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Welcome to Savage Tide (Pathfinder, Mystara)

12:23, 28th March 2024 (GMT+0)

Savage Tide (Pathfinder, Mystara)

Welcome to Sasserine, the last bastion of civilisation before the endless expanse of the  Jungle Coast. It is a hub of trade, home to more than fifteen thousand souls, a beacon of (mostly) law and order in a realm haunted by piracy, disease, violent weather, and monsters.

This is a Pathfinder game based on the Savage Tide adventure path although it draws on other sources as well. It is set in the world of Mystara which is the world created for the original D&D 1981 set.

The Cast:

Angati CG Human Dual cursed oracle 6
Celene LG Human Sorceress 6
Kassius NG Half-orc Divine Hunter 6
 & his animal companion, Kibeti N Totem guide big cat (panther) 6
Logan CG Half-elf Unchained rogue 5 / homebrew Gwynharwyf's Skillfull Blade 1

The story so far:

Logan is a half-elf rogue from Shadowshore, the poorest part of town. He is forced to accept a job from a dangerous man called Vorsh, in order to pay back the debt he owes to the neighbourhood gangster. He is to break into the Aubreck house and steel an intelligent sword. A cleric will be sent along to help and make sure he doesn't cheat.

Celene is a novice (0 level cleric) in the temple of Wee Jas, the goddess of Law. She has a dream which reveals something in from her troubled childhood that was forgotten, and when she awakes she discovers she has a new sorcerous power - she can set her bed on fire with magic flames! She contacts her mentor in the temple, who has been helping her develop her sorcerous abilities and is advised to start developing her new skills outside the temple so she can practice easier. And Celene should start by helping a young rogue from Shadowshore with retrieving an evil magic item.

Logan and Celene complete the mission and with great skill (and quite a bit of luck) manage to deliver the sword to Vorsh without being possessed. Vorsh takes it and says he is going to destroy it, but the pair aren't really convinced of it.

Angati is the youngest daughter of Worrin Lidu, the most powerful noble in Sasserine. She is afflicted with a terrible disease which means that she started aging at ten times the normal rate when she reached the age of 15. She is now 21 and looks like she is 80, although she has the physical abilities of a 50 year old. Her father has hidden her away in a shrine so that she can have a quiet life, but also not start gossip about the family. As one additional complication, Angati also had a twin sister (Anansi) who started her advanced aging when she was much younger and died when she was six. This sister remains with Angati as an invisible spirit, and alternates between playful teasing to envious disruption of her living sister. (Angati is a twice cursed oracle)

Angati wakes in the shrine on her nameday to discover that the leader of the shrine has arranged for her to accompany him out into the city to perform some sort of blessing. She is happy to have any excuse to get outside the walls of the shrine which is almost a prison to her.

Alohan Nuari is the crown prince of the rugged but idyllic Pearl Islands to the north of Sasserine. (He is a savage barbarian). He has run away from the royal palace with only his most loyal retainer, Remmi, as company. He has come to Sasserine to find a woman who will love him for whom he really is, rather than just because he will be king. In order to find this real woman he has rented a crummy apartment in Shadowshore and has started sleeping with as many ladies in town as possible.

He decides to try this thing call 'work' and therefore gets a 'job' guarding a noble lady called Amarilde Vanderboren who is getting married that day. She has been threatened by a jilted lover and Amarilde's fiancé has therefore decided to hire some extra muscle to keep an eye on her. Alohan and Remmi accompany her to a bridal boutique to pick up her wedding dress - with Alohan taking the opportunity to try and seduce her before the wedding that evening.

Meanwhile, Angati has accompanied her mentor to this same bridal shop in order to 'bless the dress'. They stumble into an on going robbery, and Angati nearly beats one thug to death with the ceremonial 'stick of knowledge' and then makes the other one jump out of a first floor window with a fear spell. She saves the cowardly tailor from being drowned in his own bath by one of the thugs, but he doesn't seem that thankful since this is actually the SECOND time that day he has been robbed. The guy from the first robbery took all his cash.

Alohan and company reach the shop at this point, and meet Celene and a cleric of Wee Jas outside. Apparently Celene and her mentor were also coming to bless the same dress today. AWKWARD! Unfortunately it becomes clear that in addition to all the cash being stolen, Amarilde's dress was also taken. She considers that the wedding will be ruined without the dress and is really angry. Angati interrogates the thug who was captured and finds out who did the first robbery. Some guy called SOLLER VARK who lives in the worst place in the worst part of town - he lives in 'Barge End' which is where ships go to die.

The party don't know much about Shadowshore, let alone Barge End (Alohan has just moved in) so Celene suggests that they pick up a friend she knows - Logan! We learn that the half-elf rogue lives with his catatonic mother in a dump in Rubble Street.

