Seven Days to the Grave (GM Reference)


Curse of the Crimson Throne

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If I remember correctly, the Urgathoan temple beneath the hospice doesnt't have a lot of exits, right? So he could set them a trap, or just destroy the exit and hope they don't have teleportation spells.

In case that's not practical, I agree that the good doctor would not stay until the PCs emerge. He'd probably order all remaining guards to try and stop them, and then report back to his superiors. I don't see him fleeing, as the Red Mantis and the queen are not people you want to bail on. This would either be the Queen or Kordaitra, in either case they could encounter him again beneath Longacre; either as opponent or in a cell. The Queen could say he was executed, or that he just fled the continent on a ship before they knew of his trechery.

I'd also say that Rolth would likely be encountered in Old Korvosa, with the emperor. I also like your idea of replacing the Emperor with Rolth and Gaedren, I'd say they are similar enough in sadism and personality to have the stuff with the final blade and blood sport fit. Not sure whether they'd put up with Salvator though. And didn't Rolth hate his father or something? Long time since I read that part...


I know my version of Rolth that survived stalked the party through book 4 and 5, cut a deal with the Umbral Dragon from book 5 that they robbed of his hoard before freeing him of the chain spirit and they both ambushed the party after the party finished clearing out the curse of the Chain spirit, saying how happy he was that the party had given him a perfect new lab to experiment in, but "unfortunately my new friend here still holds a grudge (referring to the dragon he was riding)".

You could have Rolth just disappear as he was just a nobody on the Queen's payroll, and Davalus returns to a more regular role withing the Assassins to be re-encountered torturing and inoculating the grey maiden recruits at the end of Book 4.


As written,the only real clue to check the hospice comes at the end of the party and only if they keep the boss alive AND get her to talk.

I'd like to sprinkle more clues throughout the AP but maybe with the key piece missing until they complete that mission.

Anyone have any experience doing something like that?


I usually have Jolistina surrender before she gets completely merced or if she gets cornered, starting with "Alright, I'll take you to Rolth." Enough for it to seem like a surrender but still a sinister threat. That and Rolth's name drop should be enough to imply he is partially behind the outbreak. (She also usually accosts them inside the manor as soon as she gets a good look at them for messing with Rolth's stuff before in the Dead Warrens.)

If for some reason they still kill her or have no reason to suspect Davaulus, as the remaster decided to completely swap the order of events, then Kroft can simply grow suspicious, saying that she never trusted him, and so she sent two of her men who got sick with light symptoms undercover, and they have yet to return or be reported dead. In this case, just change the two still living people in the beds of Rolth's lab to be the two undercover guards.


I went a little more off the beaten path and added in a reflavoured and slightly reworked haunted house from Rise of the Runelords to which she had a key with an insignia on it, which allowed the PCs to make a knowledge history or nobility check to recognize. They then went and checked that place out and found hints on where to go next.

A smaller version of what I did could simply be to have something on her that points to Rolth and / or Davaulus. (Maybe a letter from Rolth that mentions the "doctor in disguise" or some such thing).
Maybe there's a plague doctor outfit in the house with a note in the pocket saying that she can use it to get into the hospice without raising an alarm.


Hello all!

Next session, I migth start the second tome "Seven days to the grave", so I started reading it careffully.

I would like your opinions on two topics.

- did anyone played it with some evil PCs? I think it will be ok as they some familly and friends in Korvosa. They will be interested to figure what is hapening (fingers crossed). I think they will help Grau. So all in all, I'm not too worried, but if anyone has some returns, I'm interested :)

- I'm am a bit dissapointed by Togomor NPC. I was thinking it would be nice to tide him to the existing plots. I was thinking he could be a kind of puppet of the Arkonas, or at least be working with them, up to the points they are defeated later on in the next chapters. How did you played him?

Thank you :)


Have you read the rest of the adventures? Togmor is possessed by a devil.

When you say “evil” what type of evil? If you need to persuade them there is always treasure. Or even the threat of the disease ripping through the selfish and evil PCs.


Arg, sorry. I must admit I read the other chapters in diagonal. So it's probably better to keep him as written not to introduce too many discrepencies. I'll check his story. Sorry for the stupid question then ^^' I'm glad I checked.

For the evil aspect, they are playing a thieves gang. They are nor cruel nor diabolic evil, but some assasins and thieves with some «flexible morale». So the promises of treasure, or the threat of the disease that will detroy their city, themselves, friends and families should be more than enough even if they are not the «city heroes». I just wanted to check. Thank you!


Also in escape form old korvosa, I get them impression that glorio arkona really wants to “save” the city. He could “volunteer” the group to start looking into things by having one of the lower level goons approach the group. I suggest Boule from the third module.

Or Cressidia could catch them and make them save the city as a penance for their other crimes, perhaps she sees a “good” in them or even a fight fire with fire approach, needing some “in the grey area of the law” actions investigating for a, I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine.


Togomor also isn't supposed to really even make an appearance to the party until book 3 beginning, and isn't meant to be a threat until obviously book 6 when they might actually need to fight him.

