Birthright: Pomarj

[Samwise]

The Concept
Build a kingdom in the ruined remnants of the Pomarj in the World of Greyhawk.

The Rules
Originally I intended to make use of the mass of WotC materials for downtime efforts. Then of course someone pointed me at the SRD version of the Paizo rules from their Kingmaker AP. (Which of course meant I then realized they had done the whole thing the year before. Nice timing on that . . .)
While reading those rules I became increasingly unsatisfied with them, and after trying to tweak them by themselves I gave up and went back to using a stronger base of the AD&D Birthright setting rules, with inspiration for individual buildings from the Paizo Kingmaker stuff, and some resource inspiration from Civ4, and even a tweak from the old Companion set domain rules from D&D. The result is of course a glorious mess, but I think it has finally resolved itself into something functional. One very notable change is that I decided to allow players to "spend" followers as a modifier to the die roll for building things. 10 "levels" of followers is worth a +1 to the roll.

The campaign also featured some of my usual requests for limits on characters, in this case no half-orcs (because people hate the former half-orc overlord), and no elves (because people hate the isolationist elves of the neighboring realm of Celene).

The Campaign Background
(Knowledge of Greyhawk geography, or at least a map, will help placing all of this.)
The story picks up around CY 600. The Jebli Free State is firmly established in the southern Wild Coast. The JFS split from the Orcish Empire of the Pomarj because they were sick of being used as spearfodder by the orcs. (That developed from the last LG core arc that I oversaw.)
Greyhawk is firmly under the control of a very unusual alliance between the goblin and orc hating faiths of Cuthbert, Pholtus, and Trithereon. (The first two are LG rivals, the third is a CG rival.) With cleaning the city of thieves and merchant appeaser, often the same people, they have been unable to destroy the Jebli Free State but have taken command of the city.
The Olvenrealm of Celene remains annoying isolationist.
In the Orcish Empire of the Pomarj the orcs have . . . disappeared. One night they were there and the next morning they were just gone. Nobody has any idea where they went, and many are more concerned by their disappearance then the constant raiding they were doing.
The dwarven Kingdom of the Peaks of Haven (Principality of Ulek) has decided to finally reconquer the Pomarj, which should be considerably easier with the orcs gone. To this end they have sponsored a number of groups to go in and rebuild. Some strategic areas are under direct royal control, and the east bank of the Jewel River has been annexed directly, but considerable land remains to be claimed. The PCs are part of one of those groups.
Originally, the PCs are mere apprentices of the leaders of a group, tasked with exploring and clearing out surrounding areas. As the campaign progresses, the DM knows that those leaders will be summoned back for another mission involving what happens when people find out where the orcs went, leaving the PCs as the rulers of a growing town, surrounded by threats.

The Characters
Smithers (gnome factotum) an apprentice engineer
Rocky (dwarf fighter) a soldier
Joe (human wizard/sorcerer/ultimate magus) an apprentice with a dark heritage of orcish blood, possibly connected to the former half-orc tyrant

Edit
I forgot to note - the campaign has been underway for quite some time, it has just taken me until now to decide to write about it.
Early updates should be fairly regular until it catches up to the present.

[Samwise]

The Beginning

(Adventure Used: DCC#39 The Ruins of Castle Churo - inhabitants changed to goblins)

The party arrived with their patrons in a hilly region in the western Pomarj to discover that the "town" they were supposed to take over was actually a thorp of rather useless hill people, who would have been happier becoming bandits than being drafted to build a village. Despite the disappointment, an attempt was made to salvage the place while the PCs were delegated to find allies in the region, and possibly a better place to set up operations.
After getting several vague suggestions of problems from the locals, when they could be distracted from drinking moonshine, kicking their dogs, and yelling at their kids, the PCs decided to head off to the small village of Dourdevin, which they learned was having trouble with bandits stealing religious icons.

Arriving in the village, a dynamic developed with Joe identifying people to talk to and failing to get anywhere with them with Smithers "interrupting" and getting useful information with a more polished approach.
The party learned that bandits had stolen some religious artifacts from the local shrines that were considered "essential" for stability. They were believed to be holding up in the ruins of a wizard's estate (tower included) that had exploded several decades ago.
Two local "militia" (really just toughs who hadn't made a name for themselves as bandits) joined the party to help - and actually did, especially after they found a friend of theirs being held prisoner, and several other friends featuring on the menu. Those three later became the core of a real militia force led by Rocky.
The party managed to clear out the goblins infesting the ruins, discovering them to be suspiciously competent for mere goblins. Worse, they discovered they had been hired by one of the local clerics to eliminate the competition. The party solved that by eliminating the would be theocrat, saving the day, and setting up good relations with the villagers.