They all go to barge end and find Vark, but his girlfriend Ketrana sees the party and warns him. A chase across the flimsy boats of Barge End ensues, but the party catch up to the bad guy pretty easily thanks to a sleep spell from Celene. They force Vark to hand over the dress, but are not able to take him into custody thanks to the naturally criminal nature of the other Barge End inhabitants. Angati almost manages to collect the money that Vark stole from the tailor, but the mischievous spirit of her sister stops her picking it up in time - damn that curse!

Furthermore they find out that Vark was told to take the dress by Vanthus Vanderboren, the very man that Alohan was hired to defend Amarilde from. And both Vanthus and Vark are involved with some sort of gang called the 'Lotus Dragons'.

Nonetheless, the party return to Amarilde with her dress, and she is really happy. Everyone is invited to her wedding that night - yay! The tailor is upset that his money was not recovered as now his business is ruined, and he runs back into his shop crying, but no-one seems to care. Wedding party tonight! When Amarilde is asked about Vanthus she says that he is cute and a fun guy, but it was never going to work out between them because he is her FIRST COUSIN for goodness sakes - but he still took the breakup really poorly.

The party all go off and get ready for the party. Celene and Angati go and buy dresses together (yes, this was actually rollplayed :/ ), Alohan takes a bath and puts on body paint, and Logan finds his least raggy pair of rags to put on.

When they get to the wedding they find that it has been cancelled. Apparently two of the groomsmen saw Amarilde parting hard the night before at a tavern/brothel called 'The Mermaid's Secret', and the groom is not happy. Amarilde denies it, and calls for volunteers to go to the tavern and prove she was never there. Alohan, of course, immediately volunteers and drags the rest of the party with him. Since the party are guests of the bride, two  representatives from the grooms side are also sent.

Victor Saint-Demain styles himself as Sasserine's greatest sleuth, and promises to get to the bottom of it. Kassius is a hunter who has just returned from an expedition from the wild country to the south of Sasserine. He has an exciting story to tell about how he was hunting the biggest rust monster that has ever lived, Kogoloxen, along with his employer Penny and his animal companion. Apparently they were paid to do this by some creepy guy called 'Vorsh'.

The hunters animal companion is a strange thing - a blue eyed albino panther with weird extra teeth and peculiar budges behind its shoulder blades as though it is part displacer beast. It answers to the name 'Kibeti', but only takes orders in a strange language (Swahili).

The party get to the tavern and immediately start a bar fight with a young noble and his companions. After that is finished, the party find out that Amarilde definitely WAS at the tavern last night, she is a regular visitor and is called 'All the way Amy' by the other regulars. Investigating further, the party figure out that she was dragged into a room against her will the night before and decide to investigate. When they knock on the door it is opened by... Amarilde!

The young noble lady admits defeat and says that she paid an actress who looked like her to take her place at the wedding because she got cold feet, but now she is willing to go back and clean up the mess. The party don't really buy it, and a second later 'Amarilde' knocks them out of the way and jumps over a banister to the ground floor screaming to everybody that the party are trying to kidnap her. The party chase her and this starts... another bar brawl. Victor is seen running out of the tavern during this brawl.

During the chase it become clear that this 'Amarilde' is a changeling. Celene investigates the room and manages to open a chest, finding another Amarilde inside. This is definitely the real one who says she was kidnapped so two doppelgangers could sell her into slavery and then take turns taking her place and live the good life in Sasserine.

The changeling eventually admits this, and changes back to his true form - a one eyed doppelganger called Vrinn. He says that he and his 'life partner' Trym do this for a living, moving between cities and taking over peoples lives until they get boring. He also reveals that it was HE that Alohan had been flirting with and kissing that morning. The barbarian is really grossed out.

The party hurry back to the wedding with Amarilde and Vrinn to clean up all the misunderstandings. They find that Victor has already arrived and has killed the other doppelganger with his cane sword, and is now taking the credit for everything. Vrinn is very upset that his life partner is dead, especially since he was just trying to climb out a window and escape and would have surrendered if asked, but no-one cares. Vrinn is sentenced to a life of hard labour in the Hellfurnice Pits, everyone cheers, and then the wedding begins!

The party stay for the wedding reception and split up. Angati talks to a creepy bulimic stiltwalker who keeps going on about death and open windows. Celene starts talking to an interesting businesswoman called Rowyn Kellani, but then Alohan comes and takes all the attention because Rowyn is cute. Some in the party are a little suspicious of Rowyn because she has a tattoo of a dragon on one arm and a lotus on the other (the gang was called the 'Lotus Dragons'). Alohan handles this suspicion in the only way he knows how. He goes back to her place and has sex with her.

Angati talks to a drunk Amarilde and the noblewoman admits that she WAS at the tavern. She says her husband is boring and she just needs to go party sometimes. She also admits to having a relationship with Vanthus despite him being her cousin (this was accidental on the DM's part who forgot they were cousins for a second).

