How to have a GMPC without making everyone hate you

Oh, man. The hated GMPC. IF you’ve been playing TTRPGs for more than a few years, you’ve probably run into one. They’re overpowered, they grab up too much of the plot, they take away the agency of the players. r/rpghorrorstorries probably features at least one a week. And yet…

They’re kind of a useful tool? As long as they’re not run by a complete tool, that is.

Personally, I like having a GMPC on the board, but you have treat them with a super light hand. Done right, they can enhance your game, lead to happier players, and give the GM something to do when the PCs are just hanging out.

What’s a GMPC, and do you need one?

TTRPG games assume you have a ton of NPCs rattling around, but a GMPC is slightly elevated. They’re an NPC who sticks with the party, and (ideally) statted and geared at the same level as the PCs. They’re basically a party member that the GM controls.

While I do like using them, not every game needs one! Times when I decided to add one:

The party is small, and we’re running an Adventure Path. APs are built for a balanced party of four, and I don’t want to spend a ton of time adjusting it.
The players know what they want to play, and there’s an obvious gap. As a GM, I tend to run long campaigns, so I’d much rather a player play off a sheet they’re happy with, rather than one they wrote up because “someone had to play the X.”
You have a player or two who sometimes can’t show up, because being an adult is complicated and hard. It can be useful to have a GMPC hanging out in the background who can step in. Sure, you could just run that player’s character, but then you get into the weird gray are of the PC knowing stuff the player doesn’t.

Times I wouldn’t add one…

You want to play, too! I mean, this isn’t the WORST reason to bring a GMPC, but it’s a dangerous road to go down. You know too much about the plot, and players might feel pressured to defer to you.
You want to use them to move the plot along! I mean, it’s a nice idea, but in practice, it can lead to players feeling like accessories to the plot. Leave the plot hooks at the bar, nursing an ale.
You have this awesome idea for a character concept and you’re the forever GM so just this once… Honey. No. Like, this might be fun for a one-off NPC, but a better long-term solution is to start working on getting one of your players to GM.
Your players don’t want you to add one. Even if their party make-up is whack, even if you know Tom is going to flake, even if it’s just three people… don’t add one.

GMPC Best Practices

So, your game could benefit from a GM and the players are on-board. How do you make sure this doesn’t get weird?

Don’t make them the center of the plot

The figures at the center of the plot should always be the PCs. Even pre-written adventures (and I run a ton of them) tend to put the PCs at the center of the action and hope that they’ll grab the hooks they should in order to stay there.

Yes, it’s tempting to make them the keeper of all the hooks, but that starts to take agency away from the players as they feel like they have no option but to say ‘yes’ to everything this one dude asks of them.

That said, you don’t have to have them be a cardboard cutout that sometimes swings a sword. You should absolutely…

Give them motivation

Sure, the players can just offer them a cut of the gold and leave it at that. Some may even prefer that. Personally, I like to give the GMPC a solid reason to stick around. Some options:

They believe in the cause. This is a good option if the PCs are doing something where money isn’t the best motivator (think overthrowing a corrupt regime). The trick is that they should view the PCs as the decision makers, deferring to them unless they’re needed as a tie-breaker.

They have their own thing going on. You can have a lot of fun with this one. They’re writing a cookbook and are on the hunt for novel ingredients. They were working on their autobiography and realized it was dull, so they want to spice it up with some adventure. Whatever deity they have encourages them to give in to wanderlust / go into hidden places / etc., which happens to mesh with what the PCs are doing.

They’re a professional adventurer. Many systems have some sort of ‘adventurer guild’, so why not let that work for you? They’re out there to get clout and experience, and hey, your group seems no worse than the other chaos monkeys back at the tavern, so why not buddy up?

Don’t go against the grain

Is the group a bunch of Paladins set out to Do Good? Don’t give them a CE troublemaker. Are they, in fact, the trouble in the world? Don’t give them a paladin. The GMPC is there as grease for the machine, not a monkey wrench.

Make them optional

When I have a GMPC, I make it very clear to the players that they are ALWAYS optional. The character won’t even be mad if they’re asked to stay behind! They’ll go do paperwork / some writing / shopping / whatever feeds into their motivation. If the players decide to permanently part ways with them, it’s with no hard feelings.

They’re also optional for me. Now, I’ve never had players do this, but I know there are players out there who would look at an ‘extra’ character and see them as expendable. If the GMPC dies, there’s no free rez, and the party can’t just run back to town and get a new one. I won’t block the party forever, but it may take several sessions for them to gain a new murder buddy.

Don’t go overboard on the build

How do you build a GMPC? If I’m the one maintaining the sheet, I tend to load up RPGBot and go with the most basic build for that class. That way, the character will be effective without outshining the players, who have spent WAY more time thinking about their sheets.

Another option is to give the sheet to the players and have them build it. Will it be more powerful? Sure. But in this case, this is what they wanted.

Another option, if you’re playing Pathfinder: Iconics! Another upside to this as that they come with backstories and personalities, which can save you time if you’re working on a tight schedule. Also, you can download the pre-built sheets from Paizo, which is great if you’re adding a GMPC at the last possible moment.

Final thoughts

At the end of the day, I want to emphasize this once again: A GMPC is a tool, and like any tool, it has its uses and misuses. It should be used to enhance a campaign, and removed as soon as it starts to hurt it.

Note: Hilariously awkward portraits rendered by Deep Dream Generator‘s Text 2 Dream service. Prompts provided by me.

Dhampir$: The Datoning

Author’s note: I’ve recently started a PF2 stream with a few friends on the Twitch channel Roll the Role. The premise: A crew of dhampirs with the same ‘sire’ have banded together to make coin, a name for themselves, and sort out their complicated past and future. This takes place after session session 4.

[ < Study Hall ] [ Lenore’s Shopping Spree > ]

After wishing her siblings good night, Anna returned to her room with no intention of sleeping. Instead, she opened her notebook and started to write. A journey to another world, filled with dangers but few explanations. Perhaps it was the fey? But it seemed almost too orderly for the wild folk. And the gifts they had found were of the Material world. A magical tattoo. A feast for the undead. Instructions on creating a revenant. Deadly weapons…

Almost as if someone wants them tested and armed.

She found herself flipping through journals, looking for signs of a benefactor. Enemies they had, but friends…

She stops on a page towards the front of one book. It contains one thing: A list, carefully copied from a previous journal, which itself had been copied from an even older journal. It contained only four items. She’d long ago lost track of how often she’d rewritten it, but even so, not a single item had been ticked off…

✱✱✱

She didn’t go home.

She did send word back, once she found an inn, that they were to close up the wings and admit no guests. She gave leave to the family’s butler to pull from a special fund of reserves to keep the estate standing, but otherwise, the manor would be kept silent and still, like a tomb.

She also sent the driver back, hiring a new one. After all, the man had family he wouldn’t want to leave for weeks on end. Also, he was older. She wanted someone hale, who could endure longer roads and harder climes, and… well. Just in case.

Food didn’t really satisfy Anna. Not completely.

So a Kellid, far from home, was hired. A woman, to keep tongues from wagging, but still able to move her luggage around with one arm and crack the skull of anyone who might give them trouble. She also didn’t ask questions, as long as the coin kept coming. In fact, she didn’t seem perturbed that Anna’s only instruction had been to vaguely wave east when asked where they were to go. “Give a shout when you want to stop.”

Anna stared out at the road from within her carriage. She didn’t have a plan. A plan, though, was useless if you didn’t know your goal… or what threatened you. And it was clear that the vultures were coming. Her cousin had been warned off easily enough, but could she keep everyone at bay? Her particular line of the family was small (just her, in fact), but several generations back, it branched out and spread through Golarion. Word would spread about a part of the estate being up for grabs, and it wouldn’t take long for a cousin with more guile and desperation to come calling.

She took out a journal and began to make a list of things that could secure the LeClerche estate in her name without question:

A marriage of good standing
A writ from the Emperor of Taldor
A legitimate birth

She stared at that last one, then scratched a deep line through it. That could take centuries. Betting on that sort of luck was for fools and halflings.

The shadows stirred across from her, and her fingers tightened on her pen, leaving her white knuckled. She forced her face into a placid mask and looked up. “Ah, good. I was hoping we might talk.”

She had been hoping for nothing of the sort. The spirit dredged up uncomfortable emotions in her. It had saved her, twice, possibly thrice. It had answered her call.

It killed her father.

The spirit’s form was of a woman, of an age that was neither young nor old. Her eyes were void-filled pits of shadow, and her skin so pale it was practically see through. Her clothes, dark, were tattered beyond recognition. Her hands were unnaturally bony and long, with ragged nails. The aura around the creature screamed malevolence, both pinning Anna to the spot and daring her to flee.

Anna, however, was a monster as well. She didn’t scare easily.

“Thank you,” she said, “For playing along back at the house. Cousin Preston would have been an enormous headache.”

The void studied her.

“And, of course, your help with the solicitor.” She’d already forgotten his name, again. It wasn’t important. He’d drawn a weapon on Anna, after all. He’d lost the right to a name. “And his body.”

The face floating across from her remained impassive. Time to press.

“Was that the first time you helped me?”

She braced herself, ready for her fears to be confirmed. The spirit spoke, its voice caught somewhere between a hiss and a gurgle. [Of course, mistress. We have helped before. The servant.]

Anna blinked. “Servant?”

[You were small. So small. Your mother, she had just passed. The woman, the servant, she was a lady-in-waiting, and followed the Lady of Graves. She said you were wrong. That you should be made right.]

