Session 3

The group wake up after their first night in the Manor house.  They all find a silver unholy symbol of Asmodeus as well as a wicked looking Iron Crown sitting in front of each of their doors.  As well as all the other supplies they requested and notes to see the blacksmith to fit any armor they ordered.

While Quel gets his armor fitted, he notes the creator's rune on it... a well known armorsmith from Ghastenhall.  How such special ordered equipment arrived at the manor house overnight, an odd thought for sure.

The group spends more time around the other knot over the next couple days.  Elise the witch spends a bit too much time around Galen.  Others note she appears to be sizing up their group & Galen unknowingly tells her all about his arcane ability, as well as some of the powers of the other group.  He seems overwhelmed by Elise's "charm".  Meanwhile, Trak notes the affection doted on Galen by Elise & does not seem too keen to it.  A "murderous" look is how it is described later.

Others though have a more pleasant time.  Yvaine hits it off with Trak's twin brother Trik.  At first they meet over a mutual curiosity of Ben & his odd religious practice, but they eventually find common ground in their wicked faiths' similarities.  Also, Yvaine & others learn more about the fateful tale of Ben & Lady Amilia.  Her adulterous betrayal of him, his murderous rage against her, her eventual revival.  They also learn that Chiliax has begun to notice it's erstwhile province, and that is somehow related to Vincent & Ben's discussions with the "good" Cardinal.

Despite much complaining by Emmerick, the group has to wait the full three days before they can speak with their benefactor again.  It is in that meeting that Thorn lays out what their next task is, to prove their worth in a test.  They are given the assignment to find a gold & sapphire jewel in the basement of the manor house.  The group is lead by the ever demure & cold Tiadora and left at the entrance to the dark dungeon.  Told they have from dusk 'til dusk the next day to retrieve the item in question they are quick to begin.

The first room they enter starts well, Quel finds a pit trap over the only obvious exit.  He attempts to disable it, but fails & nearly falls in.  After that, they search around again & find a secret treasure cache hidden away, including a wicked looking magical dagger.  Still unable to find any other exit, the decide to cross over the pit trap & search the door.  They run back up to the dining room, take the main table, much to the confused looks of Trik & Dostan who were eating dinner at the time & use the table as a makeshift bridge to get across the trap.  In the end, for all their effort, they only find a bricked up wall beyond the door.

Thinking outside the box, the turn off all the lights in the room & look for any sliver of light coming through a secret door & eventually find the exit.  The following room they easy follow the riddle & destroy the odd mold using the vile of alchemist's ice & continue on.

In the next room they begin a battle with a vampire mist.  Brother Summit opens the darkened room and is able to see into the blackness beyond.  With one deft critical strike from a loaner crossbow, he shatters the obsidian orb in the middle of the room & ends the darkness.  The rest of the companions enter, but are quickly drained of blood as the mist rises from the floor.

The group decides on a tactical retreat & withdraws (in no way a fleeing motion...) north where they stumble upon a apparently empty room, save a newly constructed Rack & the phrase above the door about cruelty being a tool, not a past time.  Yvaine seems quite delighted in the apparent torture chamber.

Quel again fails to find a secret door & lacking a suitable subject, Yvaine suggests one of them "step up" to the Rack & see if they can cause something to happen.  Brother Summit offers himself as a subject & is strapped in.  Yvaine, wishing to be a "team player" wraps her cruel barbed rosary around the hand crank of the Rack & begins to turn it, causing both herself & Brother Summit pain.  Brother Summit eventually breaks & calls out in agony.  That is when Quel notices a noise, like the squeak of a frightened mouse, coming from a corner of the room when Brother Summit lets out his scream.  Quel searches there again, still, not finding anything.  So they continue for another 10 minutes.  Yvaine's hand bloody & Brother Summit being stretched to the limits of his ability.

Eventually, seeing nothing obvious happening, aside from increased anguish of Brother Summit & an odd pleasure/pain from Yvaine, they stop.  Quel does a more thorough search of the room, starting with the area around the noise & finally they find someone worthy of Yvaine's skills, if only barely.  They tortured Squire Timeon of House Balentyne.  They question him & find some useful information about the prison & it's occupants  including one Sir Balen of Kirkfield.

