The Kingmaker's Cairn, Session 5

 In which the party...

• Travels west from Oleg's to stumble into the bandit camp of the bandits who had been harassing Oleg.
• Try to bargain with them, only to completely put their foot in their mouths as they accidentally say too much and reveal they were the ones who'd killed the bandits at Olegs.
• Try to flee only to be corralled in by bandits who pile onto them.
• Sybil the thief, Yslin the ranger, Cannora the elf, and Amiri the barbarian are slain by the cuts of many bandit blades.
• The remaining party attempt to flee again - but run into a dead end of a sheer stony cliff leering down over some rapids.
• Linzi the halfling and Jaethal the elf both fall in combat with the bandits as well, and Ethex takes the Ooze form to try and escape the bandits, which he barely manages falling into the waters below.
• Ethex wakes up on the banks of a river miles from the bandit camp - only to come face to face with a raging wild boar.
• Attempts to flee once more fail, and the boar gores Ethex, who - now out of spells having not rested - falls.
• Thus the party is TPKed.

This session turned south quickly with multiple failed escape attempts and lost initiatives, along with stumbling into an encounter with a large group of bandits (and the lone survivor rolling a particularly brutal encounter with a wild boar). 

After consideration of whether I wanted to reset the session or events, I figured I'd rather be true to the dice and the party be laid to rest here. With my interest being pulled with other new settings and supplements, I'll consider this experiment complete for the moment with the possibility of returning to it in the future.

The Kingmaker's Cairn, Session 4

In which the party...

• Travels past Crooked Falls to one Bokken's hut, and discovers hermit Bokken fighting off some wild thylacines.
• Kills the thylacines and saves Bokken, who lets them rest for a few days. 
• Agree to help Bokken find some Fangberries.
• Travel on to arrive at Oleg's Trading Post, where they meet gruff Oleg and his kind wife, Svetlana.
• Ambush some bandits who come to attack Oleg, but none of them break and reveal where their camp is before they die.
• Travel southwest to explore and discover a radish patch - and some kobolds guarding it.
• Slay the kobolds and take the Radishes back to Oleg to sell. 

Party: Sybil the thief, Yslin the ranger, Cannora the elf, Ethex the magic user, Amiri the barbarian, Linzi the halfling, Jaethal the elf.

Current date: 15 Pharast, Early Spring.

The Kingmaker's Cairn, Session 3

  In which the party...

• Travels to the city of Restov from Lady Jamandi's keep to buy supplies and a wagon with 2 mules to carry their goods on 25 Calistril, the late winter month.
• Heads west along the road from Restov to the southwestern most village of Nikita's crossing.
• Discovers some barrels smashed and contents emptied along a bridge over a small stream.
• Runs into some Thylacines, starving marsupial wild dogs that the party is forced to slay.
• Arrives at Nikita's crossing where Maegar Varn and his party also rest up and set up camp.
• Shares stories with Varn, who buys them that night's meal and invites them to visit his holdings if they manage to survive.
• Overnight, are ambushed by 3 bandits and forced to fight them, with Amiri and Cannora getting infected by their rusty blades during the battle.
• Remain in Nikita's Crossing for 5 days, use up some rations, and work odd jobs to earn enough to get by as the infected heal, as late winter rolls into early spring.
• Set out again to the west along the road in 2 Pharast, aiming to reach Oleg's trading post, with rumors that bandits continue to harass the trader.

Party: Sybil the thief, Yslin the ranger, Cannora the elf, Ethex the magic user, Amiri the barbarian, Linzi the halfling, Jaethal the elf.

The Kingmaker's Cairn, Session 2

 In which the party...

• Explores the western wing of Lady Jamandi's manor.
• Uses Ethex's bandit puppet as a scout before he chokes on smoke and dies to get a layout of the wing.
• Quickly follows Ethex, who uses his spell Ooze Form to lead them safely through the smoke quickly.
• Discover Tartuccio lying presumably dead, and takes him to a restorative shrine they discover, where he wakes and starts seizing before going unconscious, but alive.
• Leave the gnome to rest as they discover Jaethal tied up and gagged by a contingent of bandits.
• Take out the bandits, including the second in command of the bandits and free Jaethal, who joins the party.
• Discover Lady Jamandi facing up again 2 giants and help her fend off more bandits.
• Face down the bandit leader of the "Black Tears" and her minions in combat.
• Nearly lose Linzi, Ethex, and Jaethal in fierce combat against the Black Tears leader's forces before the leader and her minions are finally slain.
• Heal up with numerous healing potions and aid as they accompany Lady Jamandi out of the wing.
• Receive a charter from Lady Jamandi to explore the Stolen Lands, and told to go meet with one Oleg to deal with his own bandit problem.
• Watch 3 other parties - the Iron Wraiths, arrogant warriors; Baron Hannis Drelev and company, a cruel noble; and one Maegar Varn and company, an optimistic knight receive their own seperate charters to explore.
• Discover Tartuccio alive and with the 2 other hostages left from last night, Harrim the dwarf and Valerie the paladin, taking the charter and breaking off from the party to deal with the Stolen lands' problems on their own.
• Set out from Lady Jamandi's manor into the wilds to explore the Stolen Lands.