Anna thought back. A story, told in whispers in the back hallways, caught only in bits and pieces, came to her. Yes, something had happened to her mother’s maid… “What did you do?”

[She went to fetch water. Deep wells hold many secrets.]

“Ah. Well. Thank you, for that. Good help and all that.” She barely noticed the words tumbling out of her. Her father had always called her a ‘creative’ child, when she talked about seeing things in the shadows. All this time, she had a guardian angel…

The spirit had not stopped talking. [–wanted to take you, kidnap you, ransom you. A fire took him. The parson who carried Daemon’s Touch meant no harm, but could not be allowed upstairs. His heart gave out in the parlor. A grey hound who took offense to you–]

A rather enthusiastic guardian angel. Anna held up a finger, and the spirit stopped. She had to ask.

“And my father?”

The spirit was silent for a heartbeat. [He did not mean you harm.]

“So, you didn’t kill him?”

Another silence that stretched. [Mistress, he was marked. I did not like it, but he bore the mark.]

The death was fresh in Anna’s heart. Her father was only a few weeks gone. With her research, she knew exactly what state his body would be in by this time. The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out… Technically larvae, but that doesn’t scan as well. She blinked back tears that she could not let herself cry here.

“What mark, praytell?”

[The one that draws me. The one they bear when the time has come.]

“And me. I suppose I’ll bear the mark?”

The spirit cocked its head to the side, dark caverns regarding her curiously. [Mistress, only the living can bear the mark.]

Interesting. “Did my mother bear it?”

[She might have, in time. But another took her away. Something rotten in her veins sapped her strength. I would have regretted that one, as well. Most, I have regretted.]

Something rotten in her veins. Anna ran a tongue over her cuspids, too sharp for comfort. They drove her, sometimes, to do things she didn’t wish to do. And a mark that appears… that sounded rather like something with some logic behind it, rather than mere bad luck. And this poor creature had been bound to it for who knew how long.

Rather than hate it, he felt a growing kinship with this wisp of a soul.

“Do you have a name, spirit?” It shook its head no. “Well, that won’t do. You’ll need one for the task ahead.” She added an item to the list: Revenge.

“We shall call you Lucia. Our enemies will need something to use in their laments.”

Reusing APs: Agents of Edgewatch

I’m a huge fan of Paizo’s Adventure Paths. I’ve run them, I’ve played in them, and I have a list of APs I want to play in that’s inadvisably long. Many players, however, prefer to run homebrew stuff, so they tend to ignore them, thinking there’s nothing for them to use there. What they may not know is that APs are often made of scenarios that you can yank out, file the serial numbers off of, and jam into your campaign.

So, what can you rip out of Agents of Edgewatch?

Important note: If you had any hopes at all of playing in AoE without being spoiled, turn away now. I'll be sharing many of the extremely significant scenarios in the AP.

Book One

Because the first book has the fewest ties to overarching plots, this is the easiest book to grab from. While every book has something to steal, this one has so many great things to snag. In fact, if you had to pick just one book to buy and rip apart, this is the one to grab.

Knight’s Marvelous Menagerie

In this scenario, the players deal with a petting zoo that’s lost its damn mind. The kicker is that the animals are being poisoned, but you could swap this out for so many things: A disease spreading through the area, some druid who’s gone off the rails, ghosts… whatever suits your plot. The end goal is to subdue as many creatures as you can without killing them and find a cure, which can easily take up a 4 hour session.

And, best part? It’s no longer necessary to kill off two adorable NPCs who are murdered off-screen. Knight and his ladylove vet can become regulars if your players are into that sort of thing.

Dragonfly Pagoda

A breakdown in worker compensation leads to a bunch of kobold contractors taking over a spa. This is a super interesting scenario where there’s so many ways players can approach it. Do they sneak past a dozen traps and try to subdue the kobold’s quietly? Do they take the side of the workers and find something more fair for all parties? Do they go in with swords swinging and leave a trail of bodies behind them?

Also, at the end of all of this, the PCs have a nice bath house! Trust me, they’ll find ways to use it when they feel like relaxing, or kicking off a little romance subplot.

House of the Planes

This is less useful as a scenario, and more useful as a super cool bar. Each room is themed around a plane. The NPCs detailed here are a ton of fun, and it would be a great place to toss players for grabbing hooks, clues, or just seeing what interested them the most.

It also introduces the owner of a local rag, which could be an interesting addition to your campaign. The newspaper plays a minor role in reporting the actions of the PCs throughout AoE, and if you have the creative juice for it, could be a fun way to give your players an spin on how the world at large might see their actions.

The Murder Hotel

As a True Crime fan, this scenario had me cackling. It’s clever, it’s dangerous, it’s creepy, and it’s based off of a real-life murder hotel. Trust me, anyone in your group who follows True Crime will have a moment where they say WAIT, I KNOW THIS ONE.

Because your PCs are the ones to figure out what’s going on once you get in there, it can be something you drop into any campaign where the players are in a reasonably big city with a fair number of people moving through it.

Book 2

Every Paizo AP includes a book that might as well be called “the one with the dungeon.” For Agents of Edgewatch, that’s book two, and it’s a super good dungeon. Expansive, including several levels, a broad variety of creatures, and it’s not so bespoke that it can’t be pretty much anywhere.

This also would be a book where I’d grab the book for the maps and print them, or just skip straight to getting the module on whatever VTT platform you use. Setting up the lighting for this dungeon was no joke.

Book 3

If you have a group with a face or a sneak who is tired of everything being a fight, I highly recommend grabbing the casino encounter from the second chapter of book three. It’s a heist, where the players have to infiltrate an upscale casino in order to get information and find (or rather, not find) a MacGuffin. Need to get some info to your players and they keep refusing to talk to that one bartender who knows the deal? Pass it via one of the many guests there. Need the players to get their hands on something vital? Put it in the footlocker where they’re supposed to find AoE’s MacGuffin.

There’s a huge lead-up to to the heist involving planning, so you can easily get several sessions out of this chapter. Players can choose their approach, getting jobs as staff or entrance via the rumor mill or sucking up to local celebs. It’s absolutely something where you can give them their options and then go catch up on your reading while they debate amongst themselves.

Book 4

Chapter 3 has a creepy carnival. Why do you need a creepy carnival? A better question is why haven’t you included one in your game yet?

Running around the carnival, the players are trying to find a madman who’s leaving behind Harrow cards, which adds another layer of creepy. The only thing I’d change, honestly, is the ending, which is extremely AoE specific. It’s easy to update, however: Swap out a trap for a fight, and you’re golden.

Book 5

The second chapter of book five includes an awesome map that’s made of ships. Like, six of them, each with three levels. There’s places to cross, to jump, and hell, I’m sure someone could break out their Drive lore and make some chaos.

The creatures included aren’t too spicy, so really, could work with most adventures. All you have to do is give them a reason to go mess about on ships, and a way to get there. Just be familiar with how you might split players to different levels if needed (Personally, I’d put all of the maps on one page if you’re using a VTT, but that’s just me).

Book 6

The cover of book six features a gnome who I was very distressed to learn was a major enemy. He looks awesome! He absolutely looks like someone I’d recruit to be in my party! Is he evil? SURE. He’s an angry architect. Who hasn’t been mad while working a desk job? And he’s redeemable. If you rescue anything from this book, make it this guy, who I’m sure the party could have a ton of fun getting to know and turning to the grey side.

Part of the cover of book six. It features a gnome with short purple hair, BIG EYES, thick glasses, and so many scrolls. — LOOK AT HIM. LOOK AT THAT FACE. LOOK AT THOSE FEET. AND WE STAN AN ARGYLE KING.

To be honest, I would use Blume as a quest giver who has a ton of money and might be a tiny bit unhinged. Hell, maybe he lets the PCs set up shop in an unused wing that’s full of ‘creative’ architectural details. Think Winchester House if it were mildly sentient.

What did I miss?

I’m sure I skipped over an encounter that could be fun to run for players (I ran only about 70% of the AP in a West Marches setting), so comment if there’s one that should be included! Next, I’ll be pulling apart an older AP: Council of Thieves!

Dhampir$: Study Hall (session three)

[ < Save the Princess ] [ The Datoning > ]

Anna’s head swam as she looked over the collected notes from La Bibliotecha de los Meurtos. She’d long known the library existed, of course, but she’d never realized what a treasure had been at hand. She’d sent off her request to gain access on a whim, and had only been interested in a ritual she’d heard rumors of…

She settled into her desk, even though she should have been seeking her bed instead. “I wonder if I could petition for full access. They seem to like deals? Perhaps if I had an interesting enough project…”

ɖơɛʂ ɱıʂɬཞɛʂʂ ῳıʂɧ ɬơ ცɛ ą Ɩıცཞąཞıąŋ?

She could feel her spirit floating behind her, bringing a damp chill to the air. It bothered Anna, once, but now, she only reaches for a shawl and pulls it around her.

“Mistress is much too busy to take up a profession. I’d prefer something looser, like a fellowship.” She frowns, flipping between a selection of papers: The journal written concerning Lenore’s mother and her journeys. Notes on dragons, especially white. The timeline of where her father had been over the years. Raveners. She tried to tease apart what was coincidence and what was connected.

A fellowship of adventurers, one who would bear a dhampir some years later. Of them, one ended up as a lich, one was reincarnated to be an undead bookshelf, one showed a fascination with death.

