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Hello everyone.

Me and my group played through most of the "Signal of Screams" AP and had a lot of fun, especially me as the GM, by ramping up the weird bodyhorror factor. I posted this on reddit some while ago, so here is more or less a copy of my post over there.

Now my players are on the last leg of the adventure and fighting through the shadow version of the Doctors old lab. While most of the encounters there are mostly ok, I really think that the finale of the AP is super lackluster. The evil Doctor, who wanted to blanked the galaxy with pain and pleasure is depicted as just some Technomancer with a singel, unique pain ability and some weird dogs at her command. Buuuh, thats super boring (sorry, I'm not meaning any disrespect, but mean this somewhat cheeky).

So I took it upon myself to beef that fight up and make it much more interesting, and whats a better inspiration for depraved pleasure and pain demonic entities then the Dark Prince(ss) and Lord(ess) of Exess him/herself: Slaanesh. Might be the wrong universe, but who cares, as long as everyone has fun. Only one of my players is knowledgeable in warhammer 40k lore, and while he will certainly spot this stuff, he doesn't know this characters very well, so even he won't know what they are up to.

So, my idea was to build upon the four positive emotions, that played a big role during the Heartgate part of the adventure, ie Selfworth, Love, Gratidute and Compassion and put a twist on it. I added four unique velstrac companions of Dr. Gragant, that each grant her a major buff and are thematically somewhat connected to one of the four emotions, while also being somewhat depraved and/or body-horror.

To this end, I looked around the slaanesh characters/heros/demons and came up with the following four. This is still a draft, so I'm open for all kind of comments or criticism.

Sigvald, the magnificent - Selfworth/Pride. In the lore he is an unnaturally beautiful youthful fighter with a mirror shield and a quicksilver sword, who is followed by an entrourage of lackies who carrie mirrors themselfs, so that he can admire himself during battle.

He represent Selfworth, or the darker side of that, ie boundless vanity and Pride. As long as he lives, Dr. Gragant gets a 50% miss chance, he gets four attacks on a full attack, and if all of his mirror-carrying lackies are killed, he will be staggered for the reminder of the fight.

Syll'Esske - Love/Obsession. In the lore, this two are an unlikely pair of a deamonette of slaanesh, that fell in love with a mortal champion. The champion Esske ended up blinded, but elevated to deamonprincedom, so Syll rides on his back to serve as his sight. Esske is a strong melee fighter, while Syll gives weaker (short)ranged support with her whip. As long as the pair lives, half the damage inflicted on Dr. Gragant will be shared with Esske. Should Syll be killed, Esske will be blinded.

Infernal Enrapturess - Gratitude/Selfishness. Now we delve into the body horror part. In the lore, this is a daemonic herald, who converted a mortal into a living harp, playing a hymn of screams on the exposed nerves and tendons. This one here I envision a bit different then the other velstrac characers: as long as the harp keeps playing, Dr. Gragant and the other velstrac are hasted and gain some fast healing. The players also gain the fast healing, but also have to save vs being sickened by the pain and can show some gratitude towards the Infernal Enrapturess by increasing their shadow corruption by 1 step, to also gain the haste effect or ignore the debuff.

The Masque- Compassion/Insensitivity. This is another daemoninc herald, who was cursed to never feel any pleasure again, but through dancing to the glory of her master, so she dances forever. She has a scepter with the classical theatrical masks on the top and bothom, that show the smiling and crying face of comedy and tragedy. Each round she will flip her mask and change between a melee and ranged fighter build, while also becoming immune for that round to that form of damage, ie in ranged mode she can only be hurt in melee combat and vise versa. As long as she lives, Dr. Gragant gains DR 10 or Resistance (all elements) 10, depending on her mode of combat. I build her as a variant Solarian that switches her Solar mote between the melee and ranged version and does either fire damage (divine spark of joy/ranged) or cold damage (vicious cut of cruelty/melee).

This sounds like a very beefy encounter, but my players are quite combat savy. I am toying with the idea of making the Velstracs lvl 9 or 10 opponents, so that they are no pushovers, but don`t overwhelm the players by their power alone. Dr. Gragant should stay the most powerful enemy in the room be a dominating and overwhelming force, so long as her supporting velstrac allies are still standing. During the Heartgate part of the adventure, each player carried a different emotional stone, so the coresponding player will get a flat +2 or +4 bonus vs the velstrac, whos emotional stone they were carrying earlier.

Aspect of Pride

CR 10 melee array

EAC 25 KAC 27

Saves Fort +12 Refl +12 Will +9

HP 165

STR +5 DEX +8 CON +3

+22 four Quicksilversword strikes 1d10+15

DR 4-

Reactive Resistance: 5/day gain Resistance 10 vs the last energy type that damaged you

Is accompanied by 4 Shieldmaidens, who have mirrors grafted to their skin and who position themselfes in a way, that the Aspect of Pride can always get a good look on himself. They have EAC/KAC 20 and 30 HP and should all four die, the Aspect of Pride is staggered for the reminder of the fight. As long of the Aspect of Pride lives, Dr. Gragand gains 50% concealment.

Aspect of Obsession - CR 11 melee array and CR 9 ranged array

EAC 22 KAC 24 (frenzied 21/23)

Saves Fort +12 Refl +12 Will +9

HP 180

STR +8 DEX +5 CON +3

+23 Sinew Axe strikes 4d6+19(frenzied 23)

Frenzied Fighting +4 to damage, -1 to AC

5/day Close enough to kill: on a miss, deal minimum damage, ie 27

EAC 24 KAC 26

HP 75

+18 Ice Whip Lashes, 15ft range, 3d6+9 cold damage

If the small daemon riding the Aspect of Obsession dies, the Aspect is blinded by love for the reminder of the fight. As long as the Aspect of Obsession lives, Dr. Gragand takes only 1/2 damage from all sources, the Aspect of Obsession takes the other half.

Aspect of Insensitivity - CR 10 Melee/Ranged switchhitter Solarian

EAC 23 KAC 25

Saves Fort +12 Refl +12 Will +9

HP 165

STR +5 DEX +8 CON +3

+22 Solar Flare Spark of Comedic Joy 3d4+10 Fire

+22 Solar Weapon Cut of Tragedy 3d6+15 Acid

Each round the face of the theatrical mask of the Aspect of Insensitivity switches. In comedic mode she has a ranged attack and is immune to ranged damage, in tragedy mode she has a melee attack and is immune to melee damage. As long as the Aspect of Insensitivity lives, Dr. Gragand gains DR 10 (Tragedy) or Resist 10 (comedy).

Aspect of Selfishness - CR 10 caster array (but is mostly unused)

EAC 22 KAC 23

Saves Fort +9 Refl +9 Will +13

HP 140

Casts constant haste on the other Aspects and Dr. Gragant.

Casts fasthealing 5 on all living creatures in the room. Fort DC 17 or sickened by the painful regeneration.

If the players increase their shadow corruption by one step (they know that there is a point of no return, and many of them dont like to use their Shadow powers), they are also hasted for that round and not sickened. As long as the Aspect of Selfishness lives, Dr. Gragant is constantly hasted.

Last week, me and my mates played the final battle, and I must say, it went quite well. Just before the fight, the player of the envoy had a very cool and passionate discussion with the doctor and tried to convince her to give up on her crazy plan and rolled like a 45 on diplomacy. Of course this wouldn't fly, but I allowed for her to be stunned for one round, while she pondered his arguments.

While discribing all the crazy Aspects of various Emotions to my players I also mentioned that each of them noticed a peculiar connection towards the emotion, who's stone they were carrying during the heart gate episode.

They quickly deducted that they had to kill the Aspects first, before damaging the doctor, but weren't sure if their connection to one Aspect each was a blessing or a curse, ie they feared that they might get debuffed, if they attacked their connected Aspect. They also falsely deducted that the shield maids were probably shielding everyone, so they focussed on them, first and the soldier downed one pretty easily.

Just after that followed the first heartattack moment for me, when the Aspect of Obsession swung his mighty axe at the Solider, critted and did some 70 damage +2d6 bleeding. Yikes. My players also figured out pretty quickly how the Aspect of Insinsitivities immunity thing worked.

During the fight they would rather quickly take out the shield maidens and then focused down the Aspect of Obsession, while they ignored the staggered Aspect of Pride. During the rounds 2-4 they got pellted a few times by the Doctors big, fat Heat Leach (I had advanced her to lvl 15, I think), but they all got pretty lucky with their Reflex saves and had rather good cold resistance by then.

When only the staggered Aspect of Pride and the buffing Aspect of Selfishness were left the Doctor switched gears and used empowered weapon with her 4th level spells. In the hectic I missed that empower weapon uses a move action, so she did some sick damage with empowered full attacks and downed a player every other round. But this made her scary enough, so just rebrand this ability as "avatar of pain" ;D

In the end there were just two players standing, both severely damaged and on their last leg, when they finally gunned her down and the party let out a communal sigh of relief. After this they quickly shut down the accursed signal of scream and were finally rid of the shadow corruption, that was growing dangerously fast within two of them and roleplayed the situation very cool. They also found the secret lab with the clone of the doctor, pondered a while what to do and in the end the envoy decided to take her under his wing and to make sure, that she wouldn't be missguided this time, but could do all the good in the galaxy that her brilliant mind could come up with.


As a general note, Paizo seems to often go for this small and cramped maps, in order to fit them into the books on one page (like with the three places you have to visit on Curacava to search for the transmitter boxes). Amd while that is understandible, many of the maps are borderline (or utterly) unplayable with the published grid. Many just declare the grids as 10x10ft instead of 5x5ft squares as a hotfix, but as we are playing on Roll20 right now, due to social distancing, I just size the map to my liking and just tell my players to ignore the printed squares and just go for the once overlayed by Roll20.

At the very least I hope that Paizo learned from this and downsized the grid a bit. Many maps are fine with the details and everything, but the grid could easily downsized without much problem, right? And it helps so much with positioning, cool tricks or class abilities and just emersion, when not everything is so cramped.

Regarding the final battle on the black site: I guess that a more open environment was originally planned, but it just wouldn't fit on the map, that was already somewhat sprawling. So I just said that E30 overlooked the room that you could see on that art, and there was some sort of elevator there that lead down.

The room I came up with was just an ice cave, with a round shape in the back (the generator/accelerator), surrounded by a 5ft catwalk.I also thought that the fight was rather lackluster with just the two Umbral Disciples and Kaeon Rhyse, so I added one shadow-touched guard on the catwalk and one Sexton in the room.

This was some though opposition, but it worked our reasonable well for my group.

I rebuild the Umbral Disciples as Lvl 9 Mythics of the Mindbreaker connection. All their abilities were very thematic with the Hellraiser theme (Backlash, Share Pain, Mental Anguish) and their spells just consisted of Mind Thrusts of various strength.

The Shadowtouched guard (and the ones earlier in the blacksite on Floor 1) I rebuild as Soldiers with the Squad fighting style, and this also worked really well. He switched places with Kaeon Rhyse, when that one was engaged in combat, and proceeded to carve the Uplifted Bear Vanguard up with his cruel hookknife.

