Meta: Thoughts on Paladins

Paladins are really cool. A lot of people dislike them because they're seen as being "moral police" for the rest of the party. And to an extent, the rules are written to support that. Paladins have to be Lawful Good. They must always act in the best interests of their deity. They are held accountable not just for their actions, but even for the actions of the rest of the party. And quite frankly, most people find that to be pretty dumb. And I don't really blame them.
But there's another way to look at paladins. They always have to abide by the higher power of their deity - but why does that always have to be Lawful Good? I always envision paladins as being above the law, and meting out justice and serving the world in their own way. If there's an evildoer, the Paladin doesn't want to spend their time going through the legal channels and battling them in court. The Paladin wants to cut them in half with their sword. And if they don't lose their powers for doing so, that's all the evidence anybody in the world needs to support their decision.
Paladins are sometimes described as having the "Stick Up Their Own Ass" class feature. And yes, it sometimes does seem that way. They have to be uptight about everything or else they lose all their own class features. But personally I find that silly. If the Paladin has their own way of dealing with evil, then they should be encouraged to do so. Their deity empowered them for a reason. It was specifically to let them do that which nobody else in the world ever could. If they're bound by transient laws, then the entire purpose is ruined. Paladins cease to be anything other than a bureaucracy.
What I find most fascinating is how a Paladin becomes what they are. Typically, I treat them as being trained from a very young age in an isolated monastery to become living embodiments of their deity. But just recently, a player in a new campaign I started on Sunday suggested the idea of a "Paladin Training Camp" where they are trained as adults after proving themselves as warriors. I rather like the idea, since it allows paladins to be actual people rather than automatons that always play by the rules. He actually said that his character flunked out of paladin training camp, and has a hatred of authority because of it.

Minor NPC: The Blackguard

Another minor NPC, though this one would likely be a recurring villain. I feel like sometimes I do a little too much backstory for things that should be rather basic. This one is the opposite end of the spectrum. Image is courtesy of Reddit user De_Vermis_Mysteriis.


Name: The Blackguard
Race: Human
Alignment: Chaotic Evil

Description: 
The air is cold and still around this figure. He steps forward with an unnatural grace even though he should be laden by his heavy armor. Blood drips down his blade in a constant trickle, and his eyes fixate on you unwaveringly.

Profile:
The Blackguard is a human that once was a paladin. He fell from his powers and made a pact with a triad of demon lords to gain new horrific powers, and now works as their pawn in Fomor. His name has been stricken from history, and his existence proves only to tarnish the reputation of all paladin orders. He is the first of his kind, to not only survive the judgement of paladins after falling to evil, but to prove himself worthy of becoming the servant of such masters.
In combat, The Blackguard is a purely melee combattant. He closes in with whomever he can reach and duels until they die. He no longer places any value on his own life, and will not stop until his target is destroyed. His evil magic serves to give him the ability to drain life from his opponents, and also buffs himself physically. He normally only fights alone.
The purpose of this character is to be mysterious without being too intricate. His past is a secret, since none of the paladin orders are willing to admit where he came from, lest they be seen as corruptible. He himself no longer views himself as human, and now blindly obeys his masters. He can be a recurring villain for the party to face, as he serves these enigmatic beings that may have nonsensical goals to mortals.

Location: The Shore

And now for a plot-centric location! This is one that won't appear for some time in the Fomor campaign, but I want it to be well-defined and fleshed-out area for when they arrive. For now it's a very short post just to get the idea out there, but this one will definitely be revisited in the future. Picture is by René Aigner.


Description: 
The waves slowly lap at the sand. The air is salty, and smells of ozone. You can see a large figure moving beneath the water, but it seems more amorphous than well-defined. No signs of life can be seen for miles.

Info:
This is the place that Garath saw his water dragon during his dream-state. It is located on the western edge of the continent of Fomor. This is the resting place of one of the last dragons - a massive Bronze dragon that slumbers beneath the waves. It can instill great power into any of its blood line, which consists of Garath and several hundred others whose potential was not as great. Its presence has driven off every other living creature, whether or not they are even aware of its existence.
The dragon is highly intelligent and nearly omnipotent. It is so ancient and entwined with Fomor's own existence that it can view the entire continent simultaneously. As such, it knows of the party's journeys but will not intervene in any way. Its purpose in life was satisfied millenia ago when it helped to purge the Formians. Now it only persists to bestow knowledge into another that it deems worthy. Which is Garath.
As far as an adventure goes, I haven't quite decided yet. In a sense, this would be a plot-heavy RP-centric session focused on Garath. But the dragon could also have some task for the party to complete before it fully makes its judgement. The journey to the dragon, however, would be fraught with danger. The party would have to move through ancient Formian hive-cities, and vast stretches of desert. 

Minor Location: The Ruined Temple

So I'm really bad at updating all of a sudden. Yesterday was Labor Day and that was my excuse. Anywho, this image is by Trung Nguyen.


Description:
Mist weaves through the mountaintops. The structures are collapsing, and their colors have been washed away by the winds. Vines creep all around where civilization used to stand.

Info:
The Ruined Temple was home to an order of monks several decades ago. however, they have since been completely driven off. The monastery remains, though it is now decrepit and falling into disrepair. The powers of nature are now taking over the formerly orderly place.
The monks that lived here dedicated their lives to order. Their discipline and mental powers shaped the reality around this area, making it unnaturally orderly. For the most part this has no apparent effect, but especially chaotic creatures experience pain and discomfort. Especially chaotic creatures, such as demons, find that they are unable to exist in this area. However, with their new absence, the neutrality of the Material Plane is reclaiming it as its own.
Several supernatural creatures have come to call this place home. Spirits of monks seek to keep the Ruined Temple as orderly as possible in a magical sense. They are opposed by nature spirits in the area. There is a perpetual conflict between the two factions, though neither can ever actually win. As such, the area shifts back and forth between its dilapidated state and pristine condition.
In gameplay, this area would be used mostly as a surreal one-off adventure. The spirits would coerce the party into acting one way or another to shift the balance towards order or chaos, which they would then have to choose. They could of course choose neither and destroy or ignore either or both sides. This poses a way to challenge the party cohesion, to either let nature run its course or allow the spirits to have their way with their home in life.

Minor NPC: Istrix

Wow. No sooner do I talk about how great it is to finally have time to update than a bunch of stuff comes up that then prevents me from doing so. I'm really bad at this. I am trying to get this taken care of in a reasonable fashion, but I may be inconsistent in the near future. Credit for the image to De_Vermis_Mysteriis.