Logan sits next to an old man who turns out to be the harbourmaster of Sasserine. He is very sick and keeps coughing up bits of his lung during the meal. Otherwise uneventful. Kassius just talks to his animal companion.

All of the party are gived messages by a little old Halfling lady from Lady Lavninia Vanderborn, Amarilde's cousin (and Vanthus' older sister). Apparently she has heard of their great deeds they did that day and thinks they can help her with something similar.

The next morning the party reassembles at the Vanderboren mansion and while they are waiting in the foyer they meet the 'Jade Ravens' coming out. The Jade Ravens are the most famous adventuring party in Sasserine and apparently consider themselves to be very superior to the PC's, as they are all rude in their own ways.

The party then meet Lavinia, who recently became Lady Vanderboren when her parents died due to their 'boat exploding'. Lavinia explains that she also has a problem with Soller Vark, that rogue from barge end! He has been hired to look after one of the docks in the merchant's district and Lavinia owed anchorage fees for the 'Blue Nixie'. Lavinia paid the money, but now he denies ever receiving it! She needs the party to go down to the docks and regain possession of her boat, not least because she thinks her father's signet ring is onboard and is the 'key' to getting into the Vanderboren family vault.

The party spends some time brainstorming and discussed many ideas involving diversions, burning tarpolins, dolphins, giant centipede riding mites... but settles on hiring a boatman (Rodolfo) to take them out into the main waterway, Alohan and Logan were towed along side and then once within 100 feet they swam underwater to reach one side of the Blue Nixie. Meanwhile, the rest of the team circled around to te otherside of the boat and created a diversion by telling the guys onboard to get the 'frak' out of the main waterway. This caught the attention of two of the bad guys on the main deck, and allowed Alohan and Logan to climb aboard - except Logan slipped on the slippery rope and fall back into the water. It was game on! The party members in the gondola used spells and missile weapons to keep the three guys on top deck busy while Alohan jumped up to take them all on singlehandily in melee combat.

The next few rounds revealed just how innept Soller Vark's crew of wantabe pirates were as all of the party boarded and subdued the men - many of them got taken out by sleep or charm spells or just kicked overboard by Alohan. Things were going well, until Vark's girlfiend, a foul mouthed brat called Ketrana gave the order 'It's all frakked, burn it all!!'. Down in the hold one of the thugs started setting fire to the ship - Celene was able to see this through the grill in the top deep. The sorceress also saw the bumbling girl accidentally unlatch a catch and a hugh bug-like creature (a Rhagodessa) jump out and bite the unfortunate lady pirate in half. At the same time, Alohan headed into the hold to try and stop the fire lighting (nice example of not metagamming from Alohan's player who new what what was in the hold although his character did not).

Alohan saw something sprinting at him in the darkness and managed to almost climb back onto the main deck, but the creature pursued him and grapped him with one of its sticky 'polypalps' (sucker pads on its front legs) and lifted him up into its mouth - where it nearly cut him in half with one bite. Fortunately, the rest of the party focused their efforts on this 'rhagodessa' and took it down in one round, saving the barbarian.

The party cleans up after the battle and finds that of the pirates that didn't run away, only one is actually dead. Soller Vark himself was hit with a fear spell and jumped overboard. The stabalise the wounded and tie them all up. One is charmed and confirms the involvement of Vanthus although he doesn't know the details. Lavinia's payment of 100pp is found, along with her father's signet ring. Even better, the money that was stolen from the dressmaker the day before is also on board. Angati returns the later to the small business owner and he is very grateful.

Lavinia is also extremely happy with the result, and decides to put the party on retainer to replace the Jade Ravens. The party's next mission: accompany Lavinia to the family vault under Castle Teraknian and help her retrieve her inheritance. The party does this the next day without too much difficulty.

The next mission: track down Lavinia's spendthrift brother, Vanthus, and bring him back to the family mansion...

Module One: There is no honor...

The party tracked down Vanthus to a muddy sandbar in the lagoon called 'Parrot Island', but it's a trap. They fight through a horde of zombies but Logan dies in the final battle - most of the treasure from the adventure is spent on raising him.

The party then follow up a lead and find the location of the Dragon Lotus lair and fight through an extensive dungeon. In the final battle the cheat a bit and use an Earth Elemental to give them the edge over the opposition. The Lady Lotus turns out to be Rowyn, Alohan's former love interest. She rebuffs his offer to surrender, and escapes with a potion of gaseous form.

Interlude: War of the Wielded
The party get involved in a battle between two warring fractions of intelligence weapons and somewhat reluctantly help Vorsh with disposing of both sides.

Module Two: The battle get a free lead on Vanthus and head to a pirates lair in Kraken's Cove.