The Sexton didn`t do too much, but his painful gaze occasionally wracked one of the players.

So, all in all the final battle, with my modifications, was a much more memorable occasion and my players still talk about how they hated Kaeon Rhyse.


If someone is still not past the final fight of the blackside, I can share my experience with it and the quick map that I came up with on roll20. I don't know, though, which image hosters paizo is fine to link too, if any.


Yeah. It is one thing to make your light only shine half as far, thats ok and thematic, but to shut down core class abilities and gimp you beyond usefullness also gets a hard no-no from me.

It would be another thing, if you somehow worked together with him in some sort of redemption ark, like "Hey DM, how about I really have to struggle to project my solar powers in the shadow real, and at one point I maybe even put us all in danger, but then I somehow forge a new connection to the light/power of friendship/go super saiyan and light up that dank place like there is no tomorrow?", but that doesn't seem to be the case.

I know, you apparently talked a lot about this, but it wasn´t your fault for picking up Solarian from the initial 7 classes, and the class isn't inherently stronger vs shadow creatures or whatever, its just a straight gimp with no return of your money. That sucks.


I am playing through the AP right now, and me and my mates are having a lot of fun. One of my player decided to be a Steward, and is heavily trying to get the Stewards involved, instantly forwarding all new information to them.

This made some parts a bit tricky, but we all managed to keep things halfway believable. Like why the Stewards aren´t using their pull to take down the App ect. I explained that going against a big corporation is always tricky and accusations like this need to stand on stable ground, least the Stewards get suit left and right.

so, after all this, let me come to the point. When the players raided the HQ of Eclipse Innocations, I explained to them, that the map with all the pins showed all the positions where signal boosters could be placed. The whole thing depended on on certain techno-magical equations, which they found in the last computer in the Eclipse HQ. Depending on which place they chose for their blackside would influence which locations they would use for the signal boosters.

In the game, my players visited the three correct places, maybe lead there by their mysterious connection to the shadow plane, but in the background of the game world, all the other locations would be raided by other teams of Stewardsl. With the three booster locations laid bare, the Stewards could calculate the likely location of the black site and point the players in that direction. On the way to their ship they were ambushed by Avigdis and her Drows, and so everything worked out without sounding too game-y and everyone was happy.


I heavily modified this section of the adventure path (by far my favorite part of this AP) and expanded a bit on it.

I changed it in a way that there were 4 elemental seeds in Kakishon, who are the building blocks of the whole Island, and that the players needed all four to either escape the island by bringing all four elemental seeds to the Proteans, so that they could unravel Kakishon, or defeat the Protean leader and perform a ritual with all four seeds in his cyst while he reforms, in order to renew the slave pact and reforge Kakishon.

The Earth seed was with the Oreads,basically unchanged to the original. But I went with the location below the crystal forest, because I liked it a bit more then yet another desert :P

The Air seed was in a structure within the lofty main palast grounds (which wasn't destroyed in my home campaign), from where the fair winds emerged that caressed the main island. In this vertical dungeon a tribe of Flumps would guard the seed within an antimagic field that only then with their natural air buoyancy could traverse. Nex once gave it to them for save guarding, but they were beset by a monster that nestled within the hollowed out mountain, so in exchange for its death, the seed would change hands.

The Water seed was within the big dragon turtles nest, but with a twist. Together with the dragon turtle, there was also a tribe of the kuo-toa that could make their dreams come true and they dreamed themselves a strong leader to protect them from all who would prey on them, bringing an Aboleth into the oceans of Kakishon, who quickly enslaved them all, but also turned out to be a capable leader.
The Aboleth would help the players and turn over his water seed, if they in turn made him the new leader of Kakishon. An unassailable transdimensional base of operations would be every Aboleth dank dream come true, eh?

And finally, the Fire seed was situated on one of the isles with changing day and night cycles. I shamelessly "borrowed" from two fantasy sources of my youth, ie the Last Unicorn and the Neverending Story. On an island that constantly changed between blistering hot days and cool nights, there was a constant cycle of tragedy. During the night the island was covered with lush vegetation and a thick forest, with big herds of Unicorns frolicking around. But every dawn, the fiery bull of the island would wake (he was in one of the bestiary, I think of book 5,but could be mistaken), burn the forest until just a desert remained, and drove all the unicorn into the waves of the sea, where they would turn into golden foam. At dusk he would tire, and while asleep the unicorn would emerge from the water, nurture the forest back to its former glory and the cycle would start anew. It was an interesting set piece, with my players setting a cool tidal trap, to weaken the bull in ankle-deep water.

So, if someone would want to use any of this in their home game, the tuning fork could easily be part of either the ritual for escaping / reforging, or be used to call or tame the dragon turtle / confuse the bull / open up the crystalline fortress of the Oreads or any other work for a proper mcguffin.

EDIT: some spelling, because I'm on my phone and long post are always tiresome and prone to auto-correct issues and just general misspellings.


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Hello Casper,

sorry, this might be way too late for you, but maybe it will help other people, when they finally hit the finale of this really great adventure.

So, I thought too, that the corrupted guest were quite bland in their current state and kinda a missed oppertunity, so I did a quick hotfix when my players arrived at the scene with the Dr. Rhissona Avran. When they entered the workshop, to investigate Romis message, things got quite messy, there was blood everywhere and several dismembered limbs on the floor: Rhissona hat augmented this guests with very crude and very painful grafted weapons as replacement for their severed limbs. I didn´t change much, and only gave them the bleeding critical and each a different damage type (B, P or S), but added a lot to the feel of the guest.

The big thing was giving them the abilities of a 3 Lvl Mythics of the Mindbreaker connection. The Share Pain feature allowed them to reflect a little bit of damage each time they were hit ... not much, but enough to give them a creepy feeling and later instill the fear in my players, that mowing down 50+ of them will surly be a TPK. As spells I gave them Reflective Armor and one Mind Thrust.

I calculated the abilities as if they had a Wisdom Modifier of +1, so they were pretty low, but in numbers they would quickly overwhelm my players with the pain that they dished out themselves .. very thematic and quite scary. So I hope that they will not try to slaughter everyone on the station, but to ecape asap when the time comes to leave.

On the same itch I rewrote Kane Zaphol as a lvl 9 Soldier with the Silent Slayer fighting style, allowing him to disappear into the shadows every other round and then charge the players again amidst a few new Corrupted guests. I know that this makes Kane much, much stronger then he was before, but really, he seemed like a pretty pushover, and his Silent Slayer persona is again meant to wittle the players down, darting in and out of combat, instead of going headfirst at the whole group the players also must not kill him to escape, so they could just try to escape, while the shadows constantly hold dangers to them.

My players party is pretty strong, and most of the enemies don't want to kill them, but subdue them so that they can experience their pain, so I guess that they will escape. Also, I think that the boundless sunroom was underutilized in the escape sequence. I plan for there being some pretty ugly and scary looking shadow walls or whatever on the stair cases, but the boundless sunroom will be their means of escape from the lower levels, as sort of a bastion of light and hope before the last leg towards the ship.

There are so many little ways in which you can tweak this adventure to make it really awesome, but well, I do this with all AP or published adventures, in order to own them, so to speak.


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Thanks, Trinite, my group arrived at Aarons hideout yesterday and I went with your funny, little RP encounter. When the parties rogue sneaked into his encampment, he heard some shuffeling from inside the lean-to and then some zombie-esque noises that I made up. When they then entered a few minutes later the noises started again and they noticed this corpse hanging from a noose, making scary noises and the potion with his last will, right next to the door.

They read it and one of the PCs threw a javelin at the corpse for good measure and it was quite fun doing my best zombie impression "woah ...groawlaaaaaarggggghh ya bastard hit me in da hip, ya dirty swab!!!!"

And then they befriended him and he told them how to get into the grindylows cave and he agreed to help them out if they took him with them to their ship. Aaron ended up diving into the pool to get Sandara out, so he was quite useful and peeps generally liked him enough.


So, we will now take a small hiatus from Pathfinder and Adventure Paths, but I am already comtemplating which one to tackle next? I think that Reign of Winter would be an interesting foil to Legacy of Fire, and some of my players seconded this.

This was the first AP that I successfully finished with that group of players, and I added a ton of stuff and side adventures to the thing. While lots of the added stuff was fun, it also bloated up the whole thing, and I think I would refrain of that much tinkering in the future.

While I think its essential to tweak a few thinks (and maybe even bigger chunks) to make an AP work for you and your group, the appeal of an AP is that you got an epic adventure with a given theme that you can finish in a reasonable time frame and maybe explore a slew of different characters and different styles of adventure. To keeping it slim helps an AP, in the end.


Hello people,

so now I'm home at my desktop and not fiddling with my phone, so I can give you a nice wrap-up post for my campaign.

After my players killed the grossly overpowers and wishinfused Davashuum, with his dying breath he held up the bone key, coughed up some blood and smirked.

"You will need this one here, in order to open the gates to Xotanis grave. But you shall never optain it, for so Javhul has wished before." and with that, the Bone Key turned to sand, irrevocably lost.

That's when Zastoran showed up, riding the flying city featured in the "Crucible of Chaos" adventure. In my game, Nex was one of the four Magelords ruling over that fabled city, and when his fellow Magelords where corrupted by the Other Gods and turned to chtulhic worship, he stole the chunk of chaos, that made the city fly, and turned it into his own private demiplane, Kakishon, and escaped, leaving the city to fall.

Zastoran retraced the players steps when they disappeared, found the (now cleared) city and via stargazing and divination magic, learned that it was his destiny to build a device that would use his lifeforce to power the cities core and let it fly once more ...

So, when all hope was lost, Zastoran showed up with the flying city, flew over the Efreeti army camped around the House of the Beast and crashlanded the city, flattening a good chunk of the army and cracking open a path into Xotanis grave.

My players descended down into the magma caverns below Pale Mountain, and I more or less free formed the dungeon down there. They encountered the Xotanis Tears trap, which I played up as Xotanis real eye, reforming with the 999s wish, and also a Gatehouse Fortress made up of living brass and garisoned by some Efretti Janissaries and Fire Giants. They also found Ravhuls stables here, and some magnificent flame and smoke-belching Nightmares, but no one wanted to approach them and they bullied/intimidated the young efreeti stable boy into running away. Not dealing with the horse would later bite them, but I had secretly hoped for this.

They then entered the Abyssal Embassy, were a female Glabrezu (Keeper of Secrets for the win) was chilling out and listening to screams that a "Slave Organ" produced to the artful playing of a Vrok. It was all an illusion, and played more for fun (and I heavily hinted at the possibility of this being a social encounter), but my players stomped everyone in the room in a surprise sneak attack thing in one round. Oh well, suite yourselfs.

