TOPIC: Sunday Gamers: Andrek runs Carrion Crown

Carrion Crown / Wake of the Watcher (Part 6a) – 08/03/2015

Hargr returns from his impromptu bath dripping wet and fearsome angry. His beard is tangled with slimy weeds and a boggle-eyed frog sits atop his head [“ribbet”].

“Did you remember to wash behind your ears?” Van Hellsqueak teases. Thorne rugby tackles his soggy kinsman before he can get his hands around the halfling’s throat.

Rafe cocks his head to one side, listening intently.

“Hush – did you hear that?” he asks, “It sounded like a baby crying. Follow me!”

The sound leads to the door of an unfurnished chamber, beyond which two zealots of the Recondite Order struggle ineffectually to quieten a squalling infant. Hargr barrels into the room, swinging his axe in a ruinous arc! The cultist holding the baby shrieks and throws the child at the murderous dwarf. Caught by surprise, Hargr drops his weapon and catches the baby. It giggles adorably and tugs on his beard. The dwarven berserker feels the crusty scabs around his heart begin to soften.

With Hargr indisposed, it falls to Thorne to take out the trash. The dwarven druid transforms into a megaloceros (which sounds a lot cooler than it actually is), with antlers stretching over ten feet across! Elk-Thorne thunders into the fray, dipping his horns and propelling one of the cultists through a window. Van Hellsqueak leans past the broken glass and unloads his crossbow into the dazed zealot (he doesn’t get back up). The second cultist tries to flee! He reaches for the door - then screams as one of Rafe’s arrows pins his hand to the wood. The next arrow catches him in the neck.

The heroes look from the cultists to Hargr, who seems more interested in pulling funny faces at the Tulby girl than looting the dead.

“Hargr… are you feeling ok?” Rafe asks hesitantly.

“I’m feeling… pretty good!” Hargr admits, “I think I’ve had an epiphany. All that treasure we’ve got stashed in the wagon, well… it’s just shiny metal, ain’t it? This right here, this wee lass we’ve saved, now this is worth something so much more. I feel like my life has a new purpose. I’m gonna’ name her Skullbreaker, after my first axe.”

“You understand that you can’t keep her, right?” Rafe said, “We promised her parents that we would save her from the cult.”

“We have saved her,” Hargr replied, “I don’t recall anyone saying what we would do with her once she got saved. Way I see it, her parents gave her up to some horrible fish god and we – specifically I – got her back, so now she belongs to me. Spoils of war and all that.”

“He can’t be any worse than her actual parents,” Van Hellsqueak agrees, “Plus, Skullbreaker is a really catchy name for a girl. Does this mean I’m an uncle now?”

Elk-Thorne rolls his eyes.

“Right. Whatever. We’ll sort this mess out later.” Rafe sighs, “We still have to clear the second floor.”

“You three go ahead,” Hargr said, “Now that I’m a responsible parent, I can’t be dragging little Skullbreaker into dangerous situations. I’ll stay here until you get back.”

“You’ve got to be joking, you’re our damage sponge!” Rafe protests – but Hargr isn’t listening. He lifts his chainmail vest and begins coaxing baby Skullbreaker to latch onto a hairy nipple.

“Urgh, I’m going to be sick!” Van Hellsqueak stumbles from the room. The sound of retching can be heard from the corridor.

To be continued (in Part 2)….

Carrion Crown / Wake of the Watcher (Part 6b) – 08/03/2015

Rafe, Elk-Thorne and Van Hellsqueak head upstairs. The steps are rotten and silver with age, yet they grudgingly bear the heroes’ weight. There is only one door leading off the balcony and Van Hellsqueak presses his ear against it.

“Someone is having a good old rummage around in there,” he reports to the others.

“I wonder what they could be looking for?” Rafe ponders.

“Let’s find out together!” Van Hellsqueak suggests, opening the door.

An unsightly fellow with a scaly complexion and elaborate headdress turns to face the party as they enter. His vestments mark him as a high priest of the Recondite Order.

“Albor Voltiaro, I assume?” Rafe guesses, “Prepare to be excommunicated – with extreme prejudice!”

Elk-Thorne charges the cult leader, but Voltiaro extends his clammy fingers and delivers a devastating touch effect! Necrotic energy crackles through the druid’s body, returning him to his normal shape. Voltiaro reaches for the helpless dwarf, but is knocked backwards as three iron bolts blossom in his chest. The high priest falls to his knees, gurgling bloody foam.

