In this session I added 5e backgrounds to the 3.5 characters.
Taylor became a trickster and got himself 15 gp (that he would later have to give up) and some loaded dice.
The Guild Wizard Zantas received a guild membership at the price of 5gp a month (I realized how greedy he was by this point in the session, and due to this selfishness he even transitioned from neutral good to neutral evil at the player's request). The guild provides him with free food and shelter in town along with political protection and resources.
So the Guild Wizard Zantas, in the course of one day of downtime, managed to secure himself an ally. His player mentioned this was something he commonly did:
First he purchased himself a (in his words here) hooker who he described in fine detail. After this, he rellenquished her from ownership of a brothel and brought her into the guild as an apprentice mage.
I didn't mind this much, since it only changed her price from 2 gp a day to 5 gp a month (although math wise, 60gp would be fair). He made a diplomacy check out of game to quickly seal their friendship. So rather than relying on money to keep her tied to him, it is pure social pressure. Either way, he must upkeep something and she will be prone to making more will saves at a penalty as normal for a henchmen. She is unlikely to stay. In a way, it chanced from a monetary contract into a social one...even if that is a bit unfair.
However, she was then charmed (ie: Charm Person) into going towards the castle with Zantas to act as an assistant (now I see why he is Evil). Once there, they discovered Asgall's body and Zantas allowed his maiden of sorts to preform first aid for him while away. The wizard discovered a magical door that, when studied, had a fairly simple password in Dwarven (which we equated to German, since Zantas's player Zane spoke German.)
The password is based on the fact that magic words sometimes define the action taken. In this case Zimmer (which means room) combined with the word Lock to form Zimmerlock means "Lock Room" in a sense. This was something he figured out with a decent Arcana check as well as a half- day of study.
With things like magical activation, I think giving it out as a skill check is fair since expecting players to learn or find these magic words themselves is almost impossible, but the password itself was so simple for a wizard that in-character he would be able to figure it out.
Moving on, he continued down the stairs and found a set of murals which were very similar to stained glass. It featured multiple gods and goddesses with their eyes scratched out as well as vulgar graffiti defacing the walls. Also featured was an underwater scene that featured Sahuagin battling some other merman race (that the wizard could not identify). He headed forwards into the dwarven Hold.
Meanwhile, from last time, Taylor decided to multiclass as a cleric to provide some needed healing to the party. He chose the neutral god of magic, Baccob, since he was neutral himself. He begged the god for use of arcane magic to assist his friend, and with a prayer he entered the dark and fought off a centipede with his dagger and lantern. We also decided that the town of Greyhelm where this takes place (based on greyhawk) would be very magic focused since there is a prominent mage's guild as well as worship of an arcane god.
As a note, his rope is still hanging from the tower from last session. It is worth noting that the temple of Baccob in greyhawk city is a pyramid as well.
After disturbing more centipedes, he ran down the corridor into the northwest side of the dwarven hold (The wizard entered from the south). The dwarven guards ran off to fight them, and Taylor decided to sneak into the Hold. While the guards were distracted, he slipped into a supply closet (that was in fact actually noted on the map, not something I made up) and hid there until the dwarves changed shifts.
Eventually the wizard and cleric/rouge were introduced to the dwarven lieutenent. He told Zantas that he did not want to associate with the dwarven criminal, and that he was free to chase him if they paid a fee to enter the tunnels (50% of any treasure found) as well as paying around 16 gold (a fairly small price) to heal Asgall and get food and rest for the night. The dwarves mention a cave where elves live nearby in passing, but since the wizard is from the surface, he does not understand this. They are not drow, just simply elves living underground.
Asgall was revived by dwarven healers and took a strange interest in Aria (the female following Zantas). Zantas responded with a punch to the face that would have knocked out a lesser man. This showed Zantas how strong the jolly warrior, who took the punch with a laugh, was.
The three regrouped, drinking and resting for the night. Zantas, now established as a greedy lieing drunk, had a few too many drinks and passed out on the stone floor. He ended up getting a hangover for the next day (I use homebrew pathfinder intoxication rules) and will now be Fatigued for 12 hours.
Now the trio plans to delve deeper into the dangerous castle. What will they find? Who knows?!
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