A white dragon was hounding them, hoping to use them to bring forth a ravener.

Their father spent much time in the north, in the cold, where two of their group hailed from, and where white dragons roam.

Death and snow and second chances. A motif that played on her mind like a concerto that grew ever stronger.

Anna sits back and rubs her temples. Once she had been given a choice. She might have had a comfortable life amid learning and books and research. But she took another path, started by the breaking neck of her family’s solicitor.

✱✱✱

Once the maid was calmed, the butler and the gardener were tasked with getting him down, then with fetching the dead man’s cohorts. It didn’t take them long to materialize on her doorstep, aided by a mage for hire. Anna put on a show that was made of grief and sympathy. How terrible this business was.

Of course, Anna agreed to cover up the unfortunate incident.

Of course, she would swear up and down it was an accident with a horse.

Of course, she wouldn’t dream of sharing that letter.

Suicide, in a client’s house. How dreadful. Had they known, they never would have sent him to help her family in their time of mourning.

Anna waited for them to bring up the papers encouraging her to give up the title, but it never came, confirming a suspicion she’d had since leaving the solicitor strung up in his bedroom. He’d worded things very specifically, as his kind were wont to do. Her father would have wished the family name to continue. Her parents would have liked the estate in more fecund hands. She couldn’t speak for her mother, but she could never imagine that her father would ever have ousted her from her home and made her a commoner.

The solicitor had been acting on his own. Well, not completely on his own, of course. He needed motivation. That motivation, she suspected, was from a certain distant cousin of hers who had more children than estates to hand out–

“What are your plans, now, milady?” The senior solicitor, an older half-elf woman, looked at her with sympathy that was almost sincere.

Anna pulled herself out of her reverie. She managed a thin, sad smile. “I was thinking of visiting some family.” The other woman smiled, and patted Anna’s hand.

“That would be good for your spirit.”

The air around Anna grew cold, but she managed to keep the smile where it was, unshaking. “That was just what I was thinking.”

Several days later, she found herself at the Howes estate. Unannounced, of course, but that had been her intention. She wanted her cousin caught off-guard. Besides, they were family, were they not? Etiquette dictated that they were closely enough related so that surprise visits were still acceptable.

He must have seen her approach, so by the time she was at the grand entrance, the whole clan had gathered to greet her. A host of what children he had left at home (five, by her count, including the youngest, who would have usurped her lands), his overly-fertile wife, and him… Preston Howe the Third. It was a temperate day, and yet the sweat clung to his brow. Anna alighted from her carriage and made a show of smoothing her mourning garbs.

It was the wife who broke rank first. Her smile was more practiced, but she came from Galt, one of the few noble families to escape the bloody revolution. She was good at wearing a mask. “Anna!” She swept Anna into an embrace and kissed each cheek. “Oh my dear, you poor thing. We were going to come by, but Edouin wasn’t feeling well.”

Anna accepted the embrace stiffly before she was ushered inside. The children, ranging in age from marriageable to still having milk teeth, kept their distance. Preston echoed his wife’s sentiments, but he lacked the social graces to give them heart. He was anxious. Good.

Of course she understood why they didn’t come to pay their respects.

Of course she would stay for dinner.

Of course she wouldn’t brave the road again tonight.

Of course, she would welcome a chance to visit. They were family.

Dinner was dimly lit, and Anna spent much of it trying to ignore the flicker of shadows in her peripheral vision. Even though the night was warm, the air grew cold, leading the children to finish their dinner quickly so they could retire to the sitting room, where a fire had been stoked.

Preston, finally, said something that wasn’t an echo of his wife’s platitudes. He cleared his throat. “Did your father’s solicitor talk to you?”

Anna looked up from her final course, barely touched. Food never sat well with her. She cocked her head to the side. “Oh… you haven’t heard, have you? It’s so sad.” She took up her wine and took a sip. “You’re family, so I suppose you should know the truth. His people will say it was an accident, but the truth is, he hung himself.” Her tone was neutral. “In the guest bedroom. A broken heart, it would seem.”

Preston turned several interesting shades of gray. His wife covered her reaction with her napkin, but didn’t manage to hide sideways glances at her husband.

“How dreadful,” Preston said, once he’d gathered his voice. “I never knew he was such a sensitive soul. Did he–” The man fiddled with his wine glass. “Were you able to talk business before he… passed?”

“He did mention something of import, but I’d only just gotten back. I suppose he put it off. Something about the title?”

She was giving her cousin a chance. Greed can do strange things to a person, but so can direct confrontation. Perhaps he would take the bait and allow this all to die gracefully. But of course he didn’t. Greed would always win. With halting words and darting eyes, he laid out his plan to Anna, pleading his case. He knew of her condition, so could she even pass the family title on? And she was an academic. Wouldn’t she be happier, getting a position at one of the many centers of learning in Golarion? Surely, she wouldn’t be content, throwing balls and hosting dinners and dealing with minor politics. And the money, why, he could offer more. And even a tithe for a certain amount of time. And the boy was so bright and…

“And technically, not a blood relative,” offered the wife. “The curse wouldn’t touch him.”

And there it was. Anna smiled coldly.

“So you subscribe to that theory. Interesting.”

A pair of frowns. Hope had been building while they spoke, since Anna didn’t appear to be arguing with them. These fools actually thought they had been making good points. Anna refilled her glass, the servants having taken the hint to vacate some time ago.

“The unpleasantness doesn’t just travel through the bloodline. Great Aunt Martina married in, and she was the one who fell to house drakes, of all things. Cousin Albert was technically adopted, but ended up beheaded in Galt when they mistook him for someone else. Also, of Mother and Father, only one was of the line, and, well…” She touched her dark clothing. “Both are gone well before their time.”

She leveled a look at Preston as she sipped her wine. “I’ve done my research. What did you think I was doing at the Academae? Reading poetry?” She set down her glass. “I was researching the curse. And do you know, I do think I learned a few things.”

Here was the gamble. She prayed to her mad god that he might show her mercy as the lie she’d prepared came smoothly from her lips.

“For example, that it might be controlled. That it might be wielded. That denying it only makes it strike out, but if one learns to live with it, why… it becomes a most effective tool.” She leaned forward. “You and yours can barely talk about it. I know you don’t have the will to bend it.”

The room was still. The others barely drew breath. Preston had his hand around a dinner knife, his knuckles white as he gripped it. A shadow behind him darkened, and the air grew cool.

“What did you do to Javert?”

“Who?”

The grip tightened. “The solicitor.“

“Oh. Was that his name?” She leaned in. “A better question: What do you think I’ll do to you and your brood if you cross me again?”

Her cousin almost struck out at her, but something stayed his hand. Perhaps he felt the presence at his back, not yet fully manifested. Perhaps he saw the tiny shake of his wife’s head, begging him to rethink his actions. It was more likely, however, that it was only cowardice. He let go of the knife and sat back, defeated. Anna dabbed at her lips.

“Thank you for the lovely dinner,” he said, her best manners back on display. “I do think I’ll head out, though. The night has never bothered me, after all, and I’ve so much to put in order.” And she excused herself and made her way to the carriage, which her driver had never unpacked.

Pathfinder 2e and West Marches

As my cohorts and I are wrapping up three years of running a West Marches game using Pathfinder 2e, and I thought I’d do a brain dump about what worked for us, and what didn’t. This isn’t a guide that’s set in stone: Different approaches will work for different groups, numbers of people, etc.

Also, I’m focusing on the Pathfinder 2e specific stuff here. I covered the general stuff in another post.

Respecs

This isn’t necessarily 2E specific, but it becomes necessary because Paizo is a never ending source of system updates. New stuff is coming out constantly, and players will always want to play with the new things. At first, we considered telling players they could only change some things, but then realized we would get overburdened with paperwork. So, we told players that they could basically toss the old sheet (except for stuff they bought and the character’s personal history) and make a new one.

Whenever a major book came out that offered updates that you can’t train into (like ancestries), we offered every character a respec point. A few times we offered a meta for the server, but for the most part, it was up to players to explain why they were suddenly a strix, if they chose to explain it at all. Once a player used up that point, they were stuck with that sheet until the next time we handed out points. Also, characters never had more than one respec point, so that cut down on what we had to keep track of.

Surprisingly, being extremely permissive didn’t lead to any huge headaches. Players rolled with the changes, and they often lead to interesting plots as the PCs coped with their new forms. It also got players re-engaged with characters they may have ignored for a while, since they now had interesting new mechanics to play with.

Rewards and gold

Items and runes are incredibly important in PF2e. The math assumes that you’ve been upgrading your stuff as you go, and you’re expected to have a few useful potions on hand. Rather than worrying about giving out items for games, we just gave players a flat amount of gold, based on level.

One thing we discovered at the leaders level was that the math wasn’t perfectly linear. There’s several jumps where gear becomes much more spendy. If the only way players can get gear is gold, then we needed some math to accommodate for that.

After much tweaking of numbers and checking data, we landed on the following equation: Each game got a set base reward, plus an additional amount that was the APL * another number. To put it in math terms:

gold = base + multiplier * APL

And the values we came up with:

APL 1-5: Base 15, multiplier 5 
APL 6-10: Base 75, multiplier 25 
APL 11-15: Base 250, multiplier 80 
APL 16-20: Base 1000, multiplier 500

So, if you were a group of level 16 players, your payout is 1000 + 500 * 16, so 9000 gold. Level 3? 15 + 5 * 3, so 30 gold. Yes, this can feel like a lot of money! However, we had to keep in mind that some players could only make one game every month, or every other month.

