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The Abomination Arsenal: Part 5

Feb 23, 2024, 01:30 pm

The Deep Levels!
We’ve delved a lot of dungeons throughout Order of the Amber Die’s history. We’ve delved a few megadungeons too. There is this cool thing that happens when you pass the two-thirds mark of a megadungeon; in 2014, it happened when we reached the eleventh level of The Emerald Spire. In our earlier years, it happened when we reached the third poster map of the Ruins of Undermountain. It happened again during this marathon, when we landed on the eighth level of the Abomination Vaults. You’re close to the end. You can feel the immensity of the megadungeon above you, instead of below you. Barring teleportation, it takes longer and longer each time you trek back up to the surface. Everything is a bit more serious—the pressure to succeed is greater. You’re in what we call “the deep levels” of a megadungeon. Just reaching the deep levels is enough for hand-slaps and hugs around the table, but in the back of your mind is what awaits at the bottom.

The Abomination Arsenal: Part 5

Friday, February 23, 2024

The Deep Levels!
We’ve delved a lot of dungeons throughout Order of the Amber Die’s history. We’ve delved a few megadungeons too. There is this cool thing that happens when you pass the two-thirds mark of a megadungeon; in 2014, it happened when we reached the eleventh level of The Emerald Spire. In our earlier years, it happened when we reached the third poster map of the Ruins of Undermountain. It happened again during this marathon, when we landed on the eighth level of the Abomination Vaults. You’re close to the end. You can feel the immensity of the megadungeon above you, instead of below you. Barring teleportation, it takes longer and longer each time you trek back up to the surface. Everything is a bit more serious—the pressure to succeed is greater. You’re in what we call “the deep levels” of a megadungeon. Just reaching the deep levels is enough for hand-slaps and hugs around the table, but in the back of your mind is what awaits at the bottom.

To reach the deep levels of the Vaults, we first had to get past some devils who ran the prison level. Quite a few of them actually, but as devils go, one was more important than the rest. Determined to reach the bottom of this megadungeon and stop Belcorra, we cut a deal…with the devil. This is Order of the Amber Die and we’re playing the Black Powder Cadre, so one deal wasn’t nearly enough. We cut DEALS with devils. You can’t hand our GM a whole section of the Adventure Toolbox titled “Infernal Contracts,” without expecting him to entice us into nearly every contract available. Yet, when Adam asked our party of gunslingers if we had Legal Lore, you’d think the answer would be nothing short of silence and smirks. Instead, our Player Captain argued two marathons ago that every human gunslinger in the group should take Clever Improviser, which Matt said was one of the best feats in Pathfinder 2E. Legal Lore, you say? Why, we seem to have a party of outlaws and aspiring attorneys here!

If you need to get caught up, here is our story from the other levels of the Abomination Vaults:

Introduction

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

This marathon saw a couple of gunslinger cameos as additions to the Black Powder Cadre. Grundak, “son of Bashdak,” is an orc gunfighter who joined us with his Barricade Buster from Pathfinder Treasure Vault. It’s worth adding that the clip on the Barricade Buster was impressive; the rest of us were busy reloading while the rookie was plugging away. We were also accompanied by a new companion from Pathfinder Lost Omens Impossible Lands, following the Way of the Triggerbrand and offering some potential melee backup. Our final cameo was from Auralee, playing the cocky yet enigmatic “Lady Sniper,” who likes to wait a while before unslinging her arquebus and quick-scoping a kill.

Adventure: Hands of the Devil/Eyes of Empty Death

Marathon Length: 59 hours

Session Hours: 40hrs, 30min

Every marathon feels different, and for this one we played our hours on level seven under the red light, which made for some serious immersion. We spent most of our three-day weekend trying to locate fragments of a pentagram that would allow us access to the levels below—along with permission from Urevian, a phistophilus. Tess Rajani, wife of Carman Rajani (the future mayor of Otari), signed away her firstborn in what she swore was a deal that outwitted even a contract devil. To make this moment even more intense, Adam laid an actual contract in front of Theodora to sign!

Highlights from Marathon 5:

□ Some of the devils in this megadungeon wield wicked Hellforged weapons. On level seven we found the Hellforge itself, then riddled its smith with bullets. Did you think we’d pass up a new forge, when one of us is married to the most famous blacksmith on this side of Kortos? “The Rajani Hellforge” is now operational, and ready to give Carman the boost to his reputation he’ll need in the next run for mayor! Should we mention our ownership of the Hellforge was part of the deal we signed?

□ Just like the levels above, we encountered more bearded devils on level seven. It could be something that every group experiences while playing the Abomination Vaults Adventure Path, but sustaining an infernal wound from a barbazu is definitely a rite of passage in the Black Powder Cadre. Thanks to PathfinderGuns & Gears, Cauterize effectively shuts down the worry of dying from one of these wounds, and it leaves a nice scar – we like to show them off.

□ We came across a gug that wanted nothing to do with us. Out-of-game, our vets have something personal against gugs. We faced them in The Emerald Spire Project, The Giantslayer Endeavor, and The Strange Aeons Experiment. Now one was right in front of us, sitting quietly in some kind of prison cell. We made a firing line and let the powder fly— only to be served once again by the power of a gug, regardless of what Pathfinder edition we’re in! Across the team, its Furious Claws ability spread out 207 damage in a single round with a few critical hits in there. The ground was littered with facedown gunslingers, and it’s the closest we’ve been to TPK.

□ We stumbled across one of the most memorable chambers of the entire Abomination Vaults so far: a stasis prison, holding an array of nasty creatures that formed a threat level high enough to cause the Core Rulebook to combust. Luckily, it wasn’t the prison that opposed us, but its witchfire warden. Our guns have names, and it was Vlai’s scattergun called “Collateral” that lit up the air like flak. Keep flying lady, you’re easier to hit.

□ One of the things we love about delving a megadungeon is how you get to make a different entrance onto each level, and level eight was hard to beat. We descended on an elevator into a large cavern filled with water, docks, and a few boats. Cypress Hill prepped the scene with “Cock the Hammer” as we spotted forms moving below – undead forms to be precise. One ran for a door and only made it to the handle. Another tried to launch a skiff and never had a chance. We dumped lead on them until the shouts of “cease fire!” echoed off the walls.

Character Deaths

□ With the assistance of devils, kind of dying doesn’t count. It’s all in the fine print.

The Arsenal

There were the occasional doubters when we started this all-gunslingers project. After reaching level eight of the Abomination Vaults, it’s about time to take some credit for just how well this party has handled the majority of what this megadungeon has presented. Let’s be clearer: we’ve just downright trashed a lot of encounters. First off, each gunslinger’s Initial Deed means that many of us start combat with hands free, which means on round one we can draw silversheen, a redpitch bomb, or even grab an edge if we need to. Do you think it’s a ghost? Have our Way of the Drifter draw her ghost touch shortsword. Oh, it a levitating seugathi? Pull! A hulking bone gladiator with resistance? Rocked it with concussive weapon traits. Creatures that climb walls? Just lead them a bit. Fearsome gibbering mouthers? Here’s some extra bludgeoning damage from the harmona gun. Mobs that rush you? That’s what hip-firing with Risky Reload is for. Just make sure to act out blowing on the tip of your barrel after the last shot is fired.

Best Quote from Marathon 5

(staring down a denizen of Leng and his companion—a giant crawling hand)
Zoric: “We should try talking to this guy.”
Tess: “Can’t talk to the hand…”

Current Situation

We disembarked from the elevator down to level eight, then Vlai gave the order: search and destroy. After cleaning out a couple of rooms containing bog-soaked undead, we debated whether or not we wanted to use one of the skiffs to explore the waterways down here. Water and firearms don’t mix, so we’ll likely keep scanning for another path around the level.

More Content:

Our table was brought to life with the help of Blue Table Painting for the miniatures, and Black Bard Studios for custom adventure-specific miniatures/terrain.

Follow Order of the Amber Die:
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The Abomination Arsenal: Part 4

Nov 3, 2023, 12:30 pm

GOBLIN DOWN!
The Black Powder Cadre took a hit in this marathon, and lost one of its founding members. Like we said in our last report, author Vanessa Hoskins will surprise you. No finger-pointing amongst the team here—we got surprised—plain and simple. Before we get to what happened, this daring all-gunslingers project has lasted longer than many of us expected, so get caught up if you need to:

The Abomination Arsenal: Part 4

Friday, November 3rd, 2023

GOBLIN DOWN!
The Black Powder Cadre took a hit in this marathon, and lost one of its founding members. Like we said in our last report, author Vanessa Hoskins will surprise you. No finger-pointing amongst the team here—we got surprised—plain and simple. Before we get to what happened, this daring all-gunslingers project has lasted longer than many of us expected, so get caught up if you need to:

Introduction

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Summer marathons are usually grinders for us, and that’s exactly what we did for this one. It was too hot for any post-session fire pit gatherings, so we just kept playing until enough voices called it. The second day of this marathon saw an eighteen-hour run, and came within sight of our record for the longest session on the Paizo blog. We even had our friend Joe O’Brien—from the Glass Cannon Network—with us again, returning as Axayaca, the Beast Gunner from Arcadia. Joe wanted the full Order of the Amber Die (OAD) experience this time, so on the day he was here we decided to push until O’Brien threw in the towel. We’ll offer this to Glass Cannon fans: Joe can grind!

If you’ve read our reports from years past, you’ll know one of the main secrets to playing the longest sessions in the industry is actually our GM. It’s Adam who will drag you long into the wee hours of the morning, jumping around behind the screen at every natural 20 along the way. He’s just been this way since ’87, and we keep making the mistake of thinking he’ll slow down.

Adventure: Hands of the Devil

Marathon Length: 63 hours, 40 minutes

Session Hours: 44 hours, 30 minutes

It’s for extreme marathons like this one, that we keep a couple of critical care nurses in the Order—you probably think we’re kidding. Now we can officially welcome our newest member, who can roleplay all day, straight after a night shift: Theodora Marcantonis! We’re always on the lookout for hardcore gamers, and while vetting Theodora, we learned she possessed a platinum trophy in God of War: Ragnarök, and spent her precious time between shifts playing Pathfinder:Kingmaker and Pathfinder:Wrath of the Righteous on PlayStation. SOLD! Everyone in OAD gets the team jersey of their choice, and we’re proud to have pink as the newest color at our table. Tess Rajani, Way of the Drifter, has moved from a cameo in our project to a full-time gunslinger in the Black Powder Cadre!

Highlights from Hands of the Devil:

□ We finished out the last blog on level five, with the party having woken a massive amalgamation of discarded flesh and bone. The behemoth surged to life, possessing unexpected speed and maneuverability. We opened with a torrent of gunfire from the balcony, but it responded with a salvo of its own: shards of bone that tore through the Cadre, forcing us into a fighting retreat. We leapfrogged back through the level, managing to hold the monstrosity’s advance at a couple of key locations where it couldn’t afford to press into our firing line. When our options dwindled, we made our final stand on the staircase up to level four. It closed with the party, and Vlai plunged his scattergun into its gooey hide. Click – BOOM! The resulting explosion caused the behemoth to decompose into a necrotic gas that curdled the flesh of the closest gunslingers. You get one Hero Point for an entire day during a marathon, and we burned them all here.

□ The Laboratories level of this megadungeon means you’re really in it now, and level six did more than any level so far to put the “Abomination” into Abomination Vaults. Disgusting fleshwarps of varying sizes, seugathi researchers performing experiments best left off this blog, and even scientific viewing galleries were intermixed within the chambers we explored. We use our soundtrack to stay immersed, and there’s good reason why we chose Chevelle’s Peach as the song for this level.

□ You know that rule about not stepping into a portal by yourself? Yeah, well this is OAD and we’ve always said that there are few absolutes in Pathfinder. Tess strode right into a teleporter that landed her in some kind of testing grounds, complete with a seugathi taking notes on how quickly its destrachan subject would annihilate her. She decided the best course of action was to run like hell and lead the reptilian aberration toward our party; after all, we brought guns to this megadungeon. As it turned out though, the destrachan brought artillery. It let rip with 201 damage to the Cadre in a single area-of-effect blast from its Destructive Harmonics, creating a new pedestal of statistics among our enemies so far. For the record, you can go through a portal by yourself in this game and survive.

□ In case you needed more from our “Vanessa will surprise you” theme, here it is: there is a tavern in this megadungeon. Yup, full of morlocks and such, ready to kill you or crack a beer—your choice. Stay long enough, and you’ll end up in a battle of the bands versus Shadow Malice. Think of an all-star lineup that only the Darklands can produce: duergar on drums, xulgath on guitar, caligni on bass, and ratfolk on vocals. We survived the solo portion of the competition due to the adept acrobatics of gunslingers, but the group section was a major problem—made worse when Shadow Malice let it rip with “Shout at the Devil” at full volume, even out-of-game. It was daunting to try and show them up with just one roll and a +8 Performance modifier. That is, until Breen’s natural 20 made us the hottest new band of the Abomination Vaults! When the crowd yelled for our name, we looked to Zoric, the naming phenom who once accidentally coined us “The Blue Coat Adventurers.” This time, he looked right back at the party and made it clear: "hey, don’t look at me.” The bartender screamed out Zoric’s response in Undercommon. Then several other denizens screeched the name in unison: “DON’T LOOK AT ME!” It was too late; Zoric had done it again.

□ While confronting a seugathi and its latest fleshwarp creations known as dreshkhans, we once again met our match in the ballistics department. Dreshkhans have an ability known as Needle Spray, or “Death Blossom” as those of us who grew up watching The Last Starfighter call it. If it wasn’t for our Player Captain making Risky Reload a mandatory feat in this party, we might have needed more word count for the Character Death section.

Character Deaths:

If you give our GM an assassin with free reign to target a single PC, murder will happen. Adam already proved it when he was given a carte blanche assassin during Strange Aeons. This time it was Maloika the Miserable, our ever-curious goblin, who squeezed through an arrow slit into a series of long-unused guardrooms. Inside, lingered Siora Fallowglade, the greater shadow and chief assassin of Belcorra herself—determined to slay again after 500 years. Adam claims that, because he acted out a kill emote from Assassin’s Creed, that’s why he rolled a critical hit to open combat against the goblin. At least it was quick.

The Arsenal:

Maloika is gone, and it sits hard with us, perhaps hardest with his Sniping Duo partner: Zoric. The goblin had grand plans to hang up his guns, then use his relationship with the market owner to open his own megadungeon collectibles store in Otari. We’re carrying on Maloika’s dream, by continuing to take advantage of the organization rules in the PathfinderGamemastery Guide. Our newest followers and lieutenants have overseen construction, which was built over the ruins of the Thirsty Alpaca. We’ve already named the store: Ayla’s Oddities & Collectibles. We even have plans to haul the giant gong out from the arena level, the same one the goblin shot with his harmona gun to wake the behemoth. We’ll make sure it rings every morning when the store opens—in honor of Maloika.

Best Quote from Marathon 4:

(after Vlai managed to hit three party members with one blast from the scattergun)

Axayaca: “Why do you shoot your friends? Do you derive some pleasure from it?”

Vlai: “It’s nothing personal.” (reloads)

Current Situation:

We blasted our way through levels five and six, and just set foot on level seven. It smells like soot. The temperature feels warmer here for some reason, and runes are carved on the walls. Lock and load…

More Content:

Our table was brought to life with the help of Blue Table Painting for the miniatures, and Black Bard Studios for custom adventure-specific miniatures/terrain.

Follow Order of the Amber Die:
-Facebook
-Instagram
-Twitter
-YouTube
-The Abomination Arsenal thread

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Tags: Community Order of the Amber Die Pathfinder Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Pathfinder Second Edition

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The Abomination Arsenal: Part 3

Jul 5, 2023, 01:30 pm

STILL ALIVE!

The Abomination Arsenal: Part 3

Wednesday, July 5th, 2023

STILL ALIVE!

Yup, that’s exactly what we were shouting at the end of this marathon, since our party of gunslingers was somehow, someway, still alive. Not only that, the Black Powder Cadre is coming off a clean run in this latest marathon, where we rifled out enough critical hits to make clutch situations look easy. In case you need to catch up on Order of the Amber Die’s project, here’s a good place to start:

Introduction
Part 1
Part 2

We plan our marathons around the schedules of the teachers in our group, so we had a little more time off between sessions this time around. This gave us a chance to catch up with Rob Pontious of Know Direction, who put together a closer look at the project so far. Since Rob is also an OAD member, he delved into some of the big questions surrounding our project, including this one: why did we choose to play all gunslingers? Give it a read and find out! In the meantime, here are the stats on the latest marathon:

Adventures: Ruins of Gauntlight and Hands of the Devil

Marathon Length: 56hrs, 35min

Session Hours: 35hrs, 30min

As this was our third marathon, our goal was to finish up Ruins of Gauntlight and head down into the middle levels of the Abomination Vaults. On levels five through seven of the megadungeon, we entered the next volume of the Adventure Path, Hands of the Devil. Most importantly for us, though, was that we squared off against Vanessa Hoskins, an author we hadn’t faced before. After playing more than 150 published adventures by dozens of writers over the years, it’s a fresh treat when we encounter someone whose work we aren’t extensively familiar with. We still have a chunk of the adventure to play through, but here’s one thing that even our most jaded dungeon crawlers agreed on: Vanessa will surprise you, so expect anything.

Highlights from Marathon 3

Just because this Adventure Path focuses on a massive dungeon doesn’t mean that everything takes place there, and it certainly doesn’t mean that there aren’t great opportunities for roleplaying. In search of a Roseguard icon known as the Cooperative Blade, we pursued the slighted blacksmith, Carman Rajani, to a forest cave outside of town. The smith got the jump on us and was able to do to an overconfident Tess what no man had done thus far—maim her with one of the biggest hits of the campaign! Carman had the party’s attention, and Tess listened with bated breath as he talked about being the new, rightful mayor of Otari. She brashly offered the party’s aid—as the future Mrs. Rajani, of course. Carman found his way to Tess’s heart and helped the Black Powder Cadre find their way to a deeper level of the megadungeon.

In case you can’t tell, we like to test RPG absolutes. This time, we tackled the adage “never split the party.” Two characters became separated when they were shoved down a chute by an invisible creature on level four. One of them was Maloika, and goblin curiosity being what it is, he led Zoric on a foray of their own. What happened next was a cinematic moment that will stand out long after our project is over—reminiscent of the first time we saw the pirate ship in The Goonies. As the pair waded through a watery passage of unworked stone, into view came the long-sought remains of the rogue Otari himself—one of the original members of the Roseguard!

Our old buddy, Joe O’Brien from the Glass Cannon Network, joined us on our third day of dungeon-crawling while rocking the Beast Gunner archetype. We welcomed this new gunslinger into the Cadre by aiming straight for his head, after several characters became confused by a gibbering mouther accompanied by grothlut fleshwarps. Big props, though! Joe survived a precarious PvP shootout and then offered up his Hit Point total for the last few rounds: one!

We’ve got a bunch of soccer fans in the Order who are eager for the Women’s World Cup this summer, and we’re also known to grab seats together for Philly Union matches. Many thanks to Vanessa, who gave us something we’ve always wanted: our first VIP box, complete with a screen showing the best camera angles! The only problem was that the box overlooked a creepy arena instead of a soccer field, and that a couple of poltergeists wouldn’t give up their chairs from the last match. Instead of fighting them for the best spot in the house, we simply showed them what they had been struggling to find for the past 500 years: a way out of the megadungeon.

While exploring some old holding cells in the Vaults, we came across several disgusting amalgamations of aged flesh and bone known as shanrigols. These unused remnants of fleshwarping experiments seemed like they could be dangerous, but we were just too tempted by a key that gleamed inside one of the heaps. Since they didn’t attack immediately, we seized an opportunity unique to a party of gunslingers. Our front characters knelt, the back ones stood, and we created a perfect two-rank line formation that would have made the Duke of Wellington proud. Weapons aimed, we waited for Vlai’s order. FIRE!

The Arsenal

We’ve tried to describe our GM’s style a few different ways over the years, but for this campaign, just imagine yourself in the bullet ballet of a John Woo film. Think muzzle flashes in the dark, black powder cartridges falling in slow motion to the dungeon floor, the distinctive crack of a ricochet as it mars a statue, and the crunching sound that wood makes when a door gets splintered open with a scattergun. Oh, and there are plenty of “click-clicks” around the table, because reloading is just plain fun and it happens A LOT. Adam loves to make sound effects, and for this campaign we all join in. Toss in some of Zack Hemsey’s “Nice to Meet Me” in the background, and you’ve got a feel for what it’s like at our table.

Character Deaths

Zero. We might be getting cocky.

Best Quote from Marathon 3

(Maloika, being severely mauled by Jaul Mezmin, a werewolf)

Sean: “Dude, please, I can’t die to this guy; it’s part of my character’s story. I have to defeat him and tell Keleeno.”
Adam: (stands, picks up the Amber Die) “Forget your PC’s story. The Amber Die writes the stories here! (throws it across the entire table) NATURAL 20, BABY!”

Current Situation

Breen’s dragon-mouth pistol and Vlai’s scattergun helped us get past Volluk, the swarmy mini-boss on level four. We proceeded to shoot through level five, but when we said author Vanessa Hoskins will surprise you, we meant it. We eventually found ourselves on a balcony overlooking an arena, and down on the floor—lying dormant—was a reddish, gargantuan-sized mound of discarded fleshwarping materials. Better yet, behind this monstrosity was a 15ft. diameter gong, suspended by sturdy chains. What red-blooded adventurer could resist the temptation to shoot a patio-sized gong with the biggest firearm in Pathfinder Guns & Gears? Thus, a harmona gun was loaded, shouldered, and discharged. The gong shuddered loud enough to be heard over in the Emerald Spire. Then, the behemoth shuddered.

We’re about to blow open a whole new meaning for pink mist.

More Content

Our table was brought to life with the help of Blue Table Painting for the miniatures, and Black Bard Studios for custom adventure-specific miniatures/terrain.

Follow Order of the Amber Die:

Facebook

Instagram

Twitter

YouTube

The Abomination Arsenal thread

More Paizo Blog.

Tags: Community Order of the Amber Die Pathfinder Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Pathfinder Second Edition

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The Abomination Arsenal: Part 2

Apr 12, 2023, 01:00 pm

Our second marathon is a wrap, so let’s get to it! In case you haven’t caught up on the first report, our party of gunslingers succeeded in delving the top level of the Abomination Vaults, but at a cost. We fared much better on this marathon: we started to click more as a party and improved on some of the combat strategies needed to pump lead into every monster in a megadungeon. It’s hard to say at this point, but if we play as well through the remaining marathons as we did here, we might just gun down the entire Abomination Vaults.

