Pathfinder Adventure Path #41: The Thousand Fangs Below (Serpent's Skull 5 of 6) (PFRPG)

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Pathfinder Adventure Path #41: The Thousand Fangs Below (Serpent's Skull 5 of 6) (PFRPG)
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Chapter 5: "The Thousand Fangs Below"
by Graeme Davis

All the danger of Saventh-Yhi, the jungle city lost from the modern age, pales before the terrors that lurk below its shattered streets. Beneath the ancient ruins rots a realm of darkness and monsters over which Saventh-Yhi long stood guard. Into the eternal night of that realm below the adventurers delve, coming face to face with the degenerate inheritors of a lost empire, fiend-worshiping denizens of the dark, and the zealots of a decapitated god, all in the hope of saving Eando Kline, one of the greatest explorers the world has ever known. But even if they can manage to free Eando, will the PCs be able to escape his captors, the fanged legions of the serpentfolk?

    This volume of Pathfinder Adventure Path includes:
  • “The Thousand Fangs Below,” a Pathfinder RPG adventure for 13th-level characters, by Graeme Davis
  • A foray into the mysterious realm of Ilmurea, a ruined city of dark magic and deadly poison, by Clinton Boomer
  • A glimpse into the fractured mind of Nethys, god of magic, by Sean K Reynolds
  • Jungle justice in the Pathfinder’s Journal, by Robin D. Laws
  • Four new monsters of the jungle, by Jesse Benner and Sean K Reynolds.

Pathfinder Adventure Path is Paizo Publishing's monthly 96-page, perfect-bound, full-color softcover book printed on high-quality paper. It contains an in-depth Adventure Path scenario, stats for about a half-dozen new monsters, and several support articles meant to give Game Masters additional material to expand their campaign. Pathfinder Adventure Path volumes use the Open Game License and work with both the Pathfinder RPG and the standard 3.5 fantasy RPG rules set.

ISBN–13: 978-1-60125-276-0

Pathfinder Society Roleplaying Guild Sanctioned Content
The Thousand Fangs Below is sanctioned for use in Pathfinder Society Roleplaying Guild.

Download the rules for running this Adventure Path and Chronicle sheets — (495 kb zip/PDF)

Other Resources: This product is also available on the following platforms:

Archives of Nethys

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Better than Book 3, But Still Not Good

2/5

This book is a mirror to the scenario in Book 3. The PCs are tasked with exploring a lost city in order to find an ally who can give them the story of what's going on in the AP. The exploration mechanics of Book 3 were decidedly half-baked, and turned what should have been a compelling game of interaction with the native denizens through diplomacy and force into a hack and slash "kill them all" scenario.

This book seeks to take another crack at the scenario, and while the results are better, they're not that much better. Diplomacy is a very real part of this book, as there are multiple factions in the city and at least two of them can be recruited to the PC's side. Once this is done, the PCs have to break into a large dungeon to save their damsel in distress.

The exploration of the city is covered only very briefly. There are a few locations spelled out and a couple of scripted encounters. Most of the rest of the exploration is given over to the GM to make up. Most of the rest of the encounters are either random encounters, or wandering patrols from one of the factions. It's not very satisfying, but one could understand that they want to push the action towards the large dungeon and the rescue. Interacting with the two factions is fairly interesting and allows some opportunities for RP that were lacking from Book 3. It's not great, but it's not terrible either.

The dungeon, on the other hand, is kind of terrible. It's a large fortress where most of the encounters are with nameless serpentfolk patrols and soldiers. I cannot imagine how a GM will keep up a party's interest in this dungeon after the 4th or 5th encounter with 4-6 serpentfolk with the same stat block. It's extremely tedious. And lest you think that the PCs can stealth their way in, the book covers this. The serpentfolk are able to telepathically communicate with each other, so if you aggro one group, they're immediately able to warn the other denizens of the fortress. Aggro enough groups, and then they're all on alert and it all becomes much more difficult. This telepathy is very hard to stop and means that makes infiltration tactics, such as picking off wandering groups of serpentfolk, largely impossible. The dungeon doesn't have much diversity in encounters: it's mostly a couple of high-level serpentfolk leaders and literally dozens of low-level serpentfolk soldiers with identical stats.

These city exploration scenarios were likely just too ambitious for a single AP volume to adequately explore. After all, exploring the two cities-- or even one city-- could be the entire AP. If the GM was prepared to do a lot of work, it could be interesting. But they'd be better off scrapping the vast majority of the material presented in he AP modules and just homebrewing their own story based on the scenario of the "lost city in the jungle". After the disorganization of Book 3 and the tedium of this book, I'm not sure that there's much worth taking from the published AP material.


