Rise of the Runelords Recap # 56 [RPG]

[30 Kuthona 4707]

The feeble morning sun illuminates the adventurers’ campsite halfway up Hook Mountain, its inhabitants having mostly recovered from the attack of the flame drakes just hours previously.  The intrepid mountain climbers redouble their efforts to make it to the cave that Artemis spotted on his previous climb.  Although Kang did well the previous day, he struggles for the entire morning to make significant progress.  At about midday, Vier and Artemis decide to climb ahead of the others to surreptiously set up a camp just a few dozen feet below the lip of the cave.  As Artemis ascends a particularly treacherous slope, he wipes away some frost from an icy patch and is startled to realize that a face is staring back at him!  He clambers up, hearing the ice crack from his weight and heat behind him.  Fearful of an undead monstrosity, Artemis draws his heavy pick and swings it overhand into the back of the creature that stumbles out of its imprisonment in the ice!  The figure staggers and nearly drops to the ground.  It turns, and Artemis realizes he’s not dealing with a monster: but with a shivering, bedraggled, newly awakened kitsune!  With fiery red hair, a fox’s tail, and a delicate rapier, the figure may once have cast quite the dashing figure, but now it looks like death warmed over.

Realizing his mistake, Artemis apologizes.  The irritated kitsune says his name is Jinkatsyu, and stands shivering while Artemis hurriedly assembles his tent.  Soon after the pair are inside, Vier arrives and asks for an explanation.  Jinkatsyu explains that he came to Hook Mountain on the trail of a trio of witches who kidnapped and murdered his birth parents—the last thing he remembers is confronting them when they cast some sort of spell in unison.  Still holding a grudge over getting, quite literally, stabbed in the back by Artemis, Jinkatsyu answers the archer’s question about how long he’s been in the ice and says he’s not sure—he arrived in the month of Neth . . . in the year 4705!

Kitsune are anthropomorphic fox-like beings, capable of taking on human forms. 
Native to Tian Xia, they're known for their love of trickery and beautiful things.

Kang stumbles into the tent about an hour later, fatigued and frostbitten from the climb in freezing temperatures.  Kang is understandably startled to see a newcomer in the tent, but quickly takes advantage of an opportunity: he tells Jinkatsyu that he can provide magical healing if the kitsune will help defeat the Kreeg ogres.  Jinkatsyu seems inclined to help, if for no other reason than that the ogres and witches may be working in concert.  As they all wait for Katzumi, the lack of oxygen at this mountainous altitude takes its toll, and Vier finds himself wheezing and exhausted.  Finally, in the middle of the afternoon, Katzumi arrives, embarrassed.  Jinkatsyu notices something that none of the others, including Katzumi herself, noticed: a severely burned dead pixie has flopped out of her backpack!  Katzumi sobs upon realizing that Yap is dead and insists upon burying the pixie despite the icy, rocky terrain.  Vier helps her, and they manage to scrape out a small furrow and then cover the body with snow.  The delay is costly, however, and Jinkatsyu also begins to suffer from altitude sickness.

With the sun beginning to set, the adventurers have a momentous decision to make: attack the Kreeg clanhold now, despite their own weakened state; rest overnight and attack at dawn; or even retreat completely!  Vier pushes for the latter, stating that he wouldn’t last two seconds in a fight.  But Kang and Katzumi argue that they’ve come too far to turn back, and that further delay only risks further suffering from the cold and altitude.  The consensus is reached to take the battle to the enemy now before it’s too late.  But having decided to attack, inexplicably, no further plans are made.  The result is a tragic one.