I do think these numbers are super solid (we never had to tweak them again). However, I’m also open to giving all players a ‘base salary’ and just giving a multiplier for the games attended. I do think there should be some reward for attending games, but keeping track of physical items can be difficult if you have more than one GM. After all, GMs vary a lot when it comes to how permissive they are.

So what happened with the players who were flush with cash? They often indulged in buying things that many cash-starved players will ignore: Consumables. I know in my regular games, players tend to wait until they find them in the wild to actually grab them, or they get an archetype that allows them to make them for free. But if you have a pile of gold in your aresenal, why not grab some Antler Arrows?

GM compensation

Because items (and therefore gold) are super important, we decided that when someone ran a game, they would get the same gold as the players. This became super important early on, when we had fewer GMs running games, so the active GMs couldn’t actually gear up their characters.

Some GMs always remembered to pay themselves, and some only went back and grabbed the cash when they were low. We didn’t really notice any imbalance, and it seemed to be a fairly transparent way to reward GMs that didn’t lead to feelings of favoritism.

Variant rules?

PF2e comes with some great optional rules to help it adapt to any table. As time wore on, we found some rules that helped to cut down on the paperwork. Others, we avoided, but I’m open to using in the future.

Free Archetype: Everyone always asks about this. Players love Free Archetypes. On this server, we didn’t use them. I’m not opposed to them, but it didn’t quite fit the feel we were going for. On my next server, I’ll probably allow a limited number of them. This comes down to GM style, since FA can lead to a bit of a power creep, but can also be useful for GMs who want a certain feel for their server. I’m definitely eyeing the ones that could work for a game based around a Pathfinder Lodge.

Automatic Bonus Progression: I’ll be honest: If I’m GMing, this is now a ride or die rule for me. We adopted it because PF2e assumes that players are geared up in a certain way, but if a player couldn’t make as many games, they wouldn’t have as much gold laying around. ABP makes that much less of a worry, since it gives the base runes and bonuses for free. Sure we still had people running around with stupid amounts of money, but more often than not, we saw the rich players buying things for others.

Let’s go shopping!

Early on, we established the home base as a town that was ‘big enough.’ For levels 1-4, players could buy any item up to level 4. After that, they were capped at their current level. This helped players who could play more from getting too powerful.

Also, to cut down on the amount of admin work, we allowed all items but unique to be purchased. If it was written by Paizo and it had a price tag, have fun.

One thing we missed until the game was almost over was that “Access” on an item didn’t make it inaccessible. It made the item one level hard to get. So, if it was a Common Pathfinder item, it became Rare. Oof. Lesson learned.

Balance?

One of our biggest concerns going into this was balance. How do we make sure that a party is balanced in such a way to deal with whatever encounter they’re sure to face. Should we only pick monsters once the players signed up? What do we do if we have a group that shifts around at the last minute? What if we don’t have enough healers or tanks?

Shockingly, balance wasn’t something we had to be overly concerned about. As long as players adjusted tactics and built flexible characters, things were fine. Sure, there were some hairy situations, but over god-knows how many games, parties ended the session with everyone on their feet.

Some things that became super important:

Healer’s gloves. OMG. Everyone had a pair of these. Some bought a spare and kept them in their bag.
Battle Medicine. This, too, was vital when it came to keeping everyone on their feet. Many players made sure to keep their Medicine skill up, as well.
Buy a damn ranged weapon. Sometimes, the solution is to keep your distance and kite the hell out of something.
Keep one of every ‘healing’ thing in your bag. Potion. Anti-plague. Antivenom.
Keep one of every mundane damage type on your person.

This is part of why having players with so much gold didn’t bother us: It let players build up an arsenal that let them take on pretty much anything, as long as it was at their level.

We also had NPC healers in town who could remove whatever ailed players, since it was never a given that PC healers would log in every day. No one wants to kill off Bob the Fighter because June the Cleric was backpacking in the Rockies for a week.

So, is PF2 good for West Marches games?

Personally, I say yes! It works exceptionally well when it comes to West Marches!

The rules have very few places where the GM must make a call, so it’s easy to keep every GM on the same page.
Encounter creation is fairly easy to do, while still offering a ton of options so things don’t get repetitive.
While the game is balanced on a dime in many ways, it’s more flexible than some might expect. You don’t need a perfectly balanced party to survive.
All the rules are online, and there’s inexpensive character builders to be had. This means players (and even GMs) can join without having to lay down serious cash.

West Marches: (Almost) three years later

Way back in the long before, before the world turned into a flaming dumpster fire, I was approached with the chance to do something I’d want to do for a long time: Start up a West Marches server. One thing that had been stopping me was the effort that goes into recruiting players and finding like-minded souls to help GM, but this one would be attached to a stream and existing community.

So… why not?

Two and a half years later we’re planning on winding it down when we hit the three year mark. The players will be hitting level 20 soon, so it feels like a natural time to close shop. I’ve done large scale games before, and one thing has been true with each one: Everything dies, but it’s on you to decide if it’s via entropy or explosions.

Now that we’re approaching the end, I thought I’d write about lessons learned, because boy, I learned a lot. The large games I’d run before had been mostly play-by-post (PBP) and been under the Amber system, which is a completely different animal. They’d also had a more stable player base (again, nature of the community)… and also didn’t happen during a freaking pandemic.

Leveling system

When we started, we gave out XP every month based on how much everyone had chatted. Seemed sensible: It encouraged people to talk to each other, and players who had been around longer would have more XP, which seemed a fair reward for joining earlier. When we added alts, we decided that players could choose how to allocate their XP between their three characters.

Over time, however, level spread became a huge issue. Games would either not make (not enough people with a character at that level available at that time) or people wouldn’t be able to play a character that month (GMs were already spread thin). Some of us found ourselves running double the usual number of games just so people had a chance to play that month. Some players wanted to rush to 20, but found they didn’t have enough fellow players hit the minimum for a game.

In the end, we switched to a banding system: Every character on the server got a set level of XP, leaving us with only three levels to plan for. This made planning so much easier. I could easily plan three encounters without having to worry about scaling. There were always enough PCs bumming around to make games happen.

To be honest, in the future, I probably wouldn’t worry about chat XP, but instead, set a steady rate for leveling (maybe a level every other month?). Or, maybe set milestones, so players can race towards the next level, or choose to screw around at their current level a bit.

Alts

We introduced alts because PF2 had so much stuff coming out (seriously, when we started, the only thing out was the Core Rulebook). Alts allowed people to try out these new classes and races. It also gave people a chance to shake things up, if they were bored of their current character.

There were upsides and downsides to alts, though. Some people loved having more characters, but some really only wanted one. It also meant more characters to remember and engage with, even as a player. I won’t say it was bad, but it’s also something I probably won’t bring into the next server I put together. Instead, I’d rather have a mechanic that allows players to explore different builds if they want, and let people retire characters more often.

Respecs

Respecs became very important on the server as more and more cool stuff came out. There was some initial discussion about how much we should allow, but I was wary of anything that forced the GMs to look over sheets. Admin work can be killer, and looking at sheets can be arduous. So, our only rule was that your history stayed the same, but everything else could change.

This is something I absolutely will be allowing in every server I run. Hell, I’ll probably allow it for every home game: If a big book comes out, feel free to change anything you want. We just have to figure out the meta for it (and the fey are always an excellent excuse).

Time Zones

I don’t know who decided that the earth should be round, but that was a terrible design decision.

I kid, but… it’s also kind of true? Having time zones that are far apart lead to resources being spread thin. It lead to clusters where it was hard to get cross-pollination of players. It lead to hurt feelings. And hey, maybe we were just a weird collection of variables where it didn’t work this time, but worked well for others. If so, awesome! But, in future servers… I’ll probably keep player slots to those who can work with a more limited number of time zones, rather than pushing for 24/7 gaming possibilities.

Establishing jobs and expectations early

Running a West Marches game is absolutely a team effort. Maybe some people make it work with just one leader/GM, but once you hit a critical mass of people, you need people to help you keep it going. At a minimum, you need more GMs (trust me, I was solo GMing the server for a bit, and it was rough). It also helps to have other rules experts who can help make tough calls, and people to help out with the admin work, like looking over sheets.

Balancing this can be tricky, because enthusiasm makes you feel like you can do literally anything. This was especially true during lockdown, because hell, what else were we doing with our lives?

But, even if you’re still not going anywhere [ waves in permanent remote worker ], enthusiasm will eventually wane and become a normal level of interest. If you don’t want to burn out, you have to be reasonable in what you commit to.

I do think we established some good division layer at the top, even if the roles were fuzzy. We each had our own areas of expertise, and big decisions came to a vote. Below that, though, things weren’t quite as clear. I absolutely didn’t want to put any pressure on GMs ever (I was grateful for every game they ran, since that took the pressure off). However, we probably could have put some guidelines out there, like expecting GMs to run a game a month, or something like that, or what time zones people would cover.

Scheduling

We went through a few phases of how we do scheduling, and I’m still convinced that the right solution depends on how many people you’re working with.

When the server was smaller, polling worked great. Toss up some times, have people react if they’re interested. When I started having to make several games out of one poll to get things to work out, we switched to a sign-up sheet. That worked great as well, though sometimes we had to prod to get things to fill up.

Which solution would I use in the future? Eh, hard to say? Calendars are hard. Humanity has been trying to figure them out for 5000 years and still there’s start-ups out there that want to “fix” your schedule.

