A Brief History
A recap of our Pathfinder campaign thus far, as best I remember it and
primarily from Svetlana’s point of view. We play fortnightly and the game has
been running for a few years, so I’ll be breaking this down into as logical
segments as I can figure. A lot of it is probably out of order and sometimes in
the wrong geographical location. I may need to offer a corrections page later.
And I’m not sure of all the spellings of all the names, so they may keep
changing. But here goes (This is Part 1) (Part 2 here)(Part 3 here).
Dramatis Personae:-
Svetlana Chekhov (me) – half-elf
Arcane Trickster (with sorcerer & rogue levels) / Mythic Trickster
Alexei (Husbit) – human Oracle /
Mythic Hierophant
Chester Goldhawk (my little brother)
– half-orc Inquisitor / Mythic Something I can't remember (Guardian, maybe?)
‘Mollos’/Arron – tiefling
‘Ranger’/Assassin / Mythic Something that’s only just happened
Kieran Castillo – human Paladin /
Mythic Nothing Yet
GM – Assorted gods, kings,
heroes, villains, peasants, traders, cats, wizards, druids, mutant children,
etc
Background:-
The game begins in the country of
Brevoy, in the north of the game world of Golarion. I understand from the GM it
is set far in the future of when the game is normally run and he has made
various adjustments accordingly.
The King and his entire family
have been missing for some time. Noleski Sertova, whose family have been
stewards to the ruling family (whose name escapes me) for many years, is acting
as Regent and will be crowned as King unless the King shows up soon.
The lands to the south of Brevoy
are known as the Stolen Lands and are overrun by bandits and other gribblies.
Volunteers are being sought to clear these lands of the bad guys; rewards will
be to rule the recovered regions as Barons of Brevoy.
Earning the Dawnlands:-
Svetlana leaves home for adventure
and falls in with a ragtag group including a half-orc inquisitor by the name of
Chester Goldhawk, devoted follower of Serenrai, and an inept and haunted human
oracle, Alexei. They defeat the Stag Lord, a bandit chief in the Stolen Lands.
Svetlana and Chester rename this
region ‘the Dawnlands’. Towards the north (but still in their lands) is a
trading post run by Oleg Leveton and his wife, also called Svetlana. Svetlana C
aids as her midwife when she gives birth to Vladimir.
More on him later.
The ceremony announcing them (and
the various other people who have similarly reclaimed portions of the Stolen
Lands) as Barons takes place in New Stetvon. They travel there via the city of Restov,
Alexei’s home town. This is where they meet Anna Hencheck, purveyor of magical
goods, powerful mage and all-round nice person. She is friends with the Court
Magister, Silvestre Malliard, whom the party has already met. She involves them
in a dispute with the Thieves’ Guild, who are demanding high levels of
protection and generally causing trouble. The party use some of Alexei’s
contacts to join the Guild and are asked to scare some guards off the trail.
Instead, they explain the situation to the individuals and advise them to leave
town for a while.
Whilst in Restov, they also learn
a bit more about the political issues surrounding the King’s disappearance –
whilst Noleski is a good man who was raised with the King and a close friend of
his, other noble houses are not happy about the decision to crown him. The
party wonder whether the Thieves’ Guild are being sponsored by one of these
houses, but as yet haven’t found anything to back that up. One of the first
places they look, though, is in the office of the solicitor believed to act for
Gavin, the leader of the Thieves’ Guild. Svetlana befriends and brings home the
very fluffy black kitty she meets there… Hencheck reacts almost as if she
recognises him, but covers it well. The cat has a collar identifying himself as
‘Mr Tiddles’. When defeating the Stag Lord, the party rescued a druid (The father of someone called Cressel who helped the party. His capture had meant she was working for the Stag Lord – not something she
was happy about.) from his dungeons and decide to ask him to awaken the cat. He
agrees. It soon becomes evident that the cat had previously been awakened and
he becomes a powerful ally.
In New Stetvon, the party are
made Barons and meet Regent Noleski. The Dawnlands are formally recognised and
the fledgling barons provided with aides and advisors to help them run the
region prosperously.
Demons and Assassins:-
A diplomatic tour is in order: Chester
and Alexei head off to Mivon (they are in town during the fire that tragically
ravages the poor quarter: they definitely did not have anything to do with
this, but are pretty confident they did kill some vampires…) whilst Svetlana
stays in New Stetvon to learn more about ruling. She rejoins them in Pitax
where they make more trade deals and meet Irrevetti. Svetlana does not like or
trust Irrevetti, but fortunately their new advisor, Gregor, is on hand to
prevent a diplomatic incident.
I believe it was here (although
it may have been Restov or somewhere else entirely) that the party learned of
an impossible crime: a break-in to a bank vault that was magically protected
and existed on another sealed plane, only accessible through one doorway that
was guarded and could not be entered without the right access keys etc that
were all in their rightful places. To date, this remains unsolved but does play
on Svetlana’s mind.
Irrevetti has recently taken over
leadership of Pitax and has taken great steps to improve the town: he is proud
to say that no one needs to beg on his streets any more; there is no poor
quarter in this city. And it is a curiosity that bothers particularly Alexei,
who himself grew up as a street urchin. He pretends to be a beggar and is taken
by guards covered head to toe in armour. They deposit him in a dungeon beneath
one of the noble houses: the lord was unaware of this region and allows the
party to explore it. The tunnels below lead into the city by the sewers (the
way Alexei was brought in) and in the other direction to a smugglers’ cave and
waterway.
Alexei gets wind that the Trade
Guild may be involved (there is some suspicion that they may be linked to the
Thieves’ Guild in Restov, but again nothing concrete) and that night Chester is
visited by a thanadaemon who, swinging his scythe, repeats the phrase “Trade
Guild, Trade Guild”. Chester may
not be high up in the church of Serenrai,
but he has heard of these harbingers of apocalypse and races to the nearest
church, that of Cayden Caillian, to cause international panic. The party’s
attempts to investigate the Guild itself don’t lead very far – there is a
magically protected room, but it doesn’t reveal much.
A red mantis assassin stalks Chester
a few nights later. It slices its way through the guards (those same faceless
guards that took Alexei off: less intimidating when on your side!) and the next
thing Chester remembers is waking
up in the guard house. This will no be the last time assassins come for him.
Maybe he should have kept quieter about the end of the world…
The party return to New Stetvon
for Noleski’s coronation. He seems pleased to see them.
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