We’re now starting the Unfettered thread of the campaign. What Frosthaven call unfettered are essentially robots so we could say its a big thematic change as per the yeti-like Algox thread we were focusing on earlier.
Characters
Lazy Liz the Deathwalker (David) lvl 2, sun-averse, why walk when I can teleport
Britney the Banner Spear (Mathieu) lvl 4 a great leader, might be related to Bruce
Boson the Blink Blade (Guillaume) lvl 4>>5, Master of the 4th dimension
Or at least, it will soon be a big change of theme but not yet. En route to investigate some strange sightings we’re now fleeing for our lives as we’re being pursued by a (an unlimited amount of) wolves with just one possible path ahead, into the narrow trench.
We must get out of the trench but to do so, we must fight snow bears and the ever annoying snow imps.The Blink Blade opens the hostility and gets invisible. Meanwhile the Banner Spear calls for reinforcement and the Deathwalker summons ominous shadows.The fight is on!Banner Spear: « I’m surrounded, that’s perfect! »Let’s move on. I’ll lead the way, don’t mind the creepy shadow following us.The wolves have caugth up,. Move, move, move!The Blink Blade gets face to face with one ferocious bear. He dances around it, stabbing it numerous times, killing it effortlessly.Meanwhile the Banner Spear fends off the wolves as long as she can and the Deatwalker is… teleporting way behind with a shadow conveniently left there, to fetch some loot!Finally, we’d better get out of there before exhaustion gets us.
Closing Comments:
Easy, straightforward scenario as it’s one of the first available too.
The Blink Blade had no trouble at all defeating an elite bear all by himself, that’s impressive.
The Banner Spear had a ton of unused bless cards by the end ot the scenario, they just refused to come up.
The Deathwalker and Banner Spear killed a lot of wolves, just to get xps and loot and got near depleted doing so.
Not a very fascinating scenario but it was mandatory to open up, as I said earlier, something that should feel different.
This is the long overdue second part of my review (that virtually no one was waiting for) of this mostly forgotten TSR adventure The Sword of Roele, for the Birthright setting. In the first part I’ve talked about how it has an absolute mess of a scenario, hilariously bad. But now I’m gonna talk about its main dungeon which I find, as the title says, pretty good.
The Sword of Roele, Wolfgang Baur, 1996, AD&D2E, levels 5-8
So you’ve gone through the arduous process of the module’s disjointed, scene-based nodes and finally found the adventure’s main dungeon where the macguffin, I mean the Sword of Roele is. You stand in front of:
The Great Tomb of the Order of the Sun
Mid-sized dungeon, 2 levels, 53 rooms
funerary complex of knights do-gooders and some of their major figures
designed by an evil magic-user architect to accomodate his own needs in his plans to achieve lichdom
The tomb’s only entrance is collapsed with only a narrow path to get in (shown as the « goblin path » on the map even though there’s no goblins in the dungeon, a obvious sign that the dungeon has been refurbished and changed from its original purpose). The PCs will immediately have to confront the troglodyte sentries and do some tunnel fighting.
There’s an whole tribe of 41 trogs in the rooms near the entrance. The trogs are also intruders to the dungeons.
Here’s a great bit:
« If the troglodytes lose 10 or more of their number, they retreat into Areas 3 and 6. In the storage area they climb up the tunnel into the audience chamber (Area 8). They are cold-blooded so they suffer only one-quarter damage from the brown mold’s cold. In the hall, they hide in the shadows behind the statues, waiting for a chance to ambush foes. »
The trogs take advantage of their resistance to brown mold, that’s great!
When the PCs are in they’ll see large double-doors at their left (upper right on the map), they’ll feel a draft of cold air coming from the right (caused by the brown mold) and see an impressive hallway in front with rows of stone statues/caryatids on each side. They’ll probably notice the corpses of dead thieves on the floor too, at the limit of their light source. Good telegraphing for what represents the main gimmick of this dungeon: of course some caryatids are monsters (circled in red below)! As written the caryatids are the equivalent of lesser stone golems and are perfectly beatable. When I ran this dungeon I’d upgraded the stone statues to full stone golems status, they absolutely have to constitute a proper threat to force some hard choices (and clever ideas) from the players IMO.
a caryatid ready to crush your skullAn « optimal » run to reach the second level could look something like that, with some tense moments of crossing the hallway with the help of diversions. (huh, you may want to include room 21 and 22 if you feel confident! 😉 )
Apart from the troglodytes and caryatids the main denizens are of the undead variety with some constructs sprinkled here and there. The dungeon definitely suffers from a gygaxian naturalism syndrome where things make sense for a tomb but there’s a lack of wonder involved.
Aside: Funnily enough there’s several mention of a resident vampire in the tomb, he’s supposed to be a big deal but he’s in fact nowhere to be found, he’s not even statted! Oops!
The rooms themselves are a mixed bag.
