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Let's Play Hell's Rebels: Adventure 1, Scene 08
[Author] Intro
Our last scene was an investigation where the party managed to track down the whereabouts of Nan Comerivos, the half-elf smuggler they need to rescue. They found out he’s being held prisoner at the Salix Salt Works, which was taken over by mercenaries in service of Thrune and is being used to hold “low-threat” prisoners.
This scene will then be about planning and executing the rescue mission.
It has been some months since I last played, and a lot of that was due to Foundry being cantakerous last time. I was trying to find some ready made maps for Hell’s Rebels, because I didn’t want to keep redrawing them in Dungeondraft. I found a whole module with lots of bells and whistles covering all of Adventure 01, but it had been done for a much older version of Foundry. I remember spending like half a day trying to get the two to play together, but in the end I gave up in frustration.
And now I sat town in front of it again, updated to the latest stable version, and just imported the manually extracted map image from the old module into the one I’m using to play. Total time to do the thing I had been dreading for months: 5 minutes.
[GM] Mythic Bookkeeping
While some unpredicted things happened last scene, the PCs also managed to shorcut a long investigation, so I’m going to keep the chaos factor the same: 5.
We add “Prisoners of Salt” to our threads, as we should have done already last scene. We advanced this thread then, and we expect to complete it in this file. Let’s add Nan Comerivos & Friends to the list of characters, as well as Kossrani & Friends. These are the prisoners and their guards, respectively.
I roll a 2 on the d10. This would normally signal an Interrupt Scene that was completely different from our expectations, but let’s be real here, I don’t wanna. After all that time being anxious about preparation, I want to do the thing I prepared for.
Let’s try to divine what an altered scene would look like here, however. If it’s something cool I’ll add it in.
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1d10: 6 => Add an Object
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2x1d100 on the Descriptions table: 83 & 54 = Positively Less
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1d100 on the Object Elements table: Protection
Let’s add a small magic item with protective qualities to the loot available. It’s probably being worn by Kossrani, and it’s not armor. Let’s make it a Moly Amulet from DF Magic Items p. 9. +5 Magic Resistance when worn, $23.600, 0.12kg.
Kinda expensive compared to what Pathfinder 1 characters should be getting at this point, but I don’t care.
Threads
- The Path **
- Find Shensen (Rosalia, Arcturus)
- Contacting Ms. Docur (Jania)
- Get Organized (Jade) *
- Prisoners of Salt*
Characters
- The Dottari
- The Chelish Citizens Group
- The Red Jills
- The Asmodeans
- The Three-Legged Devil (location)
- The Livery Grimples
- The Tengu Sisters
- Nan Comerivos & Friends
- Kossrani & Friends
[GM] Preparation
Here's our arena for tonight. I extracted this map from the original book, it should give us an idea of how things are arranted. I had a screenshot that included the tokens but I lost it somewhere within the folds of my computer.
The front entrance is the big gate on the “map north” edge of the courtyard at D6. The small outbuilding at D7 is a dormitory for the night shift guards.
The rooms in the main building are, from top to bottom: Front office (D3), break room (D5), supply closet (D4), and a big loading dock/work area (D1) that opens into the circular oven (D2). Wet salt is brought in and dry salt is shipped out from the big double gate on the southern wall of area D1.
All external gates and all external doors on the western building are locked, but the locks are Basic (+5 to Lockpicking) because this is a commercial building and the mercs were too lazy to change the locks. The front office has been cleared out to act as a prisoner dormitory (they sleep on rags spread over the floor).
The CCG Thugs present here are not minions, but they still use their standard stats. Kossrani is based on the Brute template and is fairly well-equipped.
Early in the morning, the salt works gets a big delivery of wet salt on a cart. Early in the evening, another cart comes to pick up the dried salt. Late at night, a smaller cart comes in to pick up the salt Kossrani is skimming off the top to sell on the black market. All of this happens on the southern loading gate.
There are also no kitchens or anything in the place, so they take meal deliveries in a few hours after the early morning salt delivery and a couple of hours before the evening pickup. These are delivered by a dottari patrol, and consist of decent food for the guards and crappy rations for the prisoners.
The prisoners work with the salt during the day and sleep in the front office at night. There’s always at least one guard keeping an eye on them. Kossrani and four thugs keep watch by day while three thugs sleep. Those three keep watch at night while the others sleep. Kossrani wakes up at night to deliver his clandestine salt, then goes back to sleep.
[Player] Planning
I think it’s fair to assume that the PCs would have a planning meeting in the Wasp Nest now that they know where Comerivos is.
My impulse as the player who has read the adventure is to have them watch the place for a day to see who comes and goes, which would let them figure out the salt delivery schedule, and use a delivery to storm the place. But I don’t want to go straight that way, as in a more “traditional” game the players wouldn’t know all this beforehand. Plus the PC’s personalities might incline them towards alternate approaches. How about we try to simulate these discussions using Mythic and GURPS?
First, let’s look at our PCs, and what their personalities and traits suggest they’d prefer.
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Arcturus is Impulsive, so obviously he wants to charge in right now, beat everyone up, and heroically rescue the prisoners!
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Jade is concerned with doing this without risking harm to the prisoners, and a Tactics roll tells her it’s best to watch the place for a while to spot openings in their security, and then exploit those to charge in and rescue the prisoners.
