GRIFFIN’S BANE

just a couple friends, blinding shit and hitting crits (a Pathfinder party blog)

[griffins-bane]

Quest 5.2: Towards the Rift

Visiting an old friend

The party strikes out in the direction of the Rift, heading toward our old stomping ground of Gorun’s Well. While Malcador stays outside and powerhoses Jeremy down to keep him cool (“I am not waterboarding the elk!”), we pay our pal Ingrid a visit at the Iron Woman. Ingrid says she hasn’t seen the King or heard of anything out of the ordinary since we left, but suggests we might have better luck if we were to head to the watchtower closer to the Rift.

Since it’s a day’s ride away, we contract a man called Ashby (Tove: “Ashbae!”) to guide us to the watchtower. However, several party members have a bit of a tiff over their respective haggling styles (“I don’t think we should not pay this man for his services, I think we should intimidate him with religion!”). We wind up haggling him down to 8gp for the day’s trip, and set off.

Into the desert

Quillius spins Ashby a lie that we are going to the Rift to find good sand for glass. Ashby enthuses about glass, and wishes he could afford some. Tove takes pity on him and gives him an extra 2gp to buy himself some glass when he gets back.

But alas, it is not to be. Ashby fails a crucial Perception check and is swallowed up by dust-diggers churning up through the sand. He is Glitterdusted by Quillius in the pit, before being chewed up on the next turn (Finn: “Ashbye!”). To make up for it, Quillius then sets the digger on fire with a red-hot blistering analysis of its deepest, darkest fears; Gallais Webs it into a sticky mess and Octavia runs her lance through it.

Not a moment later, the other dust-digger explodes out of the sand under Quillius, Gallais, and JB. Although JB and Gazza manage to crawl out, Quillius is grabbed, and no amount of Grease can get the digger’s tentacles off him (Jenny: “Greased halfling! / Ooh, greased halfling!”).

Gallais disrupts Octavia’s rescue charge by turning the digger cute (for an ostensible penalty to hit dice and most stats), but does too good a job and prevents us from damaging it long enough that Quillius is swallowed (and takes 12 damage from vore). He very emphatically does not enjoy it.

After un-cute-ing the digger, Octavia explodes it as well and we keep going.

The Rift watch

The guards in the watchtower tell us that the cavern containing the Rift has disappeared, and is now surrounded by a group of human-looking footprints that appear irregularly.

As we investigate the rock face where the Rift cavern mouth used to be, a behir appears, hiding ineffectually behind some rocks. Quillius sweet-talks it into showing us where the cavern is concealed; although Malcador sees the boulder in the way, the rest of us don’t.

An Infernal Dragon screeching overhead frightens us into shoving the boulder aside and going farther into the cavern. Inside, we see a Rift of pure black splayed across the far wall, surrounded by a dozen+ surly humanoids including bearded devils, harpies, and hellfire knights.

Escape!

Rather than push our luck, we backtrack out of the cavern and try to high-tail it out of there before the Infernal Dragon gets us. Gallais summons the perfect number of horses for our horseless companions, but it isn’t long before the dragon pulls up alongside us and demands we account for ourselves.

Gallais talks the dragon into giving us work guarding the Rift. Malcador opens his mouth to say something and Gallais shoves Mage Hand into it, which Quillius finds unappealing (Laras: “So the oral fisting doesn’t do it either, then”).

[griffins-bane]

Quest 5.1: Out of the ashes

New kids on the block

Octavia blubbers and embraces Lady. The monkey-woman does a backflip off of Lady, and Octavia, torn between admiration and indignation, punches her while also yelling “THAT WAS A SICK FLIP!”

Introductions are made. The monkey-woman, Tove, finds Octavia deeply attractive (and Gallais deeply not). JB and the halfling bard Quillius bond over writing; Gallais doubts the human Abigail’s ‘dragon’-fang walking stick, and the tiefling inquisitor Malcador (AKA the Iomedae man from the trial) grumbles at Gallais because he had the Bad Decisions Book. The kitsune gunslinger watches everything with interest.

Trial by fire

Behind us, the palace is still on fire, surrounded by casualties with burns and slashing wounds. We try to put out the blaze, but its hellfire nature defies normal water, so we are forced to wait until it starts to peter out. A man limps conveniently out of the inferno and mutters that King Percival has been kidnapped by something with black wings – which we quickly conclude to be Azura.

