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Silversword120
2014-09-06, 10:22 PM
So, one GM wishes to run the newly released Iron Gods Adventure Path from Paizo. Plot Twist: homebrewed setting, rules, and everyone is playing a ratfolk. This will be a campaign journal of the ensuing masterpiece to come.

This game is a VERY heavily modified version of Iron Gods. It starts in a warren called Torch, located in Golarion's darklands. Technology is still a mystery to the inhabitants of this fair warren at the start, only a few items have trickled in from the outside world.
Character creation was interesting. EVERYTHING was bought via points. Everyone had 25 points in which to purchase stats, variant rules such as hero points, alternative racial heritages (read: aasimars, tieflings, and oread rats), bonus feats, bonus skill, languages, money, you name it.
We will be given opportunities for feat and spell training, as the GM wishes for us all to have as much fun as possible and for us to be flexible.
GM has also homebrewed a bunch of cheese related spells as who would resist?
The GM has provided us with a custom players guide and I will see if he will allow me to post a link here.

As previously stated, the game starts out in an underground warren called Torch. Composed of primarily Ratfolk, Torch is rather isolated from the outside world, despite being a very large city by human standards. The warren has a number of outposts that have been created throughout the years by more adventurous Ratfolk. There are both a Dwarf and a Drow city close by, with Torch participating in trade with the dwarves and maintaining an uneasy truce with the drow.

Our group will consist of a a Bloodrager (me), an Arcanist, a Cleric, and an Investigator. I am playing a demon-blooded tiefling ratfolk (which has been hombrewed to only give the ability score bonuses and the SLA, while keeping the other ratfolk racials), the Arcanist is an Archon-blooded Aasimar (which got the same treatment as the tieflings), while the remaining two are normal ratfolk. I will be playing the abyssal bloodline, with plans to go crossblooded rager into a homebrewed naninite bloodline when technology is first introduced to us.


Baine The current chief of the warren, Baine has been in Torch for some ten years now with his thirteen-year daughter Val. Baine is a sturdy, black-furred rat, extremely skilled in alchemy and gadgets but constantly downplays his own skill. His expertise combined with his charitable personality quickly raised him to the leading position. The most known invention of Baine is the town’s water supply system which utilizes a steam engine pump to provide water from the Weeping Pond to the rats’ homes while processing the mildly poisonous water alchemically for safe consumption.
Dolga This elderly rat lady is the warren’s oldest councilor and was present at the town’s founding. Although her body has grown old in these 50 years, she remains alert and energetic. She is still capable of hefting her favorite weapon, an adamantine heavy pick, with ease, though she rarely has need of this symbol in her capacity as councilor. She has passed her mining and smithing skills to everyone who has had the sturdiness of hide to survive her sometimes stern lectures.
Sh An old albino ratfolk. No one knows his real name. He’s called “Sh” because he’s always shooing curious young rats away from his home and research. While obviously a skilled mage, he hasn’t been seen casting any spells on his own, instead focusing intensively on his research of crystals. However, he occasionally takes helpers that he refuses to call apprentices to help his research and in return has taught magic. Most don’t ever bother him because the consensus around the warren classifies him as a jerk. Both the arcanist and I were past apprentices of his.
Jorfytel Kyte is a svirfneblin cleric of Brigh and the only non-rat trusted enough to be voted into the town council. He’s interested in metal trade and has more than once helped Baine with projects that would else have met a dead end. He has an unorthodox view in many areas of life, a quality which is well appreciated in the inventor circles in Torch. He’s deeply interested in items of arcane origin and runs a magic item shop as a side business in the Temple of Brigh. The cleric worships Brigh and was a former helper of his.
Serantha Havarti The best cheesemaker of the town hasn’t made a single wheel of cheese for 2 years - since her husband Aaronlu Havarti died in a back alley mugging. She promptly took oven the duties of the Guard Captain from her husband and has been involved in politics ever since - a huge loss for every cheese-loving rat in Torch who have been begging her to return to her original trade.


With that out of the way, let's get on with the story!

Silversword120
2014-09-06, 11:17 PM
SESSION 1: THE PROLOGUE

Our first session start off 2 years prior to the beginning of the AP, and most of us are playing young characters with 1 level in the 3rd party Apprentice class (which is to be changed out later for our real class), the sole exception is the arcanist. The story starts off with the three of them coming to fetch me to go exploring with them. At this time I am still working for Sh, and I am mostly being paid in books as I plan to open up a library (great goal for a bloodrager no?). As the others are approaching his tower, he hands me a list of things he needs for his research. This list consisted of:

One Shocker Lizard, in good health
4x two ounce satchels of Alkaline Salts
Two vials of unholy water
Two vials of holy water
And sediment samples from 3 bodies of water.

