DM Talomyr's Kingmaker

Game Master Talomyr

"it sounds like there are multiple rat swarms, potentially hundreds of rats, inside this tower, if we have a way to gather them up and dispatch them in one fell swoop, that would probably be our best bet. Otherwise torching the area around and inside the tower at the same time might make better sense. Are we that concerned that the inhabitants of this area that have been using this tower seemingly as a dump location might have accidently dumped something of value in here? And if so is it worth it to individually eradicate all these rats for those potentially valuable items that may or may not exist? kalaman asks of the party after getting a pretty good idea of what is in the tower just from the sheer amount of squeaks

"Hard to say. I don't really know of any sort of locate treasure spell."

"Unless the plan is to leave this place as a ruin, we probably would rather deal with the rat problem sooner rather than later." Rhiannon replies with a shrug. "But it's not really my call."

I figure anything that can burn easily is probably already destroyed by the rats either chewing or defecating on it... but anything metal or magical will probably survive, if there is anything good there in the first place. We should burn them out. Or... well, I mean, unless... do you think that Oleg could order us some Pipes of the Sewers? Not sure how easy magic items are to get around here, but with pipes like that, I could get them to come out a few groups at a time and we could capture or kill them that way... but might be too expensive and too much effort compared to burning them. ... Hmm. Do lizardfolk like rat meat? If they do, it might be worth it to capture them for trade and breeding stock...

Personally I'd rather clear the whole place out now, just to have it done... not like there isn't plenty to do elsewhere. There are fireballs and trade possibilities there if we want to wait I suppose, and we also haven't gotten the creature that collected all the scalps, so might have to come back anyway(?).

Azen then has a really horrible thought and she calls out loudly

Is there anyone in there, with the rats?

just on the off chance that someone alive was thrown in there for the torture aspect, and needed to be rescued.

"With that many rats, I wouldn't give someone more than an hour before they're dead...and given the lack of screaming, anyone in there is likely a friend of the rats." she says with an involuntary shudder.

[ooc]So what's it going to be? Burn the tower? Leave it? Something else?[ooc]

Azen starts clearing away the brush in the courtyard and piling it around "Rat Tower."

Celebeth sheathes her thornblade and joins in her sister in building a ring of fire-to-be.

"Yeah, the rats will have already eaten anything fragile. Smoke 'em out."

"I'm fine with smoking them out. I wonder if they will stay there till tomorrow to allow us to rest first? I'm pretty spent from that last fight and a few poisoning entangles tomorrow might help us out.

Also, do you think any of the lizardmen might want to... I don't know, farm the tower?"

Celebeth wrinkles her nose and says, "We don't know much about the culture of the lizardfolk. They live in a basic fishing society, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they eat rats. Maybe they do, maybe they don't. There are similar riverfront communities of humans all over the countryside and I bet most of them don't eat rats and some of them would be offended if you suggested that to them."

"Anyway, there's no shortage of rats in other corners of the country. This place is unique because of the tower and the ruins, not because of the rats."

"Smoke 'em!"

Sorry I haven’t had time to post, but Tove supports killing them with fire.

The sisters gather wood, both dead and green from the brush filling the courtyard and arrange it around the northeastern tower.

The fire is slow to start, but before too terribly a smokey blaze has begun. The high pitched squeals of the rats with grow louder, to the point nearly being deafening as smoldering rodents begin pouring out of cracks in the wall and windows, scurrying into the forest.

What would you like to do.

Azen waits until they don't hear any more squeaking, and then opens the door to the tower using Mage Hand so she doesn't burn herself. If there are a tide of rats still alive that come out, she burns them with Burning Hands. If there aren't, then she lets the fire die down and the smoke clear, and goes in to see what's left.

After the fires burn down and the smoke abates, Azen opens what is left of the door with a cantrip. What was a less than pleasant smell as the fire burned, is a practically overwhelming odor of greasy burnt hair and flesh.

Picking through the remnants, you find seemingly countless burnt rat corpses and two burnt corpses of humanoid origin.

Beyond the corpses you find a silver and onyx ring and an amulet cast in the image of the sun and ornamented with an open eye.

