Chipping Away

Having forced Radosek to flee, the group scoured the upper level of the tower until Pavo (née Doyle) spotted the wings of the ice sculpture in the courtyard below begin to move. With a sharp crack, the dragon took flight and circled around the tower, searching for a way in. Radosek decided that he had to lure the group out, so he set the statue to strike any besides himself who appeared at the teleporter on the first level, then went in search of the group. With luck, they had just begun to reposition to the aerie, and Kyezra spotted him as he appeared in the dining room's alcove.

Kyezra took a potshot and set her companion on him, but he had prepared his defenses, knowing he had to survive long enough to get back to the sculpture. With the alarm cry risen, the rest of the group circled back to the dining hall just in time to see him disappear through the teleporter again. Pavo heard the activation words and called them out to the rest of the group.

Pavo went through first, into the waiting arms of the dragon sculpture. Although fierce in appearance, the statue's strikes didn't accomplish much. Radosek took cover behind a stairwell door and used his icicle wand to hinder the group, but they quickly dispatched the sculpture. Zacarius teleported Yrrah behind Radosek, forcing Radosek to give up his position and attempt to flee, but Yrrah caught at his foot as Radosek passed, pulling him down onto the stairs.

Kyezra had circled around by this point, and with her, her cat and Yrrah pounding on the apprentice, Radosek was quickly slain.

The group returned to the summoning circle at the top of the tower and figured out how to close the portal to Taldor, ending their only means of returning home without a long overland trip. The group decided to heed the geas laid upon them by the Black Rider, though, and decided to press on to find the owner of the tower, in hopes that she could tell them where Baba Yaga's hut was. Nadya felt that Nazhena was likely in Whitethrone, capital of Irrisen, since that was the only place she'd likely leave her tower for after having taken on the search for the Black Rider; she also coerced the group into accepting her assistance and her boys in the journey to Whitethrone to keep her boys safe.

The group quickly returned to Nadya's house and left as fast as possible, before any more trouble could be brought to Waldsby.

Fighting with Everything

The group moved in to the next chamber, a room with a red carpet running up to another of the alcoves with magic and scrollwork on the floor. Zacarius attempted to activate the portal but failed, causing the two ice sculptures of nymphs to attack the group. Ash and Doyle each took a sculpture on, and though the fight was vicious, it was also ended quickly with slivers of ice scattered around the room.

They moved on through the northern exit and along the hallway beyond, finding a door set in the outside wall. Doyle heard the sound of a woman speaking on the other side; he stepped to the side and flung the door open for Ash, who strode in and struck the visage of Lady Argentea while she was combing her hair in front of a mirror. In response, she cowered back and told the party a tale of woe, of being held here and replaced by a doppelganger; Zacarius had spotted something weird about her ear when they first came in and figured out she was lying. Upon being informed of her duplicity, Ash cut her down and she returned to a doppelganger's natural form.

A bit more searching about brought them to the kitchen and a short fight against the cook, a spriggan with a knack for cookies. One of the cookies was actually a vehicle for a nasty curse which he had planned on giving to the Ulfen soldier in revenge for the slights she had paid him.

With Hestrig's key, the group took the last teleporter on the floor in a chain, arriving up in the aerie. The sylph took flight and ordered her ravens to attack. Though Ash and Zacarius took numerous scratches from the ravens (including Ash losing his eyesight to blood and swelling around his eyes), the sylph was rather quickly taken down and Kyezra dispersed the ravens.

Returning to the previous level with the new key gained from the sylph, the group once again tried the teleporter by the remains of the nymph sculptures. They went in as a group into Radosek's summoning chamber; he had been watching them through the mirrors and had summoned several ice elementals in preparation. When they entered his chamber, Radosek flew up to the middle of the chamber and set his elementals on them while his goat familiar, prepped with a chill touch spell, waited for the first person to cross beyond the elementals. Radosek opened combat by spraying the teleporter alcove with magical snowballs.

During the fight, Doyle got charged by the goat and was able to resist the spell, Kyezra's cat went down to bludgeons from the ice elementals, and several people were able to narrowly avoid spears of ice raised from the floor by Radosek's wand. Seeing the fight going against him, Radosek fled through the window, leaving his familiar to die. The group then systematically ransacked the chambers of Radosek and his teacher. As Doyle was looking through the last room, he spotted the ice dragon sculpture down in the courtyard start to move it's wings...