When it is revealed that the young Squire is Emmerick's replacement, the lad gets a mace blow to the neck-cap from the enraged former squire of the Knight.  In the end, like their master, the group fails to see his future value.  So they head back to the vampire mist room and "freeing" the young squire along the way they rush to the other door.  And the limping squire is a feast for the hungry mist, never having a chance.

The group continues on & struggles through a savage fight with some Mithril Cobras, but they stand victorious over the valuable remains of their enemies.  Feeling the poison of the automaton snakes still in them & also all the various wounds inflicted upon them, or in the case of Brother Summit on each other, they rest, though, they do NOT return through the mist & instead seal up the former abode of the Cobras & make a hard camp.

The next morning they set forth & find a room containing what appears to be a fake set of stairs & a fake gold & sapphire pendent.  Deciding to avoid the likely trap, they follow the instructions of the late Squire Timeon & search for a secret door opposite the stairs & finding it continue on through the labyrinth...

Session 2

Last session left off with our would-be escapees standing at the top of the warden’s tower.  The rogue Quell leading the way, stealthy as always, hears noises from one room & checking the quite room, finds an office with a ring & odd holy symbol laying out.  Figuring he found what his fellow convicts require, he backs out, signaling them to collect their belongings & then flee.

There is some disagreement as a couple others move forward to collect things about wither to leave, or finish off the warden.  In the ensuing confusion, some stealth rolls are botched & the Warden, hearing noises buffs himself & exits his bedchamber to find the motley band in the hallway, combat erupts.

The brief affair ends with Warden & Owl dead.  The killing blow administered by the skilled Quell.  Having full access to the library the group quarrels about what to do.  Emmerick notes they have little time before the guard change happens & the otherwise unaware gate guards find out the fate of their compatriots.  Mardus argues for acting quickly & rigging a fire, to make it look as though all occupants, Prisoners & all, parish in the blaze.  Galen ignores the calls of his fellow convicts to beat a hasty exit & searches the library, finding a smattering of rare books in the library filled with otherwise common & in some cases lude, balladry tales of adventurers.

The result, unbeknownst to the group, a guard returns from his post to find the carnage in the keep, including the remains of the sergeant.  Returning to his post, he sounds his horn & alert the remaining guards.

The guards grab the guard dogs & instead of taking the tactical position of defending at the gate, they flee their inner post & instead set up with all their dogs & guards at the outer gate house on the bridge head of the mainland, and send a runner to the near by town to alert them of the potential escape.  It seems the guards fear more for their safety then they do for the rest of Talengarde.  For posting on the main keep gate, they’d have a much better chance of victory, but no chance of escape.  A fateful decision, that in the end does save the guards lives, but ultimately dooms Talengarde…

The band of convicts are forced to charge across the bridge, the Cleric, holding her now recovered holy symbol to her god of death, is shrouded in an invisibility spell cast on her by Galen.  She charges ahead of the group, her companions being pelted by arrows.  Arriving at the portcullis, the dogs smell her presence & begin to growl, but she cares not, for she drops a zone of obscuring mist, bringing to an end the guards arrows shooting.  The cover allows the rest of the group to advance. 

The battle is met!  Except for Galen, who is still far off, apparently intent on all the treasure he’s found, he’s dragging a alchemists laboratory found in the Warden’s office.  During the conflict, some confusion over the location of allies causes Quell to take a serious wound from his Negative Energy channeling cleric “friend”.  Grumblejack & Emerix struggle with the gate, taking a grazing arrow wound here & there. Brother Summit jumps onto the roof of the guardhouse & eventually, dodging arrows, breaks in via the roof to fall into the control room & raises the bridge.

A savage but brief battle is fought.  The guard dogs, making up the front line engage in melee.  The guards continue to stay at range, arrows flying.  Most dogs fall quickly, but one vicious mutt strikes hard, downing Mardus & giving him a glimpse of hell.