Tove stops to examine the humanoid corpses, trying to determine what they might have been and whether they died in the fire or had already fallen victim to the rats.

Perception: 1d20 + 10 ⇒ (4) + 10 = 14
Heal: 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (2) + 9 = 11
Knowledge (nature): 1d20 + 10 ⇒ (20) + 10 = 30

After seeing the humanoid corpses Azen wonders if it was some kind of fey that liked rats... it couldn't have been some innocents in here with them, could it?

To distract herself, she searches the place, and beyond the mess, she finds a few items that survived. To further distract herself, she casts Detect Magic to try to identify them.

Spellcraft (Amulet): 1d20 + 11 ⇒ (8) + 11 = 19
Spellcraft (Ring): 1d20 + 11 ⇒ (9) + 11 = 20

She is able to, and explains to the group that the amulet that looks like a sun with an open eye is an Everwake Amulet, making the wearer only need sleep every seven days.

The ring that is silver and onyx is a Scholar's Ring.

See spoilers for a link to the items.

During the whole process she glances every now and then at Tove, who is studying the bodies. Definitely couldn't have been innocents... right?!?

Seeing Azen's anxiety, he softly tells her. There were no innocents in this tower, Azen. They may be the remains of victims, perhaps, but our fires did no harm to innocents.

Azen nods gratefully to Garethane, but you can see that she is waiting to see what conclusions Tove comes to.

Once the fire and smoke has died down, Celebeth pulls some cloth over her face and carefully steps through the remnants of the outer tower. She pokes her way through the ruins and then comes back out and uses prestidigitation to clean off the ashes on her boots and clothes.

"This place is full of monsters and undead. These folks... probably passed away a long time ago," she says.

"C'mon. Garethane, you think you can follow that fast-moving fae? Don't wanna leave some tiny, super-speed skinning monstrosity out there to dog our heels. Imagine waking up without your face because this little guy thought it would be funny to cut it off!"

Bump for Garethane.

"I'm at least moderately fond of my face. I think I should like to keep it."

The hunter begins sweeping the area where he remembered the Fae running off. Feral Focus to Perception until far enough away to where scent might be of use.

Perception: 1d20 + 19 ⇒ (6) + 19 = 25

Survival: 1d20 + 15 ⇒ (18) + 15 = 33

While Garethane is not able to see the speedy little creature itself, he certainly picks up on its trail. The question was how long would it take to catch up to it, if you even could?

Was Tove able to identify those bodies, DM?

"It looks like it has left the area. We probably won't be able to catch it if it continued to flee at top speed. If it had a back up lair or a cache of supplies, that we might be able to raid and convince it that other parts of Golarion might be more to its liking.

Might be worth taking the long way home, just to make sure it's well and truly moved off.

"Uuuuugh," groans Celebeth, with an exaggerated throwing-back of the head and rolling of the eyes. "What a paiiiin. Well, maybe we can track it down magically later, assuming it doesn't vengefully follow us back to Elkmark and begin a spree of terror there while hiding somewhere near the town."

I know I shouldn't give the GM ideas. Sorry.

"If that's it... let's pack it in and get outta here. Though I guess we need to figure out a way to transport that statue," says Celebeth.

Rhiannon can probably just carry it, right? She's super strong. Although... I don't know. Where do you put your hands to carry it... I mean... the whole thing just seems very indecent.

"Yeah, ridiculously difficult to carry," says Celebeth. "And what do we do with it while riding? I don't think we have a pack horse. We can't exactly put it in a cart. Maybe we should just leave it in the tower and come back for it another time," says Celebeth.

"Who's gonna carry it off? An ogre with a fetish?"

"If it were just a short distance I'd definitely just carry it, decency be damned." Rhiannon replies with a laugh. "But it might be better to come back for it, equipped with a wagon, or shrinking magic or something like that, to make transporting it easier."

What we need is a portable hole (though a type 2 or higher bag of holding would work)

I know I shouldn't give the GM ideas. Sorry.

No worries on that one, Celebeth. Garethane will tell you that the DM in this case absolutely loves to use reoccurring enemies *evil grin*

With as much packed up as you can reasonably carry - erotic artwork aside - you decide to make way for Elkmark.

