Sewer Map

This past weekend the players descended into the sewers - finally. This part of the campaign has been ready to go for four sessions but the players have been avoiding it. I believe because they were concerned about a fight on the Rat King's home ground.

I have been struggling with the right way to map the sewers. At first, I had a compact portion of the sewers mapped with the Cheese Factory Cellar and the Rat King's Lair. To prevent the players from wandering off the map I blocked the passages with narrow pipes connecting sections. Assuming the players would not want to submerge in sewer muck.

In the lead up to enter the sewers in a previous session, one player character became obsessed with finding an entrance to the sewers across town from the Cheese factory at the river. This despite their having seen an entrance in the factory. I had one of his informants show another manhole style entrance near the Factory. But he still showed interest in the river.

To cover this eventuality I came up with a map of the entire sewer network under the town. This was too big a map to load into Roll20 so I had it split up into nine pieces. But I felt this was a terrible move logistically. So I ended up creating one enormous, detailed map. Rather than loading it into Roll20 as is, I reduced the size to only 10%. The end result was of manageable size but blurry. So I took snap-shots of the key areas at full resolutions as battle maps.

In the end, the players used informants to find the location of the Rat King's Lair in the sewers and they did not spend much time on the map I spent all week working on. Oh well.

The final battle with King Rat occurred which closed out a long-running villain in the campaign. I wrote up King Rat as an intelligent Giant Rat of enormous size. With three attacks there was a good chance he might be a troublesome foe. In the session, the fighter ended up one-on-one with the Rat King for 4 rounds. He should have been mauled. For three rounds I managed 1 hit on three attacks per round. Finally, in the fourth round, the Rat King hit 3 times and almost killed the fighter. It lacked the punch I was hoping for but I think it was just bad rolls.

The session this week had another new Player. So I had five players in total and three NPCs to handle. We did have a few moments where more than one player talked at once. But it worked out okay.

Session 27: Lair of the Rat King

Players: Lakima (Magic-user), Eathwund (Fighter), Carric (Elven Thief), Grimble (Human Fighter), Kal the Bear (Human fighter), Domago (Human cleric NPC), Lantosh (Human Fighter NPC), Dag Icefoot (Dwarf Fighter NPC).

As the session opens Lakima states his intention to question the wererat that he charmed in the fight at the Cheese Factory and turned over to the Watch. Grimble says he would like to come along. Everyone else is busy watching the hippogriffs or at other places in town. Lakima and Grimble arrive at the Watch Station and ask to see the prisoner. Sergeant Frans takes them to see Grendel Orfman. Lakima tells him he meant the wererat Kirnon. Sergeant Frans tells them the wererat was taken to the castle and tried. He is due to be executed tomorrow. They do ask Grendel some questions but he has nothing to add. They head over to the Castle (Edger’s Hold) and get permission to question the wererat prisoner. The guard tells them that the man is crazy, always talking to himself. As they approach the cell in the dungeon they do hear a one-sided conversation. Once they enter the cell it is clear that Lakima’s charm spell is still holding. The man is happy to see him and tells him that he was just talking to a giant rat sent by the Rat King. They are planning on getting him out. Unfortunately, the wererat also does not know King Rat's location. He took orders from a cleric called Nat. Lakima tells the guard to move the wererat to a new cell that is not so far underground. 

Sometime later with most of the order back at the Chapter House, they begin to plan. Lantosh heads out to relieve Eathwund. At the hippogriff wagon, Eathwund is approached by a powerfully built human with a large sword on his back. The man introduces himself as Kal and says he is a mercenary looking for work. Despite the company being fairly full of hirelings, Eathwund offers the stranger a job. Lantosh shows up and Eathwund shows Kal to the Chapter House.

Kal is introduced to the other heroes and given some background on their encounters with the Rat King in Edgerton. They begin discussing ways to find the location of the Rat King. The idea is to wait for the Rat King to attack and follow them back to his lair. As they talk a man comes to the shop. He introduces himself as Dakuya and he is interested in buying all four of the hippogriffs. He offers 800 gold each. Lakima leads the negotiations for the team and negotiates the price higher. Then the merchant Simion Torenescu enters and offers more for the hippogriffs. The two merchants, who seem to know each other, set off a bidding war. Just when it appears Torenescu has won the bidding an old wizard named Arturas enters the shop and offers 3,500 gold for one hippogriff. Lakima tries to spin this in their favor but Simion is determined to get all four. Baron Lucien Vorloi enters and bids on behalf of the Castellan of Edgerton but is quickly out of the running. After much haggling, they settle on selling one hippogriff to the wizard for 3,500 gold, and the other three to Simion Torenescu for 6,000 gold. Simion Torenescu arranges for the delivery of a promissory note for the payment. He agrees to pick up the hippogriffs before noon on the next day. Arturas pays in gold immediately that he takes out of what is clearly a Bag of Holding. He also gives Lakima a wooden stick claiming it is magical. As they head over to the square to get the hippogriff for Arturas they find an altercation has occurred. Some thieves tried to distract Lantosh and the Watch guard and make off with a hippogriff. Lantosh stopped them and struck one of the thieves. Unfortunately, he killed the thief so they cannot question him. The watch has just arrived to take Lantosh's statement. The senior guard tells Lakima that he recognizes the man, he is a member of a local gang that hangs out at Fleetwing Stables in Mirdton district.

