[The ratfolk adventurers further explore the siege castle.]
[This game uses the Pathfinder 1E roleplaying game. Game sessions happen once a week. This session happened November 4, 2019.]
Player Characters:
Marativy – female ratfolk 1st level Ninja
Templeton von Trapp – male ratfolk 1st level Summoner (Synthesist)
Roscuro – male ratfolk 1st level Monk
Zitch Grimreaper – male 1st level Witch with a donkey rat (capybara) familiar
Missed the Session:
Winston – male 1st level Gunslinger
Day 1
Noon-ish
Having explored as much of the first floor as they could the ratfolk adventurers discussed how they wanted to approach the second floor of the ruins. The options were to climb the rubble in the east wing to the remains of the second floor and open one of the two doors they saw there or use a rope and grappling hook to climb up to the second-floor landing in the broken stairwell. After the majority of the group admitted they were terrible at climbing, the safest route was chosen.
The pack of ratfolk exited the castle and started clambering on the rubble of the east wing. Marativy [a good climber] climbed up to the second floor. She tied climbing knots in a rope and secured it with a piton. This allowed the others to climb up, although it took Templeton two tries. [We had the worst luck with the rolls. Our target number was a 5 on a d20; my character, Roscuro, barely made that and Templeton rolled a natural 1 on his first attempt. Eventually our dice warmed up, but it was a rough start.]
Marativy and Roscuro examined the door to the south wing. While they were doing this, Templeton summoned his eidolon, merging with it into a foo dog synthesis. The door was in good shape. Zitch cast detect magic on it and determined it had some preservative magic on it. Marativy picked the lock and opened the door.
The room beyond took up the entire second floor of the octangular south wing. It looked empty, with dust covering the floor, but Templeton and Roscuro noticed some faint footprints in the dust near the door to the west wing. The group cautiously entered the room and took a closer look at the tracks. The tracks entered the room from the door to the west wing, went over to the west wall of this room, meandered a bit, and then returned to the door. Zitch was able to identify the tracks as belonging to a troglodyte, known to be hostile and with a stench that was debilitating. Zitch also suspected the tracks were about a week old, which was before the earthquake broke the east wing of the siege castle and provided common entrance. As a group the ratfolk searched the west wall and found a concealed switch. They chose not to do anything with it.
The rats went over to the door to the western wing and Marativy and Roscuro listened. Roscuro heard the sounds of movement on the other side. He did a dreadful job trying to pantomime the information to Marativy, but she understood him anyway [I rolled terrible on Perform but she rolled a natural 20 on Sense Motive]. Roscuro readied his light crossbow.
Marativy stealthily opened the door just enough so she and Roscuro could see through. They saw three troglodytes standing by a mostly empty weapon rack on the far west wall. They were looking directly at the door but had not noticed it was open slightly yet. Roscuro placed his crossbow to the opening, took aim, and fired at one of the troglodytes. He missed entirely, the bolt clattering against the wall behind them. The trogs, being a bit slow, all turned to look what the noise was behind them. Then the stench finally reached the ratfolk and Marativy and Roscuro were both sickened by it.
Marativy and Templeton entered the room and attacked the trogs while Roscuro attempted to shoot the third trog from the door. Zitch cast her evil eye upon the various trogs during the fight. After three missed, Roscuro gave up trying to shoot the trogs and charged into the room to attack with flurries of blows. This was more effective, but Templeton’s claw attacks caused two of the trogs to bleed out and die. Marativy and Roscuro teamed up to take out the last troglodyte.
Zitch set about healing the wounded as best he could, using up the last of his healing magic for the day [the trogs had been tough]. The group looked around the room. There were two other weapon racks, all three having shields on display above them. This room was clearly an armory, but all of the swords and most of the shields were worthless due to the ravages of time. Only one light shield was even repairable and that only because it was a masterworked shield. It went into the loot sack for later restoration. Gradually Marativy and Roscuro got over being sickened by the trog stench.
