[Day 1 – A retcon to a skipped over conversation and then getting on a boat.]
[This game uses the Pathfinder 1E roleplaying game. Game sessions happen once a week. This session happened July 25, 2022.]
[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
Roscuro – male ratfolk 8th level Monk
Hrefna – female changeling 7th level Omdura
Swamprover – female grippli 7th level Wizard
Marativy – female ratfolk 8th level Ninja
Templeton von Trapp – male ratfolk 8th level Summoner (Synthesist)
Zitch Grimreaper – male ratfolk 8th level Witch with a donkey rat (capybara) familiar
NPCs
Gridik Stormstride – male blue kobold 6th level Wizard (Invoker)
Ariphi – female tiefling 7th 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
Book 2, Day 69
Morning
[This is a retcon to cover a conversation we hand-waved back in Book 2, Session 48, as it covered things in this book and the Other GM had not read ahead at that time.]
The Ratpack spent the morning providing a [more or less] full report on the group’s expedition to the Lady’s Light and the dungeon below it to the Pathfinder Society. The only significant thing withheld was the discovery of the room that seemed to show the actual resting place of Sorshen, the Runelord of Lust. It seemed best to the Ratpack that that information never surface, let alone be written down for later historians.
Sheila Heidmarch, the Magnimar Captain of the Pathfinder Society, discussed next steps with the Ratpack. According to her research, and deductions made by the Ratpack, the next shard should be the Shard of Gluttony. To make the shard safe to handle, a pink rhomboid Ioun stone needed to be inserted into the shard. Shelia had the necessary Ioun stone, one that ironically had been sourced from Kaer Maga, the resting place of the Shard of Gluttony.
The Ratpack had two choices for routes to Kaer Maga from Magnimar. The first route was to sail up the Yondabakari River to the town of Sirathu at the foot of the plateau Kaer Maga sits atop. The other route was to march the entire distance. The Ratpack quickly settled on sailing over walking.
Roscuro asked if the Society had a place for Pathfinders to stay in Kaer Maga. Sheila stated they did not but she would have arrangements made for the group. Additionally, she would also arrange for transportation as there was a ship captain who sailed the Yondabakari River and owed her a favor.
Finally, Sheila told the group that a local toymaker who was a Society contact had a standing request for any Pathfinders traveling to Kaer Maga and back. She did not know the particulars, but the Ratpack should meet with Mortimer Pugg in the Ordellia district of Magnimar if they were interested.
Afternoon
Roscuro, Templeton, and Hrefna went to the address in Ordellia that Shelia provided. The location was a ramshackle cottage that did not look like the home of a toymaker of any repute. While standing at the front door and debating whether or not to knock, the adventurer heard a loud crash from inside the cottage. Roscuro opened the front door and called out to see if anyone needed help. Inside the cottage was a messy home and stairs down. Mortimer Pugg, a gnome, came up the stairs in response to Roscuro’s calls and asked what the trio wanted.
Roscuro explained they were from the Pathfinder Society and were interested in hearing about Pugg’s standing request. Pugg looked around to see if anyone else was listening and then waved Roscuro, Templeton, and Hrefna down the stairs. Below the cottage was Pugg’s workshop, which seemed to a little larger than the cottage above it. This was the second building in Ordellia with a basement the group knew of, which seemed odd for a location so close to the river. Why didn’t they flood?
Pugg had the trio sit at a table and he explained his request. The Ardoc Family in Kaer Maga are makers of constructs of all sizes and shapes. Pugg was willing to pay a bag of gold coins to anyone who brought back an intact and functioning Ardoc Family construct from Kaer Maga. He wished to disassemble one and work out how they do it so he can replicate it in his own work. [Yes, we were being hired for some industrial espionage.] Roscuro was a bit dubious about the job and Pugg until Pugg produced the bag of gold in question. Roscuro agreed that if it could be done without endangering the group, he’d bring a construct back.
