My family spent the better part of last weekend preparing for winter. We dug out and washed all of our winter gear, tried on coats and boots, matched mitts (or shoved lonely mitts into mismatched pairs), donated what was too small to the homeless, and went out to buy new winter boots. Everyone in my house needed a new pair this year and with the amount of walking we do winter boots are a necessity for everyone, not just my kids. Which is unfortunate, I suppose, because they’re really expensive. It’s important they’re warm enough and waterproof to keep everyone nice and toasty throughout our chilly winters, so cheap fashion boots won’t cut it. They’ve got to be cold rated for -30°C at least. -40°C is better. Not easy to find for my daughter. For some reason boys boots are built for the cold, while a lot of girl boots look like they’re warm, but aren’t. Anyway it took us the weekend, but we all managed to find a pair. And just in time! We had our first real snow on Wednesday. I say real snow because we’ve had flurries before this. But this snow stayed. There was enough of it to get the kids all excited, and to make snowballs and tiny snowmen (or in my daughter’s case, tiny snow rabbits). I’m not sure how long the snow will stay. It might not go away until next spring, but there’s only a few centimetres, so if we get a warm day it might still melt away. We’ll see. My kids were thrilled for it, but after only a day of the damp and the (very, very mild) cold they’re already complaining.
Suck it up kids! We’re just getting started! It will get so much worse. Haha.
My toddler-aged niece that I watch on the weekdays hates getting in her winter clothes, so every trip outside and to and from school is a tear-filled struggle. Not to mention the time! It takes twenty minutes to get everyone properly dressed and out the door. (Once they get used to it I hope to cut it down to fifteen. Ten would be a welcome miracle). My niece keeps expecting me to give up on her and let her do whatever she wants, which is not going to happen. Clearly she has forgotten we had this same problem last winter. She did not win. She’ll grow accustomed to it in a few weeks. Hopefully sooner. Thankfully her older brother (he’s four) does remember last year’s winter. He knows he needs to bundle.
In other news, my family and I tried playing some more of Pathfinder Playtest Adventure: Doomsday Dawn. We prepared our characters for ‘In Pale Mountains Shadow’ and got started. Unfortunately, by the end of the session they decided they were bored with it. They’ve officially given up playing through Doomsday Dawn and are ready to go back to their regular games. My son desperately wants to continue with the Carrion Crown Adventure Path (we’re about to start Carrion Crown: Book Two: Trial of the Beast), my husband wants to continue with The Shackled City Adventure Path (we’re nearly done book one), and my daughter wants to play some more of our Starfinder Society characters. Most of the other campaigns we’re playing together I moved online so we can play via play-by-post. Getting in a post a day lets us keep playing, so we can dedicate our one chance to play on the weekends to one of our three main campaigns.
Although it may sound like we’re done with the Pathfinder Playtest that’s not quite accurate. I’m playing through two different play-by-post runs of Doomsday Dawn, and we’re all playing in a play-by-post run of the Pathfinder Playtest Society Scenarios. We’re halfway through Rose Street Revenge right now and enjoying it. My son’s character is particularly hilarious. We’ll share more about that at a later date.
My son has been reading like crazy lately! Obviously, I’m very proud of this. I believe that reading is one of those incredibly important skills you really need to instil a love of young. I always encourage my kids to find something they love to read, and indulge in it. Even though both of my kids are good at reading I always push them to try reading something that’s a challenge everyday. Not absurdly hard for them, or anything, but something they do need to work at a bit. Anyway, both of my children are reading well above their grade level so their classrooms don’t have anything that’s a challenge for them. They both bring home books that are far too easy for them for home reading everyday. In fact my daughter can read her older brother’s home reading books without trouble, never mind her own. We have a ton of books at home for my kids to read, but only two books that are a challenge for my son to read that interest him (and he’s read both chapter books repeatedly already). We have plenty of chapter books that my son reads for fun — Geronimo Stilton, The Hardy Boys (Secret Files), Scooby-Doo! mystery novels, Minecraft books, the Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom junior novelization, and so on — but he can read one of those in under a half hour. They’re a challenge for my daughter (and some are too hard), but not exactly a challenge for my son. Something must be done! Once a week after I pick my kids up from school we go for a walk to the local library and I let them each pick out one book that’s a challenge for them to read, and one book that they just want. I say one, but inevitably they come back with one challenging book and a ton of other books they want to read. This is expected and totally fine. A while ago my son brought home a massive book on ecology clearly intended for pre-teens or teenagers. This thing was huge! Anyway, he loved it, but this time he wanted a chapter book. He contemplated starting the Guardians of Gahoole books, so he picked up one of those. But for his fun book? Captain Underpants. My son LOVES Captain Underpants. So he pulled down not one book, but every single Captain Underpants chapter book the library had. There are twelve of them.
“Are you sure you’ll read all of them this week?” I asked my son. “They’re going to be heavy.”
“Uh, yeah, Mom. Of course! But, it might take me two weeks to read them.”
It took him three days. Which is great! But, also… not great. I now have to break it to him that there are only twelve Captain Underpants books. He just read them all. Meanwhile my daughter picked out three Princess in Black chapter books. She owns one of them: The Princess in Black and the Hungry Bunny Horde, already, but the others are new to her. Although she’s disappointed they are not going to have any rabbits in them, she is enjoying them. So much so that she was inspired to write her own book. It’s called ‘Bunny’s Adventure.’ In it a rabbit named Pim journeys up the rainbow and finds another world. She makes some friends and is back home in time for bed. She worked on it for a few days and in the end gave it to her teacher as a gift. (Her teacher had just returned from surgery that week). It was adorable. She’s so proud of it.
I was recently invited to join a play-by-post game of Traveller, and gifted a digital copy of the rulebook by the overly generous Tarondor. (Thank you!) Traveller is a game I’ve never played before, so I’m super excited to give it a shot. I’ve given the book a skim, and have just embarked on a thorough read-through. The character creation rules look particularly interesting. Like a mini-game of its own. Very cool! I can’t wait to try it out. I’ve got plenty left to read though, so I’m not sure how soon that will be. Haha. This time of the year is quite busy around my house. But, I’m happily working on it.
This coming weekend is going to be just as busy as the last one. Busier, in fact. Yesterday was a day off from school, this morning is swimming lessons for my children (which is about a thirty minute walk away), then dentist appointments later today. I’ve got to squish in a trip to the grocery store and the laundromat. And tomorrow? Thanksgiving at my Mom’s! Monday’s another day off from school and more Thanksgiving celebrations, this time at my mother-in-laws. That’s actually pretty quiet for us for Thanksgiving, in all honesty. We usually also try to squish in visits to my grandparents and my Dad’s, but it’s not going to happen this year. We don’t own a vehicle, and frankly I’m too tired. Haha. We’ll be making time for less frantic visits with them soon.
Well, I’ve got to get cracking! Plenty to do and no time to do it in.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
Or, for those of you who are not Canadian, have a great weekend! I wish you all the best.
Jessica
My son desperately wanted his picture featured on d20diaries. This was our compromise. Haha.
My family and I entered a contest a few weeks ago. Hosted by the overly generous Hmm on Paizo’s message boards, she was going to give away all the boons necessary to create a mermaid in PFS play. There were a few ways to enter — for yourself with a mermaid character concept, for a group of friends with a team created from the other boons she was giving away, or by nominating someone else who you thought deserved to win. My family and I entered together, and were lucky enough to be chosen as one of the winners.
I’ve mentioned this contest before on my blog, and I promised that when our characters were complete I would share them with the world.
That time is now! (Finally! Haha.)
My family and I wanted to make a quartet of characters who are (and were) universally considered outcasts among their people and Golarion at large. They’re weird, and different. But what’s strange for one culture isn’t strange for others, and it’s those very oddities that the others embraced and connected with. After all, who cares if the vanara has unnaturally large eyes, if he’s hanging out with a grippli? These guys are friends, companions, and (in many ways) family. They don’t have the same interests, and they don’t always get along. But, hey? What family does?
My daughter was the first person to create her character. She’s always the first person to do so. Admittedly, I would beat her to it, except I always wait to see what my kids want to make before creating my own character.
Pathfinder Player Companion: Blood of the Beast contains a variety of character options for catfolk, grippli, kitsune, nagaji, ratfolk, tengu and vanara! For more details you can check out my detailed blog post on the book, or purchase the book for yourself. It’s a fun one!
My daughter made a grippli named Croak. In her original character pitch she had said she was gong to make an energetic, poisonous grippli who fought with a blowgun. She was going to be a ranger with the poison darter archetype (rangers can be found in the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Core Rulebook, grippli can be found in Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Advanced Race Guide, and the poison darter archetype for rangers can be found in Pathfinder Player Companion: Blood of the Beast). When it came time to make her character and actually get her down on paper, she stuck to it. But, she also added to it. In addition to being a poison darter, she’s chosen to be a skirmisher, which is an archetype for rangers which sacrifices their spellcasting in order to use some nifty tricks a few times each day that can benefit yourself and your companions. This won’t have an effect on her character now, but in the future it definitely will! (The skirmisher archetype for rangers can be found in Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Advanced Player’s Guide).
Croak is incredibly nimble, and rather wise. She’s decent with people and animals, and pretty healthy. She’s not one for book learning, and she’s physically weak. Her final stats are Str 8 / Dex 18 / Con 12 / Int 10 / Wis 16 / Cha 13. As a grippli she’s small, has dark vision, a base speed of 30 feet and a climb speed of 20 feet. She has the ability to camouflage herself while in a swamp, and has no problem travelling in such environments. She speaks Common and Grippli. She was sorely tempted to take the toxic skin variant racial trait, but decided against it. Croak loves to swim, so my daughter didn’t think it made since to give up swamp stride. As a ranger she has the track ability, which she’s excited for. However, she does not have a favoured enemy or wild empathy. These are both abilities she gave up for her archetype. Instead she has poison use, and she secretes a paralytic toxin from her skin which she can use to poison her weapons a few times each day. At higher levels she’ll give up her combat style for rogue talents and give up her hunter’s bond ability for sneak attack that only works with a blowgun.
Now, you might be saying, blowgun? Really? They’re not very good. Well, too bad! My daughter thinks they’re the coolest. She bought a toy one for herself the other day at the local dollar store. I warned her they were tricky to use, but she insisted, and she’s been practising ever since. By now she can get the foam dart to sort of fall out of the blowgun and land on the floor. This is a great improvement from her first few attempts which resulted in the dart moving slightly and staying inside the blowgun. Haha. Admittedly, I’m not much better. As an out of shape asthmatic I can make the dart fly no more than five feet. I’m quite proud of this, actually, as I expected to do much, much worse. (Hooray for low expectations!).
Croak decided to use her favoured class bonus on a special grippli ranger option: she gets a +1 bonus on swim checks. When this bonus hits +8 she also gains a swim speed of 15 feet. She finds this very exciting. She chose to put her skills into acrobatics, climb, diplomacy, perception, perform (song), and swim. She’s also naturally good at stealth and survival, but she did not invest ranks into those skills yet. Perhaps in the future. For traits she chose insider knowledge, which gives her a +1 on diplomacy checks and made diplomacy a class skill. She also chose reckless, which gives her a +1 on acrobatics checks and made acrobatics a class skill. (Insider knowledge can be found in the Pathfinder Society Roleplaying Guild Guide, while Reckless can be found in Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Ultimate Campaign). All things considered, acrobatics turned out to be her best skill, which is just how she wanted it. For her feat she chose agile tongue. This grippli feat allows her to use her tongue to lift light objects, make sleight of hand checks, and perform steal and disarm maneuvers. It also lets her make melee touch attacks, but that won’t have any benefit for her right now. (Agile tongue can be found in Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Advanced Race Guide).
When it came time to buy her equipment, my daughter certainly took her time! Haha. She bought a blowgun with a ton of blowgun darts, a net, and a pair of poisoned sand tubes. But for her melee weapon? Oh, it took forever! Melee is not going to be Croak’s forte. She’s intended to be a close range combatant who stays mobile, and hinders her foes. Her strength score is poor, but she still wanted to be able to have a melee weapon for those times she she gets locked down. The problem? My daughter has no idea what most weapons actually are. She can read their names and statistics, but rarely does she actually know what they look like. There are some she knows, of course: longsword, short sword, dagger, gauntlet, cestus, scimitar, sickle, whip, spear, quarterstaff, net, blowgun, bow, crossbow and darts. She also sort of knows what a sling is. Or rather, she knows what it is, but she likes slingshots better, so she insists the sling is a slingshot. Not the case, of course, but hey, she’s six. It’s a slingshot! As a ranger she had proficiency in a lot of weapons she didn’t recognize, so we spent some time looking up pictures of each weapon, and even watched some videos of how you use each one in battle. In the end, she chose a light flail for her weapon. She became so enamoured with this dangerous weapon that the same day she was at our local dollar store and bought a blowgun, she also bought a little toy flail that’s perfectly sized for her. She’s been hard at work learning how to swing it without whacking herself in the head. For her armour, she picked out a reinforced tunic. In addition to basic adventuring gear she bought a sunrod, a healing potion, and a few vials of acid.
So who is Croak? What’s she like?
Croak is a beautifully coloured grippli, with bright pink and purple skin. Her big, yellow eyes are so bright they practically glow. Her big wide mouth is always curved up in a happy smile. She wears a bright yellow tunic with a belt made of vines. She has a blowgun on her belt, along with a LOT of darts, some vials, and a light flail. She wears a backpack which she’s drawn on with chalk to make look fancy (it mostly looks messy). She taps her toes while she waits, wiggles her fingers, and flicks her tongue around. She never seems to stop moving.
Croak’s a hyperactive, bouncy little thing that’s constantly moving and talking. She’s impulsive, impatient, and finds it difficult to settle. She loves to climb, swim, and play. She’s a very mobile and acrobatic fighter, cartwheeling, dancing, and diving across the battlefield. This makes her a big target. But, she doesn’t mind! They’ll never catch her! Especially once she’s tangled them up in a net, or poisoned them!
Croak is the funny member of the team. She is naive, and boundlessly optimistic. She looks on the bright side of everything, even if she has to get pretty creative to find that bright side! She’s the team member who keeps everyone moving, and brings a smile on a dour day. She’s their spirit.
Croak grew up in a tribe of grippli who lived in the Mushfens of Varisia. Life there was hard! It required patience, and relied on stealth and camouflage. Croak did not fit in. She was bright, chipper, and NOISY! Plus, she never sat still. After a particularly disastrous fishing expedition involving sixteen butterflies, a rubber ball, a fishing net, and seven very upset grippli, Croak was cast out from her tribe.
It sucked! She was very upset!
She travelled a lot after that, and had a lot of trouble fitting in. Lots of people thought she was WEIRD. But, in time, she made new friends. They didn’t mind that she never sat still. After all, they were always travelling anyway! And Croak never slowed them down. They didn’t mind that she squirmed around and bounced through the battlefield. She was a very distracting target! They didn’t mind that she talked all the time. They didn’t even mind her singing! Well, okay, maybe they minded her singing. She couldn’t really be sure when she was singing, after all. She was rather loud.
Croak loves to explore nature with her friend Pinesong Rippleroot. She loves to go swimming with her friend Sereia. And she loves to make discoveries in cities with her friend Lomo.
With my daughter’s character made, we sat down to work on my son’s: Pinesong Rippleroot.
In his original character pitch, my son decided to make an eco-conscious vanara druid with a stumpy tail and hair growth issues. He kept his character concept the same, but while creating his backstory he decided he would have a pet pig. While we explored the druid class and its archetypes together, we also checked out some similarly themed classes, including the shaman, and nature-themed oracles, sorcerers, and witches. Although he loved the idea of a lot of the druid’s abilities, he fell in love with the idea of using his pig as a spirit animal. He debated for a time, but in the end decided that Pinesong Rippleroot would be a shaman. (Vanara can be found in Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Advanced Race Guide. Shamans can be found in Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Advanced Class Guide, sorcerers can be found in Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Core Rulebook, while oracles and witches can be found in Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Advanced Player’s Guide).
Pinesong is incredibly wise and nimble. He’s surprisingly charismatic and friendly. His final statistics are Str 10 / Dex 16 / Con 10 / Int 10 / Wis 16 / Cha 14. As a vanara, he has a thirty foot base speed, 20 foot climb speed, and low-light vision. He’s nimble, and gains a +2 bonus on his stealth and acrobatics checks. Pinesong gave up his prehensile tail ability and instead chose risky troublemaker, which lets him roll twice on his use magic device checks. He speaks Common and Vanaran. As a shaman he forms a bond with a single spirit, which grants him magic spells, abilities, hexes, and other benefits. He also has a magical spirit animal who acts as a conduit between himself and his spirit. My son immediately decided to select the nature spirit. This would grant him some nifty plant and animal themed spells and abilities. Right now it lets him use the spell charm animal as his spirit magic spell, and create little hindering storms around his enemies with the storm burst ability. It also allows his spirit animal (a pig named Cutie Pie) the ability to move through any undergrowth and natural difficult terrain without penalty or harm. Shamans are prepared casters, so for his first adventure he chose to prepare daze, detect magic, stabilize, cure light wounds, and goodberry.
