Charles Plemons' Blog

Game summary for April 30, 2019, Reign of Winter campaign, Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, for Phoenix Gaming Club. Session included: Deska Starseeker (Half-Elf Druid played by Kaliegh Averdick), Erris (Arctic Elf Bloodrager played by Casey Scruggs), Magnus Erlingsson (Human Cleric played by Chris Harmon), and Tulvur Xandersen (Troglodyte Fighter played by Taylor Averdick). Game Master for this session was Charles Plemons.

The team looked around and found what appeared to be some kind of exploration staging area filled with ropes, packs, food, and more.  The supplies were fresh and marked with stamps from Irrisen.  The group found a ledge leading down into a smoke-filled cavern.  Deska wild shaped into a bat and found the chamber quite large.  She then summoned giant eagles to fly them down into the cavern.  The group donned gas masks they found in Russia and explored. 

Emerging from the dark smoke came a glowing plasma ooze!  The creature blasted plasma rays into the team with painful effect.  Tulvur charged forward and split the ooze in half with his sword!  The group began hammering it with magic and summoned monsters.  The oozes grappled some of the team and tried to engulf them, but they could not withstand the combined attacks of the team.  The group then found a partially digested dwarf and recovered his equipment and an eversmoking bottle. 

The team explored more and found a sinkhole with ropes leading down.  Deska sent down her owl and found two badly burned corpses.  A single “hoot” causes large creatures in the darkness to growl and slither, and the owl retreated.  The team examined all the footprints and found that another individual had gone down the rope but came back up and climbed up a ledge. 

Calling her eagles back, Deska got the team up the ledge.  They went around the corner and found desiccated corpses stacked neatly.  In the center of the room, a Viking-looking man sat on the ground holding a bloody dagger.  He had slit his own throat and let the blood pool in his lap.  His dead eyes stared out at them.  Tulvur approached, and a shrieking, ghostly woman came rushing out of the corpses!  Her hands were crimson red and twitching like a mad puppeteer. 

Game summary for April 23, 2019, Reign of Winter campaign, Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, for Phoenix Gaming Club. Session included: Baknarla (Adlet Shaman Ranger played by Shane Bradley), Erris (Arctic Elf Bloodrager played by Casey Scruggs), and Magnus Erlingsson (Human Cleric played by Chris Harmon). Game Master for this session was Charles Plemons.

The team entered the kitchen and were attacked by an animated furnace!  Magnus swiftly protected the party against fire just in time for him and Baknarla to be snatched up and stuffed in the oven!  The party took several hard hits but quickly dismantled the stove.  They saw some kind of female spirit drift out into another room. 

They gave chase and found a nine-headed jotund troll arguing with itself!  It seemed confused by their presence, and the party tried to talk to it.  It got more and more agitated until it charged!  The team defeated it and saw the same spirit drift out of it into another room.  The group looked around for a bit, and the troll sat up, healing from its injuries!  They were able to talk to him a bit and then went through the door looking for the spirit.  Instead, they found a closet.  They rapped about with Baba Yaga’s broom, and suddenly the floor disappeared!  They plunged into darkness and found themselves in a frigid cave.

Baba Yaga warned them that the former queens of Irrisen were nearby and likely very angry.  The party advanced and were attacked by a massive elder ice elemental!  It dealt tremendous damage with punishing blows, but the team rallied around and took it down fairly quickly. 

Game summary for March 26, 2019, Reign of Winter campaign, Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, for Phoenix Gaming Club. Session included: Baknarla (Adlet Shaman Ranger played by Shane Bradley), Deska Starseeker (Half-Elf Druid played by Kaliegh Averdick), Magnus Erlingsson (Human Cleric played by Chris Harmon), and Tulvur Xandersen (Troglodyte Fighter played by Taylor Averdick). Game Master for this session was Charles Plemons.

The team entered the cave and were swallowed by the frost worm!  They were whisked through the portal into a thick old-growth forest before a wooden cottage.  Smoke wafted from the chimney, and using her wolf senses, Deska could detect the smell of cooking stew. 

The group approached and found a trail of breadcrumbs leading to the door.  Beside the door, Deska discovered Baba Yaga’s besom, an artifact level item!  The group entered the building and were soon attacked by living mannequins shaped like chess pieces.  The team suffered several solid blows, but he most concerning attacks came from the splintered effect of the creatures where they explosively launched shards of wood in all directions.  This damaged the team pretty severely, but magical healing stemmed the flow of blood.  The group engaged violently and reduced the figures to piles of broken wood.  The team searched the room and found several valuable carvings.

