Adventure #5 - In Search of Ingredients

[kingtycoon]

At the subterranean city of Waeek -

This is a massive city (again, it is built upon a stalactite of tremendous dimensions, that hangs over a yawning chasm which descends into unknowable depths. The rat-people live upon the platforms of gargantuan toadstool & within burrows & warrens cut into the stalactite itself. Their farms & groves are of mushrooms & strange herds of huge glow-worms that 'fish' bats & strange underground birds & 'fish' from the air itself. They harvest from these surrounding gardens through vast networks of rope armatures.

Mishka the shifter priestess decides to look into the city’s temples - The temples of the city are two - One to Soot, which is significant & well tended, it lies at the edge where the stalactite of Waeek hangs off the sky-of-stone. There, the Rat Folk - mainly yellow-white furred & slightly built - tend to many esoteric tasks - among the wise rats there you may make the acquaintance of Whiil - who shares your appreciation for the elemental forces of the universe itself. Whiil tells you of the 5 'towers' of the underworld - pillars inhabited by sages & godlike beings bound to the elemental essences. Whiil is quite aged for his kind & has an interest in the Shifter people- some of whom he's met before. He tells you that there were some that fled the dangers of the surface & have come to live in the great forests below.

Non the orc-boy follower of Sharog - Sharog is not well represented in Waeek. When mentioned she's referred to more as a saint of the cult of Soot alongside Franx - who they regard as a more minor divinity. The Red-Furred rat men are the largest of their kind & the most diligent, you observe. They work at the gardens & build the community, it's obvious to you that they are the pillar of their society & their will to fight gives you a sense of... hope. You've managed to acquaint yourself with one of their 'fraternities' - a collection of the red-furred rat folk that eat together, train together & venture into the dark wilderness to hunt together. They are fearless & fight for amusement.

Warrill the psionic - There are many species among the folk of Waeek - mainly, there are ratfolk - but they are by no means the only people. You don't meet many elves, those you do are wilderness types, lost travelers who found their way here and chose to stay. The assembled lore of the world that resides here is mainly held in the temple of Soot - they speak there of the collected volumes of magic that soot assembled and which was granted to the ratmen. These tomes aren't accessible except by appointment - you've not been able to determine who you need to make the appointment with. You've heard some names dropped but know little beyond - Keerahg & Umsho are the names you've heard - but it seems no one sees them, not nobody, not no-how.

Gideon the half elf entertainer - The few elves here know very little about any other elven cities - there are some from the wilds - they tell tales of being lost in the caves of the overworld & finding their way into this, vast & uncanny wilderness & then struggling to find anything at all - before being brought to the hidden city of Waeek. Waeek is hidden - it's not the main city of the Rat Folk - they're yet more secretive about the rest of their cities -but Waeek, as big as it is, is only their outpost in this part of the underworld. They tell of an elf city - full of elves burned to ash by the magma they live alongside & that their city is a miracle of steel & angles, a nightmare of walls & traps that no-one can approach. The Waeekans are anxious that they should remain unknown to these elves. The city of Waeek is run, principally by the black-furred ratfolk, who engage in commerce & skilled work - the city has nothing like - Leadership - but it does have significant groups that hold sway over larger groups of people - and these groups are dominated by the black-furred rats more than any other. They're industrious & clever. You've made the acquaintance of one of them - Stalle - who runs an 'Inn' and who likes to make the acquaintance of everyone who comes through. Stalle especially loves music & is happy to hire your services.

Elwin the mechanist gunman - Waeek is cleverly built & has many interesting mechanisms that run its various services - the greatest of these is its pumps - really interesting mechanical devices that gather water & moisture that evaporates up into the cavern, steam given off from where the underworld ocean meets the magma, and where the mushroom forests below (home to the long-headed stone giants) radiate steam upward for it to be carefully captured & released as a series of flowing 'drips' down the sides of the stalactite. There are innumerable engineers involved in this process, and you find that they are of all the types of rat-folk Black/Red/Blonde -and that they are all singleminded in their purpose of maintaining the city. The leaders of this gang of engineers is not a ratman but a... You think Dwarf. Shaved & moderately augmented by artificial limbs (more than 4 in fact) this person is called Clamber, and you regard them as an inscrutable genius.

