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 (Part 1 here) (Part 2 here) (this is Part 3).
Absalom:-
Returning to the Dawnlands to
lick their wounds and mourn their loss as well as oversee their barony, Alexei
is holding court when Oleg arrives full of fury and vengeance: he is ready to
beat Chester to a pulp. Eventually,
it comes out that a priest of Serenrai called Thanos has taken Vladimir
because of a letter Chester wrote.
It seems Thanos has gone to Absalom with the boy. King Noleski is there already
for a big conference on the threat from the thanodaemon and Chester, Alexei and
Svetlana will be required to attend as witnesses so Oleg and Mollos join them
to find help find Vlad.
The journey is uneventful and
they make good time in Svetlana’s awesome magic boat of awesomeness (I think it
probably has a different name, but that’s more or less what’s written on the
character sheet. They found it in Varnhold), but Thanos had enough of a head
start that he should have arrived first. He proves hard to track down but they
do meet Anna Hencheck’s cousin.
Chester
speaks to his church and it is confirmed that his letter was received but they
did not send Thanos. At this point, Chester
returns to the Dawnlands on church business (presumably he gave his evidence to
the Council before going: Svetlana and Alexei are summoned a few days later).
Whilst they’re investigating,
some of the members of the Council of Absalom and other important people in
town for the conference are being assassinated. This is also very bad. Noleski
is safe and offers his body guard, a Paladin called Kieran, to assist them in
seeking Vlad and the assassin. Kieran has a falcon called Apollo and rides a
griffin, Brutus.
With the help of local group The
Forthright Men, the Pathfinder Guild and Mythic Investigations, they learn that
Thanos was an urchin boy who fell in with a bad crowd and died and was cremated
a few months ago. Using their position, they manage to gain access to his ashes
and, with the help of a gumshoe from Mythic Investigations, learn that these
ashes actually belonged to a baker called Steven Baker. There are three bakers
by this name of the right age, so a trip to buy lots of bread and cake follows.
All are alive but one is a bit odd and warrants further investigation: Kieran
and Alexei create a distraction by preaching in the streets, whilst Mollos and
Svetlana sneak round the back and in through an open window.
They find a portal to a temple
of Rovagog (not Rubberduck). Steven
is beaten up and tied to a chair whilst the party go in. They rescue a Drow
Gunslinger/Demon Hunter by the name of Roland. He summons assistance from his
order (two tough-looking individuals who refuse to give their names) and they
return to the temple to find out more. When the party returns, they find many
priests of Rovagog lying dead of no discernable cause*. This adds to the eerie
air of the place, but Svetlana spots a large pair of doors and, peering in,
sees living priests around an altar.
The party goes in and has
slaughtered most of the priests when the supposed Demon Hunters turn on them:
this is, in fact, Thanos and his cronies. They nearly succeed in killing the
party before Alexei manages to shift them all to the Ethereal Plane. It is creepy
here, but they heal up as fast as they can and walk through the wall into a
room beside this great hall, where Alexei has spotted a prisoner. Dropping back
into the Prime Material Plane, they learn this is the real Roland and he
readily agrees to accompany them back to get vengeance on Thanos and the fake
Roland. Suited up and armed, they return.
As they walk through the door,
Svetlana takes careful aim with her crossbow and lets fly a bolt. It
transverses the hall to hit Thanos square between the eyes with enough force to
carry him backwards and pin him to the wall. She doesn’t enjoy killing but this
victory fills her with relief. Between them, they manage to dispatch the other
two. Svetlana races to the altar: her suspicion is confirmed when she sees a
teenage boy within. She is confident that this is Vladimir Leveton. Thanos uses
a dying breath to throw a final curse on her, but Alexei eventually realises
and removes it.
They dig the stone altar from the
ground to remove that before Mr Tiddles sanctifies and burns down the temple.
We take the altar to Noleski and he summons Malliard to help figure out how to
free the lad. This is complicated when the assassination efforts pick up:
Mollos reports to us that his contacts indicate Noleski may be next on the
list. Concerned, Svetlana and the gang head over to protect him. The message
arrives: several members of the Council of Absalom have been killed, including
the Head of the Council. Absalom has gone into lockdown.
Absalom’s lockdown is pretty
impressive: a god put it into place to keep the city safe before leaving. It
prevents anyone entering or leaving by any means and to do this cuts off access
to all but the Prime Material Realm. Yep, no access to items in bags of holding
or other extra-dimensional spaces. No access to any deity not manifested and in
Absalom (ie, no clerical spells). No access to the Ethereal Plane (ie, no spells
for Alexei). No access to the Arcane Plane. Any spells to be cast can be done
only by spending mythic chips and sacrificing your own health. We’re a rather
magic dependent party who keep basically everything (except, in Svetlana’s
case, a few hipflasks of different drinks) in bags of holding or similar, so this is markedly debilitating.
The party heads to the Arcaniam,
the Tower where the mages live, to see if we can help. They advise that the
assassin is in one of 3 places and they have teams heading to two already. The
party heads off to the third and get there seconds too late to save the
Councilman but we do catch the assassin. As Mollos feared, it is an old friend
of his, Kit, who seems to have gone rogue. She didn’t recognise him when he saw
her earlier. Kit is arrested and returned to the Arcaniam as the party realises
that their rings of sustenance are no longer working.
Svetlana finds food and cocoons
herself into the bed provided for her in the Petal District – a room she has
scarcely looked at until now. It is here she is woken several hours later by a
persistent tapping at her door: two more Council members have been murdered and
an attempt was made on Noleski’s life. She races to him, uncomfortably aware
that she can no longer use minor cantrips to make herself presentable. He is
ok, but Malliard has taken a nasty blow to the stomach that would have killed a
lesser man.
Ezekiel reveals his underworld
contacts and leads the party to the Bloody Blades. This is a gang similar to
the Forthright Men but more brutal. Nonetheless, under the emergency
circumstances the group is prepared to follow Ezekiel’s lead. A bit of
negotiation takes them to ‘Dancer’, a duellist who admits to the attempt on
Noleski: he was hired as champion by one of the nobles of Brevoy, someone known
to disapprove of Noleski’s coronation. He knows nothing about the other
killings and tags along out of interest.
Svetlana has spent some time
learning the noble houses and political interlinking and from this makes a list
of possible future targets. Following the trail of blood and death, they
interrupt someone leaving the third house – it is the Blood Mistress, the head
of the Red Mantis order. Mollos manages to take her down with, seemingly, the
help of the Red Mantis god, who does not approve of meddling in politics. The
lockdown is lifted.
Back to Noleski for reward and
promotion. Mollos admits his name is actually Arron. Svetlana and Alexei are
now Earls (the female earl title isn’t Earless but, apparently, Countess.
Svetlana’s equally tolerant of Countess or Earl) and Brevoy’s representatives
to the Grand Council of Absalom. Kieran is released from Noleski’s service with
similar lands etc. He opts to join the Earls in their next endeavours.
And that, I believe, brings us up
to date.
*This is something to do with
Alexei but so far I don’t know what. I think we all have personal plots going
on that aren’t being fully shared with the other players so that they can be
more fun when they come out – Mollos/Arron has largely come out now because a lot
of the plot has been tied up and partly related to Chester who was played with
my brother before he dropped out. Husbit (playing Alexei) I think has the most
involved personal plot and I am looking forward to learning more about it, but
I want to wait until it is revealed in game! I’m not sharing my personal plot
here just yet, for the same reason.
