by vestige
After completing the prelude to establish the basics of the campaign, my Margreve group plunged straight into the first adventure in the book: Hollow. This is a very unconventional story for a Pathfinder game and presented some interesting challenges in the play-by-forum environment.Our cast of characters for this session was:
Ta’el, a female human monk searching for wisdom amongst the ancient nature of the Margreve. Kith’Kunnan, a male half-elf paladin of the dwarven forge-god Volund: raised by diplomats to the dwarven cantons, he adopted their beliefs as his own. Kaine, a male human inquisitor of the deity Janter, the Keeper of Laws and Faith, off to serve his god wisely and well. Rothar Mudfoot, an almost feral male halfling barbarian, a nomad fascinated with but sometimes fearful of the Margreve. Gareth, a near-blind male human oracle of nature, abandoned long ago in the Margreve. Oskar, a male gnome sorcerer with a mystic connection to the Margreve itself (new this chapter).This chapter ran from November 7, 2011, to July 20, 2012 – almost 9 months for what would probably have been 1.5-2 sessions face-to-face.
There will, obviously, be serious spoilers about the adventure ahead!
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The episode began with a brief introduction, as Oskar joined the group as they trudged through the rain to Levoca. Neither quite trusted the others at first, but we let that sort itself out quickly.
Soon, though, strange things begin to happen. First, the group all find themselves humming the same melody. Then the group finds a wolf corpse – decapitated by other wolves, apparently – which they pause to bury respectfully. And finally, they arrive at a clearing with a human corpse – a woman. As the group moves to help her, a small swarm of forest animals – squirrels, possums, and weasels – attacks them, accompanied by a much more intimidating dire weasel. The weasel proved surprisingly resilient to the group’s magic, but Oskar took the swarm down quickly with a color spray, and the rest of the group took the weasel out quickly enough. They then realized that the woman – who carried a basket of truffles – was killed by innumerable animal bites, some from her own truffle-hunting pig. The group buried her and continued toward Levoca.
In the adventure, this encounter occurs much differently. The PCs are meant to hear about a missing girl in the village and go in search of the body (I switched the girl and her mother), after they have already learned that strange things are afoot. I moved it to the journey because it seemed a very good hint on its own, and because too much downtime can be problematic in PbFs. I also switched it from an insect swarm to a small animal swarm (and added the weasel) to better suit the group’s abilities – they lack artillery.
Shortly afterward, the group arrived in Levoca, a small and superstitious town at the edge of the Margreve. As they entered, they heard children singing – the same melody they had found themselves humming – a “nonsense” rhyme about the Hollow Man. They were greeted by Anna, a farmer who appeared to be a leader in the town, and welcomed to her table with Brother Arkadi, the local priest (of the nature gods), and Anna’s beautiful daughter Vidanya. The group imparts their news about the woman – who was indeed a resident of the town.
After dinner, the group hears wolf howls and rushes out to investigate – soon they discover that the town is under a veritable siege by unnaturally angry wolves. Meanwhile the group had also learned that the town’s bull had recently killed its owner – and was now trying to escape its pen! The villagers swarmed around, trying to kill the wolves but making lots of silly tactical mistakes.
Wave after wave of wolves crashed into the village from all directions, and between waves the group took on the bull as well (which proved fairly easy, thanks to Oskar’s color spray). It was a long battle – and a couple of villagers were killed – but the PCs seemed to be victorious….
I really amped up the challenge of this encounter compared to the adventure, where it is expected to be the only encounter of the day, and there are only six wolves. I sent nine wolves in just the first wave, though it tapered off after that.
This turned out to be a super-complicated combat, and a difficult one to run over PbF. I think all of us got confused at one point or another. I tried to use a diagram rather than a battle map, dividing the village into abstracted zones with simple movement rules between them. But there was really no way to get the lighting conditions and big battlefield and 12+ combatants and what were meant to be ineffective tactics by the villagers to run through things smoothly.
The goals of the encounter are to establish the unnatural order, provide a sense that the PCs are outmatched, and get the group to see the need for the villagers to have a military leader. The first definitely seemed to work; the second and third, to a degree. The PCs were pretty tapped out by the end, but they had done very well – killing most of the wolves before the last few ran away.