That turned out to be useful as a freak storm tore up the small community they had been sent to settle in, and the expedition leaders decided to relocate to Dourdevin. While the villagers weren't too thrilled at being spontaneously annexed like that, the friends the party had made with the "guards" and the clerics allowed them to smooth things over, and soon the new order was well under way.
(Two random events drove that last part, though the party was quite quick to take control of an otherwise bad situation.)

[Samwise]

Building Momentum

(Adventure used DCC #1 Idylls of the Rat King - inhabitants changed to xvarts)

With a new base of operations the players worked on making more friends locally and looking for a way to make themselves self-supporting. They reviewed the rumors and stories coming in again and settled on the mining community of Whelarian. The locals panned for silver in the hills but were getting harassed by xvart raiders. Figuring that a steady of silver would help, the players set out to investigate.

Arriving they discovered that there was an old, abandoned silver mine with a dire curse placed on it. Like any proper heroes they immediately volunteered to cleanse it so the locals would be in their debt and agree to be annexed into their burgeoning state.
During their explorations they discovered that the mine was of course the home of the xvarts and that it actually was cursed, both with were-rat xvarts and some older, more ominous curse.
Following up on clues, they tracked down a local "witch" by the name of Baba ZsaZsa, discovering she was not just a descendent of a woman who knew of the original curse, but also a hag. A tense moment ensued as they contemplated suicide, but they came to their senses at the last minute and accepted a "gift" from her instead. Well, perhaps they didn't come fully to their senses . . .
Back in the mine, they continued to slaughter the swarms of xvarts and rats, finished off an errant necromancer who had moved in, killed the eponymous rat king, and finally uncovered the source of the original "curse" - a vampire. Fortunately for them, the hag's gift turned out to be revenge for the vampire killing her betrothed a century ago, and as the vampire attempted to turn to mist and flee, a night hag appeared to claim its essence as a new larva. The players were as concerned by what this might mean in the future as they were relieved to know the vampire was destroyed.

This also conveniently left the mine "cleansed" and able to be reopened, and the players now had a reliable source of income for their new nation.


While running this, I tried to play up the atmosphere more than the stats for the confrontations. The xvarts and rats spent more time skittering in the walls and shadowing the party than fighting. When the battles did come they were big confrontations between masses of mooks and the party, with the players recognizing they needed to break the morale of the attackers, identifying their leaders, and taking them out first, scattering the survivors.
The battles were very close, with the party staggering away multiple times, one of the joys of low-level adventuring. It did however present a much more dramatic experience than killing a dozen different packs of 3 CR 1/3 critters over and over again with little threat to the party at any time.

The adventure also featured more goblinoids (xvarts being goblin relatives with a stronger affinity for rats instead of wolves), establishing a pattern leading to the first major challenge the players would face.

And, in a complete improve, it let me introduce the concept of hags being around, manipulating things for whatever mysterious reasons they might have. The party's apprentices are currently experiencing an extension of that, and I'll certainly bring it back to haunt them more in the future.

[Samwise]

Claiming the Wilderness

(Adventure used Fantastic Locations: Fane of the Drow)

The campaign focused on kingdom building for a few sessions at this point, with me tweaking the rules constantly, and the players figuring out how to work things to build up. It quickly became obvious that a steady supply of income was the most critical factor, and when a potential mithral mine was discovered they immediately set their sights on claiming it.

As the adventure has nice large maps the players got a bigger tactical environment to play with, and promptly went wandering all over the place, triggering multiple encounters in rapid sequence, then contemplating escape because they ran low on resources too soon. They seemed determined to reduce the four-encounters/day standard down to three, or even two, while I was trying to get them up to six or more, especially to set the stage for future adventures. Ultimately they managed and I managed, which would help things going forward.

Within the adventure, the players focused on the available background, dealing with both duergar and drow, and trying to figure out how to claim everything for themselves afterwards. This led back to the kingdom building, with the players having to figure out where to expand roads, and looking wistfully at the costs of fortifications. Once again fortune conspired in their favor, and a small clan of gnomes decided a newly open mithral mine would make a perfect home, and they moved in bringing enough wealth to pay for getting operations up and running. From steady income they were now at full on expansion income, which would help as things built up for the first major story arc and campaign challenge.