The Abomination Arsenal: Part 2

Wednesday, April 12, 2022

Our second marathon is a wrap, so let’s get to it! In case you haven’t caught up on the first report, our party of gunslingers succeeded in delving the top level of the Abomination Vaults, but at a cost. We fared much better on this marathon: we started to click more as a party and improved on some of the combat strategies needed to pump lead into every monster in a megadungeon. It’s hard to say at this point, but if we play as well through the remaining marathons as we did here, we might just gun down the entire Abomination Vaults.

Order of the Amber Die (OAD) members are spread out across the country, with about twelve-to-fifteen active members at any given time. As we’ve shown in other blog reports, they’ve flown in from places like Washington, Rhode Island, and North Dakota to our headquarters in New Jersey for days of gaming. It’s also the norm for members to drive up to eight hours to be here. For this marathon we really tapped into our membership with numerous cameos (all gunslingers of course), turning the marathon into a mini reunion. The encounters got a bit harder with more characters, but more guns meant more fun!

Adventure: Ruins of Gauntlight

Marathon Length: 59 hours

Session Hours: 34 hours, 30 minutes

Our party, the Black Powder Cadre, picked up where we left off by exploring levels two and three of the megadungeon. We also continued developing our organization by employing the Pathfinder Second Edition organization rules, along with adding new gunslingers to our core four-character roster. We’re a sizeable band, though the Black Powder Cadre doesn’t exactly take the usual approach. We gave a false party name to town authorities, took the books we recovered from the Vaults for ourselves, pickpocketed patrons in a tavern to foster competition from another establishment, and lied to the mayor about a nefarious incident involving Otari’s foremost librarian. What can we say, we like working together!

Highlights from Ruins of Gauntlight

The symbol of the Black Powder Cadre is the harmona bird, and each of us wears a different shade of blue to represent it. You can imagine our reaction when we ran into a cult of blue-robed ghouls on level three of the Vaults. Someone had to establish dominance over this precious primary color, and it wasn’t gonna be them. A fierce clash in the library ensued and, despite improving our skillset with the dying condition, we prevailed.

Megadungeon crawling is dirty business; so far two characters have acquired Cocytan Filth and two more picked up Ghoul Fever. We’d like to thank our sponsor and friend Vandy Banderdash, head priestess of the Dawnflower Library! Frankly, Vandy is one of the main reasons we haven’t TPKed yet.

When we decided to bring this many firearms into a megadungeon, we knew there would be some heroic displays of marksmanship along the way. The first nod goes to a cameo from Auralee, a veteran of The Slithering Salve, who joined the Black Powder Cadre during this marathon as “Lady Sniper.” She once put down four critical hits in two rounds, with a staggering 36 damage scored from a single bullet as a 2nd-level character. Vlai’s dwarven scattergun holds our next favorite record though, with six allies hit in just one blast from the boomstick.

We finally came across something that could outduel us: a wood golem. It beat us to the draw and fanned out 103 damage across four targets with a single splinter volley—respectable by any desperados standards. We pulled steel and returned fire, but in the end decided to run. We'll be back for another showdown in the next marathon.

We probably shouldn’t have picked a fight with a bearded devil, but someone had an itchy trigger finger. Before we knew it, two PCs were on the ground in horrible fashion. Mazatl, practicing the Way of the Spellshot, scoped in hard and held his breath. The devil’s chest exploded with a sound that was only slightly less gratifying than the natural 20 as it landed on Erick’s copy of Pathfinder Guns & Gears.

The Arsenal

We're a party consisting entirely of gunslingers, so what makes each character stand out—what gives them identity—isn't the same as other parties of the past. In this campaign, it's your weapon and the way you use it that separates you from the rest. The sound of a harmona gun is unmistakable, and you won't be hearing anything for a while after Maloika fires it. The quick grouping of holes that tears open the enemy in front of you comes from Breen, our pistolero. When a ghoul's dome bursts into pieces from the far end of the hallway, that's Mazatl, our sniper. And that sting in your back? That's Vlai with the scattergun. Out of game, it's just as important to distinguish your gunslinger from the rest, and that's where our props come in. Each player's weapon has been crafted and custom-painted to look like the one they have in-game—it helps to have an artist at the table!

Character Deaths

None. Props to Matt, our player captain, for the pre-marathon strategy posts in the Google Classroom.

Best Quote from Marathon 2

Town notary: "And your party's name?"
Zoric: "Umm... the Blue Coat Adventurers."
Town notary: "Very well..."
Party (to each other, bristling with firearms): "Seriously, 'Blue Coat Adventurers'?"

Current Situation

The Pathfinder community was right when they said that we would run into some issues with a party consisting entirely of gunslingers. That being said, this is OAD, and over the years you've seen how competitive we can get. We've adapted to our main weakness, which is any enemy with a high Armor Class. We've taken advantage of our strong point, especially on level three, which is mass combat. In fact, the more enemies the better—we make our own ammo and have plenty of it! We've managed to clear most of level two and three at this point, discovered Otari's ghost once again, and followed it down to level four. We've done pretty well with discovering lore, so we have a decent idea of what once happened on the upper levels of the Vaults. As for what lies beneath, that's a different matter…

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The Abomination Arsenal: Part 1

Dec 21, 2022, 12:00 pm

Our first marathon is in the books, and it’s time to report out! We knew when we started this project that it wasn’t going to go down like a typical dungeon crawl—or megadungeon for that matter. Instead, this campaign shot off with an excessively violent bang (series of them, actually) that left a character dead and a level full of face-down mitflits. We’ve played a lot of dungeons over the years, but we’ve never riddled one with ricochet marks. In short: Gunslingers are a great time, everyone should try four!

The Abomination Arsenal: Part 1

Wednesday, December 21, 2022

Our first marathon is in the books, and it’s time to report out! We knew when we started this project that it wasn’t going to go down like a typical dungeon crawl—or megadungeon for that matter. Instead, this campaign shot off with an excessively violent bang (series of them, actually) that left a character dead and a level full of face-down mitflits. We’ve played a lot of dungeons over the years, but we’ve never riddled one with ricochet marks. In short: Gunslingers are a great time, everyone should try four!

When you sign up for an OAD marathon, you agree to live in a house with us for a few days, playing about twelve to fourteen session hours a day. We take our time, roleplay as much as we can, and take advantage of almost every side quest and NPC errand that comes along. Throughout the marathon, other members of the Order might show up to cameo as NPCs or fellow gunslingers. Rack up enough session hours with us, and you’ll become the newest member of OAD. With that, we want to wish a warm welcome to Karee Vogrin, who reached 100 session hours and membership during this marathon!

Adventure: Ruins of Gauntlight

Marathon Length: 60 hours, 45min

Session Hours: 35hrs, 30min

Our GM started the story on the path to the Gauntlight ruins, as we were already well prepped with a session zero and the material we had in our campaign’s Google Classroom. We found the top level of the ruins occupied, but the Black Powder Cadre was in need of cash, so the room-clearing began—right after we picked two of our characters up out of the mud. Yup, the Amber Die itself was hot from the start, and Adam opened this campaign with three crits from a slurk in the first encounter!

Highlights from Ruins of Gauntlight:

□ The Black Powder Cadre isn’t a group known for tact, and we managed to get kicked out of two of Otari’s prominent taverns: The Rowdy Rockfish and the Crook’s Nook. At the Rockfish we botched (a light term) an attempt to empathize with the proprietor whose son disappeared a year ago. At the Crook’s Nook, we ran up a sizeable tab with the local thieves’ guild. Solving this issue isn’t as simple as merely avoiding the tavern, so we’ll keep you updated as our debt looms. At least they know we’re heavily armed!

□ When you have a party consisting entirely of gunslingers, adventuring tactics can change a bit. We approached almost every room in the ruins through its collapsed ceiling. If we saw opposition on the floor below, we rained down lead as they scampered for the doors. Let the gods sort ’em out!

□ Hands-down one of the best battles of the adventure took place in the Otari graveyard. We raced past the cemetery gates as the Gauntlight shone down its eerie beam, bringing the deceased back to life! Things got loud real quick, and not since our years of playing Call of Duty: Zombies have we unloaded that much firepower into the walking dead. Worse yet, the Gauntlight brought to life our former companion, Rome, whose body was wrapped and prepared for a funeral the next morning. His massive frame lumbered toward us—and went down like the rest.

□ Just because we are the only ones with guns does not mean there aren’t some close shootouts. What, you thought you would automatically win a ranged battle because you’re packing heat? A morlock with a junk launcher might just have better aim.

□ Over the years, our GM has been known for rendering maps from Pathfinder adventures in his signature style. This time he drew with one eye—not by choice. It’s a long story, but Adam even GMed this project launch in sunglasses the whole time. Many thanks to the docs at Wills Eye in Philly for helping us pull off this marathon!

The Arsenal

As expected, with a party consisting completely of gunslingers, we saw quite a few extremes play out during the first marathon. Foremost, there is little that compares to round one of most combats: fire, reload, fire. Round two is rough though, when we all usually reload, fire, and reload. Another concern is money, as guns and ammo are expensive for an entire adventuring party. That fancy gem we found in the back of the soulbound doll? Sold—pass me a cartridge. Additionally, healing is an issue for us. Battle Medicine is a key reason we’re still here, and we’re thinking that eventually all characters will have to take it. Since we are all playing the same class, we’ve been overpowered in some encounters, and barely equipped to handle others; most importantly, this campaign is unlike any other, and that’s what we were striving for. Like all OAD projects, we’re also tracking data on how the characters interact with the Adventure Path, and we’ll present it at the end.

Character Deaths:

□ Anyone who is familiar with the Abomination Vaults has probably heard of Mister Beak, the soulbound doll responsible for so many TPKs that it earned a nerf in the hardcover version of the Adventure Path. Rome, a gunslinger following the Way of the Drifter, failed his save vs. the doll’s phantom pain. We shot Mister Beak up easier than a clay pigeon, but the persistent damage demanded some flat checks for Rome to survive. While he did manage to get rid of the persistent damage, he was still dying and needed to make recovery checks to stabilize. Our party’s inability to heal our fellow gunslinger left us watching in frozen fear: Rome had fallen. Yes, we used the nerfed version of the doll. Sorry for putting you out there, Erick!

Best Quote From Marathon 1:

(with smoke hovering after two-dozen rounds fired)
Breen: "Clear?"
Vlai: (kicks a dead gremlin) "Clear!"
Rome: “They shouldn’t have brought darts to a gunfight.”

Current Situation:

Gotta be honest, we loved the town of Otari as much as we did the first two levels of the Abomination Vaults. We had dinner with the mayor, read suggested selections at the Dawnflower Library, and even acquired the deed for the ruins of The Thirsty Alpaca. As of now, a crooked sign stands in front of the old alpaca that reads “Coming soon: Maloika’s Mercantile.” We’ve mourned our single character death, and Rome has been replaced by a rookie gunslinger from Arcadia practicing the Way of the Spellshot. We also explored level one and part of level two of the megadungeon, found Otari’s ghost, and followed it as best we could to level three. We’re currently in a hallway that presents a bit of option-anxiety: two stairways headed up, an open room with mist to the left, and a door at the other end of the corridor. Lock and load!

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The Abomination Arsenal

Sep 20, 2022, 01:30 pm

Order of the Amber Die here, back with our eighth project since 2014! In case you aren’t familiar with our work from past projects, we’ll give you the staccato version. We only play published adventures. We use the complete rules set. We’ve had the same GM since our founding: 1987. We like to push the envelope of tabletop roleplaying. We only play marathon sessions—days at a time. We’ll play on location. Our GM isn’t afraid to kill characters or TPK us; he’ll do it in front of the community, too. Imagine us like a roleplaying team, complete with a captain to help the players. We revere one d20 above all others, and that is the Amber Die. It doesn’t roll more 20s than it should, but it chains them when it does, and doubters have always been converted. After more than 150 adventures, we’ve even gotten rid of RPG absolutes: yeah, we’ll split the party.

The Abomination Arsenal

Tuesday, September 20, 2022

Introduction

Order of the Amber Die here, back with our eighth project since 2014! In case you aren’t familiar with our work from past projects, we’ll give you the staccato version. We only play published adventures. We use the complete rules set. We’ve had the same GM since our founding: 1987. We like to push the envelope of tabletop roleplaying. We only play marathon sessions—days at a time. We’ll play on location. Our GM isn’t afraid to kill characters or TPK us; he’ll do it in front of the community, too. Imagine us like a roleplaying team, complete with a captain to help the players. We revere one d20 above all others, and that is the Amber Die. It doesn’t roll more 20s than it should, but it chains them when it does, and doubters have always been converted. After more than 150 adventures, we’ve even gotten rid of RPG absolutes: yeah, we’ll split the party.

Past Pathfinder Projects

The Emerald Spire Project, 2014
The Giantslayer Endeavor, 2015
The Strange Aeons Experiment, 2016
The Azlant Odyssey, 2017
The Pathfinder Playtest, 2018
The Slithering Salve, 2020
The Abomination Arsenal, 2022

The Arsenal

In our previous projects for Paizo, we’ve always played iconic characters, and we’ve always put our own spin on things. For The Giantslayer Endeavor, we tried to play the most amount of material in the shortest amount of real time ever recorded. We succeeded, with an entire Adventure Path played in six marathons across six months—fully documented, too. With The Strange Aeons Experiment, we assembled a team of gamers who knew nothing about Lovecraft or the Elder Mythos and sent them through the Strange Aeons AP to see what would happen. The list goes on, but we’ll let you check out each project as you may.

Instead of playing iconic characters again, this project will be different: we’re playing our own characters, and going extreme with the party. Early brainstorming around the release of Guns & Gears had us thinking that it would be cool to see a couple guns interact with a dungeon, which is sometimes considered the “standard unit” of an adventure. As we kept the ideas going, they shifted to this: Why have two gunslingers, when you can have four? Why put them in a dungeon, when you can put them in a megadungeon? Bring on the Abomination Vaults and pass the ammo! That’s right, no bows and spells in this campaign—just guns. You want to play a cameo for a day with us? Gotta be a gunslinger. You’re a friendly NPC offering free healing on our way back to town? Nope, don’t mess with our chemistry. You’re one of the core four players and Adam killed your character in volume two? Gotta be a gunslinger—a 1st level one, now.

Sure, we could have played gunslingers in a firearm-themed setting. This is OAD, though, and we like to be unorthodox. We wanted to see what we could learn about the game and go where others fear to tread. Is party balance really necessary, and how is a party of gunslingers going to overcome the vast array of challenges inside a megadungeon? We have no idea, and that’s usually where our Player Captain comes in. Matt’s been playing iterations of this game since the early 90s and has seen a healthy share of high-level treasure hoards in his time. He’ll get the party in shape for the first marathon and the launch of The Abomination Arsenal. We do know one thing right now: we’re going into this megadungeon fully strapped, always packed.

Meet the Black Powder Cadre

So many gunslingers in one place needs some explanation, so we’ll give you the key points. Vlai Cafellyn, Alkenstar outlaw and founder of the Black Powder Cadre, pulled off an infamous heist at the Alkenstar Gunworks. While everyone might have intended to go their separate way afterward, the authorities’ fierce pursuit ensured that the group stuck together for protection. Over time, a bond developed, and the Black Powder Cadre took shape. Their symbol is the harmona, a fey bird famous for sounding like the biggest gun in the game. The Cadre’s color is blue—like the harmona—and everyone wears a different shade. Vlai’s only rule for membership is that you have to be handy with the steel. Lying low in Otari for a few months has depleted their funds, and it’s time to explore the old ruins nearby in search of some profit…

The core four members of the Black Powder Cadre can be found below. Also listed are the names of each player and the year each became a member of OAD (when a player has reached 100 session hours at our table).

Vlai Cafellyn, human gunslinger
Way of the Vanguard
-Background: Alkenstar Outlaw
-Armed with: dwarven scattergun
-Played by Matt Hardin, Player Captain (member since 2003)

Rome, human gunslinger
Way of the Drifter
-Background: Fogfen Tale-Teller
-Armed with: dueling pistol & short sword
-Played by Erick Germer (member since 2007)

Maloika the Miserable, goblin gunslinger
Way of the Sniper
-Background: Market Runner
-Armed with: harmona gun
-Played by Sean Linville (member since 2016)

Breen Danaan, half-elf gunslinger
Way of the Pistolero
-Background: Eldritch Anatomist
-Armed with: dragon-mouth pistol, dueling pistol
-Played by Karee Vogrin (becoming a member in 2022)

Highlights from Preparing Abomination Vaults:

□ We still love being around the table together and the setups that go with it. For our launch marathon, we’ve got one of the sickest builds of any project so far: the Gauntlight ruins, completely according to scale and fully 3D. Two photos on this blog only scratch the surface of what our friend Morgan at Black Bard Studios can produce, so there are more to come.

□ Another thing we love about being around the table is our props. One of our members built an old-style ammo crate to hold extra copies of Guns & Gears, and maybe some of that tasty Otari coffee! During one of our “you know what would be cool?” discussions, someone suggested a couple of Nerf guns being custom-painted to look like the ones our characters use. Got those now, too.

□ PCs show up with their own look for their character, so Sean’s rocking a goblin mask for Maloika, and Karee’s wearing a set of half-elf ears for Breen. In future blogs we’ll also see a cameo from our spellshot gunslinger in a ghillie suit. Yup, he’ll be wearing the whole getup!

□ Since we’re playing our own characters instead of iconics this time, we wanted some portraits. That’s where our artist and prospective OAD member, Doug Handlon, comes in. Our GM and Doug had classrooms down the hall from each other for years, though you can probably guess which was history and which was art. Even as a cameo, Doug has to play a gunslinger, so he’ll show up as the unexpected sharpshooter.

□ We have a couple more cameos lined up: Theodora and Auralee from our work with The Slithering. Theodora is in the ICU most of the time and can start an IV faster than a 46 initiative roll—extremely useful in a marathon if you’ve heard our stories. Auralee is studying psychology at Rutgers and won’t leave us alone about getting into any Lovecraftian adventure we come across. Both will play gunslingers, of course.

□ Our GM put together a custom soundtrack, including a theme song for each level of the megadungeon, much like he did for The Emerald Spire Project. Characters choose songs too, and we couldn’t leave out certain NPCs and standout locations.

What’s Next

We’ll drop a blog for every marathon we play, with a plan to finish this AP in six or fewer marathons. As Adam likes to remind us, a TPK ends the project. Expect to hear from us again soon with part one!

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Interested in trying out the Abomination Vaults yourself? Try the Abomination Vaults Hardcover Compilation, or pre-order the fifth edition adaptation! This adventure path is a dungeon-delving campaign like no other, including support articles, rules, monsters, and more!

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Order of the Amber Die: The Slithering Salve: Part 2

Sep 21, 2021, 12:30 pm

Our first project of Pathfinder 2nd Edition—The Slithering Salve—is complete! That's right, last month we assembled the Order for another marathon session of Ron Lundeen's module, The Slithering. The August humidity in New Jersey was enough to curl even the sturdiest character sheet, but we embraced it as part of our Mwangi experience and came out alive (mostly, see below).

Order of the Amber Die: The Slithering Salve: Part 2

Tuesday, September 21, 2020

Our first project of Pathfinder 2nd Edition—The Slithering Salve—is complete! That's right, last month we assembled the Order for another marathon session of Ron Lundeen's module, The Slithering. The August humidity in New Jersey was enough to curl even the sturdiest character sheet, but we embraced it as part of our Mwangi experience and came out alive (mostly, see below).

Once again, we pushed the envelope of gaming immersion and paid homage to an adventure that boldly featured so many oozes. Our five-gallon bucket of slime was ready at the table for anyone who suffered a hit from an ooze; for each hit a character received, that player had to stick their hand into the bucket and retrieve one of the dice that could be found at the bottom. This is OAD after all, so this time we made it tougher by cutting back on the number of dice in the bucket. How long it took you to find one was what really defined the experience!

Module: The Slithering

Marathon Length: 60 hours, 15 minutes

Session Hours: 37 hours, 45 minutes

The Order has between 10 and 15 active members at any given time, and every roster is unique to each project. As we mentioned before, the team for The Slithering Salve differed from our other projects in that we had ages ranging from 47 to 14, and experience varying from veterans with over 30 years' experience to a complete newcomer to Pathfinder. We also ate well during this marathon, since cookies are a meal when you're in the Order, and we had none other than Karee Vogrin of Critical Hit Cookies returning as Lini! Finally, our GM tapped three additional members for live NPC roles throughout the adventure.

Highlights From The Slithering:

□ The journey to Holy Xatramba was more Mwangi than we expected from this adventure—a welcome surprise. Our favorite encounter of the trek was a 300-foot-long rope bridge that disappeared into the dense foliage, and we didn't notice the trio of jungle drakes until one of them slammed down behind Fumbus. It should probably be noted that the goblin was a couple hundred feet ahead of the party. Time to burn those Hero Points, kid.

□ Kibwe had become a mess by the time we returned to try to rid the city of the slithering curse. We watched as the owner of a semi-domesticated triceratops melted into ooze, which slid down the side of the now-angry beast. As the dinosaur rampaged toward the party, Lini and Korakai stood their ground, putting our hopes on Wild Empathy and a calm emotions spell. The result of its Will save vs. spell? Natural 1.

□ The Order always embraces a hearty PvP bout when it's forced upon us. Heck, we even see it as a great opportunity for some trash-talking around the table! When an encounter with two specters resulted in our first PF 2.0 showdown between Jirelle and Zithembe (fighter), the bets were placed and both players' best dice came out. Out of game, this was Auralee's (Jirelle) first time playing Pathfinder, and she was up against Erick, a sixteen-year veteran with more notches on his belt from dropping other players than anyone in the Order. They went solid for seven rounds and it came down to the last hit, but Erick defended his title.

□ Juno Reactor's "Conga Fury" blasted away on the stereo during a couple of heated battles in this adventure, but it wasn't louder than our GM when the Amber Die dropped yet another signature 20-20-20. Adam always says afterwards: Still got it.

□ We continued to use the Critical Hit Deck and Critical Fumble Deck, with the deadly variant applied, causing a card to be drawn on any crits (not just natural 20s). In total, we saw a whopping 108 critical hits and 70 fumbles throughout the entire module. A few of our favorites from the decks included Jirelle losing a thumb, suffering 3d6+2 persistent bleed damage in another battle, and also being stupefied, frightened, and restrained from a set of nasty fumbles in a later fight. It went both ways though, and we watched a jungle drake kill itself with its own stinger!

