Pathfinder: Uwu and the Joe Gang

[Part of the Party Time journal]

When Stolas returns with the location of the fleeing raiders the heroes go on the pursuit, finding a giant and half a dozen sinspawn feasting on a smashed caravan on the road. Surviving bard, Lyrielle, joins the "Joe Gang" (Valeros' followers) to smash them and proceed to Ravenroost to regroup with Shay to take down four more giants, their three giant bears, and eight more sinspawn popping out of a sinwell (where Kyra's new celestial elephant stomps through the trees and tramples them). 

They rescue one of the captives who was "dancing" for her life and return her to Sandpoint and advise the priests to sanctify the sinwell they just cleared, then follow leads to find the other captives, passing by Thistletop and its new goblin colony led by ally King Fat Mouth. Alas they're not up for joining in a fight against the giants.

The next encounter takes place at the desecrated town of Sarenburg where the team demolishes 20 ghouls and six ghoulwolves despite their sniper boss "Uwu" (his elvish name was too long to remember, so Valeros shortened it) taking Ezren down with a drow sleep bolt for most of the fight. Luckily this team is ultra-geared for undead, and it is an easy fight which rewards Kyra with bonus magic to her scimitar (now +4) and a dire wolf mount (after being cured of ghoul disease) for Shay.

Pathfinder: The Raiders of Sandpoint

[Part of the Party Time journal]    

Correspondence found on the defeated giant necromancer indicated a planned raid on Sandpoint sometime soon so the heroes send advance warning (via magical message) and sure enough giants attack the city before they arrive so this time DL has us playing the archers, guardsmen, and militia defending the town with new temporary roles of the resident sheriff and monk played by Juris, the berserker weapon smith lady played by Rose, local priest played by myself and bard Ameiko played by mom.

While the sheriff, monk, priest, and all guardsmen and militia were wiped out, they did kill six giant raiders, three giant bears and scared a red dragon away before the usual heroes arrive (Cleric Kyra [Rose], Wizard Ezren [Juris] and his owl familiar Stolas, Fighter Valeros [me], Ranger Shay [my NPC cohort - yay for leadership], and Elf Rogue Merisiel [mom] now mounted on a flying griffon [statuette pet we bought en route back]) to help take down the remaining three giant raiders and their boss who was after some rock at the possible ancient lighthouse called the "old light". 

We also manage to save a burning ships worth of badly timed reinforcements from five opportunistic reef claws and apart from a trio of spear men most are actually siege engineers that teach Kyra and Ezren siege machine building post-giant raid while Shay and Stolas track down the raiders that managed to kidnap people from the "noble" district which is quite out of town.

Said ballistas they create (and a celestial grizzly bear Kyra conjures) are super handy in gunning down a mercenary band of orcs and their undead fodder raised by the orc shamans who seemed to be paid to do a follow up attack. This time the heroes are aided by the halfling celestial (!?) "child" Daygrace who was kept hidden in the abbey and is functionally another cleric. When the coast is clear Valeros recruits her and the spear man trio into his service [because leadership is cool]. 

DL does a good job printing out all the maps and material that we all get to enjoy! :)

Pathfinder: Lamatar

[Part of the Party Time journal]  

The first two Kreeg guards at their cavernous mountain top fortress manage to KO Ezren, but are put down soon after by the rest of the team so for the next two guards who also have a hill giant assisting them, Ezren doesn't hesitate to hit them with ice storm which really messes them up. In the nearby mining and forge chamber with a dozne more ogres, Ezren and Kyra annihilate almost all of them with fireballs while Razmus helps(?) my throwing boulders but missing each time!

The next chamber has a trio of hags that manage to force cage Kyra and Ezren while also blocking Razmus and Shay, but are taken down by Valeros, Kyra's summoned bear, and Merisiel's ultra deadly backstabbing. Then the team finally comes across the remains of Black Arrow Captain Lamatar who is now a frost wight and absolutely the scariest foe they have faced so far. He's very fast, shoots three times and every time he hits drains a level! WTF!? As the team is only level 9 and reaching level 0 is death, they throw everything they have against this guy and finally succeed but only end with Ezren and Shay not being level drained.

Low on spells the team then rests at the entrance of the fortress just long enough to get spells back and heal but not recover lost levels before a returning patrol of ogres interrupts them, though Stolas gives early warning for the heroes to strike first. Ezren opens with cloud kill which basically ends the majority of the enemies, and once that's wrapped up the crew decide to press on to a huge throne room with two giants: a throne sitting necromancer and his guard.

Merisiel's giant-slaying bow and Razmus' hammer efficiently deal with the nameless guard while the necromancer hits the team with fireballs and magic missiles. Comedically Razmus finally lands a hit with a thrown boulder but the necromancer catches it and throws it back, smacking him in the face! Ultimately the bad guy, who was more of an HP sponge rather than a threat like Lamatar, is slain.

