[Day 45 – Mopping Up]
[This game uses the Pathfinder 1E roleplaying game. Game sessions happen once a week. This session happened May 29, 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 45 continues
Marativy and Roscuro were both holding grudges against the Dark Rider and continued hitting it, even though it was inert. They were encouraged in this by the obelisk continually trying to heal up the Dark Rider, even though he was dead-dead. Roscuro picked up the Rider’s hand axe and used that to chop off parts to foil the regeneration. Marativy claimed the bone flail. Between hits, Swamprover started removing the Rider’s armor.
Winston and Zitch searched the room the fight took place in. They each located a secret door, one on the north wall, the other on the south wall. They both checked for traps, both announcing the secret door they were investigating was trapped. Marativy swapped out with Hrefna on abusing the body of the Rider so Marativy could disable the traps. Investigating the south secret door first, she determined the trap triggers a Dismissal spell, sending anyone triggering it back to their home plane [80% of the time, otherwise to a random plane]. Marativy then disabled the trap. The north door was the same kind of trap and she disabled it as well. She then returned to periodically slashing the Rider’s body.
With the doors cleared of traps, Templeton opened the south secret door. Doing so filled the room with a humming sound. The room was full of biomechanical machinery that seemed to be tied into the obelisk. Zitch looked it over. He announced he was not certain if breaking this equipment would break the anchoring effect of the obelisk on the pocket dimension or the regeneration effect the obelisk had on the Rider or both.
Starting to get bored with periodically attacking the body of the Rider, Roscuro kicked it down the stairs and into the next room, to see if the regeneration effect was limited to that room. The regeneration effect continued, suggesting that as long as the body was in the pocket dimension, it would regenerate. Swamprover resumed removing the Rider’s armor, now in the eating hall [where the PCs fought and killed the shadow mastiffs a couple sessions back].
Templeton next checked the north secret door and found more biomechanical machinery. This machinery included the body of the naga Selasny. The wizards of the Therassic Spire would still pay a bounty for the retrieval of her body. The Ratpack discussed how much they might need to bring back to claim the bounty. They decided that all of it was probably the correct answer. Roscuro pulled out the remaining two body bags of holding. Gridik and Ariphi were wrapped up and placed in one of the body bags and Selasny was placed into the other. Swamprover finished stripping the armor off the Rider’s corpse and cast Detect Magic. The Rider’s armor [plate +2], hand axe [+2] and spine flail [+2 with additional powers when wielded by a dulahand like the Rider] were all magical. Zitch identified the specific magics and the armor was put in the loot bag.
There was a discussion about what might happen if they plugged the body of the Dark Rider into the machinery. The Ratpack decided they did not have enough information or even the proper know-how to do it, so they didn’t. Those members of the Ratpack not involved with doing things to the Rider’s corpse resumed searching the rooms.
Templeton suggested that maybe putting the Rider’s corpse into a bag of holding might stop the regeneration as the interior was its own pocket dimension. Roscuro was concerned about what would happen if that did not work, not wanting to have to fight the Rider a second time and they could not see the results of placing the corpse in the bag until possibly too late. Zitch offered a test: he would cast Mirror Hideaway and they could move the body into that and go in and check it, unlike a bag of holding. This sounded good, so Roscuro told Zitch to do it.
Zitch pulled out a mirror [I believe he carries one specifically for this spell] and set it up. He then cast the spell. Marativy and Roscuro moved the body into the now enchanted mirror and observed that the regeneration had stopped. They decided to leave the body there as the spell would last 9 hours, providing plenty of time to finish searching the keep for the shard and any other loot.
With the Rider’s body stored and no longer regenerating, the Ratpack searched the eating hall. There was a viewing area with large windows in the southeast corner. Instead of outside the keep, the windows showed a barren landscape with the ruins of an ancient city and a black sky, despite there being daylight. The Ratpack theorized that the view was of Eox, where Malaghast the bonesage was from. It matched the description of the world the bonesage’s were supposed to be from. Roscuro investigated trying to exit the keep through the windows [thinking maybe the shard was on Eox], but he could not reach past the window frame. There was the possibility it was just an image and not a passage to another world. With two other doors to search in the eating hall, Roscuro let it go for later.
The Ratpack opened the door on the south wall. The room beyond was a large bath set into the floor that took up almost the entire 20- by 30-foot room. The water in the bath was black and opaque. Zitch cast Detect Magic and noted there was something in the bath that radiated moderate conjuring magic. No one wanted to step into water they could not see through, so Hrefna grabbed a chair from the eating room and dipped it into the water to test the depth. The near end had steps under the water’s surface. Hrefna went around to the side of the bath and kept testing the depth. At the end of the steps the water was deeper that the chair was tall with Hrefna holding onto the very top of the chair.
