Writer's Workshop: Chris's Submission


Society Scenario Submissions

The Exchange RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16

If anyone has constructive criticism for my submission for Adventure 23, I'd appreciate it.

Pathfinder Society Adventure 23 – Tide of Morning

For tables of 4-6 characters, level 1-2, and level 4-5.

Prologue

Spoiler:

By now, most of the settlers living in the lumber outpost of Bellis no longer pay much attention to the Petroglyphs of Morning, a collection of rune-covered stones dotting the landscape. The weather-worn engravings are all but indecipherable --even magic produces nothing more than random phrases-- and while each of the stones sounds a chime as the first rays of dawn strike them, they have otherwise faded from the concerns of the townsfolk, who have more urgent concerns these days, with both the town druid found murdered and a lumber crew gone missing in the forest. But the Pathfinders, ah, their concerns are loftier than mere logging accidents. They’ve sent Venture-Captain Lewett the Bald to examine the Petroglyphs while trying to stay out of everyone else’s way. And they’re not the only ones with long-term plans.

Adventure Summary

Spoiler:

The party is sent to Bellis to assist Venture Captain Lewett, but one crisis after another forces the PCs to examine the town and uncover a plot to turn a powerful treant against the settlers. If all goes well, the party reconciles the town and the forest guardian, and also uncovers the secrets of the Petroglyphs.

Act One

Spoiler:

The party arrives in Bellis with reference books on runes and dwoemered stones that Venture Captain Lewett requisitioned. He urges the party to keep a low profile: recent disasters have increased the tension among the townsfolk. As he turns to consult the tomes, the party comes across a new emergency: a raft headed upriver into the woods has caught fire, and the pack animals on board are panicking. Quick-acting PCs can calm the animals and possibly extinguish the blaze. Analysis may find evidence that the fire was arson and was set off prematurely: if all had gone as planned, the explosion would have set the woods on fire.

Act Two

Spoiler:

The owner of the barge seeks out the party and introduces herself as Dukaina, a Taldan trader, contracted to help the locals meet their timber quota. She identifies Branas, a gnome log driver who’d threatened her the previous day, as her chief suspect.

When the PCs approach Branas in the Bright Falcon tavern, he panics and summons (Tier 1: a single; Tier 2: three) swarm(s) of bees to attack. As the PCs address the threat, a great bough breaks through the window and tears Branas to pieces in front of the party. Investigation may find treant tracks only 50 years away, leading back into the forest.

Act Three

Spoiler:

In the forest, the party comes across the hide-out of a trio of “Taldan” agitators, The (Tier 1: 2nd Level; Tier 2: 5th Level) agitators ambush the party to keep their secret safe, using the cover of the deep woods and some simple traps to their advantage. After the battle, records in the hide-out reveal the men to be Aspis Consortium agents; their mission, to bring Bellis to ruin, so they might harvest the Petroglyphs of Morning. (And if caught, implicate Taldor.) They murdered the druid, who had been acting as an envoy between the town and the forest, and they’ve enraged a treant to act against Bellis.

Act Four

Spoiler:

The party finds and confronts the treant, Skogal. With a respectful attitude and good will, the party might learn the lore of the Petroglyphs (carved by priests of ancient barbarian tribes, the runes recount the lineage of those kings, each with a poetic epitaph).

But the ancient treant might reveal, too, that the stones are latent constructs. Skogal admits that, enraged by the thought of a fire spreading throughout his trees, he gave the activation runes to Dukaina.

Act Five

Spoiler:

The PCs arrive back in town as Dukaina’s handiwork begins, with (Tier 1: two; Tier 2: six) Petroglyphs (3 HD constructs that can be fought and destroyed, or extinguished by erasing a single rune) rising from the earth. As the fight continues, Dukaina a (Tier 1: 2nd/ 2nd Level; Tier 2: 3rd / 4th Level) Rogue / Sorcerer, moves around town, animating more and more Petroglyphs until the party stops her.

If armed with the lore the PCs may obtain from Skogal, Venture-Captain Lewett unlocks the language of the Petroglyphs.

Liberty's Edge Contributor, RPG Superstar 2012

Chris Mortika wrote:

If anyone has constructive criticism for my submission for Adventure 23, I'd appreciate it.

Hopefully my suggestions will be helpful:

First of all, I like the Pathfinder Society hook. They would definitely be interested in discovering the meaning of some ancient petroglyphs. Also, I like how all your encounter have something to do with the adventure's premise.

Prologue: Nice setup. This sentence seems a little on the "poetic" side: "But the Pathfinders, ah, their concerns are loftier than mere logging accidents." That, however, is just my uninformed opinion.

Act One: The "explosion" you mention in the last sentence doesn't fit the raft being on fire. I envision powder kegs on the raft. Plus, who is "driving" the raft?

Act Two: "Years" should be "yards".

Act Four: The players could decide they're supposed to fight the treant, so their characters would end up dead.

Conclusion: It's not entirely clear what the consequences of failure are. It seems that the petroglyphs would end up destroying the town.

At any rate, I enjoyed the scenario, and I appreciate you giving us a chance to take a look at it.

The Exchange RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16

Thanks, taig. That's very helpful.


Trying again -- the server ate my last post :-(

Chris Mortika wrote:

If anyone has constructive criticism for my submission for Adventure 23, I'd appreciate it.

