Session Stories: The Devil You Know (Savage Pathfinder campaign)

Hey everyone, I figured we could use some content around this new community, so I'm cribbing the text from some recaps I posted originally on the Matt Colville subreddit, as the campaign I'm running is heavily inspired by Matt's "Running the Game" videos and campaign diaries. This is a Savage Pathfinder campaign, using mostly cannibalized old D&D material, aiming for maximum freedom and agency for the PCs. Hope you all enjoy.

(Part One)

I have four players. We play in person, and all of us know each other petty well. (It's myself, my wife, another couple, and one other player. The 'odd one out' was sort of a late addition to this particular group, but my wife and I have known her for a few years, introduced her to our other friends, she hit it off with them, and she's been playing with us now for a few months.) As for characters, we have a human sorcerer who has a complex noble background with lots of family and political drama, a half-elf rogue (her fiancee, she has to marry him to get access to her family's titles and wealth), a tiefling barbarian, and a goblin monk (hired bodyguards).

Now, Savage Pathfinder does have a couple of published Adventure Paths, and Pathfinder overall has a great many more for someone willing to do the conversion, but I expressly wanted to make my campaign a 'sandbox', prioritizing player direction and agency. So, I got together the resources Matt talks about in his sandboxing video, along with a few others, and set about planning the start to the campaign. (For a while, I didn't know what anyone would be playing, so THAT Was fun. :p ) My overall plan was (and is) to take the best things about 'old-school' play (player direction, a genuine sense of danger) and fuse them with modern innovations that make the game more fun for everyone (a guided "session zero", strong communication among everyone at the table, fostering group cohesion in and out of game). One of my alternative titles for the game is "The Best of Both Worlds."

So, classically, the start of a game is a small town, in a tavern. For personal reasons, I chose to set my game in Cheliax. (If you don't know Pathfinder lore, it's a country ruled by Devil-worshippers. There are worse places to be, but there are also better ones.) Would the players try to flee the country? Would they hunker down and try to make a living where they started? Would they try to overthrow the corrupt ruling houses? I didn't know, and that was kind of the point. So, I made a town called "Icefall" (one of the first places where the ice melts off the river), made sure to put a couple inns there (a nice one, and a less-nice one), and after the players had made their characters, I decided which tavern they would start in. (None of them have figured it out yet, but the sisters who run the place are planning to convert it into a brothel, the first one in the town.)

I laid in a couple 'hooks' for short-ish adventures I had, but my REAL starter, the one I knew all the players would go for, was loosely inspired by the Delian Tomb. There's no tomb in my version, and instead of a blacksmith, the quest-giver was a plucky little girl who had lost her dog to some unknown miscreants and was determined to hire someone to get him back. (Naturally, she had only her life savings of a handful of copper pieces to pay with, but she was convinced this would be enough.) My prediction was right, and the PCs set out into the woods. After some minor dramatics, they found a kobold camp, where they had some stolen livestock--including the missing dog--coralled and tied up. Of course, they were victorious, but oddly, one of the kobolds used a totem or talisman of some kind to raise a couple of his fallen friends.

The heroes spent most of the next session introducing themselves around, getting established (the rogue has a 'day job' at the riverside docks I'm sure to get a lot of mileage out of). They know there's a wizard, but he doesn't see anybody without an appointment. There's also the local Church of Asmodeus, of course (one player has confessed that the head of the Church is the NPC she fears most, even though they've yet to meet her). At the end of that session, Ghouls attacked! More undead. The PCs stepped up and were quickly lauded as heroes (especially since the town guard kind of just... stood back).

Having noticed this escapade, one of the town's worthies summoned the sorcerer to discuss future employment. This is where the party learned a little about the town's political layout. (The mayor is well-liked, but not too involved as a leader. Many of the practical matters--like defense--must be tackled by someone with the wit and motivation to do the work.) This fellow knew that even should the town guard be sent to follow the back-trail of the ghouls, they probably weren't equipped to deal with whatever they might find out there, so... PCs. He offered them a fairly substantial payment to address the situation and the sorcerer dropped the hint that there were more places where undead might be found (something they learned from the NPC goblin druid who's taken an interest in the monk). Their employer elected to focus on the one target for the time being, and the PCs were off.

