Ratpack – Shattered Star Book 3, Session 28

[Day 44 – Failed approach and wyverns]

[This game uses the Pathfinder 1E roleplaying game.  Game sessions happen once a week.  This session happened March 20, 2023.]

[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

Marativy – female ratfolk 9th level Ninja

Zitch Grimreaper – male ratfolk 9th level Witch with a donkey rat (capybara) familiar

Roscuro – male ratfolk 9th level Monk

Swamprover – female grippli 9th level Wizard

Winston – male ratfolk 9th level Gunslinger

Via Roll20

Templeton von Trapp – male ratfolk 9th level Summoner (Synthesist)

NPCs

Gridik Stormstride – male blue kobold 7th level Wizard (Invoker)

Hrefna – female changeling 7th level Omdura

Ariphi – female tiefling 7th level Rogue

Fish – male grodaire, actual name is Hummlgau

Autumn

Day 44

Having shared the information Marativy, Roscuro, and Winston gained in their reconnoiter of the Dark Keep, the Ratpack dealt with the results.  Zitch identified the horseshoes as horseshoes of the zephyr.  Hrefna healed Roscuro of the poison effects he received from fighting the zombies during the reconnoiter.  The jewelry was assessed at 1500gp total.

Discussing possible routes into the keep, all agreed that one of the side doors would be the best point of entrance.  The wyverns on the roof of the keep would be a problem, so the group decided to break up into smaller groups to sneak up to the keep reducing the odds of anyone being noticed.  The Ratpack then moved through the trees around the Keep until they were north of it.  The distance to cover was nearly 350 feet but there were some small points of cover scattered along the way.

Marativy went first, scouting and marking the best path for the less stealthy members of the group.  She made it safely to the keep.  Templeton then followed her, using his flight to be as silent as possible.  He made it safely and took shelter in the shadows next to Marativy.  The next to go were Swamprover and Gridik.  They made it to within 40 feet of the keep before one of the wyverns noticed the two wizards and cried out an alarm!  [It rolled a natural 20 on the Perception skill check.]

Roscuro focused his ki to move faster and ran for all he was worth, reaching the wizards before the wyverns did [covering 320 feet in one round].  The wyvern that noticed the wizards launched first and flew past Swamprover, attacking the grippli with its tail, hitting her but failing to poison her.  Three [!] more wyverns also launched but were lagging slightly behind the leader.  Swamprover cast wall of acid in a ring around Gridik, Roscuro, and herself [and the lead wyvern], catching the next two wyverns in the wall itself.  Zitch placed his Fly hex upon himself and flew towards the fight faster than he could run.  Winston moved forward and then took a firing position as the wall of acid blocked his view of the wyverns.  Hrefna and Ariphi moved quickly towards the fight from the trees while Marativy and Templeton were surprised by the wyverns flying over their heads and towards the wizards.

Winston decided to close and moved forward.  Roscuro stepped 5 ft. to place himself in a position to defend Gridik and Swamprover better from the wyverns, focusing his ki and readying a Sickening Fist attack.  Marativy climbed onto Templeton’s back and waited for him to advance [at some point Templeton used an evolution spell to grow Large, but I didn't note when in my notes].  The lead wyvern performed aerial acrobatics to reverse course, attacking Swamprover again instead of flying out of the wall of acid.  This allowed Roscuro to unleash his Sickening Fist attack [which missed] and three attacks of opportunity while bodyguarding Swamprover.  The wyvern hit her but not without taking damage from the monk.  The next two wyverns also attacked while the fourth circled, looking for an opportunity.  Swamprover stepped back from the lead wyvern, dropped the wall of acid, and then cast Lightning Bolt, catching the lead wyvern and the circling wyvern in it.  Zitch flew towards the battle, followed by Ariphi, Fish, and Hrefna.  Templeton pounced at the lead and third wyverns, focusing most of his attacks on the third wyvern, getting to rend it and causing it to bleed.  He also tagged the lead wyvern, causing it to bleed as well.  Marativy used her readied action to strike the lead wyvern a solid blow.  Gridik cast Lightning Bolt, tagging the second and third wyverns with it.