Some are great, like the Chamber of Shadows:
« Three of this chamber’s walls are covered with an abstract pattern of black lines. The fourth wall depicts a black bridge over a misty chasm to a gate of light. Words are carved into three of the four stone walls. »
[…]
« The painted bridge at the far side of the room is the Bridge of Sighs and Shadows, a magical link through solid rock between this room and the Divination Room. Only those who know its secret can cross it. »
Other rooms are pretty boring. There’s several rooms in a row that are just filler; here’s a room with undead falcons, here’s a room with undead hippogriffs, the next one with undead griffons…
The second level is smaller and is designed essentially to confuse the players. It’s heavy on teleportation tricks, traps and of course it has more undeads and constructs.
There’s no faction play in this dungeon, the troglodytes are immediately hostile and other than them there’s few sentient beings. There’s an imp to be found who actually gives good advice as it serves his purpose, that’s nice. There’s also an homonculus but if you’ve met the imp he’ll feel kinda redundant. As written you may also be accompanied by the ghost of the order’s high priest that you can meet before entering the tomb and he does have useful information to provide (and some big secrets) but he’ll get angry if you fall into the usual adventurer’s tomb-robbing habbits and most people will be happy to put him to rest one way or the other before long.
So all in all, this dongeon has several weaknesses, even a few gaffes, but it has also several strong points, the hallway with the caryatids being a favorite of mine. It’s not a great dungeon but it’s good and it certainly doesn’t deserve to be completely forgotten as it is now.
We played two short sessions to date in Edmond’s own dungeon, le Château d’Éfaurmaje.
Here’s the Dungeon Master with his homemade books.
I’m playing a Magic-User that has a mix of protection and attack spells, Isaac is playing a Warrior that can summon beasts to help us in combat. We basically proposed character concepts to Edmond and he invented our character’s powers on the spot.
We’ve rolled our character stats at random down the line and we’re mapping our progress in the dungeon, the old-school way!Here we see a tower with a portal of teleportation that we hurriedly jumped into after taking a beating at the hands of an ogre.
The monsters are mostly vanilla fantasy: zombies, goblins, orcs, etc. We’ve also encountered « pyrymies », invented by Edmond, small (smaller than goblins) humanoids that fight with a knife in each hand and are very adept at dodging.
We’ve heard orcs talking (while we listened to a door) about how it was this time of the year when they changed every door of the castle. Very funny!
Edmond has prepared a table of rumors (not all true I’ve been told) that potentially lead to treasures and other sites.
There’s also another random roll at the start of a session and Isaac got a Sick condition from it that diminished his strength score until resolved. That’s an interesting addition, clearly something else that Edmond came up on his own.
We’ve fled from an ogre as I’ve said but also from a Hydra that we had tried to beat with the help of pyrymies (!), it was way too strong for us!
It’s quite fascinating to me to play in a TTRPG without any rules constraints – Edmond is improvising 90% of the rules along the way and it still works perfectly fine!
Second scenario of Boson’s personal quest, the Aether Outpost. The first one was hard, this one we teetered on the brink of disaster.
Characters
Lazy Liz the Deathwalker (David) lvl 2, sun-averse, why walk when we can teleport
Britney the Banner Spear (Mathieu) lvl 4 a great leader, might be related to Bruce
Boson the Blink Blade (Guillaume) lvl 4, Master of the 4th dimension
Last time we secured a special place for a stranded group of Aesthers. They need more of our help, we have to secure four (no less, no more) Elemental Cores so they can power up their, I dunno, their machine? Spaceship? Or…
Their nightclub! (okay, I’m totally making this up, but isn’t it a cool decor by Math yet again?)As far as Haven goes, it’s a bigass map. Do we have the stamina? Let’s open two rooms at once shall we.The Blink Blade opens the light-blue room and finds four demons between us and our goal. We must find a way to get the Core behind and bring it to the central room.Second room, the green, four more demons. Boson gets face to face with a meaty Earth Demon.And uses his lucky dice…An epic avalanche of luck for the win!One Elemental Core brought back courtesy of shadow jumps. I’m so smooth, I’m so dope, yah.Opening two more rooms? Why not?Hey guys, ‘member how the Wind demons have disarm abilities like half their attacks? Wait? What?!Things aren’t so smooth now. Not one bit.But demons can bleed. Now, who can outlast the other?
That’s victory for us!
Closing Comments:
An amazing start for us led to a bit of overconfidence. I could easily have added 5-6 more pictures with grim comments attached.
The Wind Demons really messed up our momentum. Fortunately I was able to place a bleeding shadow on their path (along with the always pesky flame demon) and, lucky for us, they got a move on their cards and got the bleed condition. That reignited our hopes of winning.
The Banner Spear fought against a whole bunch of enemies all the way through and almost got a mastery even but had to let go of the project when things turned south.
The Blink Blade covered incredible distance while dishing out impressive damage, very strong character.
My shadow abilities were somehow both very restrained by the size and non-linearity of the map but also really instrumental to winning, All in all an auspicious start for the Deathwalker I think.
