Player Characters

Skoth is a learned man of letters as well as a gentleman swordsman. A student of Thassilonian Lore he came to Magnimar to conduct further research, but a few mornings ago while meditating as part of his observances of Nethys he was blessed with a stark vision of the Irespan's Crow tower, which zoomed within to a pair of Siccatite doors bearing the Thassilonian runes for LISTEN and THE EYES. Superimposed, he then saw the Sihedron in its original form, which then seperated into seven shards, and finally all but the Shard of Pride faded away. The vision ended, leaving Skoth with an overwhelming feeling of urgency.

Never before had Skoth received such a potent and lucid vision in his meditations, and he is charged with the surety that his capricious god has chosen him to undertake a quest. His determination to succeed is beyond resolute.

Having adventured with Sheila Heidmarch in years past, Master Korzhu's academic prowess and integrity was well known to the Venture-Captain of Magnimar. Seeking an ally she could trust in pursuit of a thread of ancient knowledge she had become aware of, tracing back to ancient Thassilon and possibly the First King Xin himself, Sheila sent missives to Korzhu beseeching him to pay Heidmarch Manor a visit.

It took some months for one of the missives to find him, but Korzhu made his way to Magnimar via fast ship as soon as was practical. Once arrived, he immediately bent all of his considerable talents to assisting Sheila in her research into the rumored Shards of the Sihedron.

But, as if the meeting were fated, some scant few weeks later a hard-bitten Magus named Skoth also paid a visit at Heidmarch Manor to seek the counsel of Sheila on a vision granted to him by Nethys of what seemed to be the Shard of Pride ensconed nearby somewhere within the Tower of the Crow, a remnant support pylon of the massive Irespan.

At Sheila's behest Master Korzhu agreed to aid Skoth in further investigation of the matter...and thus adventure was born.

This dangerous tiefling has the Shard of Pride, stolen from the grasp of the arcanist Voxel and his hired muscle Oarg. He appeared in the depths beneath the Tower of the Crow by accident while trying to travel to somewhere else using his only partially understood abyssal powers, perhaps pulled there by the magic of the shards themselves, falling out of a dimensional rift created by ancient Thassilonian experiments.

Sessions

Session 1: The Magus Skoth, having received a vision of the Shard of Pride hidden within the ruined Irespan pylon known as the "Tower of the Crow", goes to Heidmarch Manor to consult Lady Sheila Heidmarch, an acquaintance from past adventures, on the matter. While there he is introduced to the enigmatic Master Korzhu, a scholarly Pathfinder who had been helping Lady Sheila in her researches into a topic closely related to Skoth's vision. After a small mishap with a trapped puzzlebox, Korzhu agreed to represent the Pathfinder Society and document anything of interest discovered should he and Skoth manage to penetrate the depths of the ancient Thassilonian ruin.

Skoth and Korzhu headed directly to the docks, to pursue getting passage on a boat to the Tower of the Crow. En route, Korzhu saved a badly injured dog that had been run over by a wagon. It turned out that the dog was the beloved pet of a wealthy aristocrat (Alam Scarnetti) who offered Korzhu payment; the Pathfinder refused the money; the aristo instead pressed a lacquered card with his particulars on it and promised that Korzhu future favor. A bit later at the docks, after a couple of interactions with the locals, the pair determined that it would be most logical for them to simply rent a rowboat for a few days and row themselves out to the Tower, which is visible from the shore and so this is what they did.

They rowed their rented boat across the bay to the Tower, with Korzhu easily providing the athletic vigor necessary. Once around to otherside of the Tower, the part hidden from the shore, they found a place to tie off and several other similar rowboats. Interpreting the presence of other boats as a a sign that the Tower was not vacant, the duo went into stealth mode, both turning invisible after a fashion and sneaking around. Almost immediately they ran into a rat of unusual size, which turned out to be a wererat (!) and killed it mercilessly. Skoth ascended the tower further, still invisible, but Korzhu was distracted by murals to document. A tense assault then began as Skoth spied upon and then slew a pair of Tower Girls.

