Pathfinder RPG: Session 8 - Under the Old Light (Part 3)

Characters:
Lexi, Elven Rogue (played by Jojo)
Sharpblade, Skeleton (Human) Fighter (played by Evan)
Kyra, Human Cleric of Sarenrae (NPC, normally played by Mummy)
Skye Ironblade, Human Paladin? (NPC)
Bulk, Half-orc Fighter (NPC)
Puddlebug, Gnome Alchemist? (NPC)

It has become a habit to start off each of our sessions with me asking the kids, “Does anyone remember what happened last session?” I find it helps jog the kids’ memories on where they are and what were they doing. This time round, I’m impressed by Jojo who not only remembers the last session’s details, but also what the strange room looked like, which she draws out on another notepad.

Pretty accurate re-construction of the strange room

“That’s right,” I nod. “So, who wants to go in first?”

Mummy isn’t playing in this session tonight, and I've told her that I’ll put her character on “auto-pilot”. The kids decide among themselves that the lightest character should go in first, and so Puddlebug the gnome steps cautiously into the room. He makes an observation, “Hmm.. there is rust all over this iron grate, except for over here where the door is. In fact, it looks like there’s a trail of less rusty bars going all the way to the hole.” Stepping lightly, he makes it all the way to the other end of the room.

Lexi is next, and so the elven rogue steps in. After a few Reflex rolls, I tell Jojo, “The rusty iron grate squeals alarmingly under your foot, but it seems to hold your weight. You carefully make your way across the room.” I order Jojo to make a Perception roll. “You notice something shifting under the water! It’s a dark shape that is fairly roundish, almost like a sting-ray!”

Jojo and Evan argue a bit over what it might be. Evan’s first thought is that it’s a Reefclaw from the GM Guide (he reckons that a cross between an eel (possibly electric) and lobster must be fearsome indeed) while Jojo thinks that it’s a real sting-ray, and perhaps she can tame it to become her animal companion. In the end, they decide to throw something into the water. Jojo takes her rope out, tosses one end to Sharpblade, and lowers the other end into the dark murky waters.

“The end of the rope slips into the water, and you can see a dark shape moving towards it. Suddenly, something grips the rope and starts pulling it down!” The elven rogue and skeleton pull up with all their might, and I order a Strength roll. “You pull and pull, and something breaks the surface of the water, clinging on the rope! It’s some kind of grey, blob-like creature!”

Both the kids go, “Ewwww!”

The rope then snaps, and the creature sinks down into the water once again. The end of the rope has been eaten through by acid. Puddlebug shouts a warning from across the room, “It’s a Gray Ooze! I’d recognise one anywhere!”

A Gray Ooze. Ewwwww.

“That thing can live underwater?” asks Jojo, somewhat surprised.

“Sure, it can,” I respond airily. “It doesn’t need to breathe, right?”

Evan then surprises me by solving the riddle of the hole in the middle of the room. “I know! The ooze must have come through the door, and its acid ate away the rust, leaving a trail! Then it got to the middle of the room, and fell through because it melted a hole into the iron grate!”

That boy could have been raised in a dungeon, I muse to myself. I let them both read a bit about the ooze from the GM Guide, and they are intimidated enough by its acid attack that they decide to leave the trapped creature alone.

Lexi makes it to the iron door and rolls well on her Disable Device skill to pick the lock. “This iron door doesn’t seem as badly rusted as the first one. The iron lock opens with a satisfying clank.” The elf pushes the door open and goes through.

Kyra and Skye come over the iron grate floor easily enough. Evan makes good rolls on the d20 for Reflex checks, and so Sharpblade treads carefully across with no problems.

Bulk, however, looks uneasy as the iron grate complains loudly with his every step. I roll a d20, and say, “Bulk makes his way carefully across, but then an iron bar snaps under his foot, and his foot goes down, dangling just above the water! The ooze in the water goes crazy as it tries to reach him, splashing waves everywhere, but in the end, the half-orc manages to extract his stuck foot, and makes it to the other end.”

The kids breath a sigh of relief, and the adventurers pass through the iron door. They troop down a short corridor, which leads to a huge cavern-like room. The room must have once been round, but a massive cave-in has covered half of the room with rubble. “You also notice hundreds and hundreds of fiery lights flying around, like fire-flies. One of the lights flies near, and you see that it is a beetle about the size of a watermelon! It has two fiery red dots on its outer shell that glow like embers. Puddlebug identifies it as a Fire Beetle.”

Fire Beetle chamber

The gnome explains that Fire Beetles are mostly harmless, and are sometimes kept in little lantern-like cages by miners as a source of light. They are attracted to hot things, so this colony must have found a heat source somewhere here. Perhaps in that pit half-covered by rubble in the room.

Lexi and Sharpblade make their way to the pit. The floor of this room slants like a funnel towards the pit. The fire beetles are clustered in greater numbers here, and I tell them that they can see something glowing inside the pit. The pit is fairly shallow, so Lexi climbs down.

“You see glowing rocks embedded in the sides of the pit, like ore. The fire beetles seem attracted to these.” Jojo asks me what ‘ore’ is, and Evan reminds her that they’ve seen plenty of them in Minecraft.

Minecraft came in useful after all

Jojo decides to take some of the ore, and she scrapes out a chunk of it. Sharpblade is more interested in the fire beetles, and tries to pick some of those up.

I tell them, “Just then, there is a rumble, and parts of the rubble gives way!” A large arm thrusts out of the rubble, and a large stone creature pulls itself out of the rubble. I show the kids the picture of an Animated Statue.

Introducing, the T-1000. BC.

“This statue is huge! Lexi barely is taller than its knee! The statue looks down at all of you, and demands in a grating voice, ‘Grrnk-ankh-zzffnaargh-gok!’”

The kids asks me to repeat what the statue said, and so I do. Jojo decides that perhaps it’s asking for the chunk of ore back, so she holds the ore out towards the statue. However, the statue is not appeased, and lifts a threatening fist. Lexi barely manages to dodge out of the way before the fist smashes the spot where she was standing.

The rest of the party explodes into action, with Bulk smashing into the statue with his mace, Kyra with her scimitar, and Skye with her sword. Sharpblade hits it with his warhammer, but hardly dents the creature.

“This statue is extremely tough and seems hard to damage! Evan, your attack barely scratches it!” Lexi manages to duck behind it, and sneak attacks it by sticking her rapier into a knee joint, causing a small explosion of sparks.

I randomly roll to see who the statue attacks. The creature grabs Skye in a crushing grip, shaking her like a ragged doll before tossing her across the room into a heap of rubble. The woman gets up, her arm bent in an odd angle. “Retreat!” she orders.

The rest of the party complies, and soon, everyone has made their way back to the short corridor. The statue is too large to follow them, and bends its head to glare angrily at them.

Skye decides that they have explored enough under the Old Light, and so the party makes it back to the hole in the middle of the curved corridor. They go up the rope ladder, and are greeted by the two guardsmen at the top who seem extremely nervous. When Skye questions them, they say, “Just now, we thought we heard you all coming up the rope ladder, and so we called down to see if everything was alright. And then, this black creature with long, ropey arms sprang out of the hole and before we could stop it, it fled off into the night!”

Adventure Notes:

I noticed only at the last moment that the Animated Statue had a Hardness ability of 8, which means that any damage dealt to it is reduced by 8. That effectively ruled out most of the kids’ current weapons, unless they were lucky enough to score critical hits, or if Jojo got in more of her sneak attacks. Nevertheless, I decided to forgo the safe “The NPCs defeat the creature for you.” routine, and save the Animated Statue as a future challenge for the kids.

Note to self - the kids really should upgrade their weapons. And get into battles which they don’t need to retreat from.

Plot hooks: Glowing Ore, Angry Animated Statue, Black escaped creature with ropey arms

And the Ooze. I think I’ll name it Oscar.

Pathfinder RPG: Session 7 - Under the Old Light (Part 2)

Adventure Notes:

I’m beginning to find that a good session length with the kids is about one Encounter. Almost a week goes by before we finally continue the adventure, and we played this session just 45 minutes before bed-time.

* * * *

As the party turns back up the curved corridor, Puddlebug gabs excitedly about what he thinks might be the particular species of Giant Spider they’ve just encountered. “Perhaps a Giant Gray; they’re pretty common in this area. If I recall, their dens tend to have several exits, so we might still be seeing them around, unless of course, they are molting, in which case-”

Skye suddenly stops the party with a raised fist. She listens intently for something, and then says in a low voice, “Did anyone hear that? I think we’re being followed.” I get the kids to do Perception rolls, but no one hears anything.

