Pathfinder: Arcacea

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The world of Arcacea has never seen an age of heroes, the rise of evil has always been prevented through armies and strategy. When this new evil arose all began to change, the hordes were to blame. Countless men and women both powerful and weak clashed against the evil insurgence, for days they fought, for weeks they battled and for months this new evil laid siege to to world of mortals.

In the midst of battle, when blood of men and the ashes of civilization filled the air a new day dawned. The sky that was blackened by clouds filled with death and decay were parted for the new comer to the war, to the aid of man a new sun shone in the blue sky, bring with it renewed faith.

That's when the world fought back, the forests grew thick, the jungles wild. Tribes of warriors in sheltered villages in the mountains found their rage, prodigies with sword and the budding arcane arts stepped through the ranks of war weary wizards and warriors. The heroes were coming and they were coming in force.

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So there's the setting, I still have some places free, happy to work with max party size of 6.

Current players:-
John Scweiso
Andrew Minton
Emma Andrews

Planning on genning this tuesday at 6pm, If ore players join I'll be happy to rearrange the gen session

Let me know

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The fallen City of West Haven lays in the Shadow of the magic built Tower Rayne. Those few that can still fight and what little men at arms can be mustered have turned the ruined city into one of Arcacea's last Bastion of defence.

Even with the light of the second sun shining down those that heal the plague and rebuild the failing fortifications struggle to find the morale to keep going. The elder Marcus Al'thir sent out a missive to all those that would listen, a cry for help from any and all that would dare stand against the undead hoards that come out at night.

For those brave and strong, for those cunning and quick, I Marcus Al'thir require your aid, a Tower has appeared, built on the rise of the dark moon atop the mountain at which we bury ou dead and, from it spawns an evil that plagues Arcacea,

Please if you have the heart, if you have the strength help us before all is lost,

Marcus Al'thir

So it was this missive that the party received and through one cause of another decided to descend on the town of west haven. Old man Marcus Al'thir met them with open arms and sincerity and with him were two others:

A monk by the name of Zed, and a woman of the forest called Vayne.

That party made their introductions yet zed and Vayne cared little for small talk:

Zia:- A strong witted woman with a roguish charms and skill clad in her slim fitting leather armour and a trusty rapier at her belt, who introduced herself with the iea of coming her on a mere whim.

Kayrus:- A sorcerer with a strange aura, spoke of working on enlightened ment and penance for past deeds, dressed humbly he walks with a pride of the elf but inside he hides more than he shares.

Baradin:- Some say evil takes thought, planning and cunning, these three traits are missing on this Dwarven cleric, he speaks slow and his words are short but his skill at arms and healing are not to be questioned. Coming from a humble background he is one of the few priests of healing which now roam Arcacea.

Finally Atticus:- Before the rise of the second son magic was that for anoraks and wannabes, an old secret society which specialised in the ceremonies and rituals of the arcane, and also drinking and escaping their wives. When the magic started to work it was the keeper of secrets that first learnt of them and his skills were quite above any others. A Middle aged man would usually leave the excitement to younger men, that isn't the case for this learned wizard which instead donned his grey blue robes, strapped on his patches and filled in his spell book, magic awaits in the tower Rayne and Atticus will be the first to find it.

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If you would delay your journey to the tower until the morning, we could really do with your help spoke Marcus Al'thir, his words were all the convincing they needed and Zia's eyes picked out the sincerity in his eyes and body language.

They decided to help, the learned wizard pt himself to work mending broken arrows and tools through out the fort where he met one of the friendlier guardsman. Strapped up in dirty chain mail with a battered sword and chipped shield was Albus who, despite the fighting and chaos, greeted the wizard with a firm hand and a welcome smile. For a while the two of them talked and Atticus learned that the guardsman didn't think they could hold out much longer. Every night was getting steadily worse, he stood shoulder to shoulder with the other men during the day and watched his brother in arms die through disease and battle wounds during the day. But we fight on, With the gods on our side we fight on

The blacksmith Talon was greeted by the elven sorcerer, at first the master blacksmith mocked the young elf for his lack of brawn and soft stature, the man was soon taken aback as the two exchanged strong words and Kayrus offered his weaponsmithing services. His help was welcome and the flock of apprentices managed to learn a thing or two from the traveling craftsman.

Baradin, the soft spoken cleric walked through the countless bodies of the sick and dying dressed in his armour and weapons looking more like a menace that a saint. That is exactly what Matron Alyana saw as she squared off with the dolt of a dwarf, her stern demeanor soon changed however as she saw his skill with bandage and the spell as he stabilized and helped where he could.

