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Session: Stonetop:: Stonetop "beta" 2021-2022 campaign - sessions 23-26
Posted: Fri, 30 Jan 04:19:32
Session 23 was a much more relaxed interlude as the heroes of Stonetop took a moment to catch their breaths and relax after the first big story arc.
Tyrian, the antiquarian Seeker PC who seems to be nearly as old as the artifacts he studies, arrived in town, having just slipped past the thunder drakes at the Ruined Tower and found the Azure Hand that the party missed there. With the assistance of Elder Macsen, an old acquaintance of Tyrian, he moved into Ryga's old, now-empty, house.
Esbern van Carstein, the menacing uncle of the new-missing Isabella von Carstein, arrived with an angry flourish, demanding to know how the backwater village of Stonetop managed to off not one, but two von Carsteins (Oh, right, there was another member of the family who arrived and started a fight that he didn't survive, and didn't make it into the session notes). Vaughn and the gang managed to talk him down and convinced him that both deaths were unfortunate and unexpected accidents, and Tyrian relayed to him what he could of the mysterious obelisk beneath the Ruined Tower. Accepting that Stonetop wasn't a menace, Esbern collected Isabella's belongings and departed, not realizing that the family heirloom letter he dropped was picked up by Robin.
Tyrian attempted and failed to break into the sealed-off home of Faerst, the shunned and untrusted former dark arts practitioner who did his unholy research right under their noses and died when he caused the Cursed Gate incident.
Lyrian, anxious to find a permanent solution to his nephew's handicap, requests the party's aid in his mission to Gordin's Delve.
What new mysteries and threats will the party find in Gordin's Delve (since the last visit was before the actual book entry was written and the GM had time to write location-specific plot hooks for it)?
Session 24...
The suspiciously small group of adventurers (Lyrian, Tyrian, and Allistair) made preparations at home, including yet another attempt by Tyrian to break into Faerst's home - this time, he was caught by a patrolman, and there is now a permanent guard posted at the condemned building.
With the next dawn, the trio made the uneventful trek through the Cursed Gate, where they observed renewed travel activity and a number of grave cairns for Hillfolk warriors (but none for their own Faerst), on their way to Gordin's Delve for their (mostly) first visit. Lyrian and Allistair went to Foundry with the horse-drawn cartload of Aetherium to sell, but the foreman redirected them to the boss, Jahalim of the Keys, in one of the Terraces. Meeting with Jahalim's clerk, Lyrian managed to trade (at a loss, of course) the Aetherium for 2 handfuls of gold and an intricate Black Iron hammer for the smithy.
Tyrian, on the other hand, left in search of Gordin's Seekers. He was disappointed to find that, at least on the surface, it was little more than a pyramid scheme, but he signed up anyways because of the dangling carrot promise of eventually meeting the Inner Circle. He picked up a mass-printed transcription of a tome seemingly written in a forgotten language, but he was likewise unable to understand it, save for determining that it was written in a language with similarities to the handful of Hillfolk written languages.
On their return to the town's entrance to find Tyrian, Lyrian and Allistair encountered a small local religion when a man begged them for change to pay for funerary services for his mother at the temple, which the duo declined. His interest piqued, Allistair inquired about the precepts of the strange religion at their temple, but was unconvinced, and left with more questions than answers.
With new money in hand from the sale of the Ruined Tower's aetherium, the trio paid for a week of lodging. Before settling in for the night, Lyrian wandered down to a cheap bar and purposefully picked a fight with local drunkards, eager to bloody his fist for the first time in a week. Hopeful that his name was starting to spread, he departed back to the inn. In the morning, the trio returned to the Gordin's Seekers public clubhouse in hopes of getting more answers, particularly about the Ustrina that Lyrian was anxious to deal with, but got very little information other than learning that meeting such a Ustrina without an established intermediary to arrange a meeting was unlikely, and business contacts with the Ustrina were valuable and well-regarded.
