Pathfinder Intro

We had another night where not everyone was going to be available for the climax of Scott's 4E Ravenloft dungeon. Scott had never gotten to play We Be Goblins, so he hadn't been exposed to Pathfinder yet, and some of the others wanted another chance to play, so we decided to run the introductory adventure from Paizo's Beginner Box Set.

Your hometown of Sandpoint is a quaint seaside settlement that periodically has problems with monsters, such as wicked goblins and hungry ghouls, but the citizens always manage to endure and survive. Lately, however, a far greater danger has come to threaten the town. A few weeks ago, livestock started to disappear from nearby farms. Sometimes a half-eaten corpse is found, sometimes only bloodstains. The people of Sandpoint are afraid, and mayor Kendra Deverin is growing desperate. She hopes some heroes will volunteer to search out this menace and put an end to it before it kills a person. She’s offered a reward of 1,000 gold pieces to the group that stops this mysterious creature. Although no one has seen the killer directly, a long black fang was found in one of the animal corpses,  prompting the locals to dub the unseen killer “Black Fang.”

You have decided to go on a quest to put an end to these brutal killings. Rumor holds that Black Fang is living in an old cave not too far from town, which has been used as a den for many monsters over the years. 

The party consisted of

Valeros, a human fighter (Scott)

Merisiel, an elven rogue (Dave)

Ezren, a human wizard (Brian)

Kyra, a human cleric (Leo)

Meylee, a female, half-orc ranger (Rich)

The party approached the entrance to the cave, which was screened by a curtain of moss and vines; a weathered statue stood guard outside the cave mouth. As the rest of the party examined the statue and surrounding cliff face, Kyra stuck her head through the vines, and immediately jumped back as a trio of goblins charged out. The party made short work of the goblins, who appeared to be very drunk. Inside the cave mouth was a small natural cavern, with a pair of filthy straw beds with a locked chest between them. Merisiel denied knowing anything about how to open locks, so Kyra simply hacked the chest open with her scimitar. Inside were a few valuables and a broken vial whose once-magical potion was splashed all over the inside of the chest.

To the north was a worked passage ending in a pair of double doors. Valeros and Meylee pushed it open, and found themselves looking a rune-covered fountain full of glowing water. A closed door led to the east, and voices could be heard from off down a passage to the northwest. Examination of the runes revealed a message that anyone offering gold to Desna would receive a boon. One by one, all of the party (except the obstinate Merisiel), dropped in a gold coin and drank from the fountain, receiving various bonuses to their stats in return.

Valeros wanted to investigate the voices to the north, but Kyra decided to go through the closed door instead. Inside was a room with a stone altar flanked by a pair of stone statues. A large red gem sat on the altar, emitting a fiery red light. As Kyra entered the room, a loud voice boomed from the statues: "Approach with humility and live!" Being quick on the uptake, Kyra dropped to her knees and approached the altar on all fours. Sure enough, as she moved forward, the statues breathed out a sheet of flame that filled the room, but passed harmlessly above her back. Crawling forward, she snatched the gem from the altar and crawled back out. A Detect Magic revealed that the gem was an Energy Heart, offering its bearer protection from fire, cold, electricity, or acid attacks.

There was another door to the south of this room, so Kyra crawled down and opened it as well (the rest of the party were watching all this from the fountain room, with Valeros grumbling about why the only person who could heal them was taking all the risks - wasn't that what disposable thieves were for?). The room to the south was filled with thick webs, with dozens of tiny spiders crawling all over them. A goblin-sized bundle of webs lay entangled in the webs along the south wall. Deciding that spiders gave her the creeps, Kyra crawled back out and rejoined the party.

Finally deciding to investigate the voices to the north, the party crept forward, and Valeros and Meylee poked their heads around the corner. They were in a large cavern, and to the west a group of goblins argued and shoved at each other, while a larger goblin wearing a crown sat on a crude thrown and covered his ears at the noise. He immediately spotted the two fighters, and stood on his throne to call to them. "Hey! What you doing here? This throne room of me, King Fatmouth! What you want?" The other goblins turned to look at the party with curiosity, but not immediate antagonism.

Meylee stepped forward and bellowed a threat in Orcish, but King Fatmouth wasn't impressed. "What wrong? You can't talk like civilized person? Why you here?" Valeros responded that they were here to collect the reward. "What reward?" asked Fatmouth. "The one for your head!" was the response. That seemed to please the King. "Really? What me worth now?" When he learned that his head was worth 112 GP (at least that's what Valeros told him), he puffed up with pride.

"Hey! You want do me big favor? You help me, I help you kill dragon!" Talk of a dragon suddenly sobered the party - they'd been thinking these goblins were the worst thing they'd have to face. King Fatmouth continued. "We lose dragon toy. Stupid sister Bucktooth steal it, and now no one can find her. You find toy, bring to me, I let you pass through throne room to get to dragon." Thinking that making a deal might be better than fighting, the party set off to search for the toy.

