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.

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.

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.

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 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.

Fomor: Session One Writeup (Part 1)

We had our first session of the campaign in Fomor on Saturday. Most of the session was introductory, since every player is new to the game. One of them has never played an RPG, and the other two have played D&D once with me a couple years ago. This session was railroaded pretty heavily, but the players actually went along with the plot pretty readily. Future sessions will be much more open. Things in italics are going to be my personal commentary on the session to give insight into what was happening "behind the scenes," as it were. This is fairly lengthy for four hours of gameplay, so it's being split between two posts.


The session begins with Selma Winchester approaching Bicka alone. She is short for a human and wears leather armor. She also has massive white wings on her back, though they are mostly kept folded up since she is unable to fly with them. Her rifle is strapped to her back between the wings. All in all, she strikes a very odd figure, since nobody in this part of the world has ever seen someone like her.
Selma walks towards Bicka and sees a rider come along the road from behind her and his horse collapses right as he gets to her. The rider is a human named Garath. He is somewhat tall and only wears plain clothes with the exception of a ring on one hand. The two of them meet and, after some very handwaved roleplaying, decide that they both have errands to run in Bicka and they should stick together. Garath mentions that he has a letter to deliver to the lord of Bicka, while Selma remains secretive about her errand. The two of them walk through Bicka and are quickly accosted by an apple merchant. 

This was really the only thing that I'd planned with one of the players. We all play Guild Wars 2, and Kheldar played the music that Tybalt has going when you first meet him as an apple merchant. We spent a solid minute just laughing because everyone recognized what was happening.

The merchant introduces himself as Kheldar, the half-elf.  He throws an apple at Garath to get his attention and misses. The party notices that he threw the apple as though it were a shuriken, and then deduces that he must be a ninja. Garath is insulted by the apple-throwing and casts Sleep. The only one to fall asleep was, of course, Garath himself. Kheldar and Selma stand awkwardly until Garath wakes and push themselves out of the gathering crowd. Kheldar laments that the apple business has been slow, since a mysterious merchant just rolled through town and sells all sorts of fruit other than apples. They see these fruit everywhere, and nobody will take an apple from Kheldar. Not even for free. He does take two sacks of apples with him while they walk to the capitol building.
The party reaches the entrance to the capitol around dusk. Garath presents his letter to the guard and is informed that post office hours are only from noon to one, and he must come back tomorrow. Wartime budget cuts have reduced the importance of the post office in Bicka. Garath notices that his letter is one sheet of parchment, sealed with the fanciest wax seal he has ever seen in his life. It has a strange symbol.
The party stays in an inn, where they find a notice proclaiming a 3000 gold reward for anyone who can clear the troglodytes out of Ghet. The party takes the notice so that nobody else can steal the job. They all have vivid dreams that night.

Each of them had a different dream, and none of them were supposed to make sense right now. I gave them each their dream in secret on a half-section of an index card. Here was the basic gist:

Garath: He dreamt of a snake turning into an ant eater. He tasted copper in his mouth when he woke.

Selma: She felt lost and confused. She saw the same strange symbol that was on the wax seal.

Kheldar: I completely forget what his was about, and I threw away the cards after the session. Oops. But he tasted bile in his mouth when he woke. 

Garath revealed his dream to the party the next morning, and Kheldar lied about his. Selma was quiet on the issue. At breakfast, Selma also saw that both Garath and Kheldar have matching rings. The two of them were busy staring at a wall since neither of them put any points into Perception. She also noticed three thugs standing near the entrance to the inn, each wearing one black glove on their left hands and staring at Garath. She tells the party about the thugs but not about the rings.

I wrote this down on another card and handed it to Selma so the party wouldn't see. She chose to keep the rings secret. The other players have all read each other's backstories, but Kheldar and Garath don't realize that they both have the same rings.

