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Like many others, I have sent an proposal for Scenario #28, the one with the fell song from the Mwangi ruins. As it went back with a kick in the ass and it is incapable to tell me what it did wrong on Paizo exam chamber, I will be gratefull for every opinion or advice that can help me to understand what was wrong in my process of scenario crafting.
Before you start reading, know that I used x/x to represent the number of monsters or their CR, for each tier lvl required (7-8/ 10-11).
Here it is, hidding shyly behind this button...
Lyrics of Extinction
by Cristian Bodea
Introduction
Two months ago, Venture-Captain Marcus Ianoh, a midlle age andoran, had a private meeting with the Decemvirate. He was accompanied by his assistant, an 7/10 level pathfinder chronicler, Ethal, a young female wild elf, who had been freed by him from slavery years ago.
Marcus informed the Decemvirate that he had discovered the existence of a fell song, which had destroyed one of the ancient civilizations from Garund, and that he knew were it could be found and how to dechiper it. He asked for the Society help to organize a discreet expedition in the Mwangi Expanse and this task was put on the PCs shoulders.
But, this information got to the Darklight Sisterhood long ears, and two agents, Alixia Darklight and the erinyes Tertalha, were dispatched with the mission to obtain that fell song and to eliminate the Pathfinders. With discretion, if was possible…
* If you don’t want the Darklights, the villain could be replaced by a corupted Pathfinder.
Summary
After one week of journey through Mwangi jungle, the expedition is at only four days from the ruins. At sunset, a group of Unseen Lizardfolks kiddnaps the Venture-Captain and disappears. Guided by Ethal, the party track them, killing a pygmy patrol on their way. After two days, they reach the lizardfolk marsh and find, from their tribe shaman, that a demon witch had stolen their eggs and forced them to do her will.
On the fourth day, the PCs upon some corpses, wich tell them that Marcus kiddnapers had meet an Mwangi hunting party and six lizardfolks lie dead. The next day takes them closer to the ruins, but Alixia sends the remaining Unseens to bring their heads in exchange for the eggs. Finally, the PCs fight with the Darklight party and find the thruth about them. And, also, about their chronicler…
*If you expected a ruin exploration, like in J3, the encounters can be adapted, keeping the main protagonists and the plot. Or making a sequel. Or a module...
Encounters
EL 8/11: Unseen kidnappers
A group of Unseen Lizardfolk ambuscades the expedition and runs with Marcus, leaving 2/5 Girallions (CR 6) behind them.
EL 9/11: Pygmy mistakes
Tracking the lizardfolks, the party is intercepted by a pygmy patrol and must fight with 5/7 Pygmy Keches (CR 3) and 1/2 Leopards (CR 2).
EL 8/12+RP: Draconic negotiations
As they reach at The Unseen settlement, Ethal suggest that it would be better to negotiate, but the PCs would have the final word. Anyway, even if they listen to her, 3/7 Unseen Guards (CR 4) will attack them on sight. Ethal asks the PCs to fight defensivelly, but the battle is interrupted after 3/5 round by the tribe shaman (CR 3). If the PCs stop and don’t kill the guards, the shaman demand them to leave, but Ethal, knowing Draconic, can convince her to tell them about the Darklight sisters trickery. If the PCs kill the guards, the shaman will refuse to talk with them. If they kill the shaman too, they must face the rage of 3/7 Unseen Stalkers (CR 5) and 10/20 Unseen Females (CR 1). If they run, only the stalkers follow for 1 hour, with a 75% chance to catch them.
EL 10/13: Heads for the eggs
Approaching the ruins, the PCs are attacked by 3/7 Unseen Stalkers (CR 5), sent by Alixia. Ethal tries for 3 rounds to convince the Lizard King (CR 8/10) that this is not his war, but she fail. (“How can I exchange the life of our childrens for yours?”)