“Well, that was deceptively anticlimactic.” Van Hellsqueak observes, lowering his crossbow, “I expected him to be more of a - ”

Voltiaro’s head explodes outward in gruesome fashion as a writhing mass of tentacles erupts from his neck (just like the Los Plagos in Resident Evil 4!).

“ – challenge…. Oh.”

The spawning canker wraps its tentacles around Rafe’s head, tearing off half his face and significantly reducing his charisma.

“Haha! My most infrequently rolled attribute!” Rafe chuckles, “Faces are overrated anyway.”

Van Hellsqueak takes a step back. He would rather preserve his boyish good looks. He and Rafe continue to pelt the cosmic horror until it eventually dies. Upon doing so, the canker dissolves into a dozen individual slugspawn (the leech-like creatures from the swamp) and attack! Realising that Thorne is still unconscious and unable to defend himself, Van Hellsqueak leaps across the room to protect the helpless druid. One of the slugspawn latches onto his neck and begins burrowing into his brain.

“Agghh! I immediately regret this decision!” the halfling wails.

“Don’t worry, I’ll cut it out!” Rafe says, brandishing his dagger “There you go!”

“That’s my f***ing ear!”

“Oh! Sorry about that!”

“Bastard! Give me the knife! Ah, no time! I’ve got a better idea!”

Van Hellsqueak presses his crossbow to his temple and pulls the trigger. The bolt punches a hole in his skull, impales the slugpawn and pins it to the opposite wall. The halfling collapses onto his back, blood pooling around the ragged exit wound in his head.

Rafe prods Thorne with his toe until the dwarf rouses.

“Sort that out, won’t you?” he says, indicating the twitching halfling, “Nothing a few Cure Moderate Wounds won’t fix.”

To be continued….

Carrion Crown / Wake of the Watcher (Part 7) – 15/03/2015

The heroes continue their exploration of Undiomede House, which seems to have been populated exclusively with monsters lifted from the twisted imagination of H.P Lovecraft. It’s a good job that the players will never be privy to the majority of background information that (barely) holds the plot together, which is as weak as the glue Paizo used to bind the actual book.

In a musty drawing room overlooking the lake, Rafe spots a finely crafted, hickory desk and suddenly transforms into David Dickinson.

“This could be worth a few bob at auction,” he tells the others enthusiastically, “A few coats of varnish and she’ll be as good as new.”

He begins checking the drawers and recoils as a cloud of mustard coloured spores explodes in his face. The rest of the heroes withdraw until the air clears. Beyond the drawing room is the master bedroom, dominated by a sagging four-poster bed. Someone has carved the words; ‘The Pact ends here, father!’ into the headboard. Rafe is furious – but perhaps it can still be restored to its original majesty?

‘Forget Rapid Shot - I’ll pick up a few skill ranks in Profession [Carpentry] when we next level up,’ he decides.

Suddenly, a pair of unspeakable hounds appear in the corners of the room, snapping and slathering. Hargr feels his sanity beginning to unravel like an old cardigan. As if that wasn’t enough to worry about, one of the hounds fixes the dwarf with its rending gaze! Hargr resists the effect and his body does not turn itself inside out. Van Hellsqueak recalls that his own will save isn’t great (or even particularly good) and dives under the bed, rather than be subjected to the second hounds’ frightful stare. Meanwhile, Thorne gathers his druidic magic and summons a manticore into the mix. The master bedroom has not seen this much action in years! The two hounds pop out of existence as abruptly as they first appeared, back to the pages of whichever short story they were stolen from.

Beneath the bed, Van Hellsqueak finds a hefty tome bound in smooth, grey sharkskin. He drags it out and flips through the crusty pages. The book is written in an alien language that the halfling cannot comprehend, yet the unrecognisable letters seem to cavort across his vision, etching themselves into his eye sockets. Van Hellsqueak slams the book closed and stows it in his pack. Perhaps it can be used to balance a wobbly table when he eventually returns to his dear old hobbit hole.

