Year of the Dragon Begins!

It's the Chinese New Year today. Happy Year of the Gold Dragon, everyone!

Yesterday, we had a marathon session of Brian's Pathfinder game. Lots of stuff happened, some good, some bad. It was a lot of fun and I'm looking forward to the next game in two weeks.

As for the players/cast, Robbie was sick so he couldn't make it, leaving us without Toki the Sorcerer and his meddlesome ways. Marc, who had played Ragnar the Dwarf Cleric for one session, seems to have dropped out (Marc, if you're reading this, and you're still interested, of course you're still welcome to play - but as you'll read below, you'll need to roll up a new character if you do!). We were joined by Dean, who will also be playing in Adam's upcoming Birthright game. Brian and Jesse quickly rolled up a Cleric of Wee Jas for Dean to run, since the whole mission is to help out the death cultists fighting the undead. Dean named his PC Brother Repose, and played him as an oddball ascetic who could cast some spells, but not do much fighting.

Jeremy is still playing Oxide the reckless and vicious Warforged Fighter. Greg started out playing Plato the Half-Elf Rogue, but for in-character reasons sent Plato off mid-game and switched to his backup, a Half-Orc Cleric of Olidamara named "Red." Jesse continues to play his Half-Orc Alchemist Zesser.  I'm still playing Elwood the Human Paladin (and still skirting those pesky alignment issues in the hopes that I can do some good).

SPOILER ALERT!!!
If you plan on playing through the Age of Wyrms Adventure Path, spoilers will follow.

So we started the session with a long tactical discussion of how to take on Kullen (it's spelled with a K, apparently) and his goons.  When we finally got down there, Kullen wasn't around but his lackeys were.  We actually got the information we needed without a fight, but Jeremy had Oxide stick around discussing potential employment with them while the rest went out.  Then Oxide started a fight, just as Elwood and Zesser returned to drag him out again.  Turns out the thugs weren't nearly as tough as we'd thought they would be.  We killed two, captured the other and looted them for masterwork weapons, some potions, and a couple of other minor magic items.

At Allustan's house, we met our new companions Red and Brother Repose, and got the loot identified.  We decided that we didn't need Filge (another mis-spelling corrected!) the Necromancer, since we'd need to go knocking on the door of Balabar, the town's big boss to get him.  So we headed out to the graveyard and met with the Wee Jas priests.  They'd been ambushed by both the worm zombies and some creatures in the darkness shooting black, poisoned arrows.  Zesser ID'd the poison as a Drow sleep toxin.  The high Priestess asked us to try to find the source of the zombies, and prevent any more attacks.  We also learned that fire seemed to stop the worms from spreading, so we decided to head back to town to stock up on oil, alchemist's fire, and such before heading to the Dwarven mines of Dourstone, where Filge had told us he'd gotten the worm he was investigating.

We were ambushed by kenku on the way, but killed some and routed the rest.  They were using black poisoned arrows.

In town, all Hell broke loose, as zombies were attacking along the docks.  We spent some time helping the town guards hold them off until Allustan and the local Paladin arrived with more reinforcements.  During the battle, Murlynd showed his displeasure with Elwood's behavior when I tried to activate the section of the Staff of Law (Rod of 7 Parts part 1) to aid us.  I blew myself up again.  Such is life.  I also got a worm infection, but managed to get it out with a Heal check before it got too far toward my brain.  Allustan berated us for wasting time trying to save the town when we needed to be headed to the mines.  We took the hint and booked it, since we'd barely made a dent in the zombie hordes anyway.

At the mines, there was an elevator with three marked levels, and one unmarked.  We headed straight to the 'cleverly disguised' fourth level, and were ambushed by tieflings or half-demons or something of the sort.  We found a pool of slime and a key in one room, and three corridors with locked doors, each with one of the trio of evil deities (Hextor, Erythnul, and Vecna) that the Ebon Triad cultists worship.  The key led through the Hextor door, and we ended up in a MASSIVE battle with the high priest and his minions.

Luckily, we managed to carry the day.  I ended up using all 5 of my daily uses of Lay on Hands on myself only during the battle, and Smite Evil on the lead priest of Hextor (got the final swipe in on him), but still ended the battle with negative hit points thanks to the lackey clerics.

We'd already played beyond the venue's closing time.  The owners are cool dudes, and the one working let us hang out and game while he had dinner and read a book.  We bought a ton of drinks (Jeremy mostly!) so they had a good day, I'm thinking.  He also offered to open up early on our gaming days if we give them a heads up.  Might be good, as the place got really noisy for a while.

Some of Dean's female co-workers also were there, and came over to ask about the game, but decided they didn't want to get involved with games that took multiple hours over multiple weeks to play out.  They offered to play Settlers of Catan with us one of these days, though.

All in all, a good session.  And we leveled up, so Elwood will be a 4th level bad-ass the next time we play, and hopefully won't get kicked around so much (both in combat, and with the difficult balancing act of trying to keep his companions - and himself - on the good side).