So I know I've neglected the other games for a bit. Sorry about that. Things get busy and it can be a challenge to motivate myself to keep track of them. Maybe I just don't get as in to them as I did Carl's game. Exalted was easy to remember because I was running the trainwreck, I remember the tracks!
Anyhow, here's Ptolus kick off. I am doin' this without notes so character names are abbreviated and a bit suspect (I cannot might have switched Dani and Joe)
Our heroes start off in Midtown near Delver's Square and St. Gustav's Chapel. The party consists of: Gregory (Carl) a paladin of Lothian, El (Joe) a courier (rogue) and Nes (Dani) a druid with her wolf companion Coz (Cos?). The party lives in a rented single story house near Delver's Square. They are working as semi-adventurers/group for hire.
Greg sets out to find some work and notices an Imperial Proclomation from the Church on rat tail bounties. Armed with this and some information from the head of St. Gustav's he leads the party into the Longbottom neighborhood of Midtown where problems with the local rats population have been reported. After scouting around for information El and Nes with the help of Coz identify a probable rat hole. Greg also manages to convince the locals that the City Watch is about to sweep mostly by accident.
Entering the house by sheer finesse -Greg removed the door from the hinges and nearly the rest of the front half of the building - the party investigates the main floors but finds only vague tracings of a rat nest. A careful search reveals a trap door which due to squeaky hinges is carefully, carefully removed and the basement is discovered.
El goes down first and sees nothing so he makes room for Greg by sidling up into a corner. Greg simply jumps down in his usual subtle manner. Nes then proceeds to toss him down a sunrod which reveals two ratlings waiting in ambush. The party is caught a bit off gaurd but the ratlings fail to get much out of the surprise. El and Greg join the fray trading blows with the ratlings and Nes and Coz scramble down to join the fray. Yes, Coz can do latters the wolf is cool like that.
The ratlings brought down the party forges on through the basement. The initial room is a fairly tiny normal basement but an passageway leads to a larger room with what appear to be rat nests. El sneaks off at the edge of the sunrods light looking for attackers taking cover behind the nests while Greg breaks the nests to displace any rats hiding within. Near the back of the room as Greg goes to demolish a nest a ratling springs out to attack him. Nes and Coz take it down only be to challenged by several dire rats emerging from a nest in the far corner. The entire party pitches in to take down the dire rats. Afterwards El discovers a tunnel beneath the last nest in the corner. After some probing by the party he ventures in to discover that it leads to another room with a bunch of ratmen working. Withdrawing he and the party divise a plan.
El will bait the ratmen into the other room where the party will pick them off as they exit the tunnel. The plan works pretty much perfectly and several dire rats and ratlings go down. One ratling and a larger rat fall back and are pursued. However the ratling successfully fights a reargaurd and escapes into the sewers.
In the next room the party finds several crates. Upon opening them they find what they determine to be a processed natural substance in the form of a black powder. Unable to easily determine what it is except that it's bad and after a search of the crates that it is owned by the Balacazar crime family. Based on this they determine to destroy the contents of two crates by dumping it into the sewers and then taking the remaining crate back to St. Gustav's for advice from the head clergy Brother Thisk. El has nothing to do with this last part however going off to do some other business.
The party eventually identifies the stuff as shivvel a common drug that is worth about 20gp a dose so they have just encountered a sizable shipment of the stuff. They hatch a plan to enlist the help of one of the good noble houses to support them, as they have just made enemies with the major crime family and probably several other evil houses, by acting as independent agents for one of the houses. Greg and El under the guise of church business go to the Nobles Quarter and negoiate with House Dallimothan (the Dragon House). The House tenatively accepts and the party destroys the rest of the shivvel.
That wraps things up. Things started out slow but are starting to roll by the end. Sad that it'll be a month or more til we meet again!
