Monday, March 30, 2020

Game Session 2 - Am I a Doppelganger? Or are you? - Book 1, Part 1, Episode 2

Loot

Wooden holy symbol of Pharasma
Small steel mirror
Pair of red leather boots with cat skin lining (20gp)
Masterwork Silver Dagger
2 Sunrods
Lantern
Hammer
3 Winter Blankets
10 feet of chain
Tarnished old silver necklace (5gp)
 Set of manacles

Summary

After the party successfully left the cages they had started out in, they finally get a good look at each other. As they look at each other, they give each other nick names:
Mulder
Ms. X

Doctor Twitch
Qbert

They leave the underground jail through a heating vent into a boiler and fight 2 dire rats and a Zoot. They then have to deal with 4 scared Royal Guards and their Captain. He keeps yelling at them, stating they must prove they are not Doppelgangers by providing 3 Doppelganger bodies. "As if you didn't know!" 

They go down the hall, fight 2 large centipedes, and another Doppelganger! Then they also do a heal check to make it seem they fought and killed 3 of them. They provide the bodies to the Captain, who then lets them inside to meet with Winter Klaczka:

Winter Klaczka, hot goth chick
She says that the party is in the Briarstone Asylum. And she is a sister of Maiden's Choir Cathedral in Caliphas. Her associates and her were helping a Royal Accuser investigate strangeness in Thrushmoor. She is not entirely sure what happened to start the chaos that is all around them.

It appears to have started with a patient led an uprising. And now most of the northern halls are now held by robed patients who call themselves Apostles in Orphiment. Those we've encountered are fanatically devoted to a patient named Ulver Zandalus. Some other survivors worked here before the uprising say that Zandalus was a quiet man who suffered from horrible nightmares -- a poet and artist whose art was disturbing, but who always seemed peaceful enough to himself...


Finally, Ms. X investigates the hallways leading east, and finds a crazy thing on one of the walls:

Large Eye on Wall

Also the party reached level 2!!!!



Monday, March 23, 2020

Session 1 - A Dream Within a Nightmare - Book 1, Part 1, Episode 1

Loot

All the starting gear that they have!
25 gp worth of coins and cheap jewerly
3 knives
1 saw
1 lantern
1 Masterwork Viol

Summary

The party becomes conscious in an unusual dream world that is filled with yellow fog. As they look around a man in tattered cloth rushes at them and starts to kill each one of them. Then as he kills the second to last person, Wilt realizes he is in a dream. (Voltar said he was thinking they were in a dreamworld earlier!)

Then the party wakes up to a true nightmare! In which the party is locked in jail cells, witnessing a gruesome scene of a women dressed in nurse outfit cutting into a man on a table. The man is yelling 'Wake up!' to the people that are in the jail cells.

As she dances around the person on the table, cutting him occasionally, Victor and Ileana notice a ring of keys on her waist. Ileana is able to grab the keys, but the woman screams at her to give them back. She then throws them to Zoltar and Wilt, but she is able to grab them in mid-throw.. But then the guy on the table kicks her hand, causing the keys to continue onto Wilt's hands.

The kick causes the woman to focus her attacks on the man on the table, giving the party the opportunity to get out of their jail cells and attack her. After a few good hits on her, she screams and runs out of the room.. Then the party finishes exporing these rooms, discovering 2 ways to get out.. A chute that was used to drop bodies down to the furnace area, or a vent that leads out of the furnace room...

Which will they choose to escape???

Sunday, March 15, 2020

SA Story #01 : Courage

I like to write about my characters to help me get in the mood. Here's my first crack at one for my Strange Aeons character.


"Courage" Strange Aeons Story #1


"Wake up Wilt, it's time for your slop" the guttural growl projected through the bars of the cell as a battered metal tray clattered across the floor, liquid sloshing from a misshapen bowl and mug.  