Winston took a shot and knocked the legs out from under the third wyvern.  Roscuro focused his ki on defense and performed a flurry of blows on the lead wyvern, killing it [with a lot of overkill].  The second wyvern clawed and bit at Gridik while striking Roscuro with its tail, injuring both.  The third wyvern regained its feet and took a swipe at Templeton but missed.  Swamprover cast Arc Lightning between the second and third wyverns to good effect [41 points of damage].  Zitch, Ariphi, and Fish continued to close the distance.  Hrefna threw caution to the wind and sprinted to get into position to attack.  Marativy crawled across Templeton’s back and slashed the third wyvern, killing it.  Templeton stepped over to the second wyvern and killed it with a slash of his claws.  The fourth wyvern decided to flee and flew away, over the keep and out of sight.

While those in the fight caught their breath, Zitch finally closed the distance and was able to place a healing hex on the very injured Gridik.  Winston, Ariphi, and Fish caught up six seconds later while Marativy and Templeton to position at the side doors to the keep, specifically the double-doors, which were around a corner from the single door.

The single door opened and a woman brandishing two pistols stepped out, asking, “What’s all this racket about?”

End of Session

Rat Whispers

[Short entry due to a fight that took some time to play out.  Our plan to sneak up on the keep was good, but a natural 20 on the bad guy’s part will spoil any stealth plan.]

[Sorry this post was late in the day, I had another project I was working on for most of the day and mis-judged how long this would take to type up.  Glad I got it done anyways.]

Ratpack

Book 1: Shards of Sin Landing Page – Links to all Book 1 sessions 

Book 2: Curse of the Lady’s Light Landing Page – Links to all Book 2 sessions 

Book 3: The Asylum Stone Landing Page – Links to all Book 3 sessions 

Last Session: Session 27 

Next Session: Session 29

Ratpack – Shattered Star Book 3, Session 27

[Day 44 – Still in the Dark Forest]

[This game uses the Pathfinder 1E roleplaying game.  Game sessions happen once a week.  This session happened March 6, 2023.]

[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

Marativy – female ratfolk 9th level Ninja

Zitch Grimreaper – male ratfolk 9th level Witch with a donkey rat (capybara) familiar

Roscuro – male ratfolk 9th level Monk

Winston – male ratfolk 9th level Gunslinger

Via Roll20

Templeton von Trapp – male ratfolk 9th level Summoner (Synthesist)

Played by Proxy

Swamprover – female grippli 9th level Wizard

NPCs

Gridik Stormstride – male blue kobold 7th level Wizard (Invoker)

Hrefna – female changeling 7th level Omdura

Ariphi – female tiefling 7th level Rogue

Fish – male grodaire, actual name is Hummlgau

Autumn

Day 44 continued

Now in the Dark Forest, the Ratpack started following the trail of Selazny, the naga and last active member of the previous group sent here by the wizards of the Therassic Spire.  Winston found signs of the naga’s passage that followed a trail that seemed to lead to the Black Keep.  As that was the only apparent location of note in this small pocket dimension, we followed the trail, Marativy scouting ahead.

An Hour Later

While scouting for the group, Marativy noticed humanoids of some sort up in the trees, watching.  They hid well, but her occasional glimpse of them left her with the impression they had twisted limbs of some sort.  She returned to the rest of the Ratpack and reported what she had seen.

Knowing what to look for, the Ratpack stopped and looked around more intently.  Several members of the group now saw the humanoids.  Roscuro asked Zitch [the walking encyclopedia] what they were.  Zitch identified them as Khaei.  They have an extra elbow in their elongated arms and can age things with a touch.  They did not appear to be hostile, so the group resumed following the path, albeit at a heightened state of alertness.

Ten minutes later, one of the Khaei dropped into the trail ahead of the group and spoke in Undercommon, “It’s coming!”  It told the Ratpack they must get off the trail and should follow them to a safe place.  Not entirely certain what was going on but recognizing the sincerity of the Khaei’s warning [through Sense Motive], the Ratpack followed.

The Ratpack followed the small group of Khaei to a hill and then through a small cave into their warrens under the hill.  About 50 ft. below the surface was a large cavern where the Khaei had a village.  There the Ratpack learned that the thing pushing aside the trees Roscuro had noticed [what the players referred to as “Kong”] was a rolling mass of zombies that killed and absorbed all it came into contact with.  Zitch said he had heard of them, but this was the largest he had ever heard of.

