Wednesday, September 1, 2021

Ratpack – Shattered Star Book 2, Session 26

[Day 49 and 50 – A failed search, Zitch back from the dead, Team work.]

[This game uses the Pathfinder 1E roleplaying game.  Game sessions happen once a week.  This session happened July 5, 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 6th level Witch with a donkey rat (capybara) familiar

Roscuro – male ratfolk 6th level Monk

Swamprover – female grippli 5th level Wizard

Marativy – female ratfolk 6th level Ninja

Winston – male ratfolk 6th level Gunslinger


Via Roll20

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



Autumn

Day 49

Minutes Later

In the laboratory under the shack in Ordellia district of Magnimar, Templeton cast Mage Armor on himself, followed by Invisibility on himself and Marativy.  Marativy hopped onto Templeton’s back and they went through the teleportation portal, back to the abandoned town where the Ratpack had fought Leruu.  Their goal was to find Winston, grab him, and return through the teleportation portal with the mind-controlled gunslinger.

While the rescue team was on the other side of the portal, Roscuro maneuvered a drum of beer to roll on top of the gate once Marativy and Templeton returned, hoping that this would prevent Leruu from following them back.  Roscuro then took time to explain things to Frederick, bringing him up to date on the situation.

On the far side of the portal, Templeton flew around the abandoned town, looking for Winston or Leruu.  They stayed invisible and did their best to remain silent as there were hundreds of places that either Winston or Leruu could be hiding and ambush them.

Templeton flew over to the well he had dropped Winston’s musket down.  The well was dry and they could clearly see the bottom.  The musket was nowhere to be seen, indicating that either Leruu or Winston had recovered the weapon.  Around the well was some evidence that someone had cleaned out the barrel, likely Winston.  This suggested Winston now had his musket back and could kill either of them quickly and suddenly.  This increased the danger (and tension) significantly.

Silently, the duo flew around the part of the abandoned town where the previous combat had happened.  They investigated the three-story building adjacent to the teleportation portal and found a small chest.  Marativy took it on general principal.  The last thing they did was fly high to get an idea of where the abandoned town might be.  They determined the town was due east of Nybor, on the opposite side of the Sanos Forest.  After determining this they flew back down to the portal and Templeton triggered it to return them to Magnimar.

[So during the entire trip, the Other GM had Marativy, Templeton, and Winston make multiple perception rolls to locate each other.  Every time there was a chance for them to see each other, they all rolled a 5 or less.  To notice anything else, they naturally rolled high on the d20.  The dice were against them the whole time.  Winston’s player immediately started working on a new character once Marativy and Templeton returned to Magnimar.]

After Templeton and Marativy cleared the portal, Roscuro rolled the large keg of beer over the portal and used some wood bits to wedge it there.  Marativy explained what they had seen while on the other side.  Frederick identified the small chest as his.  Roscuro asked if Frederick was willing to contribute to the Raise Zitch fund, hoping that Frederick might contribute a couple hundred gold to the effort.  Frederick opened the small chest and offered the chest and everything inside it.  It was full of coins, jewelry, and other valuables.  Roscuro pulled out 2000 gold coins [expecting the cost for the casting to be 3500 gp].  Frederick suggested they also take a quality diamond as it would be needed for the ritual.  Roscuro and the group thanked him.

The Ratpack stripped the laboratory of as much valuable looking stuff as they could carry then started pouring flammable liquids all over, including up the partial stairs to the ground floor.  Roscuro poured lamp oil all over the first floor, including the shelves of books [after verifying none of them were valuable].  Once everyone was outside the building, Roscuro threw several lit torches down into the basement laboratory to ignite the fluids down there and then lit the oil on the ground floor, quickly leaving the rapidly igniting building.

The group walked with a determined but not rushed pace out of Ordellia and north, through the city to Frederick’s residence in the Naos District, Zitch’s dead body strapped to Templeton’s back.  Frederick was kept in the center of the group and those in the streets chose to avoid the grim-looking pack of ratfolk, stepping out of the way to let the group walk by.

Once Frederick was safely returned to the security of his residence, the Ratpack sought out the Temple of Sarenrae, Goddess of Fate, in the Capital District.  At the temple, Roscuro respectfully explained to an acolyte that they needed to have one of their compatriots raised from the dead.  The acolyte escorted the group over to a cluster of ritual rooms and had them wait in one.  After a relatively short wait, High Priest Khoda himself arrived.  He started to explain that the rite was expensive to cast due to the needed spell components when Roscuro held up the diamond Frederick had recommended they take.  Khoda’s eyebrows went up for a second before he gracefully acknowledged that the diamond would do.  The requested donative after the diamond was 500 gold coin plus another 300 gold coins for the Restoration spell afterward.  This was significantly less than what Roscuro was willing to pay to get Zitch back, so he easily agreed to the terms.

