Prologue -- Pathfinder Adventures pt. 1

A bit of background before this post... my friends and family and I have all been doing a homebrew pathfinder session in my own made world. This is a recount of the events that have happened thus far, however, in novel form. It's always fun and exciting for me to take adventures that we've had happen in sessions and translate them into the written word. Enjoy! If you guys enjoy it, leave a comment or two, and I'll post more!

The World: Gaiek

The Time: 

The Place: World Tree Island

The Initial Characters: Maalona, Hjoldir, Rickety, and Taki

Chapter One

The original story goes, that Maalona, the Fey-Elf Sorcerer, and Hjoldir, the unique Dream Druid, met on a road, long ago, in search of an infamous tavern. Charming a shopkeep, manipulating bees, and warding off goblins in their first encounter, they made their way to the Worldtree's Edge Tavern for a brief respite in their journeys. 

While they were there, they happened upon a rogue halfling, Rickety Cricket, the halfling rogue attempting to get out of his bar tab. Running out, Maalona, Hjoldir, and an unknown half-elf ranger, named Taki, proceeded to grab him and bring him back to make good on his deeds. With that introduction, the rag-tag group proceeded to finish chores from around the tavern. Killing rats, gathering food from the fields, and finally cooking dinner for the entire group -- it seemingly was a successful wrap-up to a busy day. 

However, just as the warm-fuzzies were kicking in, the tavern mistress, Lilia, became ill from the food. Lacking proper medicine, the group was forced to journey to the nearest city, the City of the Sun, to get supplies. As soon as they prepared to leave, incredulously, more goblins attacked! Their friends had been killed and dismembered the days prior, and they were out for revenge... Temporarily, at least.

The group dispatched the goblins with ease as they proceeded on their journey to the City of the Sun. 

Chapter Two

The journey to Sun City was not easy. The group encountered a wilderness with unforgiving elementals, wolves, and spiders -- oh my! They traveled and traversed quickly into an old abandoned cathedral for their evening to rest and regroup for the day.

Tired, ragged, and weary, the group was almost easy prey for a drider who had taken residence there. Half drow, half spider -- a formidable foe for such an early adventuring party. Wrapping them with webbed explosions, the drider had nearly whittled them off, when finally, the Rickety of Crickets came through, throwing rocks and debris to distract and damage her for just enough time for the party to wiggle their way out of that sticky situation. 

They finished the drow spider, wearily and torn as they camped there for the evening. They all somehow proceeded to get incredible gifts in all mysterious manners that evening, being it the eve of the juniper berries. 

Chapter Three; Shitwhiskers. 

 Departing from the Cathedral, the party started to make their way towards the cliffs beneath the Sun city. An easy rope throw to the top of the cliffs from Taki allowed the group to traverse up the side of the hill moderately easily... At least, that would have been the case, until Hjoldir's pride got in the way. 

"I'm not fookin' goin' up the side of that bloody' hill. And you can't fookin' make me." 

Taki proceeded to lasso Hjoldir by the ankle and pull him up the side of the hill. 

"Oh no you don't, you half-elf bastard!" Hjoldir yelled. 

Pulling out his knife, he narrowly managed to cut himself free before getting too high on the cliff-side. He fell, hurting himself, however, pride in-tact. More defiantly than ever, he yelled: 
"I'm goin' up the oter' side. Fook all y'all!!" 

Hjoldir took the long road up the side of the hill despite the dangers that may face him alone. And that's exactly what happened. Dangerous wolves approached the lone dwarf, and somehow, he survived to tell the tale. Seemingly, as fate would have it, his friends had doubled back around hearing all the commotion down the hill away. 

Encountering a bunch of dead wolves and an out-of-breath Hjoldir, Rickety and the others proceeded to poke fun and joke with him. Such to the point, of even taking nearby defecation from the encounter, and spreading it upon Hjoldir's face. The shitwhiskers that were displayed upon his face remained there all the way to the city... 

Chapter Four

Just before you reach the City of the Sun, you reach a Sacred Forest that happens to hold some of the most valuable berries in all the land. The offshoots and leftover World tree fruit will fall close to the city, creating giant roaming trees in the image of the lofty World tree Herself. 

Noble Centaurs are dutied with protecting and inhabiting this forest, making sure that would-be inhabitants or bad-doers would be taken care of. That lasted for quite some time until this group of adventurers plowed through. 

