Just Announced: The Strange Aeons Adventure Path!

And sure if we were talking about a stormbringer inspired AP that would be cool. But they are specifically looking at doing one inspired by the cthulhu mythos.

On the other hand there was a lot of sword and sorcery stuff inspired by the Mythos. REH & HPL corresponded and there are plenty of Lovecraftian bits in Conan and Kull. Treated in a more heroic fashion, with our barbarian hero triumphing by virtue of his iron will and mighty sword arm where lesser men would have run screaming.

And that's really how you have to do it in Pathfinder. The system isn't designed for regular folk out of their depth. I suspect they'll tweak it away from the standard for this one, but it's not going to play like CoC, whatever they do.

Funny you should mention Conan.

My idea take on a mythos adventure in Pathfinder would be something along the lines of Conan teams up with fafhrd and the gray mouser. They find the location of a hidden temple to an unspeakably god. There they kill twenty or so cultists in brutal combat, before confronting and overturning the evil sorcerer priest and steal everything.

several days later they rise from their drug enduced haze of celebration, only to find themselves being hunted by the law, because the man they fenced the items from the temple to had turned up dead, and the powers that be in the city believe that conan, fafhrd and the gray mouser are responsible. The trio skulk through the cities underbelly beset by horrible nightmare, masked cultists and winged demon monsters that make our heroes eyes bleed to even look at. Eventually they uncover evidence that the fense was murder by the head of the city watch, who is actually a cultist of that same evil god. They strike against the city watches leader, only for him to flee into the sewers. They give chase, uncover a secret underground city, filled with the alien winged creatures which are the horrid slaves of the cities true in habitance who slumber fitfully.

Conan, fafhrd and the gray mouser discover in the undercity that the cult wish to wake the creatures of the city below, returning them to the world, and successfully kill the cultists, who include dozens of the most powerful people of the kingdom, only to discover amidst the cults libraries information which points to the fact that the cult have entirely misunderstood the nature of the city below, that it's inhabitance will wake in their own time when the stars are right, and that the ritual would have done little more than speed this inevitablity.

With this horrible knowledge Conan, fafhrd and the gray mouser return to the surface world, knowing it is doomed to destruction and that their actions have been little more than a delaying of the inevitable. There, shattered men, they drink themselves to oblivian, forever awaiting the day when the giants in the city below awaken.

Funny you should mention Conan.

My idea take on a mythos adventure in Pathfinder would be something along the lines of Conan teams up with fafhrd and the gray mouser. They find the location of a hidden temple to an unspeakably god. There they kill twenty or so cultists in brutal combat, before confronting and overturning the evil sorcerer priest and steal everything.

several days later they rise from their drug enduced haze of celebration, only to find themselves being hunted by the law, because the man they fenced the items from the temple to had turned up dead, and the powers that be in the city believe that conan, fafhrd and the gray mouser are responsible. The trio skulk through the cities underbelly beset by horrible nightmare, masked cultists and winged demon monsters that make our heroes eyes bleed to even look at. Eventually they uncover evidence that the fense was murder by the head of the city watch, who is actually a cultist of that same evil god. They strike against the city watches leader, only for him to flee into the sewers. They give chase, uncover a secret underground city, filled with the alien winged creatures which are the horrid slaves of the cities true in habitance who slumber fitfully.

Conan, fafhrd and the gray mouser discover in the undercity that the cult wish to wake the creatures of the city below, returning them to the world, and successfully kill the cultists, who include dozens of the most powerful people of the kingdom, only to discover amidst the cults libraries information which points to the fact that the cult have entirely misunderstood the nature of the city below, that it's inhabitance will wake in their own time when the stars are right, and that the ritual would have done little more than speed this inevitablity.

With this horrible knowledge Conan, fafhrd and the gray mouser return to the surface world, knowing it is doomed to destruction and that their actions have been little more than a delaying of the inevitable. There, shattered men, they drink...

First, that's a module not an AP. Fairly low level at that.