There were two exits from this room, a door to the north wing and a door to the central stairwell. The group opened the door to the stairwell to verify what was expected was there. The door opened onto the lip of a landing, the stairs up and the stairs down collapsed to just below the first floor. The door itself was in good condition and could be locked. Roscuro pointed out that if the group needed to, they could hold up in one of these rooms fairly safely.
After closing the door to the stairwell, the group went over to the last door and listened. They could hear something on the other side scratching at the door. Based on some electric shocks he received while listening [and rolling a natural 20 on the skill check], Zitch suspected a shocker lizard was on the other side and wanted in. Dubious of releasing a shocker lizard but wanting to explore the room it was in, the group made a plan. They opened the door to the stairwell, they all retreated as far as they could from the door to the north wing, and Templeton used mage hand to open the door. The hope was that the lizard was trapped and just looking for an exit.
Templeton used mage hand to open the door to the north tower. The creature on the other side of the door was indeed a shocker lizard. It started wandering towards the group of ratfolk. Roscuro shouted, “No!” at it and the lizard stopped moving. Templeton used his mage hand to move some food over by the lizard and then to the door to the stairwell. The lizard looked at the food but did not follow it. Roscuro yelled at it to “get the food” and then it went and ate the food.
While the shocker lizard was eating the food, the ratfolk sidled around it to the door to the north tower. The north tower room was full of junk that had clearly been searched/looted long ago. Marativy examined the door to the ruined east tower. It was in good condition and lockable.
When the ratfolk returned to the armory [the west tower], they found that the shocker lizard had wandered off. They closed and locked the “outer” doors [those leading to the ruined east tower] and locked them. They then took their time throwing a grappling hook with the knotted rope up to the 3rd floor landing in the stairwell until it was solidly anchored [we took 20]. They then climbed up to the 3rd floor landing. The door was locked and Marativy failed to pick it after several tries. With no way forward, the ratfolk decided to go upstairs to the fourth floor.
[To clarify: the spiral stairs below the third-floor landing had collapsed. The stairs at and above the third floor still existed and seemed to be sturdy or at least “sturdy enough”.]
There was a door at the fourth-floor landing. Marativy and Roscuro listened at the door and heard snoring on the other side. The ratfolk prepped their weapons and Marativy attempted to stealthily open the door. It creaked. Loudly. On the other side were two sleeping troglodytes and two awake and aware troglodytes staring at the doorway. Inured to the stench, Marativy and Roscuro were not nauseated by it [we both made our saves].
Marativy quickly stalked into the room to one of the sleeping troglodytes and, while the other two watched, cut its head off [she rolled a crit on the sleeping trog and killed it in one blow]. The first awake trog, realizing the ratfolk were not there to parlay, bolted to the door to the north tower, opened it, and yelled, “Intruders!” Zitch cast Evil Eye on the second awake troglodyte. That worthy threw a javelin at Marativy, but missed. Templeton entered the room and and swung wide at the yelling troglodyte, failing to connect. Roscuro, bringing up the rear, walked over to the last sleeping troglodyte and shot it with his crossbow. The deeply sleeping trog kept snoring [it rolled a natural 1 to wake up, so even with the noise and being shot, it kept sleeping]. Over the next two rounds the ratfolk killed the yeller and the sleeper [the sleeper did NOT awaken] and Marativy and Roscuro were set to double-team the last living troglodyte.
Then the reinforcements arrived.
Three more troglodytes came through the door from the north tower and a single but larger troglodyte entered through the south door. At this point the fight started in earnest. Marativy killed the last of the original trogs. Templeton held the three at the north door, but had to step back once and cast mage armor on himself. The bleed effect from his claws helped tremendously during the fight. After trading blows with Marativy and Roscuro, the trog boss got a solid hit in on Roscuro and sent the ratfolk to 0 hit points. Roscuro was forced to crawl back to avoid a killing blow, but this left Marativy fighting without the swarming ability. Luckily, her final attack was a critical hit and did enough to kill the boss trog. By this time Templeton had killed the other three reinforcements through a mixture of bites, claws, and bleeds.
