Session Capture: Bad Company Session 4, Chaos, Luck, Bad Luck, but no one Died!

My thoughts GMing the whole thing.

This session ends the first "boss battle" level encounter for the party. Several party members were downed, but none of them died. No prisoners were taken, unless Chadwick, one of the potential demon sacrifices counts as a prisoner. Violence, impotence, arrogance, and insolence.

The Cast

• Players
• Cassana - Cassana is a Cat-Folk priestess who decided because of a vision from her god to travel with the crew of Bad Company. Her supernatural healing makes her a readily hot commodity. She is a prudish bore though, and spends her free time reciting passages and praying.
• Elizabeth - A burly thing of a girl who was raised among rabbit-people. She tries hard, but she doesn’t have the chops for the business. Her adopted father was abducted by a man named Salazar, and she has joined a band of pirates to hopefully secure help in finding this man. She is the support member, and a jack of all trades. She has a horse named Al Freido who helps protect the belongings of her and the party.
• Gordon - A wood elf archer savant that has no clue how to interact with other people. Fiercely loyal to the mission of protecting nature from those that would transgress against it, his memory of the past is riddled with holes. Did something awful happen? Why can't he remember? He follows the party for indiscernible reasons.
• Mr. Tapioca – A bunny-man samurai, and a master of martial arts and strategy, and former, disgraced captain of the guard for Emperor Dyson. He was framed for the assassination of the emperor and now uses his skills to help those he can while on the lam. Introduced to Captain Burbank by Emilio the Goldfish, Mr. Tapioca took Captain Burbank as his liege and master.
• Sheek - A half goblin/human hybrid who after a strange turn of events, has recently gotten in touch with his human emotions. Goblin society hasn't prepared him for this, and as his clan has been almost rendered unto nothing, he has decided to travel with the only people that have ever shown him a modicum of respect.
• Xelin - Son of Van Zandt the Blight, though he was only a child when the story of that man took place. His lineage is a secret he must keep closely because of the unspeakable atrocities of his father. Unavoidably lead down his inevitable destiny to power and mastery of the cosmos, misfortune follows closely after him. For unfortunate reasons, he finds that the only people he can trust are themselves absolute dregs, and thus finds himself in the hire of Captain Burbank.
• NPCs
• Al Freido - Elizabeth's horse, she is afraid of him because she believes that he has some connection to the arrival of the demons.
• Emilio The Goldfish - Long time friend of Mr. Tapioca but now the friendship is smoldering as Emilio betrayed the party, and Mr. Tapioca has attempted to have the man executed. Is he a bad man? Can he be trusted?

The Summary

The battle continues as the as-Sharak continue to move closer to the weaker half of the party, while Mr. Tapioca with the assistance of Xelin's Lightning Sphere keep the most powerful opponent, a Peshkali wielding six clubs away from the rest of the party. Elizabeth and Sheek fail to stop the advance of the as-Sharak, Gordon's arrows are easily dodged, and the one as-Sharak that isn't downed gets into optimal position to deliver a breath attack. It specifically aims at the center of the group, but misses and the cone effect is off center, unfortunately, this catches the character in the most dire straits right in the middle of the stream. Cassana at the edge of the cone jumps out of the way, and Mr. Tapioca is given a terrible choice. He can choose to sacrificially dodge to protect the weakened Xelin and take the brunt of the blast, or dodge out of the way to save himself... he chooses the latter. As Xelin is pummeled with blistering frost and snow, he murmurs a soft, but angry curse, and falls unconscious. Al Freido catches the blast as well and is solidified for several minutes.

Two pens used as a straight edge to find
the width of the breath attack.
Mr. Tapioca jumps out of the way on
the left, Cassana on the right.

Cassana attempts, for the second time that day to pray for help as her face is down in the dirt. The Peshkali takes advantage of the precarious situation in which Mr. Tapioca finds himself in and goes to town on his body. Though he is heavily penalized he, dodges and parries most blows, but the three that make it through reduce him to 2 HP. He staggers to his knees and decides to risk everything, he does an all-out attack towards the vitals [yes, I forgot that the Peshkali has the Injury Tolerance - No Vitals advantage, but we are rolling for it for rule of cool.] and... [he rolls a 3] He slams the katana into her chest, all the way to the hilt, and sticking out her back, and pulls it back out perfectly without scraping the bone on ingress or egress. Though she had dodged and blocked every blow up to now, in one hit, she shuffles off the mortal coil. Meanwhile Sheek suffers a critical hit and goes quickly unconscious in one blow. Gordon takes advantage of the situation and finally smites one of the three standing.

Cassana's prayers are heard and Abuelito responds by reviving both Sheek and Xelin. Seeing as the gods are on the hero's side, the two champions down, and the as-Sharak's secret weapons exhausted, the remaining two as-Sharak flee through a rift spawned on the altar. Mr. Tapioca and Sheek execute all enemies who merely fell unconscious. The party raids the scene looking for treasure and souvenirs. They find the confiscated armory of the pirates that were sacrificed at the altar which contains enough equipment to arm a landing party of 10, and the legendary armor and spear of Emilio, which Mr. Tapioca does not want to return. They also find lots of valuable indigo dye as well.

Xelin analyzes the altar and sees that it is dedicated to Asmodeus, fallen angel of lust, and the writing indicates the purpose of the altar was for summoning.

Sheek is able to use interrogation and pries the information as to why he didn't help in the battle, but knew enough to help the party locate the enemy's weaknesses. Emilio has sold his soul to a different devil, opposed to Asmodeus, and to use his abilities right now would be the source of a scandal. Outraged, Mr. Tapioca makes to cut off Emilio's hands, but Emilio easily dodges, and starts to run away, he goes to the armory to find his equipment, but it isn't there, and so he runs back to the now presumably empty ship. The injured and belabored Xelin gives pursuit, but cannot easily keep up with the spry and next to naked Emilio. The party gives up the chase and makes camp, while debating the exorcism of the site.

After Action

• I thought the fight was challenging, and I think I'm doing better at not pulling punches.
• Mr. Tapioca's 11th hour superpower critical hit was a thing of legends.
• I think using more advanced techniques could have helped end the fight more quickly.
• One player thinks the cohesion of the party needs to improve.
• Some players enjoyed the ambient music.
• There were a lot of good critical hits this time.
• I need to look up the cloak rules, it was used, and I thought of it as a long range grapple, but I need to double check.