City of Indolence
The Haven is not dead but dreaming...of your mom

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4/14/2019 3:52 pm  #1


Western Adventure campaign notes

We all started in the town of Springland. Most of us were staying at the Metropolitan Hotel, but the scene opened on the town square, where a group of curious people were watching a gnomish merchant by the name of Margaret Brownbutter hawking her elixirs and potions. When she asked for a volunteer from the audience, a tiefling musician by the name of Lorek stepped up and allowed her to prick his finger and demonstrate the power of her healing potions. In the crowd, a fiend hunter by the name of Gon was studying Lorek carefully. Also present was a halfling native by the name of Fango Finefoot, and a human settler lawman by the name of Bud Stetson.

The pleasant afternoon was interrupted when a group of men went rough riding through the town, whooping and firing their guns in the air. as they rode through the square, the lead man opened a metal box he was carrying, and as he did Margaret, Gon and Bud all sensed something with a powerful fiendish nature inside. The men were gone too quickly for us to attack, but after they were gone, Bud used his divine sense and could feel a trail of evil left in the wake of whatever was in that box. After determining that we couldn't catch the men, and with Sheriff Dunes nowhere to be seen, several of us more adventurous types headed to where the rough riders had come form to try to discover what they had done. What we found was a very wounded Marshal riding into town toward the office of the town doctor. The man had been shot, stabbed,dragged behind a horse, and apparently left for dead, but he was tough enough to not be killed so easily. Still, it took a lay on hands from Bud to stabilize him and get him talking.

The man was a famous Marshal by the name of Heck Morgan, and he insisted Bud round up every able-bodied adventurer in the area for a posse. Once Margaret, Lorek, Gon, Fango and Bud were all assembled, he told the story of what had happened.

Apparently down in the Pexotie Territory, near a border town called Tambor's Crossing, the locals dug up some sort to Tohaci artifact. They brought the artifact into town, and shortly afterwards the whole place went to hell (possibly literally) and was overrun by ghosts and demons. A group of the famous Pexotie Rangers moved in and cleaned up Tambor's Crossing, but they found that any of the rangers who touched the artifact died, so to contain it they placed it in a lead box. Three UT Marshals, Heck Morgan, Alan Bolard, and Sarah Huston were tasked with transporting the artifact north so it could be transported by rail to the UT government to be studied.

Just outside of Springland, the Marshals were jumped by a large group who were lead by Caleb Mitchell. Caleb is a known outlaw banned from the town, and is the son of Moses Mitchell, the head of one of the largest outlaw bands in the area. The outlaws killed two of the Marshals, stole the box, and left Heck for dead. Even though Moses Mitchell operates out of the town of Arik, Heck knew that Caleb has a girl up north in the town of Twist City, and he was sure that's where the outlaw would be heading. He deputized all of us who weren't already deputies and tasked us to track down Caleb and his gang and recover the box. He said that on reaching Twist City, we should check in at the local Justice of the Peace's Office, which doubles as a bar called The Jaded Lilly.

After gathering our horses, we headed south out of town toward the Emigrant Road, which is the direction the outlaws had headed. Just outside of town we came across a stable where apparently Caleb and his gang switched for fresh horses. The inside of the stables was filled with crows, and several head horses. The stable owner was upset because one of his hared men was missing, and after examining the stables we found the man, who had been turned into a zombie. We gunned the abomination down, and upon examining him found that one of his hands appeared burned. We theorized that the outlaws had forced him to touch the artifact, which is likely what both killed him and turned him undead.

We headed East on the Emigrant Road, and after a bit encountered some cowboys driving a herd toward Springland. The confirmed that a few hours earlier the gang we were pursuing had rode through their herd, firing their guns in the air and spooking the cattle, so we knew we were on the right track.

As we reached the crossroads where the Emigrant Trail met the Old Opowee Trail headed north to Twist City, we found very old burned cabin, and near it saw a body lying face down. Near the body a loaded pack mule was grazing. A couple of us approached the body, and as we did we saw the guy (who was possibly named Cletus) twitch. Bud called out to him, and it was then that the other bushwackers who were hiding in the tall grass around us called for us to throw down our weapons and the "body" stood up with a shotgun. After considering their command, we opted instead to blow all of the outlaws right to hell.

Neither Bud nor Fango recognized any of the bushwackers as known criminals with a price on their head, so we burned their bodies. We opted for burning out of respect to Fango, whose native traditions don't look kindly on burying the dead. From the bodies we liberated a little cash, 2 muskets, a shotgun, a sapphire ring that was undoubtedly stolen, and a magic potion that boosts charisma. We also rescued Paco the packmule from his life of crime.

After traveling several more hours north, we camped for the night beside a stream. When Margaret was awoken for her turn at watch, she headed down to the stream to contemplate the stars. As she pulled up her pants following this contemplation, she was attacked by a Dungavenhooter, a mouth-less, large-nostriled alligator who crushes the unwary so it can inhale their precious gasses. Margaret called for help and stared tossing exploding bottles at the creature, and the rest of us work up and helped her gun the beast down.

In the morning we had a breakfast of Dungavenhooter bacon, and were once again attacked by denizens of the plains. This time it was a large flock of blood hawks. It seemed like a larger flock that we had normally heard about, and the fight proved to be a tough one. Once more Margaret seemed to attract the beast's attention, which lead the rest of us to theorize that she is a reverse Dr. Doolittle, who animals just despise. Margaret, Lorek, and the horse Victor took most of the damage from the fight, but no one died. Afterwards we took a short rest to heal up and harvested some feathers from the hawks.

Traveling further north up the trail, we encountered a group of 4 natives of the Sahaya tribe. The were lead by a woman who appears to be a cleric, one of their group had a bullet wound, and they were leading a riderless horse. None of us spoke their language, but their leader knew enough Opowee to allow her and Margaret to communicate. She said that they had see a large group (more than 10) settler men farther up the trail several hours earlier. Those men opened fire on the Sahaya group, killing one of them and wounding another. When we asked if the group was carrying a metal box, the woman confirmed that they were. She said that the box contained a "talisman of ultimate evil".