The next room was the big, big lava lake cavern, that was a buzzing hive of activity. Whole units of Efreets where stationed here, and at the shores of the lake the Fire Giants where toiling at the anvils, churning out weapons for Ravhuls army. The Cleric of Asmodeus used his Veil ability, and the party traversed the cavern mostly unmolested. They could see a ginormous ripcage supporting the caverns ceiling and knew that this was Xotanis remains.

The final confrontation before the big boss was with Rajali in the crystal cave (a giant geode). The party had a little talk with her, a fight ensued and some Crystal Golems sprung up from the walls, joining the fight. I rolled her up as an Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil from the old 3.5 splat books, as some guy in the forums recommended, and it was a lot of fun ... well, at least for me. It was a short, but brutal fight, with lots of damage and a barbarian that charged through all walls and got severely neutered in the process. Everyone agreed that the party would have died, if Rajali hadn't tried to slow them down here, but joined Ravhul in the final confrontation, but thats a classic high fantasy trope .. or epic storytelling trope in general :D

Last, but not least, the party emerged at the high plateau, overlooking the lave lake. Here, Xotanis heart was beating aggitated, with each heartbeat pumping out a stream of lava, that feed the lake below. Ravhul had a handful of Janissary and Fire Giant bodyguards here, AND the resurrected Cadaver King, now a gruesome Elite Morgh and, to much laughter, 12 lvl 5 Gnoll Rangers.

Almah was here, as well as her husband, the Asmodean Clerics former PC, whom he retired, both held at swords end and forced to utter the titular Final Wish. Some heroic bantering enused, treads were made, swords were drawn and initiative was rolled, you know the deal ^^

As written earlier, I rebuild Ravhul as a truly badass Bloodrager.

I gave him some OP stats and in his bloodrage, at lvl 20 and with a belt of physical perfection +6 he ended up with
Str 44, Con 36, Dex 24, Int 14, Wis 18, Cha 18 and some 40AC when reckless abandoning.

He had a +5 unholy flaming burst keen scimitar and a +3 impact lance and the whole Spirited charge feat tree. His aöö buffed lance attack was something like +39 (12d8+2d6unholy+130), and with mounted blade he could make two charge attacks (maybe I cheated here? Im not totally sure) against two adjacent targets at -5 ...

The first round he flew into the air and summoned his BBEMount, the aforementioned Nightmare (I used the Warbull as a template) and with some rage powers, the Mount would get a free overrun attempt and knocked down PCs would provoke AoO. Nice.

So the fight was a big battle royale. The Swashbuckler and Barbarian quickly moped up the Fire Giants, Gnolls and the Cadaver King, while our Rogue shadowstepped next to Ravhul and fullattacked the Mount, using Ravhul as a flanking partner via Unwitting Ally ... sounded a bit cheesy, but also fun, so I allowed it.

Ravhuld made two passes over the battlefield, nearly killing Ezer and dishing out some damage on the barbarian in turn. When the rogue next round nearly killed his mount, Ravhul full-attacked him with his Scimitar and murdered him. The cleric gave the Barbarian some Air Walking ability, who pounced in return, and then traded blows via Come and Get me ... this got the Barbarian killed and Ravhul within 20HP of Dying. Then Ravhul charged the Swashbuckler and NEARLY killed him, but left him alive by the skein of his teeth. This left the Asmodean Cleric in the Position of possibly ending both, Javhuls treat and the Sarenrean Swachbuckler, with one fell Quickened Channel Negative Energy and normal Channel Negative Energy and he took a minute or two, comtemplating this :D I really liked this approach and already thought about describing how he obliterated the two, while behind him gates to Avernus opened and all kind of devils poured in and Asmodeus claimed Xotanis heart for his unfathomable plans ...

But in the end, he just obliterated Javhul ^^ So thats how our 10 years campaign ended: two players dead or dying, one on the brink of death and the cleric pretty happy.

In the aftermath it was decided to convert the House of the Beast into a pilgrimage place for Sarenrae worshippers, with Nafeshti essentially reversing the 1000 Wishes of Ravhul, and the Cleric of Asmodeus got a permission to build a temple in Kelmerane. Both, the Cleric and the Rogue, then denounced their temporal membership of Templers of the Four winds, leaving only the swashbuckler loyal to Nafeshti and acting as her bodyguard for the upcoming years.


Sekket wrote:

My players are about to reach the top of Bayt al-Bazan, and I face the same problem.

- Why would the PCs free Ezer, instead of simply handing over the Impossible Eye to the Vizier?
- If they free him, why would Ezer attack them, knowing that he would still be stuck in the palace? He would have a much better chance of escaping, for example, by cutting a deal with them, having them returning the Eye and lifting the curse for everyone.
I found a solution to the second problem : Ezer has a plan to escape even if the PCs don't want to ally with him. He plans to kill them and become a lich, using the Eye as a phylactery. This would grant him control over the artifact, allowing him to lift the curse.

Still, I very much fear that smart PCs would never let Ezer out at all. They simply have no incentive to do so.

So, as I said, I went with the "knows Ravhuls Truename" angel, and it worked super well. In the final confrontation with Ravhul, I gave him a whooping 10 Mythic Levels of defender and just gave him a metric ton of DR ... Every round that Ezer was alive, we would utter a bit more of Ravhuls truename and restore him to his true self, instead of his grossly wishwarped form, that was just a singel wish away from bonding with Xotani. Mechanically speaking, Ravhuls DR would go down each time he did this, up to a minimum of 3 Mythic Levels (the baseline for most of my players, at that point).

This is, of course, massively deviating from the adventure as written, but it worked super well and was in line with the story and everything. I later told my players how that encounter would have gone down RAW and they all agreed that it was much more fun this way.


Sekket wrote:
Please keep us updated ! I'm sure it will be a great source of inspiration for me, since I'm just a book behind your group ! :)

We wrapped up the campaign last Tuesday and had a lot of fun looking back. I rebuild Ravhul as a Bloodrager with the abyssal bloodline and the Bloodrider Archetype. He ended up with some sick 42ish Str and a spirited/diving charge of 4d6+2d6 unholy+100 something damage... It was enough to poo but the fear of some random crit into my players.

The fun thing was that they had entered the stables of Ravhul while sneaking around his hideout and base in Xotanis grave and even intimated his Efreeti stableboy into bot sounding the alarm... But they didn't think that the monstrous, burning and smoke-belching Nightmare would ne a factor later and really bemoaned that decision when Ravhul 1st round flew into the air, summoned his Nightmare next to him and then enlarged both of them to huge size.

For extra effect, the Caustic Blood Bloodrager spell (as a fire variant) was somewhat annoyingly funny, too. All players had at the very least a 20fire resist ring, but that damage of the Caustic Blood was still high enough to be something like a very high dot on everyone.

I will post a more detailed write up tomorrow, but we ended the campaign here. I told my players that I had a short extra last ark planned if they wanted, but everyone really wanted to end the campaign after the death of Ravhul and the prevented resurrection of Xotani. I then told them what I had planned and they applauded my idea, but still were happy that it was finally over. Not to sound too negative here, everyone had a blast. But that campaign had started in 2009 and we had a big 4-5 years hiatus in the middle. It was the biggest thing in DnD/Pathfinder that anyone of my players had every played and finished and everyone felt accomplished, but it was about time to lay the "Legacy of Fire" into the realm of history.


Trench wrote:

My players. Always zigging when I expect zagging.

So in the adventure, it says that Ezer will attack if the PC's don't give him the Eye. So what if they do? In fact, what if they essentially let him buff himself with spells and assume an attack from another direction while they try to get him to talk? Just how desperate is Ezer in covering his tracks?

Just looking for fun brainstorm ideas.

Hey there, trench ... I recon that you are long past this point, eh? As a matter of fact, me and my players are nearing the end of the campaign with full speed and are halfway through the last book, so I consider myself kind of an Legacy of Fire expert at this point.

If you somehow still happen to need any advice, just shoot. Considering how I handled Ezer, I have already detailed this in some other posts here. For one, I didn't like his betrayal, as it feeled cheap and not well thought through, especially from his POV. There are this group of powerful adventurers that just followed your lead and helped you escape a transdimensional prison AND might be your best bet to escape the Efreeti Sultans wrath, so why would you behave like donkey and attack them the minute that you are free, instead of trying to decive them?

And from a gaming design POV its also bad, as it punishes the player for playing along for an entire adventure .. maybe they could have escaped by other means or tried other clever solutions, but they followed your breadcrumbs and played the adventure like you intended ... and then they get backsteped in a cheap way.

So I scrapped the betrayal angel and made Ezer useful to the players , beyond having an artifact level scrying device with him as loot.
I explained that, as the former summoner and binder of Jhavhul, he knew Jhavhuls true name, and by this he would prove invaluable in stunning/weakening/debuffing the BBEG in the inevitable final confrontation.

So, after they rescue him, he falls in with their lot, when the dragon shows up and demand them turning Ezer over ... Ezer quickly explains that he can prove super useful with his knowledge of Jhavhuls Truename, if they would just slay that BBEDragon over there.

Worked like a charm and my players felt that they accomplished something in the City of Brass Palace, instead of wasting time, so a win-win situation for me.


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Hello peeps and fellow GMs,

I really love this campaign, and after a years long hiatus we are now in full swing to finally end this path. I have compiled here all (or most) of the changes that I have done, to mold this campaign to the greatest thing I have ever done in epic fantasy. Maybe it will inspire some of you to follow in some of my footsteps. Maybe you will laugh at my often over the top style and blatant theft of plot hooks. But I hope that you will all enjoy this ^^

- The demon that possessed Kardswann was from a race of likewise demons. This demons are from the Planet Aucturn.

- The tomb with the Jackalwere (the setpiece adventure "The Refuge of Nethys" in the first book) was a hideout of a rovagug cult, it was also hinted that the four elemental pharaos had dealings with the aucturn demons (hieroglyps and frescos of the demons)

- after the first book I took a few side adventures and let them rebuild Kelmerane with a curbed down version of the Kingdom Ruler rules from Kingmaker. They nearly finished the trade road to Katapesh, bulild a few farms, refurbished the battle market and stuff like that. Most importantly, they got some fancy titels and a say in the rulership of the place, which really let them bound to the city.

- I inserted the module with the tomb of the four pharaos and let them discover more disturbing connections between the pharaos and the aucturn/rovagug demons. The Pharao of Sky seemed to have connetions with them and some of the artifacts in his tomb could be used to open portals or even more large scale gates to aucturn, including the doomsday clock (that, I think, was later used in the Pathfinder 2 Playtest campaign) and some astrological devices that could "channel and harness to powers of the universe" for yet unknown purposes ... my players belived at that point that the main hook of the campaign would be a large scale invasion of this demons and the ressurcetion of Rovagug, which was fine with me. My initial goal was just to showcase a disturbingly high activity of Rovagug cults in the area and especially the leaders of the area, explained by the dreams of the dead Xotani.

- At this point one of the players wanted to play a new character, so his old one, a bard, married Alma, and he now plays this ones brother, an Asmodean Cleric ... charismatics must run deep in this family, hehe.