It all began with yet another complaint of an ogre harassing outlying farms. Only when they got there to "explain" things, the party discovered some rather well-equipped hobgoblins in attendance, apparently making an offer of their own.
It seems something called the "Bloody Hand Horde" intended to invade from the Jebli Free State, and they were hiring sub-contractors to distract any potential allies of their target.
Clearly this required further investigation . . .

[Samwise]

Claiming the Crown

(Adventure used Red Hand of Doom)

So doom was, literally, finally upon the players.
The primary focus of this section of the campaign was defending against the invasion.
The secondary focus was the players becoming the actual rulers of the new "kingdom" as their patrons were called away.
Together they developed a secondary goal of the adventure - incorporating "Brindol" into their new nation.

Naturally the adventure required a large number of changes to accommodate both the are and those supplementary goals.
For flavor, the invaders were re-named the Bloody Hand Horde.
Rather than being a group of crazed Tiamat worshipers they were simply a horde raised by a warlord in the Jebli Free State, the goblinoid nation that occupied the southern Wild Coast region.
Related to that was stressing just how well organized, disciplined, and equipped these invaders were. They weren't just a random band of raiders, but a focused military force with a specific goal. Where they got some of the equipment was left for future development.
The maps were generally handwaved, and descriptions gratuitously fudged, to fit into the Suss Forest. The distances were nowhere near compatible, there really isn't a swamp and lake in the middle of the forest, there definitely isn't a major rift with a bridge, and while the Drachensgrab Hills are a bit dry they certainly aren't a lion infested prairie-waste. But . . . whatever. This was about the adventure, not the geography.
The wild elves became actual Greyhawk grugach, though slightly less rabidly xenophobic as they didn't just kill the players on sight. Their reactions were fudged just a bit so they hated the elves of Celene for being jerks, but hated the Bloody Hand worse for trespassing, and since the party had no elves they would let them go goblin hunting in their swamp.
The Ghostlord replaced regular lions with "extra-large" mountain lions. No changes in stats, just a bit of flavor text revising. His lair was flavored as "just" an isolated, even "lost", lich's tomb, which seem to be required in Greyhawk anyway.
The Hammerfist Holds actually remained the same, left as another group of settlers like the players, and set up as a potential future ally/target of annexation.
Brindol was renamed Fenrill, from a town that first appeared back in GH '98 days in the Pomarj. Further, while dealing with Fenrill, and Drellin's Ferry and other encounters, the players were operating as the adventuring rulers of a neighboring realm rather than just wandering do-gooders.

For encounter alteration there wasn't too much, and most was "side-"grading or downgrading as the party is not particularly optimized.
Equipment for the Horde was altered to be more "savage". Armor was converted to variants of scale, with some mail for the leaders. Weapons were altered to rely more on spears. A number of magic items got replaced with items salvaged from Planescape: Torment, particularly the potions of cure wounds. It seemed rather appropriate to have the goblinoids drink blood drops to heal. (And it was amusing that the crypto-vampirism didn't bother the players at all.)
Since I was getting rid of the Tiamat connection I eliminated most of the dragons and dragonspawn, replacing them with chimera, sphinxes, and similar bull or lion themed creatures. Even with the same CR that was a hefty power reduction for many encounters.

During the adventure the players hit 6th level, and gained cohorts from Leadership. I actually had them add the cohorts in while they were 5th level, which turned out to be critical, as otherwise the whole thing would have ended rather anti-climactically in a TPK at Vraath Keep.

Finally, as the adventure geared up, the players patrons were summoned back home. It seems they finally found Turrosh Mak and all the orcs of the Pomarj:
The orcs had discovered the ancient tunnels connecting the Pomarj to the deep paths below the Lortmils. Except instead of returning to the pits below the mountains, Turrosh Mak led the entire population all the way north to the Velverdyva Valley, and invaded Veluna and Verbobonc from a completely unexpected direction. "Conveniently" major incursions of orcs and goblinoids were launched from the north, from the Lands of Iuz, into Furyondy, and the whole region was on the brink of disaster.
The Pomarj was therefore to be left to those willing to remain and fight, while the main forces of the Peaks of Haven and other nations were to be committed to saving the nations of Furyondy, Veluna, and Verbobonc. That left the players promoted to rulers just in time to deal with a major invasion.
"Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown."

