The Saga of Majenko Part Eight: Re-Taking Korvosa

Curse of The Crimson Throne is one of the older adventure paths Paizo put out, but that doesn't make it any less fun. Especially if you managed to rescue the main character, and turn him loose on the rest of the plot! We're nearing the end of this epic saga, and this week I relate how our heroes took back the streets of Varisia's capital city.

Also, here are the previous installments, in case you want to catch yourself up.
Part One: Finding The Main Character of "Curse of The Crimson Throne"
Part Two: How Much Damage Could One Pseudodragon Do?
Part Three: Scourge of The Red Mantis
Part Four: Blood Pig Champion
Part Five: Brother to The Shoanti
Part Six: The Assault on Castle Scarwall
Part Seven: The Return to Korvosa
Part Eight: Re-Taking Korvosa
Part Nine: The Assault on Castle Korvosa
Part Ten: Down With The Queen

And now, without further ado...

Re-Taking Korvosa!

So, our team of adventurers returned from Scarwall with a relic of the goddess Iomedae, ready to take on the thing the queen had become. We found the city had been placed firmly under the monarch's boot heel, and her personal army of Gray Maidens prowl the city streets. We were accosted by thugs, "saved" by the new hero of the city, and then we found out to the surprise of no one that the supposed hero was, in fact, an efreet meant to distract the people of the city to keep them complacent. We survived that fight, panting and sweating, but relatively whole.

That was when the DM threw a dragon at us.

The actual fight is on page 176 of the Core Rulebook.

Here we are, walking off a big battle and trying to re-calculate our odds of successfully assaulting the castle, when out of the sky comes a savage-looking black dragon. As if dealing with a black dragon assault in the street isn't bad enough, it's being ridden by a gray maiden. So, round one starts, we all ready our weapons of choice, and that's when we need to make Will saves versus the dragon fear.

Guess who had rogue saves?

And who remembers which rogue saves are weak?

So Majenko, seeing that we obviously don't need any help here, rockets off to a rooftop, putting a sturdy chimney between himself and the mostly feral monster he shares some genetic ties with. Egil Manages to land a blow, and to get through the spell resistance, while the arcanist starts blasting, and the cleric summons a celestial ally. Said celestial ally also decides we can handle this, and flies away to join Majenko, where the two of them have coffee and talk about how they wouldn't want to show us up by taking out that creature that totally doesn't terrify them.

That's when the battle takes a turn for the unexpected. The rider dismounts, draws her falchion, and starts attacking her mount! That's when we realize that Sabina Merrin, the queen's personal bodyguard and rumored lover, has just mysteriously switched sides. While the dragon is flailing and gnashing, we manage to slay it with the aid of our new friend, at which point we run down the nearest alley, and use a scroll of mage's magnificent manor to lie low, heal, and replenish ourselves after the two unexpected ambushes we've survived. Once the dragon is dead, Majenko settles back onto his perch on Egil's shoulder as if nothing had happened.

Majenko The Grief Counselor?

We step into the palatial dimension, bind our wounds, and hand our equipment off to the invisible servants for cleaning and polishing. We eat, and as we eat, Sabina tells us her story. She and the queen were lovers, back when the queen was still a mortal woman. Before the crown of Kasavon's fangs had taken over her mind, and tainted her soul. From that point onward Sabina was tossed aside, given duties that made it impossible for her to escape, and even having her influence over the Gray Maidens transferred to more hard-line loyalists. In time, Sabina was tethered to the hateful brute that was her mount, her safety not even an afterthought to the woman who'd once claimed to love her.

Wow... that's harsh.

This is an awkward situation for our party to be in. We have a cynical tiefling cop, a battle cleric who finds her comfort in armor and doctrine, and a pretty selfish arcanist who doesn't quite get non-elf problems. Balen is Balen. We just barely got over treating a potential enemy as a new ally, and none of us are prepared to help her deal with her grief, as well as the awful stress of being kept prisoner in a role she once took pride in.

Well, except Majenko.

The rest of us went off to recuperate, heal, take long baths, sleep, and re-memorize our spells. We gear up, come downstairs, and Majenko is sitting at the table with Sabina. There are cherry pits and crumbles of chocolate, as well as what look like the dregs of ice cream. He's patting her hand and saying that it's going to be fine. He's sure there are plenty of nice ladies in Korvosa, and once we're done with the revolution she can find someone and settle down. He also insists that she come and visit him and Aeofa, and meet their clutch. The babies are adorable, and they could use some exposure to people, since they'll need to learn to deal with them sooner or later.

Minutes before the spell wears off, we step back into the dingy, dirty alleyway. The dragon's corpse is gone, of course, and the street is totally dead. Deciding that it's a good idea to regroup before assaulting the castle, especially if there are more ambushes waiting for us, we sneak our way back to the Gray District. We present our new ally, who in turn offers to lead a raid on the prison/training facility where the gray maidens are all given their unique facial scars, and undergo all their other procedures. Before she leaves, Sabina also tells us about a secret way into the castle.

We part company, and decide it's time to beard Kasavon in his own, stolen den.