Just more monster farming

1/5

After cutting books 3 and 4 short because the only option is "kill em all" we really looked forward to this next chapter.
Unfortunatly we found that it just continues in the same direction. Farm monsters until you get bored. We dropped the rest of the path after two sessions.


An excellent debut from Graeme Davis

5/5

This adventure focuses on the PCs exploring an ancient, ruined city. Which is precisely what they were doing two adventures ago in "City of Seven Spears." Thankfully, the underground city of Ilmurea feels far different than its counterpart in the world above, which means there's little chance players will be feeling much deja-vu.

The primary adversaries in "Thousand Fangs Below" are serpent people, and the PCs will be slogging through a small army of them. Fortunately there are a variety of other enemies such as morlocks, gugs, drow, intellect devourers, and daemon-spawned urdefhan to keep things feeling fresh. There are also several opportunities for diplomacy, intrigue, and shady alliances here, leaving sneaky or socially inclined characters with plenty of chances to shine.

I would also like to compliment the maps in "Thousand Fangs." The cartographer did an excellent job with Ilmurea, and the serpent people's fortress (the titular Fortress of Thousand Fangs) is well done. It's essentially an enormous, coiled, hollow stone snake - really cool in other words.

There are four new high-CR monsters in the bestiary. Three of the beasties come from African mythology, while the fourth is the mysterious herald of the magic god Nethys. All four monsters were unique and interesting.

Speaking of Nethys, he gets a full write-up in "Thousand Fangs" as well. The author, Sean K Reynolds, is known for his excellent treatment of deities, but I found this article to be among his weaker pieces. Nethys came across as a bit bland. Yes, I understand that he encourages his followers to learn/create/use magic, but to what end? I thought the previous look at nature deity Gozreh, back in "Race to Ruin", was a much more intriguing piece. Oh well.

To round out "Thousand Fangs," we have a gazeteer of Ilmurea - the city in which this adventure takes place. There are some great adventure hooks to be found here, and a creative GM could keep his players occupied for many hours exploring this nifty set piece.

All in all, this is a well done penultimate adventure.


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Silver Crusade

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Graeme Davis ?

Graeme "Warhammer Fantasy RPG, 1st Edition" Davis ?

Holy crap !

Scarab Sages

Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories, PF Special Edition Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Charter Superscriber; Starfinder Superscriber

Well, the PCs ally with the Pathfinder Society from the beginning. Somehow, in reading this adventure's description, I imagine a venture captain muttering "They're coming to get you, Eando."

Paizo Employee Director of Brand Strategy

Yeah, it's totally Eando Kline.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

logic_poet wrote:
Well, the PCs ally with the Pathfinder Society from the beginning. Somehow, in reading this adventure's description, I imagine a venture captain muttering "They're coming to get you, Eando."

Not necessarily. We'll be setting it up so that the PCs get to choose their allies. And none of them will necessarily be "the right" choices. You could very easily play this AP wiht the Pathfinder Society as the bad guys.


This makes me happy!


Graeme Davis that's a name I haven't heard in quite a while! And an author I'm definitely keen on having a Pathfinder adventure from!

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Watcher wrote:
Graeme Davis that's a name I haven't heard in quite a while! And an author I'm definitely keen on having a Pathfinder adventure from!

I've worked with Graeme once before; he wrote a Freeport pirate adventure for Dungeon Magazine back in the mid 100s somewhere. I'm REALLY excited to get him on the AP line!


James Jacobs wrote:
I've worked with Graeme once before; he wrote a Freeport pirate adventure for Dungeon Magazine back in the mid 100s somewhere. I'm REALLY excited to get him on the AP line!

Me too! Or I'm excited to see it happen! For those who don't know, Graeme really helped put Warhammer Fantasy RPG on the map. He's going to add a really cool and distinct flavor to any AP.


Gorbacz wrote:

Graeme Davis ?

Graeme "Warhammer Fantasy RPG, 1st Edition" Davis ?

Holy crap !

You stole my words, that guy is a legend!!!


Sounds interesting, and a touch Lovecraftian which is always a plus in my book

And a nifty green cover to boot.

Speaking of covers, I really like the purple background you use for temporary cover pictures. Any chance of seeing that as an actual background for one of the paths ?