Margaret used one of her healing elixirs on the wounded member of their group, and after that they got a lot less tense. Lorek traded one of the Bloodhawk feathers for a feather from one of the Sahya men and we questioned them on the dangers we might expect to run into farther up the trail. The woman warned us about a large creature called a Hodag and other creatures called double-faces. In reference to the double faces she pointed to the front and back of her head, also to her elbow and to Margaret's holy symbol. They also warned of something called stick men, or possibly dick men. I didn't hear that part too well. We parted with the Sahaya as friends.

Farther up the trail, we spotted a frontier giant woman leading a giant bronze mule loaded with mining supplies, far to the NW of the trail. Luckily she wasn't headed our direction and did not notice us. Someone in the group (I forget who) recalled that frontier giants frequently travel with strangely colored animal companions (like blue oxen).

A little further up the trail we caught sight of a lone buffalo, which turned out to be an undead Dread Bull. When the creature charged it turned somewhat ghostly, but lucky it missed so we didn't have to find out what effect it's attack would have. Some deadeye shooting took the creature down, and its form dispersed leaving only a skeleton.

Riding on, we finally came into sight of the Jaded Lilly Bar and Courthouse...
 

 

4/14/2019 3:52 pm  #2


Re: Western Adventure campaign notes

As the group approached the Jaded Lilly, Fango lagged behind the rest of the group with a far-off look in his eyes, like he was listening to something the rest of us couldn't hear. He informed us that he had something he had to take care of, and that he would meet us in town. He then rode off into the prairie alone, leaving the rest of us to surmise that some under-cooked Dungavenhooter meat had given him a case of the skittles and he was off to take a buffalo-sized shit.

The Jaded Lilly itself was well outside town, about a 45 minute ride south of Twist City, and it was built like an old Spanish fort. The building was all stone, with no outlying stables, and so we had to ride through a gate into an enclosed courtyard to access stables that were built into the main structure. There were no stable hands, so we saw to our own horses before heading inside. We were met by a woman named Alma O'Neal, who appeared to be a waitress at the bar. Inside the bar itself there were a number of townsfolk, and some men in strange uniforms that Margaret identified as an exhibition baseball team from back East. On questioning them, she found out they had been hired to head out to Corndell (sp?) City to show off their fancy new game there.

In one corner of the bar was a very large aquarium tank containing a mermaid. Gon seemed immediately sympathetic to the plight of the mermaid. He asked Alma about her, learned that her name was Clarabelle and she had been brought to town as a sideshow attraction by a traveling circus. After the other members of the circus ran afoul of the law and took op residency in the local cemetery, the local justice had been at a loss for what to do with her. Gon decided on the spot that he would do everything he could to pay for passage of the mermaid back to the ocean, and started inquiring around on how to do that.

Over near the mermaid tank was a piano, and given that is was not in use, Lorek took a seat and started to play. This attracted an appreciative audience of one very drunk man By the name of Lloyd Jarson.

The group asked Alma where they could find the local Judge that Marshal Heck Morgan asked them to find, and she directed them to a table at the back of the bar where a large, older man was seated. Bud explained the group's mission to the judge and told the tale of the Mitchell Gang's attack on the Marshals and the theft of the Talisman of Ultimate Evil. During this discussion, the Judge showed himself to be a bit of a dramatic showman, but once we said we had heard that Caleb Mitchel had a girlfriend in town, he provided us with some useful, if somewhat disturbing information.

There had been a preacher in Twist City who had been exposed as a follower of dark gods, and for that he had been run out of town. He had not gone too far, however, because he had apparently attracted some followers and set up a new chapel of evil outside town, over near Fort Wyatt. This preacher's daughter was a woman named Verna, and she was Caleb Mitchell's sweetheart. The Judge informed us that anytime Caleb had a scheme that his father wouldn't approve of, he took it to Verna and her father. Given this information, it looks like we will be facing not only tCaleb and his gang, but also evil cultists. Joy.

Further discussion on this topic was delayed because the Judge said he had to try a case, and the waitress Alma took a seat at his table to serve as a stenographer, and the bartender Garson took his place as bailiff. From a family resemblance, Margaret noticed that Garson was also likely the Judge's son. The Judge called for "the guilty party" to be brought forth, signifying that a totally impartial trial was about to start, so the man Lloyd who had been drinking and enjoying Lorek's music headed over to the Judges table. He was apparently accused of cattle theft by a rancher named Carson.

The trial dragged on for a while, with the Judge showing a pontificating style that only infrequently seemed to touch upon the specifics of the case. During this trial, a native Opowee man came in the front door, looking a little uncomfortable. Shortly after that, a crash was heard from the hallway off to one side of the barroom, over where the guest rooms were. Several of the group headed over that way, and found a window that had been smashed in by a rock thrown by stick people outside, who retreated off behind some trees when we spied them. The stick people were kind of like goblins, with hair that looked like twigs, and they seemed to speak in a language that sounded like birdsong.

We returned to the barroom, and Bud was a bit suspicious of the timing of the stick men's act of vandalism occurring right after the native man entered the bar, so he questioned the man in his native language, which Bud had learned from his Opowee fishing buddy back in Threshold. Bud asked if maybe the stickmen had chased him here. The man, whose name was Asakis, seemed nervous, and said that he didn't know anything about the stick men and hadn't had any run-in with them prior to coming to the bar, but said they had seemed to be riled up the last few days. Bud was able to tell that the man was lying about not knowing why the stick men were here, but didn't have a good sense of how to get the truth out of him, so he asked our fast-talking cleric Margaret to take a crack at him.

Asakis headed to the bar and put down 5 gold coins ($100), which seemed a little odd because he appeared like something of a vagabond with tattered clothing, and Alma brought him out a big crate of bottles. The man went to leave with the bottles, but Margaret confronted him and in his own language said she knew what he was up to. This drew a bit of a crowd. The Judge said that Asakis came in pretty routinely to buy alcohol, and he provided the local lawkeepers with info on the natives in the area. Asakis tried to play dumb. really hamming up an ignorant native routine to try to deflect suspicion, but when Margaret asked if previous Stickman attacks coincided with Asakis' visits to the bar, Alma and Garson came to the realization that was in fact the case.

