GM Endless Forms' PFS 06-18 From Under Ice (Inactive)

Game Master Mike Tuholski

Nazza frowns and scans the icy landscape, shading her eyes against the glare of sun on the frozen land. "That wolf said they would 'call down the whole pack' earlier. I don't see 'em around here, but that don't mean they're not coming, or here already. Let's get through that ice wall and see if we can find our key, yeah?" Nazza suggests, making her way back toward the hot clay lump melting the wall.

Turning toward the witch's daugter, she raises a neatly kept, yet skeptical eyebrow. "Any more surprises, ya think?"

Save Ref: 1d20 + 3 ⇒ (19) + 3 = 22

The old man could dodge most of the cold without problem.
He uses a wand to heal his wounds and offers it to the others.

Wand of CLW: 1d8 + 1 ⇒ (3) + 1 = 4

Nodding at Nazza's statement, Papy says:
"Yes, let's move on and hope we don't anymorrre... surrrprrrizes!"

"A whole pack of those wolves sounds really bad." Jon agrees with Nazza as he accepts healing from Papy's wand. "Let's get through this wall before that happens."

CLW: 1d8 + 1 ⇒ (7) + 1 = 8

A small portal opens near Rangor. Looking through it is the sky overlooking the ancient empire of Thassilion. Rangor's eyes become a little misty as he sees his home once again and reaches for it with a gloved hand. A creature begins to come forth from the gate, blocking his view.

Clasping his hand he closes the portal before the creature has time to fully enter this time period seeing as it is no longer needed.

Yes we should continue on. He says in a somber tone.

Sorry for the delay! Installing new flooring has kept me busy this weekend.

Intricate gilded stonework adorns the entrance to this place, and a complex marble mosaic paves the floor. Arrow slits flank the north and south sides of the hall, but the north side has collapsed and is choked with rubble. On the eastern end, two 10-foot-tall marble statues of armored dwarves flank a fresco depicting an opulant throne room. The faces of the statues have been broken off.

Moving into the room Rangor inspects the statues. This has not been done with the passage of time I am afraid.

Perception: 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (11) + 2 = 13

@GM-Also my Init gets rolled twice with highest result chosen with Temperol Celerity

Jon enters the complex carefully. The arrow slits make him nervous because, well, people like to use them to shoot arrows and stuff out of them. Lighting a sunrod, he stops at the first one and peeks inside.

Perception: 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (17) + 4 = 21

Jon finds nothing behind the arrow slits but does note a passage behind the collapsed section. Further on you locate another entrance which leads to a reserve full of mostly empty weapon racks. There is however, a masterwork heavy steel shield and an ivory-handled heavy crossbow in the room.

"No weapons. Well, it seems indeed that the dwarrrrves werrre attacked! I hope that their cadavers did not turn to undead, or worrse..." says the old man, also scanning the area.

Perception: 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (12) + 6 = 18

You find nothing else of interest in the front hall, the rooms behind the arrow slits, nor in the back weapons room.

"Welsh, we should take these wif us; may have some historical significance to the Society if nothin' else!"

Bargus then peers around the corner to the south.

Perception: 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (9) + 8 = 17

Nazza peers down the same hallway as Bargus, sword still drawn and resting over her shoulder. "Well, it's definitely got that 'Abandoned Ruins' feel. What's down this way?" she thinks out loud, scanning the hallway.

Where exactly are the mostly empty weapons racks? Can we see them in one of the rooms, or can we actually get to them?

Karos hastened past the arrow slits and peered down the long hallway.

Perception: 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (6) + 9 = 15

The weapon racks are to the north:

Jon finds nothing behind the arrow slits but does note a passage behind the collapsed section. Further on you locate another entrance which leads to a reserve full of mostly empty weapon racks.

The party moves to the south:

Thousands of icicles cover the ceiling of this cylindrical chamber. The outside edge forms a perfect circular curve, cutting into stone without mark of chisel or tool, impossibly smooth. Only places where ice flows over the stone, or where the structures have collapsed, mar the perfect precision of the cylinder. The remains of workshops and living spaces, still furnished, peak through holes in the cylindrical void. At the southern and western edges of the cavern, large portions of the stone and ice have collapsed, cutting into the immense void with piles of rubble.

Peering into the crater Rangor lets loose a small whistle. This is a big cavern.

Hey! over here are some doors. Inspecting the northern door Rangor begins to open it.

