Rise of The Runelords: Chapters 1-3

Burnt Offerings Part 1

Since I'm starting this log some time after our 4th session of play, I'm going to give a quick recount of the first few sessions without worrying too much about getting everything down just right. I'll try to be more detailed in later posts but this is just to catch us up to the present.

The story starts in Sandpoint, a small town on the Varisian coast. Our heroes have gathered with many others for the Swallowtail Festival the town is hosting to commemorate the consecration of the town's temple. We listened to some speeches by the mayor and the sheriff and so on, until *gasp* goblins attack!

Storm distinguishes herself early, racking up massive blow after massive blow with her trusty earth breaker. Roger, Maple, and Maple's roc (named Rocky) all did their various parts, whilst Jinx took cantrip potshots at the occasional goblin to little effect. But a well-timed Color Spray does incapacitate a cluster of targets, letting the rest of the party dispatch them at their leisure.

The town counts themselves lucky to have had such a band of adventurers in their midst to come to their rescue, and rejoices. We so impress one of the nobles of the town that he invited us to go boar hunting with him.

Before retiring though, we are led to investigate the nature of the raid, and find that the real goal of it was to allow someone to sneak in and make off with the body of the town's former priest, Father Tobyn. Intrigue is afoot!

The boar hunt goes fairly swimmingly, with Maple's detect animal spell allowing us to spot a second boar hidden among the foliage before it managed to surprised us. But a fateful attempt at a sleep spell by Jinx results in his trusty magics running wild and (unbeknownst to the party at the time) enlarging the height of all gnomes within many miles by nearly two feet! Any gnome who failed the save is a medium sized creature!

The party is later approached by a fearful woman, who tells them of trouble at her house and a 'monster' in her child's closet. But the monster is a mere goblin and is dispatched with ease. Although not without a wild surge silencing a party member and many townsfolk.

Then the party is approached by a servant of the local barkeep, with whom we have been quite friendly during this time, to tell us she has gone missing and providing us a note in a foreign tongue (which our learned barbarian could decypher) leading us to investigate the local glass works.

Inside were more goblins under the command of the captured barkeeps evil monk half-brother, whom we ended up splattering to a wall (thanks again to a high damage roll from the earth breaker). On his person we found a journal written by no sane hand that talked of demons and in the basement were smugglers tunnels that led to a demonic warren of some kind.

As is our way, we stumbled upon the hardest fight of the dungeon almost immediately, a summoning quasit with an evil pool from which she could spawn creatures. In fact, her combination of flying and damage resistance was causing us a lot of trouble until an attempt at a magic missile by Jinx strangely caused the quasit's dress to spring to life and devour her. In the same battle, another wild surge had caused the stone to soak up the liquid of the pool as well. Leading to Jinx effectively and completely accidentally taking care of the two largest threats we would face.

Notable Loot:
+1 Ring of Protection for Jinx