[Day 36 concludes and Day 37 begins. Eels and Ghoul-bats.]
[This game uses the Pathfinder 1E roleplaying game. Game sessions happen once a week. This session happened April 12, 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 5th level Ninja
Winston – male ratfolk 5th level Gunslinger
Templeton von Trapp – male ratfolk 5th level Summoner (Synthesist)
Roscuro – male ratfolk 5th level Monk
Zitch Grimreaper – male ratfolk 5th level Witch with a donkey rat (capybara) familiar
Swamprover – female grippli 4th level Wizard
NPCs
Auto – a clockwork servant fixated on Winston
Gridik Stormstride – male blue kobold 2nd 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 36, Expedition Day 6
Evening
Zitch healed up Winston and Templeton to make full use of his healing magic for the day. The night was quiet and there were no encounters nor any sightings during the three watches.
Day 37, Expedition Day 7
Morning
Mel prepared a fine breakfast, of fruit and cheese and prepared packed lunches for the adventurers to take with them into the dungeon.
After breakfast, the adventuring party picked up their gear and packs and walked over to the troglodyte caves. Roscuro nearly lost his breakfast from the stench but eventually his nose deadened to the smell. Winston ministrated to Azoresh, Sulgesh’s mate, curing her of the Filth Fever she had contracted while prisoner of the boggards. She is now cured of the disease. The group left and took the narrow tunnels back under the lagoon to the dungeon under the Lady’s Light.
2 Hours Later
After traversing the tunnels and the entry shaft to the dungeon then walking the right-hand path of the hall, they took the pole boats “down river” to the next chamber and entered the Porn Hall. The goal was to test Roscuro’s theory that the phrase that lit up on the Red metal Door, “Ayandanahla is bound to the Light for all ages”, is the password to get by Gnaeus, the dhampir. In the passage past Porn Hall, Roscuro borrowed the Whisper Coin from Marativy and asked it, “Will I get past Gnaeus if I give the password 'Ayandanahla is bound to the Light for all ages'?” He then flipped the coin and caught it. The coin came up tails and the faint whispering that continually emanated from the coin became slightly louder, resolving into the word “No”. Roscuro was disappointed as he thought for certain that would be the password. He handed the coin back to Marativy.
With the password guess wrong, the group discussed what to do next. They did not particularly want to fight Gnaeus as he seemed somewhat stuck as well. The only other path forward was the water down to deeper depths that Templeton had scouted two days earlier. [Looking at my notes, I don’t mention this but I know it happened. I think it was right after the initial conversation with Gnaeus. Templeton flew down the waterfall to see if it was worth exploring and found an even larger cavern below.]
The group pulled out a rope and tied one end to a boat and the other end to Templeton. Swamprover climbed aboard and then Templeton flew her and the boat down the waterfall. There was plenty of clearance down the passage and they arrived safely. Templeton set the boat down and Swamprover untied the rope from the boat. She held the boat in position while Templeton flew back up.
On the next pass, Templeton carried Marativy and Winston down to the boat in the lower chamber. Once they were settled, he flew back up to get the next boat. [The boats only hold 3 people each.] While Templeton was in the upper cavern waiting for the second boat to be tied, the group in the lower cavern noticed a giant eel bearing down on them in the water. [Sadly, it was not shrieking.] Swamprover cast Magic Missile at the eel, hitting it with two missiles. Marativy missed with her hurried bow shot, but Winston shot it with his musket. The eel then rammed into the boat.
Marativy switched to her wakizashi and readied for the eel to rush the boat again. Winston too waited for the eel to attack again. When the eel did so, Marativy missed slashing it and Winston only hit with one of his two shots at it. The boat had cracked slightly from the eel’s hit and was oozing in water. Swamprover cast Magic Missile again, hitting both times.
When the eel came around for a third attack, Marativy had the feel for attacking it. She slashed at it, removing its head before it struck the small boat. As the trio was catching their breaths, Templeton arrived with the second boat.
While untying the second boat from Templeton, all four felt some unease. [The Other GM made them make a WILL save but did not explain why. They all made it.] Marativy transferred over to the second boat and Templeton flew back to the upper cavern, returning with Zitch. Swamprover, Marativy, and Winston felt the unease again and a desire to exit the cavern by its easternmost side.
