Jesse the Bard's Frozen Flame Campaign

Valcarian Knarlhorn is the son of a Broken Tusk barbarian and a Mendevian Crusader Inquisitor of Irori who met amid the Fifth Crusade. Though his father and mother have moved to a less nomadic lifestyle, Valcarian has been sent to live among the following to learn the way of life of his father's people (and hopefully get him some fresh air and exercise).

Having taken the Haunted background, Valcarian's player asked if his first implement (an amulet) might be haunted, so I've told him that the amulet was recovered from a ruined fortress and contains the spirit of one of the Mendevian Crusaders slain there. Because this Crusader would have been killed by Metuak and Xeleria, I'm thinking I can use this object in place of ring found in Calamity Caves to fill in the storyline of Metuak and Xeleria's journey east in a way that fits more organically with this character.

Otherwise for Valcarian, I'm keen to pump up the Mendev content wherever it appears, and to give him a lot of spotlight moments in the final book at Castle Grimgorge (he's also suggested a rivalry with Pakano - this should be good…)

Dagomir is an Ex-Crusader, who saw his life reduced to ash after the assault on Kenabres. Awash with grief at the loss of comrades and his true love, he fled, wandering the realm in despair until re-establishing contact with his half-sister, Valcarian's mother.

She has encouraged Dagomir to find refuge in the following, both to rebuild his spirit and to look out for his nephew. He's taken her words to heart, also choosing to focus on worship of Sister Cinder in exchange for his devotion to Iomedae, in order to craft a new life for himself.

I'm a sucker for redemption stories, so I'm very excited to see what becomes of Dagomir. As with Valcarian, I'll be highlighting all the opportunities to discuss the impact of the Crusades on this setting, and I'd love to modify the stories of Vare and the Mendevians in Lost Mammoth Valley to add more personal stakes - how would your brother-in-arms feel upon finding out you'd deserted your fight, your nation, and your god..?

Ysbrylla has a complicated relationship with her druidic practice. Though she reveres nature and has ample aptitude for magic, her personal nature is a rigid, controlling one - she finds it much easier to mold stone into stable geometric patterns than to embrace the messiness of flora and fauna.

It's for this reason that her apprenticeship with the Hillcross Witches was cut short many years ago. After traveling the Realm for a bit, she too fell into the Broken Tusk following, where she helps teach those interested in druidic magic (though her lessons are fairly prescriptive).

Her player is interested in seeing Ysbrylla overcome her stubbornness and, knowing that the campaign will return to Hillcross, returning to the witches to demonstrate her growth and find closure. I'll also highlight any instances of magical or significant rock or stonework (which should be plentiful between magic caves, apakus, and Rockloom itself!)

|| || (pronounced as a double lateral click) is the only PC born into the following - we've altered things such that there's a family of Tengu living among the Broken Tusks, and Nakta has become a Tengu, though they retain their position as a Mammoth Lord and head of Moose House.

|| || is young, bubbly, optimistic, and more than a little reckless - this player loves to play characters who are high energy and can keep things moving. || || is a talented ranger, but a bit of a runt as far as her Tengu peers go. She wants to learn to fly, explore the Realm of the Mammoth Lords, and prove her worth to her community. She also has an adorable ferret-ish animal companion called Brassica.

This player is less interested than the others in digging deep into Golarion lore, so I'm still playing with what story beats might be enjoyable throughout the campaign. This player loves animals, so highlighting those interactions will be good, and I could see || || taking the lead in helping to liberate the Sutaki and drive that storyline in the second part of the campaign.

The first encounter started with the PCs hesitantly engaging with the moose. There were some tough rolls on the initial checks to press the scouts' advantage, so they faced the moose at pretty full power. || ||, whose player has no problem with making risky choices if they feel true to the character, rushed in headfirst out of excitement, forgetting to mark her prey. Valcarian was taken down after a nasty critical, but Ysbrylla, finding her groove in the backline, was able to bring him up and buff Dagomir, who landed some solid blows.

In the end, Ysbrylla summoned an eagle to help dish out the last bit of damage needed to take down the moose. The players were very interested in helping Wipa butcher the body - I really like that this type of setting is so radically different to most fantasy RPGs, and the players were engaged the entire time with situating themselves in the following's way of life and thinking meaningfully about how their characters fit into this world.

After they returned to the following, I prompted the characters for a little scenelet of what they might get up to in the remainder of the day, to help flesh out their characters and establish more context of the setting.

|| || went to play with the other young tengu - in this campaign, a small portion of the following is comprised of a few generations of tengu that form a collective family unit. || || is small for her age, playful and naïve, and definitely wants her peers and elders to see her as a mature adult. Nakta, now also a tengu, comforted her and told her to be patient for her opportunity to grow.

Ysbrylla is closest to Wipa in the following, so she helped her back to her tent. They made cheerful conversation about Wipa's imminent childbirth, but Wipa grew serious and asked Ysbrylla to do her best to look after Pakano when they became proper scouts. I really wanted to display the social dynamics here, and also add some tension and friction around Pakano so there would be more to work with than just a flat bully, so Wipa talked about how she hoped that Weohotan would be a role model or even a father figure to the troubled youth, and how after his death she worries that he has no one left who will try to support him. Uneasily, Ysbrylla promised to look out for him.

On her way out of the tent, she bumped into Wipa's mother Argakoa, who I'm playing as a bit spunky and grouchy. She stressed the importance of the upcoming Night of the Green Moon.

Valcarian, who was not raised with the Broken Tusks and whose father no longer lives with the following, feels a bit of imposter syndrome which he tries to stifle by overworking himself, so he went to complete some more chores. This left him in a bit of an isolated spot, so Pakano came by to bother him, naturally.

