Aeric's Journal #5

Aeric Lebeda’s Journal Entry 5, for the 11th (Toilday) of Erastus of the year 4708.

We have returned to Oleg’s after our sweep of the north and west. We are preparing for a possible bandit attack (since the bandits have arrived on the 1st of the month) along with preparing for the holy day of Erastil (on the 3rd of Erastus).

Of note, Jonah seems to have fallen ill. I’m not sure if it is coincidence or not that it occurred very closely timed to when I was found on the floor unconscious. My last memories where that I was preparing to examine Frederick (Jonah’s dead rat) with an alchemic extract that assists in determining magic. Upon waking up, I had a splitting headache and was lying on the floor. One of Captain Garess’ men brought Jonah in saying that he had suddenly collapsed. Father Jhod looked at him but couldn’t figure out what was wrong. Strangely enough Jonah shook more when Frederick was brought near him. Very curious.

The preparations for the bandit arrival were less than heartening. While several suggestions were presented to help catch the bandits in a crossfire or other trap were shot down by Tomaz as being reckless. I will admit that he has a point, the reason to have a fortification is to use it for cover… but it means then that we have giving up the initiative and are only reactive to what the bandits want to do.

The first was a long day, however both myself and Maladan caught sight of something moving thru the grass. At the end of the day I ventured out to see if I could track what ever had moved thru the grass. I found a small toy soldier and what was obviously the place where the scout was examining the outpost.

On the 2nd of Erastus, we ventured out tracking the trail of the bandit scout to the southwest. Tomaz and Anna were also intent on catching a boar. As the day grew longer myself and Maladan returned to the camp to finish preparations for the holy day of Erastil. Tomaz and Anna decided to stay out longer. When they returned the next day, they indicated that they had run into someone out in the bush but didn’t manage to capture him.

The holy day of Erastil passed uneventfully, it was good though to see how well Maladan and Father Jhod were getting along. I suspect quite strongly that when we set out to explore again that we will be pushing to the cave with the bear in the hopes that it is the lost Temple of Erastil.

On the 4th Of Erastus, we had a lively discussion about where to head. Eventually we tried to head directly to the location where we thought the lost temple was, only to encounter a river. We traveled south along the river and encountered bandits at a ford. Battle ensued! The high notes were that Maladan was almost slain by the bandit Kressel. She was very tough and only thru perseverance did Anna prevail. However Anna was discouraged as apparently she recognized one of the bandits. He fled from us. I was also somewhat disturbed by Tomaz’s actions. He deliberately killed a fallen foe. After we had mentioned that we needed information. I will have to keep an eye on my cousin. Another bandit surrendered to me, and when my attention was turned towards the rest of the battle he fled. Anna did manage to save one of the bandits from their wounds.

From the bandit camp we found a considerable amount of loot. Most of which we believe were looted from Oleg’s. We moved those goods to another location and then proceeded back to Oleg’s with the prisoner. We managed to get some information from the prisoner, and Maladan gave his word that we would allow the bandit his life. Tomaz wanted to leave the prisoner at Oleg’s. However there is no place at Oleg’s to hold a prisoner, and I suspect strongly that both Oleg and Captain Garess would arrange an accident for the prisoner as soon as we left again. I felt I had no choice but to let the bandit go, as taking him back would have been breaking the spirit of the agreement we had made with him.

Tomaz railed on me about that, calling me soft and weak in the head. Tomaz I think is missing the bigger picture. This bandit will now return back to his camp and will grudgingly inform them that he was let go. This should hopefully give us some added reputation for them to surrender and change their ways than trying to fight us to the last. But time will tell.

Knowing time is of the essence, we quickly make towards the location of the cave. We find a huge outcropping of rock surrounded by brambles. We manage to make our way in and find what looks like a elk’s head carved out of the rock face. It is quite impressive. A large misshaped bear came out of the back of the temple and charged Maladan. After a brief battle we managed to win over the creature who turned into old man and then crumbled to dust. I wonder if he was the caretaker of the temple? The feeling of the shrine increased considerably now that the bear was gone. Maladan pretty much couldn’t be moved from the place and would only tell the rest of us to fetch Father Jhod as quickly as possible.

