Ironfang Invasion Chapters

[Zaister]

I believe this has not yet been posted to the boards; I have extracted the titles and authors of the individual adventures for the Ironfang Invasion Adventure Path from the Know Direction Podcast for the Pathfinder Adventure Path Q&A at PaizoCon 2016. Thanks to the Know Direction guys for recording this! So here goes:
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Pathfinder AP #115: Part 1 - Trail of the Hunted by Amber Scott
Pathfinder AP #116: Part 2 - Fangs of War by Ron Lundeen
Pathfinder AP #117: Part 3 - Assault on Longshadow by Benjamin Bruck
Pathfinder AP #118: Part 4 - Siege of Stone by Thurston Hillman
Pathfinder AP #119: Part 5 - Prisoners of the Blight by Amanda Hamon Kunz
Pathfinder AP #120: Part 6 - Vault of the Onyx Citadel by Larry Wilhelm

[Gorbacz]

2 parts by ladies, nice!

[captain yesterday]

Also, a big round of applause for Bruck finally making the rotation. :-)

[Archpaladin Zousha]

AND AMBER SCOTT'S WRITING THE OPENING! Aw man this is gonna be EPIC! :D

[Dragon78]

I take it part four is when you go to the elemental plane of earth?

Wasn't there a volume that you go the First World? If so wich one?

[Zaister]

Crystal actually gave a short synopsis for each of the adventures, maybe I can get around transcribing them later.

[Jam412]

You can check out the seminar audio here if you are interested.

[Zaister]

I have transcribed the parts of the podcast where Crystal gives summaries for the individual adventures, and a few other information regarding the AP. This is mostly verbatim, by Crystal:

This AP is set in Nirmathas where a former Molthuni mercenary legion called the Ironfang Legion, which is a unit of hobgoblins who've slowly been absorbing all the other hobgoblin units, has stumbled across an ancient artifact, and is now using that to carve out their own homeland on Nirmathas' and Molthune's border while those two nations distract each other.

Pathfinder Adventure Path #115, Trail of the Hunted by Amber Scott (February 2017):

Spoiler:

The AP begins with your lovely, quiet, peaceful home town where nothing ever goes wrong until a massive hundreds of hobgoblins descend on you, taking your neighbors slaves, putting everybody you don't like to the sword and you have to run around, gathering as many supplies and survivors as you can before hightailing it into the woods. The rest of the adventure is about dodging the dangers of the Fangwood forest and evading bounty hunters that the hobgoblins send after you while you carve out your own safe place to rest and recuperate.

Pathfinder Adventure Path #116, Fangs of War by Ron Lundeen:

Spoiler:

Eventually you regroup, you settle yourselves, you decide you need some allies, because hobgoblins just burned down your home. Being in the Chernasado region, you look for the Chernasado rangers for help, only to discover they're nowhere to be found. This adventure is about finding out where they went and why they are not doing their jobs, and what this strange new dragon in the area is doing!

Pathfinder Adventure Path #117, Assault on Longshadow by Benjamin Bruck:

Spoiler:

After rescuing the Chernosardo rangers you suddenly find yourself in charge of an army, just in time to find out where the Ironfang Legion is attacking next. They are attacking a mining-and-smelting town in western Nirmathas called Longshadow, and you take your much smaller force of guerillas and plucky PCs, and you basically spend the entire adventure conducting sabotage and harrying this invading force to weaken them as much as possible before an epic battle to save this town from being wiped off the map.

Pathfinder Adventure Path #118, Siege of Stone by Thurston Hillman:

Spoiler:

You discover the Ironfang Legion has recruited morlocks who are only seen in the Mindspin Mountains. You have to discover how the Ironfang Legion keeps attacking and then disappearing without a trace. You go on the investigate the morlock caverns only to discover that their new goddess isn't actually a goddess—she is a wormfolk with strange ties to dwarven artifacts and the Ironfang Legion. All of this points you to the dwarven Sky Citadel of Kraggodan. You battle your way through the Darklands and find your way into the Sky Citadel, convince the dwarves to help you, and then explore ancient, long-abandoned portions of the Sky Citadel looking for clues about an ancient dwarven artifact called the Onyx Key.

Pathfinder Adventure Path #119, Prisoners of the Blight by Amanda Hamon Kunz:

Spoiler:

The dwarves point you to an ancient fey empire in the middle of the Fangwood they have lost contact with. You are dispatched to the heart of the Fangfood, known as the Blight, to find out what is going on, deal with horribly infected, mutilated fey, fight more dragons, and finally free an ancient fey empire from the First World. You also find that the Ironfang Legion has been courting the Blight to try and recruit them to their side to found a monster nation, and in the process you discover that the Onyx Key is actually a series of stone roads that lead in and out of a vault built by the Vault Builders on the Elemental Plane of Earth.

Pathfinder Adventure Path #120, Vault of the Onyx Citadel by Larry Wilhelm:

Spoiler:

With an entire army of fey behind you, and dwarven lore and the Chernosardo rangers you can finally lay siege to the Ironfang Legion in their supposedly unassailable fortress deep in the Plane of Earth.You face down down ancient earth elementals in Vault Builder ruins and explore this time-forgotten caspule with an ancient citadel in the middle of it.