Although they knew that the boss Honest Draigh was known to trade with Ustrina, Lyrian was desperate to avoid dealing with another of the bosses, so he took his chances with asking around, eventually finding a pawn shop of sorts that had a few Ustrina contacts. The shopkeeper agreed to sell an open-ended contract to Lyrian for the right price, for reasons previously assigned. Lyrian agreed to a two-part payment, on the condition that he met with and made a deal with this Ustrina. The shopkeep agreed, promising to arrange a meeting with "the Valerix of clan Peridita", which she implied was some kind of artisan clan that could likely craft the enchanted prosthetics that he sought for his nephew.
Of course, this contract with the Valerix has remained open for some time - it is rather expensive: three cartloads of fine silk.
Why are people are so tight-lipped about the Ustrina? Is the steep price of the prosthetics really worth it? What's really going on with Gordin's Seekers or in the odd temple? Is it really wise to wander around Gordin's Delve with so many gold coins in your pocket?
Session 25 was the resolution of the economic expedition from Stonetop to Gordin's Delve.
The three who went (Lyrian, Tyrian, and Allistair) set out to recruit a merchant for Stonetop, someone to move to the village and use their expertise to look out for Stonetop's economic interests by arranging trade routes and contracts. Because of his fondness for the village that saved his life just over a year ago, young Deniel, who had spent the last year as a merchant's apprentice in Gordin's Delve after his uncle's death responded to the call. Of course, his deal with his master was that a portion of his earnings for a time would be given to the former master, and not trusting the commercial prospects of Stonetop, he demanded up front payment of 2 gold coins instead. Fortunately, thanks to the recent sale of aetherium, the party was able to pay off that debt - but unbeknownst to them thus far, they drew unwanted attention in the process.
Deniel gave Lyrian some advice on dealing with the Ustrina and passed along the rumor that, about a year ago, Gordin's Seekers were known to have commissioned the purchase of some elusive Dark Ice, a material associated with the Rime Lords - ice that doesn't melt, no matter where it is taken.
The next day, the trio met with the enigmatic Ustrina, Valerix, who agreed to the deal that was proposed by the shopkeeper earlier in the week, and who gave Lyrian an enchanted clockwork messenger bird for the purpose of keeping the two in contact.
Deniel introduced the party to some contacts, who showed off several interesting items of Ustrina or local make, but they were all a bit too pricy for the trio.
The trip home was more eventful than anticipated, with Tyrian's fumbled experiments with the Azure Hand spooking Horse off the road and nearly into the jaws of a shellback drake. Reaching the Crossroads, Deniel saw the ghost of his uncle and panicked, running off of the safe Road, but Lyrian was quick to tackle him - souring the young man's trust of the bruiser a bit.
Finally reaching home, they immediately noticed that Faerst's old house had been leveled in their absence - much to Tyrian's disappointment. They were also informed that some of the Gwead (strong grasses that overtake pretty much anything in its growth path, except for the Old Wall) to the north of the village has started to have odd black, wilted patches - strange, but not overly concerning.
The party took a week to recover (and level up), and Tyrian managed to translate the Gordin's Seekers manuscript - revealing it to be a terrifying Sorcerer King spellbook full of highly destructive, but costly, spells that appear to have been revealed to the Sorcerer King by a Thing Below that the party has not yet dealt with. This realization, of course, set a new wave of panic through Tyrian and a new high-priority goal for the old man.
Session 26 found us catching up with a few party members who stayed at Stonetop during the trade excursion to Gordin's Delve.
Vaugh, like a good soldier, followed orders to destroy the former home of the distrusted Faerst, burning anything that could burn and trusting Madoc to bury in the Great Wood anything that couldn't.
Robin investigated the reports of oddly affected gwead north of the town, and communed with the spirits he found there - spirits that were in a panic about something unnatural that was... hunting something.
Lyrian was visited by a magically animated clockwork messenger pigeon similar to the one given him by the Ustrina, which delivered a small private note and departed.
Tyrian shared with the party the translated Sorcerer King spellbook and expressed his concerns about how dangerous it could be in the wrong hands - the hands of the Gordin's Seekers, specifically, and he hoped that they had not yet managed to translate it - but before a plan could be hashed out, the group was interrupted by a distraught woman seeking help to locate her missing husband.
