#antics of alkenstar

[lexicals]

[ID: A greyscale sketch of a variant ysoki (ratfolk) character in a fencing stance, with one hand held up behind her and the other wielding a combination rapier and pistol. She's dressed in a loose shirt and waistcoat with a large bow at her neck, and half-length high-waisted trousers, and her expression is challenging and confident. She also has a long, fluffy tail, resembling a chinchilla more than a rat. End ID.]

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[Holds her up like the lion king] TUMBLEWEED!!!

[lexicals]

Had an alkenstar session on sunday where the gang went to the temple of brigh and I chose to fully lean into the bureaucracy of it all to the point where I was apparently unnerving my players with my rp of the clergy there lmao

[lexicals]

(IDs in alt text!)

Party lineup for my outlaws of alkenstar campaign!! In order we have Penny, Kernel, Tank, Kaz, and Ted

I ran the first session last night and had a really good time with it, it's a fun group and they're already offroading from the expected route which is great lol

[lexicals]

Interaction between two of my party members from last night that had me crying at my desk ft. Fresh baked mana wastes berry pie

[lexicals]

Alkenstar session 10 my party had more trouble with a swarm of wasps than with the end-of-chapter boss that they took out in literally 1 round. I need to start making this shit harder lmao

[lexicals]

Ran headshot the rot as a little interlude between OoA book 1 and book 2 and had a lot of fun with it despite some issues with the maps (paizo please your MAPS), whole thing ended with a really funny and satisfying moment where a player who was being grappled by a 1hp zombie chose to roll off the balcony she was on onto the 3hp boss below, knocking herself out but also killing both the boss and the zombie via fall damage. Perfect ttrpg type of moment

[lexicals]

I love to finish a session and think "wow I bullshitted like 90% of that. Awesome"

[lexicals]

Magus: [Prestidigitates his clothes clean]

Rogue: [Stands in front of him and holds her arms out]

Magus: ..... [Picks her up off the ground]

Rogue (screaming): NO FUCK OFF PUT ME DOWN!! I WAS ASKING YOU TO CLEAN ME!!!!!

[lexicals]

At a certain point as a gm you have to ask yourself "why do my players keep throwing themselves out of windows? Am I doing something to cause this behaviour?? Is it me??"

[lexicals]

Brought to tears by a bit of rp tonight where two of my party (magus & cleric, both human or at least human-appearing) were trying to investigate an apothecary for some information and ended up posing as students of the nearby college, one very successfully and the other.... not so successfully, cue a third party member (the halfling rogue) entering the shop to try to help and ending up with this interaction:

Shopkeeper: Oh hi! Can I help you out, or - are you guys all friends? :)

Rogue: [5 solid seconds of silence]

Rogue: THEY’RE.... MY.............. CHILDREN.

SK: ............huh?

Rogue: IN....... ALCHEMY! MY CHILDREN. IN ALCHEMY. IS THE NAME OF OUR STUDY GROUP! CHILDREN IN ALCHEMY.

SK: Oh, okay. That's.... nice?

Rogue (pointing to the cleric, who had not been very convincing): SHE NEEDS JUST, SO MUCH HELP. SO MUCH HELP.

Cleric: They don't even let me in the classes most of the time :(

[lexicals]

Alkenstar session 12 I made my combat encounters harder but it is STILL not enough my players are TOO STRONG

[lexicals]

Tonight's alkenstar session very funny - for some reason our magus seems to just have a talent for always being the one to have bad things happen to him (I am not doing this on purpose but it is Always him for some reason) which tonight meant being force fed beer by a malfunctioning robot, and then getting jumped by an ooze not 15 minutes later, defeating it, then walking ten feet to the right and getting jumped by Another ooze

[lexicals]

Ran my first session of alkenstar tonight & when I say it took maybe an hour for my party to start offroading it and most of that was introductions and setup lmao

[lexicals]

Alkenstar session 24..... I've known for a minute now that one of our players needed to take a step back from the campaign so I wrote their character a little off-ramp that we reached tonight, so the old man of the group has reunited with his adopted boy and is heading off to retirement, which is very bittersweet. Remains to be seen whether he'll stay in the city or leave to escape the marshals but I'm glad his player was happy with his ending, and he got a dramatic kill in his final combat to boot :)

[lexicals]

Finished alkenstar book 1 tonight in style by one of my players oneshotting the boss (again), another player healing him back conscious bc oh shit they were supposed to take him alive, the boss taking the opportunity to set everything on fire, the player who healed him immediately knocking him unconscious again but nonlethal this time (after coming very very close to dying herself), then everyone picking up the boss and hightailing it out of there, pausing for a minute to steal everything on him (including his shoes, but not his clothes), and then this-man-is-definitely-drunk-and-not-unconscious-ing it back to home base, where they interrogated him for about 5 minutes before deciding they actually felt sorry for him and offering him a job instead. Hell of a ride for this poor man lmao

[lexicals]

I never posted an update after sunday's alkenstar session! My players are currently learning the importance of using bottlenecks in their favour and not allowing enemies to bottleneck them instead. They have also burned a lot of spell slots etc barely halfway through this mini dungeon and I'm honestly a bit fearful for their lives vs the end of chapter boss coming up. But, it's their decision to try to rush through things in one in-game day! Hopefully it doesn't end with one of them perishing though.