Atomies and a Giant

After recovering and healing from deftly catching all of those crossbow bolts, the group started poking around the ground floor, looking for a way up the tower. Shortly, they turn their attention to the alcove with a floor covered in decoration and magic; as Zacarius moved up to assist Doyle in checking the alcove, the magic became active and started coating him in ice. When Doyle also grabbed the crystal key, he was also covered. Though Ash tried to break Zacarius free, both Zacarius and Doyle were teleported up to the dining hall.

In the dining hall, a pair of atomies panicked at the appearance of Doyle and Zacarius and turned invisible, while the bard who had been gently strumming her look stood up in shock. Meirul spoke with Doyle about why they were in the tower, but things devolved to combat when Ash and Kyezra arrived. The atomies struck at Zacarius, wounding him fairly severely while Meirul started performing an inspiring song.

Doyle vanished and positioned himself for a strike at Meirul's back, only to barely dodge up on to the table as Kyezra's cat came charging in to his spot. Meirul took several hits in quick succession and surrendered; the atomies were far more loyal to the tower's witch and fought (for a very short time) to the death.

While this had been going on, Captain Hestrig Orlov, who had been studying in the library, overheard the combat and began preparing for a fight. Enlarged and protected, she charged in on the group just as they executed Meirul and were searching through her possessions. Hestrig's first strike nearly split Doyle in half, but in a stroke of luck he managed to deflect the blade with the plate he had been examining. The rest of the group struck Hestrig quickly and took her down before she could do much more damage.

The group proceeded to investigate the library and the garden room across the hall from it, waking and angering a mandragora who latched on to Ash's face. Though the mandragora fought like a weed enraged, the group was able to put it down without any lasting injury.

Shock and Awe

Having cleared the courtyard of defenders, the group entered the tower. They quickly moved through the rooms until they found a closed chamber in the back had sounds of snoring beyond the door. After a quick hushed discussion, they decided on the prudent course of action - Doyle slipped the door open and starting slitting throats. Ash decided to help, but his first victim woke before expiring and screamed, alerting the rest of the room. A chaotic melee followed.

After clearing the room and searching the bodies, Kyezra grabbed one of the blue-flaming torches. As she carried it out past the fountain, the water elemental took exception and stuck her torch down, then went after her. Though it had surprise on its side, it didn't last long as the group beat it down.

Deciding it worked well the last time, Doyle slipped open the next door to see one of the bunk beds had been pushed across the doorway and loaded with crates and obstacles. The tenants of the room had readied crossbows leveled at the door, and let fly with good effect. Doyle shut the door and stumbled out of the way.

Ash reopened the door and started smashing crates out of the way while Kyezra and Nadya moved to the other door to press the flank. With two fronts to defend, the guards fell quickly.

Crows and Walls

As the group journeyed towards the Pale Tower, they were accosted by a curious witchcrow, an obnoxious creature with a habit of questioning to the point of frustration any travelers she met. She also could see magic and the lure of the newly-reactivated keys were irresistible. In mid-conversation, she vanished and circled around to Zacarius. Being quick, she managed to steel the giant's beard before anyone could react, tearing off to the southeast.

Though Doyle guessed correctly how fast an average crow could travel, his hypnotic spell fell short of the witchcrow's position. Zacarius tried to cover closer to the group, thinking that the witchcrow had just not flown at full speed, to no effect. Doyle did get lucky and manage to spot some tree branches moving as if by a creature passing and they managed to track the witchcrow back to her nest.

In the ensuing assault, the witchcrow's tree was felled and the witchcrow herself slain. The group recovered the beard and a few useful trinkets she had secured in her nest's construction. The group returned to the dogsleds and returned to their trek.

Arriving at the head of the valley containing the Pale Tower, the group peered with trepidation at the expanse of open snow fields between the forest's edge and the tower wall. After some discussion, they decided to move off the trail and wait for nightfall to attempt an assault. At dusk, soldiers who had been searching for the Black Rider returned to the tower; guards stationed inside the wall opened the gate by causing the wall to dissolve at a marked arch, resealing it after the patrol had entered.

