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.