fine form and does not generate unrest. The kingdom's roads are used to ensure that the people are happy and well fed, reducing consumption. No major events plague the kingdom, allowing the party to focus their efforts on finding and eliminating the spy.

Akaru's underlings report that the spy has been found in Wahrengaard (the very capitol of Teufelheim!) in the Gardens of Betrayal. The party leaves the spy behind and goes to the gardens to find the spy. As they are currently out of the city, the party must enter Wahrengaard without getting spotted lest they alert the spy to their presence. Skara manages to sneak in successfully, however neither Ashena nor Akaru are able to make it into the city, as Jhod is waiting at the gates for Ashena having acquired some herbs he thought she might find useful in her new position as government leader. Completely oblivious, Jhod announces as loudly as he can that he knows Ashena and Akaru and their positions in Teufelheim's government. Ashena and Akaru are forced to flee into the city in order to try and hide themselves.

Their cover essentially blown, the party rushes to the Gardens of Betrayal to hopefully find the spy before he flees. Arriving at the garden, the party barely makes it in time. They attempt to sneak again, but as they round a corner they stumble upon the spy talking to Ilisse. Ilisse spots the party and immediately turns to flee. The spy does the same. Ashena chases after Ilisse while Akaru and Skara follow the spy.

Ashena chases down Ilisse and grapples her. Ilisse pleads with Ashena to let go but refuses to explain, stating there isn't time. Ashena decides to trust Ilisse and lets her go. Meanwhile, Akaru and Skara search through the maze in the Gardens of Betrayal in order to find the spy. Skara loses track of the spy but Akaru is able to track him down. The spy throws a mighty fireball that explodes behind Akaru and lights the gardens on fire. The explosion is loud enough for Skara to locate the spy and he turns a corner and fires off a Sudden Gust, dealing damage and knocking the spy to the ground. Akaru steps up to the prone spy and hits him with a nonlethal Rising Zenith Strike, knocking the spy unconcious.

Ashena arrives and immediately begins helping Skara put out the fires in the Garden of Betrayal. Akaru binds the spy and gags him at Ashena's suggestion, then takes him to the Wahrengaard jail. Once the fires are out (thanks to liberal use of create water and the timely arrival of the townsfolk) Ashena and Skara meet Akaru at the jail. Ashena strips the spy of all his equipment, which contains six scrolls, two wands, a spell book, spell component pouch and 20 gp. Satisfied that the spy is suitably disarmed, the party revives him from unconsciousness.

Revived and ungagged, the party asks the spy what his mission was in Teufelheim.

“The light of the lords of heaven shines down upon me and though your touch is unclean and your souls impure I shall remain righteous. Know that all before you shall burn under the wrath of the lords of heaven and the hosts on high and you shall pay for the sins of your fathers and their fathers and their fathers.” he replies. Having said this, he immediately bites through his tongue in order to commit suicide. Ashena and Akaru work together to heal him, getting him stabilized and cauterizing the wound.

Akaru strongly suggests that Ashena should probably leave, so she goes to find Ilisse in hopes of sorting things out. With the party split, both groups go about their best efforts trying to ascertain just what was going on. Ashena finds Ilisse waiting with Jhod by the gates of Wahrengaard. She picks up the herbs from Jhod and goes with Ilisse to a private room where they can talk.

Spoiler: Ashena and Ilisse

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Ashena and Ilisse go back to Ilisse's house, and Ashena begins making waffles for the two of them. While Ashena cooks, Ilisse explains her history.

"I wasn't born a Tiefling. I'm actually an Aasimar. A long time ago, there was an... event in Tian Xia. Like the worldwound of today. The Celestials of heaven descended in person to seal the rift and many of them stayed and intermingled with the local populace, producing a large number of Aasimar descendants who protect the thin barrier to this day. I was raised by a cult of these Aasimar who believed that the reason that this event occurred in the first place was because there was a concentration of 'corruption' in the area, that demonic and other fiendish blood had collected in the people of that region of Tian Xia to such an extent that the very fabric of space was rent by their 'foul blood.'"

At this point, Ashena thinks it might be a good idea to take a closer look at those herbs Jhod brought her in case there's anything to help blunt the edge of this news.

"The cult believed that it was their sacred duty to eliminate Tieflings the world over. They could not be allowed to live, lest they cause another calamity. I was raised and trained to hunt down and kill Tieflings and I was very good at it. But about twenty years ago, I was tracking this tiefling mage and he caught me in a trap. He cursed me with this form, turning me into a tiefling myself. Only now, I don't think of it as a curse."

Ashena serves up the waffles.

"I'm a tiefling and I wouldn't ever go back to my old life. I want you to understand that. But the cult I worked for, they still exist and they are still very powerful. This place, Teufelheim, is their greatest fear come to life. Sevirof, the aasimar I was talking to, was one of my friends when I was still an aasimar. I'd hoped that I could show him the light, help him understand that what he'd been taught was wrong, but I couldn't change his mind."

Ashena asks what Ilisse will do if the Tieflings are forced to kill Sevirof.

"I'm sorry that I couldn't show him how wrong he was. It would be better in the end though, that way he can't hurt anyone else."

Spoiler: Akaru, Skara and the Spy

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As the spy is unable to speak, Akaru and Skara decide to tie him to a chair and free one of his hands so that he can write his responses to their questions.

Akaru asks the spy what he was doing in Teufelheim, promising leniency if he talks.

In celestial, the spy writes "believe not the tongue of the serpent."

Akaru repeats the question and the spy responds by writing "the corruption of the unclean cannot be hidden behind any veil."

Akaru continues to question the spy, who writes "Trust not the legions of hell, they fraternize with the enemy."

Akaru asks the spy if he wants to walk out of Teufelheim or if he'd rather be put to death right now. "The gates of heaven are always open to the martyr."

Frustrated by his inability to read celestial and Akaru's neglecting to read it for him, Skara decides to speed things along by removing one of the spy's fingernails. He asks the spy what his purpose is in Teufelheim. "We defend the world by purging the unclean."

Akaru fills Skara in on what's been written so far, and asks the spy if he plans to destroy Teufelheim. "The house of the devils is the gate to hell."

Skara and Akaru laugh about this, and Skara asks the spy what he plans to do about it. "There will be blood and there will be fire, and in the wake of heaven’s wrath the world will be made clean again."

Skara and Akaru ask one final question. "If we kill you, will they know and will more like you come?"

The spy responds for the first time in common. "Yes." and Akaru coup de graces him.

Skara and Akaru join Ilisse and Ashena at Ilisse's house, where she fills the other two tieflings in on her story. She promises that she won't keep any of this secret any more and pass on any information she discovers to Akaru.

Spoiler: DM's Notes

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This is (obviously) the opening of Ilisse's story. There are two major things tying the party together, the first is their heritage. All of them are tieflings with the goal of creating a place for tieflings in the world. It's such a great hook and I really want to explore it with the party and I know that J and C are interested in doing so as well.

The other major tie the party has to each other is their past. All three lived in the house of the same Cheliaxan lord, and all three were there when he was assassinated. As such, exploring the party's relationship to Cheliax is also going to be important. But that will likely wait til later.

If you aren't familiar with Golarion and want to know why Cheliax in particular is important, here's a link to read up on it.

Kingdom Turn 10

The next month, the kingdom of Teufelheim generates 12 BP in resources. With no issues in loyalty the country is able to move forward. Skara spends his action to resolve the kingdom event, while Ashena and Akaru increase the defense of the newest settlement Rhynegaard.

This month the party engages in one of the Kingdom Events detailed in the Kingmaker AP. Two villagers have been killed over the last two nights, one a maid at a local inn, the other a shepherd along with his entire flock of sheep. There are whispers of wolves and wargs among the citizens and they demand that the government take action.

The party begins investigating the issue, they interview townsfolk, investigate the scenes of murder and perform autopsies. After an exhaustive CSI: Golarion investigation, the party concludes that the likely culprit was a werewolf and that the most likely suspect is the out-of-towner barbarian named Kundal staying at the inn where the dead woman worked. Investigating his room turns up damning evidence in the form of a severed ear with an earring easily identifiable as belonging to the slain maid.

The party sets up a trap for the werewolf, with Ashena posing as bait. The werewolf ambushes Ashena and delivers a nasty bite, fortunately she does not seem affected by the curse. She and Skara both attack the beast, but it is Akaru with a combined Momentum Crash and Rising Zenith Strike that knocks the beast unconscious. The unconscious wolf returns to his human form, which the party takes to jail to deal with later.

Spoiler: DM's Notes: Rant Edition

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Yet another glorious error rears its head in this story event. The party is supposed to recieve extra XP if they manage to cure Kundal of his Lycanthropy. Here's a link to the cures for lycanthropy for the curious. But I'll TL;DR it for you: There is no RAW way to cure Lycanthropy without being at least 12th level.

Great Job. If anyone finds an alternative ruleset that makes sense for a group of APL appropriate characters to cure someone's lycanthropy, let me know.

Unable to really do anything to help the poor sod Kundal and unwilling to put him to death without determining his true nature, the party instead leaves him in jail until they can find a solution.

Kingdom Turn 11
The kingdom continues to thrive, expanding territory and proving to have a very happy and successful populace. This month, Ashena founds a new village, Jaegergaard, in the ruins of the Erastilian temple that the party had found when first exploring the Greenbelt. During construction of this new town, the party uncovers an ancient mural of Erastil, one which predates even the temple ruins they'd found. This event grants the kingdom more BP and additional loyalty on the following turn. Skara and Akaru work on building roads to connect the three towns of their kingdom together, ensuring strong trade and stability in the future.

Kingdom Turn 12
With the addition of Jaegergaard's resources, the kingdom generates 13 BP this turn. The kingdom's loyalty remains strong, however there is a call for major political chage. Apparently some people are dissatisfied with the current regime and demand that the government change out someone currently in a position of power. Not wanting to throw any allies under the bus, the party opts to attempt a loyalty check to overcome the political upheaval instead. However, the roll is unsuccessful and the kingdom generates 6 unrest. The party spends their actions improving all three of their towns. Skara increases Wahrengaard to a Large City, Akaru increases Rhynegaard to a Large Town and Ashena upgrades Jaegergaard's defense by 1. This leaves the kingdom with only 1 BP at the end of the month.

Kingdom Turn 13
A whole year has gone by without Teufelheim collapsing in on itself, a mighty achievement. The country proves to be an economic powerhouse, generating another 13 BP this turn. A group of Adventurers (minor) are busy causing trouble, but the party succeeds on a loyalty check to remove them, although they cause 3 Unrest, which Ilisse decreases by 2, leaving the total unrest at 7. Ashena upgrades Jaegergaard to a Small Town while Akaru resolves the issue with the adventurers. Skara upgrades Jaegergaard's defense, putting it at its maximum value. The kingdom finishes the turn with 4 BP.

The first year of running a kingdom goes pretty smoothly over all. The party plans to begin adventuring again, looking to expand Teufelheim's territory and influence south as well as north. We'll see how that goes next session though. Overall, the party manages to net 933 XP per person, and a nice lump of magical treasure this session. But danger looms on the horizon, as it's been made apparent that there are people who really don't want to see a Tiefling homeland, although only time will tell if their fears are correct or not.

Spoiler: DM's Notes: Final Thoughts

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This session went really well. I got to introduce my first homebrew side story, and the players seemed to really like it. We're all eager to get back to exploring though, and that will probably start up again next session. Hopefully I can work out some stuff to fix a few of the hiccups I'm seeing so far.

What I really need are more random kingdom events. If anyone has any suggestions I'm all ears!

Spoiler: Teufelheim Map

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[Kol Korran]

Hey, I liked how you played out the Aasimar spy. THis felt quite a bit like a fanatical spy. Good build up!

About the Lycanthropy, there is an alternative method:

Originally by the PFSRD, Lycanthropy page:
A remove disease or heal spell cast by a cleric of 12th level or higher cures the affliction, provided the character receives the spell within 3 days of the infecting lycanthrope's attack. Alternatively, consuming a dose of wolfsbane gives an afflicted lycanthrope a new Fortitude save to recover from lycanthropy.

So they could eat wolfsbane, which is another term for Belladonna (A poisonous plant, you can find it under poisons if I'm not mistaken)

About some more random kingdom events, here are some ideas. I don't know how to fully translate these into game mechanics, not knowing the kingdom rules much, but I'll leave that up to you.

- Delegation: A country sends out a small delegation, though it may be informal (A noble on a trip/ tour or such). The party may try to deal with them, which can improve (Or worsen) relations between the people. Played as a social encounter.

- Plague: A disease (85% natural, 15% unnatural) Plagues one of the settlements (Decide at random). The settlement produces only half the labor points. At the end of the turn the settlement had 20-50% to overcome the plague (Depends on the plague), The nation can expend BPs to raise the chance, by 5% per 1BP. If the plague isn't stopped, a nearby town has a cumulative 10% per turn to have the plague spred into it as well.

