Ratpack – Shattered Star Book 2, Session 41

[Day 65 Concludes – Puzzle Room solved (eventually) but we go back to camp]

[This game uses the Pathfinder 1E roleplaying game.  Game sessions happen once a week.  This session happened November 1, 2021.]

[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

Via Roll20

Marativy – female ratfolk 7th level Ninja

Zitch Grimreaper – male ratfolk 7th level Witch with a donkey rat (capybara) familiar

Roscuro – male ratfolk 7th level Monk

Hrefna – female changeling 6th level Omdura

Swamprover – female grippli 6th level Wizard

Templeton von Trapp – male ratfolk 7th level Summoner (Synthesist)

NPCs

Gridik Stormstride – male blue kobold 5th level Wizard (Invoker)

Ariphi – female tiefling 6th level Rogue

Mel Sharples – male halfling Cook (Expert of unknown level)

Alice Hyatt – female halfling Bodyguard (Warrior of unknown level)

Flo’ Castleberry – female gnome Bodyguard (Warrior of unknown level)

Autumn

Day 65 (Continued)

After learning that a wrong combination of statue hugging produced hostile elementals, the Ratpack decided to be a bit more thorough in solving the Riddle Room.  First they took the time to hug each statue singularly to verify they all produced the gold light on the empty platform.  They did.

Based on the translation of the floor clue [“She who desires to ascend to the Lady’s Light must deign to embrace those with whom the Lady Lies.”], the Ratpack decided to try hugging all the statues, minus the statue of Sorshen, under the assumption she likely had sex with all the other Runelords at some point.  Hugging additional statues one at a time, when the third statue was hugged the elementals reappeared and attacked.

The Ratpack fought the elementals and took some damage before defeating them.  Zitch was able to heal up Hrefna, Swamprover’s familiar, Snek, and himself with his Healing Hex.

Trying a different set of statues, the spellcasters were placed on hug duty and the rest formed a combat line in front of the empty alcove.  Again, when the third statue was hugged, the elementals reappeared and attacked.  Ready for them, the Ratpack put them down quickly, but resources were being expended during each combat.

It was now obvious that three statues being hugged triggered the elementals appearing.  Taking that into account, the adventurers started testing combinations of only two statues.  After testing all the combinations involving the statue of Alaznist and then Xanderghul, testing of combinations with Karzug started.  When hugging the statues of Karzug and Sorshen a golden mist appeared and filled the empty alcove [as opposed to just golden light or four elementals].  The golden mist detected as moderate conjuration magic.  Hrefna threw an iron spike into the mist and it disappeared.  Not wanting to make assumptions, the Ratpack spent the next hour checking the rest of the two-statue combinations and verified Karzug and Sorshen was the only combination that produced the gold mist.

At this point the spellcasters were out of most of their spells and Marativy and Roscuro were both low on ki, so the group decided to stop here and return back to camp to rest.  The next day they would return and go through the teleportation mist to what surely was the lair of Sorshen.

On the way back through the tunnels under the lagoon, at the nexus cave, several members of the group heard noises down one of the tunnels the Ratpack had not explored.  Zitch said the sounds were amphibian in nature.  A quick poll determined that the Ratpack just didn’t care about the noises at this point.  Hrefna was asked to cast Alarm on the tunnel that led to the dungeon and she did.  This would alert her if anything moved through that tunnel, which was all the adventurers cared about at that point.  Once the spell was cast, the group resumed their march to the troglodyte caves and the surface.

An Hour Later

The adventurers returned to their camp and collapsed to rest.  Mel served another amazing dinner, much to the envy of the merchants sharing the campsite.

Third Watch

Late in the night, while Zitch was on watch with Templeton and Gridik, Zitch noticed a black pudding approaching the camp.  An alarm was raised and the adventurers fought the pudding, killing it.  Hrefna’s armor and Marativy’s wakizashi were both damaged by the pudding during the fight.  Hrefna and Swamprover cast Mend to repair the damage done.  The rest of the night was quiet.

End of Session

Rat Whispers

[With family responsibilities for Christmas done, I had time to type this up.  I hope to get another typed up and posted this week, but need to prep for the game tonight.  We are doing the wrap up and item crafting between Book 2 and Book 3 of the Shattered Star Adventure Path, which will be Session 49 and the last one for this book.]

[I hope everyone who celebrates it had a Merry Christmas and I hope everyone else had a pleasant weekend!  In case I don’t get another post up this week, I wish everyone a Happy New Year!]

Ratpack

Book 1:

Session 01 – Start

…

Session 32 – Conclusion

Book 2:

Session 1

…

Session 10

…

Session 20

…

Session 30

…

Session 40

Session 42

Happy Holidays!

 Happy Holidays for whichever holiday you celebrate!

I am aiming to get the next session notes up tomorrow (Thursday) but I might be able to - depends on how things shake out.  I will not be posting next week at all [taking some time off from everything] so the next posting day after that should be January 4th.

Thank you for reading and see you in 2022!

Ratpack – Shattered Star Book 2, Session 40

[More Day 65 – Blood Hall, Barracks, and the Puzzle Room.]

[This game uses the Pathfinder 1E roleplaying game.  Game sessions happen once a week.  This session happened October 25, 2021.]

[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

Via Roll20

Swamprover – female grippli 6th level Wizard

Roscuro – male ratfolk 7th level Monk

Templeton von Trapp – male ratfolk 7th level Summoner (Synthesist)

Marativy – female ratfolk 7th level Ninja

Zitch Grimreaper – male ratfolk 7th level Witch with a donkey rat (capybara) familiar

Hrefna – female changeling 5th level Omdura

NPCs

Gridik Stormstride – male blue kobold 5th level Wizard (Invoker)

Ariphi – female tiefling 5th level Rogue

Mel Sharples – male halfling Cook (Expert of unknown level)

Alice Hyatt – female halfling Bodyguard (Warrior of unknown level)

Flo’ Castleberry – female gnome Bodyguard (Warrior of unknown level)

Autumn

Day 65 (Continued)

Zitch healed up Roscuro’s and Marativy’s wounds from fighting what might be the last of the Grey Maidens.  Zitch applied his healing hex to both and then a Cure Moderate Wounds spell to both, bringing each to full health.

The group of adventurers entered the large octagonal room the Grey Maidens had attacked out of and looked around.  There were four other doorways out (3 single doors, one each on the north, west, and south walls, and one set of double-doors, on the southwest wall) and a massive pillar in the center of the room with a staircase wrapped around it going up into the ceiling.  The staircase, of course, had no bannister.

Marativy investigated all the doors, checking them for traps.  Only the set of double-doors on the southwest wall was trapped and Marativy dis-abled the trap.  The single doors had viewing slits at human eye level, so Roscuro had Hrefna peer into them and describe what she saw.  Each slit provided a view of a different cell.  Zitch used his wand to detect secret doors.  While none of the cells had a secret door, the main room had one on the southeast wall.  Marativy investigated it and stated it was not trapped.  The adventurers set up around the secret door, expecting more Grey Maidens or something else to attack, and Roscuro opened the secret door.