- when they found the map of Kakishon, an oracle revealed, that it was somehow connected to their destiny to learn its secrets and travel to Kakishon to learn how to defeat a great evil. The guy who originally opens the map in book three studied it for a long time, while the party as approached by the distrubing Captain of a Sunset ship, ie a Visitor from Leng, a plato on the Planet Aucturn, to part with the map for some rediculely high sum of money ... yikes. The cult of Rovagug would later try to steal the map, kidnap the sage etc and everything would mostly play out like in the adventure, ie that dungeon with that seed of rovagug as a boss.

- the Sage told them that the map would show them the way to Kakishon ... if it werent to badly damaged ... his divination, using the map as a focus, pointed at some nondescript mountain range at the mawangi coast, so they figured out that they would travel there.

- during their travel on the high seas they would occasionally spot the Sunset ship, which seemed to shadow them, and they would suffer from freak weathers and constant harrasment by deep sea aberrations. When they arrived at their location they found a whole region of the mountain range cut off by a very strong, very ancient and very big spherical energy field. While they explored this and looked for a way in, the Sunset Ship and its unsettling crew attacked them and my player finally got rid of them, but stranding on a random, small island.

- on the Island lived two tribes of Sylphs and Ifreet who were in a constant state of war with each other. Both were apparently lead by a singel Efreet and Djinn, who were remnants of the old Genie War, ie from Jhavhuls and Nafeshtis forces. They befriended the Djinn and went on their way to kill the Efreet. When they lay ruin to the Ifret village and arrived in the inner sanctum, ready to confront the Efreet ... they found him dead, just a pile of ash, that was still warm. While they wondered what this could mean, Davashuum showed up, mocked them for their weakness and lack of worth and demanded them to hand over the map of Kakishon.A short mock of a fight errupted, until they were all stunned by his stunning fists within seconds. When he took the map, Pashvan showed up and he berated Davashuum for having become so full of himselfs, as mortals were the ones that they once had sworn to protect, yadda yadda ... a fight ensued between the two, that was very Dragonball-esque, with flying combatants, big balls of energy flying about, teleporting and shockwaves from their unbridled attacks. At the hight of the battle, a lightning bolt from the clear sky slammed right between them into the ground and Nafeshti showed up for the first time. After a short exchange of words she looked at Davashuum with disappointment and said "so you betray me too, and fall from my grace." and with this she took her Wishpower from him, transforming him back into a simple Janni ... in shock and anger he fled into the jungles, not to be seen for the next third of this adventrue path.

- Nafeshti then briefly spoke with the characters, with tears in her eyes looked at the map and said that the sight of it just brings back old pain and hardbrake to her, and disappeared in a wisp of smoke. Pashvan brievly lingered and explained some more cryptic stuff, and that the he did never believe that Kardsvanns, Zayifids and Davashuums xxx with the map would help Nafeshti in any way to ment her broken heart and then also disappeared.

- well, that was strange. After this they learned that a once big mage city was located behind the force field and that it was unreachable by ordinary means, but with the sunset ship stranded at the shore, they could reach it by traveling through the dreamlands. The ship was repaired and in its belly they found a strange contraption that powered it via the lifeforce of people, ie one had to strap into it and save vs gaining a negative level each hour, while the rest tried to make sense of the strange dreamscape of the dreamlands ... this was mostly flavor, but after some strange stuff they emerged back into the real world within the barrier and reached the shore of their target island.

- what follwed was the module "Crucible of Chaos", which playes within a stranded, once floating city from before the Starfall. The city itself was overrun by cthuloid horrors and Aucturn demons and full of unsettling chaos encounters, that were even trying to invade and reshape the players bodies ... and they were constantly shadowed and a few times nearly killed by a single, immense Shoggoth, who roamed the streets of the once fabled city.

- the City was once ruled by four mage kings, but it seems that one of the mage kings become touched by the Far Realms/Aucturn, instigated the church of Yogsosoth in the city and spread his chaotic influence far and wide. Soon two of the three other mage kings were also corrupted in this way, so the last and uncorrupted mage king, who went by the name of Nex, made a decision: he would steal the big chunk of formless chaos, that powered the city and was the source of its flight and abundance of magical wonders, and use its power to errect an nearly indestructable force field around the landed city. Then he would use the chaos matter to form a demiplane and flee there, to be save of his fellow mage kings wrath ... this demiplane would later be known as the fabled Island Archipelago of Kakishon.

- it would take a while till they found all this out, and in the meantime battles the three now undead and liche-fied mage kings one at a time, culminating with a battle royal with the shoggoth, the aucturn demons and some other nasties in the temple of Yoggsosoth, where they could destroy the taint of chaos by smashing the altar made of aucturn rock and stone and use the residual chaotic energies to activate the map of Kakishon ... when they activated it, it burst open, sucked them in and they released Jhavhuls army, while getting captured in Kakishon themselfes.

- after some exploring and going back and forth, they were approached by the giant dragon turtle, and some accompanying merefolk, who grinned dumbly at them and threw flasks with potions on board. One of my adventurous players drank it and nearly vomitted, as it was filled with some sort of vile slime ... as a side effect he couldn't breathe any longer and started to suffocoat on the nexian galley. The merefolk gestured for him to join them in the water and eventually he learned that the potions effect allowed him to breath water, but not air. Apparenty the master of the merevolk wished to speak to them.

- the undersea master turned out to be an Abloth .. yikes. The story here was, that Nex populated Kakishon with various servitude races from the outsides and chose Kuatoa for the underwater and sea-level attractions of Kakishon. When Nex disappeared, the now masterless Kuatoa used their racial power of collectie true-dreaming, to wish for a new master, an aboleth. The aboleth soon enslaved all the Kuatoa and other waterlevel creatures in Kakishon, but a) couldnt extent his influence towards the land, where Jhavhuls Efreet Army was situated and b) couldnt leave Kakishon, which frustrated him.

- he explained the situation to the players as such: back in the days, Nex formed his Demiplane, but it was unstable and would always revert back to its primal chaos form, without an ancor in the true world. So he broad 4 chunks of true elements into Kakishon, in the form of 4 pure Elemental Gems (haha yeah, super cheese Final Fantasy stuff) and enslaved some creatures from the Limbo and made Kakishon his permanent home. When a mage a couple of hundred years ago used some unsuited spell to rip Kakishon open and trap the Efreeti Army in it, it got severely damaged. When they could gather the 4 elemental Gems, then Kakishon could be reforged again and be used to transfer back and forth between it and the maps locaiton on the prime material plane.

- The Gem of Water was in its posession, so if they sided with it, they would just gain it without any problem. Fighting it for the Gem would be foolish, because they were in its lair and it had several hundred years to prepare for condingencies as plan accordingly.

- The Gem of Fire was on the Ilses of Fire to the east, were it rested in the heart of a mighty Bull of Fire (in one of the bestiaries there was this very big Fire Bull from persian mythology). I used some childhood fairytails and the last unicorn cartoon from the 80s for this: one of the isles was a lush green paradise during the day, with flocks of unicorn prancing all over it. At night, the Flame Bull would awaken, bunring the jungle to cinders and hunted all the unicorns and drove them into the waves of the sea, where they become the golden glimmer on the waves. After he drove the last unicorn into the waves, the bull would settle down and sleep, the fire in his breath dying down to a small ember, and during his sleep the jungle would grow again in the vertil soul and ashes and within hours the island was back to its lush and verdant form and even the unicorns would reemerge back from the sea and the cycle would start anew.

- The Gem of Air was located below Nexs pleasure palace (which I left undestroyed, so the players could relax their to their hearts content), where it would generate a nice and welcome breeze and pleasant humors that drifted through the whole structure. The vault was some sort of subterrainian cave system, where the gem was watched over by a tribe of ... Flumphs. The entrance to their hideout was protected by an antimagic field, so the players needed the help of the natural buyond cratures to get to it. They knew that Nex had abandoned them, so they aggreed to hand the gem over .. if the players helped them with a little problem: there was a creature down in the lower caves, that hunted them or turned them to stone. If they could kindly kill it, pleeeese? So the players located the cave, which was decorated with some petrified creatures of Kakishons wildlife and even a few Gnolls and Efreet. In the cave they found a big hoard of gold and other treasures .. and a medusa presiding over it ... they charge to fight her, but she is just an illusion, hiding some aweful, magic traps. After this they also got attacked by some other creatures and delved deeper. After this, the caves layout changed dramatically and became decidedly alien: there were several levels, all connected by stright, vertical, perfectly round shafts, that were very hard to traverse. They could make no rime nore reason of all this and deep down they finally found a Janni, who was sitting at an otherwise empty table. He looked up in bewilderment and tried to shuush them out. When this didnt work, he cast darkness and disappeared. The players with high ranks in Perception could guess the direction: stright through one of the caves walls, which turned out to be a permanent illusion.

- they followed him and finally emerged in a very big, round room with several, tall collums, made out of some reflecting material, some sleeping area, surrounded by several dozen scrolls of varrying powerlevels and the shocking reveal of the true master of the deep caves!!!! A beh- *cough* an eye ty- *cough cough* .. a magical, flying orb of many colored death ... that was strange .. and fun, as they stumbled into the fight with some fortitude buffs, because they expected a Medusa, but woufully unprepared for a magical, flying orb of many colored death. I used some homebrewed version of this guy and I think that it was one of the most memorable encounters that we ever had. In the end my players emerged victorious, but on the brink of death.
The Gem of Earth was in the possession of the earth genie, who defected from Jhavhul and used it to build a community under the crystal forest in Kakishon, where they experimented on one of the captured proteans, whom they had stretched and captured in an impossible complicated arcane aparatus, that was unraveling him in a controlled way, in order to facilate some escape from Kakishon.

- I left the encounter at the edge of the map and the isles of not nearly unchanged (well, I expanded a bit on the strange and chaotic nature of the place, but nothing out of the ordinary) and in essence the players had three means of escaping Kakishon, all of which with some sort of moral hook, to ponder:
1) Gather the four True Elemental Gems and force the proteans to reforge Kakishon, essentially keeping them in prolonged slavery and forcing them to create permanency against their chaotic urged.
2) Side with the Earth Genie, capturing and bringing to them one or two more proteans. This would destroy the proteans essence once and for all, but unravel Kakishon in a way that everyone would escape and the remaining proteans could then return home to the Mealstrom.
3) Side with the Proteans: the proteans would very much love to let Kakishon slip back into chaos, shed their shackles, and escape back into the Maelstorm, but they are still bound by Nexs powerful wishes and binding spells. One of the wrinkles of Nexes wish was to "create a permanent and pleasant envionment for the new inhabitants of Kakishon to call home", so if all the sentient creatures in Kakishon would die, then the Proteans would be free to remake it and let the players escape in the seconds before the colllapse.

- most of the players didn't like that the proteans were effective slaves for thousands of years, but they did like the notion of mass genocide even less. In essence the Asmodean Cleric took things in hands and made a big, long and convoluted develish contract with the Abboleth, that he wouldn't betray them and stay true to his word, if they gathered the Elemental Gems for him, and then they went with this route ... this preserved Kakishon for them as a pocket paradise, by the way, albait now with a Mindcontrolled Dilix in charge of the pleasure palace :P

- oh, and of course, they found out what happened to Nafeshtis lover and adopted Spooky, the Cat Familiar.

