Pathfinder Adventure Path #48: Shadows of Gallowspire (Carrion Crown 6 of 6) (PFRPG)

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Pathfinder Adventure Path #48: Shadows of Gallowspire (Carrion Crown 6 of 6) (PFRPG)
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Chapter 6: "Shadows of Gallowspire"
by Brandon Hodge

A mad plot to unleash the greatest necromancer the world has ever known draws to its sinister end. As the murderous cultists of the Whispering Way retreat to their profane sanctuary, the powers of death align to resurrect their fallen champion. Bold adventurers pursue these villains, but can their bravery survive the haunted wasteland of Virlych, the accursed cathedral of Renchurch, and ultimately the towering crypt of Gallowspire? And will their boldness be enough to stop the Whispering Tyrant, the infamous lich-king locked away beneath Ustalav’s deadliest ruin, from being reborn upon a defenseless world? The heroes must test their courage against the servants of death itself in this, the climactic final chapter of the Carrion Crown Adventure Path.

    This volume of Pathfinder Adventure Path includes:
  • “Shadows of Gallowspire,” a Pathfinder RPG adventure for 13th-level characters, by Brandon Hodge
  • Nefarious plots and macabre menaces to prolong the terrors of your Carrion Crown campaign, by F. Wesley Schneider
  • An investigation into the most infamous liches plotting dooms across the Inner Sea region, by Adam Daigle
  • Laurel Cylphra’s attempt to save a soul in the Pathfinder’s Journal, by F. Wesley Schneider
  • Five new monsters by Adam Daigle, Crystal Frasier, and F. Wesley Schneider

Each monthly full-color softcover 96-page Pathfinder Adventure Path volume contains an in-depth adventure scenario, stats for several new monsters, and 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: 978-1-60125-313-2

Shadows of Gallowspire is sanctioned for use in Pathfinder Society Organized Play. The rules for running this Adventure Path and Chronicle sheet are available as a free download (561 KB zip/PDF).

DriveThruRPG: This product is available as print-on-demand from DriveThruRPG:

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

Fantasy Grounds Virtual Tabletop
Archives of Nethys

Note: This product is part of the Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscription.

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Are there errors or omissions in this product information? Got corrections? Let us know at store@paizo.com.

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Classic undead high level dungeon, err tower crawl!

5/5


A decent end to a dis-jointed yet fun AP

4/5

Overall, the conclusion to the Carrion Crown AP was a fairly solid part 6. There are a lot of unique enemies and challenges that address some of the issues of high level play. The locales of Renchurch and Adorak are wonderfully detailed and some of the high level haunts are uniquely awesome. All that said, there are a few negatives; it is a extremely combat heavy module, and with it being higher level, tends to bog down a lot. The end guy also has no correlation to the overall story and events unless you as the DM write him in to be so (involving him in earlier AP chapters). I give a more in depth review of the module here .
Overall, this has been a fun and solid AP to run but has also taken a lot of work to connect all the dots of the storyline.


Great if you like Dungeon-Crawls and Liches!

4/5

GOOD:
-Gallowspire is probably the most famous dungeon in Golarion.
It´s top levels are in here.
If you want to expand this adventure, "Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Dungeons of Golarion" shows the entire mega-dungeon in a cut-away style and details one chamber and describes the others.
Thar-Baphon´s statistics can be found in "Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Mythic Realms"
-The article about Golarion´s most famous liches.
-The adventure ideas for continuing the campaign have some increadible ideas and statistics.

BAD:
A very unsatisfying end to an otherwise very solid campaign.

UGLY:
With a more stringent backstorie this campaign could have been perfect.

There are less than 25 of this issue left - i am glad i have it, if you don´t: buy it!


Serviceable

2/5

As with Book 5 there's some good parts:

1. Creepy Virlych setting

2. Renchurch is atmospheric gothic dungeon crawl

3. A lot of great encounters, unique opponents (Lucimar, Gray Friar etc.)

But as others have pointed out this still ends up being a dungeon crawl in the end. I got my use out of this book by plundering it for stat blocks and some other elements (the Tyrant's Whispers) but I would think that groups running through this as is will find it rather grindy.


Shadows of Gallowspire or What we were writing about again?

1/5

The module is fairly standard without much that makes it unique. Combat and story are uninspiring and frustrating at times. The cell block with the lady is a wonderful way to kill your party if you dislike your players and show that the writers care little about a good story.

The story and pacing will just make players want to push through it as quickly as possible to get to the end to hope for some big finish but are left dulled and bored.