Thúndur detects that there is still life on the other side of the palace, so we rush around in a frenzy of first aid and information-gathering. Everyone confirms that something with black wings took the king, and that it said something about taking him to Nalgoz (the continent to the west) or to the Rift.

Tove’s mount Jeremy, a majestic elk, appears. Octavia is appropriately astounded, and Lady cavorts around him like a puppy trying to convince an older dog to play.

Emergency meeting

Pyria, an elf enforcer from the Harpy’s Tit guild, also appears and asks the two parties if they are adventurers. Pyria has been sent for by Lord Branson (of Richard) to join an emergency meeting of adventurers to try and retrieve the king, so they invite us along as well.

Alex: [something about “the cock in the machine”]

At the meeting, Lord Branson lays out what is known: King Percival has been taken somewhere inaccessible to magical scrying, and he must be rescued as soon as possible. There is an 80,000 gold reward per rescuer for his safe return. To sweeten the deal, there are writs on offer which declare the holders to be on official crown business, and request any assistance that might be needed.

Writ in hand, the two parties decide to look for Percival together – with a couple of well-deserved days off first, of course. During this downtime, Thúndur catches wind of a slave rebellion and sets off with Abigail and the gunslinger to see what she can do.

[griffins-bane]

Quest 4.6: Fantasy Rites: Ace Attorney

Preliminary evidence

Thúndur and Octavia awaken in a dark room. Octavia overhears someone saying, “The temple of Iomedae has been attacked. A note implies we are to blame: must’ve been a setup by our primary target, the figure responsible for injustice in this city.”

Octavia and Thúndur are quickly captured. The guards taking them to court gossip amongst themselves about the burns in Casian’s wounds, and a black feather found on the ground near his body.

The note near Casian read “Justice Comes To All”, a phrase associated with the Hands of Justice – a criminal organisation who were responsible for killing the rich merchant Thúndur couldn’t save.

Order! Order!

In the courthouse, Octavia and Thúndur are put on the stand alongside a blood-encrusted and very shaken-looking JB. Gallais is in the audience, but he Messages the others not to draw attention to him. Octavia is dismayed to see no sign of Lady.

None other than Zane is also in attendance, sitting pretty in a box reserved for the highest lords of the city. Octavia elbows Thúndur and says, “Look, it’s your boyfriend!” Thúndur tries to deny it, but Octavia scoffs that she has seven older sisters, so she knows boyfriends.

When questioned, Octavia and Thúndur argue that (a) they were not part of the Hands of Justice, and (b) the Hands of Justice were set up (based on the conversation that Octavia overheard). A guard confirms in the logbook that the party attempted to foil the assassination, and so are unlikely to be pro-Hands of Justice.

The evil among us

The feather from the crime scene is brought out, and Gallais Messages those on the stand to say that it is a feather from a corrupted angel.

A man in the audience who obviously worships Iomedae casts Detect Evil and is immediately knocked out. Gallais rolls his eyes. Thúndur remarks on what this might mean, and Octavia yells that a great evil must be in the room; the crowd panics, but Zane, the guards, and the lords don’t look at all surprised.

Gallais tries to cough-cast Message and must confront the logistics of it (“What if you accidentally cast Massage instead?”)

Licky Steve, the forensics technician, confirms that JB is covered mostly in his own blood, but also in some other unidentifiable blood that wasn’t Casian’s.

The Iomedae man has woken up by now and offers to clear things up by communing with Iomedae. He reports back that JB did not kill Casian, and that the killer is in fact in the nobles’ box.

This sends the crowd spiralling into an even deeper panic, so the party suggests that all the rubberneckers be ushered out of the room. Gallais and Thúndur detect powerful magical items on the two nobles, Zane, and Gallais himself, but questioning them leads nowhere.

The hour of judgement

Gallais finally decides to pull out all the stops. He summons an azata to ferret out the untruthful, but it is promptly killed by a metamagically silenced Phantasmal Killer. Never one to be out-spelled by another magic-user, Gallais defiantly summons another one, but it too fares poorly.

Someone suggests consulting the Bad Decisions Book for advice, since it contains all knowledge. To the visible horror of the Iomedae man, Gallais pulls it out and begins to read it. The book reveals that the real Zane never left the Rift; he is imprisoned in hell, and what we have here is an imposter of terrifying power.

‘Zane’ reveals his true form as Azura, the black-winged fallen angel, and strikes paralysing fear into the hearts of the party and everyone else in the room. Before disappearing, Azura leaves us this warning: “Another threat is coming from the West. I will restore order once I return.”