While waiting for the thing to clear the area, the Ratpack chatted with the Khaei.  Up close, the Ratpack noticed that the bodies of the Khaei bodies seemed to periodically fade or come apart around the edges.  They were also all bald.  Their concern with the Ratpack was that the Ratpack might serve the “Dark Lord”.  Uncertain who they spoke of, Roscuro asked for clarification.  

The Khaei described a dark rider with no head who rode a nightmare steed.  Several members of the Ratpack who were more history-minded felt this described the legendary Dark Rider of Varisia.  The Dark Rider was a headless horseman who appeared once every few years, hunting a specific target and killing any who got in the Rider’s way.  Victims would be found headless and often a pack of shadow mastiffs would be left behind.  Having hear all of this, Roscuro explained that the Ratpack most certainly did not serve this Dark Lord.

An Hour Later

After spending time trading stories with the Khaei, the Ratpack was told It [Kong] had left the area.  The group thanked their hosts and returned to the surface.  A damage trail 25 feet wide ran around and past the hill the village was under.  Roscuro led the Ratpack back to the main trail by walking back down the damage trail.  The forest was noticeably healing the damage caused at an accelerated rate.  By the time the Ratpack reached the main trail, the damage in that area was completely healed over, with new trees grown in place and old, damaged trees rotted away.  This was perhaps one of the creepier things Roscuro had seen since entering this pocket dimension.

The Ratpack resumed heading towards the Dark Keep with Marativy scouting ahead.

An Hour or So Later

Marativy reached the edge of a clearing containing the Black Keep.  It was an odd shape, like a tower lying down, and had one visible entrance at the west end.  She waited for the rest of the Ratpack to arrive and observed the keep and its surroundings.  During this time she observed an undead spontaneously claw its way up out of the ground and wander off and that two wyverns were roosting on top of the keep.

When the rest of the group caught up, she relayed what she had observed.  Zitch and Gridik supplied information about wyverns to the rest of the group: they are territorial and aggressive, have a poison-barbed tail, and are immune to many conditions, including sleep, paralysis, and poison.

The group decided that a quick and silent recon of the keep, looking specifically for other entrances, was in order.  Winston, Marativy, and Roscuro formed the recon team [best in the group at Stealth] while the rest stayed concealed just off the main trail.

Part way around the keep, the recon team was attacked by a small number of bloody zombies [not bloody bones, something else].  During the fight Roscuro was poisoned [and lost 4 DEX].  Winston applied oil of silence to his musket and the trio quickly eliminated the zombies.  One of the ex-zombies had a small bag containing a set of horseshoes, which the trio took with them as they continued with their recon.

At the same time, back where the rest of the Ratpack was hidden, they too were attacked by bloody zombies.  Zitch was able to identify them for what they were and once the adventurers quietly put them down [with a combination of web, create pit, and two auras from Hrefna], Zitch had Hrefna cast bless on the corpses to keep them from rising again.  The zombies had three pieces of jewelry among them, none were magical.

The recon group found two additional entrances on the northside of the keep, a door and a set of double doors.  They also noticed a third wyvern roosting on the keep.  When they returned to the main group they told all that they had seen.

End of Session

Rat Whispers

[While typing this session up, I finally noticed that I had not incremented the session dates to 2023.  I’ve gone back and updated the entries back to Session 19 so they have the correct year for the session dates going forward.]

[Swamprover’s player was out this session, finalizing a (non-gaming) book she is trying to publish on Amazon.  This was a higher priority than the game, so she had me run her character for here as there was no story way to have her character suddenly not there.]

Ratpack

Book 1: Shards of Sin Landing Page – Links to all Book 1 sessions 

Book 2: Curse of the Lady’s Light Landing Page – Links to all Book 2 sessions 

Book 3: The Asylum Stone Landing Page – Links to all Book 3 sessions 

Last Session: Session 26

Next Session: Session 28

Ratpack – Shattered Star Book 3, Session 26

[Days 43 and 44 – A Day Topside, then the Ratpack finds the Menhir and enters the Dark Forest]

[This game uses the Pathfinder 1E roleplaying game.  Game sessions happen once a week.  This session happened February 27, 2023.]