This discussion was interrupted by another crashing sound from the stables. Several of us went to investigate and check on our horses, and found another rock thrown in through a stable window. At the same time, something started shaking the front gate of the courtyard. Using this distraction, Asakis jumped over a table and started sprinting for the wing of the bar where the guest rooms were located. Gon drew a bad on the man with his pistol and warned him to stop or be shot, and when Asakis didn't stop Gon shot him through the head and killed him.

At this point we were a little puzzled, because while there was a back door to the bar over in the wing with the guest rooms, the people who worked there said that door was study and very securely locked, so Asakas wouldn't have been able to get out that way, and all the windows were too small for someone to fit through. Still, Bud and Margaret went to investigate, while the others kept watch on the front door where the gate had been rattling.

As Bud and Margaret approached the back door, they watched in horror as the bar on the door lifted on its own and the lock just fell off. As the door opened, a stick man threw a sack into the hallway, and stickmen started running into the hall and darting into bedrooms for cover. Out of the sack emerged an animated undead head, that started rolling down the hallway toward Bud. What followed was a shootout in the hallway, with our group taking cover in the bedroom doors and firing at the head and at the stickmen, The head seemed determined to attack Bud, but he was luckily able to dodge it while Margaret doused it with holy fire potions and then Gon finished it off with a well placed pistol shot. The Stickmen for their part threw rocks at us with surprising force and accuracy, and one among them was a spellcaster that kept launching ghostly skeletal hands at Bud. Gon was wounded pretty heavily with rocks, but Margaret was able to heal him with one of her tinctures, and she also blessed the rest of us with a mist from another of her potions. Luckily most of the stickmen seemed content to stay in some of the bedrooms ransacking them, so after we cleared most of the rock throwers in the hall, Bud was able to run to the back door and bar it shut with the spellcaster outside.

As we were fighting in the hallway, Lloyd, the "guilty party", seemed to see his chance to escape, so he drunkenly headed out the front gate, where he was cut down by a second group of stickmen coming in the front. This second group charged into the bar and killed a couple baseball players and some townspeople with rocks to the head. At the time of their initial assault, however, most of the stickmen in the bedroom hallway had already been dealt with, so Lorek, Gon, the Baliff Garson, and the rancher Carson were able to head back into the bar to do battle with them. After some feverish firing that left the bar shrouded in gunsmoke, all but one of the stickmen in the bar were shot down. At around the same time, Gon and Bud finished off the last of the stickmen in the bedrooms, and then Bud opened the back door and shot the spellcaster dead just as he was casting a spell to unlock the door.

The last of the stickmen in the bar made a run for it. Margaret started to chase him, but when she realized she couldn't catch him she turned back to the bar and said, "It looks like he decided not to... stick around."

Then she put on her sunglasses and Lorek screamed YEEEEEAAAAH and played the opening riff of Won't Get Fooled Again.
 

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4/14/2019 3:53 pm  #3


Re: Western Adventure campaign notes

The session started with a step back in time to cover what Fango was up to when he left the group last session. He received a Message (as per the spell) from Smoking Woman, the Sahia native that the group had met a few sessions ago. Apparently she had herself received an message for help from a treestump halfling woman of Fango's tribe saying just "Beware and help." The treestump halflings can use the message spell at will to send a message to anyone the know or anyone that then have a personal possession from, with a range of a couple hundred feet. The halfling woman was a mushroom merchant that had met the Sahia group and traded with them some time prior to sending that message. On investigating the Sahia found that she had been captured by a group of Opowee cultists that were in the company of an undead creature called a double-face. The double-face has one face on the front of its head and one on the back, and if you meet the gaze of the head in the back it is said to be deadly. Also, it has extremely sharp elbows it uses as weapons. Smoking Woman was worried for the halfling merchant and wanted Fango's help. The Sahia group we had met was in the area because Smoking Woman was leading some young men out on their tenderfoot trip, a right of passage to manhood, and so they were very inexperienced and Smoking Woman wanted Fango's help.

She lead Fango to the cultist camp, which they neared just as the sun was setting on a drizzling rainy day. The camp had 5 teepees and a large burn pit full of bones. The Opowee in the camp were painted red, which is something the do in wartime, and they appeared to maybe be outcasts from their tribe. From the cover of the trees near the camp Fango borrowed a bracelet that the halfling traded to Smoking Woman and used it to establish a link so he could message her. The woman revealed that her name was Sata Waiso (not sure on spelling). She had run across the Opowee and realized too late they were not friendly, so they captured her, bound her, and put a bag over her head. Given the bag on her head she couldn't tell what teepee she was in, but she said she had heard screaming earlier and smelled burning. Given the direction of the wind Fango was able to guess where she was being held in relation to the burn-pit.

Fango consulted with the Sahia, and decided they would make a distraction on one side of the camp, and he would sneak in, free Sata, and then get back to his horse and make their escape. After the sun set, Fango snuck into position, and Smoking Woman and her charges rode into the camp and she cast a spell where light streaked across the ground and impacted one of the Opowee and left him surprised but unhurt. The Sahia then rode away at top speed, drawing most of the Opowee after them. Fango was stealthy enough that he was able to sneak into the camp unseen, free Sata, and they made good their escape. Unlike most plans, this one seemed to go off without a hitch.

For the rest of the group, before leaving the Jaded Lilly we asked some additional questions about Twist City and found out that we could probably pawn some of our loot at a place called Kaye's Shop on Front Street. There was also currently no sheriff in Twist City and it is a wild town. We also learned that since the old preacher had been run out of town for being a Satanist, the church in town is now run by a new preacher, a Saviorist who the Judge described as "bland but honest". The New Satanist church was northeast of Twist City, north of the Fort. The Judge estimated that the evil preacher probably attracted about 15 people to follow him when he left town, so we would likely have to face them in addition to Caleb Mitchell's men.

