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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Daern" data-source="post: 5181727" data-attributes="member: 81800">Session 16: Urban Adventure, of the Rails and into the SandboxWell this one required some quick thinking for the old DM.   The party's second day in Seaquen followed a dinner party with Xavious Foebane who gave them the lay of the land, caught them up on war news and invited them to the morning militia muster.  It was a muddy morning at muster in the rain at dawn.  The bard played some drums to cheer everyone up.  Then it was off to follow up whatever thread they felt like grabbing.  There were alot.  The town kept dropping hooks every step they took; jobs offered, people to meet, people wanting to meet them, sages to consult,  taverns to visit, mysteries to unlock...I was a bit lost.  There are many possible skill challenges for the party to take up as well as alot of exposition and npcs and stuff.  I spent a lot of prep time just getting the NPCs straight in my head but then realized that I hadn't closely studied the skill challenges, and that furthermore, the SCs didn't have much info for context.  These skill challenge write ups seem to be a very obfuscating way to present information to the DM...They decided to visit the magistrate who sent them off looking for Ragasian arsonists.  This lead to a couple of mansions along the coastline where it was discerned that the source of the fires seemed to be rats from the sewers.  There turned out to be an aqueduct beneath the city, which they followed to a cross roads.  They chose to follow a low roaring sound instead of a rhythmic plop.  This brought them to a wall of fire crossing the tunnel where swarms of fiery rats seemed to congregate.  Attacking the rats revealed more than initially thought as rats poured through the wall.  They were followed by a fire archon!  These foes were defeated and the rash warriors amongst the party decided to hurl themselves through the wall of flame, burning themselves horribly in the process.At this point I was just making stuff up.  The whole fiery rats in the pyromancer's tomb doesn't jibe well to me with the "biomantic seacreatures".  I don't get it myself.  Why would the trail of fire rats lead to a temple of mutant fish?  So I made stuff up and put up a wall of fire guarded by an emissary from the City of Brass.  I figured the rats were accustomed to fire because of the tomb but that the burning sky has made some of those wards increase in intensity, causing the rats to mutate and catch fire in the vicinity of this wall of flame.  I described the water as briney and oily.  Maybe the squids and skum are secreting some flamable mucus or something.  (I'm imagining the whole seacreature aspect of the scenario as a cult of Dagon rather than science experiments)We stopped with most of the party on one side of the wall of fire and the bard and Katrina holding out on their side.  Now I need to figure out how to proceed.  Do I make this a dungeon that connects to the prison/tomb of the pyro, the submerged temple, the White Wyrm safehouse, the Lyceum and maybe the Royale?  Do I block off the tunnel?  (I tried to warn them party of how hot the fire wall was, hoping they'd turn back but they jumped right through... I kinda want them to be really screwed.)  I think at this point I do need to make it a big interconnected dungeon so at least I have a sense of where everything is and I don't have to wing it quite so much...anyways, good times with another really complicated WOTBS module.</blockquote>

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