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Jania is lazy and overconfident, so she’s in favor of doing what has worked for her in the past: sneak in at night, pick the locks, and spring the prisoners quietly.
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Rosalia is also Impulsive, and is with Arcturus all the way.
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Urist is with Jade, as he’s concerned about potential harm to the prisoners.
I roll Diplomacy for Jade with some aid from Urist’s Public Speaking, but I fail! Let’s say they arrive at a compromise here. They’ll forgo lengthy scouting but they’ll do a night-time raid because that’s when the guards are likely to be less alert.
They’ll get in through the side gate and then the small side door towards the back of the building, letting Jania open both and staying quiet for as long as possible. Once inside, Arcturus and Jade will focus on fighting and distracting the guards while the rest of them get the prisoners out.
That’s it for the plan. No time for anything more elaborate, no time for shopping expeditions. They move tonight.
[GM] Reacting to the Plan
If the party is going to break in at night, I need to change the position of the enemies on the map. Kossrani will be in the sleeping quarters, and a mook guard will take his place.
Sleeping defenders don’t have their armor on, but can fetch their weapons with a single Ready maneuver after getting out of bed.
It’s a bright starry night, so our Darkness modifier is -6 outside. There are some lanterns inside the perimeter and buildings that provide torch-equivalent illumination (zero penalty out to 3m, -3 out to 6m). We can assume the building has small windows for lighting and ventilation, so at night the penalty for unlit interiors is also a -6.
[Player] The Raid
The party travels to the salt works, and approaches the side gate near the outbuilding. Jania conjures a Light and gets to work opening the lock. It readily clicks open after a few seconds. Pleasantly surprised with how easy this has been so far, the group sneaks across the courtyard, where she opens the other door just as easily.
[GM] Success on the spell, which costs her 1 Fatigue. For both doors, Open Locks gives her +4, this being a basic lock gives another +5, and she decides to rush a bit and get it done in half the time for -5. Our effective skill is still 20! We succeed at both tries. Stealth is a group check, made with the highest skill (Jania's at 15) at a -1 penalty for each PC who doesn't have that skill (Urist). She succeeds, and the guards don't because there are several walls between them and the the PCs.Opening the second door reveals a large but messy room where seven disheveled people sleep on raggedy blankets. Rosalia and jade move forward to quietly wake them up, figuring they have the best chance of doing so quietly. This is exactly what happens, as they wake up each prisoner with soft words and and are readily believed when they say they’re here for a rescue. One of them even asks Jade if she’s an angel, which embarrasses her because she’s not sure herself!
[GM] Mythic, are these exhausted, stressed-out and malnourished prisoners going to make loud noises when suddenly woken up on the middle of the night (Likely)? Answer: No. Okay, so they're going to be able to see and react to our PCs before they make a noise. Let's say 4 of them see Rosalia, and 3 see Jade. They all react pretty well, as expected, with the lowest roll being a 15.While the party was able to pretty much ghost into the building, they can hear the sounds of people playing cards just beyond a corridor, and the prisoners are unlikely to be able to sneak as well as they are, in their state. Jade decides to take the rearguard here, and fight any guards that come in from the south. Urist will stay just outside the door, while the rest attempt to sneak out with the prisoners.
[GM] That's another group test, but a much harder one. Let's consider Nan Comerivos has Stealth, since he's a smuggler, but none of the other prisoners do. So Jania's Stealth-15 has a -6 penalty here, and the guards have no penalty to their Hearing rolls. This is a tie! However, ties go to the "defender", which here means the guards.Despite Jania’s attempts to get this lot out safely, their shuffling attracts the attention of one of the CCG thugs in the front room, which decides the prisoners are being too noisy and goes over to rough them up a bit…
The PCs hear him coming, and decide to hurry up, abandoning stealth and following their original plan. Jade and Art stay behind to tie up the guards while the rest of the group books it.
[GM] It's a fight! Let's say the PCs and prisoners get to make one move action before we enter combat order. Prisoners move with the PC side.Round 1:
The rescuer team and the prisoners begin running out of the building, intending to go back through the courtyard and out the already open side gate. The guards in the front room begin running towards the source of the noise, while the ones in the dormitory (including Kossrani) begin waking up.
Round 2:
More running, as the sleepyheads begin getting up from their beds and the other guards keep running to reach the back room. The prisoners and their escort are halfway to crossing the courtyard. Jade and Art begin backing out of the room, since it’s very dark now.
Round 3:
The sleepyheads gather their weapons, but have no time to put on any armor. The prisoners are almost out of the courtyard. Rosalia, Jania, and Urist decide to lag behind a bit because they heard the shouts from inside the dormitory. Jade and Art hang by the exit door.
Round 4:
Kossrani finally begins moving, and opens the dormitory door to find a bunch of people running away throught the courtyard! Urist closes in to engage the new threat, as another CCG thug emerges from the dormitory to approach him.
Most prisoners are out of the gate, but still on the map. The CCG thugs from the building are almost closing in on the courtyard door.
Round 5
Our first attacks in this combat!
Urist blocks a club swing from one of the thugs and retorts with his mace, knocking the enemy down and stunning him. Kossrani steps over the fallen guard and engages both Urist and Rosalia in melee. Jania casts a Grease spell under him, and while the dwarf manages to retain his footing he’s now standing on difficult terrain. Rosalia attacks Kossrani with both her words and her blade, but he resists both.
