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Writer here to answer any questions!Do the PCs need to have any mythic tiers before starting this part, or does it work for non mythic to go mythic? It's possible to play through this adventure without any mythic tiers or possibly to grant mythic tiers as you progress (there are enough mythic monsters and events here to justify that). That said, such a decision can make the adventure substantially harder and a no-mythic run is described in the adventure as especially challenging.
Arazni became a deity in the minor timeskip? Did she free herself from Geb's yoke and undo her undead state somehow (a mythic True Resurrection spell perhaps)? Did she take the Trials of the Starstone? I've got to read more about this! I'm aware of this, but I'm still not sure that this jumped her to godhood. I could also use some more explanation of this.
I think it would be fine. The regular Medium doesn't really outdo the Legendary Medium in any regard.
It's not a huge part, honestly. Spheres of power gets love in the form of the Technomancy Sphere, a bunch of new Armorist options, and a new Symbiat archetype. The big thing for Spheres of Might is the bevy of new martial traditions in the book, each tying into a major locale in Vandara. If you want more Spheres of Might stuff down the road, please let us know.
Is Sorshen's backstory written out anywhere? I've been writing up a backstory for her for my own game, which I may put somewhere eventually. The basic story is that she was born into a wealthy Azlanti merchant family who were worshippers of Ulon (the Deity of Secrets from Ruins of Azlant). When the Veiled Masters came to exterminate the cult, Sorshen escaped and buddied up with Xin to acquire his protection.
So it was mentioned in Return of the Runelords that a more powerful Alaznist than the one the players fight existed at some point, and I envision that at least one sadistic GM out there wants to throw the all-out version of the Runelord of Wrath at their players. Hence, I decided to complete the statblock of a mightier Alaznist for all your sakes I also used this opportunity to patch up some odd discrepancies with the presented Alaznist, namely her large number of item creation feats given her in-lore unwillingness to craft things herself. I also added in the Scepter of Alaznist from the City Outside of Time, as it makes sense for her to wield it (I take partial responsibility if the entire party is annihilated by an empowered maximized augmented mythic meteor swarm). Now anyway, enjoy. RUNELORD ALAZNIST CR 28/MR 10
If Alaznist drops below 100 hit points, she takes a Contingent Action to use the Scepter of Ages to transport the attacker through time. The first two times Alaznist takes ability damage, a Stalwart Resolve spell activates on her negating the ability damage to the damaged stat. These usually activate when Alaznist casts mythic Borrowed Time and Blood Money When Alaznist bites her tongue (a free action), she creates a Mythic Globe of Invulnerability around herself which is augmented to negate all non-mythic spells When Alaznist becomes grappled or entangled, she is immediately affected by Freedom of Movement Exceptional Statistics (Ex) Alaznist's ability scores were generated using 25 points, rather than the standard 15. Additionally, she has much more gear than an NPC of her level would normally have. These modifications increase her total CR by 2. Immortal (Ex) Pacts with forces from the Abyss have allowed Alaznist to live well beyond a human’s normal lifespan. She gains the +3 bonus to her Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma scores for having lived beyond venerable age, yet she retains the youth of a young woman and does not take the penalties to her physical ability scores. She is immune to disease and to all forms of madness (including confusion effects and feeblemind). Inherent Bonuses (Ex) Alaznist has used wish spells to increase her statistics and has a +4 inherent bonus to her Constitution, Dexterity, Strength, and Wisdom scores and a +5 inherent bonus to her Charisma and Intelligence scores. Mythic Contingencies (Sp) If Alaznist takes damage when she doesn’t have a displacement spell active, a displacement spell immediately activates on her. Permanent Spells (Sp) Alaznist has made the following spells permanent on herself: arcane sight, darkvision, see invisibility, and tongues. Profane Pact (Su) Alaznist bears a brand in the form of the rune of wrath on her hip—a mark bestowed by the powerful lilitu demon Ariashrael that also grants the runelord a profane pact; this pact grants Alaznist a +4 profane bonus to her Constitution score.
So far, there have been four adventure paths dealing heavily with these nations (Rise, Return, Shattered Star, and Ruins of Azlant. One more if Curse of the Crimson Throne counts), and most of the big set pieces from that era have been dealt with. The Runelords have risen, most of the major landmarks have been explored, and to my knowledge every major NPC having something to do with these nations (save for Aroden) has been utilized. Are there any more plans for future content in this portion of Golarion? Will we ever get to explore the labyrinths below Castle Korvosa? I’d personally be fine seeing other parts of Golarion take center stage from this point on.
Okay, I've got a few questions about the adventure now that I have it. 1. What happens if the PCs lose? Does Alaznist control everything? What if she's in the Eye of Fury? 2. Are Alaznist and Sorshen not actually pureblood Azlanti? Their stats say human while characters like Belimarius specified this ethnicity due to its impact on her stats. Were they calculated with +2 in all stats?