Okay last segment of our sessions at the cabin and we’ll be up to date.
The boys want to find Count Giscard. Not to put a stake through his heart like they did with his wife the Countess, no, they wish to make peace with him as they think he’s a cool dude or something. I mean, is he a cool dude? Maybe! One thing I did told them, to reinforce the point that the Château isn’t a static place, is that they shouldn’t expect the Count to be found in his Entrance Halls’s room, not after what happened to his wife quite recently.
Monmon (Edmond), has a powerful antique spear, Warrior lvl 5>>6
Paul Nareff (Olivier), friend and sponsor of the numerous Jean clan, Warrior lvl 5>>6
Paul-Jean Paul (Olivier), apprentice alchemist, don’t confuse him with Jean-Paul Jean, Warrior lvl 5
Constant Jean (Olivier), vigorous member of the Jean clan, heavily armored, Warrior lvl 4
Retainers:
Raymond (Isaac), Man-at-Arms, gruff, vassal of the Comte de la Frenaie, Morale 7
Raoulet the Pimp (Marjorie), undead pimp with a semblance of life, Morale 12
Valentin (Isaac), shoemaker, Morale 7
Gaston (Edmond), poacher, not very bright, Morale 6
Hyacinthe (Edmond), caravan hand, very calm and attentive, Morale 9
Crypt
Zachary, Elementalist, electrocuted in front of the Anteroom (corpse in castle)
Pierre-Jean Pierre, ex-monk, clawed to death by a dark monk (RIP)
Edgar, daytaler, throat slashed by a dark monk, (corpse in castle)
Charles, daytaler, skewered by a drunken skeleton (corpse in castle)
Hercule, caravan hand, seized off the raft by the Lake Monster (MIA)
Pierre Laroche du Rocher, mason, pierced by the Huntsman’s arrows (corpse seized by Charon, RIP)
Alphonse, crusader, savaged by Count Giscard’s Children of the Night. (corpse in castle)
Jacques, daytaler, got hit in the face by an Empty Armor’s halberd (corpse thrown in the lake)
Stuffed Jean-Paul, killed by stuffed animals, stuffed himself, bursted into flames (RIP)
Georges, militia man, killed by an axe blow from a rival adventurer. (corpse in castle)
Previous Infractions in the Château:
Eliminated Tristano Malévol the Love-Lost. Eliminated Merlerik the Ancient. Eliminated Aranéa Malévol. Eliminated Runcius the Dark Man of the Woods. Eliminated Countess Maltricia Malévol. Eliminated Agénor Malévol. Eliminated Béatrice Malévol. (+1)
Smoked the Ruined Quarters: 1/2 Angered a werewolf washwoman: 1/2 Stole the Reliquary of Bygone Kings: 1 Failed to convince Jean-Honoré the butler of their lies: 1/2 Stole a treasure chest full of gold from the Lake Grotto treasury: 1/2 Interrupted Runcius Malévol’s pagan ritual: 1 Slightly annoyed Count Giscard Malévol while he drank « wine »: 1 Stole the Scepter of the Merovings: 1 Defaced living portraits with holy water: 1 Bullied Jean-Honoré the Butler: 1/2 Smashed the busts in the Bust Gallery: 1 Stole the Oil of Cleansings: 1 Stole the Crown of the Lost: 1 Burglarized Count Giscard’s room (+1) Put holy water in Count Giscard’s « wine » (+1) Total: 12 1/2
We start in Ximes. Luc Le Chaudronnier’s Alchemy Lab: one more dose of Oil of Revelation. Paul buys a cask of wine with the idea to give it to Count Giscard to compensate for having burglarized his liquor cabinet earlier. (of course Olivier is making a wrong assumption here but nice try!)
Grand Entrance:
The PCs wish to go to the catacombs and they enter at the Grand Entrance. The two statues do their usual thing but nothing special happens.
There’s a boar in the vestibule! Large and fierce but already sporting many wounds. The adventurers attack the beast from all side and Noah stab it with Runcius’ poisoned poniard and the beast trashes around for a short time and finally dies.
Thence they go through the Entrance Halls and get into the Throne Room. They use the secret elevator and descend into the Lake Grotto area.
They make a detour to the wine cellar and they discover that the secret passage to the Indoorness doesn’t seem to be there anymore. Instead, there’s a bas-relief depicting a woman: the Enchantress of Sylaire who seems in the process of making a deal with Runcius Malévol. A bit disappointed the adventurers get back to their original plan of trying to find the Count’s hiding place.
They go north and turn right near the chapel of the three saints. There’s a lone ghoul into the adjacent corridor, it reacts quickly when it hears the PCs and lashes at the first in line, Monmon, but misses all of its attacks. Monmon quickly disposes of it with his antique spear.