After shaking off the paralysis, the party runs outside, where they are greeted with the sight of the royal palace burning to the ground. Octavia spots Lady travelling with another ragtag group of adventurers (in fact, being ridden by a monkey-woman of some kind) and begins sprinting flat-out toward her.

[griffins-bane]

Quest 4.5: Into the belly of the beast

Demons in the dark

Thúndur fails a stealth roll and bursts through Beatrice’s front door yelling “Ta-da!" only to find a completely empty room with JB’s blood on the floor. A weakened, hidden JB makes the standard call, and everyone but Gallais immediately picks up on it.

Something behind a door tells us, in Infernal, to get back to work. Gallais tries to convince him that we’re here to meet Beatrice, but he isn’t buying it. JB rolls stealthily out of the goldpile (“like one of those pulling-the-tablecloth magic tricks”) and snipes the infernal-speaker, a Babau Demon.

The demon plunges everyone into darkness, takes a couple hits, then disappears. Gallais feels his Teleportation Senses tingle and announces that it Greater Teleported away. We hesitate a moment too long, and it promptly reappears and stabs Gallais in the back.

Several rounds of combat later, Octavia slams the Babau Demon against the wall, and it dies. JB leads us to the gold room where he pours it sensuously over himself, American Beauty-style, and we shove 50k gold into Thúndur’s Handy Haversack for later redistribution. JB carries Thúndur to one of the closed doors and gets a flashback to the mimics at the mansion – but there’s nothing interesting behind (or as) the door.

Gallais and Octavia open another door and see (“a sex swing!”) a pedestal, holding (“a sex swing…?”) the Bad Decisions Book from the bearded devils’ lair. Behind the pedestal is Beatrice.

Beatrice says, “So you’re the challengers I’ve been expecting.” Gallais seems unsurprised by her statement. Octavia, the gears turning in her tiny halfling mind, strikes a pose and exclaims, “Yes! Yes we are!”

Old dog, old tricks

Beatrice takes flight as everyone rushes to the door. (“We could’ve had a cool aerial wizard battle but someone didn’t prepare his Fly!”)

From the air, Beatrice Dominates Octavia and tells her to attack her friends, prompting Octavia to turn around and stab Thúndur with her lance. Thúndur recognises the flat, dead-eyed expression on Octavia's face from the last time Beatrice turned the party against her and warns the others. When Gallais’ attempt to snap Octavia out of it fails, JB manages to grapple her and tie her up.

Thúndur tosses the Bad Decisions Book to Gallais. He uses it first to lock Beatrice into this dimension, and then to summon two Bearded Devils, who ask what he would bid them do. As imperiously as he can, Gallais points at Beatrice and says, “Fuck her up.”

JB now tries to tackle Beatrice (“My love! Come to me!”) but she dodges him and kisses Thúndur. Thúndur takes a bunch of penalties from the kiss, including a negative level (“Oh great, now I can Sleep myself”) and becomes totally accepting to any further kisses, which Beatrice doles out with evident delight.

Unattended, Octavia slips out of her bindings, but Lady drags her out of the room (getting roundly boxed around the snout in the process). With Thúndur having finally managed to flee the room, Beatrice turns her attentions to JB; she grapples him and kisses him too, though she is rapidly losing blood from the bearded devils’ depredations.

Eventually Beatrice bleeds out. Octavia comes to her senses, bursts into tears, and embraces Lady and Thúndur, begging their forgiveness. But before we can so much as catch our breath, a hooded figure walks in and says, “You passed your first test. I’ll be taking that.” He telekinetically pulls the Bad Decisions Book out of Gallais’ hands, and we all black out.

Post-credits scene

JB wakes up in the temple of Iomedae, surrounded by dead paladins. Casian’s door is hanging open. Inside, Casian himself is slumped against the wall, pinned through the chest by JB’s double-headed waraxe and very emphatically dead.

[griffins-bane]

Quest 4.4: The Pinnacle of our achievements

Nothing good ever comes of elves

With Morthan/Morthal’s directions, the party journeys to Pinnacle, a long-abandoned elven city in the forest. Pinnacle is mostly wooden structures and interlocking trees, but some stone buildings remain.

Our old pal Beatrice is there, sweet-talking the slave labourers into working harder. We come up with a plan: Free the slaves and grab Beatrice without having to fight the hellhounds and the bearded devils. JB decides to scout out her lodgings, while the rest of the party heads a safe distance away.

Percussive emancipation

The mating call of a hellhound is apparently, ”Ay bby, wan sum fuk?”