Following their only lead to his last known location, the party found a sickly spot of crops in the north fields, and their investigation was cut short when they were ambushed by a pair of unnatural plant beasts - green/brown messes of twisted thony tentacles around a maw like a toothed beak, these man-sized plant-like creatures were terrifying to behold. Their brief fight with the pair of creatures lead to one more horrifying realization - the beasts could drive a vine into a person's nose or mouth to control their mind and meld them into a sort of hive-mind!
In the ensuing fight, Robin found himself on the wrong end of those vines, briefly losing control of himself as he was pulled down into a hidden cave below the field. The party quickly pursued, coming face-to-face with a much larger plant-beast, as well as the missing farmer, unconscious and tangled in vines against a wall. Vaughn's crew quickly freed Robin with a well-placed arrow, Lyrian charged at the massive foe, and Tyrian unleashed an uncontrolled firestorm into the cave, severely wounding the beast and some party members, and accidentally killing the hapless farmer. One more frightful tactic of the plant-beasts was witnessed when a portion of the vanquished beast reanimated in a smaller form, but it too was quickly dispatched.
Returning to town with the corpse of one of the creatures and the charred remains of the missing man, they met Madoc who was disappointed to recognize the plant-beast as the same type of creature (though smaller) as the one that killed the Fae Paths expedition that he survived. The realization that they likely have a much bigger problem on their hands - the escape of a powerful creature from the Paths that has apparently spawned more since then - slowly spread through the group, but further work would have to wait, as the battered and bloody group needed to take a night to recover from their battle.
Posted: Fri, 30 Jan 04:19:32
by cthompsonguy
The previous chapter: Stonetop "beta" 2021-2022 campaign - sessions 20-22Session 23 was a much more relaxed interlude as the heroes of Stonetop took a moment to catch their breaths and relax after the first big story arc.
Tyrian, the antiquarian Seeker PC who seems to be nearly as old as the artifacts he studies, arrived in town, having just slipped past the thunder drakes at the Ruined Tower and found the Azure Hand that the party missed there. With the assistance of Elder Macsen, an old acquaintance of Tyrian, he moved into Ryga's old, now-empty, house.
Esbern van Carstein, the menacing uncle of the new-missing Isabella von Carstein, arrived with an angry flourish, demanding to know how the backwater village of Stonetop managed to off not one, but two von Carsteins (Oh, right, there was another member of the family who arrived and started a fight that he didn't survive, and didn't make it into the session notes). Vaughn and the gang managed to talk him down and convinced him that both deaths were unfortunate and unexpected accidents, and Tyrian relayed to him what he could of the mysterious obelisk beneath the Ruined Tower. Accepting that Stonetop wasn't a menace, Esbern collected Isabella's belongings and departed, not realizing that the family heirloom letter he dropped was picked up by Robin.
Tyrian attempted and failed to break into the sealed-off home of Faerst, the shunned and untrusted former dark arts practitioner who did his unholy research right under their noses and died when he caused the Cursed Gate incident.
Lyrian, anxious to find a permanent solution to his nephew's handicap, requests the party's aid in his mission to Gordin's Delve.
What new mysteries and threats will the party find in Gordin's Delve (since the last visit was before the actual book entry was written and the GM had time to write location-specific plot hooks for it)?
Session 24...
The suspiciously small group of adventurers (Lyrian, Tyrian, and Allistair) made preparations at home, including yet another attempt by Tyrian to break into Faerst's home - this time, he was caught by a patrolman, and there is now a permanent guard posted at the condemned building.
With the next dawn, the trio made the uneventful trek through the Cursed Gate, where they observed renewed travel activity and a number of grave cairns for Hillfolk warriors (but none for their own Faerst), on their way to Gordin's Delve for their (mostly) first visit. Lyrian and Allistair went to Foundry with the horse-drawn cartload of Aetherium to sell, but the foreman redirected them to the boss, Jahalim of the Keys, in one of the Terraces. Meeting with Jahalim's clerk, Lyrian managed to trade (at a loss, of course) the Aetherium for 2 handfuls of gold and an intricate Black Iron hammer for the smithy.