Pathfinder Society Adventure 23 – Tide of Morning

This is a great story Chris -- enjoyable to read. The events flow logically and all pertain to the main storyline. I couldn't find grammar or spelling errors despite trying.

Chris Mortika wrote:
the lore of the Petroglyphs (carved by priests of ancient barbarian tribes, the runes recount the lineage of those kings, each with a poetic epitaph).

Nice atmosphere. This has a great Mayan/Tik'al feel.

While the petroglyph hook is good, it feels like bait-and-switch to me. You do a great job of getting the PCs to the site of the action, but then tempt them with some (initially unrelated) save-the-day heroics. Even with a successful resolution to the adventure, the PCs may be none-the-wiser about the glyphs because the story is more about preventing the dastardly plot against Bellis. Others have commented that they liked the link to PFS though, so I may be off base here.

Chris Mortika wrote:
a great bough breaks through the window and tears Branas to pieces in front of the party

I didn't realize this on my first read through but I suspect this is the treant using its animate trees ability rather than acting directly. (The editors live and breathe this stuff more than me, so they may have picked it up straight away.) Either way though, this feels too deus ex machina to me.

Is there a plot reason to ensure Branas dies (I'm not sure what his story is -- maybe a betrayed patsy)? If so, you need to be careful of Speak with Dead at the higher tier. It's a potential scenario breaker. If not, then just let the PCs deal with Branas and foreshadow the treant's deadly strength elsewhere.

Like taig, I had a hard time initially envisaging the first encounter.

A couple of minor niggles:

Chris Mortika wrote:
The weather-worn engravings are all but indecipherable --even magic produces nothing more than random phrases-- and while each of the stones sounds a chime as the first rays of dawn strike them, they have otherwise faded from the concerns of the townsfolk, who have more urgent concerns these days, with both the town druid found murdered and a lumber crew gone missing in the forest.

Whew, that's a long sentence. Also, it suggested to me that the townsfolk were interested in the glyphs until recent events, which I'm not sure is what you intended. "concerns...concerns" -- rapid repetition of words.

Chris Mortika wrote:
But the Pathfinders, ah, their concerns are loftier than mere logging accidents.

As taig commented, this is risky. The editors may love it, or might hate it. It's a slippery slope from 'ah' down to 'gentle reader' ;-)

Overall, a strong submission Chris. I'd be happy playing or running this.

(If you feel like getting revenge and have time to glance at my rejected submission, I'd truly appreciate any feedback you might have.)

Grand Lodge

Chris Mortika wrote:

If anyone has constructive criticism for my submission for Adventure 23, I'd appreciate it.

Pathfinder Society Adventure 23 – Tide of Morning

Certainly, hope it's helpful.

The Petroglyphs are a fine idea for a plot basis and developed with a deft touch.

I was going to say something about the Taldan provocateurs, but reading ahead, they're not actually Taldans. Since the Aspis Consortium presence is secret from the townsfolk, I don't see who is going to give the Pathfinders the false information that they're Taldan agents. The Pathfinders might have an opportunity to question someone duped by the agents into the belief that they were working for Taldor - such as Branas, perhaps - or find their planted evidence implicating Taldor in the killings around Bellis.

I agree with others that the Prologue is a little over-written in a couple of places. It would only take light changes to pitch the language towards the editor rather than the buyer.

If the Society decided to send, potentially, six 5th-level operatives to escort the reference books to Lewett, in the face of his preference for a low profile, the books must be reasonably rare and valuable. Perhaps they're more than mundane books and include some mid-level magic items. Perhaps the Society knows of a threat to them, such as agents of a hostile organisation in the area.

It leads me to wonder what would happen if the books were threatened - for example, by a fire breaking out on the PCs' barge, jumping directly into Act One, which starts off a little slow and talky for my taste and with a slightly weak connection to the barge fire as written. Lewett could meet the PCs and brief them after this bit of excitement.

Act Two: does a treant have a reach of 50+ feet or yards (from the point where the PCs find its tracks, to the tavern where it attacks Branas)? It's hard to imagine its tracks would be difficult to see at the point where it lashed out to tear someone to bloody scraps, unless the tavern is built at the centre of a mass of solid rock, which is possible. Otherwise I think the tracks would be plainly obvious right outside the window. Thus the Pathfinders might have to work around the townsfolk's own response to the attack and the potential clue it provides the town authorities to the earlier deaths.

Or did you mean that Skogal animates a natural tree, already standing next to the tavern, to make the attack? edit: I see Meds had the same idea.

Act Three: I'd like to know at least the classes or roles of the "Taldan" group, to suggest their capabilities and how the encounter might play out. This is very relevant to how they were able to convince a treant to harass the town. Does the Aspis Consortium have particular known tactics that they could use in this encounter?

Act Four: "the ancient treant might reveal": I think you're unnecessarily hiding the next act here. If the PCs get that far, Skogal should reveal Dukaina's plan - giving them just enough time to rush back to Bellis as she puts it into effect.

The Conclusion is quite limited, though I suppose the immediate consequences of failure are rather obvious.

The biggest thing I think you could work on is to provide stronger and more dramatic links between the encounters, to weld them into a controlled and rising pace of plot.

The Exchange RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16

Thanks Med, and Starglim. Those are very good points, and I'm grateful for such careful analysis.

Community / Forums / Archive / Pathfinder / Pathfinder Society Scenario Submissions / Writer's Workshop: Chris's Submission All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.
Recent threads in Pathfinder Society Scenario Submissions