Andrew: You see two hellhounds and a bearded devil emerge from the undergrowth. Finn: Are they together? Cammy: Like… romantically?

With a lot of bad rolls (Octavia) and a very good summoned leopard (Gallais), the party sans JB successfully dispatches the overseers and bearded devils. They free the slaves and watch them run off into the sunset.

Meanwhile, back at the lodgings

While prowling around Beatrice’s lodgings, JB is spotted and has to quickly disguise himself as a hellhound (with the aid of his very creepy, somewhat overpowered skin-mask). He sneaks inside and is stabbed in the back, stumbling away from his assailant to fling himself under a pile of gold.

The rest of the party moves toward Beatrice’s lodgings and attacks the overseers and bearded devil standing guard. The bearded devil very cunningly teleports out of Gallais’ pit, but is eventually run through.

[griffins-bane]

Quest 4.3: I do like to be beside the lakeside

Playing tourist

The party makes its way to Qrago, a peaceful, busy fishing town where (we are told) we can find a scholar who knows where the lost city of Pinnacle lies. Thúndur livens up the journey by rolling a nat 20 and making a cart-driver cry.

At Qrago, we head to the market to get a better idea of the town. A shady jewellery trader catches our eye, and we set about gathering intel in our classic low-key fashion.

Octavia: I start browsing the jewellery stand and give JB and Thúndur the face that says ‘pump him for information’. Gallais: Which is remarkably similar to your expression for ‘pump him’, which has led to many bad situations.

The shady trader tells us that the scholar lives in a tower in the middle of the lake. There is wildlife in the tower that is pretty rough, and that nobody goes there but Jeffrey of the Deliveroos, who takes food to the scholar every few months. We’ll know Jeffrey on the docks by his beard and his beautiful boat. By way of tanks, Thúndur uses castanets to intimidate the trader into giving us an ugly, overpriced necklace for free, and Octavia decks Lady out in it.

Jeffrey’s near-prehensile beard astounds Thúndur and JB. He tells us that the scholar is an old elf who doesn’t apparently have a name. We negotiate for passage by giving him the ugly necklace, and he very obligingly rows us through the lake to the tower.

After dropping us off on the shore, Jeffrey and his beard row away, knowing that we’ll make a smoke signal if and when we need him.

Aggressive gardening

We explore the island, picking our way through the thick forest that lies between the shore and the tower. A wild scythe tree appears! We don’t take the bait!

At the base of the tower, Gallais (and Lady) fail a will save against a hangman tree right next to the tower door. We yell for the scholar to come let us in, but…

Andrew: In response to your yelling, the door opens, and an old elf peeks out. He is promptly strangled by the tree.

We collectively roll our eyes and get down to fighting the hangman tree. It displays an astounding level of competency by swallowing the scholar, grappling JB, and continuing to bamboozle Gallais into thinking his pals have gone mad and are attacking the herbage.

Thúndur’s battle song for today: “We’re going down / I’m yelling timber…"

Several rounds later, when JB is salty about still being grappled, Andrew helpfully tells us that the scholar still doesn’t think the tree’s a threat.

At long last, the scholar finally realises what is going on and disappears. (Gallais: “I could make him un-invisible if you wanted.” Octavia: “Please don’t glitterdust our potential friend.”)

A lightning bolt strikes the tree. Andrew rolls some dice, rolls some more… and then keeps rolling, which tips us off to this scholar being a real big name.

Publish or perish

Ironically, the scholar can’t actually remember his name (“Morthan? Morthal?”), but he readily remembers the prophecy is a Bad Thing Indeed. He would give us info about the ancient city we’re after, but a rogue fey has set traps all along the library, and he needs our help to get past them first.

We make small talk while he leads us through the tower. The scholar says he studies the life cycles of slimes. (Andrew: “He begins to regale you with –” Laras: “That is not at all the right word.” Finn: “It really is!”)

After several trap encounters (a sliding staircase, a net, and a suspicious-looking chest with "OPEN THE CHEST” scrawled on the wall nearby), we finally reach the fourth floor. Gallais offers to deal with the chest but the scholar demurs, to which Gallais mutters, “He’s definitely going to be eaten by that chest after we leave.”

Our final obstacle is a Gargoyle Guardian, massively stony and crouched in the centre of the room. We are exhausted and know from experience how challenging gargoyles can be, so the thought of fighting it doesn’t exactly inspire much bloodlust. Can we find another way?

JB: I don’t like giving names to monsters right before we kill them.