Zia took a different approach, hoping to raise the morale by joining in any festivities in the local tavern, she headed over to the drunken halfling. She was met by the stench of blood and ale, the men in the bar looked at her with the same indifference they did with the rest of the world, their only concern was numbing the fear before the next battle. These men were the bravest of the brave and all that stood in the of the evil's path of destruction.
Thinking it was probably best to leave the men to the drinks she struck up conversation with the barkeep, though he mocked her she stood her ground and spoke her piece declaring that it didn't matter if she was a woman she was as strong as any man, however failing to really make that stick as she spilt her drink down her armour in an attempt to down her tankard of ale.
If we don't fight, then who will? The barkeep answered when Zia questioned why he sticks around when other, including his own family, had already left.
Deciding she had learnt all she could Zia made for the door before spotting Zed, the monk from earlier, somewhat taken aback by his rudeness and lack of introduction decided to approach him to see if he could be a potential ally.
Fear cuts deeper than swords he replied when asked why he wasn't afraid and she also learnt that he was from an order of fighting monks, and he was, like her somewhat of a prodigy in his field. He ended the conversation abruptly and it wasn't until she was leaving did Zia realise she probably interrupted his meditation.

As the sun set Albus and Atticus stood with the others in front of the Church, We have men at the gates and a few other dotted around the city, the undead have a tendency to seek out warm flesh and some even burrow, protect the church at all costs
they took their mission and so as night settled the church bells began to ring, a short sorrowful song that would heralded the coming of the undead and mourn those that would be lost during the night.

The undead came from the hills and descended on the town, the military clashed with skeleton and zombie in viscous battles through out the town whilst the party dealt with those that burrowed up underneath the ground surrounding the Church. A couple of zombies came at them first which they dealt with as quick as they could, the corpses took a lot of beating but were eventually cut into small enough pieces for the magic animating them to dissipate.

Whilst the younger one fought Atticus stepped back and assisted with casting protection spells and himself and the cleric, the sorcerer however opened fire with disrupt undead on anything that moved without breathing.

The came the skeletons that wielded broken scimitars which failed to score a hit, in fact on even had a hand come lose and bury itself in the wall of a wagon, managed to slow the party's steam with their shields as the bided enough time for the ghoul to erupt from the ground. Luckily the party figured this quickly and dispatched them before the disease ridden monster did crawl from where ever it is they came from.

A set of claws found its way through the scales of baradin's armour as the ghoul made its opening attack, the slow witted but quick to act cleric channeled enough positive energy to mitigate the damage and sear the flesh of the purple skinned creature. It was Zia however that managed to get behind the monster and bury her blade somewhere between the base of its skull and its forehead letting a burst of ghoul blood splatter against the dwarves armour.

Th battle came to an end as the second sun rose early, stemming the flow of undead and keeping the town standing one more day.

[Minty]

Excerpt from the journal of Atticus Stormchild:
Festag, the 4th day of Long Shadows

It has been something of a draining day today; after the assault on the town of West Haven the night before, we set out to the great graveyard with a copied map and borrowed horses, hoping to clear out the worst of the corruption blighting this wounded land. A second group of adventurers joined us, but we were separated almost as soon as we entered the graveyard proper, and I hope that we have the chance to meet them again.

The infestation within the graveyard itself was nauseating, a sea of dead flesh roiling between toppled tombstones. The first encountered were fairly weak, our blades and magicks making short work of the abominations, but with each wave they grew in power, and numbers, it was clear that speed was of the essence in our mission to end the threat to West Haven and civilisation beyond. Some voice of the master continues to mock us as we struggle against the undead tide, and although we have had some near misses thus far no-one has fallen, and I intend to keep it that way!

We encountered the agreeable manifestation of General Paxton, one of the greatest generals Arcacea has ever seen, and he agreed to help us in our quest as well as he could, gifting to us an ancestral masterwork longsword, a shining silver light in the darkness, as well as a temporary sanctuary from where I am writing this journal entry.

The day did not end as well as I had hoped: we encountered several powerful opponents, a pair of flesh golems, not undead but instead constructs of magic which bear greater investigation, and a nightmarish monster from children’s stories: Zel’Tarth, the stealer of greedy souls! No longer a storybook figure who scares children into obedience, but a powerful dark entity which stands against us in our quest. While we managed to destroy the golems at great personal cost, the soul stealer eludes us still. We will continue the hunt tomorrow. Irori guide us.