Something to be careful for with using Glorio (or even better Meliya) Arkona to have the party look into the plague is that eventually Old Korvosa gets walled off and put in mass quarantine by the Queen, as part of the events for book 3. This means they will lose contact with Glorio/Meliya, even through proxy by Boule. Also having them use Boule as a proxy kinda undermines the reveal that the Arkonas (who are also not quite human) are the real masterminds behind the Cerulean Society and not the pomp that is Boule.


Thank you both. It seems it's probably time to read the next chapters. I will keep Togomor out of sigth then, as he should be before chapter 3. And I was wrong, he deserves to have his own agenda.

Regarding using Boule or the Arkonas for chapter 3, even if I would like to foreshadow Boule earlier, I would like to avoid to undermine the revelation. I still have to time to figure that out.

I indeed played Cressida needing them to have a "grey area" strength. It was a bit far fetched, but ok.

So all in all, I keep Togomor descrete for now. And the Arkonas also will be more or less descrete during this chapter, busy to work on their own plots. I think my "not so evil" PC will bite on one of the hooks :)

Thank you!


The book really undersells just how bad Korvosa is through out the adventures. Cressidia goes into hiding with the rebels after Illeosa starts to disband all of the existing law and militia in Korvosa. By the third book, I had Cressidia and just a handful of other militia people working the fort. They were so understaffed they could not even leave to police the rest of the city. When my group asked to be “deputized” Cressidia said she did not want that attention on the Korvosa militia. The group needed to act in the shadows in case their actions would come back to her.

Another thing the game seems to underplay is all of the things happening behind the scenes, like Illeosa taking blood, taking down the sable company etc.


Did anyone else's players decide that their PCs would enter the Hospice of the Blessed Maiden through the roof?

My lot had their PCs climb up onto the roof shortly after midnight. At first they considered ripping off the wooden shingles in order to enter through the roof itself, but I told them that the new owners had had the roof extensively renovated. Basically: every single shingle was nailed down firmly enough that ripping them off would alert anyone on the upper floor. I also told them that there was a 10' x 10' stone protrusion on top of the roof. After they stoneshaped their way through one of its walls, they discovered that it housed "large wheels, gears, and thick oiled ropes and chains" (my invention to help explain how the freight lift worked, although I also told them not to ask me what powered the set-up).

I decided that the lift was currently at the top floor, so it was was just an easy jump down to the top of the compartment's roof, then a Disable Device check to open the compartment's roof hatch. From there it was a short jump down to the floor of the lift itself. I decided upon no interior lift doors, just the double doors at each floor (openable with a move-equivalent action). ("Occupational safety in Korvosa? You're so funny!")

There were enough odd noises coming from the roof/lift that the Grey Maidens on guard were not surprised, but they'd only managed to alert the Queen's Physicians in the upstairs ward.

Combat ensued (with a Silence spell in effect). Dr. D. eventually tried to escape in the cargo lift, only to be cut down just after he activated the special button. One PC was in the lift beside him as it started to descend to the basement level, and the rest of the party jumped through the open doors at the top level, either directly into the lift or onto the roof of the compartment. The session ended with the PCs in the lift, descending below the Hospice.

It's probably the wrong time of day (night) for the noisy cargo lift to deliver fresh corpses, so I figure that whoever is on guard in the basement will realise that something's up and be prepared to repel intruders.

Which leads me to the question of who is on guard down in the basement? I'm using the CotCT RE version, and it's unclear as to whether there are GMs or QPs. I'm considering having both types of opponents there ...

Also of note: the party didn't really hang around in the upstairs ward to investigate, and now they're about to tackle the basement. I use the benchmark method for character-levelling, and I'm wondering if I should even give them level 7, seeing as they didn't investigate the upper floor and haven't done anything at all on the ground floor of the Hospice.

Bonus small rant:

And let me just take a moment to vent about the PCs/players: this is not a subtle party (only the Bard has social skills) nor can they be bothered to do real investigative work like stakeouts and the like. (It was like pulling teeth to get them to investigate Lavender and they haven't even realised that fewer dead patient bodies are leaving the Hospice than live patients enter. Nor have they taken the chance of stealing a QP's mask and identifying how it really functions; in fact, they haven't even realised that the masks are magical. *rolls eyes*)

Furthermore, despite using the campaign traits, the group ended up with three orphans (so no real connections with anyone in the city) and an outsider dwarf from Five Kings Mountains (origin chosen solely to gain access to a particular trait) who's only lived in Korvosa for about five years. *headdesks*

/end rant


My group also entered from the roof in a same sort of fashion. Using silence spells and gaseous form they drilled a hole into the second floor room right outside the good doctors office. From there the launched an assault and fought their way down to the lower level. I as well almost had the doctor escape in the stairwell but they webbed him and stopped that.


My game just finished the Ramoska Arkminos encounter and I was curious on the amount of XP that encounter gives. They initially started to fight Ramoska, because of Paladin, but after several rounds the party decided to stand down and pay off Ramoska to release Ruan. Would you give the party the 38400 xp? That will push them well over level 8 and the advancement track suggests they would just make level 8 after the entire chapter is completed.


