Throne of Night—Book #2: The Earth's Wound (PFRPG) PDF

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Explore a Lost World!

Build an empire beneath the earth! You have forged a fledgling realm that stretches from the deep gnome town of Fasturvalt to the drow tower of Vothys, through the weird Fungal Jungle and beyond. But can you hold what you have built against the many threats that would seize your throne?

And more than simply defending what you already have, can you expand your empire? Can you conquer a lost world of elementals, orchids and dinosaurs? Can you uncover the many secrets of the mysterious region known as the Earth’s Wound? Will you die in darkness or claim for yourself an ever greater Throne of Night.

Welcome to the second chapter of “Throne of Night,” a subterranean sandbox adventure path. Inside you’ll find:

  • “The Earth’s Wound,” a Pathfinder compatible adventure for characters 6th through 10th level written by Gary McBride
  • Full color maps and illustrations by Michael Clarke
  • Advice for running this campaign with an all dwarven party of noble explorers or an all drow party of wicked overlords
  • An optional system for creating divine patrons to support your band of heroes.
  • And more!

The quest to build your empire in the depths continues!

A Pathfinder-compatible 100 page full color adventure with a printer friendly version and a 9-page full color handout file.

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

FRM1008E


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2.00/5 (based on 4 ratings)

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Fraud

1/5

I would love to give this product a higher rating but it has been written by a fraudster, Gary McBride, who tricked 315 people into giving him $40,000 through Kickstarter and refused to communicate with them for 4 years now. Despite multiple appeals from backers he has backed over 520 other kickstarters since then, logging in every week though seemingly unable to respond to his backers products. Shame on Paizo for selling the products of a con man and allowing him to continue profiting from rpg fans.

For details of the swindle and Gary McBride’s backing record see https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/730004812/throne-of-night-a-pathfinder -rpg-adventure-path/comments


Squandered promise

1/5

On their own merits, books 1 and 2 of this AP are actually quite decent and if you're looking for material to plumb for ideas about a home brew campaign, the ideas here may get your creative juices flowing. My group loved their time as drow siblings and establishing their nascent kingdom, and FMG managed to create some memorable encounters and a rich environment.

However, these books do not exist in isolation. They were written as the first two parts of a six part adventure path. More than two years have passed since this book was released and we're still waiting on book 3. More than a year has passed since the author has deigned to give one of his "updates" on the project (which usually just consisted of giving previews of the artwork with no explanation for the delays).

After the grand slam that was Way of the Wicked (which you really should check out if you haven't already), I'm bitterly disappointed to see this wash out so completely. Stay away and give your money to a different company.


A Masterful, Ambitious, Original, Thoroughly Enjoyable, and Brilliant Part Two

5/5

For those who missed the incredible first entry in the Throne of Night Saga, I would point you to Book 1: Dark Frontier. However, for those of us eager to continue our deep adventures into the alien world of the Azathyr, finally we have in our hands Book 2: The Earth's Wound.

Those familiar with the work of Gary McBride will not be disappointed, he reprises himself again with an altogether too-human understanding of what kind of writing provokes drama in this world where there are few humans residing. I have only begun to run this module with my gaming group, but already I can tell you that the impact has been a roller coaster of emotions for them: without spoiling anything, the arrival of certain characters left my group absolutely torn as to what decision to make. Gary understands that the key to a great adventure is giving the party a good dilemma to chew on and seeing them squirm as they try to figure out the least painful answer.

By the way, I meant every word of the title of my review. This module, as all others from Gary, live up to the high production values, organization, and quality that we have become used to. There are more than a share of typos, but they do not detract from the experience. Really, the only thing that I wish was that I could see more of Michael Clarke's work: I want more maps, more monsters, more everything from this talented artist. This Adventure Path continues to be more ambitious than ever with (finally) the introduction of the long-awaited Kingdom Building rules. My only complaint is that these should really have been included in Book 1 (wherein our party first settles their own town), but that can only be a minor complaint because really kingdom rules can be found in the Ultimate Campaign book which I ended up using when I ran Book 1.