They spent the second half of that session, and most of the next one delving through a heavily adapted version of Shadowfell Keep. I removed all the stuff that didn't make sense to me, or I didn't think I would use, but it still made for a pretty substantial dungeon. One major change was the end: instead of a climactic fight with a necromancer, the heroes had a confrontation with an undead guardian who was trying to turn this ruin, into a Citadel.

In my conception, Kalarel is actually a Daughter of Urgathoa. Her 'thing' is that she is summoning up a Death Knight consort. She also has three minibosses who are building towers of their own, the Citadels. (Each one is 'powered' by a piece of an artifact the heroes will find super useful in confronting Kalarel herself. Pretty straightforward 'plot coupon' stuff, but I'm also using it to make a signature weapon for the rogue.)

See, Matt has Kalarel the Vile feeding bodies to his Black Keep, and I like that, but I also decided that, if that's true, it probably wouldn't be a normal keep. It'd be made of bone and muscle and blood: more like a living organism than a building. Like the xenomorph hive in Aliens, but for undead. This guardian wasn't very far along, but the PCs stopped her just before she was about to attack the nearby town--THEIR town. Now, one of Matt's old standbys is Red Hand of Doom, which is all about hobgoblins, so I decided the hobgoblins which were conveniently already in the 'shadowfell' dungeon, were exiles from Azar Kuul's horde, that would be a good way to hint at things to come.

So, the heroes stopped for the night after clearing the first level of the dungeon, mostly to recover Power Points (Savage Worlds doesn't have spell slots, though you do get magic resources back after an hour or so's rest). So far, they haven't seen anything too out of the ordinary. There were a bunch of goblins, whom they got the better of pretty easily, a captive ogre that they freed after telling him to stay clear of human settlements, and some collapsed tunnels. (The parts of the map where there used to be content, but I took them out. The players got ahead of me, so I didn't have the time for the detailed re-arranging I would have liked.)

The rest gave the bad guys time to decide what to do about this aggressive band of intruders, and Kalarel (in a cut scene) told her guardian not to screw it up. So, she (the guardian) told the hobgoblins to send the intruders straight to her. (If you want a job done right, do it yourself.) The heroes fought their way through a ghoul warren (the original has one, but it's not much of a 'warren' in my opinion, so I changed the map), and then reached the Cathedral of Shadow (which was a cool name, so I kept that), the place where the twisted hardware that creates the citadels was built. Wasn't much of a lead-up, the fight was on pretty quick. The barbarian almost went down (DID briefly, but the druid got her back up). The monk got in the killing blow on the guardian right in front of the druid (which impressed her mightily), and the PCs picked up the first piece of the undead-killing super-bow. Then the dungeon started to collapse, there was a Dramatic Task (the Savage Worlds version of a skill challenge ) as the heroes struggled to escape, and of course, they won.

Somewhat awkwardly standing around outside the collapsed dungeon with a bunch of hobgoblins who also managed to escape, the sorcerer quips: "So, you guys are unemployed now, right?"

The hilarious part came next: she enticed them to come back to town and be mercenaries, diligently informing the guard, and of course, her own patron when she went to get the balance of the group's payment. (I swear, they do this to themselves, I barely have to introduce any drama on my own.) Naturally, the boss speaks to the hobgoblins, and hears about Azar Kuul, the central antagonist of Red Hand of Doom. The wheels have been set in motion.