Name: Istrix
Race: Human
Alignment: Neutral Evil

Description:
This human is slightly taller than average. He wears brightly-colored clothing that covers all of his skin, and wields a scimitar with one hand. He keeps an assortment of other combat equipment around his person, and watches everyone around him at the same time.

Profile:
Istrix is a bounty hunter. He mostly works alone, bringing people in either dead or alive to collect rewards. As an adventuring type, Istrix tends to take on more difficult charges that others aren't capable of retrieving. He doesn't question the reasons which someone might be taken in - while some are certainly criminals and evildoers, others are good people that were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Istrix makes no distinction so long as it serves him. He is well-known for never reneging on a contract after nearly a decade in the business.
Istrix has a style of combat very similar to that of a Ranger. He is an expert tracker, and is usually lightly armored. His tactics vary based on his mark and whether the bounty is to be brought alive or dead. If lethality is approved, he will often lay traps and attack from a distance. If they need to be caught alive, then he will close into melee and attempt to net them so they can be chained and marched back.
Istrix is very detached socially. He is not very outgoing, and is mostly focused on his work. He has no family that he maintains contact with, and no friends beyond temporary colleagues. While he has never explicitly betrayed someone working a contract with him, he certainly does not go out of his way to help them should they get into trouble during the fight. He is most well known for being a lone wolf, which is rare among bounty hunters. Currently, Istrix resides in Neris as a bounty hunter kept on retainer by a noble house.

Meta: Divergent Plots

I figured that I would write this up to clarify my "plan" for the rest of the Fomor campaign. I put plan in quotation marks since the whole plan is that there really isn't one. But with a good reason.

I am a fan of divergent plots. I always like the idea of the party determining where the campaign is going, since it gives the party an element of control in their own fate.This allows for the world to feel much more involving, and gives the DM free reign to do whatever they want in the background. For instance, I post every now and then about characters that might come up should the party decide to go down a particular path. One of those paths that I posted about today was involving the fey. So far, the party has only encountered one fey, and he didn't even have a name. They didn't seem to care too much for the whole idea.
When the party encountered the fey, they entered his lair. They noticed that they were actually traversing through planes when they entered. To them this was a minor detail, and nobody even paid it a second thought. If they'd decided to question more about that information, there are a lot more plot developments they would have uncovered. For instance, in the world of Fomor there is a perpetual cold war between the different groups of fey. Denizens of the Underdark are preparing for an oncoming invasion of the Material Plane. Elements of nature are becoming perverted and warped by all the dimensional travel that's suddenly happening.
So what happens now? The players didn't bite the bait. Maybe there's a small inkling in the back of their minds that it's at least possible for this type of plot to happen, but it is by no means the focus. Each of them are right now centered only on their own personal plots, and they each view NPCs as nothing but a means to an end. And this is perfectly fine. I've dangled some other plot hooks in front of them but all of the players are pretty single-minded in wanting to fulfill their own plots before anything else. This is what drove me to feed them a giant platter of plot hooks all drawn from their own backstories.
Now all this plane-traveling plot is not just gone to waste. All of these events are still occurring in the background. The party will see evidence of it, whether they recognize it or not. A side quest every now and then might relate to these events, but it won't necessarily be the focus. As the PCs progress through their story arcs, they will become more and more involved in various events. In the future, they may never even encounter another fey - it all depends on what they decide to do in future sessions. But there are about a dozen of these different plots that may or may not ever be resolved.
This structure helps for making plots on the fly. When the PCs do something unexpected, or go somewhere that I hadn't considered. All I have to do is have a rough idea of what might be happening around the world while the PCs have been off doing their own thing. The objective is to make the entire world seem alive and dynamic. 
Right now, the party is heading off to investigate Salma's vision to the south. They are very likely to encounter dwarves and other creatures related to Salma's backstory. I won't go into too much detail about that second part, but they will be very much exposed to other elements of the world that they have never seen before. I'm not sure yet how the party will react to loose threads. Will they chase after different tangents? Will they commit to completing the tasks already set before them? I really don't know yet. But whatever they do, there is a lot that will continue to happen with or without their intervention. And that to me makes the whole game that much more interesting.

NPC: Ferellian

And now I'm back! I'm all moved in and settled into college, and I've finally got some time to get back to the blog. As I promised earlier, I will do two updates a day until I've caught up with all the posts that I failed to make. The delay was a bit longer than I had anticipated, but I'm back in action now. This post deals with an NPC that I doubt will ever see play, but the party is set up that they may encounter her later on. It helps me to establish NPCs like this early on in my mind so that I can use them should they come up later. Credit for the image to De_Vermis_Mysteriis.


Name: Ferellian
Race: Fey
Alignment: Neutral Evil

Description: This female is tall and lithe. She looks vaguely elvish, but is dressed entirely in plant material. Vines writhe around her body, and plants seem to grow under her feet as she walks.

Profile:
Ferellian is a fey tied to Spring. She is attuned to plant life moreso than animal life, and causes spontaneous plant growth everywhere she goes. She is a powerful spellcaster that is very similar to a Druid. 
Ferellian is unrepentantly evil to the eyes of mortals. She cares only for her own affairs, which are alien and incomprehensible to mortal creatures. She does not so much have "allies" as she uses pawns to gain power. She does not have the ability to have compassion for mortals, and oftentimes forgets that they exist. She considers other fey to be beneath her, even if they are technically stronger. Her plants are used as minions to accomplish whatever tasks Ferellian has need of doing.
Generally, Ferellian's actions all have the aim of expanding her own power. Her exact methods are not always obvious, but she is perpetually obtaining that one goal. Like all other fey, she is somewhat tied to her season. As a fey of Spring, Ferellian tends to be more active than other fey. This is also somewhat responsible for her goal of constantly expanding.
Ferellian's interaction with PCs would largely be through her other minions. She has plant creatures that have some form of intelligence to accomplish basic tasks without her micromanaging them at all times. It is fully possible that, should the PCs prove themselves capable, these minions would seek them out to obtain artifacts or materials to accomplish her goals. This would potentially tie into other fey plotlines if the party is involved with them.

Fomor: Session Three Writeup (Part 3)

And so session three concludes! Not much actually happened game-wise in this session, as the party mostly just planned out their adventure route and got to a new city. But some very interesting plot developments also occurred. Also a reminder that I am moving on Sunday, and can not guarantee regular posts for the next week or two. I will certainly try to, and once I have time I will make up for any posts that I have missed.


