After creating the player characters in Session 0, we had time to kick off the campaign in Zobeck with The Riverfront Rat Gang by Mike Welham from Kobold Press’ Book of Lairs. We narrowly avoided a TPK – the players seemed to forget how few hp their 1st-level characters had when they jumped down to the level below!
Here’s the first write up.
20th Low Summer, 92 FY
Eyebite, tiefling leader of the Cloven Nine, orders Penumbra to recover his stolen scarf of deception from a ratfolk thief named Matimer.
The adventurers head to the disused docks at the end of the Kobold’s Tail in the River Argent. First, they talk to an old man, a follower of Chittr’k’k, who is roasting a cat on a spit. The Gears triggers two unsafe ladders; Louthin blows up a crate of alchemist’s fire while trying to open it.
The characters leap through the holes in the dock to the lower level, taking damage from their falls. Louthin is killed in the near-disastrous battle with Matimer and the doppelrat. With Penumbra and Bubbles also unconscious, Zygmunt and the Gears persuade Matimer to let them go, promising to kill Eyebite in return.
Louthin’s body is brought to the Temple of Rava where The Gears persuades Pious and Lena Ravovik to raise him from the dead rather than transforming him into a gearforged.
21st Low Summer
The party returns to the docks and lure Donnar, the crazy old man, out of his warehouse. Bubbles stabs him, and he is killed before he can react – they grab his rat-topped staff. The characters defeat a swarm of rats, and then the doppelrat after The Gears identifies which one is the original creature.
The characters attack Matimer again – this time they are able to kill him. They take his treasure and recover the stolen scarf.
Richard Green | Game Designer 