A Plague of (Were)Rats

We can't be everywhere at once. This fundamental truth has led to at least one hook developing to apparent critical mass as sessions have progressed. Did we choose this session to finally investigate whatever's going on with that haunted farm down the way? No. We kept on one of our original goals of eliminating wererats. These kinds of choices matter in a living world.

The Temple had info for us regarding the missing son of Nicodemus the Wererat, who was allegedly the one responsible for most of the proliferation of the cult within Allegany. He was holed up with the last vestiges of his cult at a warehouse (werehouse?) on the West side. Don't worry boss, we're on it.

Vylas the Spellsword and Sloane the Slayer took a hunting dog and tracked around the outskirts of the town near the warehouse. We were pretty sure they'd have a bolt hole/sekrit escape hatch because they had literally had the same in every other lair we'd found. We weren't wrong and located it after some sniffing around.

Guygiss the Nightblade took his cadre of henchmen on a night-time breaking and entering recon with Slaid the Bard and the rest of us on overwatch. The agreed upon signal was Guygiss to scream girlishly if discovered so the henchmen could signal the cavalry. Simple. Effective. Ignored.

Guygiss made some noise on entry and alerted the guardians, who ambushed him once he closed the door behind him. He was outnumbered 4 to 1 but despite his appearance ain't no little bitch. He went down swinging with nary a holler until the killing blow. He downed 3 of them but the last one got him. His henches, confused by the noise, moseyed over to the PC overwatch and expressed some mild concern. This definitely had nothing to do with Guygiss's 6 Charisma and the loyalty such things inspire in followers.

Vylas (that's me) rode to the sekrit hatch in case of escape while the rest of the party bust in the front door, hackin' the enemy down in the wanton destruction only adventurers can bring. Guygiss was missing and the running battle through the building was tinged with worry over his fate.

I broke in the back door and discovered ole boy's son Norvi packing like he was leaving. Nope. We exchanged sword blows until he was dead, along with his bodyguard. I found some evidence that the wererats had been burned by the Assemblage, the shadow organization responsible for all this Chaotic nonsense and our ultimate quarry, but no Guygiss.

The rest of the party killed the last wererat and found Guygiss strapped to the table around which torture implements were arrayed. It's a good thing we got to him because it was clear the instant pain was applied he would break and give up everything he knew.

Meanwhile, a wererat was captured outside by Guygiss's hench Brutus, the bandit he'd converted last session. Apparently Brutus had orders to abscond with any wererat he could catch for "research purposes." One of Slaid's Lawful Bladedancers witnessed the capture and insisted on the monster's death. It was an interesting exchange because it was henchman/henchman, not PC/PC, both acting as their controlling players' thought most fitting for them in that scenario. Brutus eventually backed down and the monster was slain, but it coulda gone either way.

Macris says something about this:

I was proud of DM Jes who, when the two henchmen confronted each other, began to roll reactions to see just how hard they'd stick to their orders. I'm not sure exactly how he parsed the rolls. ACKS provides some guidance regarding obedience with modifiers following:

At any rate, henchmen aren't extensions of the player. I'm glad when push came to shove that it was run that way. It's a lot to handle as a DM. I have no interest in controlling every little action of a double handful of henchmen on top of the antagonist factions I've got to run in a session as a DM.

Wererats down. Eliminated? Who knows? Next up? I don't know. Probably pick through the aftermath of that farm, unless something lucrative presents itself.

[Glowing Exclamation Mark]

Our session started off with some book keeping, with a lot of conversation about alchemy and potions and formulae. It's a new wrinkle for our players so the interested parties want to make sure they're getting everything right. The danger of ACKS is getting lost in the weeds. It's an eternal battle.

Once we got down to business, we resolved a meeting with the abbot of a group of monks concerned with constellations and orrery maintenance. We had previously recovered a holy relic that when used in concert with the order's orrery would reveal a secret entrance in the subterranean temple. The conversation was primarily about how much the monk would pay us for the artifact, for access to the temple, and other transactional behavior, leading to the departure of my Lawful Nobiran Wonderworker from the party.

I missed whatever terms they eventually hashed out while I was rolling a Neutral Elven Spellsword, but when I joined back up we were in the temple with the abbot, who used the Sextant of Naurivus to open the secret passage. It revealed a chamber with some books on constellations, maintenance instructions for the orrery, and a map leading to the next of three total temples like this one.

There was more research to be done with the discovered material but that would take more than session time so I committed to that for downtime, since the spellsword is essentially a fighter/mage. We had session time left and a treasure map that wasn't too far away so we thought to cap off the day with a little score.

The map led us to a rocky outcropping near a waterway. There was an entrance leading underground that we wriggled into. A workshop filled with mechanisms and traps awaited us. Some cleverness and luck got us through, avoiding a rushing water trap and portcullis to trap us there. When we exited with a little treasure, there were bandits occupying our base camp and menacing our hireling wagon drivers.