This would be a case where the "survive an encounter" clause doesn't apply and you shouldn't grant them the XP. Just because a level 1 party kicks a very forgiving solar angel doesn't meant they should be skyrocketed to level 11. Surviving the encounter means that you escape it, not it accepts surrender and return to status quo.

If they successfully freed Ruan, they just get the special "Story Award" of 4,800xp. They would have to properly kill Ramoska (or at least drive him into mist form sans a proper destruction) to get his reward.


AwesomenessDog wrote:

This would be a case where the "survive an encounter" clause doesn't apply and you shouldn't grant them the XP. Just because a level 1 party kicks a very forgiving solar angel doesn't meant they should be skyrocketed to level 11. Surviving the encounter means that you escape it, not it accepts surrender and return to status quo.

If they successfully freed Ruan, they just get the special "Story Award" of 4,800xp. They would have to properly kill Ramoska (or at least drive him into mist form sans a proper destruction) to get his reward.

Thank you for your response. I figured the large amount of XP was if the party somehow killed Ramoska but wanted to check. Giving them the story award keeps them on track to level according to the advancement track.


I have a question about the map for hospice of the Blessed Maiden on page 112. It says that the map is "1 square = 10 feet." When I look at the map, all the items drawn on the map are absolutely wrong for 5 ft OR 10 ft. For example if the map squares really are 5 ft big, then that means all the cots shown on the map are for halflings, because those cots are not even filling a 5-ft square. They're like 4 ft long. They're tiny. If however we say that each square is 10 ft then that means that these cots are 8 ft long, which is also ridiculous. Because the map appears to be wrong at either size, I'm not sure which size is correct. How are you guys using the maps for the hospice of the Blessed maiden?


They messed up the Blessed Maiden Maps. Both the Blessed Maiden *and* the basement dungeon are supposed to be 1 square = 10ft. Of course, there's the issue either way that the lift doesn't align, going from 10ftx10ft upstairs to 20x20 downstairs, but there's plenty of signs that both floors are supposed to be 10ft maps.


Hello everyone,

I'll play the hospice investigation the next session, and now I'm reading you and I'm starting to wonder. Intuitively, I've would have play the hospice using 10ft squares and the temple using 5ft squares, as written. It looks reasonable to me.
For the cots, I think a cot measures approx 8ft, and I guess drawing a cot that looks like a cot is also a part of the challenge when drawing the map. With the same logic, I would not care too much about the size of the drawn items.
The description of G13 is consistent with 5ft: "The open double doors to the east lead to a 100-foot-long hallway that slopes downward at a noticeable (but not dangerous) angle, slowly widening to a width of 15 feet before emerging into area G14."
Why do you think it's 10ft per square in the temple? Whitch one to you recommand to use during the game?

Thank you!


I think the issue comes from G7 and G5 where the room is too small with five foot squares. Not to mention G13 the green tubes are holding a large monster.

I think it is just easier to run it at 10ft squares rather than 5ft.


I see, thank you :)


Here's a question for anyone still on this thread. How would you have a party with no Brew Potion or Craft (alchemy) make a cure for blood veil? Is there an NPC somewhere in the AP with either of those that they could enlist? Or would you let them use some other skill like Heal or something?

Thanks in advance.


They could try to convince Arkiminos to help (he'd likely greatly increase his fee), as he is stated (at least in the original version of the AP) to want to "stop diseases" and considers his own vampirism a disease he similarly wants to cure. Ishani Dhatri was trying herbal remedies to cure Brienna Soldado that would assumedly need Craft (Alchemy) skill to make, so we can assume he has some ranks even though he doesn't have a stat block; that said the bigger problem would be when the church of Abadar (and possibly even Ileosa) swoops in to take control and financial benefits of this cure (with Ileosa probably even working to delay the cure until she decides it has sufficiently harmed the populations she wants harmed).

But all that said, Craft skills can me made untrained. If you have a high int character, they can try to make the cure, which is only a DC 20 check that takes a retryable d3 days of effort. Even with just a +5 Int, which any magus, wizard, or arcanist should have by level 7, that's an average 3 days to synthesize a cure to prevent further massive loss of life. Sure you save 500 instead of a 1,000 by the remaster's convoluted timeline, but it's still plenty for a party with no alchemist. It's okay if there's a little reduction in the benefit for not having the right tool for a job. That's what can make AP's even replayable, especially really well done narrative ones like CotCT.


In my CotCT campaign, one of the PCs is a Cleric of Sarenrae. That forced me to make up NPCs for that temple. One of NPCs is Ravi, a Vudrani pharmacist attached to the Sarenrite hospice, who is Cleric 2/Alchemist (chirurgeon) 5.

That was handy, as he ended up helping the party's Witch with creating the cure. The Witch was ready to cook up something in the lab behind Lavender, but decided that the help and fancier facilities at the temple would be better.

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