[Samwise]

Over the River and Through the Woods

(Adventure used Red Hand of Doom Part 1: The Witchwood)

The party moseyed down the road into the ambush. Their number (only 3) played against them on the action economy, as the wizard used webs to keep the hobgoblins locked down but the paladin and factotum simply couldn't kill them fast enough. As the battle dragged on party hit points stumbled down to zero, but some strategic intimidation and illusion at the last minute made the hobgoblins hesitate until the party could rally and defeat them.
Looting the bodies convinced the party that the threat was more serious than they had expected and they hurried into town.
(This convinced me they would need their cohorts a bit early, and I arranged for them to "meet up" with people they had been preparing back for the jobs back home in Drellin's Ferry. A bit of Rule 0, but it kept things going.)

With the shifts in background start the party got right to the point with the local authorities, and despite a bit of hemming and hawing agreed to divert into the forest to check out where the hobgoblin army was supposed to be concentrating. The party made a few side trips to pick up any loose equipment available, and in the process became aware there were some suspicious types in the village. They almost derailed to launch an inquisition, hesitating only when reminded by Captain Soranna, the constable in charge, just who was the law in the place.
Hooking up with their new cohorts added a warforged monk (working for the dwarf fighter), a gnome dragonfire adept (bodyguard not-so-secretly in love with the gnome factotum), and a second human wizard (apprenticed to the first human wizard), along with a follower, a human healer (also employed by the wizard, and along mostly to avoid a DMNPC cleric or healer trailing along). A bit large, but overall below level, so it generally evened out.

Heading into the woods the party picked up ornery woodsman Jorr who was more than happy to overcharge them to point out the obvious trail, as well as provide convenient exposition for Vraath Keep and other points of interest.

The assault on Vraath Keep began a "tradition" for the party during the entire campaign arc of coming up with a reasonably good plan, then overthinking it, then tagging on some bad luck, and finally stumbling to victory.
They avoided the "obvious" traps of going in through the front door, or the broken walls, and settled on climbing the tower and seizing the high ground. Which they managed quite well until they began banging around, alerting Koth, and then wasted by splitting up - half rushing down the stairs and half jumping down to the roof of the barracks. In short order they were fighting everything in one grand melee.
Inside, the dragonfire adept kept them alive by using entangling exhalations to roast the guards until the fighter could hack his way into the courtyard. Outside, the wizard managed to web the manticore repeatedly until it ran out of hit points.
Ultimately it was a test of who would run out of hit points first, with Koth choosing discretion over probability and fleeing one spell away from a TPK. A few desperate illusions ended in Koth crashing into some trees and being gutted by the paladin.

More looting, and lots of healing, later, the players were even more convinced of the threat, and now definitely wanted to scout the mustering camp.
Easing on down the road they bypassed Warklegnaw's signs and approached Skull Gorge Bridge. A brief discussion and they agreed to back up and tackle the place in the morning, figuring daylight would give them more of an advantage than sneaking up closer at night.
Once again a rather reasonable plan to approach and use illusory fog clouds to negate the ranged weapons of the defenders failed to survive contact with the enemy as the hieracosphinx (replacing the dragon) swooped among them. The hobgoblins were getting only 1-2 hits per round, but their attention was divided between advancing and dealing with the sphinx, so the fighter and monk went forward unsupported and the supporters were struggling with no damage dealer. Only a timely failed sailed and more timely crit from the factotum were able to take the sphinx out, while the fighter went through 3 times his base hit points breaking the hobgoblin phalanx.

More looting followed a discussion of taking out the bridge. The factotum was able to identify the weak point easily, but they considered whether they could make a fighting stand at the bridge, breaking it as the horde crossed. I envisioned a looming TPK as they sent the factotum ahead to scout, him being the stealthiest. Fortunately, his report of the large number of giants and flyers at the camp convinced them that trying to hold the bridge was unlikely to work, and they turned back to Drellin's Ferry.
Along the way they stopped in to see what the giant was all about, and after curing his disease almost before the introductions were over they got on Warklegnaw's good side, and he agreed to eat as many of the intruders of "his" forest that he could.
Back at the village the party was confronted by Speaker Wiston's dithering and Iormel's, a local merchant, greed. They dealt with Wiston by screaming at him so much Captain Soranna was afraid she would have to arrest them, and with Iormel by threatening to search his warehouse, leave him for the horde, or both. Fortunately with the testimony Jorr and Delora Zann, a scout from the army of Fenrill, they were able to convince Wiston to order the evacuation of the town without the party having to indulge in any serious legal or alignment violations. Killing the chimera that unceremoniously landed in the village green certainly didn't hurt.