The plaintiff from the trial the previous day, Rancher Carson, accompanied us to Twist City, and we met up with Fango on the road after we left the Jaded Lilly. Shortly before getting to town Carson left for his ranch, and the rest of us crossed the Sweetwater River and finally made it to Twist City. On arriving we spotted a Chinese Half orc, so it looked like the population was pretty diverse and our eclectic group would not stand out too much. We made for Kaye's Shop and sold some stuff and then stocked up on ammo and miscellaneous equipment. The shop was run by an nice older man (Kaye) with the help of his grandchildren, so Margaret went easy on him and didn't screw him on prices. After that we were going to head over to a shop called Anagogical Appurtenances, run by a man named Edmund Salas, who Kaye said would likely be able to sell us some potions.

Unfortunately we didn't get that far, because we heard some shots fired in a nearby saloon called Dowdy's, and Bud felt compelled to investigate. Inside he found that no one had been shot, but two men were arguing and one had a gun out. The sight of Bud's badge didn't seem to go over well, and the man with the gun out (who was drunk) instantly started picking a fight with Bud, saying the town was Mitchell territory and the law had no place there. Bud disagreed, and so we decided to take our disagreement outside into the street.

We were followed out of the bar by a black man in an oversized hat, who someone (Lorek I think) recognized as Sweetwater Nat, a local folk hero. Nat seemed content to just enjoy the show that was playing out, but we recognized that he had the sort of relaxed attitude that was typically only seen in dangerous men.

Bud and the drunk man, David Tasslehat, squared off in the street and drew their pistols. David was the faster draw, but likely his drunkenness threw off his aim, because his shot went wide. In return Bud plugged him in the chest, but the wound wasn't enough to take him down. David got off another shot that missed, and then Margaret cast a command spell and commanded the man to freeze, then walked up and removed this gun from his hand. Bud then ran up to the man and clocked him on the temple with his pistol butt, knocking him out cold.

After questioning some spectators, Bud got directions to the old sheriff's office, which shared space with the post office. He dragged Tasslehat there, gave a curt explanation to the postal employees that he was commandeering the building in the name of the Law, and locked his prisoner in a cell. Margaret used her medical skills to stabilize the prisoners wounds, and after searching him for more weapons we relieved him of a derringer and knife. We also compared him to the wanted posters in the post office and verified that the man was a member of the Mitchell gang. After his wounds were tended to, we dumped a bucket of water on his head to wake him up and tried to get him to reveal more about his gang, but all he would say was that his gang was going to show up to rescue him and kill us.

Lorek spent some time getting to know Sweetwater Nat, swapping stories with him, and found out from him that the Mitchell gang had rode into town the night before, whooping and firing their guns in the air (as they tended to do) as they rode through town. Nat said they had headed east when they left town, which likely meant they headed right for the Satanist Church. Nat gave the indication that he had no love for the Mitchell's, but seemed to want to just stay out of their business.

At the end of the session, we saw everyone on the street talking and gossiping about what had just happened, and Bud belatedly realized that in taking out David Tasslehat and telling the postal employees that his friends were all deputies of the law, he inadvertently had tipped our hand, spoiling our element of surprise. It now seemed like it was was only a matter of time before word of our presence in town reached Caleb and his men.
 

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4/14/2019 3:53 pm  #4


Re: Western Adventure campaign notes

Quick summary of what we did last session based on my own notes and memory:.

We spoke to Sweetwater Nat and tried to convince him to join us in fighting the Mitchell Gang, with Lorek singing songs of his exploits in an attempt to flatter him, but he didn't seem interested. He did say if we ever need to get out of town in a hurry we should just ask for him down by the river.

After planning all week to ambush the Mitchell gang in town, we changed our minds at the last minute and decided instead to do an end run around the group they would be sending into town and hitting them where they lived over at the satanic church. While getting our horses from the stable, we were approached by the Chinese half-orc, Luing. He didn't speak common so well, but he indicated through improvised sign language where he abused a patch of grass that the evil artifact we were after would destroy the land, and so he joined us, casting a druid spell on himself that allowed him to run faster and keep up with our horses. We headed north out of town and came to a bridge that was trapped to fell, with a group of stickmen waiting ambush. We saw the trap before falling into it, but reasoned that time was of the essence so we did not have time to stay and fight, so Gon cast Beast Bond on his horse and had him lead the rest of our horses back to the Carson Ranch to wait for us, and we set off overland toward the evil church.

When we reached the church we stayed hidden and scouted it out, and discovered it was still very heavily manned. 3-4 men were milling around the yard on watch, and there seemed to be a lot of Caleb's mean and cultists coming and going between the church and a little tent city in a valley north of it. From an occasional flash of light we saw they were keeping watch with spyglasses or binoculars, and at one point Caleb's girlfriend came outside. We figured it would be suicide to attack or try to sneak in during daylight, so we just observed for a while. At one point 3 Opowee painted all red, like those Fango had encountered on his solo mission, rode up to the church from the south, spoke to the reverend's daughter, and then rode off overland to the SE. Later 6 men rode up the road to the south, and among them were Caleb and the reverend, carrying the artifact, and also our liberated prisoner David Tasslehat. So apparently we missed our opportunity to take them out in town and recover the box. Fuck.

Figuring the church was too much for us, we headed back to town, stopping on the way to scrawl a note in the dirt of the road to war other travelers of the stickman trap. When we got to the edge of town Luing left the group, presumably heading back to his own home. The main street in the town was deserted, the door to the post office/sherriff's office was hanging open, and we saw a pile of bodies over by the gallows. Around the corner of a building by the gallows we also spotted a ghost heading for us, and that is where we left off.
 

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4/14/2019 3:53 pm  #5


Re: Western Adventure campaign notes

My previous entry was mistaken, because Luing Ga the Chinese Half Orc druid was still with us when we entered the main street in Twist City. Bodies littered the street and the doorways of buildings, so the Mitchell gang had done some serious damage in town while we were gone. Standing on the gallows was a ghost, with a ghostly rope around his neck and a pistol in each hand, and he was laughing in a way that totally wasnt creepy at all. No sir.

