Homebrew Special: Revenge of the Wicked

Thursday, September 21, 2017

We're starting a new monthly-ish Pathfinder Adventure Card Game series on the blog. Homebrew Special will feature the finest in Pathfinder Adventure Card Game homebrew creations (often made using the DriveThru Card Creator), written by the homebrewers themselves. If you have a homebrew creation that you'd like to spotlight, let us know!

My name is Francesco Silvestri; on the forums, you may know me as Doppelschwert. Before I tell you a bit about a recent PACG homebrew project of mine, I'll tell you a little bit about my gaming interests. When I'm playing a roleplaying game, there are two narrative elements that I really enjoy:

The first element is a setting where the stakes are high. It's a bit clichéd to be the chosen one all the time, I give you that, but while everyone can save a kitten or two from a tree or slay some rats in a cellar, few heroes are able to pull off such astonishing feats that you might call them mythic. As such, I immediately fell in love with the Wrath of the Righteous set when I got it last summer.

The second element is the inclusion of antiheroes. Don't get me wrong: I like to play as Hero McRighteousface just as much as the next guy, but there is a special itch that I can only scratch when the bad guys are doing the right thing for the wrong reasons. In PACG, folks like Wrathack and Darago immediately come to mind as fitting this role nicely.

Epic adversaries—check. Pragmatic protagonists—check.

So I wanted to make a homebrew PACG Adventure Path that combines these things, with a focus on the bad guys being able to live up to their morally grey standards. I proudly present the variant AP for Wrath of the Righteous that I've been working on: Revenge of the Wicked, or RotW for short, is my personal antithesis to WotR (see what I did there?).

You start RotW as a bunch of shady characters of your choosing, and it doesn't take long for you to meet the wrong people at the (seemingly) right time. One thing leads to another, and before you know it, you've signed up with the Templars of the Ivory Labyrinth and are eager to become demoniacs—cultists of demon lords with the goal of turning themselves partially into demons, just like their RPG counterparts from Lords of Chaos. Of course, you'll eventually achieve this goal—the end justifies the means, after all, and who's going to stop you?—but more on that later.

This 33-scenario tale chronicles your rise to power that takes you all over the Worldwound, the Abyss, and even into the Darklands! Along the way, there are plenty of opportunities to live up to your bad reputation. And while the forces of good will eventually try to stop you from doing exactly that, there are some familiar faces to help you out as well.

I won't tell you any more of the story, so you can go into it unspoiled. But who knows: you might just end up doing the right thing in the end!

Your mount might have something to do with your cover being blown...

Let's talk a bit about what RotW has to offer in terms of game mechanics. As you can see, there are custom cards—25 in total. Most are villains, henchmen, and support cards, but there are also some boons to replace thematically unfitting cards, as well as new barriers to replace some of the more infamous barriers of WotR.

Thanks to Ludwig Orsingher, better known as user LudwigO on the paizo forums, I'll be able to replace the current RotW cards with the awesome preview pictures you can see on this blog for my next update, and I am really grateful for all the work he put into making RotW a much prettier experience for everyone.

While optional, you are also encouraged to shuffle the upcoming Hell's Vengeance Character Deck 1 and Deck 2 into the box. Not only will that enrich the atmosphere dramatically, but it will also give you access to some pretty rad evil characters to play. You'll hardly find a better place to let them loose on whoever dares to get in their way!

You might be wondering what I've done with all the support cards from WotR: mythic paths, cohorts, servitor demons, and the redemption table. In RotW, almost all of those cards are either unused or replaced with new variants. Since you play a bunch of cultists, you don't get a mythic power source or a redemption table; instead, you become demoniacs and receive access to the patron table, which memorializes the demon lords you've served well in the past!

Who needs redemption when you can summon a bunch of servants to do the dirty work for you?

Remember that annoying Blackfire Cultist that always summoned those pesky servitor demons to get in your way in WotR? I have good news for you: she won't be around this time... and you get to summon those demons yourselves instead, thanks to the conjuration mechanic. Basically, it works like Summon Monster, but you get to choose a monster from the Conjuration table according to your number of mythic charges (while servants that have the Undead trait get an additional 1d6).

While you lose access to the constant bonus to skills and those shiny d20s from the original mythic paths, you can instead spend mythic charges to help with any skill, and you can utilize Corrupted cards to use and generate those charges. As a result, the AP feels quite different from WotR. There might just be even more mythic paths to unlock further into the AP (just don't tell the demon lords I told you that).

Finally, the servitor demons are demons no more—righteous heroes have arrived to thwart your plans instead, and they offer some interesting abilities that interact with the new mythic path.

While you try to serve your demonic masters, the forces of good won't stand idly by.

If you want to try out Revenge of the Wicked, you can find the PDF and further information on the forums. I'm happy to update the PDF based on players' feedback, so let me know what you think!

I hope you enjoy Revenge of the Wicked and have as much fun playing it as I had making it!

Francesco Silvestri
(Doppelschwert)
Homebrew PACG Scenario Designer & Sword Enthusiast