[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

Marativy – female ratfolk 9th level Ninja

Zitch Grimreaper – male ratfolk 9th level Witch with a donkey rat (capybara) familiar

Roscuro – male ratfolk 9th level Monk

Swamprover – female grippli 9th level Wizard

Winston – male ratfolk 9th level Gunslinger

Via Roll20

Templeton von Trapp – male ratfolk 9th level Summoner (Synthesist)

NPCs

Gridik Stormstride – male blue kobold 7th level Wizard (Invoker)

Hrefna – female changeling 7th level Omdura

Ariphi – female tiefling 7th level Rogue

Fish – male grodaire, actual name is Hummlgau

Autumn

Day 43

Over breakfast at the Grange, the Ratpack discussed whether to return to the Thassilonian Workshop that day or take a day preparing.  Winston stated he wanted to spend the day crafting adamantine bullets.  It would only take a day to make a small batch but with his bag of abundant ammunition, it would go a long way.  Considering the level of opposition the group was facing in the Thassilonian Workshop, the group decided this would be worth doing.

Winston spent some time locating 600gp of raw adamantine and then spent the rest of the day crafting 9 bullets out of it.

Zitch used his telepathy earring to contact Fish to let him know the Ratpack was staying on the surface an extra day and would be back down in the dungeon tomorrow.  He was then trapped in an extended conversation with Fish on various abstract concepts [or at least concepts that were abstract to Fish] until the telepathy duration ended.

Gridik spent time in the Spire library researching Thassilonian workshops.  He learned some general information about them [what kinds of things/labs were discovered in them] and where they and other Thassilonian sites were located.

Zitch joined Gridik in the library once he was done talking with Fish and inquired about defoliants.  He was looking for a way to safely enter the room blocked by the plant overgrowth down in the Thassilonian Workshop.  He was told about an alchemical defoliant that should meet his needs.  He then went to the Tarheel Promenade and searched the shops until he located and purchased two doses of it.

Marativy found a gambling den and spent the day cheating at cards.  During a break in the game, a goblin player from her table quietly confronted her about her cheating and demanded half her earnings so far to remain silent.  Marativy thought about it and then paid the goblin, who left afterwards.  She reasoned that she could win more back at the table if she paid him but absolutely nothing if he blabbed.  She did take the time to memorize his face for later.

Roscuro spent the day doing paperwork for the Pathfinder Society.  This included a summary of the expedition to date that he put in the post for Sheila.

Day 44

Morning

On the way back down to the dungeon, the Ratpack decided to check an unexplored doorway in the crooked passage between the wasp room and the centrifuge.  They approached the door through the centrifuge room and then the crooked passage [southwest door from that room, with the southeast door going to the fish trap room].

Marativy checked the door thoroughly while the rest of the group waited around a corner.  After she verified it had no traps, Roscuro walked up and carefully opened the door just enough so he and Marativy could see past it.  The other side was a room of some size with a sandy floor.  Both could see a gibbering mouther in a quiescent pile 20 feet or so from the door.

Roscuro opened the door a little wider so Marativy could stick her head into the room and look around.  She saw three more gibbering mouthers in the room, which appeared to be a gladiatorial pit.  On the far wall, ten feet up, was a viewing booth.  Scattered across the sand were some bones and worn weapons.  One crossbow stood out as it was in good shape.  She pulled her head back out of the doorway and closed the door.  She related what she had seen to Roscuro and they went back to the rest of the group to tell them.  After some discussion, the group decided that a potentially magic crossbow wasn’t tempting enough to face 4 gibbering mouthers while they were still looking for the shard.  Maybe afterwards they would come back and retrieve it.

The group backtracked to the centrifuge room and then exited through the fish trap room, the hall past that with the murals, and then across the cavern where the fight with the hydrodaemons took place.  There they picked up Fish from the stream there and then continued forward.  The passage beyond turned immediately south and ended in a smaller cavern that contained the Black Menhir.  Two Caulborn, immediately identifiable by their lack of eyes and two mouths, were waiting there.

They immediately attempted to read the minds of the entire group [rude!].  They failed against most of the group but not all, learning the names of all the adventurers [and who knows what else].  Roscuro spoke with the Caulborn, confirming that the group was expected and that Selazny had already gone through to the Dark Forest.  The Caulborn then activated the menhir and instructed the adventurers to all touch it.

