Tuesday, December 10, 2019

Ratpack – Session 05

[The ratfolk adventurers return to Magnimar and we start the actual Shattered Star adventure path.]

[This game uses the Pathfinder 1E roleplaying game.  Game sessions happen once a week.  This session happened November 25, 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
Winston – male 1st level Gunslinger

Non-Player Character
Balenar Foresend – male human bard, member of the Pathfinder Society and freed hostage

Day 4
Over breakfast, the ratfolk adventurers discussed what they wanted to do next.  They needed to take Balenar back to Magnimar.  They had explored almost every part of the siege castle except the blocked off stairs down to whatever lay below the ground.  Finally, many of the group were running out of rations.  This last item turned out to be the most significant and so the group packed up their camp.  The restored goods (books, scrolls, swords, shields) were packed up in the chest from the 5th floor to take back and sell to Frederick [the antiquities dealer they made a deal with in Session 1].

Roscuro took the time to put up some chalk signs.  The signs read:

“Property of Ratpack
Especially the 3rd Floor”

The signs were drawn next to the doorway to the spider room [first floor, north tower] and both visible doors on the second floor.  The ratfolk also removed all footprints leading to the library [first floor, south tower].

Once finished their preparations, the ratfolk and the human bard started walking back to Magnimar.

1:00 PM
Back in Magnimar, the ratfolk adventurers made their way to the local lodge of the Pathfinder Society.  Balenar explained what would likely happen and who they would end up speaking with.  At the lodge, the ratfolk waited in the lobby for half an hour until a human woman came out and got them.  They were escorted to an office and the woman introduced herself as Sheila Heidmarch, the local guild master.

Rather than pay the ratfolk for rescuing Balenar, she instead offered them an opportunity to join the Pathfinder Society.  Roscuro asked if he and his compatriots could discuss the offer privately and Sheila agreed to step out of the room as she needed to meet someone else for a moment.  On her way out of the office, Sheila indicated an odd box on a table was part of the job she was offering and then left.

Roscuro wanted to discuss whether the group should accept a job instead of a reward with the other ratfolk, but Zitch and Marativy were already checking out the weird box.  Roscuro sighed, realizing the group wasn’t getting paid in coin but accepting the job.

The box was a stone chest with runes inscribed on it.  Zitch identified the runes as Thassilonian and, despite being carved into the stone surface, they were movable on their surfaces.  The box detected as magical, with auras of abjuration and conjuration.  Zitch played around with the runes, spelling out different words.  When he solved the puzzle [not stating how due to spoiler], a seam appeared in the box.  Winston opened the box and two tiny dog-like creatures popped out.  Roscuro made a critical attack of opportunity on one and it stayed to fight him.  The other started breaking things in the office.

Not wanting to get blamed for the destruction, the group of adventurers attacked the creatures.  While the ratfolk often hit the creatures, they inflicted much less damage than they should have.  Roscuro remembered the cold iron short sword he had on him at about the same time Marativy accidentally dropped her wakizashi.  Roscuro drew the short sword and passed it over to Marativy who was better with it.  The cold iron was super effective and two swings later, but creatures were dead.  They blinked out of existence when they died, being summoned creatures, so when Sheila and an elf woman came charging in there were no bodies to show them.  Sigh.

Marativy explained what happened while Zitch healed Roscuro and himself [who were injured in the fight].  Sheila introduced the elf woman as Koriah Azmeren, the finder of the box.  Both seemed impressed that the ratfolk had opened it.  Opening the box seemed to qualify as a test for joining the Pathfinder Society and Sheila seemed happy that the ratfolk all accepted the job offer.  She also let the ratfolk keep the contents of the box [3 garnets, a silver dagger, and a magic ring – later identified as a ring of feather fall].

The job was to locate an informant of Sheila’s who had gone missing after reporting the Sczarni had found an important item.  Natalia was supposed to meet and provide details but never showed for the meeting.  Rumor had it the Sczarni were now looking for her.  Our job was to find her first, find the item for the Pathfinder Society, and not spill the beans we were part of the Society until after the job.  Sheila felt that if people knew we were part of the Society they might not be as forthcoming with information.  Roscuro had his doubts but agreed to the terms of the job.  Sheila provided each member of the group with a wayfinder [minor magic item and badge of membership], a potion of cure light wounds, and a set of clothes with the Pathfinder Society logo.  The clothing was returned for tailoring [ratfolk have tails that the clothes did not accommodate].

After leaving the lodge, the ratfolk went to a friendly tavern in Underbridge, the Blue Rodent.  They got a private room and spent an hour sorting out the loot from the siege tower.  They sorted out the stuff they wanted to keep from the stuff they were going to sell to Frederick.  Magic items were apportioned out to those able to use them best.  The items they were keeping but did not want to carry with them were put into a chest and dropped of at the home of Roscuro’s parents [he is the only member of the group with living parents].

3:00 PM
After dropping off those items, they hauled a second chest with the things they wanted to sell to Frederick to the address he provided earlier in the week.  This turned out to be a fancy antiques shop in the wealthier part of Magnimar.  Frederick was not in, but a young human assistant was.  When the assistant saw the ratfolk walk in, he gave them the stink eye.  In his haughtiest voice the assistant asked what possible business the ratfolk could have in this shop.  Not having any of that, Roscuro told the assistant they had a contract with Frederick, they had the items Frederick asked for, and that they were leaving with the items and would be back tomorrow.  As the ratfolk left, Roscuro added over his shoulder that the price just went up because of Frederick’s rude assistant.

The group headed back to Roscuro’s parents place to drop off this chest as well, taking care to not be followed.

End of Session


Rat Whispers
[So I think the Pathfinder Society is either very forgiving or really desperate based on how easy it was to join.  That or the plotline requires us to be members to proceed.]


Ratpack
Session 01
Session 02
Session 03
Session 04


Session 06


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