Will our heroes succeed? Find out next time on The Saga of Majenko: Showdown in Castle Korvosa! If you want to stay up on all my updates, then follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter, and if you'd like to help support my blog, then stop by my Patreon page and consider becoming a patron today!

Making Your Own Fate (Or Why It's A Bad Idea For Chaotic Good Characters To Rear Black Dragons)

This week's Table Talk entry comes to us from the game of Benjamin Colecliffe. Some of you might have seen similar instances of trying to do the right thing that spiraled out of control into massive threats to the peace, life, and limb of the local community. If you have I'm sure you'll identify with this week's tale...

We Make Our Own Fate

Some heroes kill dragons. Many more die trying and failing to kill dragons. And then there’s this guy, who died trying to thwart the draconic menace that he’d created.

That escalated quickly.

Our hero for this story is Roran, a barbarian from the far south. We’re playing Hoard of the Dragon Queen and have just finished looting a cave complex with several dragon eggs inside, which we promptly stole. My character has headed north to report our success and hand over some documents we acquired, while Roran has created a cart to lug the dragon eggs back to Greenest. He gets there and decides to hide the eggs until we’re ready by burying them, at which point one of them hatches.

So Roran has a baby evil dragon on his hands, and he has an idea. He takes it off the road a way and begins trying to raise it. Firstly, it’s obviously hungry so he heads off into town to get some food for it. The town has been raided, its livestock rustled, and Roran had killed off all of the town’s hunters (long story), so there wasn’t any meat for sale. Opting for a second best choice, Roran gets a pack horse, leads it back to the dragon, and kills the horse for the dragon to eat. Now the baby dragon isn’t happy with this, as it wants live prey. So Roran goes back to town and buys some puppies. With big eyes that look up at him with nothing but love and devotion, so happy to meet someone new and kind. They lick him and nuzzle him.

The baby dragon is a Black Dragon, the outright most sadistic type of dragon out there. Roran goes off and gives the dragon the puppies to eat. It’s a drawn out process, but eventually the dragon is finished with the poor puppies and puts them out of their misery. I would like it noted at this point that Roran’s alignment is supposed to be Chaotic Good.

You might want to get your alignment checked.

Next the dragon demands a drink, which Roran supplies. Now it wants a hoard, so Roran gives it all his ready cash. Finally it wants a lair, so Roran heads out to find it a suitable home. Throughout all this, Roran’s player is convinced that he’s got this dragon wrapped around his little finger.

So he takes the dragon to its new lair at the bend of the local river and it likes it. So exhausted, Roran goes back to Greenest and heads to the nearest inn. The next day he gets up, does some chores around town, picks up some more puppies and heads out to the dragon’s lair. The dragon wants more loot, and Roran’s picked up a lead on some bandits in town. So the pair go out to kill bandits and take their stuff. This doesn’t go as well as it could due to the action economy being somewhat against Roran and the dragon not being interested in putting its life on the line for him, and eventually he goes down. Now while it would have been funny for the hero to die in service of an evil dragon our tale doesn’t end there. See the bandits keep him alive in order to sell him off as a slave or the like, and that night the dragon returns, curbstomps the remaining bandits, and frees him. Why? Well, Roran’s been a good slave for the dragon so far and it doesn’t want to lose such a valuable asset just yet. So Roran is sent back to town to recover and gets a message from up north saying “Shit just got real, come up north ASAP.” He recovers from his beating and heads out to tell the dragon where he’s going. The dragon is nowhere to be seen, so he waits for a few hours until it returns with a group of kobolds in tow.

It’s at this point that Roran begins to realize that he might be slightly in over his head. He tells the dragon that he’s heading north to follow up a lead on some treasure for its hoard, and the dragon lets him go with the promise of a horrible death should he betray it.

Roran regroups with the rest of the party and lays it out bare, omitting the parts about puppy killing. This is a problem, as the plot at this point is running on a timetable and we can’t afford to backtrack several days to deal with the dragon problem he’s created. So Roran decides to head back and deal with it himself, while I go off and inform the local paladin of what’s happened. Roran heads south to Greenest, picks up the one guy the guard can spare to act as backup, and goes back to the dragon’s cave. By this point the dragon has a tribe of 20 kobolds along with drakes and assorted cultists at its disposal, and is a significant threat to the region. Roran goes in and gets into a disagreement with the cultists guarding the lair, which he then escalates into a fight. The guard he brought along with him flat out flees because he’s not getting paid enough for this, and Roran suffers a rather nasty end getting mobbed by the dragon’s servants and breathed on by the dragon itself. We haven’t yet found out what happened to the region, but it’s fairly obvious that the locals are in more danger after we left than when we arrived!

In conclusion: Sometimes you create your own villain by accident. Other times, you really have to work at it. You can read the full story of our party’s misadventures right here!

Not All Adventures Scale So Well!

If you would like to read more bad decisions from the Table Talk archive then click right here! If you have a story of your own that you'd like to share with the Internet at large then by all means contact me using the contact form on this page and I'll be more than happy to give you some time in the spotlight.

If you want to support Improved Initiative then stop by my Patreon page and consider becoming a patron today! Also to make sure you get all of my updates follow me on Facebook and Tumblr as well!