Stairs ascend from the first floor to the roof of the house. Rafe shields his eyes against the sickly glare of the sun and spots something flapping around overhead. Something BIG! As the creature swoops towards the party, they all get a closer look at it. It looks as though someone has taken the aspects of a horse, a bat and a dragon and mixed them all together into yet another ridiculous Pathfinder monster. The GM reliably informs us that it is a Shantak. Thorne summons a trio of teranadons to harass the winged abomination. The beast absorbs a lot of missile fire on its approach and by the time it arrives it is having second thoughts about attacking at all. It grapples Van Hellsqueak in its talons and scoops the diminutive fighter off the roof!

“How high are we?” his player asks, after consulting the rules for falling.

“You’re about 50ft off the ground,” the GM answers.

“I can survive that! I shoot the Shantak in the heart.”

The Shantak squawks as three crossbow bolts bugger up its circulatory system. Van Hellsqueak slips from its clutches and plummets towards the marshy ground, which rushes up to meet him with bone-fracturing force (specifically, the bones in his legs). The halfling chuckles as he crawls back towards the house, dragging his shattered limbs behind him. Meanwhile, the dead Shantak lands in the lake, causing a huge wave of filthy water to break against the mansion’s façade.

“Cure Moderate Wounds, please.” Van Hellsqueak requests, indicating his mangled legs.

“I’m sorry, I used up all my spells summoning those three teranadons,” Thorne apologises.

While the dwarven druid splints the halfling’s legs, Rafe and Hargr debate putting Undiomede House to the torch and pissing over the ashes. The GM does not like this train of thought and sends us back inside looking for slugs. Their slimy tracks lead the party to a hidden phase door that they had previously overlooked, activated by messing with the ominous menhirs in the main hall. Passing through the portal deposits the heroes in a dank cave system beneath the mansion.

To be continued….

Hi

The Hound Creatures are called "Hounds of Tyndalos". They appear in the story unsurprisingly called "The Hounds of Tyndalos" by Frank Belknap Long. He also created "Chaugnar Faugn" (Ganesha Gone Bad, - Very Bad). Its a mediocre story, they won't be wanting to go back there!

Carrion Crown / Wake of the Watcher (Part Eight) – 22/03/2015

The caves beneath Undiomede House are dank and briny. An oily, black liquid trickles down the walls, pooling in inky puddles on the pitted floor. A flight of crude steps descend further into the earth, terminating in a wide, natural cavern. The desiccated body of an old man floats in a tall, glass cylinder, pickled in a murky brew of alchemical preservatives. Van Hellsqueak taps on the glass and Rafe swats him round the ear. To our great surprise, the corpse in the tank does NOT animate and attack!

“Are you sure this is a Pathfinder adventure?” we ask the GM suspiciously. He assures us that is is.

Thorne notices a familial similarity between the bugger in the jar and the portraits upstairs. He concludes that this unfortunate fellow must be Cassius Undiomede, the pirate who founded the town of Illmarsh and hashed out the blasphemous pact with the Neighbours.

There are two exits from the cavern; from the first originates the sound of croaky chanting, from the second wafts a truly horrible stench.

“When in doubt, always follow your nose.” Gandalf says – but this isn’t The Lord of the Rings and Gandalf isn’t here, so we pick the noisy tunnel instead.

The party enter another natural cavern occupied by a half dozen skum and their bigger, meaner broodchief! Hargr spots the magical greataxe being brandished by the broodchief and begins to salivate into his beard. The dwarven warrior charges, but gets bogged downed amongst the mooks. The skum dogpile on top of him.

Meanwhile, Thorne transforms into a velociraptor and pounces into the fray. Rafe and Van Hellsqueak focus their fire on the hulking broodchief. The brute collapses, riddled with arrows and his enchanted axe slides across the floor of the cavern, leaving a trail of magical sparks. It comes to rest within reach of the skum piled atop Hargr. A hairy arm extends from beneath the heap and gropes blindly for the weapon. His fingertips touch the handle and he has it! Dismembered limbs fill the foetid air like confetti, as the dwarven berserker spins the axe in a whirlwind of gleeful destruction!

The heroes continue to explore the unnecessary dungeon. Everyone except Van Hellsqueak begins to feel lethargic. The party discover a sinister nursery, where children fostered with the Neighbours would have been kept. There are no infants here at present, although a haunting lullaby rises from a hole in centre of the room. Van Hellsqueak peeks over the edge of the pit. A naked, glowing woman is huddled at the bottom of the rough shaft, rocking back and forth as she cradles the withered, grey husk of a dead child. She is mad as a spoon, the party leave her wallowing in grief and forge ahead.