Meanwhile, Arthur runs and tackles another thug, while Jade stands ready to stab the first fool who enters her reach.
The guards from inside the main building are almost at the courtyard door now, but they’ll be late: all but two of the prisoners have already escaped.
Round 6
Arthur uses his leverage to strike the enemy he’s grappling, and Jania approaches to help by hitting the thug with her cane. Another guard manages to run out of the main building, right into Jade’s waiting blade. He’s dead.
Another guard tries to charge her but she slashes at his legs and knocks him down. More exit the main building into the courtyard, to engage the impenetrable “wall of sword” that is Jade.
Meanwhile, Urist keeps Kossrani occupied while Rosalia steps to his flank and stabs him. The remaining prisoners escape, and now it’s just the party against the guards.
Round 7
Arcturus dispatches the thug that was stunned back in round 5 with a suplex just as he manages to recover, and Jade kills two more guards with her blade. The last surviving guard moves to flank her. Kossrani continues to fight vigorously against Urist and Rosalia.
Jania begins casting an Ice Dagger spell, and a critical success lets her charge a bigger missile at no cost to herself.
Round 8
The flanking thug tries to attack Jade and gets cut for his trouble, while Kossrani continues to stand his ground against Urist, Rosalia, and Arcturus, who manages to grab his weapon but cannot further increase his leverage yet.
Round 9
The three PCs engaging Kossrani finally manage to distract him enough for Urist and Jania to get good hits in, defeating him. This effectively ends our fight.
Post-Combat
With Kossrani down, the remaining guards immediately turn tail and run back inside the building, intent on running away. Jade lets them, as she recognizes they are defeated and sees no honor or utility in chasing them.
The prisoners have all escaped, and now it’s time for the group to escape with them… after a quick spot of looting where they take Kossrani’s amulet. Everyone meets up soon after, as the prisoners didn’t have enough energy to run very far. Together the group re-enters the walls and finds a spot to rest away from patrols, and then they all make their way back to the Long Roads Coffee House without further incident.
[GM] Consequences
As stated in the book, each attempted raid on the salt works increases notoriety by 1d4. This one increased it by 2. There will be no others, at least for now, the place was emptied out.
We haven’t started dealing with rebellion rules yet, due to the different order in which we’re running these scenes, but we will do so on the next chapter.
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Let's Play Hell's Rebels: Adventure 1, Scene 07
[Author] Intro
Our last scene saw the PCs go to the Long Roads Coffee House, meet up with Laria, and officially start their effort to rebuild the Silver Ravens. They met up with the tengu family currently occupying the place’s secret basement and agreed to help look for the missing Bellflower agent that would take them out of town.
In this scene, they’ll do exactly that. The intention is that this will be a sort of investigation montage that will end when they find the guy.
[GM] Mythic Bookkeeping
The last scene was pretty chill, but it did mostly consist of the PCs being exposited to, so let’s keep the Chaos Factor at 5.
The Tengu Sisters are our new entry on the Characters list. We progressed along The Path and Get Organized, but there have been no changes to the list.
Threads
- The Path **
- Find Shensen (Rosalia, Arcturus)
- Contacting Ms. Docur (Jania)
- Get Organized (Jade) *
Characters
- The Dottari
- The Chelish Citizens Group
- The Red Jills
- The Asmodeans
- The Three-Legged Devil (location)
- The Livery Grimples
- The Tengu Sisters
I roll an 8 on the d10 here, so we have no surprises and the scene will indeed be an investigation montage.
[GM] Prepping the Scene
Dungeon Fantasy doesn’t really have rules for extended investigative scenes, as all your generic delver wants is to find vague rumors about their next dungeon. So let’s borrow some from GURPS Action and/or Monster Hunters instead.
Our “final answer” is this: Nan Comerivos was captured by dottari and imprisoned in the Salix Salt Works.
The PCs start out knowing the following, from conversations held in the previous scenes, and rumors heard all the way at the beginning.
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Comerivos brought in a shipment of Varisian cloth along with the tengus.
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He took a sample and left to try and find a buyer, so he could use the money to leave the city with said tengus.
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He disappeared.
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Political prisoners deemed to be “low profile” or “low threat” are being taken to the Salix Salt Works to perform forced labor, rather than being locked up in Kintargo Keep. This is a rumor from scene 1. It’s not relevant yet but the PCs will remember it when the right time comes.
If we follow the rules, I think it would take a Current Affairs roll to deduce Nan’s current location, at an initial penalty of -6. A success right away would mean a Holmes-like deductive leap, perhaps based on information the PC happened to overhear… but Rosalia doesn’t trust her chances with a base skill level of 14, so let’s investigate until we reduce that penalty.
[Player] Finding the Guy
Jania suggests they follow in Nan’s footsteps in the most literal way, by grabbing another bolt of cloth herself and trying to find a buyer for the shipment. In the process, they will keep an ear out for rumors about the situation of Kintargo’s black market and about what might have happened to Nan specifically.
[GM] Of course the "player" would send me right back to look up rules with the very first thing he says.Jania and Rosalia make a series of discreet inquiries about where to sell this shipment of very high quality cloth that hasn’t exactly gone through customs. They learn that the best place to find a buyer would be Redroof Market, since that’s where all the cloth merchants and tailors are.