“We just came from a dead-end,” points out Bulk. “Maybe a spider got out and is now tailing us?”

After several minutes, Skye motions for the party to continue, but now everyone is wary over what the woman might have heard. The party passes under the entrance hole and heads north up the corridor. “The corridor curves north, and then you come to an iron door set into the wall on the side of the corridor. The corridor continues onwards into the dark.”

Mummy and the kids discuss which way to go, and they decide to try opening the door first. “The door is rusted all over, and appears to be locked. If only there was a rogue around who can pick this lock...”

Jojo sighs and takes the d20 I pass to her. I spend almost a minute scouring her character sheet for a ‘Lock picking’ skill, only to realise that it’s now called ‘Disable Device’. Shows you how long since I last GMed.

Jojo rolls the d20, but she fails at the lock picking, I mean, device disabling. “The lock is much too damaged with rust. You don’t manage to unlock it.”

It looks like the only way to get this door open is to break it down, and so everyone decides that Sharpblade and Bulk should ram the door down together. Evan rolls the d20, and groans when it turns up as a 1. “Both Sharpblade and Bulk charge at the door, and then accidentally trip over each others’ feet and crash clumsily into the wall on the side of the door!” We all laugh at Evan’s expense.

Skye informs them to stop clowning around when Puddlebug announces that he can hear something approaching down the northern corridor. “It must be attracted by the noise!” he says.

I turn to Mummy. “You detect evil approaching,” I tell her. “Most likely something undead.”

Evan says excitedly to Jojo, “Maybe it’s.. a skeleton!” The kids have asked me several times before what might happen if Sharpblade encounters another skeleton.

I shrug. “Could be just a zombie.”

Everyone arranges themselves with the fighters in front. I ask Evan what he wants to do and he announces that he’s going up the corridor to see what it is. “You sure? Leaving everyone behind and going by yourself might not be a good idea, Ev.”

Nothing persuades him otherwise, and so Sharpblade marches up the corridor. “You can definitely hear the tap-tap footsteps of something walking towards you. And when you get close enough, you see what it is. It’s a skeleton!”

Evan cheers, “Yayy!”.

Sharpblade's home-boys?

I put down the GM guide. “I suppose we’ll now find out what happens when Sharpblade meets another skeleton. This skeleton is wearing old rusty armour and brandishes a broken scimitar.”

Evan says, “I wait for it to come closer!”

The skeleton lurches towards Sharpblade, and I roll a d20 and it comes up 17. “The skeleton reaches Sharpblade, and then walks right past him!”

“Woo hoo-oo! I’m INVISIBLE!” The kids are thrilled that Sharpblade seems undetectable by other skeletons. Sharpblade further demonstrates this by shoving the skeleton from behind. The undead creature stumbles but manages to resume its ponderous walk towards the rest of the party.

“Sharpblade, you hear more sounds up the corridor, and you turn to see two more skeletons walking towards you!” Sharpblade goes up to meet them, and I roll the d20 twice. 6 and 2. Hmm. “These skeletons snarl when they see you, and raise their scimitars to attack!”

Meanwhile, the first skeleton reaches the rest of the party, and Mummy decides to try out her Channel Energy ability which heals living creatures and destroys undead ones. She rolls a d6 and gets a 1. “You raise your holy symbol, and a bright flare lances out and hits the skeleton. Bits of it rapidly decays, but the skeleton is still standing!”

Lexi attacks the skeleton with her rapier, only to have the damage ignored by the creature’s damage reduction. “You need to use one of these,” calls out Bulk as he hefts his large mace. The half-orc smashes into the skeleton, and bits of bone fly everywhere.

Back with Sharpblade, the skeletons’ attacks glance off his armour. Evan, however, is still determined to test out his ‘undetectability’. He pushes at one, only to have it strike against him in response. I hold up the d20 and tell him, “Why do you think I’m rolling this whenever you meet a skeleton? Perhaps it’s because some skeletons can detect you, and some skeletons can’t!” Evan gets the point and finally draws his warhammer out to attack.

Mummy’s cleric doesn’t seem to be having much luck (or faith, depending on how you look at it) with her Channel Energy blasts. It takes another three blasts before the first skeleton disintegrates into a bony pile. The rest of the party comes up to engage the other two skeletons fighting Sharpblade. After several rounds of combat, the skeletons finally succumb to the last shot from the cleric’s Channel Energy blast.

“Kyra detects that there are more skeletons up ahead, but they aren’t moving. They’ve probably not detected you guys yet.”

Sharpblade is keen to go meet them, but the others vote to retreat back to the iron door. It’s close to bed-time now, but everyone decides to at least see what’s on the other side of the door before finishing the session.

Sharpblade and Bulk smash the door down successfully. “The other side of the door reveals a strange room. It has walls curving up into the ceiling, and is slightly rectangular. On the other end of the room, you see another iron door similar to the one you just broke down. The whole floor of this room, however, is a large rusty iron grate. Just a few feet under the grate, you can see that it’s all flooded with water. The water is too murky to see through.” I also describe that the iron grate floor looks quite unstable, and draw a hole near the middle of the room where it looks like the iron bars have given way.

What a strange, strange room

Adventure Notes:

This encounter was supposed to be the cleric’s defining moment, but I must say that Channel Energy is pretty weak given that it only does 1d6 damage, and the skeletons get a saving throw for half damage. It would have been funny if Mummy caught Sharpblade in her blast, but as it was, he was mostly out of the way.

Also, by now I realise that I’ve got a problem. Evan is playing a skeleton character, and I’m fine with him having the traits of a regular skeleton, such as poison immunity, functioning underwater, etc. However, so far, I’ve completely overlooked the damage reduction that skeletons have against non-bludgeoning weapons.

On one hand, I want to let his character function as closely as possible to a regular skeleton. On the other hand, a lot of CR1-3 creatures are going to have a tough time against that damage reduction, and I don’t want to make it too much like a cake-walk for him.

So how would you handle a skeleton player character?

Plot hooks: Something’s following us, Skeleton group huddle?

Pathfinder RPG: Session 6 - Under the Old Light

Pippi the ferret is not pleased to find that her new hiding place inside Sharpblade’s armour is now not only damp with seawater, but also reeking with yucky seaweed. The ferret ejects herself out of the neck of Sharpblade’s armour and scoots off into the bushes to sulk. The adventurers, Gaffi and Bilbi bid Trax the halfling goodbye and leave Egan’s Wood in Gaffi’s caravan, travelling north back to Sandpoint.

“The next day, you guys arrive back in Sandpoint. You’ve been away for almost a week, and in some way, you are glad to be back. Sandpoint has become like a home for you both.” As the caravan wheels in through the southern gate, they spot Fastidus the wizard coming towards them from down the street. The old wizard waves them over, “Phew! There you all are! Thank goodness you’re both back in time! When you left, some of my friends arrived in Sandpoint, and I wanted to introduce you to them, but you’d already gone. Thankfully, they’re still here. Come along with me and I’ll introduce you both.”

So Sharpblade and Lexi climb off the caravan and follow the old wizard who leads them to The Rusty Dragon where apparently, Fastidus’s friends are staying. Hardly anyone pays them any attention as the three of them enter the place. Fastidus brings them to a nearby table where three other people are sitting. “You see a serious-looking woman dressed in dark armour. Beside her, eating a large roast pig to himself, is a big warrior who looks like a half-orc! And on her other side, with his nose buried in a book, is a small gnome.” Fastidus makes the introductions. By this time, I’d not made up their names, so I poll the kids for some good names. We eventually establish that the woman is Skye Ironblade, and the big half-orc is Bulk (after Evan’s favourite superhero from Sentinels of the Multiverse), and the gnome is Puddlebug. I show the kids what Skye looks like from the GM Guide.

Skye "Don't mess with" Ironblade

Skye nods at them. “Fastidus has told us about you both. We are good friends of Fastidus, and he has recommended the both of you to join the Pathfinder Society.”

“Daaad,” says Jojo. “That’s the name of the whole game.”

“Yes,” I reply mysteriously.

Skye continues to explain that the Pathfinders are a society of explorers, whose whole aim is to explore and report about strange and new places. Joining the society gives members access to knowledge of interesting places to visit, as well as safe houses throughout the land.

Jojo crosses her arms. “I’m not joining anything unless I get paid and there’re animals included!”

“Joining the Pathfinders gives you more than just gold, Jojo,” I tell her. “It gives you information about interesting places which you can explore. And that’s worth more than gold sometimes.”

“Ooo! Can I find out about where interesting animals live?”