Each adventurer touched the menhir and then found themselves touching a different menhir in a forest clearing.  Just after the last of the Ratpack appeared, the runes on the menhir glowed yellow and volumes of rotgrubs started extruding from the stone.  The Rat pack scattered away as two rotgrub swarms took shape.  During the following combat, Gridik and Zitch were infected by the swarms, Gridik majorly.  A series of spells including Fireball, Dragon Breath, and Lightning Bolt killed off the rotgrubs.

Hrefna activated her healing aura to heal the injuries and Zitch used the wand of lesser restoration to repair the [Constitution] damage done by the rotgrub infections.

While the healing was happening, the rest of the group looked around and noticed several things.  The place they were in was only six miles across and was the interior of a sphere.  The top half appeared to be sky, but the light from it was shadowy, making everything appear a colorless black and white.  The bottom half of the sphere contained the Dark Forest, a patchy and foreboding expanse of dark trees.  At the bottom of the bow could be seen a keep of some sort, made of black stone – undoubtably the resting place of the shard the Ratpack sought.

Roscuro noticed one other thing: in one of the larger clumps of trees something very large was moving.  Roscuro could not see the thing itself, but only the fact that it pushed fully grown trees aside as it moved by them.

Something to be avoided.

End of Session

Rat Whispers

[It will be Day 44 for a while.  We are currently 5 sessions ahead of this one and were finally able to rest at the end of the session.  I won’t go into details now because SPOILERS, but get comfortable – this day lasts a while.]

[During the fight with the rotgrub swarms, the Other GM had both swarms roll onto Gridik.  It made sense tactically as he was the closest target for both, but later we discussed it and realized that either the swarms would avoid each other or would damage each other.  Something to keep in mind as we will likely continue facing multiple swarms due to our level.]

Ratpack

Book 1: Shards of Sin Landing Page – Links to all Book 1 sessions 

Book 2: Curse of the Lady’s Light Landing Page – Links to all Book 2 sessions 

Book 3: The Asylum Stone Landing Page – Links to all Book 3 sessions 

Last Session: Session 25

Next Session: Session 27

Status Update and Campaign Options

 After taking last week off for anniversary reasons, I'm spending this week updating some things left fallow.

I updated the landing page for Shattered Star, Book 2.  It now contains links to all of the sessions for that book.  Along the way I also discovered that some of the pages did not actually have the link to the next page and added those missing links.

For Shattered Star, Book 3, I've posted Session 25 now.  Tonight we will be playing Session 30 and the Other GM indicates we are getting close to completing this book.  We should probably wrap it up by the end of this month (April) or early May.  After that, another player wants to run a "one-shot" adventure that will last 3-5 sessions using 5E.  At the end of that, the Other GM and Marativy's player will either be parents or expecting their first child very shortly, so they will both become unavailable for a while as a newborn takes up a lot of parenting time.  I'm going to run something during that period but have not settled on what.

I had some thoughts about switching back to a Shadowrun game playing out the switch of policing in Seattle from Knight Errant to Aztechnology as further fallout from player activity, especially during the Woodchipper adventure, especially the finale of the Ludovic's Hell sub-adventure.  There are some issues with running that, not the least I'd prefer to run it with the two players who will be out for maternity/paternity leave.

Another thought is to run a dungeon crawl.  I purchased a copy of Mike's Dungeon, a 79 level dungeon designed for B/X D&D.  I'd want to run it with my own rules, Adventures in the Green, an OD&D retro-clone, which I hope to actually publish this summer.  I'm just not certain how invested the players available will be in a simple dungeon delve.  It is one of my favorite formats, but I recognize not everyone is as into it as I am.

Another option is to revive an old setting of mine and run a game using the Fantasy HERO rules (fantasy version of the HERO System).  I ran a campaign for over 10 years in this setting and only stopped because I wasn't certain where to take it next.  Half the PCs were VERY powerful and the other half "merely" very strong.  I'm thinking of advancing the calendar 30 years or so so I can wrap up the Goblinoid Invasion (goblins, orcs, and lizardfolk) and several rebellions to introduce a cold war setting where the once-continent-wide Empire wants to re-annex the large chunks that went independent during the invasion when the Imperial Legions were spread too thin to stop anything but the direct invasion of the central imperial lands.  I introduced two types of airship systems (the gnomish aether-lift system and the dwarven hot air system) and some fighter units (dwarven clockwork ultralights with repeating crossbow "guns" and goblin war bats with wand-based weaponry and potion augments).  The gnomes are also up to some potentially frightening things with their Gnolems (think small mecha that need a tether to a massive power source).