The group then began to explore Levoca, learning a bit about its history in an attempt to understand the night’s assault. But they soon discovered that the night was not over yet: on the outskirts of the village they encountered a great wooden creature, armed with a magic scythe, knocking on a villager’s door. Behind him, one of the village’s wood wards – sort of like scarecrows meant to scare away the Margreve’s evil spirits – had somehow been animated to stand guard. The group rushed to help the villager, but they could do little against the Hollow Man, who decapitated the villager, paraded his head about, pointed to several villagers – and Kith – and disappeared into the forest.
Again, I accelerated the timeline of the adventure – this should have happened the night after the wolf attack. But the point is really to show the PCs what they are up against, and they aren’t supposed to be able to defeat it – so why wait for them to rest up? (Plus, the two encounters for the following day – the bull and the dead woman – had already gone as well.) The downside was that the group was so spent (and still injured) in the morning that they just held tight rather than being proactive.
Amusing moment: the Hollow Man’s first attack on the villager was a critical fumble (the only way he could have missed) but his next was a critical hit (with a x4 scythe: 37 hp damage), cleanly decapitating the poor guy!
It was a little hard to express how overmatched the group was here. It was also a bit frustrating to send them into a battle that they are doomed to lose – I wouldn’t mind that face-to-face, but it took up a fair amount of time over PbF, when I just wanted to narrate what would happen and move on with the story.
Overnight, the PCs were visited in their dreams again:
Dreams wrote:
The old woman from the previous night appears to each of you again, floating around otherwise normal dreams, her deep eyes staring at you. Toward daybreak, she finally speaks. "So you have witnessed the power of the Margreve, eh? But what does it mean? It is no part of me, but it is part of you, now." With a sad smile, her face fades, and you awaken.
The PCs awoke to find the villagers arguing about how to proceed. The first boy to which the Hollow Man pointed, Baca, was fleeing with his family. Others were blaming the PCs and each other. Fortunately, Kith stepped forward with a stirring speech to rally most of the villagers to their side. Still, Baca’s family fled, and others grumbled that the PCs were sitting tight for the day.
They did take the opportunity to explore the village and quickly latched onto its most interesting elements: a muddy pond that used to be a pit for burning witches (especially the Kariv, with whom the villagers harbored a great deal of animosity) and a partially collapsed lime-kiln built into a small hillside. Kaine in particular tried to learn more about the burnings, to determine if some sort of revenge were being visited upon Levoca for sins of the past. Others thought that perhaps the kiln had angered the powers of the Margreve.
Anna wrote:
[On the Witch-Pit]"Ah, it hasn't been used for a long time indeed - but do you see that pond over there? That circular shape isn't natural; many years ago, this area was plagued by the Kariv, and our grandparents' built that pit to burn the evil witches. You can still see the stake upon which they burnt. The Kariv moved on and have stayed mostly away from us" - here her hands move in the familiar gesture to ward off evil - "so it hasn't been used since my childhood, and water has slowly filled it."
"Persecution? That is an interesting choice of words, Kaine. I was but a girl, but those were dark days as well - other children disappearing into the wood, the Kariv blaming the villagers, our produce withering on the vine rather than ripening. The witches cursed us, and the elders of that time exacted justice upon them."
[On the kiln] "That is no house, sir - but it is connected to the Witch-Pit. The old lime-kiln used to be there - when the witch troubles began, the Kariv's anger focused there, for they believed we were burning the ancient secrets of the forest. We have not used the kiln in many years, as the materials have become difficult to find. I believe it no longer functions."
"Persecution? That is an interesting choice of words, Kaine. I was but a girl, but those were dark days as well - other children disappearing into the wood, the Kariv blaming the villagers, our produce withering on the vine rather than ripening. The witches cursed us, and the elders of that time exacted justice upon them."
[On the kiln] "That is no house, sir - but it is connected to the Witch-Pit. The old lime-kiln used to be there - when the witch troubles began, the Kariv's anger focused there, for they believed we were burning the ancient secrets of the forest. We have not used the kiln in many years, as the materials have become difficult to find. I believe it no longer functions."