My read on Pakano is that he values brute strength, which he associates with his warrior bloodline (not to mention the potential ego complex of having celestial blood), all of which mixes into a frustration of impatience and incredulity that so much time is wasted talking or thinking instead of taking action.

In young Valcarian's case, Pakano quite looked up to Val's father, an impressive barbarian, and can't believe the following in its sorry state has been shortchanged and left with a gangly thaumaturge to deal with. The two bickered, Valcarian threw a book at Pakano's head (point well made), and things were heating up before Letsua turned up to break up the fight.

As for Dagomir, he had a nice time regaling some of the animal tenders with the story of the moose hunt (a tale well attended by young Imek) before Merthig turned up. I've positioned him as the following's spiritual leader, and the one who helped Dagomir find the path of Sister Cinder after he fled the Crusades. Merthig, a quiet sort, simply returned a holy symbol he had repaired for Dagomir.

The next day, the party was summoned by Grandfather Eiwa, who gave them three tasks to complete before the Night of the Green Moon. After some discussion, they opted to scout out the location where tapirs who had been spotted, in the hopes they could be added to the herd.

Before the party left to find tapirs, Wipa hailed them. Wanting to offer some encouragement and guidance after the dicey moose hunt, she led them in the creation of some snares. || || was very interested, and the player is thinking of taking the Snare Crafting feat next level. The party was quite surprised and uneasy when Wipa asked them to step into their snares as a final test. They all did it, largely out of respect for Wipa I expect, and then met up with Imek to find the tapirs.

|| || is really proving to be the one to soak up all the skills in this campaign - she was the only one who followed Imek's stories and got the free Tame Animal feat, which immediately came in handy when the party snuck into the grove toward the tapirs. With a great roll, || || coaxed them into lowering their guard (and immediately named them Snuffle and Squeak), and eventually they were able to remove the barbs from the tapirs' feet.

All was going well when two mysterious hunters, with strange burn scars on their faces, charged into the clearing to attack! Valcarian was dropped again, and brought back by Ysbrylla again - this is sort of fun, as Dagomir and Ysbrylla are firmly middle-aged, and || || and Val are young adults, there's a parent/child theme starting to emerge. Eventually Valcarian struck the final blow, his amulet whispering to him with a mysterious voice, before he and || || totally freaked out over having killed some mysterious hunters in self-defense.

I stressed that the Tusks were a nonviolent following and that this kind of experience was quite rare (maybe pushing a bit too hard and needing to correct here), but the mood was quite somber as the party decided to carry the bodies back to the following on the tapirs and seek the wisdom of their leaders.

Picking up from last session, I tried to establish the tone: that though the party returning with two corpses in tow was certainly alarming, the feeling in the following was one of general unease, though not crisis. Dagomir caught an expression of recognition on Eiwa's face when he saw the bodies, but besides that, no one recognized the scars of the Burning Mammoth hunters.

Valcarian went to clean himself up, and Dagomir followed to check in with his nephew. They had a short exchange where Dagomir offered to lend an ear if Valcarian ever wanted to share how he was feeling.

Meanwhile, || ||, in a similar state, was comforted by a face new to the campaign - Wipa's sister, Panuaku. I played Panuaku as more of a flip, sarcastic, type, who gave the impressionable || || a little tough love. Panuaku gave an explainer of the Pursuants in the night sky to remind || || that being a warrior is sometimes an unwelcome but necessary part of scouting for the Broken Tusks.

Afterward, Dagomir approached Eiwa about what he observed when the bodies were returned. Eiwa was reticent, and asked Dagomir to return to him the instant there was any further evidence of more hunters or their ilk.

Valcarian also visited Nakta to ask for some advice about magical happenings. Just as the hunters approached, Valcarian's implement (an amulet he doesn't know was retrieved from Castle Grimgorge) warned him it was time to fight. Nervously, he asked Nakta if they knew anything about hearing voices, but with not much detail to provide, Nakta simply encouraged Val to be watchful for the next time it happened.

With unease lingering in the following, the party retired for the night.

The next day the party decided to scout out Rockloom. (I was somewhat relieved for this, because this encounter doesn't have any Burning Mammoth activity, which I thought would make the threat feel less looming. I thought if the party felt like the Burning Mammoths were actively closing in, it would be a lot harder to swallow Eiwa's decision not to cancel the upcoming ceremony!)

The party was excited to see Rockloom and things flowed pretty smoothly for the most part. They were ill-equipped for the Raven Swarm, having little in the way of area or splash damage, and only a couple of bludgeoning weapons between them. However, this was a good opportunity for Valcarian to flex his Thaumaturge skills and seek out those weaknesses, and then leveraged the mortal weakness feature to dish out some real damage.

Afterward, I subbed out the lensatic compass with a pot of tattoo ink in the treasure for this encounter. My goal is to customize some of the treasure throughout the adventure by incorporating a member of the following who can mark the players with magical tattoos. The party didn't have time to seek out Rumi, as I've named her, so we'll see what becomes of that next time.

Dealing with Shaggy was pretty delightful. I played him as a friendly but uncouth lout with a thick Scottish accent. He described his raven-woman love kind of…lustfully. Enough to make for an awkward conversation, especially with || ||. ("No, not a bird like you! She was different!") He was pretty quickly won over, and I was pleased that the party was eager to recruit Shaggy to the following without me even explaining that recruitment was a specific part of this encounter! Ysbrylla was particularly interested by Shaggy's earth-related abilities, too, which I think could be a fun dynamic to explore down the road.

The next day, the party embarked on their final task, gathering water from the Gornok River. No one was interested in dealing with Pakano, but I reminded Ysbrylla that she had promised Wipa to look out for him, so they all just gritted their teeth and set out.

Arriving at the river, Valcarian alone went for the spear, which was the perfect opportunity for Pakano to issue the wrestling challenge. Valcarian lost, and as Pakano held him under, the party flipped out: || || scratched and pecked at Pakano, Dagomir tried to get him in a headlock, and Ysbrylla shut the whole thing down with some tanglefoot vines.