Tyrian, on the other hand, left in search of Gordin's Seekers. He was disappointed to find that, at least on the surface, it was little more than a pyramid scheme, but he signed up anyways because of the dangling carrot promise of eventually meeting the Inner Circle. He picked up a mass-printed transcription of a tome seemingly written in a forgotten language, but he was likewise unable to understand it, save for determining that it was written in a language with similarities to the handful of Hillfolk written languages.
On their return to the town's entrance to find Tyrian, Lyrian and Allistair encountered a small local religion when a man begged them for change to pay for funerary services for his mother at the temple, which the duo declined. His interest piqued, Allistair inquired about the precepts of the strange religion at their temple, but was unconvinced, and left with more questions than answers.
With new money in hand from the sale of the Ruined Tower's aetherium, the trio paid for a week of lodging. Before settling in for the night, Lyrian wandered down to a cheap bar and purposefully picked a fight with local drunkards, eager to bloody his fist for the first time in a week. Hopeful that his name was starting to spread, he departed back to the inn. In the morning, the trio returned to the Gordin's Seekers public clubhouse in hopes of getting more answers, particularly about the Ustrina that Lyrian was anxious to deal with, but got very little information other than learning that meeting such a Ustrina without an established intermediary to arrange a meeting was unlikely, and business contacts with the Ustrina were valuable and well-regarded.
Although they knew that the boss Honest Draigh was known to trade with Ustrina, Lyrian was desperate to avoid dealing with another of the bosses, so he took his chances with asking around, eventually finding a pawn shop of sorts that had a few Ustrina contacts. The shopkeeper agreed to sell an open-ended contract to Lyrian for the right price, for reasons previously assigned. Lyrian agreed to a two-part payment, on the condition that he met with and made a deal with this Ustrina. The shopkeep agreed, promising to arrange a meeting with "the Valerix of clan Peridita", which she implied was some kind of artisan clan that could likely craft the enchanted prosthetics that he sought for his nephew.
Of course, this contract with the Valerix has remained open for some time - it is rather expensive: three cartloads of fine silk.
Why are people are so tight-lipped about the Ustrina? Is the steep price of the prosthetics really worth it? What's really going on with Gordin's Seekers or in the odd temple? Is it really wise to wander around Gordin's Delve with so many gold coins in your pocket?
Session 25 was the resolution of the economic expedition from Stonetop to Gordin's Delve.
The three who went (Lyrian, Tyrian, and Allistair) set out to recruit a merchant for Stonetop, someone to move to the village and use their expertise to look out for Stonetop's economic interests by arranging trade routes and contracts. Because of his fondness for the village that saved his life just over a year ago, young Deniel, who had spent the last year as a merchant's apprentice in Gordin's Delve after his uncle's death responded to the call. Of course, his deal with his master was that a portion of his earnings for a time would be given to the former master, and not trusting the commercial prospects of Stonetop, he demanded up front payment of 2 gold coins instead. Fortunately, thanks to the recent sale of aetherium, the party was able to pay off that debt - but unbeknownst to them thus far, they drew unwanted attention in the process.
Deniel gave Lyrian some advice on dealing with the Ustrina and passed along the rumor that, about a year ago, Gordin's Seekers were known to have commissioned the purchase of some elusive Dark Ice, a material associated with the Rime Lords - ice that doesn't melt, no matter where it is taken.
The next day, the trio met with the enigmatic Ustrina, Valerix, who agreed to the deal that was proposed by the shopkeeper earlier in the week, and who gave Lyrian an enchanted clockwork messenger bird for the purpose of keeping the two in contact.
Deniel introduced the party to some contacts, who showed off several interesting items of Ustrina or local make, but they were all a bit too pricy for the trio.
The trip home was more eventful than anticipated, with Tyrian's fumbled experiments with the Azure Hand spooking Horse off the road and nearly into the jaws of a shellback drake. Reaching the Crossroads, Deniel saw the ghost of his uncle and panicked, running off of the safe Road, but Lyrian was quick to tackle him - souring the young man's trust of the bruiser a bit.