At the end of the street we also spotted a gypsum miner who was just riding into town, apparently oblivious to what was occurring. Fango started making his way toward to the miner to warn him off, and most of the rest of us cautiously started toward the ghost. Luing, however, shouted "Abomination!" and took off sprinting toward the ghost.The ghost took a couple shots at Bud, which lucky they missed due to the assistance of a protection from evil spell. The ghost then phased through the wall of a fabric store on the other side of the street, and from there apparently into an adjacent saloon, where we heard screams at first, and the the sounds on confused voices. After that a man stepped out of the saloon, tipped his hat to us, and stated moseying away. A voice from inside the bar was heard asking Conner where he was going.

Clearly the ghost was possessing Conner, so Fango put him down with a non-lethal rock slung at his head. After the man lost consciousness, the ghost emerged form Conner's body, the rest of us opened up on him Margaret throwing her potions at him, Bud and Gon firing lead at him, Fango with arrows and a backstab, Luing with thunderwave spell, and Lorek with cutting taunts about the Ghost's stupid butt. Our physical attacks did less damage than it seemed they should, but such was the fury and volume of our attacks and the hurtfulness of the insults that we finally banished the ghost back to hell. In the firefight Lorek did take a wound from a spectral bullet, which left him with a black sort of burn mark rather than a normal bullet wound and made him feel chilled. As the ghost dissipated, he did leave behind the ghost of the rope that was around his neck.

After the battle we tallied the butcher's bill and found about a dozen people dead, all told, including one of the postal workers from the sherriff's office where David Tasslehat had been imprisoned. We rounded up the town's undertaker to take care of the bodies, and Bud offered to pay for the burial of the postal worker, who I'm sure died valiantly defending his prisoner. The undertaker turned out to also be the town doctor, Dr. Ableson, so it looks like he gets paid whether or not he saves his patients.

Most of the dead had been killed by normal bullets from the Mitchell gang, but a few bore the blackened marks of ghost bullets. Speaking to people in town, we discovered that the ghost was someone they recognized, a man named Mortimer who had been hung on the gallows about a year ago. The two men who had been killed with ghost bullets were members of the jury that found him guilty, and so while the Mitchells brought him back by opening the box containing their evil talisman, apparently once back from hell he had his own agenda for revenge. Judge Chester Sorreno from the Jaded Lilly was also reported to be the one who sentenced Mortimer to hang, and in hindsight when "Conner" started heading out of town he was headed toward the Jaded Lilly.

The rope that was left behind was found to be the ghost of the rope that had executed Mortimer, and even though it had been around Mortimer's neck when he was sent to hell, the rope itself was blameless of any crime, and in fact it had served as an instrument of justice, so we could detect no evil in it, and it seems to now be a magic rope of some sort. Gon had been talking about wanting to take up the lasso, so we all agreed he should have the rope.

As a crowd gathered in the wake of the fight, Margaret started spreading word that Gon was a champion of justice who possessed a Talisman of Ultimate Good, and in two days time we would be having a current-timey revival at the Jaded Lilly, which everyone in town was invited to. At the revival, Gon would be performing a ritual to protect the town and break the evil power possessed by the Mitchell Gang. Her slick sales pitch on the subject looked like it succeeded, because soon we heard lots of people talking about it.

We ended with Lorek taking a short rest in the saloon to heal up, and the group discussing our next move, which is apparently to head back to the Jaded Lilly to give Judge Sorreno a heads-up about the revival he would soon be hosting. The local banker also wisely organized a group of boys to keep an eye out for the Mitchells if they should come back, with instructions to notify our group if any baddies were spotted headed for town.
 

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4/14/2019 3:54 pm  #6


Re: Western Adventure campaign notes

So you know that last session we got Judge Serrano onboard to host the location of the revival at the Jaded Lilly, and he even volunteered to provide big tents and a couple wagons (Mossy Hemmet, who worked locally in textiles, apparently had a large bar tab that the judge could leverage to get a tent). The Judge also sent his son Garson into town to buy some dynamite so we wouldn't be seen doing it. We also found out the townspeople were turning the event into a huge potluck, so food would be provided for. For our part, Gon and Fango went off to visit the local native tribe to see if they would help us, and in Twist city Bud went to go invite the local preacher to the revival, while Lorek and Margaret went to the Merland Theater to enlist some musicians for the event.

Bud found the church empty, but with a root cellar that smelled of rot, so he went to get Margaret and Lorek to help him investigate it. The root cellar looked empty, but Bud's divine sense revealed a source of evil behind one wall, and Lorek was able to spot a secret door. Margaret used a special ability that granted her temporary access to a previously unknown skill and learned how to use the thieves tools she bought from the general store a few sessions ago, and with those was able to determine the door was un-trapped. Through the door we discovered a hidden chapel, with an upside-down gold cross on the altar, infernal writing on the walls related to demon worship, and a trough in front of the altar filled with what looked like the ashes and bones from burnt offerings. on the altar there was also a fine wooden box. Margaret checked it for traps and found a concealed fuse extending from the box into the trough, and buried in the ashes was a shitload of dynamite.

We picked up this session with Fango and Gon out in the prairie searching for the local Opowee tribes to try to recruit them to our side. They came across the tracks of two unshod horses headed in the direction of the Jaded Lilly, and so they followed them and came across two older Opowee men. They were friendly, but only one of them spoke common, and to Fango's surprise he also spoke the language of Fango's own people. The man who spoke common was the older of the two, and Gon recognized him as a shaman. His name was Here's the Fire. The other man seemed to be dressed like royalty, and he was introduced as Chief Por Elk. Por Elk was not just a sub-chief, but apparently an important leader among the Opowee people as a whole

The men revealed that they had learned about the trouble in the region and the revival, and were headed to the Jaded Lily to get more information on what was going on. Gon told them we had set up the revival as a way to trap the Mitchell Gang, and at that Here's the Fire got a sour look and handed some coins to Por Elk, so apparently they had a bet on what we were doing. Here's the Fire also pressed for more information on what the Talisman of Ultimate Evil was and where it came from, but unfortunately Fango wasn't able to recall What Heck Morgan had told the group about the artifact when he recruited us into a posse, and Gon was temporarily asleep in his saddle so he wasn't able to help.