The party waited for full night, then snuck forward. With a bit of luck on their side, they arrived at the wall and tried to figure out how to get the door to open, working on ideas such as speaking to the wall, pressing on it, and throwing a rope to the top, until Zacarius offered to teleport people to the top of the wall, one at a time. Ash went up first and set a rope; once Doyle had arrived, Ash leapt from the wall directly on to one of the two guards on watch inside the wall, felling him with a mighty blow. Doyle quickly finished the other guard and Zacarius continued teleporting people to the top of the wall.

With no alarm raised, the group starting fanning out to search the courtyard's many small huts. As they did so, a large ice troll charged Zacarius. After a nasty little fight, the group put her down and doused her remains in fire.

Wonderful Waldsby

Yrrah assisted Nadya in recovering from the shock of learning of her child's death by assaulting her with survival needs, rather successfully. Nadya organized the travelers to build a shelter for the coming storm, then collapsed while the group from Taldor and the northern traders waited out the storm.

The people in the group learned a bit of each other and the new land they were in. Dinner was made and Nadya arose. During the meal, the travelling bard Mierul came across the camp and traded tales for a seat at the fire, though she purposefully kept back from it. After learning that the Taldoran group were supposedly members of Nadya's extended family and companions, she lost interest and soon left the shelter.

The next morning, the travelers dug out the caravan and continued on towards Waldsby, Nadya's home. During the trip, a conspiracy of ravens came across the caravan. Even though Nadya quickly covered the caravan in white canvas and got everyone underneath, the ravens spotted a wayward half-orc and immediately started trying to clear the covers. Through fire and a bit of Yrrah's skin they drove off the ravens.

The group arrived at Waldsby that evening and were settled in to Nadya's home. They met her twin sons and their caretaker, and learned of the house fey watching the home.

The next morning, Kyezra scouted the perimeter of the village while Yrrah, Ash and Doyle went to the town's tavern. With a bit of suspicion for the large mirror behind the bar of such a poor establishment, they each tried to gather what information they could on various subjects. Katarina gave Doyle some tea along with the suggestion to leave Irrisen which he gladly followed, leaving his companions troubled. Ash and Yrrah demanded answers from the recalcitrant Katarina. Her husband Emil discouraged them with a crossbow laid upon the bar top. This did not calm the situation.

Emil fired upon Yrrah. Ash destroyed the crossbow. Katarina covered the room in fog. Yrrah smacked Emil upside the head, hard. Shortly, the proprietors were subdued and Ash and Yrrah went chasing after Doyle, leaving Zacarius to guard them.

Doyle, not wanting to be stopped, did his best to convince the others that leaving was a good idea while never slowing his step. Ash and Kyezra attempted to stop him with little success, as he kept slipping away from their grasps. Eventually, he was knocked out and taken back to Nadya's home.

Nadya returned home after learning of the chaos the group had instigated and insisted upon hurrying the group away from town as soon as feasible. She got the dogsled ready and the group left to confront the white witch who ruled the region.

Hunting Trolls

Warily, the group moved forward to investigate the igloos. The first held nothing of interest, but Yrrah spotted a pair of sprites resting on shelves in the second. They sprayed him in color, but he resisted their sorcery and charged in. A yawning pit opened beneath his step yet he managed to shift his weight back before falling in. One sprite exited out of the chimney hole while the other stayed on the far side of the igloo and pelted Yrrah with arrows.

The one that flew out moved to the forest edge to fire on Yrrah from his flank; Ash caught her thus distracted and split her crosswise with his axe. The other was finished off shortly as well.

The group investigated the troll's cave; the troll had been watching the portal and circled back to catch the group unaware. He charged the easiest target, Zacarius' back. The doll decided this was an opportune moment to attack as well, striking at Zacarius' side and convincing the earlier-enchanted Kyezra that Zacarius had turned traitor.

The troll went down quickly to repeated blows from Ash, Doyle and Yrrah. Ash, also charmed by the doll, sought to take her safely from those threatening her, while Kyezra cornered the traitor Zacarius inside the troll cave. Ash and Yrrah tussled in the snow while the doll attempted to use the last of its limited magics on Yrrah (a ray of frost she never successfully cast). Zacarius sprayed Kyezra and her companion cat with color, stunning the beast but leaving Kyezra free to act. He then retreated in to cover of the boxes around the troll's cave, managing barely to keep Kyezra from pinning him in place with an arrow.