My son chose to invest his skill ranks into acrobatics, climb, knowledge (nature), survival, and use magic device. He’s also naturally good at stealth. There’s a lot more skills he wants to invest in at higher levels, including handle animal, knowledge (arcana), and spellcraft. For traits he selected dangerously curious, which gave him a +1 bonus in use magic device and made it a class skill, as well as reckless (that’s a pretty popular trait in my house!). (Dangerously curious can be found in Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Ultimate Campaign and Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Advanced Player’s Guide). For feats he chose weapon finesse.
When it came time to buy his gear my son knew exactly what he wanted. Pinesong adores fancy, complicated objects, which my son wanted to reflect in his gear choices. He purchased a light crossbow and lamellar cuirass. (Lamellar cuirass can be found in Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Ultimate Equipment and Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Ultimate Combat). Of course, Pinesong also tries to make his own gear — and does a horrible job at it. He uses hand carved wooden stakes for his melee weapon, and wears a braided belt of grass and vines. For his other gear he invested in some basic adventuring equipment, a vial of acid and a flask of holy water.
Pinesong Rippleroot is a chubby, vanara with a bulging tummy, thin white fur, and a short stubby tail. His eyes are much too big, which makes them look like they’re bulging out of his head, but his smile is wide and happy. His hair on the top of his head is styled into an outlandish hair do! It looks very odd! With every breeze his fur moves around, showing off his many bald spots.
Pinesong wears a belt he fashioned himself from a braided vines and grass. There’s a wooden stake hooked onto it, and a belt pouch. On his back is a crossbow and a backpack, and over his chest he wears some odd looking armour made of little squares that he thought was fascinating! He does not wear pants or shoes.
Pinesong was always a strange vanara. He was born hairless, with massive, bulging eyes, and a short stunted tail. The other vanara thought he was hideously deformed! As he grew it didn’t get any better. His hair never grew in, his tail never got longer, and his eyes? Well, they got bigger, but that just creeped everyone out more. Eventually, the tribe could take it no more and Pinesong (whose birthname is Bug-eye Manycurse) was abandoned. He was still a child then, but he took to life in the forests with enthusiasm. The birds never complained or called him ugly. The bugs never screamed when he came to play with them. The animals became his friends, and the wilds his home. He was happy, and free. In time, Pinesong’s hair did grow in. It’s very thin, and a good breeze shows off his many bald spots, but he’s very proud of it. He keeps it long and refuses to trim it, worried that it won’t grow back. He brushes it all the time and styles it in outlandish hair-dos. His tail is still too short, and never really grew in. He’s also quite chubby and big for a vanara, with a bulging tummy, and a wide, happy, face.
Eventually, Pinesong reached the edge of the woods and found something amazing! A TOWN. They had homes made from dead trees, and could shape the earth into little cute rectangles for making things! Apparently they were called bricks and they were not for throwing. Pinesong was fascinated! He moved in right away, but still finds the ways of the city strange. He doesn’t understand why they get mad when he sleeps on rooftops. Or why they greet him with shrieks and screams. His concepts of ownership are, admittedly, in need of some work. They offered him a home at this place with barred windows, but he got bored so he left. They didn’t like that very much. He loves trying to build beautiful things like the city folk do, but he’s horrible at it. His inventions always malfunction and break, usually causing him to hurt himself. A minor price to pay for mastering a craft!
In time, Pinesong made some great friends. There was a grippli who was delightfully exciting! She thought his big eyes were beautiful, which made him blush all the way to the tips of his wonderfully styled fur. There was an elf who could breathe water! A feat he’d like to accomplish one day! And there was a ratfolk who knew the many intricacies of city life which so eluded him.
One day he found a little pig who was being chased by naughty children with sticks! Pinesong swooped in to save the pig, and he hasn’t left his side since. He’s decided to call the pig ‘Cutie Pie.’ Pinesong loves his curly little tail and his happy squeals. Pinesong was very surprised to find that Cutie Pie is magical! When he asks Cutie Pie for magical power, nature listens, and the magic flows up into Cutie Pie and into Pinesong. It’s pretty cool!
Despite his newfound fascination with city-life, Pinesong cares deeply for the natural world. He wants to protect the many animals, plants, and delicate eco-systems of Golarion. He has a soft spot for lost things, foundlings, and orphans of all kinds. He’s a happy fellow, with a jolly, screeching laugh. He’s a bit oblivious to the intricacies of society, and the cultures around him, but loves learning about such things. He’s constantly trying to make friends, even though most people are creeped out or irritated by him. Despite his goofy demeanour, Pinesong is uncommonly wise, and his group of friends often turn to him for advice, comfort, healing, and guidance.
I chose to make an aquatic elf by the name of Sereia whose curiosity got her abandoned on the surface. (Aquatic elves can be found in Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Advanced Race Guide, while extra class options for them can be found in Pathfinder Player Companion: Blood of the Sea). I had originally intended to make Sereia an arcanist. I’ve never had a chance to make an arcanist before, and I was quite excited for the chance.
When I sit down to make characters I come up with a character concept first, then I browse through all the different classes and archetypes that I think might work for them and take notes on which ones I like, why, and how that class choice would affect my character concept. Sereia was no different. As I went through arcanist and a bunch of other casting classes, I decided two extra important things: she would have poor charisma and use a trident. Arcanists sort of need charisma, so I had a bit of an issue. In addition, both of my children had chosen ranged options, and I knew we’d be in need of a melee fighter of some sort. In the end, I decided to make Sereia a magus. It blended my arcane magic with some decent combat capabilities in a way that I enjoy. In addition, I don’t have a magus in PFS play (although I do have a ranged magus in a different play-by-post), so I was excited to get the chance to use one. Arcanist will have to wait for another time. Again. (Poor arcanist!). I decided to give her the hexcrafter archetype. The hexes would which would give her some fun ranged options and, in terms of flavour, Sereia believes herself to be cursed. I liked the idea of reflecting that in her class choices. (The magus and the hexcrafter can be found in Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Ultimate Magic).
Sereia is smart and strong. She’s nimble — though not nearly as much as her companions — and is relatively healthy. She’s impulsive, and prone to acting before thinking. She’s unused to interacting with surface races. Her final statistics are Str 16 / Dex 14 / Con 12 / Int 16 / Wis 10 / Cha 8. As an aquatic elf she’s amphibious, has a base speed of 30 feet, and a swim speed of thirty feet. She’s a naturally gifted arcane caster, and has keen senses. She took the deep sea dweller alternate race trait which gives her dark vision and cold resistance at the expense of low-light vision and her elven immunities. She speaks Aquan, Common, Celestial, and Elven. As a magus she has an arcane pool, spellbook, cantrips, and the spell combat ability. Her archetype adds a variety of curse spells to her spell list, although at the moment she only has brand in her spellbook. At higher levels she’ll also gain access to a variety of witch hexes. The level one spells I chose to add to her spellbook include colour spray, grease, hydraulic push, obscuring mist, shield, and shocking grasp.
I had such a wide array of skills I wanted Sereia to be able to use that I had a hard time narrowing it down. In the end I invested skill ranks into disable device, knowledge (arcana), linguistics, perception, spellcraft, and swim. At her next level up she will diversify a lot, spreading out her ranks to a wide variety of new skills. I chose to give her criminal (disable device) and observant (perception) for her traits, and arcane strike for her feat. In addition to basic adventuring gear I bought her a trident, darts, a few vials of acid, leather armour, and thieve’s tools.
Sereia is a calm and proud aquatic elf with blue skin, long white hair, and a wiry frame. Constantly hot and feeling like typical surfacer clothes are suffocating her, Sereia wears as little clothes as possible to remain ‘decent’ in public. Typically this consists of tiny, tight shorts, a crop top, a belt, sandals and a backpack. While on missions she adds leather armour. She wears golden earrings, and an elaborate golden hair piece — ancient Azlanti relics she scavenged herself on an expedition made before she was cursed. She also wears a thick necklace of shell and coral which her sister made her many years ago. In her hands she carries an elaborate trident.
Sereia is descended from a long line of aquatic elf explorers who ply ancient, sunken ruins in search of relics. The exploration of these locations, and the handling and care of the treasures and lore found within is considered a great honour. However, her people take great pride in knowing when a dangerous ruin, or powerful artifact should be left untouched, and unsullied. Insatiably curious, Sereia revelled in the joy of discovery, and earned a place of respect among her people. For a time. For Sereia’s greatest strength was also her weakness. She was too curious. Too ambitious. Too bold. And it was her downfall. When her exploration team discovered a ruin marked with ominous sigils, they labelled it taboo. Off limits. But Sereia forged ahead. She discovered a strange pearl on an altar, literally pulsing with magical energy. Where others would have backed down, she reached out… and touched it.
Her world fell apart.
The pearl transported her to a strange place where the seafloor was hard, and the oceans were hot air that burned and cracked her skin. She could breathe — thank the gods! — but swimming was off limits with water nowhere in sight. She learned to walk, an exhausting experience, for never before had her body felt so heavy.
And there, on the surface of Golarion, Sereia faced a harsh reality. She had been reckless. She had broken taboos. She had been banished by her own foolishness. Even if she found her way home, she would not be welcome. Not without penance. She needed a great offering for her people. An ancient relic that belonged under the waves, which she could return to her people with pride. And so she set out to acquire such a prize, and — impossibly — find her way home.
Sereia is calm, proud, ambitious, and bold. She’s insatiably curious, and deeply interested in relics, history, and exploration. Since her recklessness brought her to the surface, Sereia believes herself to be cursed by her ancestors or her people’s gods. She was distant and aloof for a very long time, and still seems to be among strangers.She tries to temper her recklessness and curiosity by ponderously thinking things through. A strategy much harder to use since she befriended her strange new friends.
Sereia joined the Pathfinder Society as an excavator and a scholar. She went on missions, but made few friends. She was aloof, and distant. Her fellow agents found her strange — particularly her habit of eating everything raw. She never sought companionship, but in time, it found her.
She met a grippli as curious as she was, who made no effort to reel in her excitement and urges. She met a vanara with a respect for the natural world as deep as her own. And she met a ratfolk who didn’t seem to care he had no place in the world. They befriended her. Changed her. Inspired her. And, in time, she changed them. She sponsored their entry into the Pathfinder Society, and now they work together as a single, very strange, team. With their help, the ancient relic Sereia needs in order to return home has never been closer.
And she’s never wanted it less.
For, what need was there to earn a prize to return home, when she had a family right here in Absalom?
My husband went last. He usually does. It takes him a long time to decide not only on what he’s going to be, but also to come up with some engaging, fun quirks that will keep him interested in his character. In his original character pitch he decided to make a nimble ratfolk shifter name Lomo who chews on everything (including magical objects). He’s stayed very close to that concept. He’s a shifter with the mouse aspect (which will look like a rat in play). (Ratfolk are from Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Advanced Race Guide, while the shifter is available in Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Ultimate Wilderness). He’s incredibly nimble. He’s also quite cunning, intelligent, and hardy. His final statistics are Str 10 / Dex 18 / Con 12 / Int 13 / Wis 14 / Cha 10.
As a ratfolk, Lomo is slow, but has darkvision. He’s good with rats, and enjoys tinkering with stuff. He gave up his swarming racial trait to instead have bulging cheek pouches that he likes to hide tasty bits and bobs in. As a shifter he has sharp retractable claws, wild empathy, and (as previously mentioned) the mouse minor aspect, which gives him evasion. He chose the feat weapon finesse, and intends to take shifter’s edge feat tree in the future. He’s a nimble, scrappy shifter, not a bruiser.
Lomo invested skill ranks into acrobatics, climb, knowledge (nature), perception, and stealth. For traits he chose ratfolk avenger, a trait from Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Inner Sea Races which gives him +1 damage against enemies he’s seen attack his companions. He’s very protective of his friends! He also chose sacred touch.
Lomo is a rough looking ratfolk with thick gray fur, bright beady eyes, and soft ears. His cheeks bulge out, as if filled with something, and he nibbles on the end of a fancy looking stick. His long hairless tail is crooked from a magical mishap suffered long ago.
Lomo is the eldest son of a powerful and well-respected wizard. His father once took great pride in passing on his magical teachings and excellence to Lomo, who proved completely and totally ungifted in the arcane arts. Disappointed in his son’s failure, Lomo’s father gave up on him, and began training Lomo’s younger brother instead. Jealous, Lomo spent his nights sneaking into his father’s arcane laboratory and library, desperately trying to make the various wands and magical devices work. He failed. A lot. In frustration he gnawed on the objects he failed to activate. A horrible trait which eventually became habitual. To this day Lomo’s constantly chewing on things — including valuable magical objects. One night he found himself chewing on a powerful artifact of his fathers, which crumbled to pieces in his mouth. Horrified and unable to fix it, Lomo set off to find someone who could.
He left with his friend, Croak, and eventually became companions with Pinesong and Sereia. When Sereia offered to sponsor their entry into the Pathfinders, the trio took her up on her offer. Now the group works together. He’s become very protective of them and, whenever they’re hurt, he tends to shriek “OH, NO YOU DIDN’T!” and go a little… feral.
Lomo desperately wants to be a member of the Dark Archives, but keeps getting turned down. They won’t let him anywhere near the relics. Still, he’s hopeful he’ll not only get in, but he’ll come to lead them one day! Despite his troubles with the Dark Archive, Lomo’s a good Pathfinder Agent. He’s nosy, curious, and good at getting into places he shouldn’t.
Lomo is a nimble, scrappy ratfolk who is constantly gnawing on things — particularly magical objects. He’s greedy,nosy, and a little self-centred — but not obviously so. He tries to be friendly, but it always comes off a bit desperate and awkward. He’s the street-wise member of the group. Lomo knows how the world works and how to get by in it.
And that’s our quirky crew! Together they would do…. stuff! But, that’s not it. In the contest we could choose to write a song for bonus points, which we did. Songs and poetry are not my forte. I love to sing (badly), play the piano (I’m not very good), and dance (with my family). And yes, a lot of the time I burst into spontaneous songs made up off the top of my head. But that doesn’t mean they’re any good. They’re usually jokes, or lullabies, or just a song about my kids, or what we’re doing. Writing a song is outside of my comfort zone. But, we went for it. My son wanted to add jokes into the song, and my daughter wanted it to have a lot of animal sounds (since we were nearly all animal people of one kind or another). And I just… sort of tried to put it together.
Our song’s a mess. Which is exactly how it should be. It’s a song written by Croak the grippli, and sung by the whole team. But, like any group of friends, a song’s not just a song. It’s interspersed with conversation, heckling, and a fair amount of confusion! It’s a song, but it’s also them singing it. Enjoying it. And messing it up. It’s a work in progress that will never be perfect. And even if it could be, they wouldn’t want it that way.
A super wonderful amazing song…
Everyone: Croak! Croak! Oo! Oo! Ee! We like swamps and we like trees! Whee! Wahoo! Sniffle scrounge! We like to play and we like to lounge!
Croak: “Wait! What? I don’t like to lounge! That’s boring!” Lomo: “Nothing wrong with sitting still once in a while, Croak.” Sereia: “Sniffle? Is someone sick?” Croak: “Nope! That’s Lomo! His nose twitches like crazy.” Lomo: “Hey! I’m not some hound dog, ya’ know!” Pinesong: “Mmm… Treeeees… Oh, yeah! I love a good climb!” Sereia: “Oh, dear. I’m not sure I can climb a tree. My limbs are far too heavy to — “ Croak: “Come on! Back to the song guys!”
Everyone: Boing! Boing! Ribbit! Croak! Croak! Croak! Time to splash and time to soak! Nibble Nibble! Whisper! Sing! We love adventure! What will the tomorrow bring?
Sereia: “We should call ourselves the Children of the Waves.” Croak: “Waves? The swamp doesn’t have waves! Let’s call ourselves the Bog Jumpers!” Sereia: “Bog? Ugh, that water’s filthy.” Pinesong: “It’s not filthy! Bog’s are a very important eco-system, you know.” Lomo: “Yeah, yeah. For bugs and junk, maybe. Let’s call ourselves The Rat Kings!” Croak: “Kings? I want to be Queens!” Sereia: “Rat Queens? That’s taken already, dear.” Pinesong: “Aaaaand, cue the finale!”