[GM] That's a Streetwise roll. Jania leads the effort with her skill level of 14, and Rosalia makes complementary rolls to help with her 13. Rosalia succeeds at her roll, giving Jania a +1 to hers.However, the same shady stranger at a bar that tells them this information also cautions that the dottari have been cracking down on contraband at that particular market. No, they can’t really track the provenance of every scrap of cloth that changes hands there, but these are Thrune’s goons. All they need to do is declare someone looks suspicious and take them away. Happened to this kinda nondescript half-elf dude just the other day. He was carrying around a bolt of cloth very similar to that one you have on you.
[GM] It takes another Streewwise roll to discover information about their actual goal. Rosalia once again succeeds in her complimentary roll and Jania rolls a critical success thanks to her help! This gives us a total of +3 towards our final deduction roll.So Nan was caught by the dottari, huh? Now is the time for our heroes to remember that session 1 rumor: low-profile and low-threat prisoners are being taken to the Salix Salt Works to perform hard labor. Nan seems like it would fit the profile, but is he really there?
Well, turns out verifying this hypothesis is quite easy. Jania knows the Seeker spell, she knows Nan’s name, and many of his personal effects are still back at the coffee house’s basement. She sends a Silver Raven Figurine message to Laria asking for one of his spare hats and setting up a meeting at Redroof Market.
They receive the message and Jade decides she will go. While she’s making the trip, which should take about 20 minutes, the pair decides to try to sell that looted jewelry here at the market.
[GM] Rosalia takes the lead, with Jania helping, both using their Merchant-13. Jania succeeds, and Rosalia wins with her effective skill of 14 against the "generic 15" described in the rules. This means they'll get 60% of the goods' real value, which they already know. That means the two signet rings and the embroidered scarf will be sold for $2640. 6 golds, 12 silvers. I decide to add a little more color here.They end up selling the two signet rings and an embroidered scarf to a tiefling tailor named Hetamon Haace, who has a big shop in the area and shows an interest in the scarf.
Rosalia: “We’ve fallen on hard times, don’t you know, and so we need to sell some of Grandma’s jewels to make ends meet. A very tragic story.”
Haace: “These two signet rings have different seals. Are you sure they belong to your grandma?”
Jania: “Well, they belong to somebody’s grandma.”
Haace buys the stuff even though he obviously knows it’s not 100% on the up and up. Jania and Rosalia split the money amongst themselves for added security. Rosalia then goes around the market selling the bag of pearls piecemeal to various merchants.
[GM] We use the same rolls here, so $7200 for the lot. 18 gold for simplicity, again split between the two.Once Jade meets them, they set off to an area just outside the Salt Gate. It’s close enough to the Salt Works that it’s unlikely to fail if Nan is there, and will be fairly unambiguous. Sure enough, the spell points Jania towards the Salt Works, and not to the Holding House or to Kintargo Castle, the other two primary holding areas of the city. Case solved!
[GM] Way to shortcut the investigation process! Then again, that's exactly why I made sure Jania had Seeker.Now that they know where their target is, it’s time to plan a raid. That ends our scene.
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Let's Play Hell's Rebels: Adventure 1, Scene 06
[Author] Intro
Our last scene saw the PCs complete the Livery delve and make for the Long Roads Coffee House as previously arranged with Rexus. Now we’ll find out what happens there.
[GM] Mythic Bookkeeping
PCs were largely in control of the previous scene and dominated the fight against Blosodriette, so we can reduce the Chaos Factor back down to 5.
There were no changes to our lists of threads and characters. The Livery delve advanced The Path, but did not eliminate it. All new characters were monsters or foes, and were killed on the same scenes where they were introduced.
Threads
- The Path ***
- Find Shensen (Rosalia, Arcturus)
- Contacting Ms. Docur (Jania)
- Get Organized (Jade)
Characters
- The Dottari
- The Chelish Citizens Group
- The Red Jills
- The Asmodeans
- The Three-Legged Devil (location)
- The Livery Grimples
I roll a d10 here and get a 2. That’s an Interrupt Scene, which means something happens on the way to the coffee house. I have a pretty good idea of what it could be, but let’s consult the Meaning Table for Actions in Mythic v2 just to for kicks. Result: “Punish Freedom”. Yeah, there’s plenty of that going around these days.
My first instinct is to use the Unsanctioned Excruciation encounter, but we’re still on day one of the adventure here, so that might be too early. Let’s do something a bit different from another combat.
From the Livery site it’s a straight shot north to Bleakbridge, and once they cross that they can head West until they’re at the Coffee House. Let’s say there’s a dottari patrol, four of them, near the bridge crossing. They’re ostensibly looking for people who took part on the riot, but what they’re really looking for is excuses to harass passers-by. They don’t recognize our party from the riot, but since they’re carrying boxes and look a bit frazzled and dirty from all that delving, they will be stopped and briefly questioned. So this is a social encounter.
These guards are Intolerant and react at -3 to anyone who isn’t obviously a devil-worshipping fascist. It seems Kintargo doesn’t actually have a lot of laws preventing citizens from carrying weapons, but I’m still gonna rule the party is well-armed enough that these particular guards react at a further -2 to them. Gotta give our socialites a workout.
I’ll make a reaction roll for their initial impression upon seeing the PCs in the distance, and another one once interaction begins. Jade’s Impressive looks help offset the negative modifiers for the first roll, but no other modifier does as those require more interaction. The final result here is a 7, a Poor reaction.