Will I do it again?

I mean, if you missed the context clues of me saying “next time” over and over, of course I’ll do it again. I loved running a large server and having a chance to see all sorts of groups of people play together. While I also love a dedicated table, it is fun to watch how characters interact in different groups. It’s neat to watch them build relationships outside of their ‘core’ group. And, well, I don’t have enough hours in the day to game with all the people I’d want to game with. And, as a GM, it’s nice to have a simple encounter idea that I can toss out there and see what a round group does with it.

It won’t be attached to a show (while that was fun, it’d be nice to completely control the meta), and it likely will be a smaller crowd (though still big enough so that not everyone can sit at one table at one time). But I’ll absolutely throw my hat into the ring again. I’m just going to need a chance to replenish my energy reserves first.

Adventure Path maps, VTT, and minimizing heartburn

I love Paizo APs. Like, adore them. I think they’re one of the best parts of diving into the Paizo culture: Ready-made adventures with tons of maps, NPCs, creatures, and twists that still give players a huge amount of freedom to do what they want.

The maps, though. Oh lord.

The older APs weren’t built with VTT in mind, so the maps tend to be quirky: Great for print, bad for VTT. Damn near impossible to rip out of a PDF. A grid that doesn’t align to a grid. While the later PF1 APs improved a bit, the earlier ones can be a headache. However, the APs are absolutely worth running, so here’s how I reduce (not obliterate, I’m not a VTT miracle worker) the pain.

Spoiler warning

In order to make a post about old Paizo maps, I have to use old Paizo maps. I’m going to be using the maps from the Council of Thieves AP, since it has some fairly complex maps in it, and it’s what I have on hand. So, mild spoiler warnings for an AP that’s been out for over a decade.

Extract the maps

I’ve tried so many tools for extraction, and if you have one you like better, you do you. The one I tend to come back to, though, is TokenTool from RPG Tools. It’s made for tokens, but you can also use it to get maps out. I’ve tried a bunch of tools, but this is the only one that seems to get the images out without too much struggle.

Step 1: Clear your screen

For some reason, we start with a gear token and a lady doing yoga. Let’s get rid of them (or whatever you were working on previously).

On the right-hand menu, make sure you have “Overlay Options” expanded. Click “Send to back” and deselect “Clip Portrait.”

Next, expand “Portrait Options” and click “Remove Portrait Image.” Bye, yoga lady.

Step 2: Get the maps!

Now, we want to open the PDF you’ll be grabbing maps from. I’ll be honest: This part can be a wee bit clunky, so I recommend putting on a podcast and grabbing all of your maps in one go.

When you open a PDF in TokenTool (under File, or using Ctrl+O), the PDF will appear on in a new window, with two panes: The left-hand pane is the page of the PFD, and the right hand contains all of the images on that page. To get to a new page, scroll over the left-hand pane. No, there’s no jump option (that I could find), so some patience is a virtue here.

Once you get to the page with your map, click on the right map to insert it into the main TokenTool window. Now, this is important: When you export the image, the image will be cropped to what you see in the preview window. So make sure your whole map is showing by scrolling in or out!

Now, save. And maybe go get the rest of your maps while you’re there, since the PDF window is probably still open.

Upscale!

First, let’s be clear on what “upscaling” is. It’s not just “making the image bigger.” It’s doing so with some intelligence (specifically, Machine Learning). A great recent-ish example of this is the fan-mod for FF7 original, where someone upscaled the textures.

There are many, many tools out there for upscaling. The one I’ll be using is from Icons8, mostly because I can pay $0.20 per image rather than paying a monthly fee. Given that most APs have only a handful of maps, it’s well worth the investment for me.

All you have to do is upload your map, and Icons8 will do the magic! I do recommend upscaling to 4x, since 2x is still a bit too small for most VTTs, if your players like to be zoomed way the heck in.

Some notes: It’s technology, not magic, so it’s not perfect. The end result for most maps tends to look like someone painted the map with oil paints, which I kind of dig. If it really, really bugs you that the chairs are wonky, at least you have a better image to work from.

That darn grid

Some people aren’t going to like this tip, so I’ll go ahead and put it first: Get the grid somewhat lined up… then turn it off.

For most VTTs, this doesn’t mess with measurements, but you will have to warn your players to stay ON THE GRID. For the vast majority of players, this isn’t a huge problem. Yes, there are all sorts of finicky tricks about how to get the grid to line up perfectly, but this post is about decreasing heartburn, not making new and interesting heartburn issues.

If most of the grid fits, but one or two rooms are off, cut them out, and place them on the map layer, one by one. Nudge them around until they line up well enough. If you’re using dynamic lighting of some kind, chances are your players will never notice the seams. If they do, give them a Hero Point or something to make up for shattering the illusion that they were really in a dungeon.

Note that I recommend doing this on the VTT itself. I’ve found it easier than stitching together the whole thing in Gimp and hoping I got it right, only to find out I was off by a few pixels.

Anyway, that’s my process for extracting old images and making them less eye-bleedy for VTTs. Hope it encourages some of you to check out some older APs!

Dhampir$: Save the Princess (session two)

[ < Family Reunion ] [ Study Hall > ]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YsER2EuONQ

Anna settled into her room at the Barrel & Bullet saloon. She’d learned to travel light over the years, much to her displeasure. When she was young, and still known as a woman of station, even a visit to nearby notables would require several trunks, stuffed to the gills with gowns for every conceivable event: feather-light dresses for brunch, simple yet colorful gowns for afternoon tea, dark, figure-hugging silks for formal dinners, lacy constructions for balls. Father would often secure a second carriage to ensure they could travel in comfort, without hat boxes at their feet and chests rattling above them.

Now, somehow, she managed to fit most of her worldly goods into one extremely well-worn case. She sighed and motioned for where Lucia should settle it. The spirit did so, then settled in a dark shadow to watch over her mistress. Anna opened the case and pulled out what she needed: Her writing kit and her dressing gown.

Downstairs, someone playing the part of a bard led a boisterous song in the round, encouraging patrons to join in, creating a hellish cacophony. It was a mélange of puns and overwrought metaphors, mostly about body parts and what one might do with them behind the cow shed. Anna sighed. “I really should teach you to sing, Lucia…”

The spirit’s voice rasped from the darkness. (In a creepy font) Shall I silence them another way, Mistress?

“No, no.” And Anna took out her journal. “After all, we might be forced to come this way again…” And she started to write.

✱✱✱

15 Gozran 4720 ~ Bullet and Barrel Saloon ~ North of Alkenstar

The visions did not lead us astray. We found our… brother? I’m still not certain what to call Lobo, but brother seems fairest. And, as the visions implied, we found Lenore as well, in good spirits as always, despite her predicament.

Where to begin…

I suppose, chronologically, Lobo makes the most sense. The poor thing… An orc, but unlike the rest of us, he wasn’t born with fangs. I’ll need to get the rest of his story out of him later, but from what I can gather, Lobo’s tribe attacked one of father’s estates as a youngling. Lobo ‘survived’, though some might debate that. Things became rather fuzzy in his retelling after that. He’s a man of spare words, which I suppose isn’t surprising, given that the rest of his rearing was left to literal wolves.

He came upon us. He’d been tracking us, which was convenient, though he did try to attack poor Chadwick. Fortunately, we discouraged him, though he was obviously distressed by us. In spite of this, we forged an alliance. The same dragon that took Lenore also killed his pack–

Oh. Drat. I just realized. He was speaking of wolves, wasn’t he? I had assumed he meant his Orc brethren… Ah, well, I’ll clear that up in the morning.

At any rate, we found Lenore on the top of a mountain, with dragons performing a ritual of some kind. Why the mountain was necessary, I’ll never know, but I need to shop for something that allows me to fly for more than ten minutes. Or at least teleport. My shoes are ruined.

We freed Lenore (of course), and discerned the ritual. It was for making a ravener… Fascinating. Terrifying, but more importantly… interesting.

✱✱✱

Years before…

Anna opened her eyes. She was on the floor, staring up at the ornate tin plate ceiling of her bedroom. Her head ached, as if she had been drinking. There had been something, something terrible—

She turned her head, and found her gaze locked with the dead solicitors. She pushed herself up into a sitting position, swallowing a scream. She looked around the room, well-lit in the midday sun. Besides the two of them, it was empty.

The wraith.

She forced herself to her feet. Her heart, normally sluggish, hammered in her chest. She stared hard at every shadow of the room, waiting for a dark form to step out of it. There were stories about a dark figure, a portent of death for their line. A woman, shrouded in night. She had always thought it an allegory, or some flight of fancy inserted later by those who survived the dead. It was a person they could blame for their extraordinarily bad luck when it came to clinging to life.

But she had seen it. And it had… it had left her alive.

Her eyes fell to the dead solicitor. He had been about to attack her. At his side was a pistol. She bent to retrieve it. Her father had taught her a few things about firearms, having been robbed of a son he might share with, so she knew how to check it. It was, indeed, loaded. He’d fully intended to kill her. And yet…

She shook her head. She didn’t have the time to think over the implications. Anna had a much more pressing issue at hand. Someone was trying to take her birthright… and she had a dead lawyer in her bedroom.

Drat. She really could have used Maizon for this.

She tapped her foot as a plan formed in her head. Normally, the bodies she dealt with were already dead, and their families were well aware of this fact. All they had to do was return the body to the grave in a timely manner. This one required a story, something that would give her plausible deniability. Even if it wasn’t her who broke his neck, she knew it wouldn’t take long for an investigation to turn up certain unfortunate truths that made her the most likely culprit.

