Some adventures are worth waiting years for, and we believe The Dead God’s Hand is one of them. Our party, The Aroden 5, is ready to tell you what we’ve discovered and show off some teasers from Erik Mona’s deluxe adventure! If you need to, go ahead and get caught up on what this project is all about:
Editor’s Note: Everything from here on contains spoilers for The Dead God’s Hand. Read at your own peril.
Remember how we created that themed party wearing Aroden’s colors, looking super slick and ready to usher in the return of our god? Well, we got careless while searching for clues in forgotten parts of Absalom, and ended up as captives of the hryngars. It was bad enough that we started out this adventure as prisoners inside a compound – but not as demoralizing as having the gray dwarves take our special gear. Talk about kicking our enthusiasm before the first dice rolls! This had to be one of the roughest opening scenes in any of our projects, up there with The Strange Aeons Experiment in 2016.
We only managed to hide a single item per character for survival purposes, so we knew that in order to make it out of the hryngar compound we would need some allies. The NPCs in this adventure are not just fellow prisoners with stat blocks, as there is an entire gallery devoted to describing each character. Erik Mona has included plenty of roleplaying tips, guidance on how to manage so many NPCs, and even character arcs for each; this is similar to what you might see for one or two key NPCs at the end of an Adventure Path volume, only this gallery has upwards of ten characters. Over the years, some groups out there have implemented our systems like utilizing a Player Captain or running marathon sessions, but if you’ve ever considered trying out our live-NPC method, this might be the perfect adventure for it. We were proud to be joined by activist Rebekah Bruesehoff, who jumped into the action of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game for the first time, playing the role of Labella the fearless acrobat. We also had our close friend and author Peter Woodworth roll with us as Krell the opportunistic rogue. With allies alongside, our jailbreak had begun!
Highlights from The Dead God’s Hand:
□ Free from our cell, we looked and listened in all directions. We could hear chanting coming from behind some double doors — definitely avoid that! Turns out it was a ritual to summon a daemon, requiring eight hours to complete. Our GM keeps a meticulous log of every in-game minute that passes, because it might matter. After exploring the entire hryngar compound, we chose to brave the chapel and interrupt the ceremony. Little did we know, there was just sixteen minutes to spare! We brought Aroden’s will against evil Droskarites in a fierce fight that could have gone the other way.
□ Here’s the good news: Your characters will get some of their items back. A few rooms into our escape, we came across a pile of gear our captors were storing. We were each allowed to name five items of importance that had been taken from us, but we could now recover. We each started by choosing our awesome Aroden-themed attire, of course!
□ Our closest call didn’t come from combat. Did we really need all three keys to the elaborate “tripartite lock” that blocked our final escape? Isn’t that what barbarians are for? One hard kick later, the lock’s complex gears were grinding so loud that it blew out our ear drums, delivered 148 damage across the party, alerted most of the compound, and dropped two PCs to Dying 2. Yeah, let’s just go find the keys.
□ One really cool feature of playing so much Pathfinder is the overlap between projects. Currently we’re facing the legacy of Droskar in Crown of the Kobold King, headed to a city filled with Droskar-worshipping hryngar in Sky King’s Tomb, and then Erik Mona had us discover the holy book of Droskar right here in a priestess’s chamber: The Blood Litany of Droskar. Erik described it as “a black tome edged in crude metal embellishments,” having worn pages, which we took and gave to one of our members to create as a prop. As for what’s inside the book, you’ll have to play The Dead God’s Hand to find out!
□ We make mistakes like everybody else. With almost no gear, we waded through a spiderweb-gauntlet to reach a laboratory ruled by some kind of arachnid-creature that wielded a sphincter-tube as a weapon (you’re just going to have to see this for yourself). As one can imagine, we were happy to have survived the encounter. Desperate for items, we broke into the Search exploration activity without thinking, completely ignoring the gasping victim on the table. The captive was none other than Shevala Iorae, a famous venture-captain of the Pathfinder Society. It’s been an uphill relationship ever since, and this fail is not on the rookies.
The Deliverance
Based on the title of our project, we entered this adventure believing that our god might return. A lofty expectation, but if you’re a fan of the Last Azlanti, put yourself in our place for a second. One of the dig tunnels leading far away from the hryngar compound connected to a series of worked stone chambers. Before we knew it, deep beneath Absalom, we were standing in a gallery devoted to the highest-ranking priest of our faith: Sarnax the Great. We gazed in awe at bas-reliefs that described stories from ages past, depicting Aroden and his followers. We barely had time to slap hands around the table, because right in this gallery was several still-burning ancient Azlanti artifacts known as the Flame of the Radiant Spark. Sarnax once used this healing artifact to defeat the Yellow Death sickness in Absalom’s early history, but these white candles with blue flames could also be used to revive the dead. We saw it as our sacred duty to prevent them from ending up in the hands of the hryngar.
Character Deaths:
□ None. Props to our commander’s Plant Banner feat, granting four temporary hit points per round, which was just too beefy for most enemies to overcome.
Best Quote from Marathon 1:
(We watched as Blostin, our fellow prisoner, fell into a pit filled with spiders)
Dorianth the commander: “May Aroden guide your hand!”
Krell the rogue: “Umm, you know that god is dead, right?”
Current Situation:
Picture exploring a cramped tomb, and then entering a vast chamber that suddenly becomes lit by magical orbs flickering into existence. Their light reveals a ship. Yes, a massive boat. In a tomb. Based on the artwork we’ve seen in the previous hallway, this looks like Sarnax’s ether ship, which the high priest of Aroden used to travel the Great Beyond. We ventured aboard, discovering the recent remains of a fellow prisoner, known only as Heinrich. We used the Flame of the Radiant Spark and restored him to life. Now to explore the rest of the ship…
More Content:
The symbol on the metal tripartite amulets seen in the photo is the official hryngar Clan Orthux rune, which did not make it into the adventure but is now revealed here! Erik Mona provided the symbol to us, and one of our members crafted tripartite keys with the rune on them. Blue Table Painting provided the excellent paintwork for the miniatures of The Aroden 5. For custom adventure-specific terrain/miniatures such as the stained-glass holy symbol of Droskar, that’s the handiwork of Black Bard Studios.
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