[Day 105 – Book
3 Wrap-up]
[This game uses
the Pathfinder 1E role-playing game. Game sessions happen once a
week. These sessions happened February 19, February 26, and March 4, 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
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)
Winter
Day ???
Morning
Somewhere on a
road to Riddleport with several dead companions (Gridik and Ariphi)
and a need for coin, the Ratpack hunkered down and went over the loot
in their possession and discussed next steps.
The consensus was
to split the group, with Templeton optimizing his eidolon for flying
speed and taking Gridik and Ariphi back to Kaer Maga to be raised by
the wizards of the Therassic Spire, who clearly owed the group, plus
to grab one of the constructs from the Ardoc family and take back to
Morgamer Pugg in Magnimar. Riding along will be Zitch and Winston
[Team: Speed-run]. The trio would take the loot the party wanted to
sell as Kaer Maga would be the best place to sell most of it. The
remainder of the group (Marativy, Roscuro, Swamprover, and Hrefna
[Team: Slow-walk] would walk west to Riddleport and wait there.
11:00 PM
Templeton and his
team arrived at Kaer Maga, Templeton exhausted from the effort.
Templeton flew them into the city itself, landing near The Grange.
Zitch cast Lesser Restoration to remove Templeton’s exhaustion.
The trio entered The Grange and asked for rooms. There they found
out 2 months had passed since the Ratpack entered the Dark Forest
[back in Book 3].
[This makes it
Day 105 in the Book 3 count of days.]
The trio got a
room to sleep in. Before sleeping, they tracked down Mel, Alice, and
Flo’, discovering that the three had opened a small diner in town
and preferred to remain in the city. Templeton, Zitch, and Winston
wished them the best.
[The rest of this
session and most of Session 2 will follow Team: Speed-run to
establish how much time the other team has at their disposal.]
Day 106
The trio had
breakfast at The Grange and made preparations for the day. Templeton
configured his eidolon into what he called its combat/diplomacy form
[my notes don’t say what this entails].
The trio then
went to the Therassic Spire and met with Elaneiros, the head wizard
there. Templeton reported what had happened in the Dark Forest [Book
3, Sessions 26-37]. Elaneiros then paid the trio for the work done
and the information given, plus the bounty for retrieving the head of
Selasny, the last of Elaneiros’ agents to be retrieved from the
Dark Forest.
After that,
Templeton displayed the loot items the group had retrieved and
offered them to Elaneiros for purchase or first refusal [per the
team's contract]. Both tried hard to fail in the negotiations [they
both rolled a 1 on their Diplomacy check], but Templeton failed the
least and Elaneiros paid 32,000 gp for the items he bought, 10,000gp of
it in two, 5000gp diamonds [which were necessary to raise Gridik and
Ariphi].
Winston borrowed
Ariphi’s cloak of disguise in case Leroux was still hunting for
him. The trio then went over to the Tarheel Promenade and found
Gadka’s Magical Oddities, where they sold two more items for
16,000gp. In the Promenade they located a Bloat Mage and sold the
[magical] Jar of Leaches to the mage for 4950gp. They walked over to
Ankar-Te and located the Temple to the Child Goddess to sell the
Skinharp to for 14,750gp.
Finally they went
the Temple of Pharasma in Oriat to get Gridik and Ariphi raised.
When asked if the trio were supplying the material components for 2
castings of Raise Dead, Templeton offered the use of his ring of
blood money. The priest politely declined. Templeton then offered
up the two diamonds and Gridik and Ariphi were raised by the temple
[both received 2 Negative Levels as a result]. Templeton also sold the
temple a phylactery of positive channeling for 10,750gp for a net
gain of 750gp at the temple.
End of Session 01
Day 107
In the morning,
Zitch cast Restoration on Gridik and Ariphi [removing 1 negative
level from each]. Once that was done, the 5 adventurers planned
their construct heist. The plan was to grab one of the small spybot
constructs, have Zitch cast Force Quiet on the construct, and then
Gridik cast Invisibility Sphere on the group. Templeton would then
fly the group out of Kaer Maga at maximum speed to avoid pursuit.