Fortunately, it turned out that Guygiss knew them from a past life. We learned they had worked for the wererat lieutenant Jenner that the party had killed some time back and were rudderless without his guidance. So bandits do what bandits do. They were using the spot to lure folks in, trap them, then kill them and take their stuff. Probably put the map out as part of the trap.

Guygiss convinced their leader to join up as his henchman and we were invited back to their camp. The rest of us were pretty suspicious and when our escort started trying to make space as if to fight or take cover, my new spellsword Vylas sprung into action, shouting "ambush" to warn the others and killing the nearest bandit to him. The fight was short and one-sided, with the adventurers suffering no harm and all but Guygiss's new friend Brutus dead. There wasn't even an additional ambush! These handful of gomers thought they'd catch us off guard I guess?

Brutus said there were ten or so bandits back and camp, but he'd get us by their sentries and help us subdue them to show his loyalty to Guygiss. Duplicity and magic defeated the remaining bandits, which we captured to turn in for bounties. We confiscated their wagon and loaded up our own with prisoners and loot and trundled back to town, fat and happy to have robbed the robbers.

Musings:

You've got to know when to fold 'em. I find myself at odds with murderhobos and cutthroats pretty often, but there are two friction points there and the distinction is important. 

The one is character behavior in line with their role. The thief is gonna steal, the mercenary is gonna work for the highest bidder, and the necromancer is gonna raise the fallen to fight for him. These are things that happen in the game, driven by the characters' roles, and if there's friction over them, there should be. It can lead to interesting play as a result. My characters tend to clash with those characters, but it's all part of the game.

The other is more of a meta approach to the game itself, which I attribute to a combination of the influence that video games have had on player behavior and the gp for xp conversion of games like ACKS and AD&D. When the focus of play is the ROI of every action taken, then it's no longer about the interactions themselves but only how big a reward you're gonna get for the quest you completed. You're playing a video game at that point, identifying the reward system and maximizing the output. You're a stealth archer in Morrowind.

I say all this only to point out why I retired my uber-Lawful Nobiran Wonderworker, a half mage, half priest character unique to ACKS. If there's friction between characters, then the characters can work through that, as we had been doing to this point with Caldor the Nobiran as the party's kind of conscience balanced by the self-serving Neutrals. If there's friction between players, then that's lame. 

Dunder Moose once called me the "fun police" after noting my penchant for playing the straight man style characters. I can't really argue with that. But that's all in character. I'm not trying to police anyone's fun as a player and it's easy enough to adapt to the game the other players want to play. If we're out here tryna ding, then so be it. It's all just an excuse to hang out with our friends anyway.

Planetarium

March 1, 2X26

The cultists are still active within the city. We are learning more about their operation every time we act but we still don't have a firm target to eliminate them. They are compartmentalized.

Adventuring is hard on my studies. I am committed to getting my spell books in order which leaves me little time for anything but serious action. I am told the rest went to invest in a whaling ship to hunt giant rockfish. Their spines are useful for counteracting poison.

Once they are finished at the docks, we return to an unexplored passage beneath the city, near the beetle lair we cleared out recently. It lets out into a forgotten temple with long-abandoned relics bearing the symbology of Naurivus, the god of explorers. We clear the place and discover a mechanism that mimics the constellations and an access point into a basement filled with tools and workbenches and such.

We are prepared for bloodshed but discover only a small monastery of monks dedicated to the upkeep of the machinery. They do not know anything of the temple other than rumors of its existence. We request to speak with their abbot who comes around every few months. He is supposed to arrive towards the end of the week. His visits are close to but not exactly mimicking itinerary of the smugglers we have apprehended. I pray it is mere coincidence.

March 3, 2X26

It appears that our party members have all independently accepted employment at a masquerade party which many worthies of the city are attending. I am supervising door security, Sloane is watching the side entrance, Slaid is performing, and Guygiss is somehow allowed near the food to inspect for poison.

I select a man in a bull mask for a "random inspection" which we all know is never random. He has an aggressive bearing that does not match the mood of the party. The guards recover a poisoned blade and though large and angry, the man goes quietly into custody.

Sloane arrests a man trying to smuggle in swords and Guygiss detects poison applied to some vegetables being readied for service. He slaps them out of the hands of anyone working with them and then things start happening.

The cooler holding the prisoners has a ruckus during an escape attempt. Guygiss arrives and somehow the bull-headed man ends up in a pool of his own blood. Meanwhile, a man is stabbed in the crowd. We lock the place down, render aid to the wounded, and capture the would-be assassin before he is able to escape.

The party is over and we await updates from the Temple of Turas investigators.