DM Carbide's Rise of the Runelords

Game Master John Woodford

Are you going to do anything about the other magical aura concealed under dangerous mold?

Nia points at the mold. "Watch out, that's yellow mold. We should be able to burn it off."

Nia can toss an alchemist's fire at the yellow mold from 10' away to burn the mold off. A magic item shouldn't be hurt by fire, right?

The magic item shouldn't be hurt by fire, correct. (Unless it's a necklace of fireballs and it blows its save...but Jason Buhlman didn't write this dungeon <g>.)

Nia burns off the mold, revealing that one of the digging tools was actually a weapon...a magical heavy pick.

Detect Magic, Spellcraft: 1d20 + 12 ⇒ (6) + 12 = 18

Vidar rubs his face and sighs.
"Apologies, it would seem I need more time yet again.
I am far too used to taking my time with my studies, this "on the fly" scanning does not appear to suit me."

Vidar identifies the weapon as a heavy pick +1.

Returning to the mansion's basement, there are three rooms you missed completely, the apparent workshop you passed through quickly (the room with the stained-glass windows), and at least one swarm of rats.

What do you want to do here?

We should sweep through the remaining rooms, especially knowing what we know now, I think.

Garrick says, "We should probably look through the rest of the place now that we're not rushing after undead trying to kill each other... Might be more clues about what this is all about and how it got this bad... or about what we might find in Magnimar."

"Aye, but if we do this, we need to remain vigilant.
There may still be more danger we've yet to face after all."

To remind you what the apparent workshop looked like:

This room looks to have once been some sort of arcane workshop, although it now lies in ruin. A row of soggy books sits on the northern end of a workbench along the western wall. At the other end of the workbench, what looks like three iron birdcages sit, each containing a dead diseased rat. To the east, two stained-glass windows loom. The northern window depicts a thin man with gaunt features drinking a foul-looking brew of green fluid, while the southern one shows the same man but in an advanced state of decay, as if he had been dead for several weeks. His arms raised and head thrown back in triumph, his rotting body turns to smoke and spirals into a seven-sided box.

The box in the image, incidentally, looks very much like the broken puzzle box that was adjacent to the mass of fungus below.

What do you do in the room, if anything?

"You never know what kind of weird, dangerous stuff you'll find in a wizard's workshop." Nia puts on her thin gloves again and carefully goes through the workshop now that they had time. She checks the books gingerly, wary of magical traps, and peers at the rats in the birdcages and the stained glass windows, remembering the similar windows upstairs.

Perception: 1d20 + 11 ⇒ (19) + 11 = 30
Knowledge check: 1d20 + 1d6 ⇒ (15) + (5) = 20 Don't know what to roll but Local is +13, Arcana is +12, and everything else is +9, so that's 33, 32, or 29

Is there any chance the rat swarm might have just dispersed while we were gone? If not, can we hear it through the door?

Vidar raises an eyebrow, then crosses his arms over his chest and assumes a mock offended facial expression.

Garrick adds, "Especially one playing with unlife..."

Nia dons her gloves and approaches the books, suddenly fascinated by them. As soon as she touches them she freezes in place for a moment.

Give me a Will save, Nia.

1d20 + 3 ⇒ (14) + 3 = 17

Nia's mind is flooded by images, seen as animated stained-glass windows: a figure she recognizes as Vorel Foxglove reading ancient tomes; Vorel gathering body parts from a treant, a roc, a sphinx, and a kraken; him combining and distilling the parts into a green fluid; his construction of the seven-sided puzzle box; and finally just after he's consumed the fluid, doubled over in agony as his flesh begins to rot. She briefly feels a blinding shame that someone she loves would do this to himself, followed by a flash of rage that he was stopped before he could complete what he was trying to accomplish. The feelings die away practically as soon as they form, though.

Regarding the books, they're all in sorry shape. Nia and Vidar are able to determine that they cover various aspects of the art of necromancy and the creation of undeath. In addition, the marginal notes and comments indicate that a previous owner of the tomes was researching how to become a lich.

The iron cages each contain a dead rat that apparently succumbed to some sort of wasting disease. Close examination of the cages reveals two things: first, they're much newer than anything else in the room; and second, they all have the same maker's mark: a pig with a mouthful of lockpicks peering at a keyhole. The odd symbol is one that Nia is familiar with from her time in Magnimar, as Pug's Contraptions is well known for the quality of their locks and other restraints.

The rats may still be outside the door and in the vicinity--it's heavy enough that it's hard to hear through unless they were actually scratching at it.

Nia shakes her head as the images come and go in a flash. "That was... I was... Kasanda Foxglove, I think? Someone who loved Vorel Foxglove, anyway. It doesn't matter. Whatever it was he did to himself, it was terrible."

As they go through the books, Nia's expression turns to disgust as she starts to understand what the research was about. She looks at Vidar and the others. "We should destroy these," she says. "Nobody else should ever read this."

At the cages, she points out the maker's mark. "Another lead in Magnimar, maybe. Pug's Contraptions is a well known lock maker."

Looking at the heavy door, she purses her lips. "That swarm of rats might still be out there. Alchemist's fire should be helpful if they are." She pulls a couple of vials of alchemist's fire out of her cloak. "Anyone else want one?"

She's got 3 alchemist's fires left. If 3 of us all throw them in the same round that should kill a rat swarm in 2 turns, assuming we all hit and do average damage both rounds. I volunteer Garrick to stand in front of the door and, um, keep their attention. ;)

Andrezi nods. "I'll take one, thanks."

Does anyone else have AoE attacks/spells remaining?

Just 1 acid flask.

One other thing that might affect your planning: a rat swarm isn't immune to weapon damage, because rats are Tiny creatures.