Perception: 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (16) + 2 = 18

"Look at this!" says Papy with a whistle. "I wonder I knew what caused that big crater!"

Is there a knowledge check appropriate to learn more about it? Arcana? Nature?

Not really. It looks like part of the complex was just lifted out and disappeared.

Ragnor checks a few of the doors and a series of rooms. Desks sit empty, a few scraps of meaningless paper littering the drawers. A weapon rack in the southeastern corner of the room contained the town's arsenal during their heyday. The door to the iron cage in the northeastern corner of the room is locked. Only the tattered remains of an old cot and manacles remain in the room.

"Mm. Whatever it was, I don't like it. I know this is an ancient, abandoned ruin type deal, but it's usually not so simple as all that...it's a bit too abandoned, ya know?" Nazza asks, eyeing the crater suspiciously.

She approaches the eastern door once the other Pathfinders have assembled, taking a quick listen before opening it.
Perception: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (2) + 5 = 7

"Can't argue there, there'sh shomething off!"

Bargus will put his ear to the southern door, but waits for Nazza's results before opening his.

Perception: 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (11) + 8 = 19

Checking his musket as he does every few minutes, Karos moved to a point from which he could easily support either Nazza or Bargus and waited.

Bargus opens the southern door but finds that it leads only to the empty ice below.

Nazza hears nothing at the other door and opens it. The frozen corpse of a dwarf slumps against the wall, perfectly preserved in a block of ice. He wears a hexagonal hematite beard clasp with a single dwarven rune inscribed on the face.

On the table is his masterwork dwarven waraxe. A pack to the side contains a personal diary written in Dwarven. Bargus is able to read and translate it for you all:

The cold winds howled fiercely last night. I fear that the cataclysm may truly be as great as the strange sorcerer Hao Gin warned. She has been knocking at our doors every morning, and today, I made the decision for the clan-better to take the risk of letting her whisk us all away into her mysterious realm than the certainty of freezing to death. unfortunately, Bardak didn't agree. My son is far too stubborn for his own good. He ran off and I couldn't find him anywhere. Now it's too late; Hao Gin spirited away the rest of the clan, and I'm stuck out here in the last few rooms that she left behind. Even worse, a giant lock of ice froze over the only way out of here. i could swear I heard cackling laughter from the other side of the ice, before it grew thick enough to seal off all sound from the outside world. I can only pray to Torag that Bardak changed his stobborn mind and accompanied his kin.

This seems a bit ominous. Where do you think his clan was taken and why was this lone dwarf abandoned?

Jon steps to the edge of the collapsed area and looks to the rooms seemingly cut off by the collapse. Retrieving his rope and grapple, he secures it at a door and carefully shimmies around a wall to reach one of the isolated areas, searching and moving on until he's checked all of them.

Take 10 on climb for 17.
Take 20 on perception in each room for 24.

"Sounds like he got trapped in here in a disagreement with his son. Pity to see somethin' so morbid as a result of bad kin, eh?" Nazza muses, shrugging with her free hand.

Suddenly her brows knit and her jaw sets to one side in a quizzical way. "Did that say somethin' about a sorcerer? Hao Gin?" Her eyes grow wide with recognition. "As in, the Hao Gin Tapestry? We came all the way to Irrisen when the temple was back home in the Grand Lodge's vaults the whole time! Well now this just seems like a huge waste of time! I guess at least we know about where to look now...maybe."

Jon checks all the rooms but finds nothing of value of interest; just some mundane things left behind when the dwarves vacated this place.

Satisfied that you have explored this place and, as Nazza has pointed out, made a fruitless trip only to discover that the dwarves are back in the Grand Lodge's vaults back in Absalom, you begin to head out.

However, when you reach the entrance chamber you find that trackers from Dalun have followed you to Naldak's Point. There is a male guard accompanied by a female in robes, an ice bear, and a small ice elemental. "Hold it!" the woman shouts. "Baroness Nadya has gotten wind that spies from Saarbotten were trying to capture her daughter. It seems we've found those spies...." Just as the man is reaching to draw his sword, Uliyara leaps forward.

"Wait! No! These are not the spies, they are not my captors. Did you not see the fallen winter wolf outside? They saved me from him, he would have been my captor!"

You will need to convince the people from Dalun that you mean no harm to Uliyara. Her testimony is giving you a bonus.