Thence they open a door nearby and interrupt eight ghouls that were bickering over scraps. Noah immediately kills one with his repeating crossbow. Paul then swing his big Guts blade (whirlwind attack) and kill four others. Monmon skewers another with his spear. The remaining two ghouls don’t believe very much in bravery and try to scamper away but are quickly cut down for their effort.
There’s an interesting frescoe in this otherwise broken down room that served as a tomb. Very ancient, it depicts a scene with knights – the central figure, a mighty knight, holds a banner with a bleeding heart and in his other hand he holds a scepter. (Like the scepter they found and sold? Yes pretty much like it…)
Further into this new section (sill in the Lake Grotto area), another tomb, this time an animated shovel digs a grave filling another in the process. They don’t inspect further and leave.
Thence, another tomb, there’s what look like a gisant but made of wax. The PCs don’t like the look of it one bit and leave.
Next, they open another door and come face to face with Guy the Jocular, Malévols’ own court jester. The PCs ask him if he knows of Count Giscard’s whereabouts and he says: « why, yes, he’s right here » and he points to Hyacinthe (random) with his wand (of polymorph) and the latter transforms and takes the appearance of the vampire Count! « But where’s the Count, for REAL? » « Ha! Can’tone have a little joke? Err hmm, he’s very near in truth but I wouldn’t disturb him if I were you! HA HA HA hihi haha héhé! » spitting some maggots as he laughs.
The party leaves the jester behind with a somewhat perplexed Hyacinthe/Fake Count Giscard in tow.
They open another doo nearby, another tomb/room but this time there’s dozens of bats on the ceiling and gargoyles in the corners. There’s also a thick stone slab in the middle of the room. The PCs close the door and use their ever-useful Oil of revelation to a see a probable future. In the vision, the adventurers get in a messy fight against the gargoyles and bats and flee the room when the stone slab begins to slide sideway, they flee further in the Castle and hear the howling of wolves sent after them… The vision ends, they know who’s under the slab!
Paul puts a note on his cask of wine, opens the door and leave the cask inside. They don’t have to wait too long before the room’s inhabitant rise up from his tomb: « What’s all the ruckus? What’s that, wine? What do I care for wine? » Louder: « Bring me proper sustenance next time or I’ll take care of it myself! »
The PCs leave the area before the Count decide to act on his words right now. They want to explore one last area before calling it a day and they settle on the southern part of the Entrance Halls.
They get back to the ground floor via the elevator. Soon after ther encounter a woman in a lavender dress and heavy make-up and dragging a heavy bag. The PCs have seen her portrait before, she’s Lydia Malévol. She bows when she sees Fake Count Giscard, « My lord », and eyes voraciously his strange companions.
Nearer their goal, the adventurers open a door and find a crowd of 24 undead noble men, mostly insulting each other and each boasting of their superior qualities as a would-be suitor for Lydia Malévol. The 24 undead noble men bow to Fake Count Giscard, « My lord », and eye suspiciously his strange companions.
Thence, the PCs get into a weird room with floating furnitures and a giant ectoplasmic head of an old man being slowly absorbed and distilled into an alembic. They discover that they can use the ectoplasm to make complex potions.
The adventurers leave the Château.
Closing Comments:
Great session with two major discoveries: Giscard’s secret underground repose place and the Knight’s Door which I’m pretty sure they’ll get back to very soon if they get ahold of the scepter again
Their plan to get into the Count’s good will has failed but it hadn’t devolved into a hostile situation either.
lots of encounters again, mostly non-hostile and one hostile (Lydia) averted with quick thinking and the earlier opportune transformation of Hyacinthe into Fake Count Giscard. Fun stuff.
XP: Participation: 1 Treasures: 0 Secrets: 2
Treasures: none
Fatalities: none
New Infractions: Have disturbed Count Giscard in his no-longer secret tomb (-1)
That’s it, last mission of the Snowdancer before her retirement. Coincidentally this scenario is about helping the Boneshaper, my previous character, achieving a personal objective.
Characters
Grayzill the Snowdancer (David) lvl 4>> retirement, General Winter is on the field
Britney the Banner Spear (Mathieu) lvl 3>>4 a great leader, might be related to Bruce
Boson the Blink Blade (Guillaume) lvl 3>>4, Master of the 4th dimension
There’s necromancy afoot! Of course this is of interest to the retiree, the Boneshaper, enough to ask for our help in finding out what the source of the power is. As it happens we find amulet-wearing undead. We must loot the amulets fast less the undead just keep getting back on their feet.
Where’s the Boneshaper? Care to join us? We’ll be doing all the hard work won’t we? SighShield and Strengthen to you. The Snowdancer will be missed…Give us your shiny baubles and die! Meat Grinder time!What the heck is that thing?! (Our first Lurker of the campaign.)Another shiny bauble for us.Oh shit, this one is even worst!Making a last stand are we?Never underestimate the power of funnelling.A banner, a flag-bearing sidekick, ain’t the Banner Spear overdoing it a little?
Closing Comments:
A walk in the park this time, we even finished with everybody at full hp.