Kyra remembered the goblin-sized bundle in the web room, and thought she had a pretty good idea of where the missing Bucktooth might be. The party crawled carefully through the fire trap room, and Merisiel carefully examined the room before anyone entered. She thought she could see something lurking in the webs in one corner, so Valeros pulled out his grappling hook to try to snag the bundle without entering the room. After several attempts (and moving farther into the room to get a better shot), he finally caught it and began to drag it out. In response, a giant spider leaped out of the webs and attacked. Like the drunken goblins, it went down quickly before the party's combined firepower without even scoring a hit. Sure enough, the bundle turned out to be a dead goblin with a wooden toy dragon in her pocket, along with a Wand of Magic Missiles.

Another passage continued to the north, and Kyra immediately started up it, with Valeros chasing after her demanding that she please STOP leading the way. Merisiel meanwhile was very worried that the King would be upset about his dead sister, and determined to try to destroy the body. She drug it back to the fire trap room to try to burn it, but found that by the time the body hit the floor to activate the trap, it was already prone and the flames missed it. After several abortive attempts, she realized that the rest of the party had abandoned her, and she left the body and ran after them.

The passage led north to a large deep pool of water, with an island in the center of it. A pile of glittering objects could be seen on the island, along with a large sword that glowed with a faint blue light. Mid-way up the passage was a tall obelisk, covered with faintly glowing runes. Ezren tried to decipher them, and while he couldn't make out any message, he did notice that the only rune that appeared on all four sides of the obelisk was that for "water". He touched all four runes, and they glowed briefly - and he felt that he would be able to breathe under water. 

Making a bee-line for the pool, Ezren dove in and swam to the island. Since everyone else was wearing armor, no one felt inclined to join him. As he crawled up onto land, something emerged out of the water behind him. It looked like a giant crawfish with a pair of snapping claws, and it immediately attacked. One of the pincers hit and Grabbed Ezren, but between his own Magic Missile attacks and ranged attacks from his comrades, the Reefclaw soon died (but even in death it got in another pair of attacks, scoring another hit). 

On the island was a large pile of gold, along with a pair of potions. A Detect Magic revealed that the sword was a +1 Dragon-Bane Longsword (and now the party was really getting worried about this dragon theme). They made their way back to King Fatmouth's throne room, and he was excited to see them. "You find toy?"

"What's it worth to you?" was the greedy party's response. "You made deal!", Fatmouth protested. "I don't remember any deal. Maybe we'll just toss this toy in the water."

That was the last straw. "You steal my toy!" Fatmouth screamed. "ATTACK!" And the battle was on. The party found themselves in a much tougher fight than they'd encountered so far. The goblins were better armored and harder to hit. Fatmouth cast a Cause Fear that sent Meylee screaming from the fray, and then began trading Magic Missiles with Ezren (who was thankful for the new wand). Valeros quickly found himself almost surrounded and taking damage fast, but Kyra was able to do some timely healing to keep him upright.

And Merisiel ... at the first sign of conflict, she ran full speed out of the room and wasn't seen again until the battle was almost over. She had some lame story about thinking the goblins would follow her back to the dead sister's body (huh?), but no one was buying it.

Ultimately, Meylee returned to the fight, Ezren's Magic Missiles did more damage than the King's, and the last of the goblins fell. The party stood panting and bloody, trying to decide if this was all worth the reward the mayor had offered. Kyra tried to Channel Positive Energy to heal the party, but bad die rolling gave it minimal effect. Luckily, in the King's treasure box they found a Wand of Cure Light Wounds along with a +1 Ring of Protection and a bunch more gold, and party convinced themselves to continue on.

At the north end of this room was a 20' high cliff, with what looked like another passage continuing on at the top. Valeros was able to successfully Climb the cliff, and lowered a rope for everyone else.

The chamber at the top looked like it has once been some sort of burial chamber, but was now just a ruin of bones and cobwebs. As the party advanced, four skeletons shuffled forward out of the darkness to defend their tomb. The party's blades were not every effective against the fleshless foes, and Kyra managed to hit only one of them with her final Channel Positive Energy (but she killed it). Even Merisiel took some damage, much to her dismay.

But finally, the skeletons were all dismembered bones, and the party trudged on. A winding stair wound downwards, but there was light at the bottom of the stair, as if there were daylight coming in. Sure enough, the party found themselves standing at the edge of a large chamber where the ceiling had collapsed long ago, leaving behind a deep pit open to the sky above. On the far side of the pit they could see a large horde of treasure, but before they could investigate, and dark shadow blocked out the sun. A terrible black dragon swooped into view; as it snarled, green acid dripped from its fangs, burning the floor wherever it landed.

The dragon landed atop its horde, ready to defend it. Valeros charged forward, Dragon-Bane Sword in hand, and landed a mighty blow. In response, the dragon breathed a stream of acid; Valeros was able to dodge some of it, but Ezren took it full in the face and went down. Kyra rushed forward to revive him, while Meylee joined Valeros in the attack and Merisiel threw daggers. 

The battle was surprisingly short. One more desperate swing from the Dragon-Bane Longsword, combined with everyone else's attacks, and the dragon fell. The party surveyed the dragon's corpse atop its glittering pile of treasure, and decided that maybe this adventuring gig wasn't so bad after all.