Here's the Fire did clear up some things for us. Apparently the Opowee cultists who Fango saw painted red were sort of a secret organization called the Red Face Society who followed demons and false faces. The members of this society live hidden among the opowee, and previously they had been very secretive, but he appearance of the Talisman of Ultimate Evil had apparently emboldened them to come out in the open recently. That group was working with the Mitchells, and HtF revealed that news of our revival had offended them even more then the settler cultists, so when the attack comes on the revival we will likely be facing both the Mitchell Gang, their settler devil preacher, and also this Red Face Society.

Knowing what we were up against, Fango asked the Opowee men if they would be willing to get some trusted warriors wheo they were sure were not affiliated with the evil Opowee cult and join us in the fight. After conferring the two men agreed, and said they would also recruit some allies of theirs, the Nenahee, a tribe of native elves. Before heading off, the men gave Fango the location of their village (about 2.5 hours ride east) in case he needed to get word to them, and they said if they needed to contact us they would send word to the Jaded Lilly.

Since the sun was setting and they were about the same distance from the Jaded Lily and Twist City, Fango and an newly awakened Gon decided to just head for the Lilly to turn in for the night.

MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE CHURCH...
Just for reference, it was Poor Elk and Hears the Fire
 

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4/14/2019 3:55 pm  #7


Re: Western Adventure campaign notes

MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE CHURCH...

The trap on the box seemed pretty straightforward, but just to be careful Margaret asked Lorek and Bud to wait outside while she disarmed it, so we headed outside the church. Margaret first cut the fuse between the dynamite and the box, and coiled up the fuse well away from the box while she worked on it. The box itself was either glued or nailed to the altar so it could not be moved. She didn't spy any obvious trap triggers externally, so she carefully opened the box... and nothing happened.

Inside was a nice looking single action revolver with a mother of pearl handle, and she spotted the edge of a piece of paper poking out from underneath the gun. Margaret carefully used a pair of tweezers to extract the paper, and immediately after revealing it saw a magical glyph inscribed on it which flared to life. Her arcana skill allowed Margaret to recognize that the rune had something to do with fire, so she dived behind the altar just as the paper exploded. The burning emanation from the explosive rune was pretty minor, however that immediately set of a much larger secondary explosion as the dynamite detonated. Luckily thanks to the cover from the sturdy altar and her quick reflexes (she made her saving throw), Margaret was just wounded in the blast and not killed outright.

Lorek and Bud hurried back in to find a very dazed and singed gnome in the ruined interior of the evil chapel. The box and sacrificial trough had been completely destroyed, but the pistol was unharmed, indicating it was magical. Bud gave Margaret some healing, and we recovered the pistol, which Margaret identified as a +1 weapon. We also recovered the gold that was coating the evil cross ($275 worth, $260 of which we got to keep after the cost having it appraised at the bank).

Outside the church a large crowd had gathered in response to the explosion. Luckily the church building itself was undamaged. Margaret took the opportunity to tell the crowd that we purged the church of an evil presence and remind everyone to come to the revival. The Saviorist pastor Reverend Simms was also in the crowd, so we told him about the hidden evil chapel under the church, and suggested that he might want to reconsecrate that space, however it seems he isn't a spell-casting type of cleric so we may have to help him with that later.

At this point it was getting pretty late, so even though we were tempted to do some shopping at the magic shop with our new windfall of cultist gold, we decided to retire to the Jaded Lily. When we arrived we met back up with Fango and Gon, and gave Gon the +1 revolver, because he is the only one in the group who uses a single action revolver. We then turned in for the night, and took turns with one person from our group on each watch, with the help of 2 volunteers from town, T.C. and Higgins, who were on watch outside the building. The first watch passed without incident, but on the second watch, which was Bud's turn, TC interrupted Bud's mustache combing to point out movement he spotted out in the dark and drizzly night. Bud was just turning back to go wake the group when a rock whizzed past him, heralding another attack by the Yaya Stickmen.

Bud yelled for the group to wake up, and he and TC took cover inside the courtyard gate and opened fire, but neither of us seemed to be able to hit any of the stickmen as they rushed us. A rock to the head took TC down, but Bud healed him and then we started falling back toward the stables just as the rest of the group charged out to reinforce us. Gon's guns, Fango's arrows, and Margaret's potions made quick work of the Stickmen, but Lorek apparently hit snooze and slept through the attack. Higgens also made it around from the back of the building just in time to see the fight end.

As Gon was gunning down the last stickman, he was going to slit his own throat, so for some reason it looks like they really didn't want to be taken alive. This also made the second attack by the stickmen on the Jaded Lily, which Judge Serrano told us was unprecedented, because the Yaya were only known for occasionally winging a rock at someone outside of town, and never before had they engaged in this sort of frontal assault. Given that, it seems likely that they have also been stirred up by the Talisman of Ultimate Evil just like the Red Face Society.

After that we went back to bed, and ended the session there.
 

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4/14/2019 3:55 pm  #8


Re: Western Adventure campaign notes

We set up the Jaded Lilly for the revival, with a grandstand and tents for the settlers on the north side of the building, and strategically placed barrels, wagons and hay bales to provide cover along the front of the building to the east. The Opowee came and set up their own camp to the southwest.

During the setup, a group of about 15 Mitchell gang members and cultists rode in from he northeast. They stayed out of gun range, and sent Verna Abelson forward with a white flag to parley. She said she knew we were setting a trap and that our claimed talisman of ultimate good was a ruse, but said her boyfriend and father had fallen for it, and that they would be attacking tomorrow. She claimed to care nothing for Caleb Mitchell or her father, and just wanted to secure her own safety no matter which side won, so she offered to trade us information in exchange for a guarantee of her own safety if we should triumph in the coming battle. We agreed, and so she told us the following:

-The attack would come at noon, involving a mixed group of Mitchell gang members, satanists, red face society Opowee, and Yaya stick men.

-The settler force of gang members and satanists numbers about 40 men. The would bring the Talisman of Ultimate Evil with them, and after riding up they plan to open the box to unleash its power

-Up to 30 Red Face Society and possibly false-faces would be attacking from the south.

-The false-faces also have stick men helping them, but she did not have the number of them that would be attacking.