Next the team opened a door and found a large furnace oven with some cookies and stew.  An open child-sized cage hung over the oven.  The cookies were all missing a bite, and they discovered a note inviting them to eat a cookie and make themselves at home…

Game summary for March 19, 2019, Reign of Winter campaign, Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, for Phoenix Gaming Club. Session included: Baknarla (Adlet Shaman Ranger played by Shane Bradley), Deska Starseeker (Half-Elf Druid played by Kaliegh Averdick), Erris (Arctic Elf Bloodrager played by Casey Scruggs), Magnus Erlingsson (Human Cleric played by Chris Harmon), and Tulvur Xandersen (Troglodyte Fighter played by Taylor Averdick). Game Master for this session was Charles Plemons.

With instruction from Baba Yaga, the team plunged the athame into the khala’s corpse and imbued it with Baba Yaga’s death.  They then submerged in the pool and emerged back at Vigliv’s tree.  They used the athame to open another level of the doll and were imbued with more of the Witch Queen’s power. 

They then learned they must seek Baba Yaga’s life, which is protected by her daughters.  However, Baba Yaga warned that Elvanna will have made precautions to prevent them from retrieving it.  She guided them toward a cave and warned them that within they must be swallowed by a massive worm to activate the portal! 

On the way up the to the cave they were ambushed by four bone devils!  They divided the party with a wall of ice and began clawing and stabbing with their poisonous tails.  The devils landed several blows but overall were pretty ineffective against the team’s armor.  After vanquishing them, the party ascended to the landing before the cave and found an illusion masking a pair of advanced ice devils!

The larger, nastier devils overlapped cones of cold across the team and tore into them with barbed spears.  They led the party to divide into two groups and hammered away with spells and melee.  Their spell resistance thwarted several attacks, and their regeneration allowed them to recover from several attacks.  The devils were mostly a nuisance instead of a true threat, though, as the team quickly wore them down and vanquished them both. 

Game summary for March 12, 2019, Reign of Winter campaign, Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, for Phoenix Gaming Club. Session included: Deska Starseeker (Half-Elf Druid played by Kaliegh Averdick), Erris (Arctic Elf Bloodrager played by Casey Scruggs), Magnus Erlingsson (Human Cleric played by Chris Harmon), Tarik (Human Bard played by Andrew Renfrow), and Tulvur Xandersen (Troglodyte Fighter played by Taylor Averdick). Game Master for this session was Charles Plemons.

Erris cast haste on the party and moved into the room with the khala dragon where it immediately hit him with a polar ray!  It then moved around behind a pair of pillars for cover.  Deska moved in and hit the dragon with a quickened flame strike and finger of death!  Tulvur tried to sneak in and hide behind a pillar for a surprise attack.  Meanwhile, Magnus cast quickened lead blades while Greta cast baneweapon on his sword.  Shatha came and swung his glaive between the pillars.  Magnus came in and charged the dragon!  Erris and Tulvur ended up getting staggered by the dragon’s critical hits, and Erris was grappled!  Tarik enhanced several of the team members with his bardic abilities and spells and granted them the ability to deal sonic damage which began to add up as blows landed.  Erris slipped free, and the khala flew over to engage Deska who had polymorphed into a crystal dragon! 

Once there, it breathed a line of cold hitting several of the team but they avoided being encased in the dragon’s ice.  Tarik then cut off the battlefield with a wall of force, and Deska tried to summon a herd of elephants but wound up grappled.  The party swarmed in and landed numerous blows, but the khala dropped a cold-based incendiary cloud on top of them all and flew to the other side of the room with Deska.  She broke the grapple by wild shaping into a mammoth!  Greta was in position to land lots of blows and Magnus was able to hit it with a flame strike and slay the beast! 

Game summary for February 12, 2019, Reign of Winter campaign, Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, for Phoenix Gaming Club. Session included: Baknarla (Adlet Shaman Ranger played by Shane Bradley), Deska Starseeker (Half-Elf Druid played by Kaliegh Averdick), Erris (Arctic Elf Bloodrager played by Casey Scruggs), Magnus Erlingsson (Human Cleric played by Chris Harmon), and Tulvur Xandersen (Troglodyte Fighter played by Taylor Averdick). Game Master for this session was Charles Plemons.

Good to her word, the Queen took the party to the witch tree, which they promptly discovered to be a quickwood!  The tree tried to eat them, but the team rallied surprisingly quickly and chopped the tree down in just a few moments. 