Party: Sybil the thief, Yslin the ranger, Cannora the elf, Ethex the magic user, Amiri the barbarian, Linzi the halfling, Jaethal the elf.

The Kingmaker's Cairn, Session 1

 In which the party...

• Is invited to a dinner at the hall of one Lady Jamandi for a quest to colonize the wilds.
• Chat up other guests at the dinner, other hopeful adventurers: 
• Sybil the thief slips the rings and valuables off one sorcerer Tartuccio, who waxes tales of his own heroics oblivious with the thief's flattery.
• Yslin the ranger impresses one barbarian Amiri as they bond over hunting and tales of dangerous travails in the wilds.
• Cannora the elf plays her with against another elf Jaethal, as the iterant gambler tests her wit against Jaethal's as they proceed mock the other guests at the party.
• Ethex the magic user endears himself to one halfling Linzi, who finds an intriguing character for her travelogue as he nerds out over various magic spells and books with her by mistakenly assuming her writing relates to magic.
• Head to rest up for the night only to be awakened by the shout of a guest being cut short.
• Realize that bandits are attacking the tower, and set up traps at the entrance of their room - including a bear trap by Yslin and Caltrops by Sybil. 
• Manage to slay 2 bandits with traps, as Ethex takes control of a third with his Command spell.
• Use the controlled bandit to send other bandits in the wrong direction as they make their way through various rooms. 
• Discover gold, gems, healing potions, and even a tanglefoot bag of tar by looting corpses.
• Save hiding halfling Linzi, who is being attacked by a blinded ogre, by entrapping the ogre with the tanglefoot bag before fleeing.
• Run into one giant Jurginder, who takes a hefty bribe of gold, gems, and healing potions to let them through to the great hall.
• Find 3 tied up guests of the dinner - one of whom is Amiri, who they revive with a healing potion and joins the party, leaving the other 2 for the moment.
• Enter the great hall to discover the captain of the guard holding the fort, while Lady Jamandi has gone to the opposite wing to save other guests while it is on fire.

Party: Sybil the thief, Yslin the ranger, Cannora the elf, Ethex the magic user, Amiri the barbarian, Linzi the halfling 

The Kingmaker's Cairn, Session 0

I've always wanted to try some of the giant adventure paths put out by Pathfinder. But the crunchy system and massive page counts always pushed me away. However, a while back I started playing the Pathfinder Kingmaker video game. A few hours in, and I thought to myself  - hey, I could play this as a solo adventure using a lighter system. So here's my attempt at exactly that: to play through Pathfinder Kingmaker using Cairn.

Nearly 700 pages...here goes nothing

To start out, I will be using Cairn with Hexcrawl in Cairn rules for hexcrawl structure and the Barrow Delver solo rules as an oracle. I'll add on tools as needed, but otherwise will be running Pathfinder Kingmaker as written. I will be using the 2e version of Kingmaker here since it has content based on the video game which I want to include.

My starting party is: Sybil Orthax, a thief; Yslin Breagle, a ranger; Cannora Malksmilk, an elf; and Ethex Burl, a magic user. As the adventure progresses new characters may be added or removed as needed. 

I'll skim through most of the background and in classic fashion, plunge straight into the adventure. Having played the initial parts of the video game will hopefully help jumpstart this, and following that the hexcrawl structure should hopefully help this move smoothly.

Lonesome Wanderings, Session 63

 In which Badger...

• Travels and explores the lands around his keep.
• Discovers an orc contingent and manages to crush them with a rockslide in a quarry.
• Notes some giant sightings around his keep.
• Gets word of the death of elven maiden Rahasia after the bandits of one Rahib invaded her village and slaughtered all present there.
• Flees from a tribe of gnolls gathered in a ring of trees in a clearing.
• Finds a road traveling to one hamlet of Wastow and follows the road.
• Discovers some bandits harassing a merchant caravan and helps the merchants out by helping take out the bandits.
• Gets offered 600 gold for helping escort the caravan to Wastow, which he accepts.
• Travels past an abandoned quarry and makes notes of some ancient runes on a standing stone on the road to Wastow.
• Arrives in Wastow without any other issue and collects his payment, and rests to heals up.
• Celebrates his 31st birthday in the hamlet as he rests.

Current Level: Badger 11