More importantly, it's horribly out of character for Conan (and probably Fafhrd & the Mouser as well, but I haven't read those in a long time.) Conan doesn't do the "Shattered man, drinking himself to oblivion". More "Wine, women and song for tomorrow we may die", which is superficially similar, but an entirely different attitude. The world may well end tomorrow, but Crom smiles for we fought well today.

There's a reason why gaga-for-Lovecraft James Jacobs has held off his dream AP until now, and I'm willing to bet that a big part of it is that they finally got out the Intrigue and Horror rules -- just like he waited for Ultimate Combat before he could do Jade Regent.

The AP is going to be rules-wise more Lovecraftian than any AP until now. The extra rules aren't coming out for no reason just before the AP. Count on it.

IMO, Horror yes, Intrigue no. I'd say that the recently released Occult Adventures will play a bigger part in a Mythos-inspired AP than Ultimate Intrigue.

@ Zombieneighbors - That sounds good right until you get to the point where Fafhrd, Conan, and the Gray Mouser simply give up.

That's not how PCs work in the Pathfinder universe =P

(I also want to say that Fafhrd and Gray Mouser have been in that sort of situation before (but it's been a couple decades since I read those books) - and their answer is to go hunting for a bigger monster that happens to be amenable to bargaining or has conflicting objectives with the first threat....)

Anyways, trying to figure out how the inhabitants were put to sleep in the first place, and then feverishly seeking a way to duplicate those circumstances, would be a bit more like it.

Pathfinder's a system where PCs where can literally go to Hell and back or cast aside their own mortality.

The appropriate reaction to a city of sleeping demigods is not "I give up." The appropriate reaction is "bring it."

The Outer Gods and the Great Old Ones "merely" represent the worst the prime material has to offer, as opposed to the worst that the Negative Energy Plane, Hell, Abaddon, or the Abyss can offer.

Zombieneighbours wrote:

Funny you should mention Conan.

My idea take on a mythos adventure in Pathfinder would be something along the lines of Conan teams up with fafhrd and the gray mouser. They find the location of a hidden temple to an unspeakably god. There they kill twenty or so cultists in brutal combat, before confronting and overturning the evil sorcerer priest and steal everything.

several days later they rise from their drug enduced haze of celebration, only to find themselves being hunted by the law, because the man they fenced the items from the temple to had turned up dead, and the powers that be in the city believe that conan, fafhrd and the gray mouser are responsible. The trio skulk through the cities underbelly beset by horrible nightmare, masked cultists and winged demon monsters that make our heroes eyes bleed to even look at. Eventually they uncover evidence that the fense was murder by the head of the city watch, who is actually a cultist of that same evil god. They strike against the city watches leader, only for him to flee into the sewers. They give chase, uncover a secret underground city, filled with the alien winged creatures which are the horrid slaves of the cities true in habitance who slumber fitfully.

Conan, fafhrd and the gray mouser discover in the undercity that the cult wish to wake the creatures of the city below, returning them to the world, and successfully kill the cultists, who include dozens of the most powerful people of the kingdom, only to discover amidst the cults libraries information which points to the fact that the cult have entirely misunderstood the nature of the city below, that it's inhabitance will wake in their own time when the stars are right, and that the ritual would have done little more than speed this inevitablity.

With this horrible knowledge Conan, fafhrd and the gray mouser return to the surface world, knowing it is doomed to destruction and that their actions have been little more than a delaying of the inevitable.

...

It was demonstrative, to give a touch of the flavour, not a whole synopsis for a complet adventure path, though I suspect I could easily flesh that basic outline out to be a full AP's worth of content.

Yes it is a low level set of adventures. I have already said that low level is desirable in such a campaign.

Yes it is completely out of character. That is the point. That is what the mythos is about. Howard didn't really do the mythos, he took some bits and some loose idea his friend did used them as set dressing.

Thing is, even with that set up and low enough level that there really wasn't anything they could do, unless the threat really was imminent, Conan would just go on to other adventures. It's probably not going to happen in his lifetime and if it does, there's nothing he can do now. Meanwhile, there's wine and glory to be had and a crown to seek.