So, the others arrive and naturally they all agree to help me out with my list of strange items. We decide to go with the Shocker Lizard first. The soon to be investigator rolls a knowledge local check and remembers that someone sells domesticated shocker lizards in town. I and the arcanist also come up with places that we could locate them outside of the warren. We decide to at least check with the seller first as she may have some good tips for capturing them.
We are greeted by the lady ratfolk, and we express interest in purchasing a shocker lizard from her. She was momentarily confused as these were not a big seller for her, and has trouble pricing them. She eventually gives us a price of 2sp for a lizard and we pay up. After that it turns out that she only had one tame lizard, and her watch rat was so attached to it she couldn't part with it, so she decides we can have a more feral one. We borrow a cart and rent a barrel to transport the lizard back to the tower. We lure it into the barrel with fish, but it gets agitated when we close it and attempts to blow it up. There were 2 other lizards close by in the pen so it was able to use it's communal shock attack to nearly break the barrel, but we got it out of range before it could recharge. We brought it back to Sh, where he examined it, and then took it away to experiment on.
Next on the list was the vials of holy and unholy water. We started at the temple of Brigh as the apprentice cleric may be able to help procure some for us. We find Jorfytel and ask about the holy water, which he is willing to part with for a total of 50gp. Noticing that Sh failed to provide us with funds, and our general lack of money, we ask if it would be alright to pay him back, and after some nice diplomacy rolls we succeed. He also tells us we could possibly purchase some unholy water from one of the gangs in Torch, but we would need the trade price. After some debating, we end up going to my family's house, as they are one of the wealthier in town, and borrow some gold from a relative. We proceed to buy two vials of unholy water from some gang, and with most of us being young, we returned fairly shaken by the experience.


The next thing was the Akaline Salts, which were fairly easy to procure. We stopped by the local alchemy shop (which happened to be where the investigator was studying), and it turned out that the salts we needed were fairly cheap, and the rat in charge just donated them to us. The only thing remaining would be the samples from the water bodies. We borrowed some vials from the investigator's house and set off. We retrieved the first one by having the arcanist dive in and use mage hand to retrieve the sediment. For the second, we tried the same thing, but this water was dirty and he became sickened and failed to retrieve it. Being an apprentice with the specialties of Bloodrager and Arcanist, I was able to use cantrips as well, and had a better fortitude save than the poor arcanist, and I retrieved the second sample.
The last sample would prove to be the trickiest, as we navigated outside of Torch to locate it. When we arrived at the site, we discovered a rat just sitting there reading with a bunch of goats and a large riding rat around her. Turns out she was Serantha Havarti, the best cheesemaker in town turned politician (which was yet to happen as this takes place before the murder of her husband). Turns out my rat had a weakness for her, and is painfully shy in her presence. We speak to her about her goat herd and her rat companion (named Jumbo), and why we were there. She lights up as we tell her about needing a sample and volunteers to retrieve it for us. Not taking no for an answer, she grabs a vial and jumps into the lake, and that is when all hell broke loose.
The second strongest goat in the herd decides to stage a coup after Serantha dives into the water, and rams the current leader of the herd into the water. All the goats and Jumbo get excited and all start fighting. Naturally we decide to break up the fight, which was easier said than done. Jumbo starts out by bullrushing a goat across the other side of the cave, putting a lot of distance between him and the party, 2 goats gang up on him, while the arcanist manages to subdue two goats with a color spray. The investigator moves to the usurper and makes an intimidate check in order to cow it into submission, and despite having a negative modifier, he succeeds. The cleric jumps into the water to attempt and rescue the alpha goat, which immediately fails its swim check and begins to sink. Meanwhile 2 goats have started to attack Jumbo and he starts to panic. I bullrush one goat away from the creature, but take a gore in the process. The arcanist double moves to get to us, but cant do anything else. He is charged by yet another goat which sends him to 2 hp. The investigator moves to one of the goats attacking jumbo, and succeeds in another intimidate check to get the goat to back down. The cleric is attempting to rescue the drowning goat, but fails his swim check and starts drowning along with it. The goat in question then stops drowning and gores him as well, clearing a big chunk of his hp off as well. At this point Jumbo is panicking from some wounds he received, and attempt to run away. Both me and the investigator attempt to trip him as he flees, and we succeed in delaying its movement. I attempt to calm down Jumbo with a Handle Animal check, but I roll poorly and he is still spooked. Arcanist fails to subdue a goat with intimidate, but the investigator yet again cows one into submission, leaving a total of 3 goats left. Serantha emerges from the lake and easily subdues the goat in the water, and it scampers to land thoroughly cowed. She has to also rescue our drowning cleric. One goat attacks the investigator and misses, while the other remaining goat attacks jumbo, and deals him a nasty blow. Jumbo gets up and attempt to flee again, I try and trip but fail miserably, falling prone myself. Investigator once again intimidates the goat that attacked him (at this point we are calling him a goat whisperer). Still on the ground, I crawl over to the last goat and succeed in an intimidate check from the ground, and combat ends. Immediately we all give chase to the fleeing Jumbo. It takes us a while, but eventually the INVESTIGATOR succeeds in a handle animal check to calm him down, and with his lick with the animals he jokes about retraining into a druid or a hunter. While giving chase we found ourselves in a unexplored area of the tunnels, and Serantha wanted to explore, but as we were depleted on resources, we postponed further adventures until the next day. We returned to Sh to give him the last of the ingredients he needed. We asked him about payment for the holy water, and he initially went off on a rant about how the temple is a bunch of fools, but then pulls a ruby the size of a potato out of the cupboard (an appraise check revealed it to be worth 10,000gp). He mutters and puts it back and gives us an amethyst worth about 400gp instead. He also gives me a spellbook that I had recently duplicated for him, which contained a custom cantrip for testing water. We sold the ameythst to pay for the holy water and the session ended.