With us as her hype band, Thúndur self-help pep talks the Gargoyle Guardian and it signs that it wants to sit on the window. With Thúndur’s song pumping one last burst of vigour into our tired, tired veins, we haul the gargoyle over and set it up, clearing the path for Morthan/Morthal to get to his books about the city of Pinnacle.

[griffins-bane]

Quest 4.2: The creeping hand of chaos

Templeward, ho!

From our misadventures in Muggers’ Alley, we recover a note that reads: “Guilds getting suspicious. Deal with it.” With nothing else to go on, we sheepishly decide to get back to our actual objective of delivering this package to Casian.

At the temple of Iomedae, the guards make us wait outside, so Octavia, Lady, and JB amuse themselves in a manner that Gallais finds less than tasteful (“WHY ARE YOU THROWING FINGERS INTO TEMPLES”).

Eventually we are allowed to meet Casian. The package from Littlefist turns out to contain Firewhisky, which Casian loves. He offers everyone a taste, and we accept, though Octavia sucks at dealing with the spice.

Casian gives us a tour of the temple, and we watch a bunch of trainee paladins going through their afternoon exercises. JB pumps Boran, a dwarf trainee, for information to integrate into his book.

Bad skies ahead

We fill Casian in on the happenings with ‘Beatrice’ and Azura, and ask him what he knows. He tells us of a prophecy that has always claimed bad things are due to happen, but he believes that the aforementioned bad things are now happening a lot faster, and that the Rift is somehow to blame.

When shown the note, Casian says it was written by someone with a very ancient grasp of Celestial. Whoever it was is looking for the lost elven city of Pinnacle.

(Despite the urgency of the conversation, there is a brief digression to the Excretal Plane. It is Chaotic Neutral; everything in it is mad.)

What next?

Having learnt everything we could from Casian, we bid him farewell, but on our way out of the temple we are accosted by acolytes eager to hear about our adventures. We oblige by putting on a truly mind-blowing performance of our creepy mansion and harpy adventures: Thúndur sets JB’s stories to song, Octavia wears JB’s mask and Gallais’ Garment of Many Sleeves Sleeves of Many Garments, and Gallais sets the mood with liberal castings of Message, Ghost Sound, Silent Image, Prestidigitation, and Mage Hand. We receive a standing ovation for our efforts, and leave feeling kinda good about theatre as a backup career should adventuring go south.

We notice that the city seems on edge because VIPs keep getting assassinated. In the street, we encounter a kerfuffle: city guards cradle a rich man who has been stabbed, while his presumed assailant flees into an alleyway.

Octavia and Lady give chase, but the man won’t slow down or listen to reason, and he scales a wall and gets into a window. Gallais takes flight in spectacular fashion (“everyone is killed by the sonic boom”), but even with our newfound aerial recon capabilities, we lose the man in a busy market.

Thúndur tries to heal the wounded man as best she can, and helps the guards get him home, but he dies in her arms – poisoned by the assassin’s blade. We give a report to the guard of what happened, and finally leave the city, rattled by the chaos around us.

[sbmdfoyalaus]

catching some Zs after a long day of murdering cult members

[griffins-bane]

Quest 4.1: Turning the tables

Anatomy of disaster

Littlefist tells the party that the real Beatrice was killed years ago, and the one they knew used her succubus’ kiss to slip Suggestion spells into every bout of healing she performed for the guild. That was why Thúndur didn’t immediately fall under her thrall: She was the only one of the party who never accepted healing through a kiss.

To their collective horror, Littlefist admits that it was not only they who succumbed to the Suggestions of ‘Beatrice’. Most of the other guild members also went into a frenzy, attacking everyone and anyone around them. Overnight, the guild has effectively collapsed; its reputation is in tatters, and its headquarters are ruined.

With the party clearly still struggling to process what has happened, Littlefist proposes a little errand-running to get their head back into the game. He gives them a package to deliver to his old friend Casian, who can be found at the temple of Iomedae in Yodon.

Getting sidetracked

The party arrives in Yodon, a large city built on several hills. Instead of following orders, Octavia talks the party into committing a reverse mugging – that is, wandering down sketchy alleyways until someone accosts you, only to mug the would-be muggers right back. Apparently this is what counted for fun when she was little.

Unfortunately, things don’t go exactly to plan: The first person they encounter is from a rival guild, and warns them obliquely to stay away. The second person they encounter is criminal scum, but they put up more of a fight than expected, and it is only after some pit-related mishaps that the party manages to put them down, and their no-good pals too.