Everyone: Chitter, chatter! Talk, talk, talk! We swim, we climb, we dance and walk! We’re all different. We’re not the same. But we’re all friends!
Croak: “Something, something… aim?” Pinesong: “That’s not it! Think of something else… tame? blame?” Sereia: “I don’t like any of those words. Let’s think positive.” Lomo: “Pfft! Songs don’t have to rhyme! Conformity’s lame.” Croak: “That did rhyme.” Lomo: “Nope. Definitely didn’t.” Sereia: “It certainly did.” Pinesong: “I’ve got it! Everybody smile!?”
Frieeeeeeeends!
Croak: “Wow! Great job! That was an awesome ending! Sereia: “The end is where we’re supposed to stop talking, dear.” Croak: “Stop? Aww, shucks! I’ll stop when —“ Lomo: *nibble nibble* Sereia: “Are you chewing on a stick?” *GASP* “Spit that wand out this instant!” Lomo: “Hey, if it ain’t meant for chewing, its shouldn’t taste this good.” Sereia: “No respect for history…”
(Note: The Rat Queens are an amazing fantasy comic book series which you should definitely read! It is by far my favourite comic book currently in print. Scratch that. It’s my favourite comic book EVER. So good! Be forewarned: it is not intended for children. The Rat Queens begins with Rat Queens: Volume 1: Sass & Sorcery.)
Despite singing about naming our group, they’re perpetually nameless. I highly doubt they’ll ever agree on a name for themselves.
So what’s this weird, wacky, nameless team up to?
We were lucky enough that a fellow play-by-poster offered to run us through our inaugural mission as Pathfinders! We’ll be starting Heroes for Highdelve online on Paizo’s website soon.
At the request of our GM, and in order to better link ourselves to the plot line of Heroes for Highdelve, each of us decided on a reason we were heading there, and something that we were seeking. Shockingly (not) my daughter managed to make hers include rabbits.
One day, Croak found a toy store that sold stuffed rabbits. Croak thought they were beautiful! So she bought one! But, she had trouble deciding which one was the prettiest so she bought a lot! She put them in her waterproof bag — so they wouldn’t get wet — and went about her business in town with Lomo. She danced and played, and climbed on roofs and wagons — and got scolded by the people who owned those things. Then she reached for a rabbit toy to play with it. BUT IT WAS GONE! Somewhere along the way Croak had put down the bag! She looked everywhere for itand asked all kinds of people. Eventually she realized she had left it on top of a carriage! Croak tried to track down the carriage, but it was too fast! Adventure awaits! Croak has been following the wagon’s trail and tracked it to Highdelve. She hopes to find the carriage and get back her bag of stuffed rabbits! Who know what will happen along the way!
Pinesong recently helped out at an animal shelter, where he found homes for a variety of animals. Happy he was so helpful, Pinesong went out around town to check on the pets. Unfortunately, one of the people he sold some pigs to turned out to be a merchant who was on his way to Highdelve to sell the pigs to a butcher shop! Pinesong knows that people tend to eat meat, but those pigs were NOT for eating! They were for lovng! Pinesong has set out to stop the salesman from selling the pigs at the fair in Highdelve! (Or, to at least ensure they get sold to someone who won’t eat them!)
Sereia has recently been searching for a coral idol of Gozreh which was fished up out of a ruin off the coast of Andoran by an elderly fisherman. The idol was sold a few times before it got in the hands of an antiquities smuggler by the name of Jacobi. Always a few steps behind the idol, Sereia hopes to catch up the the smuggler in Highdelve so she can acquire the idol before it is sold. And, if she’s too late, she’s hopeful she can at least get the name of the person Jacobi sold the relic to.
While Lomo’s in Highdelve with his friends, he hopes to find a magical craftsman capable of fixing his father’s artifact. Having been let down before, he’s not hopeful.
Unbeknownst to Lomo his father’s artifact is, and always has been, a fake. It can’t be fixed, because it was never magical in the first place. And if it was? Well, obviously it would have taken something stronger than his teeth to break it. If only Lomo had paid a bit more attention to his father’s lessons…
NOW that’s it. The end.
Or, is it the beginning?
Either way, we’ve had a blast.
Thanks for joining us on d20diaries. I hope you have the opportunity to find a gaming group as great and fun-loving as I have.
Well, hello, world! Today’s a big day around the d20 Diaries family! So crack out your party hats and get ready to clap. I want to hear you all the way in Canada.
To start with, it’s the beginning of another school year. My daughter is entering grade one so this marks the first year she’ll be in school all day long, the first year she’ll be enjoying recess, and the first year she’ll be staying for lunch. My daughter loves school, so she couldn’t be happier! She’s bouncing in excitement and smiling so big her cheeks will probably hurt by days end. And as for my son? My son is entering grade two and although he’s happy to get to see his friends… Well, he’d rather stay home and play video games. Haha. He’s growing up so fast!
But, we’re celebrating not just the start of another school year for my children. Oh, no! We’re also celebrating our one hundredth post! That’s right. Cue the happy, cheering crowds!
Thank you, thank you… Hold your applause.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: we’re still new around here. We’ve only been around nine months. Yup! Just nine. d20 Diaries is still in it’s infancy. There’s plenty more features we hope to add in the future, and more stories we hope to share. There’s a pile of articles waiting to be fleshed out, and many, many more adventures to be had. So for us, one hundred is a BIG DEAL.
d20 Diaries has become something bigger and grander than I could have ever imagined. We have some followers through wordpress, a lot through email, and regular readers from all over the world. Sometimes we get visitors from places I admit to never having heard of, which causes me to smile, think ‘that’s awesome!’ and look that country up. Clearly I’ve got to brush up on my world geography! Our views are increasing regularly and each time we get a comment I still squeal in surprise and delight. (Seriously).
The future’s looking bright!
So while I drink my celebratory cup of tea, and my kids get ready for another school day, let’s all raise our drinks and let out a cheesy ‘CLINK’ sound. Cheers, guys!
Thanks for reading. We appreciate it more than you know!
Well, it took about a week, but Paizo’s website is finally up and running properly. Oh. Actually, it’s down again. Haha. Well, it was up for a day, at least. (You can do it, Paizo!).
It was strange, having my play-by-posts out of reach for so long. But, I got plenty of others things done. I got by house in order, helped my Mom move, and got my kids prepared for the new school year (which starts in another week and a half). I saw my youngest brother for his birthday. He asked for books and some socks, so I picked him up Naruto socks, Akasuki socks, and two books I thought he’d like: Ready Player One by Ernest Cline (which is also an awesome movie, by the way), and the first three books in The Legend of Drizzt series (Homeland, Exile, and Sojourn) by R. A. Salvatore. Drizzt’s origins are actually my favourite books he’s in, and my brother’s never read them. (Blasphemy! Haha). I think he’ll really like them. While we were shopping I found an awesome Dungeons & Dragons Adventures Coloring Book which I was super tempted to pick up for my kids (but didn’t). Maybe I’ll buy it for one of them for Christmas in a few months. Haha.
My daughter and I finished creating our newest Pathfinder Society characters, Croak and Sereia, whom we won race boons for, and my husband and son are about halfway done theirs. My daughter completed creating her second character for the Pathfinder Playtest adventure Doomsday Dawn, and I’ve just started mine. I got a lot of reading done, and have a few extra blog posts underway already. Be on the lookout for posts about Starfinder: Pact Worlds (I know, I’m slow, haha) and Pathfinder Player Companion: Blood of the Sea in the coming days.
I never have time for video games anymore, but with my play-by-posts down my kids and I started playing one of my very favourite video games of all time: Chrono Cross for the PlayStation. I was a kid when I played it the first time, and it literally blew my mind. Twist after twist I was just… Stunned. It’s got time travel, alternate dimensions, death, life, fate, a ton of NPCs you can get to join your party (many of which you meet well before you can convince them to join you), and (perhaps the coolest part) halfway through the game, after rallying friends and allies to help you defeat the villain, you have an epic confrontation which culminates with the villain using a magical ritual to swap your minds around. Your mind goes into his body and his goes into yours. All of a sudden those friends and allies are hanging around with the villain, trying to fight you. And you? Well, at least you don’t have to worry about fighting all those minions of the villain anymore. Cause they’re yours now. Sort of. Haha. So, if all your good friends are doing the work of the bad guy now, and they think they’re still doing good, but you and the other villains are working to stop them, are they still good guys? As a kid, I was amazed. Haha. Anyway, I started the game, which made my kids want to try, so we each started our own file. They’ve already reached the first big twist in the game, and were so shocked. They concocted a whole lot of crazy theories in an effort to figure out what’s going on. It’s adorable to watch. It’s been fun. I definitely owe fellow play-by-poster PaleDim a shout out for getting the music from Chrono Cross stuck in my head the other day. (Thanks!)
My husband and kids have been watching Voltron since it launched on Netflix quite a while ago, so they took the opportunity to delve into the newest season. One of the episodes was absolutely hilarious. The characters play a mock version of Dungeons and Dragons called ‘Monsters and Mana’ which is just a blast. I particularly like the GMs in campaign twists, and that one of the characters just kept playing a paladin no matter how many times he died. The other characters kept pointing out that he was a paladin in real life, so maybe he should try something else, but he thought that was absurd. There’s nothing better than a paladin, after all! My kids, my husband and I were laughing so hard. If you ever get a chance to watch Voltron Season 6: Episode 3: Monsters and Mana you should definitely take it! (It’s from the remake on Netflix, in case that needed clarifying, not the original show from when my husband was a kid, haha.)
Recently my husband suggested we build our own starships out of LEGO for use in Starfinder starship battles , which we all thought was an awesome idea. I’ve always loved playing with LEGO, but I wouldn’t say I’m great at it. I’m more of a ‘follow the directions’ or ‘build a square house’ kind of girl. But, I took to the challenge with aplomb! Turns out I did a pretty good job! My kids made some really nice ones. But, my husband turned out to be the LEGO Master of the house. Most of our ships came out way too big, but we had a lot of fun.
Well, it’s time for me to sign off now. I’m at the local laundromat and my laundry’s almost done. I’ll leave you with some pictures of our wonderful LEGO starships!
Way back in March I shared my family’s experiences creating their first Starfinder characters. We had a lot of fun making a kooky crew, and tried them out a bit before deciding they would join the Starfinder Society. There were some changes that needed to be made. Tucker was a halfling, which would have to change, but otherwise the transition went smoothly. Then we sat down and played Into the Unknown. Life got busy. We moved on to play Starfinder Scenario #1-03: Yesteryear’s Truth, which was great fun.
So today, when I turned on my computer with the intent of writing a blog post, my daughter put her little hands on her hips and said, “Mom, you did not write about our Wayfinders in a long time! You need to do that.”
Has it really been that long?
Yup! It certainly has.
And so, at my daughter’s insistence, we’re rejoining the crew of Infinity and heading out into the Vast! So strap in, and get ready for wild ride!
Our crew consisted of three mercenaries and a single Starfinder Agent. The Starfinder Agent Hoponisa (Hops for short), is a ysoki technomancer from the dark side of Verces who loves to dance. She’s on a mission to find herself the ‘perfect mate’ and is handy both in the pilot’s chair, the engineering bay, and at a computer console. She has a robot rabbit dubbed ‘Snowball’ who is a glorified computer with some minor mobility that she crafted herself, then wrapped in fuzzy faux fur for ultimate cuddle-ability. It’s also her spell cache. Hops is a member of the Wayfinders faction who acts as a contact with a specific group of mercenaries — the other PCs. Together, Hops and her hired help travel the Vast, deploying drift beacons for credits at the behest of the Wayfinders. After discovering new planets, collecting data on their environments, and deploying drift beacons, the group prepares a report on the planet for the Wayfinders, which allows the spacefaring faction to better prepare proper Starfinder teams for further exploration on these locations. The mercenaries make some decent credits, and the Wayfinders get to expand their influence without using up valuable Starfinder resources and personnel.
Hops and the crew of the Pegasus Class ship, Infinity, have gone on plenty of missions together. Led by their Captain Aya, a wise, enigmatic kasatha mystic who believes that every life is precious, they’ve charted planets and discovered new places. Their roles on the starship change a lot, with the rest of the crew rotating between pilot, engineer, science officer, and gunner as the mood strikes them. Aya and Hops are joined by Tucker Aetherfoot, a ysoki operative with the daredevil speciality who’s nimble, acrobatic, and full of boundless energy. He wears a t-shirt with a shirren design on it (to represent his long-time friendship with the shirren Vishkesh), and wears a racing helmet with a rose-tinted visor and stylized mouse ears on the side (which was given to him by Hops as a birthday gift). Tucker’s insatiably curious, and runs a blog in his spare time about his experiences exploring the Vast. He’s a devout Desnan from Absalom Station, prone to dancing when he’s idle too long. …Even in the middle of a mission. Lastly, there’s Vishkesh, a shirren mechanic with a little flying spy drone named Rijin. Rijin is trained to help Vishkesh with repairing starships, and is also outfitted with a flare gun. He’s a chipper little thing, with a bubbly artificial personality. Vishkesh has a fondness to caring for (and rescuing) larval shirren, and currently has a dozen dangling off of him in their protective canisters at all times. Vishkesh is the proud owner of a pig stuffed animal — a rare creature he’s never seen in in the flesh! He’s also from Absalom Station, and is a long time friend of Tucker’s. Vishkesh worships Hylax.
Recently a fellow scouting ship hired by the Starfinders, Unbounded Wayfarer, went missing. Worried for their friends and fellow mercenaries Aya, Tucker, and Vishkesh urged Hops to inquire with Venture-Captain Arvin after the other ship’s status. The news? Bad.
The crew of the Infinity were dispatched to find the Unbounded Wayfarer, save them (if possible), and return with the information they had acquired on their recent voyages. The mission was different than anything they had done for the Starfinders before, but they accepted. They made friends along the way, particularly with a vesk pawn-broker by the name of Julzakama, and a family of enterprising ysoki who run the Vat Gardens. They fought their way through undead from Eox, alien creatures, and space pirates. In the end they discovered that their friends from the Unbounded Wayfarer were dead. They retrieved their bodies, the information they had discovered, and learned of a few planets worth exploring. Then they returned to Absalom Station to report to Venture-Captain Arvin, and mourn the loss of good friends.
Upon completion of their mission, Arvin offered the crew of the Infinity a rare opportunity. He would sponsor their entry into the Starfinders as actual agents, then he would grant them right of first exploration on all of the planets that they had received intelligence on from their companion’s ship. Aya, Tucker, and Vishkesh did some soul searching, and decided to officially join the Wayfinders faction of the Starfinders on the condition that they would always work as a team, and they would retain their ship.
With the bargain struck, the crew of the Infinity spent a bit of time in Absalom Station resting and upgrading their ship to meet Starfinder standards. They interviewed fellow Starfinder agents, eventually hiring two rookies to assist them with rounding out their crew: Gizdara, a half-orc technomancer who’s a whiz with computers, and Diggs Drifthopper, a burly ‘rabbitfolk’ whose planet was conquered by the Vesk years ago. Diggs was forced into the military, but was recently allowed his freedom and was looking for work. He’s good with a gun, but not much else (which he can’t use in SFS play, as a non-combatant hireling, haha). Still, my daughter insisted on hiring him because he was destined to be Hops’ mate. (Uhhh… Okay? Haha). Diggs’ job is mostly to watch the ship while we’re away from it.
With their crew rounded out Infinity set off into the Vast to check out the first of the planets their friends on the Unbounded Wayfarer had discovered before dying. This planet was called Elytrio, and was reported to be protected by powerful automated defences. Hops took the pilot’s chair, and Captain Aya gave her the order to set off. Gizdara programmed the coordinates into the ship’s databanks. Vishkesh and Rijin headed down to the engineering room to ensure the ship was in tip-top shape. And Diggs wandered around aimlessly. As they entered the Drift the stars outside became replaced by a swirling mass of colours and motion. The journey was underway….
After ten days they came into communication range of another ship.
“Registration information?” Aya asked Gizdara.
The half-orc techie clicked away at her console for a few seconds. “Identified as Clutter Collector. It has docking certifications for Absalom Station. Looks like a salvage barge run by a ysoki called Winks.”
Aya considered this a moment. “Open communications.”
“Got it. Hailing the Clutter Collector.” Gizdara replied.
The rest of the crew gathered round just as Winks appeared on the view screen. “Hey, pal! The name’s Winks! I’ve been in the Drift 25 days, and I am BORED!” the ysoki exclaimed. “SO happy to meet ya’! You?”
Aya chatted with Winks for a minute before passing control of the comms over to her crew. Hops, Tucker, and Vishkesh all had a blast chatting away with the ysoki and his familial crew. But, after about an hour, they were nearly out of range of each other.
