Crab Grab

Descending into the lower level, the brave group begins exploring and stumbles into a nasty slasing trap.  While dealing with that, the party is separated and Droka is on his own.  With all of the commotion, the real leader of Thistletop, the half demonic Nualla attacks Droka with her Yeth hound.  Droka whacks the Yeth hound with his earthbreaker and takes it out in one shot.  Soon, Droka is reinforced and the party slows backs Nualla into her lair.  No match for the focused attention of the entire group, Nualla falls.

Exploring further, the party learns more about the history of Thistletop and discovers an ancient creature trapped.  The barghest is insance and attacks with fury but does not survive the decision to do so.  In the crypt, the party finds a few shadows which prove more troublesome.  But Nim keeps the channeling going until they too fall.  In the final cavern, Seamus jumps into the claws of a giant crab, so the rest of the party won't be grappled.  The crab is a tough opponent, but Seamus is equally combat stubborn.  The dinner menu was all-you-can-eat crab cakes.

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Session Characters: Droka, Crukdon, Seamus, Nim
Session XP: 2000 (1500 @ 75%)
Session Loot: 6255 gp, +1 breastplate (Droka), mwk comp longbow (Droka), 20 arrows (Crukdon), ring of force shield w/ sidhedron rune, dihedron key, sidhedron medallion, +1 bastard sword.

Nobody Said There'd Be Tentacles

The party continues their exploration of Thistletop, and after several rooms find a courtyard full of goblin dogs.  No match for the heroes of Sandpoint, the dogs are dispatched swiftly.  The group discovers a starving war horse in the out building.  With a little food, and some animal handling, the horse is made calm enough to be escorted out to the band's camp in the thickets.  Moving through the rest of Thistletop, a passage to the lower levels is discovered.

Heading down, the party discovers a chapel with two flying, shadowy demon dogs.  At their howling, Seamus felt like running down the halway.  The rest of the party battles the hounds, and Seamus comes back and wades into the scrap.  The hounds fall, but not after two supernaturally loud howls alert everyone on Thistletop that there are intruders.

Moving on the party encounters the 'longshanks' that the druid warned them about.  Each in a wave the bugbear, fighter, and mage.  Gathering the loot, the party makes it though the storage area and into a cavern open to the sea.  Inside the cavern a strange tentacled squid monster lurks around the ceiling, the party moves in.  No one succumbs to a tentacle grapple or the poison and the monster falls.  Searching, the party discovers the room the attacks on Thistletop were planned in. 

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Session Characters:  Nim, Seamus, Crukdon, Droka
Session XP:  2000 (1500 @ 75%)
Session Loot:  silver holy symbol of Lammastu (40 gp), Treasure chest with: 7432 cp, 2490 sp, 89 gp, 3 pp, 34 badly flawed malachites worth 1 gp each, medium chain shirt, medium mwk scimitar, a pair of mwk manacles, gold holy symbol of Sarenrae (100 gp), jade necklace worth 60 gp, a fine blue silk gown with silver trim (150 gp), four (4) +1 elf bane arrows, potion of cure moderate wounds, studded leather armor, heavy flail, mwk composite longbow, 20 arrows, 4 pp, potion of cure moderate wounds, +1 banded mail, mwk heavy steel shield, mwk composite longbow, 20 arrows, mwk bastard sword, everburning torch, wand of magic missile, potion of cure light wounds, scroll of comprehend languages, scroll of mirror images, scroll of invisibility, scroll of sleep, scroll of whispering wind, Lyrie's spellbook, dagger, cloak of resistance +1, silver crab (25gp), fine silk gown (60gp), everburning torch, pearl earring (50gp), 3 pp, 278 gp, +1 small hide armor, mwk small shortbow.

Barbarians at the Gate

The party launches the assault on the gate with an invisible charging dwarf brawler.  Distracted, the goblins on guard were no match for the party.  Quickly moving inside the party takes out two more goblins and explore there way up to the throne room of the goblin chief, Ripnugget.  Bursting in, Droka and Seamus tie up the goblin commandos in the middle of the room.  The rest of the group deals with the warchanter and chief Ripnugget.  The warchanter is subdued early, but Ripnugget proves formidable.  Charging across the room on a giant gecko, the party finds it difficult to bring him down.  Ultimately the band succeeds against the goblins, and retreats into a side room to regroup after the taming of the gecko.

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Session Characters:  Nim, Seamus, Crukdon, Senoy, Droka, Amana
Session XP:  760 (570 @ 75%)
Session Loot: pearl handled dagger (100gp), wand of silent image (5 charges), small studded leather, short sword, shortbow, 80 arrows, potion of cure light wounds, potion of barkskin, three potions of cure moderate wounds, masterwork breastplate, +1 shortsword, dented crown (20 gp)

Character Advancement

All characters advance to the third level.