The entire adventure path suffered heavily from the writers wanting to do a whistle stop tour of Transylvania under a flimsy story pretense. The adventure itself doesn’t really push an inspiration at all and feels like your trudging through mud.


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Dark Archive

Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

Looks like this one will end at around 15th level.

Liberty's Edge

Thank God I called the Paladin back in #43!!


Dark_Mistress wrote:
Looks like this one will end at around 15th level.

=(

Why is this finishing at low level? I thought the target was 17th now

Dark Archive

Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Charter Superscriber
Joey Virtue wrote:
Dark_Mistress wrote:
Looks like this one will end at around 15th level.

=(

Why is this finishing at low level? I thought the target was 17th now

*Shrugs* Dunno, but at least it's still higher level than Council of Thieves which ended at 13th.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

We're only now assigning these, folks... no need to panic about level ranges or cover art yet!

My goal is to keep having these run from about 1st to 16th–17th level for the time being. This one will likely start at 14th or 15th level, but we're still in the process of getting the last few off the ground and writing started on them.

Sovereign Court

Each adventure looks really interesting but the blurb doesn't really suggest how they will all tie together into an Adventure Path. It will be interesting to see how that's done.

Contributor, RPG Superstar 2009, RPG Superstar Judgernaut

GeraintElberion wrote:
Each adventure looks really interesting but the blurb doesn't really suggest how they will all tie together into an Adventure Path. It will be interesting to see how that's done.

Yes. Yes, it will. ;-)


GeraintElberion wrote:
Each adventure looks really interesting but the blurb doesn't really suggest how they will all tie together into an Adventure Path. It will be interesting to see how that's done.

The PCs are on the trail of the cult "Whispering Way". That will lead them to Gallowspire. It´s as easy as pie... but not for the PCs, I fear. ;)


Awesome. I'm definitely looking forward to this AP.


LOL! Okay, this is a cute little AP.

1) Haunted house/spirits
2) Golem/Frankenstein
3) Werewolves
4) HP Lovecraft
5) Vampires
6) Liches/necromancers

Heh. Worthy of a chuckle (in a good way).

Dark Archive

Dear lord yes! I've always had a special place in my black heart for powerful evil spellcasters. While it is incredibly unlikely that we will face off against the Whispering Tyrant himself (instant party kill anyone?), is there any possibility that you will take this opportunity to provide stats for him?

Liberty's Edge

Paizo did it again! I just flipped throuh the SerpentSkull pdf and thought, wohoo, this will be hard to top. A day later CARRION CROWN is announced, and I already can't wait to DM it - if only SerpentsSkull would be finished already...

Anyway, I wonder, if the last part will allow me to include some stuff from Jabel Shammar (Ptolus) into Gallowspire...

Paizo Employee Creative Director

GeraintElberion wrote:
Each adventure looks really interesting but the blurb doesn't really suggest how they will all tie together into an Adventure Path. It will be interesting to see how that's done.

That's because of two reasons, primarily:

1) We're still ironing things out for this AP, and
2) We try to keep the spoilers in public places to a minimum.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Atrocious wrote:
Dear lord yes! I've always had a special place in my black heart for powerful evil spellcasters. While it is incredibly unlikely that we will face off against the Whispering Tyrant himself (instant party kill anyone?), is there any possibility that you will take this opportunity to provide stats for him?

No chance at all.

The Whispering Tyrant is one of the MAJOR villains in our game. His stats are essentially "epic" stats, and until we figure out how our epic rules work, he (and the Oliphant of Jandelay, and our demon lords, and our archdevils, and all the similar creatures) won't get stats at all.

RPG Superstar 2011 Top 16

James Jacobs wrote:

We're only now assigning these, folks... no need to panic about level ranges or cover art yet!

My goal is to keep having these run from about 1st to 16th–17th level for the time being. This one will likely start at 14th or 15th level, but we're still in the process of getting the last few off the ground and writing started on them.

I was quite happy when I saw that this wouldn't go past 15th level. Just sayin'. Avoiding that 4th iterative attack and 9th level spells makes me a happy GM. You can still do "epic stuff" at lower levels!

James Jacobs wrote:
Atrocious wrote:
Dear lord yes! I've always had a special place in my black heart for powerful evil spellcasters. While it is incredibly unlikely that we will face off against the Whispering Tyrant himself (instant party kill anyone?), is there any possibility that you will take this opportunity to provide stats for him?

No chance at all.

The Whispering Tyrant is one of the MAJOR villains in our game. His stats are essentially "epic" stats, and until we figure out how our epic rules work, he (and the Oliphant of Jandelay, and our demon lords, and our archdevils, and all the similar creatures) won't get stats at all.