Few modules dare to dream on the scope that Throne of Night continually reaches seemingly without effort: my campaign regularly included several epic, massive battles between fantasy armies with climactic twists, turns, and conclusions between factions fantastical enough to break the mold of the everyday D&D drudgery of fighting the same old orcs and goblins. Throne of Night has the one thing all other Adventure Paths lack: imagination. I wish I could give you an example I am thinking of about a certain dinosaur with a certain magical item, but I do not want to spoil anything from your experience.

There is, as usual an incredible amount of value packed into this book, taking your party up to level 10. As before, you have the choice of running it with the spry dwarves or the wicked drow, and this time around the organization of writing seems much improved in this regard. As opposed to Book 1, which gave drow the short end of the stick a little bit, in Book 2 both races are given equal due. Really, though, no matter which faction you end up running with you are guaranteed to have outright the best roleplaying experience you have ever had, and if you don't then trust me your DM is running it wrong.

Before I conclude, I have a small request regarding the maps. In Book 1 we received an Overland Map that was character-free and just contained the hex artwork. However, in Book 2 we did not receive the same equivalent (i.e. the hex map is littered with character symbols A, B, C, D, etc. that can't be erased): I would suggest this be easily fixed as a small supplemental download from the FMG website.

To summarize, here's what Throne of Night provides for its players: exploration of strange worlds, challenging encounters, unique monsters, interesting factions, kingdom building, and above all great roleplaying dilemmas for you to puzzle over. Do you ally yourself with a race of these creatures or those? Do you explore this direction or that? What was up with that weird creature you ran into in that one cave? Worse, which one of your loyal advisors will betray you first? This city stands in your way, do you attack it or isolate it? Do you plan a siege? How do you plan to conquer it? What will you do with the citizenry once it's yours? Will you rule with religious fervor, with fear, or with justice? The Throne of Night is yours to construct in your image.

Here's to clutching our seat waiting for the next installment.


FMG's Ambitious Kingdom Building AP Continues...

1/5

Hello all. I am a backer for Throne of Night and, like many, I received my PDF copy of Throne Of Night: The Earth's Wound recently. I gave it a good reading over the last few days and thought I would continue my review of this AP. Other than a confusing dedication about opinion, quoted from Voltaire, I really liked this chapter. Seriously, one cannot procrastinate on a Kickstarter Project as long as the author has on this one and honestly not expect someone to voice an opinion. That said, lets get on with the review...

The dual storylines continue through this module as the Dwarven "Explorers" continue their quest for their lost clan home and the Drow "Overlords" continue their conquest in the name of their fiendish patron. Unlike the first module, the second modules dual plots run parallel to each other. The differences in the story are primarily the result of the players choices. Once again, the players are supplied with a large sandbox to explore and claim for their young kingdom. I like the Explorer storyline far better in this chapter than the previous one. The dwarves are given opportunity to make significant strides towards the completion of their quest in this chapter. Also, despite the plotlines running parallel to each other, there should be a huge difference between each parties experiences in each encounter area as a group of Drow PC's and a group of Dwarven PC's are very likely to approach these encounters from extremely dissimilar angles.

The production quality of the PDF is high, with full color pages throughout accompanied by wonderful original artwork. The PDF comes with a printer friendly companion PDF and a Players Guide. My only unfavorable observation of the layout is the dark page backgrounds tend to obscure the (also) dark text making the PDF difficult to read for those with less than perfect vision. Again, to be fair, the printer friendly PDF is easily read (as it lacks the dark background)and is just as lavishly illustrated throughout. On the downside there are many, many more typos in this chapter than the first.

In the back of the PDF the author takes a few pages to expand upon the Patron system introduced in the rear of the first chapter. He also introduces a portion of the modified Kingdom Building rules intended for use with Throne of Night and promises to supply us with more on this subject later.

Throne of Night: The Earth's Wound appears to be entertaining and fairly well written with a good replay value and, unlike the first chapter, each storyline gets an equal share of opportunities to further their goals. Parties playing each storyline are more likely to both feel a sense of accomplishment at the end of chapter 2.

Overall, I have to say that this time Fire Mountain Games is in much better form. There were more typos in this chapter, but I can overlook that in favor of the compelling adventure ideas contained within (for both storylines). Congratulations to both Gary McBride and Michael Clarke on what promises to be an outstanding follow-up to their award winning Way of the Wicked AP.