The Salve:

We went into this adventure with the notion that it would be about things that slithered; however, what made this project such a unique experience was not the plethora of oozes we faced, but the epidemic-like experience that involved the spread of the slithering curse itself. The curse was transmitted through contact between creatures, and despite attempts to gather additional information, we didn't know as much as we wanted to know about it. The only way to be truly safe (until our heroes could end the curse) was to isolate and distance from others. It was surreal returning to Kibwe near the end of the adventure to find the population avoiding each other on the street, hiding in their homes, and wearing masks. You can see where this is going; playing this module in 2020–2021 was an experience we'll never forget—one that bonded us even more tightly as a gaming group. While the Order has played over 150 modules, we can't understate what it felt like to roleplay through this one. We found solace in our ability to end the spreading curse, and just like the real-life events that surrounded this project, decades from now the Order will still be talking about that time we played The Slithering.

The Slithering by the Numbers

Note: All data has been compiled across one full module of play.

Total marathon hours: 121 hours, 15 minutes
Actual session hours: 67 hours, 25 minutes
Longest single session: 14 hours, 15 minutes
Miles trekked in the Mwangi Expanse: about 280 miles
Group consensus on most valuable skill: Medicine
Cookies consumed: 19 pounds

Party Data

Korakai
□ Successful uses of minor curse: 6
□ Successful uses of major curse: 4

Lini
□ Uses of Continual Recovery: 107
□ Total damage dealt by Droogami: 205

Fumbus
□ Direct bomb kills: 2
□ Total splash damage: 104
□ Friendly fire splash damage: 68

Jirelle
□ Attempted panache: 35
□ Achieved panache: 26

Character Deaths:

Ron Lundeen has put plenty of our characters in the ground over the years, and he did it again here with a double-babau ambush that caught us off guard. Skuulkush, our party's lizardfolk guide, bravely allowed himself to be flanked in an effort to buy time. At least it was quick.

Best Quote from Marathon 2:

(Fumbus returns out of breath after two characters were lost scouting the ruins)

Lini: "What happened? What did you find?"
Fumbus: "Through those doors there is... a magical... mind-controlling... DINOSAUR that takes your hands!"

Conclusion:

Escorting the ancient Pillar-Watcher known as Cursebreaker back to the city of Kibwe (or simply chasing after it) was a mechanic that compounded the sense of urgency we already felt throughout the adventure. We struggled to keep up with the construct, driven by powerful magic, as it smashed its way through the Aspis Consortium agents who tried to block its destination. We were fortunate to have front-row seats when an alchemical golem also tried to stand in its way, and the resulting melee was a fantastic primer for the final battle to come. In the end, we managed to get the heavily damaged Pillar-Watcher back to the dais where it belonged so that we could perform the ritual required to end the curse. A win for Kibwe and the Order!

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Order of the Amber Die: The Slithering Salve Part 1

Nov 9, 2020, 02:30 pm

In case you're new to our projects or what Order of the Amber Die is all about, here's a quick rundown: We have been dedicated to pushing the envelope of tabletop role-playing since 1987. After more than five years on the Paizo blog, including three full Adventure Paths and the Pathfinder Playtest, we were looking for a new project, and our first one in Pathfinder 2nd Edition no less. We had never presented anything from Paizo's modules line, but just a few minutes after scanning the options, a new project was born: The Slithering Salve! Over the years, author Ron Lundeen has shown up as one of the more frequent names from the adventures we've played, and The Slithering will mark the fourth adventure of his that the Order has taken on.

Order of the Amber Die: The Slithering Salve Part 1

Monday, November 9, 2020

In case you're new to our projects or what Order of the Amber Die is all about, here's a quick rundown: We have been dedicated to pushing the envelope of tabletop role-playing since 1987. After more than five years on the Paizo blog, including three full Adventure Paths and the Pathfinder Playtest, we were looking for a new project, and our first one in Pathfinder 2nd Edition no less. We had never presented anything from Paizo's modules line, but just a few minutes after scanning the options, a new project was born: The Slithering Salve! Over the years, author Ron Lundeen has shown up as one of the more frequent names from the adventures we've played, and The Slithering will mark the fourth adventure of his that the Order has taken on.

Oozes have been a staple of adventurers' bad dreams for decades of this game now, and tales of the "the room with the ooze" from any given dungeon are fairly common on the messageboards. However, a module that features ooze as part of its central plot can be difficult to find--for good reason--which is why this adventure and the myriad oozes within it deserve the highest level of appreciation we can give them. Throughout this adventure, any player whose character is hit by an ooze during combat must stick their hand into a five-gallon bucket of disgusting slime, and retrieve a die at the bottom of the bucket for each hit they received. We told you we push the envelope!

Module: The Slithering

Marathon Length: 61 hours

Session Hours: 29hrs, 40min

The Order has between ten and fifteen active members at any given time, and each roster is unique to each project. The team for The Slithering Salve is our most diverse and perhaps most challenging, in that we have ages ranging from forty-seven to fourteen, and experience varying from veterans with over thirty years to even a complete newcomer to the game. We also have a friend and patron along for this project: Karee Vogrin of Critical Hit Cookies, with hair dyed green to match Lini! Finally, with such a diverse array of locals across the city of Kibwe, our GM tapped two additional members of the Order for live-NPC roles throughout our journey.

Highlights From The Slithering:

Are your veterans too familiar with the various kinds of oozes in Pathfinder? Perhaps you're worried about them metagaming which types of damage to apply? Enter the fuming sludge, a new ooze that put three of our characters on the ground and slithered over their precious hero points with its ability to prevent the curing of persistent bleed. Oh, you're going to do the run-away-and-shoot routine? Hope you can duck ejected globs of sludge!

Oozes aren't the only thing we fought in The Slithering. Inside one of the oldest buildings in Kibwe, Jirelle opened a door and peered through the torchlight. Staring back at her--six times before help got there--were a pair of basilisks. Six successful saving throws made, never tell a swashbuckler the odds!

We decided to employ the Critical Hit Deck and Critical Fumble Deck, with deadly variants applied to both, causing a card to be drawn on any crits/fumbles (not just natural 20s or 1s). In total, we saw twenty-seven critical hits and sixteen fumbles throughout the first half of the adventure. This resulted in some raucous combats, like the one where Zithembe the catfolk fighter threw his greataxe (not by choice), drew his greatclub, and proceeded to break it--in the same round!

Playing iconic characters has moments when a player gets to add to the lore of the iconic. While lifting up a map inside a caravan house belonging to the Aspis Consortium, Korakai discovered a feather token (fan), just like the one his grandfather used to dance with.

Kibwe was reason enough to play this adventure. The soundtrack to Tsotsi accompanied us as we explored nearly every block of the ten distinct districts of the city and met its inhabitants. As one of the adventure's more memorable encounters, we had to persevere in a heated debate in front of a large crowd (complete with module-specific debate system) about the contributions of non-humans and the value of diversity.

The Salve:

We weren't sure how we were going to feel playing an adventure about an out-of-control curse, spreading throughout the population of Kibwe with the backdrop of 2020 all around us. This being OAD though, we weren't going to shy away from any adventure that provides something new for us, and we were willing to make heavy sacrifices to have such a unique experience. We spent the weekend contact-tracing in Kibwe, discovering as much as we could about how the curse was spreading and even daring to visit the quarantined victims--eventually coming to the understanding that our own characters might now be vectors. The group agreed that as an out-of-game experience we found it cathartic, even a somewhat surprising outlet for expression during this challenging time. There was a great sense of hope that our characters could do what we at the table could not. By the end of the weekend, we came to feel as if the "Salve" in our project's title has several meanings, one of which applies to the players.

Character Deaths:

None! Our characters were built solid and in good hands with the expertise of OAD Player Captain, Matt Hardin

Best Quote From Marathon 1:

(with the party facing two large ochre jellies)

Lini: "Well, let's see what works!" (casts electric arc, two jellies become four jellies)
Droogami: "Grrrrrr..." (bites, and four jellies now become five)
Korakai: "Caw!" (wields electricity, five jellies become six)
Zithembe: "Rraaawwwrrr!" (attacks with greataxe, six jellies become seven)
Jirelle: "This sounds like a good time to get out of Kibwe, honestly."

Current Situation:

We managed to discern the origin of the curse affecting Kibwe; unfortunately, the remedy appears to be one of the ancient pillar-watchers of the city, known as Cursebreaker. After chasing down clues, we must venture 140 miles deeper into Mwangi, to a place called Holy Xatramba. Little is known of the ruined city, both in-game and from Paizo's published material on it. There are demons within, we do know that...

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Our table was brought to life with the help of Vibrant Gaming Terrain for jungle setups, Blue Table Painting for the iconic miniatures, and Black Bard Studios for custom adventure-specific miniatures and terrain.

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Order of the Amber Die: Beyond the Veiled Past

Sep 18, 2020, 10:24 am

Let's get this out right away: It's an awesome feeling to complete an Adventure Path. As we all know, you don't have to scan the message boards very hard to find stories of how many groups almost made it to volume six of an AP. Not too long before the historic events of 2020, we assembled for exactly that: one final marathon of Ruins of Azlant. Our odyssey was at its conclusion, and what made this marathon equally nostalgic was that it was our last adventure of the Pathfinder 1st Edition era.

Order of the Amber Die: Beyond the Veiled Past

Friday, September 18, 2020

The Azlant Odyssey

Let's get this out right away: It's an awesome feeling to complete an Adventure Path. As we all know, you don't have to scan the message boards very hard to find stories of how many groups almost made it to volume six of an AP. Not too long before the historic events of 2020, we assembled for exactly that: one final marathon of Ruins of Azlant. Our odyssey was at its conclusion, and what made this marathon equally nostalgic was that it was our last adventure of the Pathfinder 1st Edition era.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Author Thurston Hillman gave us everything we wanted in the final volume: enormous creatures, complex battles (some underwater), deadly magic, a climactic final encounter, and the powerful items we had patiently climbed so many character levels to see. All we had to do was find a way through the gathering army of ulat-kini, locate the secret facility know as the Compass, and stop a veiled master from setting off a doomsday weapon. No prob!

To help bring the marathon experience to life, we were joined from Seattle by OAD member Savannah Broadway in the live-NPC role of Imiolana, a pure-blooded Azlanti. We also contacted our friends at Black Bard Studios for their help in creating a 3D setup for the final encounter, along with the custom lusca and seashell buildings you see below. The talents of Geordie John Studios were used to create much of the beautiful colony display, and the artists of Blue Table Painting did the fantastic paint work on our character minis.

The end of this Adventure Path also saw two new players achieve 100 hours at our table and become full members of Order of the Amber Die. The first was Julian Dappolone, son of OAD member Michael Dappolone; the second was Robert Pontious, also of Know Direction, who flew in from Rhode Island. Congrats to Julian and Rob, and welcome to the Order!

Adventure: Pathfinder Adventure Path #126: Beyond the Veiled Past

Marathon Length: 100 hours, 50min

Session Hours: 63 hours, 15min

Highlights From Beyond the Veiled Past

We boarded our apparatus of the crab one final time, cranked up the music (Borgore's Dolphin Attack), and launched an amphibious assault against the massing forces of the veiled master. These fights saw us facing units of the "troop" type from Bestiary 6, a monster mechanic we look forward to seeing again in Pathfinder 2.0!

Like ioun stones? You'll get plenty of them in this Adventure Path. You'll also get a CR 17 ioun golem, which can steal your stones--absorb their power--and fire them back at you. Just plain awesome!

The Amber Die said farewell to this campaign the best way it knew how: by gracing everyone in the room with a 20-20-20. If you've seen it happen, you'll never forget it.

While defending the colony's new tavern, Valeros squared off against Sharopech, an ulat-kini fighter older than the fall of Azlant itself. In a slugfest that would have made Foreman and Ali jealous, the two threw out more than four hundred damage in three rounds. When it was over, the skum was face down and the beer was safe.

We recovered an unholy sword made of throneglass, a material once part of the Imperial Palace in Azlant. Kyra grasped the blade (known as Empire's Fall), and used her prestige capstone ability to seek Sarenrae's aid in performing a miracle. The weapon was reborn as Dawnflower's Hope, and was with us to the end.

The Odyssey

Getting to plan, develop, and defend our own colony made this Adventure Path unique. We watched proudly when the first stone structure was erected with the help of our stone shape and ant haul spells. Alongside colony-building, crafting alliances and relationships with many of the communities we encountered turned out to be one of the defining features of this Adventure Path. In fact, by the time we reached the final encounter, our odyssey wasn't even about us so much anymore, it was about the NPCs who stood alongside us for volumes of play and ultimately outnumbered us in the party.

Character Deaths

As the party tried to broker a peace between the colony and nearby locathah, several ugothol assassins were present in disguise. The author's deadly expertise with stat blocks was evident here, leaving us to deal with the bodies of Kyra, Imiolana, and Valeros.

Once inside the secret Azlanti facility, there was the small matter of dealing with some of its still-active defenses, which included intelligent clockwork soldiers; unfortunately, they had already taken out Koloshkora before we understood the threat they posed.

Best Quote From Marathon 6

(talking down a yarahkut inevitable and two clockwork leviathans)
Adam (GM): "Go ahead and bust out the best Diplomacy check of your career."
Dan (Kyra): "Ummm...(rolls, silence)...(more silence)...forty-three?"
Adam: "Dude, that's awesome, why did you mess with us?"
Dan: "Because I rolled a six."

The Ruins of Azlant Adventure Path by the Numbers

Note: All data has been compiled across six volumes of play.

Total marathon hours: 646 hours, 45min
Actual session hours: 349 hours, 55min
Longest single session: 17 hours, 45min
Real-life months passed: 21
Days passed on Golarion: 191
Highest DC reached on a skill check: 78 (Koloshkora)
Aboleths slain: 4
Group consensus on most valuable skill: Linguistics (Azlanti)
Caffeine consumed: c. 60,000mg

Party Teamwork Feat: Lookout
Uses: 6

Valeros (Aquanaut)
Uses of Aquadynamic Paragon (whatsoever): 1
Total damage received: 4,263

Kyra (Exalted Prestige Class)
Blessed Surgery medicine domain power: 64 uses, 22 successes
Uses of Divine Boon prestige ability: 22

Merisiel (Relic Raider)
*Character was gloriously disintegrated underwater during volume four
Successful uses of Curse Sense: 1
Successful uses of Disable Curse: 0

Ezren (Sword Binder)
Successful uses of the Stabbing Spells trait : 2
Spells cast underwater: 51
Successful uses of Sword of the Mage ability: 20

GM Stats
Most frequent enemies employed: ulat-kini, ugothol, merfolk, sahuagin
Strongest party defenses faced: freedom of movement, ride the waves
Highest enemy single attack damage: 192 (deep merfolk sorcerer)
Favorite NPCs: wyrwoods, Mordant Spire elves
Marathon prep hours: c. 590
Pages of notes collected on Ruins of Azlant: 81

How it Ended

Thoughts of previous final performances upped our anxiety as we gazed across a stone catwalk toward the doomsday device we had long sought. Opposing us was the veiled master Ochymua, accompanied by two aboleth wizards--yet that's not what made the fight difficult. The entire room was a sphere of water with air in the center, and the water was fair game as passable terrain. Our aquanaut and locathah guide swiftly dove in and were upon the aboleths in short order. The battle turned into high-level Pathfinder's version of synchronized swimming, where your character's speed and method of locomotion determined your role. The encounter was further complicated by the arrival of Jazradan, a fated Azlanti leader in ghost form who wasn't exactly on our side. OAD history was made, with an astonishing fourteen disintegrate spells firing back and forth as we struggled over the doomsday weapon. Things looked pretty bleak for a while with three characters trapped in maze spells, but Paizo developer Eleanor Ferron gets a nod here for designing such a competent companion in Imiolana, whom ended up bringing down both Ochymua and Jazradan before the device went off.

It was the cleanest victory we've had in our years on the Paizo blog, but Kyra said it best regarding everything about The Azlant Odyssey: "We didn't just win. We succeeded."

Lastly, a sincere thank you to Managing Developer Adam Daigle for his support throughout this project. There is a great deal of patience and effort required to present an entire Adventure Path on the Paizo blog, and he's been with us through three of them now

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Order of the Amber Die—The Azlant Odyssey, Part 5

Aug 17, 2019, 12:00 pm

It’s been a while since we’ve heard from our friends at the Order of the Amber Die, but they’re still at it! There were some scheduling complications and their tackling of Doomsday Dawn for the playtest, but they’ve recently finished their marathon of Pathfinder Adventure Path #125: Tower of the Drowned Dead and sent me their report. I also got a chance to talk with GM Adam Smith at Gen Con a couple of weeks ago, and he let me know that they have more amazing things to share with us once they wrap up the Ruins of Azlant Adventure Path—so stay tuned! Also, keep in mind that this blog contains spoilers for the adventure and Adventure Path, so be careful if you’re playing this one!

Order of the Amber Die—The Azlant Odyssey, Part 5

Saturday, July 21, 2018

It’s been a while since we’ve heard from our friends at the Order of the Amber Die, but they’re still at it! There were some scheduling complications and their tackling of Doomsday Dawn for the playtest, but they’ve recently finished their marathon of Pathfinder Adventure Path #125: Tower of the Drowned Dead and sent me their report. I also got a chance to talk with GM Adam Smith at Gen Con a couple of weeks ago, and he let me know that they have more amazing things to share with us once they wrap up the Ruins of Azlant Adventure Path—so stay tuned! Also, keep in mind that this blog contains spoilers for the adventure and Adventure Path, so be careful if you’re playing this one!

If you are new to our work, for the past several years the Order has been completing projects for the Paizo blog. Our most recent work, The Azlant Odyssey, started in 2017—paused to complete the Pathfinder Playtest—and is now nearing its conclusion with volumes five and six of the Ruins of Azlant Adventure Path! For those looking to refresh themselves on the campaign, here are the first four parts:

The Azlant Odyssey Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4.

We have been to the semi-finals of an Adventure Path plenty of times before, but what worried our party about part five of this particular AP was what we knew about our goal. The information we gathered told us that inside the Alabaster Trident, a massive tower built during the age of thriving Azlant, resided a lich who had spent the last few 10,000 years creating a legion of undead abominations. In our chase to stop a veiled master from securing a weapon of catastrophic power, we had to go to the Alabaster Trident and seek out this lich. The tower sank along with Azlant; therefore, we expected to face many levels of undead in a submerged dungeon-crawl, and there was no guarantee we would find air within. There wasn't a single one of us that didn't fear ending up like the lich's name, "Auberon the Drowned."

This marathon also carried with it some out-of-game emphasis for us, as it would mark our 150th published adventure completed since the founding of the Order in 1987. With such an occasion on hand, we'd have a full house with extra live-NPCs throughout. Our talented rookie, Robert Pontious, flew in from Rhode Island with his hair and beard dyed grey to match his role as Ezren. Author and former Paizo intern Savannah Broadway arrived from Seattle to attend her first marathon since The Strange Aeons Experiment; she would take the role of Aoinse, an awakened clockwork servant of Amaznen.

To add to the immersion of this multi-day dive into a submerged tower, our GM turned down the air-conditioning to a cool 63 degrees, and we kept the lights low in the areas that were not lit. Most significantly though, the master craftsmanship of Black Bard Studios took this marathon to new heights, by creating an entire scale model of the Alabaster Trident that stood about 8 feet high! Room-for-room and level-for-level, it was an accurate 3D model which allowed us to perfectly experience this adventure's spatial challenges. Further, as we explored the tower throughout the course of the marathon, we removed each level and kept it on display as a constant reminder of the architectural layout of the tower.

Adventure: Pathfinder Adventure Path #125: Tower of the Drowned Dead

Marathon Length: 80 hours, 5min

Session Hours: 49hrs, 50min

Highlights From "Tower of the Drowned Dead"

We faced plenty of clockworks in the tower, even a nightmarish gargantuan clockwork infused with the soul of a kraken—and there was no way in the nine layers of Hell we were fighting it. Instead, we scouted the level and brought down the wall closest to the stairway it was guarding. We just needed Valeros (an aquanaut) and Koloshkora (locathah ranger) to go base-to-base with it for a couple of rounds while the rest of us swam past. No worries though, we had aquatic life insurance in the form of freedom of movement.

Beneath the Alabaster Trident was a level known as the "Vaults," a secluded place of horror and torture. The master of the Vaults, an aboleth nosferatu sorcerer, calmly explained that it must destroy our party to save us from an undead fate similar to itself. A round-one sunbeam from Kyra ended the fight in twelve seconds—lights out.

Keen senses were vital when trying to stay one step ahead of Auberon, who knew early on that we were inside his home. Our Player Captain, Matt Hardin, managed to get Koloshkora to touch a 68 Perception at just 12th level. Mark it down.

If you thought the author would keep you in one place the whole time, welcome to the Omen Dominion: a timeless demiplane that predated even the Alabaster Trident. We went from spending forty-five session hours underwater, to being surrounded by the lively sounds of a forest. It was here that we got to choose the ending we wanted and decided to engage in our first-ever negotiations with a lich.

The Odyssey

Handling the challenges involved with submerged dungeon-crawling was definitely one of the tougher experiences we've faced as adventurers over the decades. This is OAD though, and we were ready for it with a strong playbook and spell stack: slipstream, life bubble, ride the waves, and greater longstrider were key factors in our win. Actually, between our apparatus of the crab and an Elven folding boat we came across (which we boldly rechristened as the Even Deeper), we're traversing ancient Azlant in style!

Character Deaths

Author Ron Lundeen is no stranger to putting our characters down. Heck, in our playthrough of Dreams of the Yellow King, Ron's animate dream killed one of his own prominent NPCs. He's always fair though. This time a banshee wailed and Ezren missed his save.

It's quite possible that no creature strikes more fear into the hearts of Order members than a shining child. Apparently, an aquatic shining child does exist, and it's called a pelagic child. They are sometimes encountered in pairs, or even two pairs as happened in this adventure. It didn't take long for the Amber Die to deliver a critical hit with a searing ray, which removed Aoinse from our roster. Adam Daigle bears some responsibility for the cruelty of pelagic children as well, so the author and managing developer could kindly apologize to our party (and Mikko Kallio) for permanently destroying our beloved clockwork priestess.

Best Quote From Marathon 5

(watching Nieran, our Mordant Spire elf ally, surpass 500 damage while clearing a scrag nest in the top levels of the tower)

Ezren: "..."

Kyra: "..."

Valeros: "..."

Nieran: "What? It's like shooting fish in a barrel. Not that humans could do it."