[Player] Dottari Bullies
So there our heroes are, walking along the street and trying not to stand out. There are some other people about but not too many. Arcturus is carrying two boxes, Urist is carrying one. The guards have just finished harassing some other pedestrian for a bribe. They spot our heroes and decide to harass them next.
They’re very cocky, thiking that these strangers look like troublemakers and that they’re either going to be a nice bust or they’ll pay handsomely to go on their way. Y’know, “Look what we have here!” “Where do you think you’re going with that box?” and so on.
Before anyone else can mount a reaction, Rosalia walks up to them and begins talking. And talking. And talking. She doesn’t quite know where she’s going when she starts, but it turns into a complicated yarn about a delivery to a boss who will be very mad if they’re late because he wants to sell this stuff to an Asmodean big shot and you know how they get when they don’t get what they want and…
This is obviously Fast-Talk, and since it’s an Influence roll it will take the place of that second reaction roll I mentioned earlier. Combining Rosalia’s usual bonuses to the reaction penalty mentioned above, that means she rolls at -1. The dottari have a Will of 10, as per their stat block. She wins by 4, which means the slightly stunned guards motion then past. Rosalia keeps talking for a while until Jania tells her the guards can no longer hear them.
Though we technically ended a scene I don’t feel like doing any explicit bookkeeping for it. Nothing changed.
[Player] The Long Roads Coffee House
The rest of the walk goes without incident. They arrive at the coffee house to find Rexus talking to its proprietor, a plump halfling lady. When they notice the PCs have arrived, the halfing goes to greet them as old friends and invites everyone to her office in the back so they can “catch up on old times”. Most of the party understands immediately that this is an excuse to go somehwere private, and Arcturus goes along because he sees the lady prepping a huge tray of pastries to take with her.
Once in the office, Rexus introduces her as Laria Longroad, the owner of the coffee house and also one of the most well-connected Bellflower Network operatives in Kintargo. Laria and Urist alread knew each other and share a nod of recognition. Jade and Arcturus can see that the “plump cook” exterior hides the kind of muscle that only comes from a life of hard fighting. Jania can see this is a canny person with a lot of experience on the shady side of the street…
Laria is generally happy that the PCs came along and saved Rexus. Her past interactions with him and Urist predispose her to trusting the party, and every PCs sees a reason to befriend her now, so I imagine that part goes well. They discuss their reasons for wanting to restart the Silver Ravens, and Rosalia regales Laria with the dale of their daring delve under the Livery.
The halfling tells them about the general state of the city’s resistance elements. Lord Mayor Jilia Bailinus is missing. Laria doesn’t believe she would flee the city as the Thrune rumor mill says, so she fears for Jilia’s safety. Every other resistance-oriented group in the city seems to have gone silent since the Night of Ashes, either lying low or destroyed.
Her own Bellflower Network decided to pull out of town for the time being, as the risk of their secret routes being discovered was considered too great. Laria chose to stay to keep an eye on things and to help them return in time.
She knows the Sacred Order of Archivists was destroyed, a fact of which Urist is only too aware. Of the other “illegal” religions in town, she guesses the cult of Sarenrae took a major blow when Shensen was disappeared and her house burned down (Rosalia makes a pained face at that). Of the cult of Milani, goddess of righteous rebellion, there is no sign. They operated under the name “Rose of Kintargo”, but have gone completely silent.
So yeah, things are pretty bad. It will be up to the Ravens to rally the survivors here, as any who are still intact are too afraid to take the initiative. Laria is more than willing to help them with that, and she’ll start by letting the PCs stay in the bunkroom on the second floor of the building, and allowing them to use the secret basement as a base. It was normally used for Bellflower ops as a temporary place to store refugees and “harmless contraband” before they were shipped out of town. There is just one issue she’d like the PCs to look into before they can use the place though… though it’s best if the current occupants explain it.
Laria takes the PCs downstairs after they’ve left their stuff in the bunkroom, and calls out to the current occupants she mentioned: a group of three tengu women, who come out warily. Jade steps forward to greet them.
[GM] Reaction roll time! 3d6+6 gives us a 14, which is Good.Jade is soon able to dispel their initial mistrust, and after brief introductions she knows the trio are sisters, traveling away from Riddleport for reasons that aren’t relevant right now. The eldest, who speaks for the group, is named Korva. They were being ferried by one Nan Comerivos, another Bellflower Network agent. He went out to find a buyer for the small shipment of Varisian cloth he was also smuggling, hoping to use the money to leave town with the sisters. This was a few days ago.
The sisters want to look for him, and so does Laria, as he’s a friend. However, the PCs are in a much better position to do it. They know the city a lot better than Korva, and they can move about without drawing suspicion a lot better than Laria. The sooner Comerivos is back and safe, the sooner they can stop sharing the space with the tengu refugees…
Before any more “practical” reasons can be stated for them to take this job, Arcturus effusively agrees. But of course we’ll look for your friend! It’s the heroic thing to do! The others either feel the same or agree those more practical reasons are worth it (Jania).
Before they can do anything about the underground, though, the party really feels they should go up to the bunkroom and finally distribute the loot! It’s getting dark, so the party decides begin their search in the morning when everyone involved is hopefully well-rested.