The source of the voice was shrouded in shadow.  There was a barred window high on the wall but it never seemed to let in sufficient sunlight or moonlight to illuminate very much - just an unchanging, sickening dull glow and occasional puffs of air that did nothing to relieve the suffocating feeling.

The voice emitted a grating laugh as its scraping footsteps faded into the distance. 

The cell was cold, cramped and miserable.  The solid stone floor was uncomfortably slick with moisture and scarcely 2 paces across for a grown man.  The walls were tall and slick, rising high up to the unhelpful barred window well out of reach.  The floor sloped up in one corner to a dry spot which gave a tiny bit of respite from the incessant wetness that seemed to cover every other surface.  

As the footsteps faded into the distance, a small form twitched in the corner.  Easy to miss on first glace, the gnome was barely 3 feet tall and had hair, skin and even eyes the same depressing grey color that pervaded the stone, the bars and even the light that glimmered through the window high on the wall.  It was almost as if this place had some magical power to drain all color from any living thing and leave it a dull, grey husk.

The small form labored to overcome the stiffness in its joints as it stood up.  It emitted a deep, pained sigh and with slouched shoulders padded on bare feet across the slick wet floor towards where the tray lay in the center of the tiny room.   He picked up the bowl of watery liquid and took a sniff at the mysterious grey chunks floating in it.  An instant later, he recoiled and retched at the foul smell and tossed the bowl back through the bars.  It clattered down the hallway.  

The battered mug of water had a greasy film floating on the top which didn't make it seem any more potable than the soup but it received a much different treatment.  

The gnome swirled the liquid around like a sommelier at a fine restaurant evaluating the viscosity of a fine wine.  He rubbed the bare chin which protruded out from between the two wispy muttonchop whiskers while he pondered something unfathomable for a few long moments and then set the mug down in the exact center of the floor.

The gnome suddenly sprang into action, quickly pacing around the mug and frequently ducking down to draw complex patterns on the wet stone with the tips of his fingers.  The patterns emerged quickly, as if he had repeated this routine 100's if not 1,000's of times before, the gnome moving faster and faster as the nested circles of runes neared completion.

Finally, he fell prostrate in front of the mug at the center of the circles, his body heaving from the exhaustion of his labor.  

For a few heartbeats, nothing happened...and then something changed.

The battered mug emitted a faint, warm glow as the lip changed color from dull grey to burnished gold and the liquid changed color to match.

Slowly, golden letters appeared around the outside of the mug, as if scrawled by a drunken hand with a golden pen.

"Courage" 

The gnome jumped to his feet and grabbed the mug greedily.  He closed his eyes as he took a long sip of the frothy golden liquid and sighed a very different sort of sigh than before.

When he opened his eyes, they had changed color to match the vibrant golden hue of the liquid.  

He looked down and noticed the patterns in the wet stone were starting to fade.  This galvanized the gnome out of his reverie - he quickly chugged the rest of the liquid so fast that some of it ran down his chin and splashed on the floor. 

He collapsed in the center of the floor, golden eyes staring up at the tiny window far above...perhaps he saw a faint glow of gold through the bars?

Suddenly, his reverie was broken by an agonizing shriek echoing down the hallway.  The gnome sprang to his feet and scrambled back to the dry corner of the room, looking worriedly through the bars down the hallway as the color drained from his eyes...returning them to a dull grey.  

<scene>

Monday, March 2, 2020

Preamble - Character Development

Here is first blog posting to help players with ideas regarding character development.

Link to Strange Aeons Adventure Path Player's Guide:

https://paizo.com/products/btpy9nrw

"Campaign traits are generally about as powerful as a feat. That's why you can't use them outside of the campaign. (For instance, Twitchy gives half the benefit of Improved Initiative and half the benefit of Lightning Reflexes.) " -- QuidEst - last comment I see regarding the player's guide..



GS 46 - The Undercity

 Now that the party has found the 3 Star Stelia, they are now helping defeat all the bad guys in Neruzavin. Here they go underground and sta...