With that the party headed out. The testimony of Delora Zann along with the maps they found in Koth's lair convinced them to delay going to Fenrill to investigate who or what "Saarvith" was. They had to fight their way past a scout patrol of mixed worg riding goblins with hobgoblin infantry and magical support, incidentally protecting the fleeing refugees, but they finally had a fight that didn't threaten their lives.

Next: the plot thickens but not the ground.

[Samwise]

A Sinking Feeling

(Adventure used Red Hand of Doom Part 2: The Ruins of Rhest

Heading into the Suss Forest to discover just what a "Saarvith" was, the party spotted the small fort blocking the road. Expecting trouble, they made a complicated  plan to assault it involving cover from illusory fog, flying enlarged dwarves, and other complications. Their over-planning resulted in the group splitting themselves up, with the dwarf fighter and his warforged cohort inside and killing everything and the rest of the party outside taking a few random bowshots but otherwise doing nothing. Fortunately for the party the defenders were incompetent enough to not only be left at a minor road block, but unable to figure out how to defend themselves against the assault, even when a random patrol showed up to help. In the end, all they did was add to the party's stock of consumables.

Continuing on, the party found themselves baffled by the extensive marshland. The map they found indicated something was here, but the flooded ground was doing a good job of defeating them. When they finally found a dry place to camp and plan their next move they immediately spotted the dead owl followed by spotting what caused the dead owl - a massive minotaur. (A centaur-like "opposite" of a minotaur, replacing the dragonspawn.) Defaulting by the near surprise to simple tactics of "hack it to death - FAST!", they managed to take it down before it could cause serious injury. Doing the usual post-combat search, they found tag on the dead owl, along with the manotaur's treasure, just as the grugach (wild elves) flew in on more owls.

At this point failed die rolls helped them a bit, as none of them realized just how close to death they were on general principle from the grugach. (Said GP being "kill all trespassers first, speak with dead to find out what they were up to later".) Combined with offering the owl tag and a quick mention of wanting to kill goblins got them an invitation back to the elven camp.

At the camp some reasonable discussions followed with the party convincing the grugach they merely wanted to brutally exterminate some hobgoblins and had no intention of trespassing. The grugach, pushed to the edge by the incursions, agreed to allow the party to execute the trespassers for them provided they left immediately afterward. This was perfectly acceptable to the party, so of course they found a way to nearly mess things up, insisting on leaving immediately without a guide who had to oversee the funeral of her brother. (Who had been eaten by the recently deceased manotaur.) At the last moment they realized that "wasting" a day for the funeral would take less time than wandering the trackless marsh without a guide, so they stayed, even offering up an epic recitation of an ad hoc saga about slaughtering goblinoids. (High charisma for leadership purposes is useful for other things at times.)

And so the party headed off to the ruined "city" of Rhest. The wizard suspected it of being related to ancient Suel migrants who, according to legend, built a lost city in the Suss Forest during the migrations. As such it could be expected to yield a significant store of ancient lore. Naturally they would immediately forget this adventure seed while dealing with the rest of the adventure.

Reaching the lake, they spotted and identified the bell tower and city hall, and after due consideration and noting that the warforged could just walk across the bottom, they came up with a plan to capsize a canoe and have the warforged "tug" them out for the attack. Naturally with such a great plan they had to find a way to mess it up. They did by sending only two people up the bell tower, expecting them to overwhelm the defenders, while the rest waited. The running battle there alerted the main force, and the party now prepared for a straight up fight. At this point dumb luck and brute force saved the day for them, as they dropped directly into the massed giants and ogres at the city hall and promptly slaughtered them out of hand. When the hobgoblin mindbender (bard/mindbender) tried to dominate them, they spotted him instantly and cut him down after making one save. Saarvith, the goblin ranger mounted on a chimera, proved considerably more difficult to deal with. (I did a slight rebuild on him to turn him into a hand crossbow sniper with a bunch of magical bolts. Combined with chimera flyby, they tore the party up.) Finally, a combination of magic missiles from a wand, a flying, enlarged, dwarf fighter, and some illusions confusing the chimera to slow it down, it died, Saarvith was waterlogged, and the party victorious.

Saarvith, with no mount and no crossbow, was pretty much useless. So, like any self-respecting goblin, he immediately surrendered and offered to spill everything in exchange for his life. After much debate the party accepted, making it clear that "life" didn't mean equipment or protection from the grugach. Saarvith agreed, and revealed everything he knew about the Ghostlord and the plans for attacking Fenrill. This included noting that he was in charge of the hatchery for their "air force", which was right in that building over there. Also, that funny thing in the box was the Ghostlord's phylactery. Saarvith was released with an admonition to leave very quickly.

