[The Ratpack recover, do some shopping, and then resume their search for the second shard.]
[This game uses the Pathfinder 1E roleplaying game. Game sessions happen once a week. This session happened March 30, 2020.]
[SPOILERS! If you are likely to adventure through the Shattered Star Adventure Path from Paizo, this campaign will contain a lot of spoilers.]
Player Characters
Face-to-Face
Marativy – female ratfolk 3rd level Ninja
Roscuro – male ratfolk 3rd level Monk
Zitch Grimreaper – male 3rd level Witch with a donkey rat (capybara) familiar
Via Roll20
Templeton von Trapp – male ratfolk 3rd level Summoner (Synthesist)
Winston – male 3rd level Gunslinger
Day 13
Evening
The Ratpack slept in the Tower Girls’ common room inside The Crow, the Irespan support pillar the Tower Girls used as their current hideout. The Ratpack did this so they could keep an eye on the entrance to the sublevels. Marativy spent part of the time gambling with some of the Tower Girls. She cheated while playing and came out ahead 76 silver coin with the Tower Girls none-the-wiser.
Before going to sleep, Marativy concentrated on the metal shard in her possession. Previously, doing so showed the location of the next shard as the entry room of The Crow. Now it showed a different vision, one of a golden room with an altar. This suggested that the doors blocking access to the lower levels also blocked viewing the current location of the next shard. This indicated that the next shard was indeed down in the sub-levels, confirming the group’s suspicions as to its location.
Day 14
Morning
The Ratpack went back into Magnimar to purchase some supplies and meet with Frederick. But first, all members of the Ratpack returned to their homes to get cleaned up and put on fresh clothes. [Frederick’s business was in the wealthy part of town and the Ratpack had been dungeon crawling and fighting, so were not very presentable. Roscuro did not want to endanger their relationship with Frederick by embarrassing him in front of his clients or damaging his reputation.]
The Ratpack reassembled at the Blue Rodent in Underbridge and then walked to Frederick’s shop in the Naos district. Frederick was chatting with a client in his shop, a dwarf, but he greeted the Ratpack and asked them to wait. Marativy recognized the dwarf as a fence in town. After a short time, Frederick wrapped up business with the dwarf and he and the Ratpack got to business.
Roscuro showed Frederick the silver sphinx statue. Frederick was quite pleased with it and offered a good price. Then Roscuro pulled out the journal pages in Azlant and Frederick’s jaw hit the floor. Roscuro explained that Mend was used to rescue the pages, which is why there are only scraps and not full pages. Frederick nodded and then gathered himself. After some additional questions [including where all this Thassilonian stuff was coming from], Frederick and the Ratpack agreed on a price for the statue and journal pages. They also confirmed the amount Frederick paid for the amphora, the coins in it, and the statue of the rune giant they delivered previously. Receipts were exchanged so the Ratpack could prove the prices they were getting to their silent partners [the Tower Girls].
[The players took this time to do a general accounting of the various treasures they had sold and what amount of gold the party had in its account. They also calculated how much they owed the Tower Girls for their cut of the sales and what everyone's current share of the loot was. We allocated one share to the group fund in case any raise dead spells became necessary. This all could have happened in-game during the Ratpack's downtime but had never been done due to real time constraints. Once that was all done, play resumed.]
Roscuro asked Frederick if there was a shop where the Ratpack could purchase wands. Frederick directed them to a shop named The Brown Scepter. The Ratpack said their farewells and went over to the Brown Scepter where they bough a wand of Cure Light Wounds [fully charged] and a wand of Lightning Bolt [only 10 charges]. To pay for the wands, the Ratpack offered the Ring of Ferocious Action. While the members of the Ratpack are fairly competent in many activities, barter negotiations is not one of them. To seal the deal, the Ratpack agreed to pay an additional 400 gold coins to make the trade.
[Every member of the group has average to terrible Charisma scores and I rolled poorly. On top of which, the GM was originally treating the exchange like we were selling the ring and then buying the wands with the proceeds instead of making an even swap. We didn’t realize this until later in the session when he suddenly told us the Cure Light Wounds wand only had 28 charges. To say we were upset is an understatement. We did eventually work it out.]
Noon
After the shopping, the Ratpack returned to The Crow to continue searching for the second shard. After making their way through the Tower Girls’ lair in the upper four floors, they descended into the sub-levels. On the way through sub-level 2, they made a quick stop at the healing basin and filled up their waterskins with water from the basin [reminder: the water provides a Cure Light Wounds and a Lesser Restoration once per day]. At the door to the octagon room on sub-level 3, they paused to prepare to fight the abyssal larva on the other side. Zitch cast Protective Luck on Roscuro, Marativy, and Templeton.