All the ratfolk were wounded and Zitch started healing them as best he could. Roscuro drank one of the two healing potions provided by their patron and it healed him completely [rolled maximum on the healing for it – good stuff!]. The ratfolk closed and spiked the door to the stairs so they would not be disturbed. At this point a voice from the south room called out in Common. Roscuro talked with the voice while all the ratfolk looted the troglodyte barracks. The speaker was a prisoner of the troglodytes and was wondering if the people he was speaking to would rescue him. The ratfolk found 100 silver coin worth of trinkets among the troglodytes and a key on the boss trog. Marativy claimed the key, but all the trinkets went into the loot sack.
Finished looting the barracks, the ratfolk investigated the southern room. There they found a human chained to a wall, some troglodyte torture implements, and a chest. Roscuro talked with the human while the others investigated the room. The human introduced himself as Balenar Forsend of the Pathfinder Society. He was in the vicinity when the earthquake happened and cracked open the siege castle. The troglodytes captured him while he was exploring.
In the meantime, Marativy attempted to pick the lock on the chest and failed. Frustrated, she tried the key taken from the boss troglodyte. It worked and the chest opened. Hearing the chest opening, Balenar asked if he could be freed and his possessions be returned [ratfolk have darkvision, so we were not using any light sources and Balenar was blind in the darkness]. He offered unspecified rewards and an introduction to the Pathfinder Society if the group would free him and escort him back to Magnimar, which sounded reasonably fair to the ratfolk. Marativy used the key to unlock the chains and Balenar and Roscuro shook hands on the deal.
Balenar asked for his pathfinder [a wayfinding tool] and activated a light function on it, illuminating the room. He let out a startled shriek when he saw the four ratfolk standing there and then immediately apologized for doing so. While putting his gear back on, he asked how many troglodytes the group of ratfolk had killed. After some quick counting on the ratfolk’s part, he told us there was a spell-casting troglodyte still unaccounted for.
End of Session
Rat Whispers
[There is a lot of things moving around inside of a castle that was supposedly sealed up for hundreds of years. I’m just saying. I’m curious to see if there is any explanation as to how the troglodytes got into the tower when it was sealed.]
[Sorry this is late – for some reason it took extra mental effort to sit down and write this one up.]
Ratpack
Session 01
Session 03
[This game uses the Pathfinder 1E roleplaying game. Game sessions happen once a week. This session happened November 4, 2019.]
Player Characters:
Marativy – female ratfolk 1st level Ninja
Templeton von Trapp – male ratfolk 1st level Summoner (Synthesist)
Roscuro – male ratfolk 1st level Monk
Zitch Grimreaper – male 1st level Witch with a donkey rat (capybara) familiar
Missed the Session:
Winston – male 1st level Gunslinger
Day 1
Noon-ish
Having explored as much of the first floor as they could the ratfolk adventurers discussed how they wanted to approach the second floor of the ruins. The options were to climb the rubble in the east wing to the remains of the second floor and open one of the two doors they saw there or use a rope and grappling hook to climb up to the second-floor landing in the broken stairwell. After the majority of the group admitted they were terrible at climbing, the safest route was chosen.
The pack of ratfolk exited the castle and started clambering on the rubble of the east wing. Marativy [a good climber] climbed up to the second floor. She tied climbing knots in a rope and secured it with a piton. This allowed the others to climb up, although it took Templeton two tries. [We had the worst luck with the rolls. Our target number was a 5 on a d20; my character, Roscuro, barely made that and Templeton rolled a natural 1 on his first attempt. Eventually our dice warmed up, but it was a rough start.]
Marativy and Roscuro examined the door to the south wing. While they were doing this, Templeton summoned his eidolon, merging with it into a foo dog synthesis. The door was in good shape. Zitch cast detect magic on it and determined it had some preservative magic on it. Marativy picked the lock and opened the door.
The room beyond took up the entire second floor of the octangular south wing. It looked empty, with dust covering the floor, but Templeton and Roscuro noticed some faint footprints in the dust near the door to the west wing. The group cautiously entered the room and took a closer look at the tracks. The tracks entered the room from the door to the west wing, went over to the west wall of this room, meandered a bit, and then returned to the door. Zitch was able to identify the tracks as belonging to a troglodyte, known to be hostile and with a stench that was debilitating. Zitch also suspected the tracks were about a week old, which was before the earthquake broke the east wing of the siege castle and provided common entrance. As a group the ratfolk searched the west wall and found a concealed switch. They chose not to do anything with it.
