Geek Related

Twelfth Session (13 page pdf) – “Vale of Tears” – The pirates reach the Vale of Karpad in Nidal, to find a plague, racism, and intrigue.

Well so there’s a faeskin leather boutique in Nisroch because there’s lots of fae here in Nidal.  And since it’s Nidal it’s mostly evil ones. When the PCs went to bury their loot in the nearby forest they got the attention of some redcaps, who followed their convenient trail of body parts back to their camp at night and are now trying to overrun them.

Redcaps have a move of 60 and Spring Attack. In tall grass at night, that’s a good combination – they would just run in, kick someone with their iron boots, and run off again. The PCs were firing area damage spells out into the darkness to try to get them, however their fast healing 3 takes care of the damage they take pretty quickly.

It’s actually going pretty badly for our heroes for once, but then they see that Wogan is wearing redcap boots! (Purchased at Boutique Zeleve back in the city.) Oh, they all go fucknuts and rush the portly cleric all at once. While this is very painful for Wogan, the rest of the party can then focus their attacks on the creatures, so after a long slog they overcome them all.

And then they get to Karpad!  To meet a mixup of several published adventures. It’s primarily the plotline of the adventure The Midnight Mirror, but with Wogan being actually related to Anya, and U1 Gallery of Evil, but with a lot of mixing-up and enhancing by me.

Everyone who got a piece of the glyph-plaque that K’Stallo the serpentman was using to try to open a gate to the Plane of Shadow back in our earlier season has been hounded by shadows, tempted by them to join the shadows, etc. The PCs have killed everything that’s come after them but others haven’t been so lucky. One of the Riddleport gendarmes with a glyph made it this far, but went artist-crazy and turned into a shadowy lurker.  (IMO the #1 trick to using published adventures is search/replacing to give the PCs deep and direct links into them instead of relying on generosity or greed).

The PCs ride into this and, having gotten used to Nidalese culture, disrupt the lynching of some fetchlings (half-shadow people) with the compelling argument that “we should torture them instead!” They manage to break it up and get introduced to the major plot threads.

Many locals drift into the Weeping Willow Inn for a drink. Racism makes a man thirsty.

Speaking of racism, the locals are all super pale and the appearance of Sindawe (a black Mwangi) is of some concern, with it clearly being either a skin condition or him being a horrible shadow creature, of which there are many in Nidal. I drew on real life from this, when my Mexican stepmother went to visit her new parents-in-law in rural Amish-country Pennsylvania, and they didn’t know what to make of her (and this is in 1990, not ancient history).

Besides that, they get to know the locals and fill up on rumors at the inn.

Wogan asks, “Do you think the baker murdered her and baked her into pies?”
Amara seems unhappy with the question. “I’ve had one of his pies.”

And since they’re his buddies, the other PCs sic the local hooker onto the celibate Wogan just to see him squirm.

Eleventh Session (9 page pdf) – “Heart of Darkness” – A chance encounter with a pair of Nidalese shadowcallers chasing some tiefling fugitives goes bad. Shallow graves are dug…

I put a lot of color work into the travel in Nidal.  Some folks always want to skip over travel in games, claiming “it’s boring.” These are largely people who don’t travel but live on their couch, I assume.  (See also: Making Wilderness Travel Matter).

Nidal is a spooky ass place.  I did my research – they have a section in the Inner Sea World Guide; there’s a whole section on Nisroch in Cities of Golarion (with sidebar: Favorite Torture Methods), and there’s a novel called Nightglass about a fledgling shadowcaller growing up in Nidal.  Then, I just kept my eyes open for coll stuff in the couple months leading up – like the mostly-underground inn they stayed in was based on a real one that was shown in a Web article… On Cracked maybe? I forget. Anyway, I had a page full of possible stuff to pull from by the time they were well into Nidal.

Even weird little details like what their main lumber exports are (darkwood and strangletrees) interested the players enough to ask around, consider buying some, etc. A deeply detailed game world generates its own rewards in player engagement.

It all goes OK till they come between some escaped slaves and some shadowcallers.  They don’t help them (much) but they fold under shadowcaller interrogation – the two shadowcallers are just doing standard cop-bullying but the second one of them says they might “confiscate” one of their weapons it’s murder time.