- they then found themselves in the City of Brass, in Jhavhuls family stronghold, but they weren't bound there by a curse, but the city itself was protected against teleportation and planar travel, save in designated spots, like the pactmasters ambassy. During the time in the palace they rescued a few of their former City Guards, who were held here, and Garavel, who was tortured in the Brass Bull in the courtyard. I had to rebuild a few things here, so I did away with most of the factions and just populated the place with a token force of Efreet, Fire Giants and Janni specialists. The players motivation to clear out the palace was Ezer Hazabaim, who revealed that he was Jhavhuls former summoner and master and that he knew his True Name .. a potential powerful weapon in the upcomming conflict. When they rescued him, of course, the Red Dragon of the Sultan of the Efreets showed up and demanded to hand him over, a big fight ensued and they escaped with Ezer and Shehazade back to the Prime Material Plane.

- They wished to emerge back into the real world not in Kelmerane, but in one of their allied Gnoll tribes. When they arrived, they caused quite the comotion: the Gnolls were obvious ready for war, having done their arms, armor and warpaint, but they backed away from their former allies. From the command tent emerged an Efreeti commander, demanding to know what was causing this ruckus, and after a short fight, the players were one Gnoll tribe further to the Libaration of Kelmerane.

- I detailed the next few sessions more in the GM post about The Final Wish, but in shortform: they found out that Kelmerane was occupied and Nafeshti hid out in the old monastery of the dawnflower. The lead the charge of her armies, consisting of some two hundred Janni and Djinn and liberated Kelmerane, that was held by some 200 Gnolls, 100 Jannis and a small force of elite Efreeti Janisary. The Gnoll cleric that they encounterd in the defiled Temple of Sarenrae was a powerful, wishinfused monstrocity, packing some 3 Ranks of Mythic abilities, and Nafeshit offered them to Wish for becoming her new Templers. Those who did this became transformed into Rank 3 Mythic, wishinfused warriros of tremendous power.

- the next session will see them pit their new found powers against an unfairly strong wishinfused Davashuum in the Brass Tower. When they kill him, he will pull out the bone key from his pokets and laught "Buwahaha .. you will never arrive in Rhavhuls inner sanctum, because so he wished" and with his the bone key will turn to sand, which will be blown away by the stiff breeze in the upper level of the brass tower ...

- when they travel to the house of the beast they soon realize that this will be much harder then they expected to be, for the plains surrounding the Pale Mountain are teeming with Efreety and Janni armies ... more then the eye can count, all those armies they spend the centuries in the lands of Kakishon ... all seems lost when suddenly, out of nowhere
- a big shadow falls on them. They look up and see .. the flying city, the one from which they started their odysee into other planes and dimensions.

- as they fly up their they learn, that Zastoran, when Jhavhuls armies arrived, sneaked into the players house, took all the stuff that they left their, and trief to find them. the Diviner in Katapesh pointed to the city, which now lay exposed (Jhavhul wished the force field away) and free of taint. The players had taken away all the artifacts of the magekings, but he retrofitted the enginge of the Sunset ship into the command room of the city ... it is flying by his life power and his life is nearly spend ... but he will gladly crash the flying city into the house of the beast, crack open the earth and open the way for them to end Rhavhul .... BAMM! Most epic thing that I have ever done, even though I stole it from an old, old SNES JRPG called Breath of Fire 2 ... quite fitting, huh? ;D

- also, when they confront Jhavhul during the uttering of the final wish, it will be quite personal: Alma is forced with the Scimitar at the throat of her husband, the Amodean Clerics former character, to utter the titualr Final Wish.

- during the fight, Rhavhul will be Mythic Rank 10, but if the players can protect Ezer long enough to utter Jhavhuls true name, this will rob him of most of his crazy powers and strip him of his mythic ranks.

- one final adventure will deal with the destruction of Cotanis heart in the coldest place of the Multiverse, ie Cania, the 8th level of hell. There, Mephistopheles, the ruler of the 8th, and Lord of Hellfire (a cruel joke of Asmodeus) will escort them to the deepest glacier and then try to get possession of Xotanis heart, merge with it and then usurb Asmodeus as supreme leader of Hell. Mephestiopheles is a CR 30 monster, so he might be an awesome way to end the campaign.


Just a short update here:

my players liberated the Temple of Sarenrae today and I went with my most evil plan. Narrog was build as a Brutal Pugilist 5/Weretouched Tiger Shifter 10 with everything stacked in grappling abilities and also with the Mythic path abilities of Meatshield, Uncanny Grappler and Master Grappler.

Because of his wish of becoming a Were-Pugwampi, he also projected the hated unluck aura that could be augmented for 2 Mythic Power/round to worst of 3d20 ... I know that this lowers the chance of success exponential, but that was kind of what I was gunning for. The Temple was full of lvl 3-5 Gnoll, but I knew that the Asmodeus Cleric would roast them with one or two channels and the Slayer would send the rest screeming with his upgraded Dazzling Display, so it was essentially a 4 vs 1 fight.

And this one was a lot of fun .. at least for me: the Swashbuckler charged and hit once, got attacked, two times and then managed to evade 5ft back via some ability. The Barbarian charged, but hit not once and the rest of the group also proceeded to fumble about ... Then Narrog whaled on the poor Swashbuckler und threw him onto the Barbarian, bullrushing both 10ft back, leaving all at the table speechless and bewildered, while I assured them that all the feats were legit :D

This left the Swachbuckler within 10HP of going KO, so he bursted out to find some help/healing, while the Barbarian pounced back into the fight, wounded Narrog a bit and got mamed, grappled and used as a club against the Slayer, in turn ... all the fighters did their full attacks but weren't very effective.

But it turned out perfectly timed: in round 4 Narrog downed the Barbarian and lifted him over his head to "tear him appart next round" ... at this point he had 2 HP remaining, so I was pretty sure that I would not have to fall back on my word, and the Slayer didn't disappoint and ended Narrogs life ... My players led out a collective breath of relieve and then bemoaned the awefulness of a 3d20 reroll Pugwampi aura and how rediculessly though and hard and brutal that boss fight was ...

Then Nafeshti gratulated the heros, invited them to dinner to celebrate the Liberation of Kelmerane and then explained that Jhavhul used this kind of blatand missuses of Wishcraft in the past. But she could offer a solution to the dilemma: they could utter a wellworded wish themselves and become her new class of Templers of the Wind, all with their own set of likewise OP abilities.

The Swashbuckler and Slayer went with it without a second thought ... the Asmodeus Cleric didn't like the notion of being the subordinate of some Sarenrae-near-do-gooder, but he would eventually submit to it (but not without writing down some 30 pages contract that allowed him more leeway then the others with declining Nafeshtis wishes and some of her orders ... oh well, so be it. Nafeshti wants Rhavhul destroyed and Xotanis bones lain to eternal rest).

But the Barbarian didnt went with the Templer theme, because the player is romanticizing the Conan ideal of Barbariandom: being free and unconquerable, not bending his knee to anyone. I sorta expected that and we will see how things will work out during the next few sessions.

My players got the smallest taste of their newfound power when they set foot into the Brazen Tower and fought off some 4 Elder Fire Elementals with ease. Here we cut and I am quite excited for the last leg of the adventure, as I have planned a very big bang for the House of the Beast, and a major deviation from the plot of the book. Stay tuned.


Oh wow ... I just had an idea for Narrog ... a truely evil idea!

At first I toyed with the idea to rebuild him as a grappling Shifter, as I play one of those in another campaign. The Weretouched Archetype with the Tiger rules, but as a Were-Hyena woud then be the result of his wishes for a more powerful and primal body etc.

But then it stuck me ... we wouldn't become a Werehyena .. but a Were-Pugwampi!!!!!!!

Fufufu, just the same rules, but with a truely terrifying advanced pugwampi aura that lets the players roll three dice for each action. I don't know if this will just drag out the combat too much, but it might at least be a memorable encounter and have the players wanna murder me ^^


Hey Sekket, I'm glad that you like my ideas.

Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil.. I remeber that one. Might be a fun idea. I will also give your idea of Narrog a try, too.

I can really just encourage you to read up the mythic rules, as it fits the narrative of this path so well.


After the defeat of Jhavhul, the game will continue for a final ark, in which they will have to destroy Xotanis heart.

One of my players is a Cleric of Asmodeus, so they find out that the heart can only be destroyed at the coldest place in the Muliverse, ie. Cania, the 8th level of hell.

Mephistopheles, the Lord of Hellfire and a CR30 boss, will welcome them, escort them through Cania, and then make a powerplay move to optain Xotanis Heart, merge with it, and finally replace Asmodeus as supreme leader of hell. After this I can think of nothing more of how to challenge my players or up the ante in any way, so my players can then FINALLY destroy the damn thing and end this truly epic campaign.

Pluspoints to the Asmodeus Cleric, if he sides with Mephistopheles, though :P


Wish-infused Davashuum with an attitude
Fighter (Polearm Master) 2, Monk (Maneuver Master) 4, Magus (Kensai) 11
He his super high stats, but so have my players, as we rolled for them the old-school way of 4d6, do away with the lower one. He also has a belt of STR/DEX +4 and a Headscarf of INT/WIS +4
Originally Davashuum was a Janni, but for this rebuild I didnt pay too much attention to that ... you could take away one or two Kensai levels, if you wanted to make him conform to the rules 100%. My group at this point is lvl 14 with 3 Mythic Ranks.
STR 22(26)+8
DEX 18(22)+6
CON 16 +2
INT 16(20)+5
WIS 16(20)+5
CHA 8 -1

Bonsu Feats: two fighter, two monk, two magus feats

Weapon Focus: Naginata (Magus Bonus Feat) +1 Attack
Greater Weapon Focus: Naginata (Fighter Bonus) +2 Attack
Mythic Weapon Focus: Naginata +4 attack, Wishpower for +2 until end of turn
Power Attack (Fighter Bonus) -4 attack, +12 damage
Combat Reflexes (Monk Bonus) +6 AoO
Improved Trip (Monk Bonus) +2 CMB/CMD with Trip
Greater Trip (Magus Bonus) +2 CMB/CMD with Trip. Successful trips AoO
Greater Trip (Mythic) against the AoO of the Trip the opponent is flatfooted
Lunge (Magus Bonus) -2 AC, +5 reach
1:Extra Ki +2 KI
3:Furious Focus don't suffer PA penalty on the first attack
5:Improved Furious Focus don't suffer PA penalty on all attacks
Furious Focus (Mythic) don't suffer PA penalty on AoO
7:Weapon Material Master: Whipwood
9:Tripping Strike on a crit, make a free trip attempt
11: Critical Focus +4 on critical confirmation rolls
13: Extra Arcana
15: Dodge
17: I don`t really know ... but I don`t think that this matters much ^^

Wishpower 9/day
Surge +1d6
Sudden Block - immediate action spend one wishpower when attacked, add +3 to AC, attacker must roll twice. After the attack make one attack yourself that bypasses DR
Avenging Maneuver – confirming a crittical hit against you provokes an AoO
Ever Ready - +1 AoO, AoO resolve at +3 attack/damage
Extra Feat – Weapon Focus

Magus Arcana
Arcane Accuracy one AP for +5 on all attacks this round
Maneuver Mastery for trip use the full magus lvl instead of BAB
Spell Shield +5 shield bonus for one turn

So, as Davashuum will most likely know that the players are walzing into his tower, he will be fully buffed with a greater Magearmor, Shield, Enlarge Person and Long Arms on himself.

