My players have officially graduated into Lords of Rust! No casualties, although we did lose our oracle player, who was replaced by a new player with a half-orc slayer. Because we were so close to the end of Fires of Creation when she came in, and given what she had in mind for the character, I decided to have her character be a loner who actually hailed from Scrapwall, hired for the express purpose of undermining Meyanda's operation by a gang member who was bitter about the Lords of Rust taking over. The players first ran into her when investigating Ulreth's warehouse, which she had also gotten a lead on: she actually managed to follow them through the building without their awareness, and burst in to cut some people in half in the middle of the fight that broke out within. Given that her personality is very brusque and she doesn't talk much, it's proven to be a nice way of dropping in hints for LoR ahead of time.
Other noteworthy happenings from FoC:
The party chose to ally with Sef, and most interestingly, chose to take Hetuath prisoner back with them to town, where Joram could cast comprehend languages, and allow them to learn more about what he was. This actually allowed his entire awesome backstory to be revealed, and the party grew very sympathetic towards him, returning him to the restored habitat module in order to release his spirit, and that of his people.
The cerebric fungus REALLY freaked them out. We play on Roll20, and I used private whispers to players to send them its freaky telepathic messages, which made them all feel like they were going crazy. It unsettled them probably more than anything else in the whole adventure.
Sanvil managed to convince them to take him with on one of their forays into the Science Deck, where he proved a very useful ally, particularly in helping them solve the power coupling mystery on the elevator. Unaware that he was Technic League, they kept selling him lots of their technological items as they found them, much to his delight. However, one of the PCs noticed his Technic League pin with a nat 20 perception check, and so when he went off to fix the coupling for them, they argued over whether to kill him and take their stuff back, but instead decided to play it cool and try to keep their distance from him. Their attempts to tell him he couldn't come along with them anymore roused his suspicions however, and he broke into the tavern at night while they slept to see if they were keeping any other items from him he could swipe. Caught redhanded, they confronted him, made him almost wet his pants with fear, and got him to admit his unfortunate position with the Technic League. They strong armed him into going to fix the elevator for them, but decided to check out the warehouse before exploring the engineering deck.
After meeting their new friend from Scrapwall, they managed to shake down Ulreth for more info on Meyanda, and, having brought Sanvil along for the ride to keep a watchful eye on him, got him to figure out what the generator was for them, and where it was broadcasting to. Having proven his usefulness over and over again, the party really surprised me by repeatedly insisting on bringing him with them - although they were divided on whether that was out of mistrust, or hope for redeeming him. Overcome by curiosity and afraid of the repercussions of refusing them, Sanvil had no reason to turn them down, and helped them through the end of their mission through Divinity as well.
The thing that nearly kicked their asses was the Gearsman, actually, more than anything else. They wound up defeating it by bullrushing it into the furnace and sealing it in there, after a fight that nearly killed many of them. Shutting down the robots, however, drew Meyanda out to investigate, and they were forced to face her in their half-dead condition for the final showdown. It was something of a disappointing fight, however. They easily took her down with a few very lucky rolls, but when she recognized a certain member of their party as an android, it at least sparked some great drama - he'd previously managed to keep it secret both ICly and OOCly from the party, despite his glowing facial tattoos, which they'd written off as part of his 'magus thing'. His hateboner for Sanvil suddenly made a lot more sense to them, and in a hilarious turn of events, on their way back up, a random encounter with some cockroaches resulted in a crit fail on the android's behalf - that KILLED SANVIL. Considering what had just come out moments earlier, it looked pretty bad for him, and so the party surprised me even more by USING THE SCROLL OF RESURRECTION THE CITY HAD GIVEN THEM, TO RESURRECT SANVIL.
Yep.
When he returned, they did ask him to use his considerable wealth to buy them a new one when he could, but it was such an unexpected gesture, that he couldn't help but be moved to reconsider his position in the Technic League, since it was already so tenuous. He luckily did not remember the cause of his exact death, but does house his suspicions, and while he's agreed to travel with the party to Scrapwall, he's keeping a close eye on the android, and still looking out for number one.
They returned Meyanda to town to question her along with Khonnir, Joram, and Dolga, and managed to draw her from a little intel about Hellion. Meyanda showed a particular interest in the android party member, basically trying to pitch to him why he should forsake these fleshly compatriots of his to serve Hellion and realize his full potential.
(They also tried to convince him to attempt to hit on her, which was hilarious, if not completely ineffective, particularly with his diplomacy check of 2: "I do believe I have some components that may have been designed to interlock with some components which you may have.")
They wound up leaving her in Torch's prison. So somehow both she and Sanvil came out of this alive, and one of them turned into a potential series regular.
It's been an interesting ride so far.