Psibertech and Technology Expanded were originally a single book, but we split it into two volumes. If you want to make an Akashic Iron Man, there are ways to do it with content in either book. Not familiar with any playable third-party undead races. Which books are those from?
The appendix of Secret of Roderick's Cove contains a timeline of the seven Runelord positions and key events. It lists the exact dates at which Xanderghul, Sorshen, and Alaznist became mythic. Nowhere does it say where Zutha became mythic, which leads me to conclude that he isn't. Given that we have non-mythic statblocks for Karzoug, Krune, and Belmarius (the latter two aren't even 20th level) I'd say it's very presumptuous to say that Zutha is a mythic character. Honestly, I went with a mythic Zutha for a few reasons. 1. He's been talked up as being "more than just a lich" in some of the older books, and Lord of Runes certainly built him up as something utterly bonkers in terms of power. I thought mythic abilities would be fitting for that. 2. The Cenotaph, which is Zutha's dungeon, is a mythic location which gets a ton of attention in Mythic Realms. This made me think that Zutha had mythic power backing him up before Return of the Runelords came out. 3. I wanted to build a character based around constant consumption, and nectar of the gods seemed to be a great way to do that. The item only works for mythic characters so I felt obligated to implement that. 4. With all of the ways Zutha has been built up, a level 18 lich just feels kinda underwhelming to me (especially given how some of his underlings described in Mythic Realms, Dead Heart of Xin, and Undead Revisited had higher CRs than 22). Zutha is quite possibly the oldest lich on Golarion and I wanted him to live up to his twisted reputation. I could probably do a weaker, CR 22 version at some point, similar to Xanderghul's lesser incarnation.
Author here. A basic rundown is as follows -Psibertech: a new system which lets characters trade feats, talents, or powers for cybernetic implants. Many are tied to psionics in some way, such as a skeletal augment that boosts the effects of psychometabolism powers or a robot arm that merges with your mind blade.-New Archetypes for the Aegis, Druid, and Daevic, all of which use either the new templates or the new variant rules from this book -Some new technological weapons, most notably the Rocket Glove, Monofilant Stiletto, Micromissile Array, and String Launcher (my personal favorite) -Armor Penetration, an alternative ruleset for firearms and advanced weapons as a replacement for them just hitting touch AC. -New armor and weapon enhancements, many of which are geared towards high-tech settings and characters -A bunch of templates, 8 in total, which are designed for high-tech monsters. Robot animals, fleshy mecha, undead AI, and radioactive dragons are among them -Modular Robot variant rules, which offer allows players and GMs to custom-build robotic constructs for a wide variety of purposes. 19 sample robots are provided.
If you guys really need Xanderghul stats, I did reverse-reverse-engineer the stats from book 4 into a full-power Xanderghul here.
You can probably trade Blinding Critical for Critial Focus. That was a gaffe on my part. She has a +5 inherent bonus to strength and +4 bonuses to dexterity and constitution. I factored those in by deducting WBL as if she had spent them on the respective tomes. As for Savith's Iron, it should be pretty easy to trade out her headband of mental superiority for the shield.
A lot of folks were requesting this one after my Runelord stats, so I decided to cook her up. I decided to challenge myself by seeing how powerful an un-archetyped fighter could be, and I think that I created something pretty impressive. Savith here could definitely 1v1 a god and pull it off. SAVITH CR 24/MR 6
SERPENTDEATH
I'm planning to do something similar with my PC's too. Her power level shouldn't really be of too much concern though. From what I understand Alaznist's was already mythic at the start of this adventure but gained even more mythic power when she slew Xanderghul. The final adventure is supposed to be the Return PC's trying to strip her of some of that mythic power to be able to take her down. So when your SH fight her it should be an even more powerful version of her than the ones the Return PC's are destined to fight. A fitting sacrifice I believe. Challenge accepted. Will probably put tier-10 Alaznist in the Homebrew chat as soon as I can get my mitts on the book. It will be absolutely worth it to rain down a tier 10 Meteor Swarm just once.
Aaaaand my hype level just escalated even further.
My mistake. My reason for thinking this was conversations with a few authors a while back about a Stethelos article that didn't come to be (there may have been other things mentioned but Stethelos was the big one I remember). If there are any future adventures that deal with the Dimension of Time, I would love to see a full Stethelos gazetteer similar to the one Kaer Maga got in Shattered Star.
Ridiculously excited about this adventure. There's so much I'm curious to see (I would say tomorrow can't come soon enough, but I have deadlines to deal with). A personal hope that I have about this adventure is that we'll get to meet Xin before he went off his rocker and became the secluded and unstable maniac he is in Shattered Star. Also, I've heard from a lot of devs that a tremendous amount of content has had to be cut from this adventure for space reasons. Are we gonna see a "Runelord Apocrypha" or "Even MORE magic of Thassilon" blog post at some point that covers what couldn't make it in?