We were able to pick up the amulets as soon as they fell on the ground (or even before with loot cards) and so we didn’t have to kill the same adversaries again and again. It was key to our success.
We gained an item blueprint as a reward. A very powerful item, if only we could unlock one of the two prerequisite item to craft it.
The Snowdancer was an interesting character, with very efficient support abilities, but as soon as I realized that her retirement was coming fast I lost a bit of interest unfortunately. I’m very eager to try my new one though.
Not exactly a full session as it was shortened due to what happened. We continued to play afterward but I consider each delve a separate session anyway. Worth mentionning: I’ve noted in the past how we had whole sessions that were very light on random encounters despite many many rolls but in the last few sessions we’ve seen pretty much the contrary.
Monmon (Edmond), has a powerful antique spear, Warrior lvl 5
Paul Nareff (Olivier), friend and sponsor of the numerous Jean clan, Warrior lvl 5
Paul-Jean Paul (Olivier), apprentice alchemist, don’t confuse him with Jean-Paul Jean, Warrior lvl 5
Constant Jean (Olivier), vigorous member of the Jean clan, heavily armored, Warrior lvl 4
Retainers:
Raymond (NPC), Man-at-Arms, gruff, vassal of the Comte de la Frenaie, Morale 7
Raoulet the Pimp (Marjorie), undead pimp with a semblance of life, Morale 12
Valentin (Isaac), shoemaker, Morale 7
Gaston (Edmond), poacher, not very bright, Morale 6
Hyacinthe (Edmond), caravan hand, very calm and attentive, Morale 9
Crypt
Zachary, Elementalist, electrocuted in front of the Anteroom (corpse in castle)
Pierre-Jean Pierre, ex-monk, clawed to death by a dark monk (RIP)
Edgar, daytaler, throat slashed by a dark monk, (corpse in castle)
Charles, daytaler, skewered by a drunken skeleton (corpse in castle)
Hercule, caravan hand, seized off the raft by the Lake Monster (MIA)
Pierre Laroche du Rocher, mason, pierced by the Huntsman’s arrows (corpse seized by Charon, RIP)
Alphonse, crusader, savaged by Count Giscard’s Children of the Night. (corpse in castle)
Jacques, daytaler, got hit in the face by an Empty Armor’s halberd (corpse thrown in the lake)
Stuffed Jean-Paul, killed by stuffed animals, stuffed himself, bursted into flames (RIP)
Georges, militia man, killed by an axe blow from a rival adventurer. (corpse in castle)
Previous Infractions in the Château:
Eliminated Tristano Malévol the Love-Lost. Eliminated Merlerik the Ancient. Eliminated Aranéa Malévol. Eliminated Runcius the Dark Man of the Woods. Eliminated Countess Maltricia Malévol. Eliminated Agénor Malévol. Eliminated Béatrice Malévol. (+1)
Smoked the Ruined Quarters: 1/2 Angered a werewolf washwoman: 1/2 Stole the Reliquary of Bygone Kings: 1 Failed to convince Jean-Honoré the butler of their lies: 1/2 Stole a treasure chest full of gold from the Lake Grotto treasury: 1/2 Interrupted Runcius Malévol’s pagan ritual: 1 Slightly annoyed Count Giscard Malévol while he drank « wine »: 1 Stole the Scepter of the Merovings: 1 Defaced living portraits with holy water: 1 Bullied Jean-Honoré the Butler: 1/2 Smashed the busts in the Bust Gallery: 1 Stole the Oil of Cleansings: 1 Stole the Crown of the Lost: 1 Burglarized Count Giscard’s room (+1) Put holy water in Count Giscard’s « wine » (+1) Total: 12 1/2
The Château is now for sale to the first to pay the 25,000 gp asking price to the family lawyer.
Alchemy lab: one more dose of oil of revelation
We start in Ximes. Monmon recruits two more retainers, Gaston and Hyacinthe, and Noah keeps the services of Valentin.
Grand Entrance
The PCs wish to go to the catacombs and they enter at the Grand Entrance. The two statues do their usual thing but nothing special happens.
Past the vestibule and the portrait gallery, into the Entrance Halls, they go in the corridor leading to the Throne Room. The adventurers see rocks and rotten cabbages bouncing off the corner’s wall. They soon encounter Étienne the Lapidated, he’s not hostile but complains about the constant deluge of projectiles aimed at him that appears from thin air. He says this is unfair treatment for the small pécadilles he did back in the day (proceeds to enumerate all the heinous crimes he commited in his life). The PCs move on but some of them are hurt by Étienne’s deserved punishment on their way out.
Thence they get into the Throne Room, activate the elevator and get down into the underground level, in the Lake Grotto area. They soon hear some metal grinding sounds, like someone sharpening a tool or weapon.
