Thursday, September 17, 2020

Ratpack – Session 32

[Day 22.  End of Book 1 of the adventure path.]

[This game uses the Pathfinder 1E roleplaying game.  Game sessions happen once a week.  This session happened July 20, 2020.]

[SPOILERS!  If you are likely to adventure through the Shattered Star Adventure Path from Paizo, this campaign will be spoilers all the way down.]


Player Characters

Marativy – female ratfolk 4th level Ninja

Roscuro – male ratfolk 4th level Monk

Zitch Grimreaper – male ratfolk 4th level Witch with a donkey rat (capybara) familiar

Via Roll20

Templeton von Trapp – male ratfolk 4th level Summoner (Synthesist)

Winston – male ratfolk 4th level Gunslinger


NPCs

Auto – a clockwork servant fixated on Winston

Lockerbie – a male marine ghoul currently allied with the Ratpack against the derro



Day 22

At the end of a series of fights, the Ratpack was still standing [barely] and the derro of Derro Hall were dead.  The corpse of the derro boss was in Derro Hall, next to the stairs on the northwestern wall.  The ratfolk looted his body of valuables, including some potions of cure moderate wounds and a headband of vast intellect [which Zitch eventually ended up with].  Once the derro leader was looted, the Ratpack went back to the labs and relieved the other two derro of their few valuables, including the wand of charm person and a total of 4 doses of brown mold freezing poison.  The corpses went to Lockerbie.

Having caught their breath and done some minor healing, the ratfolk adventurers descended [or climbed up] the straight set of stairs by the northwestern wall of Derro Hall.  These steps led to a crude alchemical lab with quality equipment [masterwork alchemical set] and some crates.  Zitch cast detect magic and detected 3 items, two in one crate, and one in a different crate.

The group decided to pack up the alchemical set for resale back in Magnimar.  This took some time, during which Zitch identified the magic items looted from the derro corpses.  Needing to use the crates, Roscuro pried one open with his crowbar, setting off a poison powder trap [save made to resist the effects].  Inside the crate were many bags of coins and one bag containing a glass lens.  It detected as magical, so Roscuro handed it over to Zitch for identification.  In the meantime, the bags of coins were counted and came to 232 gold coins, 1423 silver coins, and 2100 copper coins, a nice sum.

Zitch identified the lens as a glass lens of detection.  Roscuro used the lens to examine the next crate for traps and found none.  He pried off the lid and promptly set off the trap inside the crate [because apparently checking for traps inside the box is a separate check than checking the outside?].  This time the poison damaged Roscuro’s lungs [total of 13 hit points of damage] until he coughed it all out.

Inside the crate the adventurers found a scarab pin [magical], a wand [magical], and a case containing 3 vials of Cytillish poison, which causes memory loss.  [Reading between the lines, the derro had been up to some creepy stuff down here with the townsfolk they kidnapped.]  Zitch identified the scarab as a golembane scarab, which Roscuro eventually claimed, and the wand a wand of spiritual weapon.  The wand went into the loot bag as none of the spellcasters could use it [spiritual weapon was not on their spell lists].

After packing up the alchemical kit and identifying the various magic items, the group left and went to the circular stairs in the center of the hall.  These stairs were dusty.  Very dusty.  They also descended for quite a while.  After descending an estimated 600 feet, the stairs suddenly ended at the top of a huge cavern.  The cavern was covered with fungus and slimes in a riot of colors and shapes.  This was most unexpected.  After some discussion, the group concluded that this cavern was likely an entrance to Nar-voth, the upper reaches of the Darklands.  The only thing any of the Ratpack knew about the Darklands was that they were extremely dangerous.  The group unanimously turned around and went back up the steps.  They wanted no part of the Darklands.

Once back up to Sub-level 4, Lockerbie and the Ratpack parted ways amicably.  Lockerbie went back to the mural room that was his home.  The Ratpack took the east passage Lockerbie stated went back to the surface.  The Ratpack nearly walked past a secret door in the tunnel.  Behind the secret door were stairs going up.  And up.  And up.  Until the Ratpack came out a trapdoor in an alley behind the Bazaar of Sails in Magnimar.

There was a city guard there who noticed the group of ratfolk climbing out of the trapdoor and asked them to identify themselves and what they are up to.  Winston explained that they were part of the Pathfinder Society and had killed the derro that were kidnapping the townsfolk recently.  The guard asked if they had any proof, like the derro heads.  The ratfolk looked at each other – they had no proof with them.

Templeton and Marativy volunteered to go all the way back down and get the heads.  The rest of the group rested and waited on the surface with the guard.  Eventually Templeton and Marativy returned with three derro heads in a sack.  This satisfied the guard who sent them to the Guard HQ to collect a reward.  Zitch and Winston, the most charismatic of the group [and not having been arrested recently, like Roscuro and Templeton had] took the heads to the Guard HQ and collected a 500 gold coin bounty.

While they were collecting the bounty, Marativy, Roscuro, and Templeton went back to the Pathfinder Society lodge.  There they told Sheila about Frederick’s kidnapping and the connection to Thassilonian relics.  As the Ratpack was now engaged by the Pathfinder Society to track down a series of Thassilonian relics, the kidnapping was not likely coincidental.  Sheila promised to look into the kidnapping while the Ratpack was tracking down the next shard.

End of Session


Rat Whispers

[And that’s the conclusion of Book 1 of the Shattered Star Adventure Path.  The GM pointed out we were starting to work on things that happen in Book 2, so we stopped there.  We will eventually return to this adventure path and do Book 2, but not for a while.]

[Next up is a return to the Delvers Guild campaign.  We’ll continue there until the players get to one of the designated stopping points I set for the campaign or we get to Spring and Vorgand needs to head back north for the next adventuring season at Barrowmaze.  When either of those happen, we will stop the Delvers Guild campaign and go back to the Barrowmaze campaign, picking up at the beginning of Season 2.  We might fit in Book 2 of the Shattered Star AP between the Delvers Guild and Season 2 of Barrowmaze, but it is more likely that we will do Book 2 after Season 2 of Barrowmaze.]

[The Delvers Guild campaign has already resumed and 4 sessions have been played by the point I wrote this.  I’ll continue posting twice a week until my buffer is down to two sessions, at which point I will resume one post a week.  I plan to use the extra writing time properly writing up my GM notes for each adventure location and make them available as encounter locations through DriveThruRPG.  I’ll have stats for the monsters and magic items for the HERO System and probably for my own OD&D rules, Adventures in the Green.  From that point you could adapt them to any D&D-based system.]



Ratpack

Session 01

Session 10

Session 20

Session 30

Session 31


End of Campaign

Landing page for Book 2: Curse of the Lady's Light



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