[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.

  • 1d10: 6 => Add an Object

  • 2x1d100 on the Descriptions table: 83 & 54 = Positively Less

  • 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

A map of the Salix Salt Works, with labeled rooms
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.

  • Arcturus is Impulsive, so obviously he wants to charge in right now, beat everyone up, and heroically rescue the prisoners!

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • Rosalia is also Impulsive, and is with Arcturus all the way.

  • 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.