“Uh, yeah sure.”

“Hmm.. okay, I’ll join! How about you, Evan?”

Just before Evan answers, I tell him, “Sharpblade, you are about to answer, when suddenly, you see a vision! In your mind, you see three ninjas who you immediately recognise as the ninjas who captured you when you were human, and turned you into a skeleton! One of them speaks, ‘Sharpblade, you will infiltrate the Pathfinders as one of their members.’ Then the vision disappears!”

“What does ‘infiltrate’ mean?”

“It means, ‘pretend to join’. Like you join, but you’re really working for someone else. Like a spy.”

“Cool!” Evan is all excited over the prospect of becoming a spy. “I’m, ahem, joining the Pathfinders!”

Bulk snorts with laughter. “One does not simply join the Pathfinders! You need to be invited to join, and sometimes you need to go through training at one of our camps before you are made into a member of the Pathfinder Society!”

Evan raises his hand. “I’d like some free training!”

Skye looks at them both. “Having a recommendation from Fastidus is very good indeed. But we’ll need time to observe you both before anything is decided about joining the Pathfinders.” She turns to Fastidus. “Meanwhile, I believe that Fastidus has something he’d like us to investigate.”

The old wizard mutters and produces a tome from somewhere. He lays it on the table. “This is a historical recording of a nearby kingdom from long, long, long, long ago. The kingdom is no longer around, but it was a kingdom of giants!”

“Ooo! Giants? Really?”

Fastidus frowns. “Or they could have been ogres. Not sure really, but the writings seem to indicate that they were pretty big. Anyway, they were a fierce kingdom and kept attacking all the neighbouring lands. However, what’s strange is that they always left this city alone. Well, not Sandpoint, but the city which used to be here before Sandpoint.”

Jojo looks interested. “Hmm. Why would they do that?”

“Ahah! According to this, they were afraid of something here they called “The Tall Flame”. I think the Tall Flame mentioned here is really the Old Light!”

“Why would they be afraid of a lighthouse? Maybe they didn’t like light? Like vampires?”

“Well, no one knows. But I bet that if we go down into that hole that was recently discovered in the Old Light ruins, we might be able to find out!”

And at this point, my wife comes up to do her knitting on the couch, and the kids plead with her to join in our Pathfinder game. In the end, she chooses the pre-generated cleric character from the Beginner Box named Kyra. “I like her background story,” she comments. “It says she became a cleric to help others!”

Mummy's character: Kyra the Cleric

It takes some time to work out how to insert her into the story, but we finally decide that Kyra was sitting at a nearby table, and overhears Fastidus talking about the Old Light. She comes over to introduce herself as a cleric of Sarenrae, a healer and destroyer of all things undead. Mummy eyes Evan cautiously, “And I’m not too sure about this skeleton here!”

Before things get out of hand, I get Skye to declare that it is a good idea to have a cleric along, so soon, the whole party of six is heading off to the recently discovered hole in the ruins of the Old Light.

“By this time, the guardsmen of Sandpoint have placed a wooden hatch over the hole, and they’ve posted two guards here who seem to be sleeping on the job. They wake up pretty abruptly when Skye clears her throat. Soon, they are lifting the wooden hatch and feeding a rope ladder down into the hole.” I get the kids to decide who should go first, and they let the two big fighters go down to ‘secure the area’. Bulk climbs down, followed by Sharpblade.

“At the bottom of the rope ladder, Bulk and Sharpblade find themselves in a corridor that curves around from north to south. You don’t see anything dangerous here.”

Under the Old Light: The Corridor

The kids randomly decide to go south. “As you follow the corridor, Puddlebug the gnome is marking off sections of the corridor and making some calculations under his breath. He then says excitedly that if this corridor ran around the base of the original tower, then it is possible that the tower was um… really, really tall.”

The kids, however, are not interested in the gnome’s architectural conjectures. “All your little people talk too much, dad.”

Eventually, the group comes to a dead end. There is a cave-in blocking the way. “But you also see a tunnel leading off the side of the corridor. Unlike the rest of the corridor which is made from smooth stone, the sides of this tunnel is rough, like something clawed its way through.”

The adventurers decide that the two fighters should enter the tunnel first, when I slyly announce, “The tunnel is much too small for Bulk to get into. And Sharpblade can just barely fit. Skye says that she will stay with Bulk while the others should go through the tunnel to check out what’s in it.” I catch the kids staring at me suspiciously. “What? Do you think I'm trying to split you guys up?”

After some alterations, Sharpblade leads the way into the tunnel, followed by Lexi, Puddlebug and Mummy’s cleric Kyra. “The tunnel twists a bit, and then widens out into a large cave. You can’t see the other end of the cave, but you do see some curious-looking mounds near to where you are.”

Instead of drawing out the cave, I decide to use the grid map from the Beginner Box. I sketch out the cave using a dry-erase marker, and decide against using the mini stand-up figurines (I imagined figurines scattering around everywhere as the kids move them), and instead mark out which squares the adventurers are occupying. Jojo insists that her character should be represented by a paw print which only she can draw. With the blue marker.

Sharpblade approaches one of the mounds to investigate it. “The mound is about two feet high, and made out of some old gooey grey substance.”

“I step on it and squish it!”

Figures. Sharpblade steps on a mound and it breaks apart, spilling little bones of small animals out. “Ooo! More bones!” The skeleton tries to stick the bones into his own body, hoping to increase his size.

I assure him that it won’t work, and continue, “The old gooey grey substance is pretty sticky. Like… webs.”

The kids look at each other. “SPIDERS!”

At that moment, sticky grey webbing shoots out from the ceiling and I roll a d6 to randomly decide who it hits. It hits Puddlebug, and the gnome is immobilised with sticky webbing! “A giant spider is scuttling along the ceiling of the cave, followed by another one!” The foremost spider attacks Sharpblade from above, and misses. The other spider drops down on the ground and attacks Kyra. The cleric trades blows with the creature, but does not manage to score a hit.

On her turn, Lexi rushes over to Puddlebug and attempts to free him from the webbing. I order Jojo to do a Strength roll, and she rolls a natural 20. “Lexi sees that although the webbing is tight, it’s all just being held together by a single strand! She slices the strand and the webbing falls off Puddlebug!” Freed from the webbing, the gnome pulls out a flask from his pack and throws it, just in time to hit yet another spider running towards them from out of the shadows. The flask bursts into flames upon impact, and the spider shrieks and runs away on fire.

Sharpblade ignores the spider which attacked him, and heads off to stomp on another mound. Kyra the cleric trades missed blows once again with her spider until Lexi sneaks up behind it and back-stabs it while it is distracted. The spider shrieks and dies.

Despite her spider kill, Jojo decides to make her way back to the tunnel exit. “We’re just here to investigate,” she reasons with us. “I think we should go back and tell Skye about the spiders.” Puddlebug follows her, and after a while so does Kyra and Sharpblade, who is disappointed that he didn’t find any treasure in the mounds.

“As you leave, you glance back to see the spider on fire running to the back of the cave. The fire lights up the cave, and you see more mounds, more spiders, and hanging on the back wall, you see a large mother spider which looks twice the size of the other spiders! You feel somewhat relieved that you left when you did.”

Gridmap Galore: The Spider's Den

The group makes its way back to where Skye and Bulk are waiting, and Lexi describes the spider den to Skye. The woman nods and says that they did a good job scouting out the spider den, and perhaps later they should get a group sent down to clear the den out. Meanwhile, she orders Bulk and Sharpblade to lift some of the rubble from the cave-in to cover the tunnel entrance to prevent the spiders from coming out.

Adventure Notes:

Skye, Bulk and Puddlebug are, of course, the Pathfinders whom the tavern owner Ameiko wanted to tell Fastidus about a couple of sessions back. Most of the adventures from the Paizo site seems to involve the adventurers investigating something for the Pathfinders, so I thought they’d be a good lead-in for future adventures.

This is the first time Mummy has played a proper RPG, and unfortunately, she proved to be quite bad at rolling hits, although the kids did assure her that she was playing a part in distracting the spider so that Jojo could backstab it.

This is also the first time I’ve used the square grid map to run a battle scene. The good thing is that it does make it easier to see how things can be flanked and stuff, but it does turn the game into a square-counting affair to see how far things are, and how many squares can one move, etc. I think I’ll go back to using the simpler notepad sketches, even without the distance calculations, as it keeps things more flexible in terms of narrative. As Joss Whedon once replied to the question of how fast does the Serenity go, “The ship goes as fast as the story requires.”

Do you think I should continue with the notepad sketches, or give the grid another go?