(Part Two)

The PCs have certainly made a splash in the rural logging and fishing town of Icefall, and after some lumberjacks were accosted by ghouls in the nearby Barrowood, it was clear it was time to deal with The Undead Situation. After the heroes infiltrated and then destroyed the growing Citadel of Thirst (run by one of Kalarel's mini-bosses), they recruited some of the hobgoblin soldiers therein (exiles to foreshadow the Red Hand of Doom), to come back to town, and eventually sent them on to deal with the other two Citadels, which they did, but at a heavy cost. That left only the Black Tower itself, which the remaining hobgoblins had no interest in.

The heroes assembled their kit, gathered their courage, and set out into the wood. The Black Tower was an imposing structure, lying in the middle of a blasted wasteland, full of twisted trees and scrub that were not quite dead... Rather, they were undead. They did their best to evade the Tower's patrols, but ran across a detachment of wraiths (which was good for them, so they could figure out how these annoying bad guys work). They prevailed, naturally, and soon reached the Tower itself, and began to climb. They didn't fight everything, but they did pick more fights than they strictly needed, especially when the impulsive goblin monk tried to throw one of his firebombs and crit-failed, nearly setting himself on fire, which provoked a fairly serious dust-up with a miniboss and some kytons. They eventually came out ahead, and after some scolding (mostly from the NPC druid, the goblin monk's love interest), located what appeared to be a prison. They freed the mortals held within, made their way farther up, found the Deck of Many Things guarded by a couple more wraiths. They debated whether to use the Deck (this version of the Deck is single-use) or wait, and (probably wisely) settled on waiting. They freed some more dudes waiting to be sacrificed, and then it was on to the pinnacle of the Tower.

Up top, Kalarel was in the middle of summoning up an undead husbando for herself, and wasted no time engaging the intruders (though the sorcerer wanted to monologue, and was disappointed we jumped right into the fight). Kalarel had several wights and a few wraiths, but she was the main threat. Also the portal, which long time viewers of Matt's can guess what it does. I decided that only Kalarel was immune to the effect, which meant a lot of her goons ended up walking into the portal and dying. Easy come, easy go. The PCs got the picture and largely stayed away, except for the goblin, who bum-rushed Kalarel and spent three solid rounds trading blows with her. There was a LOT of soaking going on in this fight, each exchange was tense as Bennies were spent and Wounds slowly accumulated.

The sorcerer spent a couple rounds inside a barrier (technically she could have tried to break out, but by the rules, she literally couldn't do enough damage--a couple of the other characters could, but they were busy), and used Savage Worlds' Test mechanic to keep Kalarel off balance while the barbarian took care of any wights that didn't walk into the deadly portal. Finally, Kalarel got tired of the sorcerer's sass, dropped her barrier and grabbed the sorc by the hair to drag her to the edge of the tower and drop her off. Then the barb got over to her and it was pretty much over with, lol.

All in all, I didn't actually cause even a single wound to any of the PCs, but the goblin's player--the one who spent the most time up-close and personal with Kalarel, was on the edge of her seat most of the fight, worried she was about to take a fatal blow, and any of the hits that landed could have been fatal--at least two of them did enough damage to significantly impair the goblin, if they weren't soaked (and Kalarel's giant claw was a Rending weapon). And the barbarian must have made a dozen rolls to resist the wights' energy drain effect, but succeeded at all of them.

The heroes have some new resources due to their use of the Deck, and they're aware of some hobgoblin shenanigans in the future, but I don't think I'm going to press that yet: they like the social nonsense, so I plan to let them pursue their own goals around the town for a while before the alarm goes up that Azarr Kul is on the move. (The really funny thing is, the rogue has a half-dragon half brother, and I'm pretty sure that he, and possibly his Dragon Mommy, are involved in the Red Hand Horde.)

(Part Three)

I have been aiming to get the party into Red Hand of Doom pretty much since the campaign started, though I had other material like Night Below and the two published Adventure Paths for Savage Pathfinder on the back burner just in case. Even so, Red Hand really did feel like the one that would be the best fit for the area they were in and the stuff they were doing. During "Book One" (the Kalarel the Vile arc), I dropped some hobgoblin deserters in. I meant them as foreshadowing, but the PCs recruited them after defeating their employer (one of Kalarel's minibosses) and their patron ended up learning an awful lot about this awfully big group of hobgoblins up north.