Deska shifted into dire wolf shape, and with the assistance of some others, dug up the grave beneath the tree.  Within, they found a witch-doll golem that animated and attacked!  It dealt some devastating injuries with its needles, but it too proved no match for the team.  Within the golem, they found a metal coffer.  Baknarla failed to pick the lock, so Tulvur studied it to determine its weak points.  Deska then chomped it with her wolf teeth and burst it open!  Baba Yaga’s athame fell to the ground, and the team retrieved it. 

They were then led by Baba Yaga to a cave and encountered carnivorous crystals!  The razor-edged creatures dealt several serious injuries, especially to Magnus who was nearly sliced in half.  The group realized the crystals are slow, so they fled down a hallway and sealed it with a wall of stone.  They continued down the hallway into a larger cavern with a pool of water.  There, they discovered a three-headed dragon!

Game summary for January 29, 2019, Reign of Winter campaign, Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, for Phoenix Gaming Club. Session included: Baknarla (Adlet Shaman Ranger played by Shane Bradley), Erris (Arctic Elf Bloodrager played by Casey Scruggs), Iguruzu Koshin (Human Monk played by Peyton Harmon), and Tarik (Human Bard played by Andrew Renfrow). Game Master for this session was Charles Plemons.

The team regrouped after the evening battle, and at dawn the final assault came in waves.  Nuckelavee swarmed the beaches while a great column of water rose up and deposited several advanced troops behind the lines.  The party rushed to defend and found six Buyan nuckelavee and two elder water elementals confronting them.  Tarik used mirage arcana to fool them into coming a different route and not being able to focus their attacks.  Baknarla pelted the creatures with ice storm, while Erris and Koshi landed an onslaught of hastened attacks.  Tarik inspired his team and also confused some of the foes with song of discord.  Despite being outnumbered two-to-one, the party proved far superior in the battle.  Enemies died on both sides of the divided front, and soon the team stood victorious as the nuckelavee army was routed!  The maftets threw a huge celebration and began carving statues in honor of the heroes.  The queen vowed to personally take them the next day to the witch tree!

Game summary for January 15, 2019, Reign of Winter campaign, Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, for Phoenix Gaming Club. Session included: Erris (Arctic Elf Bloodrager played by Casey Scruggs), Iguruzu Koshin (Human Monk played by Peyton Harmon), Magnus Erlingsson (Human Cleric played by Chris Harmon), Svala Alehorn (Orc Unchained Barbarian played by Todd Hughes), and Tarik (Human Bard played by Andrew Renfrow). Game Master for this session was Charles Plemons.

As they regrouped, a quartet of hezrou demons formed out of the fog around the party and attacked!  They unleashed chaos hammer and unholy blight, mostly ineffectively.  So, the creatures moved into melee and began grappling.  Their horrendous stench overwhelmed Magnus, and then he got grappled in the mouth of a demon.  He was nauseated and threw up in its mouth.  Tarik inspired the team while Erris cast haste.  Greta cast baneweapon on Svala’s axe, and he charged in.  The demons were spread out, so the team was divided.  The demons hit fairly hard, but with their magical enhancements, the team was able to deal lots of damage.  One-by-one, the demons were brought down under slashing axes, swords, and spells.

Game summary for January 8, 2019, Reign of Winter campaign, Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, for Phoenix Gaming Club. Session included: Baknarla (Adlet Shaman Ranger played by Shane Bradley), Erris (Arctic Elf Bloodrager played by Casey Scruggs), Iguruzu Koshin (Human Monk played by Peyton Harmon), Magnus Erlingsson (Human Cleric played by Chris Harmon), and Tarik (Human Bard played by Andrew Renfrow). Game Master for this session was Charles Plemons.

The team awaited the nuckelavee invasion, and as night fell a supernatural fog rolled in.  Nuckelavees swarmed onto the beaches, and maftets flew to the attack.  A quartet of the long-haired nuckelavees came up through the woods, and the Queen asked the party to engage.  They spelled up and swarmed out to fight.

The battle was engaged in moments, and the brutality was shocking.  A holy aura struck a nuckelavee blind, but it began blasting its breath weapon indiscriminately, inflicting disease and fatigue.  Tarik inspired his allies with bardic performance while Erris hastened everyone.  The horrifying aura of the creatures caused Erris and Koshi to turn tail and run.  For the most part, the party held their own pretty well until the creatures summoned huge water elementals into the fray.  Magnus took a beating between the elementals and lost a heal spell to a failed concentration check.  Soon, Erris and Koshi returned and rejoined the battle.  The nuckelavee were cut down, and Baknarla dropped a fog cloud over the elementals, and the team used haste to outrun them until they returned to their own plane.