Eternal Darkness might be a decent basis for the flavour of this kinda thing. You can fight the lower level beings, but it costs you your mind and possibly a soul or two to do it. To deal with the bigger things is impossible - unless you use an equally problematic but differently flavoured evil.

Thing is, even with that set up and low enough level that there really wasn't anything they could do, unless the threat really was imminent, Conan would just go on to other adventures. It's probably not going to happen in his lifetime and if it does, there's nothing he can do now. Meanwhile, there's wine and glory to be had and a crown to seek.

yes, if Robert E. Howard is writing this conan, that is what happens. But the POINT IS, that they are talking about a set of scenarios that HPL might write. The aesthetic is different. It is fun and it would be cool to give people the chance to play something a little different

Judging from the name of the Adventure Path, we'll be down in some Lovecraft stuff again.

However, it also sounds like the kind of campaign I'd rather run using GURPS or Call of Cthulhu instead of Pathfinder.

I am okay with more classes...I just don't really want to see another mass output of classes. 10 new classes like the ACG is just too much at one time, and within a year of those we got 4 unchained classes and 6 psychic classes.

There are still niches left to explore in class design space/story niche.

So basically "Heroes of Horror: Pathfinder Edition" and such?

thejeff wrote:

Thing is, even with that set up and low enough level that there really wasn't anything they could do, unless the threat really was imminent, Conan would just go on to other adventures. It's probably not going to happen in his lifetime and if it does, there's nothing he can do now. Meanwhile, there's wine and glory to be had and a crown to seek.

yes, if Robert E. Howard is writing this conan, that is what happens. But the POINT IS, that they are talking about a set of scenarios that HPL might write. The aesthetic is different. It is fun and it would be cool to give people the chance to play something a little different

I don't think they actually are. And I don't think it would actually work in PF. If you actually want to do that, a different system would work better. Even CoC, as much as I love it, tends to play out far more heroically than many of Lovecraft's tales.

I think they intend something much close to how Howard and others used the Mythos.

Zombieneighbours wrote:

thejeff wrote:

Thing is, even with that set up and low enough level that there really wasn't anything they could do, unless the threat really was imminent, Conan would just go on to other adventures. It's probably not going to happen in his lifetime and if it does, there's nothing he can do now. Meanwhile, there's wine and glory to be had and a crown to seek.

yes, if Robert E. Howard is writing this conan, that is what happens. But the POINT IS, that they are talking about a set of scenarios that HPL might write. The aesthetic is different. It is fun and it would be cool to give people the chance to play something a little different

I don't think they actually are. And I don't think it would actually work in PF. If you actually want to do that, a different system would work better. Even CoC, as much as I love it, tends to play out far more heroically than many of Lovecraft's tales.

I think they intend something much close to how Howard and others used the Mythos.

It can work.

But assuming it can't, why bother then? There are lots of other stories they counld tell. We don't, to the best of my knowledge have a dragon slayer AP yet. They should go do that with the space, rather than make a half arsed job of it

edit: Is lovecraft, as set dressing, a hugely popular idea?

thejeff wrote:

Zombieneighbours wrote:

thejeff wrote:

Thing is, even with that set up and low enough level that there really wasn't anything they could do, unless the threat really was imminent, Conan would just go on to other adventures. It's probably not going to happen in his lifetime and if it does, there's nothing he can do now. Meanwhile, there's wine and glory to be had and a crown to seek.

yes, if Robert E. Howard is writing this conan, that is what happens. But the POINT IS, that they are talking about a set of scenarios that HPL might write. The aesthetic is different. It is fun and it would be cool to give people the chance to play something a little different

I don't think they actually are. And I don't think it would actually work in PF. If you actually want to do that, a different system would work better. Even CoC, as much as I love it, tends to play out far more heroically than many of Lovecraft's tales.

I think they intend something much close to how Howard and others used the Mythos.

It can work.

But assuming it can't, why bother then? There are lots of other stories they counld tell. We don't, to the best of my knowledge have a dragon slayer AP yet. They should go do that with the space, rather than make a half arsed job of it

edit: Is lovecraft, as set dressing, a hugely popular idea?