The 1st sentence in the product description seems cut off...

Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer

BenS wrote:
The 1st sentence in the product description seems cut off...

Oops... that first fragment was actually a remnant of the description of #40. I've removed it. Thanks!

Scarab Sages

Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories, PF Special Edition Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Charter Superscriber; Starfinder Superscriber

Any chance the Nethys article will include a prestige class to extend the Mystic Theurge for four more levels?

Paizo Employee Creative Director

logic_poet wrote:
Any chance the Nethys article will include a prestige class to extend the Mystic Theurge for four more levels?

Nope. No chance at all. The point of the Mystic Theurge class is that you trade off those four levels in return for getting to play two spellcasters at once.

Scarab Sages

Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories, PF Special Edition Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Charter Superscriber; Starfinder Superscriber
James Jacobs wrote:
logic_poet wrote:
Any chance the Nethys article will include a prestige class to extend the Mystic Theurge for four more levels?
Nope. No chance at all. The point of the Mystic Theurge class is that you trade off those four levels in return for getting to play two spellcasters at once.

I had kind of imagined a prestige class with a prereq of spell synthesis that would work like the old Archmage or Hierophant, granting +1 level of a spellcasting class and the menu of weird abilities for spell slots, actually. I guess I should have been more specific. After all, any cleric of Nethys with 10 levels of MT is probably no more than 1 feat away from being able to go Loremaster for levels 19-20, and maybe earlier if they plan ahead and pick up that skill focus early, and have the faster spell progression classes as the stuff prior to MT.

While on the subject of Nethys, though, any details on ruincasting, the Magaambya and the tempest-sun mages in this AP?

Paizo Employee Creative Director

logic_poet wrote:
James Jacobs wrote:
logic_poet wrote:
Any chance the Nethys article will include a prestige class to extend the Mystic Theurge for four more levels?
Nope. No chance at all. The point of the Mystic Theurge class is that you trade off those four levels in return for getting to play two spellcasters at once.

I had kind of imagined a prestige class with a prereq of spell synthesis that would work like the old Archmage or Hierophant, granting +1 level of a spellcasting class and the menu of weird abilities for spell slots, actually. I guess I should have been more specific. After all, any cleric of Nethys with 10 levels of MT is probably no more than 1 feat away from being able to go Loremaster for levels 19-20, and maybe earlier if they plan ahead and pick up that skill focus early, and have the faster spell progression classes as the stuff prior to MT.

While on the subject of Nethys, though, any details on ruincasting, the Magaambya and the tempest-sun mages in this AP?

WAY too early to start revealing that level of detail. The articles, in some cases, haven't even been assigned to authors yet, in fact. (Although Sean WILL be writing the Nethys article.)

Scarab Sages

Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories, PF Special Edition Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Charter Superscriber; Starfinder Superscriber

There are a lot of numbers in the names of this AP. Since you already have "Thousand" in #36 as well, I wonder if the Azlanti theme would be better served with "Myriad." Is it too late to change?


logic_poet wrote:
There are a lot of numbers in the names of this AP. Since you already have "Thousand" in #36 as well, I wonder if the Azlanti theme would be better served with "Myriad." Is it too late to change?

Would you say there is a PLETHORA of fangs below, Jefe?

i'm really looking forward to this one. i've really loved Mr. Davis' Freeport work.

Scarab Sages

Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories, PF Special Edition Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Charter Superscriber; Starfinder Superscriber
voodoo chili wrote:
logic_poet wrote:
There are a lot of numbers in the names of this AP. Since you already have "Thousand" in #36 as well, I wonder if the Azlanti theme would be better served with "Myriad." Is it too late to change?

Would you say there is a PLETHORA of fangs below, Jefe?

i'm really looking forward to this one. i've really loved Mr. Davis' Freeport work.

I'm sure the adventure will be good; I'm just worried that folks might get the idea there's a one-to-one, onto correspondence between this and #36. Like this one will be The Revenge of The Cosmic Dentist, with 1 scream per fang.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

logic_poet wrote:
voodoo chili wrote:
logic_poet wrote:
There are a lot of numbers in the names of this AP. Since you already have "Thousand" in #36 as well, I wonder if the Azlanti theme would be better served with "Myriad." Is it too late to change?

Would you say there is a PLETHORA of fangs below, Jefe?

i'm really looking forward to this one. i've really loved Mr. Davis' Freeport work.
I'm sure the adventure will be good; I'm just worried that folks might get the idea there's a one-to-one, onto correspondence between this and #36. Like this one will be The Revenge of The Cosmic Dentist, with 1 scream per fang.