[griffins-bane]

uplift

[griffins-bane]

Quest 3.3: With friends like these

Allegory of the cave

Zane isn’t keen on being brought along, but Thúndur sweet-talks him into coming along. The party disguises Zane as Ingrid with little more than a dress and a wig. Though we get lost a little on the way, the party eventually makes it to the cave.

Andrew: You see six tief— Cammy: SIXTY tieflings?!

The tieflings eye up Zane’s very long sword and question whether ‘Ingrid’ is actually Ingrid. To our disappointment, JB’s story about her having drank a potion of enhance muscles falls flat, and we are drawn into combat. Thúndur’s battle song of the day: “Man’s not hot!”

JB: Could you try hiding your weapon better next time, Zane? Zane: You try hiding a weapon the size of your body. Gallais and JB, simultaneously: Well.

More devils pile out of the cave, much to the party’s annoyance, but we club our way through them. Gallais does a lot of mansplaining over Thúndur’s knowledge checks. JB does a lot of sneaky weeing around corners, and everyone crits more than usual.

We come into a room with a book lying by the door. Zane does a spot of light reading and is otherwise a bit of a dick. Gallais suggests we trigger an alarm trap, and as if on cue, a bunch of firedogs appear.

Zane cleans up the Brimorak devil that had been giving us a hard time and professes his love for Thúndur leaves. With mixed emotions, we take the book back to the guild, just as we were told.

Back at the guild

When we arrive, we are greeted by Beatrice, who takes the book before casually telling Gallais, JB, Octavia, and Lady to kill Thúndur and Littlefist. She then drops her disguise and reveals herself to be a succubus.

In a horrible flash, Thúndur remembers the old man on the road to Goran’s Well who told her that her companions were evil. After holding out for a while with her friends chasing her around the room, Thúndur finally fails a will save, and ‘Beatrice’ instructs her to kill Littlefist as well.

Octavia and Lady are knocked out, and Thúndur shakes off the spell. Gallais very reasonably concludes that Littlefist is evil; he attempts to cast Protection From Evil and is knocked out for his trouble. Thúndur goes down fighting as well.

With the party incapacitated, ‘Beatrice’ grabs the book, says, “Better get back to Azura now,” then disappears. She has the third book now and that can’t be good.

[griffins-bane]

Quest 3.2: Saviour ex machina

At the village

The party goes to find Ingrid at her smithy. She doesn’t know where Rolf is, and we decide against telling her that the devil-cultists want her.

Cries from outside alert us that a mob (numbering thirteen, all in cloaks, some with weapons) is moving at speed toward the village gate. Ingrid follows us as we rush to the gate, but she conspicuously does not bring her massive warhammer with her, which in Octavia’s opinion is just plain regrettable and short-sighted.

The mob is headed by Ingrid’s childhood pal Rolf, who demands the village hand over their tieflings. He intends to purge them, and not in a hippy-dippy juice-cleanse purge-the-toxins-from-your-body kind of way. There are six tieflings in the village, and the guards (who account for two of them) are understandably unwilling to give them up.

The party receives some limited exposition on Rolf’s motives:

Octavia: Have you considered that you’re being a bit of a dick to the tieflings? Rolf: Well they certainly weren’t nice to me.

The fight begins

Rolf retreats to the back of the battlefield and summons a huge earth elemental. The party finds themselves crowded along the village wall some fifteen inconvenient feet above all the action. Octavia climbs down first to get on Lady, and the others perform a complicated bubble sort to shuffle JB into a better position.

Much to our dismay, Rolf enlarges the earth elemental. Gallais climbs 15 feet down the ladder to buff Octavia, but it is only when he fizzles mid-cast that he remembers that his arcane bond has already been used up for the day. Sheepishly, he climbs back up the ladder and goes back to Glitterdust-ing the enemy from afar.

Though the earth elemental is defeated by Gallais’ classic tactic of ‘Flaming Sphere it to death’, Rolf quickly summons a fire elemental to take its place. He orders the fire elemental to kill the tieflings and it wastes no time setting upon the two tiefling guards on the far wall, singeing some cultists on the way there.

Thúndur spies an opening, leaps elegantly off the wall and runs toward Rolf. JB follows, less elegantly, and skirts the writhing mass of half-blind, half-on-fire, extremely glittery cultists. Meanwhile: Octavia brings the gate down onto her attackers and crushes a guy, and it is awesome.