Garath looks at the thugs and recognizes that they are members of the Black Hand, the gang of bandits that are out to kill him. He excuses himself from the table and tries to talk with them. Mid-sentence, one of the thugs stabs him since they don't like talking.
The first combat begins! Garath stumbles backwards and fires an Acid Spray, but only succeeds in damaging the wall behind the thugs. Kheldar, still sitting at the table since he didn't notice the thugs, fires his crossbow and decapitates one of the bandits, nailing his head to the door behind him. Selma fires her rifle and brings a second bandit within an inch of his life. The third bandit, seeing the carnage, immediately turns tail and runs. Each member of the party tries to cripple his leg, but each one of them misses and he escapes. The bandit that is still alive is in shock and surrenders, unable even to speak or move.

This encounter did not use a grid or any tiles. It was purely narrative. This session included one fight with a grid, this fight that had nothing, and the dungeon was a gridless dungeon set that I made myself. I wanted to know what the players preferred, so I included a little bit of everything.

The town guard quickly arrives, and the party makes a series of diplomacy and bluff checks. They convince the guard that the injured man is a member of their party, undercover with the Black Hand. He was accidentally caught in the crossfire. They tell the guards that there is still a live member of the Black Hand somewhere in the city. They take their "party member" upstairs and Selma ties him up for interrogation.
At this point, the party realizes that they don't actually have any questions for the guy. He has one hit point left, and Garath decides to "send a message" to the Black Hand by cutting off his hand, killing him. Kheldar takes the glove. Neither Kheldar nor Selma knows what the Black Hand is, nor why they're after Garath. He doesn't tell them anything. Garath keeps the severed hand in his inventory. They dispose of the body by stuffing it in an apple sack and labeling it clearly with the word "APPLES" so that nobody would even want to open it. 
By the time this has all been taken care of, it is 1:30, meaning the post office has closed again. Garath looks at the other loot he got off the thug and sees a parchment with his face on it. He assumes this is the bounty notice. He also sees the same weird symbol that is on his letter and that Selma saw in her dream. Selma recognizes it but doesn't say anything. On the back of the parchment, Garath sees the name of his home town, the place that he worked as a messenger, Bicka, and a few other cities. His home town and Cherek have both been crossed off, and Bicka has a check mark by it. He assumes that the Black Hand is checking all these other cities for where he is.
Since the post office is closed, the party tries to break in. Kheldar fails his Stealth vs Perception check and is seen by every guard around. He tries jumping on the rooftops and falls. The party decides that they don't want to continue with that endeavor. Instead, they try to forge a wax sealer so they can open and reseal the letter. They don't have any fancy wax like the kind Garath's letter has, with flecks of gold in it, but they try to improvise. They try to fuel a forge using apples and it doesn't work.
Selma goes off to take care of her errand while Garath is trying to forge a wax seal with apples. Kheldar sees her walk off and follows her at a distance. She talks to several people, trying to get a map of nearby mountains, since she wants to find her father and guardian angel. She gets a very crudely drawn map and walks off. Kheldar tries to get the same NPC to tell him what he gave Selma, but he takes a bribe and only loosely describes what Selma wanted.

Selma wrote down what she was looking for, and I kept it secret. She has a rough copy of the map but didn't tell anyone about it. Kheldar rolled poorly on his Stealth check and couldn't see what was going on exactly.

Garath is suspicious of the letter he's holding and suggests that the party take care of the troglodytes. They've been told to check with Captain Ahmose Hayward, who fills them in on the reward, and the place they're going, a small village called Ghet. The party sets out immediately.
Halfway to Ghet, the party encounters a group of kobolds demanding a toll. Selma, again being the only one to pass her Perception check, is not surprised and fires her rifle at them before they pop out of hiding. She not only misses, but her rifle misfires and breaks. The kobolds are intimidated by the loud noise, and the party makes quick work of them. Garath attempts to slap one of the kobolds with the severed hand, but misses his throw and it lands in the dirt. He spends some time cleaning it. Kheldar and Garath search the area for loot while Selma fixes her rifle. They find a small stash of gold and split it somewhat evenly, with Selma receiving the short end of the stick.