Due to Zitch’s need to cackle to maintain the Protective Luck effect, the Ratpack gave up the element of surprise. When they opened the door to the octagon room, the larva spewed its maggot breath weapon over the entire group. Roscuro and Winston failed their saves and were sickened by it. Despite this, the Ratpack advanced and attacked the larva. Zitch got in the killing blow with the Lightning Bolt wand at the end of the second round.
The party healed up from the fight, using the Cure Light Wounds wand [this is when the discrepancy in the number of charges came up]. Then the group searched the room, including Zitch casting Detect Magic. The Alaznist statue in the center of the octagon room was not magical, but the ranseur it held was. It was also made of cold iron. To release it from the statue required breaking the statue’s hand, which damaged the statues re-sale value, but magic weapons were in short supply. Despite not being familiar with it, Roscuro ended up with the ranseur as he currently had no way to bypass the DR of the minor demons/devils the group was facing on this level.
Finding nothing else of value in the room, the Ratpack took the eastern door [as opposed to the southern or western doors]. Beyond was a short hallway to a room. As the group approached the room they heard some noise, which Zitch identified as the sounds of a couple nupperibos, the least kind of devils. [Zitch was on point whenever he made a Knowledge: Planes skill check that night.]
After a whispered discussion to put together a battle plan, the Ratpack quietly approached the room, stopping at the entrance. Zitch cast Lightning Bolt from the wand and killed one of the devils. Winston shot the other with standard shot, but it bounced off the nupperibo’s DR. The remaining nupperibo charged the group of ratfolk and engaged in melee. In the quick fight, all the ratfolk missed in their attacks except Winston, who got one shot in but failed to kill the nupperibo. In the end, the nupperibo accidentally killed itself when it fumbled an attack and took its own last remaining hit point with its spear. After the battle, the Ratpack collected the spear and named it “Demonkiller”. [Because “Self-own” was too anachronistic.]
A search of the room turned up nothing. The only exit was a set of stairs down to a lower part of this level. The Ratpack paused here.
End of Session
Rat Whispers
[Who ever named the nupperibo – I hate them. It is entirely too long and complicated a name for such a minor creature and having to type it multiple times was aggravating.]
[The place we stopped the session was due to it getting late and the next day being a workday for some of us. Due to family drama around my mom’s memory loss issues, the game for April 6 was cancelled as I had to drive to Austin and back. The game for April 13 was all done via Roll20. More about Roll20 in that set of session notes.]
Ratpack
Session 01
…
Session 10
Session 11
Session 12
Session 13
Session 14
Session 15
Session 16
Session 17
Session 18
Session 19
Session 21
[This game uses the Pathfinder 1E roleplaying game. Game sessions happen once a week. This session happened March 30, 2020.]
[SPOILERS! If you are likely to adventure through the Shattered Star Adventure Path from Paizo, this campaign will contain a lot of spoilers.]
Player Characters
Face-to-Face
Marativy – female ratfolk 3rd level Ninja
Roscuro – male ratfolk 3rd level Monk
Zitch Grimreaper – male 3rd level Witch with a donkey rat (capybara) familiar
Via Roll20
Templeton von Trapp – male ratfolk 3rd level Summoner (Synthesist)
Winston – male 3rd level Gunslinger
Day 13
Evening
The Ratpack slept in the Tower Girls’ common room inside The Crow, the Irespan support pillar the Tower Girls used as their current hideout. The Ratpack did this so they could keep an eye on the entrance to the sublevels. Marativy spent part of the time gambling with some of the Tower Girls. She cheated while playing and came out ahead 76 silver coin with the Tower Girls none-the-wiser.
Before going to sleep, Marativy concentrated on the metal shard in her possession. Previously, doing so showed the location of the next shard as the entry room of The Crow. Now it showed a different vision, one of a golden room with an altar. This suggested that the doors blocking access to the lower levels also blocked viewing the current location of the next shard. This indicated that the next shard was indeed down in the sub-levels, confirming the group’s suspicions as to its location.
Day 14
Morning
The Ratpack went back into Magnimar to purchase some supplies and meet with Frederick. But first, all members of the Ratpack returned to their homes to get cleaned up and put on fresh clothes. [Frederick’s business was in the wealthy part of town and the Ratpack had been dungeon crawling and fighting, so were not very presentable. Roscuro did not want to endanger their relationship with Frederick by embarrassing him in front of his clients or damaging his reputation.]
The Ratpack reassembled at the Blue Rodent in Underbridge and then walked to Frederick’s shop in the Naos district. Frederick was chatting with a client in his shop, a dwarf, but he greeted the Ratpack and asked them to wait. Marativy recognized the dwarf as a fence in town. After a short time, Frederick wrapped up business with the dwarf and he and the Ratpack got to business.