They did convince the villagers to stay together for the night and gather fire-making gear to fight the Hollow Man, should he return.
Meanwhile, the PCs discovered that Brother Arkadi was in an apparent coma, completely unresponsive to any prodding. This disturbed them greatly, and they went to some extremes to attempt to awaken him – even (the next day) dragging him to the Witch-Pit to shake him awake.
The adventure doesn’t present a reason for why this is happening, and it turns out that is a bit problematic. In the absence of an obvious lead to go after the trouble, my players focused on trying to figure out why it was happening, hoping to prevent it in the future. The adventure, however, requires them to be playing defense: organizing the villagers to take out the Hollow Man. That’s a bit too passive for most players, though. (In my campaign there is a reason this was happening – though the players haven’t figured it out yet!)
Brother Arkadi was a red herring (for now
), but I should have known that would attract most of their attention! That distraction was my fault. However, I thought Kaine’s plan with the Witch-Pit sufficiently clever that I gave Arkadi a Will save, but he failed.Sure enough, the Hollow Man returned that evening. It made for Baca’s abandoned house, and though the PCs followed it and set the house ablaze, it teleported away. Later, the PCs discovered Baca’s headless body arrayed on a wood ward’s stake at the edge of the village.
Again, from a metagame perspective I knew the PCs couldn’t take out the Hollow Man yet and didn’t want this battle to drag out. So I switched the Hollow Man’s travel ability (normally tree stride) to the ability to teleport to his quarry if he slices one if his possessions with his scythe. I didn’t explain that as well as I should have, though. Also, the Hollow Man should have paraded the head through the village – but that would have led to more vain attempts to kill him.
The next morning, an old woman appears in town: Mother Molvor, who lives in the nearby woods. She saw the Hollow Man pass by and offers to lead the group to its trail. But first, she looked at the sleeping Arkadi, telling them:
Mother Molvor wrote:
"No. But I have heard of such things. The Margreve, it dreams as it slumbers - deep and disturbing dreams, the tales say. Sometimes, those dreams reach their tendrils out and ensnare those who pass inside. Whether that is through the will of the Margreve, or through another power manipulating the forest, I cannot say."
Nevertheless, she could not help. Most of the group decided to follow Molvor to her house and attempt to follow the Hollow Man. But Gareth and Ta’el remained and worked on the kiln, attempting to turn it into a fiery trap for the creature.
Kaine, Kith, Oskar, and Rothar manage to pick up the Hollow Man’s trail of decapitated critters, and they run a gauntlet of angry, pecking animals to find its “lair” – a rotted clearing in which stood the hideously deformed Singing Tree, three heads (including the two villagers) adorning its branches and the Hollow Man resting in its trees. Of course, they attacked – and with some clever strategies managed to hold the Hollow Man at bay for a time. But soon it was clear they would be overwhelmed, and they fled – though not before destroying two of the heads on the Tree.
The group should have run into some critter attacks on the way to the tree, but since they were split up (two staying behind in the village) and because I hate “busywork” encounters, especially in PbF, I just abstracted that and basically gave them a save to avoid a small amount of damage from the creatures.
This was a dangerous moment; the Hollow Man was CR 5 and the tree CR 3. Fortunately, they were willing to run!
That night, of course, the Hollow Man returned. But now the group was prepared: his target, a boy named Torb, stood by the entrance to the kiln, and the hillside was lined with fire and villagers armed with oil. The group surrounded it, and Rothar attempted to push the golem into the chimney but came up just short – and Kith couldn’t follow through. They then led him on a chase around the chimney toward Torb, soon trapping him and peppering him with enough oil that a torch and a few clean hits finished him off.
The best way to defeat the Hollow Man is to push him into the kiln, but that requires a really high roll on a bull rush attempt. They got one of those but failed on the second, and then they got worried enough not to try again. So it ended up that the barrage of oil from the villagers did a good chunk of the damage. Of course, without Kith’s diplomacy and the tactics from the whole group, the villagers never would have gotten organized enough to do that, so they were still the key to the victory. And Rothar was the one to finally put it to rest.
