PF2e 4 - Arlon Sewers 2

Our party, freshly recovered and levelled up, return to the sewers to ensure its safety for the beggars to returnto. They returned to the entranced used before and were immediately struck by something: some of the pathways have moved.

They were able to go to the same central chamber that they saw before, and noticed that the path to the south was still blocked by crisscrossing bars. Magnus investigated them a bit and found that some bars slid horizontally and the others vertically. Pushing on, exploring places they’ve been, they made their way to the easternmost chamber, where they fought the Leeches. They found an alternate path out of the room that led to another chamber, similar to one they saw yesterday. A small room, with stone benches, and a pedestal, with half of a jaguar statue and a rod sticking out of it. Sprii removed the top half she took yesterday and affixed it to the base. The pedestal depressed slightly, and the party could hear the sound of metal scraping on metal and stone.

Doubling back, they saw that the horizontal bars had been removed.

OK, I think I’m going to ordered list the remaining important steps because I want to be able to address specific things.

1. They went to the south and found a pool of water that had been filtered, there was a path at the bottom to another room. Inside that room was the other statue half (Top of the Monkey statue).
2. Going into the new path, they found a clean room with some decently kept sleeping packs, magical harrow deck, and the remains of imported vegetables. Magnus also noted the scent of the fortune teller they met yesterday in the sewers, her distinctive perfume, but the scent terminated once they left the room.
3. Next room had an old carving on a petrified wood tablet
4. Room where the fortune teller was had no signs of any of the previous day’s activities.
5. Upon fixing the monkey statue, the vertical bars on the gate rose, and they could continue, to where they found some stairs down deeper into the sewers.
6. The stairs down in a spiral until it straightened into a hallway of different colored stone. Once they entered the corridor, the stairs slid behind them, closing that end of the hallway. At the end of the path, they found a large chamber with a central platform, and another walkway opposite the one they entered on.
7. A flamboyant man greeted them from a raised balcony on the side, mentioned them all by name and capabilities, and invited them to perform. He offered to answer one question (which ended up being “is this a cult?”) then they fought 2 prisoners as water erupted from below, threatening to hurt and knock people prone.
8. After killing one and intimidating the other, the round was won, and the party was allowed to ask another question (“Are you sure you’re not a cult”.) The flamboyant man, named Syne, let them ask a new one since he already answered that one. Of course… they asked if this was a cult a third time. A discussion later, the party was allowed to leave. Syne was the leader of the Alabaster Palace, the theater troupe of the city that also served as assassins and info brokers.
   OK, we then hit the end.

I am most annoyed with rooms 1, 2, 3, and part of 7. The swimming thing was annoying because I didn’t put any threat in there besides “drowning”, and I lost the rules for swimming. In hindsight, I should have either had this have another threat, or made it part of the puzzle where they would need to drain it to get through. 2 and 3 were filled off the cuff and I tried to add to the weirdness of the homeless people and the sewers but I feel like I was either too heavy handed or like… “out of left field” about it. The petrified wood was supposed to be bonus Treasure to get a pull at the Guild Gacha, but they, of course, made a charcoal rubbing forgery of it for their own records. So now I have to make up some ancient bullshit. Or don’t. Maybe nobody knows how to read it.

7 had a chance to be good. Specifically the prisoner fight I wanted to fix. The Prisoners as an enemy class have 0 ranged abilities and 0 forced movement abilities. The gimmick of the fight is that the central platform had 4 circles on it, and a random one would erupt into a burst of water and deal 1d6 damage. Reflex save halved, and a critical fail would knock prone. With no ranged and no forced movement, they approached the PCs who never left their spot on the walkway. If I changed this, I’d either make the prisoners more likely to grapple or bull rush, or I’d give them ranged attacks. Additionally, anything to force the party into the center of the battlefield would have been nice too.

At the end of the prisoner fight, the one surviving prisoner was taken away by a city guard. I wanted this to lead to some questions into what was going on, but it just reinforced in their mind: cult.

Syne dropped the flamboyance, spoke plainly, and went “nobody would believe you if you tell anyone” since they have such a grip on rumors and information among the commons of the city. The party invites to the organization, opening the door for them to work with a new group of people. They don’t have to join collectively. I had to make that point explicit because I could tell from their discussion that they were starting to overthink things again.

Each faction has a Wayfinder as a sign of membership. This magic compass also can hold an Aeon Stone, allowing you to use it without it needing to circle your head. They also can cast light on themselves. Each guild has one of the special ones.

• Alabaster Palace - Fashionable Wayfinders, a regular Wayfinder, but also lets you attune to three sets of clothing, and can switch to a new one with a thought. The clothes you’re wearing when activating this is turned into a folded pile of clothes in your hands as the new outfit appears on you.
• The League of Iron - Wayfinder of Rescue - The church that leads the city, who worships the goddess of Progress and Ruin. Their wayfinder can cast Heal once per day, either the 1 action or 2 action version.
• The Silver Star - Bi-Resonant Wayfinder - The adventuring guild has a simple mark of membership for it’s higher ranked members. It can house 2 Aeon Stones and have them both active at once.
• The last two main groups for now are Brewer’s Point, the alchemist guild, and the Queen Ravness’ Library, which is the old library that’s mostly controlled by the league of iron but still has some secrets to it. The problem is that the library is going to get either the Archaic Wayfinder (you can load a cantrip into it and cast that cantrip once, before it needs to reload), or a Chronicler Wayfinder (use this to pull from the archives for a specific category of Lore chosen at it’s creation), and they seem a bit underwhelming. I guess I could give the church the Shining Wayfinder, which casts Guidance and Bless, which I suppose could free up the Rescue one for the Alchemist Guild. Dunno yet.

I’m trying to avoid the one that casts Invisibility and 4th level spells for now, like Stoneskin or Fireball, but if I make the group unavailable to later levels, it’s probably fine to incorporate those I suppose.

I’m hoping this gives them some interest in interacting with the groups in the city. The hope of seeding the rumors guild is to help me seed more stuff about the future Big Bad that will be rolling through, but I’ve done minimal work signposting it.

Next session I need to have a magic item for each person gacha’d from turning in the old treasure, and I want to prep two possible jobs the party can do.

Fun thing is that I namechecked Fabula Ultima during one part when I was looking up rules and free wheeling some stuff. It was when I had to explicitly go “Hey this tablet is Capital L Loot”. I think the way I want to run a game is causing friction with PF2e at some spots.

Either way, good session, players had fun from what I could tell, and hopefully we can keep the momentum going.