Valcarian was thoroughly humiliated, letting Pakano keep the spear and beautifully cementing their rivalry. After Ysbrylla noticed ash floating on the water, the party decided to head upriver and investigate (they wanted Pakano to accompany them, mostly to keep him out of trouble, but he shrugged them off).

The Kalbo encounter unfortunately fell a bit flat in my opinion. Valcarian and Dagomir were both rather skeptical, and with some great roles they very quickly deduced that there was no river spirit, and that Kalbo's intentions were less than pure. The fight kicked off and was over pretty quickly. On the one hand, I'm glad the players got to express their agency and solve the encounter in their own way, but on the other, it feels like a pretty random and uninteresting fight this way.

Finding the Burning Mammoth corpse did pick things back up, though. Certain there was a problem in their midst, the party returned immediately to the following to speak with Eiwa who, now convinced of the Burning Mammoth presence, related his story.

The party was excited to join the rest of the following for the Night of the Green Moon. We added lots of roleplay moments to continue to flesh out the setting and the character dynamics.

Ysbrylla chatted with Wipa and expressed her frustrations with trying to keep Pakano in line. I really like how much Ysbrylla's player has taken that to heart - it's added so much depth to the interactions with Pakano, and given it a more complex edge than just making him an annoying bully. Wipa dropped a bit of Pakano's backstory - his heritage and how he was brought in to the following - since I don't think there are many ways for the characters to learn that.

One bit I liked from the back matter of one of the volumes was a tidbit about how the Mammoth Lord followings believe that different foods eaten during pregnancy can influence the baby's traits, and there was an abundance of food at the ceremony. Wipa asked Ysbrylla if she should eat moose meat for a strong baby, hare and ferns for a quick and keen-eyed child, or a strange pickled egg for a baby with spiritual abilities. Ysbrylla, a staunch studier of the druidic arts, advised her to eat the egg.

Meanwhile, || || was approached by Imek, who wanted help sneaking extra food to make a better impression with the porcupine family. They hatched an inane plan to stash Imek in a tree, Imek almost fell out of the tree, || || panicked, Val had to save her - and much fun was had by all.

(I also served some themed food during these scenes, just for a bit of fun and immersion. :-) Fiddleheads are in season (quite briefly) where I am, so I served them up with some mushrooms from the farmer's market. There was a stew as well, featuring the "moose" they hunted in the opening encounter, and a hot-toddy-ish concoction for our ceremonial spirits!)

As the ceremony started, Argakoa led the following in telling a couple of stories, and Merthig led a prayer to Sister Cinder. Grandfather Eiwa celebrated the party and gave them their Broken Tusk Pendants, at which point Pakano threw his tantrum.

The alarm spell Ysbrylla placed on the outskirts of the stone circle sounded just as Val's amulet warned him to get down - and the Burning Mammoths appeared! Because they were so prepared, I had the raiders spend two of their actions moving into range to give the party a starting advantage.

The first wave was over quickly, but the party dawdled in heading to the second, and || || was particularly distracted, trying to track down Pakano - wondering if he had betrayed the following, or if he was okay. I underscored the urgency of the fight by showing another Tusk getting taken down by the second wave, and they became more motivated.

The longshield gave them a couple of strong hits, but it wasn't too much of a fight. Valcarian (with Amulet's Abeyance) and Dagomir (Glimpse of Redemption) both have reactions that can negate damage (and at level one, it's a big proportion of enemy damage sometimes). I'm trying to keep an eye on this as they level up, but for now they have the ability to shut down fights a bit if enemies aren't landing multiple hits.

They were only feet away from Nakta helping deliver Wipa's children, and at the end of the fight, they were very emotional - exhausted, scared, angry, but grateful and excited to have protected Wipa. (A very funny moment occurred when the party concluded that Ysbrylla encouraging Wipa to eat the pickled egg an hour before she went into labour must have been what caused her to bear triplets.)

We transitioned into the next few days of life in the following, which was fairly bleak. It seems tough to follow up the attack on the ceremony with Eiwa's death, but I like that it elevates the party in importance somewhat abruptly. The gang feels in over their heads, the other Mammoth Lords are worried, no one knows what's going to happen next - it's like the moment of realizing that all of the grown-ups in your lives are just people.

Dagomir, having seen a lot of senseless death in the Crusades, felt strongly about honouring Eiwa's wish. || || feels agonized over the idea that her following committed great atrocities in the past, and then kept them a secret. Ysbrylla feels she failed to watch over Pakano well enough, and even Valcarian feels conflicted - though nobody liked Pakano, they fear he charged off to prove his might against the Burning Mammoths and got captured (or even killed). I don't think they'll be happy when they discover the truth…

Eiwa's funeral was a sober affair. Ysbrylla and Dagomir both talked about Eiwa's tolerance and acceptance of new members of the following - one theme that is emerging with this party comp is that of new followers vs. those born to the following, and how they perceive the community and their roles differently.

For the last chunk of the session, we went over the hexploration rules and started our journey east toward Red Cat Cave. They hadn't leveled up, so I let them find the petrified mammoth as it was a non-combat encounter, even though it will be a long while before they approach Ardissa's camp. They brought in Shaggy Shemven as some kind of forensic geologist and we played up a bit of a weird CSI-type interaction.

They seem reluctant to do much exploring besides making a beeline for the cave - have other GMs had experiences with parties straight up avoiding any river or hills hex? They're moving south 'underneath' everything, and I didn't specify which part of Gleaming Sun Lake needed to be visited…I can always move the encounters to different hexes, I suppose, but I'll also mention to them that once they put some more space between them and the Burning Mammoths.

We ran two of the book encounters during this session: one of the random encounters, and the encounter at Gleaming Sun Lake.