Suddenly, a HUGE fluorescent marshmallow-thing floats into view! It lashes out with a phosphorous pseudopod, draining the colour and vitality from those that it strikes! Thorne presses his hands against the wall and moulds the very bedrock into a barrier. The radioactive marshmallow monster simply floats over the top and presses the attack.

Eventually, the party kill it. It does not have any treasure.

On their way out of the caves, the heroes check out the stinky tunnel that they avoided earlier. A shambling mound infested with yellow mould rises from a cesspit and attacks. Thorne transforms into a stegosaurus and puts the smackdown on it.

To be continued….

Carrion Crown / Wake of the Watcher (Part 9) – 30/03/2015

Having exhausted their patience with the inhospitable tunnels beneath Undiomede House, the heroes return to Illmarsh to report their success to Mayor Greedle and claim their reward.

But Mayor Greedle is nowhere to be found….

The mayor’s assistant cannot shed any light on the mystery and the sheriff seems unperturbed by the disappearance. Rafe is of the opinion that the duplicitous official has skipped town with their reward money, but Thorne is not so sure. Searching the mayor’s residence, the dwarven druid finds evidence of a struggle. Hargr and Van Hellsqueak find a barrel of Illmarsh’s Special Brew in the basement (fermented from hallucinogenic fungi that grow in the swamp) and get their drink on. While they are spacing out, Rafe and Thorne continue the investigation.

Thorne spots a light in the window of Professor Croon’s laboratory. After some prompting from the GM, he decides to visit the crazy old man. Over tea and crumpets, Thorne explains all about the party’s shocking revelations at Undiomede House. Croon is mortified and eager to help the heroes sever the town’s Pact with the Neighbours. He offers to let the party borrow his prototype submarine/bathysphere to reach the skum’s aquatic demesne beneath Turn Rock. It’s a bit of a squeeze to fit everyone into the cramped interior of the machine and the experience is made even worse by Hargr’s less than sterling standards of personal hygiene. Croon will circulate the air within the machine by operating a pump mechanism on the surface. The professor seals the hatch and begins lowering the submersible into the dark water.

Van Hellsqueak presses his nose against the porthole and stares into the murky water beyond the glass. He notices a school of (apparently freshwater) sharks circling the bathysphere. The sharks begin battering the metal exterior of the machine. Deeming this intolerable, Thorne transforms into a giant octopus and lets himself out. Whilst grappling with the sharks, he spots another creature observing the battle from the muddy lakebed.

Thorne communicates this fact to the others via a complex series of gestures with his long, rubbery tentacles. Hargr jams his Helm of Swimming atop his head, secures the chinstraps and jumps into the water. He immediately begins sinking towards the bottom of the lake and the mystery beastie lurking there. Thorne casts Life Bubble on Rafe and Van Hellsqueak so they can endure the crushing pressure of the deep, then they too leave the (dubious) security of the submersible. As the heroes descend, the creature bursts from the mud and weeds and jets towards thEm with alarming speed, an inky trail of black ichor staining the water in its wake. It looks much like a squid – only much larger. Bloodshot eyes burn with infernal malevolence.

“Devilfish!” Rafe cries in alarm, his voice muffled by the life bubble enclosing his head.

Rafe’s concern is well founded. A spiny tentacle lashes out and entwines about his midsection. Before anyone can react, the devil fish jets away, taking the arcane archer with it!

Van Hellsqueak begins paddling after the escaping abomination, but it’s painfully clear he will never catch it on his own. Likewise, Hargr trudges along the lakebed with all the impetus of a hamstrung cow. Thorne snatches them both up in his tentacles and jets after the devilfish. As he closes in on his prey, Thorne draws back the tentacle gripping Hargr and lines up his shot.

“What d’you think you’re doing?” Hargr demands, as realisation dawns, “Wait! NOBODY TOSSES A DWAR -!”

Thorne tosses a dwarf. Straight at the devilfish. Hargr slices through the tentacle holding Rafe then buries his axe in the devilfish’s bulbous head. The monstrous squid thrashes and prepares to run – only to be grappled by Thorne! Unable to escape, the devilfish is soon reduced to sushi by Hargr’s magical battleaxe.

To be continued….