“Thanks for the chatter,” Winks said with a wink. “You can save my frequency. Maybe we’ll chat again in the future, eh?”
And with a crackle of static, he was gone.
“Out of communication range,” Gizdara announced.
“Thank you,” replied Aya. “End transmission.”
Infinity is a Pegasus frame exploratory starship.
The crew headed back to their normal routine, performing their duties, eating, gaming, dancing and chatting. Nine days later they exited the Drift. Seeing the blackness of space and its brightly twinkling stars for the first time in weeks, the crew heaved a sigh of relief.
“The Drift makes me nervous,” Diggs admitted. “This is how space is supposed to be.”
Hops laughed. “Space is beautiful! But, we can’t travel like this all the time! We’d never get anywhere!”
“To your stations,” Aya announced. “Hops, prepare for approach. Vishkesh and Rijin, begin pre-descent systems check. Gizdara and Tucker, what can you discern about the planet?”
Everyone got to work, and soon Tucker grinned. “Elytrio is the fourth planet orbiting an unnamed sun. It has two barren moons, but I’m seeing minor energy fluctuations. There might be the remains of an installation up there. Whatever it is, it’s no longer functioning.” Tucker clicks a few more buttons on the computer console before continuing. “As for the planet itself… looks like some kind of wasteland. I’m seeing blasted deserts, strong winds, and higher than normal levels of radiation. Nothing harmful, but we should activate our armour’s environmental defences just in case. Air is breathable, gravity normal. …I’m not seeing any plants or water, and little signs of animal life. I’m not detecting any settlements left or — wait! I’ve pinpointed a large energy output from what seems to be a fully functioning city in the Southern Hemisphere. My readings indicate that the city has a level of technology similar to the Pact Worlds, though it seems… outdated. It’s hard to learn more. The entire city and surrounding area it is encased in a powerful force field.”
Art discovered on Pinterest and used to represent Gizdara in my home game. If you happen to know the name of the artist let me know so that proper credit can be given.
Aya nodded. “Thank you, Tucker. Gizdara, try to find us a safe landing zone near the city. Tucker, triangulate suitable locations on the planet’s surface to deploy four drift beacons. Let’s get this planet on the grid, shall we?”
“Got it!” Tucker replied.
“Vishkesh, prepare for battle. We’ll be making our descent any minute, and I want to be ready for the planet’s automated defences.” Aya ordered calmly.
“Check!” Vishkesh replied.
“I am happy to be useful!” Rijin added in an overly happy voice. “Oh, yeah! The joy is filling me up!”
“Now listen children,” Vishkesh told his larval shirren. “This is how we activate our ship’s shields. First press this… and then…”
“Hops, take us down.”
“On it, Captain!” Hops exclaimed.
Infinity began its approach… After only a few minutes, a loud klaxon alarm sounded.
“Approaching ship!” Tucker exclaimed. “Scanning it now!”
“Incoming transmission!” Gizdara announced.
“Play it over the comms.” Aya replied.
The message that played over their speakers was in a crackling, robotic voice. It’s language was foreign and unknown to them, but the tone seemed serious.
“It’s a warning,” Aya announced. “Gizdara, activate the tetrad certified translator. I want to know what it’s saying.”
“The message won’t be enough for the translator to get a handle on the language.” Gizdara retorted.
“It’s a start.”
The message repeated a few more times, then cut out in a crackle of distortions and static, like a corrupted audio file. Only the proximity alert continued to chime, breaking the silence with an irritating whine.
Suddenly, a hemispherical ship emitting a ring of red light from the edges of its lower hull came into view.
“Ship in sight!” Tucker exclaimed.
Vishkesh quickly examined it. “Intel was accurate. It’s a launch platform. Fully automated. Unmanned. Feel free to blow it up without worry!”
“Confirmed! Not reading any signs of life inside the ship.” Tucker added. “Take over Gizdara, I’ll man the guns!” With a grin, Tucker nodded at Diggs. “Come on, pal. Make yourself useful. We’ve got more than one gun.”
Tucker and Diggs hurried over to the gun controls as the enemy ship began to open.
“It’s launching a combat drone.”
Aya let out a sigh. She preferred to avoid a fight whenever possible. Still, at least the only loss of life they had to worry about was their own. “Engage.”
Art discovered on Pinterest and used to represent Diggs Drifthopper in my home game. (If you happen to know the name of the artist let me know so proper credit can be given).
Hops tore off through space at breakneck speed as Tucker and Diggs fired at the launch platform. (GM Comment: technically, it was only Tucker. As a hireling Diggs cannot actually aid in battle. I only described him doing so in session for flavour).
The battle was a tricky one, and the launch platform managed to deploy three combat drones before we destroyed it. The combat drones stood little chance after that. My daughter had great fun flying our ship and acting as pilot, but did need help to properly move the ship and select her fancy flight maneuvers. My son rather enjoyed being engineer with his drone (which is my personal favourite starship role). My husband’s character is a solid gunner, and even when firing an extra gun most rounds he managed to do a number on the enemy fighters. And me? I enjoyed bossing everyone around with serene, super serious commands. I even put on my serious face for the occasion. Haha. We made use of Starfinder Flip-Mat: Basic Starfield for this battle, which I highly recommend picking up if you don’t already own it.
With the enemy drones defeated, Vishkesh examined the wreckage for information and made a few nifty discoveries. Although outdated, there were some interesting algorithms in the platform’s programming which would be helpful in improving their own automated defences. Soon Infinity continued its descent to the planet.
Due to our characters backstory we had some tasks to accomplish before landing (in addition to completing our actual mission). With Tucker’s coordinates, we set out to deploy some drift beacons on Elytrio. This was a fun way to provide some hints to the planet’s purpose and past without hitting my family over the head with a massive information dump. The first deployment location was a rocky mesa on top of a small mountaintop. From there the crew found the remains of a destroyed city on an uneven plateau near the base of the mountain. They discovered that it had been blown up long ago and eroded over the centuries. At our second location the group found themselves on a dried up lake-bed, which gave them some clues to Elytrio’s past eco-systems. They also discovered a new species of bug scurrying across the ground, which Tucker collected for further study, and some razor sharp weeds that they thought would easily be blown around by the wind and could cause some irritating cuts and wounds. The third location was in the desert beside a metal spire. They discovered the spire was the antenna or technological device that topped a building of some kind. After some examining from Vishkesh, he deduced that this was a power relay that sent energy and messages to a distant loctation just outside the atmosphere. Likely one of Elytrio’s two barren moons. Interesting!
The final drift beacon location was also going to be our final landing site. It was located as close to the city’s force field as we could get. After setting up the beacon in the desert wastes the group bid Diggs and Gizdara goodbye, leaving them behind to keep and eye on the starship. Then Aya, Hops, Snowball, Tucker, Vishkesh, and Rijin set off across the sands towards the city’s glowing forcefield.
Suddenly there was a shifting in the sands… a grumble of the earth… and a massive beast that looked like an oversized lion with a beige mane and a body covered in dark brown scales leapt out of the sand and chomped at Tucker! It had a stubby face with a maw filled with razor sharp fangs, and a long, segmented tail.
“Aaaah!” Tucker exclaimed as he dodged out of the way. “We’ve got company!”
“Bad kitty!” Rijin scolded the sand brute in an overly happy robot voice.
“Yeah!” Vishkesh said with a nod. “BAD CAT! SHOO!”
The creature let out a terrifying roar. Hops’ eyes widened in fear. “Let’s get out of here!”
“Hold your ground!” Aya commanded. “If you run it will follow. Weapons out. Engage!”
“You don’t have to tell me twice!” Tucker exclaimed. He fired a shot at the sand brute with his azimuth laser pistol, only for the creature’s hide to reflect the blast. Tucker let out a surprised shriek and ducked, causing the reflected laser beam to strike the sand right behind him. “It’s got a reflective hide!”
“No lasers,” Aya quickly commanded.
Vishkesh gave Rijin a nod. “Battle mode, Rijin!”
Rijin’s little metal hands waved around in excitement, drew a flare gun and loaded it. “Okay! I am so happy to be engaging in deadly battle with you today!”
Vishkesh stroked his multiple guns. “Oh, my… Decisions, decisions! This feels like a flame-thrower moment to me!” He pulled out his flamethrower, took aim, and unleashed a torrent of fire at the sand beast. The creature howled in pain.
Aya drew her battle staff and gave it a whirl. It spun through the air with a ‘whoosh’ sound. “I’ll distract the creature. Keep up the assault at range.” With her orders given, Aya dashed into honourable battle against the sand brute. She swung her battle staff, striking the beast in it’s forelimb. It growled in pain and bit at her, but she knocked it’s jaws out of the way with her staff — the first time. It growled and snapped at her again, tearing into the flesh on one of her four arms.
Hops nodded at Snowball. “Let’s hop to it!” she exclaimed (my daughter giggled in glee at her rabbit joke). Then she got to spell casting! She fired an icy cold ray of energy at the monster, while Snowball hopped around her feet.
Meanwhile, Tucker frowned. “But I only have laser guns!” He holstered his gun, drew his survival knife and took a deep breath. “Let’s dance!” (my daughter giggled in glee at my husband’s dancing joke). Tucker dove and tumbled across the battlefield and joined Aya in melee combat, stabbing at the sand brute as he danced around it. Aya whacked it with her staff, while Rijin and Vishkesh burnt it up with their flame-throwers and flare guns.
Artwork for Starfinder’s Mystic Empath. Used to represent Captain Aya Ninura Qaru Jahir.
The battle was surprisingly short, but we took heavy damage. Aya had to cast multiple healing spells on the group, and use up some resolve to utilize her healing channel ability. Yesteryear’s Truth makes use of Starfinder Flip-Mat: Basic Terrain for this encounter, but (since I don’t own that) we used Pathfinder Flip Mat: Bigger Basic instead.
With the beast finally down she moved to cast another healing spell, only to see figures surround them. They were small beetle-like people with hard outer shells and protruding mandibles. They wore tattered cloaks and big goggles over their eyes. In their hands they held rifles, but they did not aim them. Instead, one of the bug-men approached and spoke.
Unable to understand, Aya pulled out the translator again, and got it working. It would take ten minutes of conversation, but eventually it would be able to translate simple sentences back and forth between the common tongue and… whatever the bug-men were speaking. It sounded the same as the language transmitted by the defence platform.
Aya led the crew through some pantomime in order to put the bug-people at ease. In time, they approached closer and the translator began to work. They learned that these people were called -untranslatable word-
Stupid translators!
For the record, I had great fun roleplaying the translators capabilities in this adventure, and the interactions of the group. It was awesome to watch my kids try to puzzle out messages that wouldn’t get garbled or messed up in translation, and to pantomime and act when translation was inadequate. So much fun!
Eventually they earned enough of the leader’s trust that Aya was allowed to cast a spell upon him (share language), which granted the bug-leader, Dystane, the ability to speak and understand Common, Kasathan, and Akitonian. From there, communication got much easier. They learned that the bug-people were known as ghibrani, and that this group were hunters, out scouring the deserts for food for their tribe. Aya offered the ghibrani the corpse of the sand brute and together they helped haul the lion-monster back to the ghibrani’s home. The crew was surprised to discover that was in the opposite direction of the city. Interesting!
Still, they all prioritized befriending the locals over investigating a city they might not be able to a access, so they followed the ghibrani into the desert without fuss. After half an hour they came to a drab cliff pockmarked with holes and cracks. More ghibrani crawled in and out of the crevices, which were clearly serving as their homes. Most of them wore plain scraps of clothing, while a few also wore make-shift goggles and carried a battered old gun in a holster at their side. There was a tiny, little garden off to the side which was clearly in poor health. That it was growing at all in these conditions caused Aya to raise an eyebrow ridge in surprise. There was also a crumbling well nearby, and a pair of older looking ghibrani wearing colourful necklaces who were surrounded by ghibrani children. It looked like they were telling them a story, or perhaps educating them.
At the sight of the hunters returning with a massive sand brute, the ghibrani cheered — until they noticed the weird strangers that accompanied them. Then the little beetle-people shrieked and scurried into their caves in a panic. Only the two elderly ghibrani and the few armed with guns remained in sight.
Dystane spoke to the elders in their harsh, chittering language while the the translator tried its best to keep up.
“Greeting brother -untranslatable word- sister -untranslatable word-. I will that mother -untranslatable word- watch you close. Find strangers who kill sand brute. Gift to us. Food. Many. “
The conversation continued and Dystane gestured the PCs forward. “This is Brother Koseemo and Sister Alomir. They serve Mother Touloo and lead our colony. Come. I will assist with translating.”
Everyone introduced themselves, then my family began asking questions of the ghibrani. They were surprised to find that none of the ghibrani asked questions of them! Turns out that Mother Touloo was a god who promised to save the ghibrani if they left behind the comforts of civilization and lived a life of hardship in the deserts. Although the ghibrani were happy to receive visitors — a joyous event which had only happened twice in recent memory — they were not interested in learning about whatever comforts and technologies the strangers from the sky possessed.
After only a short conversation Brother Koseemo beckoned at the caves and chittered some more.
The translator tried it’s best. “Stop speak. No deep speak. Welcome return hunter special ceremony. Happy feelings follow participate.”
Dystane’s mandibles clacked. “Brother Koseemo says that before we can speak in depth our people must perform the Welcoming. This is a special ritual where we officially receive our returning hunters. We would be overjoyed if you would join us.”
The others agreed and soon were ushered into a large cave in the cliff. It was stuffy inside, with a fire burning in the centre of the room. It was surrounded by ghibrani, all standing in lines. There were a few piles of furs and leathers around the edges of the room where some ghinbrani set up drums and instruments made of stone and hide. Brother Koseemo and Sister Alomir crossed the room and stood at the opposite side of the entrance, while the hunters and the PCs waited at the cave mouth. There was some chittering, which the translator couldn’t quite translate from across the room, and then the ghibrani began to play a surprisingly stately tune. There was some waving, some bowing, and then the lines of the ghibrani — including the hunters — began a clearly choreographed processional dance. A few of the ghibrani looked at them expectantly.
“They want us to join in,” Aya explained.
“You don’t have to tell me twice!” Tucker exclaimed. He watched the dancers for a moment and then began to mimc their movements. A natural dancer, and incredibly graceful, Tucker caught on incredibly quick and was soon dancing even better than the locals. Hops, who loved dancing nearly as much as Tucker, noticed the patterns in the ghibrani movements and joined in with confidence. Vishkesh and Aya tried to join in, but proved incapable of mimicking the ghibrani’s movements, despite their best efforts. As the dance drew to a close the ghibrani cheered and clapped. A few hurried over to Hops and Tucker and drew them into hugs as family. They chittered at Tucker, who had added a few creative flourishes to the dance.
“You teach us rhythmic movement pretty,” the translator announced.
Tucker smiled and tried to teach the ghibrani some of his dance moves. Hops joined in and the pair had a ball. Vishkesh approached the musicians and enquired after their instruments (with Dystane assisting as translator). As he attempted to learn about their music Aya wandered the room nodding her head in greeting at the ghibrani. Everywhere she looked was poverty and hunger. She beckoned Dystane join her, then approached Brother Koseemo and Sister Alomir.
“I understand Mother Touloo protects you because you choose to live here. It is a hard life, yes? You seem to be proud, capable survivors. But, tell me. Survival is taking what you can when you can find it, yes? We have plenty of food on our starship — ” She considered her words before continuing. “On our moving home. May I bring you some food in exchange for your hospitality? As an offering to your people?”
Dystane translated and the elders chittered at each other for a while. Eventually Dystane nodded at Aya. “You are one of us now. Ghibrani welcomed home. Here we share all that we have with one another. We accept your offer of food and in exchange call you Hunter. This is a great honour. But, please, keep your other comforts on this ‘moving home’ of yours. We will accept nothing else.”
Aya nodded. “Thank you.” Then she fetched Vishkesh who clapped his hands happily at the news. The duo went outside and contacted Gizdara and Diggs on their communicators, telling them to move the ship closer — but not within sight of the caves. Then they began unloading food for their new friends. Tucker and Hops soon came out to help, as did Dystane. At the sight of their ship he stood stunned for a moment and turned around, pointedly refusing to look at the technological marvel any longer. After a few trips to and from the ship, the PCs returned to the party to find themselves welcomed with cheers. A few children had already snuck into the food stores and were eating flavoured protein sticks with excitement — a joyous event which the nearby ghibrani pretended not to notice.