[Player] Loot Loot Loot
First off, we have the stuff that’s worth money. I kinda want to move along quicky so let’s say Rosalia and Jania can accurately evaluate its value over the time they spend sorting it.
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A platinum signet ring worth $2500, found a the livery’s ground level.
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A gold signet ring worth $1500, from Blosodriette.
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An embroidered silk scarf worth $400, also from the imp.
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A pouch with a dozen pearls worth $1000 each, from the boxes.
That’s a lot of money even taking into account the fact that this stuff needs to be sold for coin. They decide that Jania will try to sell the jewelry tomorrow, and Rosalia will try to sell the pearls.
Now we have the permanent items. Laria would have the skills necessary to evalue the weapons’ mundane properties, and Rexus can help with identifying the magic on them, if any. Full stats are in the previous file.
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A Balanced Silver Coated Dwarven Mace.
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A Balanced Pistol (from Pyramid #3/36).
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A Suit of Light Leather Armor enchanted with Fortity 1.
Rosalia gets the pistol, and makes a note to buy ammo as soon as possible. Urist gets the mace, which is better than the axe he’s currently using. Jade gets the armor, which I’m going to say is black with raven motifs. She’s our least-armored front-liner, so she needs it.
Finally, the fireball wand and scrolls. I guess they decide to leave those stashed at the bunkroom for now.
This ends our scene.
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Hell's Rebels Bestiary: Blosodriette
Part of the Bestiary for my solo Hell’s Rebels game.
Blosodriette first appeared during Adventure 01, Scene 05. Her stats also appear on that post, and they are reproduced here for ease of reference.
The Lore
Blosodriette’s background contains a bit of foreshadowing about the Soul Anchor beneath Kintargo. This is a static artifact that messes with the natural trajectory departed souls. Instead of going to Pharasma’s court to be judged, affected souls are sent directly to an afterlife plane suited to their disposition and turned into an inhabitant of that plane directly, instead of becoming a “generic” soul without memories.
This usually only happens with people who intentionally bind themselves to the Anchor, but sometimes the anchor will “snag” a soul within its area of effect. Such was the case with this imp, who used to be an enslaved halfling in life, and who became as cruel as her bosses. When she died, she became an imp, and spent some centuries in Hell doing imp things. Eventually she was summoned back to Kintargo during the Chelish Civil War.
When the Ravens killed her summoner and took the important documents he was carrying, they didn’t know her infernal contract was among them. As the contract was what actually kept her on the plane, she was forced to follow it, staying hidden with her invisibility and subtly sabotaging them. When the Ravens abandoned the Livery hideout, she stayed behind until the PCs found and slayed her.
In the original adventure, she was expected to stay hidden and follow the PCs to their own hideout when they inadvertently took her contract with them, where she would resume her sabotage, using invisibility and mind control magic to make their lives hellish until found and dealt with. I didn’t want to deal with that, so I kinda gave my PCs the tools to spot her from the start.
The Numbers
We start with the stats for a Hrogn from the Nordlond Bestiary, which is equivalent to the D&D imp. We then replace the claw attack with a Stinger (a piercing Striker). And we add some rogue stuff and items on top of that.
Blosodriette
ST 6; DX 12; IQ 12; HT 11;
Dodge 11; SM -3
DR 2;
HP 6; Will 12; Per 12; FP –;
Speed 8.00; Move 8 (Flight Move 5).
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Stinger (12): 1d-3 pi + 1d toxic follow-up. Roll HT-2 or become nauseated for 1d minutes. Reach C.
- Stinger Backstab (12): 1d+2 pi + 1d toxic follow-up. Roll HT-2 or become nauseated for 1d minutes. Reach C. Only on unaware targets who don’t get a defense roll.
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Tiny Blowpipe (12): Acc 1, Range 6. 1 pi + 1d toxic follow-up. Roll HT-2 or become nauseated for 1d minutes.
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Lesser Wand of Explosive Fireball (12): Acc 1, Range 25/50, 1d burn ex.
Relevant Traits: Invisibility (selective), Injury Reduction 2 (non-magic damage), No Blood, No Neck, No Vitals, Backstabber 10.
Gear: Tiny blowpipe, 10 envenomed darts, Pipes of the Sewers, Lesser Wand of Explosive Fireball with 10 charges (worth $1600).
Blosodriette’s Loot
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The “Tiny Blowpipe” is like the blowpipe on Adventurers, but with a max range of ST instead of STx4. It’s worthless and not suitable for PC use.
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The Lesser Wand of Explosive Fireball replaces the Wand of Acid Arrow from the book. Per DF Magic Items 1, it’d be worth $9600 with the full 60 charges, so it’s only worth $1600 with 10. It’s a short baton. $1600, 0.25kg.
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Pipes of the Sewers: A set of pipes ($40, 0.5kg) enchanted with Beast Summoning (Rats) ($8000) and Rat Control ($4000). I’m using the price for Vermin Control here because it’s only a single animal type instead of the more general categories. Playing the pipes summons a rat swarm and casts Rat Control on it (two separate spellcasting rolls at power 15 each). It works once per day (+$680). This is a bardic item, and Bardic Talent applies to the rolls instead of Power Investiture (Druidic). It requires the appropriate Musical Instrument skill. The spells only last for as long as the song continues. $12720, 0.5kg.