As the battle turns, the guards use their escape & flee down the road to town.  Our protagonists lick their wounds, recover Yvaine from the jaws of her god and plunge head long into the bog and it’s relative “safety” from the watching eyes of the near by town.

It seemed though, that Zon-Kuthon had not given up on seeing his devotee, for half way through the moors, in the heart of the bog, a giant toad attacks Yvaine, and immediately downs her & begins to swallow her whole!

The rest of the group’s quick actions stop the toad, but they have to rush to free Yvaine from the belly of the beast & stabilize her.  Lacking any more healing, they must carry on, Brother Summit literally carrying Yvaine on his back, as he tries to shake off the odd drug-like haze he fell under while fighting the monstrous toad bare fisted.

The group quickly arrives under the sound geographical knowledge of Galen at the old moor road, but one more obstacle lies in the group’s path.  They encounter a group of bandits on the road.  The battle is a quick affair.  Some more damage is taken, but in the end, our persevering group survives & arrives at the Manor house in question.

Approaching the front gate they find it unlocked & hurry in.  At the front door of the main house is their earlier contact, Tiadora & she has a gaggle of servants about, though she terms them slaves.  They quickly show the group to their rooms where they get a chance to freshen up & Yvaine is awoken by the healing wine.  Emmerick spots another guest staying in the near by guesthouse.

After recovering from their dangerous journey, they are lead by Tiadora to the office of her master and they finally meet the man responsible for their escape, the last cardinal of Asmodeus in Talengarde, Adrastus Thorn.

The good Cardinal offers each member a choice, though there is little actual choice involved.  Either they sign the pack of Thorns & bind themselves to him, or…. Well, again, it’s not much of a choice.

The Cardinal though, offers some more reluctant in the group a boon of sorts.  To make them feel better about the choice they are making…  Yvaine is giving the sash of Archibald Hawthorn, the High Priest she burned & an offer to finish the job she started, as well as a special contract to sign, which acknowledges her other alliance to the god of death.  Brother Summit gets a book detailing some of the secrets of the Serene Order by a Brother Nicodemus.  Mardus is offered the glory of service in the name of the Lord of Nessus.  Galen is given a copy of his family ring & a promise that he will rise in greatness & prove his father wrong.  Perhaps even become the headmaster of the houses of Knowledge in Ghastenhall.   Quell is offered perhaps the greatest prize, a flask of sweet smelling oil & a piece of parchment containing information about his family.  Emmerick, the Anti-paladin of Asmodeus & pretender to the throne, is offered nothing.  Nothing at all, save a cold hard stare and a demand of absolute submission to the will of the Cardinal.

In the end, all sign & avoid the persuasive ministrations of Tiadora.  They are all told they have three days to rest from their journey & prepare for the training that is to come.

The next day, they are all met by a servant who offers to get them the gear they need.  And after that brief interaction, they are given free rein of the manor house & begin to meet it’s odd assortment of occupants.

The ex-convicts encounter members of a group known as the seventh Knot & find out they are to be the ninth Knot.  They also find out there is a vampire staying with them by the name of Vincent & he’s friends with another guest named Ben, who is accompanied by his apparent invalid wife.

At the end of the first day, still unsure of this other Knot, or the odd pair of Ben & Vincent, the group is left wondering exactly what they signed up for…

Session 1

Yvaine was the last prisioner to arrive, be branded the runic F marking her as forsaken and being deposited in the communal cell in the belly of Branderscar prison.  After a short bit of introductions between the new cell mates, the guards arrive to inform Emmerick that he has a visitor.  Emmerick is lead by the sergeant of the guard to a mysterious looking woman who acts as though she knew Emmerick.  He's quickly able to deduce the woman has some minor mind controlling effect over the guards.  After a brief conversation she informs Emmerick that he & his cell mates must break out & meet her master at a manor house on the Old Moor Road then she leaves, slipping her Veil into his hands.  With the guards returning, Emmerick slips the Veil into his mouth to avoid detection, then is lead back to the communal cell.