We have come to investigate the remains of this cavern. The Baroness' daughter is of no interest to us. We just happened to come across her on our journey. Rangor says calmly with his arms outstretched showing empty palms.

Diplomacy: 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (14) + 8 = 22

Diplomacy Aid: 1d20 - 2 ⇒ (7) - 2 = 5

Jon nods his head frantically and points to the red splotch in the snow nearby. Unfortunately, words seem more appropriate to the situation..

Nazza's eyebrows knit in annoyance, but she sheathes her sword and crosses her arms as a sign of good--or at least neutral--will. "Uliyara is the only reason we were allowed to come out here in the first, on account of her good word to the queen 'bout us. Your would-be captor was here, and now he's a red patch of ice--thanks to us."

Diplomacy Aid: 1d20 + 1 ⇒ (18) + 1 = 19

"Yesh, Mish Uliyara has been an ally an' friend since the beginnin' of our travels." Diplomacy: 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (5) + 8 = 13
GM 4 star reroll: 1d20 + 8 + 4 ⇒ (15) + 8 + 4 = 27

-Posted with Wayfinder

Papy looks at the scene with a silent amusement, grinning and all.

The trackers from Dalun consider this a moment and look back to Uliyara once again. "Is this true? Are you their guide and not their captive?" Uliyara assures them that this is true and that she is in no danger. "We will wait outside to accompany you back to Dalun then." They turn and exit the abandoned site.

Uliyara thanks you for all that you have done and for the exciting adventure. "If, say, I wanted to join your ranks. . . to join the Pathfinder Society. . . how might I do that? What is required of me?" The woman accompanying the guard turns and gives Uliyara an alarmed look as she exits the cave but keeps walking.

The journey from Dalun to Kalsgard proceeds without incident. Once you return to the Grinning Pixie, Venture-Captain Benarry is able to translate the dwarven journal and while she initially expresses disappointment that you did not recover a piece of the Sky Key, her chagrin quickly turns to excitement as she reads through the journal and comes to the same conclusion that you did.

Venture-Captain Benarry’s face breaks into a wide smirk, and she laughs heartily. “To think, Naldak’s piece of the Sky Key has been in the Hao Jin tapestry all along! Well, easy enough. I’ll just have to have a chat with the Master of Spells about sending a group of agents in to pick it up. The tapestry is vast, and we never would have known where to look it weren’t for you. To top that off, studying the section of Naldak’s Point that Hao in’s magic narrowly missed ripping out of Golarion could teach us more about the tapestry itself. Well done, Pathfinders!”

Uliyara becomes a valuable contact in Irrisen and the Society considers training her as an agent if they can get Baroness Nadya's approval. Venture-Captain Benarry thanks you for finding the Pathfinder Society a new ally in an unforgiving country.

And that concludes 06-18 From Under Ice! It was fairly short since you bypassed a couple encounters through Diplomacy but that works out better in the end because it keeps Uliyara safe and makes her an ally. I'll get chronicles out soon. Hope you all had fun!

Wow nice! Thanks a lot for running it, it sure was fast, but I enjoyed every moment of it.

Yeah, it was a fun one. Sorry I screwed up on the names! I'm actually tempted to make a post in the PFS forums to suggest in future scenarios with hidden aliases that they refer to the character as their alias in the text so that GMs don't make the same slip-up and use their real name like I did. It would have been better if the text read "Haltani" keeps quiet during the interaction with the guards. rather than just calling her Uliyara all the time and only mentioning her alias Haltani at the very beginning.

@GM: Are we supposed to have the Wereguild Thrall boon? I ask because we really didn't attack anyone other than the white wolf we diplomacized with Halvor at the beginning and with the chieftan.?

Once again Jon has helped the Society achieve one of its goals. And once again he isn't quite sure what the goal was... Still, putting on what he hopes is a smile of confidence, he stands with those that know better and tries to pretend he is a valuable and capable Pathfinder.

Heh. This character has a history of doing very little in his missions, then bonking something over the head near the end. Thanks for running EF!

Thanks for running! That really was a short one. Probably would have been a bit longer if we didn't skip, what, two or three potential combats? :P

Ditto what Bargus said about the Wereguild Thrall anti-boon. Is that just the price we pay for not fighting Halvor or letting him do any fighting?

Oh, sorry about that. I meant to cross it off. If I remember I will do it when I get home; otherwise you can cross it off yourselves.

Just making sure; thanks for running this!

I enjoyed myself, too!

I hope we can meet again in the future.