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Gold-and-platinum signet ring worn as an armband ($1500), embroidered silk scarf worn as a wrap ($400).
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Let's Play Hell's Rebels: Adventure 1, Scene 05
Intro
Our last scene was the first half of a small dungeon delve. The party arrived at the Fair Fortune Livery after some shopping, negotiated with the small grimple community living in its ruined basement, and learned of “foul demons” inhabiting a “cursed land” next door to them.
They accessed a section of old buried city streets, and fought two lemures and some giant rats who made their homes there. Then they resumed exploring the underground area in search of the Silver Raven hideout.
[GM] Mythic Bookkeeping
The fight was actually a bit more chaotic than I anticipated. The opposition was kinda weak but that last lemure took a lot of killing and managed to inflict some damage before it was taken down. Let’s increase the Chaos Factor to 6.
Let’s also add the Livery Grimples as “characters”. In the default campaign they were enemies to be exterminated, but here they’re peaceful and might come up again.
Threads
- The Path ***
- Find the Missing Elves (Arcturus)
- Find Shensen (Rosalia)
- Contacting Ms. Docur (Jania)
- Get Organized (Jade)
Characters
- The Dottari
- The Chelish Citizens Group
- The Red Jills
- The Asmodeans
- The Three-Legged Devil
- The Livery Grimples
Our PCs are progressing along The Path by continuing to delve the livery. This next scene is meant to cover the rest of the delve, ending when they leave the dungeon.
I roll a d10 and come up with a 7, which means there are no surprise alterations here.
[GM] Preparation Work
Time to plan what’s ahead. First of all: do I even want to include Blosodriette here?
She’s CR 4, and appears at a time when Pathfinder 1e PCs would be level 1. She has unreasonably high Stealth, at-will Invisibility, and her contract is disguised with an illusion spell the PCs can’t pierce at this level. She also has a wand of Acid Arrow with 9 charges, which could make short work of a level 1 party.
So clearly the book means for her to stay hidden, follow the PCs to their new hideout, and engage in sabotage during the back half of the adventure. The PCs are only meant to find her shortly before the end of the adventure, when their higher level and better gear makes fighting her a more reasonable proposition.
However, her sabotage is super annoying to deal with when playing solo. And our PCs are already powerful enough to take her on, and even to detect her presence right here. So I think I’ll let that happen, and run the fight here.
Blosodriette
We start with the stats for a Hrogn from the Nordlond Bestiary, which is equivalent to the D&D imp. We then replace the claw attack with a Stinger (a piercing Striker). And we add some rogue stuff and items on top of that.
[Author] I'm going to post a Bestiary entry for her too, as usual.ST 6; DX 12; IQ 12; HT 11;
Dodge 11; SM -3
DR 2;
HP 6; Will 12; Per 12; FP –;
Speed 8.00; Move 8 (Flight Move 5).
-
Stinger (12): 1d-3 pi + 1d toxic follow-up. Roll HT-2 or become nauseated for 1d minutes. Reach C.
- Stinger Backstab (12): 1d+2 pi + 1d toxic follow-up. Roll HT-2 or become nauseated for 1d minutes. Reach C. Only on unaware targets who don’t get a defense roll.
-
Tiny Blowpipe (12): Acc 1, Range 6. 1 pi + 1d toxic follow-up. Roll HT-2 or become nauseated for 1d minutes.
-
Lesser Wand of Explosive Fireball (12): Acc 1, Range 25/50, 1d burn ex.
Relevant Traits: Invisibility (selective), Injury Reduction 2 (non-magic damage), No Blood, No Neck, No Vitals, Backstabber 10.
Gear: Tiny blowpipe, 10 envenomed darts, Pipes of the Sewers, Lesser Wand of Explosive Fireball with 10 charges (worth $1600).
Blosodriette’s Loot
-
The “Tiny Blowpipe” is like the blowpipe on Adventurers, but with a max range of ST instead of STx4. It’s worthless and not suitable for PC use.
-
The Lesser Wand of Explosive Fireball replaces the Wand of Acid Arrow from the book. Per DF Magic Items 1, it’d be worth $9600 with the full 60 charges, so it’s only worth $1600 with 10. It’s a short baton. $1600, 0.25kg.
-
Pipes of the Sewers: A set of pipes ($40, 0.5kg) enchanted with Beast Summoning (Rats) ($8000) and Rat Control ($4000). I’m using the price for Vermin Control here because it’s only a single animal type instead of the more general categories. Playing the pipes summons a rat swarm and casts Rat Control on it (two separate spellcasting rolls at power 15 each). It works once per day (+$680). This is a bardic item, and Bardic Talent applies to the rolls instead of Power Investiture (Druidic). It requires the appropriate Musical Instrument skill. The spells only last for as long as the song continues. $12720, 0.5kg.
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Gold-and-platinum signet ring worn as an armband ($1500), embroidered silk scarf worn as a wrap ($400).
Additional Loot In The Room
First Crate:
- A pouch with a dozen pearls worth $1000 each. (total $12000)
- A Balanced Pistol, from Pyramid #3/36: Acc 2, Range 75/450, Weight 1.5/0.005, RoF 1, Shots 1(20), damage 2d-1 pi+. $1000, 1.5kg.
- A Balanced Silver-Coated Dwarven Mace: +1 to skill, sw+3 cr, reach 1, Parry 0. $550, 2.5kg.