Rickety immediately saw the jewel-like berries on the small offshoots, just within his reach. Without a second thought, he stole multiple World tree berries from this sacred enclave. 

In strolls two Centurian Guards ready to mess this little guy up... And they did. A huge cut to the chest ensued after a failed deception roll from the rogue cut him down not only to size but also to the core of his persona. He proceeded to run away and hide for the majority of the rest of that battle, and seemingly, set a trend for many others to come... 

The group somehow managed to take the centaurs, grab a few more world berries, and quickly went on their way to the City before anybody else decided to check out the commotion. 

Chapter 5

The group arrived at the City of the Sun shortly after leaving the Sacred Forest. Arriving in the middle of town, Hjoldir quickly washed the shitwhiskers off his face and proceeded to sternly sulk for the rest of this chapter. I'm serious. He literally sat there and denied that he even knew the group for a straight minute. That shit was hilarious. 

As Hjoldir pouted, the rest of the group utilized their downtime and made trouble as all good parties do. Rickety sold one of his world berries to the Sun-Priests. Taki crafted a smexy bow from the remnants of the drider, her short bow, and other material he had. Maalona made sure that she actually got the antidote that the tavern barkeep needed. We find that Maalona is consistently taking care of what actually needs to be done. 

Shortly before getting into even more trouble, both Rickety and Taki were saved by a complete eclipse of the sun. The group had arrived on what would be the darkest day in the fire nation's history... Oh, wait. Wrong universe. 

As the group was sparsely spread throughout it in the middle of town, a darkened-demonic portal appeared and out walked the infamous Tanis the Dark. A drow underlord who ran the City of the Moon, a notoriously crime-ridden city filled with vandals and infamous folk alike. He strolled about the crowd eliciting fear-ridden cries from onlookers as he beckoned straight at Maalona:

"Give me your Suncoin, niece. I'll only ask this once." 

Maalona spat in his direction. 

"So be it. Have it your way... Your family has always been so incredibly stubborn and stuck-up, it's no surprise that you're no different." 

Tanis proceeded to send two of his goons from the portal, Drow Rogues and Priestess, to take the coin by force. 

The Coin, you ask? Simply another piece of treasure that Maalona happened upon after the Drider fight. Fate is such a weird mistress sometimes... 

The party, recognizing that they were simply outmatched, proceeded to yell at Hjoldir about attempting to help, or something. 

Hjoldir literally sat there and drank his beer. Stone-cold emotionless. That was the result of the shitwhisker fiasco. 

As the party decided to try and flee, a group of super-charged Sun-Priests showed up. Hyped and ready-to-go from the world tree berry Rickety had just given them, they were quite ready for this party. Needless to say, this only further incentivized the party to haul their tails out of dodge. 

Hjoldir sipped his beer having denied his entire party existence in the midst of that shitshow. Laughing in karmic beauty, he wondered if there was ever a time that his ale tasted so good... 

Chapter Six; Tassle-who-now?

The party somehow escaped the City of the Sun with proper medical supplies for the tavern-keep and kept all their limbs and extremities intact. It was a proper miracle of its own. Hjoldir caught up, exchanged heated verbal arguments with both Taki and Rickety, and then proceeded to continue pouting for a good chunk of the journey back. 

Maalona always tried to help him see the error of his ways, even interacting with the other party members, however, Hjoldir was easily triggered. Dwarven blood, or something like that. 

Before they were done with their journey, however, the terrain around them started to show more and more signs of struggle. Trees torn apart, bones and corpses of animals started to be more consistently strewn-about. And then it was on them -- an OwlBear. 

It attacked viciously as the group struggled to contain its big and powerful figure. However, it was a little match, and as it started to be overtaken, a powerful howl let out from its mouth. These are not solitary creates and its mate, even more, powerful than the first, entered the fray. 

A tough battle ensued, with the party ultimately killing both the owlbears and taking what they could for loot. 

Traveling back to the inn, exhausted, they made their way to the bar with the medicine in hand, and spirits high. The tavern-keep husband was incredibly thankful to all of the party and proceeded to reward them with silver and a free-night stay. 

Nearby, a curious bard happened to take notice of the party, and slowly approached them with caution. 

"Hey there! My name is Tasslehoff!"