PF2e 6 - Northern Mines 1

This one was a weird one. Well, “weird”. Not really weird but maybe not normal.

OK it probably was normal.

We got started a little late since someone was making food for an event where they worked. They were making 25 goddamned pounds of mac and cheese. So the first hour was going over the mission they were taking, setting the stage for the mission, and gathering supplies. They learned the mission would take them north into the cold town of Fenkey. The guild was contracted to recover a scroll that was checked out from the Queen Raveness’ Library, but was never returned.

During the week of downtime leading up to the session, Esdee, the ratfolk magus, went to the Assassin’s Guild to see if they knew anything about the mechanical undead. They had the following reports to give.

1. The undead automatons were stripping metal from villages, specifically useful metals like bronze, brass, copper, iron, etc.
2. They weren’t slaughtering people, but instead taking as many as they could carry.
3. In areas of concentrated activity, the surrounding terrain started to turn metal. Sharp grasses, jagged trees, rocks with barbs, stuff like that.
4. In all cases, so far, the automatons went north after raiding those villages.

That’s why they took the mission they took. Esdee had information that pointed north, they took the mission that sent them north. The main reason why he’s so focused on this is that this appears to be what happened to his nomadic tribe from the desert, and the last mission, he found a staff of a cleric of his tribe.

They rented some horses, and went on their way. Which is sad, because I let them know they could have gotten there faster by bartering with the Pirates and their leader, Tiger King. Oh well.

I made a makeshift travel check system, but the big thing to note is that they had 2 encounters enroute to the town because the horses shortened the travel time. The first encounter, they came across someone at the roadside called Isadora Elkheart, an elf who works as a prospector. She was heading back to Arlon to resupply after a mining expidition to the north. She didn’t have any information about Fenkey, but shared her fire with them for the night. She took a liking to Sprii, because she’s way more fond of plants than people.

Next encounter was due to a very low roll. It ended up in my Hard Encounter table. A regular Owlbear (level 4) and a Weak Owlbear (level 3). They encountered them eating some corpse in the road, but couldn’t quite avoid their attention. This was an Extreme encounter, Well, it would have been harder if they didn’t Benny Hill the regular Owlbear. Turns out, making difficult terrain, then greasing that terrain, and having the owlbear fail SIX GODDAMN BALANCE CHECKS turned it into a farce. It would stand up, try to approach someone, then fail the Balance check, or it would spend an action to Stand, and fail the Balance check, since Stand is a Move type action. The party laughed heartily. The finishing blow came from Magnus’ Sparkblade having it’s lightning arc from the nearly dead Weak Owlbear to the still slipping regular one.

Upon reaching Fenkey, it was a ghost town. Snow made it hard to investigate, but they were able to find some tracks heading out of town. The same tracks they saw in the desert, matching those of the undead, as well as something else: Kobold tracks. Both sets of tracks led to the iron mine to the north east of town.

Upon exploring town they were able to piece a few things together.

1. The automaton zombies weren’t able to enter the church.
2. Large chunks of brass, iron, and copper were stolen.
3. Inside the church, smaller parts of statues were missing. Things like gold edging, gemstones, and other precious materials.
4. They found a couple pockets of survivors around town.

We ended the session after this and they now will have to head to the mines to try to track the Kobolds and Undead. I have some Plans for this but I am second guessing myself because I don’t know if it’ll make them hate me. Hope they enjoy heading into someone else’s home turf.

Player motivations to keep in mind Esdee: Finding whoever they can from their tribe Magnus: Slaying interesting creatures and collecting treasure Sprii: Finding rare alchemical components.