The secret door opened to the northwest corner of a large chamber or hall with two rows of columns going west to east and supporting the ceiling.  The walls were mostly covered with a huge mural that showed acts of blood-letting and blood-drinking.  The mural was incomplete and the remains of scaffolding were against the western wall.  The blood in the murals appeared to flow and the air was ripe with a coppery scent.  A corridor exiting the chamber could just be seen on the east wall.  Roscuro immediately dubbed the chamber “Blood Hall” for obvious reasons.

Hrefna cast Detect Evil from the doorway and sensed five sources of moderate evil, apparently in the mural.  A casting of See Invisible by Gridik did not produce any results and Detect Magic only confirmed that the blood effect in the mural was magical – but the points of evil where not.  Strange.

After a short discussion, the adventurers decided to cross the chamber single-file with Hrefna leading the way.  The thought was Hrefna could lead the group through without getting too close to any of the evil sources.  Unfortunately, as soon as Hrefna stepped into the room, the points of evil manifested as five separate mists that immediately moved to attack!

The mists were very quick and three of them immediately closed on Hrefna and started draining her blood [draining 2 points of Constitution each and causing the Bleed condition].  Zitch cast Protective Luck on Hrefna while Templeton held his action.  Roscuro grabbed Hrefna and dragged her out of the room, hitting the button to close the secret door along the way.  The rest of the adventurers held position as the secret door slowly closed.  One of the mists got a final hit in on Hrefna before being sealed back in Blood Hall.

While the rest of the group held their breathe in case the mists somehow got past the secret door, Zitch quickly explained what they were and about them.  He identified them as vampiric mists and knew they were corporeal and would take weapon damage and were susceptible to fire.  They clearly fed on blood and acted as though under a Haste spell when gorged.  They are extra-planar in nature.

Once all were certain the vampiric mists were not pursuing, Hrefna cast Cure Light Wounds and Lesser Restoration on herself.  After several castings of each, Hrefna was back to full health.

The group decided to look elsewhere for now and Roscuro opened the double-doors on the southwest wall.  These doors led to another barracks, undoubtedly for the Grey Maidens the adventurers had just killed.  There were 14 bunks and most appeared to have been slept in.  Marativy and Zitch searched everything, finding a total of 500gp hidden away in various places.

The only other path was up the staircase spiraling around the central pillar.  Roscuro, Marativy, and Templeton led the way up the stairs, going ahead as a sort of stealth vanguard, but Roscuro and Marativy chit-chatted about the dungeon the entire way up.  [We both rolled terrible on Stealth.]

After a total of 60 feet of climbing, the last 20-30 enclosed after the stairs pierced the ceiling, the stairs emerged in the center of a large circular, white-marbled chamber with an opalescent domed ceiling.  Writing in Thassilonian was inscribed in a circle on the floor and there were 8 large alcoves, each at a cardinal directions.  All but the one in the east contained a statue, but unlike every other statue in the dungeon, these were [mostly] of different people [only one was Sorshen in this set] and in color so they had a somewhat life-like appearance.  Marativy and Gridik conferred on the writing and announced it said, “She who desires to ascend to the Lady’s Light must deign to embrace those with whom the Lady Lies.”  Closer inspection of the statues resulted in them being identified as the seven Runelords.

The adventurers debated the meaning of the riddle.  For a while.  A long while.  They were fairly certain that Sorshen had sex with all of the Runelords at one point or another, so limiting it to “those with whom the Lady Lies” seemed difficult.  If it meant who she was sleeping with when their civilization ended, none of the adventurers were up on their 7000-year-old gossip.

Eventually, Roscuro decided to hug the statue of Xanderghul, the Runelord of Pride.  This caused a golden glow to manifest in the empty alcove.  Roscuro quickly stepped over to that alcove and hopped in, but nothing happened.  After a minute, the gold glow went away.  He then asked Marativy to hug the same statue while he remained in the empty alcove.  She did, the glow returned, but nothing else happened.

The adventurers experimented.  They discovered hugging Xanderghul and Karzug at the same time caused a stronger glow effect, but still no teleportation.  When three of the statues were hugged, four elementals appeared in the empty alcove, one each of fire, earth, air, and water, and attacked.

After the fight, many of the adventurers needed healing and that was done.  Clearly getting the combination wrong produced bad results.  More thinking was needed.

End of Session

Rat Whispers

[Sorry for the delay on this one.  End-of-year Day Job business combined with need to map a whole new dungeon level and stock it for my Adventures in the Green game took up all of my writing time.  I’m squeaking this one out late this week as I think I’m finally past the end of year rush at the Day Job but need to gear up for running the next Monday Group campaign, starting on December 27th.  I might talk about that in a later post next week – depends on how my schedule goes.]

[The puzzle room had us stumped for this session.  We end up getting a lot of good data on the combat abilities of elementals next session.]

Ratpack

Book 1:

Session 01 – Start

…

Session 32 – Conclusion

Book 2:

Session 1

…

Session 10

…

Session 20

…

Session 30

Session 31

Session 32

Session 33

Session 34

Session 35

Session 36

Session 37

Session 38

Session 39

Session 41

Status Update

First, check out Shattered Star Book 2, Session 39, if you missed it as I'm dual posting today.

Second, we will finish Book 2 of the Shattered Star Adventure Path this month [December 2021].  When exactly is not certain, but we are just doing some mopping up of experience points after essentially completing the adventure in Book 2 at this point.  Making the situation slightly more complex, the Other GM has finished his training for his new job and expects to get assigned to his new position some time soon.  Some of those options are not in the Houston area, which means he and his wife [Marativy's player] might be moving this month, which clearly takes precedence over the game.  No one is sure of the timing here, so we are playing it by ear.

On top of which, the Other GM needs time to modify Book 3's content as we are rapidly leveling out of it.  The players don't see this as an issue but he wants to change it up and maybe cut some of the less playable sections.  We really did not like Book 2 very much as it dragged in parts and we always seemed to be fighting things that were designed to be hard for our level, exploiting weaknesses in the character classes that another level or two would fix [the writer was "punching down" as it were].  The glass golem was an excellent example of this - it nearly killed several characters when we encountered it, but another level [or two] higher and spells like Shatter became available and it is would be easier to defeat.

So December 27 we will be switching back to the Delvers Guild campaign.  As I'm running about 5 sessions behind on publishing my notes here, the Ratpack will continue to appear on the blog until the end of January.  I will probably finish by posting summary pages for Book 1 and Book 2 that list links to all of the sessions for each book and then put a link to those summary pages in the sidebar in the Campaign Archive widget.  I will also create one for the Delvers Guild.  

I'm going to change how I do links at the bottom of each session report, starting with the Delvers Guild campaign.  I will only be putting three links at the bottom of each post: one to the summary page, one to the previous session page and one to the next session page.  It gets tiring inserting an increasing number of links each post and I think this will solve that while still providing easy navigation back and forth.

Please let me know if you have any feedback on any of this in the comments.  Thank you!

Ratpack – Shattered Star Book 2, Session 39

[Day 65 – Hydra hunt failure and Grey Maiden cleanup]

[This game uses the Pathfinder 1E roleplaying game.  Game sessions happen once a week.  This session happened October 18, 2021.]

