Tuesday, March 17, 2020

Ratpack – Session 16

[The Ratpack continues searching past the Siccarite Doors.]

[This game uses the Pathfinder 1E roleplaying game.  Game sessions happen once a week.  This session happened March 2, 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
Marativy – female ratfolk 2nd level Ninja
Templeton von Trapp – male ratfolk 3rd level Summoner (Synthesist)
Roscuro – male ratfolk 3rd level Monk
Zitch Grimreaper – male 3rd level Witch with a donkey rat (capybara) familiar
Winston – male 2nd level Gunslinger


Day 12
Mid-afternoon, back part of the 1st floor
After following the secret door to the aquatic feeding area, the Ratpack backtracked to the amoeba room and actually searched it.  Part of the wall near the top of the western staircase was illusionary.  Behind the illusory wall was a 5-foot wide passage that led to a pillared chamber that opened on a cistern.  The walls, floor, and ceiling were covered by webbing, including a statue on the far side of the cistern.

Roscuro used his rat statuette to warn Jade that there would be smoke as he was about to burn more webbing.  Once she acknowledged the message, Roscuro lit and threw a torch into the chamber.  The webbing caught fire and started billowing smoke, so the Ratpack backed up to the amoeba room.  The smoke agitated the bats clinging to the ceiling here and so the Ratpack had to fall back further to the room with the secret door and the stairs down to wait.

Once the smoke had mostly cleared the Ratpack advanced to see the results.  All the webbing was burned and there was soot and ashes all over.  The water in the cistern was covered with a layer of ash and the statue was missing!  Worried that the statue had animated and was lurking, waiting to attack, the Ratpack went into a defensive combat posture.  They then carefully searched the area, looking for secret doors or the statue.  After some time, the statue was finally located down in the cistern.  It appeared that the statue was broken and the webbing was the only thing holding it in place.  Detecting no magic in the statues’ vicinity, the Ratpack decided they would come back for it later.

Before going down to a lower level, the Ratpack finished searching this level.  The passage west out of the amoeba room led to a changing room, suggesting the pool in the amoeba room was a bath of some sort.  It was also a dead end with no other hidden passages.

The Ratpack descended the stairs to a sub-level, below the water level outside the giant stone pylon.  The stairs opened on a large crypt, some 60 by 70 feet with sepulchers along the walls.  Six large, unusual mounds of dirt were located randomly in the chamber, nearly ten feet tall.  Roscuro and Winston entered the chamber to look around when giant ants started climbing out of the tops of the bounds.  They were giant anthills and the ants were hungry!

A total of seven giant ants attacked the ratfolk.  Zitch used Protective Luck hexes on the Ratpack, which kept the ants from hitting often.  By the end of the fight the giant ants were dead and only Roscuro and Marativy were injured.  Zitch used his healing magic on both, leaving Roscuro mostly healed and Marativy fully healed.  Zitch commented that the giant ants were not attacking like they typically do, but he had no explanation why.

The Ratpack decided to investigate the ant hills themselves.  The hills all connected and led to a central chamber where mites were found, digging away at the walls.  The mites fled down a side passage with Templeton in hot pursuit.  The rest of the ratfolk prepared cold iron weapons and shot anticipating the need as mites are a sort of fae.

Templeton caught up to the mites and grabbed one by the scruff, hauling it back to the rest of the ratfolk for questioning.  Roscuro questioned the mite, asking if it knew where the shard he was looking for was.  The mite claimed that the mites have no metal as it is bad for them.  The ratfolk felt the mite was telling the truth [good Sense Motive rolls were made].  They had Templeton release it and apologized for scaring it.  The Ratpack then left the somewhat confused mite and exited the giant ant nest.

Back in the crypt, the Ratpack followed a passage east and then south.  The passage widened at one point and a search turned up a small secret door.  The door led to a short passage that ended at another secret door.  Beyond the second secret door was another widened passage containing a Large spider [not a giant spider, something larger than that].  Stairs up and down could be seen at either end of the passage.  The Ratpack caught sight of the spider first and closed the secret door so it could not attack them.  Not wanting to tackle this monster while there was still places to explore, the Ratpack backed up to the hallway and closed the first secret door before continuing south.

That passage ended in stairs down to a sub-chamber [still part of this level but lower than the rest].  At the bottom of the stairs was a chamber with more mites and some giant spiders [9 mites and 4 giant spiders (which are Medium in size)].  Thick webbing covered the walls and ceiling but not the floor.  Debris was stacked up and webbed together to make crude furniture for the mites.  After a few failed attempts at talking, it was discovered that they only spoke Undercommon.  Luckily for the ratfolk, Winston and Zitch also speak Undercommon.  They translated for Roscuro, who asked to speak with the mites’ leader.  The mites huddled to confer and then one stepped up onto a spider and approached the ratfolk.  He said the king would not speak to the ratfolk as he was busy.  Templeton rejoined with “So you speak for your king?  Good.  We will speak with you.”

After some back and forth, the Ratpack explained that it was looking for a piece of metal and wanted permission to search for it.  The mite spokesman, somewhat belligerently asked what the ratfolk had to offer for the right to search.  This stumped the Ratpack.

End of Session


Rat Whispers
[The giant ant fight took some time and felt tough.  It was late when we got to the negotiations, so we decided to call it a night and resume the next week.  Hopefully we would have an idea of what we could offer the mites might want.]

[This sub-level felt a bit ad hoc to me.  Having the mites down here was interesting, but felt kind of pointless and just tacked on.  Maybe there will be a point – we’ll see.]


Ratpack
Session 01

Session 10
Session 11
Session 12
Session 13
Session 14
Session 15


Session 17


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