Plot hooks: Clearing the spider’s den, first mention of the Pathfinders, and Sharpblade the ninja spy.

Pathfinder RPG - The Adventures of Daddy the Wizard and Jojo the Rogue

Evan has been bugging us for some time now to run his own Pathfinder adventure, and in the end, we came to a compromise - he’ll be the Game Master, but Jojo and I will start off using completely new characters. In fact, to make things easier, we would use the pre-generated characters that came with the Beginner Box; I chose the Human Wizard while Jojo chose the Elven Rogue.

Daddy the Wizard and Jojo the Elven Rogue

Evan asks me to help him find the map of Sandpoint in the GM guide, and he points into the map. “This is where you guys are. In the Rusty Dragon Inn.”

So far so good. “What time of the day is it?” I ask.

“It’s dawn,” Evan says. “Near night-time. And there’s lots of people inside.”

“Then it’s dusk,” corrects Jojo. “Dawn is really early in the morning.”

I glance through my wizard character sheet. “It says here that I have SEVEN hit points!? I must be really old!” I read on. “Cool, I have a Burning Hands spell that shoots fire up to 15 feet away. And I even have a Hand of the Apprentice feature that allows me to throw my staff at something, and then have it come back to my hand again.” I demonstrate with a flourish of hands.

“Ooo cool! Like a Jedi with his lightsaber!” The kids are suitably impressed.

Yeah, I can do that.

Evan describes how my wizard makes his way into the tavern.  “Just then, you bump into Jojo’s rogue.” Apparently, this was the first time we meet.

“Does she steal anything from me?” I ask in mock suspicion. “I’ll cast Burning Hands on her if she does.”

“What!? I’m not stealing anything from you, you old wizard!”

Just as our characters are getting acquainted, an old elven wizard comes up to us. He has one palm up, and hovering over his palm is a crystal ball. “The elven wizard tells the both of you a vision!”

“In the crystal ball?” asks Jojo. “What do we see?”

“You don’t see anything. You only hear words.”

Jojo and I exchange a glance. “Uh, huh. What are the words of this ‘vision’?”

“The Ocean is uh.. um..”

“Great?” suggests Jojo.

“Yes! The ocean is great and uh.. dangerous! Don’t die in uh… 30 weeks!”

Jojo gets Evan to repeat the ‘vision’ at least three times as she dutifully writes it down on a notepad.

Vision Statement. Get it!? :-D

The elven wizard walks off into the crowd. I try to catch him to ask him more about the ‘vision’, but by the time I get to the bar, the elven wizard has disappeared.

Jojo and I order drinks to take-away and discuss our options. “Alright, I think if we want to make sense of the ‘vision’, we should head off to somewhere where we can get to the ocean.” Evan points out the Sandpoint harbour in the map, so we head off there.

At the harbour, we are met with a man who seems to be in charge of the harbour. Evan puts on his best impression of a harbour master. “Yo ho! Welcome to the docks! We have lots of ships here, which can take you wherever you want to go!”

“He sounds like a pirate,” I muse.

“You distract him, and I’ll stab him in the back.” suggests Jojo.

“We’re looking for a ship to take us out to the ocean,” I say.

The harbour master attempts to list out the many ships in the harbour, assuring us that there are at least five ships which we can take, and in the end comes up with three because that’s all Evan can make up on the spot. “There’s a small fishing boat, and a cargo ship, and a big, massive ship that brings prisoners to Australia.”

“A convict ship,” supplies Jojo. “We learnt about those in school.”

The wonders of an Australian primary education. “Where are the prisoners from?” I ask curiously.

“From here and there,” answers Evan evasively. “Just then, you hear someone calling for ‘Help!’ from the convict ship!”

“Um, okay. Maybe we should go check out who’s calling for help?”

The harbour master blocks my way. “It’s those convicts tricking again,” he says. And sure enough, the same voice calls out, “Fooled you! Hahahah!”

I roll my eyes. “Okay, I think the fishing boat is too small to get us to wherever we need to go, and the convict ship is too… intense. So let’s take the cargo ship.”

In short order, we are aboard the cargo ship, and are sailing off into the ocean. I ask Evan what sort of cargo does this ship carry, and he says that the ship has one coil of rope, one table, one mug on the table, and one barrel of rum. Evan gets me to do a Perception roll, and I find that the barrel of rum is filled with beer instead.

“I pour the beer into the mug and drink it,” I say.

Evan giggles. “You drink the beer and immediately puke over the side of the ship. It’s very bad beer.”

I grumble while I clean myself up. “Where’s the crew?” I demand. “Where’re all the sailors and stuff?”

“You don’t see anyone on this ship. But, you do hear music coming from below the deck.”

I wonder if this is some kind of ghost ship while my wizard and Jojo’s rogue makes their way below deck and meets a man playing an accordion.

“Welcome aboard!” says the man while still playing the accordion. “We’re off to an island in the middle of the ocean! Yes, a very dangerous island! With frog people and mangroves!”

“I think he’s drunk too much of that bad beer,” I say.

We decide to stay aboard, and soon the ship takes us to an island and docks near the beach. There is a jungle here, with mangroves, and the calls of wild animals everywhere. We get off the ship and head into the jungle.

"Remember that the ocean is great and dangerous!" calls out the accordion man from the ship.

Jojo shakes her head. "Why did he say that?"

"I suppose he might be the old elf wizard in disguise," I reply. “Is there a path or a road in here?” I ask Evan.

“No, but suddenly, you see two red eyes looking down at you! Something very large is in front of you!”

“Oh please, please, please let it be an Earth Elemental!” begs Jojo.

“It’s… an Earth Elemental!”

“YAYY!”

Super-sized Earth Elemental!

This Earth Elemental is so massive that it picks the both of us up, one in each hand. I turn to Jojo, “Maybe you can try making friends with it?”

Jojo greets the Earth Elemental, and the creature nods. It then chucks my wizard over its shoulder. “You crash into the ground and get 3 damage,” says Evan.

“What!?” I splutter indignantly. My wizard picks himself up as Jojo’s rogue talks to the Earth Elemental. This thing is huge, and I make some observations. “Maybe, the Earth Elemental is the guardian of the island! Or maybe he’s part of the island itself!”

“So the whole island is alive?” asks Jojo. “I watched an Adventure Time episode once where the Ice King finds an island which is actually a girl. Her knee was a mountain, and she had a nice voice.”

I don't think I've watched this episode.

Just then, a blue magic bolt flies out of the trees and hits the Earth Elemental on the forehead. The creature makes a grinding roar. I turn to the trees, in time to see a figure emerge.

“You see a Serpentfolk!” says Evan.

Finally, an encounter!

The Serpentfolk seems intent on firing his magic bolts at the Earth Elemental, so I fire off a Magic Missle at it. Jojo’s elf jumps off the Earth Elemental’s hand as a few bolts fly past her. “What’s the Challenge Rating of this thing?” I ask, and we check the GM guide. “CR 4!? We’re just Level 1s and we’re fighting a CR 4? This guy has 42 hit points! And I have half of SEVEN!”

The fight with the Serpentfolk becomes extremely surreal as every time it hits the Earth Elemental with its bolts, the whole terrain around us changes. From a jungle to an icy wasteland, and then to a searing desert. In the end, the Earth Elemental ends the Serpentfolk menace by sitting on it.

By now, it was near bed-time, so as I get both the kids ready for bed, Evan describes the loot we find on the Serpentfolk’s remains. Jojo finds a ring which has engravings of sea stars on it. Apparently, it allows her to hide from sea creatures. I jokingly suggest that perhaps it turns her into a sea star in the process.

I find a bracelet that fires those blue magic bolts that the Serpentfolk was using. Evan calls them Plasma Bolts, so we name the item the Bracelet of Plasma Bolts. I ask Evan how many shots does the Bracelet of Plasma Bolts contain, and he tells me that it has 100 bolts, and recharges every day. I’ve got a feeling that I’ll be blasting quite a few of these in upcoming adventures.

Adventure Notes:

Things I've learnt about letting the kids run your RPG campaign. Take things as they come. Don't stress about the details. And ignore the plot holes that are big enough for a ship to sail through.

If you do this, you'll suddenly find that you've gone on a mystical voyage to a magic island. And upon reflection, you'll suddenly realise that you've actually had fun.

Pathfinder RPG - Session 5: The Rune Portal

“Well, the good news is that you guys have earned enough Experience points to level up to Level 2! Hooray!” We all cheer, and then Jojo happily informs me that she does not know what ‘level up’ means in Pathfinder. I explain that it means that their characters are now tougher and better at what they do.