The rats went over to the door to the western wing and Marativy and Roscuro listened. Roscuro heard the sounds of movement on the other side. He did a dreadful job trying to pantomime the information to Marativy, but she understood him anyway [I rolled terrible on Perform but she rolled a natural 20 on Sense Motive]. Roscuro readied his light crossbow.
Marativy stealthily opened the door just enough so she and Roscuro could see through. They saw three troglodytes standing by a mostly empty weapon rack on the far west wall. They were looking directly at the door but had not noticed it was open slightly yet. Roscuro placed his crossbow to the opening, took aim, and fired at one of the troglodytes. He missed entirely, the bolt clattering against the wall behind them. The trogs, being a bit slow, all turned to look what the noise was behind them. Then the stench finally reached the ratfolk and Marativy and Roscuro were both sickened by it.
Marativy and Templeton entered the room and attacked the trogs while Roscuro attempted to shoot the third trog from the door. Zitch cast her evil eye upon the various trogs during the fight. After three missed, Roscuro gave up trying to shoot the trogs and charged into the room to attack with flurries of blows. This was more effective, but Templeton’s claw attacks caused two of the trogs to bleed out and die. Marativy and Roscuro teamed up to take out the last troglodyte.
Zitch set about healing the wounded as best he could, using up the last of his healing magic for the day [the trogs had been tough]. The group looked around the room. There were two other weapon racks, all three having shields on display above them. This room was clearly an armory, but all of the swords and most of the shields were worthless due to the ravages of time. Only one light shield was even repairable and that only because it was a masterworked shield. It went into the loot sack for later restoration. Gradually Marativy and Roscuro got over being sickened by the trog stench.
There were two exits from this room, a door to the north wing and a door to the central stairwell. The group opened the door to the stairwell to verify what was expected was there. The door opened onto the lip of a landing, the stairs up and the stairs down collapsed to just below the first floor. The door itself was in good condition and could be locked. Roscuro pointed out that if the group needed to, they could hold up in one of these rooms fairly safely.
After closing the door to the stairwell, the group went over to the last door and listened. They could hear something on the other side scratching at the door. Based on some electric shocks he received while listening [and rolling a natural 20 on the skill check], Zitch suspected a shocker lizard was on the other side and wanted in. Dubious of releasing a shocker lizard but wanting to explore the room it was in, the group made a plan. They opened the door to the stairwell, they all retreated as far as they could from the door to the north wing, and Templeton used mage hand to open the door. The hope was that the lizard was trapped and just looking for an exit.
Templeton used mage hand to open the door to the north tower. The creature on the other side of the door was indeed a shocker lizard. It started wandering towards the group of ratfolk. Roscuro shouted, “No!” at it and the lizard stopped moving. Templeton used his mage hand to move some food over by the lizard and then to the door to the stairwell. The lizard looked at the food but did not follow it. Roscuro yelled at it to “get the food” and then it went and ate the food.
While the shocker lizard was eating the food, the ratfolk sidled around it to the door to the north tower. The north tower room was full of junk that had clearly been searched/looted long ago. Marativy examined the door to the ruined east tower. It was in good condition and lockable.
When the ratfolk returned to the armory [the west tower], they found that the shocker lizard had wandered off. They closed and locked the “outer” doors [those leading to the ruined east tower] and locked them. They then took their time throwing a grappling hook with the knotted rope up to the 3rd floor landing in the stairwell until it was solidly anchored [we took 20]. They then climbed up to the 3rd floor landing. The door was locked and Marativy failed to pick it after several tries. With no way forward, the ratfolk decided to go upstairs to the fourth floor.
[To clarify: the spiral stairs below the third-floor landing had collapsed. The stairs at and above the third floor still existed and seemed to be sturdy or at least “sturdy enough”.]
