Fat Rat Games

Previously, our intrepid party had spent some time tracking down some scrablings and brigands and exploring the locations within which each had taken up residence respectively. Most recently, they had made another foray into the ruins beneath Valvur Abbey and fought more of the brigands. In the process though, the party had taken a good deal of damage…much of it “self-inflicted” when one of the party’s magic items exploded. Retreating back to the surface, they recovered and then came back down only to find that the brigands had left.

We had to take a week off due to other commitments for folks and so it had been two weeks since the last session.

Savannah had to miss this session, but Jen was back and so she got to introduce her new character. We are also joined by a new player, Todd, is also a former player in many FRG campaigns. Jen is playing Alexandria (Alex for short), a human priest, and Todd is playing Denton, a human wizard. Alex, a priest of the Shining Lords of Law…specifically venerating St. Alora, the patron saint of truth…had a vision about a relic residing in some ruins falling into the wrong hands. She and her companion, Denton of course, traveled to the ruins and began their explorations. You might have already guessed that those ruins are the same ones that the existing PCs are already exploring.

Parts of this session use a somewhat modified version of the adventure, The Shattered Fist Monastery, from Delver #1 by James Floyd Kelly. There may be spoilers.

We pick up with the party both continuing their explorations of the apparently empty chambers beneath the ruins of Valvur Abbey and nearly doubling in size.

The party delved into the chambers beneath the ruins of Valvur Abbey…but only a bit…in the last session. As we ended, the party had rested for the night, returned to the ruins, ambushed a couple of hidden brigands, and took up those hiding spots for themselves in the hopes of surprising any additional brigands that exit through the trap door leading below.

Jen had to miss this session and so the introduction of her new character is still on hold.

Parts of this session use a somewhat modified version of the adventure, The Shattered Fist Monastery, from Delver #1 by James Floyd Kelly. There may be spoilers.

We pick up with the party waiting to spring their ambush below.

In our prior session, we suffered the first PC death of this campaign…Morgan the Fighter went down fighting against scrablings in Goblin Gully. The party felt that they had explored as much of Goblin Gully as they were willing. They did not feel they were equipped for or up to exploring a deep shaft, especially since it was deeper than their torchlight extended AND Aja had been quite persistent that they did not want to enter the Underworld via a Midnight Elf compound. So the party headed out to make their way to follow the brigand tracks that they had found previously.

Jen, who had been playing Morgan, rolled up a new character and we ended the session with Ellery spotting two brigands dragging a body between them. The body had an amulet around her neck which looked much like a holy symbol. We ended with everyone–myself included–assuming that this would be Jen’s new character.

However, Jen was not able to make this next session and so time to pivot to the body being someone else rather than introducing her new character while she was absent. Everyone else was in attendance and played their own characters.

Parts of this session use a somewhat modified version of the adventure, The Shattered Fist Monastery, from Delver #1 by James Floyd Kelly. There may be spoilers below the break.

In our prior session, the PCs clever plan to lure in either the brigands or the scrablings had worked…just not exactly how they had wanted. This led the PCs to a path that split with brigand traps leading in one direction and scrabling tracks in another. Reasoning that with scrablings being creatures of the night and it was daytime, that they would be at an advantage to pursue the scrablings now and the brigands later. This proved true. They caught many of the scrablings mostly unaware in Goblin Gully (based on the wonderful map from Dyson’s Dodecahedron) but not without harm to themselves. After regrouping (and some healing), the PCs started to head deeper into Goblin Gully.

RJ and Savannah were both missing. Rachel played Aja and Jen played Norfek. More below the break.

My intent with the Borderlands game is to largely develop the world as we play. The players are helping to name and develop stuff like major NPCs such as Harold at the Spider’s Bite Inn, the name of the Baroness (Fluvia), the name of the commander of The Keep (Lord Luca Blackwood), the name of the capital of the Kingdom of Darnesh (Fairchild). I also asked for input on the name of the world for the campaign. I got a few responses and one was Spyro. While the name didn’t really grab me, it did spark the thought of a world that was a spiral or a helix instead of a globe. Another suggestion was Panoply…which means a collection of things. While this campaign will be limited to the Borderlands, this name suggests a world with a LOT of cultures and peoples and kingdoms and so on…maybe even one that is nearly infinite in variety and breadth. Another was Norn and this sparked the thought of not simply fate or the shaping of destinies but the role of deities in the creation and life of the world. This soup of thoughts led to a relatively brief description of the World of Tahvel which is below (the break)..