The next day Carric goes over to the low market and his contact Maik tells him one of the urchins has seen what they think is the Rat King’s Lair. The boy leads Carric into the sewers and shows him the directions to the lair. The heroes leave the hirelings to guard the house and the wagon of hippogriffs and head over to Fleetwing Stables to have a talk with the local gang. They surround the small stable. Lakima casts Monster Summoning and four giant rats appear. The rats are sent into the stables and soon the sound of fighting is heard. Eathwund rushes in and sees three armed men fighting off the rats. Lakima casts sleep and all of the three men fall asleep. Carric, Kal, and Grimble burst through the back door of the stable and confront a fourth man who surrenders. Under questioning and some duress, the man admits to targeting the wagon of hippogriffs. They would not normally mess with the Company of the Black Dragon but the pay was good. He admits that the merchant Dakuya paid them to do it.

Everyone returns to the Chapter House as it is now early evening. The night passes uneventfully. The next day Lakima splits up some of the gold received from Arturas. Dag Icefoot returns from his partying and shows them his new Dwarven Axe. Kal takes some money and heads over to a local armory where he buys a suit of chainmail.

They make plans to enter the sewers. They decide to do it in daylight hours. They calmly open a sewer grate in a small square in full view of many locals and all eight heroes descend an iron ladder down into the sewers. The sewers are a 15 in diameter brick-lined tube. A channel in the center of the bottom carries water and sewage. Dry platforms are along the walls.

Carric leads them for a long walk underground to the side passage that is supposed to hold the Lair of King Rat. He scouts ahead and spots a barrier of wooden crates. Behind the crates are two wererats. The group decides on a frontal approach. The charge forward to the barrier. The wererats and some giant rats behind the barrier are well protected. But Dag, Lantosh, Grimble, and Kal leap up on the crates and attack the wererats. One wererat whistles and a horde of normal rats pile out cracks in the walls and swarm the barrier. They overwhelm and knock Dag into the sewage. Lakima casts Sleep but only a few rats are affected. Lantosh takes a hit from a sword but Kal, Eathwund, and Carric press the attack. Lakima then casts Lightning bolt and fries all of the normal rats and burns one Wererat slightly. From there the battle turns and the rats and wererats begin to fall. The last wererat retreats into a narrow side tunnel. The heroes follow but find they can only advance in a single file. Ahead they see another corridor entering and at the end of the passage is a portcullis which is down barring further progress. Carric finds himself in the lead and fighting the wererat desperately. A giant rat appears and attacks as well. Carric manages to kill the wererat using his sword. The giant rat is killed by Eathwund.

Carric checks the side corridor and finds a small room with a table, some stools, and a pair of crates. Ahead Eathwund spots the Rat King. The Rat King is an enormous 20-foot-long, 8-foot tall rat. As they approach the portcullis, the giant rat speaks to them. Inviting them in. The portcullis rises up and King Rat invites them in to talk, calling out Eathwund and Lakima by name. The Rat King dismisses Lakima’s question about his helping the necromancer Talmea. That was just business he states. They can now do business together.

They cautiously enter the chamber and see King Rat, an enormous rat resting on a mound of green, pulsating cheese. They also spot a huge pile of gold coins. Near King Rat is a human whom King Rat refers to as Nat in their conversation. The chamber is divided by an 8 foot deep, 4 ½ foot wide channel through which sewage runs. As Lakima and Eathwund keep King Rat talking they try to form a plan. The channel is too far for Eathwund to leap in plate mail armor. Lakima comes up with an idea. He sends Kal back to get the wooden table in the nearby chamber. After a quick discussion, Kal drops the table with one end leaning over the channel, Grimble steps on the table to keep it steady and then Eathwund rushes across the table and leaps for the other side. Eathwund lands directly in front of a startled Rat King in a pile of gold, silver, and copper coins. Kal follows Eathwund but he is a little short on his jump and he hits the far wall and falls into the channel. Then Lantosh runs and jumps but trips over a table leg and the entire table and Lantosh tumble into the channel. Grimble leaps aside just in time to avoid being catapulted into the channel with them.

On the other side, the human cleric casts a spell on Eathwund but it fails. Eathwund strikes at King Rat cutting him. The giant Rat bites and claws at Eathwund. Eathwund manages to stave him off with his shield. The cleric Nat casts another spell and appears to glow bluish slightly. Lakima casts Atanzabar’s Acrid Finger and burns Nat. Dag attaches his grappling hook to the portcullis and throws a rope down to Kal and Lantosh. The two men climb out of the pit. Eathwund continues to trade blows with the Rat King, all alone in his fight. The cleric, Nat tries to run away from the stream of acid coming from Lakima but the stream just follows him around. Dag hurls his grappling hook across the channel and it wraps around a pillar on the other side. He ties the other end to the portcullis and Lantosh shimmies across the pit to the other side.

Eathwund is now struck repeatedly but the Rat King and is badly hurt. Domago crosses the channel on the rope, runs to Eathwund, and casts Cure Light Wounds. Lantosh tries to attack the huge rat with his polearm but misses. Lakima’s acid stream finally kills the cleric who tumbles into the pit and lands face down in the sewage, unmoving. Eathwund finally finds an opening and slashes out the giant rat's throat. He is covered in blood and gore but the Rat King is dead.

The heroes take a moment to check the chamber. They find more than 40,000 coins but most of them are copper. They start bagging it anyway. Eathwund makes note of the giant, pulsating cheese but decides not to take a sample. They search the cleric’s body, finding his mace and a scroll tube.