I think there's a lot of ground between "set dressing" and the full-on hopelessness you're looking for. I assume that's where they're heading.

They're bring out a Horror Adventures book along with it, so it sounds like they want something other than just set dressing.

I'd love it if they didn't do it like Carrion Crown or RotRL. I love my Scooby Doo Mystery Inc, Dresden Files, etc, but an organic campaign with a good antagonist is a vastly better approach than Monster/Elder God-of-the-week one.

Another thing that came to me was that, well, I wrote a BA paper about Innsmouth, played From Shore to Sea and read Wake of the Watcher. With the skum playing a part in Hell's Rebels, I'm frankly kinda sick of our aquatic friends. So yeah, how about Cool Air or Reanimator instead, please?

Besides these concerns, maybe stay away from the Chaosium stuff altogether? There's plenty of unspeakable and uncaring things in the setting as it is. Goreweavers, Caulborn, Neh-Thalggu(I know, I know, they were featured recently), etc.

And resist The Call, please. That guy sleeps on Earth and he's about as threatening as your girlfriend's tentacle-faced plushie these days anyway.

It looks like were only getting one new class next year so not that much to worry about.

JonGarrett wrote:

DM_aka_Dudemeister wrote:

I for one hope this adventure path ends with my Brawlbarian punching Cthulhu in his stupid squid face.

I want my heroes to eff the ineffable.

I hope the opposite. Otherwise there's no point in doing something with Lovecraft - you might as well do something more interesting and Pathfindery, like fighting off an Inevitable that has decided since the main source of crime is life, getting rid of it will help him big time. Help flesh out the Neutral Outsiders too.

However, I suspect it'll be your version.

I'd like to see the aeons pop up as foes in the same vein as Terry Pratchett's Auditors.

"Life is... untidy. It gets in the way of the paperwork."

why would an aeon care about paper work, they are all about the balance of the multiverse

It's some sort of comedy book, not to be taken entirely seriously.

Indeed. The exact phrasing is sometimes comical, but the basic idea is: the Auditors want to wipe out life because it interferes with their idea of a "tidy" existence. Hope, cruelty, desire - these are unnatural to the Auditors. They just want the planets to spin and the gravity to work. It's a little too long and complex to easily summarize here. ^_^

Dominion of the Black Dominion of the Black DOMINION OF THE BLACK

Yeah I know they're H.R. Giger and not Lovecraftian :(

edit: Is lovecraft, as set dressing, a hugely popular idea?

From my experiences yes.

The mythos has an attraction beside the helpless of humans against it. I know I don't play horror games (or CoC) because I like to play heroes that defeat the evil - I tend to high fantasy or superheroes. I'd love to play in a long adventure that used a lot of elements from HPL and the mythos, but turn the tone of that on it's ear.

We have call of Cthulu for classic mythos helplessness feel. This could easily be heroes vs mythos.
Some of us like the concept/tone behind the Brian Lumley Mythos books.

Well, this looks promising. I'm sure to pick up my suscription again after the EEEEEVIL AP.

The Ghostbusters handled Cthulhu well in the episode Collect Call of Cthulhu.

There was also not-Cthulhu in that one episode of Freakazoid!

We've seen Paizo do good cosmic horror before. As far as I'm concerned, this looks like it will be worth getting.

I for one hope this adventure path ends with my Brawlbarian punching Cthulhu in his stupid squid face.

I want my heroes to eff the ineffable.

Punch the unpunchable.

Eff the ineffable.

Iä! Iä! Fight the Mythos!

I'd like to reiterate my hope that Cthulhu itself is NOT involved. There's way more to Lovecraft and his Mythos than just Cthulhu, and it is, quite frankly, overused as hell.

Plus, he's hanging out on Earth. Which seems to be quite a few parsecs away from Golarion.

Well he hasn't been used in Pathfinder so I am fine with him being used.

Well he hasn't been used in Pathfinder so I am fine with him being used.

His Star Spawn have though (Carrion Crown Book 4), and he's statted.

That is like saying we can't use anything related to Rovagug because one of his spawn were used several APs ago.

That is like saying we can't use anything related to Rovagug because one of his spawn were used several APs ago.