As the festivities continued they were approached by a strange ghibrani. Where the others were short and stocky looking, this ghibrani was tall and slender. Where the others were brown, this ghibrani was blue. And where the others clambered and climbed over everything, this ghibrani flew. The ghibrani held a hand to its throat and then pointed at Vishkesh’s. Curious, Vishkesh went closer. The ghibrani cast a spell and then placed a hand on Vishkesh’s throat. Then she did the same to the others. With a clack of her mandibles she said “Greetings, strangers from the sky. I am Klarima. You are different from any I have met before. Are you a Husk or a Membrane among your people?”
Despite that the ghibrani had spoken in her native tongue, everyone understood her perfectly. With a wide grin Hops introduced everyone, then she asked, “What are Husk and Membranes? And why do you look so different than everyone else?”
Klarima clapped her hands. “If you do not know of Membranes and Husks, then surely you must be uneducated Husks! This makes sense. Do not worry about your lack of knowledge. I will teach you. Membranes like myself know much.”
Klarima explained that long ago a great war raged across Elytrio’s many ghibrani nations. Their weapons killed each other and most living creatures across the planet. Arkeost was the name of one of the cities that survived, locked behind a powerful forcefield. That was Klarima’s home. Some of the surviving ghibrani chose to worship a new god — their Mother Touloo — who promised them protection if they lived in the wastes. Due to the radiation, these ghibrani lost the use of their wings and became known by the citizens of Arkeost as Husks. The other ghibrani stayed in Arkeost and became known as Membranes by the Husks. Apparently Arkeost was a city of automated luxury, where the citizens want and work for nothing. All is provided for them.
“Unfortunately, I have been afflicted with a severe case of wanderlust!” Klarima joked. “I wanted to see the world outside of Arkeost, but I was wounded by soarnettles. Foolish of me, I know. The Husks bandaged my wounds and gave me shelter, but I was hoping to return home soon. This place is…. not to my liking.”
The group was grateful for the information, and thanked Klarima.
“Can we accompany you?” Tucker asked. “We were hoping to view Arkeost ourselves.”
“Oh, I would enjoy that very much! You will be the first Husks to visit Arkeost since the separation!”
Hops laughed. “We’re not Husks, Klarima.”
“Oh? You can fly?”
“No.”
“Then you are Husks! I am sad for you, of course. But you should accept your heritage.”
Aya looked around the cave, then at the frail looking membrane. “I do not wish to burden our hosts with accommodating all of us. I suggest we offer our gratitude and then some of us retire to our starship.” She looked at her crew, who nodded at her in turn. Then she continued, “Would you like to see our ship, Klarima? You may spend the night with us, and we can fly to your city at dawn. I will spend the night with the Husks.”
Klarima clapped her hands in glee, clearly happy at the thought of leaving the caves. “I would like that very much.”
So the group enjoyed the rest of the party, bid their hosts farewell, and then returned to Infinity. Tucker, Hops and Vishkesh gave Klarima a tour and found her incredibly curious about… everything! Although, she was oddly incapable of doing anything for herself. Meanwhile, Aya enjoyed the simple but welcoming hospitality of the Husks.
My kids had a wonderful time with this whole section of the scenario. They adored interacting with the Husks, winning their friendship, and then showing Klarima around their ship. It’s why we picked this one to play, actually. I knew they’d love it.
The next morning Aya rejoined the group with some gifts from the Husks (a few healing serums that smelt like licorice, and a rifle) then they flew off back to a safe landing zone near Arkeost. Klarima used her magic to make the crew understand the ghibrani tongue, and then they approached the forcefield. Klarima pulled out a clunky, old fashioned data-pad and clicked away on it. Nothing happened, and Klarima’s mandibles clacked in impatience. She re-entered the commands and this time a gap opened in the forcefield, like a little door. The group filed in and Klarima tapped a few commands on her data-pad, causing the forcefield to close back up.
Arkeost was a sprawling metropolis with tall buildings lined with open doorways in place of windows. Membranes flitted through the air without a care, while robots and drones traversed the city’s lower levels, flying higher only when necessary. The streets and roads at ground level were in horrible condition, broken, jagged, and impassable in many places. Flowerbeds and gardens were overgrown, and all of the structures were suffering under years of rust, wear, and neglect. Although Arkeost was still standing, it was clearly not well maintained.
A group of Membrane guards wearing matching armour and carrying fine looking laser pistols approached the group and demanded to know the PCs business, but Klarima calmed them.
“Fear not, Honoured Guards! These Husks are my guests. I am taking them to see the Most Elevated!”
The guards, who did not seem very comfortable with their gear, eyed the group warily. “Very well,” the finally chittered. “We will escort you on your journey.”
And with that, a few more Membranes fell in line behind the group.
“Who is the Most Elevated?” Hops asked curiously.
“Oh, my! What a question to ask! Although, I suppose you are only Husks. The intricacies of proper Ghibrani society were lost to your people long ago. The Most Elevated are Arkeost’s governing council of most elder, wise, and important ghibrani. They will want to see you for themselves! It is a great honour!”
Hops rolled her eyes at being called a Husk and shrugged, following along with the others. Klarima and the guards flew relatively low to the ground, making keeping up with them only a little difficult. They were led through the city to the tallest and grandest building, located right at the heart of Arkeost. There, Klarima and the guards flew up towards an open doorway.
And stopped.
“Where did you go? Ah! Of course! You are Husks! I have forgotten again.” Klarima laughed. “I am afraid our city if not meant for ghibrani unable to fly. We have always had the ability, you see.” Klarima pulled out her data-pad and tapped a few commands into it. Soon a quartet of floating platforms arrived in front of the group. “There are hover disks used to transport goods and supplies through the city. You may ride on them. However, I recommend hanging on tight! They have no safety harnesses. Also, I hear Husks have a great fear of heights!”
The guards let out a chittering laugh.
Everyone climbed aboard their hover disks and held on. It was an unstable, jolting ride. Clearly very dangerous! There was a sudden puffing sound, and then a whine, as Hops’ hover disk malfunctioned. Her eyes widened, and she began to plummet back down to the ground.
“Eeeek!” she shrieked. But, as she neared the ground her hover platform let out another puff and a whine, and it’s engine turned back on. Hops once again began her ascent, although this time she wore a terrified, panicked look.
“Oh, dear!” Vishkesh exclaimed. “I think your drones could use some maintenance.”
“Maintenance?” Klarima asked. “You mean labour?” she laughed. “Oh, everything is done for us in Arkeost. I am sure if it is in need of main-ten-ants it will be taken care of.”
Vishkesh’s antennae twitched in agitation. He was pretty sure there was a lot of things around here that could use fixing…
Image discovered on Pinterest and chosen to represent Snowball in my home game. Art by Canadian artist DaCosta! under the studio name Chocolate Soop. Click here to check out their website.
After a shaky ride the hover disks dropped the group off at the entrance forty feet above the ground. Hops quickly scurried onto solid ground and clutched Snowball tight. Her robot rabbit twitched its nose and nuzzled her, guided by the artificial personality she had programmed in it. “That was… scary!” Hops muttered. Snowball made a clicking sound and cuddled up closer to Hops.
“Yes, I was afraid that Husks would not enjoy the flight.” Klarima replied.
Hops scrunched up her face. “Hey! I LOVE flying. I’m a pilot, you know! I just don’t like riding malfunctioning death platforms!”
The Membranes let out a chittering laugh, and ushered the group inside. Hops put down Snowball and followed after the others.
Rijin flew up to Hops. “You did not die a horrible death! I am pleased!”
Vishkesh laughed. “Me too!”
They travelled down winding hallways and came to a large central chamber that held a massive table surrounded by chairs. A collection of five Membranes dressed in elaborate clothing sat in the chairs chatting amongst themselves. At the sight of the group they regarded the PCs with their shimmering, multifaceted eyes. They stood, bowed to the group, and then gestured for them to approach. Klarima and the guards bowed in return, so Aya, Tucker, Hops and Vishkesh did the same.
“I cannot bow!” Rijin exclaimed happily. “I do not possess a waist!”
Snowball twitched its nose.
Klarima introduced the group and everyone took a seat at the table.
“Do all of your people look like you?” one of the Most Elevated asked.
Vishkesh shook his head. “Oh, we are not all of the same people at all! I am shirren, Hops and Tucker are ysoki, and Aya is kasathan. Snowball and Rijin here are drones created by myself and Hops.”
“I see!” Another nodded. “And all of your people are Husks?” the same Membrane asked.
“It is unfortunate your servants seem so small.” another added, clearly referring to the robots in the group.
Hops crinkled her nose. “We’re not Husks. We’re all different races from different worlds.”
“But you cannot fly?” One of the Most Elevated pointed out. “So you are Husks.”
“Other worlds?” Another asked. “You are referring to other cities on the far side of Elytrio?”
Aya shook her head. “We are not, Most Elevated. We come from outer space. The skies.” She paused a moment and added, “At night the stars shine brightly. Yes? If you were to travel to those stars, each is a sun, like the one you have here. Many of those suns are surrounded by other planets — worlds like Elytrio, but different. Some of those planets bear life, and others do not. Each of us comes from a different planet in space. Our galaxy is known as the Pact Worlds. It — “
Suddenly there was a chiming of bells. The Most Elevated clapped their hands.
“Yes, yes, I see,” replied one of the Most Elevated. They seemed unsurprised at such talk. “Dinner is served!”
Klarima smiles. “You are in for a real treat, my friends! It feels like ages since I have had a proper meal!”
Hover drones flew into the room from hidden hatches and placed ceramic bowls and a flat, stick-like utensil at every spot at the table. Others came out and squirted a serving of thick tan liquid filled with chunks of…. something. It smelt like smoke and cheese.
Image discovered on Pinterest to represent Rijin in our home game. Art by Jessica Madorran. Check out her website for more information.
Rijin waves its hands at the hover drones. “Greetings friend robots! I am smiling in my heart! Pleasing to meet you!”
The hover drones didn’t respond, but that didn’t stop Rijin from speaking to/at them.
Some of the drones made an unappetizing sound when they served the food, while others flew irregularly. One of them missed a bowl completely and poured food all over the tabletop and Tuckers hand.
Klarima didn’t seem to notice. “This is called kahlgee! It’s delicious!”
The ghibrani all began to eat, while the Starfinders eyed the food suspiciously. Aya picked up her flat stick and used it as a spoon to scoop food up to her mouth (behind her mouth-mask). The others followed suit only to find the food was disgusting. Vishkesh ate it without complaint, Aya gagged but forced it down, Hops spit it out across the table in shock. Everyone turned to look at her. She chuckled nervously and tried to eat the rest of the food, which made her very ill. Still, she managed. Meanwhile Tucker spent the meal pretending to eat and subtly disposing of the food wherever he could without being caught. Halfway through the meal the lights flickered, and Tucker quickly dumped the rest of his food into another nearby bowl. Finished, he smiled brightly and began to chat with the other diners.
“That was lovely, thank you. Is there anything we can do to show our gratitude to you? Anything we can do to aid the ghibrani of Arkeost?” Tucker asked.
The Most Elevated laughed in unison. “We thank you for your generosity, but nothing is wrong here. Nothing needs to be done. We require no aid. Life in Arkeost is perfect.”
Tucker raised an eyebrows. “I see… Those power disruptions. The… uh… flickering lights and malfunctioning drones. Do those happen often?”
“Oh, there is no need to worry,” one of the Most Elevated replied. “The Mainframe acts up on occasion, but it always self-corrects in a few seconds.” They seemed unconcerned.
“I see. May I hear more about the Mainframe? We’re all fascinated with technology.” Tucker added with a smile. Perhaps the ghibrani could become allies of the Starfinders if Tucker and the team were able to repair their power grid.
“The Mainframe is located at the outskirts of the city. It was constructed by our ancestors to provide continuous power to Arkeost, and to house the many servants that cater to our whims.” One of the most Elevated gestures to a nearby robot. “Unfortunately I know no more of it than that. It is taboo for ghibranis to enter the area of the city where it is housed.”
“You’re not allowed to access your city’s own Mainframe? Uh… Aren’t you concerned about that? Who maintains it?” Tucker asked in surprise.
“The servants, of course.” Another answered happily. Clearly they were not concerned.
“I think that your servants could use a bit of help.” Tucker remarked with a smile. “May we visit the Mainframe ourselves to assist them? We are not ghibrani.”
The Most Elevated shook its head. “You clearly are Husks…”
The dinner bell sounded again. A flurry of hover drones flew out of the wall and set the table again — right on top of old dishes and uneaten food. A moment later a second set of drones flew out of the walls and poured more kahlgee into the bowls. The table was a massive mess. The drones flew back into the walls.
The Most Elevated clacked their mandibles serenely as if nothing was amiss. No one moved to eat a second helping.
“I’m sure the cleaning servants will be along any minute…” Klarima pointed out.
“About that Mainframe,” Tucker prodded.
One of the Most Elevated nodded its head vigorously. “You may be Husks but, as you say, you are not ghibrani Husks.” The others considered this. Without waiting for their response, the speaker continued, “It is not taboo for you. You may view the grandeur of our glorious Mainframe for yourselves.” He gave the group directions.
Tucker smiled. “Thanks. We’d like to head there soon, if you don’t mind.” He dreaded the thought of dessert.
The Most Elevated smiled. “Klarima will show you the way. Farewell.”
And with that, the Starfinders quickly left the messy, smelly table behind and hurried back out to the hover disks.
Hops groaned. “Not this again! Auw… When we get back to Absalom Station I need to invest in some jump jets!”
Vishkesh smiled. “I hope you do not fall to your doom!” He looked at the disks. “Hmm… Decisions, decisions… I will select… this one!” He squealed in delight. “I hope it is stable!”
My kids had great fun interacting with the Membranes. They tried their best to think of sneaky ways to avoid eating the kahlgee without offending their hosts. I found their attempts at conversation a blast. It was so fun watching them try to figure out how to explain things to the Membranes without being offended. Particularly when the Membranes didn’t seem to get the point. My daughter crossed her arms and scrunched up her nose every time someone called her a Husk, but couldn’t quite think of an argument that proved she wasn’t one. And those hover disks? They were so excited at first, but on the way back? Ha! They were terrified of stepping back on those things. It was hilarious. We had a blast.
The group descended down to ground level, then Klarima guided them through the city. The Starfinders examined the city as they travelled, and spoke with the locals. By the time they reached the edge of the city the streets and buildings were in much worse repair. The building was small and squat, but a constant stream of drones of all kinds moved in and out of the building. Massive signs reading “TABOO!” “NO ENTRY!” and “Off limits to ghibrani!” were hung all around the building.
Klarima waved farewell to the Starfinders. “I will wait out here for you.”
The Starfinders headed inside and were greeted by a series of ramps that descended down into the earth in a wide spiral, like a parking garage — although instead of storing vehicles it stored drones. They turned on the flashlights built into their armour and headed down the ramps. Eventually they reached a hallway different than the others. They headed inside and found themselves in a white plastic room lit by incredibly bright lights. The group filed in and looked around. Fans spun overhead, and a series of coveralls lined one wall.
Hops eyed the coveralls. “Should we be wearing those?”
Tucker shrugged. “It couldn’t hurt.”
Aya nodded. “I recommend it, if you can.”
Hops and Tucker put on coveralls, although they were too small for Vishkesh and Aya. Vishkesh squished himself into a pair, but Aya refrained. Together they approached a nearby door. Aya moved to open it and was electrocuted. She grunted in pain and surprise.
“Oh, dear! That looked painful!” Vishkesh happily pointed out.
“Whoah!” Tucker exclaimed. “I… didn’t expect that. Sorry.” He turned to the door and pulled out a series of tools and gadgets from his backpack. “I’ve got this.” As he worked he told the others, “Nobody touch anything unless I give the go ahead. There might be more traps or malfunctioning systems in here.”
Aya drew herself up to standing. “Agreed.”
“Is that maybe why this place is taboo?” Hops wondered aloud. “Because it’s dangerous?”
Aya considered this. “It is possible. Or, perhaps the city’s builders wanted to prevent meddling.”
“It is possible,” Hops mimicked. Aya didn’t seem to mind.
With a swoosh, the door slid open. Tucker put away his tools and led the way inside the next room. It’s walls were also made of plastic, and it’s entire floor was a bright light. Four pillars covered in circuitry and four waist-high generators circled the centre of the room. One of the generators was surrounded by flashing red lights, clearly showing it was in need of repairs.
Tucker led the group inside and began to look around for traps and hazards. Suddenly panels on the walls slid open and a trio of robots that looked like a mix between Husk and Membrane ghibrani stepped into the room.
“Restricted area!” The robot announced. “Leave immediately or be terminated!”
Despite the warning, the robot did not wait for the group to leave. Instead, it shot laser beams out of its eyes right at them.
“Eeek!” Hops shrieked.
“Engage!” Aya ordered.
“You don’t have to tell me twice!” Tucker exclaimed. He dove across the room and fired his laser pistol at the nearest robot. “BOOM!”
