The Dead God’s Deliverance: Part 2

Community Order of the Amber Die Pathfinder Second Edition

Editor’s Note: Everything from here on contains spoilers for The Dead God’s Hand. Read at your own peril.

We began this adventure with a themed party who had spent years searching for clues about their dead god, in the hopes that they could bring about his return. Well, we’re here to say that Erik Mona delivered -- the Last Azlanti is now a member of our party.

Mic. Drop.

Read on for proof, but get caught up first if you need to:

We started this lengthy playthrough session by using one of our newfound artifacts called the Flame of the Radiant Spark to raise a dead prisoner known only as Heinrich. Now accompanied by this Taldan rogue as a live-NPC, we continued our escape from the hryngar compound, which turned into a dungeon delve unlike any other. We wanted this adventure to hand us unforgettable moments relating to our lord Aroden, and at this point every single room had something to offer. We’ve played a good amount of material involving Azlant and Aroden over the years, including the entire Ruins of Azlant Adventure Path, along with Erik Mona’s Thornkeep and Emerald Spire levels. Despite that, our historians at the table are now repeatedly struggling to decide between scrawling notes or putting their pens down and appreciating the moment.

Highlights from The Dead God’s Hand:

□ As devout worshippers of the Last of the First Humans, you might recall that we are all human and all of us utilize the longsword in some fashion. Thus, when we entered a cabin belowdecks on Sarnax’s ether ship, you can imagine our reaction at seeing a longsword on display. The sword was only somewhat suspect, with custom artwork depicting its pitted obsidian blade and a placard beneath it, reading “Meloth’s Lifedrinker.” Nothing strange here, it was quickly claimed by our commander, Dorianth! Add it to our list of artifacts acquired so far, but remember this sword for the next blog to come.

□ Playing a party of Arodenites left us on opposite sides of certain encounters, especially when it involved consecrated items of our faith. After a hazardous scramble across the backs of kneeling statues, Bettalia the barbarian and her acrobat companion reached the sarcophagus of Sarnax himself, high priest of Aroden. Heave-ho, and off came the lid! Not all of us agreed on plundering the tomb and taking the Heart of Sarnax, a fist-sized ruby with quite the backstory – especially our zealot, an exemplar. Both players stuck to their roleplaying and arrows were fired, but we carefully talked it out as a group and kept the artifact. To keep it safe, of course.

□ Hope you got your bucket list handy of places on Golarion you need to see, cause if you play this adventure, you’re about to check one off. Enter the Sanctum of Aroden with the great dome overhead, an enormous statue of a woman with her hand outstretched stands before you -- water cascading down over her face like a veil. Stand where the most faithful worshippers of our lord Aroden once stood when our god was alive, and gaze upon the glory of the sanctum. We chose this moment to feature a stunning build from Black Bard Studios, complete with water circulating over the statue of Arazni!

row after row of miniatures of people sitting in the dark, bowing towards a single light source. Two miniatures stand amongst the rows of bowing minis

A miniature set of a temple with a single statue of a woman in the center. She is much taller than the player miniatures, in one hand she holds a sword down at her hip and the other hand is reaching out.

□ Inside the holy Sanctum of Aroden, we approached yet another epic site called the Well of Ages, which once provided sustenance to Aroden’s worshippers for more than four thousand years. We kneeled beside a Knight of the Aeon Star known as Garenne, who clearly thought our god – and herself – were still alive. As fellow worshippers of the Last Azlanti, we were split once again on what to do. Do we break the truth to her? What would you do? We chose to tell her, but tried to let her down easy. Garenne struggled with the news and drew her destiny blade, determined to go down in battle – a battle doused in regret and made harder because some of us refused to fight.

□ The doors to the ancient Chapel of Aroden swung open. Our party, The Aroden 5, found ourselves standing before an undead but fervent group of Knights of the Aeon Star. We had to win their respect with the Influence subsystem, made more difficult because only we were privy to an important detail that occurred in 4606 AR. We’ve had plenty of practice with this subsystem during our concurrent project, The Sky Scions, and the knights came to the same conclusion that we already believed: that WE are the heroes to carry Aroden’s legacy into the future.

A group of Pathfinder players gather around a gaming table with a model of a temple holding the statue of a woman in the center.

Two pathfinder players sit at a darkened table only lit by small reading lights over their character sheets. They are leaning towards a model at the center of the table set to resemble a temple. Pillars line the sides of the model and a tall statue sits at the far end.

The Deliverance

Little did we know, from the beginning of this adventure there was something running in the background: the Destiny Points system. This is unique to The Dead God’s Hand, and it involves your GM tracking points for specific actions that determine each character’s destiny. There is no exact comparison, but some of us brought up the “sin and virtue” system from Rise of the Runelords. Deravon, the leader of the Knights of the Aeon Star, seemed to know which of us had the strongest destiny. However, he determined that there was a three-way tie for who would become the aspirant in the upcoming “Test of Aroden.” Test of Aroden you say? In this party, there was no way we were letting anyone become the aspirant without speeches of worthiness followed by a secret vote. If you know our GM by now, you know that Adam counted the votes beforehand, arranged them in tense order, and turned this into a tribal council from Survivor – complete with each vote taking thirty seconds to announce.

Logan Ernst, a new addition to our table and current student of The Crown Academy, gave a sincere speech and won the most votes. We named Uhlan Vale, our oracle, as the aspirant in the upcoming Test of Aroden. We followed him to the one of the most holy sites of our faith: a chamber containing a replica of the Starstone itself. We stood with Uhlan as he placed his hand upon the stone. Yellow mist surrounded us, and we captured one of our favorite group photos to forever remind us of this moment.

Six pathfinder players lean around a game table in a darkened room. The table is covered in a low lying smokey mist and in the center appears to be a large leather-bound tome and a glowing blue stone called the Starstone.

Character Deaths:

□ None. Once again, props to our commander’s Plant Banner feat, now granting eight temporary hit points per round, which was just too much for most enemies to overcome.

Current Situation:

We began the Test of Aroden, and appeared in a blacksmith’s shop. There was a commotion outside in the square, and a bystander addressed Uhlan Vale directly as “Aroden.” That’s right, our own party member had become the Last Azlanti himself as we relived an important scene in Aroden’s life. We can’t even begin to describe the elation we felt when one of our own had now become our lord reinstated! It was meant to be, Uhlan Vale had been chosen by Aroden for a purpose; after all, it was Uhlan who had once walked the avenues of Absalom as a street preacher, predicting the Dead God’s return. As part of the test, a furious battle broke out. How many adventurers can say they fought alongside Aroden?