Clockworks and the End of the Emerald Spire, with Rich Baker and James Jacobs

Saturday, July 19, 2014


Cartography by Rob Lazzaretti

All good things must come to an end, and this week we look at the end (or at least, the lowest level) of the Emerald Spire. Of course, the end of a superdungeon is something a lot of players never get to see (as Erik Mona discussed a bit in his teaser last week), so we also thought we might expand this sneak peek to include two maps from the adventure.

When discussing the fact that every dungeon level had to fit on a Flip-Mat, Erik briefly mentioned that this requirement drove our authors to find creative ways to get the most out of the space available. One good example of this is The Clockwork Maze, which has sections likely to initially confuse the players and that are certain to force players to work harder than a typcial ten foot wide corridor. We don’t want to give away the whole secret of the level, but a glance at the map is a pretty big hint why the level has "clockwork" in its title.

Other levels use the available space on a Flip-Map in a more traditional way, but include multiple environments, hazards, and unusual geometry to increase the variety available in the dungeon experience. The final level of the dungeon, The Emeral Root, is a good example of this kind of creative map.

Of course even a great map isn’t very useful if you don’t have enounters to fill it with. To learn a little more about these levels and how they came to be, we we spoke to the CEO and Publisher of Sasquatch Game Studio LLC, Richard Baker, and our own Creative Director, James Jacobs.

How do you define a "Superdungeon"? What is your favorite dungeon or superdungeon experience in your personal gaming history?

Rich To me, a superdungeon is any adventure that you could reasonably base a whole campaign around. It will provide months and months of play, characters will level up a good 8 or 10 times in the course of the game, and the players are up against an epic threat or fighting their way through a truly amazing setting. I suppose I might further refine that by saying that a super-dungeon does that all in the context of a single sprawling underground maze (you can certainly have super-adventures that do the same thing but across multiple locales). So, it's a particular flavor of super-adventure, I guess.
My personal favorites were Undermountain—really the gold standard of superdungeons, even if a lot of the map was left for the DM to populate—and more recently City of the Spider-Queen, which is probably more of a superadventure. When I was developing that adventure, we had James Wyatt (the adventure author) run it for us with a great group of players, and we had a blast.

James I define a Superdungeon as a dungeon that you can run an entire campaign in. My favorite superdungeon is Greyhawk’s Maure Castle, which was featured several times in Dungeon magazine back in the day. On Golarion, though, my favorite superdungeon is Hollow Mountain, and I hope to some day get to personally design and develop that site into a significant adventure location. At which point I can see it supplanting Maure Castle as my favorite. Unless I do the same for the Crimson Citadel first, that is.


Illustration by Jorge Fares

What is your level of the Emerald Spire Superdungeon called? What theme, if any, does the level have?

Rich My level of Emerald Spire is the Clockwork Maze. This is the lair of the first major villain in the Spire, the Numerian wizard Klarkosh. As you might expect, it has a strong clockwork theme—the entire dungeon configuration can be altered by using control levers in different spots. In fact, the players will have to do just a little bit of puzzle-solving to figure out how to change the dungeon geometry to navigate through the level. The monsters are mostly constructs of different kinds, since Klarkosh was previously described as a master of making constructs.
I also wrote the description of Fort Inevitable that begins the adventure, and did most of the coordination and direction for the whole project. I got to see each author's contribution as they came up with it!

James My level of the Emerald Spire is the final one—the "Emerald Root." It’s theme is hard to divulge without revealing a lot of spoilers, since it contains the source and reason and history of the Emerald Spire itself, but it goes beyond that and reveals some key bits of information about the Darklands—particularly the vaults of Orv. In fact, the opportunity to explore some of the mysteries of these vaults is the primary reason I pounced on designing the lowest level of Emerald Spire in the first place.

What where the inspirations you drew on for your Emerald Spire level, and what are you hoping players get out of it?

Rich My primary inspiration was really just delivering on what had already been said about the Spire. In the Thornkeep sourcebook we mentioned a few key facts about the Spire, so I took it upon myself to make sure the Emerald Spire superdungeon delivered on those teasers. For the villain, I admit I was thinking of Tharok, the half-robot leader of the Fatal Five, the arch-enemies of the Legion of Superheroes. Klarkosh is kind of a magical version of Tharok.

James There’s a fair amount of Lovecraft inspiration in my level of Emerald Spire, both in the monster mix and in the story beyond what’s going on in that level, but that also ties in to some of the deep continuity of the history of Orv and the Darklands themselves. And by "Lovecraft" in this case, I’m not talking about Cthulhu and tentacle monsters, but about the idea that humanity was not the first to rise to power on this ball of dirt (Earth) or that ball of dirt (Golarion) hurtling blindly through the uncaring gulfs of space.

We really appreciate our Creative Director and the Chief Sasquatch (Editorial Note, Rich told me to call him this) taking time out of their busy schedules to share some of the Emerald Spire with us!

Owen K.C. Stephens
Developer

More Paizo Blog.
Tags: Emerald Spire Interviews Jorge Fares Pathfinder Modules Rob Lazzaretti
Sczarni

Thanks for your hard work!

I picked up the book and maps while I was at PaizoCon. As soon as the Chronicles get released for PFS I'll be running a group through it. I'm super excited!

Liberty's Edge

Quote:
And by "Lovecraft" in this case, I’m not talking about Cthulhu and tentacle monsters, but about the idea that humanity was not the first to rise to power on this ball of dirt (Earth) or that ball of dirt (Golarion) hurtling blindly through the uncaring gulfs of space.