She knelt, examining him. His neck… Perhaps a fall down some stairs? But then she might be accused of pushing him. No, she needed the blame fully off of her. She traced the bruising where the creature had grabbed him. Very much like an injury she’d seen a few times at the Acadamae…

She would have to work quickly. No one had come when she screamed, so the servants were occupied (she had her guesses). That wouldn’t last long, however. Eventually, the chambermaid would come asking about tea, or the butler would announce dinner. For a staff that was supposed to be invisible, they had a terrible habit of appearing at the worst possible moment.

She rifled through her bag and found a mossy green bottle. It held only a gulp of liquid, but that was all she needed. She uncapped it and drank the foul liquid in one gulp. She gasped, then swayed on her feet as she felt something inside her change. Though she couldn’t see the change, she could feel her muscles burn and harden as a newfound strength coursed through her body. She always kept one on hand, but it had been Maizon or Jace who had taken it when they needed heavy lifting done.

Anna forced herself to move. How long did the potion last? A few minutes, at best. Sometimes less. She grabbed the solicitor’s rapidly cooling body around his chest and lifted. The bulk was awkward, but his weight felt like little more than an overburdened backpack. She started to drag him…

In his room, she found a curtain tie that would do the job. Up through the rabbit hole, round the big tree; down through the rabbit hole and off goes he… She secured the rope around the man’s broken neck, threw the other end over one of the sturdier ceiling fixtures, and pulled…

He was only halfway up when she felt the potion start to fade. She gripped tighter, but the rope started to slip through her fingers, burning her skin. Distantly, she heard the sounds of someone moving below. If his body fell, it would be heard, and they would come, and they would find her in the middle of a cover-up, which was even worse, and–

A dark shadow reached from behind her and grabbed the rope. The air in the room grew cold, and it felt as if a window behind her had been opened during a blizzard. She knew the day was warm, though. She knew what was behind her. But she also knew what was at risk. Anna forced herself to speak, keeping her voice level.

“A bit higher, please.”

The hand yanked down, hard, undeath giving it a frightful amount of strength. Anna bent to secure the other end of the rope to the leg of a bureau, not wanting to waste the momentary truce. When she looked up again, she was alone once more, save for the body swinging from side to side above her.

Fascinating. Terrifying, but more importantly… interesting.

The rest of the ruse was easy to set up. She gently laid down a chair, then found some stationary from a set long-forgotten. She’d learned to do a half-decent forgery while at school (money only went so far, sometimes), so crafting a letter from a lover breaking it off only took a few minutes. She left it out, then returned to her room. The stage was set.

Time passed. The chambermaid finally materialized and asked Anna where she would prefer to take her tea. Anna didn’t even look up from her book. “In the blue room. And do ask our guest if he would join me. I have some questions about the estate.”

The young woman dipped into a passable curtsy, then padded off down the hall. A moment later, a blood curdling scream broke the crypt-like silence of the LeClerche estate.

✱✱✱

Anna startled as an icy hand landed on her shoulder. Her mind had drifted… Perhaps she had been asleep? Her pen had dropped from her hand, leaving an inky blot on the desk. It wasn’t the worst stain the table had suffered.

She felt Lucia’s presence behind her as it leaned in and spoke. (In a creepy font) Brother Cyt is done in the bath, mistress. Anna looked down at her journal. Not complete, but close enough. She set it aside to fully dry. A bath was just what she needed.

Dhampir$: Family Reunion (session one)

[ < A Prologue ] [ Dhampir$: Save the Princess (session two) > ]

Leaving Alkenstar before dawn, Anna had hoped to be enjoying the clean air of the countryside by evening. Instead, she found herself anointing her room with scented oils to keep the acrid smoke of the city at bay. They’d made good progress, but the smokestacks were hard to outpace.

She sat at the tiny writing desk and took out her journal. It was a habit from childhood, drilled into her by an endless stream of nannies, who saw it as a calm and harmless pastime for a girl who was too curious by half. Perhaps if she had been interested in the arts or other mundane affairs, they would have been more comfortable with her explorations, but after the frog incident…

Well, they preferred a medium that was more easily put out of mind.

Anna dipped her pen and began to write…

✱✱✱

12 Gozran 4720 ~ Rusty Bedfellow Inn ~ North of Alkenstar

Lenore has been taken. I expected one of us would one day be carried away, but I thought it would be a crowd with torches and pitchforks, or perhaps a duke in desperate need of a scapegoat. I didn’t expect a dragon. And a dragon with portal magic.

Even stranger, her abduction came with a vision.

I do suppose I’m getting ahead of myself. We had been asked to take care of a small matter of a cult in the outskirts of Alkenstar. A rather dull matter, but cults have a nasty habit of creating larger issues for us down the line (either adoration, admonition, or in the worst cases, both), so better to be nipped in the bud. Even better if we’ll be paid for it.

It was just as we were putting ourselves to rights that the portal opened, and poor Lenore was snatched away. We had no time to react, though I’ve spent more time than I like second guessing our actions. Perhaps if we had a counterspell ready, or one of us had moved faster…

Ah, well. I’m sure Lenore is fine. She’s unparalleled as a warrior, and resourceful as well. She wouldn’t have made it this far if she weren’t able to take care of herself. If anything, we siblings persevere…

But speaking of siblings…

I’ve never been one who’s prone to visions. Poor aunt Martina was plagued by them, and I heard my mother would have episodes, but they never struck me. I had assumed that they skipped over me… until now. I would have been ready to disregard it as an overtired mind, but Cyt and Samael experienced them as well. A cold plain, a love for one’s kin, a thirst for blood, a need for revenge…

I do believe we have family in the North, which is where we believe Lenore was taken. It can’t be a coincidence. I don’t believe in coincidences.

I should write of the unfortunate events of the bar, but I find myself growing tired, and I’m certain we’ll rise early. Suffice it to say, it is likely a good thing that we chose to leave Alkenstar for a time.

✱✱✱

Anna sat back from the journal, yawning. From the darkness came a tutting. ภ๏Շ שєгץ ɭค๔ץɭเкє(in a creepy font) Not very ladylike

One of the shadows in the corner of the room had solidified. Anna hadn’t called her eidolon forth, but that rarely stopped her companion from showing up. Anna gave her a rueful look. “My accommodations are rubbing off on me. ‘Rusty Bedfellow,’ indeed. I’m shocked they didn’t rent by the hour. You’ll keep watch, my pet?”

Silence was the only response, but that was better than the usual morose retort. Before long, Anna was tucked into a bed that would be better used as kindling under whoever managed the cleaning staff, and was asleep.

✱✱✱

It was not a peaceful sleep.

She was back in her room, in the sickly light of the LeClerche manor. She stood at her window, watching as Maizon made his way to the main road, and hopefully to a caravan that would take him to the Mwangi Expanse. Jace was gone. Her father was gone. Most of the staff had left, save for their aging butler and a plain-faced chambermaid who she suspected he was tupping. Even them, they were planning on moving on as soon as Anna signed the papers…

She looked down at them. Their solicitor had drawn them up, likely while her father’s body was still warm. He’d laid out the particulars for her: She wasn’t quite alive, and her kind wasn’t known for being fecund. Therefore, wasn’t it in the best interests that she quit her claim on the LeClerche estate? She would be given a settlement, and a distant cousin (from a branch untouched by tragedy) would absorb their titles and estates. The name would be given to one of his mewling brats, and really, isn’t that what her mother and father would have wanted? To have the name continue?

She looked up. The fog had swallowed Maizon. The house was silent. She had never felt so alone, and the dread of it threatened to swallow her whole. Her kind could live as long as elves, and just two decades in, Anna had lost everyone—

A knock sounded. “Miss?”

The solicitor. Anna swallowed her growing despair and turned. “Enter.”

The door opened. The man her father had retained was in his middling years, youth being eaten away by fine lines and touches of gray. He wore a vest that Anna was certain he thought was the height of fashion, but that Absolom had given up on three seasons ago. He gave her a sad-eyed smile, acting out the part of the sympathetic compatriot.

“How are you doing today, Miss Anna?”

“As well as can be expected.” She realized her eyes were too dry, but it couldn’t be helped. Another side-effect of her ‘condition’: She rarely cried. “I hope the day finds you well.”

“Much the same. Your father and I hunted often. I was so stunned when I heard his horse had thrown him. He was an excellent equestrian.”

“If his death surprised you, then you couldn’t have studied our history too closely. Horses were a popular way to go. I always told Daddy he should avoid them.”

The solicitor cleared his throat nervously. “Well, he was a man who little liked being told what to do.” Oh, he’d heard. “Have you had a chance to read over the papers?”

“I have. Do you know, I think Daddy liked riding because he thought he’d sorted the curse. He did all sorts of things he shouldn’t have…” Anna picked up the papers and started to leaf through them. “Ate fish with bones. Boated. Fenced. He even liked to toy around with firearms, though he was a terrible shot.”

“Er, yes, quite the character. Do you have any questions about the settlement?”

Her gaze landed on the settlement. A heady amount for a peasant. A paltry amount for one who might live as long as an elf. “I don’t know if I would have called him a ‘character.’ But he really thought he had beaten it. Even if he hadn’t, he was still a credit to the name, don’t you think?”