This fight was using a grid. Unfortunately, I've already sent all my D&D miniatures and grids up to New York for college. We made do with graph paper and some old Heroclix figures instead.

The party makes their way to Ghet, which is described as being a small village that is completely irrelevant except to "Ghet" them started. They stay in a garbage inn, with Selma getting very weird stares. They rent all five rooms from the inn and then sublet the other rooms they're not using. 
In the morning, they get some more details on where to find the troglodytes and what to expect. Kheldar searches the inn for money, and rolls a natural 1 on his Perception check. He is convinced that the wall is filled with gold and punches it. He hurts his hand. 

Character Plots:

Follow-up post to the Character Summaries post I did yesterday. This is taking their backgrounds and coming up with plot points to make future adventures with. Really the only one of them who gave me something I could work a lot with was Selma, but Garath and Kheldar will obviously have their own sessions to have the spotlight. I like making adventures based off character backgrounds especially in early sessions. It helps to let everyone ease into the fact that in this world, they exist and matter.


Plot Ideas:
Garath:

• The Black Hand is out to get him. Earlier I did a post about Krunth Blackhand, the leader of said bandits. They will clearly be waylaying the party at several intervals. This will hopefully culminate in an actual showdown as the party adventures.
• He was the messenger for another city called Cherek. The lord of Cherek (probably named Cherek, honestly) may call on him later.
• He has a magic ring. So does Kheldar. This is totally going to come up in some important form. Probably going to give one to Selma as well.

Kheldar:

• His induction into the ninjas was very abrupt. There is a counter-order of ninjas that will try to assassinate him and the party.
• The mysterious fruit vendor will plague the party for some time. He is, of course, the Fruit Ninja. I couldn't help myself.
• His love interest vanished. She was captured by the Black Hand as well.

Selma:

• Obviously, her father is missing along with an actual angel. That is such a huge opportunity.
• She also lost her own celestial state and will want to recover it.
• I'm thinking of involving this with Vengarion in some fashion, but I haven't really thought it completely through.
• She will probably be given a magical ring at some point to match Garath's and Kheldar's. 
• Gunsmiths are very rare in Fomor. A big part of her own plot will be creating new guns.

Character Summaries

With the first session starting soon, I'm looking over my players' character concepts. Here is a brief summary of each of their characters. Two of them have very strong influences from other media, but I wasn't aware of that at the time. I only realized it after googling some of the names they came up with. Honestly I don't care that much if they steal ideas and names, as long as it doesn't give them the idea that the world is mine. Things that each player has added to the world like cities or people has been italicized. Tomorrow I'm planning on doing a post about possible follow-up plotlines based on their backgrounds.


Background Summaries:
Garath:

• Dragonblood sorcerer. Note: Sorcerers in Fomor are nearly unheard of. There are only one or two others, and it certainly is not common knowledge.
• Grew up near Cherek - warring city-state.
• Worked as a smith, then a messenger after he left home
• Has a magic ring. He does not know what it does.
• Magical powers only recently manifested
• Sent on a mission to Bicka, a city right in the center of Fomor
• Made enemies with the Black Hand, a group of bandits

Kheldar (Yes this player is a fan of the Belgariad):

• Smuggler
• Cargo was confiscated, then he bought a store of apples
• Grew up as a pot-maker
• Love interest: human named Velvet who left home village after bandits attacked
• Has a utility belt gifted from Velvet
• Knows how to fletch arrows
• Also has a magic ring, but does not know what it does
• Note: Garath and Kheldar both picked having a magic ring that "gets stronger the more you wear it" completely independently. Needless to say, I will be having fun with that.
• Apprenticed to merchant named Yarblek in the city of Doroon in the west.
• Became a very deceptive merchant.
• Became a ninja, was branded with the symbol of his order (Kodafi trained him in the Drasnian branch of the Dagashi)
• Random fruit dealer is getting everywhere before Kheldar, and selling more than just apples.

