Malleus Maleficarum AP Possibility


Pathfinder Adventure Path General Discussion

Dark Archive

I love the Campaign Setting Material and combining it with my interest in the occult, and other historical documentation, brought to mind the idea of an AP centered on the Malleus Maleficarum (otherwise known as the Hammer of Witches). Seeing an AP focusing on the persecution of witches, hags, and perhaps even dark fey could provide many social levels of interest/ roleplay challenges, especially if the nation of Andoran is involved.

This could see a return to some key regions of Golarion such as Ustalav, Irrisen, as well as some new faces including but not limited to the Darklands, the River Kingdoms, Nirmathas, Nidal, and others as well.

You could approach the campaign from the angle of the persecution of witches and how an uprising has made the need for such a document to come into political play. The banning together of several churches which either endorse the document or oppose it plays into the hands of the PCs and how they approach these situations regarding the covens across the inner sea. There is also the angle that it is the rise of the Covens of the Inner Sea and how their impact on the political map of Golarion could turn the futures of many nations to ash and disarray if their plan should succeed. Despite the political forefront the PCs must see an end to this matter before this document comes to pass. Many stories could be told aside from these two but they are examples of how the story could be viewed in a larger scale.

I am interested to hear the thoughts and ideas of others and the links to the Malleus Maleficarum can be found here and here. Thank you all for your time.

Community Manager

Removed a post. While we realize that the US politics are bound to come up on our boards, please leave it out of discussion threads and in the Off Topic forum.


Sorry but I'm gonna be blunt:

As far as I'm concerned, making that piece of garbage some people dare to call a book the focus on an AP is, in a nutshell, spitting on the graves of tens of thousands (or perhaps more) of innocent women and practitioners of other faiths.

Silver Crusade

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Berselius wrote:

Sorry but I'm gonna be blunt:

As far as I'm concerned, making that piece of garbage some people dare to call a book the focus on an AP is, in a nutshell, spitting on the graves of tens of thousands (or perhaps more) of innocent women and practitioners of other faiths.

You really need to give Games Workshop a call and tell them how you feel about some of the core elements of Warhammer and WH40k.


Andoran? Hmmm, Carnival of Tears? Would the Lumber Consortium play that up or down? See some church backed Paladins and Inquisitors looking into bringing down some fey? Even if there were two sides in the struggle. Would the Consortium just move in some of their heady hitting specialist to deal with the fey? A story with (possibly) three sides, Players could enter on the fey side, trying to soothe things over or part of the Andoran church seeking to drive off evil fey, or the Consortium seeking to terminate any problems to the operations in the area.

Definitely put a spot light on the witch and inquisitor classes in a return to Falcon's Hollow...


My question is, why would a Golarion-based AP be based on a book from an Earth faith? I mean... it just makes no sense to me.

Dark Archive

I can't really say how a book similar to the Malleus could be written on Golarion. Magic on Earth would be super destabilizing, especially if it only came from preternaturally evil beings. Magic is orders of magnitude more common on Golarion. Sure, nobody likes evil fey, hags, or witches with evil or dangerous patrons, but there are good & neutral people and organizations that have equal access to such power.

Now, I could definitely see a full length module dealing with some of these themes, but I'm not sure it could be stretched out into a 6 module AP.


Graeme Lewis wrote:
My question is, why would a Golarion-based AP be based on a book from an Earth faith? I mean... it just makes no sense to me.

Well, given certain events in Reign of Winter (as an example, not a cause), the most obvious explanation is that somebody brought it to Golarion.

But Andoran would not necessarily have been the original target for someone doing this. Depending upon how long ago this was done, the real purpose might have been to corrupt the Mendevian Crusades . . . And we know that the 3rd and 4th Crusades degenerated into a frenzy of witch hunting.

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