I have a month until our current campaign (Shattered Star, Book 3) gets to a stopping point and then at least a month after that for the 5E "one-shot" to run.  Plenty of time to dither some more!  :)

Finally, since I started requiring post approval several years ago, I've received only one comment from a non-spammer.  I'd like to hear from a reader, if only to verify that the comment system actually works.  Feel free to tell me if there is something I used to do that you'd like me to resume or something you'd prefer I stop doing.  I don't guarantee I'll do either, but I'll at least consider it.

If you can't comment here (for whatever reason), I can be reached on MeWe.com as patrickwalsh5 or on Mastodon as @Shaddakim on the @ohai.social server. [The Mastodon link is an Invite link to use Mastodon that automatically sets you to follow me - use the @ohai.social server if you are signing up for the first time - it works and doesn't seem to have a lot of goobers on it.]

That's it for now.  Later!

Ratpack – Shattered Star Book 3, Session 25

[Day 42 – Damn the Hydrodaemons!]

[This game uses the Pathfinder 1E roleplaying game.  Game sessions happen once a week.  This session happened February 13, 2023.]

[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

Marativy – female ratfolk 9th level Ninja

Zitch Grimreaper – male ratfolk 9th level Witch with a donkey rat (capybara) familiar

Roscuro – male ratfolk 9th level Monk

Swamprover – female grippli 9th level Wizard

Winston – male ratfolk 9th level Gunslinger

Via Roll20

Templeton von Trapp – male ratfolk 9th level Summoner (Synthesist)

NPCs

Gridik Stormstride – male blue kobold 7th level Wizard (Invoker)

Hrefna – female changeling 7th level Omdura

Ariphi – female tiefling 7th level Rogue

Autumn

Day 42 continued (mid-fight)

Attempting to counter the Deeper Darkness cast by one of the hydrodaemons, Winston opened his pathfinder and activated its Light feature.  This was not strong enough to counter the darkness.  Hrefna pulled out her Greater Halflite Charm and activated its Daylight effect, which was strong enough to counter the Deeper Darkness [counteracted by a light spell of equal or greater level and Daylight is the same level as Deeper Darkness].  With Winston’s pathfinder producing light now, Gridik was able to move and hit one of the original two hydrodaemons with Lightning Bolt.  The newly summoned hydrodaemon in the centrifuge room squeezed through both doors of the Fish Trap room to reach the room adjacent to the cavern the fight was in.  Ariphi rushed into that room to slow it down so the spellcasters would not face it directly.

Roscuro rushed the hydrodaemon across the bridge and punched it.  Templeton performed a full attack routine on it [and may have killed it – my notes are incomplete here as I was paying more attention to the combat than taking notes].  The hydrodaemon in Swamprover’s acid pit raised the level of the water in the stream to fill the cavern with two feet of water.  The stream turned out to be a branch of the River Styx.  Gridik and Marativy were sickened by the malevolent waters [they were the only two to fail their WILL saves].  The hydrodaemon facing Ariphi attacked her and dropped her to unconsciousness with its attacks.  Marativy advanced out of the cavern to the adjacent room where Ariphi had just fallen, which allowed her to shrug off the miasma from the river water [it gave her another save that she made].  Hrefna activated her healing aura, which revived Ariphi.

[My notes get very bare here, only noting some highlights.  Sorry about that.]  One of the hydrodaemons dropped Swamprover but she was revived by the healing aura.  Winston’s gun malfunctioned twice and detonated on him.  Fish [the grodaire with the party] lowered the stream level back into the channel and held it there until the end of the fight.  Marativy took out the summoned hydrodaemon virtually by herself.  Roscuro jumped down in the pit to land on the hydrodaemon down there and flurried on it, nearly killing it.  Gridik came over and cast Magic Missile at it, which killed it but then Gridik slipped and fell into the pit, nearly dying himself.  Roscuro fished the kobold out of the acid at the bottom of the pit and they stood on the corpse [for a couple rounds] until Swamprover’s spell ended and brought them back to the cavern floor surface.  Roscuro had a talk with the impressionable kobold about jumping/falling into danger and how that was only safe for monks, not wizards.