[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

Via Roll20

Swamprover – female grippli 6th level Wizard

Roscuro – male ratfolk 7th level Monk

Templeton von Trapp – male ratfolk 7th level Summoner (Synthesist)

Marativy – female ratfolk 7th level Ninja

Zitch Grimreaper – male ratfolk 7th level Witch with a donkey rat (capybara) familiar

Hrefna – female changeling 5th level Omdura

NPCs

Gridik Stormstride – male blue kobold 5th level Wizard (Invoker)

Ariphi – female tiefling 5th level Rogue

Mel Sharples – male halfling Cook (Expert of unknown level)

Alice Hyatt – female halfling Bodyguard (Warrior of unknown level)

Flo’ Castleberry – female gnome Bodyguard (Warrior of unknown level)

Autumn

Day 65

Over breakfast, the Ratpack decided that this was the day they were going to go kill the pyrohydra.  They spent some time discussing the route and what spells needed to be cast.  The spellcasters organized their memorized spells in preparation for fighting the hydra before the group headed southeast to the ford across the river.

An hour later they started approaching the pyrohydra’s lair.  Marativy and Zitch started scouting ahead to verify that the hydra was in its lair.  The air was humid and foggy and Marativy and Zitch stumbled across some sort of greenish fog clouds.  The group attempted to go around the clouds but the clouds attacked, engulfing Hrefna and doing damage [I did not note what kind of damage, but it was 19 points worth].  Roscuro told everyone else to run for it and he would stay and help Hrefna escape.  With Roscuro’s help, Hrefna broke free.

The clouds attempted to engulf Roscuro and failed.  Surrounded, he withdrew, but two of the clouds got in hits as he left [two natural 20 rolls on attacks of opportunity].  The Ratpack fled the area and quickly outpaced the clouds.  Once the group felt they were clear of the area, Hrefna used a healing aura to heal the damage she and Roscuro had taken.

Marativy resumed scouting the way and saw many tracks of the hydra.  Once the group was within five minutes of the cave entrance, they stopped so Marativy could sneak in and verify the hydra was in its lair.  Zitch put his Ward on her and cast Heroism on her.  He then activated the earrings of telepathy so he could stay in touch with her.

Marativy safely reached the cave entrance and entered the hydra’s lair.  She made it all the way to the hydra’s bed/loot pile without finding the hydra.  Certain that the hydra was not there, she approached the bed/loot pile, noticing a wand sticking out of a bag of coins.  She quietly removed the bag from the pile and stashed it in her box of holding.

Over the telepathic link with Zitch, she asked the group if they wanted to loot the loot pile.  Roscuro asked if there was a back exit from the lair to the Deep Caves.  Marativy explored further and found it.  She reported back there was an exit.  After a quick discussion, the rest of the group decided to join Marativy in the lair and extracted the valuables from the loot pile.  Checking for magic, two items glowed: a ring and the wand.  They would be identified later as a ring of swimming and a wand of acid arrow with 25 charges remaining.  The adventurers took the back exit to the deep caves.

Noon

The Deep Caves from the hydra’s lair took longer to navigate, both because it was a new route and because it was longer than the troglodyte route, but it did eventually reach the nexus chamber and then the dungeon.  The adventurers made their way down into the dungeon until they returned to the Inner Sanctum.

Marativy went up the stairs to the east to the balcony to spy upon the ballroom.  From the empty balcony she could see that the Secure Shelter Zitch cast was still up but she could not see any of the Grey Maidens.  She returned to the group and reported what she had seen.

The Ratpack took the corridor to the south and followed it around until it reached the ballroom.  From there, Roscuro had Zitch drop the Secure Shelter to see what happened.  Zitch did so, which triggered some sort of fireball trap that engulfed the stage area in fire.  From 80 feet away it looked impressive.

The group approached the secret door to the south of the stage and prepared for a fight.  Roscuro opened the secret door and the Grey Maidens waiting in ambush attacked, as expected.  What was not expected was their use of scrolls of hold person.  Two attempted to hold Roscuro but failed [he made his save twice] but a third successfully held Hrefna, who was immobile for the rest of the fight.  During the fight the Ratpack gradually pushed into the room past the secret door and killed the six Grey Maidens there.

While waiting for Hrefna to become mobile, the bodies were checked and two potions of cure light wounds were found along with a scroll of hold person.

End of Session

Rat Whispers

[This session was a lot of frustration for the players.  We made a plan, went to go execute the plan, and the Other GM denied us the fruits of our labor.  There was no reason for the hydra to not be there from a game perspective.  The last time we had seen it was during the day while it was sleeping off a meal.  The Other GM could easily have decided it was doing the same on this day and the PCs would have had a minor triumph.  Very frustrating.]

[We do eventually kill that hydra, but several sessions later.]

Ratpack

Book 1:

Session 01 – Start

…

Session 32 – Conclusion

Book 2:

Session 1

…

Session 10

…

Session 20

…

Session 30

Session 31

Session 32

Session 33

Session 34

Session 35

Session 36

Session 37

Session 38

Session 40

Ratpack – Shattered Star Book 2, Session 38

[Day 64 Concludes – Aftermath of the Ballroom blitz, more Grey Maidens, then back to the surface]

[This game uses the Pathfinder 1E roleplaying game.  Game sessions happen once a week.  This session happened October 11, 2021.]

[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

Via Roll20

Swamprover – female grippli 5th level Wizard

Roscuro – male ratfolk 7th level Monk

Templeton von Trapp – male ratfolk 7th level Summoner (Synthesist)

Marativy – female ratfolk 7th level Ninja

Zitch Grimreaper – male ratfolk 7th level Witch with a donkey rat (capybara) familiar

Hrefna – female changeling 5th level Omdura

NPCs

Gridik Stormstride – male blue kobold 5th level Wizard (Invoker)

Ariphi – female tiefling 5th level Rogue

Mel Sharples – male halfling Cook (Expert of unknown level)

Alice Hyatt – female halfling Bodyguard (Warrior of unknown level)

Flo’ Castleberry – female gnome Bodyguard (Warrior of unknown level)

Autumn

Day 64 (Continued)

After the conclusion of the fight with the lust sinspawn, Hrefna activated her healing aura to heal up the adventurers.  During this time Marativy and Swamprover searched the body of the fallen sinspawn.  They found three pieces of jewelry worth taking, a crown and two amulets, and the thing's polearm, a guisarme.  Zitch cast Detect Magic and found only the gisarme was magical [+1].  Marativy cut off one of the sinspawn’s hands as a trophy.  [This is the beginning of a trend Roscuro will find disturbing, although he does not realize it yet.]

Once the healing was done, Roscuro, Gridik, and Zitch headed down to the far end of the ballroom.  The ruby throne and statues of Sorshen were still there, but the raised platform where the orchestra was sitting was completely empty.  Roscuro swapped his amulet of mighty fists for his golembane scarab and used the scarab’s powers to determine none of the statues of Sorshen were golems.  Zitch and Gridik confirmed nothing in the area detected as magic.  Upon closer inspection, the ruby throne was not actually made of ruby but alchemically treated stone.  Roscuro was actually disappointed – he had grown used to the Runelords’ overwhelming amount of magic use and expected the throne to actually be ruby.

