[Day 1 through Day 4 – Getting There and Scouting]
[This game uses the Pathfinder 1E role-playing game. Game sessions happen once a week. These sessions happened March 11 and March 18, 2024, respectively.]
[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 10th level Ninja
Zitch Grimreaper – male ratfolk 10th level Witch with a donkey rat (capybara) familiar
Roscuro – male ratfolk 10th level Monk
Swamprover – female grippli 10th level Wizard
Winston – male ratfolk 10th level Gunslinger
Via Roll20
Templeton von Trapp – male ratfolk 10th level Summoner (Synthesist)
NPCs
Gridik Stormstride – male blue kobold 8th level Wizard (Invoker)
Hrefna – female changeling 8th level Omdura
Ariphi – female tiefling 8th level Rogue
Day 1
Morning
Riddleport
Over breakfast, the group discussed what questions Hrefna should ask with her Commune spell and came up with a list that felt reasonable. [I don’t have the questions asked nor responses, but Hrefna’s player does and maybe will bot them in the comments. Hint, hint!] There was also discussion about how to get to Windsong Abbey. Zitch, Swamprover, and Templeton now had access to Teleportation and it was decided to try teleporting to Sandpoint and then taking a carriage from there. As none of the group had been to Windsong Abbey before, this mitigated a lot of dangers with teleporting to a new location.
After breakfast, Gridik and Swamprover tracked down and bought 1000gp each of scroll scribing supplies and packed those to take on the expedition.
The group retreated to their room at the inn and there Zitch cast Guiding Star, which would make it safe[er] for him to teleport back to the room as he could not teleport everyone at once. He then cast Teleport, teleporting himself, Swamprover, Winston, and Marativy. They arrived safely in the vicinity of Sandpoint.
Zitch then teleported Swamprover and himself back to the room in the inn. There, Zitch teleported himself, Hrefna, Ariphi, and Templeton. They arrived safely where Winston and Marativy were waiting.
Next Swamprover cast Teleport, teleporting herself, Roscuro, and Gridik. A mishap happened, lightly injuring the group and dropping them near Galduria, 150 miles east-northeast of Windsong Abbey. This exposed another issue where the separated team had no way to communicate directly with the others.
Swamprover tried again and this time successfully teleported the group to Sandpoint.
Out of teleportation spells, the group settled in to Sandpoint until the next morning. Swamprover took the time to scribe Dimension Door for Gridik [using 350gp of scribing supplies] while Gridik scribed Detect Scrying for Swamprover [using the same amount of supplies]. They then swapped scroll. Gridik copied over Dimension Door into his second spellbook [Storm and Stress] while Swamprover fed the scroll of Detect Scrying to her familiar, Snek, who acted as her spellbook.
Day 2
Sandpoint
In the morning, Zitch cast Conjure Carriage twice, which provided the capacity to move the entire group of 9 adventurers [as long as either Marativy or Roscuro rode on the roof]. The trip was 40 miles long [and most of the day] and along the way the adventurers saw a herd of rhinoceri. [Random encounter tables have weird entries for this area.]
The weather was windy when the spells ended and the group searched for a campsite outside. Zitch cast Secure Shelter in the selected location and watches were set.
- 1st Watch: Winston, Swamprover, Hrefna
- 2nd Watch: Marativy, Roscuro, Ariphi
- 3rd Watch: Templeton, Zitch, Gridik
Day 3
Nearing Windsong Abbey
The day dawned cloudy. The group marched until Noon, getting closer to the Abbey but not yet in sight of it. While looking for a place to stop and eat lunch, they found the wreckage of a caravan of carts.
Being suspicious, the group first observed for any signs this was an ambush. Once satisfied it wasn’t one, Roscuro and Marativy moved in to investigate the carts. They found corpses, dead for a couple of weeks at least. The caravan appeared to fleeing the area of the Abbey, heading south. Under one of the carts they located a secret compartment. Marativy verified it was not trapped and unlocked it. Inside was a small wooden box that contained a cloth bag of gemstones [totaling 8000gp in value] and a sealed envelope. The seal suggested a Korvosan family.
Marativy and Roscuro returned to the rest of the group and reported what they found. The adventurers did not want to camp near the attack site, so scouted out another area nearby and settled down for a lunch of trail rations.
While the group was stopped, Hrefna investigated the sealed envelope. She discovered it was trapped with Explosive Runes! Hrefna handed the envelope over to Marativy to de-trap. Once Marativy had rendered the envelope safe, Hrefna opened the envelope and examined the letter therein. It was in Taldan [which turns out to be the Common Tongue in this area] and indicated the gems were a dowry for a wedding [clearly one that will never happen].
After Lunch
The adventurers continued their hike towards Windsong Abbey, getting within a 30-minute walk before they can see the Abbey on raised land adjacent to the Varisian Gulf, across an area of rolling hills. [We did not catch the “raised land” part of the description and the only external map of the Abbey does not include anything that suggests it is backed by a significant cliff. More in Rat Whispers, below.]
Winston, Roscuro, and Zitch moved closer to the Abbey to visually scout the environs while everyone else located a place to camp. Winston used his spyglass to get a better view with Roscuro taking notes and asking him to look at specific locations. Zitch cast Arcane Eye to get a closer look without having to physically approach the site.
Roscuro could see all the buildings outside the Abbey’s walls were rubble. Groups of giants could be seen scattered amongst the building, apparently on guard with handy piles of rocks to throw nearby.
