The Acts of the Lords of Rannick, XV

So last week wrapped up with Dagfinn creating a little bubble of invisibility in a battlefield full of losing.

Dagfinn, upset that his “friends” were fighting his “friends” put up Sphere of Awkwardly Coordinated Group Tactics and shrouded Torgor, Lonny and himself in invisibility. Arradin and Kerplak rushed on to engage the oversized bee and Albedon was unconscious and dying from a bajillionty bee stings. Above them all, Tenzekil conjured a Flame Blade into being as he prepared to seal their doom. On the upside, they did successfully rebuild the Faengard so that’s part one of three complete for the ritual to seal the Fellnight realm away for ever.

This was the situation that Corwin arrived to, having been separated from the group for some time. He arrived, but could not see what was going on on account of all the gloom. So he stealthed over to the wall to see what was going on.

What was going on was some crafty work by the pet raven. Dragging out a potion of Cure Let’s Face It, All Of Albedon’s Wounds, It Isn’t Like He Has Many, the raven clumsily fed it into Albedon’s bee-stung face. Technically speaking, although potions of Cure Whatever Wounds always come in potion bottles, there is only actually 1oz of liquid in a vial 2″ by 1″ in dimension. I think I tend to think of them as the blue bottles that littered the dungeons of Gauntlet. Or maybe I just project how much I’d need to drink to feel happy about something bad. Albedon’s first thoughts upon waking up were, apparently, of vengeance.

Dagfinn had started singing Dirge of Doom, making it harder for his group of “friends” to kill his group of “friends”. Lonny bellowed a Command at the Airwalking druid, causing him to fall… not 50ft to the ground… but kind of stumble in mid-air and then start descending fairly slowly.

The overgrown bee and some sharpshooting from unknown sources quickly dispatched Arradin, Kerplak and Torgor and the bee and the remaining bee swarms returned to their master for further instruction. Which put them all pretty nicely together to feel Albedon’s wrath in the form of a fireball. One bee swarm was annihilated, along with Dagfinn’s Unseen Servant and the bee took some bad fire damage.

Crucially at this time, Lonny cast Suppress Charms and Compulsions, which he had, all that time… on a list… that he’d prepared, right?. That freed Dagfinn up to realise that those “friends” were really enemies and those other “friends” were really acquaintances. Tenzekil descended, calling forth strokes of lightning and preparing himself for combat… which went really, really quickly.

Corwin having approached from the west to the Faengard’s boundary started throwing his magical spear at Tenzekil, to very little effect. This was not a banner night for Rolland’s dice. However, after softening up Tenzekil with more spells and dispatching the desperate bee Lonny smote Tenzekil with the full power of Torag’s ire. Presumably Torag was annoyed that Tenzekil had put a hole in the faengard wall… somebody took the time to build that you know!… because that ire was mighty and slew Tenzekil. The bitter gnome’s body fell beside his beloved companion’s. The remainder of his swarm of bees flew off to level up at a bee monastery and learn to avenge their master’s death.

Dagfinn and Lonny rushed over to their fallen comrades, only to find Kerplak missing and Arradin and Torgor’s weapons gone.

Albedon and Corwin, meanwhile, searched Tenzekil’s body. They found some money, a magical pearl, some +1 Studded Leather, a +1 Buckler, a masterwork club, a scroll of Anti-Plant Shell, a scroll of Neutralize Poison, but absolutely best of all a Handy Haversack.  It’s like a Bag of Holding with a butler inside.

Pressing on, it was time to make their way to Rhoswen’s castle. After Corwin led them on some time-consuming detours, they eventually made their way to the gates of the castle. By this time the charm suppression had worn off and Arradin and Torgor were badly disoriented, not knowing where they were or what they were doing there. I can’t remember what was finally decided, I think they maybe tied them up outside with a bowl of water.

The castle istelf is a large stucture seemingly made from a living plant. It is covered in spines and bristles and the towers are bulbous, like thistle heads. Dagfinn tried climbing it, but found it too spiky to safely try.