The group decides to spend a week in Bicka while they formulate their plan. Garath takes the time to craft some magic items for the party. Kheldar receives a Belt of Dexterity, Garath creates for himself a Headband of Charisma, and Salma receives Eyes of the Eagle to increase her already-ludicrous Perception.

Strider has almost no gold, and he started with a Wand of Cure Light Wounds in addition to gear that was better than what the party had. Nobody gave him money to fund his own magic item.

Kheldar decides to make as much as he can being a merchant, and asks around for some more information. He doesn't really learn anything new. Strider preaches a bit, but Bicka is not a particularly religious city and he makes barely anything. Salma decides she wants to introduce firearms to the city, and invests slightly in making a couple basic rifles. She doesn't question too closely on who obtains these weapons, but now they're a thing. 

Oh boy. This isn't going to come back in a big way later. Nope, don't know how anybody could get that impression.

The party begins making a tentative plan. They each are pulled in mostly different directions, so they decide on doing a big spiral around the continent, hitting their respective locations in turn. Their goal initially is to find Salma's parents to the south, then loop around to deal with The Black Hand, and then head into the desert to find Neris and the coast Garath saw in his dream. Strider considers breaking off from the party to pursue his own quests in a timely manner, but then realizes that his key locations are on the path that the party is taking. Lastly, the party will loop back down to the far south to find this mountain filled with gears that Salma saw.

This was my way of letting the party dictate how the campaign is going to take place. Obviously this plan is going to fall apart at some point, since the world will continue to develop without their influence. I have some specific ideas on how that will happen, though I'm not going to go into too much detail about that right now.

The party sets off to the south once they've obtained their magic items and gathered information. Salma again encounters the information that trade caravans have been halted from the south, when they were usually a common occurrence. The party finds a few villages that have been ravaged by war, but finds almost nothing of note. Eventually they come across another city-state which they recognize as belonging to one Baron Adál-Abel - the very same that laid siege to Bicka when they last returned.
The party decides to enter the city. A quick Bluff check lets them get past the gate guards without too much trouble. Immediately upon entering, the party sees a very different city than what they're used to. The streets are filthy, and the majority of the people they see are dwarves. Pistols are very common, though Salma quickly identifies them as being mostly worthless. Kheldar attempts to steal some, but he is horrible at rolling skill checks.
Strider decides to go up and tell a random guard that he knows who destroyed the army that attacked Bicka. After doing so, he decides to take a closer look at the guards. They are dressed like highly exaggerated Spanish conquistadors, and all wear the same trashy pistols. Most also have rapiers so they can actually fight in combat. There are also propaganda posters plastered all over the city that depict Kell Deathsickle and Dul Bilderbottom as eating children and torturing people. The guard, when questioned, immediately begins belting out the national anthem for the city.

Note that nobody in the party knows what the city is actually named yet. But it's called Dogun.

Strider is pulled into the town hall to speak with the Baron. The rest of the party tries to follow and is stopped at the gate. And so begins a skills challenge! With Salma's new magic item, her Perception actually couldn't fail. In 6 seconds she completely memorizes a five and a half minute patrol route, reads the diaries of all the guards, and perceives all of their personal insecurities. Kheldar begins putting his Bard skills to work and does a tapdancing routine to keep them distracted. Garath throws a Ghost Sound down an alleyway that sounds like a fair maiden in distress, and many of the conquistador-guards chase after her. Strider is attempting to preach the evils of eating children to the Baron, but she shrugs him off.
Salma uses her Survival to quickly rush through some bushes without disturbing the patrol route that she's memorized. Garath tries tries to break the lock of the gate open with his Smithing, but quickly realizes that it's already open. Kheldar uses his Acrobatics to jump completely over him and follow exactly in Salma's footsteps. Strider attempts to use his Diplomacy to get the Baron to listen to him, but fails again. Salma again uses her Perception to discern the exact route through the structure, and leads the party into her room. Garath uses his Intimidate skill to get Adál-Abel to back down, but she refuses. Kheldar then Stealths to distract the guards before they can come to her aid, and the skills challenge ends in a success.
The first thing that happens past this point is Salma fires her gun in the air to get the baron's attention. This gives Kheldar the opportunity to sneakily cast Innocence on Garath, giving him a +10 to his already-impressive Bluff check.
Garath introduces himself as being a long-lost family member of the baron (lie). He asks to see the family tree to prove this. He uses Prestidigitation to forge his own name on a distant branch. He then offers to "enchant" the family tree to automatically update should anyone in the line of succession die. In reality he casts Spark and burns away some names of other distant family members so he seems closer to taking over. 
He makes up a number of stories and rolls insanely well on his Bluff checks. He cons the baron into giving them horses and a place to stay, as well as introducing the entire party to her as new potential allies. He states that they were at the Siege of Bicka (true) as spies to undermine the evils of Kell Deathsickle (lie) and his fearsome companion Dul Bilderbottom (lie). The baron soaks in everything Garath tells her, and instructs her men to help in any way. Unfortunately, the treasury is all but dry and they have very little men and resources to spare because of their failed war efforts.

This was a huge mistake, allowing all of this to happen. But I let them roll with it, and I'm interested to see what's going to come of all this...

Fomor: Session Three Writeup (Part 2)

I think this will be done by tomorrow. Also, I'm moving on Sunday to go to college, so I make no promises about keeping to my usual update schedule over the next week or two. Hopefully I'll still have time to update this once I get settled, and if I get the chance I'll write a series of buffer posts to hopefully keep this updating daily. But that depends on how quickly I can get other stuff taken care of.

Edit 8/17/2013: Sigh. Apparently I reposted part 1 along with part 2. Too much stress from moving I guess. My apologies.

Each member of the party begins a solo combat with their respective adversary. Salma quickly blasts away at the archangel, taking only one swing of its sword. As soon as it falls, she feels like the ground opened up beneath her and she can see the others all fighting figures that she can't make out. She decides to angle herself to land next to Kheldar.

She killed Vengarion in two rounds. Rifles are really strong, apparently.