Hero Points

I mentioned in a previous post that we will be using hero points. Here are some additional details on their use. Don't forget to mark them down on your character sheet!

Gaining Hero Points

You gained 1 hero point at level 1 and gain an additional hero point every time you gain a level (you therefore currently have 2 hero points). You may never have more than 3 hero points at any one time (any additional points you would otherwise gain are simply lost). Once you use a hero point, it is spent and gone forever.

Using Hero Points

Hero points can be spent at any time and do not require an action to use (although the actions they modify consume part of your character’s turn as normal). You cannot spend more than 1 hero point during a single round of combat. Whenever a hero point is spent, it can have any one of the following effects.

Act Out of Turn

You can spend a hero point to take your turn immediately. Treat this as a readied action, moving your initiative to just before the currently acting creature. You may only take a move or a standard action on this turn.

Bonus

If used before a roll is made, a hero point grants you a +8 luck bonus to any one d20 roll. If used after a roll is made, this bonus is reduced to +4. You can use a hero point to grant this bonus to another character, as long as you are in the same location and your character can reasonably affect the outcome of the roll (such as distracting a monster, shouting words of encouragement, or otherwise aiding another with the check). Hero points spent to aid another character grant only half the listed bonus (+4 before the roll, +2 after the roll).

Extra Action

You can spend a hero point on your turn to gain an additional standard or move action this turn.

Inspiration

If you feel stuck at one point in the adventure, you can spend a hero point and petition the GM for a hint about what to do next. If the GM feels that there is no information to be gained, the hero point is not spent.

Recall

You can spend a hero point to recall a spell you have already cast or to gain another use of a special ability that is otherwise limited. This should only be used on spells and abilities possessed by your character that recharge on a daily basis.

Reroll

You may spend a hero point to reroll any one d20 roll you just made. You must take the results of the second roll, even if it is worse.

Cheat Death

A character can spend 2 hero points to cheat death. How this plays out is up to the GM, but generally the character is left alive, with negative hit points but stable. For example, a character is about to be slain by a critical hit from an arrow. If the character spends 2 hero points, the GM decides that the arrow pierced the character’s holy symbol, reducing the damage enough to prevent him from being killed, and that he made his stabilization roll at the end of his turn. Cheating death is the only way for a character to spend more than 1 hero point in a turn. The character can spend hero points in this way to prevent the death of a familiar, animal companion, eidolon, or special mount, but not another character or NPC.

Chapter 4 Experience Rewards

Aeric, Anatalia, Tomaz and Maladan receive the following experience rewards for Chapter 4:

300 xp for fully mapping and exploring certain areas of the Stolen Lands

1,480 xp for dealing with the bandits at the river camp

400 xp for uncovering and dealing with the bear trap in the bandit camp

400 xp for completing the quest Wanted: Bandits

800 xp for defeating the bear guardian of the Temple of the Elk

400 xp for completing the quest Temple of the Elk

Anatalia and Tomaz share 135 xp for chasing off the scout

Aeric and Maladan receive 945 xp

Ana and Tomaz receive 1,012 xp

Tatzlwyrm Attack!

Chapter 3 Experience Rewards

All characters receive the following experience rewards for Chapter 3:

1,100 xp for fully mapping and exploring certain areas of the Stolen Lands

800 xp for dealing with a wandering band of kobolds

800 xp for helping Svetlana surprise Oleg with his favorite - moon radish soup (400 for bypassing the kobolds, 400 for the quest)

1,000 xp for befriending Perlivash the faerie dragon and Tyg-Titter-Tut the grig

2,400 xp for surviving and disarming the bear traps in the forest

1,600 xp for surviving an attack by a territorial family of boars

7,700 xp in total. That's 1,540 per player.