“Rijin!” Vishkesh commanded. “Battle mode!”
“Yes, sir! I will happily assault my fellow robots on your behalf!” Rijin replied. He pulled out his flare gun and aimed it at a robot. “Pew pew!” he called out as he fired the flare.
Rijin examined his guns. “Decisions, decisions… This feels like a — “
A laser beam zipped past his head and nearly singed an antenna. “Yup! Laser pistol it is!” He drew and fired his pistol at the robots. “I adore my flame thrower, but I do not want to cause unnecessary harm to the room’s generators!”
“Get behind me Snowball!” Hops exclaimed as she fired off energy rays at the robots.
Aya strode into honourable melee combat with her combat staff.
Once again, this battle was short but painful! Aya used up nearly all of her magic on healing spells for the group. Once the battle was over they took a ten minute break to rest and recuperate, then Aya finished healing the group with her magic. Meanwhile, Vishkesh, Rijin, and Tucker got to work repairing the generators, and Hops ran a diagnostics check and fixed some faulty programming. As the red lights stopped flashing, the group smiled.
“Well, that should stop the power fluctuations,” Tucker remarked.
Vishkesh smiles happily. “Joyous news!”
“High five’s team!” Rijin exclaimed. “Although my hand appendages only possess three digits!”
When they were done the group moved on, heading over to another nearby door. Tucker checked it out and decided it looked safe. They headed inside and found the room full of computer servers. They looked around, then approached the access terminal. Hops clicked away for a while and gained access to the mainframe.
“Oh, wow!” Hops exclaimed. “I thought this would control the mainframe, but it’s… like… everything! It looks like a long time ago they took all the information from the local databases and transferred them here. Some of its classified. Information from past leaders and stuff…” Hops began to sift through the data, and transferred all the important information about Elytrio and it’s society to Snowball — who was a walking computer.
As she read, she frowned. “Oh my… Uh… Well, some of this we guessed already. Elytrio used to have a variety of ecosystems until it was ravaged by nuclear war a few years after the Gap. There were a lot of different ghibrani nations up until then, and it looks like this city is the only place that survived the devastation. Lots of people died.” Hops shook her head sadly. “They used to worship Damoritosh. Before the war they managed to achieve orbital flight and built some stuff on their moons, but never actually got into outer space. Hmm… Looks like they anticipated a lot of trouble with keeping the population in Arkeost fed…. Something about automation… and…. Oh, my….”
Hops pressed a button and a video clip played on the screen. It showed a ghibrani who displayed features of both Husks and Membranes dressed in fine clothes. “…without a doubt food will runout before the end of one hundred years. As such, we have decided to enact protocol Exodus…” the video glitches before continuing. “…purposefully engineer several disasters to befall the surviving population. Rumours will be seeded throughout the lower and middle quarters that an angry Damoritosh was responsible for this ‘divine punishment.’ Select personnel, officers and delegates will know this to be false. Such agents will work to spread the creation of a false deity we’re going to call ‘Mother Touloo” who will promise salvation to those ghibrani who give up the comforts of civilization and head out into the wastes. One of our eldest — Most Elevated Gaulwen — is ill. He will serve as the leader of this false faith and lead a sizeable contingent of ghibrani’s into the wastelands. They will die, of course, but the leaders of Arkeost, our most trusted advisors, government officials, and military personnel, along with our closest friends and family, will remain behind…” the video glitches again. “Thus ensuring the continued survival of the great ghibrani people. Long live Arkeost. Praise Damoritosh. The war will be won.”
The video fell silent.
My daughter looked thoughtful. “Huh.”
My son shook his head. “So… they made up a fake god and tricked people into leaving their city? But the people who left became the Husks, right? The didn’t all die. Some lived.”
I nodded. “And the people who stayed in Arkeost became the Membranes. They also lived.”
My son shook his head again. “They were so… MEAN.”
I nodded noncommittally. This is the kind of thing I prefer to let my kids puzzle out and form an opinion of themselves, before throwing my two cents in there.
My daughter shrugged. “At least some people lived. Maybe they would all be dead if they didn’t do that.”
“But… They thought the Husks would DIE! I love the Husks!” My son replied.
“Wait.” My daughter said. “Does this mean the Membranes are bad?”
I shrugged. “What do you think?”
They thought. My daughter eventually said, “I will use my computers to see what happened after that stuff. When this mean guy was going to die or something.”
Hops sifted through the datalogs and eventually found some more videos and reports. Turns out only select personnel were told that Mother Touloo was fake. The remaining ghibrani held a ceremony bidding those who left farewell, then continued on with their lives. They completed automation on the city, ensuring that they and their descendants would live a life of leisure for centuries to come. A few decades later it became clear that some ghibrani has survived the wastes. The leaders of Arkeost publicly called this a blessing, but warned their people to stay clear of them and their strange religion. They had ordered all data of the past be transferred to the central mainframe and, as those ghibrani who created Mother Touloo neared the end of their lives, they closed off the Mainframe to prevent any of their fellows from learning the truth of Mother Touloo. Such knowledge could be dangerous.
My kids thought some more.
“Well… it is not really the fault of the Membranes that are left… Their grandparents and stuff were the mean ones….”
My kids thought some more. Their characters gathered all the information they could, and then left the Mainframe, locking it up behind them. Back outside, they found Klarima.
“How was it?” she asked.
“We learned much,” Aya replied.
“And we fixed the power fluctuations!” Vishkesh added helpfully.
My kids looked at each other.
“Are you going to tell anyone in Arkeost about Mother Touloo?” I asked them.
My kids shook their heads.
“What about the Husks? Will you tell them the truth?”
My kids shook their heads.
“Doing so might cause a war.” My husband pointed out. “But, they also deserve to know.”
My kids thought some more. They shook their heads.
“You’re keeping it quiet?” I confirmed.
They nodded.
The Starfinders returned to the centre of Arkeost and spent the night among the Membranes. The next day they left the city, with Klarima at their sides in order to access the forcefield.
“Something happened in the Mainframe,” Klarima pointed out. “I can feel it. You are burdened.”
My kids (and their characters) fell into guilty silence.
Aya stepped forward. “We learned much. Not all was good. But, it is the past. We would prefer not to dredge it back up. Divisions and anger can help neither Husk, nor Membrane at this stage.”
Klarima thought on this. “We have plenty, and they have nothing. But, I wonder who is better off. After seeing the Husks…. They can care for themselves. Membranes cannot.” She drifted off into silence. “Arkeost is great. I wish the Husks would accept its wonders. But then, I suppose their Mother would no longer protect them.” She shrugged. “I wish I could help them both.” With a clack of her mandibles she held out her hands in farewell. “It was a pleasure to meet you. I hope you enjoy your other worlds.”
“You should come with us!” Hops exclaimed.
My son grinned. “Yeah!” Vishkesh announced. “Come fly on our starship with us. You can join the Starfinders and see the galaxy! Maybe you’ll learn something helpful. That can help all ghibrani.”
Klarima clapped her hands. “Really? You would take me with you? Oh, I would love to!”
The Starfinders and Klarima, travelled to Infinity and headed back out into the Vast. They taught Klarima all they could — minus the history of her people — and soon returned to Absalom Station. Venture-Captain Arvin asked for a report, which they gave honestly. They provided him all the information they had learned from the Mainframe about Elytrio, it’s ruins, and history — including about Mother Touloo. Then they spoke of the cultures of the Husks and Membranes. Lastly, they told Arvin all about Klarima and the other friends they had made.
“You faced a difficult decision,” he pointed out. He made no comment on whether he agreed with their actions. “I will enter Klarima into training shortly.” After a pause, he smiled, “You did your friends from the Unbounded Wayfarer proud. I’ll contact you when the next expedition is ready to begin.”
The Starfinders fetched Klarima and brought her to see Arvin. Then they headed out into Absalom Station to recover from their adventures.
My kids had a ton of fun in this adventure. They loved interacting with the Husks and Membranes, enjoyed the starship combat against foes they didn’t have to feel bad about shooting, and made tough decisions that could affect the future of their new friends.
I can’t wait until they head back to Elytrio. We’re definitely going to play Starfinder Society Scenario #1-21: Yesteryear’s Sorrow when they’re high enough level. We’re also going to keep going on exploratory missions (which they’ll have discovered thanks to their friends on the Unbounded Wayfarer). Scenario #1-12: Ashes of Discovery and Scenario #1-08: Sanctuary of Drowned Delight are a shoe in for sure! But, before that, we’re going to go for a change of pace and explore Absalom Station. And what better way to do that than with a visit from their old friend Julzakama? Oh, yes! We’re going to play Scenario #1-10: The Half-Alive Streets!
Bring out your dead!
I can’t wait.
Jessica
Art by my husband, for my daughter. Because even rabbits need a good d20.
Well, it’s official! Season Nine: Year of Factions’ Favour has come to an end, and the Pathfinder Society has launched Season 10: Year of the Ten. Faction Cards have been updated, and the newest edition of the Pathfinder Society Roleplaying Guild Guide has been released. If you don’t have the newly updated versions of these documents then I highly recommend you head on over to Paizo’s website and give them a download. They’re free.
In other news, Gameday VII is underway. This means that my family is enjoying the chance to play in a bunch of new Pathfinder Society Scenarios online via play-by-post. There is a HUGE number of games scheduled to start now. That includes playing in the Pathfinder Society, Pathfinder Society Core, Pathfinder Society Adventure Card Game, Pathfinder Society Playtest and the Starfinder Society! In addition, they’re running the Pathfinder Society Scenario #8-99: Solstice Scar Special and Starfinder Society: #1-99: Scoured Stars Invasion Special as we speak. More games are slated to start in October. That’s also when Pathfinder Society Scenario #9-00: Assault on Absalom Special will run. Although it’s likely too late to join any of August’s games, there’s still plenty of time to sign up for October’s. That said, many games are full already, so I wouldn’t dawdle much longer if you want to get into a game! Haha.
First Seeker Jadnura. Art by Graey Erb for Starfinder.
For those of you who don’t know, the Scoured Stars Invasion special also brought with it the introduction of a new faction: Second Seekers (Jadnura). Who the heck is Jadnura? Jadnura is the First Seeker who led the Starfinders into the Scoured Stars system. That’s right. He’s the kasatha who got everyone stuck and lost in an event now known as the Scoured Stars Incident. So why would you still follow this guy when Luwazi Elsebo is the current First Seeker? For starters, it lets you make a character who was a loyal Starfinder before the advent of the Scoured Stars Incident. You can be the guy left behind, whose still loyal to a leader no longer present. Second? Well, the special is called the Scoured Stars Invasion, and it’s main purpose is to enter the Scoured Stars System and rescue as many lost agents as you can. I suppose some might call that a spoiler, but honestly, it’s obviously the point of the scenario right from the first few sentences of playing. Why else go there? Want more details? I can’t give them to you! Haha. I’m currently playing this scenario for Gameday VII and don’t know how it ends. If you want more information (and some spoilers) feel free to check out Paizo’s blog post on First Seeker Jadnura here.
The Sigil of the Open Road, logo of the Pathfinder Society.
So what the heck is Season Ten: Year of the Ten all about, anyway? Judging by the title, something to do with the Decemvirate. But what? It’s been hinted that it has something to do with the infamous Grandmaster Torch, and that some of the Decemvirate might find their anonymity threatened and their mysteries unveiled. Interestingly, most of the missions this season will revolve around the Hao Jin Tapestry. For those of you who don’t know, the Hao Jin Tapestry is a literal tapestry that leads to a demiplane which contains mysteries, relics, ruins and other places collected by the wizard Hao Jin. This object was acquired by the Pathfinder Society way back in Season Three and has been a source of tons of adventures. It’s also been harnessed by the Pathfinders in order to allow their agents to travel the world quickly and efficiently. This season the Hao Jin Tapestry is beginning to unravel and, if we can’t fix it, it’ll dump everything inside it into the Astral Plane. An unfortunate event for not only the Pathfinder Society, but also all the people and creatures who still live inside the demiplane itself. Unfortunately, you can bet that fixing it won’t be as easy as just casting mending. I’m sure there’s plenty of adventure involved! There’s a few other things that have been revealed to be a part of this season. There’s plenty of relics related to the lich Tar Baphon that will be surfacing. There’s also a demon who wants to utilize the Worldwound’s collapse to launch his apotheosis into full demon lord. Pretty nifty! I think I’m most excited for the missions involving Grandmaster Torch, but hey, I’m biased! I’m also excited to learn more about Tar Baphon. I love a good (BAD) lich!
There’s a few more exciting things going on around my house right now. My daughter’s begun work on creating her second Pathfinder Playtest character so that we can continue with our Doomsday Dawn Playtest. She’s decided to make a gnome fighter who wields an absurdly large sword. She’s very excited to be the melee character for a change.
My family and I entered a contest a week or so ago. Hosted by the overly generous Hmm on Paizo’s message boards, she was going to give away all the boons necessary to create a mermaid in PFS play. There were a few ways to enter — for yourself with a mermaid character concept, for a group of friends with a team created from the other boons she was giving away, or by nominating someone else who you thought deserved to win. Now, when we play in the Pathfinder Society, the question my kids ask me most often is:
“Mom, why can’t I be any race I want?”
Unfortunately, at the ages of six and seven, the idea of holding out for race boons is absurd. Haha. The follow up question I most often get after any explanation I can concoct is:
“Yeah. But WHY?”
So, as soon as I read the contest I told my family about it. My kids were jumping up and down in joy. They spend that night brainstorming, and spent the next day planning their characters while I madly tried to keep up with them. And then we got to the end. They were ready! Sort of. For bonus points you could also write a song.
….yup. A song.
Not my forte. My son wanted to add jokes into the song, and my daughter wanted it to have a lot of animal sounds (since we were nearly all animal people of one kind or another).
It was… hard. Haha.
But, in the end we handed in our entry with pride. So what was it?
My family and I wanted to make a quartet of characters who are (and were) universally considered outcasts among their people and Golarion at large. They’re weird, and different. But what’s strange for one culture isn’t strange for others, and it’s those very oddities that the others embraced and connected with. After all, who cares if the vanara has unnaturally large eyes, if he’s hanging out with a grippli? These guys are friends, companions, and (in many ways) family. They don’t have the same interests, and they don’t always get along. But, hey? What family does?
My daughter made an energetic poisonous grippli, my son made an eco-conscious vanara with a stumpy tail who has hair growth issues, my husband made a ratfolk who chews on everything (including magical objects), and I made an overly adventurous aquatic elf whose curiosity got her abandoned on the surface. Together, these quirky characters would do… stuff!
Just the other day the winners were announced. There were a ton of great ones. And some of the songs were awesome! Hmm ended up giving out boons to winners of each category, which is incredibly generous! We won in the ‘buddies’ category, and my kids have been hard at work ever since, plotting out their character mechanics. We were lucky enough that a fellow play-by-poster offered to run us through our group’s first PFS scenario together, so once everyone is ready and formatted for online play we’ll be starting Heroes for Highdelve! My daughter got to work first and is almost done. She’s thrilled!
We’ll post more about these lovable weirdos once they’re ready for a game. One thing’s for certain: they’re going to be the most eccentric group of characters we’ve ever made! (And that’s saying something…)
Now it’s time to say goodbye,
Or, more accurately: ‘Now it’s time to get to work on my next article.’
Well, it’s been a busy summer so far. We’ve visited family, celebrated birthdays, gone swimming, tended our garden, played at the park and… Well, frankly my allergies are acting up like CRAZY! Whoo, I feel horrible! Haha. Still, my kids are happy, and I’d rather get out and enjoy the summer than I would let it pass me by.
In gaming news we’ve had a chance to play the Mummy’s Mask Adventure Path a few times, Reign of Winteronly once, Shackled City a few times (look for an update soon!) and haven’t had a chance to play Iron Gods at all (sad!). In fact, we haven’t had a chance to play Starfinder at home lately, either. (Double sad!).
A while ago my daughter asked me if I would start moving some of our d20 games online to play-by-post. She felt that she never got to play her many, many, many adventures and characters because when the weekend comes we only have time for one game, and it’s going to be one of the ones everyone agrees on. That means that we could go months without playing some of her characters.
“Pleeeeeeease, Mom?” she asked. “Some of my characters might as well be DEAD! I would rather play them one post a day than take no turns EVER! PLEEEEEEASE!?!?”
She’s a little dramatic, but she got the point across. Haha.
So, at my daughter’s request, we moved one of our ongoing family PFS games online and we moved our family Dead Suns Adventure Path online. My kids and I also have a lot of campaigns that involve only me and them. I told them they could choose one to move online for now. They gave this a great deal of thought and, although they have a ton of characters they enjoy playing, they also have campaign envy.