Kheldar is fighting Velvet, a girl from his backstory who left his hometown after one too many bandit attacks. She is summarily thrashing him with a flurry of blows, and he can barely fight back. He finally manages to put a crossbow bolt in her, and then Salma blasts her torso away. The hands and feet continue floating in mid-air and fighting until Kheldar hacks them down with his sword. The floor again opens up, and they decide to land near Strider.
Garath is fighting Krunth Blackhand. He continues taking shots from the orc's laser while he tries to land a blow. Garath discovers that the water is electrically charged and he is capable of drawing power from it to make his electric spells slightly stronger. He targets the orc's eye with a Shocking Grasp and - after many failed attempts and lucky defensive casting rolls - drops the orc with a single hit. His floor also opens up and he lands near Strider.
Strider is fighting a large undead that he doesn't recognize. He immediately opens up with an Arrow of Law, but since Panack is Lawful Evil it does 0 damage. His scimitar proves ineffectual, and Strider resorts to casting a Cure Moderate Wounds that burns a handprint right into Panack's armor. The others in the party regroup nearby, and Garath blasts a Scorching Ray at Panack that misses. Salma takes a shot and quickly kills him.
The entire party falls out of the dream, and each of them fly by parts of the world, catching only very slight glimpses of what might interest them:

• Garath sees the coast along the ocean, as well as the same jungle. He hears a voice say to him "FATE-TOUCHED, STAR-BORN. IGNORANT MORTAL, CHOSEN OF THE DAMNED."
• Kheldar sees a variety of fruit trees, and he thinks he sees ninjas. He manages to snag a banana.
• Salma sees mountains filled with rotating gears, and she feels like she spies mountains with angels on them.
• Strider sees a map of Fomor. In the northwest he sees a dark spot slowly spreading tendrils outward. In the southeast he sees a burning heart slowly beating. The heart is located at the center of his Order.

The party suddenly wakes in Dul Bilderbottom's office, and is aware that virtually no time has passed. They maintain their wounds and spent spells. Kheldar still has a banana. The party immediately begins questioning Dul, and he asks them questions about their dreams. Garath gets the distinct feeling that Dul observed the whole thing completely, and understands far more of it than even they do, but simply wants to see if the party will lie to him. While this is going on, Dul has his golems come and clean his hands. The party learns the following information:

• The symbol they have been seeing all over the place is the symbol of Fate. They are each touched by the essence of Fate in the universe, and their lives are destined for greatness.
• Dul does not know what they will do that makes them so important. Only that it is likely in his best interest that they succeed.
• Their visions gave them a glimpse of what might happen. It is up to them whether they will let any of it come to life.

Basically, this session delivered a ton of plot hooks. Each of them got a lot related to their backstory, and this will blossom into way more stuff that connects them all together. The rest of the writeup will detail how they made their plan of action, and the conflicts within the party. I tried very hard to make this all about taking the rails completely off and letting them now dictate their actions and where they go.

Fomor: Session Three Writeup (Part 1)

And we had our final in-person session just a few hours ago. This was a mostly RP-focused session since some of my players had said that the previous one was too much combat. However, it also devolved into a lot of bickering and sidetracking due to one particular player. Oh well, it happens.


The session begins right after the cliffhanger of the last one. Only we first begin with Garath. Garath finds himself with his left foot in the desert, and his right foot in a jungle. He sees that the world wraps around in a large ring-like structure. There is a storm cloud in the very center of the ring shooting lightning bolts at random places around the ring.
Garath hears two distinct voices beckoning to him from either side, but he is unable to make either of them out completely. He attempts a few tricks to control the dream, but fails. He attempts to cast Sleep on himself, but the dream state fast forwards and no actual effect is noticed. He eventually steps onto the desert and the entire jungle vanishes behind him. He then hears a booming voice:
"COME. COME AND LEARN. COME AND FACE YOUR DOOM."
Garath sees an ocean behind him where the jungle used to be. He wades into the water and sees that it is electrically charged. He is quickly shot at by a laser beam behind him. Garath sees that there is a massive orc behind him with a charred and blackened arm, and a cybernetic eye that is shooting lasers. He recognizes him as Krunth Blackhand.

Kheldar is next. He wakes in a canopy above tree-tops, but all the leaves are blood-red. The sky is a starry mess that swirls chaotically. He tries cutting the leaves and finds that they bleed what appears to be human blood. An arrow is shot out from beneath the tree-line, but Kheldar is able to dodge away. He is shot a couple more times, but takes no damage. He Jumps down beneath the trees and finds that they were all held up by a number of ninjas in brightly-colored outfits.
The one ninja that held up Kheldar's tree remains, and gestures about wildly. He explodes when Kheldar talks to him. All the ninja said was "NERIS." He was then attacked by a woman made out of velvet, wearing the same garb as one of the Royal Guards of Neris. She tinkled like bells when she moved, and yelled "NOT WORTHY" at Kheldar.

Strider wakes on top of a sun. It is a small orb about the size of a ball that a jester would stand on top of while juggling. The first thing he attempts is to commune with Sarenrae. His deity directs him to look at an image of the world of Fomor, which is slowly consumed by shadow and darkness. All Sarenrae said was "DARKNESS CONSUMES FROM WITHIN. LIGHT MUST BURN FROM WITHOUT." He is thrown off the sun, and lands in darkness. He is then confronted with a large undead figure that immediately attacks. Wraithlord Panack yells "DEATH TO ALL THAT LIVE!"

Salma wakes in a field of feathers. The sky is made of gears, but the gears are made of fire. They seem to spin like clockwork, even though their orientation is impossible. She hears a faint sobbing sound off in the distance. Salma discovers that her wings function in the dream, and she flies towards the sobbing. She discovers that it is her father Dean, who cries:
"HE FAILED. YOU FAILED. VENGEANCE IT WILL COME. 
His face has been replaced with a flat slab of skin with a new symbol branded onto it. While Salma attempts to talk to him and get more information, a sword explodes through his chest and Dean melts away. Salma then sees Vengarion, but she does not know who he is. He asks her "WHY DO YOU GUARD? WHY DO YOU PROTECT?" and attacks.

NPC: The Wizened Warrior

This is becoming another faction that I'm putting together. This time it's more of a mini-boss that the party may encounter at some point should they go down this path. This NPC is designed to be a tactically challenging fight, since she behaves more like a Warlord from 4th edition (which I actually got the chance to play for the first time last week) and will be highly coordinated. 


Name: The Wizened Warrior
Race: Human
Alignment: Lawful Evil

Appearance:
This elder human female is adorned in plate armor. Her skin is cracked with scars from previous battles, and she is surrounded by flames. Despite her apparent age, she appears to be a capable fighter.