Anyway, with Corwin on point, they advanced into the courtyard of Rhoswen’s castle. The walls of the courtyard were spine-covered and the courtyard contained a statue of Rhoswen, water flowing from its hands into a small pool below. As Corwin crossed the courtyard to the main doors, four neatly trimmed bushes unfolded to reveal topiary gargoyles. Yup. Topiary gargoyles.

There then followed a fight in close quarters that saw Albedon whittle them away with rays of frost; Lonny, pick them to death; Corwin slash at them with his longsword without much luck and Dagfinn critical the crap out of them. I’m not sure how one is “Dazed” by a rapier, unless the rapier pierces the part of your brain responsible for keeping your shit together. I’ll assume that the gargoyles were so astonished by Dagfinn’s competent lunges that they could barely comprehend their inevitable doom.

Corwin started earning his money when they proceeded to the large entrance hall, however, because as the lead, he skipped out of the way as the floor disappeared beneath him. The pit that was revealed could have swallowed the rest of the party, but for some sharp footwork on his part. Taking the most direct route towards the castle’s large tower, they opened a set of double doors onto a large circular room. Choked with sickly looking vines, the large room was empty, with numerous doors leading from it. As they entered, they heard a woman sobbing and a moment later a distraught figure in a dark green dress descended the curving staircase opposite them. Corwin moved stealthily through the dangling vines and lashed his spear towards the weeping elf woman, since she bore a resemblence to the Rhoswen who had visited their nightmare and also because Corwin attended the Chris Brown Academy of Dealing with Upset Women. His spear sailed straight and through her, yet she continued walking to no effect; an illusion, again.

So that’s where they are, standing in a vine choked ballroom, in a castle made out of a thistlehead of enormous proportions, throwing thing at imaginary women.

4 Comments on “The Acts of the Lords of Rannick, XV

  1. You’re right. Lonny should have used that Supress Charm thing earlier, but I saved it because I was thinking of it as kind of a combat spell.

    Lonny should just start taking Paladin levels. My life would be a lot simpler if my job involved more headcracking.

  2. I kind of went back and forward in my head about that spell, since it comes from the non-core, but still Paizo rules.

    At first I thought that we should keep everything Core and none of the supplemental stuff. But with a bit more thought I realised that I have no reason to suspect Paizo of unbalancing their game with supplements – a) they pretty rigorously playtest everything, b) I think their running competition with WOTC actually helps keep their game additions pretty tight, but most importantly c) I think added stuff that isn’t in the core rules actually helps flesh out their world a bit.

    That spell is from the Andoran supplement, since the goal of Andoran is to cast off oppression in favour of freedom of choice and self-determination which charms certainly don’t allow. See? I think that’s a cool little bit of flavour. Torag’s divine enemy is Droskar, the Dwarven god of toil and slavery, so that kind of fits in.

    Maybe no one else cares but setting specific stuff (which they obviously can’t add too much of in the Core rulebook) is neat. Those lizard-skulls-made-into-stabbing bucklers that the Shoanti use – dumb, yes, but flavourful. Ogre hooks, Varisian scarves, Low Templar prestige classes, I like all that stuff. They aren’t just rules additions for the sake of it or just because someone thought up a super kewl spell, they’re always tied into the setting somehow.

    So, in essence, what I decided was for spells/equipment/prestige classes
    Core: Yes
    Paizo Supplements: Yes
    Third party stuff: No.

  3. Supplement-specific content is a problem I didn’t realize my spell-list app has. As far as I knew it was a core spell because the lists in the app don’t identify anything that way. I can tell you which level of which kinds of caster a spell applies to, but it doesn’t say anything to identify where the spell comes from rulebook-wise. As I leaf through things it looks like it only includes Paizo spells, so that’s lucky.

    Also it’s just sort of a weird spell. Once I realized currently-charmed people don’t get a save every turn I figure the 4+ bonus on saves was pointless, forgetting that it actually suppressed currently active stuff.

    I really do need to spend more time studying this shit. Having it on my phone doesn’t seem to make me any smarter.

  4. It does – when you showed me that spell, it had a yellow bar at the bottom that said Andoran: Blah blah.

    That may not be useful if you are choosing spells from a list, but I’m pretty certain it displays the source in the spell text.

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