What?
Campaign envy.
Every time the grown ups play Mummy’s Mask, or Iron Gods, or Reign of Winter they are desperately jealous. A while ago they began their own Mummy’s Mask campaign and they’ve been begging me to let them start Iron Gods and Reign of Winter ever since. In the end, they chose the Mummy’s Mask Adventure Path. I’m actually really excited, since they created a very entertaining group of characters that shook up our typical party dynamics. More details on that will come in an upcoming blog post.
In other news, Gameday VII will start in another few weeks, which is super exciting! I can’t wait! GenCon is coming up (for those of you lucky enough to attend such things), and Paizo recently released their Puzzle Hunt from PaizoCon online for mass consumption. No idea what that is? In short, its a series of Golarion-themed puzzles within puzzles that were given out at PaizoCon back in May. It’s a free download on their website, and you can talk about the puzzles with other gamers on the boards. I gave them a read and am actually super excited to try them out. It looks fun!
Paizo recently announced their upcoming Pathfinder Society Scenarios, which include the finale for Season 9 and the start of Season 10! They’ve also shared details on the next four Starfinder Society Scenarios. Soon we should get information on two new Adventure Card Game adventures, and the first three of their upcoming Pathfinder Playtest Scenarios! I can’t wait to get my hands on these beauties at the end of the month!
Speaking of the Playtest, there have been some awesome spoilers lately. My favourite turned out to be the BARD. Now, I’ve always had a soft spot for bards, so I was pretty sure I was going to love it no matter what they did. After reading their recent blog post on the topic I was elated! It’s got full spellcasting, performances are now a special sort of bard only cantrip called a composition (which means you’re not going to run out of music!), and some of the performances are reactions (counter song, here’s looking at you)! It’s just… awesome! I can’t wait to read the whole class!
Luckily, we don’t have much longer to wait. Pathfinder Playtest releases on August 2nd, along with the Doomsday Dawn Adventure, free maps to go with it, and a trio of Playtest Society Scenarios. I’ve had the good luck to join up with a group of play-by-posters who are going to be playing all three PFS scenarios in a row, which will give me a chance to try the game as a player. Meanwhile, I’ll be GM for Doomsday Dawn (and perhaps even the PFS Scenarios) for my family at home. I expect there will be a lot of characters being made around the house at that time, so who knows what we’ll end up playing with! It’s exciting.
Now I just have to find the time to read all of that…
Today I’m going to leave you with a photo my daughter took especially for d20 diaries. And yes, it has rabbits.
I recently started watching iZombie (iZombie: The Complete First Season (Blu-ray)) on Netflix. For those of you who don’t know, it’s a show about zombies that is currently starting its fifth season. Now, this isn’t some depressing ‘Walking Dead’ (The Walking Dead: Complete Series) type show (although I also love that…). It’s more like a funny cop/murder mystery show. Except if one of the main characters was a zombie who needed to feast on brains in order to retain her humanity. Oh, and she works in a morgue. It’s loosely based on the comics (iZombie Volume 1: Dead to the World) that were written by Chris Roberson and Michael Allred, and published by Vertigo.
My husband and both thoroughly enjoy it, and are currently nearing the end of the third season. Anyway, we were watching last night and suddenly came upon an episode entitled “Twenty-Sided, Die” wherein our beloved zombie heroine devours the brains of a dungeon master in order to help solve his murder. It was a hilarious episode, and completely absurd, but halfway through she convinces her friends to play a session with her, in order to help stimulate memories of the deceased. So there they are, sitting at the table: four people attempting to humour their friend. One secretly wants to play, one’s there to give it a shot, and the other two would rather be doing anything else. By the end of their session nearly everyone has had a blast, and gotten right into it. At the end the episode one of the serious cop characters tells the zombie girl that she should run a game every week. It was just SO refreshingly entertaining.
Which got me thinking.
It’s rare you get to see d20 games featured in popular media. I adored this episode of iZombie, and of course, there’s plenty of wonderful Dungeons and Dragons cameos and references in Stranger Things (Stranger Things (Season 1: Collector’s Edition))). But where else have I seen good d20 references? I know there’s others out there, but I couldn’t recall any specific instances.
More than that, though, it brought back memories.
The first time you played a d20 game.
Remember that?
Trying to figure out the rules while you make your first character? Being a little nervous at first, as you figure out what you can and can’t do? Finding your voice? The laughter?The nerves?
The first time I made a character for Dungeons and Dragons I was in high school. A friend had insisted a big group of us make characters and get together to play. Most of my friends said no, but I was one of the few who said I would. A few years before that I had stumbled across a copy of the Dungeons and Dragons Player’s Handbook (3.5) in a bookstore and flipped through it. I wanted the book so bad, but had no idea what it was. I must have looked at it over the next twenty trips. Passing by, browsing, but never buying. Flash forward a few years and I suddenly went ‘A-ha! That’s how you use that book!’ I made myself a dual-wielding elven ranger with long red hair named Meloriel. We went to the store and browsed minis until I found the perfect one. And then…. Nothing. We never played.
It wasn’t until many, MANY years later that I finally had the opportunity to play again. This time I made a half-elven bard named Lorelei. My husband (we had just started dating at the time) played her boyfriend, a gnome illusionist named Blount who worked as her stage-hand. My brother played a fierce minotaur warrior, while co-workers of my brother and husband played a lizardfolk and a half-orc monk. It was DMed enthusiastically by another co-worker of my brother’s. The game wasn’t very long-lived, but it sure was fun. We immediately began buying the rulebooks and campaign settings. I got addicted to Dungeon Magazine. We went out and bought pewter miniatures, only to paint them ourselves with whatever we had on hand. I even cracked out my pencil crayons and drew my own character art. Sadly, the campaign came to an abrupt end when my husband and I went on a vacation, but we never lost our love of the game. We were hooked from that first roll of the dice!
In the years since we must have remade our characters at least three times. But, each time, they never get further than a few sessions into their tales. Maybe we’ll make them again one day. Perhaps as Pathfinder Society characters, or in a home game with my kids.
It’s funny, I suppose, that something as simple as playing a game for the first time can change your life so completely. But, here we are.
I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Have any stories to tell me about your first characters or first experiences playing a d20 game? Know any awesome shows or films that reference d20 gaming? Let me know in the comments! I’d love to hear what you have to say.
OutPost marked my first PFS convention. It was also my husband and children’s first foray into play-by-post gaming, and their second adventure in the Pathfinder Society, so it was pretty exciting for us! My husband signed up for one game, while my children each signed up for two. And me? Well, I signed up for a lot. Three for Starfinder and three for Pathfinder. Plus the Solstice Scar Special.
All of the scenarios were a blast, and we had the wonderful luck to play alongside some awesome GMs and players. All told, not counting specials, OutPost hosted fourteen games of Core Pathfinder Society Scenarios, fifty-seven games of Classic/Standard Pathfinder Society scenarios, eleven games of the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game, and twenty-four games of Starfinder. That makes for nearly a hundred games!
So, what did we play?
I’ll tell you!
Black Waters
Glyph of the Open Road, symbol of the Pathfinder Society and the Grand Lodge faction.
My husband, children and I all signed up for an old classic: Scenario #06: Black Waters. From season zero, this adventure is intended for tier 1-2 and 4-5, and was written by Tim and Eileen Connors back before Pathfinder had it’s own rules set. It was being run by one of my favourite GMs I’ve had the pleasure of playing alongside on Paizo’s Messageboards, GM Shieldbug, who gave us a great game. Seriously. It was such a wonderful experience, my kids and husband are now thoroughly spoiled. I warned them after we finished this scenario to lower their expectations for whatever scenario they signed up to next, because not all GMs are as awesome as Shieldbug. They didn’t believe me at the time, but for the record, they do now. If you happen to be lucky enough to join a game he’s running, I highly recommend leaping at the opportunity. You won’t regret it.
Black Waters takes place in the Beldrin’s Bluff district of Absalom. Once a neighbourhood full of the wealthy elite, this area was devastated by an earthquake a decade or so ago, which killed many, and sent an entire chunk of the cliffs the neighbourhood was built upon, tumbling into the sea. Included in this devastation was a school for the city’s elite called the Tri-Towers Yard, which collapsed into an ancient underground necropolis. As the buildings are destroyed, black foul water rose up from below, drowning all those who weren’t crushed. The Tri-Towers yard was sealed up, and no one has been allowed inside–or into the necropolis–since. Lucky for us, the Pathfinders have finally been granted clearance, presuming they treat the site with respect.
My husband played Enzo Jeggare, a well-groomed, Chelaxian nobleman with pale skin, black hair, grey eyes, and a fabulous moustache. He’s a handsome, if lanky, gentleman with a reputation as a philanthropist and a conjurer. He enjoys fine wine, fine company, and ancient magical objects. Enzo is a secretive man, which gives him an air of mystery. Though well-practised in the art of evasion, he’s an awkward liar. He is never without his Devil Deck—a beautifully illustrated harrow deck adorned with images of devils and infernal symbolism—and a worn-out dog figurine that he can occasionally be seen speaking to. Enzo’s an occultist who specializes in conjuring creatures. He used his esteemed family’s political connections to gain membership into the Dark Archive’s faction of the Pathfinders, and is hopeful that handling other objects of power will allow him to access other magical abilities.
My daughter played a two-tailed kitsune druid (saurian shaman) with pink fur and eyes by the name of Bunny Paras. She is always accompanied by her pink and yellow pet parasaurolophus, called Paras, and adores rabbits. She and Paras run a rabbit farm–although they are sold only as pets, and are not for eating! Bunny Paras is a vegetarian, and a good healer. Paras loves to sing and dance, and is very, very loud.
My son is playing Senton, a pale Ulfen ranger better known as Mr. Ice. He is always shivering with cold, and has constantly chattering teeth. He wears warm winter clothes in every weather, including a big furry hat on his head, and a fur cloak and boots. He has a black patch on his cheek from some old frost bite, a big bushy beard, and a full moustache. Under his hat his hair is grey and his eyes are blue. He likes to fight with his short swords and his fine longbow. Senton works on Bunny Paras’ rabbit farm as a guard. He often lays traps to protect the farm.
But, this kooky trio wasn’t the only Pathfinders on the case. I played my wood kineticist, Everbloom, a wild and curious kitsune who grew up alone in the wilds and views life and death as just another fascinating part of existence. Her fur is an orangy-brown, with bits of leaves and flower petals constantly tangled in its length. Everbloom’s easily fascinated by people and places, and just as easily bores of them. More than a little aloof and uncaring, Everbloom comes off as way nicer than she actually is.
The final character was Tera Fosham, a veiled ifrit oracle with clouded vision whose healing touch and blessings were invaluable on this adventure.
Together, these five Pathfinders enjoyed some awesome roleplaying with their venture captain (Drandle Dreng), at a fancy dinner party held alongside Absalom’s nobility, and with the caretaker of the Tri-Towers Yard, who is equal parts sad, deluded, and gifted. Possibly insane. I’ll leave that up for debate! From there they investigated the haunted classrooms, and foul black waters of the estate. Battling off monstrous bugs and undead, they descended into the ancient necropolis to discover its secrets. Along the way, they made some amazing discoveries, and even saved a little girl. The frail–but still alive–Junia Dacilane. Junia reappears a decade down the road in the Pathfinder Society Scenario #7-05: School of Spirits (which is a delight), and can even be found in the Pathfinder Society Pawn Collection, which I only recently discovered and am itching to get my hands on!
Want to follow along with their adventures? Check out the complete gameplay for our group here.
My children were so excited to play in OutPost that they created a second character each for the occasion, a pair of twenty-five year olds who couldn’t be more different. Lady Naysha is an oracle of whimsy who stumbled in the First World through a fairy ring, and came back over a decade later looking like not a day had passed. A few years have passed since then, but she still doesn’t look a day over twelve. Lady Naysha has a child-like enthusiasm and innocence about her. She believes her stuffed rabbit, Miss Whiskers, is the source of her powers (which is entirely false, by the way), and can all upon her fairy friend to play tricks on her enemies. Contrariwise, my son made a paladin of Iomedae who is brave, bold and true! Unfortunately, he died fighting in the Worldwound. Iomedae took pity on him and granted him a second life, but he was reincarnated as an old man, with horrible memory problems. Unable to even remember his name, he calls himself Fuzzzy, and he relies on his pet owl, Bobby, to keep him on track. For full details on my Lady Naysha and Fuzzzy, check out my blog post OutPost Commences.
I joined them, with my dwarven fighter, Juno Berik, a self-centred woman who believes she’s far more important than she’s given credit for. Together with some other quirky characters, they entered a complicated maze underneath Absalom City to search for a lost minotaur prince, Nuar Spiritskin, in another classic PFS Scenario, #45: Delirium’s Tangle. This is a tier 1-5 scenario written by Crystal Frasier. Personally, I find this is a difficult scenario to run by play-by-post, as navigating a maze is always tricky in person, never mind over message boards. When it could take an entire day for a team to roll a single perception or survival check–which could be done in seconds in person–there’s a high probability the game will get bogged down. Fortunately, our GM was wonderful at streamlining the navigation process. In fact, this scenario finished first out of all the games I played! As poor navigators, the sheer number of pit traps we endured (and by endured I mean fell into over and over again) was painful (literally), and has left permanent mental scarring on Juno. Fuzzzy was also traumatized by the event–for about a minute before he promptly forgot about it. The fights and secret chambers were interesting, and left my kids hungry for more information on the maze and its connecting chambers. The final battle was interesting, as was the wrap-up roleplaying. All in all, we had a lot of fun, although this one certainly left a lot of unanswered questions.
You can read our complete gameplay experience here, if you’re interested.
In the time since, Lady Naysha’s begun Scenario #5-08: The Confirmation, alongside my husband’s character, Toban Tangletop (check out the ongoing gameplay here). Fuzzzy’s moved on to combat the Master of the Fallen Fortress (a free download on Paizo’s website, by the way) and rescue a lost Pathfinder (check out the ongoing gameplay here). And, Juno’s decided to tell the Aspis Consortium where to shove it, in Scenario #4-07: Severing Ties. Currently being as boorish and mean as she can be, she’s in Riddleport, happily dragging the Aspis Consortium’s name through the mud. This scenario’s about to begin a two-week break while some of the participants go on vacation, but you can check out it’s progress so far, here.
The Unseen Inclusion
Symbol of the Scarab Sages, a faction of the Pathfinder Society.
I was positively thrilled to bring my beloved half-orc monk, Kenza Bloodborn, through Scenario #9-04: The Unseen Inclusion. Why? Well, as a member of the Scarab Sages, whose faction stories have come to an end, I wanted to see my stoic warrior tackle a Scarab Sage-centric mission. Taking place in the Thuvian city of Merab, Kenza delved into haunted ruins on the hunt for a mysterious spirit that even now seeks her master’s jewels… Part dungeon delve and part investigation, I had no idea what to expect with this scenario when I signed up for it, but I ended up having a blast. She had plenty of opportunities to hurl herself into danger to protect her allies, and nearly died on more than one occasion. You can check out the complete gamplay here.
In the time since, Kenza’s journeyed to Absalom for the first time, in order to pay her respect to the centre of her order. There, she’s been called on by Venture Captain Drandle Dreng, on a mission of great importance… Fetching him a bottle of wine. Fortunately, this mission is a lot more than it seems at first, leading the group through hidden chambers, abandoned homes, conspiracies and secrets, and even into Absalom’s Temple of the Fallen. That’s right, she’s playing through a super quick run of Scenario #6-10: The Wounded Wisp. Check out her adventure so far, here.
Yesteryear’s Truth
But not everything’s about Pathfinder! I’m also involved in three wonderful Starfinder Society Scenarios. My primary SFS character, a bold, boastful vesk solarion with far more brawn than brains by the name of Julakesh Starfist participated in Scenario #1-03: Yesteryear’s Truth. We’ve already spoken about Julakesh earlier this week, but if you’ve missed it, check out my blog post Competitions and Compliments. If you’re interested in reading Julakesh’s experiences in Yesteryear’s Truth, the complete gameplay if found here. Want a summary? She discovered a new planet, engaged in amazing battles, attempted to befriend the planet’s natives, and made a lot of people laugh! Seriously, a ton of fun. Speaking of fun, Julakesh recently began a new adventure that’s tailor made for her: Scenario #1-07: The Solar Sortie. Or, it’s half made for her, anyway… Sent to retrieve information from a corporation that orbits the Sun, Julakesh gets to begin this infiltration by impersonating a gladiator! This pretty much consists of her being herself, in front of a large adoring crowd. Awesome! And all that other subtle espionage stuff? Well…. we’ll cross that bridge up (and mess it up horribly) when we get to it! Check out the start of out adventures, here! It’s been a ton of fun so far (and it’s only just begun).
