Those Who Harp: May 11, 2020

Books and screen on a side table for my online games.

On Mondays I run a Pathfinder 2e game set in the Forgotten Realms (3rd edition time).

PCs In Attendance (all level 2):

• Saebrial Cormaeril, human demonic sorcerer
• Traxx Luna, goblin ranger (with dog animal companion)
• Viveka, leshy leaf druid
• Korth Kunzar, lizardfolk titan barbarian

The party picked up where we left off two weeks previously, in the ruined temple of Garagos the Reaver under one of the Hills of the Seven Lost Gods outside their home city of Westgate. In the previous session, the party had broken into the temple to disrupt a ritual to reconsecrate it and save the innocent people being used as sacrifices for that ritual. They infiltrated the temple and fought the priestess in the central hall, slaying her (and her tiefling companion), successfully ending the ritual. They fended off a desperate charge by acolytes trying to avenge the fallen priestess, and now were left to explore the rest of the temple ruins and lead the innocent captives to safety.

Central temple hall

Garagos' consecration ritual was particularly brutal: the innocents were served up on the altar for cannibalistic slaughter, their blood draining into the pit nearby. The party poked through the gristly remains. Saebrial was able to identify the presence of magic, but is not yet skilled enough to pick out individual effects or strengths. The pool of blood drains into a deep, black hole, farther down than any of them could see. Traxx made sure to graffiti the bloody altar and any other ritual artifacts with the crescent moon symbol of his goddess, Selune. Looting the bodies from their last session turned up a shortbow, arrows and new spellbook for Saebrial, a suit of half-plate that Korth lugged out to sell, and a mace for Viveka.

Traxx examined the bedroom to the south of the ritual chamber and found a letter from the presumed superior of these cultists, Favored High Reaver Chaless the Cruel of the House of Steel. Chaless wrote to her immediate inferiors of the importance of their mission to the Reaver, and promised painful punishment should they fail. Traxx also recovered a small steel coffer from the bedroom. Viveka attempted to identify the paper the letter was written on for hints to its origin; an absent PC with scribing skills told them it was common but quality stock frequently sold in Westgate.

Saebrial checked with the prisoners as to what the guards had been frequently discussing, and found out they frequently discussed Westgate's sewers. The party concluded that the House of Steel was likely the real temple to Garagos in Westgate, likely located somewhere below the city streets. (A lot of failed Recall Knowledge checks here too.) 

After some discussion of what to do next, the party decided to lead the prisoners to safety, and then return to explore the rest of the temple. At the stairs exiting the temple, the party could hear the faint sound of handpipes being played badly; sneaking up, Traxx saw a squad of city guards had surrounded the rough entrance, and a childlike halfling was playing the pipes with her back to the entrance!

Uncertain whether the city guards would help or hurt them, the party decided to try and charm their way out. Saebrial's noble family name of Cormaeril brings her some influence, and the sorceress used her hat of disguise to improve her appearance. Leading the party up and out, the prisoners in tow, Saebrial hailed the guards.

Olive Ruskettle, before she settled down

The halfling stopped playing her pipes and turned around, smirking at Saebrial's approach. "A fine noblewoman, eh? And what are you doing down here?" As Saebrial attempted to parley, Viveka tried to land a charm on the halfling guard-captain as she identified herself as Olive Ruskettle, captain of the city guard. [1]

Unfortunately for Viveka, Olive has plenty of past adventuring experience, and easily resisted the enchantment. (A critical success, which meant she also knew the druid had tried to charm her - "and trying to magically influence a city guardsman is a crime in and of itself!") Olive let the party off with the warning, and levelled with them: she was here to rescue the innocent captives, and didn't really care what happened otherwise. Westgate is a dark, cursed city, and Olive is trying her best to do well by the common people with extremely limited resources. She winked at them and mentioned that she'd heard about them before, from someone who had to write down their names, as she couldn't speak them. (This was a clear reference to Jamal the Thespian, the party's handler/organizer, who had given up her voice in a bargain with a sea hag in a previous session.)

The party pleaded with Olive to help them come and destroy the ghost that lurked in the temple (which the cultists of Garagos seemed to fear), but Olive rebuffed their requests, stating that she had to return the captives to their families as soon as possible. She did lend Traxx a silver dagger, requesting it be returned to their common friend. Olive and the rest of the guards departed with the innocents, and the party descended back into the temple.

They began at the prison room where the captives were kept; they had a suspicion that an oddly empty section of wall must hide a secret door. [2] A period of thorough searching revealed a hidden button that made the wall rotate, revealing a narrow cave tunnel behind. Traxx lead the way with his darkvision; the blood-red crystals that provided light to the rest of the temple were missing here. He saw a skeleton splayed on the floor with rusty sword and key clasped in its hands, and reached for the key. That caused the ancient guardian, a dread, to animate and attack, its own bony arms breaking free of the earth and slicing wildly with the rusty sword!

Dreads are possibly my favourite low-level Forgotten Realms monster. It's a pair of arms with a sword!

The party was surprised and terrified by these bones scraping across the ground, the rusty sword clashing against the sword walls - the dread went first, and began assaulting Traxx! Not having a light source slowed down the party's response dramatically, and resulted in most of Saebrial and Viveka's first few turns being effectively wasted. The frightening presence of the dread also made it harder to fight off, and the dread significantly wounded Traxx twice, eventually downing him. The tight confines of the tunnel were a poor circumstance for Korth's titanic maul, and the barbarian had to fight with his claws only. Saebrial's bane spell was ineffective, the mental effect doing nothing to the mindless dread, but she still shattered it to pieces with her divine lance (being a worshiper of Lliira, the FR goddess of joy, dancing, and queer people, her lance is a shining rainbow force.) Traxx's Doggo grabbed an arm bone as a chew toy, and the party decided to retreat and rest; the long day of fighting had taken its toll, and their spells were expended, Traxx reduced to 3 hp.

With the party gone from the temple and no more city guards outside, two waiting acolytes who had been hiding in an unexplored room made a run for Westgate, to tell their superiors at the House of Steel about their new enemies... 

[1] I don't know WHERE I got the idea of Olive becoming a city guardsman after the events of Masquerades, and I couldn't find it in my notes. If anyone knows where the source for this is, let me know please!

[2] Pathfinder 2e has no equivalent to a take 20 action from 3.5/PF1; previously the party had searched this wall with manual Seek actions and none of them had made the DC to find the door. This felt unsatisfying for both myself and the players. After the previous session I checked the rules more thoroughly; without time constraints and with appropriate proficiency, the PCs should automatically find anything appropriate (or the GM should definitively use fail-forward structures.) As this was an optional secret area, fail-forward wasn't necessary, but I informed the players previous to this session that searching without time constraints meant they would automatically find anything important, and they had no meaningful time constraints now that they had disrupted the unholy ritual.