The Pyramid of Shadows (Inactive)

Game Master 137ben

You and your allies have been
troubled by strange and compelling visions every night
when you sleep and dream. In these dream visions,
the tiefling wizard Karavakos appears to you and whispers about the power and secrets waiting
within the Pyramid of Shadows.
The visions have grown more frequent, more urgent,
and you and your group are growing more and more
inclined to set everything aside and seek out the place of
power and Karavakos. Indeed, you often awaken
from the dream vision with a sheet of parchment and a
quill to find notes scribbled over and over that you have no memory of writing. These notes include the oftrepeated
phrases: “Place of power.” “Vast magic for the
taking.” “Seek Karavakos.” There is also a crude sketch of a
map that shows a stylized glowing pyramid deep within a
lush forest about a week’s travel from this location.

House Rules:
Uses of the Diplomacy skill to change the attitudes of NPCs, or to make requests of NPCs, instead follow Rich Burlew's Persuasion Skill rules. Other uses of Diplomacy (namely, to gather information) are unaffected.

reason:

Gather information is a separate skill in 3.5 which is merged into Diplomacy in Pathfinder. Rich Burlew wrote his Diplomacy-rewrite for 3.5, so it does not cover Gather Information.
The Persuasion rules are a lot easier for me to use than the RAW Diplomacy rules. Other reasons for using them can be found in the linked article.

The spells Detect Chaos, Detect Evil, Detect Good, and Detect Law do not exist. Paladins instead get Detect Magic as a constant spell-like ability. This can be suppressed or restarted as a standard action.

reason:

I feel that the detect alignment spells do not really fit into an intrigue campaign. There are enough ways to block them that removing them should not be a big deal.

Approximate layout of the Pyramid's first floor: Not to scale, and only includes the portions explored so far.
Map of the Pyramid's second floor.
This one is much closer to scale.

NPC allies:

The following NPCs have lent their aid to the PCs:

Spoiler:

Hozela: A Dragonborn sorcerer originally from Sigil, Hozela was a part of a group of dragonborn bandits that operated in Sigil, but were all pulled into the Pyramid and now operate from the northeast of the first floor. Garash Vren, the dragonborn's leader, wanted the PCs to recover a book called the Tome of Vecna's Breath from the Library of Whispers, and so he sent Hozela to help. (The PCs never recovered any such tome, since they fled the library after fighting the Splinter of Karavakos). The dragonborn faction as a whole seems content to stay in the Pyramid, but Hozela herself wants to escape back to Sigil, so she views you as being more allies than her old faction.

Sorjla: A grig cleric and servant of Thoraska the dragon. Thoraska has a lair on the second floor of the Pyramid, and seems to be isolationist in her views of the other factions. She was willing to lend aid to you because she was attacked by the Splinter of Karavakos from the library of whispers attacked her, and also because she is concerned about aggressive action by the arboreans.
Sorjla seems fiercely loyal to Thoraska, and you can probably assume that she will only continue to aid you for as long as your objectives align with Thoraska's.

Hathnor: An arborean and melee combatant, Hathnor was sent to help the PCs after they encountered the arborean speaker. The arobreans as a whole are the faction that seems to be on hostile terms with everyone, including the dragonborn, the harpies, and Thoraska. There's also some sort of internal strike among the arboreans, with a significant number of them unsatisfied with their current leadership. Not very much information has been revealed about Hathnor in particular.

Mundarion: And elf wizard/rogue who used to be a PC.
Yessai: A githyanki direlock who used to be a PC.
De'arv'ki: A catfolk ninja who used to be a PC.

Hathnor:

HP: 62/62
AC 21/ Touch 10 / Flat-Footed 21
Initiative +2
BAB +6/ CMB +9 / CMD 18
Fort +9/ Reflex +2/ Will +4
Speed: 30 feet

Attacks:
Melee: Warhammer +13/+8 (1d8+8 (x3))
Ranged: Longbow: +7/+2 (1d8 (x3))
Has Vital Strike.

Perception: +4
Immunities: Plant traits

Mundarion and De'arv'ki:
See their profiles.