Current Situation

We cut a deal with Auberon for information, and now we're headed back to the undersea city of Talasantri to drop off the daughter of one of our merfolk friends. After that, we'll check on the colony of Talmandor's Bounty for a quick resupply and to make sure things are in good shape before we head to the location of a secret Azlanti facility called the Compass. We learned that this facility stores several (yes, several) doomsday devices, and we expect it to be at least partially underwater. Our equipment is solid, our spell selections are on point, and party coherency is at its peak. Yeah, let's get a little cockier than we were in the previous blog: This is the best position we've had when staring down the final volume of any Adventure Path. Veiled masters, you're not in control anymore.

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For character builds, questions about The Azlant Odyssey, additional content and more, see our thread on the Paizo messageboards.

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Keep your eyes peeled for part six once the group gets some rest. If you've missed the first four installments, check them out here:

Order of the Amber Die—The Azlant Odyssey, Part 1
Order of the Amber Die—The Azlant Odyssey, Part 2
Order of the Amber Die—The Azlant Odyssey, Part 3
Order of the Amber Die—The Azlant Odyssey, Part 4

Adam Daigle and the Order of the Amber Die

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Order of the Amber Die—Doomsday Dawn Playtest: Wrap Up!

Dec 20, 2018, 12:00 pm

Before letting the folks from the Order of the Amber Die get their final thoughts regarding the Playtest out there, I want to thank them for the heroic effort they made in getting this material to all of us. It was great not only hearing about the play experience and seeing the thorough data, but it was also amazing to gaze at the gorgeous pictures. So, thanks to the Order of the Amber Die! Take it away, y'all!

Order of the Amber Die—Doomsday Dawn Playtest: Wrap Up!

Thursday, December 20th, 2018

Before letting the folks from the Order of the Amber Die get their final thoughts regarding the Playtest out there, I want to thank them for the heroic effort they made in getting this material to all of us. It was great not only hearing about the play experience and seeing the thorough data, but it was also amazing to gaze at the gorgeous pictures. So, thanks to the Order of the Amber Die! Take it away, y'all!

In the Order, as with many role-playing groups, we hold several planning sessions before beginning any major campaign or project. Of equal importance to us, however, is having at least one session of reflection following each such endeavor. These are fairly casual, with each of us taking turns going around the table discussing our favorite aspects of an Adventure Path, in-game or out-of-game problems we encountered, or even answering the usual list of discussion questions our GM has written on a dry erase board. We also like to go through the photos that didn't appear on the Paizo Blog or our social media, laughing at some of the more candid moments from a project. By the end of a good session of reflection, we've always got a list of improvements we want to make for next time. We're excited to be able to share some of those reflections here, including several fun photos of various aspects of our playtest experience.

Before reading these reflections, it might be helpful to catch up on both our experiences and data from our previous playtest blogs:

Part 1: "The Lost Star"

Part 2: "In Pale Mountain's Shadow"

Part 3: "Affair at Sombrefell Hall"

Part 4: "The Mirrored Moon"

Part 5: "The Heroes of Undarin"

Part 6: "Red Flags"

Part 7: "When the Stars Go Dark"

From character sheets to scrap paper, we saved everything.

Cumulative Playtest Data

Total number of published adventures completed with Doomsday Dawn: 148

Total time spent creating characters for all players in DoomsdayDawn: c. 64 hours

Total time spent playing Doomsday Dawn: 76 hrs, 13min

Total recorded time spent in GM preparation for Doomsday Dawn: 55 hrs, 51min

Number of words written by GM for playtest surveys/reports/feedback: c. 17,000

Total time spent during setup/breakdown of playtest scenarios: c. 21 hours

Accumulated travel time by playtest participants: c. 60 hours

Overall win/loss record throughout Doomsday Dawn: 4-3

Total number of times a character reached 0 Resonance in Doomsday Dawn: 12

Average number of times a character reached 0 Resonance during a scenario: 1.7

Average number of Hero Points given to party per scenario: 38

Average number of Hero Points used by party per scenario: 23

Average number of Hero Points used by each character per scenario: 6

Total number of character deaths in Doomsday Dawn: 13

Average number of character deaths per scenario: 1.8

A rare glimpse behind the screen during part one.

Favorite Aspects of the Playtest

Adam: Resonance

Matt: Critical successes/failures for spells

Dan: Balance among character classes

Erick: Hero points

Sean: Three-action economy

GM Reactions

Here I'll provide two common points addressed in my GM open surveys.

Very early on in the playtest, resonance seemed to establish itself as one of the most significant new changes to the game. As a GM who witnessed a dozen or more full campaigns during the 3.5/3.75 era, I saw plenty of examples of the use and possible abuse of magic items and was excited from about the prospect of a solution in the new edition. With the introduction of resonance, gone are the days of buff stacks, quivers stuffed with wands of cure light wounds, or saddlebags full of my favorite culprit from version 3.5: wand of lesser vigor. Along with our custom initiative board, OAD even had our "Buff Tracker 2011," which will soon be gathering dust with some of our other defunct materials from previous editions. We know full well what it did to our campaigns to employ an overabundance of such magic, and while we still had a good time in those years, I'm eager to see how the game plays with the addition of resonance. While we still haven't seen the final version of resonance, I appreciated both the effort Paizo made to provide balance with magic usage, and the courage it took to do so.

Inside the "Map Room" of the Order's HQ, where parts 2 and 3 were drawn.

After seven scenarios of observation, the Pathfinder Playtest clearly established itself at our table as a game with a high amount of mobility compared to the previous edition. The absence of universal attacks of opportunity, coupled with the three-action economy, created a feel of fluidity in the great majority of our combats. Just as it felt like no monster or character could be cornered easily, it also seemed as if no one was truly safe in the back ranks of the marching order anymore. Even the very concept of marching order felt like a loose term, since once each character received their first three actions in a combat, everything was up in the air. The game may have seemed a bit fast at first—perhaps even scary—especially for the players whose combat routines had been established for years. As the scenarios rolled on, however, I watched them adapt and develop new tactics, eventually finding a comfortable existence within the broader confines of the playtest's combat. This being said, there were actually quite a few points throughout the playtest where battles broke the limits of the standard 24" x 30" Flip-Mat. As such, I ran some of the applicable encounters on different sizes of maps (36" x 36", 27" x 39", 30" x 40", and 40" x 60"). In the end, the larger maps all felt more comfortable and better able to accommodate the play found in the playtest, with 36" x 36" feeling near perfect, and 40" x 60" being enjoyable but far more luxury space than necessary.

Player Captain Reactions

I'll try my best to summarize what all of the players have wanted to see addressed, as well as some of my own reflections. (Matt, Player Captain)

One change that proved interesting was the new critical success/failure system. Of course, the rules for critical hits with weapons are different now, but the bigger change seemed to be critical successes and failures for spells. Prior, the wildest fluctuations in damage during a round seemed to occur from massive critical hits from x3 or x4 weapons (often power attacking to boot). Now, the greatest variability seems to come from area-of-effect spells where multiple enemies are forced to make saving throws. The variety of effects from a critical success (usually no effect) to a critical failure (usually double effect) is significant, and it made spells more interesting and unpredictable throughout the playtest.

A completely normal moment with Fumbus at the table.

All of the players enjoyed the inclusion of hero points in the new system, and we were fortunate to see the entire range of options for their use. Most common, was to see one of our players toss two tokens into the center of the table and go for a re-roll when it mattered (often a saving throw or special attack). The act by itself amplified the emotion already present at the table during an important roll. If Desna blessed the re-roll with success, there was even louder rejoicing—but if not—the groans were that much deeper. Keeping an eye on spellcasters throughout the playtest (I actually played five casters out of six), it was fun to occasionally see someone throw down all three hero points to gain an extra action, thereby casting two spells in one round. And of course, every player at one time or another had a lone hero point stashed away, pocketed to save their life. Perhaps the best part of hero points was that using one meant having to describe your actions in a heroic light, and thereby made combat more vivid and entertaining.

Challenges

We really wanted to get a head start on the playtest in August before the two-week playtest windows began, but because we needed to play everything with the most recently released errata, we couldn't be too far in front and instead had to fit everything into the scant two-week segments. There was a lot to cram into each of the many fourteen-day cycles: learn new errata, make new characters, prep a new scenario, complete GM surveys, player surveys, open surveys, compile data for the blog, select photos from the previous session, then actual play took place, and we'd repeat it all over again. For the final six weeks, our GM took to leaving his entire living room set up as our playtest studio.

From the planning stage to this final blog, our playtest experience lasted nearly six months. A lot can happen to any role-playing group in that time: two of our members began different careers, one prepared to welcome 170 new students on the morning after emerging from the Tomb of Tular Seft, while another was helping their own young children adjust to the demands of nursery school, and one of us even experienced the birth of his first child, wishing us well as he headed for a daring new adventure. Yet, the Order's commitment to each other over the years has always helped us work through life's obstacles and see our campaigns to completion, and the playtest was no different.

The Order running part two of the playtest at PAX Unplugged.

Final Thoughts and Thanks

A shout out goes to Blue Table Painting, who brought our iconic miniatures (and the kraken) to life. Another goes to the skilled team at Keltic Greene, who love to build elaborate gaming studios in their spare time. A warm thanks to Sarah McIlvaine, who sat with the Order at our high school lunch table in the 90s, and still supports us by printing everything from high quality maps to the character placards we used in the playtest. Lastly, it was both an honor and a pleasure to have the Order be among the vanguard of this new era; our deepest thanks go out to the community for their encouragement, our Patrons for their support, and the staff at Paizo for their boundless efforts to improve the game we so revere.

As we eagerly await future announcements regarding the final version of Pathfinder Second Edition, the Order is closing in on completing our 150th published adventure in 2019. 150 could likely be the highest number of published adventures ever completed and would make a nice number to retire on. Maybe we did consider it, but there are still too many dungeons and too many adventures out there not to continue onward.

And continue we shall.

Our namesake: There is only one Amber Die.

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Adam Daigle
Managing Developer

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Order of the Amber Die—Doomsday Dawn Playtest, Part 7

Dec 4, 2018, 12:00 pm

They've reached the end of Doomsday Dawn! The Order of the Amber Die is here to give a report of their experiences with the last chapter of the Playtest adventure after an exciting run through the whole thing. Did they survive or perish? Read below to find out. But! If you want to avoid spoilers, read this a bit later after you're done with the adventure.

Order of the Amber Die—Doomsday Dawn Playtest, Part 7

Saturday, December 8th, 2018

They've reached the end of Doomsday Dawn! The Order of the Amber Die is here to give a report of their experiences with the last chapter of the Playtest adventure after an exciting run through the whole thing. Did they survive or perish? Read below to find out. But! If you want to avoid spoilers, read this a bit later after you're done with the adventure.

Part six was past us, part seven of the playtest had arrived, and our record was split at 3-3. This was it: game seven of the series. The prize for winning was nothing less than the salvation of Golarion itself. We had been working with the playtest for almost six months, and the atmosphere at the session felt like the ending of some of our previous projects for the Paizo blog. Players paced, our GM was in his zone, and there was the familiar blend of anticipation, anxiety, and nostalgia.

On a windy autumn afternoon, we shared a feast for heroes with enough leftovers to keep us going until the sun came up. What we didn't know, was that our GM had purposely scheduled this scenario to be played throughout the night—the darkest part of night—the darkness between the stars. As we laid out our dice under the sheen of several black lights, the evidence we had acquired from the previous six scenarios started to become all too apparent: This chapter was almost certainly authored by James Jacobs. We were afraid to discuss it, but knew that we'd be probably be up against some kind of Lovecraftian finale that would not disappoint. To find our way through, we'd have to draw courage from our experiences in The Enigma Vaults of Thornkeep, level sixteen of The Emerald Spire, and The Strange Aeons Experiment.

The Party

This part of the playtest was designed to use the same characters as parts one and four. Initially, we had planned on using this party to discover if a lineup without major access to healing would be able thrive in the new edition. Now we would also get to see how well this non-traditional roster of iconics could hold up at very high levels. Thus far, these four had experienced both a nice win and a TPK. However, we felt good about the way they performed during the several fights involving hard-hitting enemies in part four. For playtest purposes, the same four OAD members played the exact same iconics as before. Also listed are the names of each player on the team and the year each became a member of the Order (when a player has reached 100 hours at our table).

Seoni human sorcerer 17

Bloodline: Imperial

Class Feats: Familiar, Dangerous Sorcery, Reach Spell, Steady Spellcasting, Vicious Concentration, Bloodline Heightening, Widen Spell, Effortless Concentration, Cantrip Expansion

Background: Family Friend

Played by Matt Hardin, Player Captain (2003)

Lem halfing bard 17

Muse: Lore

Class Feats: Bardic Lore, Loremaster's Recall, Cantrip Expansion, Multifarious Muse, Lingering Composition, Additional Heightening, Mental Prowess, Soothing Ballad

Background: Mind Quake Survivor

Played by Daniel Scholler (2007)

Fumbus goblin alchemist 17

Class Feats: Quick Bomber, Far Lobber, Calculated Splash, Precise Bombs, Powerful Alchemy, Expanded Splash, Uncanny Bombs, Glib Mutagen, Perfect Medicine

Key Formulas: Acid splash, alchemist's fire, elixir of life

Background: Goblin Renegade

Played by Erick Germer (2007)

Sajan human monk 17

Class Feats: Monastic Weaponry, Dragon Stance, Brawling Focus, Ki Strike, Wholeness of Body, Wall Run, Wind Step, Wind Jump, Ghost Strike, Quivering Palm

Build: strength, speed, more speed!

Background: Budding Osirionologist

Played by Sean Linville (2016)

"When the Stars Go Dark" By The Numbers

Player Tracking Sheet

Average time spent in character creation: 152 minutes

Number of times a character reached 0 Resonance: 3; Lem (2), Fumbus (1)

Number of critical fails when overspending Resonance: 0

Number of times a character ran out of spell slots: 0

Number of times a character ran out of spell points: 2; Sajan (1), Seoni (1)

Number of Hero Points used: 32; Lem (11), Fumbus (8), Seoni (7), Sajan (6)

GM Tracking Sheet

Total time spent playing "When the Stars Go Dark": 14hrs, 20min

Total time spent preparing "When the Stars Go Dark": 8hrs, 10min

Number of sessions spent playing "When the Stars Go Dark": 4 (session increments are 4 hours)

Total number of Hero Points given out: 48

Number of characters reduced to 0 HP: 3; Lem (2), Fumbus (1)

Number of characters killed: 0 (2 temporary deaths during event 1)

Rounds elapsed in final encounter (after Ramlock appeared): 19

Attempts made to defeat malignant theorems: 1

Players who gained the frightened condition vs. the Ashen Man: 0

Uses of wish: 4; desynchronization (3), meteorswarm (1)

Number of party rests: 2

Additional Data

Seoni

Uses of Reach Spell: 5

Total range gained through Reach Spell: 105ft

Average range added through Reach Spell: 21ft

Uses of Dangerous Sorcery: 8

Total damage dealt with Dangerous Sorcery: 96

White Axiom boon: Cha, Dex

Lem

Total number of hit points healed with Soothing Ballad: 250

Total number of hit points healed with Soothe: 108

Total number of hit points healed with vampiric exsanguination: 99

Cantrip Damage: 31

White Axiom boon: Int, Str

Fumbus

Bombs thrown: 16

Bombs hit: 8

Total splash damage: 60

Total persistent damage: 401

White Axiom boon: Wis, Str

Sajan

Uses of Flurry of Blows: 21

Number of double-hits from Flurry of Blows: 13

White Axiom boon: Cha, Str

Highlights From "When the Stars Go Dark"

Not long after entering the actual pages of a tome known as The Last Theroem, we were surrounded by malignant theorems that weren't out to welcome us. This became one of those rare moments when something happens on the table that looks just as scary inside the game. Not long in, were left watching helplessly as our goblin and halfling companions stood base-to-base with four gargantuan rune giant miniatures. See our data for how it ended.

We expected to visit some strange places at this point in our journey, and we definitely got one: a demiplane which consisted of a desert in eternal twilight. It was empty, until a star-spawn of Cthulhu pulled itself from a pit of infinite depth we had approached. For the first time during the playtest, the alchemist hogged the highlight reel, pouring on the persistent damage with acid splash and timely dousings of alchemist's fire to shut down its regeneration.

Jacobs provided an epic feel in this scenario from start to finish, and the size of the monsters repeatedly matched the occasion. Sajan went fist-and-claw with a gargantuan dragon, in a fight that deserved nothing less than slow-motion for its entirety. The fact that the clash took place inside of a workshop created a heck of a mess—of the dragon.

Character Deaths

We're proud to report zero permanent deaths!

Current Situation

To win, we needed to sever the connection between Aucturn and Golarion, which meant desynchronizing an artifact known as the Veinstone Pendulum. Opposing us in the finale was the aberration that the wizard Ramlock had become, fully strapped with spells like time stop and power word kill, as well as adhesive tendrils that gave a 30-foot reach. We tried to trade points equally at first, but when our foe put down 186 damage on Seoni in a single round, we knew we were going to have to take some risks in order to win. Lem made the call, and tried to use one of the four wishes we were given against the pendulum itself. When it appeared to work, we capitalized on the opening, and two more of us followed suit.

Final record? A winning one.

From left to right: Dan, Matt, Erick, Adam, Sean

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Order of the Amber Die—Doomsday Dawn Playtest, Part 6

Nov 17, 2018, 12:00 pm

Closing in on the end of Doomsday Dawn, the guys from the Order of the Amber Die are here with their report on Part 6—"Red Flags"! Keep in mind that there are spoilers in this report, so if you haven't played through the adventure and don't want to know any secrets, come back after you're done.

Order of the Amber Die—Doomsday Dawn Playtest, Part 6

Saturday, November 17, 2018

Closing in on the end of Doomsday Dawn, the guys from the Order of the Amber Die are here with their report on Part 6—"Red Flags"! Keep in mind that there are spoilers in this report, so if you haven't played through the adventure and don't want to know any secrets, come back after you're done.

As you've probably noticed from our blog reports over the years, our members enjoy the sense of competition that comes from pitting themselves against published adventures. With this in mind, one of the ways we've maintained our intensity through so many complete playthroughs and reports of each playtest scenario has been to track our team's win/loss record. Part 1: Win. Part 2: Loss. Part 3: Win. Part 4: Loss. Part 5: Loss. So, at 2–3 it was clear going into Part 6 that we needed a win if we even wanted a chance to finish out with a positive record. Two factors upped the pressure even more, and the first was the author himself. In nearly 150 published adventures completed, and despite being aware of his long involvement in the history of the game, by random chance we had never played an adventure by Stephen Radney-MacFarland. The second factor had to do with a certain name he chose for a sunken ship in this adventure: Blackguard's Revenge. Everyone in OAD fears that name, since we have quite a storied relationship with the 2005 module by the same name (described here); we had no choice but to take it as a sign that Besmara herself had a stake in part six of our playtest.

Since we were headed to what was essentially a pirate party in "Red Flags," we decided to make the session into some revelry of our own—complete with the best laughs of our playtest run. This scenario also had the largest map of the playtest, so we turned to the talents of Black Bard Studios, who brought its 10-foot scale to life by crafting a setup of the entire coastal stronghold: thirty-five square feet! Adding some nice accents were the latest pieces from Bannerless Builds and Blue Table Painting. With our seafaring personas ready, we were on our way!

The Party

This was the scenario in which we were to create a party that was heavily roleplaying focused. We added our own playtest goal of making characters who took advantage of the new archetype system to give us the feel of multiclass characters from previous editions. Each player also had to choose how their particular character served the Esoteric Order of the Palatine Eye. Also listed are the names of each player on the team who committed their time to this detailed playthrough, and the year each became a member of the Order (when a player reaches 100 hours at our table).

Raven Stormclaw human sorcerer (rogue archetype) 14

Bloodline: Imperial

Key Spells: dimension door, see invisibility, spider climb, passwall

Class Feats: Widen Spell, Conceal Spell, Rogue Dedication, Basic Trickery: Trap Finder, Reach Spell, Skill Mastery, Advanced Trickery: Light Step

Role in the Esoteric Order: Spy

Played by Matt Hardin, Player Captain (2003)

Nezam human wizard (bard & fighter archetypes) 14

School: Universalist

Class Feats: Hand of the Apprentice, Bard Dedication, Basic Muse's Whispers: Lingering Composition, Conceal Spell, Inspirational, Fighter Dedication, Opportunist, Effortless Concentration

Key Spells: illusory disguise, passwall, telepathic bond, true seeing

Role in the Esoteric Order: Archivist

Played by Daniel Scholler (2007)

Ehsan Hashen human alchemist (rogue archetype) 14

Class Feats: Alchemical Savant, Rogue Dedication, Sneak Attacker, Basic Trickery: Nimble Dodge, Enduring Alchemy, Poison Antidote , Evasiveness, Potent Poisoner

Key Formulas: silvertongue mutagen, deathcap poison, quicksilver mutagen, elixir of life

Role in the Esoteric Order: Researcher

Played by Erick Germer (2007)

Captain James Adalay human rogue (fighter archetype) 14

Rogue's Technique: Finesse Striker

Background: Sailor

Class Feats: Nimble Dodge, Fighter Dedication, Unbalancing Blow, Fighter Resiliency, Sly Striker, Trap Finder, Basic Maneuver: Sudden Charge, Twist the Knife, Instant Opening

Role in the Esoteric Order: Diplomat

Played by Sean Linville (2016)

"Red Flags" By The Numbers

Player Tracking Sheet

Average time spent in character creation: 149 minutes

Number of times a character reached 0 Resonance: 0

Number of critical fails when overspending Resonance: 0

Number of times a character ran out of spell slots: 0

Number of times a character ran out of spell points: 0

Number of Hero Points used: 18; 5 (Raven), 5 (Nezam), 4 (Ehsan), 4 (Captain James)

GM Tracking Sheet

Total time spent playing "Red Flags": 10hrs, 5min

Total time spent preparing "Red Flags": 6hrs, 40min

Number of sessions spent playing "Red Flags": 3 (session increments are 4 hours)

Total number of Hero Points given out: 36

Number of characters reduced to 0 HP: 3; Nezam (2), Captain James (1)

Number of characters killed: 1 (Nezam)

Amount of gold spent earning influence in Plumetown: 407gp

Number of party rests: 0

Additional Data

Raven Stormclaw

Uses of Deception (impersonate): 3

Successful Deception (impersonate) attempts: 2

Nezam

Uses of Read Lips: 2

Attacks of Opportunity: 2

Successful Attacks of Opportunity: 1 (40 damage, interrupted spell)

Ehsan Hashen

Poison attempts: 0

Total uses of Stealth skill: 1

Successful Stealth uses: 1

Captain James Adalay

Uses of Diplomacy skill: 8

Critical successes (Diplomacy): 4

Successes (Diplomacy): 2

Failures (Diplomacy): 1

Critical Failures (Diplomacy): 1

Highlights From "Red Flags"

Adjusting to a new edition was bound to bring a couple of humorous stumbles, and this scenario had our favorite of any scenario. We were pumped to open the session strong, and after some shouts of encouragement at the table, fired off the teleport spell that would take us to the island known as the Smoker. Though we were expecting an exciting description of the place to follow, we instead saw water. Lots of water, and we were in it. The new rules for teleport meant that because it was more than 100 miles from Caliphas to the Shackles, we would arrive with a 1% margin of error. Good thing we were packing a second teleport!