Once the "all clear" was given, the rest of the adventurers walked down to the far end of the ballroom to look around.  The stage area was lined with burgundy and gold tapestries.  Hrefna cast Detect Evil and searched the stage area, but found no evil there.  Roscuro threw rocks at the tapestries to verify they were not mimics.  Roscuro then asked Zitch to use his wand of detect secret doors on the area.  Zitch found no secret doors in the stage area, but there was one on the wall just to the south of the stage.  Marativy checked the secret door and found it was trap free, so Roscuro opened it.

Beyond the secret door was an octagonal room.  The floor was covered by a mosaic of snakes and arms and there was an oak door on the far wall.  Zitch cast Detect Magic from the doorway and discovered the room had a faint abjuration magic on it.  He then used his wand to check for secret doors and found none.  Roscuro and Marativy entered the room and walked over to the oak door.  Marativy inspected it for traps and found none.  Roscuro tried the door handle to see if the door was locked – it wasn’t.

Just as Roscuro was going to discretely pull the door open, several Grey Maidens bull-rushed into the room [one with fancier armor than the others] while archers in the area beyond the door shot at Marativy and Roscuro.  Roscuro deflected the arrow shot at him, but Marativy was hit.

A hectic melee ensued, with the Grey Maidens mixed in with the Ratpack to gain flanking on the ratfolk.  Templeton cast Haste on the Ratpack and Swamprover cast Create Pit [among other spells] in the oak doorway, effectively stopping anymore Grey Maidens from entering the room.  The Grey Maiden archers quickly learned it was pointless to shoot at Roscuro, who kept deflecting their arrows.  The Grey Maiden leader hit hard, scoring hits on Hrefna, Roscuro, Marativy, and Swamprover.  At one point in the fight Swamprover dropped to the floor and played dead to avoid being hit again and killed.

The Ratpack gradually killed the Grey Maidens in the room one by one until only their leader stood.  They then piled all their attacks on her until she dropped.  This convinced those Maidens on the other side of the pit to retreat.  The Ratpack let them.

While catching their breath, the Ratpack searched the bodies for valuables, only finding armor and weapons.  Gridik cast Detect Magic and two items on the leader and her sword and armor glowed.  While the leader’s armor was stripped off her, Hrefna raised her healing aura as most of the adventurers needed a lot of healing.

The Ratpack retreated to the ballroom and closed the secret door.  Zitch took 10 minutes to cast Secure Shelter on the stage.  The spell would last 14 hours and would give the Grey Maidens something to concentrate on rather than follow the Ratpack back to the surface.  The Ratpack then withdrew, returning to the surface.

After Dinner

Back on the surface and after another fine meal cooked by Mel, the Ratpack discussed their options.  There was much interest in going after the pyrohydra now, but also staying on task and dealing with the Grey Maidens.  Zitch pointed out there was a chance they could catch the Grey Maidens waiting in ambush on the secure shelter and the Ratpack could ambush them instead.  There was a finite window on that as the spell would eventually end and the Grey Maidens would realize the adventurers were not inside it.  The group eventually decided to do both.  They would go raid the pyrohydra’s lair early in the morning and then use the tunnel in the back of the lair to access the dungeon, arriving before the spell expired.

During this conversation Swamprover scribed a scroll of Snow Ball for Gridik.  Gridik then transcribed the spell into his spellbook [the Storm Compendium].  In the morning he would memorize several castings to target the hydra as heads were cut off to keep them from growing back.

Zitch identified the magic items taken from the Grey Maiden leader as a +1 longsword and +1 full plate armor.

End of Session

Rat Whispers

[The fight was quite the hurly-burly and Swamprover went down to single digit hit points when she decided to play dead.  Her casting Create Pit completely tipped the balance of the fight to favor the Ratpack.  The Grey Maiden leader was doing enough damage that two hits had a chance of killing any one of the adventurers.  It was a challenging combat run well by the Other GM.]

[Sorry for this being a bit late.  Last minute rush of meeting project milestones before the holiday made the last couple days very busy.  The next several days will be very busy as well, but with family and friends so much better.  Saturday I’m hosting a board game get together and if I remember to take pictures, I’ll post them next week as a bonus blog entry.  I expect to get in at least one game of Milton Bradley’s Shogun (now called Samurai Swords).  It’s been ages since I last got in a game of it.]

Ratpack

Book 1:

Session 01 – Start

…

Session 32 – Conclusion

Book 2:

Session 1

…

Session 10

…

Session 20

…

Session 30

Session 31

Session 32

Session 33

Session 34

Session 35

Session 36

Session 37

Session 39

Ratpack – Shattered Star Book 2, Session 37

[Day 64 – The Inner Sanctum and…a Grand Ball?]

[This game uses the Pathfinder 1E roleplaying game.  Game sessions happen once a week.  This session happened October 4, 2021.]

[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

Via Roll20

Swamprover – female grippli 5th level Wizard

Roscuro – male ratfolk 7th level Monk

Templeton von Trapp – male ratfolk 7th level Summoner (Synthesist)

Marativy – female ratfolk 7th level Ninja

Zitch Grimreaper – male ratfolk 7th level Witch with a donkey rat (capybara) familiar

Hrefna – female changeling 5th level Omdura

NPCs

Gridik Stormstride – male blue kobold 5th level Wizard (Invoker)

Ariphi – female tiefling 5th level Rogue

Mel Sharples – male halfling Cook (Expert of unknown level)

Alice Hyatt – female halfling Bodyguard (Warrior of unknown level)

Flo’ Castleberry – female gnome Bodyguard (Warrior of unknown level)

Autumn

Day 64 (Continued)

The Ratpack recalled the information Mochtau had given them about the possible location of the shard.  [In truth, this is when we actually asked the Other GM for the info as we had all forgotten about it last session.]  Mochtau had told the Ratpack that Sorshen spent most of her time in a room accessed through a teleporter.  The teleporter was through the Inner Sanctum and up some stairs.  Mochtau didn’t know the details as the area was too small for her to move through.

The chamber the Ratpack was in had two exits: a corridor to the south that almost immediately turned west and a corridor to the west that contained a set of stairs.  Hoping these stairs were the ones they were looking for, the adventurers quietly made their way up them.

There were a set of double doors at the top of the stairs, beyond which could be heard a party.  After Marativy verified the doors were not trapped, Roscuro quietly opened one of the doors just enough so he and Marativy could sneak through.  The doors opened onto a balcony overlooking a grand ballroom where a party was in full swing.

The ballroom was vey large and over 120 feet long.  The pillars supporting the 30-foot-high, curved ceiling were carved to look like tree trunks.  The ceiling was carved to look like a thick tree canopy that provided peeks at an illusory night sky.  Most of the floor was covered by a rich orange rug with streaks of gold in it.  An orchestra sat and played at the far end of the ballroom on a stage that was separated from the room by four large statues of Sorshen.  On the ballroom floor, flanked by the center two statues was a throne carved from a single piece of ruby, upon which sat Sorshen herself!  The ballroom was full of people chatting and dancing while wearing masquerade-style masks.  The single exit was a doorway on the southern wall nearer to the balcony end of the long room rather than the stage end.