It’s a lively fight, shadowcallers are like Nidal’s Texas Rangers and they’re no joke.  They are finally overcome, and the PCs kill their captured slaves to ensure there’s no witnesses.  They know they are in a land that makes pre-war Iraq seem like Disneyland, and they’ll be tortured to death just on a whiff of suspicion. Most of the rest of the session is spent carefully covering up their crime. Bodies are buried deep. Jaws and hands are removed. Prestidigitation is used to clean up all blood traces. All the shadowcallers’ loot is bagged, ridden to a nearby forest, and buried – it’s too tempting to get rid of, but too dangerous to keep on hand. Jaws and hands are tossed into the tall grass along the way.

So that evening it’s pretty disturbing when there’s rustling out in the grass and the pieces of shadowcaller they distributed across the countryside start being tossed into their firelight…

Tenth Session (13 page pdf) – “Fat Ghoul Brings Bad Luck” – The PCs head into mainland Nidal to seek out Wogan’s sister.  The trip starts out well but is disrupted by a whole mess of ghouls – and an undead Hellknight!

Serpent, Samaritha, Wogan, Sindawe, and Hatshepsut are on a riverboat up the Usk to go to Karpad. Tommy, Lil, Slasher Jim, Kahina, Olgvik, and Dum-dum are left in Nisroch to sell loot. Mase Venjum takes the rest of the crew out a-pirating.

But first it’s back to the fey-skin bondage clothing shop.

The escort uses a large black leather umbrella to keep the rain off the small group.
Wogan refuses the cover, choosing to bask in Gozreh’s glory.
From beneath the cover Lil says, “We will be trying on leather clothes. Are you sure being damp is a good idea?”
Wogan joins Lil beneath the cover.

The PCs also negotiate an alliance with Captain Clap, and tell him about White Estrid’s impending (second) sack of Nisroch. He elects not to tell the Nidalese because “they are all scumbags and I’d love to see this place burn. After I get my letter of marque from them of course.”

Alviana

On the trip to Karpad are two VIP NPCs – Velenne (from the Pathfinder novel set in Nidal, Nightglass) and Alvianna Shadowsworn, an albino glaring druid much like Serpent, who is the representative Nidalese from the NPC Guide. They get to observe quaint Nidalese customs like rounding up the sick and infirm into big metal wagons to be carted off for a “culling.”

Then a fun nighttime encounter – a single fat ghoul fishing in the river. This alarms the PCs, with good reason because they are set upon both by aqua-ghouls and by some undead Hellknight thing riding on top of the river. (This is tied into local lore, the Hellknight Order of the Crux was burned inside their citadel and three graveknights arose from the ruins.)  The ghouls (and fat ghoul!) give them a run for their money; the graveknight just does spell support and leaves when they manage to overcome the mooks.  A nice complicated fight that lasts a while. And that’s it for this one, except for the ghoul fever!

Ninth Session (13 page pdf) – “Maw of Shadows” – The Araska docks in Nisroch and is treated to the horrors of Nidal first hand, from the sadistic to the sartorial. Luckily, there’s one friendly face there waiting for them!

Pretty much the place sucks and everything’s illegal and the economy and religion are mostly torture-based. The pirates get restless.

After the cenobite has rowed out of shouting range, the pirates find their courage and complain bitterly. They were unhappy about being in Nidal. They are more so after listening to the long list of laws or “death laws” as the crew starts to call them.
Wogan is unhappy to hear that Gozreh is unwelcome here. He shakes his head, “Everyone needs a sea god. Otherwise, you’ll drown, get lost at sea, or have your head blown off by an angry drunk man.”

The whole place is damp black basalt and metal pilings with skull designs and chains and blank-eyed town guards and children with their mouths sewn shut. But, they get a message from old buddy Thalios Dondrel, son of Mordekai of the Wandering Dagger!

Through the freezing rain in dark streets to the “Glutton Gallows…” Thalios welcomes them and gives them the pirate low-down.  The Nidalese have started accepting and even courting pirates berthing in Nisroch for their own fell purposes.

The captain evaluates the likely lifespan of his crew if they stay in Nisroch long and decides the answer is “short and tortured.” He has a small crew stay in town to sell stuff and has Mase take the Araska offshore while the command crew goes inland to find Wogan’s sister.

Then they partake of some of Nidal’s charms, which are largely off-putting, except for some bizarre reason they become very enchanted with the Boutique Zeleve, which makes fae-skin bondage wear of all descriptions. I know PCs love shopping but I wasn’t expecting to spend like an hour with them getting fitted for nymph-skin genital bindings.

And then Thalios sets them up with a local fixer who arranges for transport – as safe as it gets in this combination of Hellraiser and Nazi Germany (the similarity to Ünderland from the Venture Brothers is remarked upon).