The guest list for the gala included a contract devil, an evil sorcerer (the party's nemesis) and his goblin butler, along with the host of the festivities—a tengu Free Captain. Let's just say this gave a certain emphasis to the 'ole "Let's try to blend in." We've got to hand the roleplaying MVP award to Sean, and after you see how his dice aided his words, you'll also understand how he survived a diplomatic dance with the devil.

After our social skills were tested, the scenario took a twist, and we had to make our way past several high-level traps. One such trap was a series of shifting portals that appeared to forcefully thrust anyone with an incorrect guess backwards onto iron spikes. We could try to figure it out, or like high-level characters should be able to do, lean on our abilities. Three castings of passwall later, we were headed deeper into the fortress.

Character Deaths

Going up against a kraken was likely to send someone to the Boneyard. Nezam did everything he could to stay alive, but the beast ground through his hero points and crushed the wizard into data to feed our playtest.

Current Situation

Headed into the final encounter, things couldn't have been stacked any worse against a team desperate for a win. We had to face a kraken with our least combat-oriented party of the entire playtest. As its many tentacles bore down on us with a 60-foot reach, we were moments from accepting that it was all over. Then we remembered the mission goal and realized that we didn't have to beat the kraken—just get past it. Thanks to a combination of the cave's unique layout, several timely castings of dimension door, and three characters with the Quick Unlock skill feat, we pulled off one of the canniest victories in OAD history. We're 3–3 overall now, and headed into the final scenario with a chance to close out with a winning record!

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Managing Developer

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Order of the Amber Die—Doomsday Dawn Playtest, Part 5

Nov 3, 2018, 12:00 pm

It's time for another report from the Order of the Amber Die! This time they give us a peek at their table as they ran through Part 5 of Doomsday Dawn, "The Heroes of Undarin"! As usual with these blogs, if you haven't played or read this and don't want to see any spoilers, turn away now!

Order of the Amber Die—Doomsday Dawn Playtest, Part 5

Saturday, November 3, 2018

It's time for another report from the Order of the Amber Die! This time they give us a peek at their table as they ran through Part 5 of Doomsday Dawn, "The Heroes of Undarin"! As usual with these blogs, if you haven't played or read this and don't want to see any spoilers, turn away now!

Following our interactions with authors from Part One, Part Two, Part Three, and Part Four of the playtest, the time had come to face Jason Bulmahn once again. Our GM did much to invest us in what was essentially a wave-by-wave grinder, and we learned later that this was also to prevent us from developing the notion that in this scenario our deaths were likely inevitable. We were told our start time had been adjusted to match the time of day during which the adventure began (late afternoon), and that we'd likely be going late into the night. While Adam will often employ Syrinscape, ambient tracks, or his own themed soundtracks, this time he had us rocking out to combat the entire evening with such as one of our ESPN favorites, "300 Violin Orchestra," and NIN's "The Day the World Went Away." Our love of immersion and role-playing is clear from many of our reports over the years, but you don't have to look far in the Order to find players who are also up for a dice-throwing, hand-slapping brawl that will go twelve session hours.

The Party

Going in, we were told that we'd be playing hardy characters accustomed to facing terrible enemies in the Worldwound. We actually had quite a bit of freedom with character creation and wanted to accomplish a couple of things: acquire more data on a paladin and cleric played at higher levels, and spotlight both the highest level single-classed wizard and fighter of our playtest run. Listed with the names of each player on the team is the year each became a member of the Order (when a player has reached 100 hours at our table).

Maarlill human wizard 12

School: Universalist

Key Spells:Stoneskin, fly, resistenergy, mirrorimage, electricarc

Class Feats: Eschew Materials, Reach Spell, Widen Spell, Quick Preparation, Cantrip Expansion, Makeshift Wand, Focus Conservation

Yuma Hardgaze dwarf paladin 12

Deity: Torag

Class Feats: Warded Touch, Divine Grace, Aura of Courage, Shield Warden, Fiendsbane, Oath, Shield of Reckoning, Holy Wall

Best Magic Items:+2 corrosive composite longbow, +3 dwarven waraxe, heavy steel sturdy adamantine shield, +3 half-plate, cape of the mountebank, dust of appearance, feather tokens (chest, ladder)

Hofbah half-orc fighter 12

Class Feats: Furious Focus, Power Attack, Double Shot, Triple Shot, Positioning Assault, Combat Reflexes, Brutal Finish

Skill Feats: Quick Repair, Cat Fall, Quick Jump, Steady Balance, Kip Up, Quick Climb, Rapid Mantel

Best Magic Items: +3 full plate, +3 bastard sword (with holy rune), +2 corrosive long bow

Caerwynn Bastille half-elf cleric 12

Deity: Iomedae

Domain: Zeal

Class Feats: Holy Castigation, Emblazon Symbol, Healing Hands, Align Armament, Deadly Simplicity

"The Heroes of Undarin" By The Numbers

Player Tracking Sheet

Average time spent in character creation: 131 minutes

Number of times a character reached 0 Resonance: 0

Number of critical fails when overspending Resonance: 0

Number of times a character ran out of spell slots: 0

Number of times a character ran out of spell points: 1 (Yuma)

Number of Hero Points used: 19; 6 (Maarlill), 5 (Yuma), 3 (Hofba), 5 (Caerwynn)

GM Tracking Sheet

Total time spent playing "The Heroes of Undarin": 11hrs, 50min

Total time spent preparing "The Heroes of Undarin": 6hrs, 25min

Number of sessions spent playing "The Heroes of Undarin": 3 (session increments are 4 hours)

Total number of Hero Points given out: 36

Number of characters reduced to 0 HP: 10; Maarlill (4), Yuma (2), Hofba (2), Caerwynn (2)

Number of characters killed: 4

Wave in which the first player character reduced to 0: 2 (Maarlill)

Wave and event in which the first player character died: wave 2, event 6 (Yuma)

Wave and event in which the last player character died: wave 2, event 6

Number of party rests: 0

Additional Data

Maarlill

Uses of Reach Spell: 9

Total range gained through Reach Spell: 215 feet

Average range added through Reach Spell: 24 feet

Uses of Drain Arcane Focus: 4

Spells returned with Drain Arcane Focus: 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 6th

Yuma Hardgaze

Uses of lay on hands: 4

Total number of hit points healed with lay on hands: 121

Damage prevented by adamantine shield damage reduction: 194

Hofbah

Total number of melee attacks made: 51

Number of hits: 34

Total melee damage dealt: 1540

Average damage per hit: 45

Caerwynn Bastille

Number of channel uses: 7

Total positive energy damage dealt: 1003

Total hit points healed to party using all source: 1323

Highlights From "The Heroes of Undarin"

With the sun setting across a ruined temple deep in the Worldwound, we prepared to defend sacred ground from an onslaught of demons and undead. We had several situational tools at our disposal, and foremost among these was the ability to use an ancient stained glass window to bring Desna's will upon our enemies. Second was an altar that allowed each of us to use the god's blessing for one well-timed reroll of a d20. Between these and the assortment of terrain and antagonists featured, this was a true test of tactical skill in an edition we weren't very familiar with—thus an exceptional challenge we won't soon forget. What Bulmahn has created with this scenario is now a trial for all Order members to aspire to.

We're having to adjust to the new numerical norms in our favorite game, which is also part of what makes any playtest interesting. When a treachery demon tossed down a 44 initiative to open a combat jaws dropped, and we realized just how far we were from the days of the previous edition of Pathfinder. Go ahead and combine that with 29 TAC attacks against our wizard from a pack of dread wraiths, resulting in 15 misses. How about a single channel from our cleric, ripping 198 damage against four opponents?

Not only were divvying powerful items an important aspect of party construction for this scenario, it was at 12th level that potent items from the new era of Pathfinder truly began to shine. Don't take our word for it though, let the numbers above tell the story of a paladin's unbreakable shield and a fighter's holy sword.

Character Deaths

The end wasn't pretty. When the players on this team joined the Order, we heard stories from the 1980s and 90s about past members who saw their beloved characters devoured by a certain demilich during five different playthroughs of the "Tomb of Horrors." If it gives you an idea of how much our GM reveres demiliches, he chose one for his Paizo messageboards avatar—that same one from the "Tomb of Horrors." Worse yet, Adam can now add four characters from this era of the Order to his gruesome tally. At least we'll have some stories for the fire pit about our wizard's ray of frost being reflected back at him as a critical hit, another character critically failing against a maze spell, and watching our cleric's body turn to dust when the demilich trapped his soul.

Current Situation

We learned afterward that this was the scenario in which we were supposed to die. That's fine, we understand and appreciate the value of providing data from our destruction to help produce a better game. It still stings a bit though, as any TPK would. Dropping to a 2-3 performance thus far in the playtest, we're now left with no choice if we want to finish with a winning record: We'll have to run the table!

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Order of the Amber Die—Doomsday Dawn Playtest, Part 4

Oct 20, 2018, 12:00 pm

They keep going and going! The folks from the Order of the Amber Die have crossed the halfway mark in DoomsdayDawn finishing "The Mirrored Moon." I just got their report from that session and wanted to share it with the rest of you. Keep in mind that there will be spoilers, so if you haven't played through this one yet, read this blog later!

Order of the Amber Die—Doomsday Dawn Playtest, Part 4

Saturday, October 20, 2018

They keep going and going! The folks from the Order of the Amber Die have crossed the halfway mark in DoomsdayDawn finishing "The Mirrored Moon." I just got their report from that session and wanted to share it with the rest of you. Keep in mind that there will be spoilers, so if you haven't played through this one yet, read this blog later!

After our initial experiences in Part One, Part Two, and Part Three of the playtest, it was time for part four and our first adventure by author Mark Seifter. The pressure was a little higher for this one, because it was Mark who first sat with us at PaizoCon 2018 and tossed around the idea of doing a full playtest for the Paizo Blog. As this scenario focused on overland exploration in an area of the River Kingdoms known as Thicketfell, our GM gathered images to match the varying terrain, as well as nature soundscapes to build immersion. Perhaps the best effect though, was that while our characters searched extensively for a remote pond called the Moonmere, we spent most of the scenario in the natural light of a New Jersey autumn.

The Party

As this part of the playtest was designed to use the same four characters as part one, we were able to see how well this non-traditional roster of iconics would hold up at higher levels. While Resonance would presumably be tough on us without a cleric, this party set out to prove that even a lineup without major access to healing could thrive in the new edition. Moreover, this was our first time updating characters instead of creating new ones, and as expected, it was much faster than drawing them up from scratch. For playtest purposes, the same four OAD members played the same iconic characters as part one and listed with their names is the year each became a member of the Order (when a player has reached 100 hours at our table).

Seoni, human sorcerer 9

Bloodline: Imperial

ClassFeats: Familiar, Reach Spell, Dangerous Sorcery, Arcane Evolution, Vicious Concentration

Background: Family Friend

Played by Matt Hardin (2003)

Lem halfing bard 9

Muse: Lore

ClassFeats: Loremaster's Recall, Cantrip Expansion, Lingering Composition, Additional Heightening

Background: Mind Quake Survivor

Played by Daniel Scholler (2007)

Fumbus goblin alchemist 9

ClassFeats: Quick Bomber, Smoke Bomb, Calculated Splash, Precise Bombs, Powerful Alchemy

KeyFormulas: Alchemist's fire, elixir of life, bestial mutagen (for use with Sajan)

Background: Goblin Renegade

Played by Erick Germer (2007)

Sajan human monk 9

ClassFeats: Ki Strike, Monastic Weaponry, Dragon Stance, Wind Step, Wall Run

Build: strength, flurry of blows, shurikens

Background: Budding Osirionologist

Played by Sean Linville (2016)

"The Mirrored Moon" By The Numbers:

Player Tracking Sheet

Average time spent in character creation: 97 minutes

Number of times a character reached 0 Resonance: 2 (Fumbus)

Number of critical fails when overspending Resonance: 0

Number of times a character ran out of spell slots: 0

Number of times a character ran out of spell points: 3 (Sajan)

Number of Hero Points used: 37; Fumbus (8), Lem (10), Sajan (8), Seoni (11)

GM Tracking Sheet

Total time spent playing "The Mirrored Moon": 12hrs, 35min

Total time spent preparing "The Mirrored Moon": 11hrs, 20min

Number of sessions spent playing "The Mirrored Moon": 4 (session increments are 4 hours)

Total number of Hero Points given out: 48

Number of characters reduced to 0 HP: 20; Fumbus (6), Lem (5), Sajan (5), Seoni (4)

Number of characters killed: 4

Number of Ally Points earned: 2

Number of Research Points earned: 1

Number of Treasure Points earned: 1

Number of days elapsed before the final encounter: 60

Number of hexes explored: 25

Additional Data

Seoni

Hero Points used for extra actions: 6

Hero Points used to reroll: 2

Successful rerolls: 2

Hero Points used for Heroic Recovery: 3

Uses of Reach Spell: 2

Extra range gained through Reach Spell: 30ft

Lem

Hero Points used for extra actions: 0

Hero Points used to reroll: 6

Successful rerolls: 2

Hero Points used for Heroic Recovery: 4

Uses of Composition: 4

Fumbus

Hero Points used for extra actions: 3

Hero Points used to reroll: 2

Successful rerolls: 1

Hero Points used for Heroic Recovery: 3

Bombs thrown: 7

Successful bomb hits: 4

Total amount of persistent damage: 161

Sajan

Hero Points used to reroll: 4

Successful rerolls: 1

Hero Points used for Heroic Recovery: 4

Total movement in combat with 50' speed: 910 ft.

Highlights From "The Mirrored Moon"

We can count on one hand number of rocs we've encountered over the years. Iconic yet elusive, we consider ourselves lucky to come across even one of these birds of legend, and "The Mirrored Moon" generously delivered two. Our GM was so excited that he gleefully placed Fumbus's miniature in its talon when one of them snatched the goblin up, then dropped him 135 feet to the ground.

This scenario featured some new game mechanics that had us seeking out potential allies as we acquired treasure and research points to aid us in the final confrontation. That being said, we did not deliberately set out to exterminate an entire clan of cyclopes. Negotiations were going south after a failed diplomacy check, and we had our chance to leave, but the halfling's smooth tongue had always saved us from these situations. As nine angry cyclopes and their pet smilodon closed in, we thought this was going to be the shortest blog report of the past few years—until three critical fails against synapticpulse bought us precious time, and the win.

We challenged norms regarding party construction and executed well in what was a very melee-heavy encounter against a sizeable force of five trolls and two giants. Seoni's heightened invisibility was key here, as was Sajan's ability to run up walls and across water. With the battle lasting a grueling 22 rounds, Fumbus's persistent fire damage made a nice highlight reel as he lit the trolls up.

Character Deaths

After two months of searching, we discovered the Moonmere with just a few hours to spare before the Night Heralds summoned a Mu Spore; as such, we had to attack without support from potential allies. The result: we TPKed out. This scenario was certainly fair—definitely fun—and we gladly accept that this loss was on us!

Current Situation

Our record is now a gritty 2-2 across the first four scenarios of the DoomsdayDawn playtest. As you can see from the hex map we marked while exploring Thicketfell, we wasted too much time searching for a gnome settlement and still missed it by one hex. If we had found it, we'd have procured the necessary ally points and would likely be reporting a win. It's a game of inches.

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Order of the Amber Die—Doomsday Dawn Playtest, Part 3

Oct 7, 2018, 12:00 pm

It's time to get spooky! Those Order of the Amber Die folks delivered their report from the third chapter of Doomsday Dawn, and now y'all can read about how it went for them (and see the pretty pictures they took of their experience. If you intend of playing through this adventure, maybe wait to read this blog after you're done so that you don't run into any spoilers!

Order of the Amber Die—Doomsday Dawn Playtest, Part 3

Sunday, October 7, 2018

It's time to get spooky! Those Order of the Amber Die folks delivered their report from the third chapter of Doomsday Dawn, and now y'all can read about how it went for them (and see the pretty pictures they took of their experience. If you intend of playing through this adventure, maybe wait to read this blog after you're done so that you don't run into any spoilers!

After our initial experiences in Part One and Part Two of the playtest, it was time for part three and our first adventure by author Amanda Hamon Kunz. To set the atmosphere for the land of gothic horror, our GM decided to render the old mansion on vinyl and bring it to life with some custom pieces from Geordie John Studios. Having full access to the mansion in 3-D allowed us to better appreciate, explore, and eventually defend it. Then we surrounded our play area with candles, put on some dark music, and ventured out toward Sombrefell Hall on the shores of Lantern Lake.

The Party

In much the way part two had certain guidelines for character creation, part three had its own interesting challenge regarding party construction: a group in which every member had access to healing. With that before us, we tried to make heroes that fit into both the setting of Ustalav and conformed to the guidelines for part three, while still allowing ourselves the opportunity for some character customization. To add some mood to our interactions with each other, our GM decided that while our characters all had ties to the Esoteric Order of the Palatine Eye, they didn't necessarily know each other very well. Exploring an old mansion by candlelight when we weren't completely secure with each other added tension, but we clicked well enough when combat broke out.

Casia Libitina human cleric 7

Deity: Pharasma

Domain: Knowledge

Class Feats: Cantrip Expansion, Emblazon Symbol, Steady Spellcasting

Played by Jody Gerst (1998)

Don Sancho "Bishop" De La Vega human divine sorcerer 7

Bloodline: Angelic

Class Feats: Dangerous Sorcery, Magical Striker, Reach Spell

Signature Item:Ring of the ram

Played by Alex Rivera (2015)

Tinryl Prind half-elf cleric 7

Deity: Desna

Domain: Travel

Class Feats: Conical Channel, Emblazon Symbol, Turn Undead

Played by Daniel Scholler (2007)

Natasha Anatoli human paladin 7

Deity: Abadar

Class Feats: Attack of Opportunity, Divine Grace, Hospice Knight, Mercy, Warded ouch

Best Magic Items:Slippers of spider climbing, +2 full plate, +1 bastard sword

Played by Sean Linville (2016)

"Affair at Sombrefell Hall" By The Numbers

Player Tracking Sheet

Average time spent in character creation: 119 minutes

Number of times a character reached 0 Resonance: 1 (Don Sancho)

Number of critical fails when overspending Resonance: 0

Number of times a character ran out of spell slots: 1 (Don Sancho)

Number of times a character ran out of spell points: 1 (Natasha)

Number of Hero Points used: 14; 3 (Dan Sancho), 2 (Natasha), 5 (Casia), 4 (Tinryl)

GM Tracking Sheet

Total time spent playing "Affair at Sombrefell Hall": 6hrs, 5min

Total time spent preparing "Affair at Sombrefell Hall": 4hrs, 10min

Number of sessions spent playing "Affair at Sombrefell Hall": 2 (session increments are 4 hours)

Total number of Hero Points given out: 24

Number of characters reduced to 0 HP: 1; Tinryl (1)

Number of characters killed: 0

Number of times a player cast a heal spell with one target: 3

Number of times a player cast a heal spell with more than one target: 12

Number of times a player used a healing ability other than heal: 4

Number of rounds spent on each event (in order): 3, 5, 6, 6, 13

Number of party rests: 0

Additional Data

Casia Libitina

Number of channel uses: 5 (each a 3-action channel)

Applications of Undead's Bane: 5

Total damage dealt via channel to all enemies: 448

Number of enemies' critical fails vs. channel: 4

Don Sancho "Bishop" De La Vega

Uses of Magical Striker on +1 magic crossbow (following 2-action spell): 4

Successful hits: 2

Damage dealt: 23, 19

Tinryl Prind

Cantrip damage dealt with disrupt undead: 14

Uses of Turn Undead: 4

Uses of Hero Points to reroll a d20: 2

Number of successes when rerolling: 2

Natasha Anatoli

Total attacks of opportunity: 4

Successful attacks of opportunity: 4

Uses of Retributive Strike: 3

Successful Retributive Strikes: 2

Uses of Lay on Hands: 4

Highlights From Affair at Sombrefell Hall

The narrative structure of this part was entirely different from the first two. After the all-too-quiet build up we experienced while exploring the mansion, things exploded into frantic wave-by-wave action against undead. We rushed to build barricades along the mansion's key entry points, and things started to feel like the best mashup of both Pathfinder and Call of Duty: Zombies. Props to the author here, as tactical awareness was just as valuable as the dozen channels our clerics fired off.

Our first paladin of the playtest had a great showing, and it's hard to select a single highlight out of her many: kill-stealing a wave of ghasts from the party, landing a couple of clutch retributive strikes, and standing toe-to-pincer with a brain collector at the end.

After several intense game hours of holding back undead, resources were starting to run low and our potential for error grew. Dan is laughing about a second stat like this, but a surprise appearance by an aberration leading the undead resulted in another "own goal" on his record. Granted, he missed the identification roll, but Tinryl healed it nonetheless when trying to channel it down. The ungrateful brain collector returned the favor by dishing out two critical hits to the cleric in the same round: 105 damage.

Character Deaths

None. While we can chalk this up to the massive amount of healing power this party was packing, it can't go without mention that we played a tight game when it came to barricade placement.

Current Situation

What was supposed to be an information-gathering mission to contact a professor on sabbatical, became a five-hour scrap against a variety of undead and one of our best performances in recent years. We did lose an NPC, a research assistant who hid well enough in a bedroom--which happened to become a battleground. As we build characters for part four, despite this being a playtest we're too competitive with ourselves not to tally up our record: 2-1.

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Managing Developer

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Order of the Amber Die—Doomsday Dawn Playtest, Part 2

Sep 22, 2018, 12:00 pm

The folks from the Order of the Amber Die are churning through the Pathfinder Playtest. Here is the next report from their table as they play through the second chapter of Doomsday Dawn! If you intend on playing through this adventure, maybe wait to read this part after you're done, because there are spoilers aplenty in this blog post!