Eventually, Yrrah and Doyle managed to break the doll and its influence on Ash and Kyezra. A while after that, Kyezra's cat deigned to get off Zacarius' chest.

Searching the cave turned up a good amount of supplies which the group availed themselves of. The mirror eye of the doll was destroyed out of hand, while the soulgem was destroyed with care, releasing the poor girl's spirit.

Pressing on, the group broke in to the circle of ice surrounding the winter portal itself, arriving just in time to see a black rider come through the portal and crash from his mount, a giant spear of ice lodged in his back. The rider told a story of betrayal, claiming that Baba Yaga had been captured and imprisoned by her daughter, the ruler of Irrisen, Queen Elvanna. The Queen then created the winter portals as part of a plan to blanket all of Golarion in snow and ice. The black rider told that he had two keys (a giant's beard and plague mask), breadcrumbs that when activated and put within the wandering hut's cauldron, would retrace Baba Yaga's path, but both keys where inactive until life's blood fueled them. He then cut his own throat and activated the keys, transferring the mantle he wore and the geas he kept to the group (except Yrrah, would had already gone through the portal).

On the far side of the portal, as Yrrah was setting up a shelter against the oncoming snow storm, he spotted several torches waiving around madly in the darkness, indicating several people fighting a beast. When the rest of the group arrived, they investigated the torches, finding a caravan group fighting off a confused giant preying mantis that Ash recognized as a terror in his own neck of the woods. They quickly put the beast down and discovered that the leader of the caravan was none other than the mother of the girl trapped in the doll that the group had just destroyed, which Zacarius was kind enough to blurt out.

Dollhouse

Kyezra the snowcaster scouted out the clearing around the dollhouse first, encountering a creepy little girl that told her about how she didn't want the doll and didn't mean to call her names, but kept vanishing into the boulder field. Kyezra scouted out the front half of the clearing before returning to the group.

The rest of the group moved up and decided to skirt the boulder field as much as possible.  They were warned off by the creepy girl, then struck with visions of terror as the faces of the dead pushed up through the ice boulders to scream at them, but the members of the group are made of sterner stuff and no one turned tail. Knowing they had alerted anyone nearby, they struck through the boulder field, coming into sight of the now-empty hut on the hill.

Being reasonable and friendly fellows, they set it on fire.

As it was fairly late and no threats showed, they camped out around the burning remains of the hut. The night was uneventful except for a sudden cold spot near dawn, but the spell caused no great discomfort. At dawn, the group prepared for the day and moved on.

At the exit of the clearing, they came across words written in the snow. Doyle declared them safe despite the dire warning they declared and Ash moved over them, getting blasted with cold from the warding runes.

As they moved deeper into the valley, the wind picked up and the group was ambushed by the wounded white weasel they had seen the tracks of earlier. Though the weasel did manage to clamp on to Zacarias, the rest of the group ended its threat before it could do any great harm.

As the group struggled to make progress against the worsening storm, Ash, now in lead of the roped-together group, spotted Hammelstaub guiding Squald to attack the group. Hammelstaub took shelter high above the group where he could make good use of his snow sight while Squald charged in. Ash destroyed Squald with a single swing. Hammelstaub harried the group, making several strikes from beyond the limits of their sight before trying to sneak in to closer range. Though he did manage a pretty good strike against Kyezra, he was forced to retreat as the group circled back on him. Hammelstaub once again hit the group from range, then again tried to sneak in; this time, he was intercepted and killed.

The group set off once again, arriving at a small camp of igloos deep in the forest and hearing the roar of a troll...

Death, But No Weasel

As the group readied to trek back to town, it was decided that the necromancer was too much of a burden. They ceded decision to Lady Argentea to decide Rokhar's fate and the execution was held without ceremony or recourse.

The trip back to town was uneventful until they arrived at the ambush site, where Yrrah decided that the carriage was an unnecessary blockage on the road, so he set it on fire. This outraged Lady Argentea, as her carriage had still been in a repairable state. The rest of the trip back to town was colder than the weather would account for.