Evan was up first, so I hand him a d10. “Roll this and add 1. This will be the number of Hitpoints you gain from the level up.”

Evan takes the die and rolls 0. He immediately snatches it up again. “Uh, can I roll that again?”

I explain to him that 0 on a d10 is actually 10, the highest number you could roll on a d10. He looks dubious, but wisely accepts my explanation, and adds up his new Hitpoint total to 22.

After adjusting his Fortitude and Reflex saves, we get to Feats. Here, I skim through the list of potential new Feats he can gain, which, as a warrior, is quite extensive. We consider choosing Weapon Focus on his war hammer (his current Weapon Focus is on his axe) when I go, “Hmm.. see this feat here called Cleave?” I briefly self-read the description from the GM guide. “It means, um..  that if you attack and hit an opponent, you.. get an extra attack to hit another opponent next to the first one. And you get +2 on these attacks, but also -2 on your AC.”

Evan looks at me blankly until Jojo pipes up. “It means you can hit two bad guys at the same time. Like this.” She demonstrates with a cleaving motion and a Pow! Pow! sound effect.

“Cool!” He writes it down on his character sheet.

Next is Jojo. I’ve been thinking about her character progression, and now that we are several sessions in, I realise that she’s playing less like a Rogue and more like a Ranger or a Druid. And there were a number of times she’s asked me about how she might find and tame animals.

I explain this to Jojo and add, “The Beginner’s Box only comes with a Wizard, Warrior, Rogue and Cleric, but you know what? We can look up the Ranger class on the web, and rather than starting over with a Ranger, I think it makes sense if Lexi multi-classes into it! That’ll make you a Ranger-Rogue, and you can gain a bunch of new class features too.”

So for the next 20 minutes, we scour through the online Paizo Pathfinder reference document to learn more about the Ranger class, and soon Jojo is writing in her new Ranger class features. She is particularly delighted to have Wild Empathy which allows her to tame, or at least calm, animals.

“It also says here that you can select a Favored Enemy which gives you a bonus when fighting or dealing with that type of creature.” We go through the list of creature types, and for a while there, Jojo entertains the thought of taking Favored Enemy (Undead) and beating up Sharpblade. In the end though, she settles on Favored Enemy (Goblinoid) which makes sense given the number of goblins she’d dispatched in the last adventure.

And so, with their characters updated with new statistical goodness, the kids launch into the next session.

Adventure notes:
I think it’s great that the Pathfinder Core Reference document is available in the Paizo site, and it really helps enhance the whole Pathfinder experience. The Beginners Box is a great way to get into the game, and there is so much free online content for Pathfinder (or its compatible predecessor D&D 3.5). Hooray for the internet. 

* * * * *

“The injuries Lexi sustained during her fight with Hork’s wolf are pretty bad. After the wolves and Egan have disappeared, you guys decide to head back to Egan’s house to rest. However, just as you are leaving, you notice something in the ruined temple. Now that the rest of the ceiling has caved in, there is a rune carved into one of the pillars that you’ve not noticed till now.”

The adventurers take a closer look at the rune. “You both recognize this rune! It’s the same as the one you’ve seen at that portal in the farm house!” They take note of it and head back to Egan’s house. The bearded man, however, is not in.

“He’s probably out running around with his wolf friends,” says Jojo.

They rest in the house, and the next morning, they still see no sign of Egan. I suggest that if they are going continue to resting in the house, they should go get Gaffi and Bilbi to come as well, so Sharpblade goes off to fetch them. They hide the caravan under some shady trees and cut branches before heading back to the house where Lexi is resting.

“Lexi is recovering, but slowly. The wounds that wolf gave her are still bleeding quite badly.” Gaffi helps Lexi wash it out, while Bilbi and Sharpblade explore the rest of the house, from the vegetable and herb patch in the backyard to the surrounding trees.

“Just about midday, you all suddenly hear a voice calling from outside. ‘Hello, the house! Is anyone in?’” The adventurers look outside, and see a strange little man no taller than a human’s waist. He is dressed in greens, has a longbow on his back, with worn leather boots. There is a bright smile on his face. “’Ah! You must be the guests that Egan told me about! He came to me last night and asked that I look in on you all to check if you’re alright!’”

I explain to the kids that this man is a halfling, similar to a hobbit from The Hobbit. The halfling introduces himself as Traxander BirdSpotter, and tells them to call him Trax for short.

“Or how about Bird?” queries Jojo.

“Or Spotty?” asks Evan.

“Those are okay too, but I think he prefers to be called Trax,” I reply.

After Trax comes in, it is immediately apparent that he knows his way around the house. He gets a pot of tea boiling, checks out Lexi’s wounds and tut-tuts to himself. He goes to the backyard and selects some herbs, pounds them together into a paste and spreads it on Lexi’s wounds. The elf immediately feels better, and the halfling offers to put the rest of the healing herbs into a little container for her to carry.

It is also immediately apparent that this halfling cannot quite stop chattering. A simple question of, ‘How do you know Egan?’ leads to an hour-long regaling of how the bearded man had rescued him from a nest of angry forest spiders.

Jojo asks him about Egan and the wolves, and he relates to them about how Black Fang goblins are known to capture wolves for riding, although usually not this far west. There is apparently a fortified training camp somewhere in the hills near Black Fang where wolves and other unfortunate creatures are cruelly trained to be goblin mounts. Being a werewolf bonded to the wolves of the forest, Egan was adamant not to let any of his pack suffer such a fate.

“Ah, yes, very, very sad about Egan’s werewolf condition. He doesn’t like to talk about it, and I felt that it was impolite to ask, don’t you agree?” He has observed that Egan tends to disappear for days at a time after each transformation, and has hidden dwellings all over the forest.

“I think he talks too much,” grumbles Evan while Jojo makes a chatterbox motion with her hand.

“Hmm.. yes, he is quite a chatterbox. Oh, I forgot about Pippi!”

“Who’s Pippi?”

The next morning, the adventurers find Trax outside the house, calling ‘Pippi! Pippi!’ into the bushes. There is a rustling, and out of the bushes appears a large and fairly tubby ferret.

“He’s got a pet ferret!? Cool!”

Pippi is a very bright female ferret who would shamelessly do anything for a food reward. She is intensely curious and checks out each of her new friends with interest. With Sharpblade, she is delighted to discover that he is almost completely hollow inside his armour, being bones and all, and she starts hoarding things inside, much to the kids’ amusement.

Trax incessantly dotes on his animal companion, and in return, Pippi completely ignores him unless he has some food.

After a few peaceful days, Bilbi comes up with an idea. “Hey, you know that White Lady at the temple? I wonder what will happen if someone actually gave praise to the Runelord Xanderghul. Didn’t she say something about a reward?”

The boy is adamant to give it a go, so the two adventurers and the boy go visit the ruined temple again. “Soon, you arrive at the temple. There is no sign of dead goblins anywhere. You suppose that there are other creatures in the forest which feed on dead goblins.”

Bilbi walks up to the temple, and the White Lady appears. After her greeting, he clears his throat and says, “I think Runelord Xandergul is, uh.. really great!”. The White Lady shakes her head in response and says, “Your praise is insufficient, mortal.” She disappears with a shimmer.

By now, the kids are hankering to go next. Evan gets up and starts a whole singing and dance routine to the tune of ‘Everything is awesome!’ from the Lego Movie, changing the words to ‘Xanderghul is awesome!’ instead. I tell him to roll for a Bluff check (with some bonuses for good effort) but unfortunately, he too does not make it.

Perhaps the White Lady is sick of this song too.

Jojo goes next. “Oh, runelord Xanderghul! You are great, and mighty and there is no other runelord like you!”. She rolls a success on her Bluff check. Immediately, the White Lady smiles at her, and disappears with a shimmer. In her place, there is a smooth round stone with a rune on it. She collects it and writes ‘Rune stone’ in her character sheet.

“Oh! Let’s see if this rune stone helps us to get through that portal!” exclaims Evan excitedly.

With much anticipation, the adventurers travel to the old abandoned farm house and wait in the side-room for night to fall. Sure enough, when the first rays of the moon light up the room, there is a thrum of magic, and the portal appears.

“Okay, uh… I’ll throw the rune stone at the portal,” says Jojo. The elf throws the rune stone and the stone passes through the barrier and disappears into the portal. Nothing else happens. “Ohhh, right. Maybe I should have walked through the portal while holding the rune stone!”

Sharpblade tries to run into the portal again, and keeps bouncing off the barrier until the portal finally disappears when a cloud covers the moon.