Profile:
The Wizened Warrior is the eldest of the Burning Crusaders. Her spirit was among the most fervently dedicated to Sarenrae and she is among the most corrupted in the entire church. She has decades of battle experience and expertise in the way of combat. She is the field commander of the Burning Crusaders and holds considerable political sway within the Church. She is usually found either guarding the main temple from interlopers or leading the Burning Crusaders on their conquests.
Physically, The Wizened Warrior is weaker than the others. She is old and her body is beginning to slow. However, she relies on her expansive knowledge of tactics and combat sense to prevail over her enemies. Specifically she excels at demon-slaying, though her mind has become so twisted and warped that she views most beings of Good as demons. When in a group of Burning Crusaders, she acts more as a tactician than an actual combatant, giving her troops instruction and guidance.
She was one of the first to fall to the demons when they corrupted the Church. She was seen as the representation of the Church in the world, renowned throughout the world as a demon slayer and champion of righteousness. When she was first corrupted, the demon used her as a vessel to begin spreading the evil influence throughout the entirety of the Church hierarchy. She was taken during a battle with a powerful demon, and immediately reported to the High Priest of Sarenrae. Through her, each of the Burning Crusaders were corrupted and spread the influence of the demons to every temple.

Minor Faction: The Burning Crusaders

Back to this stuff for now. We actually have another session coming up, but this blog is about more than just what's going on in my current game. Today's post is another minor faction that may come up later in the Fomor campaign, though we'll have to wait and see. Credit for the image to Reddit user De_Vermis_Mysteriis. I missed saying that.


Name: The Burning Crusaders
Race: Mostly Human
Alignment: Lawful Evil

Appearance:
The female human wears glistening plate mail and wields two swords. Gouts of fire shoot out from her back and encase her in smoke. The swords are on fire and leave a small trail of sparks through the air. 

Profile:
The Burning Crusaders are sworn to the church of Sarenrae, though they have long since been corrupted. For the last century, their church has been infiltrated by demon-worshippers, and their entire structure has been radically altered. Instead of vanquishing evil and purging the world of sin, the Burning Crusaders are now agents of evil and serve the will of their demonic masters. They are under compulsions to think that they continue to serve their deity by eradicating evil-doers, and still abide strictly by the organization of the church.
The Burning Crusaders are highly militaristic. Historically, they traveled alone to serve out justice as paladins. Now they roam in large groups of blackguards, spreading death and destruction. They no longer bear the symbols of Sarenrae, but rather that of their new master. The official stance of the Church is that these mysterious demon-worshippers are irredeemably evil and should be eradicated. Obviously though, the Church makes no actions against the Burning Crusaders.
The Burning Crusaders fight mostly as melee combatants, relying on superior martial skill to overwhelm their foes. They have some magical powers if they are experienced enough. They still believe themselves to be paladins and champions of Good, and thus believe themselves to still have their abilities to heal, while in reality they mostly only harm themselves and their allies. In this way, they are actually very harmful to each other if given any time to recuperate.
The missions of the Burning Crusaders are inconsistent. Sometimes they are sent to spread general chaos, and other times to select targets. In the earliest days of the corruption, they were sent to other churches of Sarenrae to spread the demons' influence further. Assassination and open combat are not beyond their capabilities.

Fomor: Session Two Writeup (Part 2)

The conclusion to session two. Again, I lost the majority of the recording for this session, so most of it is very sparse and has little detail. I remember some specifics because they were memorable. Note: I messed this session up very badly. I completely misread the party and thought they were not liking RP sections, when in reality they told me that they were just feeling awkward because they were unused to it. This adventure was almost purely combat-based, and I feel really bad about it. But that will be fixed in the future.


The party goes to find Dul in the morning. They walk through the courthouse of Bicka, which is little more than a barracks. It is built out of wood and stone and has little to no furnishings. They come across Kell Deathsickle sparring with some men in a fighting ring, where he casually tosses them about with his bare hands. He greets the party with a bear hug and tell them that Dul "is in a good mood right now." 
When they enter Dul's office, they see that there are a number of ships in bottles around the room. Unlike normal ships in bottles, these are fully animated with tiny people manning the ships. As they wait for Dul to let them see him, the ships begin firing on each other in a full-on naval engagement.

I saw that this was a legit monster in Pathfinder. The party didn't fight them, but it's too cool to just leave out.

They meet with Dul, and he is really only focused on Salma. The others are mostly irrelevant to him. He doesn't care at all that the letter was opened, and only tells the party that he requires "the heart of an evil fey" from them. He points them in the direction of a nearby forest that is home to one such fey, and sends them on their way. The party spends no time in town and sets off immediately.

Last session, the players didn't seem too into roleplaying. So this session I actually cut quite a lot of it out. They pretty much reported to Dul and then immediately headed off. This surprisingly wasn't railroaded that much and they pretty much went along with the hook. I found out from the players afterwards that they actually did want more roleplaying, but it felt awkward last time since they are unused to it. I feel really bad about that and will definitely emphasize it more in the future.

Dul pointed to a number of symbols on a large map, including the one that the party has seen so many times already. The party navigates to that place and begins the actual adventure of the session. This mostly follows the Black Forest adventure that I posted about earlier. Most of it was straightforward combat, with the party being introduced to zombies and the trap-plants. 

They weren't aware that zombies resist all but slashing damage. Made for some interesting times with Kheldar dealing 0 damage several turns in a row. Unfortunately, by this point my recording has cut out and I don't remember all the details. 

Salma's upgraded rifle manages to blast several zombies apart even with the damage resistance. The party continues forward into the forest and enters into a skills challenge when they stumble into a group of flowers. They barely manage to navigate through the flowers, with Kheldar and Salma being tied to the ground by the grasping vines. They narrowly escaped before the encroaching undead flowers sapped all of their life away. 
The party stumbles into an immediate combat with two Swamp Creatures. These had mostly the same stats as Giant Toads, with a slight tweaking. The party engages in a combat but manages to get the drop on the monsters. Succeeding the skills challenge, they were given a surprise round. Kheldar kills one with his Sneak Attack, and Salma's rifle blasts away at the other one. Strider slashes at it to kill it. The party is then ambushed by yet more Swamp Creatures.
The battle is fairly short. Strider is eaten by one of the monsters, but he quickly cuts himself out. The party cleans up the rest of the monsters in short order. Strider's healing is helpful, as now the party is fully rejuvenated before entering the dungeon.
The party enters a grove filled with zombies and plants. They see in the back of the grove a pool of water with a hole leading to darkness. They fight through the zombies with relative ease, and then go down into the hole. This opens them up into the actual dungeon. The first few rooms are small groups of monsters that are dispatched with ease. Salma notices that the party is in a limbo state between planes, and feels like they are being ripped out of their home plane.
The four enter a large room. There are about a dozen zombies and many large plants. As they fight the zombies, they notice that one of the plants is spawning more zombies each turn. Strider moves to be in range of every zombie and the spawning plant, and Channels Positive Energy to fry them all over three turns. The party cleans up the remainder and disables the plants so they won't be ambushed. They find another hole and move down.