Roscuro doubted any of this was real, but his eyes continued to show the scene.  [Roscuro failed his Will Save to disbelieve the illusion, which caused the Ward on him to drop, alerting Zitch that something had happened to Roscuro.]  Roscuro and Marativy returned through the double doors to the rest of the Ratpack and reported what they had seen.  Zitch asked what had gone wrong as the Ward had dropped.  This gave Roscuro pause and reinforced his belief that the party was an illusion.  Swamprover cast Detect Magic and stepped forward and through the double doors to look.

Swamprover saw that the lighting of the room from the “night sky” was illusion.  The people nearest the balcony were real and not enchanted, but she did not have the range with the Detect Magic spell to see if Sorshen or the orchestra were illusions or not.  She returned to the top of the stairs and reported what she had detected.  The fact that all those people were real was both surprising and disturbing.  It suggested “Sorshen” had many more people at her disposal than expected.

The Ratpack backtracked, satisfied this was not the set of stairs they were looking for.  They took the southern passage from the Inner Sanctum room, expecting it to lead to kitchens or some other cluster of rooms supporting the party.  Instead, they found a single corridor leading to the side entrance to the ballroom.

The Ratpack paused and discussed the situation.  Something strange was going on here.  They decided they did not have enough information to puzzle this out.  Not wanting to face the crowd all at once, the adventurers retreated again and headed back up to the balcony to try and get more information.  Ariphi and Hrefna formed a rearguard at the top of the stairs.

This time they were spotted.

Sorshen had the music stop and she called out the Ratpack’s presence to the assemblage.  She invited the Ratpack to join the ball.  A tall man dressed in green and gold loudly agreed.  He appeared to be Karzoug, the Runelord of Greed.  Swamprover promptly cast Fireball into the mass of people.  When it detonated, all the people disappeared.  Two 4-foot tall bestial humanoids [dretches] instead appeared on the balcony with the Ratpack.  [I’m going to detail this fight as some interesting things happened.]

Swamprover, wanting nothing to do with melee combat, withdrew from the dretches by climbing over the edge of the balcony and then underneath it.  Marativy used her ki to make her invisible, stepped over to a dretch and then slashed it.  Zitch identified the dretches as such to the group.  Roscuro stepped and flurried into the dretches, killing both.  Hrefna advanced onto the balcony to get a better view of what was going on.  Gridik cast See Invisible upon himself and moved up to see if there was anything invisible – he spotted an invisible creature, some form of sinspawn flying near the ceiling.  The creature summoned two more dretches, but Zitch quickly reacted, unleashing Conjuration Foil [a reaction spell cast during another’s action], forcing the two dretch to appear on the floor of the ballroom instead of up on the balcony.  One of the dretch cast Stinking Cloud on the balcony – it was not the worst thing the Ratpack had ever smelled [all the adventurers made their saves].

Swamprover attempted to climb along the underside of the balcony but slipped on the smooth and polished marble surface.  From the floor of the ballroom she cast Magic Missile and killed one of the dretches.  Marativy waited on Roscuro.  Zitch cackled [to maintain Protective Luck on a party member, but my notes don’t say who], activated his Flight hex, and flew over 5 feet. Roscuro jumped off the balcony, using one of the pillars supporting the roof to slow his fall, and landed next to the remaining dretch, punching it.  Marativy moved now, following Roscuro to the floor but accidentally hitting Roscuro instead of the dretch with her wakizashi [she fumbled her attack].  Hrefna retreated from the stinking cloud on the balcony to the stairs.  Ariphi, still on the stairs, waited for other attackers to appear.  Gridik jumped off the balcony to escape the stinking cloud and cast Feather Fall to drop safely to the floor.  The remaining dretch hit Roscuro [almost as hard as Marativy had].  The invisible sinspawn summoned three spider demons, dropping them on the ballroom floor amongst the adventurers there.  One of the spider demons attacked Marativy and missed, one webbed Roscuro [who was adjacent to it], and one hit Gridik.  Templeton flew out over the ballroom floor and then cast Haste, catching most of the adventurers in the area of effect [I think he only missed Swamprover and Gridik].

Swamprover cast Magic Missile at the remaining dretch and killed it, then she stood up.  Zitch flew up out of the stinking cloud and put Protective Luck on Roscuro.  Roscuro flurried on the adjacent spider demon and hit it multiple times, bloodying it.  Marativy attacked the same spider demon and finished it off.  Hrefna ran through the stinking cloud and leapt onto Templeton’s back.  Ariphi moved through the stinking cloud, hopped the balcony bannister, and hung there with a ready weapon [she was out of actions due to distance moved, but was outside of the stinking cloud].  Gridik stepped away from the spider demon attacking him and hit it with Magic Missile, defeating its spell resistance – he also called out the presence of the invisible sinspawn and its location.  The invisible sinspawn cast Lightning Bolt, catching Ariphi, Hrefna, and Templeton with it.  Ariphi was knocked unconscious and then fell 20 feet to the floor.  The spider demon on Gridik stepped over to the retreating kobold and hit him again while the other one attacked Marativy and missed due to Roscuro bodyguarding her.  Templeton flew over to the now-visible sinspawn and clawed at it, getting in a hit.

Swamprover stepped over to Ariphi and, using Stabilize, stabilized Ariphi [Stabilize available as a spell-like ability through her Green-Blooded trait].  Zitch identified the sinspawn as such to the group and cackled to maintain the Protective Luck on Roscuro.  Roscuro told Marativy to help Gridik and flurried on the spider demon, killing it.  Marativy turned invisible, moved to flank the spider demon attacking Gridik, and killed it with her attack.  Hrefna, on Templeton’s back, did a Full Attack on the sinspawn and hit twice, discharging the spell stored in her sword into it as well.  Ariphi remained unconscious but did not bleed to death thanks to Swamprover’s help.  Gridik cast Lightning Bolt at the sinspawn, only to discover it was immune to lightning.  The sinspawn clawed and bit at Templeton successfully, sickening Templeton.  Templeton returned the savagery and clawed it multiple times, causing it to bleed.

Swamprover moved for a better line of sight and cast Snow Ball at the sinspawn, hitting it solidly.  Zitch placed Protective Luck on Templeton and cackled to maintain the castings still active.  Roscuro escaped the webbing he was in and stepped out of the affected area.  Marativy used her ki to turn invisible, ran up the side of a pillar, and slashed the sinspawn with a surprise attack before safely floating back down to the floor [due to her ring of feather fall].  Hrefna attacked the sinspawn with Divine Touch, damaging it.  Gridik cast Force Bolt and hit the sinspawn.  The sinspawn bled from Templeton’s earlier attack while floating away before casting Lightning Bolt on Hrefna and Templeton.  This time Templeton evaded the spell but Hrefna took a glancing blow [made her save for half damage].  Templeton floated over to the sinspawn and then shredded it, killing it.