You gave us Xotani though. C'mon.


Erik Freund wrote:
James Jacobs wrote:

We're only now assigning these, folks... no need to panic about level ranges or cover art yet!

My goal is to keep having these run from about 1st to 16th–17th level for the time being. This one will likely start at 14th or 15th level, but we're still in the process of getting the last few off the ground and writing started on them.

I was quite happy when I saw that this wouldn't go past 15th level. Just sayin'. Avoiding that 4th iterative attack and 9th level spells makes me a happy GM. You can still do "epic stuff" at lower levels!

James Jacobs wrote:
Atrocious wrote:
Dear lord yes! I've always had a special place in my black heart for powerful evil spellcasters. While it is incredibly unlikely that we will face off against the Whispering Tyrant himself (instant party kill anyone?), is there any possibility that you will take this opportunity to provide stats for him?

No chance at all.

The Whispering Tyrant is one of the MAJOR villains in our game. His stats are essentially "epic" stats, and until we figure out how our epic rules work, he (and the Oliphant of Jandelay, and our demon lords, and our archdevils, and all the similar creatures) won't get stats at all.

You gave us Xotani though. C'mon.

Xotani was built using pre-existing 3.5 rules, and in any case wasn't an epic level caster though... ;)


James Jacobs:
For some reason, at the time of my posting this, the product description describes this as:

Product Description wrote:

Chapter 5: "Shadows of Gallowspire"

by Jason Bulmahn

Shouldn't that be 'Chapter 6:', not 'Chapter 5:' ?

Contributor, RPG Superstar 2009, RPG Superstar Judgernaut

Charles Evans 25 wrote:
Shouldn't that be 'Chapter 6:', not 'Chapter 5:' ?

Not if you're Bulmahn. And drunk. ;-)

Actually...

Spoiler:

...Bulmahn is just another pseudonym of mine. I'm writing both chapters. That's why they're both called Chapter 5. ;-)

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Charles Evans 25 wrote:

James Jacobs:

For some reason, at the time of my posting this, the product description describes this as:
Product Description wrote:

Chapter 5: "Shadows of Gallowspire"

by Jason Bulmahn

Shouldn't that be 'Chapter 6:', not 'Chapter 5:' ?

Yup.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Erik Freund wrote:
You gave us Xotani though. C'mon.

Xotani is only CR 20 or 21 or thereabouts. And is on the weaker end of the Rovagug Spawn scale. And on top of that, the Rovagug spawn are designed and intended to be end-game threats for a core game—they're not intended to be legitimate epic level threats as such.

The Whispering Tyrant was a signifcant threat to a GOD. He needs to be at the high end of the scale as a result. He should also serve as a good bad guy to face against an epic level party as an end-of-the-campaign style, just as Treerazer or the Tarrasque can serve those rules for a core game. And since we don't know how high our Epic level rules will go yet (apart from the fact that there WILL be a level cap), we can't stat the Whispering Tyrant up. We can't even say what level he is.

Sovereign Court

James Jacobs wrote:
And since we don't know how high our Epic level rules will go yet

I'd like to vote that you go old-school and cap out at Level 36.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

cappadocius wrote:
James Jacobs wrote:
And since we don't know how high our Epic level rules will go yet
I'd like to vote that you go old-school and cap out at Level 36.

That is indeed my current favorite. Especially since that lets us cap the monster CR at 40, which is a nice round number as well.

Dark Archive

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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
James Jacobs wrote:
cappadocius wrote:
James Jacobs wrote:
And since we don't know how high our Epic level rules will go yet
I'd like to vote that you go old-school and cap out at Level 36.
That is indeed my current favorite. Especially since that lets us cap the monster CR at 40, which is a nice round number as well.

Or 42, cause you know at that point you should know the answers to the universe. :D

Liberty's Edge

Adventure Path Charter Subscriber; Pathfinder Adventure Subscriber

Hopefully we will see haunted castles and dungeons? I mean you cannot have gothic horror without them!


why not just make no cap......and only end your aps at lvl 36

Dark Archive

Pathfinder Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber
Steelfiredragon wrote:
why not just make no cap......and only end your aps at lvl 36

Because it's a lot easier to balance stuff and make it playable if you know how many levels you're doing it for.


James Jacobs wrote:
Atrocious wrote:
Dear lord yes! I've always had a special place in my black heart for powerful evil spellcasters. While it is incredibly unlikely that we will face off against the Whispering Tyrant himself (instant party kill anyone?), is there any possibility that you will take this opportunity to provide stats for him?