Constant puts a dose of Oil of revelation on his eyelids and has a vision of a probable future. He sees the party going into a fight against Mortagu the Executionner, slaying him but not before he slays Noah himself…
Now the adventurers try to find Mortagu but he’s the one who takes them by surprise. In a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy he chooses Noah as his target and swings his heavy axe at him. Noah, unaware, dodges the attack inadvertently (Lucky) as he slips and falls right at that moment. Monmon stabs Mortagu with his spear and wounds him grievously. Mortagu swings his axe again at Noah who’s still on the floor and decapitates him. The Executionner then gets overwhelmed and is killed soon after.
Monmon gets hold of Noah’s body and head and the adventurers start backtracking their steps to leave the Château as they have a solution in mind for Noah’s predicament.
On their way out back in the Entrance Halls they encounter Olivier Malévol, the one who has turned into a slime before their eyes in their last delve. He seems content enough to be free to roam the Château and don’t seem to hold a grudge against them for trying to kidnap him. He even tells the party that if they succeed in capturing Claude, he would be rather glad as he would become the rightful heir in lieu of his twin brother. He may be a bit delusional.
Leaving the Château behind, the PCs want to buy back the Sacred Cloth that they had foolishly sold for a derisory amount several delves ago. The buyer, a benedictine monk from the abbey of Périgon is reluctant to sell back this holy item but he finally accepts on the condition that the adventurers would undertake a somewhat perilous mission, they must investigate Bishop Azédarac’s pratices in dark arts and bring back incriminiating evidence to the church.
And so, with the acceptance of this mission the PCs get back the Sacred Cloth and with the proper ritual the holy powers bring Noah back to life, a bit more frail than before and with a very impressive scar all around his neck.
Closing Comments:
Étienne the Lapidated is my creation, he’s something like an attriting nuisance mostly.
12 yo Isaac took pretty badly to his character’s death with the fact that it was his second character to die and the other players have only lost retainers to date. I think it was Olivier who thought of getting back the Sacred Cloth and I couldn’t bring myself to be too harsh on this issue.
XP: Participation: 1 Treasures: 0 Secrets: 0
Treasures: none
Fatalities: Noah, decapitated by Mortagu the Executionner
We’re getting back from four days at the cabin where we managed to slip in several hours of tabletop gaming in-between our outdoor activities. Speaking of which, we found morels on our land! So, all in all, a very profitable time indeed…
Monmon (Edmond), has a powerful antique spear, Warrior lvl 5
Paul Nareff (Olivier), friend and sponsor of the numerous Jean clan, Warrior lvl 5
Paul-Jean Paul (Olivier), apprentice alchemist, don’t confuse him with Jean-Paul Jean, Warrior lvl 4>>5
Constant Jean (Olivier), vigorous member of the Jean clan, heavily armored, Warrior lvl 3>>4
Retainers:
Raymond (Isaac), Man-at-Arms, gruff, vassal of the Comte de la Frenaie, Morale 7
Raoulet the Pimp (Marjorie), undead pimp with a semblance of life, Morale 12
Georges (Edmond), militia man, Morale 7
Valentin (Isaac), shoemaker, Morale 7
Crypt
Zachary, Elementalist, electrocuted in front of the Anteroom (corpse in castle)
Pierre-Jean Pierre, ex-monk, clawed to death by a dark monk (RIP)
Edgar, daytaler, throat slashed by a dark monk, (corpse in castle)
Charles, daytaler, skewered by a drunken skeleton (corpse in castle)
Hercule, caravan hand, seized off the raft by the Lake Monster (MIA)
Pierre Laroche du Rocher, mason, pierced by the Huntsman’s arrows (corpse seized by Charon, RIP)
Alphonse, crusader, savaged by Count Giscard’s Children of the Night. (corpse in castle)
Jacques, daytaler, got hit in the face by an Empty Armor’s halberd (corpse thrown in the lake)
Stuffed Jean-Paul killed by stuffed animals, stuffed himself, bursted into flames (RIP)
Previous Infractions in the Château:
Eliminated Tristano Malévol the Love-Lost. Eliminated Merlerik the Ancient. Eliminated Aranéa Malévol. Eliminated Runcius the Dark Man of the Woods. Eliminated Countess Maltricia Malévol (+1)
Smoked the Ruined Quarters: 1/2 Angered a werewolf washwoman: 1/2 Stole the Reliquary of Bygone Kings: 1 Failed to convince Jean-Honoré the butler of their lies: 1/2 Stole a treasure chest full of gold from the Lake Grotto treasury: 1/2 Interrupted Runcius Malévol’s pagan ritual: 1 Slightly annoyed Count Giscard Malévol while he drank « wine »: 1 Stole the Scepter of the Merovings: 1 Defaced living portraits with holy water: 1 Bullied Jean-Honoré the Butler: 1/2 Smashed the busts in the Bust Gallery: 1 Stole the Oil of Cleansings: 1 Stole the Crown of the Lost: 1 Burglarized Count Giscard’s room (+1) Put holy water in Count Giscard’s « wine » (+1) Total: 12 1/2
Vanquished Aranéa Malévol’s retributory patrol -5
Played ball with the werepups -1
Current Infractions rating: 6 1/2
Rumors:
There are multiples libraries and laboratories in the Castle. A magic-user’s delight… or doom.