That’s when the monsters attacked!
Four skeletal things with long, whip-like tongues rose out of the water, surprising the Ratpack, and attacked Hrefna. One hit Hrefna with its tongue and paralyzed her.
Winston immediately rapid-fired his musket, destroying the thing that paralyzed Hrefna. Roscuro grabbed Hrefna and hauled her out of the bath and back into the eating room with the rest of the Ratpack, moving past Marativy in the doorway. The creatures waded out of the bath and attacked Marativy, damaging and paralyzing her. Templeton moved to get a line of sight into the room and cast Black Tentacles, filling the bath with rubbery black tentacles that the creatures avoided with ease [Templeton rolled very low on his grapple check]. Swamprover moved up onto one of the eating tables so she could see over Templeton and lobbed a Fireball into the bath, damaging the three remaining creatures. Marativy was paralyzed and could do nothing. Zitch cast Cure Moderate Wounds on Marativy to at least heal the damage the creatures had done to her. Fish finally showed up and raised the water level in the room to drown the undead things. It was not at all effective and the Ratpack yelled at him to stop.
Winston rapid-fired again, hitting one of the creatures twice before his musket misfired. Roscuro grabbed Marativy and pulled her away from the doorway, but she suffered an opportunistic attack from one of the things before he got her to safety. The creatures then advanced and attacked Roscuro, damaging and paralyzing him. Templeton advanced and pulled Roscuro out of the way. Swamprover cast Create Pit, catching one of the creatures in the pit; one jumped forward to escape, the last jumped back into the bath. Zitch put Protective Luck on Templeton and then cackled to maintain it. Fish used his waterspout to push the one creature in the room with the Ratpack back into the pit. Hrefna regained her ability to move, immediately activating her healing aura and casting Barbed Chains on the remaining mobile creature.
Winston rapid-fired on the remaining mobile creature and killed it. Roscuro was paralyzed but benefitted from the healing aura [Fast Heal 3]. The creatures in the pit climbed out and advanced. Templeton poured all his attacks into the lagging creature, hitting multiple times. Swamprover cast Magic Missile at the leading creature and hit. Zitch placed his ward on Templeton, backed away 5 feet, and cackled. Fish missed entirely and backed away. Hrefna attempted an attack and flubbed it.
Winston stepped back 5 feet and shot at the leading creature, critically hitting before misfiring. Roscuro was still paralyzed but benefitted from the healing aura again. The lead creature advanced on Winston and slammed him but did not paralyze him. The lagging creature did the same to Templeton but succeeded in paralyzing the summoner. Templeton was paralyzed, but made use of the healing aura. Swamprover defensively cast Arc Lightning on the two creatures who were neatly lined up for her, destroying the lead creature. Marativy regained her ability to move and poured all of her attacks into the remaining creature, killing it.
After the fight, Zitch was able to identify the creatures as mohrgs, a type of undead that still had their viscera and a long tongue.
Fish was asked to lower the water in the bath while the group waited for those paralyzed to recover. Zitch located a club down at the bottom of the stairs and to one side. Roscuro, now mobile again, stepped down and retrieved it. Hrefna and Winston aided Zitch in identifying the club as a club +1 undead bane of disruption. Roscuro stepped into the mirror and tested it on the Dark Rider’s corpse. It messed up the corpse satisfactorily.
There was one final door in the eating hall on the north wall. The Ratpack assembled in front of the door while Marativy verified there were no traps. Marativy opened the door. The room beyond was similar in size to the bath, but contained three things: a statue of the Dark Rider in the center of the room, a harp made from the corpse of a small humanoid hanging on a side wall, and Malaghast, who was standing near the statue.
“Oh! Hello my friends,” Malaghast greeted the Ratpack.
End of Session
Rat Whispers
[As mentioned in my recent status update, this game is now on hold due to the Other GM and Marativy's player being new parents. There will likely be a Session 37 to finally finish Book 3, but we have no idea when it will happen. The Other GM is optimistic and thinks he can run it soon, but the rest of us think a month or two might be more realistic based on how much time a newborn requires from their parents. We’ll see how it plays out.]
[As a result, we’ve started building characters for the 5E one-shot being run by Winton’s player, now designated Clone GM 1 (an inside joke). Clone GM 1 is running a published 5E adventure from a compilation of adventures and has had trouble answering what the adventure is about as all the published blurbs apparently include spoilers. Another case of we’ll see how it goes. The next blog entries will be next week and include a character summary for the 5E game followed by session notes for Session 1.]
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 35
Next Session: Session 37
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