Fire breath and Fireball prepared., mind you, Fireball indoors? Ouch...

Let me know when you're ready to move on.

Is there anything in the room the PCs haven't searched? If not I'm good to go.

There's nothing else of interest to be found in the room.

Let's get eaten by these rats and make our new PCs then!

What's your marching order?

Well Nia usually goes first to scout and there's no IC reason to not do that so I guess she's going out in front.

Garrick will be close on her heels. Honestly, this is where you wish you could cast Thorn Body and let the swarm kill itself.

The party emerges from the workshop, Nia in the lead. Everyone can hear the scrabbling of tiny feet on the stone floor ahead, the sound growing closer.

Round 1 (ongoing):

Initiative order
Blue swarm-acted
Andrezi
Red swarm
Garrick
Nia
Vidar

A roiling carpet of rats swarms around the corner and into the hallway, not quite reaching the party.

Andrezi can act!

Rat swarms: AC ? T ? FF ? HP taken - Red: 0 Blue: 0

Andrezi pulls the flask of alchemist fire given to him by Nia, and looking around the corner lobs it toward the oncoming swarm.

Alchemist Fire: 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (19) + 6 = 25
Damage: 1d6 ⇒ 6

[b]Round 1 (ongoing):

Initiative order
Blue swarm-acted
Andrezi-acted
Red swarm-acted
Garrick
Nia
Vidar

Andrezi neatly drops an alchemist's fire in the midst of the swarm, frying large numbers of the rats!

Everyone else can act!

Rat swarms: AC 14 T 14 FF 12 HP taken - Red: 0 Blue: 9

Nia does the same.

Throw AF: 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (3) + 6 = 9
Fire Dmg: 1d6 ⇒ 1

Vidar casts a spell, preparing to step in if needed and possible.

Casting FireBreath

Round 1 (ongoing):

Initiative order
Blue swarm-acted
Andrezi-acted
Red swarm-acted
Garrick
Nia-acted
Vidar-acted

Nia's throw falls short, but gets a little bit of flaming liquid onto the leading edge of the swarm.

Garrick?

Rat swarms: AC 14 T 14 FF 12 HP taken - Red: 0 Blue: 10

Garrick throws the flask of acid in his hand into the swarm.

Acid: 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (9) + 6 = 15 for 1d6 ⇒ 2

Garrick lands his flask in the midst of the swarm, splashing acid over some of the ravenous rodents.

Round 2 (ongoing):

The first swarm overruns the party.

Everyone takes 3 HP damage, and needs to make two DC 12 Fort saves; the first to avoid being nauseated for a round, and the second vs. disease.

The last of the rats in the first swarm burns in Andrezi's alchemist's fire, disrupting the swarm.

Andrezi is up!

Rat swarms: Blue: dead Red HP taken: 0

Andrezi?

Fort Save DC 12 vs Nauseated: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (15) + 5 = 20
Fort Save DC 12 vs Disease: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (2) + 5 = 7

Without much at his disposal to harm the next swarm, Andrezi steps back into room behind Vidar

Fort save, DC 12, Nauseated: 1d20 + 3 ⇒ (17) + 3 = 20
Fort save, DC 12, Disease, antiplague: 1d20 + 3 + 5 ⇒ (5) + 3 + 5 = 13

Is the swarm on us? If I threw the last alchemist fire at the swarm would I be hitting the PCs with it too?

The first swarm is gone, and the second swarm is at the end of the hall.

Nia takes out her last vial of alchemist's fire, kissing it for luck before lobbing it at the swarm.

Throw AF: 1d20 + 6 + 1d6 ⇒ (3) + 6 + (5) = 14 2 Inspiration points
Fire Dmg rd 1: 1d6 ⇒ 2

Note that the swarm is 20' away, and the range increment for alchemist's fire is 10', so if you attack it now you'll be at -4 to hit. Do you want to do that?

With that roll, no. Thanks for asking. Let me think about what she can do other than throw this last AF.

Delay the attack until it's 10' away?

Fort save: 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (5) + 2 = 7
Fort save: 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (20) + 2 = 22

Vidar gags, small tongues of flame coming out along with is breath.

Yeah, Nia doesn't have anything else to throw here except this AF so I guess she'll delay until they're at 10 feet. Wish she at least had a bottle of oil or something that she could set on fire to create a barrier. Any chance shard gel would stop a rat swarm?

As I pointed out above, normal weapons will affect them, although only bludgeoning weapons will have full effect and they're immune to precision damage and crits.

Oh, yeah, I get that I was just wondering if shard gel (caltrops) would stand them off.

No, they'd just go around the shards. A direct hit would do them some damage, though.

I lost track of initiative order--the perils of trying to do too much (I'm the House GM for the PFS1E special again). It wasn't Nia's turn yet.

Round 2 (ongoing):

Initiative order
Andrezi-acted
Red swarm-acted
Garrick
Nia-
Vidar-

Andrezi withdraws. The remaining rats scurry forward with no other noise than the sound of countless scrabbling feet on stone, covering Nia and Garrick again.

Nia and Garrick take 2 HP damage, and another pair of DC 12 Fort saves to avoid distraction and disease, respectively.

Garrick, Nia, and Vidar can act!

Rat swarms: AC 14 T 14 FF 12 HP taken - Red: 0

Nia retreats as well, slapping off biting rats as she follows Andrezi. Once she's at a safe distance she tosses the last vial of alchemist's fire.

AF toss: 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (10) + 6 = 16
Fire dmg: 1d6 ⇒ 3

Fort save, DC 12 Distraction: 1d20 + 3 ⇒ (5) + 3 = 8
Fort save, DC 12 Disease, antiplague: 1d20 + 3 + 5 ⇒ (20) + 3 + 5 = 28