- Sabotage: 1-2 of the party's efforts/ actions (Claim a hex and such) get sabotaged, and doesn't occur, though the BPs have been expanded. Investigations may reveal the efforts of a rival country, a displeased sect in the population, an act of terror or more.

- Magical phenomena: a strange phenomena occurs, usually affecting 2-4 squares- strange passage of time, a portal appears to who knows where, some elemental appear randomly, strange lights in the sky, making for harder navigation and so on. The party needs to deal with this or it may cause various affects, from unrest to making the hex unusable. Roll 1d12, on a roll of 11 or12 the effect is permanent. 1-10 however signify the number of kingdom turns the effect last.

- Seasonal effects:
Summer- Dry fires: 1-6 hexes become unusable. for 1 BP per hex the hexes are usable.
Winter- Heavy rain: Crops are ruined, reduce all towns labor points by 2 for 1d4 turns
Spring- Floods: As draught.

- Thieves guild: In one of the major settlements. The party can spend BPs to route it out (security forces/ adventurers) or to let it stay. If it stays, raise unrest by a bit, but the party can use the guild to get bonuses to information in that city.

- The Prophet: A well acclaimed Orcale (Or similar class) Comes into one of the towns, making certain proclamations about the future, or perhaps the norms and handling of the nation. If the prophet is not dealt with, this may cause both unrest and loyalty problems. But killing it outright may cause retaliation from the faith, or from the followers (He may even have quite a few followers in the population)

- Masters' organization: The nation attracted the attention of a certain group of specialists (Rangers, wizards, WoP initiates, and so on) Who seeks to build a place for them in one of the settlements. Building a suitable facility is expensive (10+ BPs) but their presence offer help of the people, as well as increased stability, and possibly special resources (Like special units for an army or such). The organization will wait 1d4 months to see if the nation help them build the facility. If not they deem the place unsuitable, and move on.

- Can we join? An unknown village of some humanoids or such (Preferably of a rare race) offers to join! Their village is 2-3 hexes away from the border. but they could function for 1d4 turns on their own till joined. The race may offer special possibilities, but many in the populace may not easily accept them, and this may cause unrest and/ or problems with stability.

Might think of more later on. I suggested general ideas, but if you're looking for more specific ideas (Such as the one with the werefwolf) I'll try to think of something later on.

[Elricaltovilla]

Session 11
In which the Kingdom of Teufelheim explores diplomatic relationships, and the party explores barbarian tombs.

Kingdom Turn 14

The Kingdom of Teufelheim continues to expand, generating 15 BP this month. The first official foreign dignitary arrives, a priest of Razmir, who comes bearing gifts and goodwill towards the fledgling kingdom. The party opts to roleplay this kingdom event, with Ashena taking lead of the negotiations. Skara is already very familiar with the kingdom of Razmiran and the worship of Razmir (nat 20 on K. Religion check). The razmiran priest brings a gift of a ring of protection +2 as a token of Razmir's goodwill. Ashena's diplomatic skills are impressive (diplomacy checks of 28 and 29) and the Triumvirate agrees to allow the worship of Razmir within the borders of Teufelheim. Satisfied, the priest leaves and a wave of traders and goods arrive from Razmir, generating an additional 6 BP this turn.

Skara and Akaru spend their kingdom actions adding two more resource hexes to the kingdom, moving northwards with the intent of establishing a new town where Oleg's trading post is located. The kingdom ends its turn with 19 BP.

There was also some question of how many Qlippoth-Spawn tieflings were currently in Teufelheim. One d10 later and there are 10 Qlippoth Spawn tieflings who have emigrated to the new Tiefling homeland.

Kingdom Turn 15

Teufelheim generates 13 BP this turn, and increases their bonus to loyalty as well. The kingdom event this month is a festival, which increases the loyalty of the kingdom by 4 during the next month. As suggested by J, the festival is thrown by the priests of Razmir, a celebration of the goodwill between their two kingdoms.

Skara establishes a new village where Oleg's Trading Post is located, naming the town Olegolambgaard. Ashena and Akaru work to establish roads which will connect Jaegergaard and Rhynegaard to Olegolambgaard. The kingdom ends this turn with 23 BP.

Kingdom Turn 16

Teufelheim generates 16 BP this turn. A celestial omen appears in the sky, a fiery red comet with two tails. The event causes 2 unrest in the kingdom but nothing seems to have come of it (yet). Ashena upgrades Jaegergaard to a Large Town, Akaru claims a new resource hex for the kingdom, and Skara upgrades Olegolambgaard to a Small town.

Comfortable with the stability of their kingdom, the party agrees that it is time to return to adventuring. They gather their gear and get ready to head out, planning to explore the southern area surrounding their kingdom and its Capital City, Wahrengaard.

Eploration Day 31

The party explores a hex that they'd technically already explored (remember that bit about it being important to read ahead?). While exploring, they discover a crevice in the side of a hill, which appears to lead to a buried tomb. Ashena attempts to explore inside, but awakens two swarms of bats. With nothing capable of eliminating the bats on hand, the party is forced to flee back to Wahrengaard and gather supplies.

Exploration Day 32

The party returns to the tomb, this time armed with 9 bottles of alchemist fire and a lot of oil to set a trap for the swarms. Ashena draws the bat swarms outside, with her, Akaru and Skara readying actions to throw bottles of alchemist's fire at the swarms when the exit the cave. Akaru lobs a bottle and deals 7 fire damage with the attack, but fails to halt the swarm's advance and it attacks both him and Skara. However, his action does set off the fire trap, catching the swarm on fire. Skara also hits the swarm, dealing 7 damage. The flames lick the swarm dealing an additional 3 damage. The first swarm disperses and the second takes its place.

Ashena activates Encouraging Roar, increasing the attack and damage rolls of her party. Skara and Akaru then put the swarm down with two more bottles of alchemist's fire, dealing 9 and 10 fire damage each. The swarms defeated, Ashena puts out the fire with create water and the party heads inside the Tomb.

Past the entryway, the party comes to a large central chamber off of which split three separate rooms. Skara spots a magical trap in the center of the main room, which Ashena identifies as a magical ray of exhaustion trap. With no way to disarm the trap, the party instead avoids the area around it and heads to the room on their left.

As soon as they approach the entrance to the room, four skeletons fall out of the coffins lining the walls. Their eyes glow with malevolence and they carry rusted scimitars. The skeletons rush the party, one of them tries to attack Ashena but misses. Skara fires off a Solar Sting to block the entryway. Although it won't do any damage, it still creates difficult terrain, preventing the skeletons from charging. Ashena counterattacks the skeleton that tried to hit her, buffing herself with Encouraging Roar and hitting the skeleton for 18 damage, killing it. A second skeleton steps up and takes a swing at Akaru, but misses his attack. Akaru kills the skeleton that tried to hit him with a powerful Resonance Strike, dealing 10 force damage. Skara launches a flaming arrow, courtesy of Horizon Wind Lancet, that kills one of the skeletons. Ashena attempts to attack the final skeleton, but misses with both her hammer and her bite attack. Akaru finishes off the final skeleton with Rising Zenith Strike.

The party takes a moment to rest and recover themselves, then turns to the room that is now behind them. Inside it are six more skeletons, and the battle begins again. Two skeletons move up to the doorway to attack Ashena, but neither lands a blow. A third skeleton steps up immediately behind the others, ready to strike, but is shot and killed by Skara's arrows. Ashena activates her Warsighted class feature to gain the feat Military Training, spends her swift action to perform an Encouraging Roar and attacks one of the skeletons for 18 damage, destroying it. One of the skeletons steps up and tries to attack Akaru, but misses. Akaru uses Scything Strike to take down two skeletons in a single blow, and avoids an attack from a third. Skara unleashes two rapid arrows to put down one of the last skeletons, while ashena smashes the final one with her hammer.

Two rooms down, the party readies themselves to enter the 3rd and final room. There, a lone stone casket awaits them. A series of brief thuds, and the lid of the casket is thrown into the air and smashes apart against the ceiling. A monstrous undead steps out of the casket, carrying a gleaming falchion. The party erupts into action. Ashena charges the undead, but he blocks her attack. The undead returns the attack with a swift blow that Ashena and the others identify as Regal Blade (a Scarlet Throne boost). Akaru spends a swift action to activate murderous insight and then hits with Rising Zenith Strike, critting for 60 damage. The undead tries to counter Akaru's attack with Sanguine Barrier but fails. Skara attacks with Sudden Gust boosted by Eye of the Needle for 20 damage and successfully trips the undead. The monster tries to use his acrobatics to get up without provoking any attacks, but fails and Ashena hits him with her attack of opportunity for 19 damage, killing him.

The party identifies the undead's magical sword as a +2 Feybane Falchion. Akaru is understandably excited by the presence of this weapon and that's about the point where we stop for the night.

Spoiler: Teufelheim Map

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[Seerow]

Out of curiosity, what are you using to make your map?

[Elricaltovilla]

Out of curiosity, what are you using to make your map?

MS Paint. J actually handles the map and just emails it to me after each session. We grabbed the original map from google and just drew hexes and shapes over it.

[Elricaltovilla]

Session 12
In which the players attempt to save time, only for the characters to waste it.

In the previous weeks, J and C approached me with their plan to facilitate our characters' return to adventuring. The plan was to try and knock out a year's worth of expansion and upgrades for Teufelheim in a short time and then spend the rest of the session exploring. That... didn't exactly work out, but hopefully we can use that expansion in the future to justify not messing around with kingdom building. So with that out of the way:

Kingdom Turn 17

Teufelheim continues to be a powerhouse of economic expansion, generating 20 BP this turn. The kingdom receives a delegation of Ulfen from the Land of the Linnorm Kings. Apparently, the fledgeling nation is starting to garner attention from even that far away due to their rather unique heritage, whether this is good or bad remains to be seen. Skara meets with the Ulfen delegates, who leave behind 6 BP worth of gifts to the new kingdom. Meanwhile, Ashena and Akaru work on expanding the kingdom, each claiming a new resource hex.

Kingdom Turn 18

Teufelheim generates another 20 BP this turn. The citizenry, excited at the impressive expansion of their kingdom establish a new village in a land grab, converting a hex adjacent to Jaegergaard into a new village, Kierkegaard, and generating 1 unrest in the kingdom. Skara works on upgrading Olegolambgaard to a larger town, and Ashena does the same for Jaegergaard while Akaru expands Rhynegaard.

Spoiler: DM's Note

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Rather surprisingly to me, J became very upset with the addition of Kierkegaard to Teufelheim's towns. He listed off every possible choice for getting rid of the town, but ultimately ended up doing nothing about it because he didn't want to raise unrest in the kingdom. With what happens later, I'm curious to see how this develops.

In order to determine where the new town would appear, I just rolled a d100 and counted off hexes, skipping over any that already had villages in them, in case you were wondering. It seemed the most efficient way to do things.

Kingdom Turn 19

Teufelheim generates 21 BP this turn, and is visited by international celebrity Brittney Beers who tours through the kingdom, reducing their economic output (due to hangovers) and increasing the kingdom's loyalty next month (again, due to hangovers). Ashena, Akaru and Skara each claim a new resource hex for the kingdom.

Kingdom Turn 20

Teufelheim generates another 21 BP this turn. A call for political change goes up in the kingdom, but with essentially no one but the trio in charge, they elect to ignore the people and generate 5 unrest instead. Ashena and Akaru work to raise the defenses in Olegolambgaard, while Skara claims a new resource hex for the kingdom.

Kingdom Turn 21

Teufelheim generates 21 BP. The kingdom event this turn is a Naughty Necromancer, who is going around raising undead throughout the kingdom. However, Ashena spends her kingdom action to seduce the naughty necromancer, getting a 32 on her diplomacy check (with a nat 20 on the roll). Skara and Akaru spend their kingdom actions claiming new resource hexes for the kingdom.

Kingdom Turn 22

Teufelheim generates 24 BP. Another visiting celebrity comes to Teufelheim this month, apparently the kingdom of devilspawn is becoming something of a tourist attraction. The kingdom gets -2 economy and +4 loyalty for next turn. Ashena claims a new resource hex, while Skara and Akaru each upgrade Olegolambgaard to a larger town.

Spoiler: DM's Notes: Amending Rules

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So, I never intended to allow a town to be upgraded more than once per turn but neglected to clarify that to my players. It's my personal philosophy to allow them to do something like that the first time it comes up, but explain that I won't let it happen again. J and C were understanding and there wasn't an issue, but I thought it worthwhile to address here.

Kingdom Turn 23

Teufelheim generates 27 BP this turn. The kingdom has a festival which improves loyalty by +4 for next turn. Ashena, Akaru and Skara upgrade the defenses of Olegolambgaard, Jaegergaard and Rhynegaard respectively.