Garethane had suggested a less than direct route, are you doing that? If so, what is your intended route? Please use the Greenbelt map link under my name to descibe your intended route.

I think the intent is to use the tracks of the Quickling to decide on the route home. Once we follow it for one or two map areas, unless it is heading towards a friendly, we turn back towards Elkmark.

Assuming that the information from discussion is shared...

When Tove says that the humanoids were already dead before the fire and that they had been decomposing for years, Azen breathes a long sigh of relief. Before they leave she digs a hole and buries the remains.

Since Kalaman expressed interest in the Scholar's ring, she hands it to him, and she drops the Everwake amulet over her own head. Having to sleep all day once every eight days seemed like a good trade off to her, although she hoped that eighth day didn't fall on Celebeth's birthday or something. She didn't want to sleep through that.

I don't think we always keep track of days very clearly in this game, so the GM can make me wake up exhausted on important days pretty much at will. However, can we take it as a given that she does keep track, so that anything they actually plan ahead of time, she warns them when she is going to have a day of exhaustion?

@Azen - That seems perfectly reasonable.

With the loot largely taken care of the party heads out away from the ruined fortress, off to the north following the tracks of the speedy fey creature.

After a few miles the trail lead off northwest into territory you had yet to explore in your time in the Greenbelt.

Would you like to continue pursuit into the unexplored hex or change course and head for home? The unexplored hex in question is G1, directly west of the hex containing Tiressa's Grove.

Agreed with both Garethane and Azen.

"All right. Looks like you're leading the way, Garethane," says Celebeth.

"Tove, what do we do next? Try to follow the little speed-sprite, or head back home?"

"Let's check out this new area before heading home. I mean, while we're hear...

"That makes sense I suppose." Rhiannon replies as they continue on.

The party, intent on tracking down the speedy fey, follows the trail deep into heavily forested territory.

Are you exploring/mapping this hex, or are you simply trying to follow the quickling? Either way, I'll take survival checks.

Survival: 1d20 + 3 ⇒ (17) + 3 = 20

I think we should explore/map, but hopefully we can do both?

Survival: 1d20 ⇒ 8

I would say let's track him for at least a few hours. Say if we hit the edge of this hex and we haven't caught up with him, we pivot to exploration?

Survival (Tracking): 1d20 + 15 ⇒ (18) + 15 = 33

Survival (Aid): 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (1) + 5 = 6

Traveling and tracking for a while longer, Garethane has little difficulty following the trail of the speedy creature.

After a few hours of tracking and traveling it would seem that the creature continued northward, but with so much unexplored territory around you, you opt to map out the area that may someday be part of your kingdom.

It takes the remainder of the day to do so, but ultimately you find little more than miles and miles of old growth forest. When you are done exploring the region, nightfall is fast approaching.

Push on through the night or find a place to camp?

Traveling and tracking for a while longer, Garethane has little difficulty following the trail of the speedy creature.

After a few hours of tracking and traveling it would seem that the creature continued northward, but with so much unexplored territory around you, you opt to map out the area that may someday be part of your kingdom.

It takes the remainder of the day to do so, but ultimately you find little more than miles and miles of old growth forest. When you are done exploring the region, nightfall is fast approaching.

Push on through the night or find a place to camp?

"Well, at least that was somewhat productive. Let's see if we can find a spot to bed down for the night," suggests Celebeth. "I can sorta see in the dark but there's no sense pushing it if we don't have to."

"Agreed. It's been a long day and I am rather tired. Let's look for a good camp site now that it looks like our sleep won't be interrupted by an irate fae."

"We should still definitely set watches though." Rhiannon adds as they look for the bats place to set up camp.

I can take first watch.

"With six of us, I think 3 watches of two people each might be best. Less chance of anyone missing something or getting caught by surprise." Rhiannon responds. "If you're using the amulet, then at least have someone with you during each watch, those who need more sleep for their magic can benefit."

Oh, good point. I can take all the watches, but happy to have people watch with me if they like.

"Yeah, I gotta get some good sleep if I'm gonna hit the books for spells," says Celebeth. "Sorry."