Templeton flew back up and returned with Roscuro and Gridik, the last of the expedition. With the boats full, Templeton remained flying. Looking around, there appeared to be two ways out of the cavern, a wide passage in the southeastern corner and similar passage in the southwestern corner. The group decided to start poling the boats towards the passage in the southeast corner. Once again the group felt the unease and compulsion to go to the southeast, but this time it took hold of Zitch and Templeton. Zitch nearly stepped out of the boat to move faster to the southeast, but Roscuro noticed and grappled him. Templeton just flew off into the darkness without a word. The boats pursued.
The wide passage opened into another cavern, smaller than the previous one and with a beach of coarse sand. Templeton was on the beach looking confused about why he was there. Zitch managed to regain his control…but Gridik was overtaken by the compulsion and leapt overboard, into the water. A second eel arrived just as Gridik entered the water, biting and grabbing the kobold. The rest of the group quickly attacked and killed the eel before it could make off with its meal. Gridik avoided death only because Zitch was able to apply some healing to the kobold before the eel constricted him to near death. [Gridik went down to one hit point after the healing and then the constriction.]
The new cavern was outside the compulsion field and so the group beached the boats. Gridik was pulled from the water before another eel arrived and then healed up by Zitch. There were two passages at the back of the beach for the group to explore, but Roscuro wanted to know what was down the other exit from the main cavern that so much magic was expended to keep the curious away. He asked Templeton if he was willing to fly solo back out into the primary cavern and down the other passage to see what was there. Templeton was both willing and curious himself.
Templeton flew back into the main cavern and down into the other wide passage. The compulsion grabbed him again, but he was able to throw it back off quickly. The other passage narrowed slowly as he flew down it. Two large bat-like creatures flew out of some alcoves in this passage and attacked Templeton. Templeton fought with them a little, but they started to overwhelm him, so he flew back to the rest of the group, the ghoul-bats in pursuit.
Back at the beach, the party hear the very loud screeching of bats in the direction Templeton had flown off. Then they could then hear the flapping of large wings getting closer and got ready to fight. Templeton rounded the corner with the large ghoul-bats immediately behind him. Swamprover cast Web to even the odds, but just managed to get Templeton in the area of effect. [Unavoidable to anchor the spell correctly but he was a little hot over it.]
While Templeton fought with the single ghoul-bat stuck in the webbing with him [and killed it], the other ghoul-bat flew to attack the adventurers. This was a mistake as the adventurers were ready with a mass volley of ranged attacks. In quick order both ghoul-bats were destroyed [not dead as they turned out to be some form of undead].
In the aftermath of the fighting, Marativy asked Winston to pull a tooth from one of the ghoul-bats so she could have a trophy. While doing so, Winston recognized that the bats’ mouths were diseased and likely to infect anyone bit by them with Ghoul Fever. He re-checked Templeton’s wounds and treated Templeton for Ghoul Fever. [Templeton had contracted the disease but would not have noticed until the next day otherwise.] Winston also pointed out the partially rotted bodies of the bats to the adventurers, which is when they realized the bats were some form of undead.
End of Session
Rat Whispers
[Still on Roll20 for this session as the Other GM waited out his quarantine from having Covid. After this game he received his negative test, so we met face-to-face for session 15.]
[We still don’t know what those ghoul-bats are actually called, but we were not sad to see them go. I didn’t take round-by-round notes of that fight, so I skimmed over it in the write-up. I used Roscuro’s High Jump to jump to the last ghoul-bat as it tried to flee us and heavily wounded it. Marativy followed up with her similar Ninja power and killed it but failed to stick the landing and went into the water.]
[Ninja and Monk ratfolk work well together, especially with the ratfolk special ability Swarming. As long as we share a space and attack the same target we both get flanking, which gives the ninja sneak attack damage. This greatly enhances Marativy’s damage and now that we both have the Bodyguard feat, we can give each other +2 AC as needed.]
Ratpack
Book 1:
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Book 2:
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