Just one huge glaring problem big enough to land a Boeing 757 on and store and maintenance it in. This company embraces apathy as a customer service policy. In addition to that they sell print copies of kickstarter stretch goals for months and months on end without ever bothering to supply their backers with those same stretch goals that they already paid for. Not that the backers have received any print copies of Throne of Night either, because they have not, despite the fact that they have been told several time to expect them "soon". First over fourty months ago, then twenty-four months ago and most recently two Decembers ago. At this point we have not heard a single word from Gary McBride in more than fourteen months. We were even promised a revised release schedule more than sixteen months ago and even that has yet to materialize. No matter how good their work is, it is entirely overshadowed by their utter failures to keep their backers informed as well as provide them with the rewards that they were promised. I am awarding 1 star, and only because I cannot award zero stars. I will revise this if this company ever actually delivers on its promises to its backers.


Webstore Gninja Minion

Now available!


Cool cover.

But shouldn't it read [...]through the weird Fungal Jungle[...].

Ruyan.


Have any other Kickstarter backers received their download of this? I haven't gotten an email yet announcing it or with the download yet.


I have.

Webstore Gninja Minion

RuyanVe wrote:
But shouldn't it read [...]through the weird Fungal Jungle[...].

Fixed!


Gerald wrote:
Have any other Kickstarter backers received their download of this? I haven't gotten an email yet announcing it or with the download yet.

I downloaded my copy this morning, Gerald.


Never mind my kvetching. It's here!


Really loved this. I highly recommend this to all avid reader.


Skimmed through the module, not looking for anything in particular besides for things that jump out at me. And I have only this comment after my skimming.

Because some people will complain.:
Why is there a full page, transparent background image of a Cloaker in flight? >_<;;; I know there's an encounter with one, but why a full page showing of the monster?


How kingdom builder is the AP thus far


Basically the same as in Kingmaker with a few fluff suggestions, a list of resources and a suggestion that you the GM adjust things as needed. The rules also change one kingdom turn being three months instead of one as you're supposedly playing a longer lived race.


It continues to be a fantastic framework for an adventure but, if your players are used to being led by the nose through an adventure, it's definitely going to take some work on the part of the GM. It is very sandbox-y, which is either a great thing or a handicap; completely depends on the group and the GM's initiative. The typos are driving me a little nuts (more than in Book 1) but I love the concept, the events/encounters seem fun and well thought out, and if the GM is willing to take the time to craft something to fit his/her players, it will be a lot of fun. Once we finish Way of the Wicked, I'm looking forward to running this.

The adventure is definitely structured around the kingdom building rules with some minor modifications. As mentioned, the kingdom "turn" is 3 months (rather than one) and hexes are 8 miles across instead of 12. The terrain types are also quite different (being underground).

I do have one question, though, regarding kingdom control DC:

Spoiler:
If you start with Fasturvalt and Vothys in your kingdom, after adding in the hexes to connect them, I would up with something like a control DC of 51. I didn't plug in sample stats for characters, but I have trouble believing a group of 6th level adventurers are going to be able to make that DC. Are we to treat the "passage" hexes the same as a regular hex, or do they not count towards kingdom control?


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Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path Subscriber

Regarding SnowHeart's Kingdom Control Concerns

SnowHeart:
I must agree this is a problem, not only in Control DC but also Monthly Consumption ie over 50 Consumption for both Settlements and Tunnels a turn.
Also a 3 Month turn could make claiming a length of tunnels take a long time.
Therefore I suggest some house rules. Without indepth thought perhaps the following or some variant

1) Whole tunnels can be count as 1 hex for Consumption, Control and Claiming (C/C/C)purposes from Point of Significance (ie Fasturvault) to Point of Significance (ie southern entrance to Fungal Jungle) provided they are explored. However both end of Tunnel must be the next Hex Claimed & Branches routes must be climed Separately
2) Tunnels do not count for C/C/C but Kingdom must pay a control surcharge of somekind
3) Tunnels can be claimed in batches of 4 to 6 Hexes for C/C/C purposes

That said I like the 3D towns and longer turns reflecting the differences of underground (though perhaps 2 month turns could be used if Players and DM want quicker development). Mind you perhaps a Underground Unique Building would be good ie Drow slave Quarters.