I hope that I'm not the only one thinking that at some point in the Realm of Frozen tears, a lot of GMs will bust out this song. I'd like to know if the naming of the White Death was an intentional nod to one of Finland's most legendary soldiers. Regardless, I might just swap Inkariax's favored weapon to the rifle, maybe change a few of his followers to the undead snipers from Rasputin Must Die.
Here's what I have planned so far. This ties into another game which my friend is running. Spoilers for Rise, Return, Shattered Star, and Wrath of the Righteous: Since none of my party is particularly intellectual by disposition, they are contacted by a Thassilonian scholar (possibly Ogunthunn, although right now I'm not certain if she'll survive the entire campaign). The Onion Kid Division goes to the outside of Crystilan where Ogunthunn explains how Alaznist is messing with time and how this screws everybody over. The party starts up the timeglass ritual only to watch as a horde of monsters comes pouring in from the east bank of the island.
Alaznist has spent the last few months recruiting demons from the Worldwound-less domain of Sarkoris and has accrued a tremendous army which she is throwing at Ogunthunn and the Onion Kid Division. Fortunately, Ogunthunn brought backup, and busts out Xin's clockwork army which she has finally figured out how to unlock and control. Most of the demons are nondescript, but a few noteworthy creatures that Alaznist has under her command are Belsefelek (packing Garvok), a Herecite Eliandra (both from City of Locusts), Crimson Lotus, Balravnus, and Saorhaz (all from Demons Revisited). She's got a couple Rune Giants and Devastators too for good measure. The party and the clockwork army have to fight off the horde from the sea, but they have a set of allies in the form of the original Sihedron heroes (from my friend's Rise of the Runelords game). For most of the ritual, things go pretty well and the party is managing to hold their own. At this point Alaznist arrives and tries to kill them herself. If she ever gets to a point where she's losing, a contingent action spell activates and Alaznist sends the heroes hurtling through time using the Scepter of Ages.
Way ahead of you there. Already statted up some allies for Alaznist to ensure a sufficient threat, one of which is packing this thing. As for running this, I still have a ways to go in Shattered Star, so I’ll have the stats by the time this all goes down.
It was with a different group, and the players lost that one because they opted to detonate a nuke and take the villain with them once they came to realize that their victory was unlikely (one player fled the scene). For Alaznist, I plan for her to deploy the Sceptre of Ages as a tool of last resort, giving the party a good solid fight before time-warping them as a desperation measure.
So I'm running Shattered Star right now and plan on running Return of the Runelords afterward. Naturally, I plan on utilizing the Onion Kid Division (long, hilarious story behind the name) for the Sihedron Heroes. However, after having built the party up, the idea of just taking down the whole group offscreen seems not only anticlimactic but unfair to the characters and their players. Hence, I have decided to take a more dramatic route. What I plan to do is to run the encounter outside Crystilan that took place prior to Return with the Onion Kid Division, having them fight of Alaznist and her followers in an epic but ultimately futile final confrontation that would end with Alaznist using the Sceptre of Ages to seal them in Crystilan but causing her to lose the item in the process. The ending is effectively scripted, but I think that a suitably difficult encounter could give the players the sense that they tried their hardest to avoid this fate. I've had successful final-session encounters in the past where the players have lost but were ultimately satisfied with the conclusion, and I'm fairly confident that I could repeat that success here. What do you folks think? Should I go through with this or would it be better for the Onion Kid Division to fall without the players' involvement?
So I had an idea for my Wrath of the Righteous character which I am planning on using in this week’s opening session. The GM thinks it is cool but concerning due to how some NPCs may interact with him. Hence, I wanted to run him past you to see what you folks would do with this character or point out obstacles he might face. Marcellano is a LG cleric with the Channeler of the Unknown archetype whose father was a priest of Aroden in Cheliax. Although the god of humanity is long-dead, Marcellano’s father still clung to the old trappings, teachings, and methods, teaching his son about the faith of Aroden and the glories Cheliax knew before the Diabolists took over. It was at the age of 30 that Marcellano made a pilgrimage to Absolam, and it was there that he heard a strange voice beckon to him for the first time. The voice offered him power, guidance, and purpose, and Marcellano became convinced that Aroden was contacting him from some remote corner of existence. Taking his bastard sword and eye-emblazoned shield to the Worldwound, Marcellano is determined to retrace Aroden’s steps, finish what his god had started, and ultimately reforge the faith in the hopes that it might bring Aroden back to Golarion. Plan on going Hierophant/Archmage dual path and grabbing Divine Source so that my character can grant spells in the name of an allegedly-deceased god. Marcellano’s chosen domain is Void, and though he’s no slouch in melee his primary interest is BFC and Support. In time, I want Marcellano to build a following of Aroden loyalists which becomes a full religion by the end of the campaign.