-When asked how many false-faces there would be, she claimed not to know and said she never had dealings directly with the false-faces, however this was detected to be a lie.

-There are 3 spies in our camp, including one (a bank clerk) who we had already identified, as well as a laborer working on the grandstand and one of our guards. She pointed out the exact men to us.

Using this info on which men were spies, we put on a show of bringing in a "Gatling gun" in a covered wagon, but then having the wagon break an axle out in front of the Jaded Lilly. We loaded the wagon with our dynamite, with the plan that the attacking force would make for this gun to turn it on us, and once they were around the wagon Fango would blow it up with a flaming arrow.

The spies eventually left camp, presumably to report back to the Satanists.

After dark during Fango's watch, he detected a gang member trying to sneak to the Gatling gun wagon. Fango dispatched him, and we confiscated his horse, gun, and some cash he had on him. Even though his body would be worth some money on a bounty, we eventually decided to burn the corpse so that he could not rise from the dead if the box was opened during the attack.
The morning of the revival, we noticed two of the men who had been pointed out by Verna as spies, the guard and the laborer, returned to the Jaded Lily. Since they didn't know we were onto them it was easy for Bud and Lorek to lure them into separate rooms, get the drop on them, and disarm them. After that we tied them up and locked them in a cellar below the kitchen to await trial later.

The group also noticed that there was a nervous-looking man who seemed to be keeping an eye on Margaret, and looking like he wanted to talk to her. Margaret confronted him, and he revealed that he was a carpenter from town who Bud had approached a few days earlier inquiring about buying a box for the "Talisman of Ultimate Good". He claimed to have some information on boxes that Margaret would be very interested in, and asked to be paid off before he would reveal it. Even though he seemed kind of sketchy, Margaret figured it was best to find out what he knew, so after talking him down to a lower price ($4.50) she paid him off. The man revealed that after Bud had come in looking to buy a box, Verna had come in and paid him to construct a remarkably similar box. From this, the party deduced that Verna was planning to double cross Caleb and her father, swapping boxes on them so she could steal the evil talisman.

We didn't have much time until the revival was due to start, so we met with our Opowee allies. We first filled them in on the plan of attack that Verna had revealed to us. They seemed very surprised and concerned when we told them of the number of Red Face Society members that Verna told us to expect. We also filled them in on what we knew of the Evil Talisman, and Hears the Fire seemed like he had already guessed the artifact's Coyachi origin. We also told them of the new information we discovered on Verna's likely double-cross, and since none of us could afford to leave the revival with the impending attack, the Opowee agreed to send some of their braves to scout out the evil temple and prevent Verna from escaping if possible, or trailing her if that seemed too dangerous.

With that, we prepared for the attack. Bud staked out the front gate, Fango concealed himself on the roof, and the rest of the group worked the revival in the camp north of the Jaded Lily.

Near noon, a single Double-face appeared off in the grasslands to the south, facing away from us with its 2nd face and sharp elbows facing the Opowee camp. Shortly after that, a large dust cloud appeared to the north, and a group of about 35 gang members and cultists rode down the main road. With them, we saw Caleb Mitchell and Reverend Ableson, who was carrying an ornate wooden box. That group massed out on the crossroads to the east of the Lily. They seemed to be waiting for something, and kept looking to the south. At this time, all the townspeople at the revival took up defensive positions, and we waited.

And waited.

The gang on the road seemed to be talking animatedly among themselves. and it started to become clear that the Red Face Society allies they were waiting for were not going to appear. The single Doubleface that had been seen to the south retreaded back into the grasslands. At this point Caleb yelled out to us asking if maybe we didn't want to do this the easy way, and when were replied we didn't reckon we did, they attacked. They came in two groups, with a large group of mounted men lead by the Reverend riding directly for the "Gatling gun", while a second group on foot advanced toward the revival tents. As they rode, the reverend opened his box, and got a very confused look on his face when he looked inside.

As the mounted men reached the gatling gun, Fango fired a flaming arrow into the accelerant-soaked canvass covering the dynamite we concealed in the wagon. Both sides started firing, Some townspeople and some attackers fell, but cover protected out group and we avoided serious injury. After a brief pause the wagon exploded, killing Reverend Ableson and most of the men accompanying him. The box the reverend had been carrying shattered, and was revealed to be empty, of course.

Gon, at this point, removed his plague mask for the first time, revealing that he has the head of a crow, and he charged forward alone, out of cover, to confront Caleb's whole group single handed. Margaret splashed him with a protective potion, and while he was shot once he kept his feet and avoided the majority of the hail of lead aimed his way. We all turned our guns and arrows on Caleb's group and opened up, and in short order we gunned down Caleb and most of his men. Some tried to flee, but they were all run down or gunned down, and the day was ours.
 

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4/14/2019 3:55 pm  #9


Re: Western Adventure campaign notes

After the smoke cleared after the big revival battle. we did a quick search of the bodies. Unfortunately we were pretty tapped on spells, so we couldn't detect for magic, so we just took everything from Caleb and Reverend Ableson figuring we will detect magic on it later. From Caleb we took his double action pistol, a fancy box containing 6 sparkly looking bullets, a cavalry saber, a scale mail armor talisman (which Lorec is now wearing), and a pearl handle box of cards. The Reverend was carrying a silver flask with some liquid in it, a derringer (which Margaret took), and a scroll of revivify (which Margaret also took). From random bandits Lorec also took a rifle, and Bud looted a NCO sword.

Bud also asked Judge Serrano to witness his Paladin Oath (we all made 3rd level).

After consulting with our Opowee allies, we decided that we needed to get after Verna right away. The Opowee said they would try to head directly into the hills to cut her off where we think she is headed, while our group headed to the church to hopefully meet up with the scouts we sent ahead. Fango accompanied the Opowee, and we agreed that once we camped for the night he would shoot some flaming arrows into the air, and our group would send up some magical flares so we could find each other.