There was a door at the fourth-floor landing. Marativy and Roscuro listened at the door and heard snoring on the other side. The ratfolk prepped their weapons and Marativy attempted to stealthily open the door. It creaked. Loudly. On the other side were two sleeping troglodytes and two awake and aware troglodytes staring at the doorway. Inured to the stench, Marativy and Roscuro were not nauseated by it [we both made our saves].
Marativy quickly stalked into the room to one of the sleeping troglodytes and, while the other two watched, cut its head off [she rolled a crit on the sleeping trog and killed it in one blow]. The first awake trog, realizing the ratfolk were not there to parlay, bolted to the door to the north tower, opened it, and yelled, “Intruders!” Zitch cast Evil Eye on the second awake troglodyte. That worthy threw a javelin at Marativy, but missed. Templeton entered the room and and swung wide at the yelling troglodyte, failing to connect. Roscuro, bringing up the rear, walked over to the last sleeping troglodyte and shot it with his crossbow. The deeply sleeping trog kept snoring [it rolled a natural 1 to wake up, so even with the noise and being shot, it kept sleeping]. Over the next two rounds the ratfolk killed the yeller and the sleeper [the sleeper did NOT awaken] and Marativy and Roscuro were set to double-team the last living troglodyte.
Then the reinforcements arrived.
Three more troglodytes came through the door from the north tower and a single but larger troglodyte entered through the south door. At this point the fight started in earnest. Marativy killed the last of the original trogs. Templeton held the three at the north door, but had to step back once and cast mage armor on himself. The bleed effect from his claws helped tremendously during the fight. After trading blows with Marativy and Roscuro, the trog boss got a solid hit in on Roscuro and sent the ratfolk to 0 hit points. Roscuro was forced to crawl back to avoid a killing blow, but this left Marativy fighting without the swarming ability. Luckily, her final attack was a critical hit and did enough to kill the boss trog. By this time Templeton had killed the other three reinforcements through a mixture of bites, claws, and bleeds.
All the ratfolk were wounded and Zitch started healing them as best he could. Roscuro drank one of the two healing potions provided by their patron and it healed him completely [rolled maximum on the healing for it – good stuff!]. The ratfolk closed and spiked the door to the stairs so they would not be disturbed. At this point a voice from the south room called out in Common. Roscuro talked with the voice while all the ratfolk looted the troglodyte barracks. The speaker was a prisoner of the troglodytes and was wondering if the people he was speaking to would rescue him. The ratfolk found 100 silver coin worth of trinkets among the troglodytes and a key on the boss trog. Marativy claimed the key, but all the trinkets went into the loot sack.
Finished looting the barracks, the ratfolk investigated the southern room. There they found a human chained to a wall, some troglodyte torture implements, and a chest. Roscuro talked with the human while the others investigated the room. The human introduced himself as Balenar Forsend of the Pathfinder Society. He was in the vicinity when the earthquake happened and cracked open the siege castle. The troglodytes captured him while he was exploring.
In the meantime, Marativy attempted to pick the lock on the chest and failed. Frustrated, she tried the key taken from the boss troglodyte. It worked and the chest opened. Hearing the chest opening, Balenar asked if he could be freed and his possessions be returned [ratfolk have darkvision, so we were not using any light sources and Balenar was blind in the darkness]. He offered unspecified rewards and an introduction to the Pathfinder Society if the group would free him and escort him back to Magnimar, which sounded reasonably fair to the ratfolk. Marativy used the key to unlock the chains and Balenar and Roscuro shook hands on the deal.
Balenar asked for his pathfinder [a wayfinding tool] and activated a light function on it, illuminating the room. He let out a startled shriek when he saw the four ratfolk standing there and then immediately apologized for doing so. While putting his gear back on, he asked how many troglodytes the group of ratfolk had killed. After some quick counting on the ratfolk’s part, he told us there was a spell-casting troglodyte still unaccounted for.
End of Session
Rat Whispers
[There is a lot of things moving around inside of a castle that was supposedly sealed up for hundreds of years. I’m just saying. I’m curious to see if there is any explanation as to how the troglodytes got into the tower when it was sealed.]
[Sorry this is late – for some reason it took extra mental effort to sit down and write this one up.]
Ratpack
Session 01
Session 03
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