As the conversation winds down, Artemis sets off on his own initiative and easily crests the final craggy outcrop that conceals the cave entrance from below.  The same two ogres are on patrol, but, unlike last time, Artemis has taken advantage of the rocky terrain to avoid being seen.  Without waiting for his allies, he begins the assault by firing an arrow: it tunnels into the belly of one of the ogres, who gives a shout of surprise and anger.  Both charge towards Artemis’ position.  Vier and Kang, happening to form the second wave of the assault, arrive on the scene but are without the benefit of clever tactics or a formidable warrior to halt the ogres’ advance.  Vier hurls a dagger that grazes one of the ogres, but takes the long end of an ogre hook in the sternum for his trouble!  Before he can escape, the hooked end of the weapon literally disembowels him!  Alas, the ill-fated adventurer’s prediction that he wouldn’t last seconds in a fight against the ogres has proved prescient.  But the worst is far from over: before Vier’s body even hits the ground, the other ogre catches Artemis by the back of the neck with his hooked weapon and then punches him in the face so hard his skull crumples inward.  In the time it takes for Kang to utter a single shout, two of his allies, including the group’s ostensible leader and someone who had been by his side since the Sandpoint days, are dead.

Hill giants are considered the
 least of the "true" giants.

Kang hurls an explosive that kills the ogre that Artemis shot with an arrow, leading the other to loose an echoing shout for reinforcements.  Kang’s reinforcements arrive first, as Katzumi and Jinkatsyu reach the cave in the third and final wave.  They surround the ogre and with skilful swordplay manage to kill it, but in moments, heavy footsteps can be heard approaching rapidly.  Kang takes to the air and hovers just below the ceiling of the passageway as two more ogres and a hill giant thunder into view!  Even more enemies can be heard advancing in the distance, leading Katzumi to shout for the others to run as she heroically tries to buy them time by charging the hill giant.  But in the wide entryway, the three adventurers quickly find themselves surrounded by enemies and overmatched. Katzumi stands her ground and trades blows with the giant, but soon she too lays dead.  Kang, wounded severely in the fighting, shouts to Jinkatsyu that he’s leaving.  He flies out of the cave entrance and hovers nearby, watching as the kitsune, too tired to flee, raises his rapier in defiance as almost a dozen additional ogres flood into the entryway, pushing and shoving for the privilege of tearing apart an intruder.

Kang knows the battle is lost, but sticks around a moment longer to try a desperate gamble.  Having noticed the structural weakness in the lip of the cave, he hurls a bomb to shatter the natural faultline, sending Jinkatsyu tumbling down the mountainside like a pinwheel alongside a cloud of rock and snow.  Kang quickly flies downward and scoops up his newest, and only surviving ally.  “We have to get off this mountain and get to safety.  We’d need an army or a dragon to overcome those ogres,” Kang concludes.  “It’s over.”

Unprepared for the weather, the altitude, and the difficulty of climbing Hook Mountain, the adventurers persevered and reached the Kreeg Clanhold.  But whether through poor tactics, exhaustion, or atrocious misfortune, three of their number are now dead.  Has evil triumphed, or does fate have another surprise in store for the survivors?
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Director's Commentary (23/9/18)

Jinkatsyu, a Kitsune Swashbuckler, was the new PC for the player who previously ran Goragar.  I was wary of Swashbucklers based on what I had read on the forums beforehand, and unfortunately, actual play has borne out the problems: I loathe the parry and riposte mechanics.  The introduction of the PC was fun, as I used an old trick (frozen in a block of ice) but was not expecting him to get a pick lodged in his back!

The assault on the Kreeg Clanhold was a disaster, and the closest thing the campaign has had to a true TPK so far.  Crits by the monsters were part of it, but just as much was the staggered approach and the  lack of a true front-liner like Goragar.  Kang's player had a plot twist card that allowed him and Jinkatsyu to escape, but losing three PCs in just a matter of rounds (including Artemis, the group's stalwart leader) was a real blow.  I think the players were as demoralized as the fictional survivors.  I gave a bit of a GM pep talk afterwards as we debriefed, including some discussion about tactics, the firepower that magic can bring, etc.  One of the unintended consequences is that two of the new PCs next session were full casters (one arcane, one divine) and that turned most encounters into cakewalks.  Ah, Pathfinder--you are a difficult beast to manage!

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