A Wretched Hive of Scum and Villainy

or, Of Owlbears, Laughing Ghosts and Necromancers

We had our second Pathfinder session yesterday, and it went fairly well.  We had two new players.  Marc found out about the game through this blog, and Jesse is a friend of Greg's who was at the bookstore the last time we played, teaching another guy how to play Axis and Allies.  Marc had a Dwarf Cleric, and Jesse had an Elf Alchemist (a cool but strange class from a PF splatbook, I take it).

Our motley group returned to the mining town that is full of evil lowlifes and of course got into trouble.  Our Sorcerer Toki went to find out if our dead torchbearer (he fell down a pit trap) was really the sheriff's nephew.  He was, and the sheriff decided to shake down Toki for it.  He threatened to arrest the sorcerer if he didn't fork over 100gp.

Plato, our half-elf Thief, wanted to fence his strange black glassy rocks, and lost one to a greedy dwarf miner who he asked to appraise it.  He tried to swipe it back when the dwarf refused to return it, and earned the ire of that mining company. 

Oxide, the warforged Fighter, went to get repaired.

My Paladin, Elwood, went to see Allistan our employer, gave him copies of our maps, details of what we'd explored, handed in some historical artifacts (which he paid us for), and got our magic items identified.  That's where Allistan introduced our new cohorts, Ragnar the Dwarf and... can't remember the Elf's name, something -lad.

My Paladin took his earnings and bought some gear, and a little present for the prostitute who had shared the information he needed the night before.  She accepted the gift, and asked what I wanted.  I told her it was just a gift.  She said she had some spare time.  I took her up on her offer.  Good thing, too, otherwise I might have risked losing my abilities.

While I was carousing, everyone else decided to lay an ambush for the sheriff (who must have tons of gold if he's shaking down Toki for 100!).  They didn't want to confront him on the street, so they staked out the sheriff's office, waited until he left, and then planned to wait inside to trap or kill him, and rob him.

They couldn't get the lock open.  So they had to settle for Toki lighting the papers on his desk on fire, then running away.

We finally headed back to the Cairn, and used the colored lanterns to open the way to the real tomb.  But the next room was a trap where both my Paladin and Greg's Rogue went down to damage from the trap and a monster, and a laughing ghost told us the way was barred and only he could open the lock.  And he'd only do it if we took his bones and buried him with his family.

Of course, that wasn't simple.  We found his family's farmstead.  His family had died of a plague 30 odd years before, but their graves were freshly disturbed and empty.  And something was lurking in the farmhouse.  After another fight, we ended up with a pet owlbear cub (or is it chick?).  Oxide and Elwood want to raise it, everyone else wants to sell it.  We also found a clue as to who the grave robbers were, a local gang led by an albino half-orc named Cullen (sparkly jokes ensued).

We leveled up at this point.

Cullen and his gang were beat up from their owlbear encounter, but they outnumbered us counting their dogs, and I had a feeling they weren't a 'level appropriate' challenge, so we got the information that we needed and after a heated discussion of whether or not we should try to kill them anyway by locking them in their basement and setting it on fire (again, at risk to my Paladin status), we let them be for the time being and set off to find the necromancer they were grudgingly assisting, who had stolen the ghost's family's remains.

We ended the night by capturing the necromancer, but not without cost.  We lost our poor Alchemist whose name was too long for me to remember (I'd just been thinking of him as 'Lad until I got a chance to get used to his name).  Zombies tore his poor elven head off after he was paralyzed by a spell.

Jeremy was again surprised that my Paladin took the evil necromancer prisoner instead of slaying him.  Well, it was tactically sound.  Oxide had ran off from a fear spell, the Alchemist was dead, the Sorcerer was nauseated, the Rogue was toe-to-toe with two zombies, the Cleric with two more, and I had been hit by a wand of enervation sapping my strength.  Also, we can try to get some information from him, and if I feel his crimes merit it, we can execute him later.  Or someone else can slit his throat while I'm not there to stop them.  I'm not trying to play my Paladin in a way that will hinder everyone else, but at the same time I'm not gonna play him as some bloodthirsty unthinking ass who slays everyone he pings as evil simply because they're evil.

Besides, I think keeping him alive for now will be more fun.

The place was closing by that time, so we'll interrogate our prisoner and then bury the bones, maybe deal with the gang or maybe not, and then see if we can get more than just one more room of the dungeon explored.