With some confusion, the group discovers the Veil is magical, though, the magical casters in the group can not seem to identify it fully, it's power too great for them to understand at the time.  Emmerick gets out of it the powerful magical item, the "Barbed Pentacle of Asmodeus" a truly wicked holy symbol of the Lord of Nessus, leaving no doubt to the dark nature of their new "benefactor".

Once they discovered the images in the Veil correspond to items they could remove, they quickly got the thieves tools out & the adept Elf Rogue Quel frees the group from their chains.  A quite conversation ensues about what is next.  The wizard, Galen, insists his magical ring & arcane bond must be recovered.  And Yvaine too says her special holy symbol to the god of death must be found.  Both had their items hidden on them at the time of their arrest but they were found & confiscated at the arrival to the prison.  Quel is against it, but eventually concedes when he discovers he's in the minority.  The rest of the group likes the idea of a powerful wizard & cleric.  The group manages to make their conversation both short & quite, keeping disagreements low so as to not alert the guards.

Freeing themselves from the cell, they encounter their cell neighbor, a massive Ogre named "Grumblejack".  With some healing ministrations by Yvaine, Grumblejack decides these "little 'uns" aren't bad & he'll help them kill their way out of the prison.

What ensues is a brutal and efficient escape by some of the worst criminals in Talengarde.

Aside from Brother Summit, the Monk, stubbing a toe on a cell bar on the way to the first guard room (which the guards discounted as probably a "mouse")  the group, lead by skilled Quel, proceed through a systematic slaughter of all the guards they can find.  By getting the surprise & acting swiftly in combat, they manage to obliterate the defenders.  Not a single warning is sounded.  Grumblejack proves his worth more than once.  Even the guards in the barrack, who stumble upon the group, have little chance to react before they are felled.  And the group finds plenty of male cloths in the barrack do wear, instead of the prison rags they'd been forced to walk around in.

The kitchen staff found and interrogated, while Yvaine relieves one of the woman of her commoner cloths (the group failing to realize their benefactor provided them all nice fitted cloths in the Veil).  Both woman are led into the prison basement & left there, bound & gagged, but allowed to live.  An odd sign of mercy shown by the Death Priestess, over the objections of some others in the group.

The Sergeant is their last target within the main Prison building & though putting up more of a fight, his calls for help only echo off the hollow walls of the old keep turned Prison.  For the other guards lay dead & the serving staff are the only restrained "prisoners" left.  In the end the Sergeant dies as well, though, not before telling all he knows to our would be group & receiving a fatal branding himself, for his "crimes" against the Prison, including embezzling funds & apparently quite lax security.

Some very close calls on bluffing by a couple former prisoners now turned "new" guards, with papers bearing the forged signature of the (now deceased) Sergeant, leads the outside guard patrol into an ambush in the Kitchens & the end of their lives.  Still no horn has been sounded.  The near perfect streak of the group continues.

The first session ends with the group silently being lead up the stairs of the Warden's tower.  The pull of Galen's arcane bonded ring ever weighing on his mind.  He can sense it getting closer...

Intro

Book 1, A Knot of Thorns.
Act One: Prison Break!

Our Adventure starts with a band of wrong-do'ers imprisoned for their crimes against the Kingdom of Talengarde.  The Kingdom of Talengarde being on a large isle off the coast of Cheliax in the Arcadian Ocean near the western mouth of Inner Sea.  Talengarde was a former province of the Empire of Asmodeus on Golarion before it eventually broke away.  Now it is completely removed from the faith of Asmodeus & has purged the Lord of Nessus' followers from the Isles.

Our wrong-do'ers charges leave no doubt to the wickedness of the group.  Grave Robbery, Attempted Murder, Murder, Blasphemy, Sedition & High Treason.  Sentenced to death or hard labor, each person was presumed dead, all that remained was for the swift justice of Mitra to be enacted.  But fate and the hand of a High Priest of a long banished God saw it another way.  In the moment before justice came, there was a chance.  A chance for something else.  A chance for revenge.