So it's probably going to be

Spoiler:
aboleths
. I don't have any problems with that - I love those guys and I'd like to see them in the spotlight.
Dark Archive

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber
Redfire wrote:
Quote:
And by "Lovecraft" in this case, I’m not talking about Cthulhu and tentacle monsters, but about the idea that humanity was not the first to rise to power on this ball of dirt (Earth) or that ball of dirt (Golarion) hurtling blindly through the uncaring gulfs of space.
So it's probably going to be ** spoiler omitted **. I don't have any problems with that - I love those guys and I'd like to see them in the spotlight.

Actually no, it's

actually read it spoiler:
The Vault Builders, and their works beneath the surface, and their war versus the Aboleths. Also Elder Things & Gugs, oh my!

Where are the two maps?

Am loving this series of sneak peaks, mind you…

~M


I was also wondering where the maps went. I guess I could always pull out the map pack and just take a look at them, but that would require me walking ALL THE WAY down a full flight of stairs into my basement then finding the physical map among 8. It's SO MUCH EASIER if you just get the picture posted on the blog for me. ;) *Sigh* First World Problems.

When James Jacobs mentioned Lovecraft stuff, I automatically assumed that Gugs would be in there. We already know from Called to Darkness that Gugs dwell in Orv. They are shepherds of a sort!

I wonder if I could run a group of players through Emerald Spire, and then have them move (with a new set of related characters) into Fire Mountain Games' Throne of Darkness AP? I'll have to take a look at book 1 again.

Liberty's Edge

I just wanted to thank you both for the work you did on Red Hand of Doom eight years ago. That is what got me interested in following James' work with Paizo. I'm glad to see you both on another project together (and apologize in advance if I missed a few that you've both been involved with in-between). I will be sure to pick up a copy of Emerald Spire!

Thanks again,
Randy Price

Liberty's Edge

Enlight_Bystand wrote:
Redfire wrote:
Quote:
And by "Lovecraft" in this case, I’m not talking about Cthulhu and tentacle monsters, but about the idea that humanity was not the first to rise to power on this ball of dirt (Earth) or that ball of dirt (Golarion) hurtling blindly through the uncaring gulfs of space.
So it's probably going to be ** spoiler omitted **. I don't have any problems with that - I love those guys and I'd like to see them in the spotlight.
Actually no, it's ** spoiler omitted **

Heh, thanks :) I haven't even heard of the

Spoiler:
vault builders
until you mentioned them. I looked them up on PathfinderWiki, and they seem pretty cool.
Liberty's Edge

Pathfinder Battles Case Subscriber; Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Charter Superscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber

Did I miss it? I thought one of these blogs was going to list the recommended PC levels for the dungeon levels? Was it in one of the other Blogs and I just missed it?

Scarab Sages Modules Overlord

Dragnmoon wrote:
I thought one of these blogs was going to list the recommended PC levels for the dungeon levels?

Logan covered that in the Emerald Spire Discssion Thread, so I didn't repeat it in the blogs. But here's his answer, with levels included.

Logan Bonner wrote:

Because Emerald Spire has so many variables (ways to tackle levels out of order, skip entire levels, or gain extra XP awards), I didn't include expected levels. It's meant to be—not a sandbox per se—but a fairly open-ended experience. It can be easy for a party to jump to a challenge significantly higher than their level, especially after they pass the upper levels. So please remember those caveats when looking at the level ranges below!

Dungeon Level/Party Level
1: 1
2: 2
3: 3
4: 4
5: 5
6: 6
7: 6
8: 7
9: 8
10: 9
11: 10
12: 11
13: 11
14: 12
15: 12
16: 13

Paizo Employee Creative Director

casiel wrote:

I just wanted to thank you both for the work you did on Red Hand of Doom eight years ago. That is what got me interested in following James' work with Paizo. I'm glad to see you both on another project together (and apologize in advance if I missed a few that you've both been involved with in-between). I will be sure to pick up a copy of Emerald Spire!

Thanks again,
Randy Price

Thanks!

Working on "Red Hand of Doom" is one of my fondest memories of the things I've written for D&D, and trust me... between getting to write about demons and beholders and Saltmarsh and Kyuss and Greyhawk and Iggwilv and more... there's a LOT of fond memories out there!

I was delighted to get the chance to work with Rich again, and hope it's not gonna be as long until the next time! :-)


James Jacobs wrote:
casiel wrote:

I just wanted to thank you both for the work you did on Red Hand of Doom eight years ago. That is what got me interested in following James' work with Paizo. I'm glad to see you both on another project together (and apologize in advance if I missed a few that you've both been involved with in-between). I will be sure to pick up a copy of Emerald Spire!

Thanks again,
Randy Price

Thanks!

Working on "Red Hand of Doom" is one of my fondest memories of the things I've written for D&D, and trust me... between getting to write about demons and beholders and Saltmarsh and Kyuss and Greyhawk and Iggwilv and more... there's a LOT of fond memories out there!

I was delighted to get the chance to work with Rich again, and hope it's not gonna be as long until the next time! :-)

I second this, Red Hand of Doom was the first published adventure I ever played in. Since then, I have DM'd it twice and played as a PC two more times. Every time I have played the experience has been different and had a blast. Your touch must have been why I was so drawn to Pathfinder when it launched. And I had no idea who either of you were at the time I started looking into Paizo. ;) Excellent stuff all around, I've never been let down with any of the work you two have produced.

My wife and I both fell in love with the Inner Sea setting and have spent many, many hours brainstorming and enjoying each other's ideas and how they fit into the world. A family that games together stays together! Even got our two year old rolling 20's consistantly on daddy when mommy is GM... much to my frustraition. Makes me look forward to many more years of family bonding time running from swarms of angry goblins, slaying dragons, and unraveling the mysteries of what happened to dead gods.

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