[Start of Day 33. Trog fight!]
[This game uses the Pathfinder 1E roleplaying game. Game sessions happen once a week. This session happened February 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
Zitch Grimreaper – male ratfolk 5th level Witch with a donkey rat (capybara) familiar
Roscuro – male ratfolk 5th level Monk
Swamprover – female grippli 4th level Wizard
Marativy – female ratfolk 5th level Ninja
Via Roll20
Templeton von Trapp – male ratfolk 5th level Summoner (Synthesist)
Winston – male ratfolk 5th level Gunslinger
NPCs
Auto – a clockwork servant fixated on Winston [whom we totally forgot about until Session 6]
Gridik Stormstride – male blue kobold 1st level Wizard (Invoker)
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 33, Expedition Day 3
Midday
At the mouth of the troglodyte cave, the Ratpack started their attack on the troglodytes. Winston stepped forward and rapid fired his musket, killing one of the four troglodyte guards. Roscuro switched to his light crossbow and loaded it. Marativy stealthed into the side of the cave and was sickened by the troglodyte stench. Templeton pounced forward and killed a second troglodyte guard before being sickened by the stench. The two remaining guards counter-attacked Winston and Templeton, missing both. Zitch cast Protective Luck on Roscuro while Gridik cast a Force Missile at the troglodyte attacking Winston.
Swamprover, having cast Mage Armor on herself, now moved to attack, casting Magic Missile at the troglodyte attacking Templeton. Winston stepped away from his attacker and attempted to rapid fire again but his musket misfired and jammed. Roscuro took the opportunity to shoot the troglodyte Winston was avoiding, hitting but failing to kill the troglodyte with his crossbow bolt. Marativy moved to flank the troglodyte fighting Templeton and backstabbed it for a solid blow. Templeton, sickened by the stench, missed with all of his attacks. That troglodyte was emboldened and continued to attack Templeton, but the other lost its nerve and fled deeper through one of the passages at the back of the cave. Zitch cast Ward on Roscuro, who entered the cave finally and was sickened by the stench [losing the just cast Ward]. Gridik used another Force Bolt and killed the remaining troglodyte guard.
Those members of the Ratpack not already in the cave entered it and became sickened from the stench. After four minutes, all but Roscuro had normalized from the stench. [I just could not roll high enough to make the save.] Rather than lose even more time, Roscuro waved the rest of the Ratpack forward, accepting that he would not be fighting at peak health for a while. [I did keep scrupulous track of the combat rounds as they passed, counting down to the next time I could roll another Fort save.]
Marativy snuck forward as the group’s scout, taking the right-hand passage of the two exiting the back of the cave. Unfortunately, she was observed by the troglodytes waiting in the next cavern [natural 20 for the group Perception roll]. All six guards threw javelins at her, luckily only one hit. Marativy stepped back quickly to call out a report that the tunnel was short and led to another cavern with more troglodytes. Roscuro advanced to Marativy’s position, ordering the rest of the Ratpack to advance and attack.
Swamprover advanced down the adjacent left-hand passage and discovered more troglodytes in a side corridor that connected to the adjacent cavern and continued deeper into the ground. The troglodytes attacked Swamprover and hit her with their javelins. She responded with Flame Breath, scorching most of them. Templeton cast Haste on the group and then moved to support Swamprover, attacking the scorched troglodytes there.
At the entrance to the cavern on the right and adjacent to the corridor Swamprover and Templeton were fighting in, Roscuro decided to push the battle to the troglodytes scattered around the far side of the cavern. He used a ki point to enhance his leaping ability and leapt forward 30 feet, landing adjacent to one of the troglodyte guards and punching it hard. Marativy attempted to match the leap, but discovered that the majority of the floor in this cavern was a single pit trap with the guards stationed at points along its rim – Roscuro had been lucky and landed on the one spot available to stand on. Her ring of feather fall saved her from impalement on the spikes below and she immediately vaulted back up to the rim of the trap. This broke the morale of the troglodyte guard who immediately surrendered, causing many of the other guards to also surrender. One guard instead fled out one of the passages on the eastern edge of the cave. In the meantime, Swamprover and Templeton killed the guards down the side passage to the west and joined back up with the rest of the Ratpack. Winston immediately started clearing his jammed musket.
With Swamprover and Gridik as translators, Roscuro questioned the troglodyte guards. [At some point here Roscuro finally made his Fort save and lost the Sickened condition. Woot!] The head guard (the one who had surrendered first) explained that the troglodyte chieftain had been killed in the battle with the boggards and the tribe shaman had taken over leadership of the tribe. Additionally, the boggards had snuck into the troglodyte caves and broken all the eggs in the hatchery. The shaman was now sacrificing those who had fallen sick after the battle to appease their god for failing. Roscuro conferred with Winston and then told the troglodyte that the adventurers could cure their sick without sacrificing any of them. The troglodyte guard decided this would be better and showed the Ratpack to the next cavern north, where the troglodyte sick were laid out [something like 10 to 15 troglodytes].
Winston and Zitch started attending to the sick, using their healing kits to the limit. This helped the troglodytes sick with filth fever to start recovering [they all made the first of two saves necessary to shrug off the disease]. The head guard was pleased by this and explained that the one guard who fled east was loyal to the shaman and probably warning him. During this conversation he also answered questions about deeper caves [we suspected there was a way into the dungeon under the light house here]. He said there was a passage that went much deeper, but there were dangerous “bitey-pinchy-bugs” that way and the troglodytes had barricaded the tunnel entrance and cultivated some violet fungus on the other side to guard that passage. Zitch opined these were "albino cave solifugids" based on the description. The rest of us adopted the trog name for them as they understood it and didn’t Zitch’s name for them.
End of Session
Rat Whispers
[Everyone was healthy gain with negative test results for Covid at this point. Marativy’s player had a worse case than I did as she lost her sense of smell and most of her sense of taste while she had it. We both consider ourselves lucky in that we got minor cases of Covid. I have friends elsewhere who got it much worse.]
[I was honestly surprised we ended up talking with the troglodytes. The Ratpack’s original meeting with troglodytes was nearly a TPK, so no love was lost to them. Apparently, when two of us jumped over the pit trap they realized we could bypass their major defense and they lost all heart. On top of which, their morale was low because their god seemed to have abandoned them after the battle with this boggards.]
Ratpack
Book 1:
…
Book 2:
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