EL 10/14: Meet the Darklights
At the ruins, the party confronts Alixia (CR 9/13), Tertalha (CR 7/11), 1 crepitus (CR 5) and 2/4 barbazu (CR 5). To even the odds, Ethal casts Call down the Legends/Lay of exalted deeds. If Alixia feels that all is lost, she tells Tertalha to fly with the Marcus transcription and tries to execute him.
Conclusion
If Ethal and/or Marcus survives, PCs find that she is the only one who can translate the fell song and that they switched roles expecting the information leak. Marcus has lead Alixia to the real ruins, knowing that Ethal will come after him anyway.
If both Ethal and Marcus die, the PCs must, at least, copy the song and take it to the Decemvirate.
If Tertalha escape, the Darklight Sisterhood will discover that Marcus scroll is nothing but a mockery.
And, if they don`t committed Unseen xenocide, someone could return the eggs to the shaman.
Exactly 750 words...
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To help you understand some of the decisions I took, I must tell you a few things:
- I never played a roleplaying game and I started to learn about D&D and Pathfinder from octomber 2008.
- I have read a few scenarios and modules, especially those two based on Mwangi. And I have read the setting books also.
- I did not named the ruins and I did not chosen a starting town point knowing that Paizo will provide all this if it was the case. Is their world and the fall of on ancient civilizations is something that I supose have a clear entry in their world database.
- I suposed that Josh would like more a kind of ruin crawl with some of those ancient peoples ghost and some abberations, but I liked more the "jungle journey" feeling.
- I knew that I take a great risk using some special Golarion features, aka Darklight organization, the Pathfinder Chronicler PrC and the Unseen Lizardfolk. But the setting was so right for the Unseens and the Darklights with their devils servitors were such a great villains. Beside this, because my goal was to susprise the players (not to TPK them like others I`ve heard!), the little trick with those two Pathfinders tempeted me too much to not take the risk.
- I thought that it could be an issue with the fact that they required too much space for the stats, but, scenarios being pdf only, I considered that the number of the pages would not be a problem..
- Maybe I upped too much the Unseens CRs, but I took in consideration that they are not normal CR1 Lizardfolk, their cameleonic ability being a great advantage in battle.
- For the sake of the "jungle feeling", like was the Pygmy encounter case, I wanted to put a Deinonychus pack feeding with the Mwangi and Unseen corpses. followed by one/two Megaraptors attracted by the battle noise. But I was affraid that there will be no time for that fight and i dropped the scene. Also, I did not knew also what plans have Paizo with the Dinosaurs in their world, as they tell almoust nothing about them in their setting books. Untill now, from what i know, they were used only in J3, wich is based in an isolated area. My suposition was that or they are very rare, living in a kind of Lost World valleys, or the Mwangi Expanse is full of them, being on top of the food chain.
- Derhii, the flying apes form J3, could be an interesting options for at least the second encounter but their are described as related with the fallen flying city and, like in the dinos case, I suposed that this is how Paizo want them. If I used them, I would make them the fourth party of the plot and put them to chase the PCs for killing their patrol.
- I did not had the space to write it, but, to keep the PCs in suspanse and emulate the jungle conditions, I have developed a kind of cross DC, wich would be used at the begining of each act and would determine the health condition of the PCs at the start of the encounters. One was the Fortitude check, in order to stat their non-lethal HP, and the other was a kind of Luck Check, from wich the PC with the lower score would have taken some penalties/damage, from an "hazard table", as if he/she was attacked by some animal or have been injured by some jungle things.
- A few details about the devils from Darlight party... The Crepitus (from LB1) uses invisibility to steal the eggs. Those two barbazu were summoned by the erinyes Tertalha and were charged to carry Marcus and the eggs.
I will end here by thanking you for your time...
A few comments.
Grammar. The amount of mistakes makes this a very heavy read. I'm guessing your native language is Spanish, or some such.
Stuff from sources other than the SRD. This either requires a considerable amount of space dedicated to backstory and stat blocks or an assumption that the prospective DM owns the books in which the monsters/creatures/organizations/prestige classes/whatnot appear.