A note in his treasure pile suggests he too answered to someone else, but first the team return Lamatar's finger (as requested) to the undead nymph who revives him, restores everyone's missing levels, then fades away to the spirit realm making the forest a normal one again. Lamatar is unable to get over his failure and instead of returning to Fort Rannick decides to become the new protector of these woods.

Pathfinder: The Best Type of Friend

[Part of the Party Time journal]  

With the situation at the dam resolved, Eye Patch, Kibb and Shay return to Fort Rannick while the main party reports in back at Turtleback Ferry - passing by a wagon of criminals being sent there as new recruits, one of whom is Orik who apparently has the worst luck but Valeros is certain the Black Arrows will be happy to have him.

Back in town the team experiences some hag induced nightmares and are further interrupted by a little fairy guy who asks for help for his angry mistress. He leads the way to some evil twisted forest where they make quick work of tree blight enemies before finding said mistress, a now undead nymph who was once the main squeeze of the Black Arrow Captain Lamatar, and reduce her anger down to sadness by agreeing to find what's left of him up at the Kreeg fortress in the mountains.
 
Having heard tales of giants being active in that region, the team decides to make a detour to Claybottom lake to retrieve a giant-slaying bow of one Robin Cloakley, who went down with the gambling / pleasure barge everyone at Turtleback Ferry talks about. Ezren stays on the boat while Kyra, Merisiel and Valeros dive down using water breathing magic and collect the magic bow which involves Valeros being temporarily swallowed by a giant fish!

Now headed back up the mountain (again? seriously?) and passing Fort Rannick the Black Arrows are eager to join in to take the fight to the Kreegs but the team decides to only bring Shay (because more people = longer combat). As they continue the ascent they find an badly injured hill giant surrounded by the corpses of wyverns. Not wanting to fight an enemy who isn't at full strength, Valeros heals him up with potions and discovers this giant, Razmus, isn't a bad guy at all!

The big guy has claimed this section of the mountain for himself and is unhappy with recent competition that's moved in so he is more than willing to not only lead the team up the mountain to the Kreeg fortress (bypassing extra encounters), he is also willing to help smash them! Isn't that the best type of friend?

Pathfinder: Wet Skull

[Part of the Party Time journal]  

Almost immediately after clearing the fort the party hears the (magically audio boosted) alarm bell from Turtleback Ferry so they trek back there to find a third of the place now being consumed by flooding. Valeros and Merisiel ford the dangerous waters with ropes to save some kids and their teacher stuck in a turtle shell boat, dealing with a giant snake also being washed by the flood while they're at it. Once the civilians are saved they use the same boat to bring Kyra, Ezren and Shay forward to try save a church full of people stuck in the flood waters.

Also en route to the church is a giant water creature Loch Ness, the Black Maga, who the party manage to piss off enough so that it changes its focus to them. Ezren is the only one who saves against its confusing breath attack and basically the party is very much at the mercy of this ancient creature who has an easy time swatting them around (when they're not attacking each other lol). Inexplicably the beasty decides to not wipe out the party and instead leaves / gets washed away with the water.

Once they come to their senses the party saves the church goers (though, not really as the flood waters are subsiding by that point) and get to rest like heroes. Briefly. They are then tasked to check out the dam at Skull's Crossing (which is heavy on the Skull motif) as the flooding issue might be related so they head up there, parting ways with Baldy who takes some villagers to help clean up the Black Arrow fort.

At the dam the party discovers it being sabotaged by ogres so they get up there and slay them, including an ettin and a troll family living within (apart from a sea troll who manages to elude them by swimming away). In a side chamber Merisiel has a close call against a robot skull scorpion guarding the dam controls but they destroy it before anyone gets killed.

Ezren then works out the magical dam is powered by the life force of sacrificial summons, in this case a super weak pit fiend. To do a controlled flood and alleviate the danger, Kyra uses a summoned creature to help power it for emergency operations which Ezren handles - destroying the summon and the pit fiend in the process.

Pathfinder: The Real Ogres

[Part of the Party Time journal]  

With Ezren's owl, Stolas, providing "drone footage" information the heroes along with Shay and the Black Arrows eventually decide to try lure out the ogre guards from the fort via a flaming sphere that explodes the "blocked" Eastern gate of the place. Sure enough, ogres start pouring out from both of the fortress gates led by a tall red one DL likes to call "Carly"?

Half the ogres are handled by Valeros' flamethrower along with the Black Arrows and Kibb (who is the only one to take damage in this group), while the rest including Carly are dealt with with Kyra's AoEs and summoned bear and eagle (both destroyed by Carly), Ezren's AOEs and magic missiles, Merisiel's archery and javelin of lightning and Shay's archery, ending the first wave of fifteen. Apart from the animals none of the assaulters are damaged yet, but that changes quickly as Ezren sends forth a silent image to see if there are any more ogres lying in wait and five more spring from hiding.