We have discovered additional armaments to our cause: a dagger of silver, three potions blessed by Iomedae (though one has been used now), and to my great personal interest a blood spattered spellbook containing some hitherto unknown magicks. Once I have studied and mastered them, I shall send it to the Circle with my notes.

While we may have given West Haven some small relief from the constant swarms for the next few days, unless we find and stop the mastermind behind this soon, all our futures will be very dark indeed.

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[Minty]

Excerpt from the journal of Atticus Stormchild:
Wellentag, the 5th day of Long Shadows


The death rattle moans of the unliving and stomping of some great beast kept us in fitful sleep at best. I was fearful of monsters breaking down the doors to the crypt, held closed only by silken rope. But fortune favoured us, and perhaps the gods looked over us last night, as we awoke the next morning to find ourselves still alive.

General Paxton made a request of us to retrieve an amulet belonging to his disgraced-in-life brother; so that he could bring him under the protection he afforded the spirits of his wife and son within his crypt. But because he had died as a war criminal, supposedly responsible for the death of hundreds of innocents, he had suffered a criminal’s death and his body was left to rot away in the bone yard, a section of the graveyard we had not yet explored. Bravely, or foolishly we agreed to search for his brother’s amulet. I personally felt indebted to the General for giving us safe haven in a squall, and will do my best to help.

We had stacked bodies of the fallen against the entrance to the bone yard, in the hopes that it would keep us from being attacked from behind while we forged onwards. We were dismayed to discover that the aforementioned stack had been pushed aside with some gusto, as ichor had been sprayed up against the adjoining wall up to six feet up, and the headless corpses (to prevent further re-animation) were scattered in disarray in the nearby area. A cold sinking feeling seeped into us as we noticed deep footprints larger than any man’s leading both in and out of the bone yard. We proceeded with caution.

Immediately inside the bone yard, grizzly gibbets hung on either side of the stone passageway, turning some of our party’s bowels to water, but we did not have time to be afraid, as true foes stood before us. We made short work of some weaker zombies which assaulted us, before turning to see the terrible sight of another construct. This construct seemed to be better made than the last two which we encountered, and so we were weary to engage it. Instead we turned to deal with some chained, powerful undead. With limited range of motion, chained as they were, Kayrus and I worked together to disrupt them to the best of our abilities, leaving only one “alive” for potential questioning and experimentation.

It was only now that we discovered what the construct was doing in the bone yard: It had been constructed with many extra arm parts sewn end to end to give it tremendous reach, and had been put to the task of collecting bodies from the pit of the fallen, where the corpses of criminals are left to rot in the sun, denied a true burial, and stacked high on a cart. We presume that not only is this construct responsible for breaking down our makeshift blockade, but also that it is providing some necromancer with the meat to animate, so we will need to deal with it eventually. For now we opt to try talking to it: as the first two constructs asked our allegiance before attacking us, we claimed to be working for “the Master” and when this does not prompt a favourable response, we insist that “the Master” is Zel’Tarth. The monster responded to this by beating its fists on the floor and insisting that it was “NOT FINISHED!”

Also in the bone yard was a great monster that was, for now, captured in the crematorium furnace, but for some reason there was no way to turn this on within the graveyard itself, I have resolved to activate the furnace at my earliest convenience. Additionally the ashes surrounding the crematorium are faintly magical, and I have taken a small sample to analyse.

For now we left the long armed construct to its work, not wishing to expend our strength too early in the day, and noted that the cart had left deep imprints in the muddy ground leading out of the bone yard. So we decided to follow them until we found ourselves outside the great mausoleum at the back of the commoners graveyard, where we had faced the flesh golems the day before. It would seem that some powerful necromancy occurred here, as I found a lingering aura from the night before.

Zia scouted ahead and discovered an explosive trap on the door into the great mausoleum, and we made our way in with caution to face a number of powerful skeletons surrounding a pool of blood, with some poor fellow hung up and drained above it. We dispatched the skeletons with some difficulty and discovered some small caged monsters called Chokers in the corner. Kayrus slaughtered them with repeated acid splashes, leaving some of us unsure of his mental stability. We also found some diary scraps, which detail an intelligent being’s descent into unnatural sounding hunger for blood. Thus I was unsurprised, though still terrified to discover a vampire in the next room.

Apparently the vampire was the resurrected mind and body of Varik Winchester. We discovered his tomb on the first day in the graveyard, vacated, and some faint necromantic auras, indicating that some special ritual had occurred there. Now we know what the ritual did.