After the fight, most of the Ratpack needed some healing.  Hrefna raised a second healing aura to assist with this.  While waiting for that to fully take effect, Fish was asked to lower the stream level even further to verify no more hydrodaemons were hiding down there.  None were found, but two skeletons were spotted by Zitch and Winston.  They carefully climbed down and retrieved a potion of water breathing and a ring of grit mastery.  The ring went to Winston [after a little talk about it possibly going to Gridik, until we learned the ring stores grit from the user and Gridik has none].

It had also escaped no one’s notice that Selazny, the naga and last remaining member of the party the Ratpack was supposed to be rescuing, had left the Ratpack to face the hydrodaemons and run ahead.

With the wizards running low on spells and Winston sans musket, the group decided it was time to return to the surface.  Fish, immune to the effects of the River Styx, decided to stay in the cavern and hang out as the surface did not interest him.  On the way back to the surface, the Ratpack agrees among themselves to say nothing about the naga as it might complicate the reward situation.

On the Surface

Back at the surface, the Ratpack turned over the body bag of holding containing the body of the human woman Roscuro had snagged from the fire wasp workshop while it was partially flooded.  He warned Elaneiros that the body might still be host to a swarm of demonic fire wasps and the bag contained a lot of water.  Elaneiros raised an eyebrow at that but paid out the 1000gp bounty.  He asked if the naga had been found.  Roscuro stated that there were signs of her presence, but the Ratpack had not rescued her yet [all true, but leaving some things out].

End of Session

Rat Whispers

[Short writeup as there was really only one encounter.  The combat was intense and we were not certain whether or not we might face a TPK or a mostly TPK with maybe Templeton escaping.  I think if the hydrodaemons had summoned one more hydrodaemon we might not have made it.  At the end of the fight, over half the group was down to single digits in hit points and most of our powerful magics had been spent.]

[The summon acid pit spell Swamprover cast both helped and hurt.  It kept us from facing that hydrodaemon in melee but gave it time to do other things, like raise the water level and summon another hydrodaemon.  Having said that, it also let our wizards cast spells without having to worry about being disrupted by a large creature with reach in their midst, so I think it was still in our favor.  The acid wasn’t strong enough to be a factor and nearly killed Gridik when he fell in, so maybe a regular pit would have been better.]

[I forgot to write down the date of this session but I'm fairly certain it was February 13, 2023, as I'm fairly certain we skipped the 20th as a holiday.  I have a question in to the other players, so this might get updated.  Unfortunately, Roll20.net does not date-stamp entries in the chat and I lost all our text messages when my old phone died March 30th so I have no immediate backup resources.]

Ratpack

Book 1: Shards of Sin Landing Page – Links to all Book 1 sessions 

Book 2: Curse of the Lady’s Light Landing Page – Links to all Book 2 sessions 

Book 3: The Asylum Stone Landing Page – Links to all Book 3 sessions 

Last Session: Session 24

Next Session: Session 26

Ratpack – Shattered Star Book 3, Session 24

[Day 42 – Naga and the Hydrodaemons]

[This game uses the Pathfinder 1E roleplaying game.  Game sessions happen once a week.  This session happened February 6, 2023.]

[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

Marativy – female ratfolk 9th level Ninja

Zitch Grimreaper – male ratfolk 9th level Witch with a donkey rat (capybara) familiar

Roscuro – male ratfolk 9th level Monk

Swamprover – female grippli 9th level Wizard

Winston – male ratfolk 9th level Gunslinger

Via Roll20

Templeton von Trapp – male ratfolk 9th level Summoner (Synthesist)

NPCs

Gridik Stormstride – male blue kobold 7th level Wizard (Invoker)

Hrefna – female changeling 7th level Omdura

Ariphi – female tiefling 7th level Rogue

Autumn

Day 42 continued (again)

The room beyond the exit door from the fish trap was a long, narrow room with an ornate door at the far end.  On one wall was a mural of an underground city.  In the mural were beings with no eyes and two mouths.  [Zitch later identified them as Caul-Borne.]  A naga took up a third of the room and looked ready for a fight until Roscuro asked her if she was Selany.  She cautiously allowed that she was, opening up a conversation.