Once back in town, Lady Argentea arranged for a rider to go to the next town to arrange for a new carriage as well as a military escort. Doyle became a bit alarmed at this and encouraged the rest of the group to wrap up their business as soon as possible; however, Ash and Yrrah had just put in orders with the blacksmith for cold-iron daggers. Yrrah only insulted the blacksmith a little bit, so was only punched once.

While waiting for the daggers, Ash and Yrrah investigated the armory. Initially thinking to take most of the supplies there, they decided they didn't have much use for most of it anyways and left it to be used to defend the town when the fey invaded. Zacarias managed to pick up a couple healing potions and several alchemist fire vials from the local alchemist, promising to hunt trolls for the alchemist's vengeance.

That evening, the town celebrated the return of the Lady and cheered the heroes, and Yrrah celebrated by getting in a bar brawl. The daggers arrived by the blacksmith's daughter the next morning and the group set off to return to the Lodge. The zone of cold was much closer to town now; by the time the group reached the original ambush site, the burnt remains of Lady Argentea's carriage where hidden under a carpet of snow.

Travel in the snow was increasingly difficult. The group returned to the Lodge and made for the rope bridge across the ravine on the opposite side, which the rangers that used to be stationed here used to access the broken hills beyond. Doyle inched his way across the ravine first, almost disappearing from site in the snow fall as he reached the halfway point. The small figure of Izoze appeared on the far side of the bridge and breathed a cone of frost at Doyle, which he luckily managed to avoid the worst of. In reply, he cast color spray towards her and she did not fare so well. The spell stunned her for quite some time.

Ash next tried to come to the entertainer's aid, but slipped and fell to the icy river below. Zacarias tried to get out to help, but fell as well, barely grabbing on to the edge of the bridge's walkway before falling beyond reach. Yrrah inched out and assisted Zacarias back on to the bridge as Doyle crept forward and ended Izoze's life. Eventually, with the assistance of a rope, Ash climbed back up to the bridge and the party moved on.

Soon after, the group found tracks across the trail, a hunter following a large weasel. Following the tracks in to the woods, they discovered a trap with copious amounts of blood around it, then the tracks indicated the weasel was now hunting the hunter. Shortly after, they came across the hunter's frozen corpse, and his journal. Shaken by mention of the dollhouse in the woods and suspecting something similar to the guardian dolls found near Irrisen's borders, the group moved on.

Returning to the trail, the group came to a clearing in the wood where the snow had been scraped from the ground. The woodsman stepped forward to examine it and was attacked by a pair of Frost Firs, stunted relatives of treants from the far north. True to his profession, Ash quickly felled both trees.

After this, the group arrived at a ridge line mentioned in the journal as being where the hunter had set several bear traps. They quickly disarmed the traps and carried them along.

Into the Woods

Moving on through the woods, the group encountered a snowman with a sign.  Being highly suspicious, the snowcaster ranger shot it in the head.  Ash then walked up and poked it with a stick, at which point the sonic trap went off and the ice elementals attacked.  The elementals did their best, but completely failed to throw the woodsman onto the ice.

Once the ice elementals were dispatched, the rogue found the trapped sections of ice by virtue of falling in one.  After a bit more work (and changing him into a spare outfit and winter blanket), they determined a safe path across the stream and set a campfire.  They looted the dead farmer's body at this point as well.

The rogue being comfortably dry, the party moved on.  They made enough noise that the bandits at the lookout station on the path were able to set an ambush, though they didn't have much luck pulling it off.  A quick skirmish dropped all three, proving the group had become much more proficient at dealing with the challenges of the snowy environment.

They moved on up the ridge to arrive at the lodge being used by Rokhar and his bandits.  After carefully examining the place, the rogue was set to sneak in to the lodge by window while the rest of the group approached for parlay.  The rogue was successful at finding a way in and scouted out the trio of rooms on the north side.  The rest of the group approached the front door with the exception of the snowcaster, who kept her distance in the cover of the trees nearby.

Ash set off the crossbow trap at the porch, alerting the bandits within.  Rokhar's men immediately took up their bows and popped open the windows to take down the intruders, but were fairly ineffectual.  The woodsman burst the barred door open while the shaman crouched under the windows and did his best to take out those bandits who were foolish enough to lean out to shoot at them.