Roscuro showed Frederick the silver sphinx statue. Frederick was quite pleased with it and offered a good price. Then Roscuro pulled out the journal pages in Azlant and Frederick’s jaw hit the floor. Roscuro explained that Mend was used to rescue the pages, which is why there are only scraps and not full pages. Frederick nodded and then gathered himself. After some additional questions [including where all this Thassilonian stuff was coming from], Frederick and the Ratpack agreed on a price for the statue and journal pages. They also confirmed the amount Frederick paid for the amphora, the coins in it, and the statue of the rune giant they delivered previously. Receipts were exchanged so the Ratpack could prove the prices they were getting to their silent partners [the Tower Girls].
[The players took this time to do a general accounting of the various treasures they had sold and what amount of gold the party had in its account. They also calculated how much they owed the Tower Girls for their cut of the sales and what everyone's current share of the loot was. We allocated one share to the group fund in case any raise dead spells became necessary. This all could have happened in-game during the Ratpack's downtime but had never been done due to real time constraints. Once that was all done, play resumed.]
Roscuro asked Frederick if there was a shop where the Ratpack could purchase wands. Frederick directed them to a shop named The Brown Scepter. The Ratpack said their farewells and went over to the Brown Scepter where they bough a wand of Cure Light Wounds [fully charged] and a wand of Lightning Bolt [only 10 charges]. To pay for the wands, the Ratpack offered the Ring of Ferocious Action. While the members of the Ratpack are fairly competent in many activities, barter negotiations is not one of them. To seal the deal, the Ratpack agreed to pay an additional 400 gold coins to make the trade.
[Every member of the group has average to terrible Charisma scores and I rolled poorly. On top of which, the GM was originally treating the exchange like we were selling the ring and then buying the wands with the proceeds instead of making an even swap. We didn’t realize this until later in the session when he suddenly told us the Cure Light Wounds wand only had 28 charges. To say we were upset is an understatement. We did eventually work it out.]
Noon
After the shopping, the Ratpack returned to The Crow to continue searching for the second shard. After making their way through the Tower Girls’ lair in the upper four floors, they descended into the sub-levels. On the way through sub-level 2, they made a quick stop at the healing basin and filled up their waterskins with water from the basin [reminder: the water provides a Cure Light Wounds and a Lesser Restoration once per day]. At the door to the octagon room on sub-level 3, they paused to prepare to fight the abyssal larva on the other side. Zitch cast Protective Luck on Roscuro, Marativy, and Templeton.
Due to Zitch’s need to cackle to maintain the Protective Luck effect, the Ratpack gave up the element of surprise. When they opened the door to the octagon room, the larva spewed its maggot breath weapon over the entire group. Roscuro and Winston failed their saves and were sickened by it. Despite this, the Ratpack advanced and attacked the larva. Zitch got in the killing blow with the Lightning Bolt wand at the end of the second round.
The party healed up from the fight, using the Cure Light Wounds wand [this is when the discrepancy in the number of charges came up]. Then the group searched the room, including Zitch casting Detect Magic. The Alaznist statue in the center of the octagon room was not magical, but the ranseur it held was. It was also made of cold iron. To release it from the statue required breaking the statue’s hand, which damaged the statues re-sale value, but magic weapons were in short supply. Despite not being familiar with it, Roscuro ended up with the ranseur as he currently had no way to bypass the DR of the minor demons/devils the group was facing on this level.
Finding nothing else of value in the room, the Ratpack took the eastern door [as opposed to the southern or western doors]. Beyond was a short hallway to a room. As the group approached the room they heard some noise, which Zitch identified as the sounds of a couple nupperibos, the least kind of devils. [Zitch was on point whenever he made a Knowledge: Planes skill check that night.]
After a whispered discussion to put together a battle plan, the Ratpack quietly approached the room, stopping at the entrance. Zitch cast Lightning Bolt from the wand and killed one of the devils. Winston shot the other with standard shot, but it bounced off the nupperibo’s DR. The remaining nupperibo charged the group of ratfolk and engaged in melee. In the quick fight, all the ratfolk missed in their attacks except Winston, who got one shot in but failed to kill the nupperibo. In the end, the nupperibo accidentally killed itself when it fumbled an attack and took its own last remaining hit point with its spear. After the battle, the Ratpack collected the spear and named it “Demonkiller”. [Because “Self-own” was too anachronistic.]
A search of the room turned up nothing. The only exit was a set of stairs down to a lower part of this level. The Ratpack paused here.
End of Session
Rat Whispers
[Who ever named the nupperibo – I hate them. It is entirely too long and complicated a name for such a minor creature and having to type it multiple times was aggravating.]
[The place we stopped the session was due to it getting late and the next day being a workday for some of us. Due to family drama around my mom’s memory loss issues, the game for April 6 was cancelled as I had to drive to Austin and back. The game for April 13 was all done via Roll20. More about Roll20 in that set of session notes.]
Ratpack
Session 01
…
Session 10
Session 11
Session 12
Session 13
Session 14
Session 15
Session 16
Session 17
Session 18
Session 19
Session 21
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