This is where the first session ended. It was very fun to play and I can't wait for the rest of the campaign.

LokiRagnarok
2014-09-07, 01:47 AM
Wow. That was something different for the first combat.

Looking forward to more.

Silversword120
2014-09-07, 11:05 AM
GM gave permission to share the player's guide, here is the link (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YR0nViPImIqEwqYVc0GmFj4-xVNUmFZp9hf1rPFWs4E/edit?usp=sharing).

Silversword120
2014-10-15, 11:53 AM
Ok, so we have had a session and a half since the first and I feel it is now a good time to report on them.
We pick up the day after the goat incident, as we had promised Serantha that we would explore the newly discovered cavern today. (At this point the Arcanist of the party has dropped out, leaving 3 young rats with NPC class levels to investigate). I gather some rope from my family and we pick up Serantha and Jumbo at her house. We set out for the location we discovered the day before and quickly arrive. I realize that it wasn't a natural tunnel, but created by a creature able to burrow. This revelation shakes our young rodents somewhat, but youthful curiosity overcomes us and we proceed. Inside we find a seemingly dead end, but a few perception checks later and we hear a dog barking behind a seemingly solid wall. Our investigator goes through the wall and is immediately attacked by a divine caster and a vicious dog. We manage to get some blows in on both, but our young cleric runs out of healing and we are in a dangerous position as our Investigator goes down. It is at this point Serantha makes a very high Handle Animal check and Jumbo enters the fray, easily incapacitating our opponents. The cleric recognizes him as a worshipper of Ayrzul from his chanting, but none of us knows anything about this deity. We manage to convince Serantha to stop exploring the caverns for another day in order to recover and bring the old rat to the town guard.

After turning the old rat over to the city guard, they discovered he had some caches of alchemical fires and acids throughout Torch and they gift them to us as thanks. We return to the area where we fought him and discover a Shrieker mushroom. I'm the only one who knows about them and relay to the group that they shriek rather loudly when movement is detected. The rest decide to throw an alchemist's fire at it. Only as they launch the bottle do I remember heat also sets them off. Woops. Commence battle with a screaming mushroom. We all eventually save vs. the shriek and become immune, but some strange creatures had entered the battlefield. Unbeknownst to us, one of the creatures had died to the Shrieker already. We couldn't exactly see these things, and had no idea what they were. One is killed by a lobbed fire, while one attacks me. I am required to roll a fortitude save, and promptly fail, causing the DM to look rather pale. OOC, we finally realize he sent incorporeal creatures to fight us, and are scared, as the only way we can damage these things is with the alchemical supplies, and our best combatant had just failed. I end up having to use my one hero point to reroll the save and thankfully pass. The thing is tiny and sharing my square though. I take a bottle of alchemist's fire in my hand and punch the thing, killing it and doing minor splash damage to all of us. We proceed with our exploration, and discover some strange ruins, which are obviously technological in nature. whilst exploring these, we come across a pod with a human looking creature (Which we learned after the prologue was an android). We wanted to bring the pod back with us, but the moment we tried to move it, glaring sirens went off and we ran for it. When we get back to town, we find that it is under attack by a bunch of Chardas, and the guard are currently fighting for their lives. Serantha charges off to go help her husband, while the investigator gets the idea to find crossbows and fire from afar. We successfully find some crossbows and bolts and proceed to fire at the Charda, occaisonally hitting and distracting them enough to have the guard take advantage of the openings. During the fight however, Serantha's husband goes down and is killed. After the Charda attack, we notice a bright light coming from the top of a nearby hill.

Palanan
2014-10-15, 09:57 PM
Interesting campaign concept, but presenting each section as a single massive paragraph makes it difficult to read. Might want to try dividing each dollop of spoilered text into a series of smaller paragraphs.