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The Embrace of Darkness

Tuesday, March 28, 2017

Before we conclude Pathfinder Adventure Card Game designer Liz Spain's "romance novel" previews of the Mummy's Mask set with a look at Adventure Deck 6: Pyramid of the Sky Pharaoh—spoiler alert: it's going to end in tears—we have an announcement to make: Complete card sets for Season of the Righteous, Season of the Runelords, and Season of the Goblins are now available for sale at DriveThruCards!

Torchlight glimmered a pleasing peridot color through the alchemical soup that ran through the tunnels of the Crypt of Water. The queen's husband, Hakotep, took great pleasure in the elaborately cruel designs that protected his great flying tomb. Richly painted in scenes of the River Sphinx and guarded by mighty hydrodaemon marble statues, the crypt was a stately home to rest one's soul for eternity.

The queen resents your weapons and armors. A lot.

Queen Neferuset glided along the passages in a glass barge, disabling the many traps without a thought. A thousand times she had made this journey; her hands moved of their own accord with practiced grace. Ingenious in their design, the hidden traps that lined the opulent tomb had been their creators' last. A short career was the price of eternal honor in the service of the pharaoh. Behind, her sister's mournful wails echoed and shrieked with the sound of a human soul breaking. The queen had insisted her sister's souls be captured within his pyramid. The pharaoh assumed it some form of punishment for Nailah's betrayal and attempted coup. But no. The banshee was necessary to serve the weaving of the Dark Tapestry.

Visits to Nailah were always painful. Her sister's wails summoned forth festering memories of family and sunshine. But the queen's gods demanded pain in sacrifice. Death and thousands of years within this tomb had left Neferuset hollow. She fed them what scraps of soul she could scrape together. Her gods were hungry.

Seelah, meet Sehela. Seleha, meet... wait, where did you go?

The glass barge bumped against a wall as it entered the vast limestone Hall of the Crocodile Kings. Sehela, the engineer who designed the pyramid's vast propulsion mechanisms, stood there waiting, silent and ethereal. Tracks of ghostly tears shimmered on the old woman's face, her brow knit with a pained scowl.

The queen took her time gracefully stepping out of the glass barge. Sehela would wait to be acknowledged before speaking. What had once been decorum had been replaced by a habit of fear. Sehela remained silent and stared. With a word, the withered, ectoplasmic remains of the old engineer's heart could be sacrificed to the Void. As long as Sehela was useful, she would remain in bondage, cursed to watch over the machine of destruction she had given her life to build.

Queen Neferuset passed by the old ghost, gesturing her to follow with a wave of her cobra-headed staff. The gesture was small, but the authority the staff represented was deeply threatening; the ghost shuffled dutifully behind through many twisting passages, overseen by the ancient lords bedecked in their sacrificial wrappings. The curtain of chill and darkness that hung within the entry to the shrine stunned Sehela, causing her to stumble backward, her ethereal form wavering uncontrollably. The queen caught Sehela's wrist in a cold, hard grip that pulsed with overwhelming necromantic power.

We did not forget to include a mummy wearing a mask.

The ghost shook with terror as the queen dragged her, helpless before the altar. Neferuset's chanting echoed with a deep malice that made the black stone of the altar quiver. One by one, the necromancer poured out the still-juicy contents of canopic jars: a victim of the queen's nastier spells.

As the viscera slid across the stone's surface, whispered voices joined the queen's from the dark corners of the room. The hushed rain of language hovered at the edge of comprehension. Utterly alien, yet familiar in a way that made Sehela's soul yearn for release, yearn to join them in the darkness. So long the work. So long the journey through the skies. So long.

And then, the ritual was over. The queen turned to the silent ghost and raised a withered, inquisitive eyebrow. "It's all over," Sehela sighed. "The word of Ra is spoken. The elemental channels are shut off. The pyramid is falling."

Tears streamed down the engineer's face anew. The admission that her life and death's work was now over was too much to bear. Queen Neferuset produced a small glass bottle engraved with the symbol of death from her elegant sleeve, uncorked it, and caught the tears that hung from the ghost's chin. "And with this," the queen grinned wickedly, "we shall prepare for new sacrifices to come to us."

We did warn you about the tears.

Outside, as the fabled Sky Pyramid sank from its heavenly perch, the citizens of Wati looked up at the ever-burning sun. We must honor the departed, they said under their exhausted breaths. We must deem every slave's hut a memorial, they said. And above all, they said, we must remember how this came to pass.

Liz Spain
Adventure Card Game Designer

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Tags: Mummy's Mask Pathfinder Adventure Card Game
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Lone Shark Games
1 person marked this as a favorite.

Whoa, hey, that announcement! Go get those cards from DriveThru!
Lone Shark Games

Also, I've been around Liz Spain for a long time, and even I was impressed by the purpleness of "Torchlight glimmered a pleasing peridot color through the alchemical soup that ran through the tunnels of the Crypt of Water."
Mike Selinker wrote:
Whoa, hey, that announcement! Go get those cards from DriveThru!

Done :-)

Maybe I'm alone in this, but in case the Sky Pharao is the big bad villain that you have to fight in the very last scenario, it's very anticlimactic to see him spoiled here as the very first preview card.

Apart from that, looking forward to my shipment of AD6, even though we just finished the B adventure yesterday.
Silver Crusade
Doppelschwert wrote:

Maybe I'm alone in this, but in case the Sky Pharao is the big bad villain that you have to fight in the very last scenario, it's very anticlimactic to see him spoiled here as the very first preview card.