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Dipping the Dwarf

Based on prior intelligence, the band head out for Thistletop to investigate the rising goblin menace.  Heading out into the Nettlewood, the group is ambushed by a goblin patrol.  The leaping goblin attacks were ineffective as the party quickly dispatched them.

Finding a secret entrance into the thick thistle and briar patches, the band maneuvers through the cramped winding passages in the thicket.  They find a small clearing where there is a small hole in the earth, heading straight down.  Exploring the hole is tricky and they secure and lower a knotted rope down and Seamus explores the cavern below.  He climbs over to a ledge and secures the rope down for the rest of the group to follow.  As the last of the groups makes it down a vicious bunyip leaps from the water.  Nim and Seamus each land blows, but it is the mighty Crukdon who winds up spatchcocking the bunyip.

Facing the pretty kitty and the goblin hippie.  After looting the cavern, the group goes back up the rope to the thickets.  After looking out at an observation point, the group notices a robed goblin sneaking up on them with a fire-pelted cougar.  Crukdon tries to calm the cougar, while the group talks to the goblin.  With amazing negotiating skills, the Heroes of Sandpoint extract a bit of information about the state of things inside Thistletop.  The goblin is not happy about the longshanks that have taken over advising the chief, Ripnugget.   The party release the goblin, and he asks that the group spare as many goblins of his tribe as they can, that the real villains are the longshanks inside.

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Session Characters:  Nim, Seamus, Crukdon
Session XP:  1380 (1035 @ 75%)
Session Loot:  100 gp, deep green spinel (100 gp), violet garnet (500 gp), 3- +1 arrows, bone wand of shield (9 charges).

Crukdon Calling

Finally prepared to enter the room ahead, the band bursts open the twin stone doors.  A tiny quasit is by a small triangular pool with bubbling fluid that looks like magma, shrieks at the party.  She then cuts herself and drops blood into the pool.   Dimming the glow of the pool, startling the quasit, a sinspawn emerges from the pool. 

The fight begins immediately, and the sinspawn does not last long.  The quasit proves to be a much tougher adversary.  Nim briefly distracts the quasit as Seamus and Crukdon close in.  The battle drags on. but the band is eventually victorious.  Nim discovers that the pool is nearly drained of power and suggests that creating more sinpawn will drain it permanently.  Seamus shakes the quasit over the pool and creates three more sinspawn, which are dispatched with much prejudice. 

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Session Characters:  Nim, Seamus, Crukdon
Session XP:  1600 (1200 @ 75%)
Session Loot:  tiny +1 cold iron returning dagger, copper scepter with gold inlay (50 gp), decorated gold plate (700 gp), ivory bowl with animal carvings (40 gp), painting of a noblewoman (50 gp), set of six silver dice (75 gp), silver chalice with dragon carvings (150 gp), potion of cure light wounds (50 gp), wand of acid splash (375 gp)

I wanna live Seamusly

Below the glassworks, the band explores the basement and finds a walled off part of the basement, recently opened.  They find Ameiko's bound and locked in a room.  She warns the heroes of her brother and pleas that he must be stopped.  The band heals her, and she heads back to town to warn the Sheriff and Mayor.  About to complete the search, the group discovers Ameiko's brother Tsuto and a few goblins.  After a fierce fight, the party strips Tsuto of his gear and leaves him unconscious and bound in the room where he imprisoned Ameiko.  Tsuto's notes reveal some interesting information, the leader of the goblin assaults is the former aasimar girl adopted by the former priest of Sandpoint (and Tsuto's girlfriend).

Descending down into the old smuggler's passage, the party discovers a much older structure below the basement of the glassworks.  The entrance was guarded by a creature spawned from the work of the ancient Runelords.  The band was able to dispatch it quickly, and begin exploring the underground structure.  Following the tunnel they come up through the commode of a jail room. all of the cells are barred.  As Amana moves into the room, two sinpawn strike.  Some of the party moves up to the commode as Amana retreats down.  The rest move around to the jail using another hallway.  After dispatching the sinspawns the band continues to explore down the back hallway.  They find several rooms, mostly empty, except for a dozen ancient zombies trapped in pits.  The party dispatches them by dropping burning pallets on top of them.

Exploring down another passage, the party encounters a vargouille, but with the protection of a countersong, defeat it quickly.  They also find a room where everything is levitating, and a few interesting objects.  Continuing on to explore the final passage, the party meets a particularly large and malformed goblin.  Happy to discover his ability to vomit as an attack, the band keeps it down to defeat the vile creature.  As the party rests and recovers, they begin to question their life choices.

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Session Characters:  Nim, Seamus, Crukdon, Senoy, Amana, Brahm
Session XP:  1120 (840 @ 75%)
Session Loot:  potion of cure light wounds, composite short bow, 20 arrows, ring of protection +1, mwk thieves tools, mwk flute, silver earrings (25 gp pair), 300 sp, 380 gp, mwk ancient ranseur (400 gp), scroll of flaming sphere, +1 longsword, silver dagger, mwk handaxe.