If I didn't make too much mistakes, he will have a reach of 5 squares and some 13 AoO each round, so everyone who approaches will trigger multiple AoO that try to trip, and each tripped opponent will trigger another AoO.

His Naginata, Malestorm is a +3 Unholy Shocking Burst Whipwood Naginata that he will upgrade with one point of his Arcane Pool to a +5 Unholy Shocking Burst Keen Whipwood Naginata.

His attacks with Power Attacks should be in the region of +26 +31 +16 for 1d8+3d6+29 (19-20/x4(5 for 2 Arcane Pool) for some ungoodly crits of 4d8+3d6+3d10+116(144)
The AoO with trips should be in the region of +39, but as I am still tweaking this build a little bit, I will have to go through everything on a clean sheat of paper, again. I don't know if this will be overkill, but he will surely give my players a run for their money and quickly give them a taste, of how scary all this wish-fullfillment can truly get.

For the finally, I plan on giving Jhavhul some 10 Mythic ranks, but Ezer, as his former summoner, knows his true name. So the players job will be to keep Jhavhul from murdering Ezer, until he has time enough to speak Jhavhuls true name, severely weakening him in the process ... but haveing been the subject of 998 whishes at this point, his true self shifted to far, that uttering his truename wont bind him, just debuff him.

I am still toying with ideas. Either taking away two Mythic Ranks per round (this will be quite tedious, though) or just taking away his mythic abilities after some set rounds if reciting, like 4 or 5.


Hello peeps,

after a years long hiatus, during which we played through an entire campaign in another system, we are luckily back to our oldish legacy of fire campaign and we started with fresh enthusiasm ... as it stands, my players just escaped Kakishon and the City of Brass and they have Ezer with them as an ally, as I found the betrayal of him at the end of the impossible eye a bit silly and out of the left field.

My players met up with Nafeshti and are in full swing of the liberation of Kelmerane. I used the Mass Combat rules to streamline the liberation a little bit and just switched to skirmish mode at the gate houses and at the culmination of the battle at the temple of Sarenrae where they met up with that gnoll cleric.

Here are the army stats that I used ... I must say that Nafeshtis armies quite steamrolled Jhavhuls forces, but I had zero experience with the mass combat rules and it was sort of a test run for me.

I gave them two 100 soldiers Janni Armies
Western Sirocco Army
Medium Janni Army (100) Lvl 3 Rangers
ACR 7, HP 38
DV 17, OM +7, Morale +1
Combat Style Ranged (+1 OM in the ranged phase)
Favorite Enemy: Efreet (+1 OM vs the Efreet army)

Eastern Sirocco Army
Medium Janni Army (100) Lvl 3 Rangers
ACR 7, HP 38
DV 17, OM +7, Morale +1
Combat Style Melee (+1 OM in the melee phase)
Favorite Enemy: Gnoll (+1 OM vs the Gnoll army)

and let them choose between Sniper Support and False Retreat as army tactics, as not to overwhelm them with a hundred options.

The enemy armies where es such:
Tiny Efreet Janissary Army (25) in the upper city and around the brass tower
ACR 7, Hp 38
DV 17 (19 due to cover etc), OM +7 (+9), Morale +4
Burn: deal +1d6 damage in the second round +1. I also gave them the option to attack both opposing armies without penalty, due to them being an elite force and formed up in ranks and stuff.

Small Janni Army (50) Rogues Lvl 3 occupying the middle city with the nice house of the characters
ACR 5, HP 27
DV 15 (13 after going flanking), OM +5(+8 after flanking), Moral +3
Ambush, Expert Flankers, Bleed .. when attacked, they would spread out and flank from all sides and trying to bleed the opposing army to death ... before being destroyed they would fall back into the upper city

Large Gnoll Army (200) Lvl 3 Barbarians, occupying the lower city and camping outside of the city proper, ie the first line of contact
ACR 6, HP 27
DV 16 (15 when going berserk), OM +6 (+8 when going berserk)
Ranged capabilities -2
Rage 1/battle +2 OM, -1DV

The gnoll army rolled spectacularly bad, so the players just walzed into Kelmerane and sorta occupied the lower district in one fell move. Kinda fits the narrative of a blitz attack, though.

So, next session the players will have a hopefully rather short skirmish in the temple of Sarenrae and will then consolidate their power to crack open that Brass Tower.

For this part I planned for Nafeshti to step forward and offer them to take up the mantle of her new templars. I want to give her wishes a bit more narrative power, so she can still offer three wishes per day, but each player will only ever get granted 3 wishes of her in their lifes, kinda like how Rhavhul did with his fellowers. I think this is an important rule to remember when playing with wishes.

So, for the fun part: becoming a templer obvious means swearing fealty to her and losing your powers if you fall from grace, just like in the bigger story so far. It will also takes up one of your wishes, but all players can take up the vow to become a templar in a shared ceremony, so that we wont need two days worth of wishes to transform the entire group.

When becoming a templar you will become a mythic hero Rank 3, instantly get infused with powers beyond your wildest imagination and feel like the total badass that the templars have been described in the story ... really, this fits the narrative soooo well.

Luckily I think no one of my players read through the mythic rules in the DRM, so I just prepared a sheat for everyone detailing their new powers and abilities. I changed all references to mythic to wishinfused. The can wishsurge and got 9 Wishpower a day :D Its fun.

I chose a mix of fun abilities that add to the players build in a way that is meaningful, while staying away from the gamebreaking mythic vital strike. This way every player now has a larger then life picture of their former character, which is awesome. I also wish-infused one magic item, that each player has become very font of during their career, upgrading it to a sort of signature item.

The boots of speed became seven league striding boots. The Singular persons carpet of flying became dr. stranges mantle, now occupying the shoulder slot and granding flight and concealment. etc. I just got wild, but thats what adding such a ludicrous amount of wishes into a campaign should feel like.

And this leaves us with the opposition: they are also wish-infused by Jhavhul. So each of the opponents with some of the rather lackluster wished for abilities, like two spider pets, or burning longswords or whatever I did away with and gave them, too, three ranks of mythic abilities. And boy oh boy, is my Davashuum a bonafide badass ... I feel sort of sorry for my players when they will walz through the Brass Tower, stomping down any non-wish-infused opposition and then get party wiped by Davashuum ... well, I hope that he wont wipe the party, but he is CRAZY strong. I will show him in my next post.


This reminds me of the time, when my 13ys old me played AD&D, 2nd Ed, for the very first time. During one of our misadventures I overenthusiastically messed up and destroyed some cool magic item .. the thief of the group went "Yikes ... Idiot!" and hit me once with his dagger. The fighter chimed in "yeah, that was really dumb." and hit me with his longsword and so did the ranger and even the mage with his walking stick. When I objected, that this was leathal force, they laughed and said "don't make us laugh, you are a lvl 4 cleric and have d8 hit die."

After that I healed myself back up and had learned to be not too overexcited, but careful and respectful, when dealing with unknown magic.

Of course, the whole situation was super meta, but I took the in-game equivalent of a disciplinary beating and took a lesson out of it, that still holds true to this very day. I bet that Iomedae wouldn't use the equivalent of 20 shortswort strokes to discipline a farmer who somehow had the gall to mock her in the face, but it seems like the appropriate amount of force to wack some sense into a highlevel, mythic PC. Just deal with it, take your lesson and move on.


Oh, thats a fun idea, too :D

I recon that a boss type pugwampy as Father Jackal would have a much stronger unlock aura, as in critical failures instead of just regular ones etc or doing minimum damage ... something thematic appropriate, yet fun.


At one intermezzo between book 1 and 2, I let a gnoll assault party send by the Cadavre Kind attack the city. They used special siege weapons that hurled cushioned cages filled with Pugwampy at the walls prior to the charge ... that was fun and really cool and put the fear into my players like nothing else.


Hello friends,

even though this is a very old adventure, we are playing through it right now... I posted regularly here a few years back ago about my campaign and how it was doing ... well, we had a veeeeery long (years long) hiatus, BUT we recovered and are back into the game, which is super nice. So after escaping the Map of Kakishon (which I let them keep, btw, but which is now under the control of an Aboleth mastermind, with whom they sided to get out ... long story, but a fun one), they ended up in the vault and got confused at first.

I changed the rules of the trap a bit. So every time you step into the right door, you get enwrapped by the flames and see Ignan calligraphy of the different room names (lizard, vulture, dragon etc), so you can pretty much teleport to the rooms you want to, when you figured out the sequence.

Fun fact: one of my players is a mathematician with a degree, and even he didnt get it, because he was so nitpicky (well, technically, you would also have to divide the 1 .." "but use a bit of common sense. This is the fantasy middleages and there are only natural numbers on the door frames" "well, what about dividing by yero, then? Dumb puzzle tsk").

In the Lizard and Jackal room I let them make perception checks to notice that this rooms had no adjacent vault rooms, but a corridor and a landing outside. In their excitement this split the party, because the guy with fire resistance jumped through the flames, triggered a new fight with the brass man and was now out of sequence :D They quickly figured out that they had to enter the room in a way, that the exit number would be the next one in the sequence, though.

Next thing I changed and that was a big bummer for them: the vault was a bit shielded for the benefit of all the kinds of treasure there, but outside, they got hit with the full force of the plane of fires heat damage of 3d10 (I scaled down the frequency from 3d10/round to 3d10/min though, to gave them a little time to think).

Well, they had a few potions of fire resistance in their back packs, so now they got 1h of exploration time, before things get ugly, this gives them an interesting sense of urgency.

One of my players, a cleric of asmodeus, has the book of the water genie in his possession, so at one point, while they discussing if they should take the boat, that player heard a refreshing laughter, light as a bell, from the direction of the corridor that they didnt explore. They discussed following it, but paranoia won and they dismissed it as a trap.