Poison Bringers: The party explored a river hex fairly early on, and I liked this encounter over the Quiet Ones to keep the focus on the threat of the Burning Mammoth, and to help fill in or foreshadow any upcoming plot elements.

The party was thoroughly disgusted by the rime ooze; otherwise, the battle with Tusks was fairly familiar. I'm still mastering the finer points of combat in PF2E and I feel I'm missing a bit with things like using the Longshield effectively. After they shove an opponent - then what? It's useful if there is a hazard in the terrain, or if they can cut off a weak character from support, but outside of those circumstances they feel a little toothless.

The other thing that gave me cause to kick myself was my forgotten intention to have Valcarian's amulet speak to him the next time he encountered Mammoths. I'll have to push it very strongly next time, and in Red Cat Cave, to keep up that association.

The most interesting part of the encounter was the party's plan to capture a Burning Mammoth for interrogation, which they did with a nice non-lethal final blow. They took the hunter back to camp and questioned him under the watchful supervision of Merthig. When the Mammoth claimed that Pakano had joined the Mammoth following, delivered by Ivarsa, Valcarian lost his temper and belted the prisoner before storming out of the tent. Ysbrylla struggled to talk sense into him, and he definitely lost some respect with the Mammoth Lords - all really great character stuff.

(The party as a whole is rather fixated on Pakano, and the potential of redeeming him - It's a topic they discuss regularly. From my initial reading I was dissatisfied at his total absence between Rimecrag Pass and the very end of the campaign, but now I'm convinced I'll need to include him in some role in Lost Mammoth Valley.)

Gleaming Sun Lake: This was the last major encounter of the night and it was a real thrill! Seeing the kelpie's display, Valcarian and Dagomir charged right in, while || || and Ysbrylla supported from the shore. This meant the kelpie had fewer targets to work with and downed Valcarian quite handily. Ysbrylla burned a spell slot casting Air Bubble on the "drowning Kellid". Later she summoned a snapping turtle for support, and the kelpie simply swallowed it whole. Dagomir focused on evasion and healing Valcarian with Lay On Hands as the kelpie chomped away at him too. || || managed to get two natural 20s in one turn (I ruled the second one as a 3x modifier for the sake of drama) and the party only just barely managed to defeat the beast, with Dagomir knocked out in the water as well. It was tactically interesting and had thrilling highs and lows - a very successful encounter!

Afterward, || || supervised a recovering Dagomir on the beach as Valcarian and Ysbrylla explored the kelpie lair. It seemed unwise to split the party, but it turned out quite well for them as they uncovered the kelpie's stash. I'm certain that ghost touch rune will be crucial during the battle with Syarstik.

Ysbrylla and Shaggy: Early in the journey, Shaggy Shemven told Ysbrylla (who had early expressed an interest in his magical earth abilities) about some magically resonant land nearby that might make a good spot for them to share their powers and offer feedback.

Ysbrylla's tightly-wound personality caused her crushing ground spells to manifest as sharply carved geometric fissures. This being Shaggy's first time seeing Ysbrylla's magic, he was surprised, and offered some bald criticism that set Ysbrylla off--namely, that she exerts extra force in her controlled style of magic which holds her back from progressing her ability. Ysbrylla stormed away in a fury, leaving a precisely sculpted chasm in her wake.

Later, she found a trinity geode left at the food of her bed, presumably by Shaggy, but she is taking her time to consider if and how she wishes to reconcile with him.

Dagomir's Horse Training: We had a short interlude to establish one part of Dagomir's backstory: his warhorse from the Crusades has since given birth to a foal, and later died. This foal is meant to serve as a mount for Dagomir, which his player has indicated he wants to take at level 3.

Dagomir was asked by the herder Inig to help train the horse to wear a saddle and support a rider. He critically failed on the role to Command an Animal and was the subject of much ribbing in the following.

Valcarian and Kale: Valcarian had a nice moment after the battle of Gleaming Sun Lake where he finally struck up a conversation with Kale, his crush. She serves the following by making ceramic goods, and offered to make him a container for trail rations as a thank-you for his hard work protecting the following.

|| || and Panuaku: Finally, I ran a scene where Panuaku asked || || to accompany her on a hunt for some nearby elk. This served to give || ||'s player a chance to practice her new snare abilities, and to keep Panuaku present in the narrative. I play her as a keen hunter - if not a little fixated on hunting - who runs really hot and cold, and I like keeping her around to be a source of friction if needed.

This was simple and effective, and went just about how I thought it would. In the first round of combat with the swords, Dagomir investigated the apaku to see if he could get them to un-animate, which stirred the Effigy of Yaguun and made things a lot more dramatic. There were many fails on Yaguun's fear effect, which made things an interesting challenge. || ||'s player also is getting more comfortable using their animal companion, Brassica, in combat, and did a good job setting up flanks in battle.

Afterward, Dagomir claimed the cold iron shield and Ysbrylla and Valcarian stayed to study the apaku, bonding a little as they learned the Animate Objects ritual.

(Ysbrylla and || || both failed their save against the animated blades' tetanus. The block said it takes ten days for the disease to set in, so I'll have to take a look at the rules for that. It might cause some exciting complications in Red Cat Cave…)

The Amulet: After offering some healing, Nakta asked || || to tell Valcarian he was wanted in Nakta's tent. || || decided to eavesdrop and learned that Valcarian had been consulting Nakta about the strange voices he was hearing from his amulet. || || was surprised and a little outraged that Valcarian was keeping secrets, but he calmed her down by telling her it was a secret they shared. They decided to bring in Dagomir on the news, who examined the amulet and noted that a patch of what was thought to be rust was in fact demon blood! This unnerved Valcarian, but his only option was to wait and see what happens next.