Finally reaching home, they immediately noticed that Faerst's old house had been leveled in their absence - much to Tyrian's disappointment. They were also informed that some of the Gwead (strong grasses that overtake pretty much anything in its growth path, except for the Old Wall) to the north of the village has started to have odd black, wilted patches - strange, but not overly concerning.
The party took a week to recover (and level up), and Tyrian managed to translate the Gordin's Seekers manuscript - revealing it to be a terrifying Sorcerer King spellbook full of highly destructive, but costly, spells that appear to have been revealed to the Sorcerer King by a Thing Below that the party has not yet dealt with. This realization, of course, set a new wave of panic through Tyrian and a new high-priority goal for the old man.
Session 26 found us catching up with a few party members who stayed at Stonetop during the trade excursion to Gordin's Delve.
Vaugh, like a good soldier, followed orders to destroy the former home of the distrusted Faerst, burning anything that could burn and trusting Madoc to bury in the Great Wood anything that couldn't.
Robin investigated the reports of oddly affected gwead north of the town, and communed with the spirits he found there - spirits that were in a panic about something unnatural that was... hunting something.
Lyrian was visited by a magically animated clockwork messenger pigeon similar to the one given him by the Ustrina, which delivered a small private note and departed.
Tyrian shared with the party the translated Sorcerer King spellbook and expressed his concerns about how dangerous it could be in the wrong hands - the hands of the Gordin's Seekers, specifically, and he hoped that they had not yet managed to translate it - but before a plan could be hashed out, the group was interrupted by a distraught woman seeking help to locate her missing husband.
Following their only lead to his last known location, the party found a sickly spot of crops in the north fields, and their investigation was cut short when they were ambushed by a pair of unnatural plant beasts - green/brown messes of twisted thony tentacles around a maw like a toothed beak, these man-sized plant-like creatures were terrifying to behold. Their brief fight with the pair of creatures lead to one more horrifying realization - the beasts could drive a vine into a person's nose or mouth to control their mind and meld them into a sort of hive-mind!
In the ensuing fight, Robin found himself on the wrong end of those vines, briefly losing control of himself as he was pulled down into a hidden cave below the field. The party quickly pursued, coming face-to-face with a much larger plant-beast, as well as the missing farmer, unconscious and tangled in vines against a wall. Vaughn's crew quickly freed Robin with a well-placed arrow, Lyrian charged at the massive foe, and Tyrian unleashed an uncontrolled firestorm into the cave, severely wounding the beast and some party members, and accidentally killing the hapless farmer. One more frightful tactic of the plant-beasts was witnessed when a portion of the vanquished beast reanimated in a smaller form, but it too was quickly dispatched.
Returning to town with the corpse of one of the creatures and the charred remains of the missing man, they met Madoc who was disappointed to recognize the plant-beast as the same type of creature (though smaller) as the one that killed the Fae Paths expedition that he survived. The realization that they likely have a much bigger problem on their hands - the escape of a powerful creature from the Paths that has apparently spawned more since then - slowly spread through the group, but further work would have to wait, as the battered and bloody group needed to take a night to recover from their battle.
Review: Harmony Acres:: The Short Version? Harmony Acres provides a good alternate settlement for Pugmire.
Posted: Fri, 30 Jan 04:19:13
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Harmony Acres was released in 2020 as part of the Canis Minor community content program for Realms of Pugmire. It was written by Zachery Naldrett and the art is derived from the community content resources.
Presentation
This is a 16 page PDF with front and back covers and 3 pages of OGL information. The remaining 11 pages are the content of the supplement. The pages are 7x10" and primarily laid out in two columns.
Content
Harmony Acres is a cactus-farming community. It is designed to offer players somewhere other than the city of Pugmire to be their base or to be a place to visit on the way to other adventures. It is a community of dogs and some cats.
The supplement includes information on the history of Harmony Acres and its founder Princess Cinnamon Chihuahua. Princess was a Royal Pioneer who was very good at dealing with the Unseen, so good they plotted revenge against her and put her comrades in danger. She retired to Harmony Acres because it had a reputation for being a place where the Unseen could not enter.