Is this a rescue mission? When are the PC involved? Are they part of the original expedition or are they sent in after the kidnapping? What relevance do the pygmies have to the plot? You did notice the tiers assigned to this adventure? The CR's you've got here won't last a single round against a dedicated PC group. Also, what's a pygmy kech.
What happens if the PC-group slaughters the shaman and all of his men? How will they find their way to the next encounter?
"If Alixia feels that all is lost, she tells Tertalha to fly with the Marcus transcription and tries to execute him." - What's a Marcus Transcripion? Execute whom?
"And, if they don`t committed Unseen xenocide, someone could return the eggs to the shaman." This sentence is quite confusing. I'm guessing the intent is something along the lines of: "Unless the PC killed all the Unseen they can return the eggs to the shaman."
I strongly suggest you get a native English speaker to help you with your grammar.
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A few comments.
Thank you, Navdi for your feedback. I will try to review your proposals too. Now I will answer your questions...
Grammar. The amount of mistakes makes this a very heavy read. I'm guessing your native language is Spanish, or some such.
I am Romanian and I know that I have some problems with the grammar. But my wife is an english teacher. I am not sure about what mistakes you talk, but if they existed in the scenario proposal it means that she did a lousy job. Shame...
Stuff from sources other than the SRD. This either requires a considerable amount of space dedicated to backstory and stat blocks or an assumption that the prospective DM owns the books in which the monsters/creatures/organizations/prestige classes/whatnot appear.
Well, lets count those who need stats printed in scenario: one - Ethal, the elf Chronicler, two - Alix, the Darklight (Cheliax PF Society counterpart) agent, three - the Useen lizardfolks. Now, depends if it is necesary to have stats for the monsters that were published in some modules: Pygmy keches (Gamemastery Module W2 - River into Darkness) and Crepitus (GameMastery Module LB1 - Tower of the Last Baron). As we all know, scenarios are released as pdfs, so the space should not be a problem...
Is this a rescue mission? When are the PC involved? Are they part of the original expedition or are they sent in after the kidnapping?
It not start as an rescue mission, but it becomes after the first encounter. I have said in the Introduction that the PC are sent with those two Pathfinders...
Marcus informed the Decemvirate that he had discovered the existence of a fell song, which had destroyed one of the ancient civilizations from Garund, and that he knew were it could be found and how to dechiper it. He asked for the Society help to organize a discreet expedition in the Mwangi Expanse and this task was put on the PCs shoulders.
What relevance do the pygmies have to the plot? Also, what's a pygmy kech.
A pygmy kech is a kind of half-monkey, half man and were published in module W2. I wanted them to set the feeling of the jungle journey. I ould throw there another group of Lizardfolks, but I wanted to have more diverse encounters.
You did notice the tiers assigned to this adventure? The CR's you've got here won't last a single round against a dedicated PC group.
Harsh question... If I did not noticed the tiers, why I have included those CR there?!... But I understand the point of your irony.
You maz be right, but, as I never played D&D, I could only trust in the rulebooks. So, I took the DMG 3.5e, learned his math and tables and build the EL by the rules. Let`s take this one for example...
EL 9/11: Pygmy mistakes
Tracking the lizardfolks, the party is intercepted by a pygmy patrol and must fight with 5/7 Pygmy Keches (CR 3) and 1/2 Leopards (CR 2).
As the PC are tiers 7–8 or 10–11, the 3.5e rules learned me that all the monsters above make for a 9 or 11 encounter level. And that the PC get XP according the assigned EL and CRs. Now, if these monsters die to easy in battle with a party of those lvls, that is another issue. As I said, these guys are there for the flavour. I could throw there one or two big monsters, but I wanted a mob fight. And what jungle journey would be that without a fight with some natives?!...
Now, for the rest of the encounters I used the same math, but as you see, the CR of the monsters are a little more higher. Maybe they are too easy to dispose too, but I wanted monsters that fit in the flavour of my story and make the adventure fun. Also, not knowing for sure how much a fight with so many monsters can take (the DMG say, but that is theory), it seemed to me an time gaining solution if an encounter don`t last more than 30-45 minutes. But, maybe my estimates were far from the real play reality...