Nakta also asked him to gather any material left behind after encounters with the Mammoths, since both times the amulet spoke was during encounters with the hostile following. I'm thinking that after another fight with the mammoths in chapter 3, Nakta will maybe be able to summon the image of the ghostly Mendevian noble for a moment to stir up some suspense.

Ysbrylla's Class: Ysbrylla went on a walk with Wipa, who is starting to recover from her traumatic childbirth. Wipa was quite curious about how the scouts have been getting on, and the players enjoyed Ysbrylla sharing her in-character opinions about them without any of them around.

Ysbrylla gathered some materials and returned to the following to teach a lesson on some of the youths some of her druidcraft. We introduced a new character in one of || ||'s siblings - the rather intimidatingly named ɽrɽr (it sounds like a cooing pigeon, somewhat). This NPC might be able to support Ysbrylla's arc as a strict teacher learning to let her hair down, and also serve as a mouthpiece (beakpiece?) for the rest of the tengu cohort in the following.

After some roleplay events at camp, the party returned to the trail. As I mentioned above, I declined to run the Quiet Ones random encounter. Personally, I found the worldbuilding implied in it rather jarring - this previously unmentioned hostile force of slavers and guides that then never reappears in the adventure didn't add up to much for me. Additionally, after the loblobi and kelpie encounters, there's odd pattern of betrayal-and-water themed encounters that I think would feel a little repetitive. I don't want to train the players into thinking that every time they meet a stranger they're guaranteed to end up in a fight.

So here's what I did instead: the party discovered a recently-abandoned campsite with a hasty attempt to cover up tracks. || || was excited to have another hunt and took off immediately with Brassica in tow. They found a halfling woman hiding in the distance and immediately tackled her to the ground as she screamed in fear in desperation.

The encounter then shifted into a bit of a diplomacy challenge, to calm down || ||, calm down Harbinna, and see what could be gleaned from the interaction. Valcarian took the lead in getting to the bottom of things. I played Harbinna as enthusiastic and excitable. She had a grasp of some Hallit but there were gaps, so we played out her broken Common very explicitly - I wanted to create a contrast with Ardissa, which is also why I placed these encounters back-to-back.

I altered Harbinna's backstory slightly, informing the players that her grandfather willed her a map to a secret cache of his, though she was completely unbothered that the players had beat her to Gleaming Sun Lake, considering it all part of the sport of exploring.

Unprompted, the party returned the backpack to her, earning her trust, and warned her of the dangers of heading west toward the Mammoths. Harbinna revealed that she had already encountered one of their parties, which is why she fled her camp when she heard the party coming. She was very happy to accept an invitation to travel with the following - the players felt her cartography knowledge could work well with Argakoa's understanding of astronomy. I'm not sure if or how that will develop further, but I wonder if there's opportunity there with the star chart chamber in Red Cat Cave.

Finally, the party entered the Grandparents hex. We tried our first proper Reconnoiter roll, and Ysbrylla rolled a critical success! The party arrived at the camp, only knowing that it was the likely source of the pointed-toe bootprints they'd found near a petrified mammoth some miles away.

Valcarian clambered on to a nearby ledge to get a better view, but when Ysbrylla and Dagomir tried to Stealth closer, Ardissa noticed them with some confusion and annoyance. The conversation with Ardissa was awkward, and not least of all because she didn't speak a word of Hallit and had no interest in trying. (I had her babbling in a sort of Simlish meant to represent her cultured Taldane.)

Eventually, they were able to discern her intentions, but Valcarian laughed in her face when she offered useless trinkets for a mammoth. In retaliation she dropped a fireball on the party, and we were off. This was their first time fighting against a spellcaster, and she was pretty vicious with her magic missiles as well - at different points throughout the fight, Dagomir, Valcarian, and Ysbrylla all went down. (|| || has the highest AC and is tough to land hits on.)

I think this was a good fight that really demonstrated the strengths of this party. With Ysbrylla's casting and Dago's Lay On Hands, they're able to keep the party up (or not down for long) and keep the action economy from tipping out of their favour. || || is built for steady damage over time, and Valcarian's Thaumaturge abilities help get a grip on any magical or unusual enemies. Even though it was a tough fight, they pulled through, and as Ardissa cast an obscuring mist to cover her escape, Ysbrylla dispelled it with a gust of wind and Dago leapt forward to deliver a killing blow.

There were some character and roleplaying moments that the party wanted to take care of before heading to the cave proper.

Ysbrylla, having cooled down after her blow up at Shaggy a few weeks ago, sought him out to make amends. I've played him very blunt and unafraid to call out behaviour: he accepted Ysbrylla's apology, but when she asked if he had further advice for her goal of mastering druidic magic, he suggested that she hadn't done a great job of learning from the following. From Shaggy's perspective, the Tusks understand the underlying interdependence of humanity and nature, whereas Ysbrylla feels more comfortable putting herself at a distance and above the world around her. To her credit, Ysbrylla humbled herself here and thanked Shaggy for his feedback, severe as it was.

Valcarian asked Argakoa for any advice entering Red Cat Cave--not much new information was shared, but it was good to refresh on the party's mission before venturing forth. I also dropped a hint about "shiny rocks" to foreshadow the cavern at the end of the cave, though Argakoa couldn't remember much about them.

Dagomir took another pot of ink (recovered from Ardissa's supplies) to the tattooist Rumi, who indicated that he should return for a longer tattooing session after Red Cat Cave--and that he should bring his horse (who Dago's player finally named: Bryla). Rumi is old, stubborn, disinterested, and doesn't speak much, so she felt no need to offer an explanation, but the party is very confused and excited by why Dago needs his horse to have a tattoo. (He'll be receiving the familiar tattoo.)

After everything was dealt with, it was time to approach Red Cat Cave!