Some strange folks still pursue the work of the Heretic.
A small return on the end of the last session: the PCs had met former retainer Jacques fortuitously, as unpleasant as ever and now a zombie – as he was roaming in the corridors of the Château. As they got out though – after maybe a hundred yards from the gatehouse – poor Jacques faceplanted on the ground, dead as a rock. The cold-hearted adventurers decided to dump his corpse in the lake with the idea that the monster would make him disappear.
We start in Ximes. Paul-Jean, with the help of Luc le Chaudronnier, prepares another dose of lethal poison. Also, the master alchemist has finished analysing the mysterious flask of Oil found earlier: is has astounding properties – when applied on one’s eyelids it enables to see 10 minutes of a probable future. This Oil of Revelation will come in handy!
The PCs then proceed to hire more retainers. Monmon hires Georges who was part of the townwatch until recently. Noah hires Valentin, a shoemaker.
Grand Entrance
The PCs would like to reach the third floor of the Gothic Wing for the first time and they enter at the Grand Entrance. The two statues do their usual thing but nothing special happens.
Waiting for them in the Vestibule is the horrible Béatrice the Jilted. She’s accompanied by Agénor, a tall, gaunt pale-looking old man who seems a little lost. There’s also the late Countess’ galant knight, now undead, surrounded by four flirtatious undead ladies. Quite the sight.
Béatrice tells the adventurers that they will pay for having slain the Countess. Unless… Would any of them accept to be her suitor? No? Noboby? You can die then!
Béatrice is supernaturally fast (always acts first) and jumps on Monmon claws first. She rakes him twice, wounding and paralysing him. Noah hits her twice with his repeating crossbow, hurting her. Pierrot swings an axe at her, connects and she’s down! Is she really dead? Georges is asked to stab her some more to make sure. Paul does a whirlwind attack and slay all four of the undead courtesan ladies. Constant and Paul-Jean attack the zombie knight but he’s a more resilient foe. After a brief moment of hesitation the decrepit Agénor joins the fray and attacks Paul with his bare hands but misses. Paul, Paul-Jean and Noah all try to hurt the old man but to no avail, normal weapons don’t affect him! But Monmon shakes off his paralysis and pierce him with a mighty stab of his spear. Paul hits him with his magic dagger but Agénor touches him in return, wounding him and draining some of his strength. Several hits later and Agénor is incapacitated and gets a stake through his heart (as he’s evidently a vampire) and is hurled outside to be burned by sunlight. The undead knight, surrounded, is the last to fall (he had a backstory but, well… too bad!).
Béatrice though doesn’t seem to be able to stay dead for very long. The PCs decapitate her and burn her corpse for good measure. They looted her body prior to that and found a pearl necklace and an amber brooch.
They continue with their exploration plan and go to the stairway west of the Vestibule and go up into the Gothic Wing.
They’re trying to find the stairway leading to the 3rd floor (the highest). They go through the Feasting Hall and go north into a zigzagging corridor, find the latrine’s « throne » and then open a door to the west.
They’re inside a boudoir. Inside a closet they find a silver mirror and a puzzle box. There’s also a dressing screen and something behind but at that moment they hear a very angry Béatrice shouting at them: « You killed me and now you’re stealing from me! » and more that is lost in a primal scream as she runs towards them, claws at the ready. She hits Monmon (again) but this time he resists the paralysis. Noah pierces her with two crossbow bolts and then Monmon pierces her through with his spear. They wander briefly what to do with the unkillable crazy Béatrice but then they find a casket with chains behind the dressing screen and just proceed to toss her corpse in and lock it up. Without her head. Her head is thrown through the window and into Tristano’s pond.
Thence the PCs resume their search for a way up. Checking their map (Isaac) they figure that the 2×2 square space in the middle could well be what they seek and indeed, it is the stairway leading up!
In front of the stairway the party hears some noise coming from the east, several creatures are coming up from the 1st floor.
Constant uses the Oil of Revelation to see a probable future. Thus, he sees another party of adventurers, rough men armed mostly with axes. The leader asks the PCs to leave the Castle, it’s their turn to loot the place. Battle ensues, the PCs have the upper hand but suffer some losses. Still in the vision, the party go to the 3rd floor, breaks open a stuck door and gets into a library.
With this knowledge in mind, the PCs hurry to the 3rd floor (Gothic Wing II). Monmon breaks open the door and the group wait in ambush as the newcomers, alerted by the sound, come after them. The PCs win initative, Noah kill two adventurers just like that with his crossbow. Monmon kill another with his spear and then Georges jumps into the action and wounds another but he’s struck in return and dies. Paul takes his place and kill the wounded man and then gets into a duel against the leader who’s no match for him. The two remaining opponents fight to the death (morale check) which is not very long in coming.
