Category Archives: Shattered Star

Shattered Star: The Crew.

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Our Blog-master decided my post was competent, and made him want to post here more himself. Perhaps in a manly “possession” sense. I can dig it. Because of that, it’s now my job to throw the occasional ham-fisted attempt at bloggery.

I’m playing in the Shattered Star game. I’ve played Aeros Rasta (Remember that guy who smacked himself in the face with a hammer?) finding a cool image and writing a simple fun backstory for him before we all died in the spider-holocaust. And yet… I wasn’t that upset when he died. Actually, I was a little pleased. It seems healing is not for me, or… Change is fascinating.

In an attempt to make this new party more permanent, evocative and interesting, I’d like to set out a small outline, and perhaps a brief description of each of the characters in our new party.

[Editors Note: having read this, it occurs to me that Jimbles has been adding a few flourishes to these characters that don’t exist in the personalities that the actual players have given them in game. And by a few flourishes, I mean he’s making stuff up out of whole cloth. That said, it’s pretty awesome… so I’ll allow it.]

Michael Best
Benjamin Dawson
Michael Aranda
Evan Radovanovic
Myself, James Woodman.

The paladin Gregor Roth, worshipper of the mighty god ____ known for his philosophy of “manning up” and “getting the fuck on with it, our paladin also exemplifies these traits. seeming something similar yo Sten the Qunari. on many an occasion, he has “cut the knot” by stating something similar to “It’s a devil. Kill it.” He fights with a massive falchion, given as a present from his order, the reward for being the strongest candidate in a year.

Zogalypse, Wildblooded Sorcerer of Umbra: A dark man, some say born from shadow, darkness and power, Zogalypse lives to prove himself and bring glory to the Pathfinder society. Collecting the Shards is a good start. Burning things to the ground is only just a means to an end. Dominion over the forces raging through him is a the only reason people can see past his dark heritage, and that used to hurt. Perhaps he can ride these idiots to glory.

Azaezel Blightblade the Magus: Another party member of demonic heritage, Azaezel has seemingly made a pact with a blade of dark, hypnotic metal. He’s found a way to cast some spells THROUGH the weapon. He makes devastating huge swings that crackle with Eldritch energy, lightning being a favourite. And yet, this power hides an even darker secret: Azaezel is not sure of himself. How should he react to hellspawn? Why does he feel uncomfortable in churches occasionally? And more importantly, why does Gregor seem less scary on some days?

Zamnil Blackaxe the spell-less Ranger:
Zamnil Blackaxe is a dwarf hailing from a century of trench warfare in the most brutal fashion possible. It has carved a name in his soul and mood. As a lead trail-blazer, the underground became his home and parade ground. While Zamnil can track smoother than an elf, he feels no kinship with the earth. He has learned the texture and feel because it was life or death… Mostly death. Zamnil wields hand axes with a talent borne of experience. He sees these companions as a way to earn a living without having to see Orcblood ever again.

Keira Strongarm, Human Archer: Keira lives in a world that was supposed to be denied to her. At first it was “You are too weak to use the longbow effectively.” When she drew the night watchman’s longbow at 8, it changed. “Your… Body makes true mastery out of your reach.” When she skewered an apple at 60 paces, the complaint changed. Father took away her weapon, and stated “You have duties at home, stop pretending to be a soldier.” She snuck away at night and carved her own bow, starting a life of a traveling trapper. It was only natural to come across the pathfinders.

That’s the basics. We’ve managed a few sessions without dying horribly, though Gregor came close. While we are relatively devoid of healing (PALLY IS FOR FITE) we are playing cautious.

Any questions?

Listening to: Hands Like Houses’ new album. I can’t place a genre on these beauties, but I do know they’ve matched the power and energy of the first album, avoiding the “Sophomore slump” like pros.

Shattered Star: Comedy of Errors.

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Hey guys,

So, I’ll do a quick recap of a previous game’s comedy of errors for your enjoyment.