First approach: Before entering the cave, two important things happened:

Firstly, it had been about ten days since the battle with the animated blades at the apaku site. As a result, Ysbrylla and || || had concluded their onset period for the tetanus they'd contracted during the fight. I described them feeling clumsier than normal, stumbling or dropping things, but given the proximity to an important magical site, they were inclined to believe it was some power of the cave's.

This misapprehension was furthered by Valcarian actually being magically affected by the cave: his amulet turned icy cold, and he experienced a vision where is hands were replaced by Xeleria's shadowy claws, causing him to faint in the front of the cave. Dagomir, the only one who felt normal, was quite offput.

Still, they continued to approach. Val got hit pretty square by the animated cave painting--|| ||'s player had pitched the idea of cave paintings at the top of the session, so everyone was shocked and amused that they found one right away, and that it could attack!

When they headed inside, I switched from our hex map to printouts of artjuice's Red Cat Cave map, rasterized, cut into individual rooms, and mounted onto pieces of cardboard. This took some extra effort, but because there are so few dungeons in this campaign, it seemed like a worthy endeavour. It definitely made the cave feel mysterious and constricted, and we were able to keep the table clear and only have one or two rooms laid down at a time. I'll most likely do this again for things like Calamity Caves.

In the first blindheim fight, || || critically failed the save against the flashing eyes, and was blinded for one hour! Even the dazzle was hugely impactful; many attacks failed the flat DC 5 check and were wasted. This was entertaining, and made for some memorable encounters, but certainly contributed to a sense of slowness in the session. At this point I also formally inflicted Ysbrylla and || || with their clumsy conditions, and panic really set in.

Retreat: At this point, Valcarian insisted everyone leave the cave and figure out what the hell was going on. || || recovered slowly from her blindness and Ysbrylla diagnosed herself with tetanus - since it had been a couple of weeks since the apaku fight, the realization of how Ysbrylla got sick dawned in real time and was quite enjoyable.

The party felt their best bet would be to return to camp and recover. This promised to really slow things down, so we tried to abstract as much as possible, and I had Nakta offer to support the treatment to reduce the risk of things getting much worse. I did, however, use the few days passing to emphasize that the Mammoths were still following, and taking time like this only made their lead more tenuous. As Ysbrylla recovered, she also treated || ||, and critically succeeded on the roll, which offered a nice character moment.

Second approach: After their tetanus time-out, the party again approached Red Cat Cave. Valcarian and || || stealthed through to the blindheim nest, which was nice: it gave me the opportunity to demonstrate that despite how territorial and defensive the first pair was, these were animals that didn't necessarily need force to be dealt with.

However, in the next room, the blindheim leader and its groplit friend came out swinging and landed some heavy blows, so the potential truce was short-lived. After the groplit fell, the blindheim leader managed a few lucky dodges and fled down the tunnel, jumping into the lake to escape pursuit.

The party--now rather exhausted and peeved at how challenging navigating the cave was turning out to be, still calmly observed the fishing blindheim at the lakeshore. || ||, getting more comfortable with her snares, placed some alarm snares in the corridors running back so nothing could sneak up on the party. As the blindheim caught its fish and retreated to the nest, it tripped the alarm snare (despite Ysbrylla awkwardly trying to herd it with her dancing lights) and that seemed like a perfect opportunity to introduce Gathganara.

After a few sticky fights, the party was grateful to end the session with a calmer roleplaying encounter. Though they're of course more interested in tracking down the Primordial Flame, they found Gathganara's request reasonable, and we ended our session with their pledge to help confront the morlock lurking in the caves.

We resumed our exploration of Red Cat Cave, moving from the conversation with Gathganara into the back half of the dungeon. || ||'s player has been working hard to study to the Animal Companion rules and try different play elements with her stoat Brassica, so she sent her out ahead to scout out the next cave.

Regrettably, Brassy triggered one of the razor stone traps, which cleared almost all of her HP. (Given the look on || ||'s player's face, she won't be scouting ahead any time soon…) Ysbrylla healed her and the party headed north. They failed to spot the second trap and Dagomir took a hit as well. This definitely injected some tension back into the session and put the players back in the mindset of a dark, dangerous cave!

In Hobji's lair, Dagomir spotted the next trap and disabled it, but still not fully healed, Valcarian opted to go ahead and investigate the mysterious glow ahead. I replaced the candlecap with a custom artifact called the Cap of the Frog, which instead is made of a slick, rubbery material with glowing eyes.

(|| ||'s player had expressed a desire for a frog-themed magic item that would allow her to leap along walls and things. The froggish blindheims seemed like a good fit for introducing this idea, and the candlecap, while charming, is slightly underwhelming as one of the only pieces of loot in the dungeon, IMO.

I thought it would be neat to try making a very simple item, so it's basically a hat that allow a once-per-day spell effect, starting with jump at level 2 and adding more options over time. I'll post the full details if people are interested!)

Valcarian failed to spot Hobji crouched in his niche, and he descended aggressively on the isolated Val. A tense fight followed, but I allowed Val's Recall Knowledge to pick up on Hobji's light sensitivity so he could attempt to blind him with a torch. Once blinded, things tipped in the party's favour, and they were able to overwhelm him, with || || bringing up the rear to take the morlock down with a final shot.

Triumphantly bringing the cap (and Hobji's body) back to the lake, Gathganara summoned her blindheim friends with an echoey song. Though the party had taken down a few of their number last session, this act had clearly won them a truce, and when they offered the slimy cap to Val as a token of their thanks, he happily handed it over to || ||.

I also had Gathganara grant the party a boon and add a potency rune to one of their weapons. My understanding is that QftFF is light on runes, and that in PF2e each character should have access to a +1 weapon by end of second level. At this point, I've handed out extras such that each character except Ysbrylla (who does not typically make weapon attacks) has at least one +1 weapon.