“Well,” says Bilbi. “At least we know how to get more rune stones, yeah?”

The next morning sees the three of them back at the ruined temple. “Bilbi has prepared something more eloquent this time, and after his speech, the White Lady smiles and the boy is rewarded with a rune stone of his own.”

Lexi does another worthy praise and earns a rune stone too. Sharpblade tries another song and dance, but he still earns nothing for all his efforts. Bilbi says to Sharpblade, “Hey, trade you my rune stone for 20 gold?” Sharpblade agrees and soon is one rune stone richer and 20 gold poorer.

That night back at the farm house, the three of them wait for the portal to appear, which it does. “Okay, who’s going to go in first?” I ask. Sharpblade doesn’t even hesitate, and he plunges through the portal. Jojo is a bit more cautious and takes my suggestion to tie a rope around her waist and secure the other end of the rope to the doorway of the room. She then jumps through the portal.

“For a while, you see nothing but darkness. Then your eyes adjust but you don’t see much more. Lexi lets out a breath, and bubbles come out of her mouth. You are both underwater!”

“Hah! I don’t need to hold my breath because I don’t need to breathe!” declares Evan. Sharpblade looks around and sees that they have appeared in the midst of some ruined archways. The surface of the water is high above, and it must be night-time because he can see the moonlight shining down. Schools of fish swim by, and there is wavy seaweed everywhere.

The other side of the Rune Portal

 “Hmm.. it looks like more ruins. Maybe another temple?” says Evan.

“Do I see the first rune stone I threw in?” asks Jojo. The elf spots the rune stone lying in front of the portal and picks it up. “Well, I’m swimming back through the portal before I drown!” says Jojo. The elf turns back to the portal and starts making her way towards it.

“Before you go, both of you make a perception roll,” I request. Evan rolls well. “Sharpblade suddenly notices something large and dark swim past outside the archways.”

“How large?”

“About as big as a whale.”

Jojo considers herself an expert on all creatures maritime. “What sort of whale? A killer whale, or a blue whale?”

“Um.. a blue whale?”

Lexi does not deviate and swims through the portal. She gets through and splashes out into the farmhouse side-room, much to the relief of Bilbi who is waiting there.

Sharpblade, on the other hand, steps out closer to the archway to take a better look. “You stand in the middle of the archway and try to look out to see if you can spot what it is. Suddenly, out of the murky darkness, you see it swimming straight at you!” The skeleton catches a glimpse of rows of long sharp teeth and a pair of milky white eyes. “It looks almost like the face of an angler fish!” The kids certainly remember the angler fish from Finding Nemo.

Aaaaahhhh!!!

“Dad, I’m a skeleton, right? So if this thing eats me, I won’t die, right? I can just slice my way out of its tummy!”

“Hmm.. well. It’s true that you won’t die. But you might get crushed in the creature’s jaws, and then all that’s left of you in the creature’s tummy is just your skull. That’ll probably be the end of your adventures as Sharpblade, stuck forever in some monster’s belly!”

Evan wisely decides to turn and sprint back to the portal.

“You’re underwater, so your movements are really slow, like this!” I demonstrate with my arms. “As you go, you see that whatever it is, it has swum up and over the archway. You look up and see a long body with fins swimming over you before it disappears into the darkness again.”

“How does its tail fin work?” asks Jojo. “Up and down, or from side to side?”

“Side to side. By the way, Lexi notices a cloud coming to cover the moon outside!”

“Hurry, Evan! The portal is going to close!”

Underwater ruined archways

“Aaahh!” exclaims Evan. The skeleton almost makes it back through the portal when I tell him, “You suddenly spot something half-buried in the mucky ground next to the portal! It looks like the lid of a treasure chest!”

“Leave it! I’m going through the portal!”

“Really? I reckon you have a couple of turns or so. You don’t want to try taking the chest?”

Evan is adamant. “No way! I’m leaving right now!” Nothing persuades him otherwise, even when I describe a curious skull carving on the lid. In the end, the skeleton makes it through the portal.

“Sharpblade steps out of the portal, and water gushes out of the holes and chinks of his armour, making him look like some kind of weird fountain statue. There is a flopping sound inside his armour, and Sharpblade has to spill out some fish on the floor.”

The adventurers are about to tell Bilbi where they have been when there is a sudden BASH! from the blue portal. They watch as a few more bashes shakes the portal before it shimmers and disappears.

“I think something big was trying to get through the portal, but it couldn’t because it didn’t have a rune stone.” I tell the kids. The kids discuss what sort of creature that might have been. Jojo has already concluded that it must have been a giant eel, perhaps a Moray. Evan thinks that it’s just some monster that Dad made up.

I make some suggestions on how they can explore the underwater ruins next time. Perhaps a water-breathing potion? We all decide that perhaps it’s time to return to Sandpoint to pick one up.

Adventure Notes:

My initial thoughts of the portal were to have it lead to some place dangerous where the kids pick up a valuable artifact and then leave before it gets too dangerous. The underwater ruins and large swimming monster fit that mold, but unfortunately, I might have scared them both too much to even attempt to pick up some treasure on the way out. Next time I’ll show them the treasure first, get them invested into getting it out, and then introduce some danger.

The hazards of mixing GMing and child psychology.

Plot hooks: A skull-marked treasure chest underwater beyond the Rune Portal. A goblin training camp turning wolves into mounts.

Pathfinder RPG - Session 4: Egan's Wood

Jojo finally decides on a name for her elven rogue - Lexi. She is busy writing the name into her character sheet while I set the scene. "The next day, everything goes back to normal in Sandpoint. The shops are open again, and there are busy crowds everywhere."

"Is the fighting contest still on?" asks Evan eagerly.

"No, that was only for the Festival. No fighting contests on today."

Somewhat disappointed, Sharpblade decides to take a stroll to the Rusty Dragon Tavern. Nobody barely pays him any notice as he walks into the tavern; word has probably gotten out that he was some skeleton controlled by the wizard Fastidus.

"As you enter the place, Ameiko the tavern owner stands in front of you and whispers, 'Fastidus? Can you hear me from here!?'"

Evan frowns. "What's she doing?"

"I think she thinks you're a skeleton who is controlled by Fastidus. Like a remote control robot," I supply.

Evan looks indignant. "Well, I'm not! I tell her that I'm a real skeleton and not controlled by anyone!"

Despite telling Ameiko that he is not controlled by Fastidus, the tavern owner brushes his comments aside. "Listen, you old mule! You told me to tell you if any of them turn up in here, and this morning a group of them did. So there you go, consider yourself informed." The tavern owner goes off back to serving customers at a nearby table.

Evan doesn't know what to make of it, so in the end, he decides to go see what Lexi is up to.

Jojo is determined to go chase after the rumour that there is someone in a nearby forest who can talk to animals. "Maybe he can teach me how to talk to animals too!" She plumbs Fastidus for more details, and the old wizard tells her that the rumours come from Egan's Wood, almost a few days away on foot.

Evan gets an idea. "I know! Maybe we can ask Gaffy and Bilbi if we can ride their caravan to the wood!"

We all think it's a great idea, and I tell the kids that Gaffy and Bilbi are happy to bring them to Egan's Wood, so soon the caravan is making its merry way down south along the Lost Coast Road.

Egan's Wood - Southeast of Sandpoint

"It's a peaceful drive, and in the distance, you can see plenty of farms and fields on this side of Sandpoint. Only when you get closer to the Brinestump Marsh do the farms start thinning out. It's a dangerous place, those marshlands, with plenty of nasty creatures living in it, so most people avoid it. But your journey takes to inland and soon, you arrive at an old abandoned farm next to what has to be Egan's Wood.”

The group gets out for a stretch. Jojo is eager to start searching the woods, so Lexi makes her way into the trees while Sharpblade hangs around the caravan.

“He’s probably waiting to see if he can drive off with it,” remarks Jojo.

The elf wanders around the woods, making sure that she does not lose track of her way back to the caravan. “These woods are quite large. You’re not exactly sure where to start, so you wander around the trees, keeping a sharp look out for anything strange or dangerous.”

Meanwhile, Sharpblade is back at the caravan, rummaging through its contents. “Did you say that there were metal things in here? Didn’t I throw something metal at that Earth Elemental?”

“Uh, metal cooking pots?” I offer.

“Hmm..” he says before continuing with his rummaging.

I have no idea what he has in mind, so I decide to distract him. “Remember I said that this farm is abandoned? Well, there’s an old, deserted farm house here, next to the fields of overgrown weeds.”