The PCs loot the bodies and find a few hundreds gold pieces.
Thence, the PCs get into a library, don’t look much at the books but find a secret door on one corner with the help of Noah’ sword Scrupulous. Once opened they see a man standing right in front of them. He looks just like the one on the dead or alive wanted portrait of Claude Malévol. The PCs tell the man so but he denies being Claude, he claims to be his twin: Olivier Malévol! After a short deliberation the PCs decide that as the spitting image of a 3000gp reward, well… he would do. Of course, that doesn’t go very well with the would-be ransomed and, in a weird turn of events, the latter’s body melts and turns into a Slime! It lashes out at Monmon who was in the process of seizing him. The pseudopod hurts Monmon and ruins his mail hauberk. This is quite disconcerting to the adventurers and they decide that caution is the better part of valour.
They retreat and soon leave the Castle.
Closing Comments:
With the current Infractions level, first encounter rolled was to be with the retributory patrol (1d4+1 encounters together). With how the results went I figured that Béatrice was the more strong-willed opponent and would be the leader. She’s not much more than a beefed up ghoul but she’s very persistent…
And it so happened in one of those amazing emerging coincidence that they found Béatrice’s Boudoir and put her back inside her very own chained casket!
Very clever reading of the map by Isaac to find the stairway, I’m very proud. They’re getting good at this dungeon-delving stuff.
XP: Participation: 1 Treasures: 2 Secrets: 2
Treasures: Pearl Necklace, Amber Brooch, Silver Mirror, Puzzle Box
Fatalities: Georges, struck by a rival adventurer’s axe
This time we’re doing the sequel to the Work Freeze scenario which is part of what I’m calling the Capitalist Venture mini-campaign.
Characters
Grayzill the Snowdancer (David) lvl 3>>4, General Winter is on the field
Britney the Banner Spear (Mathieu) lvl 3 a great leader, might be related to Bruce
Boson the Blink Blade (Guillaume) lvl 3, Master of the 4th dimension
We must protect the Pylons against angry indigenous people. We’re totally the bad guys aren’t we?
Seven Pylons, three of us and six opponents. Things will get rough.But wait, here’s Britney’s banner of Hope, we should be fine!A first pylon crumbles under the assault, all is left is rubbles.A second wave of attackers. We’re starting to get seriously overwhelmed.On one side, the Banner Spear and her torch-bearing sidekick against an Algox warrior and an annoying Snow Imp.On the opposite side of the map…A whole bunch of people want to smash a brittle pylon and only me and a bird stand in-between. How can I have any hope of surviving?Time’s up! Wait, really?! It’s Victory for us!
Closing Comments:
With a set 10 rounds timer, all we had to do was to accept to take some damage ourselves (and lose cards in the process) to protect the pylons. Still, we saved only two.
Math’s quote after seeing the Blink Blade and a poor use of his Lucky Dice item: « You had some highs and lows. Mostly lows… »
One pylon had received the brittle condition (double damage) in the very first round but still got through intact at the end!
My Snowdancer, with its low damage output and not enough time to set up anything was less than optimal in this situation.
The frosthaven campaign offers several mutually exclusive pathways, that’s great. We now have a choice to make: do we try to promote peace between the two warring Algox clans or, do we side with the war party and help annihilate the opposing clan?
Characters
Grayzill the Snowdancer (David) lvl 3, General Winter is on the field
Britney the Banner Spear (Mathieu) lvl 2>>3 a great leader, might be related to Bruce
Boson the Blink Blade (Guillaume) lvl 2>>3, Master of the 4th dimension
Math let me decide on the matter as I have an Algox character and all.ButI really have a hard time thinking in roleplay terms in this game. I mean, after all this second character of mine will soon retire after only a few (in-game) weeks of adventuring, how invested can one be? So rather than rp the decision, I’m just going with the realpolitik/murderhobo ethos, let’s divide & conquer our foes in ruthless fashion!
I choose violence.The goal is to destroy the magic spire.Mandatory for the scenario is to split the party. Here’s the Blink Blade, the Banner Spear and one Algox ally beside them.Now’s the perfect time for a morale boost, banner mode on!Meanwhile, I’m on the other side of the map with two Algox allies.« Pull. Watch you step! Hehe. »The diminutive Blink Blade gets into a duel.« He’s hurt, finish him! »And now the Spire. Oh wait, is that a chest over there? Snowdancer whistles.One big chunk removed.Ew, the enemies don’t like that at all! Here they come!Banner Spear: « Too late for you, I’ll meat grind this spire into oblivion! »
Closing Comments:
We had to finish destroying the spire in a hurry. Both the Blink Blade and Banner Spear were seriously depleted.
Lot of hazardous terrain for my Snowdancer to use. I could afford to be the single PC on one side.
The Banner Spear AOE attacks helped a lot to smash down the Spire.
The chest was really disappointing, I’m telling you!
Streets & Spores 