With the blindheims appeased, the party ventured further into Red Cat Cave. In the room with cave paintings, || || triggered the sabretooth tiger haunt, which landed a devastating hit. || ||, on edge from blindheim blindness and Brassica in peril, freaked out until Dago and Ysbrylla calmed her down.

Valcarian and Ysbrylla learned the spells embedded in the paintings. I also pointed out that Valcarian's Esoteric Lore could be used with haunts, specifically. Even though the tiger had already been activated, I encouraged the party to disable it to practice the relevant rules. This led to a rather nice moment for Ysbrylla's character to delve into and describe her magic practice more, in this case channelling the energy in the painting out of the tiger and into a harmless little painted mouse off to the side.

With that done, they ventured into Syarstik's cave. The party is very used to pushing Dago to the front and keeping the rest in the backline, so it they were quite shocked (and I was very amused) when Syarstik appeared and animated a painting behind them, chomping a huge chunk of Val's HP. When Syarstik managed a heavy swipe against Dagomir in the next round, and Val didn't manage any of his Lore rolls, the party decided to beat a tactical retreat.

This hasn’t happened yet in our campaign, and I was interested to see how the party would handle it. They rested by the pool and healed everyone up, while Valcarian created some potency crystals, and they strategized quite effectively based on what they had seen in the fight.

The next day, they went in very tactically, making a sort of phalanx in the centre of the room to avoid touching the walls as much as possible. Though Syarstik could pass through them easily, I was impressed by their planning and kept him near the front of the group, throwing attacks at Val and Dago. With Brassica flanking from atop the altar, he still dealt a ton of damage, but a well-placed hit from Valcarian (who had his potency crystal active, plus the ghost touch rune from the kelpie cave) brought the tiger down.

The parley with him proceeded largely as written, and inside the party was quite excited to explore the navigation chamber. I played up how confusing and complex the markings were. Since they had made a big point earlier about Harbinna and Argakoa collaborating on their knowledge of astronomy and cartography, I thought they might bring her in to consult. They did as I expected, and we ended the session with Harbinna advising them to wait until midnight, and the moonlight glittering across the mica to reveal the location of Lost Mammoth Valley!

I found in the adventure as written there wasn't as much transition material between Red Cat Cave and the start of Chapter 3. I had the party return to the following, where the Mammoth Lords summoned everyone to hear the party recount the events of RCC, and to discuss the next course of action. I wanted to communicate that this was a challenging decision for the following to make, and they were following a pretty tenuous century-old lead.

I think this was a good choice - the party really cemented how they felt about going east instead of continuing north, and it creates the feeling of the party driving the story rather than feeling like they are being pushed around by questgivers.

After they decided to head east, there was a bit of light roleplaying around incorporating Harbinna. Harbinna's player had her really emphasizing her role as an outsider from Varisia, asking lots of questions about life in the following, and attempting to share some of her experiences (including a scene of Harbinna attempting to explain money and commerce to || || with little success).

[spoiler=Gremlins:] I moved the pugwampi encounter to this section, for no other reason than the natural flow of my game. When it started, the party was not very interested in anything besides the dinosaur they spotted in the distance, so they were quite shocked when a ranged attack flew from the shrubbery out to them.

Ybsrylla had cast ]speak with animals to persuade the dino to join them (though she had to deal with her low Charisma), so she and || || tried to keep it from fleeing while Valcarian and Harbinna explored the underbrush. The encounter was a bit frantic and ultimately short, seeing as it was from an earlier level and I was running 5 PCs. My only real regret was that no one failed the unluck save, meaning no one got to see the most unique element of this encounter.

Eventually they disposed of the enemies and recruited the hadrosaurid, quite excited to bring an actual dinosaur into the fold.

I was excited for this encounter, but it didn't quite turn out the way I had hoped. I haven't run 2e with five players before, and I think if I were to do it again, I would adjust the number of enemies or add some elite templates.

|| || managed to pass the check to spot the ambush, so I had them start at the mouth of the river, spotting the Burning Mammoths behind the bushes. I placed a hunter on each of the ridges on either side to provide some more dimension to the combat, and we let loose.

As it was, only the Reavers posed any threat, and between a couple of poor rolls on their part, and Dagomir's Glimpse of Redemption and Valcarian's Amulet's Abeyance nerfing damage regularly, they were only able to get a couple of nice hits in. The hunters rolled terribly, missing most of their hits, and mostly standing around as fodder.

An optimistic take on this is that after a tough time against the blindheims and Syarstik in the cave, the party was empowered and glad to mow down some low-level mooks, so I chalked this up to them having a hero moment.

Lastly, Nakta had told Valcarian that if he could acquire artefacts associated with the Burning Mammoths, he could perform a ritual to attempt to unleash the energy contained within the amulet.

As a final scene for the session, Nakta brought everyone into his tent, chanting and clutching the spoils of their fight, until a spirit emerged in the haze of incense smoke! It took the form of a beautiful young Mendevian woman in a state of confusion and alarm. She uttered a ghostly wail and begged to be released to death - then vanished, as the implements everyone held charred into ash.

because this section of the region is unknown to the players, I tried a different technique to let them map things out as they explore, without having to slow down the flow of traveling for multiple days at a time and drawing a bunch of hexes at once. I used some paper hex cut outs and glue dots to create a "fog of war" effect, and I made a little tutorial video for anyone who's curious.

Following the shocking appearance of a phantom in Nakta's tent, and combined with the deleterious effects on Valcarian at Red Cat Cave, our young hero felt he needed further help. Val went to see Argakoa, telling her that he was concerned about the amulet's potential to harm him.

I thought this was an interesting development, and I thought it was time to push the amulet storyline further, so Argakoa asked to borrow the amulet for a few days to do some research. She floated the idea of removing the magic's amulet entirely - I knew Valcarian's player wouldn't give up such a central object, but I liked the narrative weight of giving him the choice. Valcarian agreed to consider it while Argakoa worked - so for the rest of the session, Valcarian didn't have his implement with him, which I thought was a very interesting decision. We didn't quite to RAW - I let him use Exploit Vulnerability, but he didn't have Amulet's Abeyance to help mitigate party damage.