Kingdom Turn 24

Teufelheim generates 24 BP this turn. They have their third visiting celebrity this year alone, the country seems surprisingly popular with the famous and fabulous. Probably because the country seems to have a great deal of disposable wealth (or maybe they're all secretly Tieflings). Kingdom Actions are spent upgrading Jaegergaard, Rhynegaard and Olegolambgaard's defenses again.

Kingdom Turn 25

Teufelheim generates 25 BP this turn. Disaster strikes though, as a drought destroys two resource hexes. Ashena and Akaru work to restore those two hexes, while Skara claims a new one to expand the kingdom.

Kingdom Turn 26

Teufelheim generates 27 BP this turn. A new religious movement has swept the nation of Teufleheim though, the church of Torag has suddenly gained a lot of followers in the kingdom. The government decides to support the new religion, allowing them to set up a church in the town of Kierkegaard to be the center of their worship. This results in 1 point of Unrest and 10 BP for the kingdom. Ashena, Akaru and Skara each claim a new resource hex for the kingdom.

Kingdom Turn 27

Teufelheim generates 24 BP this turn. A group of bandits and raiders are assaulting caravans throughout the kingdom though, so Skara leads the party to hunt down and remove the bandits.

The party poses as traveling merchants, and successfully trick the bandits into attacking them. Their trap sprung, the party leaps to action only to have Skara get shot in the face by a nat 20'd arrow (thank goodness it didn't crit). Ashena boosts the party with Encouraging Roar and charges one of the bandits for 23 damage. Skara demonstrates his incredible skill with the bow by... missing twice in a row against the guy that shot him in the face. The bandit that Ashena attacked returns the favor with a Noble Blade boosted attack of his own. The 3rd bandit shoots Akaru for 8 damage, while the 4th attempts to shoot Skara but thankfully misses. Akaru activates Defensive Precognition and hits the offending bandit with Resonance Strike for 17 damage.

The bandit who first shot skara attempts to repeat his feat, only to fail at the second attempt. Ashena decides to switch targets, provoking an attack of opportunity as she disengages from her current opponent to attack one of the archers. The attack of opportunity against her misses, and she attempts to hit the archer bandit with Silver Knight's Blade but misses, she ends her turn by spending a swift action for Defending The Pride to give the party an AC bonus for the round. Skara fires two arrows against the bandit Ashena hit with her charge attack, missing the first shot, but dealing 15 damage with the second, scoring a kill. The bandits engaged with Ashena and Akaru 5 ft. step back and try to shoot them but both miss. Akaru 5 ft. steps into his opponent and tries to kill him with Strike of Defeat but misses.

The only bandit not engaged attempts to shoot Akaru, but fails to land a hit. Ashena attempts a full attack against her opponent, the bite misses, but her hammer hits home for 15 damage. Skara hits the archer bandit for 15 damage from Sudden Gust and successfully trips the bandit. The bandits currently engaged with Ashena and Akaru drop back and exchange their bows for sword and shield, ready to enter melee. Akaru uses Rising Zenith Strike on his opponent, who attempts to counter the attack with Sanguine Barrier but fails. Akaru's attack deals 34 damage, killing the bandit.

The prone bandit stands up and tries to shoot Akaru, but fails to land a hit. Ashena attacks her target and hits for 11 damage. Skara fires two arrows at the remaining archer, dealing 11 damage with the first shot and missing with the second. Akaru finishes off the archer with a charge attack boosted by Momentum Crash. At the start of the next round, Ashena hits the final bandit for 19 damage and kills him. The party loots the corpses, discovering that these bandits were well equipped with masterwork weapons, masterwork full plate and composite longbows.

Skara having spent his kingdom action resolving the bandit crisis, Ashena and Akaru spend their actions upgrading the size and defense of Kierkegaard.

Kingdom Turn 28

The kingdom generates 21 BP. A group of minor adventurers are wreaking havoc through the kingdom, generating 2 Unrest. Skara succeeds on the loyalty check to remove the adventurers, while Ashena upgrades Rhynegaard to a Large City and Akaru does the same for Jaegergaard.

Kingdom Turn 29

Teufelheim generates 26 BP this turn. A group of monstrous boggards are on the loose in the kingdom, but a successful loyalty check from Akaru removes them from the kingdom. Ashena spends her kingdom action upgrading Kierkegaard, and Skara spends his upgrading Olegolambgaard to a large city.

Kingdom Turn 30

Teufelheim generates 24 BP this month. The kingdom enjoys a bountiful harvest, gaining an additional 8 BP (2 for each resource hex above the total consumption of the kingdom). Ashena upgrades Kierkegaard to a Large Town, while Skara builds a road between Kierkegaard and Olegolambgaard. Akaru claims an additional resource hex to expand the kingdom. The party also ends up selling a bunch of stuff, netting them 5757 GP, which they turn around and spend on cloaks of resistance.

Kingdom Turn 31

Teufelheim generates a whopping 31 BP this turn. A group of powerful adventurers buy out the essentially the entire town of Rhynegaard and their antics generate 1 Unrest. Skara makes the loyalty check to remove the adventurers while Ashena and Akaru claim new resource hexes.

Kingdom Turn 32

The kingdom generates 31 BP again. A celestial omen gives the kingdom +2 to stability, loyalty and economy for next month. Ashena and Akaru claim two more resource hexes, while Skara upgrades Wahrengaard to a Metropolis.

The year of kingdom building completed, the party readies themselves to go adventuring again.

Exploration Day 33

The party explores another hex, and stumbles across a quartet of Worgs. Both sides are caught by surprise, but quickly spring into action. Three of the worgs are able to close the distance before the party can react. Two of them attack Akaru for 10 and 9 damage respectively, but neither manages to trip the Stalker. The third charges Ashena and bites her for 9 damage, but again fails to trip. Ashena hits the worg with Silver Knight's Blade for 30 damage and heals Akaru for 19, then activates Defensive Roar to buff the party's defense. Skara shoots one of the worgs that attacked akaru with a Sudden Gust, dealing 20 damage but fails to trip the beast. Akaru activates Defensive Precognition and attempts a Scything Strike to hit the two worgs near him but misses. The last worg charges Ashena and bites her for 8 damage but fails to trip.

The two worgs engaged with Akaru both try to bite him but miss. Ashena boosts the party with Encouraging Roar and full attacks one of the worgs for 17 damage from her hammer and 7 damage from her bite. Skara shoots two of the worgs for 5 damage each. Akaru activates murderous insight, and crits with Rising Zenith Strike for a total of 75 damage.

One of the worgs tries to bite Akaru again, but misses. Ashena charges and hits a worg for 14 damage and a kill. Skara shoots another worg for 9 and 12 damage, eliminating the last of them. The party discovers that the worgs had been digging a hole, which had been marked with their very pungent scent. Ashena digs into the hole and pulls out a small bag containing 5 small, green gemstones.

As it's getting late, this is where we wrap up for the night. The party gained enough experience points to level up. Ashena gains her first level of Battle Templar and Skara gains his first level of Phoenix Champion, while Akaru continues being a Brutal Slayer Stalker.

Spoiler: DM's Notes: Final Thoughts

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Well, it was a good idea to try and knock out the kingdomb building quickly, although it failed in practice. I guess it depends on whether or not we spend the next session exploring or go back to more kingdom building, but we've at least established enough of a base that J won't be paranoid about the kingdom falling apart in the DAYS (days J, days. Seriously.) we'll be gone.

As a player I really prefer to be exploring/dungeon diving, but since I'm also running the game I try to take a back seat on things. Every one has their preferences as players. J very much likes to manage the kingdom, while C tends to be a lot more into the roleplay (with his own little slant on things) and I love me some skull bashing. So far I think we've managed to balance things out pretty well, but I'm eager to advance the story line.

Kingdom Map

Spoiler: Teufelheim

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[Elricaltovilla]

Session 13
In which Tieflings argue with Gnomes

Day 34

Hex 1
The party explores to the West of Teufelheim, looking to consolidate their holdings around the capital city of their thriving, fledgeling kingdom. Exploring the first hex adjacent to their kingdom's Capitol, the party comes across a band of gnomes attempting to rescue a cart and ponies from being dragged down river. While most of the gnomes are doing their best to help, one of them stands on top of a nearby outcropping of rock and shouts confusing and conflicting orders at the other gnomes. This gnome would be Mr. Narthropple (whose first name I can't be bothered to look up at this time), the leader of this Gnomish Expedition. Although Narthropple has seen the party, he doesn't bother asking for their assistance. The gnomes in the river though, are quick to ask for help in between bobbing up and down in the river to try and rescue the cart.

The party springs into action. Their first issue is getting out to the cart, which proves to be little trouble for Akaru, who swims out to the cart and attaches a grappling hook to the cart's rear axle. However, the party is unable to pull the cart out of the water, because the ponies attached to the cart are both weighing it down and struggling against the party. Akaru cuts the ponies loose from their harness, and Ashena attempts a Handle Animal check to get the ponies out of the water, rolling a Natural 20 (this is amusing because Ashena's Player J is a huge brony. Many laughs were had). The ponies are then hitched up to the rope by Skara and used to aid in pulling the cart. The cart is successfully brought to shore and all the gnomes cheer, including one that is slowly bobbing downriver as he jumps up and down to show his excitement. Akaru reluctantly decides to save this gnome.

Having saved the gnomes camping supplies, the party begins talking with them to find out what happened. Narthropple explains that they were ambushed by a group of Kobolds, but managed to fend them off. The party is concerned that the kobolds might be the same tribe that they had allied with before, but it seems unlikely and so they don't mention it to the Gnomes. Instead, they begin asking around for a reward and questioning the gnomes as to what they're doing in the area. In talking to Narthropple, Ashena learns that the expedition is to locate a dwarven ruin in the area of the southern greenbelt. However, over the course of the conversation, Narthropple refuses to reveal the name of the person funding his expedition. This of course sets off both J and C who immediately assume that Narthropple is somehow evil for having signed a contract with a non-disclosure agreement. While Narthropple has a bad attitude, he does offer to sell some locations that he's found in his explorations to the party for 250 GP a piece as a thank you for rescuing his cart. Ashena finds this utterly unacceptable, and all but demands that he hand over the maps for free for saving the gnomes.

While Ashena is talking to Narthropple, Akaru is speaking with the other members of the expedition. Most of the gnomes know basically nothing about the expedition and are working for shares of the expedition's resulting profits. One of the gnomes though, Todd, is a little bit special. Todd likes to collect copper pieces from everywhere he's traveled, and he happily shows off his collection to Akaru, which includes coins from Tian Xia, Numeria, Ustalav, Brevoy, Garund, Taldor and most recently Teufelheim. Todd also has a Cheliaxan copper stuffed in his nose (because he likes the way it smells). One might wonder why someone like Todd is on the expedition, as Akaru was inclined to do, although Todd quickly demonstrated his usefulness by spouting off the exact coordinates of their location as well as the distance from Wahrengaard down to the meter. Unfortunately Todd doesn't know much else of use, save that the gnomes were recently in Cheliax prior to embarking on the expedition.

Over the course of these two conversations, J (and subsequently Ashena) becomes more and more riled by Narthropple's obstinacy and suspicion that he's working for someone in Cheliax. It falls to Skara to once again be the voice of reason and convince the party to simply leave things be. Both Ashena and Akaru are on the verge of a murderous rampage, but the party ends up leaving sans maps and continues East.

Spoiler: DM's Note: Rants

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Feel free to pepper the following with as many expletives as you like. I'm certain you'll come up short.

Spoiler: Rage against the AP

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Expeditions cost money. While the Narthropple Expedition event is meant to basically be a one time thing with an opportunity to recruit Narthropple and acquire some maps, there's no mention of who's actually funding the whole thing. Presumably its Narthropple himself, but considering the high price of his maps, you'd have to assume he's either completely out of touch or has some other money source that he can count on for their value. As such, I gave Narthropple an unnamed (and unnameable) patron, unknowingly to my own detriment.

Which brings me to my next issue. Narthropple has 5 maps for sale. Each map is supposed to be sold for 1,000 GP. You read that correctly, 1,000 GP each. For a map. To places the players are already supposed to be looking for. In an AP that repeatedly states it has no real timetable. And expects the players to explore the whole area anyway. This is beyond stupid. Fortunately, if the players save narthropple's cart and ponies, he drops the price down to only 500 GP per Map. No explanation is given as to why these maps should be so valuable to anyone, let alone the PCs (who are supposed to do this anyway). Which means its up to the GM to figure out why Narthropple is such a deluded ass. Fortunately, I had recently watched Trading Places, so I figured that Narthropple had already brokered a deal to sell the maps for the promised price and coudn't afford to sell them for less without losing the exclusivity of the maps (and thus their value). Naturally, all of this went right over my players' heads, despite explaining it IC and OOC.

Spoiler: Rage against the Players

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If I've learned one thing in my time DMing this game its that players hate being told "No." Especially if its about information. They're nosier than the NSA, FBI and Secret Service combined. The idea that someone would not volunteer information, for any reason, is absolutely infuriating to them. But in the reverse situation? No, players will need to be tortured for days to give up so much as their shoe size. And somehow Narthropple is the ******* for abiding by a business contract.