End of Session

Rat Whispers

[That fight had several firsts, most notable was the use of Conjuration Foil, which pushed the dretches away from the PCs and down to the lower floor instead of amongst the PCs.  That changed the nature of the fight and allowed the PCs to gain the upper hand.  Swamprover’s trait, Green-Blooded, finally came into play and saved Ariphi’s life and Gridik finally used his Arcane Bond with his ring to cast Feather Fall, something planned since the NPC was built.]

[We wrapped up after the fight as it was getting late.  We did healing and looting the next session.]

Ratpack

Book 1:

Session 01 – Start

…

Session 32 – Conclusion

Book 2:

Session 1

…

Session 10

…

Session 20

…

Session 30

Session 31

Session 32

Session 33

Session 34

Session 35

Session 36

Session 38

Ratpack – Shattered Star Book 2, Session 36

[Day 63 and 64 – Scribing a scroll, trading with a giantess, and an oops!]

[This game uses the Pathfinder 1E roleplaying game.  Game sessions happen once a week.  This session happened September 27, 2021.]

[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

Via Roll20

Swamprover – female grippli 5th level Wizard

Roscuro – male ratfolk 6th level Monk

Templeton von Trapp – male ratfolk 6th level Summoner (Synthesist)

Marativy – female ratfolk 6th level Ninja

Zitch Grimreaper – male ratfolk 6th level Witch with a donkey rat (capybara) familiar

Hrefna – female changeling 5th level Omdura

NPCs

Gridik Stormstride – male blue kobold 4th level Wizard (Invoker)

Ariphi – female tiefling 5th level Rogue

Mel Sharples – male halfling Cook (Expert of unknown level)

Alice Hyatt – female halfling Bodyguard (Warrior of unknown level)

Flo’ Castleberry – female gnome Bodyguard (Warrior of unknown level)

Autumn

Day 63

The Ratpack spent the day in camp so Gridik could learn Lightning Bolt from Swamprover and so Zitch could craft a wand of detect secret door.  The real delay was Swamprover needing to scribe the spell on a scroll before Gridik could then copy it over to his spellbook.  [Swamprover is a Familiar Adept, meaning her viper familiar, Snek, is also her spellbook.  Zitch is in a similar situation with his donkeyrat familiar, so while the two of them can swap spells easily, we have to use a scroll intermediary to get spells between them and Gridik.]

Day 64

Morning

After another fine breakfast cooked by Mel, Roscuro pulled out the bottle he retrieved from the perfume closet.  There was writing imprinted on the bottle, but not in a language any of the Ratpack could read.  A rubbing was taken of the writing for later translation back in Magnimar.  After that the group geared up and started the hike back to the dungeon.

11:00-ish

Down in the dungeon, in the Room of Grey Flame, Roscuro asked Zitch if he had completely checked the room for secret doors.  Zitch hadn’t as the spell had run out after he learned how to open the secret door in the western side chamber.  With no time pressure and Zitch having a wand full of charges now, Roscuro suggested he complete his survey, including the hallway with all the bedrooms, just to be complete.

Zitch activated the wand and finished his survey of the Room of Grey Flame, finding no secret doors.  However, the scan of the hidden hallway turned up a secret door at the far end that the Ratpack had missed the last time they investigated it.  Beyond it was another bedroom with a much larger and more ornate bed and a door on the north wall.

The Ratpack discussed whether to explore further this way or continue on to Mochtau’s throne and provide her the requested bottle.  The group decided to go see the giantess first [Roscuro was concerned the bottle might get broken in a fight].  They reversed course and went across the Room of Grey Flame to the stairs down to the foot-kiss teleportation mural [see Session 30 for details].  Before teleporting, Gridik, Zitch, and Templeton all cast Mage Armor on themselves.

Once teleported to the lower level, they rowed the boats across the underground lake, carefully staying together in case anything attacked.  Nothing did and they made it to the landing for Mochtau’s throne room safely.

After opening the red metal door, Roscuro called out for permission to approach and was granted it.  He and Swamprover walked down the hall with Marativy and Templeton following stealthily.  Again the giant lizard pets part to allow Roscuro and Swamprover to approach the throne area.  Mochtau and Roscuro talked a bit until Mochtau asked if he had the vial.  Roscuro pulled the bottle out of his handy haversack and presented it, hoping it was the bottle she wanted as all the rest were shattered.  Mochtau stepped forward and took the vial from Roscuro, gazed at it for a bit, then laughed while throwing it at the throne she had sat upon for over 7000 years.  The bottle shattered when it his and the formerly dark hall lit up with light.  The giant lizard pets transformed into other cave giants [very nude cave giants who proceeded to stretch and flex].

Mochtau seemed very pleased.  She asked Roscuro his name and he told her.  She went over to the chests lining the back wall and retrieved a sack that jingled.  She handed Roscuro the bag of gold coins and thanked him for his service.  [We forgot that the actual payment was supposed to be a lead to the location of the shard the Ratpack was looking for.  Next session we ret-con-ed the exchange of information to happen here.]

Mochtau had questions about the surface conditions in the area.  Apparently, she and her people used to own all the surrounding land.  Roscuro showed her the map and pointed out where the troglodyte cave was and asked her to treat them well as they were allies.  He pointed out the boggard camp and said they were jerks and had no ties to Roscuro and his group.  Swamprover brought up the merchants and Roscuro suggested they might be willing to make deals.  Eventually the Ratpack said their goodbyes and left.

The Ratpack took the rowboats around to the other cave and the entrance to the Grey Maiden barracks.  There Roscuro went through the bag Mochtau had given him.  It was full of gold and platinum coins of a mint none of the Ratpack recognized.  [Total value in coins of 2500gp.]  There was also an amulet in among the coins that Roscuro somehow missed [rolled a 1 on Perception] but everyone else noticed.  Zitch verified it was magic and identified it as an Amulet of Mighty Fists [+1].  Roscuro claimed it as his fists were his primary means of fighting and the rest of the group concurred.  [Roscuro had to take off his Golembane Scarab as it occupies the same “space” as the amulet and he needed the amulet’s effects more than the scarab’s.]

Once done investigating the reward, the Ratpack decided to go investigate the barracks area fully.  The Grey Maiden barracks room was clean and the bodies missing, but the table still showed signs of the fireball cast on it two days ago.  This led to speculation that the cleaning magic on everything was based on Prestidigitation and not Mend.  The bath house area was also clean so the Ratpack decided to investigate the next room in depth.

This room was the receiving end of the teleportation area in the Inner Sanctum.  Zitch used his wand to determine the room had no secret doors.  Detect Magic revealed the statues had divination magic on them and the three large gold squares set between them had transmutation magic.  This suggested the squares could teleport a person somewhere in the dungeon.  Not wanting to push their luck with a blind teleport, the Ratpack decided to try the door at the far end of the room instead.

Marativy examined the door and pronounced it trap free.  Hrefna went to open the door but it was stuck and would not open.  Templeton stepped up to assist Hrefna in opening the door.  Their combined strength was much more than was necessary and this opened the door suddenly.  Templeton was able to catch himself but Hrefna didn’t and was propelled by inertia into the next room, where a sloping floor surrounded a large and deep pit.  Hrefna was not able to catch herself on the slope and slipped into the pit – right onto a massive green slime!

