Hollow’s Last Hope – PSHC Session 3

• Date: Wednesday, 2nd of April 2014
• Players: Koen, Marc, Patrizia, Steven
• Characters: Valeros, Lemi, Damiel, Harsk, Lirianne (NPC)

This is the third session report in my Pathfinder Society Home Campaign where we started off playing the Hollow’s Last Hope Free RPG day 2007 module by Paizo Publishing. And so the story of Hollow’s Last Hope continues…

Session 3 sees a new player entering the fray. Marc decided to play the elven alchemist Damiel Morgethai. Damiel, like the other characters, is also a recent graduate from the Pathfinder Society Academy.

He has been summoned to the Cathedral of Aroden, the location of the Pathfinder Society Lodge in Almas, Andoran. Venture Captain Brackett instructs him to locate fellow pathfinder Engrin Roose.

Roose’s correspondence talks about finding a tome about the dwarven god Torag and his travel to a dwarven monastery in Darkmoon Vale where he expects to make some great discoveries based on the tome. Three weeks ago the correspondence suddenly stopped so Damiel is being sent to the Darkmoon Vale area to locate Engrin Roose.

As Damiel is a part of the Sczarni faction, he also received a small note from Guaril Karela, the faction’s leader, to obtain the tome enabling the Sczarni to evaluate Roose’s discoveries. The above is just a way to get the new player into the story, and is not a part of the Hollow’s last hope module.

Damiel travelled from Almas to Olfden where he heard rumours about a plague in Falcon’s Hollow so he decided not to travel through that village, but directly to Droskar’s Crag. The rest of the party has travelled towards the river, away from Ulizmilla’s cottage and decides to set up camp and monitor Harsk’s condition. 

Harsk finally regains consciousness by evenfall and starts a careful inspection of his wounds. He instructs Lemi and Lirianne to grab some herbs from his pouch and helps them take care of his wounds. Meanwhile Valeros makes some food and puts up some tripwires just in case.

Damiel has built a small campfire and is wondering how he’ll be able to defend his little camp while he sleeps as he hears sounds coming from the underbrush. He takes a torch and moves towards the noise, just as 2 wolves walk into the light, close to the ground, growling menacing snarls.

Damiel grabs a vial of alchemist’s fire and hurls it towards the wolves hitting one, and splashing the other with fire. One of the wolves catches fire and runs off howling madly while the other attacks Damiel and bites him in the leg.

Damiel quickly chucks down a healing potion and moves behind his campfire keeping the flames between himself and the wolf.

At the other camp Lemi hears the mad howling of wolves and sees a light moving through the forest. She wakes up the rest of the party and sets off on her own towards where the light came from.

She discovers Damiel’s camp, runs towards the fire, picks up a burning log and waves it towards the wolf. Damiel then grabs his rapier and together they’re able to drive the wolf off.

Lemi then invites Damiel towards the other camp where she introduces him to the rest of the group. Lemi, Lirianne, and Valeros takes turns keeping watch until the morning.

Harsk seems to have recovered a little bit and after breakfast, the group heads for the monastery where Damiel also seems to be heading. The group then finds out Damiel is a fellow pathfinder.

As they near the monastery Lemi and Valeros move ahead of the group to take a closer look and find the monastery abandonned. The monastery’s courtyard smells of death and when they don’t find a wagon to transport Harsk a bit easier, they return to the rest of the group.

The party returns to the monastery and Harsk identifies the broken statues in front of the entrance and discovers their defaced pedestal. The group enters the courtyard keeping an close eye on all exits.

They discover the corpse near the well and find a broken wayfinder nearby. Assuming this is Engrin Roose, Damiel checks his possessions as Harsk and Lemi spot something at the bottom of the well. Lemi climbs down and retrieves a decaying backpack which carries a number of items amongst which is a small vial that is identified by Damiel as just blue-colored water.

Harsk identifies the bite marks on the corpse as coming from a rather large animal and also finds wolf and kobold tracks throughout the courtyard. The group decides to use the monastery’s tower as a base of operations but can’t seem to get the door open.

Lemi, assisted by Valeros, then tries to climb towards one of the tower windows on the outside and falls back down so they decide to use a grappling hook which makes the climb a bit more easy. Lemi squirms through the small window to find herself on the second floor of the tower.

The rickety floor is covered with dust, crates, and web. A lot of web. She then moves towards the stairs and throws a burning sunrod downstairs. The sunrod’s light reveals more crates and even more web.

She then turns back towards the window to tell the group she doesn’t want to go downstairs due to all the webbing. As the group looks up at her, they see some movement in the shadows behind her and yell a warning.

A panicking Lemi then tries to squirm through the window again as quickly as she can but her movements are not as controlled as before and she has trouble getting out. As she feels something touching her legs, she pushes herself off and dives head first out of the window.

Valeros tries to catch her but stumbles himself and both of them end up hitting the ground giving Lemi a nasty head wound.

The party then decides to try the monastery’s main entrance, finds the cloak room and decides to leave the horses behind in the room as it will be safer then outside with the roaming wolves. In the room across the hallway they find the mummified remains of a dwarf clutching a parchment.

Harsk first wants to pay his respects until he reads the parchment and finds out the dwarf was a worshipper of Droskar. The group then peak through the double doors and find a defaced shrine in honor of Torag. As they move into the room, suddenly everything goes black and Lemi and Harsk feel a slimy tentacle grabbing them around the throat.

Valeros and Lirianne find that not the complete room is filled with darkness but they are not able to detect what’s happening in the black square in the middle of the room. While Harsk struggles with the tentacle, Lemi slips into unconsciousness.

When the darkness suddenly disappears the group sees two creepy darkmantles attacking the party. Lirianne is able to shoot one from the sky, and Valeros cuts the other one down with his swords but not before Harsk also once again succumbs to his wounds. The group barricades the door and tends to the wounded as night falls over the monastery.

Memorable moments of roleplay

• While the group sits around the campfire wondering why on Golarion they took Valeros along, he replies with: “Well someone had to be the brains of the group”.
• Valeros during a discussion on tactics: “I’m not sure what the current fashion is in dwarven land, but …”
• As the group carefully approaches the door of the monastery’s tower, Valeros says: “I kick down the door”. When he sees the faces of his peers he goes: “Kidding. I’m kidding.”
• As the dungeon master describes the quite tiny windows in the monastery’s tower, Lemi’s player goes: “Are you calling me fat?”
• Damiel fumbling his potion identification and him being completely convinced the vial just contains some blue-colored water.
• Me (as dungeon master) rolling hit after hit followed by mainly maximum damage rolls. Luckily NPC Lirianne also benefitted from this.
• Harsk starting and ending the session unconscious. Those dwarves are not as hardy as they used to be it seems.

Hollow’s Last Hope Session Overview

• Hollow’s Last Hope Session 1
• Hollow’s Last Hope Session 2
• Hollow’s Last Hope Session 4

Hollow's Last Hope Review

You can read my review of Hollow's Last Hope here.