Some of this can be explained by my players assuming they were in the process of saving lives (and thus deserved a commensurate reward) while from Narthropple's perspective, the PCs saved him a few hundred gold and a day or two's worth of exploration (only the cart was in danger, the gnomes weren't being attacked any more).

In the end, the whole excursion ended up taking way too long for what was supposed to be a funny little side quest, and I'm inclined to place the blame squarely on the PCs for their greed, prying and egocentrism. Like they thought they were the stars of the story or something.

Hex 2
In the next hex to the West of Wahrengaard, the party encounters a standoff between a group of loggers and a Nixie. The leader of the loggers, Crow, greets the party with a profanity laden explanation of the argument he's having with the Nixie. According to him, he and his men were logging in the wilderness when the Nixie charmed his companions and ordered them to fight against him. The nixie, from the safety of her watery demense, says that she asked them not to cut down the trees around her pond and that these old trees deserved better treatment than becoming "some peasant's slop table." The two argue back and forth for a bit before Ashena intervenes and slowly calms them down enough to negotiate. Crow refuses to stop logging in the area unless he can be told of another place to do his cutting, and Skara helpfully mentions a copse of trees further north (This is mentioned specifically in this section of the AP, but not in Book 1 at all. Hurray continuity!). Crow is satisfied with leaving, but not until his men are released from the Nixie's charm spell.

For her part, the Nixie demands that the 5 trees that were felled be replaced, either by Crow or the party's efforts. Crow obviously refuses, which leaves it to the party to resolve. Skara points out that replacing 200 year old trees is likely to be near impossible for the party, and the Nixie helpfully points out that there is a Dryad nearby who might be willing to trade some tree feather tokens for a favor. Ashena is all set to swear an oath to restore the trees, when J trips over his words, saying "I swear to cut down your trees." instead of "I swear to replace your cut down trees." This very nearly sets things back to square one, but some quick diplomacy work (and the fact that I was laughing my butt off over it) saves the day. However, the Nixie will no longer accept an oath from Ashena, since she swore to destroy the trees. J found this news devastating (both in character and out). Eventually, Skara stepped up and swore to see the trees restored, and with that the session ended.

Spoiler: DM's Notes

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Well at least that one went better than the bit with the Gnomes. It was pretty amusing to watch J fumble and stumble to regain his footing with the Nixie after accidentally swearing the wrong oath. He seemed legitimately upset that she refused to accept a new oath from Ashena. But that's what happens when you deal with faeries. He should have listened to Crow.

By the way, what the hell kind of lame name is Crow? I might have it wrong though, I haven't got my PDF to reference right now.

[upho]

First off, thanks for taking the time to document your powah-trippin' trio o' tieflings' adventures in the Green Belt - I find reading it entertaining and interesting, so please don't stop!

Spoiler: A few DM-related comments/questions

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EncountersSo I kind of feel disappointed with the way encounters have been going. In large part I think it's because low level encounters don't have much in the way of tactics, especially since 90% of what the party's fought has been animals. The party is strong. Every player is experienced and we complement each other really well.

I think this is very typical. I DM for a group of five old grognards, some of them working professionally as developers, on top of most of them having played RPGs (especially D&D) regularly for more than 35 years, and most of those years together. So they generally have a high level of system mastery and won't build weak PC's or make poor tactical decisions in combat by mistake. For games with players as experienced as yours and mine, I think the DM guidelines should read:

"Once the PC's have reached 3rd level or so and the worst of fluke rocket-tagging is history, please throw the CR guidelines and level recommendations for AP's out the window and redesign all combat encounters to specifically challenge the PC's you DM for."

This is especially true when having such experienced players in games with a higher optimization ceiling, of course. For example, my players' current 8th level party would completely and utterly steamroll the opposition found in any AP recommended for their level, without any of the PC's ever being seriously challenged, and most of them would (rightfully) even consider solo-fighting most opponents of a CR equal to level laughably trivial (here's a summary of "Morthos", the party's tiefling striker).

I think things will get better when we get a chance to fight humanoid opponents and I can start adding in some Path of War stuff on the DM's Side of things.

They certainly do IME. I usually also have the PC's start at 3rd level, thereby avoiding early level rocket tag (the nasty sort where dead means "make new PC") and allowing me to tailor the opposition a lot more. I tailor virtually all opponents btw, humanoid or not, I think they're typically not tactically interesting and/or challenging enough otherwise.

Also, if your players can live with it, I really recommend throwing the whole xp system out the window (along with the DM guidelines). For more experienced groups I feel it's just a bunch of needlessly complicated math that ultimately just restricts and/or messes up your game. Instead, I personally use "achievements", such as reaching important adventure goals, as cues for level-ups. These are also heavily affected by my players' wishes, meaning we can for example spend more game time in the sweet spot levels (typically about 7th-14th) and can level-up between sessions.

Here's an example of the opposition I made for a more challenging encounter when the party was at 7th level. The total XP for these foes would be at the very least 23,000, or closer to CR 13 according to the guidelines (one CR 11+ BBEG assassin ghost - "Red Death" - and his four CR 6 minions), well above the recommended "epic" APL +3 limit for a party of five PC's. Which of course would result in a ridiculously fast development of the PC's if we used the conventional xp-method. (IME, with full casters - which it thankfully seems neither your or my current party includes - this gets a LOT more ridiculous in higher levels.)

One thing I've noticed though, is that hinting at a possible encounter seems to have a really strong effect. Players seem to get paranoid easily, so adding in description of stuff during watches or having them make perception checks when nothing is there is a great way to build tension. Description is important too, and shouldn't be overlooked.

He he! Yes. Another little "metagame-trick" I've used to great effect is to have all players make for example three Will saves each (once tension starts to build but well before the PC's have found anything dangerous), carefully noting their results and later checking up on them from time to time, sometimes while rolling fake or real opposing checks. Works wonderfully for getting the players spooked and suitably paranoid!

That's part of why I advocate "saving" some encounters. Just because the party rolled a monster while they're out exploring doesn't mean that they need to fight it right away. Change up the timing and the nature of the encounter, and keep the party on edge without actually increasing the encounter rate.

With a few exceptions, I strongly advocate not having any random encounters whatsoever. I think they're typically bland and poorly balanced "filler combat" that don't bring anything interesting to the story. Instead, I recommend throwing whatever opponents at them that would be most fun and fitting (with the environment and situation). If the players are smart, the party might for example get a chance to surprise the foes, but if they're overly confident and let their guards down too much when in potentially dangerous areas, they'll risk walking straight into ambushes. Though I guess random encounters are bit of a "necessary evil" in Kingmaker?

Keep up the good work!

[Elricaltovilla]

Session 14
In which the party causes the spontaneous generation of Aboleths in the Greenbelt

I apologize for being so behind on getting this up, Illness and forgetfulness got in the way of my usual attempts at being punctual.

Day 35
Having gotten the information necessary to locate the Dryad and hopefully finish their oath to restore the lost trees to the Nixie Melianse's pond, the party leaves to go and complete their quest. The party finds the dryad crying at the shore of a small pond. She introduces herself as Tiresia and begs the party for their aid in saving her from a vicious monster known as a Scythe Tree. Naturally, the party (Ashena specifically) immediately rolls to seduce. In any event, the party agrees to help Tiresia, and spend the night resting in her grove before leaving to conquer the Scythe Tree. Ashena is notably upset that Tiresia spends the evening with her Satyr boyfriend instead of Ashena.

Spoiler: DM's Notes: Protip

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Seducing everything you come across is liable to get you a reputation, and just because somebody thinks you're cute that doesn't mean they'll sleep with you.

Day 36
The party heads to the last known location of the Scythe Tree, a vicious plant monster known to favor the flesh of fae and especially Dryads. Searching through the densely wooded area yields no discoveries and the party is nearly ready to leave when they are ambushed by the offending monster. Looking like a withered and burned tree, but with long thick branches that end in razor sharp claws.

The scythe tree seems to appear out of thin air from the trees and ambushes the party, trying to assault Akaru, although it fails to land a single blow. Ashena is the first to react, readying herself and the party by casting bless, using Martial Master to gain the Military Training Feat and the Encouraging Roar boost. The scythe tree tries again to attack Akaru, but fails to land a blow. Akaru activates his Combat Precognition and rushes the scythe tree (provoking an attack of opportunity that misses) and hits it with Garnet Lance Strike for 28 damage. Skara positions himself better and unleashes a full attack of flaming arrows. Although none of the physical damage penetrates the scythe tree, the flames scorch it for 25 damage.

Ashena positions herself to flank the tree and uses Defending the Pride to protect the party. The Scythe tree attempts a whirlwind attack against Ashena and Akaru, but again fails to make a single mark against the party. Akaru attempts to use Strike of Defeat to bring the scythe tree down, but misses. Skara hits the tree with Battering Gale to bull rush it, dealing 19 physical and 5 fire damage, enough to kill the monster and shove it into Ashena who, despite literally being hit with a tree, takes no damage. Bull Rush rules are weird.

In the roots of the Scythe Tree, the party finds three lumps of amber, a magical bundle of cloth that looks like a robe of bones, a silver ring and 65 GP.

The party returns to Tiresia to tell her the good news and she rewards the party with 5 goodberries, 2 potions of cure moderate wounds, a scroll of summon nature’s ally II, a wand of cure light wounds (26 charges), and 6 feather tokens (tree). Tiresia also agrees to help the party monitor their kingdom's borders, granting Teufelheim +2 stability.

Day 36
After resting at Tiresia's grove for the night, the party returns to the Nixie's pond. There, they use the tree feather tokens to restore her lost trees and fulfill their oath. In return, Melianse also agrees to help the party keep an eye on their kingdom, granting Teufelheim an additional +2 stability.

Hex 1
The party returns to exploring the area around the Tuskwater, and so they set off to explore another hex. Their explorations lead them to a hidden pool down a narrow path, which is rumored to be an excellent fishing spot. Exploring the shore of the pond, Ashena discovers a small blue gem pulsing with magic power. This gem is an Elemental Gem (Water), but retrieving it leaves Ashena open to a surprise attack by a legendary monster.

Rumors surround this pond, some saying that it is the nest of a dragon, or a dinosaur or something far more ancient and sinister. The truth is less existentially frightening, though not without its dangers. A very large snapping turtle charges out of the water and bites Ashena, dealing 13 damage to her. Ashena immediately counterattacks, dealing 16 damage, activating Martial Mastery and using Encouraging Roar. Skara then full attacks the turtle, hitting twice for 18 and 14 damage each and killing the beast. It's at this point that J and C both comment on how disappointed they were with the "boss fight" and, insisting that there must be something else going on (because of the rumors) they start poking around looking for something more. Tossing a light enchanted stone into the pond, the party is suprised to discover just how deep it is, with the rock sinking and disappearing from sight before even hitting the bottom. Concerned, the party decides to speak with Melianse the Nixie and see if she has any information.

The party visits the Nixie in her pond, and Melianse confirms that there is a network of tunnels connecting some ponds to the Tuskwater. During the exchange, Melianse ignores everything that Ashena says and only directs her answers to Skara and Akaru (much to J's IC and OOC frustration). She mentions that some of these tunnels smell distinctly of sulfur and slime and that she avoids them. Several knowledge checks later, the party has gathered enough information to suspect that there is in fact an Aboleth living beneath the Tuskwater. Unsure how to proceed, the party tries to convince Melianse to help them, but she can't give the party the ability to breathe underwater and so they're at a loss for how to proceed.

The session ends with the party determined to find a way to hunt down the Aboleth but with no ideas how to acquire the ability to breathe underwater.

Spoiler: DM's Notes

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There's no Aboleths in Kingmaker. But the AP does tell the DM to upsell the danger of Old Crackjaw (the turtle) through the rumors it presents in the back of the PDF. My guess is that Crackjaw is there to provide a new animal companion option for Rangers or Druids with particularly unpleasant DMs, as it mentions specific rules for acquiring the turtle as an Animal Companion. But if your party is lacking one of those classes, the whole thing can end up kind of disappointing.

So while I don't blame J and C for being underwhelmed by Crackjaw, you should always be careful what you wish for.

[Elricaltovilla]

Session 15
In which slimy fish monsters abound

Spoiler: DM's Note: Rewarding RP

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At the start of the session, I told each player to add a free trait to their character: Blood Steed with the change that the steed gained was a combat trained Heavy Horse instead of a Light Horse. This was to represent the Felhangst, the werewolf horses, that the party had gone out of their way to make a "thing."

I told J and C that if they wanted to expand on the Felhangst more, I'd be willing to expand on the free trait provided they were willing to put in the RP and/or class resources. They seemed very interested in the idea, so we'll likely see more of the Felhangst in the future. I'm actually kind of looking forward to it.