I gave them one last chance: when they ascended a staircase to floor B, that player heard a sort of dripping sound and a disappointed sigh in the same, musical voice, but they said "well, now we aint going back". Well, I wont shoehorn this one in :)

Also, because I didnt want to trap tem again, I changed the premise of the plot a bit: there is no curse, but the player with the story book recognized Ezer as Javhuls summoner right away, so they want to rescue him on their own volition. I told them that the City of Brass on as a whole is under the protection of a spell that prohibits planer travel, with the exeption from certain controlled travel spots at the port and in the ambassys of their trade partners, so they want to visit the pact masters Katapesh ambassy when its time to escape. In an earlier adventure they I cleverly inserted (Crucible of chaos) they helped an Ifreety Noble to escape and he told them to come to visit to his home in the City of Brass if they ever get into trouble there, so they got that angle, too. I dont want to overtly extent the stay in the City of Brass, but I think its an too awesome setpiece and backdrop to not use at least a little bit more. So, thats the status of my campaign right now.


Good thinking, Blake. The spell in question is already a very good one, so it probably doesn't need any buff. With a game as complex as this here the more esoteric rules are bound to be forgotten, it was just coincidend that I happened about them myself ^^

I think I will mention this as a funny sidenote when I cast the spell tonight and then handwave it away with a good laugh, maybe even mentioning the little titbit about total immersion. THAT would be totally broken for this spell level and is a good example of an effect that would be totally out of league then anything else available and so good that anyone with half a brain would cast is exclusively.

Good night and happy gaming everyone.


Hello everyone.

The general environmental rules about acid state, that standing adjacent to a large body of acid calls for a DC 13 Fort safe or the loss of 1 point of Con.

So per RAW the spell should generate enough fumes to justify the Fort safe from any trapped creature.

As a fun side note, total emersion into acid (like falling 30ft into a pool of acid over 3ft deep) calls for 10d6 damage, but I think we can safely assume, that this was never intended to be part of the spell.

So back to topic: when you fall down, are you in danger of loosing con?

Thanks in advance and happy gaming.


DM Dan E wrote:

I have Davashuum as a Monk of the Four Winds, she (in my game) can switch things around and use different elemental attacks to get around their resistances. I'd match their weapon to one of the party members. Upping their involvement is a great idea I think.

** spoiler omitted **

Thank you for your input. In my game I wanted Davashuum to be still loyal, but when the players get the map of Kakishon, he will try to take it forcefully from them, to he at long last the one who gives it back to Nafeshti. During the unfair fight Pazhvann intervers and gets killed. Moments later the real Nafeshti teleports in, stripping Davashuum of her wishcraft powers and cursing him. In disgust he leaves and later joins Javhul, to wish for his restored powers.

But I like the part with Davashuum training my monk PC at first. In this campaign the party managed, to let Kardsvan live and heal him from the deamons influence. I think, maybe he searched for Nafeshti, to tell her of this brave party and that Verdishal was active again. This is how Davashuum learns of the party and he comes to investigate, posing to be the wise teacher, but already showing subtle hints of his darker side.

Maybe he even murdered the returning Kardsvan, to prevent the others from hearing the news. This would be another of-camera-death, and because Kardsvan already left the templers, Nafeshti wouldn't come to investigate at once, why her link to one of her templers was broken.

I will wrap my head around this a bit more, but thanks for the input :)

Happy gameing.


Hello my fellow GMs

I started a new LoF campaign with my other RPG group and so far everyone is quite enjoying themselfs. The fun thing with this group is, that we are ultra elemental and plane-y, consisting of one Sylph, one Oread, one Suli, one Thiefling and one Gnoll; just perfect.

Ok, the thing why I started this thread: the Oread is a monk of the Four Winds, and when the party learned about the Templers of the FIVE Winds in the monastery, that immediately piqued his interrest and we was asking questions about Davashuum ever since.

I think that this offers some nice hooks for this campaign: I opens the potential for character development, should this monk learn something about the enigmatic fifth wind and encompass that into his fighting style, but it would also be quite the shock, when his favorite templer betrays Naveshti and turns into a bitter enemy.

So, community, any ideas what I could do with my little monk? The other four winds seem to be about the four classic elements, thats what the Monks of the Four Winds are all about, their Elemental Fist feat. What could be the fifths wind? Davashuum is described as 'the fury of winds from all directions' and being assassin and executioner, so this sounds to me like a sneaky git with the 'Dimensional Agility' feat chain.

Any other ideas? I plan to make every templers weapon into a weapon of legacy, not just tempest. I know, that this dilutes tempest impact significantly, but it helps that every player feels special and happy. So I could see Davashuum being a monk with his weapon of legacy giving him some nice dimensional hopping skills and stuff.

Thanks in advance.
Happy gaming.


Me and my mate finally persuaded our regular group to change from 3.5 to pathfinder. We all rolled new 1st Lvl Charakters, I vowed for point buy, but the others insisted on doing it as we have always done it: 4d6 and do away with the bad die ... well, I ended up with some of the most powerful stats I every rolled:
17 / 16 / 15 / 15 / 12 / 12

I decided to do a half-orcish toothy natural attack shapeshifter ranger and one shotted both endboss monsters with my three full BAB attacks with full strength at Lvl 2 :D

Now, at Lvl 3 I attack against humans (Fav Enemy) with +10 / +10 / +10 (1d4+10) while shifting and I am giving my GM some serious headache because of my damage output.

Its a really funny character. I am planning to take Improved Unarmed Strike, Multiattack and the Boar Style, attacking with unarmed kicks as iterative attacks that can rend for 2d6 and 1d6 bleed (we figured that the 2d6 bleed was a typo) and then the claws and bite as secondary attacks. All in all this will give me a very impressive number of attacks (5 by Lvl 7) and damage output.

And it feels just damn good to rip a tough monster appart :>


CuttinCurt wrote:

In response to Salt, my daughter played a Suli Genie binding wizard and it was quite nice.

Plus the great powers of the PrC come in to main fruition as you encounter more genies in the AP. Real nice addition to any campaign.

The Daivrat PrC is also nice, which gives you a genie familiar which can go out and find a spell you dont know in your spell book so you can memorize it for that day. As you get higher in level, you get access to higher level spells.

Anyway, both PrC's are cool for this campaign if you are a wizard.

I once read about the the final fight of the AP in a story treat, where Javhul revealed, that the fire bloodline sorcerer was of his blood and offered him to switch side to rule <strike>the universe</strike> the world together. In this game the player apparently was thinking about this option for two combat rounds and then actually siding with Javhul. Must have been a hell of a final!

When the players know that a session is the campaign finale they are more willing to do crazy rp stuff. In a L5R game I once hosted for 2 years I got one of the players to betray the group in a similar fashion.


Regarding the crypts, you might confuse the crypts under the monastery with the crypts under the ruined temple in Kelmerane, where the grand finale of th first book will take place.

In the crypts under the monastery the players will encounter the strange slime that will transforme one of the into the mold speaker.

http://paizo.com/forums/dmtz3oy1?Alternative-to-Moldspeaker

This treat here discusses another way of how to introduce the spirit of Vardishal without the strange mold, many people commented, that they liked the concept.

Happy gameing and keep us informed on how things turned out ;)


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Hello, I made good use of her. When the party first arrived at her Waterfall she used Illusions to fend them off. They noticed some Gnoll sneaking around when suddenly some really awful tentacles burst out of the water and dragged the hapless Gnoll into a wet grave. All of this was an Illusion to send any Gnoll screaming home.

When one of them disbelieved the illusion they tried to talk to her and after some more faery enchantment magic she parleyed with them. I made the opposition in Kelmerane much bigger, so they needed allies. And she would be wiling to help a just cause, but couldn't leave the waters, because something upstream was polluting the river, and it took most of her powers to counter the effect.

So long story short: upstream they found an old temple dedicated to Rovaguk that got some new inhabitance: some cultists bent to unsavory ends. After some battle, and the near summoning of some really unpleasant monstrosity, they returned to Bechvi and she agreed to help them. I made her a druid and she summoned some beasts of nature and let it rain heavily. Some fog to conceal their approach wouldn't have been a bad idea, either.

And later I used her a second time: the end of the one year rebuild was celebrated with a big carnival -> the Carnival of Tears module with pugvampies instead of frost faeries :D And she was the good faery that warned the party that something was off and protected them from the evil illusion magic. Now they know, that the Cadaver King definitely is very alive and kicking and is still bend on destroying Kelmerane.

Well, that is my take on her. Maybe you can use something of this for your campaign.
Happy gameing


There is one threat here that deals about an epic ending to the AP after Jhavulhs defeat, that deals with teh Witchwar Legacy.

I myself added the modules "Entombed with the Pharaoh", "Carnival of Tears" and "The Harrowing" to my campaing and plan to do so, too, with the "Crucible of Chaos". The long version how I did it can be followed in my campaing blog here (titled "alternative to moldspeaker").

The short version ist this: I play the one-year-rebuild of Kelmerane with watered down Kingmaker rules and inserted some sidetracks. A few clues got the PCs the two mask-parts to open the pyramid and inside they find some unsettling revelations on the upper level of the pyramid, that strongly hint at the pharaoh of numbers involvement with the cult of Rovagug on that planet that is mentioned there and a city that they want to use as a gate -> link to crucible of chaos. One of my recurring villains was the boss of the circle tribe, The Witch, who is a visitor of leng, to fold it together with the Jackals Price. The cult of Rovagug is heavily influenced by the Visitors of Leng in my campaign, who are the masterminds behind many of the cults doings and want to raise Rovagug, or at least one of his spawns.

Carnival of Tears is the first major attack of the carrion king at Kelmerane. In the original module a carnivals directors girlfriends soul got captured by evil feys, who then turned the carnivals attractions into dark reflections. In my version this happens, too, but the evil feys are pubwampis ;D Due to their unluck aura one of the carnical directors girlfriends harrowings got aweful wrong and she got captured in her card deck, so that the PCs can do "The Harrowing" to get her soul back ... and get the information, that the carrion king is actively trying to destroy Kelmerane .. but not just with an army of gnolls but with guile and malice.

My plans for the "Witchwar Legacy" in short are: the heart of Xotani needs to be destroyed in utter cold, so they need to travel to the far north, find the grave and use the portal on its lowest floor to travel to the eights layer of hell, cania. In the frigit wastes of the coldest plane in existence the heart of the firebleeder could be sundered between two of the major glaciers. As the party will be around level 19 or 20 by then, Mephistopoles, the ruler of cania, will likely try to get the heart for his own machinations, maybe even to chalenge Asmodeus rule over hell.


I never really introduced Haleen into the campaign because no one was looking for her and everything worked out quite well without her.

Badra was just a quer idea, and I aren't hellbend to use an already established character. Your Esmerelda is quite that what I was looking for: an interesting female character that poses some hooks and won't just be a b´plane "good little wife" that is just there without impact.

Or anything else: the daughter of one of the cooler merchants that settled down in Kelmerane or maybe even Zastorans nice :P I want to brainstorm what possibilities exist out there and explore what interesting story lines could be derived from that.

And now I must read up that Esmerelda wiki :P

As a sidenote: somebody got some nice classical, oriental fiction that might be a good read? Beyond 1001 Arabian Nights I remember this Layla and Majnun Story. Anything else?

Thanks


Hello fellow pathfinder enthusiasts, as some of you may know, I greatly inflated the one year rebuild phase of Kelmerane. One of my players, Luther the bard, who also happens to be counsellor of the prospering city and a real peoples man, declared, that he was looking for a suitable wife and planed to marry.