Order of the Amber Die—Doomsday Dawn Playtest, Part 2

Saturday, September 22, 2018

The folks from the Order of the Amber Die are churning through the Pathfinder Playtest. Here is the next report from their table as they play through the second chapter of Doomsday Dawn! If you intend on playing through this adventure, maybe wait to read this part after you're done, because there are spoilers aplenty in this blog post!

After our initial experience in part one of the Playtest, we were eager to employ some of the already released errata and ride headlong into part two. Discovering a countdown clock was on our Pathfinder bucket list for a while now, so we dialed up some lighting to match the southern continent, and prepared to set out on a cross-country trek. In typical OAD fashion, we tapped a live NPC to play our animal companion, and our GM rendered another one of those maps that made us scared to even put our hands on.

The Party

To better craft a party suited to what we were allowed to know about this section of the playtest, we opted away from our standard method of playing iconics; instead, we drew upon inspiration from one of our past campaigns and created an entirely wilderness-oriented party. The party was given the same name as their predecessor, The Lost Arrows, who consisted (then and now) of four companions well accustomed to outdoor adventure. What we didn't know when we initially answered a request in Kelmarane, was that we'd have to navigate a tomb complete with traps and confined spaces. After an anxious mission briefing, we were confident we could at least beat our opponents—the Night Heralds—in a race across Katapesh to the tomb.

Nemus human druid 4

Class Feats: Wild Shape, Poison Resistance, Animal Shape

Preferred Animal Form: Bear

Druidic Order: Wild

Played by Jody Gerst (1998)

Ithilian Nightfall human barbarian 4

Totem: Fury

Weaponry: greataxe, javelins, short sword

Class Feats: Sudden Charge, Swipe, No Escape, Acute Vision

Played by Matthew Hardin (2003)

Keletheryl Ennan elven cleric 4

Deity: Erastil

Domain: Earth

Class Feats: Emblazon Symbol, Healing Hands

Played by Alex Rivera (2015)

Rayden Ridell human ranger 4

Class Feats: Animal Companion, Double Slice, Favored Aim, Twin Parry

Companion: "Rufus" the Badger

Ace in the Hole: sleep arrow

Played by Sean Linville (2016)

"In Pale Mountain's Shadow" By The Numbers

Player Tracking Sheet

Average time spent in character creation: 176 minutes

Number of times a character reached 0 Resonance: 4; Nemus (1), Ith (1), Keleth (1), Rayden (1)

Number of critical fails when overspending Resonance: 0

Number of times a character ran out of spell slots: 2; Keleth (2)

Number of times a character ran out of spell points: 0

Number of Hero Points used: 31; Nemus (4), Ith (10), Keleth (11), Rayden (6)

GM Tracking Sheet

Total time spent playing "In Pale Mountain's Shadow": 14hrs, 35min

Total time spent preparing "In Pale Mountain's Shadow": 11hrs, 30min

Number of sessions spent playing "In Pale Mountain's Shadow": 4 (session increments are 4 hours)

Total number of Hero Points given out: 48

Number of characters reduced to 0 HP: 6; Nemus (3), Ith (1), Keleth (1), Rayden (1)

Number of characters killed: 4

Number of party rests: 6

Additional Data

Nemus

Damage dealt with spells: 101 (x7 flaming sphere)

Damage dealt while in bear form: 160 (9 hits)

Damage received while in bear form: 92 (6 hits)

Damage received while in human form: 79 (6 hits)

Ithilian Nightfall

Uses of No Escape: 1

Total movement granted through No Escape: 5ft

Number of successful attacks with greataxe: 14

Total damage dealt with greataxe: 222

Keletheryl Ennan

Number of arrows fired from longbow: 46

Number of shots affected by -2 volley modifier: 6

Number of shots missed due to volley modifier: 1

Number of two-action spells cast: 27

Number attacks made following a 2-action spell: 18

Rayden Ridell

Uses of Work Together ability: 1

Total uses of Parry: 4

Successful uses of Parry to avoid attacks: 1

Uses of Hero Points to reroll: 3

Successful uses of Hero Points on reroll: 2

Highlights From "In Pale Mountain's Shadow"

While traversing the slopes of Pale Mountain, we were ambushed by a classic foe—a manticore—that had everyone eager to see how the beast would perform with its new makeover. When our GM landed six out of his first eight tail spikes (including two critical hits and a nasty new ability that pinned our barbarian in place), it was already time to pull out the stops. That sleep arrow listed above? Yeah, Sean pulled it off.

Each character had their moment to shine during part two; when it came to the barbarian, the playtest rules felt right at home alongside our favorite iterations of the class over the years. Gnolls twice attempted to swarm Ithilian with their pack attack ability, but his raging damage numbers quickly turned whack-a-mole into wreck-a-gnoll.

Inside the Tomb of Tular Seft, we came across a puzzle which involved a series of elemental equations. To solve it, we felt sure we'd need a party more suited to dungeon crawling. Not so, and after drawing upon a variety of skills to produce several stellar DC 25 checks, we had the doors open and our goal close at hand.

Character Deaths

If we were to rank our TPKs across 147 adventures, PC party vs. NPC party would easily hold the record for the deadliest conflicts out there. Logan Bonner, well played. We owe you one.

Current Situation

From the outset of the final encounter, it was clear that The Lost Arrows and the Night Heralds had entered into a fierce skirmish from which only one party would survive.

Our ranger went down as fast as his animal companion, followed by the barbarian. Nemus, the druid, tried to buy enough time for Keleth to whisk the countdown clock to safety. Using a combination of elven ancestry, Nimble, and Fleet, the elf performed his best version of the 4x40 and tried to outrun the only enemies capable of pursuit. The Night Herald's scout pursued him out onto the ledge and into Pale Mountain's shadow, stopping to let off shots that only created distance with each miss. Just a few yards from maximum range, our GM knew the only way to deliver a hit would be a natural 20. He reached for the Amber Die itself. It did what it's done for decades, and we could only offer reverence.

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Order of the Amber Die—Doomsday Dawn Playtest, Part 1

Aug 25, 2018, 12:00 pm

You've heard their tales of marathon Adventure Path sessions, now the folks from the Order of the Amber Die are eagerly leaping into the Pathfinder Playtest. Below is the first report from their table as they play through the first portion of Doomsday Dawn! Beware spoilers if you intend on playing through this adventure!

Order of the Amber Die—Doomsday Dawn Playtest, Part 1

Saturday, July 25, 2018

You've heard their tales of marathon Adventure Path sessions, now the folks from the Order of the Amber Die are eagerly leaping into the Pathfinder Playtest. Below is the first report from their table as they play through the first portion of Doomsday Dawn! Beware spoilers if you intend on playing through this adventure!

The Order has a storied past with edition changes, as we began playing first edition AD&D in our GM's basement in 1987. Over the years, we switched to 2.0, then 3.0, next to 3.5, skipped 4th and went to 3.75—and yet now we stare at another phase of the game's evolution. For eighteen years, we've essentially played some iteration of 3.0—our longest stint in any edition. After so many years, it is an honor to be able to present our data from the dawn of a new era!

We've found that one of the best ways for a group to make the shift to a new edition is simply as a group. The players held several get-togethers and also used a live document to guide each other through some of this edition's most radical changes. To physically represent the new feature of Hero Points, one of our members cut tokens from aircraft aluminum in the likeness of the Amber Die. Another member created dozens of condition cards—a set for everyone. To celebrate the debut of Pathfinder's new goblin iconic, we reached out to Aradani Studios for the first set of goblin ears ever to appear at our table. Lastly, Fumbus had to have a miniature to match the rest of the iconics, and the artists at Blue Table Painting made sure that a goblin would show proudly among the veteran iconic miniatures around him!

The Party

Our roster throughout the playtest will adjust slightly for each part, consisting of OAD veterans from previous Paizo blog projects such as The Giantslayer Endeavor, The Strange Aeons Experiment, and The Azlant Odyssey. Also listed is the year they became a member of the Order (when a player has reached 100 hours at our table). While Resonance was tough on us without a cleric, this party set out to prove that even a non-traditional lineup without major access to healing could thrive in the new edition.

Seoni, human sorcerer

Bloodline: Imperial

Feats: Hobnobber, Toughness

Background: Family Friend

Played by Matt Hardin (2003)

Lem, halfing bard

Muse: Lore

Feats: Bardic Lore, Dubious Knowledge, Unfettered Knowledge

Background: Mind Quake Survivor

Played by Daniel Scholler (2007)

Fumbus, goblin alchemist

Feats: Quick Bomber, Burn It, Quick Repair

Formulas: Alchemist's fire, acid splash, antidote, elixir of life

Background: Goblin Renegade

Played by Erick Germer (2007)

Sajan, human monk

Feats: Toughness, Monastic Weaponry

Build: strength, flurry of blows, shurikens

Background: Budding Osirionologist

Played by Sean Linville (2016)

The Lost Star By The Numbers

Player Tracking Sheet

Average time spent in character creation: 144 minutes

Number of times a character was reduced to 0 HP: Fumbus (1), Sajan (2)

Number of times a character reached 0 Resonance: Fumbus (1), Sajan (1)

Number of critical fails when overspending Resonance: Fumbus (1)

Number of times a character ran out of spell slots: Lem (1)

Number of times a character ran out of spell points: 0

Number of Hero Points used: Fumbus (0), Lem (2), Sajan (3), Seoni (3)

GM Tracking Sheet

Total time spent playing The Lost Star: 6hrs, 43min

Total time spent preparing The Lost Star: 7hrs, 36min

Number of sessions spent playing The Lost Star: 2 (session increments are 4 hours)

Total number of Hero Points given out: 24

Number of characters reduced to 0 HP: 3

Number of characters killed: 0

Additional Data

Fumbus

Bombs thrown: 6 of 7

Persistent damage total: 10

Lem

Composition uses: 8

Cantrip damage (telekinetic projectile and chill touch): 28

Sajan

Uses of 3rd attack in a single round: 2

Successes of 3rd attack in a single round: 0

Seoni

Enemies' saving throws vs. spells: 9

Enemies' critical failure vs. spells: 1

Enemies' critical success vs. spells: 0

Hero Point Usage

3: Moved, then full-casted magicmissile (Seoni)

3: Extra attack (Sajan, missed)

2: Rerolled attack (Lem, successful)

Resting and Encounters

Number of rests: 0

Number of encounters (traps/hazards included): 6

Highlights From The Lost Star

Not long after entering the Ashen Ossuary in search of a family heirloom, we got into a sprawling melee with goblins in the dark. What we used to call the tedious "five-foot shuffle," now became the highly mobile "goblin scuttle," and they ran circles around us. Our GM used the new third action to have goblins break away and run toward our back ranks, dog slicers in hand. Without attacks of opportunity, no one was entirely safe.

When it came to Hero Points, we saw plenty of them. In addition to the standard one point per session and one for contributing (OAD members are expected to carry plenty of out-of-game tasks), we threw ourselves at the adventure trying to do something daring or heroic enough to warrant an additional point. In the end, we were conservative with the points we earned—maybe too much—but their ability to save us from death was worth keeping around.

The final battle was nothing short of the action we've come to expect from Pathfinder. Sajan led the way into the chamber occupied by Drakus the Taker, a hobgoblin thought to be a vampire. The monk let off a shot with an expert crossbow he'd picked up, enhanced with magic weapon: natural 20. Fumbus followed in, urging the party on by throwing an alchemist's fire bomb: another natural 20. Drakus reverted to his true form, then lashed out with a natural 20 of his own, dropping the goblin renegade. A round later, the monk too lay at the feet of the ugothol. With just Seoni and Lem left, the sorcerer used three Hero Points to move into line of sight, followed by a full casting of magic missile for the win!

Current Situation

Near the end of our crawl through the ossuary, Lem suffered a critical hit from a poisoned lock that left the halfling struggling for life; before the poison could advance further, we hurried to the safety of Magnimar's streets. We also recovered the lost Star of Desna, and returned it to Keleri Deverin with plenty of time to reach the Swallowtail Festival—she couldn't be late for the launch of one of Paizo's most legendary Adventure Paths!

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Managing Developer

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Order of the Amber Die—The Azlant Odyssey, Part 4

Jul 21, 2018, 12:00 pm

The folks from Order of the Amber Die are back again! Get ready to dive into adventure with a new report from their latest marathon session running through Pathfinder Adventure Path #124: City in the Deep! Be forewarned, though! There are spoilers aplenty in this report. (Maybe just look at the awesome pictures if you're playing through this.)

Order of the Amber Die—The Azlant Odyssey, Part 4

Saturday, July 21, 2018

The folks from Order of the Amber Die are back again! Get ready to dive into adventure with a new report from their latest marathon session running through Pathfinder Adventure Path #124: City in the Deep! Be forewarned, though! There are spoilers aplenty in this report. (Maybe just look at the awesome pictures if you're playing through this.)

Going into volume four of the Ruins of Azlant Adventure Path, we had a couple of pieces of information about what lay ahead; these included following a lead about a veiled master, and knowing that we were headed to the underwater city of Talasantri. We originally scheduled our usual four-day run, but during play we endeared ourselves to the city and adjusted our schedules to make this a slow-burning marathon of nearly a week, culminating with fireworks and food on the 4th of July!

To create immersion for our visit to an underwater city, we surrounded our play area with a 360-degree panorama of undersea scenes matching the coral streets of Talasantri (including a merfolk evocative of many we'd encounter). To capture the effect of jellyfish lanterns lighting the city, we employed string lights of appropriate colors, along with sparkling underwater lighting effects from our local Halloween store. As we toured establishments in the city, we were enraptured by music from Aquasonic, played completely underwater. Lastly, our tabletop itself glimmered with the craftsmanship of both Blue Table Painting and Black Bard Studios, who helped bring Talasantri to life for us.

Adventure: Pathfinder Adventure Path #124: City in the Deep

Marathon Length: 125 hours, 50min

Session Hours: 60hrs, 15min

Highlights From "City in the Deep"

Our biggest concern was how it was going to play out being underwater for so long. Matt, a veteran of the Order and our "Player Captain Emeritus," supervised the party's toolkit for underwater adventuring. He made it so that we were able to enjoy our time in the deep without having to stress too much about the lack of air, cold temperatures, and pressure damage. Spells like endure elements, water breathing, waterproof, and ride the waves (combined with a rod of metamagic extend) were easy enough to keep track of. At the same time, certain items ensured that we had backup measures: pearl of the sirens, necklace of adaptation, apparatus of the crab, and pressure pills (from the Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Aquatic Adventures sourcebook.

Our list of friends and alliances continued to grow. Nieran Codali, a Mordant Spire elf rescued from the bottom of The Flooded Cathedral, considered it essential to accompany us after he saw that three of our four iconics were human; since, as he explained to Merisiel openly, the humans were certain to fail. Though he sometimes refers to us as "the bastards of Azlant" and talks about our humans in the third person, we wouldn't have survived the final battle without him.

While exploring the island of Blood Lily Cay in search of an ancient weapon, we spotted a ruined temple through the foliage. Facing its divine guardian/broken soul coatl turned into a 26-round combat worthy of any World Cup elimination match. Unfortunately, our first "own goal" of the campaign also occurred, when Kyra cast a mass cure light wounds in an attempt to damage the creature she assumed was undead (without successfully identifying it). Instead, she healed the coatl at a crucial moment, ensuring we'd have to retreat in defeat.

Some BIG creatures live under the waves, and we're starting to meet them. The best God of War boss fights couldn't hold a candle to watching Valeros go into melee alone against a gargantuan dire shark, and later a colossal shipwrecker crab. The aquanaut beat them both.

The Odyssey

Talasantri looked unlike anywhere we'd ever been, and yet much of the city functioned like plenty of places we had been. We shopped, got invited to parties, became caught up in local intrigues, and the relationships we built ended up being more important to our success than any treasure we found. We had to pick our friends wisely though, and there were certainly options: aristocratic merfolk, proud aquatic elves, shady cecaelias, and plenty more. Kyra's ability to hit a DC 52 Diplomacy check certainly came in useful, but most citizens were indifferent to surface folk, so Dan still had to roleplay his way into positions to use it. Ezren even fell for a merfolk who styled herself as the "Arcanic Researcher" of the city, and was invited to view her collection of rare magic items (a visit he wouldn't discuss with us). We're keeping the large map we printed of Talasantri, and we'll be going back in this campaign—or another.

Character Deaths

Merisiel was able to corner a deep merfolk sorcerer after minutes of chasing his multiple castings of dimension door. Facing only the elf, the merfolk cast defensively and gambled on a disintegrate. From just a foot away, he reached out a finger toward the rogue—natural 20. The critical hit was almost inevitable, and Merisiel's saving throw was a tragic natural 1. So 26d6 became 52d6, and our GM wanted to roll it all at once. We scoured the house for d6s, and everyone pitched in some of their own. Total damage? 192. The single highest amount of damage ever delivered by a spell in OAD history.

When draugr are protecting a shrine of Dagon with keen greataxes, Power Attack, and times 3 critical multipliers, some PCs are going to wind up face down. Kyra took 57 points of damage in three hits, and Merisiel took 106 points of damage in two hits. At least they went out together.

An out-of-water excursion threw off some adventuring routines we had established, and we stumbled into two ambushes by the aptly named Blood Lilies. Koloshkora and Ezren found out through experience that the plants were highly poisonous, too.

Best Quote From Marathon 4

(While crossing the ocean floor at 20 ft. speed.)

Valeros: "Can't this thing go any faster?"

Merisiel: "Not with the old man driving."

Ezren: "This is maximum speed, thank you."

Current Situation

We've discovered that our quarry, the veiled master named Ochymua, seeks a weapon with the power to devastate Golarion. For assistance, it seems Ochymua contacted an ancient lich named Auberon the Drowned—which means now we seek this same lich. Armed with two aberration bane weapons and a ranger with a +6 favored enemy bonus, we're locked and loaded as we head into part five of this Adventure Path. We have three words for all alghollthu who oppose us: BRING IT ON.

More Content

For character builds, questions about The Azlant Odyssey, additional content and more, see our thread on the Paizo messageboards.

Follow Order of the Amber Die on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube!

Keep your eyes peeled for part five once the group gets some rest. If you've missed the first three installments, check them out here:

Order of the Amber Die—The Azlant Odyssey, Part 1
Order of the Amber Die—The Azlant Odyssey, Part 2
Order of the Amber Die—The Azlant Odyssey, Part 3

Adam Daigle
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Order of the Amber Die—The Azlant Odyssey, Part 3

May 19, 2018, 12:00 pm

Those Adventure Path marathoners from the Order of the Amber Die are back again with a report from their play through of Pathfinder Adventure Path #123: The Flooded Cathedral! If you've missed the first two installments, check them out here: Part 1 and Part 2. As usual, there be spoilers! Read the following at your own risk!

Order of the Amber Die—The Azlant Odyssey, Part 3

Saturday, May 18, 2018

Those Adventure Path marathoners from the Order of the Amber Die are back again with a report from their play through of Pathfinder Adventure Path #123: The Flooded Cathedral! If you've missed the first two installments, check them out here: Part 1 and Part 2. As usual, there be spoilers! Read the following at your own risk!

By the third volume of an Adventure Path, we have usually acquired a pretty definitive feel for the locale and some of the themes of a particular AP. The Flooded Cathedral became the adventure where we really felt like we were deep in the ruins of Azlant in the most literal sense. Remains of the empire were everywhere, and we got to explore the most awe-inspiring structure yet: a massive cathedral so time-worn that it was now partially lost to the waters. We couldn't stop to gawk too long though, for we were in a race against time to recover dozens of kidnapped colonists from the machinations of their new aboleth master!

To enhance immersion, we decided to focus on the feel of submerged dungeon crawling. Black curtains blocked out light from the room, with illumination provided by lava lamps possessing underwater hues, and a strobe light was used for the parts of the cathedral where the lighting was malfunctioning. Elsewhere on the islands of Azlant, Black Scrolls Games helped us bring the landscape to life with their outdoor map tiles.

Adventure: Pathfinder Adventure Path #123: The Flooded Cathedral

Marathon Length: 107 hours, 15 minutes

Session Hours: 57 hours, 10 minutes

Highlights from "The Flooded Cathedral"

One of the most unsettling parts of adventuring in ancient Azlant involved encountering former inhabitants of an age gone by. Wraiths known as hollows—spirits whose pride kept them from fleeing Earthfall—inhabited an area of the island where the trees and soil were left still blackened from the cataclysm. They paced us for hours, until the darkness provided by some ruins allowed them the chance to strike, hoping to sap our precious egos.

The treasures of Azlant are as enticing as its lore, and we couldn't resist braving s a shiver of great white sharks to explore the Hall of the Heroine, which contained a statue of the Azlanti heroine Savith. In our very own sword-in-the-stone moment, only a human had the strength to wrest the sword of Savith from her grasp, and this glowing aberration-bane keen longsword became single greatest factor in our defeat of Onthooth, the aboleth in the final encounter.

The outer temple grounds contained a breathtaking 100-foot-tall statue of Amaznen that had crashed to the ground long ago. Before our scholars could satiate the pages of their logs, a tough fight began, possessed of wave-by-wave action against ugothol defenders. What increased the complexity was the combination of three lanes of engagement, and that each wave of faceless stalkers was armed differently, including the dreaded mutilators, who hit the hardest. We won it decidedly, by making sure they couldn't break our line: two of us held the left side on the smashed head of the statue, two held the right amongst some crumbling walls, two scampered up onto the statue itself, and the last provided air support in the form of lightning bolts.

Intensity peaked as high as the volume of Hans Zimmer's "Supermarine" when we faced off against one of the first ulat-kini ever created. To take things up another notch, we should add that we were we far from air, a retinue accompanied it, and this immense creature carried an equally large crossbow of the crab. Our GM shocked us a couple of times by using the reposition combat maneuver to place us in the path of a malfunctioning electrical altar. This win went to Valeros's aquanaut abilities and Ezren's aqueous orb spell.

The Odyssey

Author Mikko Kallio gifted us with one of the most interactive and unique dungeon crawling experiences we've ever come across. Not only did a submerged ruin provide its own challenges, but also there were several objectives to be accomplished within the cathedral, and these stood alongside our main goal. Aoinse, the awakened clockwork servant and former cleric of Amaznen, became our friend and guide throughout the delve—she won't be forgotten. True to any Odyssey, the treasures have been equally epic, as it took more than thirty years of playing this game to finally come across an apparatus of the crab!