Zitch was laid out on a low dais and prepared for the ritual.  As the ritual was performed, the light of Sarenrae filled Zitch, healing his wounds and bringing him back to life!  High Priest Khoda and his acolytes left the room to give the group some privacy while welcoming Zitch back to the living.  The Ratpack updated Zitch on what had happened, including rescuing Frederick and the loss of Winston to Leruu.

After a short period of time, the acolyte returned to settle the donative.  Roscuro handled this, donating 500 gold for the Raise Dead, 300 for the Restoration, and a further 200 gold coins as an additional donation to the temple.  [Roscuro does not follow Sarenrae, but he does believe in tipping big when higher powers are involved and he was ready to pay even more if it had been necessary.]

Meanwhile, Marativy, Templeton, and Swamprover exited the temple and investigated the box of things Frederick had gifted to the Ratpack.  The box itself turned out to be a magical box of holding with shoulder straps for easy portability.  There were a further mix of coins that totaled to 3152 gp equivalence, a cloak of resistance +2, and a glove of storing.  When the rest of the Ratpack caught up, they explained what they had.  Marativy asked to use the cloak of resistance and all agreed she would get best use of it.

7:00 PM

The Ratpack went to the Blue Rodent in Underbridge and had a huge meal.  Zitch cast a Healing Hex on Roscuro, healing him to full health [from damage taken in the fight against Leruu].

After eating, the group discussed what they needed to do next.  Deciding they did not have enough information on Leruu and his flying sword, one of the things they needed to do was research the mage.  With Winston lost to the mage, they also needed to recruit a new fighter of some sort to fill that gap in their roster.  They should also take the time to resell any spare items they had to reduce the amount of stuff the group was transporting around.

Team Research was Swamprover and Zitch as they had the best leads on arcane matters.  Team Resell was Marativy and Templeton, who had the lists of stuff and were good at getting a good deal.  Roscuro was Team Recruit as he seemed to have a talent for it.


Day 50

Team Research used a list of the effects and possible spells Leruu had used in the combat the previous day to learn what kind of mage he might be.  They were able to determine that he was likely a Sword Binder, a type of wizard from overseas and more common in the south.  They learned what capabilities were known to be common among Sword Binders.

Team Resell spent the day hitting the better resale shops in Magnimar.  They were successful and converted the pile of unused magic items and non-magical goods into 15,025 gold coins.  These were deposited in the Magnimar Bank for later disbursement.

Roscuro spent the morning having flyers created and posting them in various places across Magnimar.  He then went to The Staff and The Book, a mostly respectable tavern in Dockway District, and secured a table.  After eating lunch, he spent the afternoon interviewing any candidates that showed up.  Several did, but only three stood out as potential recruits.  The first was a dwarven barroom brawler who had the skills but was way too overconfident and loud.  Roscuro put him on the contingency list [but tellingly did not get the dwarf's name].

The next was a rogue combatant, specializing in flanking and sneak attacks, named Ariphi.  She wore a hooded cloak and was reluctant to share her past associations, but she eventually admitted to once being part of the Tower Girls street gang.  Roscuro took this as a plus, explaining that his group was friendly with the Tower Girls and he considered them competent.  He did insist on knowing the face of the people he was potentially hiring.  Ariphi cautiously pulled part of her hood back so only Roscuro could see her face.  She was human looking with a pair of small horns curling up at her temples, indicating she was a tiefling.  Roscuro nodded and thanked her and told her she was hired.  He needed a way to contact her as it might be a couple of days to a week before the group was ready to go, but be ready to be on the job for at least a week.  She supplied the information, somewhat surprised at being hired.  [Tieflings have a very bad reputation in the campaign fluff, but Roscuro is a ratfolk and whatever makes humans clutch their pearls is none of his business.]

The third candidate that Roscuro was willing to hire was a bipedal fox named Hrefna.  Hrefna was an Omdurais, a form of divine warrior charged with spreading their god’s faith and defeating Their enemies.  Hrefna explained she was able to provide beneficent auras that included healing as well as fight on the front line.  Roscuro was willing to hire the fox simply to avoid adding too many tall people to the group and giving him a crick in the neck, but the healing support would also be useful.  Roscuro told Hrefna she was hired and he needed a way to contact her as it would be a couple days before the job started.  She supplied a contact point and thank Roscuro for the job.

End of Session


Rat Whispers

[So Hrefna is the replacement character for Winston, but not the original one.  The original one was a Fetchling and the player was not finished putting the character together, so the interview went poorly and I wasn’t actually going to hire his character.  Between sessions we talked about it and decided he would get a chance to redo the interview at the beginning of the next session and that’s what I listed here.  It took me, and hence Roscuro, a while to really get an idea of what Hrefna could do, but being a bipedal fox in a human world went a long way in Roscuro’s book.]


Ratpack

Book 1:

Session 01 – Start

Session 32 – Conclusion


Book 2:

Session 1

Session 10

Session 20

Session 21

Session 22

Session 23

Session 24

Session 25


Session 27



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