I'd like to give a shout out to Forrestfire for showing me this trait, since it fits perfectly for the characters in this game. Thanks for that.

Day 37
We opened this session with a long discussion of how to pursue the alleged aboleth that was haunting the Tuskwater. After discussing the inherent difficulties of fighting underwater, the party concluded that they'd need at least 1 scroll of Water Breathing and 3 scrolls of Freedom of Movement. The next big question was how to pay for said scrolls since the total for them was well above what the party currently had on hand. Skara suggested taking the money from Teufelheim's coffers, since the kingdom had managed to build up a considerable sum of money and they were acting on behalf of the kingdom anyway. Ashena and Akaru agreed it was a good idea, since the longer the Aboleth was left unchecked, the more danger it would pose.

At an exchange rate of 1 BP for 2,000 gold the party needed 3 BP withdrawn from the Treasury. This required a Loyalty check with a DC of 13 (10 + BP removed) or Teufelheim would gain 1d6 Unrest per BP. Thankfully, the kingdom's loyalty modifier was +10 so C (being our "loyalty check guy") only needed to roll a 3 to succeed. I think you can see where this is going: C rolled a 2. Teufelheim's citizens practically rioted, and the kingdom gained 11 unrest in one fell swoop. Teufelheim was in no danger of collapsing yet, although this was the biggest political blow the party had taken to date.

Spoiler: DM's Note

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In the standard rules for Kingdom Building (which I'm not using because they're terrible) the exchange rate for BP to GP is actually 1 BP for 4,000 GP. But because my system tends to generate more BP and does so more quickly, a lower exchange rate is better at keeping greedy players from getting out of hand. Not that my players are greedy (they are, but they know better ), but it does happen.

Armed with their scrolls, our Tiefling Trio travels to the pond where they fought Old Crackjaw. Ashena casts water breathing on the party from the scroll, giving each party member about 4 hours of underwater breathing time. The party descends into the pond, and begins searching for the cave entrance. They find it easily, however Akaru notices that the party is not alone.

A giant crab darts out from behind a large rock. The party manages to react in time, with Akaru and Ashena both readying themselves quickly. Akaru holds his action until after Ashena can cast Freedom of Movement on him. Ashena casts Freedom of Movement from one of the scrolls, and uses her Martial Mastery to gain the Military Training feat. Akaru then charges the Giant Crab, using the boost Momentum Crash, and gets a crit, activating his Brutal Strikes class feature. He also spots a second crab waiting for the opportunity to ambush the party. Skara follows closely behind Akaru and tries to shoot the crab with Sudden Gust and Eye of the Needle to compensate for the terrible, terrible underwater combat rules but he still misses. The first giant crab attempts to attack Akaru with both of its claws but misses both attacks. The second crab charges Skara but rolls a nat 1 and misses.

Ashena casts Freedom of Movement on Skara so that he can start fighting for real. Akaru spends a ki point to activate his combat precognition and then uses Strike of Defeat to try and put down the first giant crab. He only needed a 3 or higher to hit... and rolled a 2. Skara however, fired off a full attack that blasted the first crab for 19 damage and a kill and the second crab took two attacks for 15 and 13 damage respectively. The second crab attempted to full attack Skara, but missed on both attacks.

Ashena finally gets to cast Freedom of Movement on herself, just in time for Akaru to attack the final crab with Garnet Lance which was almost a critical hit. Still 25 damage is enough to kill the crab. The party then checks the crabs and finds that their shells had been decorated with 5 golden rings. Clearly they belonged to someone. The party spots two humanoid shapes fleeing into the tunnel, and decides to follow.

Spoiler: DM's Notes

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I originally wanted to use the stats for That Damn Crab^TM from 3.5 but couldn't be arsed to go look for them before the session, so I used Pathfinder's Giant Crabs and doubled their HP. Oh what could have been. I probably also should have been making grapple checks instead of claw attacks, but I didn't really think about it at the time.

The party chases after the fleeing figures, which Akaru identifies as likely being Skum, a species known for being one of the Aboleth's slave races. Following the Skum, the party comes to a fork in the tunnel. Skara Nat 20's his Knowledge(Dungeoneering) check to track the Skum and the party heads down the right tunnel. The party is walking down the tunnel when Ashena triggers a rockfall trap, she's the only one to suffer damage, taking 5 points. At the end of the tunnel, a cavern opens up and the party finds 7 Skum waiting for them.

The party immediately engages the Skum, who are about 70 ft. up near the top of the cavern. Ashena readies the party by casting bless, gaining the Military Training feat, and 5 ft. stepping into a better position. The first Skum to attack charges Akaru and hits him for 11 damage. Akaru identifies the Skum as using Noble Blade and Raging Hunter Pounce, which means the party is dealing with some serious fighters. A second Skum charges as well, attacking Skara with Noble Blade and Raging Hunter Pounce and dealing 18 damage. Akaru attacks the skum that charged him with Disparity Blow, hitting for 27 damage and tripping the skum, and also activates his Combat Precognition. Skara full attacks the Skum that hit him but only scores one hit for 17 damage. One of the Skum near the top unleashes a lightning bolt at Akaru, but only hits for 4 damage after resistances. A second Skum sorcerer fires a ray of enfeeblement at Ashena for a whopping -9 penalty to her STR for 6 rounds. Three more skum charge in, targeting the weakened Ashena, but none of them succeed in landing an attack.

Ashena full attacks one of the skum that charged her, but only does a measly 6 and 3 damage total. When the tripped initiator Skum tries to stand up, Akaru AoOs him for 19 damage and a kill. Skara fires off a Battering Gale at one of the Skum sorcerers, dealing 24 damage and bull rushing him out of the water, but since gravity is a thing, the skum just falls back down. Both skum sorcerers then try to hit Akaru and Skara each with a ray of enfeeblement, but their attacks miss. Ashena gets attacked by 3 skum again, although this time one of them drops its trident in favor of using its claws instead. None of the attacks land. Akaru then charges one of the offending skum with momentum crash and deals 22 damage for the kill.

Ashena uses Encouraging Roar to boost the party's attack and damage, then 5 ft. steps and full attacks one of the skum, dealing a total of 14 damage. The remaining initiating Skum hits Ashena with a combination of Noble Blade and Rising Zenith Strike for 17 damage. Seeing this, Akaru retaliates with his own Rising Zenith Strike, hitting through an attempted Sanguine Barrier and a kill. Skara shoots one of the Skum sorcerers with Blinding Ray for a no-save Blind that lasts for the next 2 rounds. The blinded Skum is unable to act, and the second sorcerer attempts to cast charm person on Skara but fails to hit because Tieflings are not humanoid (Native outsiders OP, Plz Nerf). The last two Skum flail wildly at akaru and ashena but fail to land any hits.

At the top of the next round, the Aboleth finally appears. Ashena uses channel energy to heal the party for 10 damage and then uses Lay on Hands to heal herself another 14. The Aboleth casts hypnotic pattern on the party, but only Ashena is affected. Akaru spends a Ki point for Murderous Insight and kills one of the Skum with Garnet Lance. Skara full attacks the non-blinded Skum sorcerer, hitting twice for a total of 33 damage. The blinded sorcerer remains unable to act, while one of the remaining melee skum full attacks Akaru but fails utterly.

Ashena remains fascinated by the Hypnotic Pattern and unfortunately Skara joins her after failing his save. The Aboleth attempts to use Dominate Monster on Akaru, but Akaru succeeds on his Will Save. Akaru charges the Aboleth and hits it for 27 damage with Momentum Crash, causing the Aboleth to fail its concentration check to maintain Hypnotic Pattern. Only one of the sorcerers is still alive, but he's blind. The remaining melee skum follows Akaru and attempts to attack him, but misses.

Ashena is still fascinated (as she goes before the Aboleth). The Aboleth swims back a bit and attempts to Dominate Akaru again, but to no avail. Akaru refreshes his Combat Precognition with a ki point, and attacks the Aboleth with Rising Zenith Strike, dealing 36 damage. The Skum sorcerer, no longer blind, casts magic missile on Akaru, hitting for 14 damage. The melee skum continues to be useless.

Ashena, finally able to act, uses Brave Gambit and charges the melee skum, dealing 17 damage and killing it. However, the Aboleth successfully Dominates her, and attempts to retreat a bit. However, this does the Aboleth no good, as Akaru follows it and hits with Strike of Defeat scoring a critical hit and dealing a whopping 85 damage, all but vaporizing the abomination. Skara fires off a Sudden Gust at the last remaining Skum, tripping him and dealing 26 damage. Ashena then hits the sorcerer for 19 damage. Skara finally finishes it off with a full attack, dealing a total of 47 damage.

The cave surrounding the party dissolves, revealing itself to be an illusion, and that the party was in the Tuskwater all along. The party strips the skum and aboleth of their possessions, gathering a nice collection of useful amulets, rings, magic weapons, scrolls and assorted gems and gold.

Spoiler: DM's Notes

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I'd have liked to use the aboleth's abilities to greater effect, with lots of confusing illusions and the like, but it was getting late and things needed wrapping up.

2 of the Skum were based on Serpent Bloodline sorcerers from the d20pfsrd's NPCs. The initiators were Skum with 6 levels of Zweihander Sentinel Warder class features and some maneuvers. The rest were just normal skum that were supposed to prove a distraction. Speaking of initiating monsters, Skill ranks can be a bit tricky to employ. I usually go with a skill check using the monster's highest skill modifier, assuming I'm just adding maneuvers and not building them from the ground up. It's work OK so far.

Low rolls abounded this session, I think it made things more interesting. They definitely got more reaction than the nat 20s, probably because they were usually such close calls.

[Elricaltovilla]

Session 16
In Which the Party Goes to the Mall

This was a very short session, because J forgot his character sheet and had to go back and get it. I'm going to have copies of everyone's character sheets from now on to ensure that doesn't happen again.

At the end of the last session, the party was left swimming in the Tuskwater lake, on the southern border of their kingdom, with no boat and a long swim back to shore, the party has a lot of swimming ahead of them. At least they still have plenty of water breathing left.

The party returns to the Wahrengaard, capital city of Teufelheim to sell their (not so) ill gotten gains and purchase some better equipment. The party discusses the merits of withdrawing more BP from the kingdom fund to supplement their wealth. This led to an out of character discussion about how to proceed with the process of withdrawing BP from the kingdom. Being the munchkins we are, J, C and I quickly hit on all of the possible ways to abuse the system, and eventually settled on a gentleman's agreement not to take things too far. I won't get into the gritty details of it, but the party ended up withdrawing 19 BP from the kingdom, and will have to make the loyalty check at the beginning of their next Kingdom Turn in addition to the normal Loyalty Check. Additional restrictions will likely be put in place to keep things from getting out of hand in the future.

Anyway, the party ended up spending their BP to purchase custom +2 weapons for each character, and a folding boat, all of which will become available to the party after their next kingdom turn. Skara purchased a +1 Darkwood Adaptive Seeking Composite Longbow, Ashena purchased a +1 Adamantine Vicious Earthbreaker and Akaru got a +1 Adamantine Keen Falchion. The party also spent their available 16,000 GP on Bracers of Falcon's Aim for Skara, a Headband of Charisma +2 for Ashena and a Belt of Strength +2 for Akaru, these items (unlike the BP items) were available right away.

Day 38
Newly equipped and refreshed for more exploration, the party travels east and south to continue exploring the Greenbelt. While exploring through a grassy plain of rolling hills, the party is shocked by the scream of a woman. Looking around Akaru and Skara spot a lion peeking over the side of a hill. It ducks back down behind the hill and the party hears the woman screaming again. Although the party passes their will saves to not be forced to approach the source of the screams, they still dismount and follow, concerned that such a dangerous predator is loose in the area.

The party crests the hill, and finds the beast in question, which is not a lion, but instead a Leucrotta, which is an evil beast that mimics voices in order to lure people into traps. As soon as the party spots the beast, it lets out a scream exactly like a woman being attacked and vanishes into thin air.

Spoiler: DM's Notes

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Leucrotta can't actually turn invisible, but I needed to make the fight more interesting and it seemed like an appropriate ability. So I gave it the ability to cast quickened Invisibility 3 times per day.

The ensuing fight was quick and brutal. The Leucrotta charged and bit Skara, dealing 13 damage in the opening act. Akaru reacted with a Charge of his own, modified with Momentum Crash hitting for 30 damage. The Leucrotta immediately counter attacks, scoring a natural 20 but failing to confirm the crit, and dealing 23 damage. Had Akaru succeeded on his Knowledge (Martial) check, he would have recognized the maneuver as Bloody Riposte from Primal Fury. Skara used Sudden Gust to try and trip the Leucrotta, but failed to beat its CMD. Still, he managed to deal 31 damage. Ashena charged the Leucrotta as well, avoiding an attack of opportunity and hitting for 14 damage. It's worth noting that she rolled a 3, but because of the Brave Gambit still managed to break 20 on her total roll. Gambits rock.