The covers will have classic monsters:

Spoiler:

bugbear, medusa, minotaur, dragon, hobgoblin.

The BBEG is apparently

Spoiler:

a hobgoblin swashbuckler!

Iconics for this adventure path are:

Spoiler:

* Lini, because it's a wilderness-themed adventure
* Adowyn, because it's a wilderness-themed adventure
* Feya, because she's kind of creepy and a little bit wild
* Jirelle, because she fits the Robin-Hood-theme originally envisaged with the AP

[Archpaladin Zousha]

After reading the summaries, I have only one thought:

Starting from humble beginnings? Building a rag-tag army from diverse backgrounds against an overwhelmingly powerful invading force? Supplementing that army by courting the fey?! HOLY CRAP THIS IS THE KING ARTHUR ROLEPLAYING WARGAME STYLE CAMPAIGN I'VE ALWAYS WANTED!

[TaliaKirana]

This sounds like a lot of fun.

[Marco Massoudi]

I know i will look forward most to part 4 because Thurston Hillman rocks, especially when doing the Darklands.
I wish he would do a Drow adventure.

The first 3 parts sound like a mix of Giantslayer part 1 and Rise of the Runelords part 3.

[Cole Deschain]

They had me at "Crystal Frasier is developing this AP," but guerilla warfare is just gravy.

[Thurston Hillman]

Marco Massoudi wrote:

I know i will look forward most to part 4 because Thurston Hillman rocks, especially when doing the Darklands.

I wish he would do a Drow adventure.

NO PRESSURE! :)

But yeah, I've really enjoyed working on the Darklands elements in this adventure. Also, it's incredibly weird referencing a book you wrote less than a year ago and wondering "What kind of awful person would write something so messed up?! Clearly this got changed in Development... nope. Nope, that was 100% in the manuscript."

[Lord Fyre]

Pity that this Hobgoblin AP wasn't set in Lingshen. :(

[Abby Thrune, Despot]

Thurston Hillman wrote:

Marco Massoudi wrote:

I know i will look forward most to part 4 because Thurston Hillman rocks, especially when doing the Darklands.

I wish he would do a Drow adventure.

NO PRESSURE! :)

But yeah, I've really enjoyed working on the Darklands elements in this adventure. Also, it's incredibly weird referencing a book you wrote less than a year ago and wondering "What kind of awful person would write something so messed up?! Clearly this got changed in Development... nope. Nope, that was 100% in the manuscript."

According to our most recent, and legitimately accurate, reports from Kantaria, you're doing A okay in our book.

[Quandary]

Lord Fyre wrote:

Pity that this Hobgoblin AP wasn't set in Lingshen. :(

Sure, but it IS set in Molthune/Nirmathas (or just Molthune depending).

It would be nice if they do flesh out the Linghshen background* of the Hobgoblins, culture, alchemy stuff, deities? * presuming that's where they come from before serving as Molthuni mercenaries
Exactly why they are in Molthune instead of Lingshen could actually illuminate recent events of Lingshen itself, e.g. if they are religious heretics, escapees from successful/failed coup, etc.

The whole arc of events sounds orthogonal to Campaign Setting background for Molthune/Nirmathas, so hopefully they also use those events to dig back into that setting material... For one, it seems like a great opportunity with the Dwarves to show how they are relating with Molthune/Nirmathas. Perhaps different Dwarven factions preferring Molthune/Nirmathas, with PC affiliation to M/N affecting which Dwarven factions they work best with? Hopefully something like that, or other intermittent interactions with broader Molthuni/Nirmathi politics... Otherwise it sounds like the AP *COULD* get drawn away from cultural/poltical background, making it so PC interaction with that b/g is disincentivized if they will just be murder hobos interacting with various monster factions.

Hopefully the 'animated object' economy of Molthune gets illustrated a bit here, that's flavorful angle to them IMHO. (seems prime interest for Dwarves to be using/trading for, which would help maintain Molthune/Nirmathi connection thruout AP) Also be interesting to flesh out the details of Molthune's (and Nirmathas') Taldor Empire cultural inheritance, where Molthune's most exemplified the Age of Expansion / pure Military aspect, which happens to conflict with the noble priviledge aspect.

Any idea if we will see a Campaign Setting county guide to them? It really does seem appropriate to include both in one book, given Nirmathas' secession is not complete and they seem to otherwise share the same culture and background.

EDIT: BTW, Interesting Iconic line-up, both class make-up (2x Full Companions + Druid spells) and all female aspect (P's always had mixed roster up to now AFAIK).

[Zaister]

Carrion Crown had Feiya, Merisiel, Seelah, and Seoni.

[carborundum]

Wow - this sounds FANTASTIC!

[SMNGRM]

It does sound like a pretty solid classical fantasy campaign, provided that chapters 4 and 6 don't suffer from linear dungeon slog syndrome.

I can't help but shake the feeling that it's a lite version of a full Dwarf AP though. I suppose Paizo could tie in a sequel similar to Jade Regent following on from RotRL, however it seems unlikely.

[Nargy]

Archpaladin Zousha wrote:

AND AMBER SCOTT'S WRITING THE OPENING! Aw man this is gonna be EPIC! :D

Great author and a class act, she is!