Our group rode to the church, and found bodies of 3 of the scouts and four horses. They had been killed with deep stab wounds. Gon asked some nearby ravens where the people who killed the scouts had gone, and they answered "big feast" and indicated they headed north. Gon also used his ranger ability to sense humanoids in the immediate area, and sensed that a humanoid had just died somewhere to the north. We did some tracking and figured out that one person on foot chased after someone on a horse headed in that direction. Following the tracks, we came across a dead horse that had been shot with arrows, and the fourth dead Opowee scout, also killed with deep stab wounds. From that point there was just one set of footprints headed north, but they were inhuman looking footprints with split feet and sharp heels, and there was a blood trail indicating the creature was wounded. It looked like the tracks were about an hour old.

From this we surmised that the 4 scouts had been jumped by a double-face, and after it killed three of them and their horses with its sharp elbows it had been severely wounded and had tried to run away from the fourth scout on horseback. The fourth scout chased it down, and took the monster's horse down with his bow to keep it from getting away, but after that the double-face it managed to elbow him to death.

Following the tracks, we eventually caught up with the double-face. Despite being wounded, it was still a tough fight against it, and while it never got into melee range it did hit Lorec with a gaze attack from it's second face that did considerable psychic damage. After killing the creature, we looted a talisman that it was wearing around it's neck, which we held on to for later identification.

Continuing in the direction the double-face had been headed, we eventually found tracks from a group of about 15 mounted people. The tracks appeared about 2 hours old and seemed to contain a mixture of shod (settler) and unshod (native) horses. The were headed northeast. It seemed likely these were the tracks from Verna's group, which the double face had been attempting to catch up with.

We followed these new tracks into more hilly terrain with longer grass, and we were ambushed by a group of 4 Stickman Flingers. This variety of stickmen were larger than the Yaya stickmen we had fought previously, and they attacked by throwing sticks that would break open and release magical effects. One that they hit us with released grasping vines that entangled the group, one burst into flames causing damage, and one that missed seemed to release some sort of skeletal hand. We beat the stickmen, but after the last two battles we were pretty beat up so we stopped for a short rest.

Traveling further on, we reached a point where one set of tracks cut off from the main group to head up a trail going up a hill. Ahead on that trail, we saw Verna waving to us. We followed her, and reached a farm where there were some nervous looking settlers (two men, two women, and a teenage boy) who were holding weapons and speaking to Verna. Verna rode over to us and told us that she had charmed the settlers, and told them that we were evil men who were trying to harm her, a poor innocent girl. She said if we attacked her they would attack us to defend her, and wouldn't it be a shame if the innocent people were killed in the ensuing fight? While we were itching to take down Verna, we decided the risk to the innocents was too great to attack, so we agreed to keep things civil for now.

Verna asked us if we had killed Caleb and her father, and when we confirmed we had she seemed very pleased by that, saying that it was great when a plan came together. When we asked what the plan was, she said that it had been to get the Talisman of Evil to her "friends". She also asked if we enjoyed the surprise she left for us at the church, making it plain that leaving the double-face to kill the scouts had been her doing. We asked her were the box was, and she said that her allies in the larger group still had it with them. At this point she suggested that we take turns asking each other questions.

We asked here where her allies were taking the box, and she said they were taking it to a special place called the Mound of Bone which was about a day and a half ride to the Northeast. For her question she asked who in our group had the best ability to track her. Since Fango wasn't with us, we answered truthfully that it was probably Gon or Bud. Once we revealed this, she cast some sort of spell on Bud. We don't know what the spell is, but presumably it will inhibit his tracking ability.

We had more questions for her, but seeing that she might just keep casting harmful spells at us as part of her questions, we decided the parley was over, so we rode back down the trail and she rode back to the charmed settlers, who seemed relieved that we had not harmed her.
 

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4/14/2019 3:56 pm  #10


Re: Western Adventure campaign notes

As we headed back down the trail from the farmhouse where we encountered Verna, Fango spotted us in the distance from where he was riding by in the company of the Opowee. He broke away from that group and rejoined our party. As a group we were a little beat up and low on spells, but there was still plenty of daylight left and we didn't want the main group of cultists to get too far ahead of us, so we pushed on following them at as fast a speed as we dared. As we rode the day turned overcast and a hot wind started blowing in from the East.

The tracks we were following contained a mixture of shod and unshod horses (more unshod than shod) and they continued to follow the trail we were on earlier. Eventually this trail crossed the path of a gigantic herd of buffalo that stretched on for miles, so the only way forward was through the herd. As we approached, we noticed that there was an empty spot in the herd, because there was something on the trail ahead that the buffalo were giving a wide berth as they passed. It was a dead buffalo, and as we got closer it stood up and charged at us. Plainly the cultists had killed a buffalo and then opened the box to bring it back to a state of undeath before moving on. The dread bull charged us, but we all drew our weapons and gunned it down. Unfortunately, the sound of gunfire had the effect of panicking the buffalo and starting a stampede. A couple of us were unhorsed and took some damage, but we managed to get out of the path of the buffalo mostly intact, and after rounding up a couple of horses that attempted to run away to live as buffalo we continued on our way.

At this point the wind picked up even more, and we started seeing heat lightning. Several among the group who were familiar with life on the plains recognized this as tornado weather. We saw the path we were following lead out of the open plain and into a wooded valley ahead, so we pushed on even faster to try to gain the shelter of the trees before a twister showed up.

We made it to the treeline about 7:30, just as it was starting to get dark. At this point we estimated that the group we were tracking was about 2 hours ahead and it looked like they were riding hard, but with night falling we thought it was best to look for somewhere to camp. We located a likely spot in a clearing with a large rock that might provide some shelter. As we entered the clearing Bud spotted something shadowy in one of the trees, and shouted a warning just as a very long arm reached out from behind the tree and grabbed Margaret up. It was a shadow creature with long, gangly arms and legs, known as a Hidebehind. We all opened fire on it, and Margaret took out her shotgun for the first time and blew the creatures head off. Unfortunately, another of the creatures scrambled down the tree after the first. This one slashed Bud with its claws, dealing a wound that would have felled a lesser man and prompting Bud to emit a very manly yell of pain that was totally not at all a girlish scream.

Gunsmoke and arrows filled the air as we all opened fire, felling the beast, and leaving our campground seemingly safe for the night.
 

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