All of a sudden, Thúndur’s battle song is interrupted by a yelp as she and JB plunge into a 30-foot pit. JB climbs out handily and ducks the Gallais-summoned air elemental that comes whizzing past, targeting Rolf – but then he fails a save and tumbles back into the pit, nearly squashing Thúndur.

Gallais casts Grease on the four blind cultists and experiences a bit of a moral crisis. “This feels like bullying,” he says guiltily, as they thrash about in an oily slick beneath him.

Things take a turn for the worse from here. The fire elemental consumes two more guards, stalks past and sets half of the Greased-Up Blind Area on fire, then consumes the final two guards. Gallais is basically out of spells; Thúndur and JB sit helplessly at the bottom of the pit. The Greased-Up Blind Mob sets on Octavia and Lady. Rolf creates a wall at the gate, and everyone is penned more or less in place.

Just as things are starting to look hairy for us, a surprise backup character appears, striding out of nowhere and into the fray. Mr Backup destroys the fire elemental with a massive longsword, then dices Rolf.

Fight ends, exposition begins

Mr Ex Machina says, “I am Zane Fiske, a member of the Hippogriffs guild.” (Cammy: "The Hypocrites?!”)

Zane says he went into the Rift and has been away for two weeks. The party double checks the date (503rd Year of the Glassy Isles Empire) and tells him he’s actually been gone 30 years. (Gallais wonders what would happen, temporally, if Zane were to re-enter the Rift, but the others quickly crush his dreams.) According to Zane, the Rift leads to Utopia – a great, perfect city.

Gallais reveals to the rest of us that he sold his soul to Azura. The rest of us: “WHAT.” Octavia asks if that’s why he was performing so shittily today, so he slaps her with Mage Hand, and she tries to punch him in the knees. It is deeply undignified and the others look on disapprovingly as they squabble.

Zane agrees to help the party with their cult problem, on the condition of getting the cult’s records to see if it has sprung up anywhere else. Gallais looks murderous and mutters under his breath a lot, but the others eventually strong-arm him into agreeing.

Thúndur: Well it’s not our fault the guards weren’t up to scratch! Gallais: Excuse me, I think you mean the guards sacrificed themselves nobly in the face of incredible danger… 

[griffins-bane]

Quest 3.1: Cults edition

What is our quest?

The party cleans up after successfully completing their previous quest. They move the unconscious body of the wax golem/ex-homeowner Bill to a spare bed, and leave him a letter detailing what happened. Would-be attic whisperer victim Little Timmy is returned to his rightful home.

To everyone’s disappointment, guild healer Beatrice is away on business, so HP has to be regained through less touchy-feely means.

After a few days of intense resting, partying, and resupplying, we accept a quest to aid the desert village of Gorun’s Well, which is having a problem with cultists.

On the road there, a creepy old man warns Thúndur that the rest of the party are evil, then pulls his cloak over his face and skitters off.

At Gorun’s Well

The guards at the burnt-out house tell us that 5 cultists have been captured, all dead: 1 from the village, 2 from neighbouring villages, and the others unidentified. They voice some suspicion that the villagers know more than they let on.

JB and Thúndur decide to soften up the tavern crowd with a performance, and learn that there have been murders in the village.

Gallais, Octavia, and Lady hit up the blacksmith Ingrid, of the Iron Woman, and learn about two cults: one worships devils and the other is rabidly anti-devil. Ingrid suspects her friend Rolf may be involved somehow.

As Gallais and Octavia leave the Iron Woman they are targeted by a note wrapped around an arrow (Andrew: “What languages can you speak?” Us: “Is that what the note says?”). The note tells us that Azura will destroy order and, if they want to destroy him, to be at the burnt-out house at midnight.

Later that night

Thúndur and JB conceal themselves while Gallais and Octavia meet a tiefling in the house, who says he is of the cult. “We want to join,” says Octavia. The others cautiously pitch in, and more tieflings come out of the woodwork.

The tieflings take the party to a cave with a bearded devil inside. A knowlege check reveals bearded devils can teleport at will. (Thúndur: “You mean at Captain Wilbert?” Also Thúndur, enthusiastically wielding her very long scythe: “I could shave the bearded devil from across the room!”)

The tieflings lead us deeper into the cave, where they meet a Brimorak devil reading a blank book. Gallais secretly contracts his soul to Azura in order to read the book, which details the war between good- and evil-aligned planes, and describes Azura as the embodiment of law who wishes to destroy all the chaos in the world; though he was once a commander of heaven’s legions, he created the Rift thirty years ago to throw the world into war. The purpose of this cult is to gather enough strength to oppose him, should he ever bring the Rift (and his plan) to completion.