A quick trip to the hatchery resulted in a moment of severe terror as the guardian was a gorgon (again replacing a dragonspawn), and the party wasn't prepared to turn stone back to flesh. It was just one though, so the eggs were destroyed and those reinforcements for the horde dealt with.

Returning to the grugach encampment the party was accepted for having done a valuable service. After considerable internal discussion, the grugach had even decided to help the party, offering some giant owls to travel to the Ghostlord's lair, and promising to send a detachment of owl archers to the impending battle at Fenrill.

With that, the party healed up, and prepared to mount their owls and seek out this Ghostlord.


Next: He'd have gotten away with it if it weren't for those meddling heroes and their darned owls.

[Samwise]

Me-owwwww!!!

(Adventure used Red Hand of Doom Part 3: The Ghostlord's Lair

Wow, did I get distracted by life. Now where was I? Oh right . . .


Figuring that a lich, rampaging or not, lurking in the hills by their capital was a problem, the players decided to do something about it. What that something would be seemed to change repeatedly, from abject terror at the thought of fighting a lich at their level to righteous outrage that an undead abomination was stalking the earth. Ultimately it seemed they intended to burn that bridge when they came to it.

Traveling by owl allowed them to make a quick stop back home to set their war machine in motion. Of course they didn't have a war machine yet, but they figured they'd set it in motion anyway.
Along the way they cleared another roadblock of the invading horde, as well as stopping to investigate a wagon that was being looted. In the wagon they discovered documents and money to hire mercenaries. A brief discussion of seizing the gold and hiring the mercenaries in their name resulted in realizing it would leave unfortunate questions to be answered, so instead the party decided to simply double the money and mercenary order, and have their own company of dwarven killers arrive to help out. It seemed even when they didn't derail the plot they managed to derail it.
Related to that, despite stopping at home and having a library available, they didn't even consider researching what a lich was or could do, or the history of the region for this particular lich, and chose to rely on their own poor Knowledge skill checks. Their suicidal tendencies were clearly more developed than their survival skills.

Arriving at the location of the Ghostlord's lair they took note of the odd chill in the air, the curious edifice, and the surrounding terrain. Immediately they felt it would make the perfect winter palace and added a note in their plans to send a redecorating crew when they were finished. As to how to claim their new retreat, they first considered tunneling in through the tail using an adamantine pick. When the architect pointed out they didn't know where to tunnel to inside, they grudgingly decided to charge up between the paws.
Into the dracolisk. (Replacing the fiendish behir.)
And get stoned. (Not the good kind.)
A slew of debuffs locked down the dracolisk long enough for the fighter to gut it, but the factotum and wizard were standing around contemplating.
A pair of lucky rolls restored ended the vogue-ing contest, and it was time to go inside.
The ghost lions, with some ad hoc flavor revision to be more mountain lion-ish than African plains lion-ish, caused some annoyance, but the party had prepared for incorporeal threats and dealt with them. They did however alert all the goblins inside, who promptly prepared an ambush. Of course the party expected an ambush, and simply prepared to destroy whatever was beyond the door when they opened it. Webs and glitterdust filled the room, and the fighter used a short range teleport effect to get right in the middle of everything. Ambushed in their ambush, the goblins did little more than provide free loot.

The party now began exploring the undead inhabited parts of the structure. They killed the low-level undead, and were contemplating destroying the re-animation pool when the end of the session provoked a complete change of plans when they reconvened. Now they would explore more first, turning away time and again from walking in on the Ghostlord until they found his dead tree. They had finally decided to negotiate with him, as soon as they burnt that nasty looking tree, which of course provoked him to immediately rush in and attack.
Action economy overcame gratuitous DM cheating, and the Ghostlord was gone after barely getting off one spell.
His phylactery followed him into oblivion as did his unholy, undead creating artifacts.

Overall it had been more of a side trek than an actual adventure, with the most dramatic element being fighting the dracolisk, which finally breached their shell of invulnerability. They did manage some additional campaign building, and collected some useful loot, but it was clear that the main even was the only relevant event.


Next: The Great-Aunt Once Removed of All Battles

[Samwise]

Have You Horde Of Goblins?

(Adventure used Red Hand of Doom Part 4: Enemy at the Gates

My game sessions continue, but my time to write about them gets jumped by wandering monsters.