After this excessive abuse, the Leucrotta decides better of engaging the party further and turns invisible to retreat. The party is unable to track it, and with no real recourse for following the beast, decide to leave it for now and come back when they're better prepared.

Spoiler: DM's Notes

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It would be mean of me to add a Leucrotta Warlord to the fight with the Initiating Owlbear I keep threatening J and C with, wouldn't it?

As they finish up exploring the hex, the party finds a skeleton, stripped of all its flesh but still wearing a Blue Dragonscale Breastplate and carrying a Heavy Dragonscale Shield. The party collects the equipment and then sets up camp. Since the party had to travel so far to return to their explorations, they decide to rest instead of exploring further. The night is uneventful.

Day 40
Hex1

Exploring yet more grassy plains, the party comes across a band of Kobolds leading a donkey pulling a cart. At a distance, both parties are wary of each other, but the Kobold don't appear to be carrying weapons and as they approach they wave to the tieflings. These Kobolds are surveyors from the Sootscale clan, and they greet the party eagerly although none of the Kobolds present speak anything but Draconic.

Ashena speaks with the Kobolds, and discovers that they are lost and trying to get back to the Sootscale Silver Mine. She shows them the party's maps, but the look of sheer incomprehension on the faces of the Kobolds shows that to be a very poor way to communicate the directions. The party discusses briefly how to proceed. Skara and Akaru work together on a Survival check to come up with the directions (netting a 30) and Ashena makes a Diplomacy check to communicate them effectively (with a 32 for the result). The kobolds thank them by offering the carcass of something unidentifiable and almost certainly inedible for dinner and go on their way.

The party discusses possibly presenting the Dragonhide armor and shield to the Sootscale Chief but aren't familiar enough with Kobold culture to know if that's a good idea or not. The session ends with a brief planning of how to finish out the week of exploring left before the party must return to the kingdom to perform their duties.

[Elricaltovilla]

Session 17
In which our party slaughters their way across the countryside, only to meet an impassable obstacle

This session was very combat heavy, which is the kind of thing I enjoy as a player, but it did mean we got less accomplished than we probably would have otherwise.

Day 40
Hex 2

The party parts ways with the Kobolds, and continues on their exploration of the southern Greenbelt. Exploring further West, the party enters an area of large rocks and a few scattered trees. The party senses that they are under threat and spots a pack of Thylacine on the prowl. The thylacine are scattered among the rocks and trees ready to ambush the party. Some of the Thylacine manage to get the drop on the party, but having a skilled archer and a WIS based stalker on the team puts the predatory marsupials' stealth tactics on the back foot.

Skara unloads a full attack at the closest, hitting twice and dealing enough damage to put the first thylacine down. One of the other Thylacines runs across the field to a different cover and manages to hide successfully. Akaru charges one of the Thylacine with a boost from Momentum Crash and hits for 30 damage, killing the beast. Akaru gets charged by one of the other Thylacine as it rushes from cover, but still manages to dodge the blow. Another Thylacine tries to hide, but its stealth attempt fails to beat the party's perception. Ashena charges one of the monsters with Brave Gambit and hits for 19 damage. She gets bit for 5 damage in return.

Skara fires off another full attack, hitting twice and dealing enough damage to kill. One of the Thylacine tries to attack ashena but fails to hit. Akaru spends a Ki point to activate Murderous Insight and attacks a Thylacine with Disparity Blow, dealing 30 damage and killing it. Ashena uses Encouraging Roar to buff herself and her allies, but no one else is around to hear her mighty shout so only she gains the benefits. Still, she full attacks the nearest Thylacine, hitting it with her earthbreaker for 21 damage, and failing to land a bite attack. Skara ends the battle by finishing off the last two Thylacines. The party skins the animals and prepares themselves for camp for the night.

While camping, the party is ambushed by a quartet of giant spiders during Ashena's watch. She is immediately webbed and entangled by the spiders, who get a surprise round at the start of the combat. During the surprise round, one of the spiders charges ashena and bites her for 12 damage, although she passes the Fortitude Save to resist the spider's venom. The other spiders do not act, instead remaining stealthily hidden.

At the start of normal combat, Skara leaves his tent and attempts to use Battering Gale to damage the spider that bit Ashena and push it back but fails to land the attack due to a natural 1 on the attack roll. The spider bites Ashena again, but misses the attack. Akaru comes out of his tent and activates murderous insight and initiates Rising Zenith Strike to kill the nearest spider, dealing 40 damage. Ashena spends a swift action to use Defending The Pride (granting the party +4 AC), a move action to gain the Military Training feat through her Martial Mastery ability and spends her standard action breaking free of the webs that are binding her. The spiders try to apply webs to Ashena and Skara, but fail to hit (thanks largely to Defending the Pride).

Skara full attacks one of the spiders but only hits once for 13 damage. Akaru unleashes a Resonance Strike to slash at the spider across the firepit, dealing 19 force damage. Ashena uses Encouraging Roar (this time, people can hear her!) and Silver Knight's Blade, dealing 27 damage to the spider and killing it and healing herself back up to full hit points. One of the two remaining spiders successfully Webs Skara, while the other fails to Web Ashena.

Not one to be perturbed by spiders, Skara unleashes another full attack, hitting with all three arrows and managing a crit on the last attack, dealing a total of 90 damage and killing the spider that webbed him. Akaru puts himself near the fire and in position to charge the final spider, while Ashena actually makes a charge with Brave Gambit and hits for 11 damage. The spider tries again to web ashena but still misses.

Skara fires off a Sudden Gust but fails to hit. Akaru attacks the spider with Garnet Lance and hits for 27 damage and a kill. Ashena goes to the fire and starts making waffles while skara removes himself from the webbing. The rest of the night passes uneventfully for the party.

Day 41
Hex 1

The party approaches a deep and wide sulfurous mudbowl, the stench is enough to nauseate the party, although only Akaru actually manages to fail the Fortitude Save and is nauseated for 10 rounds as a result. When a towering, betentacled fungus erupts from the mudbowl, the party decides to flee in order to allow Akaru to recover. Thankfully the monster doesn't follow them.

Ashena tries to help Akaru recover, but ends up covered in vomit for her efforts. After resting until Akaru is fully recovered, the party buffs up (applying resistance, bull’s strength (Ashena and Akaru), bless, Combat Precognition, Murderous Insight and divine power) before returning. Luckily, the party all pass their saves this time and when the Tendriculous rises out of the mud, the party is ready.

In one short round, the entire party attacks and destroys the huge fungus beast. Akaru uses a Momentum Crash boosted charge to deal 33 damage, dodging an Attack of Opportunity on his way in. Ashena follows in his footsteps, hitting with a Brave Gambit charge for 24 damage. Her Earthbreaker breaks the tendriculous's regeneration. Skara full attacks the beast, missing two of his attacks but hitting on the third (missing his crit confirmation though) for 21 damage. This is enough damage to put down the Tendriculous, which is fully finished off by Akaru's Strike of Defeat.

Spoiler: DM's notes: Easy Battle

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So, this is the Tendriculous's stat block. You'll notice it's actually fairly tough for its level. That regeneration, for example, is really impressive. But I have never seen a creature that was so completely hard countered by a party. So I decided to just let it slide this time and let the party feel like badasses. I'm sure it won't come back to bite them in the ass later

The party fails to find anything of value in the stinking mud bowl, although they didn't roll very well in their checks to find anything.

The party spends the rest of the day and the next day searching the adjacent hexes for a way to cross the rivers that are blocking their passage. They find an abandoned ferry station, but with no boats, they have no way to cross. In the end, the party is forced to return to Wahrengaard after their explorations, which is where we end the session.

[Elricaltovilla]

Session 18
In which the party engages in politics, and somehow, no one dies...

The party returns to their capital city of Wahrengaard, having been temporarily stopped in their exploration of the southern green belt by their lack of a boat. Back in town, they decide to do their governing for a bit in order to strengthen their kingdom.

Kingdom Turn 33
With a very large loyalty check coming up as a result of their rampant spending of BP, the party puts enough Labor Points into boosting their loyalty check that they can't fail, which is good because the Loyalty Check roll comes up a 2. Their Economy check also results in a roll of 2 (Maybe they should invest in weighted dice?) but the kingdom still manages to produce 31 BP. The Kingdom Event for this turn is Political Upheaval. The party decides to make no changes to their Kingdom's government and so they roll a loyalty check, which they fail. The Kingdom generates 5 more unrest. Akaru and Ashena spend their kingdom actions adding new resource hexes to the kingdom, while Skara works with Ilisse to reduce the unrest in the kingdom to 0 by spending 34 BP. At the end of the Kingdom Turn, the Kingdom of Teufelheim has 121 BP and 0 Unrest.

Kingdom Turn 34
At the start of the month, the three custom magic weapons that the party had previously commissioned are completed, along with their magical Folding Boat. Skara gets his +1 Seeking Adaptive Darkwood Composite Longbow, Ashena gets her +1 Vicious Adamantine Earthbreaker and Akaru gets his +1 Keen Adamantine Falchion.

Having learned of the difficulties surrounding loyalty checks, the party puts enough Labor Points into Loyalty to cover their asses and the rest in Economy. The party succeeds on their loyalty check, and generate 31 BP to add to their kingdom funds. The kingdom event for this month is a special homebrew event, The Tiefling Tiff (I am bad at names).

While hanging out in the Horned Keep (the name of the fortress turned castle that the PCs use as their governmental base), the party is informed by Ilisse that a riot is likely about to break out in the main square of Wahrengaard. The party rushes to the square to find two groups of tieflings standing across from each other yelling and growing angrier by the minute. Ashena approaches what appears to be the leaders of each group while Skara and Akaru scan the crowd for "evil manipulators," though they find no one that seems to be using spells or similar to rile up the crowds.

The leaders of each group are a Cheliaxan Tiefling Arcanist named Senera and a Demonspawn Tiefling Bloodrager named Baz from the Worldwound. Both Tieflings are arguing on behalf of the policies that their respective groups want enacted in the government of Teufelheim. The Cheliaxan tieflings, having lived their whole lives as slaves, want more individual freedoms, while the Worldwound Tieflings, afraid of the chaos and desperate to hold on to what they've built, are demanding tighter restrictions and more government oversight.

Although both Tieflings are reluctant to actually negotiate with each other and the Triumvirate, Ashena manages to successfully convince them to come back to the Horned Keep (where Ashena can barely keep her hands off of Baz. That's what he gets for walking around shirtless). There, the party is able to get Baz and Senera to go into more detail about their issues with the current Government of Teufelheim.

Spoiler: Senera and the Cheliaxans

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Senera and the Devilspawn of Cheliax she represents, want to push the kingdom towards a more chaotic alignment. She is looking for a stronger guarantee of more personal freedoms. Senera makes the following demands of the PCs:

A reduction in taxes
Less severe penalties for criminal actions
General reduction in government oversight
An official public forum to air grievances
Reduction in trade restrictions for private businesses
Senera advocates for the country to break ties with Restov and to become more independent.

Spoiler: Baz and the Worldwounders

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Baz and the mostly Demonspawn Tieflings of the Worldwound want to push the kingdom to be more Lawfully aligned. Baz wants to increase government control, regulation and oversight. The demands that Baz made are:

Increased Taxes and Government Spending
Harsher penalties for criminal actions
Increased Government oversight- especially the addition of a Spymaster and an executioner to the government
An official public forum to air grievances
Tariffs on imported goods to foster business within the country
Stronger ties with nearby countries including Brevoy, Varnhold and the River Kingdoms

The party listens to both Senera and Baz explain their points. Baz spins a patriotic story about the importance of using Teufelheim made goods and the need for a strong military and alliances to protect the homeland. He proudly shows off his Teufelheim made greatsword, marked with the flag of the country, and demonstrates its effectiveness by smashing the table at which the party is sitting.

Senera talks up the importance of freedom, the opportunity to begin again, and the importance of protecting people from the abuses of government. She mentions that the Wardens have been acting as Alkenstar Cops, going into towns and dispensing "Justice" without really pursuing it. This is alarming enough that the party calls for a recess to investigate the claim.

The party locates Kesten Garess, Chief Warden of Teufelheim, and questions him about the claims made against the Wardens. He confirms, while practicing his Mithral Current maneuvers (badly), that there have been issues with Wardens using overly harsh punishments on criminals. However, he assures them that the majority of the abusive Wardens have been dealt with. There is currently only one such former Warden in the kingdom, Seefas (a former Qadiran), who is at large. The party decides to take him down at their next convenience.

In order to prevent further abuses of the people, the party creates the Magister court system. The magisters will serve as elected officials on 6 year terms, and are only allowed to serve two consecutive terms before they must step down and wait for 12 years to run again. The Magistrate will answer to the Justicar (Skara) and will issue warrants for the Wardens to pursue. The wardens will now only act to apprehend criminals, not as judge and jury.