No chance at all.

The Whispering Tyrant is one of the MAJOR villains in our game. His stats are essentially "epic" stats, and until we figure out how our epic rules work, he (and the Oliphant of Jandelay, and our demon lords, and our archdevils, and all the similar creatures) won't get stats at all.

I´m going to suscribe for this AP, but I´m a little dissapointed, I was under the assumption that the players would face Tar-Baphon at the end of the adventure or we at least would have his stats to continue the campaign like in other AP.

Spoiler:
We had an idea of the stats of Kazavon in CotCT or Xotani in LoF

Now that I know that there is no chance at all for this to happen, is there any reason to buy a Tar-Baphon miniature?

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Boathar Kaay wrote:
James Jacobs wrote:
Atrocious wrote:
Dear lord yes! I've always had a special place in my black heart for powerful evil spellcasters. While it is incredibly unlikely that we will face off against the Whispering Tyrant himself (instant party kill anyone?), is there any possibility that you will take this opportunity to provide stats for him?

No chance at all.

The Whispering Tyrant is one of the MAJOR villains in our game. His stats are essentially "epic" stats, and until we figure out how our epic rules work, he (and the Oliphant of Jandelay, and our demon lords, and our archdevils, and all the similar creatures) won't get stats at all.

I´m going to suscribe for this AP, but I´m a little dissapointed, I was under the assumption that the players would face Tar-Baphon at the end of the adventure or we at least would have his stats to continue the campaign like in other AP.

** spoiler omitted **

Now that I know that there is no chance at all for this to happen, is there any reason to buy a Tar-Baphon miniature?

There's technically ALREADY a Tar-Baphon mini, actually. He was one of the first villains to appear in our Compleate Encounters line.

As for CRs, though... the Whispering Tyrant is at the far end of the scale; he'll be like CR 40 (assuming a level 36 cap). There's QUITE a bit of difference between something that powerful and the two creatures you mention in your spoiler.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Steelfiredragon wrote:
why not just make no cap......and only end your aps at lvl 36

Because if we make a game that has no cap and then only provide support for things up to level 36, folks would rightfully be disappointed and annoyed at us for not supporting levels higher than 36.

And just because we'll cap epic level doesn't mean we can't then do SUPER EPIC later on and raise the cap to, say 60. If there's enough demand for that level of power.

In other words, I'm relatively sure there's enough demand to make a level extension to something like 36 and justify our time in creating and supporting those rules; I'm not so sure there's enough demand to support much beyond that point.

Dark Archive

Hey James just a quick question. Any chance on getting an article completely about Tar-Baphon?

Edit: Even an an article minus his major stats?

Silver Crusade

James Jacobs wrote:

And just because we'll cap epic level doesn't mean we can't then do SUPER EPIC later on and raise the cap to, say 60. If there's enough demand for that level of power.

In other words, I'm relatively sure there's enough demand to make a level extension to something like 36 and justify our time in creating and supporting those rules; I'm not so sure there's enough demand to support much beyond that point.

You could just write a section on how to expand on the epic rules to break the level cap in an epic sourcebook.


Pathfinder Maps, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
Jeremy Mcgillan wrote:

Hey James just a quick question. Any chance on getting an article completely about Tar-Baphon?

Edit: Even an an article minus his major stats?

+1 Maybe once the God articles are done, we can have some on Golarion's major NPCs?

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Jeremy Mcgillan wrote:

Hey James just a quick question. Any chance on getting an article completely about Tar-Baphon?

Edit: Even an an article minus his major stats?

There's a VERY good chance we'll be revealing quite a bit more about Tar-Baphon during this adventure path.


When I first read about Tar-Baphon, he reminded me of Larloch in the Forgotten Realms, and since his scratched that same itch for me, I'd be disappointed if he were the "boss" of a 1-15 or even a 1-20 AP.

Dark Archive

James Jacobs wrote:
Jeremy Mcgillan wrote:

Hey James just a quick question. Any chance on getting an article completely about Tar-Baphon?

Edit: Even an an article minus his major stats?

There's a VERY good chance we'll be revealing quite a bit more about Tar-Baphon during this adventure path.

Awesome I can't wait.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

KnightErrantJR wrote:
When I first read about Tar-Baphon, he reminded me of Larloch in the Forgotten Realms, and since his scratched that same itch for me, I'd be disappointed if he were the "boss" of a 1-15 or even a 1-20 AP.

Tar-Baphon is one of the greatest menaces on Golarion. He's well above CR 20, and not appropriate to include in an AP as an end boss at all.

Unless you do something tricky.