Red Hand is pretty tightly paced, so I gave the PCs several weeks in their home base town, during which one player swapped out characters (the Barbarian retired and her player is now running a Hellknight of the Order of the Godclaw), and they pursued some social goals, including getting their very own ship, and facilitating a change of power as the old, affable but pretty clueless mayor realized he wasn't equipped to deal with the challenges facing his community and passed his seat to a more capable steward.

Even so, it is supposed to happen during a hot, dry summer, so I knew I couldn't let things drag on forever, especially as the timeline was now approaching Golarion's equivalent of July. So, the sorcerer got herself a fancy horse, the hellknight got a more tame, but less interesting mount of her own, and I went ahead and threw the plot hook at them: no less than the ruler of the neighboring Archduchy made a trip down to visit his associate (the new mayor) and make a plea to his friend's trusted troubleshooters.

So, with their fancy new ship, the heroes sailed north and FINALLY ran across the monster I had been hinting was there since the first session. It attacked the ship, breathed fire, the sorcerer tried a fireball (completely ineffective) goblin monk pulled off a very nice bola-throw, tying a couple of the necks together, and the rogue--whose dice have not been very friendly most of the campaign--came in clutch and pulled off a shot that did enough damage to take the beast down. The heroes pulled into the Archduchy's capital to cheers and celebration, but there wasn't much time to sit on their laurels, and they disembarked and headed farther north yet. (The river north of the capital has a couple of falls and at least one section of rapids, so it can't be sailed. I decided.)

As they approached Drellin's Ferry, they spotted an ambush--thankfully the Archduke's report had prepared them for something like this and they weren't surprised. Even so, they had a rough time, the monk was badly slowed, and spent 2-3 turns doing very little before he shook off the effect. The Hellknight took down a hobgoblin bladebearer and then moved to assist the sorcerer who was holding down the Doom Hand Cleric. (Who, by the way, was frighteningly effective, but rapidly running low on magic.) The Hellknight went down and so did the sorcerer, succumbing to hellhound fire before the monk threw off the slow effect that had been hindering him and then he rushed into contact with the cleric, but had a hard time connecting. Finally, the rogue, again, came in clutch, one quite lucky arrow ending the confrontation.

I have to admit, I was not ready for my players to press so far, but I was eager to get them started on Red Hand, so I didn't defer until the next session. The fight outside Drellin's Ferry was tense, I was not at all sure they would make it--but then again, I had built up the hobgoblins as dangerous, so they needed to live up to that reputation. "Remember," I told them about the time the second wave showed up, "for the last week, everyone that has tried to enter or leave this town, has been killed--including some trained soldiers." Thankfully, it was shortly after that the rogue's shot took Doom Hand Cleric Zarr down, so the second wave of hobgoblins did little more than lay down some covering fire as they retreated.

I actually did not play the hobgoblins in the most optimal way (due to a combination of forgetfulness and having to throw the encounter together on the fly), but I don't think my players could tell, honestly. (And if I had played them much more effectively, we might legitimately have had a TPK on our hands.) I did notice in this fight, the players were doing a lot of things they didn't necessarily, early on, espeically using the unique options that Savage Worlds presents like multi-actions. I don't think this is NEW, exactly, but it made me smile to realize that they have been learning to use the system to their advantage.

Now, the heroes are in Drellin's Ferry, and they caught mention of a keep, thanks to the goblin learning the language of his people. But Vraath Keep is a ruin, nothing more than a legend, or a tale for children to scare each other with. The people of the town have more immediate worries, but at least the heroes have had a 'good word' put in for them with the Town Speaker. Perhaps the nearby Witchwood holds some clues, or allies...