Selma Winchester:

• Father was a rogue named Dean
• Was saved by a guardian angel named Castiel
• Father lived in northern city of Trenzalore
• Salma was given to Dean as a new guardian angel as a baby
• Became interested in guns 
• Had wings, but they were taken from her
• Dean and Castiel fled and stripped Selma of her previous celestial state
• Traveled to libraries and new cities to learn more about guns and the world

Session Outline: Session One

So the campaign taking place in Fomor is beginning this week, probably. We're not that great at planning this stuff out. So I made an outline for the first session, just to show my though processes here. I addressed this in the post itself, but I do feel the need to say it up here as well: this session will be somewhat railroaded. Everybody but myself in this game is a newbie, and is not necessarily comfortable with roleplaying yet. So a lot of things that happen are going to be scripted, unless the PCs express interest in straying from the main path. But we've worked it out that at least at the start, they'll go along with what is obviously the plot. Things will open up after the first couple sessions for them to make the game truly their own.


Theme: Introduction
Planned Encounters:

• Each other at Bicka (main city)
• The players need to introduce their characters to each other. This is somewhat railroaded.
• Two of them meet up outside the city. They should then proceed inside.
• The third one is actually an apple merchant that accosts them.
• There are so many ways for this to go wrong. But in this case, most of this is already planned between the players. Hopefully they'll stick to that.
• Some random NPC.
• Barkeep, tavern wench, guardsman, whatever. 
• This is to get the typical "fishing for rumors" or job offers. 
• Really, no matter what they do will have roughly the same outcome.
• The NPC will direct them to speak with the captain of the guard, to look for work. They will be enticed with many shiny gold pieces.
• Captain of the guard
• Mentions the issues plaguing the city
• Bandits, troglodytes, and war.
• Since the PCs are unproven, they'll be sent up to clear troglodytes near the town of Ghet.
• Hints that the troglodytes are "Always finding some random thing to worship. Just go kill it and come back."
• This is mostly a disinterested conversation. The captain is a bland person.
• On the way to Ghet
• Ambush
• Kobolds in trees and jump out on the road.
• Not a difficult fight.
• Ghet
• Takes about a day to get there - provides an opportunity to refresh spells and hp.
• Cave nearby has troglodytes.
• Cave
• First dungeon
• Almost non-stop combat.
• Troglodytes and kobolds mixed together. Mostly kobolds.
• A few oozes are present, just to be weird.
• Skills challenge towards the end.
• Final boss is a large ooze and a spellcaster
• Return to Bicka
• Again, at least one day has passed. 
• The town is under attack. PCs can see smoke rising from a few hours away.
• If we are out of time, I plan to end the session here.
• If we have time, there will be a minor skirmish which ends with them getting inside the city. The session will likely end there.

Info:
This is meant to be more of an introductory session. All of the players are pretty new to RPGs, and I want to ease them into things. The first part of the session will be them mucking about in town, with some railroading towards the plot. The whole troglodyte quest will introduce them to combat and the way Pathfinder works mechanically. Most major elements are covered in the dungeon I have prepared: Melee, ranged, cover, elevation, traps, and magic. The skills challenge is a free-form exercise. I want to let the players get into the narrative. It's a trap-based challenge, and I'll go into it more when I make a post about that dungeon.
I want this session to be more about roleplaying and letting them get into their characters. The characters have never met each other, but they've sent me their backstories. So I also have plot points for each of them planned out. I like to run things in a sort of non-structured way, but with new players I think it's okay to railroad a little bit. Most of my sessions won't have an outline quite like this, but rather a few scenes that I want to happen and then the rest is completely improv. But here, I want to introduce them to the game in a much more controlled fashion. Once they have completed the first few quests, I fully intend the world to open up. There are plenty of places that they can go adventure in once they have outgrown this little city.