This is the final boss room. Honestly, I rather liked this fight. The boss was the evil fey, and he was completely insane. He was somewhat based on Putrid Shadow of the Moon, but he was nowhere near as strong as that character is. The way he worked was the room was divided into four quadrants. There was one spawning plant in the very center, and then other various trap plants on separate pieces. Each round, I rolled 2d4 to select which moves the boss would use: 

• Blink randomly to one of the quadrants (roll 1d4 to decide)
• Spawn 2d4 undead (minions with 1 hp, roll randomly to determine where they spawn)
• Cast a minor curse on one of the party (roll 2d20s and take lower result on next attack)
• Randomize the locations of each flower trap (roll 1d4 to see where each trap goes)

The whole fight was a hectic mess. The boss would melee anyone near him, rolling to randomly determine who he actually clawed at.

The party enters the room, and finds the evil fey they are after. It is a satyr that is competely mad. It rambles on in every language imaginable, and even a few hundred they've never heard before. The fight is very long, and Kheldar nearly died when the satyr clawed at him.

The boss rolled two natural 20s on Kheldar in one round, and both of them confirmed. He went from full to negative two.

After much battling and maneuvering around the undead hordes being summoned all around the room, most of the party is beaten. They are low on hit points, almost out of spells, and being ravaged by the plant traps. The zombies are swarming over them, and each of them take attacks of opportunity as they move. Kheldar and Salma both manage to hit the boss several times, but he has a lot of hit points. Eventually Kheldar manages to barely bring him down, causing all the zombies to crumble into dust.

He literally rolled just enough to kill the boss. One less point of damage and the party very well may have died. Maybe not, since Strider still had one use of Channel Positive Energy, which could either heal the party or destroy all of the zombies. The party never attacked any of them in the boss fight, but these ones only had one hit point. All the other zombies in the adventure had twelve.

The party cuts out the fey's heart, and the cave begins collapsing. They barely escape before they are crushed underneath. They quickly make their way back to Bicka, recuperating from their wounds with Strider's magic and Kheldar's new Bard abilities.

He didn't use any Bard spells other than Cure Light Wounds. I still have no idea why he was so insistent on multiclassing.

The first thing they do in town is visit Dul Bilderbottom once again. He again shows no interest in anyone but Salma, and drops many hints that he knows exactly what her past is. She gets the feeling that he may know even more than she does. He takes the heart in one hand, and smashes it with his other.

The party passes out, and sees a flash of white light.

Salma comes to, and is surrounded by a field of feathers.

The session ends.

Fomor: Session Two Writeup (Part 1)

This session ended about two and a half hours ago. I only recorded about half of it before my phone died, so towards the end it's going based off my notes and my memory alone. Also, I'm rushing to get this up so it's a pretty bare-bones writeup without too much reminiscing about the party's antics. There were plenty of them, but most didn't make it into today's post. I may revise this tomorrow, but no promises.


The adventure begins with Kheldar, Salma, and Garath approaching Bicka after their victory in Ghet. They each receive another prophetic dream the night before they arrive:

Kheldar dreamed of a tree that, as soon as it began to grow fruit, was overshadowed by other trees and choked with a vine.

Garath dreamed of the same anteater growing as tall as a mountain and being very destructive. His ring shocked him when he touched it in the morning.

Salma dreamed of gravity reversing as she fell upward. She felt capital-G Good after she woke.

Salma continues feeling faintly Good for the rest of the adventure. Garath cast Detect Magic and detected a very faint aura of Goodness around her. She feels as though her celestial nature is returning to her. So far it hasn't had any actual effect. Garath's ring is now magical.

Garath's electric spells now have a secondary effect to stun their target if they hit. The target makes a Fortitude save that is somewhat easy to pass to keep thing balanced.

As the party approaches, they see that Bicka is under siege. After a knowledge check, Kheldar realizes that this is not an uncommon thing to happen, especially to Bicka. They identify the sieging army as belonging to Baron Karen Adál-Abel. They also know that she is obsessed with firearms, and the party can see cannons firing at the city. None of the army has rifles, since Salma invented them. 
The session begins with a skills challenge. Kheldar immediately attempts to Stealth off and find the commander's tent for the siege. Salma uses her Survival to concoct a poison. Garath Bluffs the soldiers into thinking that he is their smith. Kheldar is seen pretty readily though the other two succeed. Salma uses Perception to find where the food stores are. Garath starts using his Intimidate to get soldiers to leave the tent instead of getting new weapons. Kheldar begins failing at absolutely everything. He is caught by soldiers and uses his Escape Artist and stumbles into the commander's tent. Salma uses her Heal skill to intentionally harm the injured soldiers so they can't fight ever again. Garath then starts using his Smithing to sabotage their weapons.
With the party having succeeded the skills challenge, they then jump into a combat. Kheldar also sees one other person chained up in the captain's tent, having recently been taken prisoner. He opens up with a shuriken critting the captain. Salma attempts to blast him through the tent once she hears combat, but misses. Garath proceeds to ignore the fight since he is keeping his bluff up. The captain bolts as Kheldar is surrounded by guards, and the prisoner escapes and attempts to tackle the captain. The prisoner misses, and Salma blows the captain's head off. She discovers that he is wearing a magical belt for his firearms, and she takes it for herself.

This is a Beneficial Bandolier. The reloading mechanic for her rifle was too annoying for me to keep track of.

After the fight, Garath steps in and rolls a natural 20 to convince the soldiers that, with the commander's death, he is now the commander of this army. In the confusion, Bicka launches their counterattack - the army spills out of the silly right as a series of lightning bolts strike the cannons from the sky. The party sees a Dark Elf dancing through the battle casually cutting people in half with a vicious sickle. Above the cacophony of the battle, the party can clearly hear his laugh no matter how far away they are. 
Kheldar decides to shoot this warrior with his crossbow since he is convinced that he will turn on them soon. Garath is still trying to be the new commander, and the party is convinced that this warrior will kill them all very quickly. Unfortunately for him, Kell Deathsickle is capable of grabbing arrows out of the air. He casually strolls up to the party, laughs when they try to talk to him, and walks off to more carnage. Dul Bilderbottom apparates in front of the party and demands the letter that Garath opened in the last session. 
Garath tentatively hands him the letter, and Dul instructs the party to meet with him the next day. While he is reading, the gnome sometimes blasts the enemy army with lightning, as though he were casually swatting a fly.