The party returns to the two Tieflings, and brings back their proposed changes.

Spoiler: Teufelheim Reformation

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Creation of the Magistrate courts
Increasing Tariffs on certain goods
Reduction of business restrictions and taxes
Appointing Svetlana to the position of Counselor and creation of a public forum in each city

Though neither side got everything they wanted, the party manages to successfully negotiate with both parties and they leave in peace. Akaru and Skara each claim another resource hex with their kingdom actions to expand the kingdom.

Spoiler: Kingdom Map

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[Elricaltovilla]

Session 19
In which Teufelheim survives three years of the Party's "governing," and the party turns a nest of Will-o-Wisps into an XP Farm.

This past session was run as a skype game because of the weather the previous few days leaving the road outside my house an icy deathtrap. It was my first time ever running or playing in a skype game and the format was interesting. Once we got things set up it went pretty smoothly (thank goodness for decent internet).

We also had a discussion (which happened both in and out of character, it was confusing) about the use of BP to purchase player items. As a GM I said that I would simply adjust the treasure accordingly based on what and how the players wanted to purchase. In character, Skara made the suggestion that the party should start turning the treasure they recover over to the kingdom, in order to begin equipping their militia and future armies as the kingdom continues to expand (essentially turning the treasure into BP for the kingdom). The rest of the party supported the idea, since it seemed like a good (fluffy) way to help build up the kingdom. It probably didn't hurt that both J and C are salivating at the opportunity to do some military expansion.

Kingdom Turn 35
The party decides to spend 12 BP to pick up a Belt of Giant's Strength +2, a Headband of Inspired Wisdom +2 and a Belt of Dexterity +2

Having learned their lesson about low rolls, the party puts enough Labor Points into Loyalty to ensure they can only fail their roll on a one (the modifier was something like +51). This is good, because once again C managed to roll a 2. J also rolled low for the economy check but the party still managed to generate 29 BP. The kingdom event for this month was a natural disaster of epic proportions. A wildfire swept through the countryside of Teufelheim destroying three entire hexes before it was finally stopped. The party spent all their kingdom actions recovering the lost hexes, working tirelessly to restore the damaged farmsteads and lost resources for the people of their kingdom.

Kingdom Turn 36
The three year anniversary of the founding of Teufelheim proved to be a time of celebration for the fledgeling kingdom. The party passed their loyalty checks, and generated another 29 BP to add to their coffers (and acquired their belts and headbands). Across the kingdom a sort of impromptu celebration takes place as people celebrate the establishment and success of their new homeland. The party takes part in the festivities a bit, and plan on an official celebration for Teufelheim's 5 year anniversary.

Kingdom Turn 37
Another kingdom turn, another set of terrible rolls. C manages to roll a 2 again on the loyalty check (fortunately they pass still) and J manages to only roll a 1 on Economy. The kingdom generates 27 BP and manages to maintain the loyalty check. Teufelheim gets another influx of religious dwarves this month.

The followers of the dwarven goddess Dranngvit. Dranngvit, the dwarven goddess of debts and vengeance is not exactly a nice person and the party is reluctant to let her priests set up shop in their kingdom. They go to visit the current dwarven priests, the followers of Torag, for their advice. Torag's priests suggest that allowing Dranngvit to have a major presence in the kingdom would be bad as her priests encourage people to focus on the slights (real or imagined) leveled against them and the debts they owe or are owed instead of on what would be best for the community as a whole. The party successfully negotiates with the priests of Torag for their aid in getting the priests of Dranngvit to peacefully leave the kingdom. The party convinces the priests of Dranngvit to continue West towards Varnhold and as they leave, they pay the party 3 BP for the service of escorting them safely through the kingdom. The party spends their kingdom actions raising the defense of Kierkegaard to its maximum value before leaving for more adventure

Exploration Day 44

Finally the party has the opportunity to take their shiny new folding boat out onto the water. Leaving from the docks of Wahrengaard, the party sails south on the Tuskwater and down to Candlemere Lake. The tales of Candlemere lake do not bode well for the party. Tales tell of an island in the middle of the lake, haunted by the dead. A crumbling tower stands on its southern shore, said to be filled with the maddened souls of those trapped inside. Naturally the players assume it's a lich.

As the party's ship approaches the island, the fog starts to close in around them and the sky above dims to an overcast grey. The distant shore of the island is covered in nettles and overgrown brambles. At the urging of Akaru and Ashena, Skara fires some of his flaming arrows at the underbrush to try and light the island on fire, but it seems some magical presence has suppressed his flames.

The party slowly, cautiously and with great trepidation, approach the shore of the island by the tower. They land their boat and disembark and go to investigate the tower. The stinging nettles The party notices that the crumbling structure is covered in unusual runes, which they identify as ancient Aklo (They speak Aklo. Who the hell speaks Aklo?). However, due to the ancient nature of the script and the wear and tear, the only thing the party is able to really make out is the name "Yog-Sothoth." As soon as Akaru reads the name, a wave of existential fear washes over the party, but they all make their will saves so nothing actually happens. Recognizing the name, Ashena is able to piece together the remaining text and recognizes it as a blasphemous prayer to the dark god. The party enters the tower proper and finds a trio of Will-o-Wisps (hereafter shortened to WoWs because I'm not typing all of that out).

One of the WoWs gets to act before the party (Everybody rolled amazing on initiative, two natural 20s and a 19) and zaps Ashena, although her fiendish physiology dissipates much of the damage. Skara retaliates by attempting a Battering Gale and Eye of the Needle combo (for accuracy) but misses. Akaru activates murderous insight and manages to crit on Rising Zenith Strike activating his Brutal Strikes class feature. The attack deals 73 damage and kills the WoW. Ashena activates her Brave Gambit and charges one of the other WoWs. She manages a natural 20 on her attack roll, but fails to confirm the crit, only dealing 20 damage to the WoW. The two WoWs go invisible and the party loses track of them, while a third appears directly behind Skara and shocks him for 2 damage.

Skara takes a 5 ft. step back and full attacks the offending WoW for 12 and 19 damage (hitting twice). Akaru charges the WoW and activates his Defensive Precognition. He hits for 75 damage and uses Victorious Recovery to recover his missing maneuvers. Ashena uses her Martial Mastery to gain the Military Training feat, then her swift action to use Defending the Pride. The two invisible WoWs reappear and both attack Ashena, but miss.

Skara shoots one of the WoWs for 17 damage, while Akaru charges the other with Momentum Crash and hits for 33 damage. Ashena uses Silver Knights Blade and Encouraging Roar, but fails to land a hit. The lone remaining WoW attempts to attack ashena again but fails and then turns invisible.

With the WoW invisible and unfindable, the party takes the opportunity to recover and ready themselves for its inevitable return. Skara recovers his maneuvers with Defensive Focus, Akaru ready actions to attack it if it appears in his range and Ashena takes the total defense action. The WoW reappears behind Ashena and tries to attack again but misses.

Skara tries the Battering Gale and Eye of the Needle combo again, and this time he hits but he fails to land the Combat Maneuver. Akaru moves through an Attack of Opportunity to try and take out the WoW and flank it, but misses his Garnet Lance strike. Ashena also manages to fail to land a blow with her full attack. The WoW attacks Ashena one more time before turning invisible, but it still fails to land a hit.

Skara takes note of the WoW's position and fires off a volley from his seeking bow. He lands an attack, which breaks the WoW's invisibility and the rest of the party unloads on it, finally killing the aberration. Ashena looks around and finds a +1 humanbane dagger, her arcane senses go off and she realizes that the item is cursed, but the curse does not seem to affect her. The session ends there and the party has reached a new level.

Spoiler: DM's Notes: The Island of Seriously, WTF?

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J and C: Bugger off until after we finish the island. This part is not for you.

Spoiler: DM's notes

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Let me tell you what exactly is on this island:

1. Nettles that impart the sickened condition on a failed Fort Save
2. A tower that causes Shaken on a failed Will Save
3. A cursed +1 Humanbane Dagger, not even that, it only gets humanbane part of the time
4. 12 ****ing Will o' Wisps
5. That's it.

There is nothing else on this island. No reason to stay on there whatsoever. That bit about Yoggy-soggy? Never comes up again in the whole AP. The treasure? Just a terrible, terrible dagger. The exploration? What exploration? There isn't even a basement.

And those 12 Will o' Wisps? They're supposed to come at the party one at a time, once per hour they spend on the island. Yeah. Did I mention there's 12 of them? The AP also expects the party to be in the level 4-5 range, meaning that these Will o' Wisps are each supposed to be a difficult encounter for the party. This island is one of the worst designed areas I've seen. If anyone has any suggestions for spicing it up or making it anything but a complete waste of time, please, please, please let me know. Keep in mind, my players read this thread but they're good chaps and wouldn't try to use that information to metagame.

[Elricaltovilla]

Session 20
In which the party conquers the Will o' Wisps, hunts for trolls and negotiates with reptiles.

Spoiler: DM's Notes

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So we actually had game on Tuesday, which means I'd done absolutely nothing to prepare for the session, because I was expecting to run it Thursday and this kind of got sprung on me. So that was fun.

On another note. There's not actually supposed to be 12 Will o' Wisps on the island. There's supposed to be 24. For those of you keeping score at home, that's 57,600 total XP, or 19,200 per party member. Yeah.

Day 44, Part 2
The party continues to hunt Will o' Wisps across the island. In their hunting through the suppressive fog and stinging nettles, they come across a trio of Will o' Wisps. Two of the Will o' Wisps spot the party and vanish from sight, however, the third remains and seems unaware of the party's presence. Apparently this Will o' Wisp is not well liked by his fellows.

The party breaks into action right away. Ashena lays down the buffs while Akaru charges in for a solid hit. Skara follows up with an attack of his own and crits, eliminating the Will o' Wisp before it can even respond. The two vanished Will o' Wisps reappear, flanking Akaru, and each deliver a painful shock to the Tiefling. At the start of the next round one of the Will o' Wisps disappears again, though Akaru kills the other with a critical hit from Rising Zenith Strike before it can vanish.

Spoiler: DM's Note: Houserul Update

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So that everyone is on the same page, you can't actually crit when using maneuvers that substitute a Skill check roll for an attack roll. On the other hand, they don't fail on a natural 1. This came up after an extended rules discussion with the other DSP writers. However, as I'd let those maneuvers crit before (and I.D.G.A.F.) it's going to be a houserule in this game from now on that they work essentially like attack rolls: they can crit and they can miss on a natural 1.

The multipliers for crits from maneuvers that multiply damage work the same as increased multipliers for crits. So critting with a x2 weapon on Rising Zenith Strike (x2 damage) would result in an attack that deals x3 damage.

Unfortunately, once the Will o' Wisp reappears both readied actions to hit it fail, and Akaru is again zapped for a nasty bit of damage. Akaru tries to attack with Disparity Blow, but doesn't manage to bring down the Will o' Wisp. When Ashena uses Golden Swipe, however, she shreds the aberration before she can even move it to provoke an AoO from Akaru. It was a good bit of tactical planning, but 56 damage will put down most creatures at this level.

Further exploration yields more fortitude saves to deal with the unpleasantness of the stinging nettles, and a long time is spent hunting to find yet more Will o' Wisps. Fortunately, the party has more luck this time and manages to get the drop on an entire trio of the things. The party charges in, with Akaru managing to one shot a Will o' Wisp, Ashena putting major hurt on the second, and Skara unleashing a hail of arrows to slay the third and finish off Ashena's target. The Will o' Wisps slain, the mist finally starts to recede from the island, just as the sun begins to set.

The party decides to make camp for the night on the island. Akaru ends up doing some lawn mowing during his watch (as he decided to use a counter on the Fortitude Save against the stinging nettles), while Ashena's watch mostly consisted of her squirting lemon juice into her eyes and lamenting the fact that Tieflings don't have acid resistance. Skara's night was equally unpleasant, as the nettles' stings sickened the poor tiefling and left him a wreck for most of his watch.


Day 45
With the arrival of morning, Ashena was woken up by a voice ringing in her ear. The Lords of Restov sent a sending to the party, requesting that they remove the now looming threat of a band of Trolls raiding along the southeastern greenbelt. Unfortunately, because sendings are limited to 25 words, Restov had to send two or three of them. Ashena responds to the sending, and offers more than a little sass in her response, so the Lords of Restov send one more reply explaining that she will receive an invoice billing her for the sendings.

The party discusses whether or not to pursue the trolls immediately, but ultimately decides to follow along with Restov's wishes, figuring that if they're shelling out for multiple sendings, it's probably pretty important. The party makes one last stop at the island's tower, which is still under the unnerving control of the god Yog-Sothoth. Ashena determines that a hallow spell from a cleric of a powerful good aligned deity would likely remove the evil taint, and the party decides to bring Jhod to the island when they get the chance.