With the Ghostlord sent to the litter box, the players headed to Fenrill. They stopped off at home one more time to make sure their followers were mobilized and sent on the road, then flew ahead by owl.
Along the way they encountered a few more bands of refugees. Some looters were "aggressively interrogated" until they revealed that weapon shipments had been diverted to the Jebli Free State from certain parties in Fenrill and other places, explaining some of the unusual equipment the horde was equipped with. The looters suggested these parties were friends of theirs who would be upset if anything happened to them. The party chained them to a building in the ruins of the village and suggested the looters negotiate with the goblin friends of their friends to be released.
In another village, the party became suspicious of an injured woman when they attempted to drop a message into her pouch and it wouldn't open. Clearly she wasn't an ordinary peasant. When pressed, the woman asked the ultimate magus for a "private interview", and promptly suggested he not bother her anymore. When they returned, the other players picked up on the sudden change of attitude, which was completely out of the ordinary for their usually paranoid spellcasting companion, and promptly raised ruckus. She managed to suggest the fighter go help some other refugees to which he immediately agreed, but the factotum decided this was just too much and resorted to violence. As the other two prepared to object, the woman turned into a spider-monster, and they finally came to their senses as the factotum and cohorts put an end to her machinations. They liberated her magical purse and continued on their way.

With the last of the diversions dealt with the players finally arrived at Fenrill. They were somewhat surprised to find it nearly abandoned, and more surprised to find the guards waiting to invite them to the castle for discussion.
In addition to the ruler of Fenrill, his not-so-secret lover and chief cleric of Fenrill, and the commander of the troops, there was also the head of one of the three main families in the town and a "powerful" wizard with a notable scorn for "adventuring" spellcasters representing the town, and, surprising the players, the head of the elves they had met in the woods. (They knew the elves promised to help but they didn't realize the elves would send so much support.) The commander of the dwarven mercenaries they hired had declined to attend, preferring to wait for orders.
After being thanked for their help so far, and thanked again for bringing their army to help, the local lord invited the players to the council to plan for the siege. And that's where the players promptly tried to derail themselves.
Taking the clues that perhaps someone was supplying the goblins from within Fenrill, they immediately attempted to launch a purge of the local thieves' guild and its supporters. When informed that the city was evacuated of non-combatants, including no doubt the thieves in question, and that their ally was undoubtedly the head of the family at the council meeting, and that her personal retainers represented a good third of the available troops, the players finally realized such a purge would have to wait.
Getting on to actual defense discussions, the players listened to the options and supported defending the walls rather than fighting in the field, to set up an aid station at the cathedral, and to assign a telepathic link to the guard commander rather than the lady head of her family. This pleased the military commanders, but left them with a clear rival. The players also advocated for expanding the field defenses, realizing that they had a lot of people, and more than a lot of spare magical power floating around. (See below on this.)
While this appeared to settle things, out of the blue the player of the magus decided to drive me crazy yet again, accepting the invitation of their new rival, and then negotiating an alliance with her. Clearly I would have to make him pay for that in the future, as he really didn't seem to know what he was getting into.

Note: As I mention above, the players decided to expand the field defenses. This isn't accounted for in the text, but a simple check of various available spells, plus any rules on construction, and with a week or so to prepare players could do a lot to make the fields outside the walls a total death trap. I managed to fudge around it as I was caught by surprise, but a group with particularly focused magic, such as spells from Heroes of Battle or similar books, could reasonably make it impossible for the horde to even get close to breaking into the city. Something to watch for if you haven't unleashed this on your group yet.

And it looks like I need to get going, so this will go to a part 2.

[Samwise]

Have You Horde Of Goblins? cont.

(Adventure used Red Hand of Doom Part 4: Enemy at the Gates)


And so the siege began.
And if it weren't for boxed text, it wouldn't even have breached the walls.
Still, despite having sufficient plot immunity, the forces of the Blood Hand Horde did not have sufficient player character immunity, and were gratuitously slaughtered in windrows. Most of the individual battles were thoroughly anti-climactic at this point, and I wasn't inclined to upgrade them because of other PC successes during the adventure. They'd earned some cakewalks with their preparations and previous victories.
Naturally they did try and throw away their victory, almost sending their cavalry out on a premature suicide charge as the walls were breached, but shock from the other commanders at the change in plan got them to rescind the order before it was too late.
And although they had no direct way of knowing, the players were pleased to be informed that their previous successes of the direct impact they had on the number of street battles they had to fight before the final fight. (Something enjoyable as an after-action thing so they know all those side quests mattered.)