Zitch and Templeton immediately flew into the room to assist Hrefna.  To avoid getting any of the green slime on them, they lowered a rope into the pit to help Hrefna climb out.  Hrefna was heavily wounded by the green slime [she’d taken 5 of her 10 points of Constitution in damage in the first round].  After scraping the slime off her [and several items in the process], Lesser Restoration was cast multiple times to fix the damage.  The Ratpack closed that door behind them, leaving the dungeon’s trash pit to itself.

The Ratpack went to the Hidden Shrine and said the words necessary to teleport to the Inner Sanctum.

[We stopped early here as we were experiencing networking issues and people kept dropping the audio.]

End of Session

Rat Whispers

[It wasn’t until a couple days later that I thought we should have asked the cave giants how they were going to exit the dungeon.  They are too large to take the tunnels the PCs were using to gain access and we could really use a shorter way to get to the dungeon.  The tunnels took 2 hours each way, so we lost a lot of day getting to the dungeon.  Missed opportunity.]

Ratpack

Book 1:

Session 01 – Start

…

Session 32 – Conclusion

Book 2:

Session 1

…

Session 10

…

Session 20

…

Session 30

Session 31

Session 32

Session 33

Session 34

Session 35

Session 37

Ratpack – Shattered Star Book 2, Session 35

[Day 62 – First look at the Inner Sanctum]

[This game uses the Pathfinder 1E roleplaying game.  Game sessions happen once a week.  This session happened September 20, 2021.]

[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

Via Roll20

Templeton von Trapp – male ratfolk 6th level Summoner (Synthesist)

Roscuro – male ratfolk 6th level Monk

Hrefna – female changeling 5th level Omdura

Swamprover – female grippli 5th level Wizard

Marativy – female ratfolk 6th level Ninja

Zitch Grimreaper – male ratfolk 6th level Witch with a donkey rat (capybara) familiar

NPCs

Gridik Stormstride – male blue kobold 4th level Wizard (Invoker)

Ariphi – female tiefling 5th level Rogue

Mel Sharples – male halfling Cook (Expert of unknown level)

Alice Hyatt – female halfling Bodyguard (Warrior of unknown level)

Flo’ Castleberry – female gnome Bodyguard (Warrior of unknown level)

Autumn

Day 62 (Continued)

Marativy had just disappeared in a flash of light from the hidden shrine to Nocticula the Ratpack had discovered in a secret area off the Grey Maidens’ bathhouse.  Not certain that all had heard what Marativy had said to cause the teleportation, Hrefna wrote down “Amivadeus Yasrin” on a scrap of paper and set the paper down on the shrine’s altar.  Pointing to the scrap of paper, Hrefna said, “She said, ‘Amivadeus Yasrin’.”  This caused Hrefna to also teleport to an unknown location.

Roscuro asked Zitch to use the earrings of telepathy on him before saying the words and teleporting to where Marativy and Hrefna were.  Both were fighting a group of sinspawn and for some reason a giant image of Nocticula was also fighting some of the sinspawn!  [Marativy had used the Major Image power of the shard in her possession to attempt to cower the sinspawn and it had not gone well.  Incidentally, lust sinspawn are disturbing, being the definition of “monster porn”.]  Roscuro quickly relayed the situation to Zitch so he could tell the rest of the Ratpack the situation.  The rest of the Ratpack joined Marativy, Hrefna, and Roscuro in the inner sanctum and the fight against the sinspawn, which wrapped up the fight fairly quickly.

The room they were in was spacious with two large alcoves, north and east, that those teleporting in were randomly split between.  There was a corridor in the south wall and stairs up in the west wall.  There were some benches made of solid pieces of obsidian that looked both valuable and too heavy to move plus a thick rug covering most of the floor.

The first order of business was to try and find a way back to a part of the dungeon the Ratpack knew.  Roscuro stepped back into the eastern alcove [the one he had arrived in] and said the words that had teleported him here.  Nothing happened.  Zitch cast Detect Magic and looked around.  The northern alcove had magic.  He started concentrating on that to identify what kind of magic, but Roscuro, slightly impatient, stepped into the alcove to say the words.  Before he had time to say anything, he teleported to another room, one he had not seen before.

The room he arrived in was long, more of a hall, with black marble statues of Sorshen down the center and large gold squares on the floor.  It was quite tacky in appearance.  There were doors at either end of “Gaudy Hall” and Roscuro checked the one at the west end first.  It opened to the Grey Maidens’ bathhouse, being the eastern door of that room.  Roscuro used the still extant telepathic link with Zitch to explain where he was and that it was safe for everyone to teleport through.

Once everyone was in Gaudy Hall, there was some cursory investigation of the hall and discussion about whether to return to the Inner Sanctum or return to camp to rest.  The consensus was that the group was running low on resources and returning to camp would seem to be a wise choice.

The group made their way out of the dungeon.  On the way through the tunnels to the surface, the group spotted some ochre jellies in a side passage and decided they wanted nothing to do with them.

Late Afternoon

The Ratpack returned to camp and cleaned up.  Mel prepared an excellent dinner.

Third Watch

In the early hours of the morning, Zitch, Gridik, and Templeton were on watch and noticed some light flashing to the east.  It appeared to be flames of some sort.  Zitch and Gridik consulted and thought the lights appeared to be from a Burning Hands spell.  Whatever was causing the lights never got closer to the camp, so they did not raise an alarm.

End of Session

Rat Whispers

[Several characters leveled after the night’s rest: Marativy, Roscuro, Templeton, Zitch, and Gridik.  This was one of the factors in the group deciding to return to camp.  I also seem to have missed updating Gridik’s level a couple sessions ago.  He turned 4th level at the end of Session 32 and will be 5th level next session (Session 36).]

[I’m not detailing the combats anymore unless something cool/significant happens, particularly the short, unimportant fights.  This might make for some short session summaries when several short combats take up most of the session and I apologize if that happens.  I will detail the fight when we get to the story boss for this book.]

Ratpack

Book 1:

Session 01 – Start

…

Session 32 – Conclusion

Book 2:

Session 1

…

Session 10

…

Session 20

…

Session 30

Session 31

Session 32

Session 33

Session 34

Session 36

Ratpack – Shattered Star Book 2, Session 34

[Day 62 – The Hidden Shrine of Nocticula]

[This game uses the Pathfinder 1E roleplaying game.  Game sessions happen once a week.  This session happened September 13, 2021.]

[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

Via Roll20

Marativy – female ratfolk 6th level Ninja

Hrefna – female changeling 5th level Omdura

Templeton von Trapp – male ratfolk 6th level Summoner (Synthesist)

Roscuro – male ratfolk 6th level Monk

Swamprover – female grippli 5th level Wizard

Zitch Grimreaper – male ratfolk 6th level Witch with a donkey rat (capybara) familiar

NPCs

Gridik Stormstride – male blue kobold 3rd level Wizard (Invoker)

Ariphi – female tiefling 5th level Rogue

Mel Sharples – male halfling Cook (Expert of unknown level)

Alice Hyatt – female halfling Bodyguard (Warrior of unknown level)

Flo’ Castleberry – female gnome Bodyguard (Warrior of unknown level)

Autumn

Day 62 (Continued)

Hrefna and Zitch cast spells to heal and restore Roscuro from the effects of the poison gas.  The perfume closet was nothing but glass shards at this point, but Roscuro asked Zitch to use the wand of detect secret doors to see if there were any secret doors in that room or the crooked passage to it.  The cave giantess had told the Ratpack that there were two things behind the secret door that brought them here and the Ratpack had only found one.