Old Abandoned Farm house

He looks up. “A farm house? Why didn’t you say so?” Sharpblade strolls up the deserted farm house.

“There’s a front porch, and the front door is all boarded up.”

“Smash it with my war hammer.”

It takes only two blows to completely decimate the door and the skeleton steps into the house. “It’s dark in here; the windows have been all boarded up too. Aside from the wooden bits and junk on the floor, you don’t see anything of interest. There’s another door here on the side, probably leading to a side-room.”

Evan hesitates a bit, and then decides to forgo opening this door and goes back to the caravan to resume his rummaging.  I suppose he wants to wait for Lexi to get back before exploring on.

Jojo is still in the woods searching. “After several hours, you don’t meet anyone. The sky is getting dark, so you decide to head back to the caravan, when suddenly, there is a rustle in the bushes in front of you! Something’s heading your way!”

Jojo decides to stand firm, throwing dagger at ready. “Out of the bushes in front of you burst out… a wolf! It stares at you with a panting snarl!”

“Does it have red eyes?” asks Evan intently.

“Well, I suppose if it was dark, it might be red.”

“Uh oh.” Lexi throws the dagger and it misses the wolf as it lunges… right past the startled elf and into the bushes behind her! “The wolf soon bounds off, and then you hear more rustling from the bushes in front of you!”

By now, the kids have figured out that something is chasing the wolf, but Jojo decides to stand firm again, this time with her rapier out. “Crashing out of the bushes, you see… two goblins! They are holding a net between them. They see you and shriek angrily and one of them charges towards you with its short sword! The other notches an arrow in its short bow!”

A nasty Goblin!

The fight is short, but furious. Lexi dodges the wild swings from the sword-wielding goblin before impaling it with her rapier. Meanwhile, the other goblin proves to be an excellent shot at hitting the sky. It grunts irritably as it bends to retrieve its arrow for the second time.

“I ignore that goblin and run after the wolf! I want to see where it lives!” The elf turns and runs after where the wolf went.

“You run into the bushes, and you can glimpse the wolf bounding away in the distance. But soon, you lose sight of it.” There is no sign of that other goblin either. Jojo is disappointed, but makes her way back to the caravan.

By the time she gets back, night had fallen. Gaffi has set up a campfire next to the caravan, and soon they are all sitting next to the fire eating dinner (except for Sharpblade, of course). Gaffi listens to Jojo’s run-in with the goblins and shakes his head, “Odd. Goblins usually stay closer to the mountains to the east and tend not to stray this far.”

Just then, Bilbi points at the farm house. “Hey! I think I see a light in there!”

Sure enough, in the darkness, they can all see a faint blue glow coming from the side-room window of the farm house. Both Lexi and Sharpblade walk up to the farm house to investigate and enter through the front doorway which Sharpblade had smashed earlier.

“You see a faint blue glow coming from under the door that leads to the side-room.”

“Smash it!”

“You sure, Ev? You don’t want to carefully check the door first?”

“Nope, smash it!”

Sharpblade smashes open the door with his warhammer and the two adventurers stride into the room.

“You see what looks like a blue glowing oval shape hovering above the floor like this.” I motion with my hands. “There is a thrum of magic in the air!”

“Oh, it’s just a portal,” says Evan dismissively. “Jump into it.”

“Hmm.. you really sure?” I was impressed how reckless Evan seemed tonight. And he was dead right about it being a portal too.

“Yeah,” cautions Jojo. “It could be a wisp or something.”

“No, it’s a portal,” insists Evan. Sharpblade takes a running leap towards the blue oval portal and smashes into an invisible barrier in front of it. He crashes on his back, and there is a blue flash as an image of a rune highlights itself over the portal. The rune image gradually fades away.

“That was cool!” the kids exclaim. “Do it again!”

The adventurers repeatedly bounce themselves off the invisible barrier surrounding the blue portal like some kind of vertical trampoline. Eventually, I tell them. “Just then, a cloud covers the moon outside, and the portal disappears. But by now, you’ve memorised this rune and you make your way back to the caravan.”

The kids ask Gaffi if he knows what the rune is, but he just shakes his head. “Don’t know much about runes and the like. But I do know that long ago, these lands were ruled by powerful wizard warriors who called themselves Runelords. This might be one of their runes.”

Jojo shakes her head. “Runelords? Warrior wizards? Why can’t you tell us this stuff beforehand?”

The rest of the night passes uneventfully, and the next day, the two adventurers are back in the forest searching for any trace of the mysterious animal-conversing person, or goblins.

“After some time, you both catch the smell of something really bad in the air. Like someone cooking dirty socks or something. It’s coming from a clearing up ahead.” The two adventurers cautiously approach the clearing and see a group of five goblins sitting around a cook-fire. There are nets on the ground next to them. I sketch out the layout of the clearing and pin-point the location of Lexi and Sharpblade with a triangle and a square.

“Oooo! Can I be the triangle!? I want to be the triangle!” pleads Evan.

“Uh. Yeah, sure, you can be the triangle.”

“Yayy!”

Goblin campfire. Just what are they cooking!?

“Listen in to see if we can find out more about them,” suggests Jojo.

I explain that goblin tongue is not easy to make out, full of grunts and snarls, but they manage to recognise a few phrases. “You work out that their leader’s name is Hork, and he rides a large wolf. You also hear that he wants to marry a White Lady.”

“Hmm… a White Lady.” murmurs Jojo thoughtfully.

“Make a perception roll!” I order. The kids both roll abysmal numbers 2 and 3. “You are both so intent on listening in to the goblins that you do not notice a rustle in the bushes behind you until a goblin scout steps out of them! You both stare at each other in surprise before the goblin yells, ‘Intrudah!!! Intrudah!!!’”

The goblins in the clearing grab their weapons and rush towards the noise. The goblin scout attacks Lexi but clumsily stabs a tree with its short sword. Sharpblade draws his axe and bursts into the clearing to attack the advancing goblins. The fight takes several rounds, and Lexi manages to dispatch the goblin scout with her rapier. Sharpblade, however, has a streak of really bad luck with missed attacks and the goblins getting through his tough armour and scoring a couple of critcal hits to boot. Although he manages to dispatch one of them, in the end, he collapses due to the sheer number of goblins bearing him down.

“Sharpblade collapses and about three goblins pounce on top of him! One of them tries to pull his skull off with its hands!”

“Daaaad! Am I dead?”

“Not yet, but you’re out of the fight.”

Lexi’s rapier is a blurry flash as she fights off two goblins at once and manages to bring them down one after the other. When the other three goblins crawling over Sharpblade see her finish off their fellow goblins, they immediately rush to attack her. With a series of well executed attacks, the elf dispatches two of the goblins in as many rounds, and points her blade menacingly at the last one who looks increasingly terrified by the rapier-wielding rogue.

“Tell me what you goblins are doing here in this forest!” she demands angrily.

The goblin blubbers. “We outcasts from Black Fang! We here catch wolves! To ride! Like our great leader Hork!”

“Oh! Black Fang!” says Evan. He points at the campaign map. “From this place here called Black Fang’s Dungeon!”

“What are you going to do with the goblin?” I ask curiously.

Jojo shrugs. “He’s small, right? I’ll carry him back to the caravan.” As Lexi bends to pick up the goblin, the nasty creature shrieks and bites her arm.

As the enraged elf wrestles the creature off, I exclaim, “You suddenly see a few creatures appear from out of the bushes! It’s more of those wolves! The goblin sees the wolves and shrieks in fear and jumps off to run into the opposite direction. The wolves bound past you both to give chase.”

“Just great!” says Jojo. “Now we’ll have to chase them again!”

Sharpblade gets up but just before they start to leave, a voice calls out from the trees. “Ho there, strangers!” A bearded man dressed in patched-up clothes steps into the clearing.

The adventurers introduce themselves to the newcomer. “And we’re looking for a man who can talk to animals.” finishes Jojo.

The bearded man considers this, and then laughs. “Well, I’ve got good news and bad news for you. The good news is that you’ve probably found who you’re looking for. My name is Egan and these are my woods. And I’m most likely the person who people are talking about. The bad news though, is that I don’t really talk to animals. I’m friends with the wolves, and they respect me just as I respect them. But we don’t really.. talk.”

Jojo looks disappointed even when Egan invites them back to his dwelling to rest. After a short walk, they arrive at a large tree stump. “When this was a living tree, the tree must have been simply enormous! Now all that’s left is the base of its trunk which is about 30 feet wide. It has been hollowed out and covered to make Egan’s home.” They enter the dwelling and find it modestly outfitted. Egan starts preparing a meal for them and talks to them about the recent goblin incursion in the woods. “They started turning up some weeks back, and they’ve been trying to catch wolves since!”