I didn't say anything on whether anything could or should be used.

I also think this is an attitude thing. To me, Pathfinder is a game of hope and wish fulfilment. Even if you add horror, corruption and the like in Pathfinder even a demon can be redeemed.
While there are plenty of loot hungry murder hobos, the heroes of Adventure Paths are ultimately heroic.

If I ran an AP that was ultimately rearranging deck chairs on the titanic, because doom is inevitable, I'd be as bored as the worst of railroads.

Desna is a Chaotic Good Elder God, unlike the real world, concepts like Good and Law have actual tangible physical effects. So the Elder Gods/Great Old Ones as symbolic representations of an uncaring universe, slowly collapsing due to entropy make little sense. Just as true atheism doesn't make much sense when you can cast a spell to talk to whatever god takes your fancy. The universe it turns out does care.

My players survived the tips of the graspy tentacles of Yog Sothoth when the Elfgate in their Kindgom malfunctioned. If they were level 20 with some Mythic points in their belt, I'd give them a crack at knocking out The Lurker at the Threshold itself.

As long as we can spend some time in Versex(in Ustalav) and maybe even revisit Carrion Hill, I will be happy. Here is to hoping we finally get the Blood of the Alien/Mythos book I been hoping for.

Awww, . . .why'd you have to do that? Now I have this thought stuck in my head that in the near future Marvel is going to come out with an Ultron vs Cthulhu movie . . . .

Must see.....

Not really my thing, which makes two APS (along with the Eeeevil one) in a row that I'll buy for inspiration and keeping my collection rather than looking forward to running.

Still, glad to see that this sort of thing is being done. I know the guys at Paizo and many players are very interested in the material.

As far as getting the information -- I don't care which way we got it, we got it you know? Could they have made some time delayed posts? Probably, but I imagine they were a little more interested in getting to GenCon and enjoying GenCon. You still got the information, you were not hurt by the wait or the way it was distributed. Everyone wins.

Not really my thing, which makes two APS (along with the Eeeevil one) in a row that I'll buy for inspiration and keeping my collection rather than looking forward to running.

Still, glad to see that this sort of thing is being done. I know the guys at Paizo and many players are very interested in the material.

As far as getting the information -- I don't care which way we got it, we got it you know? Could they have made some time delayed posts? Probably, but I imagine they were a little more interested in getting to GenCon and enjoying GenCon. You still got the information, you were not hurt by the wait or the way it was distributed. Everyone wins.

You are a breath of fresh air. You, and people like you, should post more often.

This AP would be a great place to explore the Darklands AND the Dreamlands...

I KNEW that Paizo would do a Lovecraftian AP at some point but I did not expect it anytime soon. I am delightfully surprised to be wrong about the timing but effing ecstatic that this AP is coming sooner rather than later.

Can we get a Sword and Planet AP that we get to battle the Dominion of the Black in the next couple of years? I Know you'll have to back off the awesome and go back to mundane, rote fantasy after all this weirdness so I'm not expecting it soon. And when's the steampunk Ap coming? You could combine it into a steampunk sword and planet AP...

Fine, I'll stop.

SM

Can we get a Sword and Planet AP that we get to battle the Dominion of the Black in the next couple of years?

Legendary Planet, from Legendary Games. Kickstarter just finished successfully, the players guide and prologue adventure are already out.

The bad guys aren't officially the Dominion of the Black, but they seem pretty similar so far.

Mention of Cthulhu being on Earth makes me wonder if this AP is going to involve another visit to Earth. Reign of Winter was in 1918 - 1919 on Earth's calendar, so this one should be in 1922 on Earth's calendar.

thejeff wrote:

Thing is, even with that set up and low enough level that there really wasn't anything they could do, unless the threat really was imminent, Conan would just go on to other adventures. It's probably not going to happen in his lifetime and if it does, there's nothing he can do now. Meanwhile, there's wine and glory to be had and a crown to seek.

yes, if Robert E. Howard is writing this conan, that is what happens. But the POINT IS, that they are talking about a set of scenarios that HPL might write. The aesthetic is different. It is fun and it would be cool to give people the chance to play something a little different

Eh. It isn't really workable as a TTRPG setting. Proper Lovecraftian approach is a solo investigator that gets in over his head and goes mad or... buys in, usually with a slow descent, which, if they survive at all, drives them around the bend for the rest of their unhappy life (but gives them time to tell the story to someone).