I like when NPCs have very identifiable personalities. Kell Deathsickle is a care-free bodybuilder who loves violence. He's friendly towards the party and doesn't care for the boring details. Dul Bilderbottom is a surly gnome with a scraggly voice that interrupts them often to ask very pointed questions. He is also quite demanding. It also gave the party a very real sense of fear - either one of these NPCs could very easily squash them like a bug without even noticing. 

The battle is over and Garath's army is destroyed. The party enters Bicka, now joined by Strider the Cleric who was the same prisoner that was rescued from the commander's tent.

I hate introducing new PCs to the party. Strider is played by Garath's brother, who wanted to join and the party needed a healer. So this was my way of introducing him. It wasn't very clean nor was it pretty, and the party barely even introduced themselves before he just joined them unquestioningly. His background is very sparse and there's not really a whole lot to work with.

The party has a day to kill before their meeting with Dul. Kheldar goes and inspects his apples, and then tries to ingratiate himself with the criminal life. He preserves the goods in his warehouse successfully. He convinces a dealer of contraband to part with his wares with a Bluff check, but his Appraise skill is lacking and he has no idea what he actually got. Salma went and inquired about nearby events that pertain to her backstory, and learned two pertinent facts:

• New star formations are appearing in the night sky.
• Trade caravans from the south have stopped coming north.
• The timetable for both of these events roughly corresponds to when her fathers left her.

Garath investigates the strange symbol they have been seeing. Nobody answers his questions, but one insane person screams something unintelligible about "looking to the stars." Strider sits in an inn and contemplates the events in his life that have landed him here in this place.
The party rests, and then sets out to speak with Dul Bilderbottom, the wizard who almost single-handedly obliterated an army.

Fomor: Session Two Outline

Oops. I forgot to update again yesterday. I worked on the outline for the next session and then it completely slipped my mind to post it. My bad. This session is going to be more focused on taking the rails off, and letting the party do as they see fit. They have at this point about three different plot hooks, and they all lead to roughly the same adventure. This is what I have planned. Note: This session has actually already taken place. But I wrote all this before it happened. Again, oops.

Theme: Adventure

Planned Encounters:

• Siege of Bicka
• Soldiers patrol outside the city
• The party must get past them or engage
• Either a combat, a skills challenge…or both!
• It will still mostly be about stealth, since they can't fight an entire army
• Eventually Bicka's army comes out
• Kell Deathsickle and Dul Bilderbottom
• The two major political power players of Bicka
• Very different personalities
• Kell Deathsickle is care-free and bloodthirsty. He is RP'd like an exercise video coach.
• Dul Bilderbottom is a sour gnome wizard, and has nothing but contempt for other people.
• The two of them break the siege
• Diplomatic RP scene: Kell wants the letter. Dul gets it from Garath if he doesn't part willingly.
• Told "it is of no matter" that the letter is opened, Kell sends them to Dul later
• New loot, and new party member
• A Cleric is joining the party
• The party members gain new magic items from Dul Bilderbottom
• "You are of no use like this. Maybe these will let you live longer."
• Selma: Beneficial Bandolier
• Garath: Severed Hand is enchanted as a permanent Mage Hand
• Kheldar: Wasp Nest of Swarming
• Cleric: Pyxes of Redirected Focus
• Dul sends them on a new quest
• "I require the heart of an evil fey."
• Directs them to the Black Forest
• The Black Forest - Same as this post.
• Minor tweaking, since the party is only 2nd level
• The adventure now has a map for the final dungeon. 
• Most combats and the skills challenge will be purely narrative.
• Return to Bicka
• Dul considers them "Useful…for now"
• Has the parchment out, and looks very intently at Garath and Kheldar. Then looks even harder at Selma.
• Entire party falls into a dream state.
• Dream State
• Theoretically, the session should end here. But I plan slightly far ahead just in case.
• No grids, no maps, no figures. Pure narrative.
• Very bizarre.
• Each of the party has visions.

Info:

The rails are off for this session. In which case, why is there such a specific outline? Because, really, I do want to try having an actual adventure planned, assuming the party takes the bait. Even if they don't, however, there will be dozens of ways to adapt whatever the party does to fit roughly this plan. 

The party has told me that they prefer gridless combat, using figures and rulers as though it were wargaming. This is good for me, because it gives me more opportunity to make more interesting maps. 

So this one is less planned out than the last session. The first session was planned roughly three months ago, and this one has only been planned very recently. The nature of this session means I can't really give too much details about what I have planned, since…there's not really a whole lot going into it. It's mostly going to be off the fly, and based on reacting to the players and what they do.

Fomor: Session One Writeup (Part 2)

And the conclusion to the session. Part One can be found here. Same format applies, and all text in italics is my personal commentary as the DM to clarify things or to explain my reasoning.


The party makes their way to the cave, and find a large number of traps surrounding the entrance. Selma guides them through unscathed.
The cave opens up with a short battle between the party, some kobolds, and one troglodyte. Kheldar kills the troglodyte in one shot with his sneak attack, and the rest of the party cleans up the kobolds. They have two choices on where to go next, and they split up. Kheldar goes to the dead-end room while Selma and Garath go to the corridor.

The party split. Wonderful. I made them continue going in initiative order, with two fights happening on either end. It was very hectic but a lot of fun. Kheldar basically carried them this entire dungeon: Selma can only fire twice before she has to reload, and Garath is limited to only a few spells per day. His rolling was terrible so he probably dealt maybe 20 damage during the entire dungeon. Selma's rifle does pretty good damage, but she didn't build her character exclusively for combat. She's actually very skills-heavy, which I think is good. Kheldar had a +8 to initiative, so he got at least one sneak attack every fight. 

Kheldar fought a troglodyte at range, since he didn't want to risk walking into mysterious ooze. He cleaned the monster up eventually and made an acrobatics check to move through the ooze but was attacked when one of the puddles came to life. He had to melee it but killed it pretty quickly. He got one mysterious potion, with no way to identify it. Surprisingly, he made the smart decision not to drink it.

It's actually a potion of Cure Light Wounds. But I was so proud of him for wanting to wait and find out what it does.

Selma rolls a natural 20 on her Stealth check going into the corridor. She remained undetected for three or four turns, firing her rifle at a pair of troglodytes in the hallway while Garath flung ineffectual Jolt spells. 