That would be an unusual logical leap, since the two volumes are separated by about a half year of time and are in different Adventrue Paths. It's already been solicited, in any event, so while it's not too late to change the title, it's not likely to happen.

In any case, "The Myriad Fangs Below" or "The Plethora of Fangs Below" don't sound NEARLY as evocative as "The Thousand Fangs Below," if only for the loss of the TH consonance between "The" and "Thousand" and the S consonance between "Thousand" and "Fangs."

Dark Archive

James Jacobs wrote:
In any case, "The Myriad Fangs Below" or "The Plethora of Fangs Below" don't sound NEARLY as evocative as "The Thousand Fangs Below," if only for the loss of the TH consonance between "The" and "Thousand" and the S consonance between "Thousand" and "Fangs."

What about: A Lot More Than Thousand Fangs Below, Possibly Even a Myriad Fangs Below!

That has it all.


voodoo chili wrote:
Would you say there is a PLETHORA of fangs below, Jefe?

Si, El Guapo.

Sovereign Court

Tharen the Damned wrote:


What about: A Lot More Than Thousand Fangs Below, Possibly Even a Myriad Fangs Below!

I like "The Ventral Kilofang"


With a suitable musical theme:

"One Thousand Fangs Below!"

RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32

Hmmmm ... the temp art gives the impression that this adventure will include some underwater elements. :)

I wonder if there is any truth to that rumor?

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Lord Fyre wrote:

Hmmmm ... the temp art gives the impression that this adventure will include some underwater elements. :)

I wonder if there is any truth to that rumor?

None whatsoever. There's no underwater stuff in the adventure.

Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer

The cover image and description have been updated to match the finished product.

Dark Archive

Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

Pretty cool cover.


James Jacobs wrote:
Watcher wrote:
Graeme Davis that's a name I haven't heard in quite a while! And an author I'm definitely keen on having a Pathfinder adventure from!
I've worked with Graeme once before; he wrote a Freeport pirate adventure for Dungeon Magazine back in the mid 100s somewhere. I'm REALLY excited to get him on the AP line!

I think I bought Graeme's work back in the mid-nineties, purchased the six-part series for The Enemy Within Campaign, and fell in love with a game that totally trumped our 2nd edition game at the time. Now you say his name and I have the same reaction as when I hear "Monte Cook is in the house!"

Paizo is awesome at snapping up great writers.

Dark Archive

Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

The chick on page 45 has a really freaking long tail.

Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer

Dark_Mistress wrote:
The chick on page 45 has a really freaking long tail.

Not so loud—she's sensitive about it.

Sovereign Court

Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Charter Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber
James Jacobs wrote:
Watcher wrote:
Graeme Davis that's a name I haven't heard in quite a while! And an author I'm definitely keen on having a Pathfinder adventure from!
I've worked with Graeme once before; he wrote a Freeport pirate adventure for Dungeon Magazine back in the mid 100s somewhere. I'm REALLY excited to get him on the AP line!

Dungeon 107 - a really really good adventure, that I have used to start my Freeport campaign in Greyhawk. Can't wait to read his newest opus (i.e. "Thousand Fangs Below").


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

Didn't he write the Adlerweg modules a long time ago for AD&D? I think "The Sentinel" and "The Gauntlet".

Silver Crusade

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Screw D&D, Graeme Davis is THE man when it comes to Warhammer RPG and several White Wolf books. He wrote some of the best early Vampire books and Wraith: Oblivion. Also, GURPS. I'm so excited that this legendary person is writing a Pathfinder module, wohoo !


Geez, this is an amazing adventure - probably my favorite since Sound of a Thousand Screams. Hopefully Paizo can get Graeme Davis on board for more projects.

Liberty's Edge

Pathfinder Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

A question on the Nethys article: How does this affect the classes of the APG? I'm planning on allowing Witches, Summoners and Inquisitors to use the new spell and the revised spell list simply because given the description of Nethys I can't imagine them not being equally welcome. Just raising it as a point of interest.