The battle wasn’t quite as close as I would have liked but, hey, they prepared well! And they had great luck with attack rolls (and rotten luck with crit confirmation rolls).
That night:
Dreams wrote:
Very soon you each find yourself in an especially vivid dream: a re-telling of the battle with the Hollow Man. But in this version the Hollow Man's eyes glow with the flames of Hell, and every gaze seems to burn you, and it seems much larger than life. Despite that, it seems to move like a jerky puppet, shadowy strings stretching to an enormous black tree above. You feel cold fear whenever the tree's shadow passes above you.
But Rothar's final charge sends this Hollow Man into the pit as easily as it did this evening, and as it falls the strings to the tree snap and you hear a howl of anger reverberate inside you. As the shadowy tree fades, you see above the cowled visage of the woman from your earlier dream, and you feel satisfaction fill you. "You have done well, younglings, but the task is not yet complete. She will find another servant: she has slept long, and her hunger is immense." Then the woman's deep black eyes turn to Rothar, and you feel the woman smile. It is difficult to tell whether she is smiling from pleasure or cruelty, however.
"You have done well, wild one. Your bite has fangs already, but it will have grow sharper."
She then turns to Kaine and Gareth. "You have shown great patience, and trust. My need for you wanes, so as a token of trust I return it to you."
With that she - and the dream - fade. The last thing you remember is a sound that starts out low and then begins to grow: a buzzing, like swarms upon swarms of angry insects.
But Rothar's final charge sends this Hollow Man into the pit as easily as it did this evening, and as it falls the strings to the tree snap and you hear a howl of anger reverberate inside you. As the shadowy tree fades, you see above the cowled visage of the woman from your earlier dream, and you feel satisfaction fill you. "You have done well, younglings, but the task is not yet complete. She will find another servant: she has slept long, and her hunger is immense." Then the woman's deep black eyes turn to Rothar, and you feel the woman smile. It is difficult to tell whether she is smiling from pleasure or cruelty, however.
"You have done well, wild one. Your bite has fangs already, but it will have grow sharper."
She then turns to Kaine and Gareth. "You have shown great patience, and trust. My need for you wanes, so as a token of trust I return it to you."
With that she - and the dream - fade. The last thing you remember is a sound that starts out low and then begins to grow: a buzzing, like swarms upon swarms of angry insects.
The next morning, Rothar awoke to find a host of miniature scythes embedded in his now-magical terbutje. And Kaine and Gareth finally found their curses (first laid during the prelude) gone! Also, Arkadi no longer sleeps peacefully, but thrashes about - which prompts several of the group to realize they saw him in the last moments of their dream!
Then the entire group went back to visit the Singing Tree. It was surrounded by a couple of crazed animals, and summoned another, but even with the help it proved much less dangerous than the Hollow Man himself – largely thanks to the fact that the group had already taken off two of its heads.
The tree begged for its life just before it died, promising to tell the story of the Witch-Pit and the fate of Gareth’s mother, and to slumber again for centuries, if they would spare it. But the group angrily refused (at least most of them) and destroyed the tree. As it died, the tree asked them to consider who had awoken it. Within its rotted stump they found a small trove of gold and magic treasures – strangely tuned to the group’s abilities.
Again, there should have been some random encounters along the way, but they would have taken a lot of time. So I just added some animals to the final encounter. As a side effect, this should have given Oskar something to do (his illusions were useless against constructs and plants!) – but the rest of the group kept killing them too fast.
I didn’t think I could really tempt this group with information. But I offered!
There are still several loose ends. Why does Brother Arkadi sleep? Who awoke the Singing Tree? What happened with the Witch-Pit and kiln? What did Mother Henna’s prophecies mean? Who is the crone in their dreams? Who cursed them, and who removed the curse?
I was really excited to play this adventure: I love the tone and the unconventional challenge, being faced with an enemy that far outmatches the PCs. It didn't work quite so well as I had hoped, I think mostly because of the difficulties of strategizing and discussion in PbF. The players got through it pretty well eventually, but thanks to the wrinkles I introduced there were some unintended red herrings and some frustration.
Still, I think the story and imagery are very strong, and those can come through quite well in a PbF environment. We'll be moving to the next adventure in the book soon!