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After a couple of days rest and recovery, the party decided to return to the Crow to continue exploration past the burning doors. Magnus was unfortunately too ill to accompany the rest of the party, due to his suffering from Filth Fever (which has now been cured).

Shortly after entering the unexplored part of the complex, the group found an ancient bathhouse. While investigating the scumming water that remained in the pool, a couple of giant amoebas attacked. One of them managed to heavily wound Zamnil the Ranger with repeated slam attacks, while the other latched onto Aeros’ face and did it’s best to crush his head. While the rest of the party dealt with the one attacking Zamnil, Aeros attempted to fight off his opponent by heating up his own armour in an attempt to burn it away. When that failed, he magically flung his battle aspergillum at it, unfortunately managing to smash his own face while completely missing the amoeba. After Aeros knocked himself out, the rest of the party managed to destroy the amoeba and Zamnil poured a potion down Aeros’ throat to revive him.

At this point the party took a brief rest for some healing. Perhaps not enough healing, as the following events show.

The party proceeded down another passage, when Zamnil found a secret door. It led to a room that contained a pool of sea water, and a stone column holding a bucket. When Dash investigated the bucket, he found that it was full of dead bats. Dash proceeded to tip the bats into the water, then leapt back to the ledge, at which point three spiders the size of dogs emerged from holes in the wall of the pool. They quickly covered the party in web and started biting. With two of the party already weakened from the fight with the amoebas, they were quickly going under. Tybalt quickly decided to make a risky play to try and kill the spiders at the risk of further harming his friends. He channelled his emergency reserves of arcane power through his ring in order to transmute one of his prepared spells into a wave of fire that engulfed everyone else in the room. Zamnil and Dash succumbed to the flames and passed out, while Aeros was let barely standing. Unfortunately the spiders managed to escape the worst of it, and came out relatively unscathed. They killed Aeros, subdued Tybalt, and began to finish off the rest of the party

At this stage Aeros was already dead, while the rest of the party weren’t far off. Mike handed Evan the Best Friend plot twist card, and I advised that if used to call a reliable ally, at least one of the party may survive. Evan thought about this and played the card. The next few events were partially based on luck of the dice and a little bit of additional bias in the party’s favour due to the use of the card.

Just in time to see Dash take his final breath, Koriah swam into the room through a secret passage she had discovered, and climbed out of the water. She quickly killed the spider that was biting at Zamnil and healed him with a wand, then dragged him through the passage to the outside. After Zamnil was outside, Koriah attempted to return for Tybalt, but although she successfully killed the remaining spiders, he bled out before she could rescue him. Fearful that more spiders would be on the way, she swiftly returned to Zamnil and helped him return to the Pathfinder’s Lodge to recover. Along the way, she broke the news that he was the sole survivor. Ominously, she also mentioned that the spiders she had killed were wearing tiny saddles, suggesting that they were steeds for some kind of inhabitant of the complex within the Crow.

After this, the group started re-rolling characters while I watched Dilbert and dozed on the couch. I believe we now have a Bladebound Magus, a second Spell-less Ranger (focused on ranged combat rather than two weapon fighting) and a Rogue.

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So, almost a TPK, narrowly averted by use of a plot twist card. Catcha later!

Shattered Star: The Quest Begins…

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Good evening ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the campaign journal for my Shattered Star gaming group.

Shattered Star is the Pathfinder Adventure Path that just wrapped up a couple of months ago, and I’ve recently managed to put a group together to play through it. It’s a campaign that ranges from investigation through to old-fashioned dungeon delving and Indiana Jones/Tomb Raider artifact hunting.  It’s also a direct sequel to the earlier Adventure Paths that have taken part in the country of Varisia, but for the most part avoids retracing the same ground – As far as I’m aware the only revisited locale is the city of Magnimar.

Anyway, onto the journal itself. At the moment I’m undecided about how I’m going to write this. Since I’m pressed for time at the moment, the first update is just going to be an overview of the party and a bit of an explanation about optional rules that I use. Later on I’ll be doing recaps of each session, but am still unsure as to whether or not I’ll be doing it as a story with notations about out of character details, or just summarizing events.

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