That's enough to take Tomaz to level 2!

Level 3 will require 5,000 xp.

Aeric's Journal #4

Aeric Lebeda’s Journal Entry 4, for the 25th (Sunday) of Sarenith of the year 4708.

We have returned back to Oleg’s after continuing our exploration. We decided to ensure we had maps of the areas to the east and west of Oleg’s.

Since our departure on the 11th, there have been few items of note. We received a package at Oleg’s, it looks like it was the equipment and head of the kobold shaman Tartuk. I believe this was the kobold chief acknowledging our assistance in overthrowing Tartuk. There was a journal of some sort, Jonah decided to translate it for us.

We encountered a small hut out in the plains during a rainstorm. It seems to belong to a twitchy fellow named Bokken. Bokken seems to be a potion maker of some sort, I didn’t really get much time to talk with him as he pushed us out and told us to come back if we had some Fangberries.

The storm got much worse so we decided to stop exploring and hunker down for a bit. A small band of kobolds discovered our camp. When I tried to communicate with them I mangled my draconic and accidentally prompted them to attack us. So I had to explode most of them, one kobold ran off screaming about demons in the woods.

We finished our eastern loop and stopped in briefly at Oleg’s before trying to acquire some radishes for Svetlana. We decided to try and barter with the kobolds of the radish patch by trading some spears for the radishes. The bartering was going kind of poorly when I received a message that I presumed came from Jonah, but he did sound kind of funny. Jonah had used the bartering as a distraction and snuck in and liberated some radishes. Since we had what we came for we decided to leave peacefully, and we left the spears as trade.

We explored slightly north of Oleg’s along the road where we encountered a wine merchant named Pavel, who strangely enough didn’t have any wine. Tomaz started talking quite excitedly with the fellow and wound up spinning an impressive tale and some illusions to show what he was thinking of for the future of the Stolen Lands. I was quite impressed myself, Tomaz definitely has a gift with talking with people. Tomaz decided we needed a fair or festival to start bringing the folks around together and celebrate to help boost his dream of a civilized area.

As we continued west we found one morning that our sentry had fallen asleep and that all our weapons were tied up in a tree with our own rope. Jonah seemed quite sure what had caused it, I was less positive but I presumed it was the work of some mischievous fey creatures. After a long day, Jonah finally managed to talk to the little fey creatures. One of which seemed to enjoy Tomaz’s bottles of wine. Once they were reasonably friendly with us they provided us with some information about the surrounding areas, a clearing full of dangerous traps, a hot spring, a big bear in a cave and a bridge with some bad big-uns nearby. Tomaz also invited them to the festival…

As we continued our exploration now heading back towards Oleg’s we entered the clearing where the fey creatures had mentioned the dangerous traps. And they were right! The clearing was full of bear traps. Both Jonah, Tomaz and Jonah’s pony got hit with the traps. While we managed to get both Jonah and Tomaz free with considerable difficulty, we had to put the pony down. Jonah was quite upset about the whole affair and blamed his dead rat Frederick for not helping him. Jonah went so far as to throw Frederick into the bush! Anna went to look for Frederick but didn’t find him. That night I discovered Frederick in my saddlebags!

While I felt somewhat foolish, I had a one sided chat with the dead rat. And I decided to return him to Jonah when we were back at Oleg’s. Preferably while Jonah was not watching.

We returned to Oleg’s on the 25th of the month, which would give Tomaz sometime to organize his festival, and allow the rest of us time to prepare a ‘welcome’ for any bandits who might show up on the 1st of the next month.

Sunday SUNDAY sunday!!!!!

Just a reminder we're playing this Sunday, July 4 @ 3:00pm. My place.

A note to all who have gained a level. You gain an additional Hero Point along with your level. You should have a total of two.

You can spend two hero points to save yourself from certain death once.

You will need them...