Two of the five are special big boys though and they do manage to get into melee range with the first one slaying Baldy with a ridiculous one shot overkill. Kibb is also lucky to survive retreating against a free hit before Valeros finally gets into position to tank them down. Kyra uses the beginner ressurection scroll she's hanging onto to revive Baldy but semi-fails as the result is simply delayed an hour, which is fine as the team had retreated back to the forest to camp briefly to regain spells (Ezren only needs two hours now thanks to a magic ring bought in Magnimar).

With Stolas not finding any more movement the squad heads through a secret passage near a waterfall where they collect much needed arrows then ignore some cute lightning lizards and banish a ghost before looping around to the castle proper. Valeros smashes the door down... stealthily? And then Merisiel leads the team in pretty much ganking the individual rooms of ogres who are no match for them until they get upstairs to face the daddy ogre. This guy is nasty and survives lots of big attacks while also ganking Stamp with criticals (190-ish damage)?

The last major battle is with a lady in the basement, who turns out to also be an annoying lamia matriarch (and is the ogre's boss). Her six attacks are quite deadly at the start, but then Ezren lands a ray of enfeeblement on her which makes her much more manageable with party members able to risk the free hits to step into the room to surround her. Merisiel eventually finishes her off and DL announces we have officially cleared the fort! Too bad for Stamp, we found evidence that he was the traitor who helped the ogres in so he can stay dead.

Pathfinder: The Black Arrows

[Part of the Party Time journal] 

It takes a month before Pug completes the flamethrower for Valeros (me) and for Ezren (Juris) to learn his new spells, but soon they along with Kyra (Rose) and Merisiel (mom) are tasked by the governor to check upon the Night Watch Black Arrows, a group based out in the mountains defending against the wildlings(?) beyond. They take the already paid for Ferry where they meet up with Shay once more who is also headed to look for a Black Arrow of personal interest to her.

It's an uneventful trip up river apart from the incessant rain the gods have decided to inundate this area with just to screw over anyone bringing a flamethrower (lol). Soon the party gets to the village of Turtleback Ferry and get some random rumors about ogres and sunken ships they can do nothing about since their ride has already left. So, they decide to start the trek to the Black Arrow base of Fort Rannick on foot (the horses couldn't go on the ferry) and en route come across a big cat stuck in a trap about to become ogre and ogre dog food. The team defends the kitty and slays all the attackers to discover this wasn't an ogre but an ogre-kin (half-human half-ogre) hillbilly.

The freed cat then leads the team to the hillbilly's ramshackle home for some reason and the party just gets to work tearing up all the scum present starting with their home where traps and a surprise attack in the basement causes the most damage, followed by the barn where the fat necromancer matriarch fled to (via dimension door) after being defeated in the house. All foes including the zombie swarm and their pet giant ogre spider are easily handled with Valeros' cleave and flamer (indoors is fine? lol), Merisiel's new backstabby sword, Ezren's +50% spell attribute metamagic fireballs, and Kyra's new slew of holy magics and celestial bear.

Three captives are rescued from the homestead, all Black Arrows and one of whom is the one Shay is looking for - step daddy "Eye Patch" who is the owner of the cat (named "Kibb"). With him are "Baldy" and "Stamp" (not their actual names, Valeros just keeps giving nicknames to people). Stamp is a bit concerning as he has a sihedron tattoo on him, a mark usually left on victims of the previous bad guys (and similar tattoos were spotted on villagers of Turtleback). He claims it was just to get discounts at a now sunken pleasure barge which is good enough for the team but Eye Patch and Baldy also agree to keep an eye on him as their next stop is Fort Rannick, now fallen to real ogres.

Pathfinder: Thistlebottom

[Part of the Party Time journal] 

Close to where the pantsless bugbear was slain we find the mercenary Orik barricaded in his room who convinces us he wants out of the bad guy's team. Kyra (Rose) convinces him to work for us instead and he takes point while slaying a giant octopus and on the next level down is the one who kicks in the door to his ex-boss' room after Merisiel (mom) disarms a hallway trap in the way.

His ex-boss is super angry at this and nearly kills him and King Fat Mouth while her pet dog, which flies and is as terrifying as the ones in the chapel, hops over the defensive line and mauls Ezren (Juris) almost to death! Lucky the mage can land some tazer prods (wand of shocking grasp) to weaken the creature before Valeros (me) slays it. A ridiculous critical from Shay (GM DL) unexpectedly slays the boss lady and the party rests before delving deeper to the section not even she and her minions reached.