Eventually, the pair rejoined one another and ascended to the uppermost level of this part of the tower. Skoth, looking a couple of hundred feet down a air shaft, noticed that another boat was tied up below and surmised that more enemies had entered the tower. Korzhu was unworried and simply dove off the tower regardless of the height and the small sliver of water below. He easily executed the high dive without harm and began to ascend the tower again. Skoth, though surprised by his ally's antics, descended the same way he had caught up at speed, and ran full on into a group of Szarni gang members and an invisible sorcerer. Intense battle was joined as Skoth fended off his assailants and began to retreat, but Korzhu caught up and the two proceeded to turn the tables on these new threats. Skoth killed the sorcerer after a deadly back and forth struggle, while Korzhu finished off one and chased down a runner. Skoth interrogated the last survivor, and then slew him. Apparently the sorcerer had been named Dremis and was an agent of the Aspis Consortium set upon his and Korzhu's tail for reasons as of yet unknown.

Session 2: Skoth and Korzhu pressed on into the upper reaches of the tower, encountering more Tower Girls. After growing bored of killing the hapless gang members, Skoth finally showed some mercy and offered the last survivors a deal: give up their claim on the tower and leave immediately, or die. They left. Their leader however proved to be another wererat and she viciously fought these interlopers. Thinking quickly, Skoth gave Korzhu a handful of silver coins, and fashioning a makeshift punching weapon by tucking the coins through his fingers, the Pathfinder beat the wererat to death. Skoth looted the leaders lair and pocketed various valuables, but further progress into the tower was blocked by a pair of Siccatite doors that burned anyone who touched them with magical energy.

Session 3: Skoth and Korzhu eventually figured out how to get past the Siccatite doors baring the way into the true secrets of the tower, and descended through a bevy of giant insects, strange but violent smurf-like creatures, and other annoyances. This part of the dungeon was just one pointless encounter after another, likely as a leveling up opportunity in the source material, and though a couple of the scenes were amusing it was mostly unnecessary. The adventurers overcame everything thrown at them, and after defeating a strange crab-like monster they finally descended into the true depths of the tower, hidden beneath the waters of the bay above, and entered long hidden ancient Thassilonian chambers.

Session 4: Confronted with long-sealed dangers of Thassilonian times, Skoth and Korzhu overcame several otherworldly threats, and forced an imp they defeated into a one sided negotiation. In return for being freed from the dimensionally warded chambers of this area, the imp gave the duo excellent intel on the location and capabilities of the various threats present in this level of the compound and how to circumvent most of them to get to the sealed exit to the next deeper section.

Skoth and Korzhu made their way past various dangers, until encountering a room with a rift to the elemental plane of fire. Defeating several fire elementals, the intrepid explorers were surprised by the emergence of a strange tiefling from the rift. After a tense stand off the tiefling was revealed to be named Byragh, and though not exactly friendly, he was not inimical. He claimed to be from the Underbridge area of Magnimar and to have appeared through the rift by accidental use of his strange tiefling abilities, which he apparently is only beginning to understand the use of and is not in perfect control of. Skoth and Korzhu agreed to warily watch this odd new adventurer and the trio pressed on. Overcoming a few challenges en route, such as more sinspawns of wrath and some disgusting "fleshdregs" (failed Thassilonian experiments), the group successfully escaped that level of the dungeon and delved deeper into the next.

Session 5: Skoth, Korzhu, and Byragh began to explore the ancient sewers they found upon emerging from the hidden Thassilonian chambers. Skoth scouted ahead but turned back before an ooze could envelope him. Meanwhile Byragh had gotten tired of waiting and wandered off in the opposite direction to investigate distant singing, and thus encountered the lacedon Lockerbie Brast. The other two adventurers soon joined him, and the trio conversed with Brast who asked them to go find his sunken ship, find a broach on it, then go the city and find his wife, give her the broach, and then bring some keepsake back that would prove to him that the adventurers had done these things... and if they did all of these unlikely things, only then would he help them.

The adventurers were like, wtf? No.

Korzhu used the power of his unassailable logic to convince the undead remnant that he's probably been dead for at least 50 years and his wife is likely long dead. This angered Brast, and it leaped from the waters of its cistern lair to attack; Byragh easily caught the foul creature midair and faceplanted it into the paving stones and Skoth quickly severed the head with a perfect strike. Kicking the dismembered cranium into the water, Skoth looted the corpse, and the group pressed on to the next couple of chambers, where they set upon by lunging cave eels launching themselves from sewer pipes. The adventurers were all quite alert however and not caught by surprise; they made quick work of the mindless monsters. Faced with multiple directions to choose from, the trio decided to pause a moment and take better stock of the surrounding area before pressing onward. Before they had killed the lacedon Brast, the undead thing had mentioned derro dragging prisoners through this area from time to time, and the adventurers did not want to stumble into a disastrous encounter with the crazed subterranean creeps.