Despite being unspeakably evil, Varik the Vampire proved quite amenable. He greeted us as “God Touched” and asked us to retrieve the same amulet that General Paxton requested so that he could overthrow his master, but also provided some interesting information: the amulet is in the heart of the long-armed construct we encountered in the bone yard; another reason to bring it to an end. Naturally we did not side with Varik, as replacing one powerful foe with another seemed counter-intuitive, as well as helping him would break our promise to help the General, which none of us were willing to do.

We engaged Varik in combat, and discovered that the silvered weapons bit deep into his flesh, and so he attempted to remove them from us. But eventually our sustained assault caused him to flee as an intangible cloud. Another foe we will have to pursue another day.

Unfortunately our encounter with the vampire had left us drained, some more than others. Both Raksha and Kayrus had sustained an injury having been bled by Varik, and was feeling much weaker as a result, but fortunately Iomedae and Torag intervened, saving us from certain doom.

In the next room we encountered statues to the aforementioned gods within a simple courtyard, which manifested the gods for a short while, informing us that a great evil lay ahead of us and offered us temporary relief in a temporal bubble. It is from this bubble I write this journal entry. The eight hours we will be spending within this sanctum pass as but a moment outside, and battle rages beyond the courtyard walls. I presume the other adventurers have found our foe already, and I am eager to join them.

One moment! Another has appeared in our sanctum from out of nowhere! I must investigate.
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The stage was set, their strength renewed and their numbers bolstered. Inside a small space created soley for the purpose of giving the heroes a respite from the fighting, it was short but well earned.

As they rested they soon realized that another of the god-touched had joined their cause. Kross Blanco was her name and thievery and stealth was her game, and she had good game. Standing at 3 " 2 and weighing at a slim 33lbs she wasn't exactly what they were expecting to find in their little safe haven. She came equipped with a positive attitude and a sharp smile and fit into the group seamlessly.

Greetings made and names exchanged the now bolstered party stepped outside of the door, from their small slice of safety and back into sight of the ever present dark moon. The sounds of battle reached their ears as they remembered that time would stand still while they rested, leading to the would take them to a destiny that it was far too late to turn back from.

As the gate to the crypt's entrance ground closed behind them skeleton and zombies were upon them before they had even time to draw breath, by this point however they cut through the weak undead like a hot knife through butter. The last undead fell as they noticed across the way were the others, Durin shouted to Baradin in delight as Justin cut down the final ghoul.

Now there were two of them, two parties of god touched facing down just a single corrupted sorcerer as her stood atop a cast iron platform, with a gesture of his hand and a few sinister words he addressed the party tempting them to change sides. He offered both knowledge and power but the god-touched heart's were true and the monologuing was cut short as Atticus fired off an early crossbow bolt. With a spit of disgust the sorcerer known as Cedric brought his hands up, in fused with power, and called forth flesh golems to do his bidding.

Three rose from the ground one of particular quality which charged right into the midst of the other party, its fleshy patchy body covered in plates of thick iron. Two of lesser quality were what our party of adventurers had to deal with and they did but the cost was great.

The golem's arms were of several sections and they stood at over ten feet they closed in quickly but not before the god touched got themselves into a fighting formation. The golems had tremendous reach, using their several segmented arms to slash and grasp the melee warriors as they approached. Zia took the first blow and it was enough to sop the party in its tracks as the clawed arm scored a hit to hit mid section which tore into her ribs and chest and with a sickening crush it held on, its next movement sent the young rogues body into the air.

This set the tone of the combat and with renewed hate for those that walk in the darkness of the evil moon, the party fought on. Raksha wielding her bastard sword with strength that far outweighed her size, fire flew from the sorcerer Kayrus' hands as arrows from the new face Kross Blanco pierced the golems. It was a combined effort between the melee that finally brought down the golems, Raksha taken a wound even despite her armor whilst baradin found himself on deaths door to be saved by the efforts of the

The party looked on in horror as one of their own was tossed around like a rag doll her innards and life blood falling covering the ground, it was as she started to fall that a chain shot out from no where and closed around her neck and with a glow of sinister gold light her body fell to the ground but a golden flamed translucent spirit stayed where it was, in the sky, and even as it writhed against it the soul was pulled into the ground, and so Zia's fate was sealed, though her body they open and broken her soul was gone forever.

Four crystals stood on skeletal arms reach up to the sky, Atticus quickly deduces that with each pulse Cedric is being fed with power...