The Brimorak devil also tells us that Rolf is the leader of the anti-demon faction. We reaffirms our intention to join the cult, but are told we must pass a test before being allowed to join. Our new mission: “Recruit Ingrid. Or kill her.“

[griffins-bane]

Quest 2.2: Cleaning house

We fought a bunch of stuff and stopped the creepy house from eating any more people. The end. But if you insist on fleshing it out… Skeletons in the foyer

Skeletal champion monologued about their master bringing people to this house and enslaving the previous propert owner. Gallais made a truly excellent pit into which a bunch of the skeletons threw themselves, like lemmings. JB also fell into said pit but handily killed the skeletal champion who went leaping in after him.

Oozes in the kitchen

Killed at great length.

Books in the study

One book on nobility had been left open to a page about… something or other. The book wasn’t current enough to have anything about the present king, so Octavia wasn’t interested.

Something shuffling in other back room

The previous property owner, Bill, had been turned into a wax golem and left chained to the wall. Party freed him and asked him for his help in rescuing the child that was still in the house, which he was eager to do. He also said the figure that had transfigured him wore a long black cloak.

Gibbering Mouther in left bedroom

Drove Octavia very briefly insane, but luckily Lady knew what to do (namely, run very far away until she came back to her senses). Mouther was defeated after some time.

Attic Whisperers in right bedroom

Party killed them too, after a very drawn-out fight in which JB took ability damage, Bill was knocked out, and Octavia (still feeling the effects of her brief bout of insanity) clocked up miss after miss against the little terrors. Timothy, the missing child, was rescued and borne out of the creepy haunted orphanage manor at top speed by JB.

[griffins-bane]

Quest 2.1: Missing persons

What’s our quest?

At the guild, Octavia loudly proclaims her love for the local coffee. Party is summoned to the guards’ headquarters. On the way, Gallais drops by a weapons shop to make himself less killable.

Guards request to check guild affiliation, and the party strikes a pose for their tattoos. Captain Jaiene tells them that 15 people have gone missing recently, including a child and multiple guards. “Go to the old orphanage and find out why,” he says, and hands them potions of magic weapon.

To the manor


Outside the manor is a gate, beyond which is a stream. JB picks out two children’s footprints going in, one of which returns to the gate.

Party spots a handful of kappas in the stream. 
Octavia gratuitously mishears the plan and winds up abandoning everyone else for the wrong side of the bridge.

JB throws a smoke bomb
 but unfortunately kappas have darkvision. He is grappled by a kappa and pummelled by other kappas
, and in the tumult notices that the kappas have shitty will saves.

Þúndur seizes her chance to escape across the stream, leaving the soft, vulnerable Gallais all on his lonesome. He handles himself well enough and blinds the kappas.

JB breaks free, and vengefully tries to grapple the kappa, but is grappled once again
. He dispatches them eventually.

Across the bridge

Party crosses bridge and runs into a spriggan-and-fey-wolverine
 tag team. Spriggan: “This is my land, and you people keep coming into it.” Gallais interprets the Gnomish but loses his temper and attacks.


Spriggan enlarges (Finn: “Same”) but is defeated after (translated) taunting, as is its wolverine friend. Party advances to the manor.

Up at the manor

On the front path, party spots creepy statues up on the manor roof. A gargoyle attacks JB but is defeated using magic weapons + blinding. Party demonstrates the true meaning of “once bitten, twice shy” by throwing rocks to make sure the other creepy statues are, in fact, just creepy statues.

Ground-floor windows are all covered up. Octavia’s ladder is put up to the first floor, and JB climbs stealthily up to peer into the windows.

In the first one he spots a gibbering mouther; in the other he sees a body and hears the strains of an incredibly creepy nursery rhyme (”hush little baby, don’t say a word…”). After peeing himself, he comes down and repeats the song perfectly to everyone else, and Gallais identifies it as an attic whisperer.

Party checks round back and sees a body near the front door
. They decide to break into the manor via the front door.

Into the manor

JB grabs the handle of the front door and it grabs back: A mimic! He is grappled, then slammed into the wall. He breaks free after Gallais greases him.


Mimic lunges after Thúndur and is blinded
. It is eventually defeated by magic and hitting, and the party pauses to take stock of their injuries before heading in.

[griffins-bane]

[griffins-bane]

time for a breather