Post date: Sep 01, 2016 8:32:32 PM
These session summaries were originally posted to The Piazza in January and April 2013, and have been edited to remove spoilers for future sessions. Out-of-character commentary is in italics.
Sessions 13-14 (1/12/2013, 1/19/2013)
A reader's letter in The Shipping News complained about the apparent lack of concern over the disappearance of the merfolk from the local waters a year or two ago. This caught the party's attention, so they interviewed the captain who wrote the letter, and have decided to look into the mystery themselves. They don't have much in the way of solid leads, so went sailing in the general direction of the merfolk village. They have yet to find that site, but did come across a small desert island while sailing south.
A caecilia appeared, and provided some useful information about the island. She had seen a person a lot like Inacio (the hadozee) on the island, but there were also dangers there: giant crabs, and a giant of some kind. They thanked her, and investigated. [This encounter was adapted from True20 Freeport: The Lost Island. I'm not sure if I'll ever run the main adventure, but sections like this one will provide good fodder for their seafaring adventures.]
Circling the island from a safe distance, they saw a merrow spear-fishing in the shallows. It retreated to deeper water when they started firing at it. Continuing on, the glimpsed a hadozee hiding in the small island's jungle. Inacio let out a howl in his native language, and the other ape glided out to the ship. She turned out to be an attractive female wizard, Yahasha, who had been a passenger on a ship bound for Freeport. However, when they put in at the cove here two months ago, the giant crabs holed the ship and killed most of the crew over the next few days. Others fell to the merrow, or to some other thing she was certain was now hiding in the grounded ship.
Yahasha left her spellbook behind when she fled to the jungle, and wanted to get it back if possible. The PCs decided to scout out the cove by land, and spotted some large crabs near the wreck. Inacio fired at one, and the crabs responded by rushing to the attack. They quickly dispatched them, then swam out to the ship. Larkspur heard a faint noise from inside, so they boarded and went to the nearest hatch to see what it was. The planetouched spellcaster saw glowing eyes, and was staggered by the thing's gaze. As the others came up, it vanished further into the hold. Some of the the PCs headed for the other hatch, just as a the creature--a sea hag--burst out. Both hadozee were weakened by her horrific appearance, but the others resisted. Between the warriors' weapons and nonlethal damage from Marisol's stunning bolt, they took down the hag before she could use her evil eye on anyone else. The unconscious hag fell into the hold, and Inacio jumped down to finish her off. [As an experiment, I used the Pathfinder sea hag instead of the MM version, because it gave the party a little better chance of surviving.]
However, once he got into the hold, he started to hear voices of dying people in his head. He was soon confused, as was Marisol, who had moved onto the sterncastle. Harissa started searching the hold and was able to resist for a little while (surprisingly, as she has a Wisdom penalty!). By the time they could locate the source of the maddening babble--a patch of dead man's brain [Creatures of Freeport] just outside and below the ship's stern--all but Larkspur (the best Will save of the group) and Yahasha (who locked herself in the forecastle as she searched for her spellbook) had succumbed. Larkspur dived in and started attacking it, but it used a fear power on her to drive her away. Meanwhile, the others randomly wandered to parts of the ship far enough away to shake off the confusion. Inacio and Marisol started to fire arrows through the water at the 'brain, while Harissa simply dived in. Unfortunately, she failed her save again, and started drowning as a result. Luckily, Marisol was able to cast a wave blessing spell [Stormwrack] on her, which brought her to the surface, where the two wizards could catch her in a net and save her in time. Larkspur returned and used a creeping cold spell [Complete Divine] to help Inacio finish off the 'brain. [The dead man's brain is CR 2 as written, but the constant confusion attack was brutal enough that I decided to award XP for a higher CR.]
After this session, Larkspur's player asked if we could retcon her character from a spirit shaman to a druid. We've both found it challenging to make use of her class's spirit-related abilities. A druid would be more versatile and useful at sea and in whatever other wilderness they encounter, without much change to the capabilities she has made good use of, so I granted the change.
I've also decided to drop the Insanity Point and Knowledge (forbidden) rules. I haven't used them enough for them to add much to the play experience, and I'd rather find something simpler when I do get back to a madness-inducing scenario. I'll just use the existing confusion and insanity-type spells, and describe any attacks that damage or drain mental ability scores as causing temporary or permanent insanity, respectively.
Session 15 (4/6/2013)
Having finished off the sea hag and dead man's brain last session, the party planned to go back and harvest meat and shells from the pair of giant crabs they had fought on the way to the shipwreck. However, another pair of crabs had found the bodies, so the heroes took them on, too. The druid entangled the crabs and the party killed the one who got free. The other had reached the carrion, so ignored the fight until it was hit with missiles. The most memorable part of the fight came next: the hadozee ranger climbed a tree outside of the entangle effect so that he could glide across it and land on the crab's back. He stabbed it with his trident, then one of his companions shot the thing, killing it. He kept his footing as the crab collapsed--only to end his bit of epic-ness by failing his save against the entangle spell (which was immediately dismissed).
After butchering all the crabs, they explored the island further, trying to track down the merrow. They failed to find it, so called it a day and feasted on giant crab--with butter sauce provided by the druid's alter liquid spell [from Green Ronin's Advanced Player's Guide]. (Before now, Larkspur has mostly used this spell to avoid having to pay as much for cheap ale at the taverns they frequent. Needless to say, there were a lot of seafood jokes this session, including my own about Inacio's crab fork.)
That night, the ogre came to them, but was spotted before it climbed aboard the Half-Pint. It was a quick fight, in spite of the druid and wizard being very low on spells, and the ranger being downed by a couple spear hits from the merrow. (We've started using the Action Point rules from Unearthed Arcana recently, so Inacio used one to stabilize immediately at -8 hp.)
Everyone got a late start the next morning, as everyone needed more uninterrupted sleep in order to replenish spells or heal. They had to kill one more crab while they finished smoking the rest of the crab meat. [This was a hand-wave on my part to give them the tiny bit of XP they still needed to reach their next level.] Later in the day, they set sail back to Freeport and arrived there the next day.
Now that they're back in Freeport, they get to advance to 5th level. Larkspur can now bond with an animal companion; she was thinking about bonding with the ghost eater that hangs around their ship from time to time, but chose a penguin instead; that was her spirit guide before we changed her class, and she needs an aquatic animal to qualify for the prestige class she wants (wavekeeper, from Stormwrack). Inacio is now scout 1/ranger 4, so may acquire an animal companion as well (though with his 4 Cha, it may be challenging to train it). IIRC, his player was thinking of giving him a shark.