- A suit of Light Leather armor with a Fortify +1 enchantment. $1150, 9kg.
The second crate has a locked iron box. DR 6, HP 18, unmodified Lockpicking test to open. Inside is:
- Charged Universal Scroll of Hide Emotions (1 hour duration): $200, neg.
- Charged Universal Scroll of Hide Thoughts (30 mins duration): $500, neg.
- Charged Universal Scroll of Scryguard (10 hour duration): $300, neg.
- Charged Universal Scroll of Light Thread (10 minute duration): $200, neg.
- The documents which are the goal of this whole delve.
The third crate has six Silver Raven Figurines of Wondrous Power. These can turn to life-sized mechanical ravens on command. The user can then use it like a D&D Animal Messenger. This means they can mentally imprint a location on the raven and have it carry a letter there, waiting for a specified amount of time and allowing the letter to be removed during that wait. Then it returns, possibly bearing a response.
[Player] The Old Hideout
Mechanically, we’re going with this procedure for the exploration, and I think it’s fair to say this includes Urist’s Detect Evil rolls. Me-The-Player would definitely argue for that with Me-The-GM.
The party arrives at the old hideout on their second exploration turn, take in the ruined ambience, and decide to spend another exploration turn searching the place. This is a no-brainer, really. So we get to make some Perception rolls for them.
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Jania spots the nest in the corner, and notes it seems to have been recently used by a tiny humanoid creature.
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Rosalia notices the three boxes of Stuff.
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Urist’s Detect Evil power finds that there’s a demon in the area, but none of the others can find anything with their mundane senses.
Blosodriette is invisible and trying to be silent. I’m giving her Stealth 15, and no one could beat that with their Hearing rolls. However I do think the clues the party did find would make Jania cast See Invisible, and I want to say that’d let them spot her because she’d be relying on her invisibility to stay hidden.
[GM] Call it a +10 modifier to Jania's Perception because the imp is now in plain sight for her. With the bonus, Jania succeeds by 14 while B only succeeds by 7.Jania spots the imp and calls it out. Blosodriette freaks out, startled and angry at life, and begins to fight. Let’s say she recognizes Jade, since she was definitely around when the Ravens were active!
No surprise, but only Jania can see the imp currently. The creature opens by launching a fireball from her wand at the party, but she misses, causing the projectile to hit a nearby wall and explode. Everyone is startled but no one is hurt.
Jania casts another See Invisible spell on Urist, which leaves her low on fatigue. The priest begins charging a Sunbolt spell.
Rosalia, meanwhile, figures that even though she can’t see Blosodriette the imp should be able to hear her just fine, so she begins her own string of insults as a Song of Humiliation, and manages to stun her target!
[GM] There is a penalty for not being able to see the target, but Rosalia won the Quick Contest anyway.The party’s melee fighters have a rough idea of where Blosodriette is and begin closing in on her position while she struggles and fails to recover from her mental stun. Urist lets his Sunbolt fly and slightly singes the imp, and then Arcturus ends the fight by grabbing at the flapping and cursing sounds and getting a good hold on the creature.
Blosodriette cannot possibly escape Arthur’s grasp, so this is when I go out of combat time. Frustrated, the imp just shouts for them to kill her already so she can go back home after a century trapped in this cesspit. Before anyone can reason whether this is really a good idea or not, Arthur wrings her like a wet rag and that’s that. She disappears in a puff of sulfur, leaving her gear behind.
The imp will pop up back in Hell, and though she’s in for a bad time down there for her “failure” she will still inform some higher-powered fiends about how the Sixth Raven is back, thus giving us a reason for more exciting Monsters of the Day.
Our heroes get to loot B’s gear and the three boxes described above now. Jania has no problem opening the locked box. She identifies that the stylish suit of leather armor inside one of the boxes is magical, and while she can’t feel any magic from the silvered mace next to it she figures there must be something special about it. And the pearls, oh the pearls. Jania and Rosalia get little gold pieces in their eyes as they realize how much these must be worth.
The silver raven figurines also ping as magical, and bear further analysis. There’s some magic mixed in with the big pile of documents too, but they’re not gonna sift through that right now. After Urist confirms none of this stuff is evil, they decide to carry everything out in its boxes and distribute later. B’s gear goes into the iron box for later sorting as well.
Victory Celebration
When the party emerges from the old hideout, they’re hailed as heroes by the grimples. A few of them bring out tiny improvised musical instruments for a celebration, which fascinates Rosalia enough that the decides to gift them the tiny pipes. They do get a bit scared when that summons a swarm of mundane rats who start dancing to the tune, but in the end the grimples are even more grateful for the party’s generosity.
Their leader pledges to help the party in the future, should they need it, and explains how to leave a letter at a place on the surface where they will check for it.
With that done, they set out on the long walk to the Long Roads Coffee House. It takes about 90 minutes.
[GM] Rewards
The party gets a total of 3 character points:
- 1 for fully clearing the Livery.
- 1 total for the battles inside.
- 1 for retrieving a “quest item” (the documents).
For treasure, they get the $2500 platinum ring found in scene 4, and everything listed in this post except for the Pipes of the Sewers. Rosalia gave that away to the grimples. Yes, it’s really expensive, I know.
We’ll distribute the treasure in the next scene, after the party arrives at the Long Roads Coffee House.
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