Next on our journey eastward was the encounter at the barrow. The glyptodon provided some serious resistance to the party - when Ysbrylla's Nature check suggested that the creature was simply territorial and defensive, Dagomir suggested retreating until the glyptodon was more comfortable with their presence - and was roundly ignored. Sometimes this party talks a big game about loving animals, but they don't like having something stand in their way!

Some tactical decisions made this fight a lot dicier than it might have been otherwise. After some bad hits, Ysbrylla moved toward the apaku, hoping it could aid her in battle, only to learn it was charged with interesting, but not mighty, divination magic. || || climbed the standing stones but had difficulty with the glyptodon's tough natural armour. Valcarian fell in battle and Dagomir dragged him out of the creature's territory, leaving the party weakened and scattered.

This led to a very interesting climax as the beast bore down on Ysbrylla, who was the closest to its territory, and knocked her out far from the rest of the party. Dagomir summoned his horse familiar and charged in, scooping up Ysbrylla like a prince charming figure and only managing to deflect some deadly blows with his Glimpse of Redemption.

It was a thrilling retreat, and the party huffed and puffed (in character), arguing over who had made mistakes when. Ysbrylla felt quite guilty for leaving her party to investigate the apaku and needing to be rescued. I also have Wipakoa, her closest friend in the party, as a bit of sounding board to offer GM advice on strategy - Wipa's a great scout, but busy with her newborn kids, so she can provide tips or point out their mistakes as part of their scout training. It keeps them humble. ;)

The next day, the party attempted this encounter again, with a different strategy. Ysbrylla's character is very excited to have access to an increasing variety of summoning spells, and knowing her own Charisma holds her back when attempting to befriend animals, she instead summoned a Naiad to help, which we framed as sort of a mediator between the party and the glyptodon.

I think Ysbrylla's player was very chuffed to be able to roll with the Naiad's much higher modifier, and after some respectful greetings and offers of food, this already weakened and annoyed glyptodon decided to follow its nose and clear the barrow for the party to explore.

The party decided to split - Val and || || walked the glyptodon back to the following while Dagomir and Ysbrylla poked around.

Ysbrylla was excited to learn more about how the apaku could be used. (The party felt so accomplished in revealing so many hexes at once! There was some OOC discussion about what she should ask about, and Val's player suggested she consult the stone regarding the status of Pakano. I thought about this and wanted to foreshadow a bit more about how Pakano had been in direct contact with Ivarsa specifically, so I the apaku communicated feelings of fiery passion and arousal to Ysbrylla - who was quite mortified!

On reflection, it might have been nice to communicate feelings of pain, to make more ambiguous Pakano's safety (perhaps the feeling of being subjected to the Mammoth's burns, with an open question of whether or not Pakano was a willing participant). But I'm happy with the choice I made too - it added a bit of levity what was a somewhat emotional session already, and I think that including grounded elements of day-to-day life (we talk a lot about what the following is eating, what chores need doing, etc.) help make the following feel really actualized.

Ysbrylla was uncomfortable telling Dagomir what happened, but the two resolved to next explore the barrow. I felt it was a bit awkward running these two wights who are willing to talk peacefully, but also compelled to chase out intruders…? I had them acting sort of like they were possessed, saying one thing but without control over their bodies. Regardless, with half the party gone, Ysbrylla and Dagomir opted to retreat and meet back up with the rest of the party at the following.

Back at the following, Ysbrylla sheepishly related to the Mammoth Lords that Pakano was certainly still alive, though his exact whereabouts were unknown. She told the party the truth of what she gleaned, and Valcarian (as Pakano's direct rival) was quite upset and angry.

Dagomir sought out Merthig to learn about the possibility of consecration. At this point, it didn't seem productive to give them a non-answer, then wait for them to find the cache, then make them go back--so I just had Merthig offer to lead the ritual. I played it up as being a bit of a character choice for Dagomir, given the casting time of the ritual - did this mean enough for him to ask the following to wait in place for three days? It was a good opportunity for him to express his character's beliefs and values, and he asked the party if they were willing to support his endeavour.

In the end, we did a montage of these three days of consecrating (because what you actually do for three days? A lot of chanting, I suppose…). During that time I had the cairn wights speaking through the stone rubble at the entrance to the barrow, relating the story of Yaguun and Hiajor (since there was no other way for the PCs to get that information) and I think it helped colour in the world a little further - and the Yaguun encounter had been quite memorable, so it was cool to feel like there was a connection in these random-seeming encounters across sessions.

This encounter also really cemented interest in the apakus - I think I'll need to continue their presence in the rest of the campaign, particularly with a stone-themed character like Ysbrylla around! It's a shame only three are encountered in the whole campaign, as far as I can tell - does anyone have any experience adding more abilities keyed to the other schools, or choosing locations for them? I'll brainstorm…

Ha! This did not work for us at all! I ought to have adjusted the disable requirements - no one had expert Religion or trained Performance. I ended up letting Valcarian apply Esoteric Knowledge, given that this was a haunt. Not to mention that it's kind of unclear if the haunt activating means they can't just fish the stuff out of the trunk. The text also references Performance checks from Eiwa's funeral, though that section just encourages PCs to share memories of Eiwa - and besides the connection to Pharasma, this cache has nothing to do with anything the PCs have experienced so far…

In a nutshell - thanks, but no thanks! The idea of the apaku map revealing a secret cache is great, but that's the where the excitement ended for us. If I were to do this again I would put something else here, and also maybe add some treasure to the inside of the barrow so it feels like there is a direct reward for concluding that story.