After the meeting with Pugg, Roscuro, Templeton, and Hrefna went to talk with Frederick and see if the merchant needed anything from Kaer Maga or if he had an agent they could deal with in that city. Frederick had an agent in Kaer Maga to handle business for him and wrote a letter of introduction for Roscuro and the Ratpack. Roscuro and Frederick then spent time drinking tea and discussing what sort of things Frederick might be interested from whatever ancient Thassilonian ruins the Ratpack expected to explore there.
Day -1, A Month Later
[After retconning in the above day, we then scrolled time forward past the month of magic item crafting and gear shopping we did as Book 2, Session 49. We hand-waved the conversations with Sheila on hiring the ship to take us up river, a magical paddle boat owned by a gnome named Othlo Jenk, plus conversations with Othlo.]
The day before the Ratpack was scheduled to board the ship, Gridik and Swamprover went to several shops and purchased 1000 gp worth of magical scribing supplies. This would allow the two to scribe scrolls and share magic found or purchased during the expedition plus Gridik would be able to scribe new spells into his spellbook, The Storm Compendium.
[HeroLab requires a wizard to name their spellbook, which I like very much. There is a long history in D&D of legendary wizard spellbooks having specific names other than "Wizard so-and-so's spellbook". This feature promotes that history and adds to the world.]
After Sunset
Marativy attended a meeting with the Guild Master of the Nightscales, Theron Raccas. During the previous month Marativy had told the Nightscales that she was going to Kaer Maga and asked if there was anything “helpful” she could do while there and this meeting was a result of that.
Raccas requested that Marativy drop off a hand in a public place inside the territory of the Commerce League in Kaer Maga. Any public place inside the Downmarket district would be acceptable. In exchange, Marativy would be provided with a selection of rare poisons for her collection. She agreed to these terms. The hand in question was provided in a jar full of walnut oil to preserve it for the trip.
Once back with the Ratpack, Marativy told Roscuro she had a side-job to do in Kaer Maga, dropping off a hand in a public place. She didn’t mention who for or any other details and Roscuro didn’t ask. That’s what drinking buddies do.
[Incidentally, Downmarket is the business district for Kaer Maga and the district where the Pathfinder Society had secured lodging for the Ratpack.]
Day 1
Morning
The Ratpack and their luggage arrived at the river docks of Magnimar where the Luck Jenny was berthed. The staterooms were sized for short folk, which delighted almost every member of the Ratpack – except Hrefna and Ariphi. They each received their own staterooms but the bedding for each was somewhat cobbled together to fit their human-sized stature.
Once everyone and their luggage were squared away, the captain, Othlo Jenk, briefed the Ratpack on the expected stops of the two-week trip. The first stop would be at the town of Wartle. The second would be at Whistledown on the near-shore of Lake Syrantula. There would be a short stop at the village of Melfesh on the far side of Lake Syrantula before continuing up the river to the town of Abken. After that, the ship would finish the trip at Sirathu, below the plateau on which Kaer Maga sat.
When that briefing was over, the ship started up and headed upriver at a good clip.
End of Session
Rat Whispers
[A lot of this session was spent reminding each other what we were up to and picking up the storyline again. The conversation with Sheila at the Pathfinder Society was more detailed, but its been a couple months since we played it out and I don’t remember all the details. It was good to get back to these characters and we were all looking forward to what the adventure would present.]
[The Other GM told us that he had re-written sections of the adventure to fit better with how the Ratpack behaved and to avoid assumptions in the original writing that were not true for us. Assumed motivation can be an issue in purchased adventures and some re-working of the material to fit your gaming group is necessary. That said, I have no idea what or how much the Other GM wrote/modified for this book of the adventure path, so be aware there will be variances from the published material.]
[Finally, I am using the link method I developed for the second arc of The Delvers Guild. There will be a link to the landing page for each book and links directly to the previous and next sessions. This kept the links section at the bottom of each blog from bloating as things went on while still providing navigation links to keep reading. I will be posting at least one session a week. If time allows I will post a second in a week to catch up with the current sessions (we just played Session 10 the week I am posting Session 1, so there is some catching up to do). Please post a comment if you find a broken or missing link so I know to fix it. Thank you!]
Ratpack
Book 2: Curse of the Lady’s Light
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