The Ratpack explained that the wizards of the Spire had sent them to rescue the previous group, hers, as the wizards had heard nothing in some time.  Roscuro asked how long she had been down here, wondering if there was some sort of time distortion going on.  Selazny said she had been down here several weeks, which aligned with how long it had been since the wizards had lost contact.  Marativy asked if Selazny had found the Caul-Bourne and the naga answered she had not yet but expected them to be on the other side of this unopenable door.

The door in question had a sihedron rune [seven-sided symbol of the Runelords] on it with a large onyx plate in the center.  Roscuro asked if the Ratpack could take a look and the Selazny said, “Be my guest.”

Thinking this rune behaved like the rune that entrapped the couatl several rooms back, Roscuro approached the door and applied the Shard of Lust to the rune.  Nothing happened, but Selazny did start edging back away from the door [wisely as it turned out].  Roscuro touched the onyx plate with the shard and a glowing line appeared wherever he moved the shard.  Thinking he needed to draw a specific rune on the onyx plate and with no apparent way to erase the lines he had drawn, Roscuro lifted the shard from the stone, triggering a chain lightning spell.  Roscuro evaded the lightning, but Marativy, Selazny, Zitch, and Swamprover were all tagged by it.

Roscuro apologized for setting off the trap, but said he had two ideas for which rune he needed to draw.  Everyone else cleared out of the room, all the way back to the centrifuge room.

Once the area was clear, Roscuro drew the rune of Lust on the onyx plate with his shard.  This triggered another lightning bolt, which Roscuro evaded.  He next drew the rune of Gluttony, as that was the rune the group was looking for in this dungeon.  This triggered another lightning bolt, which tagged Roscuro soundly [he failed his save].  Zitch came in and healed up Roscuro some to keep Roscuro from dying.

Roscuro eventually decided that deactivating the trap was the better plan and called up Marativy to disarm the trap.  Marativy took some time and worked on the trap, eventually removing the onyx plate from the door.  This provided direct access to the locking mechanism, which she disabled.  Hrefna came in and applied her healing aura to heal everyone back to full health [including Selazny].

The next room was a small cavern with a subterranean stream running through it.  A small stone bridge arched over the river and a path went across it.  The far side appeared to turn south, but was at the edge of the group’s Darkvision.

Cautious, the party started crossing the cavern, using the bridge to cross the stream.  While crossing the bridge, three large hydrodaemons leapt out of the water and attacked!

The Ratpack concentrated attacks on one of the hydrodaemons, dropping it after a couple rounds of combat.  Swamprover dropped another one of them down into a summoned pit and used burning hands on another, careful to avoid Templeton with the area of effect.  Meanwhile, Selazny cast invisibility on herself and fled further into the dungeon.  The adventurers felt they had a good handle on the fight until the one in the pit cast deeper darkness and then summoned another hydrodaemon.  With his super sharp hearing, Zitch heard the summoning and responded with [a spell I didn’t write down in my notes], forcing the summoned Hydrodaemon to appear in the centrifuge room [and take damage].

[And this is when the GM’s laptop ran out of power.]

End of Session

Rat Whispers

[Going into this session, the Other GM warned us that he forgot the power cord for his laptop and so once the battery ran dry we were done for the night.  His laptop uses a proprietary power connector for a brand we don’t have at the house, otherwise I would have supplied one.].

[The adventure never explains how the naga got past the fish trap, just plunks her in the following room, beyond a locked and trapped door with no other access.  I don’t remember if I mentioned it or not, but the writing for this book makes a lot of assumptions and does things because the plot won’t progress if those things aren’t done.  Not a big fan of this book.]

[Finally, this blog entry was delayed due to wedding anniversary activities.  Sorry about that but the anniversary was more important.]

Ratpack

Book 1: Shards of Sin Landing Page – Links to all Book 1 sessions 

Book 2: Curse of the Lady’s Light Landing Page – Links to all Book 2 sessions 

Book 3: The Asylum Stone Landing Page – Links to all Book 3 sessions 

Last Session: Session 23 

Next Session: Session 25