Character Deaths

Merisiel paid for her curiosity when she approached a perfectly intact table standing alone inside a broken tower. She'll tell you it was the magical haversack resting upon the table that she couldn't resist. Karnax, the mimic with slayer levels, showed his delight in having visitors to the island by surprising the rogue, studying his target, and finishing her in two hits before the party could act.

While attempting to turn the temple's power generators on, we found ourselves in a fierce encounter with lightning elementals where every square of movement mattered. Unfortunately, our party roster included a locathah with a 10 foot movement, Kyra with a 20 foot movement, and a hobbled clockwork companion in tow. Kyra sacrificed herself to help the rest escape, but not before we lost Oorka the strix as well.

As we explored a haunted sacristy, Valeros fell victim to a murderous command effect and tried to claim the spoils for himself. It didn't help that the fighter was being played by Erick, who has more blood on his hands from other PCs than anyone in the Order. With a stellar critical hit of 73 points of damage, he added Koloshkora to his list.

Best Quote From Marathon 3

(Following an encounter with chaos beasts, our wizard suffered from a Wisdom score of 4.)

Ezren: Excellent hit Marissa, watch out for the other elemental!

Merisiel: It's Merisiel...

Ezren: Nice throw Melanie, behind you!

Merisiel (dodges): It's Merisiel, old man.

Ezren: Sorry Maria, I won't make that mistake again!

Current Situation

We managed to defeat the aboleth and recover the colonists (mostly) intact. Through diplomacy and action, our network of friends and alliances among the current inhabitants of ancient Azlant now includes: Mordant Spire elves, wyrwoods, locathah, strix, and even some clockwork compatriots. We were able to raise our companions from the dead, and things look good as we prepare to spend what looks like an extended amount of time underwater. Equipped with our newly reconstructed apparatus of the crab, we're ready to set out across the ocean toward the next destination in our odyssey: the underwater city of Talasantri!

More Content

For character builds, questions about The Azlant Odyssey, additional content and more, see our thread on the paizo.com messageboards!

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Order of the Amber Die—The Azlant Odyssey, Part 2

Jan 29, 2018, 05:00 pm

Those Adventure Path marathoners from the Order of the Amber Die are back again with a report from their play through of Pathfinder Adventure Path #122: Into the Shattered Continent! As usual, there be spoilers! Read the following at your own risk!

Order of the Amber Die—The Azlant Odyssey, Part 2

Monday, January 29, 2018

Those Adventure Path marathoners from the Order of the Amber Die are back again with a report from their play through of Pathfinder Adventure Path #122: Into the Shattered Continent! As usual, there be spoilers! Read the following at your own risk!

In our first marathon of The Azlant Odyssey, we got off to the finest start in any of our projects for the Paizo Blog: we discovered an ample amount of treasure, held party deaths to a zero count, and acquired enough allies to put together a solid team for any challenge that might present itself. For this second marathon, we wanted to capitalize on our early gains by significantly developing the colony of Talmandor's Bounty while exploring the island around it, and "Into the Shattered Continent" offered exactly that.

To enhance immersion, we brought the beach to us by utilizing AdventureScents to make the room smell like a sandy coast. We also engaged several live-NPCs to play the roles of colonists and other indigenous inhabitants of ancient Azlant, complete with a locathah mask that stared back at us the entire time. Lastly, our GM assembled a collection of images to project on the wall that matched locations we'd be visiting, as well as a soundtrack that included hours of waves crashing against the shore.

This adventure was divided into three parts, with the first being one of the largest sandboxes we've ever come across in 145 published adventures that we’ve played. So massive, in fact, that we pushed our GM near the limit and broke our record for the longest single marathon in Order of the Amber Die history!

Adventure: Pathfinder Adventure Path #122: Into the Shattered Continent

Marathon Length: 119 hours, 45 minutes

Session Hours: 68 hours, 10 minutes

Highlights from Into the Shattered Continent:

The marathon opened with shock and betrayal. Having accidentally chosen to bring two dominated colonists into our midst at the end of "The Lost Outpost", they turned against the colony in the downtime between adventures. Orchestrating a surprise raid by skum, the traitors targeted our spellcasters and caught nearly all of them alone or off-guard. Two of the colony's respected priests were slain, but we fought off the assault with aid from a couple of celedons, whom afterwards insisted on teaching all present how the goddess Acavna (not the party) had granted us a successful defense of the colony.

Searching the ruins of Azlant has turned up much in the way of Pathfinder Society lore, and through opportunity three of us are now members (Ezren, Kyra, and Lyra). Alright, we'll stop holding back. We got to follow in the footsteps of an expedition from the first EVER Pathfinder Chronicles! And there's more...

The island of Ancorato is not an easy place to traverse, and it literally bled us: blood-sucking stirges, a blood-obsessed sea hag, blood-draining ugothols, a blood-siphoning shark, blood-feeding plants, blood-drinking chupacabras, blood-frenzied sahuagin, blood-empowered vampiric mists, and an evil gillman cleric with the blood subdomain. Lesser restoration, please?

In the final encounter, we faced our second betrayal when our closest friend and confidant, Carver Hastings, turned into a faceless stalker who had long ago replaced him. Worse, his allies—also former friends but now stalkers—tried to burn us alive in the colony's government building. All but Ezren escaped out of the windows, when Valeros decided to eschew safety by kicking down the front doors and going back in after the old man. With Kyra's air bubble to protect him from smoke inhalation, the fighter waded into the flames to save our wizard, and gave us one of the best slow-motion rescues of any campaign.

The Amber Die itself got behind this adventure and dished out some pain, with nine natural 20s that left some heroes facedown. We dodged the die when it mattered most, though!

The Odyssey

Author Robert Brookes referred to this adventure as "a sandbox of exploration and discovery," and its myriad encounters perfectly expanded the feel of our continuing odyssey. While survival was the premier skill for volume one, diplomacy became the focus skill of volume two. We entreated a water naga for aid, stopped a witch hunt, quelled a hunger strike, bartered with locathah, counseled a larcenous teenager, forged an alliance with indigenous creatures, intervened when tensions rose among colonists, solved a kidnapping, comforted a blind cyclops, and traded magic items with a paguroida.

Character Deaths

While we don't have any iconic character deaths to report, we did want to devote this section to a colonist whom we had come to know and respect. Anya Sandstrider accompanied us on several excursions, where she taught us how to better spot danger, discover tracks, and even hunt boar. Our mistake was taking our friend out of her element on our deepest dive yet: a reef swarming with sahuagin and sharks. When we were surrounded by hammerheads and the future was murky, it was her spear and timely calm animals that gave us a momentary lifeline. Ezren fired off a buoyancy spell and we shot for the surface, but it wasn't until we reached air that we realized Anya wasn't with us anymore.

Best Quote From Marathon 2

Adam (GM): Alright guys, welcome to marathon two of The Azlant Odyssey. Kyra, make a Fort save or die, coup de grace.
Kyra (nervously): Ummm...ummm...ummm...24?
Adam (GM): You survive. Twelve damage. You awaken from a normal night's sleep to see a skum standing over you, with its trident in your gut and blood spilling out onto the sheets. Roll initiative.

Current Situation

We managed to thoroughly scout the island, discover generous Azlanti lore, and fend off an attack from within by an enemy we know very little about. Despite repeated betrayals from old friends, we couldn't have made it through this adventure without our newfound allies: a locathah ranger named Koloshkora, and a young strix oracle called Oorka. Our party now has the ability to draw on playmakers that excel in specific environments, with the locathah leading underwater, and the strix aiding overland. Our next move is to figure out who or what has been guiding the repeated attempts to subvert our colony—and eliminate them.

More Content

For character builds, questions about The Azlant Odyssey, additional content and more, see our thread here on the Paizo forums.

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Order of the Amber Die—The Azlant Odyssey, Part 1

Dec 16, 2017, 12:00 pm

The Order of the Amber Die is back with another marathon run through an Adventure Path, and this time they've picked the Ruins of Azlant Adventure Path. I'm not going to spend too much time introducing this blog, but I do want to warn readers that there are some spoilers in here. If you're a player or just want to be surprised when you read The Lost Outpost, read at your own risk!

Order of the Amber Die—The Azlant Odyssey, Part 1

Saturday, December 16, 2017

The Order of the Amber Die is back with another marathon run through an Adventure Path, and this time they've picked the Ruins of Azlant Adventure Path. I'm not going to spend too much time introducing this blog, but I do want to warn readers that there are some spoilers in here. If you're a player or just want to be surprised when you read The Lost Outpost, read at your own risk!

In case you're new to our projects or what Order of the Amber Die is all about, here's a quick summary: We play the longest sessions in the industry, we've been through a couple of lifetime's worth of published adventures, and we like to push the envelope of gaming as far as it can go—and then some.

During the Adventure Path seminar at Gen Con 50, Managing Developer Adam Daigle said Paizo had waited ten long years to release an Azlant-themed AP, and despite not having much of a break after The Strange Aeons Experiment, we couldn't resist the call to play it. Further, if Paizo waited this long to unveil Azlant, we needed to match the significance with something equally monumental: We would take our game on-location. Just as we started off “The Lost Outpost” with our characters approaching a beach, we put nine members of the Order from different parts of the country into a New Jersey beach house for many days of straight gaming. With this much immersion, the long weekend was bound to end up like an episode of Survivor or Jersey Shore-gone-Pathfinder, so we filmed portions of the escapade—and yes, we even did confessionals.

Session Stats

Adventure: Pathfinder Adventure Path #121: The Lost Outpost

Marathon Length: 113 hours

Session Hours: 51hrs, 15min

We like to give each of our projects a spin or focus, and for The Azlant Odyssey we'll be highlighting the setting and atmosphere throughout. Submerged ruins, forgotten islands, lore lost for millennia—it's too exciting not to detail it as we explore. To prepare for the launch of this project, the four core players were assigned homework: to study the Pathfinder comics and master their iconic characters. Finally, with such a large number of colonists available for role-playing opportunities, our GM tapped four additional members of the Order for live-NPC roles throughout the marathon.

Highlights From The Lost Outpost

Our characters arrived on the beach to find the colony of Talmandor's Bounty deserted and the first wave of colonists missing. During our subsequent search, a distressed poltergeist sent our characters sprinting for the water quite a few times. Our GM ruled that since our characters were running from the grass to the waterline, we should leave our dice and make the mad dash across the sand ourselves. Harder than it seemed!

Intermingling with the colonists and their elaborate backgrounds kept us right on track with reality TV, as we had two separate love triangles running: Anya Sandstrider the stoic Shoanti ranger with a crush on Harcourt Carrolby, the arrogant well-to-do, who was in turn the enemy of Leutin Calewick, the hefty blacksmith with a thing for Anya. That's all aside from the usual Kyra and Merisiel flame, where Ramona Avandth, the expedition's capable facilitator, added in some tension with Kyra while refuting the advances of Antona Sedgewick—one of the colony's most prominent soldiers. Can you follow all that drama?

A self-controlled defense mechanism of ancient Azlant stalked the island, leaving ominous tracks that built fear in us until the confrontation finally occurred. It consisted of thousands of tiny spheres that could emit spikes and even knock you to the ground. Merisiel, our relic raider, had studied its path on the island carefully, and enabled us to exploit its weakness: it couldn't climb most objects.

During an incident involving quicksand, Valeros the aquanaut pulled off his best rendition of Baywatch as he ran to the rescue and dove in with his swim speed, while we sweated round-by-round watching the drowning colonist. Even Merisiel was impressed.

Author Jim Groves never let us get comfortable with the island or our mission, as this adventure tested a wide array of tabletop RPG skills: social combat from Ultimate Intrigue, roleplaying, investigation, traditional combat, underwater combat, linguistics, and even a player's ability to adapt to a new mechanic: "soft initiative." If the rest of the Adventure Path is anything like The Lost Outpost in this regard, we're going to find out what we're made of.

Class was in session when we came across two celedons who wanted nothing more than to teach us about their goddess, Acavna. The academics in our group grabbed a bench and started taking notes, until our teachers casually mentioned that instruction would take years to complete—and that we couldn't leave until it was over. We brainstormed ways to cut class, but we were terrified about getting disciplined by the eternal guardians.

The Odyssey

Sand, seagulls, and the smell of salt water completely immersed us in even the most nominal role-playing encounters. We also wanted to emphasize the role of sunlight in island survival, so as a group we decided to get up before dawn every day and begin playing with the sun's rays streaming in. So far, Ruins of Azlant is clearly more than just "the underwater AP." Survival has been the most important skill—used more often than swim—and both the exploration and discovery aspects of our Odyssey left our lore-delvers with plenty of knowledge checks throughout.

Character Deaths

None! We'll leave the credit to the preparatory underwater grid-training sessions run by our Player Captain.

Best Quote From Marathon 1

Valeros (needlessly shouting): Madam, your colony is clear!
Ramona Avandth: How much has this man had to drink?
Valeros: I've been drinking all day.
Ramona (to the party): Is this true?
Ezren: Yes, he has been drinking all day, but he can be trusted.

Current Situation

We managed to scout some of the island, but many questions remain about why the former colonists disappeared. We did rescue and return the original expedition leader, Rayland Arkley, and another colonist that we hope can provide more answers in the coming days. Between adventures, we'll be taking the author's suggestion of utilizing the downtime rules from Ultimate Campaign as we attempt to rebuild the colony of Talmandor's Bounty.

More Content

For character builds, questions about The Azlant Odyssey, additional content and more, see our thread [Link: http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2unce?The-Azlant-Odyssey] on the Paizo messageboards.

Follow Order of the Amber Die on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or YouTube.

Adam Daigle
Managing Developer

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Order of the Amber Die—The Strange Aeons Experiment, Part 6

Sep 26, 2017, 12:00 pm

"It was all the same dream, a dream that you had inside a locked room, a dream about being a person. And like a lot of dreams, there's a monster at the end of it."—Rust Cohle

Order of the Amber Die—The Strange Aeons Experiment, Part 6

Tuesday, September 26, 2017

"It was all the same dream, a dream that you had inside a locked room, a dream about being a person. And like a lot of dreams, there's a monster at the end of it."—Rust Cohle

It’s been a long and dangerous delve into madness for the stalwart folks in the Order of the Amber Die, but they successfully made it through the Strange Aeons Adventure Path in six weekend-long sessions. Here’s the Order of the Amber Die returns to give us a recap of their last session and share some collected stats on their entire run of this campaign. If you haven’t been reading this series of blogs, catch up by reading Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, and Part 5.

As usual, spoilers about, so proceed with caution!

Entering the grand finale of an Adventure Path—especially one played in front of the community—comes with plenty of trepidation and nostalgia. Our opening evening of marathon six was emotional, and we spent it reminiscing about some of our favorite moments in Strange Aeons. As our membership is spread across the country, even if we achieved victory we'd be saying goodbye to our characters and each other for what could be months or years; with fifteen active members, we've had some overlap but never the same roster in any project.

To help bring this marathon experience to life, our GM tapped another member as a live-NPC for the role of the mute musician Erich Zann, and we were joined once again by Savannah Broadway in the role of NPC Winter Klaczka. We also had plenty of props and music for the dark cabaret we would encounter in Paris, and actual wine labels for the bottles of Ruby Artemesia that would feature at a sinister gala.

For Pathfinder Adventure Path #114: Black Stars Beckon, the entire marathon session was 104 hours long with 63 hours and 15 minutes of session hours.

Highlights From Black Stars Beckon

We needed to perform three rituals in order to sever Carcosa's connection to Golarion; these were lengthy, left us vulnerable, and worse yet: drew the attention of Great Old Ones. During our second ritual, a ghastly dream manifestation of Xhamen-Dor emerged to disrupt our casters. Erasmus, despite still suffering from the possession corruption, put his occult skills on display with entrap spirit—instantly ending the fight before it began.

The strangeness of this Adventure Path reached new levels with Carcosa's patchwork of cities stolen from different times and planets, but by this point we had found ways to embrace it. We invited ourselves to a vampire ball in ancient Azlant, where we threw caution to the wind and partied like it was -9999. Later on, we popped in on a cabaret full of Leng ghouls in 1890s Paris, where we sipped champagne and basked in the ambiance of La Belle Époque.

To reach our goal in an ice-enshrouded elder thing city, author Jim Groves challenged us with an old-school numbers puzzle that almost stopped the campaign. Immersion is important to the Order, so our GM wasn't ready to let us off the hook with an intelligence check. After two hours the group broke for sleep, leaving Sterling (Alahazra) alone with our notes. When we woke up the next morning, he had solved it.

The Experiment

From otherworldly horror to the research rules, dream quests and occult rituals, this path just felt different from standard Pathfinder—which was exactly what we loved about it. Regarding the results of our experiment, we were all in agreement that not only can Strange Aeons be played by complete rookies to the Elder Mythos, but that we may have had the better deal by doing so!

Character Deaths

When Adam Daigle opened his introduction to Black Stars Beckon by apologizing for killing our characters, it helped us to consider PC-demise from a lighter perspective. With our group having regular access to breath of life, a cauldron of resurrection, and even wish, mortality was no longer an issue; with a number as high as sixteen, even death died.

Best Quote From Marathon 6

Cold silence before a gunfight in the cabaret.
Feiya: "Any ghoul that doesn't wanna get killed, better clear on out the back."

The Strange Aeons Adventure Path by the Numbers

All of us went to great effort to track data throughout the entire Adventure Path, and we are proud to present the results of that effort here:

Total marathon hours: 581

Actual session hours: 357

Longest single session: 19 hours, 45 minutes

Real-life months passed: 10

Days passed on Golarion/Carcosa: 248

Highest DC reached on a skill check: 55 (Quinn)

Occult ritual record: 9-1

Teamwork Feat: Shake It Off. Total preventative uses: 101

Group-consensus on most valuable skill: Knowledge (dungeoneering)

Caffeine consumed from Monster energy drinks: 45,216 mg

Feiya's Channel Energy

Uses: 145

Healing living creatures: 116 uses, 6,738 hit points

Harming undead creatures: 29 uses, 469 damage

Quinn's Inspiration

Points spent: 244

Free uses of inspiration with skill checks: countless

Alahazra's Revelations

Erase From Time

Attempts: 37

Successes: 9

Temporal Celerity

Initiatives won: 32

Aging Touch

Total uses: 18

Successful uses: 10

Rewind Time

Total uses: 9

Conversions from failure to success: 4

Time Sight

True Seeing: 12

Moment of Prescience: 3

Erasmus's Spirit Surges

Total uses: 37

Champion spirit: 32

Hierophant spirit: 4

Trickster spirit: 1

Conversions from failure to success: 28

GM Stats

Most common enemy abilities used: confusion, fear

Strongest party-defenses faced: freedom of movement, find fault, particulate form

Highest enemy full-attack damage: 220 (graveknight)

Marathon prep hours: ~540

Random encounters: 22

Breaks taken during the Adventure Path: 1

How it Ended

Atop a rain-soaked tower surrounded by a massive yellow sign, we faced off against Ariadnah the lich and the abomination that Count Lowls had become. Things got off to the kind of start you hope you'll never experience when playing for a championship. We lost two characters on the opening round, with Feiya dropped by a horrid wilting and Winter removed by a maze. The room was silent. We had to block out what was happening, find a way to rally, and do what any team might do in this situation: a Hail Mary. Alahazra threw it in the form of disintegrate, and the lich caught it in the face with a natural one. A few rounds and seven (consecutive) successful saving throws later, we were in a position to win. When the dust of victory finally settled, only Erasmus and Quinn were left holding the belt of Strange Aeons.

More Content

Read through the entirety of The Strange Aeons Experiment.

For character builds, questions about Strange Aeons, content and more, see our thread here on the forums.

Give Order of the Amber Die a Like on Facebook and follow us on YouTube or Instagram for more!

Adam Daigle
Managing Developer

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Order of the Amber Die—The Strange Aeons Experiment, Part 5

Apr 30, 2017, 12:00 pm

They made it off the map! Well, off the map of the Inner Sea and deep into parts unknown. The folks from the Order of the Amber Die recently completed their fifth marathon session of running the delightfully creepy Strange Aeons Adventure Path. I'm going to keep this introduction short and let all of you dive right into the action as the Order of the Amber Die recaps their experiences with Pathfinder Adventure Path #113: What Grows Within.

Order of the Amber Die—The Strange Aeons Experiment, Part 5

Sunday, April 30, 2017

They made it off the map! Well, off the map of the Inner Sea and deep into parts unknown. The folks from the Order of the Amber Die recently completed their fifth marathon session of running the delightfully creepy Strange Aeons Adventure Path. I'm going to keep this introduction short and let all of you dive right into the action as the Order of the Amber Die recaps their experiences with Pathfinder Adventure Path #113: What Grows Within.

As usual, proceed with caution if you are playing in this campaign, as spoilers abound!

Author John Compton handed us an experience in this marathon that had a horrifically epic feel from the opening hours, and didn't let up. We dealt with threats that dwarfed anything we've seen in this Adventure Path, perhaps in a dozen campaigns we've played. As this year marked the 30th anniversary of Order of the Amber Die, we decided to try for a new record regarding the total time spent together during a marathon. Ninty-six hours was our previous tally, but we're proud to say that part five of Strange Aeons allowed for a new achievement:

Adventure: Pathfinder Adventure Path #113: What Grows Within

Marathon Length: 108 hours

Session Hours: 64

For immersion, the audio engineers at Axion Studios provided custom sounds of the eerie wind that blew through Neruzavin. We also used modeling clay and clumps of foliage to make unique versions of the fungal monsters we encountered. Lastly, we employed the author's suggestion for enhancing horror in roleplaying games (see John's foreword in "What Grows Within"), by silencing our phones and severely curtailing their usage.

Highlights From What Grows Within

Finding the forgotten city of Neruzavin was our first challenge, made more difficult after our gnoll guides ditched us and the camels were killed by drakes. Upon surviving our first day in that terrible metropolis, the camels might have been better off.

To earn the respect of an ash giant tribe in control of the Parchlands, we had to draw on our skill set from Giantslayer and best a colossal scorpion. Their skeptical leader shouted three words that were guaranteed to fire up our room: "Prove your might!"

We tried everything to get answers to the mysteries hidden within Neruzavin, including a legend lore spell, a real-time harrowing by Erasmus, and a conference with an otyugh tome eater who chomped down our scrolls faster than a bag of Doritos.

During our daily seance, an unknown spirit forced its way into Erasmus and began battling Nissa for control of his body. We don't know much about it, or even how to rid Erasmus of it; unfortunately, the spirit is beginning to manifest its unpleasant personality, and it suffers no rivals.