“Yes, just as your cousin shall be. I’ve heard he’s quite the bright lad. He’ll marry well, I have no doubts. It’s what your father would have wanted.”

Anna smiled, keeping her lips pressed together. “My father is dead. What he wanted doesn’t matter.” And she tossed the papers into the fire.

The solicitor cried out as the flames consumed them. He reached, but a word of magic made the flames hungry, consuming the parchment in seconds. He turned on Anna, hatred in his eyes. “You prissy little bitch…” He stepped towards her, one hand going for his pocket. Anna, too late, realized how alone she was, how easy it would be to pay off the servants. He pulled out a gun. “You know, maybe this is easier. The despondent daughter eats a bullet and saves the Howes some gold–“

A hand wrapped around the man’s neck, inky black and trailing a dark smoke. In an instant, the solicitor was thrown across the room, cracking the plaster and wrecking the wainscotting. His head lolled at an unnatural angle and his eyes stared blankly. Anna found herself staring at a dark form, a woman, but her face was gaunt and her eyes shone with a terrible light. (In a creepy font) Misstress… it hissed in a voice from beyond the grave, and it reached for her. Anna heard someone screaming, and it took a moment to realize it was her own voice. The hand touched her cheek, and all went black.

[ < A Prologue ] [ Next > ]

Dhampir$: A Prologue

Author’s note: I’ve recently started a PF2 stream with a few friends on the Twitch channel Roll the Role. The premise: A bunch of dhampirs with the same ‘sire’ have banded together to make coin, a name for themselves, and sort out their complicated past and future. To get read for this, I wrote a backstory for my snobby summoner Anna… This takes place several years before the first game.

[ Next: Dhampir$: Family Reunion (session one) > ]

The Acadamae was never quiet, with students working at all hours to please patrons who were rarely satisfied. The first three years of a student’s life was never easy, balancing studies with constant work assigned by professors and older students. It wasn’t uncommon for a student to stumble, bone-tired, into a magical trap and end up eviscerated, exploded, or banished.

So common was this, in fact, that a permanent nook had been set up in the main courtyard for remembrances: Flowers, candles, letters left sealed in wax and never to be read. The name of the student (or, in the case of a particularly good trap, several students) would be painted onto a plaque, and their likeness added beneath that. On this fair fall evening, the previous name had been washed away, and a new one left in its place.

The last fallen student had been popular, a catfolk named Jyrre who had been quick with a smile and a joke, but not so quick with gusts of flame. The platform had overflowed with tokens, but these had been cleared away. The new name was one that the students barely recognized, and the portrait that went with it didn’t help matters much. Everett Danisoe, human, only on campus for a few months. The only tokens were from the followers of Pharasma, who leave a token for everyone, and one from a professor who was likely more annoyed that she’d have to find a new gopher.

A woman stands in the courtyard, eyes appraising the paltry offerings. The best word to describe her is ‘pale.’ Her hair is blonde, close to white. Her skin looks as if the sun has never touched it. Even her eyes are gray. Even her dress is a dull blue. She looks as though all of the color has been wrung out of her, leaving only traces behind. The only mark of color she wears is a patch on her cloak, marking her as a student of the second year.

After a moment, she’s joined by two more second-years: A red-cheeked young man with a baby face and a mop of dark hair, and a half-elf man, his skin ruddy and eyes shining with a strange light. The apple-cheeked man curses at the tableau. “Not even a week. Pity.”

The half-elf frowned. “Did you know him, Jace?”

“I ran into him a few times in the library. I told him to be careful around the southern perimeter.” Jace sighed and pulled a coin out of his pocket. He whispered a prayer over it and laid it on the altar.

The woman tapped a finger against her lips, a sign of her thinking. “Did he have family?” Both of the men froze, and looked at her. She gave them a measured look. “I’m merely curious.” She looked at the half-elf. “Maizon, you have some shifts in the records office, don’t you? You could find out.”

The half-elf sighed. A sane man would tell her no, but he simply nodded. “I’m sure someone will be claiming his body, Anna. But I’ll check.”

✱✱✱

Maizon was wrong.

When it was his time to work in the records office, he found some time to steal away and read poor dead Everett’s file. No next of kin. The only contact was a distant friend of the family’s, and he’d approved of Everett being interred in the cemetery next to the Acadamae. It was, after all, free. He didn’t even want the poor man’s paltry possessions.

Golarion was set to forget him.

He told Anna. Of course, he told Anna. She was too good at reading people to risk lying to her, and he had a feeling if he told her no, she simply would have bribed someone else to check for her. She brightened when he told her, though as always, that never quite translated into a smile. She had the continence of a porcelain doll. Some noble thing, he assumed.

“Excellent. Let’s meet in the lab tomorrow. Usual time.”‘

And she left to go bribe someone completely different…

✱✱✱

The ‘lab’ was actually a rented basement apartment. The owner upstairs was a pesh addict who seemed to be happy to turn a blind eye to whatever was going on under his feet in return for favors Maizon didn’t like to ask about.

Jace and Anna were already there… as was their ‘guest.’ On a long oak table, Effron was laid out, face already puffy and discolored with decay. He was clean, though (Anna’s work, he guessed), and his modesty was covered by a cloth (probably Jace).

Anna was inspecting a tray full of wicked tools when Maizon came through the door. She looked up. “Ah, good. He’s in remarkably good shape for having tangled with one of the traps. Normally, they’re in more pieces. Can you help me crack the chest?”

Maizon picked up one of the more severe looking tools. The trio worked quickly, the sounds of cracking bones and ripping flesh muffled by a clockwork recorder, playing the sounds of a popular bard. They each had their own interests… Jace’s practical research leaned towards making items that could be used by the common man in the field, for areas where there wasn’t a healer nearby. Maizon leaned more theoretical, fascinated by differences in the various ancestries and how they affected their internal workings, and how it lead to some being stronger, or faster, or sturdier. Anna’s interest…

Maizon wasn’t quite sure what her interests were. She wrote her notes in a language he didn’t know, and she guarded her journal closely. Even talking to her about the natural sciences didn’t yield many clues: Her interest was so broad, she could talk about anything, but she pulled back as soon as he tried to go deeper.

Normally, Maizon wouldn’t have paired with her, but she had one thing he didn’t: Money. Money to pay graverobbers. Money to keep a pesh addict happy and silent. Money for hats of disguise to keep their movements secret. But not, apparently, enough money to skip to the upper echelons of the Acadamae, where she could study bodies without reporting to some gray beard about her findings.

She also lacked scruples, but that was something they had in common.

Finally, Jace sat back with a sigh. “Poor sod. I’m not sure anything could have saved him besides a healer in the room. The blade went through his carotid. Maybe a special patch of some sort?”

“Healer’s gloves?” Maizon decided to take a break as well. Jace snorted.

“That’s the problem with medicine in Golarion. It’s so magic focused. The gods have died and left before. They’ve refused services. And even if they were reliable, it’s not like we can put a cleric in every town. We need more practical solutions. Practical knowledge is lacking because magic makes everything so easy.”

Anna continued her examination of the dead student’s eyeball. “You’re starting to sound populist.”

Jace glared at her. “So sorry, milady. My concern for the common man must be distressing for your delicate soul.” His tone dripped with sarcasm, but she shrugged it off.

“Hardly. It’s just an observation.” She picked up a spoon and, as delicately as if she were retrieving a cherry from a syllabub, plucked the eye from its socket. “I agree, you know. I think it’s absurd that knowledge is hoarded.” She snipped the nerve. “The elder mages aren’t clever: They simply moved faster. They’re standing in the way of progress.”

Jace blinked. “Oh… well. Glad to hear we agree.”

“Mm.” She looked between Jace and Maizon. “I can clean up the body. My associates will be here to retrieve him soon. You two should probably head back.”

The ‘should’ wasn’t a suggestion. Anna may sometimes use conditionals, but her meaning was always in absolutes. Jace and Maizon cleaned themselves up, donned their disguises, and headed back to the university, the smell of the grave still clinging to them.

✱✱✱

It was a week later when Maizon was woken by the slamming of a fist on his dormitory door. He stumbled out of bed, and for a panicked moment, he considered throwing himself out of the window. Yes, he was three stories up, but if he were lucky, it would kill him. Surely, someone had found out. Someone had found out about all of the bodies they had stolen and dissected and even though they were all returned surely they had broken enough laws to leave the three of them disgraced, ridiculed, and hanging from a scaffold–

But then he realized the voice on the other side of the door wasn’t security. It was merely his neighbor. “Maizon! Get up! The library!”

Maizon wrenched open the door to find himself face to face with Garundi whose dark skin was strangely pale. Maizon tried to merely look annoyed rather than panicked. “What is it?”

“It’s Jace.”

And then Maizon saw the rest of the other man. Blood splattered the front of his robes. He didn’t have to say more.

Maizon dressed in a hurry and sprinted across the campus to the library. The crowd was still there, in the east wing, near one of the sections that was riddled with traps and alarms due to the nature of the books within. A newer student sat on the ground sobbing, rocking, covered in blood, moaning about how the ‘other boy’ had been trying to help her and how she wanted to go home…

And, in the crowd, a gray rose amid weeds, stood Anna. Of course. She looked unwell, her normally placid visage cracking as she stared at the body that had been her friend. The trap had left his body mostly whole, but had shredded his chest open, making a mess of his internal organs and bones and muscle and skin. Jace’s face was frozen in a look of surprise, tinged with resignation.