I just wanted to say that the Wizard Ezren is really sad because as a level 13 Wizard with his Int he should have 2 7th level spells, but his 'player' apparently forgot to make note of that when he gained his most recent level. Fortunately, Kyra's 'player' wasn't so negligent. :)

-regarding the NPCs in the back of the book-

Silver Crusade

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Paradygmatic wrote:

I just wanted to say that the Wizard Ezren is really sad because as a level 13 Wizard with his Int he should have 2 7th level spells, but his 'player' apparently forgot to make note of that when he gained his most recent level. Fortunately, Kyra's 'player' wasn't so negligent. :)

-regarding the NPCs in the back of the book-

You can as well as forget about these, they're going away from Carrion Crown on. Apparently the only reason for their existence was for folks to argue over stats.


Gorbacz wrote:
Paradygmatic wrote:

I just wanted to say that the Wizard Ezren is really sad because as a level 13 Wizard with his Int he should have 2 7th level spells, but his 'player' apparently forgot to make note of that when he gained his most recent level. Fortunately, Kyra's 'player' wasn't so negligent. :)

-regarding the NPCs in the back of the book-

You can as well as forget about these, they're going away from Carrion Crown on. Apparently the only reason for their existence was for folks to argue over stats.

Ah, I remember there being some discussion about that, but I didn't know it had been finalized.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Gorbacz wrote:
Paradygmatic wrote:

I just wanted to say that the Wizard Ezren is really sad because as a level 13 Wizard with his Int he should have 2 7th level spells, but his 'player' apparently forgot to make note of that when he gained his most recent level. Fortunately, Kyra's 'player' wasn't so negligent. :)

-regarding the NPCs in the back of the book-

You can as well as forget about these, they're going away from Carrion Crown on. Apparently the only reason for their existence was for folks to argue over stats.

Not quite true... although that's certainly ended UP being the main reason.

Dark Archive

Is it me, or that front cover art of Kline look like something that would be found on a video game/MMO?

Paizo Employee Creative Director

joela wrote:
Is it me, or that front cover art of Kline look like something that would be found on a video game/MMO?

Not sure why you'd say that about this cover and not the other 40 some covers, honestly...

Dark Archive

James Jacobs wrote:
joela wrote:
Is it me, or that front cover art of Kline look like something that would be found on a video game/MMO?
Not sure why you'd say that about this cover and not the other 40 some covers, honestly...

This one, especially, caught my eye.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

joela wrote:
James Jacobs wrote:
joela wrote:
Is it me, or that front cover art of Kline look like something that would be found on a video game/MMO?
Not sure why you'd say that about this cover and not the other 40 some covers, honestly...
This one, especially, caught my eye.

(shrug)

Since fantasy MMO video games tend to use the same style of art we do (and in some cases, the same ARTISTS we do), I suppose it's not surprising.

Silver Crusade

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

I don't see anything MMO-ish about the art ... unless you think that shoulderpads = MMO :)

Dark Archive

James Jacobs wrote:
joela wrote:
James Jacobs wrote:
joela wrote:
Is it me, or that front cover art of Kline look like something that would be found on a video game/MMO?
Not sure why you'd say that about this cover and not the other 40 some covers, honestly...
This one, especially, caught my eye.

(shrug)

Since fantasy MMO video games tend to use the same style of art we do (and in some cases, the same ARTISTS we do), I suppose it's not surprising.

I don't play video games and MMOs. I've been inundated recently by various game PRs to review and posts so that's probably why I noticed the cover.

Dark Archive

Gorbacz wrote:
I don't see anything MMO-ish about the art ... unless you think that shoulderpads = MMO :)

It was actually the face that caught my eye. Reminded me of some of those shoot-em-up characters in video and MMOs games.

Silver Crusade

Anyone else notice that Nethys didn't get a portrait in his article like the other gods. Instead there was a picture of a lady rocking the half-face.

Hmm......he's note swiping from Gozreh's schtick is he? ;)

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Mikaze wrote:

Anyone else notice that Nethys didn't get a portrait in his article like the other gods. Instead there was a picture of a lady rocking the half-face.

Hmm......he's note swiping from Gozreh's schtick is he? ;)

That was a mixup at the art order stage—the picture of Nethys is the half-page horizontal opener at the start of the article, while the picture of a cleric doing her thing is the vertical one.

Dark Archive

James Jacobs wrote:
Mikaze wrote:

Anyone else notice that Nethys didn't get a portrait in his article like the other gods. Instead there was a picture of a lady rocking the half-face.

Hmm......he's note swiping from Gozreh's schtick is he? ;)

That was a mixup at the art order stage—the picture of Nethys is the half-page horizontal opener at the start of the article, while the picture of a cleric doing her thing is the vertical one.

Oh! Thought Nethys just assumed a female form.

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