An hour later
The adventurers
walked through The Warrens to access Bis district. There was a heavy
security construct presence at the border between the two districts.
Winston asked a passerby what was going on. He was told that the
heavy security was due to an attack on the Ardoc family compound two
months ago followed by ongoing hostilities from the trolls of the
Augur Temple [see Book 3 for details].
The adventurers worked their way through Bis, looking for a spy
construct that was all alone. The best they could find was one
construct only being observed by a single companion construct.
Checking out the area around this (mostly) solo construct, they
located an unobserved spot 60 feet from their target. They waited
there (all but Templeton inside Templeton’s lucky barrel, attached
to his back) for a lull in the crowds in the street and then launched
their ambush.
Winston cast
Mudball on the target construct, blinding it. Zitch cast Force Quiet
to silence their target, then the group checked if the target’s
observer had noticed.
It had.
The guard construct launched a net at
the adventurers but missed entirely. Gridik cast Nondetection at the
target, so it could not be tracked but the spell failed to take.
Templeton flew at the target at such speed that Gridik lost his
footing and was tumped back into the depths of the lucky barrel. Templeton
grabbed the construct, stuffing it in his bag of holding. He then
flew towards The Barrens to escape from the city. By the time Gridik
regained his feet and cast Invisibility Sphere, the group was over The
Barrens. [There might have been a flying battle here, but my notes don't say and my memory is hazy.] Outside the city, Templeton flew south, following the river
to where the Runtash River joined it, hoping to set a false trail
towards Korvosa. At the confluence of rivers Templeton turned west
and flew towards Magnimar.
Evening
Templeton reached
the town of Wartle on the Yondabakari River. There Zitch cast Lesser
Restoration to remove Templeton’s exhaustion. They contemplated
flying on to Magnimar, but realized they would arrive late at night
and the city’s security might ask them questions they did not want
to answer. The found the inn in Wartle and rested for the night.
[We did some
activity with the other team, but overspent on time and had to do a
ret-con next session, so I’m skipping it here.]
End of Session 02
Day 108
In the morning,
Gridik successfully cast Nondetection on the captured construct and
returned it to the bag of holding. After breakfast, the group of 5
adventurers flew on to Magnimar, arriving early in the afternoon.
Their first stop
was to Morgamer Pugg’s shop to drop off the requested construct.
Morgamer was down in the basement again, behind a door with Silence
cast upon it to block out the sounds from the basement workshop. He
was spooked at first by the adventurers until they reminded him he
had hired them to grab an Ardoc construct. They turned over the
construct and were given the promised bag of coins. They politely
left as Morgamer started examining the construct.
Their next stop
was to see Frederick at his shop. There they offered Frederick an
ornate box recovered from the Thassilonian workshop under Kaer Maga.
While Frederick evaluated the box, the adventurers borrowed a side
room to discretely count the coin Morgamer had paid them. It turned
out to be 6000gp, which seemed reasonable. Once he’d evaluated the
box, Frederick purchased it from the group for 2750gp.
After some
pleasantries, the group left Frederick’s shop and went over to the
Pathfinder Society Lodge. They discovered the hydra heads they had
turned over to the Society the last time they were here mounted with
a ferocious snarl on each head. They requested to meet with Sheila,
the Lodge Captain.
In her office,
they gave a report of their expedition to Kaer Maga and the Dark
Forest. They announced that the group had secured the Shard of
Gluttony (currently with Roscuro on his way to Riddleport) and that
the next shard’s location was Windsong Abbey. Shelia told them
that her research suggested the next shard would be the Shard of Envy
and she handed over a dusty rose prism Ioun Stone as the counter for
that shard’s curse. She also relayed that Windsong Abbey was
reportedly under attack. A witness, a Varisian peddler named Pilla
Linuveshi, was currently in Sandpoint and the group should stop by
there to get first-hand information. Additionally, the Temple of Desna had
posted a bounty for the liberation of Windsong Abbey from the forces
there. She also offered to send a message to Roscuro to update him.