Thanks for info!


Commissioner wrote:

Regarding SnowHeart's Kingdom Control Concerns

** spoiler omitted **

Some good suggestions. Thanks!

Dark Archive

Oh! I missed the PDF of this getting posted.
I'm still reading through the adventure (the Kingdom Events look GREAT so far!) but I've checked out the "Underground Kingdom" rules.

One thing I thought about doing is, instead of switching to 3-month turns, is to just say that up to 3 months can pass before any vacancy penalties apply. That would allow for the PCs to be gone for up to 3 months (due to the long travel times underground) but if they want to then stick around for 3 months they can do 3 Kingdom turns. Something like that. While the PCs are gone, I'll just assume Income = Consumption without the PCs' direction. Haven't decided if I should continue to roll for events each month or just each Kingdom turn. Might play that a bit by ear.

One thing to consider with the very high initial control DC...

spoiler:
is the "founding a kingdom" section talks about the potential of starting a kingdom while the PCs are level 2. That would be nearly right after liberating Fasturvalt. That leads me to think the intent was for the PCs to take over the town and slowly expand/claim into the Fungal Jungle right from the start. Maybe also setting up several smaller colonies along the way?
The point is, I don't think the PCs are intended to just jump in and claim from Fasturvalt to Vothys... and the resulting DC50-somthing Control DC that would result.
Just a thought.
But even with Fasturvalt pretty well built up during the exploration of the Fungal Jungle, I'm not sure how close they could comfortably get to claiming all the way to Vothys by the beginning of Book 2. That might result in quite a bit of building time between the two books.


Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path Subscriber

Your idea about 3 months before vacancy penalties apply is a good one in my opinion,jenner2057. We are going to use a that for our campaign. However .....

Jenner 2057:
as noted in the adventure, the 'natural' place most campaign will start using the Kingdom rules will be after taking Vothys (indeed - the book implies this, since the party will probably wish to neutralise the Baroness and the threat of her retaliation ASAP), meaning the party will control 2 settlement with a large distance between. Thus the problem of long tunnels (which are difficult to use beyond mere passage ways) crops up. I hoped Fire Mountain would have planned for this but it seems to have slipped through. Still a few House Rules and community discussion should solve this.

That said, building Fasturvault from Level 2+ could be fun and quite an achievement and by the time the Party reaches Vothys they would have a nice mini Kingdom (though if you do this perhaps more frequent attacks by Vothys would make sense since the Baroness could ignore the rival Kingdom threat for so long).

Also both TON1 & TON2 are excellent adventures and I look forward to the continuing Story

Dark Archive

Absolutely agree with you on the natural place to start using the Kingdom rules.
I was just looking at possible ways to overcome the high DC of the starting situation...

spoiler:
with two settlements and lots and lots of tunnel between them.
Again, haven't ran the numbers, but starting earlier with some smaller settlements in between might work.

Overall though, I'm with you: I would have liked to see some rule mechanic where connecting tunnels don't increase the Kingdom's consumption and control DC quite so much while really contributing nothing to the kingdom. Although...

<Runs off to check something...>

Huh. I was curious about exploration times and noticed that a hex of just cavern passages doesn't need to be explored: you just pass through them and they're explored at that time.
That makes me think that maybe the intent was that cavern passages don't need to be claimed as part of the kingdom either. They just connect other claimed hexes underground and wouldn't contribute to size or control DC.
That would certainly solve the problem of high control DCs and consumption. *shrug* Might be one way to do it; just don't count cavern passages as part of the kingdom.


I'd have to check but I'm pretty sure it was mentioned within the text, that as long as you control both ends of a tunnel it connects things, and to not worry bout it.

Dark Archive

Grollub wrote:
I'd have to check but I'm pretty sure it was mentioned within the text, that as long as you control both ends of a tunnel it connects things, and to not worry bout it.

If you can locate that in the text, that'd be great! I just searched and all I can find is that you don't need to spend time to explore a "cavernous passage" hex (pg 92); you just pass through it and it's considered explored. I can't find anywhere that you don't need to claim a cavernous passage hex or that they don't increase kingdom size.

Though that sounds like a pretty darn good house rule, even if it's not in the AP rules.


hmm.. that seems to be it.. but i would go with that, if its causing problems in kingdom building.