The adventurers tell Egan what they have learnt about the goblins. “And we heard that their leader Hork wants to marry a White Lady.”

Egan thinks a bit. “Hmm.. a White Lady. Perhaps it has something to do with that ruined temple in these woods.” He explains that there is an old ruined temple here that has a white statue of a lady. The adventurers agree to investigate it after their rest.

So later on, the adventurers find themselves following Egan’s directions towards where the ruined temple ought to be. “You both walk for about a couple of hours through the woods, and soon come to what seems to be an old marble road! But it’s really cracked and ruined, with roots and grass growing through it.”

Evan attempts to pry some of the marble off the road, but it is so brittle that it breaks to bits. They both follow the road and eventually come to a building partly hidden in the trees.

Mysterious ruined temple

“This must be the ruined temple Egan told you about. It’s basically a raised marble platform with columns all around. Vines and grass have grown all over it, and half the roof has caved in.” The two adventurers walk up to the temple. “There seems to be nobody here. But just as you approach the main entrance of the temple, there is a thrum of magic in the air, and suddenly, a beautiful lady appears in front of you!”

“Um. Is she white-looking?” queries Jojo.

“Why, yes. She is wearing a white gown, and has pale skin. She is extremely beautiful and tall and graceful with blonde hair. However, she also has a haughty look that gives her a prideful appearance. Sort of like an evil Delta Goodrem.”

Jojo considers this. “I think Kylie Minogue is prettier.”

Delta or Kylie. You decide.

The White Lady raises her hands slightly in welcome. “Greetings mortals. Welcome to the temple of the Great Xanderghul, the Runelord of Pride. Pilgrims such as yourselves should give praise to the Great Xanderghul, and the mighty runelord might bestow a reward to you.” She seems to wait for a response.

Jojo clears her throat. “Uh, hi, we’re here to find out why the goblin leader wants to marry you.”

“The White Lady does not respond,” I say. “She just stands there, as if waiting.”

“Well, I’m smashing her with my warhammer!” declares Evan. Sharpblade steps forward to deliver a mighty blow to the White Lady. His warhammer goes right through the Lady as if she was not there and smashes the floor. The Lady shimmers a bit, and then disappears.

“Just great!” says Jojo exasperatedly. The two adventurers search the small ruined temple, but find nothing of interest nor any trace of the White Lady.

“You guys finish searching the temple when you both hear the sounds of a group approaching the temple along the marble road!” Sharpblade immediately hides behind one of the pillars while Lexi springs out into the trees to hide in the shadows. From the road, a group of six goblins turn up. “One of them is a largish-looking goblin riding a wolf! This must be Hork, the goblin boss. The goblins grumble amongst themselves until Hork dismounts and clouts one of them behind the head.”

Hork the Goblin Boss!

Hork makes his way to the front of the temple and immediately, the White Lady appears. She raises her hands in welcome. “Greetings mortals. Welcome to the temple of the Great Xanderghul, the Runelord of Pride. Pilgrims such as yourselves should give praise to the Great Xanderghul, and the mighty runelord might bestow a reward to you.”

Hork gets down on one knee and calls out, “Beautiful White Lady! Lady more beautiful than.. than.. flower! Why you no marry Hork? Hork kill anyone who harm White Lady!” He goes on for a bit, but the White Lady makes no response. Eventually, she shimmers and disappears. One of the goblins scratches his head and says, “Maybe she no like your smell, Hork.” which immediately earns him a pummeling from the goblin boss.

After some discussion, the kids both figure it out. “The White Lady is a hologram! And Hork thinks she’s real!”

“In a fantasy world, holograms are called illusions,” I correct them. “And yes, I don’t think Hork realises that she’s not real.” I frown. “Uh oh. You remember Hork’s wolf? You spot it sniffing the air suspiciously, and it starts coming towards where Lexi is hiding!”

“Does it have red eyes?” asks Evan.

“Oh yes,” I supply. “Definitely.”

Fight at the ruined temple

Jojo thinks a bit. “Okay, um. I’m going to try to befriend the wolf.”

I look at her. “I must warn you, this is an extremely dangerous wolf that’s been trained by Hork to be his mount. I don’t know if you can befriend it, Jo.”

“Well, at least give me one try.”

I sigh. “Roll then.” Jojo rolls and comes up with a 6. “I don’t think that’s enough to befriend anything, let alone a savage wolf! Hork’s wolf spots you, and immediately starts snarling at you! The rest of the goblins draw their weapons!”

Sharpblade lunges out from his hiding place and hurls his axe at a surprised Hork. Unfortunately, the axe just misses and flies off into the trees. The skeleton draws his warhammer and goes head-to-head with the goblin boss. “Hork is using a longsword which is way too big for him. He swings it clumsily but powerfully, and his blow glances off your armour!” Another two goblins fire off arrows from their shortbows which ping off the skeleton’s tough armour.

Lexi slashes her rapier at Hork’s wolf and scores a hit on its snout. Enraged, the wolf lunges at her. I roll a natural 20 for the wolf. “A critical hit! Hork’s wolf mauls into you, and you collapse under the beast!”

“Aaagh, brought down by my own weakness for animals!” laments Jojo.

Sharpblade fends off more attacks by Hork and manages to score a few minor hits. However, by now, the rest of the goblins are coming up to surround the skeleton. “It looks like they are all going to surround and attack you! Just before they do, a piercing wolf howl breaks the air!”

Out from the trees, wolves race out and attack the remaining goblins! One of them is particularly large and can stand on two hind legs. “Is that Egan?” guesses Jojo.

“Well, it’s a wolf that is standing like a man and it looks like this.” I show them the picture from the DM guide.

Egan the Werewolf?

“Oh, it’s a werewolf,” reads Jojo from the title. “Why didn’t you just say it’s a werewolf?”

If it is Egan, he was hardly recognisable now, having turned into a werewolf. The werewolf and Hork’s wolf tear into each other in a brutal fight.

In the midst of it all, the illusion of the White Lady appears again with her greeting to pilgrims. No one pays it any attention as wolves and goblins fight, sometimes stumbling right through her. Sharpblade and Hork exchange blows until Evan finally rolls a natural 20. “A critical hit! Isn’t it, dad? I rolled a critical hit!”

“You sure did.” I hand him a d8. “With the warhammer, that means that you roll this 3 times and add it all up for damage.” Evan does his three rolls, with both kids adding up the damage as he goes along.

“You land a spectacular smashing hit on Hork. The goblin boss flies up into the air and crashes into the half-broken ceiling of the temple before falling to the ground! The rest of the ceiling tumbles and crashes on top of the goblin boss. I think he’s very dead now.”

With their leader gone, the rest of the goblins fall into disarray and the wolves dispatch them with no problems. Lexi gets up, all bloodied from her mauling, and watches as Egan the werewolf tears into Hork’s wolf and kills it. The werewolf stares at her with blood-crazy eyes and then bounds off into the forest, the rest of the wolves following close behind.


Adventure Notes:

We played this adventure on-and-off over about three mini-sessions. I admit being over-confident that the kids could deal with hordes of goblins given Sharpblade’s high AC, but as the fight in the clearing shows, it all really depends on the luck of the die. I've no idea why so many critical hits were rolled this adventure, but anyway, now both kids are more aware of what critical hits are and can do.

I was more careful with the final encounter, and even then Lexi went down when the wolf mauled her to bits with a single critical bite. The rescue by the Egan and the wolves, of course, was planned, but at least Evan managed to redeem himself in his fight with Hork.

This time round, I borrowed some adventure material from the free Pathfinder adventure downloads from the piazo site. I rather liked the idea of a goblin boss being smitten by an illusionary recording!

By now, both kids have earned enough XPs to level up, so in the next session, I’ll detail how the kids leveled up their characters to Level 2, with some interesting choices for Jojo’s character.

Plot hooks from this session: Fastidus waiting for some people to turn up at the Rusty Dragon. A hovering portal in an abandoned farmhouse protected by a rune shield. Egan the werewolf. And the first mention of the Runelords and Black Fang.

Episode 6 - Parsely

We've been playing a few RPGs recently, and Parsely is a simple RPG party game that we learnt that is perfect for young kids. In this episode of Games We Play, we take a journey through "The Enchanted Forest Adventure" which KK wrote just for this episode.

Download the Enchanted Forest Adventure, google around for more Parsely adventures, or just make one up on your own and have a great time playing Parsely!

Enchanted Forest Adventure PDF

Enjoy!