James Jacobs wrote:
KnightErrantJR wrote:
When I first read about Tar-Baphon, he reminded me of Larloch in the Forgotten Realms, and since his scratched that same itch for me, I'd be disappointed if he were the "boss" of a 1-15 or even a 1-20 AP.

Tar-Baphon is one of the greatest menaces on Golarion. He's well above CR 20, and not appropriate to include in an AP as an end boss at all.

Unless you do something tricky.

Yep,he seems to get more press than any of Rovagugs kiddies or

Coct spoiler below

Spoiler:
Karozon the blue dragon from CoCt and that bad boy is well above CR 20. Tar-Baphon strikes me as being a quantum level above this again

On this epic level baddie scale how would you rank the following in Golarion in order of power

Tar-Baphon
Baba Yaga
Most powerful Runelord
Treerazer
(have I missed anyone of the class of CR 20++?)

Paizo Employee Director of Game Development

I think Tar-Baphon figured out how to be godlike without the extra baggage of having to be a god.....and in a same but different way than demon lords and such get there.

Contributor, RPG Superstar 2009, RPG Superstar Judgernaut

James Jacobs wrote:
Unless you do something tricky.

LOL! You tease, you... :-D

Werecorpse wrote:

On this epic level baddie scale how would you rank the following in Golarion in order of power...

Tar-Baphon
Baba Yaga
Most powerful Runelord
Treerazer

I think Tar-Baphon is probably still at the top of the list...though Baba Yaga might be pushing him, given that her threat spans entire worlds. The other guys (i.e., Runelords, Treerazer, etc.) would probably concern him. After all, they'd still pose a threat. But I still think Tar-Baphon could take them. I mean, he was going after Aroden back in the day...and that's the premiere guy/god in Golarion's history. So, yeah. Tar-Baphon all the way.

Dark Archive

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

The stated Runelord (said to be middle of the pack) is CR 20. Treerazer is CR 25 IIRC. Tar-Bathon is at the high thrities of a 36 level system, and I'm guessing Baba-Yaga falls into the mid 30s


Werecorpse wrote:

On this epic level baddie scale how would you rank the following in Golarion in order of power

Tar-Baphon
Baba Yaga
Most powerful Runelord
Treerazer
(have I missed anyone of the class of CR 20++?)

There's no way to rank Tar-Baphon or Baba Yaga yet; they could be 25th level or 55th level, we have no way of knowing. Both are capable of incredible feats such as...

spoiler:
killing gods (Arazni), making countries eternally winter for 1,400 years, creating Demon Lords (Kostchtchie), creating artifacts (Torc of Kostchtchie, the Jewel of Everlasting Gold), and so on.

As for other above-CR 20s, there's the ghost necromancer Geb, Kortash Kain (male ghoul wizard 6/cleric 6/mystic theurge 10), and the archmage Nex (at least 23rd level). There are probably many more who have been more discreet in their paths to power.


James Jacobs once said in a post that he saw Tar Baphon as a 35th level wizard, I think I remember.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

tumbler wrote:
James Jacobs once said in a post that he saw Tar Baphon as a 35th level wizard, I think I remember.

Sounds like the type of thing I would have said back in the 3.5 days. It could still apply, but the current official levels of anything above CR 25 are in flux; they can be whatever you need them to be for your own game, but until we get to detailing our epic rules, we won't be saying anything official about them.


Is this the last Adventure Path ? If this has been asked before I apologize for the annoyance.


Pathfinder Maps, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
robert wildenborg wrote:
Is this the last Adventure Path ? If this has been asked before I apologize for the annoyance.

Nope. The one after this will be called the Jade Regent (or something similar).

Paizo Employee Creative Director

The Adventure Paths are among the most successful things we do. They're likely to be the LAST thing we do too, which means that as long as Paizo's still trucking along, we'll still do adventure paths.

Scarab Sages

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

No doubt the forces of evil have an icy reception in mind for the PCs once they get to Gallowspire. Nevertheless, I think you mean to say that #48 will be the climactic conclusion...

Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer

logic_poet wrote:
No doubt the forces of evil have an icy reception in mind for the PCs once they get to Gallowspire. Nevertheless, I think you mean to say that #48 will be the climactic conclusion...

Sigh. Thankfully, this is non-final text, which I will try to remember to fix tomorrow...

Thanks for the catch!

Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer

The product description has been updated with the correct author.


Anyone else see the resemblance of this "sacrifice an innocent to provide a body for Tar-Baphon to possess" idea to the Voldemort-Cedric Diggory incident in Harry Potter?? haha either way, its awesome!

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