For PF, The tone is really all wrong, because every adventurer expects to kick horrible things around for at least 15 minutes a day and go home with a bag of swag. That at least makes the Howard version workable, because Conan actually did that on a semi-regular basis- knocked over the Elder Thing, snatched up a shiny object and a convenient slave girl and wandered off fairly satisfied with life. But at the table, the different approach of the classic Lovecraft doesn't seem workable. Reading about a descent into madness alone by a fire is one thing. Convincing a group to buy in while sitting in a bright and shiny kitchen while they munch on Doritos and Dew and crack Python jokes? That is... really hard.

Plus, well, this is Paizo, who doesn't do subtle very well. See the rabid revolution country, the devil worshipping country, the entirely-anti-religious country and the rabid-anti-slavery state (despite not having the socio-economic development necessary to comprehend even the possibility of food production not tied to a servile class, let alone the ability to function in a region overwhelmingly dominated by a slave-based economy).

At the very least, though, I hope it isn't like Carrion Crown, part whichever. They went full on predictable cliche, and then kitchen-sinked it to boot, throwing in every bit of completely unrelated stories as pure combat plots. That just doesn't function at all.

{. . .}

Convincing a group to buy in while sitting in a bright and shiny kitchen while they munch on Doritos and Dew and crack Python jokes? That is... really hard.
{. . .}

You're making a big assumption that everybody's kitchen is bright and shiny, or even that they're in (or even have) a kitchen. For some people, the game might be in a dingy basement where the only windows are so grimy that they could protect a Vampire from the Sun, and the 1920s vintage oil heater casts a faint infernal glow when the lights aare out, while mold mysteriously keeps regrowing on some of the walls no matter how many times you bleach it, and the bathroom looks like some NAMELESS THING used it . . . now we're talking.

Hopefully there will be more info on this AP later today.

I'm so happy I could just 'Ia! Ia! Cthulhu Fhtagn!'

Merged threads.

A starspawn would make a better boss for the 5th volume of the AP not the last.

Certainly not based on any criteria that includes 'all of the other APs except WotR'

The last boss CRs.
Rise of the Runelords CR 20
Curse of the Crimson Throne CR 20
Second Darkness CR 19
Legacy of Fire CR 17
Council of Thieves CR 15
Kingmaker CR 20
Serpent's Skull CR 19 (x2)
Carrion Crown CR 17
Jade Regent CR 15 (x4)
Skull and Shackles CR 18
Shattered Star CR 21
Reign of Winter CR 20
Wrath of the Righteous CR 29
Iron Gods CR 20
Mummy's Mask CR 19
Giant Slayer CR 19

So yeah. Under no circumstances, unless the PCs were given mythic powers throughout the AP or a much faster and quite aberrant advancement rate, should a starspawn of Cthulhu make a better penultimate boss at CR 20. CR 20 is, as demonstrated, a high CR for an AP's endboss.

Personally, I'd prefer it if the AP's end boss was a powerful servant of a Lawful deity, if you get my drift.

Not a fan of Lovecraft, but this looks very interesting to me. Perhaps entirely because I'm not hip-deep invested in the genre. Looks as far from anything I have seen Paizo produce yet.

Which also makes this AP an "experimental" AP as far as I am concerned. And I'm all for that.

Personally, I'd prefer it if the AP's end boss was a powerful servant of a Lawful deity, if you get my drift.

I don't get your drift.

Of course, what if, instead of one high-CR but action-economy-deficient last boss, the AP had an endless stream of lower-CR enemies. Think you've been in a holdout before? Not against the Zerg, you ain't.

If you're looking for an AP with an end boss that's a powerful servant of a lawful deity... Hell's Rebels AND Hell's Vengeance should scratch those itches nicely.