Carrion Crown Chapter 2, Trial of the Beast, Session 3

We continue with Trial of the Beast, the second chapter of the Carrion Crown Adventure Path. Sorry if the session summary’s a bit briefer than usual; I found out I was doing it late and only had Evernote on the iPad to do it with, impeding my typing speed (swapping attention between gaming and the summary is hard enough when you’re not having to hunt-and-peck).

Third Session (9 page pdf) – We’re making headway on the Beast’s defense, and investigating a ghast-filled ruined lab gives us the clues we need to go confront some serial killers in their super dangerous lair! Now if we just weren’t our own worst enemies…

We scamper out of town quickly to get some investigation done before the mob violence hits. We cleanse a lab of ghasts and are quickly led to an alchemist’s factory in Lepidstadt, Vorkstag & Grimes, which operates with an unknown workforce “Willy Wonka” style.

Just an aside.  This happened with the skinsaw cult lumber mill in Rise of the Runelords too – how the hell do you run a business when everyone is a monstrous freak who attacks everyone else on sight? That’s not a sustainable business model! I mean, they have to sell shit, don’t they? And deliver it? And buy supplies? “Notes with gold attached” only goes so far – there’s literally not a person in this place that can show their face in polite society.  Anyway.

We totally lucked out on this one – the very first room we break into is the mother lode of Buffalo Bill style people skins and Beast costumes!  Vladimir wanted to just ‘go take it all to the cops’ but I pointed out that “here’s some evidence we found somewhere, and removed, trust us” is not usually well regarded in law enforcement circles.

And then we get to fight the alchemists – eek!

So that was pretty messed up. “HI I’M THE SKINLESS MAN!” Well, I had a trick for him – Sredni Vashtar’s Girl just learned Vomit Swarm from her little evil hell-weasel and she used it on them – much to the rest of the group’s chagrin. Vladimir couldn’t resist running into the swarm, of course. The skinless man tried to get away and went to climb down a ladder into a three story room full of acid vats – Girl was like “slumber hex!” and he fell three stories. But not into a vat, which was actually OK with me because I wanted him alive for arresting purposes; live freaks are better than corpses for getting the Beast off the hook.

I had Sredni Vashtar get more hands-on this time – he went down to bite the skinless man and delivered a Cure Moderate touch attack to kill an undead in the last fight. It’s hard to bring their abusive-relationship dynamic to life in game as much as I’d like (without going over the top) so I’m experimenting with it.

Then we wandered the freaky factory – we sent Vladimir to go get help from the authorities since he’s the fastest, and then we start searching rooms and we find him in one of the rooms poking around!  I was kinda pissed. Just say “no, I want to be here for the looting,” don’t lie to us… That’s dangerous. You can “be evil” all you want but when your dicking around endangers me, that’s when you get put on the optional-to-save list.

I reckon the end of the trial’s next time, then I suspect we need to go waste Doctor Frankenstein out in the swamps.