Maizon went to Anna’s side, tempted to ask what happened, but it was obvious. Instead, he did something he’d never done before. He took her hand. It seemed natural, but he almost immediately regretted it. He was shocked at how cold her skin was, as if she’d been holding a ball of ice seconds ago. Her slim fingers locked with his, though, and he couldn’t pull back.

“I have enough for them to bring him back,” she said, a tremor in her voice. “Not in this body, but… good enough. He has work to do. This can’t be how he ends.”

Technically, students had to pre-pay for reincarnation or resurrection, and most didn’t have the funds. But the Acadamae wasn’t above bribes. Money solves many problems. Anna had proven that over and over again… One of the permanent staff in the natural sciences wing agreed to take her gold, and with the addition of a few gems, even offered to show them the ritual.

It was fine, Anna kept assuring Maizon. It was dealt with. She had it under control. Jace would adjust and they’d be back to work in no time. Maizon started to wonder who she was reassuring: Him, or her.

The day of the ritual, the sun was blotted out by gray heavy clouds. As they set out the oils and herbs and recited the incantations, the rain started to fall heavily against the windows. Time stretched, and the air grew heavy with the smell of incense and the storm. The final words were spoken…

And nothing happened. The staff member sighed.

Anna was still as death, holding her specially cast candle in her hands. “Well?”

“I’m sorry. Pharasma has closed this–“

Her words were cut off by dozens of bottles shattering. The light of the candles dimmed, Maizon felt his blood run cold. For a moment, no longer than a heartbeat, he swore he saw something behind Anna, shadowy and indistinct. Anna was the only one who didn’t jump. Instead, she carefully set down the candle and smoothed out her dress.

“Someone will be by to collect him. We’ll attend to his burial.”

And she swept out of the room, glass shards crunching under her shoes.

✱✱✱

Of course they didn’t take the body to the morgue. Maizon had hoped his cohort had found it in her, just this once, to rein in her curiosity, but no. The staff in the morgue had looked at him blankly and said they never got such a body in, and had been informed a private caretaker was dealing with Jace. The only ones he could imagine Anna going to all pointed to each other, claiming to have never seen the body of a young student.

In a rage, he stormed over to the secret lab. As he threw open the door, he realized he should have gone there first. Jace, affable, concerned, self-sacrificing Jace was laid out on the table, flayed open, his innards spread out over several tables, his eyes staring blankly to the uncaring heavens.

Anna didn’t even look up. She was too busy examining the man’s still heart. “I was wondering if you were going to join me.”

“He was our friend.”

“Alive, he was our friend. Wherever his soul is now, he’s our friend. But this? This is a husk that we can learn from. I want to know why the ritual failed. He would have wanted us to–“

Maizon was never known for moving fast, but he found speed now. He crossed to where Anna stood and grabbed her arm. He wrenched her back, forcing her to look at him, something dark in his mind telling him to hurt her if she wouldn’t listen to reason– And then, he was across the room. His chest ached, and he realized that this was because something had hit him. Hard. Hard enough to send him flying. He looked up, and saw the shadow behind Anna once more. It blossomed out from behind her, a nightmare made real. And Anna…

For the first time, he saw fear in her eyes.

“You should go,” she said, a tremor in her voice. “Before…”

He didn’t stay long enough to find out what would come next. He scrambled to his feet and was gone, as the sounds of shattering glass filled the room behind him.

✱✱✱

Nights passed. He saw the notice that Jace had been buried. He left tokens at Jace’s portrait. He visited the grave and wondered what was under his feet. He’d forget the whole mess. He merely had to survive another year. He only had to keep his head down. After a week, he had almost convinced himself that this was possible…

And then the reports came from the graveyards: The dead rising up.

All recent students.

All students that had been in that secret lab, under Anna’s careful knife.

Anna got word to him, and they met at the memorial. She looked unwell. Her skin was paler than usual, and there were circles under her eyes. She started, before he could say anything. “He won’t rise up like the others.”

Maizon’s fists tightened, then released. “Because the resurrection didn’t work?”

“No.” She tugged at her cuff, a rare show of anxiety. She didn’t elaborate. “I’m going home. I’ll need someone to accompany me. You could make yourself free, yes? It’s only until things calm at the school. It’s simply too difficult to focus right now, don’t you agree?”

It wasn’t really a request. Maizon signed, nodded, and left to put in his leave of absence notice.

✱✱✱

At the very least, she traveled in style.

She had a carriage that was sturdy and comfortable. The only complaint (coming from Anna) was that it was several years out of fashion. She hired a driver who agreed to double as a porter, and he found them two sturdy horses. They packed quickly, and were on the road within a day, barely noticed by a panicking campus. No one seemed to question their rapid departure. After all, they’d been friends with Jace, and Anna, a noble, was already seen as ‘weaker’ when it came to ‘troubles.’

The porter, a rough half-orc, spoke no Elvish, so that’s what Maizon and Anna stuck to, when they spoke. Most of the time, they sat in silence with the books they’d borrowed for the trip, or worked on theoretical research. It wasn’t until it was clear they weren’t being pursued that Maizon felt comfortable asking about anything more than where they might stop on the way.

“Why don’t you think he’ll come back?”

Anna looked up from her book. “Because I only looked with him.”

“The others. They’re you?”

She sighed and set her book aside. “I suppose. I thought the rituals had failed, but… perhaps there was a delay. I wish I could have looked one over before we left. They burned them, though.”

“How shortsighted,” drawled Maizon, but then dropped the sarcasm. “Necromancy. That’s been your interest all along. Why? You could go to Geb and have endless research material. You could make a fortune out there.”

She rolled her eyes. “Necromancy isn’t just churning out endless undead. If I only wanted coin, I would have stayed home and gotten married. This is… personal.” She looked out of the window, raising an eyebrow at the landscape. “We’re close.”

“Changing the subject?”

“Not really. But some things, you have to see. If my guess is right, we’ll be home by dinner tomorrow.”

And she settled back in with her book. Apparently, the discussion was over.

✱✱✱

Anna was right. Before long, they were riding through a small town. It was downtrodden under gray skies. Some buildings were empty, abandoned long ago. Those that were filled blocked out the day with heavy, dark curtains. Anna frowned as they rode by, her fingers beating a nervous tattoo on her knee.

For only the second time, Maizon dared touch her, taking up her slim fingers in his. They were ice cold. “Something’s wrong?”

She nodded, only once. “Black curtains. It’s a local tradition.”

“For what?”

“Keeping out evil spirits. Something’s happened.”

And again… Anna was right.

The LeClerche estate was large, and in better times, might have been lovely. But now, the orchard was rotting, the grass was a sickly yellow, and the colors of the building had faded into a muddy brown. The only thing fresh were black banners set to hang from the parapets. Anna’s face, normally expressionless, was suddenly fragile. She laughed. “Oh… it always had a sense of timing.” And then… she was crying. Maizon searched frantically for a handkerchief.

“What is it?”

“My father. He’s dead.”

✱✱✱

They were greeted by staff in deep mourning and fed cold funeral meats. They seemed confused to see her, since they had just sent a notice, and hadn’t expected her for at least another two weeks. She waived off their questions, then sequestered herself with her family’s solicitor.

Maizon took the chance to freshen up. The estate was large, and if it were better maintained, would be comfortable, but as it was, every room held a draft, and the air was thick with the smell of mold and mildew, even if the room looked clean. Still, he was tired, so he found himself falling into a deep sleep before long.

He dreamed… a woman, pale of hair and skin, eyes dilated with need, dressed in a pale chemise that was mostly lace. The bed shifted to accommodate her weight as she joined him. Her cool body warmed to his touch. Her breath, strangely sweet, as they kissed. The way she nuzzled his neck, cooing for him to relax… And then a pain, sweet and sinful and dangerous– His hands went to lift her chemise, but something shot out from the dark, shaped like a person, but lost in inky tendrils. It pulled the woman away and pushed him into the abyss.

He woke up with a start, crying out and reaching for the dagger he always kept on his nightstand. It wasn’t there, because he wasn’t in his room. No, he was in a different room, larger, quieter… and there was a woman sitting at the foot of his bed. He shook off the sleep and sat up. “Anna?” He twisted his fingers and produced light.

She’d been crying. Of course she had been crying. Her father had just died. What else would she have been doing? “I’m so sorry about your loss.”

She nodded, then held out a paper to him. “A letter of introduction. Magaambya should still be taking students, and our family worked with them in the past. This should be enough to get you a seat. It would suit you better.”

He read the note. Whoever had done the wordsmithing knew their craft. Maizon sounded like a god’s gift to academia. “Will you be coming?” She shook her head. “Ah. I… suppose you have to be the Lady of the House, now.”

She gave him a thin smile. “No. My position is uncertain.”

Maizon frowned. “Are you illegitimate?” He pushed himself up, realizing he had probably overstepped. “I mean, no worries if you are. I’m a bastard, myself. Some elf bard came through town and did what elf bards do.”

She shook her head. “No… It’s more that my existence is something of a gray area.” She smiled, and it was only then that Maizon realized he never saw her smile. At best, if she laughed, her mouth was hidden behind her sleeve. He assumed it was a noble affect, or her feminie side coming out.

By the light of his magic, he saw her fangs for the first time.

The smile vanished. “I’m still leaving, though. I have research to do. I’ll simply do it elsewhere. Good luck, Maizon.”

And with that, she left his room. Maizon’s fingers went to his neck, and came back wet, spotted with his blood.

[ Next: Dhampir$: Family Reunion (session one) > ]