Apart from that, looking forward to my shipment of AD6, even though we just finished the B adventure yesterday.

How? If you read up on this or the AP it's based on I don't see how knowing that the Sky Pharoah is the BBEG is anticlimactic.

The anticlimactic part is not knowing that he is the BBEG but seeing what the card does.

In my eyes, this is similiar to writing a preview blog for the conclusion of an AP from the RPG line and including the stat block of the BBEG.
Silver Crusade

Not really seeing how that is anticlimactic.

It's only anticlimactic if the BBEG was very, very weak. Just reveling his stats is hyping, if anything. IF they put up Karzoug's stats on a blog that would not be anticlimactic, it'd be cool to see what you have to go up against in the final stretch of the AP.

Some people like being surprised by the villain's powers and difficulty when they flip over the card. I see the point.

Also, one 33 check seems weak for the final boss.
Sovereign Court
Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Mike Selinker wrote:
Whoa, hey, that announcement! Go get those cards from DriveThru!

Wooooooooo!

(This is going to free up so many proxies.)

It was asked in another thread, but can we get a confirmation if closing the Shrine of Infinite Void is meant as permanent re-spec, or it allows us to chose our Role card at the start of each scenario?

So happy that our extreme inertia on Seasons has finally paid off. ;_; Now we can play through most of SotR with proxies!
Mike Selinker wrote:
Whoa, hey, that announcement! Go get those cards from DriveThru!

I own the first printing of Rise of the Runelords - will the colour of the DriveThru cards match those of the original card backsides?

I do get the point about the spoilers. Then again knowing your enemy is kind of important when building your party up to be able to defeat it. There is also no rule that prohibits you from carefully studying villains and henchman beforehand, so for me it's ok to spoiler them here.

Also ordered the cards - looking forward to those as well as adventure deck six.
Longshot11 wrote:
It was asked in another thread, but can we get a confirmation if closing the Shrine of Infinite Void is meant as permanent re-spec, or it allows us to chose our Role card at the start of each scenario?

IMHO : The rules clearly say that you chose a side when winning the role card. The only time in the game so far so can flip the card is when you close the Shrine and decide to do so (unless your character has a specific power like Ak). So you can indeed flip the card... anytime you close the Shrine (and only then, not between scenarios). If you like the idea, just add the Shrine to your own house games (I see potential for a fun Adventure Path).

takaisan wrote:
There is also no rule that prohibits you from carefully studying villains and henchman beforehand, so for me it's ok to spoiler them here.

But there is also no rule that forces you to carefully studying villains and henchman beforehand, so why spoil them here ? :-)

We NEVER study cards before the game. That "spoils" all the fun during the game. What's the point in having "immune" banes for example if you know that before and can choose your weapons and spells?
Furthermore "examining" is a key power in MM. The way we see it, it loses half its benefit and fun if you know all the cards in the box before playing the game (we like the RPG feeling of trying to sneak into the room to learn about the monsters and bosses).
Anyway it's your game, anyway you play it is fine, but if we can avoid major spoilers it's more fun.

Cards ordered. Thank you for getting the Seasons cards in for the Organized Play scenarios.
Mike Selinker wrote:
Also, I've been around Liz Spain for a long time, and even I was impressed by the purpleness of "Torchlight glimmered a pleasing peridot color through the alchemical soup that ran through the tunnels of the Crypt of Water."

I'm confused. Peridot's not purple.

Also, the first page of images of peridot in google image search comes up with... a lot of Steven Universe.
zeroth_hour2 wrote:
I'm confused. Peridot's not purple.

He's commenting on the color of the writing, not the lighting.

Re: spoilers, I like the previews since I don't own the set, but at our games I've been doing my best to be less grabby with the cards. The Trigger mechanic has made this more important, since that red box makes it easy to spot on even an accidental flash of a card. (Having to dig our Token cards out of the Location decks doesn't help either. :)
Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer
Jens Kaufmann wrote:
Mike Selinker wrote:
Whoa, hey, that announcement! Go get those cards from DriveThru!
I own the first printing of Rise of the Runelords - will the colour of the DriveThru cards match those of the original card backsides?

The DriveThru cardbacks are intended to match the cards printed in the USA, which means Rise of the Runelords second printing and everything that has come since.

I think Vic meant USA, not China.
Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer

Eep! Yes, I did. Corrected.
Vic Wertz wrote:
Eep! Yes, I did. Corrected.

OK, thanks! :-(

Vic Wertz wrote:
Jens Kaufmann wrote:
Mike Selinker wrote:
Whoa, hey, that announcement! Go get those cards from DriveThru!
I own the first printing of Rise of the Runelords - will the colour of the DriveThru cards match those of the original card backsides?
The DriveThru cardbacks are intended to match the cards printed in the USA, which means Rise of the Runelords second printing and everything that has come since.

When will the Season of the Mummy-cards be available on Drivethru? (In case yo know already) As shipping to Europe is very expensive for one Season of the Righteous deck, I intend to order the two decks together.

I wouldn't get my hopes up for fixed date for MM's season anytime soon.

At least 3 more months, given that the complete season is not even accessible yet. But then there will be several conventions, which will probably postpone a possible release. Then the new class decks start, and the set that hopefully will get announced until then, which will also take time.

My guess would be that you'll have to wait until fall at least.
Sovereign Court
1 person marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Also they just like to hold off on publishing the cards, since they want a bunch of people to go through the season to make sure that there are no errata on the cards before they go to print. It's easy to change the proxiese they're still pdf only, much harder after they send the files to DriveThruCards and the physical cards are in our hands.
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