Ro's Tabletop Tales, Roll For Initiative! Options

[Rohirrim]

So, here's where I'll put all the stories from my various roleplaying campaigns, and if I ever get monies, my wargaming batreps.

So, I'm starting a Rogue Trader campaign after spring break with my friends, so until then..nothing.

[Colonel Mustard]

First session of my Pathfinder campaign has just wrapped up, and I must say that it was quite a success. We're playing the mix of Pathfinder's traditional high-fantasy (the game is basically D&D 3.5 with some polish) mashed up with the Wild West (my insanely extensive background document for the setting can be found here). Characters were:

- Ace Calhoun, a charming human rogue whose player is still smarting from the jokes we made about his last character having a Charisma of just 10
- Wirran, an elf monk framed for the murder of his wife, recently escaped from jail
- Rosalyn Brindinas, a half-elf druid with her trusty Ankylosaurus companion, Buttercup. Her player picked a half-elf because she thought the race's sample portrait was the prettiest, and she wanted to be a druid just to get an animal companion. Considering Buttercup spent the session as a nigh-invulnerable ass-kicker, those choices seemed legit.
- 'Demon Eyes', a tiefling gunslinger who spent most of the gaming session being generated due to her player being a late arrival and thus spent a good chunk of the session napping

The heroes were on an overnight train between the game setting's two major cities, Yular and Austis (leaving Yular, going to Austis), which pulled in to the town of Red Creek in order to restock on water and coal. The town is quiet, with most locals in bed, but the passengers are informed that the saloon should be open and serving drinks if any of them fancied anything while the train refilled.

Upon entering the small town, it appears to be deserted, and Wirran, the monk, finds the saloon completely empty. Ace investigated the upstairs rooms, to find one of them with a broken down door and showing signs of a struggle. When the pair went to the sheriff's office, they found it was deserted aside from the town's drunk, who, when woken, raves in incoherent fear. When they unlock his cell, he attacks them out of sheer panic, only for Wirran to knock him unconscious with a headbutt. With that done, they headed back to the train to tell the driver about it.

Meanwhile, Rosalynd investigated the town's barber shop and general store. The barber's was devoid of life and locked up, but the general store's door was open, though there was nobody about. As she entered the street, she saw a group of people approaching the town from its road, though in the dark she could make out no more details. She told the others, who were puzzling over the town's emptiness, and as they approached they made out a group of skeletons were approaching fast.

Ace lead the defence against the undead, aided by Karris Albert, one of the passengers, and the train's shovel-wielding half-orc stoker, Big Johnny Brahg. Rosalynd and Buttercup joined the defense not long afterwards as Ace, Big Johnny and Karris clashed with the undead, and Buttercup proved his effectiveness in a fight by killing a good deal fo the undead and me realising the skeletons would have to roll criticals to actually harm him. Wirran, the monk, decided to be an arsehole watched proceedings from the train, but intervened when several of the undead made to attack the passengers. Towards the end of the combat, Demon Eyes finally woke up long enough to shoot at the final skeleton and miss.

The defense was short and spirited, but in the confusion of combat Big Johnny Brahg and Ace were badly injured, the train was sabotaged and two of the passengers were kidnapped. One of the other passengers was a trainee cleric and managed to heal the heroes back to full health, while Ace sent off a telegram to call for help. He got a reply from the Order of the Shield and Star (basically a knightly order working across the game's continent of Ternis) telling them that help would be there in a few hours, and hold tight on the train until they got there. Realising that nobody would be coming to rescue the kidnapped passengers and that there was no garuantee of them surviving until the Order of the Shield and Star arrived, the heroes resolved to set out on the trail of the undead and deal with the problem themselves.

Demon Eyes did a quick round of looting before they went, nabbing a bottle of whiskey from the saloon and getting a masterwork dagger and two healing potions from the general store. She also tried to use some of her musket's gunpowder to blow open the general store's safe, but her player's role of a 4 ended up gutting the safe and rewarding her with just $1.52 and some severely singed eyebrows.

Aided by Karris, who worked as a tracker, the group followed the skeleton's trail across the nighttime wilderness until they found them camped out in a gully, along with a huge glowing green crystal and the kidnapped passengers and townsfolk. Along with the regular undead, there was also a skeleton wearing an ancient suit of armour, who appeared to be more powerful than the other skeletons.

Wirran decided to make a dynamic entry and jumped off the side of the gully to smash a skeleton to bits on landing, and at the same time Karris drew her sword, declared "Death to the heretics!" and stabbed Ace in the kidneys.

Rosalynd cast Magic Fang on Wirran, improving his unarmed attacks so he had a better chance against the mob of skeletons, while Buttercup, Demon Eyes and Ace turned on Karris. In Wirran's next turn, he parkoured/frontflipped over the skeletons to go toe-to-toe with their leader in an act of insane badassitude and extremely lucky rolling, while Rosalynd cast Summon Nature's ally and called forth an eagle that she dubbed Mr Snugglesworth, who she promptly sicced on the lead skeleton to give Wirran a hand. Meanwhile, Buttercup, Demon Eyes and Ace attacked Karris.

In the next turn, as the lead skeleton took a good chunk of Wirran's hitpoints off, Ace half-climbed, half-jumped down the gully's side to deal with the skeleton mob who were advancing on the rest of the group (obviously confident in their leader's ability to deal with Wirran). Demon Eyes hit Karris in the gut with a bullet, Rosalynd set her eagle on Karris and knocked her down to zero hp with a good eye-gouging, letting Buttercup finish her off with a thorough trampling. Before she died, Karris managed to grab Rosalynd's ankle and gasp out "The stone rises."

Assisted by Mr Snugglesworth, Wirran continued his duel with the skeleton leader while the rest of the party dealt with the main force of the undead, Buttercup proving himself an unstoppable avatar of asskickery when it became clear that he was too heavily armoured for the skeletons to actually harm him. Demon Eyes sniped at the enemy mob while Ace, Rosalynd and Buttercup dealt with them up close, quickly dispatching them before moving to assist against big boss skeleton. Outnumbered, he took several hits before Demon Eyes finished him off with a critical hit and a damage roll of 24 (the critical multipliers for firearms are insane).

They freed the townsfolk, and Rosalynd recognised the crystal they were fighting around as a Wyrdstone, one of the stones of power that dot Ternis. Normally they are inert and magically passive, and as far as she was aware this was the first time one had ever been active like this. Demon Eyes looted the skeleton's armour and sword, realising they were surprisingly ancient things to find on a continent that had only been accessible for a century, and decided to sell them on to a collector (a normal merchant would refuse to buy them, as the breastplate was made of corroded bronze and thus of no real resale value).

A few hours later, a heavily armoured war train from the Order of the Shield and Star arrived. The sheriffs and marshals who dismounted took an account of what happened and promised to investigate the stone, and towed the train onwards to Austis.