Even our new companion Amrivast, a lammasu paladin, wasn't safe from the evil present in Neruzavin. We could do nothing as he struggled against its dark influences and eventually abandoned us. The lammasu returned later as a fungal abomination, calling himself "Amrivast the Seeded, herald of Xhamen-Dor!" We didn't want to put him down, but we had to.

We found the Necronomicon, and even being Elder Mythos rookies we'd heard the name before. It didn't help that Quinn was the one who read it—or that Dan laughed sadistically while our GM told him its secrets.

After having our flesh and egos scoured by what our GM told us was a "flying polyp," our poor reflex saves began dreading what was around every street corner, if corner is even the word. Please, no more polyps.

The Experiment

Quinn broke. Out-of-game too. Our lawful good companion murdered a man right in front of our eyes. The diseased member of a prior expedition to Neruzavin was clearly suffering from seedborne consumption, but we hadn't tried everything to save him before Quinn acted. It didn't go down easy either—the man screamed while Quinn drove his dagger home again and again.

Character Deaths

This marathon was as deadly as you'd expect from a semi-final matchup. On our side were stats such as Feiya's nine instant kills via flesh to stone, and Erasmus's 142 points of damage in a single round. On the opposing side were John Compton's twelve character deaths scored, with five of them coming from the graveknight inquisitor of Rovagug he designed. It's important to note that we had easy access to breath of life through Feiya's hex channeling, and Winter carried two in her daily complement.

Best Quote From Marathon 5

Alahazra (during a tense parley with an irritated moon giant): "I need money. I am negotiating with a massive giant, OR WE ARE GOING TO DIE. What do we have?"

Current Situation

We had to make one of the toughest decisions of our Pathfinder careers, and it will surely trouble us throughout the last chapter of our story. Desperately low on resources, the debate came down to saving the multiverse from Hastur, or merely saving Golarion in the present. The vote was 3-2 in favor of leaving Golarion behind, forcing our world to face the reviving threat of a Great Old One and the polyps we unleashed. Moreover, we had taken the Necronomicon away from Quinn and given it to exscinder archons, which meant we would have to attempt the Path to the Black Stars occult ritual without a key focus—the ritual's costly toll now meant we had only one chance at completing it.

The result: We're headed to Carcosa and the finals of this AP!

More Content

Read through the entirety of The Strange Aeons Experiment.

For character builds, questions about Strange Aeons, content and more, see our thread here on the messageboards.

Give Order of the Amber Die a Like on Facebook and follow us on Instagram for more!

If this is the first time you're reading one of these Order of the Amber Die blogs and want to catch up, check out the Strange Aeons Experiment Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4.

Until next time, stay safe and keep alert, because the next time you hear from the Order of the Amber Die they'll be sharing tales of the finale of the Strange Aeons Adventure Path! This probably won't happen until after PaizoCon where I'll run into a few of the Order of the Amber Die folks as they come to Seattle to play some games and talk about their marathon experiences. If you're at the show, make sure to say "Hi!" You can't miss their custom shirts.

Adam Daigle
Developer

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Order of the Amber Die—The Strange Aeons Experiment, Part 4

Mar 7, 2017, 05:30 pm

On the trail of the person who condemned them to an asylum with no memory of their former selves, the Order of the Amber Die tackles the fourth adventure of the Strange Aeons Adventure Path. It looks like they had a great time (as usual), and this time around it was great to read the live tweeting from the Order's newest member—former Paizo intern Savannah Broadway.

Order of the Amber Die—The Strange Aeons Experiment, Part 4

Tuesday, March 7, 2017

On the trail of the person who condemned them to an asylum with no memory of their former selves, the Order of the Amber Die tackles the fourth adventure of the Strange Aeons Adventure Path. It looks like they had a great time (as usual), and this time around it was great to read the live tweeting from the Order's newest member—former Paizo intern Savannah Broadway.

Here's their report from their marathon experience with Pathfinder Adventure Path #112: The Whisper Out of Time! As always, proceed with caution if you are playing in this Adventure Path or planning to do so, as spoilers may lurk within the following words.

After reaching the Taldan port city of Cassomir and recovering from the madness that plagued several of our party members, our group was eager to chase Count Lowls further into this Adventure Path. We knew we were in for a long run when our GM booked an extra day for this marathon. We ended up setting an Order of the Amber Die record, staying in the same house for 93 hours, and playing over 60 of those. We also saw three of Golarion's signature cities, and traversed nearly 800 miles.

Making this marathon even more significant for us was the return of Savannah Broadway, taking the role of Winter Klaczka and leading "Winter's Wolves" to victory once again. We opened up the first night of play with an official draft ceremony, fully inducting Savannah into the Order—our first new member in three years! After presenting her with an official Order of the Amber Die jersey, it was time to settle in for a few days of Pathfinder.

To keep us fully immersed, we used AdventureScents to overwhelm our olfactory senses with the myriad smells of an alchemist's lab, followed by the moldy paper of an ancient library. For the streets of Cassomir, we combined buildings from Custom Kingdoms with a 4 ft. x 6 ft. gridded cobblestone battlemat from Deep-Cut Studio.

Highlights from The Whisper Out of Time

In the top floors of an old infirmary, we chased a three-armed derro vivisectionist through a maze of skin. Enough said.

Searching for the Mysterium, one of the oldest libraries on Golarion, we rolled into majestic Katheer to the sounds of Mosavo's "Mystic Caravan." While many dungeons we've crawled have contained a library, in this adventure the largest dungeon was a library.

Before we could figure out how to shut off the Mysterium's warped defense system, we faced packs of hounds—of Tindalos! Sixteen slain was the number, with MVP Quinn taking on four at once in a plan gone awry.

Going into this adventure, we knew we'd be up against author Richard Pett. Gaming convention crowds and the Paizo messageboards helped confirm that with Xanesha from Rise of the Runelords, he possessed perhaps more TPKs than any contemporary author. Though we managed to best her in 2014, Xanesha still put 4 of our iconics in the ground. Pett delivered again in this adventure. In the extradimensional heart of the library, we faced off against a corrupted archon known only as "The Keeper," who shook off three banishments and two hold monsters while draining over 20 ability points on round one. At a critical moment, he succumbed to the 1st level spell ill omen, and we managed a clean game.

In Okeno, we had to navigate a difficult parley with the Hyena Princess Njano. Since two members are lawful good, our party tried everything—which meant slipping into her milk bath to discuss terms.

On the rooftop of a gnoll fortress known as Blossoming Thorn, we got ourselves into the largest melee of the campaign thus far. An airwalking Quinn engaged Biting Lash, one of the most notorious slavers in the Yellow City. At the same time, Erasmus took on her bodyguard, scimitar versus scimitar. Alahazra slowed the reinforcements with bursts of radiance, while Winter provided Pharasma's blessing through Fateful Channel. As Feiya engaged their enemy sorcerer in an arcane duel, Daji jumped into the scrap by going after Biting Lash's eagle animal companion. Just as we were about to be overwhelmed, we grabbed our quarry and called for the teleport extraction. Mission successful.

The Experiment

We kept hearing creepy whispers and a strange bell throughout the adventure. We've gotten so used to the unexplainable in this Adventure Path, that we just wrote them off as more Lovecraftian enigmas that will be revealed in time.

Character Deaths

It turns out the cult of Hastur was more widespread than we thought. Cultists hunted us through the damp streets of Cassomir, leading to two deadly ambushes that resulted in casualties amounting to: several townsfolk, a byakhee, a few dire bats, a keeper of the yellow sign, and some members of the city guard. With the help of our cult hunter, we fought our way out of their tentacles, but lost Feiya both times.

Best Quote from Marathon 4

Alahazra (after slaying a Dark Young of Shub-Niggurath): "We just pissed off a Great Old One."
Winter (in a Russian accent): "It is having a thousand young, I don't think it is going to miss one..."

Current Situation

We've exchanged dark and fog-shrouded Ustalav for more sun and heat than we ever expected coming into this AP. Armed with a map, ample supplies, and gnoll guides provided by the untrustworthy slaver named Biting Lash, we're headed deep into the Parchlands of Casmaron for part five. Semi-finals, here we come!

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Read through the entirety of The Strange Aeons Experiment.

For character builds, questions about Strange Aeons, content and more, see our thread here on the messageboards.

Give Order of the Amber Die a Like on Facebook and follow us on Instagram for more!

So, they made it through and are on the move again. Tune in next time to see if they can survive the Parchlands and the mysterious ruined city of Neruzavin.

Adam Daigle
Developer

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Tags: Community Order of the Amber Die Pathfinder Adventure Path Strange Aeons

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Order of the Amber Die—The Strange Aeons Experiment, Part 3

Dec 9, 2016, 12:00 pm

Despite waking from the nightmare of what sounded like a tough but exciting marathon session, the Order of the Amber Die folks bring up a report from their experience with the third adventure in the Strange Aeons Adventure Path, Pathfinder Adventure Path #111: Dreams of the Yellow King. This adventure promised to bring the weird and surreal into the campaign, and from what I've heard from the Order of the Amber Die, it succeeded.

Order of the Amber Die—The Strange Aeons Experiment, Part 3

Friday, December 9, 2016

Despite waking from the nightmare of what sounded like a tough but exciting marathon session, the Order of the Amber Die folks bring up a report from their experience with the third adventure in the Strange Aeons Adventure Path, Pathfinder Adventure Path #111: Dreams of the Yellow King. This adventure promised to bring the weird and surreal into the campaign, and from what I've heard from the Order of the Amber Die, it succeeded.

What follows is their brief report. As always, proceed with caution, as spoilers abound.

So far in The Strange Aeons Experiment we've been stumbling through the horror with the naivety you'd expect from four players who are Lovecraft-ignorant. Dreams of the Yellow King would be no different, and we were determined to fully immerse ourselves for our rookie excursion into the dimension of dreams. We blacked out our walls with floor-to-ceiling panels, dialed up a soundtrack that included plenty of psychedelic trance, and even passed around a miniature staircase just as our characters did for each Dreamlands occult ritual. For the real-world ride on the Sellen River, we created 3-D boats from Rob Lazarretti's maps, with one member managing to create a fully functional sail for the Sellen Starling. Lastly, for the massive amount of research that we'd be performing in this adventure, we borrowed a collection of antique books and piled it around our play area.

This marathon was unique, because joining us at the table for the three-month voyage to Cassomir was a special guest: Paizo former intern, author, and editor Savannah Broadway flew from Seattle to New Jersey to take on the role of NPC Winter Klaczka. Savannah bunked in the command center of the Order, a room we call "The Lair," and it was an honor to game alongside her. We clocked 60 session hours, and even had Savannah with us for the longest day of the AP: a nearly 20-hour run. Her live tweets kept us laughing throughout the marathon and helped present the experience for our fans. Not only will we miss Savannah's perfect accent for Winter, but she did something unprecedented by naming our first party after an NPC: Winter's Wolves! We were also very grateful to add the talents of an Order member (a Boston NBA and NHL cameraman) to help us best capture the occasion.

Highlights from Dreams of the Yellow King

We tried nearly everything we could to cure Quinn of the ghoul corruption he picked up during In Search of Sanity. Horrible as it may seem, isolating a manacled Quinn in a barn for a week actually worked. You can imagine his face during this adventure when we discovered a race of ghouls even more powerful and intelligent than any we knew existed: Leng ghouls.

Powerful treasure was as abundant as danger in the Dreamlands. We came across our first vorpal blade since 6th grade in '89. And yes, we took off some heads.

Dying in the Dreamlands had its price: madness. While we managed to cure some of them along the way, by the end of our trip we had acquired nearly every lesser and greater madness listed in Horror Adventures. Trying to roleplay these over the course of a weekend spent in the same room was a challenge that certainly pushed the envelope of immersion.

We attended a grand ball in a city called Celephais, where guests were routinely murdered every few minutes. Only Feiya stayed for "The Sunset Waltz," where the viscount danced with a Leng spider to Shostakovich's "Waltz No. 2." Creepy on so many levels.

While in the Dreamlands, we were surprised to face a dragon—a nightmare dragon. Our GM slammed the mini down on the table like we were back in Stranger Things, then woke us with a TPK.

The Experiment

This AP doesn't feel like our other Pathfinder campaigns. Others have had highs and lows, but this one just has us run down, freaked out, and anxious. We can't help but wonder if this is what Call of Cthulhu is like.

The monsters just keep getting scarier. An indescribable creature, known only as a formless spawn, massacred us in our dreams with what our GM called "a masterpiece of a stat block." At least we got to use our Pathfinder Map Pack: Swallowed Whole as it sucked us down one by one.

Character Deaths

On our first attempt, we botched the Dreamlands occult ritual and allowed an animate dream to follow us out into the real world. It took down Alahazra with a phantasmal killer, and the fight spilled out onto the deck of the Sellen Starling. Skywin Freeling, the ship's captain, came to our aid, but was put to sleep forever with a crit from the Amber Die. The room was silent when it was over.

Best Quote from Marathon 3

Quinn: "Let's assess, it's been a few minutes: Two of us are blind, one can't speak, and Feiya was already ripped out of this dream."
Winter: "Can we leave zis place? I do not like zis place!"

Current Situation

We reached Cassomir, but with the Sellen Starling whittled down to a skeleton crew and our party riddled with madnesses, we'll be spending a couple of months to recover. After that, we're headed off again in pursuit of Count Lowls!

More Content

Read through the entirety of The Strange Aeons Experiment.

For character builds, questions about Strange Aeons, content and more, see our thread here on the messageboards.

Give Order of the Amber Die a Like on Facebook and follow us on Instagram for more!

Mike is 2nd from the left, in his black OAD attire with the well-known Sihedron medallion.

A Tough Goodbye

We wanted to take a moment to say some words about a recent event that has deeply touched all of us here at Order of the Amber Die. This past weekend, the Order lost one of its most respected and admired members to a hard battle against cancer. Mike Dappolone had been with us since 7th grade in 1990, and was one of the earliest members of the group. As kids, Mike showed us how to secretly pack our D&D books and dice in our backpacks during Boy Scout trips so we could play in the tent at night. In college, Mike was pivotal in helping to launch our organized "marathon" method of gaming, so that when we were all together twice a year we could put away an entire module in a sitting. In our adult years, Mike created many of the intricate set pieces that can be seen in our playthroughs (including the fully functional sails on the boats here), and his painted miniatures have always been featured heavily in our game. Throughout his recent struggle, Mike loved the days that he could escape into long Pathfinder sessions, starring as Seltyiel in our Runelords campaign—even brazenly wearing a Sihedron medallion. This fall he spent some peaceful time introducing his young son to the joys of the game. Mike's seat cannot be filled, but the Order and "Seltyiel's Seven" will continue on in his name.

I want to give my heartfelt sympathies to the crew of the Order of the Amber Die and to Mike's friends and family. It's never easy to lose someone.

The crew of adventurers in this Strange Aeons campaign have made it down the river and through the Dreamlands, now they look forward to more research and mystery before they can catch up to their former associate. Keep your eyes on this blog for more reports from the Order of the Amber Die.

Adam Daigle
Developer

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Order of the Amber Die—The Strange Aeons Experiment, Part 2

Oct 7, 2016, 05:30 pm

After what seems to be some harrowing experiences, the Order of the Amber Die completed the second adventure, Pathfinder Adventure Path #110: The Thrushmoor Terror, in the Strange Aeons Adventure Path in yet another marathon session. I'm going to keep this short and let them tell their tales. Be sure to check out the links at the bottom of this post to read more about their experience with this Adventure Path. Beware, players! Spoilers below!

Order of the Amber Die—The Strange Aeons Experiment, Part 2

Friday, October 7, 2016

After what seems to be some harrowing experiences, the Order of the Amber Die completed the second adventure, Pathfinder Adventure Path #110: The Thrushmoor Terror, in the Strange Aeons Adventure Path in yet another marathon session. I'm going to keep this short and let them tell their tales. Be sure to check out the links at the bottom of this post to read more about their experience with this Adventure Path. Beware, players! Spoilers below!

The second adventure in an Adventure Path is always an important one, as patterns begin to emerge in the way the party performs, and we look to build momentum early in the AP. We spent the marathon as amnesiacs slowly piecing together the clues of a mystery while working alongside investigators from the Sleepless Agency, and we dabbled into the True Detective soundtrack to give us ambiance throughout 67 hours of play. Since there was so much role-playing involved, our GM brought one of the best actors in the Order down from NYC to play some of the slick-tongued cultists we encountered, and also tapped another member for the role of Winter Klaczka where appropriate.

As the facts surrounding our amnesia were uncovered, it turned out that each of us had a nefarious past. Erasmus had shady friends showing up who expected us to recognize them, while Quinn had once started a bar fight defending the honor of his boyfriend. Even securing lodging was a challenge in this adventure. To thoroughly immerse ourselves in the stormy town of Thrushmoor, we mixed fog machines with a 24-square-foot setup of 3D buildings, and some structures were even specific to the town itself. We also had a couple of Lazzaretti's maps remastered by Axion Studios and printed for play.

Highlights From The Thrushmoor Terror

We're clicking as a unit more than many other parties we've had. The players all selected a teamwork feat to suit their needs in this path: Shake It Off. In our standard 2-by-2 formation, everyone gets a +3 to all saving throws, and it's made the difference on 12 saves already.

Our GM doesn't pull punches. Travelling back from Caliphas, he rolled up a marsh giant as a random encounter at a waterlogged farmstead—and threw it at a 4th level party. We are veterans of Giantslayer after all.

They say defense wins championships. During a 2-hour grinder against an evil druid and her fungal wolves, our 5th level party healed over 200 hit points, with 36 of those coming from Erasmus's seance boon alone—and defense prevailed.

We awarded Daji the MVP for this module. The fox was on fire from the opening minutes: He picked up his sixth kill of the campaign, used his knowledge skills to identify the critical weakness of a foe that would likely have defeated us, located the secret door that led us to the final encounter early, The crowning moment was when the fox leaped onto an abomination known as a byakhee and engaged it with everything he had, despite the creature biting Daji into negative hit points.

Something is wrong with Quinn, and it's stacking more horror onto this already scary AP. In the asylum he suffered horribly at the hands of ghouls—and despite being raised twice—he possesses an insatiable hunger. Quinn's skin is becoming thicker, and he smells so much like rot that it sickens anyone around him. Our companion has torn through our food reserves, and we sometimes catch him eating when he should be sleeping. We've tried everything from remove curse to remove disease, yet nothing works.

The Experiment

We already track a lot of data across each Adventure Path, but we've had to add a new category that is very unfamiliar to us: Battles Run From. Ten so far. The team doesn't like to talk about it.

One of our strangest moments in this module involved an interaction with something called an "Elder Thing." Two of them actually, and our GM swears that's the real name. They weren't immediately hostile, but we couldn't tell whether we should introduce ourselves or slay them. Then they spoke!

Character Deaths

An assassin, Risi Nairgon, stalked the party around Thrushmoor, seizing our vulnerable moments to strike and get away. After tailing us to a safehouse, she patiently waited on a rooftop for the party to emerge the next morning—sans buffs. Despite sniper's fatigue, she scored a direct hit with a Death Attack on Alahazra: one shot, one kill.

Three natural 1s on fear saving throws left Quinn alone facing a Manananggal—a vampiric horror we had yet to see in 138 modules. We could hear his screams while we ran.

Best Quote From Marathon 2

Cesadia Wrentz (lead detective): "How many people saw you carrying a body through town?"
Feiya: "Now? Or ever?"

Current Situation

Quinn's affliction doesn't bode well, but we'll keep trying for a cure. Good detective work has us hot on the heels of our quarry and headed south to piece together what our memories cannot. Alahazra and Quinn are a bit behind in XP, but this is made up for with author Tito Leati's generous amount of treasure awarded to those with the patience to look.

More Content

Read through the entirety of The Strange Aeons Experiment.
For character builds, questions about Strange Aeons, content and more, see our the Strange Aeons Experiment thread on the forums.
Give Order of the Amber Die a Like on Facebook and follow us on Instagram.
Custom 3D Terrain Provided by GeordieJohn Studios.
Gridded battlemats provided by Deep-Cut Studio.

Things are looking pretty grim for the crew. Tune in shortly for a report on their potentially nightmarish experiences in the third adventure in the Strange Aeons Adventure Path, Dreams of the Yellow King.

Adam Daigle
Developer

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Tags: Community Order of the Amber Die Pathfinder Adventure Path Strange Aeons

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The Abomination Arsenal: Part 5

The Abomination Arsenal: Part 5

Highlights from Marathon 5:

Character Deaths

The Arsenal

Best Quote from Marathon 5

Current Situation

More Content:

The Abomination Arsenal: Part 4

The Abomination Arsenal: Part 4

Highlights from Hands of the Devil:

Character Deaths:

The Arsenal:

Best Quote from Marathon 4:

Current Situation:

More Content:

The Abomination Arsenal: Part 3

The Abomination Arsenal: Part 3

Highlights from Marathon 3

The Arsenal

Character Deaths

Best Quote from Marathon 3

Current Situation

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The Abomination Arsenal: Part 2

The Abomination Arsenal: Part 2

Highlights from Ruins of Gauntlight

The Arsenal

Character Deaths

Best Quote from Marathon 2

Current Situation

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The Abomination Arsenal: Part 1

The Abomination Arsenal: Part 1

Highlights from Ruins of Gauntlight:

The Arsenal

Character Deaths:

Best Quote From Marathon 1:

Current Situation:

More Content:

The Abomination Arsenal

The Abomination Arsenal

Introduction

Past Pathfinder Projects

The Arsenal

Meet the Black Powder Cadre

Highlights from Preparing Abomination Vaults:

What’s Next

Follow Order of the Amber Die:

Order of the Amber Die: The Slithering Salve: Part 2

Order of the Amber Die: The Slithering Salve: Part 2

Highlights From The Slithering:

The Salve:

The Slithering by the Numbers

Character Deaths:

Best Quote from Marathon 2:

Conclusion:

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Order of the Amber Die: The Slithering Salve Part 1

Order of the Amber Die: The Slithering Salve Part 1

Highlights From The Slithering:

The Salve:

Character Deaths:

Best Quote From Marathon 1:

Current Situation:

More Content:

Order of the Amber Die: Beyond the Veiled Past

Order of the Amber Die: Beyond the Veiled Past

The Azlant Odyssey

Highlights From Beyond the Veiled Past

The Odyssey

Character Deaths

Best Quote From Marathon 6

The Ruins of Azlant Adventure Path by the Numbers

How it Ended

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Order of the Amber Die—The Azlant Odyssey, Part 5

Order of the Amber Die—The Azlant Odyssey, Part 5

Highlights From "Tower of the Drowned Dead"

The Odyssey