Ben Green @bengreen@tabletop.social

If it does come to fisticuffs, the worker will call to the others on the dam who begin hustling over to help and get into position to throw a cannister of toxic waste! 28/*

When Alertness hits 3, they've had it with your bullshit, take your stolen badge, and tell you that you need to leave. They still don't attack you unless you refuse to leave, which will add more to Alertness until it hits 5 at which point they call more people to help deal with you. Critically, even if you leave, the Alertness stays at 3. The worker doesn't forget they saw you, but they don't yet feel like they need to do anything urgently and can go back to work. 27/*

Like most guilds of yore, this one jealously guards their secrets, but maybe one of the poisoned scientists from before could have had a badge or something that the players could recover undamaged. If they did, they could try a series of hard Deception checks to convince these workers that they're members. Each failure increases the Alertness level rather than immediately triggering a fight. That rising Alertness means increasing suspicion and more checks until the Alertness = 3. 26/*

At this point, players can be approaching in 1 of 3 ways. Along the top of the ridge where they're basically skirting around this whole section. Along the ledge to get to the top of the Power Station. Or along the cart path on the valley floor. The latter is the easiest approach, but is also in the open. They can't hide as the walk up the cart path and will be readily seen by the workers outside the Power Station who will stop working to come talk to them. 25/*

Approaching along the ledge requires each member of the party to make a DC 15 acrobatics, athletics, stealth, or survival check, at least one of each must be attempted for the group. Each failure escalates the situation... in fact, this is a perfect situation to adapt #Pathfinder2e's rad as hell Infiltration subsystem! Each failed check or set off trigger adds to the Power Station's Alertness Level, with critical failures adding 2. At certain thresholds, the stakes and danger increases. 24/*

Meanwhile, the Scientists and Technicians inside the Power Station (Qc) are cleaning up whatever accident created the poisoned scientists they saw earlier. They're wearing some kind of magical hazmat suits and have been sopping up toxins which could come into play as weapons if the alarm is raised (Ks and Kh).

Partway up the chasm wall, there's a ledge that the party can skirt across to drop down onto the Power Station from above! But that Ks dominated by Qh lurks beneath! Perhaps an incautious party could send some scree tumbling down onto the cannisters below, triggering an explosion of poison gas that plumes straight up towards them! This would also alert the Guildmembers on the Dam and in the Power Station that Something(TM) is afoot! 22/*

The Surface displays the Qd in Chaos, there's a moderate uncontrolled physical factor at play, and the joker leaves nothing at all in Order to counterbalance that. My first instinct is to make this be about the cannisters of poison getting dumped into the river and stored outside, but that feels more like a Qh/Kh dynamic in the Undercurrent, so let's come back to that. In this case, the Qd in Chaos could mean there's some nice bit of rock or something to make a secretive approach easier. 21/*

The first thing to notice is that the Hearts are our predominant suit, so something related to life, living creatures, or the leyline nexus should be the focus. Also because of the way the 6 of hearts was dealt, most of the cards are in the Undercurrent, so most of what's going on here will be hard to spot until it's too late! 20/*

Today we have something more involved for S.3 which I presume to be outside the Power Station! There's a lot to unpack here, so let's find out what's going on. 19/*

They can see beyond that to the lake and the spring running from a sizable cleft in the rocks beyond. Near the cleft is another structure that's just some simple barracks and a terraced garden where they're growing the food they need to support the project. 18/*

From this vantage, players can see the dam driving a large waterwheel attached to the power station. They can see people working on the dam and on the outside of the power station, which is probably 2-3 floors. The people working are fixing up the dam, moving debris brought up from below, and dumping a barrel of toxins they're done with into the river. 17/*

Then they can continue along the ridge, pass over the power station (which has a service entrance the Guild created that descends to straight to the second or third level down) to overlook the lake created by the dam where there's a natural cave entrance created by a spring that can be entered too. The spring is the entrance the Guild originally found before they made their own way in down at the power station. 16/*

A 1x room shouldn't have a much going on, so I see this more as an opportunity to open up different pathways for the players to choose from. The Jd in this case represents a vantage point that gives the players their first look of part of the facility (as represented by the spades). Perhaps there's a steep bend in the river and they can climb up to the ridgeline to see the dam and power station. 15/*

Our reading today was an easy one, the ace: 1s

The pip on the ace was face up so our reading with be a single card in the Surface. The predominant theme will be technological, so let's see what it is!

Jack of Diamonds which represent the non-living world. Physical resources and the people and institutions that work with them. Our Inventor Guild antagonists are almost certainly very interested in Diamonds, so the combination of technology with physical resources here makes a lot of sense. 14/*

Recalling the physical treachery, let's say navigating the steep sides of the canyon off the path made by the Guild requires DC 15 climb checks between little outcrops. The river is easily navigated but drinking the water (or being knocked prone in it) functions as very diluted arsenic (DC13 instead of 18).

Moderate 1

2 Poisoned Scientists
https://prnt.sc/_GSiLOFUmNLI

Since our predominant suit is hearts, which represents the Leyline, what if a lab accident exposed them to an awful dose of corrupted leyline energy and they're stumbling blindly down the gorge, dying, but lashing out miserably? Let's have two of these poor, doomed scientists be our first encounter and our first clue!
12/*

S.1 - The way upriver

I forgot to take a picture of the spread, but I wrote it down. It was a 4h, so living things are the main feature. And the spread was Jc and joker in "The Surface" and Js and joker in "The Undercurrent". The jokers represent *nothing*, so there's just no order in this situation. The Jc is some desperate, weak, aggressive, or minor Guild member and the Js means there's some secret technological thing with or driving them. 11/*

That could be our initial plot hook! The river that feeds the town has become sluggish and runs low and now the water is poisoned! It's unsafe to drink and without the river, the town will have to be abandoned. Our heroes go to investigate! But what do they encounter first? Let's find out by finally coming up with our first room! 10/*

If we have a dam, we should have hydropower! Pathfinder 2e's genre expectations don't totally rule out electrical power, which could definitely be cool and fits with the Kh vibe. The hydro power could be driving pumps bringing rubble and contaminated leyline energy up and sending air and electrical power down. The power station has workers maintaining the equipment and the dam and also conducting experiments on the contaminants that aren't getting dumped into the river. 9/*