Did I mention that Garath's rolls were terrible? Even versus touch AC, he only hit a handful of times, and at 1d3 damage, he wasn't doing a whole lot. Since Selma rolled so well on her Stealth check, I made the decision that she could continue rolling Stealth checks vs Perception every round to remain undetected. I said that since it was a cave, the rifle was echoing like crazy and the troglodytes couldn't tell where she was specifically. She was eventually detected when they bumped into her, and a melee ensued where she killed both of the troglodytes with her longsword.

The party regroups and decides they'll figure out what the potion does later. They've already taken some damage, and they don't know how much bigger the cave will be. They proceed into the next room, and Kheldar takes a readied spear to the face. They quickly kill the troglodyte in the side chamber and investigate. It is filled with rudimentary clubs and spears. Selma sees that there are pit traps all around the room and can tell that the troglodytes would put kobolds on sticks and have them pick stuff up whenever they needed something. Sometimes the kobolds slipped and fell into the spike pits. Oops.

Kheldar was trying to loot every random useless thing. This was my way of saying "Go be heroic already!"

The party gets to a fork in the corridor. They all fail perception checks and decide to head to the right and into the skills challenge. 

The Perception check was to see if they could hear the human prisoners whimpering while being taken to the boss chamber to be sacrificed. They all failed and picked a random direction, not wanting to split the party again. They wound up never going to the prison room. 

The party enters a chamber filled with traps. The skills challenge follows the Critical Hit Podcast rules, where no two people can use the same skill right after each other, and one person cannot use the same skill twice in a row. It was a very easy skill challenge, with a low DC and only needing 6 successes, and only failing at 5 failures. They will get much harder later on. 
Kheldar opens up with a usual Acrobatics check to get around the traps. Selma uses her Perception to guide the party members through the traps. Garath uses his Intimidate on the kobolds manning the traps, and scares them off. Kheldar uses Dance to continue weaving through the room. Selma uses her Survival to cure some poison that scratched Garath. Garath then pulls a Qui-gon Jinn and Bluffs the troglodyte guard that they are, in fact, troglodytes. And fails. Kheldar leaps over the troglodyte with Acrobatics, twisting its neck, and tumbles over the gate to safety. The party has succeeded their very first skills challenge!
With that, the party enters the boss chamber. Painted in blood, all around the room, is the same strange symbol they've seen.

The party was very low on hp and spells at this point. I changed this fight a little bit to make it easier on them. I tried to scale the dungeon to account for them not having a healer, but I made some things a little bit too difficult.

They see an altar with 4 troglodytes holding human prisoners, and one Cleric in the center conducting the ritual. A small group of kobolds are standing haphazardly around the altar, hoping they won't be eaten next. The party succeeded the skills challenge, so they get a surprise round. Kheldar opens up by criticaling the Cleric with a sneak attack, dealing 23 points of damage. Selma blasts one of the kobolds, and Garath casts Sleep, to no avail.
At this point, the kobolds swarm the party. They battle briefly, though Selma is the only one that actually fights them. Garath casts Sleep again and manages to incapacitate one of the troglodytes. Kheldar continues attacking the Cleric. The Cleric casts Bless over all his allies, and they begin to hit the party harder. He also casts a spell that paralyzes Garath and Selma for a round, allowing the ritual to completely finish. All of the humans are sacrificed, and the troglodytes are also pulled under. The boss ooze spawns and immediately eats one of the remaining kobolds. The Cleric heals himself of most of the damage he's taken.
The party shifts focus to the ooze, which is in their face. They deal some damage to it, but it replenishes health by eating all the remaining kobolds, and slams at Selma with its tentacles. Kheldar kills the Cleric before it is able to do much else. The ooze continues approaching and successfully grapples Garath. While Garath is held, the ooze begins slowly digesting him, but he breaks free after one turn. 
The party continues attacking the ooze. Selma fires several shots but misses most of them.

This is partly my fault. The way I wrote the initiative order, I kept forgetting about Selma. She got to have two turns in one, so was able to fire and reload. That wound up helping quite a lot, since she was in an amazing position once the ooze spawned. Unfortunately, the dice had other plans for her.

Garath's spells were mostly ineffectual. He used his last Magic Missile and dealt a whopping 2 damage. Kheldar's crossbow ran out of bolts, and he and Selma had to flank it and slowly attack with their swords. This had the benefit of sneak attack damage, but the party started rolling terribly at this point.
Eventually, they killed the ooze - and it exploded into two more, smaller oozes! These were quickly dealt with. Several rounds passed with neither of them hitting the party, despite each of them having two attacks. Such is the way of things. 
The party successfully defeated the ooze and the troglodytes! They were allowed to loot the chamber and received a few hundred gold as well as a few more mystery potions. They were not mysterious for much longer, as these ones were labeled "HEALTH" since troglodytes have poor memory.
They leave the cave and return to town, victorious. Kheldar takes a cup of ooze as a trophy, but his cup disintegrates after one hour. The guard can't believe that these heroes were successful, seeing the state they're in.

Garath and Selma were down to 1 and 4 health, respectively. Kheldar I think was at 5.

The party spends the week recuperating, and their money is actually sent to Ghet from Bicka. They continue to sublet the rooms to travelers. Garath wonders if he could enchant his severed hand to be a permanent companion, à la Thing from The Addams Family. He was very relieved to see that it wasn't eaten by the ooze.

At this point, the party levels up to 2nd level. Kheldar takes a level in Bard, and Garath finally takes Detect Magic as a spell. Selma takes another level in Gunslinger but doesn't get anything fancy.

The party is fully healed and starts their return to Bicka. Garath is upset when he realizes that the earliest they'd be able to get back would be around 1:01 PM, and he will again be unable to deliver his letter through the post office. His curiosity is biting at him about the parchment, and he has no clue whether he even wants to deliver it or not anymore. His curiosity is biting at him, and he decides to risk opening the letter. After seeing the symbol on the Black Hand parchment, he is very concerned for his own safety.

Garath has read "Hamlet" and "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead." He knows all too well the dangers of an unopened letter to the lord of another land.

He has Kheldar roll a Disable Device to open the letter without damaging the wax. Kheldar manages to do so, but immediately after coming undone, the wax changes color. It used to have gold flecks in it, but these have now disappeared completely. Now that he has the spell, Garath finally casts Detect Magic and sees that the parchment and wax are magical. He opens the parchment, and sees that it is completely blank. 
They try to re-affix the sealing wax, but even though the letter closes, the wax remains normal instead of glittery as it once was. Garath is very scared.
The party continues onwards towards Bicka, and about an hour's walk away they see a gigantic plume of smoke rising. By the time they can finally see the city, they find that it is under siege.

The session ends.