Fugitive on the Red Planet
I also used OutPost as an opportunity to try out two Starfinder classes I had yet to have a chance to test. Firstly, I created a proud, smooth-talking ysoki xenoseeker envoy by the name of Aurora Vim (Rora, for short) who was tasked with finding a rogue Starfinder and retrieving an powerful object he stole from the Society in Scenario #1-02: Fugitive on the Red Planet. Her adventures took her to the grungy planet of Akiton alongside a haan, a human, and a whopping three other ysoki! Apparently those furry little fellows are popular! All in all this scenario was a lot of fun, and Rora really had a chance to shine throughout its length. It was completed quite quickly, and was hosted by a wonderfully humorous GM. You can check out the complete gameplay here.
Following her adventures on Akiton, Rora hopped a shuttle back to Absalom Station, where she’s been invited to attend a gala in honour of the First Seeker, Luwazi Elsebo. Scenario #1-05: First Mandate is right up her alley, and has seen her wheeling and dealing with a bunch of movers and shakers–including Zo!, who I’ve been dying for her to meet! This scenario is reaching its climax, but you can check out its progress so far, here.
Cries from the Drift
I also made a curious but awkward shirrin spacefarer operative, Zez’ka, who is prone to announcing her emotions to the world. She’s friendly, but super awkward, and honestly a blast to play. Unfortunately, Scenario #1-04: Cries from the Drift, is a horror scenario, which tossed my chipper shirren into the most traumatizing, suspenseful, and gory Starfinder Scenario to date. This adventure particularly benefits from having the element of surprise, so I won’t mention much more in the way of spoilers. What I will say is that if you’re uncomfortable with body horror, don’t play it. That being said, when played by play-by-post the suspense is lost, so it turned out to be a fun, romp despite the tone. For those of you who aren’t afraid of spoilers, our complete gameplay can be read here. In the time since, Zez’ka has joined a delightfully fun and carefree mission, which won’t possibly be as traumatizing for her as her previous one was! Right? Right…? Wrong. She’s currently engaged in Starfinder’s second horror scenario, Scenario #1-10: The Half-Alive Streets, which amuses me to no end. She’s currently oblivious to the dark turn this scenario’s going to take, and is currently having great fun making friends and shopping. You can check it out here.
The end to these Starfinder scenarios will mark the sixth games I’ve played in the SFS, which means I’ve reach a milestone on my Alien Archive Boon. No idea what that means?
For every Starfinder Society game you participate in as a player (not a GM) you can get your GM to sign your boon sheet, which is available here. When you have six games played you can apply this sheet to a new character to make them either a wrikreechee, or a ryphorian. Or, you can wait until you have twelve games played, and then apply it to a new character to make them a barathu. After applying it you can start a new boon, and begin earning new plays. Note, that there is a time limit on earning credit for this boon. After June 14th of this year they’ll be releasing a new boon in its place, which will let you unlock other races for play.
Now, of the current options, I think I’d get a kick out of a Barathu, but I won’t have a chance to earn that bad boy. I’ll be hitting six, which leaves the wrikreechee and ryphorians. And for me, the choice is clear! Ryphorians! I have honestly no idea what I’m going to make for her class, but its definitely going to be different than the others I’ve got! Soldier, perhaps? That’s a question for another day!
And that’s it!
OutPost and its associated adventures have come to an end–for this year. But, there’s plenty more adventures out there waiting to be played!
Well, Spring has finally sprung here on d20 Diaries. In the last few short weeks we saw our last snowfall of the winter, we’ve watched the sandy snow melt, and we’ve seen the grass begin to green. My children went from complaining it’s too cold, to whining it’s too hot and bemoaning the lack of prepared swimming pools all within the same two weeks. We had our first sprinklings of rain, and the line-ups for slurpees have officially tripled.
My kids are very interesting in making our planet a brighter, healthier place, so they took to our apartment’s patio at the first opportunity, insisting we spend ‘just a little bit of money’ on some potted plants.
“It will help bring back the bees, Mom!” (Thanks for that tag line, Cheerios, by the way).
“It will bring beautiful butterflies!” (which will leave their cocoons splattered all over my patio walls)
“The rabbits can eat them!” (Not a very compelling argument…)
“They are great for smelling!” (I’m allergic).
“They help us breathe. Well, maybe not YOU, Mom, cause you are allergic to EVERYTHING. But it will help everyone else breathe great!” (Fair.)
Compelling (and not so compelling) arguments aside, I always encourage my kids to follow their passions. My daughter’s embraced her love of rabbits with wild abandon, while my son carries gardening gloves and extra bags in his school backpack, so he’s always ready to clean up the litter we pass by. So, I had every intention of helping my kids do some gardening, despite how ill it was going to make me.
Well, five trips to Rona, nine pots, four tiny bags of soil and infinitely more than ‘a little bit of money’ later, and my kids have transformed our dour little concrete slab into a riot of colourful pots and flowers. They planted three pine seeds they got from the Earth Rangers. (If you don’t know, the Earth Rangers is a Canadian kids conservation organization which challenges kids to help the environment and save endangered species one mission at a time. They have a kid-friendly website, mission lists that give kids easy to accomplish ways they can make a difference close to home, rewards for completing tasks, and nature themed games and articles the kids can play or read. You can also donate or fundraise on behalf of their various missions to save endangered species, but my kids don’t do that part cause I’m a big stick in the mud. For more information on the Earth Rangers, check out their website!). We’ve also got a lovely fern, plenty of flowers and an overpriced rabbit planter. We’ve got a bag of wildflower seeds to plant, as well, which we recently got free from the Cheerios Bring Back the Bees campaign. If you haven’t done so, check out their website, where you can get a free book for your kids and a packet of wildflower seeds (Note: I have no idea which countries can receive the free seeds and book, but it doesn’t hurt to try!).
Admittedly, some plants aren’t doing so well. My kids can be overly eager with the water, we don’t get much sun, it was still below freezing some mornings, and rabbits have been eating all the petals off of the yellow flowers (much to my daughter’s delight). But, that doesn’t really matter. My kids are thrilled to be doing their part to help our local environment, and they’re learning how to be responsible for another living thing. And hey, if it feeds a few rabbits and brings back a bee or two, that’s a bonus. It’s their smiles that really make it worthwhile.
On the gaming front, OutPost has finally come to an end. It was a lot of fun, and my whole family enjoyed themselves. Despite the many games I was a part of, I never managed to win one of the special convention boons, nor did my husband or any of my kids. Happily, what my kids did manage to win was respect. Both of their GMs from the convention were impressed with their crazy characters and their handle of the game. Not long after the end of their convention games they applied for more. My daughter easily scored herself a spot in another play by post, despite worries about her age, after providing a link to her last game to prove she was a decent player. One of the people who played alongside my kids during Outpost decided to GM a scenario and opened a sign up for prospective players which got a ton of interest. My son’s character earned a spot with ease, with an admission from the GM that he had enjoyed playing alongside my son’s character so much that he was the first person selected to play in his scenario. Suffice to say my son was pleased. Both games have been running for a few weeks now, and are going well.
Closer to home, my kids have been plugging away at the The Shackled City Adventure Path. It’s been six play sessions, and we’re still in Jzadirune. The end of their exploration is in sight, and soon we’ll be descending into the Malachite Hold! I’ve had to make some changes to the dungeon. After the first few play sessions my son was getting a little bored of all the fights and what felt like a lack of progress. I streamlined the encounters, removed the unnecessary ones, and added some flavourful fluff. We refocused slightly, and have been really paying attention to the things my son’s character recalls from Jzadirune. He did live there as a child, after all! Last session ended with my son discovering his family’s old home, and meeting the ‘King’. He’s grown to love this haunted little dungeon, and has every intention to fixing up when we’re done down there and living in it. What could go wrong?!
My daughter, meanwhile, has been on the edge of her seat, exclaiming after every session, “But, we have to finish it! I have to save my good friend Griffin who I work with! He was supposed to be married! His girlfriend is so sad she cries everyday! We must hurry! He could DIE!” She says the word ‘die’ with such drama. It’s adorable.
Our Crown of the Kobold King adventure, played by our deliciously evil villains, has creeped along slowly. The group has discovered that the missing children were abducted by kobolds and are hard at work tracking them into the Darkmoon Vale. If you haven’t read about our evil characters, check out our blog posts: Character Focus: Professor McMaan, and Crown of the Kobold King: Part One.
We’re about to undertake a side quest in our Carrion Crown campaign (we’re currently on: Carrion Crown Book 1: Haunting of Harrowstone), but were stymied by an excess of laundry, and a need to purchase summer shoes. More details on these characters will come in an upcoming blog post.
Out in the wider universe, my family is currently one battle into the delightful Starfinder Scenario #1-03: Yesteryear’s Truth! They’ve just fought their way past Elytrio’s automated defences, deployed their drift beacons, and are about to touch down on the surface. You can pick up this awesome scenario for a few dollars on Paizo’s website. You’ll need the Starfinder Core Rulebook to make characters and play.
My kids have been hard at work creating their own custom adventures, which they’ll be running through as GMs for our family soon. Not long after that they’ll be up on d20 Diaries for your enjoyment. We’re keeping it under wraps for now, but what I will tell you is that they both involve islands, and lost treasure. But, while my son’s gone for a pirate adventure, my daughter’s taken a different approach. And yes, before you ask, hers has some rabbits in it. Haha.
In other exciting news, I’ve cashed in my various gift cards left over from Christmas and have a delightfully tall pile of Pathfinder and Starfinder books to read through sitting on my dresser. I’ve recently finished reading through Pathfinder Player Companion: Legacy of the First World, and have just begun reading the highly anticipated (in my house at least!) Starfinder Roleplaying Game: Pact Worlds! My daughter’s particularly excited for the SROs race, for reasons we’ll go into another time.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, it’s time for us to water the plants.
, by Day Pilkey.
, grippli can be found in 
, and the poison darter archetype for rangers can be found in 
). When it came time to make her character and actually get her down on paper, she stuck to it. But, she also added to it. In addition to being a poison darter, she’s chosen to be a skirmisher, which is an archetype for rangers which sacrifices their spellcasting in order to use some nifty tricks a few times each day that can benefit yourself and your companions. This won’t have an effect on her character now, but in the future it definitely will! (The skirmisher archetype for rangers can be found in 
).
). All things considered, acrobatics turned out to be her best skill, which is just how she wanted it. For her feat she chose agile tongue. This grippli feat allows her to use her tongue to lift light objects, make sleight of hand checks, and perform steal and disarm maneuvers. It also lets her make melee touch attacks, but that won’t have any benefit for her right now. (Agile tongue can be found in 
, sorcerers can be found in 
and 
). Of course, Pinesong also tries to make his own gear — and does a horrible job at it. He uses hand carved wooden stakes for his melee weapon, and wears a braided belt of grass and vines. For his other gear he invested in some basic adventuring equipment, a vial of acid and a flask of holy water.
). I had originally intended to make Sereia an arcanist. I’ve never had a chance to make an arcanist before, and I was quite excited for the chance.
).
). He’s incredibly nimble. He’s also quite cunning, intelligent, and hardy. His final statistics are Str 10 / Dex 18 / Con 12 / Int 13 / Wis 14 / Cha 10.
which gives him +1 damage against enemies he’s seen attack his companions. He’s very protective of his friends! He also chose sacred touch.
.)
To start with, it’s the beginning of another school year. My daughter is entering grade one so this marks the first year she’ll be in school all day long, the first year she’ll be enjoying recess, and the first year she’ll be staying for lunch. My daughter loves school, so she couldn’t be happier! She’s bouncing in excitement and smiling so big her cheeks will probably hurt by days end. And as for my son? My son is entering grade two and although he’s happy to get to see his friends… Well, he’d rather stay home and play video games. Haha. He’s growing up so fast!
, 
, and two books I thought he’d like: 
by Ernest Cline (which is also an 
, by the way), and the first three books in The Legend of Drizzt series (
, 
, and 
) by R. A. Salvatore. Drizzt’s origins are actually my favourite books he’s in, and my brother’s never read them. (Blasphemy! Haha). I think he’ll really like them. While we were shopping I found an awesome 
adventure 
(I know, I’m slow, haha) and 
for the PlayStation. I was a kid when I played it the first time, and it literally blew my mind. Twist after twist I was just… Stunned. It’s got time travel, alternate dimensions, death, life, fate, a ton of NPCs you can get to join your party (many of which you meet well before you can convince them to join you), and (perhaps the coolest part) halfway through the game, after rallying friends and allies to help you defeat the villain, you have an epic confrontation which culminates with the villain using a magical ritual to swap your minds around. Your mind goes into his body and his goes into yours. All of a sudden those friends and allies are hanging around with the villain, trying to fight you. And you? Well, at least you don’t have to worry about fighting all those minions of the villain anymore. Cause they’re yours now. Sort of. Haha. So, if all your good friends are doing the work of the bad guy now, and they think they’re still doing good, but you and the other villains are working to stop them, are they still good guys? As a kid, I was amazed. Haha. Anyway, I started the game, which made my kids want to try, so we each started our own file. They’ve already reached the first big twist in the game, and were so shocked. They concocted a whole lot of crazy theories in an effort to figure out what’s going on. It’s adorable to watch. It’s been fun. I definitely owe fellow play-by-poster PaleDim a shout out for getting the music from Chrono Cross stuck in my head the other day. (Thanks!)
for this battle, which I highly recommend picking up if you don’t already own it.
for this encounter, but (since I don’t own that) we used 
instead.
a few times, 
only once, 
at all (sad!). In fact, we haven’t had a chance to play Starfinder at home lately, either. (Double sad!).
Adventure Path online. My kids and I also have a lot of campaigns that involve only me and them. I told them they could choose one to move online for now. They gave this a great deal of thought and, although they have a ton of characters they enjoy playing, they also have campaign envy.
) on Netflix. For those of you who don’t know, it’s a show about zombies that is currently starting its fifth season. Now, this isn’t some depressing ‘Walking Dead’ 
type show (although I also love that…). It’s more like a funny cop/murder mystery show. Except if one of the main characters was a zombie who needed to feast on brains in order to retain her humanity. Oh, and she works in a morgue. It’s loosely based on the comics (
) that were written by Chris Roberson and Michael Allred, and published by Vertigo.
). But where else have I seen good d20 references? I know there’s others out there, but I couldn’t recall any specific instances.
in a bookstore and flipped through it. I wanted the book so bad, but had no idea what it was. I must have looked at it over the next twenty trips. Passing by, browsing, but never buying. Flash forward a few years and I suddenly went ‘A-ha! That’s how you use that book!’ I made myself a dual-wielding elven ranger with long red hair named Meloriel. We went to the store and browsed minis until I found the perfect one. And then…. Nothing. We never played.
: OutPost!
, which I only recently discovered and am itching to get my hands on!
which you will need to make full use of the boon.
Well, five trips to Rona, nine pots, four tiny bags of soil and infinitely more than ‘a little bit of money’ later, and my kids have transformed our dour little concrete slab into a riot of colourful pots and flowers. They planted three pine seeds they got from the Earth Rangers. (If you don’t know, the Earth Rangers is a Canadian kids conservation organization which challenges kids to help the environment and save endangered species one mission at a time. They have a kid-friendly website, mission lists that give kids easy to accomplish ways they can make a difference close to home, rewards for completing tasks, and nature themed games and articles the kids can play or read. You can also donate or fundraise on behalf of their various missions to save endangered species, but my kids don’t do that part cause I’m a big stick in the mud. For more information on the Earth Rangers, 
On the gaming front, OutPost has finally come to an end. It was a lot of fun, and my whole family enjoyed themselves. Despite the many games I was a part of, I never managed to win one of the special convention boons, nor did my husband or any of my kids. Happily, what my kids did manage to win was respect. Both of their GMs from the convention were impressed with their crazy characters and their handle of the game. Not long after the end of their convention games they applied for more. My daughter easily scored herself a spot in another play by post, despite worries about her age, after providing a link to her last game to prove she was a decent player. One of the people who played alongside my kids during Outpost decided to GM a scenario and opened a sign up for prospective players which got a ton of interest. My son’s character earned a spot with ease, with an admission from the GM that he had enjoyed playing alongside my son’s character so much that he was the first person selected to play in his scenario. Suffice to say my son was pleased. Both games have been running for a few weeks now, and are going well.
We’re about to undertake a side quest in our Carrion Crown campaign (we’re currently on: 
), but were stymied by an excess of laundry, and a need to purchase summer shoes. More details on these characters will come in an upcoming blog post.
.
, and have just begun reading the highly anticipated (in my house at least!) 
d20 Diaries 