Hoo boy, there were a lot of things I enjoyed working on this year. One thing I enjoyed was writing my first real adventure path for Blackmoor Society (Ascendant Saboteur) I was really happy to join the Legendary Games team and release my first three Starfinder books (Star Empires, Star Classes: Envoy, and Star Classes: Solarian). I had a great time working on City of Seven Seraphs and am incredibly excited to see the final product all of my friends have put together. But honestly, the biggest thing that makes me happy is finally getting Arcforge into print. There’s something to be said for having for original darling project finally out there for other gamers to enjoy.
Okay, so those of you who have made their way to book 3 know that Sorshen's blood simulacra are running around Golarian with some hidden agenda. The surprising thing about them is that they're chaotic neutral rather than chaotic evil as most would expect from a mastermind who started a seven-way civil war by killing her master and carried out a 1100+ year reign of terror (among some other horrific and unsavory things). Unless Pharasma has suddenly decided to relax a lot of rules regarding alignment or Sorshen has does some big things we don't know about in order to atone for her misdeeds, there's something fishy here. I was trying to figure out what could possibly explain it when I came across a certain mythic ability that fits the concept perfectly: Beyond Morality. My theory is that Sorshen's recent actions have not been enough to push her out of the CE territory (seriously, 1100 years of being a sexually predatory warlord is a LOT to atone for), but the Beyond Morality ability allows her to disguise that fact. Her blood simulacrums are whatever alignment she wants them to be, and CN is just troublesome enough to not seem suspicious but just innocent enough to get some powerful alignment-sensing allies on her side (and possibly innocent to allow her to seize power without the other nations of Golarian freaking out). I'm sure we'll get an answer on this in the next volume, but I'm curious to know what the rest of you think. Did Runelord Sorshen pull off the impossible and actually redeem herself, or has she pulled a fast one on the multiverse the likes of which haven't been seen since the Pact Primeval?
CR 28 Xanderghul here: XANDERGHUL CR 28/MR 10
Cloying Gloom Blast (Su) Three times per day, the shadow lord can unleash a 30-foot cone of cloying gloom. On a failed Fortitude saving throw, creatures in the cone are affected by a slow spell (caster level equal to the shadow lord’s Hit Dice) and are blinded for the duration of the slow effect. Divine Source (Su) Xanderghul can grant divine spells. This does not require any specific action on his behalf. He grants access to the domains of Evil, Law, and Trickery and to the subdomains of Deception and Tyranny. His symbol is a peacock feather with an eye inside, and his favored weapon is the lucerne hammer. Enshrined (Ex) As long as the Peacock Shrine in area O3 remains active, if Xanderghul is slain, his body and shadow gear vanish, only to be restored in area O3 after 1 minute. Being restored in this manner otherwise functions as true resurrection. If Xanderghul is slain while this Peacock Shrine is inactive, he dies normally and his shadow gear dissipates into nothing. Exceptional Statistics (Ex) Xanderghul’s ability scores were generated using a 25-point buy, and he has a +5 inherent bonus to all six ability scores. This increases his final CR to 17. Permanent Spells (Sp) Xanderghul has these permanent spells: arcane sight, see invisibility, and tongues. Incorporeal Step (Su) When a shadow lord moves, it gains the incorporeal subtype and quality, including a deflection bonus to AC equal to its Charisma bonus. It loses the incorporeal subtype and special ability when it stops moving. Mythic Contingencies (Sp) When Xanderghul shouts “know your place!” in Thassilonian (a free action), the following spells activate on him with maximum possible mythic augmentation: Globe of Invulnerability, Heroism, Shield, and Horrific Doubles. When Xanderghul shouts “face me!”, it activates a mythic antimagic field which does not suppress illusion spells. When Xanderghul shouts “enough!”, a prismatic sphere activates centered on him. Planar Thinning (Su) Once per day as a full-round action, a shadow lord can thin the barriers between the Material Plane and Shadow Plane, making it considerably easier for creatures to cross between the two. This functions like the planar travel aspect of the gate spell (caster level equal to the shadow lord’s Hit Dice). This planar thinning is immediately dispelled if in an area of normal or bright light. Shadow Gear (Su) Xanderghul carries shadowy duplicates of his favorite possessions, including a Sihedron Tome. These items function normally in all ways, save that if Xanderghul is killed, the items vanish along with his body. The Sihedron Tome functions as Xanderghul’s spellbook, and it contains all of his prepared spells as well as all sorcerer/ wizard spells (save those of the schools of conjuration and transmutation) from the Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook (at your discretion, it might contain more spells than these). The Sihedron Tome allows Xanderghul to prepare additional spells as if his Intelligence score were 6 points higher.
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