One bandit bolted towards Rokhar's room to warn him, but the rogue took this moment to pop out and throw a dagger his way, dropping the poor man before he could reach the stars.  The noise of combat did warn the sick bandits and Ten-Penny, though.  The sick bandits took up arms and prepared for combat, whereas Ten-Penny took her leave.

Ash, the shaman and the snowcaster moved in to the main room of the lodge and pressed the sickened bandits hard.  They finished the bandits pretty quickly, but Rokhar heard the combat under his balcony and slipped out of his room invisibly.  As the group moved up (the snowcaster had caught sight of the door to Rokhar's room opening and closing, but determined that someone had peaked out instead of slipping through), Rokhar lightly hopped down to where the sick bandits had fallen and cast hold person on the snowcaster, who was the only person still on the lower level.  As the group engaged the frost skeletons, five of the bandits rose as zombies at Rokhar's command.

The frost skeletons gravely wounded Ash, who decided that getting off the balcony was the better option, even with the shaman healing him as well he could.  The frost skeletons and zombies pressed hard as the group scattered.  The shaman was dropped to unconsciousness and both Ash and rogue lead their zombies on wild chases.  The rogue snuck back around to catch Rokhar unaware and dropped him below 5 hit points, when Rokhar surrendered and called off the remaining zombies, with Ash standing over him threateningly.

Searching the lodge turned up the imprisoned Lady Argentea and a caged sprite as well as quite a cache of treasures, and now the party limps  back to town with a chained necromancer, an imprisoned fey and a grateful noblewoman.

Start of the Reign of Winter

I have started a new campaign, using the Reign of Winter adventure path published by Paizo. By reading their forums beforehand, I found that the path had a reputation for being exceptionally brutal in the early levels, so I gave my players a 25-point buy for generating their characters.

* Kyezra, snowcaster elf, starting as a hunter, but taking ranger for the rest of her levels, focused on archery, snow leopard animal companion.
* Yrrah, giant-blooded half-orc, bloodrager pugilist. Yrrah was trained in the basics of magic by the snowcasters, but he couldn't control his temper.
* Ash Longstrider, Taldan human, ranger, hermit. Woodsman, favored weapon: axe, favored enemy: humans.
* Doyle the Entertainer a.k.a. Pavo, Taldan human, rogue. Wary of showing his face around the capital. Working towards Arcane Trickster.
* Zacarias Vishki, Varisian half-elf, ancestor shaman. Constantly nagged by his dead grandmother to be a better person, especially as applies to hygiene.
* Inuksuk, Eritaki human, earth kineticist. Worked metal as the village blacksmith before leaving to follow a vision given to him by the lights in front of the stars.

Starting was a little slow as I worked out why this disparate group happened to be in one little town on the southern Taldan border. I changed up the start a little bit to engage the group more, leaving out any direct description of snow and using odd events to foreshadow it until the bloody bodyguard was encountered. This portion of the adventure is probably the hardest to role play, as the player's guide for the adventure path is quite explicit in saying that you need to be prepared for winter, but not how to create a character that would be in southern Taldor yet know of how to survive deep snows.

Going with the high point buy for character generation proved to be a good idea.  In the first combat, the woodsman opened the carriage with the zombies inside while half the party was still coming up the road (they had split earlier to care for the bloodied bodyguard) and lost all but two hit points to the first zombie's swing. I ended up giving the woodsman cover against the second zombie, as it was still in the carriage and had to deal with the semi-closed door; I'm pretty sure this saved the woodsman's life.

They triggered the log trap at the chest, two of them getting hit grievously.  With the single healing spell already used, they retreated to town to rest and grab survival gear. They got lucky on wandering monster rolls, avoiding them entirely.

Once back in the snowy area, they encountered the tatzlwyrm; the only person wearing a robe was the bloodrager (he really thought he was a wizard with anger management issues), so the tatzlwyrm attacked him. Yrrah's armor under the robes blunted the tatzlwyrm's attacks.

Shortly after that fight, they came across the decorated trees and learned to hate fey with a passion. I *almost* lured the woodsman away into the forest following the fey's dancing lights just by keeping him frustrated, but he didn't quite go far enough.

They did encounter a wandering monster soon after, six stirges.  I decided the group could use a little comic relief after the frustration of the last fight, so I played the stirges as cold and clumsy, barely able to fly in the falling snows. Several laughs were had at the hapless stirges' expense and the session ended on a high note.