Opening a massive evil door the party is greeted by... empty space? Merisiel precieves something huge cloaked in the air so Ezren sends a flaming sphere up there to explode it, and it hits - revealing a barghest that these Lamashtu cultists were trying to free! It mauls Shay and Orik severely but in turn gets caned by magics from Fat Mouth,  Kyra and Ezren (who blinds it), while Valeros, Shay and Merisiel (flanking back stab bonus) hack away at it (Orik's non-magic sword can only nick it).  Ultimately it is Kyra's summoned celestial eagle that slays the fiend with its beak and talons that can smite evil!

After defeating such a horrendous foe, clearing out the remaining rooms of a trio of shadows and a gigantic crab is something of an after thought with the party's soaring morale. With that, the dungeon is clear and the quest is complete! King Fat Mouth is allowed to take whatever he can carry and get out of there (no doubt to Shay's protests) while the rest of the party returns to Sandpoint victorious!

Pathfinder: Thistlemiddle

[Part of the Party Time journal]

Somehow the first thing Ezren (Juris) does after his rest is to find some treasure in the goblin shitter, before Valeros (me) once again bumbles into some sort of research room with a female mage and her cat. Initiative favors the heroes so said mage gets boxed in quickly and despite using mirror images, invisibility and enfeeblement on Valeros she still gets wrestled by the strong warrior (I wrestled the air with a natural 20) and then eliminated by (mom) Merisiel's rapier. We let the cat scoot off as more stairs down are discovered, but we opt to clear this floor first - quickly finding a chapel to Lamashtu guarded by two flying dogs?

Said dogs unleash unnerving howls which terrify everyone but Shay (NPC GM DL) who stays to fight while everyone else bolts back upstairs to the warhorse. The elf ranger almost dies to the beasts before Kyra (Rose) can get back to provide much needed healing which saves her as the others eventually make it back to help put down these horrible creatures that somehow also have damage reduction (all DMG done to them is at -5! Lucky we only ran for 2 rounds, that could have easily been 8). It's a bit unnerving that everything probably heard that fight but the party presses on into a nearby jail cell where they find a dying King Fat Mouth, their goblin buddy back from Black Fang's Lair!

Apparently when the goblin tribes were called together his was one that refused to attack Sandpoint and were instead offered in flames to Lamashtu at the adjacent chapel. Shay recommends putting him out of his misery but Valeros puts a stop to that quick, instead healing Fat Mouth with potions and gearing him up with the local goblin leaders gear as he is looking for some payback. They then move on and for a change it is Merisiel (mom) who blunders into the next room (rolled 1 on stealth check) where they catch the bugbear Bruthazmus (Shay's nemesis) with his pants down in a goblin harem. A couple of flaming hands and good strikes (we charged into the tiny space) ended this fight quick.

While we aren't done with this floor it was getting late so we ended the session there.

Decluttering Day 27: A Hershey's chocolate shoulder bag.

Pathfinder: Thistletop

[Part of the Party Time journal] 

Having successfully snuck into the goblin's fortress Merisiel (mom) stealthily takes out the sleeping tower guards, who for some reason had a large bag of pickles, and the other pair of tower guards in a less stealthy fashion (we all help). Then, stealth really goes out the window when Valeros (me) blunders into the room of the goblin leader who quickly mounts his giant lizard and almost kills Ezren (Juris) in his first charge! Despite having four goblin allies in the room with him and six more that join from flanking positions they are absolutely smashed by Valeros' new cleave attack (if you hit first target, you can try hit second target) and Kyra's (Rose) flaming hands fire domain spell, as well as her summoned celestial eagle.

Ezren even manages to use his shock-prod (wand of shocking grasp) to wreck the goblin boss who flees out of the room once his allies are dead, but Stolas hoots a warning that he's just assembling more forces outside. The team rush to the door where four more goblins and their dogs/big rats are rallying and this hit them with another flaming hands plus an illusion (wand) from Ezren of a big dragon breathing said flame that sends only one of the goblins fleeing. In the melee that follows the goblin boss keeps trying to "drive by" slice at Valeros but keeps missing as his remaining allies quickly fall. He then decides to flee across the bridge but instead meets an arrow to his face which kills him (the big lizard mount escapes - hurray! The standee DL used for said lizard was too cute).

The kill-stealer is Sandpoint's scout and goblin hating ranger Shay (played by GM DL) who apparently also killed not only the fleeing goblin, but the tied up Yoda and a few others she found while tracking us here - offering her skills which we accept. After a quick room to room sweep we only find an angry warhorse "Shadowmist" who we calm down with the pickle bag and decide to rest up before taking stairs below. Good thing Valeros opted to keep watch as four more goblin dogs came during the nap but they weren't able to disturb Ezren's or Kyra's spell recovery. As we figure the poor horse has been through enough, we tell it to stay up in the yard while the party begins the descent.

Decluttering Day 26: A hideous mug.