Zitch used the wand.  There were no secret doors or compartments in the perfume closet, but there was a secret door in the passage leading to it, right where the passage seemed to go around something.  Roscuro opened the secret door and found a fancy room that was clearly a shrine.  There was an altar at the far end of the room with some objects on it and the ceiling was a mass of dark fog.

Roscuro, Marativy, and Swamprover entered the shrine.  Marativy and Roscuro stopped just inside the door so Marativy could search for traps, but Swamprover walked all the way in, nearly making it to the altar before the dark fog on the ceiling dripped down and deposited four shadow dogs with long, whip-like, tails in the room, two of which were between Swamprover and the only exit!

The two dogs between Swamprover and the door attacked and hit Roscuro and Templeton [who was in the doorway, Marativy having concealed herself was not a valid target].  One of the other two attacked Swamprover [missed] and the last one howled, causing panic in Templeton, Ariphi, Hrefna, and Marativy!  Hrefna turned and fled, followed immediately by Marativy.  Swamprover defensively cast Burning Hands, catching two of the shadow dogs in the arc of flames.  Templeton fled while Zitch cast Protective Luck on Roscuro and then moved to a better position in the hallway outside the shrine.  Gridik cast Magic Missile on one of the dogs and then stepped for a better line of fire.  Roscuro, not wanting to abandon Swamprover to the shadow dogs [although he had to think about it a bit], unleashed a flurry of blows on the shadow dog that attacked him, landing one blow and hitting only shadow with another.  [The shadow mastiffs have a displacement effect due to partially being shadow and all hits have a 50% chance to pass through shadows and do no damage.]

Three of the dogs attacked Roscuro.  Thanks to Zitch’s Protective Luck only one blow landed, a tail attack from the third dog that failed to trip Roscuro.  Swamprover was not as lucky and was both tripped by the fourth dog and bit.  Hrefna and Marativy continued to flee, but gradually came to their senses [the panic wore off after two rounds].  Swamprover got up from the floor acrobatically, avoiding an attack of opportunity from the dog standing over her, and climbed the wall to get away from the dog.  Templeton fled again, gradually coming to his senses, but he was now all the way back at the kitchen area.  Zitch re-added the Protective Luck to Roscuro and cackled to maintain it.  Ariphi fled again, gradually coming to her senses.  Gridik, in perfect position, used the bond with his ring [his magic focus] to cast Fire Breath, burning all three of the dogs attacking Roscuro, killing one of them.  Roscuro flurried again, again landing a single solid hit.

Two of the remaining dogs attacked Roscuro, getting hits in despite the Protective Luck.  The third dog attacked Swamprover and bit the grippli, who was not quite high enough to avoid attacks yet.  Hrefna, once again in control of herself, ran all the way back to the fight, trusting that nothing would attack her along the way.  [Run provided 4x movement but at the cost of a big hit to armor class.]  Marativy headed back to the fight but at a more cautious pace.  In the shrine, Swamprover cast a Lightning Bolt at the dog attacking her and edged a bit higher on the wall.  Templeton flew back to the fight as fast as he could, arriving back just behind Hrefna.  Zitch took a five-foot step to Roscuro and cast Cure Moderate Wounds as Roscuro was now heavily injured.  Zitch then cackled to maintain the Protective Luck.  Ariphi ran back to the fight, passing up Marativy on the way.  Gridik released another breath of fire, scorching the two dogs attacking Roscuro.  [Fire Breath allows the caster to breathe fire in a 15-foot cone three times, each time rolling fewer dice.]  Roscuro flurried again, landing a single blow, but it was enough to drop that dog.

The dog near Roscuro decided Gridik was a bigger threat and stepped over to attack the kobold, successfully biting and tripping him.  The other dog turned away from out-of-range Swamprover and attacked Roscuro, getting in a bite.  Hrefna, back in the fight, used a divine touch effect to damage the shadow dog attacking Gridik.  Marativy used ki to speed her step and arrived in Roscuro’s space, also attacking the dog on Gridik but missing.  Swamprover, from her position up on the wall, cast Snow Ball at the dog attacking Roscuro, but only hit shadow.  Templeton attacked the dog on Gridik with all his attacks, hitting twice and killing the dog.  Zitch placed an Evil Eye of the last dog and cackled.  Ariphi attempted to acrobatically get past the dog to flank it, failed, and then missed with her attack.  This turned out to be convenient as Gridik released his last use of Fire Breath from the floor and killed the last shadow dog.

Zitch placed his healing hex on Swamprover and Gridik, healing Gridik completely.  Hrefna cast Cure Moderate Wounds on Roscuro, healing him the rest of the way.  Zitch then used his wand of cure light wounds to finish healing up Swamprover.

In the meantime, Marativy checked the room for any further traps and found none.  Behind the blood-stain altar was a mural of Nocticula with her arms out from her sides with a globe of darkness hovering above the upturned palms.  Zitch identified this as Nocticula back when she was still a demonlord.  Marativy discovered there were words behind the black globes.  The left orb concealed a list of those consigned to the Lady’s Light with only one name left, Ashamintallu.  The right orb concealed words that said, “Those who would seek my inner sanctum need only speak my artist’s name.”  On the altar were a silver scroll tube, a symbol of a seven-pointed crown with thorny vines, a curved blade, a blood-stained gold cup, a bronze incense burner, and some incense.

While Marativy and Roscuro puzzled over the riddle, Gridik cast Locate Object to try and find the shard.  He received no answer, so it was not within the range of the spell.

Marativy said aloud, “Amivadeus Yasrin,” the name of the artist who painted Porn Hall, and disappeared in a flash of light!

End of Session

Rat Whispers

[The senior members of the adventuring group received enough experience during this session to finally level.  Unfortunately, they still need to make it back to camp alive and rest overnight before getting the level.  With Marativy suddenly being teleported deeper into the dungeon, that is not as straight forward as we’d like.]

[Our entire group is now playing remotely via Roll20 as the Other GM is in training for his new job and doesn’t get home until just before game time.  As he needs to eat dinner before the game, it is more convenient for him to go home and run the game from there than stop for dinner, get to my place, and eat while running the game or delaying start until 30 minutes later.  This more or less works, although anytime we have connectivity issues we lose 10-15 minutes getting everyone back to the point where they can be heard.  Part of that issue is Roll20 and part is due to the Wi-Fi issues.  This will last until mid-November and we all look forward to it ending.  The downside is that when it ends, the Other GM will get his actual work assignment and it is quite possible he will be assigned to another city or even state.  We’ll deal with that when it happens, but we are all hoping he gets a slot here in the Houston area.]

Ratpack

Book 1:

Session 01 – Start

…

Session 32 – Conclusion

Book 2:

Session 1

…

Session 10

…

Session 20

…

Session 30

Session 31

Session 32

Session 33

Session 35