Today, Sir Goldborn the Paladin, Kai the Druid, and Green Gary the Druid set out to explore the seemingly abandoned fortress north of Ristoro A, among the wooded hills. They persuaded the magician Walt (NPC) to come along, together with a handful of men-at-arms.
They found the castle deserted, but occupied by a great quantity of giant rats, which they cleared out piece by piece. The castle interior is composed by several small and large buildings, with a central Keep. Many "open doors" checks were made since the doors were ruined and hard to open.
The first group of buildings are dwelling- or house-like small buildings with nothing of note inside. A family of giant rats was found in one of these, but the party opted to close the door and continue.
Next they go to the Keep, with a large ruined ground floor, a cellar, and a central tower. They climb the tower and arrive at a room just before the roof. Giant rats are living here and the die indicates that the rats are surprised. The party finds a number of them having a bath in a large bathtub while others are brushing them vigorously with giant brushes. Someone notices something glinting/glimmering at the feet of the bathtub, so this person (don't remember who) runs forward to grab the shiny thing. The rats are not amused and begin to give chase. Walt the Magic-Missile-User Uses Magic Missile, killing one of the rats and scaring them off. This session I was running Walt as an independent agent, using a d6 from time to time to decide what he should to, and this is why he fired off the spell. Anyway, the shiny thing is safely retrieved and the party quickly take a look at the roof before descending back down to the cellar.
I didn't have this room prepared, so I generated it using Appendix A. A monster is indicated, which is... roll roll... giant rats! They are easily dealt with by the party, who now opts for a more eliminatory approach. There are no exits here, but the room contains barrels of wine which has gone bad and an iron trunk with 750 e.p. and... a magic scroll! Walt eyes the magic scroll eagerly.
The party exits the cellar and explores the rest of the castle: the remaing large buildings were once probably an armory, a church/chapel, and a tavern. They find 22 rats in the tavern and one who is probably their leader wearing a silver chain with a yellow-green gemstone identical to the one the party found in the Keep.
Instead of fighting these critters head on, Sir Goldborn asks the Druids for torches and tries to set fire to the old tavern by throwing oil flasks through the windows and following up with thrown lit torches. I use the rules for thrown missiles, oil flasks, oil puddles, fire, and item saving throws to the best of my ability to determine whether he succeeds. He succeeds. The rats begin swarming out of the place and are promptly caught in the overgrown weeds, which have animated thanks to the druids' Entagle spells. Their leader is also entangled, so one of the druids carefully removes the necklace. Then Sir Goldborn goes and takes out all the rats anyway, while the Druids look on in horror (they're supposed to care about animal welfare – this will incur a grading penalty).
The party finally retreats and goes to Borgogazze to tally up the treasure. They make plans to continue clearing out the castle and cleaning it up in order to eventually establish their base there. I tell them that if they want to do this in downtime, they should send me written orders as this could take some back-and-forth to resolve. Otherwise it is possible to do this in-session, of course.
The gemstones were two Chrysoberyls worth 130 g.p. each. The initial agreement with Walt on division of treasure didn't consider what to do with magic items. Walt argues that he should be able to give up his share of monetary treasure to have just the scroll. This doesn't sound fair to our heroes, as a magic scroll is potentially much more valuable than whatever treasure they found. So we agree to roll a d6, on a 1-3 the scroll will be sold and the money split. On a 4-6 the scroll will go to Walt and he will put in a good word for the party with his wizard trainer, Waltalf the Mage of Borgogazze. The die comes up a 4-6, so Walt really is unwilling to part with the scroll, as befits a Magic-User, and the second solution is adopted.
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