What happens if the PC-group slaughters the shaman and all of his men? How will they find their way to the next encounter?
As I`ve said in the Introduction, Marcus and Ethal knows were those ruins are. They could take any route as long they know the final destination.
Beside that, Ethal is a wild elf, so is born in Mwangi and so she knows the jungle ways better than anyone. I made her that way so that I can explain the safe "jumps" from an encounter to another, required by the scenario format."If Alixia feels that all is lost, she tells Tertalha to fly with the Marcus transcription and tries to execute him." - What's a Marcus Transcripion? Execute whom?
You have meet Marcus in the first line of the Introduction. Now, why do you think the Darklight party have kiddnaped him? I really don`t understand what is wrong in that frase...
Transcription (linguistics), the conversion of spoken words into written language. Also the conversion of handwriting, or a photograph of text into pure text.
"And, if they don`t committed Unseen xenocide, someone could return the eggs to the shaman." This sentence is quite confusing. I'm guessing the intent is something along the lines of: "Unless the PC killed all the Unseen they can return the eggs to the shaman."
Well, I tried a kind of word play within a joke. Your guessing is right, but I fail to see what was so confusing...
I strongly suggest you get a native English speaker to help you with your grammar.
Well, I think I need another wife first...
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Cristian, I think that you have a fairly good idea for an adventure here, but I also think that Navdi is correct in his concerns.
You really need to find someone to proofread your submissions after your wife has gone through them. Perhaps you could try the workshop site?
He is also correct that some of the encounters seem a bit light, but that is less of a problem.
Another comment: remember that you are writing the submission that you think is going to be the best for this open call. I don't think that you should waste words giving Josh alternatives for monsters, or saying that it could be a module. You should feel that the monsters you chose are already the best alternative. If he likes the rest of your submission, but wants one monster changed, I'm sure that he will let you know.
Keep trying!
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Well, it looks that my submission was a "critical 1"…
ME, the fancy wizard: I want to jump and tumble in the air, so that I can launch my fireball from above and fry the T-Rex with a lot of style.
DM (closing his eyes): Whatever your sick mind wants... Roll...
All the people at the table (chorus): ONE! And another ONE!
Thiefling prostitute: Holly Callistra!
DM (taking his Fumble Deck): Let me see… Well… The fireball explodes in your face and burns all your body. You don’t have clothes anymore and all your skin has turned black. You look like and extra roasted chicken. And you have only an eye functional.
ME: Nice!
DM: Wait, I am not finished!... You wanted to jump and tumble... Well... You fall in your head, cut your tongue with your teeth and swallow it. You still have some HP, so you can stand up, but your neck is broken and your head is leaning on your shoulder.
ME: What?!...
DM (writing in his papers): And I must lower your Charisma to 0...
ME: This is too much!
DM (with an evil smile): You think so?!... Well… There is only one more thing… Feeling that immense pain and seeing the horror in your companions faces, you go mad and run into the jungle making some desperate gestures and some kind of guttural noises. The Tyrannosaurus Rex abandons the fight and follows you thinking, “Man, this is how a dream comes true! I love roasted chickens so much!”…
Thiefling prostitute: Holly Asmodeus!
DM: Now, this is what I call a suicide with a lot of style... Let`s not think that the poor T-Rex had only 3 HP left...
Too bad that we can`t changes our characters in life...
Hi Cristian. I'm afraid I can't add too much to the advice you were given previously. The biggest issue I had was with grammar and spelling. I think Josh is a little lenient on it, but you'll want to edit your work more.
As far as the adventure itself, I liked the idea of the adventure. Some of the encounters do not work too well in the alloted time with the 3.5/Pathfinder rule set. Namely, any combat where you've got 10-20 creatures would take a very long time.
Don't feel bad about what you've submitted. It takes a lot of courage to put something together and send it in. It also takes some work to get to the point of someone accepting your submission. It seems like you are willing to learn and improve, so that is great. I encourage you to keep trying, and I look forward to seeing what you've got in September.