The final fight I did upgrade, using one of the ordained champion variant of Kharn available through a link in the RHoD guidebook, as well as adding Kharn's two female companions from the encounter if people attack him in his tent to the hill giants and ogre that show up with him.
I also altered the set up, having Lord Jarmaath (the ruler of the city) and Tredora (the chief cleric and his lover) being slain by Kharn as the players enter the scene, and several of the other NPCs incapacitated and on the verge of death in case the PCs didn't care to have them around afterwards.
Generous use of magic gave the advantage to the players, with the dwarf fighter using his boots of dimension stride to close instantly with Kharn, and the gnome factotum using a feather token - whip to take the hobgoblin sorcerer out of the fight. The players also tried using the staff of life to bring downed NPCs back into play, which technically wasted resources during the battle but gave them a significant advantage in claiming the city after. (Though Jarmaath and Tredora "conveniently" preferred being dead and partying together in Elysium rather than one returning without the other.)
The melee element of the battle started poorly, with the dwarf fighter fumbling and pulling a muscle on his first attack, and his cohort the warforged monk narrowly avoiding a disaster by getting an irrelevant fumble - dropping his weapon. It then swung with both being unable to miss over multiple attacks, ending with a crit that disfigured Kharn even as it killed him.

With that the party celebrated their victory as their forces cleaned up the remnants of the horde, leaving less than a hundred alive to report the disaster back home. The city was a wreck, but the players were set to claim it, establishing themselves as a major power in the region.

The next few sessions covered kingdom building and preparation for the next arc, which I will combine into one post.

[Samwise]

The Same Thing We Do Every Night Pinky

(Adventure used None - kingdom building)

With the victory at Fenrill the players had doubled the size of their kingdom. Now they faced the challenge of keeping it together.
A good portion of that was due to the rules getting enough income and support to continue internal development without going bankrupt. That wasn't too difficult, though they quickly learned they simply couldn't do everything they wanted to at once.
The smaller, but more difficult proposition, was dealing with new people. Their original settlement was a small village that had expanded under their direct command. Now they were bringing in a large town with multiple established power groups, and also trying to deal with a group of elves. The biggest hurdle they faced was coming to terms with these NPCs having their own agendas that they were not going to abandon simply because the players made a few skill checks and offered what the players thought was a good deal. Ultimately they managed to understand that, and made reasonable deals with everyone except the thieves and the head of the rival House who had been supporting the thieves.
The thieves were outlawed and hunted. As a result, most of them have gone deep underground, with their leader moving to Highport and plotting revenge.
With Kaal, the head of the rival House, the ultimate magus decided to . . . marry her. He seemed to think this would somehow tame her, especially if they started a family. On the other hand, she expects, as per some promises he made, that she will get control of trade in the kingdom, then be allowed to use the money from that to build a fleet and go a-pirating and a-conquering against a failing power across the sea. That's certainly going to end up as bad as it sounds.

Meanwhile, I was plotting and setting up for the next campaign arc.
From the beginning I had planned that part of this overall campaign would involve the players sending out apprentices on additional missions. This would allow me to use more lower level adventures to establish in-game reasons for neighboring villages and towns to welcome being absorbed into the growing kingdom, and also slow down having the players level up beyond any reasonable point to care about such things themselves.
Doing this involved two things:
1. writing up the apprentices
2. picking a place to send them

For the first, the new team would be composed of a human paladin (working for the dwarven fighter), a human artificer (working for the human ultimate magus), and a gnome noble (using the class from Freeport) (working for the gnome factotum).
A severely eclectic, and severely under-optimized group to be sure, but I thought it would be fun seeing how things worked out. As it went, I wound up gestalting the paladin with knight early on as a general plan to upgrade the martial classes, which seems to have considerably helped the power issue. It also has turned out that although the noble started out nearly useless, with the addition of a fear power at 4th level he has become extremely imposing, reducing key villains to quivering masses in two adventures with a single check so far, and the player being thrilled at how much he is having with a diplomancer.

For the second part, the players were given a choice between a frontier town dominated by humans, two villages of dwarves and gnomes, or a fortified town with a strong noble rival. They chose the frontier town, which was to be based on the Falcon's Hollow series of modules from Paizo.
Preparing for that I scoured the net for any additional references to the area, then compiled a list of relevant NPCs and notable monsters, tweaking it all to suit the particulars of the campaign. One critical element I noted was just how nasty most of the NPCs were. This would become a major feature as things proceeded as I may have succeeded a bit too well in making said NPCs hated. By the third adventure the players would be seriously considering burning the entire place to the ground and just starting. Things were certainly going to get interesting.

Next: Through the woods.