PF2e 8 - Zophan Swamp 1

Alright, after a break for the holidays, we’re back in the saddle. I gave everyone the mission brief ahead and time and let them know that they’d have time to prep for this specific mission. Normally, I’d flash back, let them do downtime, then introduce the mission, but this time I just went “It’s important but not Critically Urgent”

The party first checked out the Pirate Shop, which is basically a store of items that were unidentified, so they had to suss out if they wanted to buy it from the small description I wrote. The Magus, Esdee, bought a cloak made of leaves. It’s the Cloak of Gnawing Leaves that can lash out in response to a melee attack. The leaves bite and deal minor damage in return. Nobody else bought stuff from there, but curiosity was piqued, which is a win. I also added a second Alchemist Guild shop entry for Sprii, the Druid, since they’re a member of it. I figured giving her access to more stuff would be a good benefit.

After some gentle nudging (OK I let them know that Possibilities Existed, because otherwise they wouldn’t have done SHIT), the Thaumaturge decided to research the plant in question. They start asking around and picking people’s brain for more practical information about it, and got it. This will give them a bonus to their Exploit Vulnerability action later when they finally engage the vine. They also got to learn, for the success, that it’s pretty vulnerable to Fire damage, which the party then acted on. They scooped up all the Alchemist Fire the guild would sell them, and finally set off for the Zophan Swamp.

This time I handwaved travel, save for one encounter about halfway through. The party was travelling on foot, because they didn’t want to try to have some horses go through the swamp, and was come upon by a trio of adventurers, led by a man in shining armor, close cut blond hair, and a large greatsword, bearing a huge grin and a booming voice. Your prototypical capital H Hero. Until the persona dropped when he found out the party was heading to the swamp, which was his destination. His crew got cagy and told the party they’d never get to the crypt before he did. Then he and his party raced off.

This encounter came to me three hours before the game time. He and his crew were going to serve a few purposes.

• Introduce a traditional hero-ass hero.
• Tease that there’s a secret in the swamp
• When this guy shows up again he’s going to be a huge pain in the ass. I just thought it’d be fun. Sometimes it’s fun to just have a huge ham in a scene.

Sprii spotted two entrances to the swamp, a southern entrance and an eastern one. They took the east path, as the Hero’s Party went in from the South and they didn’t want to see them again. Upon arrival, they were startled by a mouse running up Magnus, the Thaumaturge (Esdee the ratfolk was like “what the hell why not me”), and then I explained why. The mouse was being chased by a fanged rabbit, who itself was being chased by a dog who’s existance was a bit blurry, who was also being chased by two more of the fanged rabbits. The mouse wanted to go High Up, and he was the tallest PC. So we had a fun little encounter of Predatory Rabbits and a blink dog, both fighting the party and each other.

They proceeded to a stagnant pond, and found two strange female figures resting with their feet in the fetid, muddy waters. Magnus got a little closer, and then tried to figure out what they were. They were Naiads, but something seemed wrong. The water they were guarding was very murky, they looked pale green and sludgy, and their eyes were the color of burnished iron. Sometimes, it’s fun to look at the languages of a monster and go “huh, I can split up information with this”. So they issued a warning in Fey first, which only Sprii speaks. The Naiads were not happy, and spoke as if each was coming out of a different speaker of stereo audio. They took offense to Sprii, who is a Leaf Leshy, for smelling so much like civilization. They then spoke in Elven, which Sprii and Magnus speak, to basically tell them they were responsible. Also got to drop that the land was defiled by iron and blood which is always fun and made the party very unhappy.

Out of the swamp came also a mutated giant toad. I got to have some fun with this combat, trying to use the Naiad’s spells to push them towards the Giant Toad to be eaten, but it didn’t happen. I did grab one of them with it’s tongue, but it got cut off next turn. After one Naiad was slain, Magnus managed to convince the other to stop and mourn their lost sister, which didn’t take a ton of convincing. The party was fighting back but they weren’t like… breaking out the huge guns.

We left off before entering a vine filled grove. This area is going to be a skill challenge, but because they’re starting from this point rather than the point by the entrance, they get a free success here, shhhh don’t tell. But the cliff hanger was that deeper in the grove, towards the back where light was shining through indicating a path, some of the vines were sporadically coated in a reflective, metal looking surface.

The characters also did not like that.

This is leading to the assassin vine being fully fused with the metal, tying together a couple of my loose threads and rumors I’ve laid out. The metallization of the terrain is happening closer to the city than they thought. It’s affecting not just the grass, but also sentient creatures, such as the frog, naiads, and (soon) assassin vine.

They need to bide their time though before they can break past the young dragon and storm the necromancer’s tower. They push too soon and they’ll end up dead, and they know it. Right now I should be coming up with the next mission(s) so I don’t have to take a week off. We’ll see if I have the energy though. It’d be a lot easier if they were talking to each other after sessions or between them and go “hey we should go to this place or do this thing” but whatever. I’ll keep prompting them along.