The party then begins to travel up the Murque River towards the reported stronghold of the trolls. The first hex they explore along their way, however, is also the location of a Lizardfolk village that the PCs were aware of. Ashena convinces the party to stop by the village in order to try and establish diplomatic relations with the Lizardfolk.

The party pulls their folding boat up to the shore of the low lying island the lizardfolk village is on. They approach the village gate, and Ashena addresses the lizardfolk guards in draconic.

Ashena introduces herself and the rest of the party and asks to treat with the lizardfolk. The guards don't respond, but one of them leaves and returns with a truly massive lizardfolk, who introduces himself as their chief. Ashena makes her introductions again, and asks the chief to form some kind of alliance with Teufelheim. The lizardfolk's chief replies that the party is known to him (his guard just told him about them) but that he isn't interested in joining Teufelheim. He offers the party free passage along the Murque River, but asks them to leave.

Not one to be discouraged by other people's sovereign rights, Ashena presses on with an impressive diplomacy roll. She says that the tieflings have also had a history of being repressed and abused and that Teufelheim is a land run by those who won't stand for that kind of betrayal or marginalization (good thing the dwarves haven't caught on yet). The chief replies again that while he appreciates the plight of the Tieflings, he still cannot trust them. In response, Ashena offers to send tribute once per month to the lizardfolk as proof of Teufelheim's goodwill.

The chieftain thanks Ashena for her offer and invites the party to stay as his guests for the night with him and his wives. After Akaru confirms that the chieftain appears to be on the up and up (thanks to a sense motive check), the party agrees. They spend the night interacting with the chief and his wives, who are very forward and affectionate with the party. This strange interaction throws the group of tieflings for a bit of a loop, and Akaru and Ashena are unsure how to proceed with regards to the chieftain's wives. Some minor investigation however, reveals that the wives are only attempting to make the guests feel special. They are still only supposed to mate with the chief. This investigation also nets some useful information about the trolls, revealing the location of their hideout as an Abandoned Keep at the very source of the Murque River. The party beds down for the night and in the morning leave the Lizardfolk village behind with the promise of new friendships and alliances.

[upho]

Why can't you guys start playing both Tuesdays and Thursdays? Me wants more.

[Elricaltovilla]

Why can't you guys start playing both Tuesdays and Thursdays? Me wants more.

Because if we did, I wouldn't have time to write for DSP.

[upho]

Because if we did, I wouldn't have time to write for DSP.

Hmmpff... Well, if put it like that, I vote for DSP writing taking priority. And not just over playing; I mean over everything else in your life, besides perhaps eating enough to keep you alive!

[Elricaltovilla]

Hmmpff... Well, if put it like that, I vote for DSP writing taking priority. And not just over playing; I mean over everything else in your life, besides perhaps eating enough to keep you alive!

I'd have to start making a whole lot more money off my writing for that to happen. Anyway, we're playing tonight so I'll probably have something up this weekend.

[Elricaltovilla]

Session 21
In which the party stands at the precipice of a cliff, and Nat 20s themselves off of it

Day 46

Having left the lizardfolk village and their frustrating (for Akaru) customs behind, the party continues sailing up the Murque River. As they approach the source of the river, a hill rises out of the forrest. One side is a sheer cliff face, while the other sports a small, visible road that leads up the side to a lonely castle atop the hill. Based on the information the party has gathered, this is the most likely place to find the trolls that have been plaguing the trade in the Greenbelt.

Departing their folding boat and packing it away for storage (after reminding Ashena that, yes, it does actually fold up. J forgot we bought a folding boat.) the party discusses how to get to the castle so that they can remove the threat that the Trolls pose. Ashena and Akaru both vote to climb the cliff face, trusting in their strength to carry them up the full 70 ft. to the top. Skara, being more nimble than strong, tries to convince the party to take the path up the hill instead. However, he is outvoted. In order to make sure that Skara can actually get up the cliff, Akaru agrees to climb up and lower a rope down that skara can use to climb the rest of the way.

In order to make the climb easier, Akaru collects the party's pitons and begins hammering them into the rock face of the cliff. Unfortunately, the loud banging results in the party being spotted by a troll lookout. The troll runs back to warn his allies and the party scrambles to find somewhere to hide. This time, it's Ashena who fails her stealth check and the trolls begin hurling rocks off the cliff in order to hit the party with them.

It's at this point that Ashena and Akaru have another brilliant idea. They're going to climb up the cliff face and fight the trolls at the top while Skara peppers the trolls with arrows. This idea ended up devolving into a 10 minute long spice pun session, but eventually the party moved forward with their terrible, terrible plan.

Spoiler: DM's Notes: Why this plan sucks

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The party would have moved 1/4 their speed on successful climb checks against a DC 25, meaning it'd take a minimum of 10 rounds before they could make it to the top. This is exacerbated by the fact that both J and C insisted on hammering in Pitons as they went, which takes 1 minute per piton, for a total of 10 minutes climb time during which the trolls could drop up to 4 rocks per round on the party. So what should have happened was about 600 climb checks and an equal number of attack rolls and reflex saves as the trolls dropped rock after rock on the party, but in the interest of time I expedited the process, which almost certainly saved their lives.

Skara's plan to shoot the trolls and knock them off the cliff would have worked much better.

In order to save time (and the lives of my PCs) I shortened the whole process to about 5 climb checks and the same number of attack rolls against Ashena and Akaru. While no one was knocked off the wall, Akaru did take a notable amount of damage from getting hit by falling rocks. Skara managed to knock one of the trolls off the cliff through clever use of Battering Gale, dealing almost as much fall damage as actual damage. He then finishes off the fallen troll with a full attack of flaming arrows just as the rest of the party reaches the top of the cliff. It only takes two arrows to put down the troll on the ground though so Skara fires the last one up top and manages to score a lucky blow.

Ashena targets the wounded troll on top of the cliff and hits him with a Golden Swipe, moving him off the cliff and into the open air, where he plummets to his death. One of the other trolls smashes Akaru with a mighty bull rush, a nat 20 on the roll forces Akaru off the cliff where he falls and takes 70 ft. worth of fall damage. The final troll tries to grapple Ashena, but doesn't roll as well as his fellow, and fails to grab hold.

Skara fires off an arrow to stagger the troll, but trolls have high Fortitude, so that was a bad idea. Feeling the wounds of having rocks dropped on her, Ashena withdraws and heals herself. The troll that knocked Akaru off the cliff leaps down in pursuit, landing on Akaru, who luckily makes the reflex save to avoid being hit by a falling object. Unfortunately, the troll successfully grapples Akaru (another nat 20). Akaru draws his scimitar (carried for just such occasions), narrowly avoiding an attack from the troll while doing so, and attacks it with Disparity Blow. The troll atop the cliff charges Ashena and tries to bull rush her but fails to hit.

Skara finishes off the troll grappling Akaru, his flaming arrows preventing it from coming back any time soon. Ashena recovers her maneuvers in preparation for the attack of the troll, and ends up eating a sadly pillow fisted full attack. Both Akaru and Skara begin climbing up the cliff face to help Ashena.

Ashena manages to finally knock the last troll unconscious, though she's incapable of finishing it off because of the regeneration. She gives it a final good whack with her earthbreaker and pushes it over the cliff, where Skara finishes it off. Eventually the party manages to get themselves up the cliff, where Ashena heals everyone and the party now faces another tall barrier, the 40 ft. wall of the fortress itself.

By some miracle, nobody in the party is spotted when they make the climb over the wall. Standing on the ramparts, the party gets a view of the 200+ ft. long courtyard surrounding the tower. At the other end of the courtyard by the main gate are two more trolls. Since the trolls seem unaware of the party's presence, Ashena bets Skara that he can't kill both trolls before they reach the party. She offers to cook waffles two days in a row for Skara if he succeeds.

Skara sizes up his targets and lets loose a hail of flaming arrows. Two full attacks, a Searing Break, a Dazzling Solar Flare and one very lucky crit later, both trolls are killed before they can get within 30 ft. of the party. And then the boss fight happens.

From atop the tower, a loud, crude voice shouts "Aright I've had enough of yer ****" A massive silhouette appears and leaps down from the top of the tower, leaving furrows in the stonework as it digs its claws into the tower to slow its descent. The Troll chief Hargulka has arrived.

Out from the tower two additional trolls come and flank the boss. The first troll charges underneath the rampart where the party is standing and smashes upwards, dislodging the stonework and sending Ashena stumbling to the ground. The second troll tries to leap up on the battlements, but isn't fast enough as Akaru cleaves his hands off with a mighty critical hit.

Hargulka then charges towards Skara, and cleaves him with a mighty hit from his longsword before immediately teleporting backwards out of reach. Ashena buffs the party and picks up Martial Charge and Military Training, while Skara finishes off the troll that Akaru dismembered. The troll now hiding under the battlements breaks part of them, limiting the party's movements, before disappearing back under the battlements.

Akaru charges off the battlements at Hargulka and manages to nat 20 both a hit with Disparity Blow and the trip attempt following it, sending the huge troll to the ground. Ashena leaps down to the ground as well, and attacks the troll that was breaking apart the battlements, knocking him out into the open where Skara can fire off a full volley of flaming arrows to put him down for good. Hargulka teleports away from Akaru, smashes part of the battlement, trapping Skara in place and then teleports again reappearing in a standing position far from the party. Akaru recognizes the telltale surge of Ki as Hargulka activates Defensive Precognition.

Akaru attempts to charge at Hargulka with a powerful strike, but his attack is countered as Hargulka disappears and reappears elsewhere. Ashena also charges Hargulka and manages to land a blow against the troll chief, but he retaliates with a cursed blow that weakens her resolve and deals significant damage. Skara fires off another hail of flaming arrows and manages to hit with one of them, which suppresses Hargulka's regeneration.

Out of maneuvers and with no mooks nearby to slay, Akaru is forced to use his recovery action for probably the first time in the entire campaign. Ashena takes a swing at Hargulka with Silver Knight's Blade, but her attack is suppressed by Hargulka's suddenly turning incorporeal. Hargulka tries to attack Ashena with another maneuver, but misses his attack and takes an arrow from Skara for his trouble.

Akaru and Ashena finish off Hargulka with a combination of maneuvers, though Akaru takes an attack of opportunity for trying to do so. When Hargulka is defeated, a black mist rises from his body and a pair of glowing red eyes appear in the mist just before it fades away.

Spoiler: DM's Notes

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Veiled Moon is a great discipline for boss monsters because of its high mobility, decent debuffs and fairly low damage. I replaced the standard Hargulka with a Huge Size Troll Stalker, and used the Stats of a Troll Berserker to ballpark his attack bonus. Still, the most dangerous opponent of the session remained the cliff. And possibly the dice. We rolled a lot of natural 20s.

[Coidzor]

The dice are treacherous, dangerous beasties, aye.

Good to see this is still ongoing! I enjoyed reading through this a lot in the fall, though I admit that I just thought they were intentionally RPing as more bloodthirsty because of the whole tiefling thing.

I'm really surprised they haven't gotten a small retinue of porters and lackeys by now, though, would've been cheaper to get some sailors and buy a mundane boat for their fledgling navy than get a magic item that upped the difficulty of their check vs. Unrest.

Also, surprised that they didn't try to recruit the two opposing tieflings into their government to get both them and their factions more invested and have more charismatic tieflings around.

...Why did they express interest in the lizard ladies, though? Or did they think the lizardladies were rolling seduction or trying to get them relaxed so they could eat them?

[Elricaltovilla]

The dice are treacherous, dangerous beasties, aye.

Good to see this is still ongoing! I enjoyed reading through this a lot in the fall, though I admit that I just thought they were intentionally RPing as more bloodthirsty because of the whole tiefling thing.

I'm really surprised they haven't gotten a small retinue of porters and lackeys by now, though, would've been cheaper to get some sailors and buy a mundane boat for their fledgling navy than get a magic item that upped the difficulty of their check vs. Unrest.

Also, surprised that they didn't try to recruit the two opposing tieflings into their government to get both them and their factions more invested and have more charismatic tieflings around.

...Why did they express interest in the lizard ladies, though? Or did they think the lizardladies were rolling seduction or trying to get them relaxed so they could eat them?

My players are pretty darn bloodthirsty. They enjoy cutting a bloody swathe through the Greenbelt and I doubt it'd be any different if they were playing races other than Tieflings. As for the magic boat? In for a penny, in for a pound I guess. They'd already spent a good chunk of BP on new weapons, so the boat wasn't going to make much difference in the long run.

We'd discussed bringing in the two opposed tieflings into the government, but for whatever reason the party decided to hold off on that for now. I believe the plan is to build some more cities, and put them in charge of those cities, then offer them positions in the kingdom government. They did it before with Oleg and Svetlana, so I guess it's just their MO at this point.

The female lizardfolk were of interest almost entirely because they were female. That's really it, for better or worse. I wanted to give the lizardfolk an interesting quirk or two since it was a nice alternative to the usual violence of the party, but I let the players go with it how they wanted.