That remains true today. Since her death, Harmony Acres has become a farming community whose primary export is the flowers and fruit of the prickly pear cactus. It has a number of famous residents which are given a paragraph each in this supplement. Also included are some new fixes which are based on the cacti of the region and it's oils.
The settlement is given a good description of the general terrain and layout as well as a description of the key buildings and locations in the area. In addition to all the town information, there is a new spell and 3 new fixes. We also get several new creatures which are sometimes encountered near Harmony Acres: Coyotes (similar to our coyote), Javelina (feral pigs who are more dangerous to crops than people most of the time), Giant Scorpions, Jumping Cholla (a cactus with a ranged attack it uses if it feels threatened), and the Sandstorm Elemental (Large monsters made of swirling sand). Each of these is given a brief description and a full stat block.
Finally, we get plot hooks These are split into two groups, one for new and one for existing characters. There are a couple of suggestions for getting or starting new characters in Harmony Acres and a trio of ideas for prompting existing characters to visit.
Evaluation
This is a fun setting. There might be a little too much history of the fallen Princess, but other than that, the content is valuable and useful. The history provides ample information for GMs to help determine reactions of the townsfolk and their leaders. It is a nice change from other towns and regions in that there isn't as much skullduggery as in other places and most of the threats are external.
If you're a guide looking for a new place to serve as a base for adventures or just a peaceful village for players to visit, this is a good supplement.
Posted: Fri, 30 Jan 04:19:13
by sdonohue
Presentation
This is a 16 page PDF with front and back covers and 3 pages of OGL information. The remaining 11 pages are the content of the supplement. The pages are 7x10" and primarily laid out in two columns.
Content
Harmony Acres is a cactus-farming community. It is designed to offer players somewhere other than the city of Pugmire to be their base or to be a place to visit on the way to other adventures. It is a community of dogs and some cats.
The supplement includes information on the history of Harmony Acres and its founder Princess Cinnamon Chihuahua. Princess was a Royal Pioneer who was very good at dealing with the Unseen, so good they plotted revenge against her and put her comrades in danger. She retired to Harmony Acres because it had a reputation for being a place where the Unseen could not enter.
That remains true today. Since her death, Harmony Acres has become a farming community whose primary export is the flowers and fruit of the prickly pear cactus. It has a number of famous residents which are given a paragraph each in this supplement. Also included are some new fixes which are based on the cacti of the region and it's oils.
The settlement is given a good description of the general terrain and layout as well as a description of the key buildings and locations in the area. In addition to all the town information, there is a new spell and 3 new fixes. We also get several new creatures which are sometimes encountered near Harmony Acres: Coyotes (similar to our coyote), Javelina (feral pigs who are more dangerous to crops than people most of the time), Giant Scorpions, Jumping Cholla (a cactus with a ranged attack it uses if it feels threatened), and the Sandstorm Elemental (Large monsters made of swirling sand). Each of these is given a brief description and a full stat block.
Finally, we get plot hooks These are split into two groups, one for new and one for existing characters. There are a couple of suggestions for getting or starting new characters in Harmony Acres and a trio of ideas for prompting existing characters to visit.
Evaluation
This is a fun setting. There might be a little too much history of the fallen Princess, but other than that, the content is valuable and useful. The history provides ample information for GMs to help determine reactions of the townsfolk and their leaders. It is a nice change from other towns and regions in that there isn't as much skullduggery as in other places and most of the threats are external.
If you're a guide looking for a new place to serve as a base for adventures or just a peaceful village for players to visit, this is a good supplement.
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Pocket Monster Adventures
Posted: Fri, 30 Jan 04:18:33
Posted: Fri, 30 Jan 04:18:33
A new rpg has been added to the database:
Pocket Monster Adventures
Pocket Monster Adventures
Posted: Fri, 30 Jan 04:18:18
Posted: Fri, 30 Jan 04:18:18
A new rpg item has been added to the database:
Pocket Monster Adventures
Pocket Monster Adventures (PDF Version)
Posted: Fri, 30 Jan 04:18:18
Posted: Fri, 30 Jan 04:18:18
A new rpg item version has been added to the database:
Pocket Monster Adventures (PDF Version)