Templeton agreed to the message and said the group would investigate
the attack and lift it if they could.
It was too late
to fly out to Sandpoint and get there before the sun set, so the
group took care of some business in Magnimar. Gridik went to the
Temple of Desna to ask about the bounty and if they could provide any
maps of the Abbey. He learned the bounty would be paid in the form
of divine spell castings or items. He made note of this.
Unfortunately, the only map available [or that they were willing to
sell a kobold] was a general map of the area around the abbey.
Zitch tracked
down a scroll of Teleportation and relayed this to Gridik, who
purchased the inks necessary to copy the spell into his spell book,
despite not being able to cast it yet. [This would be important
later.] He spent the night doing so.
Day 109
Templeton flew
Zitch, Winston, Gridik, and Ariphi east-northeast from Magnimar to
Sandpoint. At the only inn in Sandpoint, in the common room, they
found Pilla telling her story to anyone who would buy her a drink. [The adventurers learned she was
continuously telling the story, starting over when interrupted or
once she reached the end, but my notes don’t say how they learned
this.]
When Pilla
started again, the adventurers listened in and learned:
- The abbey is
partially collapsed.
- The lighthouse
is one of the buildings still intact.
- She found a
small cap on the ground, red with blood.
- A hill giant
threw a boulder at her at that point and she fled for her life.
- She saw many
hill giants when she fled.
Having learned
all they could from Pilla, the adventurers left Sandpoint and flew
towards Riddleport.
Early Afternoon
Marativy,
Roscuro, Swamprover, and Hrefna arrived at Riddleport after walking
for 4 days with minimal supplies. Despite this, they took the time
to find a good inn, the Rusty Anchor. There they rented two luxury
rooms for a week. The luxury rooms came with hot baths and hot
breakfasts, of which the hot baths rated most urgent for the weary
travelers. They had meals delivered while they bathed and were
mostly restored by the time Templeton, Zitch, Winston, Gridik, and
Ariphi arrived in town early that evening. Zitch used his earrings
of telepathy to locate the other group and they shared information
and food.
Day 110
In the morning,
the treasure was tallied and shares were paid out. A full share
equaled 9670gp [paid to Marativy, Zitch, Roscuro, Winston,
Swamprover, and Templeton], and a half share worth 4835gp [paid to
Gridik, Hrefna, and Ariphi], with Party Fund getting a full share and
the remainder of 5gp.
The group decided
that Riddleport was a good place to resupply and do some crafting.
Gridik was able to track down and purchase a scroll of Fireball
[finally!] and a scroll of Mad Monkey. He also crafted a pair of
magic boots for Winston that double the wearer's movement. Roscuro contributed 3000gp to
the purchase of a Selective Metamagic Rod for Swamprover [so there would never again
be a “friendly fire” issue]. Additionally, enough time passed by
that Gridik and Ariphi were able to have Restoration cast upon
themselves again, removing their last negative levels.
End of Session 03
Rat Whispers
[This wrapped up
all the between books things that were properly the end of Book 3.
It had been eight months since we finished Book 3 and this allowed us
to remember what our characters could do. We, except for those on
Team: Slow-walk. We just waited for the other team to finish their
thing.]
[Next session
will properly be Day 1 of the counting of Book 4. At the time I’m
typing this, our next session will be Session 37 on Day 12. That’s
not a typo: Day Twelve! This book has multiple action-packed days
that take several sessions per day to play through. Be warned.]
[One final thing. For this Book, the Other GM decided he wanted to try milestone leveling and not Experience Points. In hindsight, I'm not certain this worked out well. I think we need to do a post-mortem once the Book is complete and discuss it.]
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 Session:
Book 3, Session 37
Next Sessions: Book 4, Sessions 4 and 5