Winston got a better view with his spyglass and was able to identify each group as 3 hill giants with 4 ettins mixed in. Three of these mixed groups could be seen patrolling the area. The Abbey’s wall was mostly intact but it was apparent the giants and ettins could step over the wall with little trouble. The buildings inside the wall were in better shape, but damage could be seen.
While he could not get a good view, to Winston’s eye it appeared some of the graves in the large graveyard adjacent to the Abbey had been disturbed. Winston could also see that of the two docks beside the Abbey, one was destroyed and the other heavily damaged.
Zitch placed his Arcane Eye near a collapsed portion of the southeastern corner of the Abbey itself. There, hovering in that gap, Zitch saw two qlippoths! He quickly identified them as nyogoths and relayed what he knew about them to Roscuro, who wrote that information down. [Zitch seems to know a LOT about other planar beings, particularly the unpleasant ones. Roscuro has chosen to not ask about that as good intel is good intel.]
Zitch moved his Arcane Eye past the nyogoths and examined the lighthouse tower in the center of the courtyard. It was 150 feet tall, made of white marble, and unsullied as far as Zitch could tell. The courtyard was paved with cobblestone and had a single drain grate for water removal. In a balcony where they could observe most of the courtyard were four redcaps [an unpleasant kind of fae] with crossbows in hand. They seemed to be alert. The main gates of the Abbey had clearly been bashed in during the attack and hung loosely open.
Zitch next investigated the dining hall area, accessed by a set of smashed-in doors below the redcap balcony. Inside were four ettins, one of which was wearing armor and seemed to be their leader. Up a set of stairs Zitch found a large open room with what appeared to be an undead bugbear sitting in a chair in the exact center of the room. At this point the Arcane Eye spell duration expired.
End of Session 04
Day 3, Continued
Windsong Abbey
Winston, Roscuro, and Zitch slid back behind the hill crest they had been spying from to discuss what they now knew. They decided that they needed more information, both from a casting of Commune by Hrefna and more spying by Zitch with Arcane Eye. Unfortunately, Zitch was out of castings of Arcane Eye for the day, so the trio returned back to the rest of the group.
The rest of the group had located a good campsite surrounded by the rolling hills of the area that would let them set up camp without being directly viewable from anyone in the Abbey. Zitch cast Secure Shelter while Roscuro shared the information gathered so far and plans for the next day. Hrefna cast Commune and got answers [which my notes do not contain, although I know Hrefna’s player has them – again: hint, hint].
Second Watch, that night
Marativy, Roscuro, and Ariphi observed a flight of wyverns flying over the area, apparently hunting. Not wanting to get into a fight and tip off anyone in the Abbey the adventurers were here, Roscuro asked Marativy to use the Major Image power of the shard she carried to hide the campsite. She did so very successfully and the wyverns eventually passed on.
Day 4
Gridik cast Nondetection on Zitch and Winston, to hide Zitch from anyone who might notice his Arcane Eye and attempt to spy back and on Winston who had concerns Leroux might be actively looking for him. [I seem to recall this was a result of one of the Commune questions, but I’m not 100% on that and my notes don’t say. Past me really needed to take better notes.]
Marativy, Winston, Roscuro, and Zitch made their way back to their scouting location. Zitch cast Arcane Eye. Zitch scouted around the outside of the Abbey structure, which took a second casting to complete due to the time limitations. This provided a rough map of the Abbey and the sate of its structures. Once his circumnavigation of the Abbey was complete, he sent his sensor down the drain grate in the courtyard and located a series of underground rooms [which his player mapped, but I did not].
The adventurers discussed the new information and decided it would be worthwhile to use a third casting of Arcane Eye to scout the interiors of the structure. Doing this Zitch discovered that the “guest house” part of the structure was a burnt out husk, three stories tall. In the kitchen area adjacent to the dining hall, Zitch found a large quantity of viscera, probably of human origin, and what might have been a very large haggis made not of sheep, but people.
Zitch attempted to cast Detect Magic through the Arcane Eye [one of a small number of spells allowed to be cast through the Eye, all of which have a chance of failure]. The casting was successful and the “haggis” detected as magical...before it detonated, spawning another nyogoth! The nyogoth detected the Arcane Eye’s sensor and cast Dispel Magic on it, ending the spell and any scouting for the day.
Back at Camp
Gridik scribed a scroll of Fly for Swamprover while she scribed a scroll of Lesser Globe of Invulnerability. They then swapped scrolls and added them to their respective spellbooks.
End of Session 05
Rat Whispers
[One of the things this book of the Adventure Path needed was a map of the area around the Abbey so players could plan their attack. The only exterior map was a small thumbnail that provided a small reference for the GM. That thumbnail completely failed to convey that the Abbey was on raised ground with a steep cliff behind it. So when we later learn there is a window 30 feet down the cliff side that was obscured by a stone lip from the water below, we were very confused. The thumbnail looks like there is maybe 5-10 feet down to the water behind the completely level area the Abbey and village occupy.]
[As far as I can tell, the PCs are expected to assault the Abbey directly and storm their way in or maybe smash the cliff-side window. Both of these options are dumb: the frontal assault is against too many giants and likely to end in a TPK and the window leads to who-knows-what, which is also likely to end with a TPK. I’ll have more to say about the writing of this book as we get further in.]
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
Book 4: Beyond the Doomsday Door – Links to all Book 4 sessions
Last Sessions: Book 4, Sessions 1-3
Next Sessions: Book 4, Sessions 6 and 7
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