Pike the triton priest of Soot – The temple of Soot is one of the two bastions of the holy books of the Felicsian wisdom. These books were said by Soot to be too useful to destroy but too dangerous to keep in one place. The collection was split between the Triton city at the bottom of Massive Trench & apparently Waeek – the city of rats. 

How they could spend their downtime: 

You can spend as much time as you like in Downtime. For every month you devote I'll give you another contact & a bit more local lore. Downtime isn't free, you do have to pay your way for food & shelter mainly. This costs 5 GP per month. Three times that if you want fancier surroundings & 10 times that if you want a private room. 

Purchasing a Magic Item - You can track down magical gear in the city - it's not easy to come by & it's not clear that there really are any rare items in the city. Otherwise the rules for finding magic items are pretty much identical to what's presented in Xanthar's guide & Dragon.

Carousing is pretty easy though it's not clear that there even is an upper class of any kind in the city. You can attempt to find such people - but doing so will certainly cost more than the 250 Gp indicated - with no clear indication that it would pay off either. You can psecify the types of contacts you're interested in meeting though - there are many types of people in the city - but the majority is Ratfolk. 

Crafting magic Items is a possibility. You can follow the rules as they appear in Xanthar's guide - meaning - you can spend your time putting together a recipe & figuring out what will be needed - with the option to adventure out in search of the requisite materials at the table. If you want to craft a magic item - you can go through the steps & we can work out the details at the table.

Crime - The city is crowded & hard to navigate easily unnoticed. If you want to attempt it, the DCs are all increased by 5 and the loot rewards are all decreased by a factor of 10.

Gambling & Pit Fighting - there is a small amount of fighting that goes on - but not much of it falls under the realm of sport. Instead - the rat-folk engage in a complex 'race' which is run through a complex maze filled with trpas & which is always being modified & altered. Racing in the maze is a way ot earn money - utilizing a variant of the pit-fighting rules & gambling, when it happens, tends to focus on these races. Some of the non-rat folk engage in a lot of cards & dic games to pass the time but the rat folk don't seem to have the attention required for it - their minds aren't wired to be rewarded by such risks, it seems. The big game is all around the maze & the gambling there is the exception for the rat-folk, they've got a serious fascination with the events of the maze.

Religious Service - you can practice your religion as much as you like, the Ratfolk aren't chauvenistic about their religion but they don't know much about religions besides Soot (who they worship in a pretty lax way) and Addy (who isn't much beloved, but is worshipped here & there).

Research - This is hard. Depending on what you're trying to research you may be out of luck. Researching the local area & geography & ecology is doable. Researching in the ratfolk archives is by appointment only, getting an appointment seems impossible.

Training - You can train as much as you like. You can easily find training in the use of these languages: Giant, Squeakspeak, Undercommon & Sylvan - others may be harder to find. You can get training in most tools except for lock-picking - as there aren't many doors that even have locks in Waeek.

Work - You can work the giant mushroom farms or the great worm-pens or even mining the guano at the bottom of the bottom of Waeek. There's also plenty of work for musicians, artisans & brewers.

Anyhow – I’m just going to post up what they had as options for downtime activities & what they did – because the end result was a fun little picaresque in the underworld where they managed to look around for the ingredients for a series of magic items that they thought it would be good to have. I really like when players are motivated so I tried to cater to this. 

In terms of adventure – they broke the back of the Grick Hive in the upside-down mithril mine & delved deep, blazing a trail through the dark cavernous places of the fathomless underground world – and there they encountered monstrous hunters - the Roper & its Piercer babies actually - a lot of On-Brand D&D hijinks. The parts they culled from these monsters allowed them to finish up making their magic trinkets. And then… 

It was a solid session where objectives were laid out & accomplished.  I was proud of them all.