I havent looked at the overall feasability of building a kingdom using the rules and how those things affect it.. but if its an issue.. i would consider that info on p92, and "errata" to make kingdoms possible.

The only other option, if players are forced into taking/ claiming every hex of passage, would also allow them to develop every hex to help support the kingdom ( as odd as it would be to say build a farm in a passage lol )

Grand Lodge

Kyonko wrote:

Skimmed through the module, not looking for anything in particular besides for things that jump out at me. And I have only this comment after my skimming.

** spoiler omitted **

That's just their style. They did that a few times in Way of the Wicked.

SnowHeart wrote:
It continues to be a fantastic framework for an adventure but, if your players are used to being led by the nose through an adventure, it's definitely going to take some work on the part of the GM. It is very sandbox-y, which is either a great thing or a handicap; completely depends on the group and the GM's initiative. The typos are driving me a little nuts (more than in Book 1) but I love the concept, the events/encounters seem fun and well thought out, and if the GM is willing to take the time to craft something to fit his/her players, it will be a lot of fun. Once we finish Way of the Wicked, I'm looking forward to running this.

Not sure why, but Gary's second book always seems to have the most typos. WotW was the same way.

Dark Archive

At least with WotW we eventually got a 3rd book -.-

Grand Lodge

increddibelly wrote:
At least with WotW we eventually got a 3rd book -.-

Yeah, I'm growing concerned. It's already been two Fridays since the latest date were told it was supposed to get here.


Where do they post the updates? Their homepage is pretty blank.

Grand Lodge

Devastation Bob wrote:
Where do they post the updates? Their homepage is pretty blank.

Right now there are no updates. At all. They even lost one of their commissions. :( The only place anyone sees anything is on their Kickstarter page.

RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32

kevin_video wrote:
Devastation Bob wrote:
Where do they post the updates? Their homepage is pretty blank.
Right now there are no updates. At all. They even lost one of their commissions. :( The only place anyone sees anything is on their Kickstarter page.

And nothing more since then?

Grand Lodge

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Lord Fyre wrote:
kevin_video wrote:
Devastation Bob wrote:
Where do they post the updates? Their homepage is pretty blank.
Right now there are no updates. At all. They even lost one of their commissions. :( The only place anyone sees anything is on their Kickstarter page.
And nothing more since then?

Nope. It's still just us looking for retribution and him still being quiet but investing money in other KS projects. And his products are still being sold everywhere with companies not taking it down because the KS has nothing to do with them.

Grand Lodge

For anyone having read the book, does anyone have a good estimation on how gunzarak, the true mithral, is supposed to be priced? Nothing is adding up for me. It seems like it's triple the price of adamantine.

Grand Lodge

kevin_video wrote:
For anyone having read the book, does anyone have a good estimation on how gunzarak, the true mithral, is supposed to be priced? Nothing is adding up for me. It seems like it's triple the price of adamantine.

While I have no idea how armor would work (although I have a theory), it's looking like the price of gunzarak weapons should be 775 gp/lb. So 275 more than mithral, which tracks as it's meant to also count as adamantine.

Grand Lodge

1 person marked this as a favorite.

AP ANNOUNCEMENT

Anyone who's running this AP, and is interested in more information on how they can complete it, you can come visit any of the following links. We're all in this together. No one's getting left behind, or made to fend for themselves.

My Changes to Throne of Night

Resource Document link on Product Discussion thread - You can scour through all 30 pages as well, and have a look around to see if there's anything you like, but the resource page what I feel is the most relevant information.

Sorry it took so long to post this, but I wanted to make sure I had finished everything first. It's been a long six years, and I can only write so much so fast, and it took quiet a while to find all of the art I'd need to get this far.

--------------------------------------

Stay healthy and safe.

If you'd like to support me monetarily, I have a Ko-Fi page. There's no obligation or pressure to do so though. Only if you feel like it.

Grand Lodge

2 people marked this as a favorite.

Reddit user Zorothegallade has gone over books 1 and 2, done a review, and listed all the fixes that need to be made to each stat block, and there's a few. The review is rather long so each were broken down to a number of parts, linked for your convenience.

Throne of Night Book 2 review and fixes.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

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