Well, that is a really great RP opportunity and a great person to be forced by Jhavhul to issu the final wish in the last part of the AP. I don't want to hit him in the balls with some mean stuff, yet, but do you have any interesting ideas what would be a good girl for him? And any other adventure hooks hooked to her? I immediately thought about one of the bigger merchant families that try to buy of the scroll of kakishon in part three, maybe even Badra herself? That would pose a sweet RP situation, when she insists of her family getting the first buying rights or something :P But any other ideas?

Thanks in advance.


Ask the player if he wants to play a witch, because it opens up some really cool RP possibilities, and the old crone is a really goof hook into the story, too. Let him convert his sorcerer levels into witch levels and give out a little boon for doing this, maybe one of the magic traits, especially the 'old cults' traits would work really good.

Maybe you shouldn't do this all at once, but do it progressively at some turning points, like in battle against a strong monster (not necessarily a boss) or when roused to anger by an NPC and he suddenly speaks some evil words and uses unwillingly Evil Eye, so that after that ritual his sorcerer powers wane, but therefore this strange new magic courses through his body.


A small addition: the dschins of the islamic traditions, from which efreets are the ones with the most destructive urges, are originally invisible, living in something like the etherial plane, but can see and interact with our world quite easy, what makes it dangerous to seek contact with them.

Under this premis the arrival of the efreeti army in London would cause untold damage and havoc, but most people wouldn't see or know the cause. The PCs, touched be the magic of the scroll of Kakishon, would literal be the only people capable to see the truth. This would explain, why no army would be massed against the house of the beast and put the PCs in the roll to save the world as no other could possible do it.


I think one of the problems is, that you can nowadays tinker with your characters so much, that they are much, much stronger then in previous editions. This urges us GMs to try to really challenge the players ... most often in throwing encounters their way, that are at their level or even above. This can be done in dungeons like the pyramid from 'entombed with the pharaoh', that just has four levels with four bosses, but in a regular dungeon setting this will drain the PCs quite fast, even if the fights are cool and cinematic.

It does not hurt, to throw some low-level encounters at the players, it won't pose a serious threat to them, but will cost only a few spells and HPs, either and give them the feeling, that they are making progress. After three or four small encounters you can use one of the cooler big ones again. This will most likely drain them for the day, but that is ok .. oh and it will be much more memorable.


Yeah, you are right, its right there, I just missed it, my bad :>

Hmm a druid ... not a bard, but certainly enough funny little spells, that turn our PCs walk in the park into a nightmare. Spells that should work really good are the ones, that inhibit their movement and/or force skill checks every round. Web would do wonders to annoy them to no ends, as would entangle, an already subherb spell ... and moving through a pugwampi debuffed spike growth field would be the utter pain, hydraulic pushing them for extra fun.

Spells like burning disarm should be fun, too, especially when you describe how the dropped weapon bounces around and lands in the most inconvenient places, like unter a heavy cabinet or a crack in the floor.

Oh, and don't forget, that the pugwampi druid could all this while being an unsuspecting bird or rat or something, a real wolf in sheeps cloth.


There are a few things to consider.

First: everything that you give an enemy NPC to vex the players will find its way into their hands sooner or later. So it is advised not to deck out the entire enemy platoon with +1 weapons.

Second: defeating the enemies and looting their stuff makes the players feel good and let them think that they earned it. Taking it away lets them feel cheated or unfairly punished.

Third: many modules or CR of creatures are written with the assumption in mind, that the PCs have access to a certain level of magic items. The lists in the Corebook show you in quite detail, how much treasure every PC should have about at every level. This is the closest thing to a GM formula.

Of course, this is not allways easy to achieve and can lead to something called the christmastree effect, where every character is decked out with magic items and everyone needs items that up their AC, to hit and saves.

I don't like this that much and don't give out redundant items that much. If every item counts and is something special or somehow useful, magic items will stay wonderful. Otherwise they can end up in the bag of holding with the other unused stuff.

You can ask your players, if they really, really want certain items and then can arrange for them to find them in a dungeon/hear a legend about the items whereabouts / take them out of the dead hands of the boss of the week.

Now, how to get rid of items that you deem to powerful? Best of, if you think something is too unbalancing, don't give it to the PCs in the first hand, so don't give it to an opposing NPC, either. This can be circumvented a little bit by giving the bad guys items that the party can't use, be it unsuitable weapons or stuff like unholy or elfenbane enchantments, that they may loath to use themselfs.

Other tricks have been tried in the past, like the magic alloys of the drow, that only work underground, but turn to dust under sunlight or need the presence of the magic city that they are attuned to. This can sometimes feel cheap, sometimes work off.

Sometimes the players do help you, I have a barbarian PC how portraits his character very much like the Conan from the books. That means, that he will use what ever weapon is at hand, but discard it at a moments notice when things develop that way, be it that he got disarmed and just took the next gnolls battered club instead of the +1 battleaxe lying a few feets aways or useing his +1 greatsword to block a descending stone door. Granted, not many players will do this, but I really compliment that player for this behavior and can try out many different weapons and enchantments without fear to clog the game with it :)

So, while any weapon can be sundered, stolen or lost, don't do this too often or your players might feel cheated and unhappy. Better thing before introducing a new item, and maybe you can develop a story hook to get rid of an item (they need to cannibalize an item for its magic power to power up an ancient artifact or portal or mcguffin).

But in the end, a little bit over equipped PCs won't break your game, so just let them have fun :)


You forgot the most important part, the unluck aura ;D

That aside, the little bugger looks quite tough with DR 10, 20 Fast Healing and a 32 SR and hart to hit, too ... if it wasn't for the 25 HP, that at CR 14 (Level 10) should be whittled down in a moments notice by anything that somehow hits it. He looks like an egg in armor: once you penetrate that, its a goner. Of course, if there is absolutely no one who can penetrate the 32SR or AC 40 (unlikely) it could lead to a very frustrating experience, but most likely the little bugger will die a horrible death, because the instand he shows up he will be a fire magnet +5.

What I would like to see where some nice special ability, something akin to an enhanced unluck aura like "roll two dice and take the low one -2" or a "steal your luck and buff the other pugwampis" ability, that works like a savable inspire courage that debuffs everyone who doesn't save and buffs the pugs in the area by one point per failed PC.

A few more bard spell-like abilities would be nice, too. Maybe the best thing would be to lower his CR and stat him out with some actual class levels to buff his HP and give him some spells. I think bard or witch would work quite good, especially the sandman with his spellstealing ability.

But I don't want to pick your pugwampi paragon appart, just over some (hopefully) constructive criticism. In what context did you create the creature? Out of a whim? Did you use the Bestiaries monster creation rules as a guideline? Do you plan to use him in a certain scenario? Solo or with many pugs as sidekick? Maybe even not as the antagonist but sort of a neutral tornado that could be thrown the enemies way if the PCs are clever?


A few threats below is a big post with various NPCs converted to pathfinder, including Jhavhul on the second page.


EvilMinion wrote:
Akumamajin wrote:
Silent Saturn wrote:
If you're looking for a good weapon, I'd say don't worry about it being a two-hander and just go with an ordinary battleaxe. You need a free hand to cast spells anyway, and with Bane plus your +dmg Judgment, the fact that your weapon's base damage is 1d8 instead of 2d6 means barely anything.

This would, actually, render the level dip into fighter moot. Can't a two-handed weapon be held in one hand, if you don't fight with it in a round, in that you cast? I remember something about changing a one-handed weapon into the shield hand to cast etc.

1d8+2d6 is still quite good damage. Ha, so many stuff to consider ;D

Why would any respectable dwarf use a battleaxe?

There's a Dwarven Waraxe they get automatic proficiency in, just for them.

1d10 beats 1d8 any day... both one handed martial weapons for the dwarf.

You want it at the bare minimum to be +1, so that when you drop Bane onto it, it hits +3 and is thus able to bypass silver and cold iron in a pinch.

The thing is, that the being dwarf only lets you use the Waraxe as a martial weapon instead of an exotic weapon, BUT the inquisitor is just proficient with simple weapons and a few extra ones, most notable the handcrossbow, repeating crossbow, deities favorite weapon (which would be the mace in my case) and the aforementioned battleaxe. Of course, the battleaxe would be a cool, but it would impose a -4 unproficient penalty ... not worth the extra 1 damage point, right? ;D


Great idea I must say. I did something similar with the 'Curse of the Crimson Throne'-AP, porting it to the Legend of the 5 Rings Setting. It was a fun and a blast :)

Hmm what do you thing of the Call of Cthulhu RPG, by the way? In my LoF campaign I heavily upped the involvement of Rovaguk and turned the thing much darker with a destinct lovecraftian twist.

That aside, lets focus on your question. I would make the thing an expedition, be it egypt or marocco or arabia. Almah is no tradeprincess but an archeologist or antropomorphologist that wants to do some excavation in the city of Kelmerane (change name to something different). There you stumble upon some resistance that could range from sinister cults to drug bosses and finde the sinister ruined temple with the deamon in its crypt.

While happy excavating you get assaulted by other nomads/cultists that seem to belong to this place and the lady gets abducted. Your team fallows the culprits to the house of the beasts and rescue her in the nick of time before she is sacrificed.

While in the house of the beast, another ruined temple, you stumble about the lower levels and finde the map of Kakishon. You take it back with you to London until one evening your professor invites you to discuss something amazing.

Your professor has done some extensive studding of the scroll and found out, that certain parts light up when you touch them, simply amazing! While playing with it you get assaulted by assassins, the original hashashin ones. Maybe the map gets stolen or the professor killed ... you somehow fight some more assassins and somehow get your finger on another scroll that tells how to activate it ... or maybe the master assassin does it while dying.

At least everyone gets sucked into Kakishon, while they see the Efrit Army escaping. After getting out of Kakishon you return to London to find it devastated, but the main army seems to have escaped to arabia/egypt/marocco again. Your time in Kakishon filled up many of the main plot, that the ancient Efrit wanted to raise a mighty beast of legends to conquer the world, but got sealed in the map by some vizir at the nick of time ... now he is back and you are the only one knowing where is hideout is. So big standoff in the house of the beast again.

Voilla, this is just a quick draft, but something that we can work with and to get discussion started :)


Damn, I just finished reading the directors cut version of 'end of eternity', and it is about 1.000.000 times as refined then the published stuff. Oddly I planed to portrait the pleasure palace nearly exactly as it was originally planed, because I saw no need from Jhavuhl to raze the thing to the ground.

I really like this "behind the scenes"-look. Many locations are the same as in the published book and the maps are the same, but of course not so nicely rendered. But the added content really lets this adventure feel much more refined and smooth. I especially disliked the way, Obherak was nearly impossible to reason with, nearly automatically resulting in a fight. Now it gives the players a real choice with whom to ally. Could be especially fun to constantly shatter their perception of the three parties, when each one explains their point of view.

I will decide that they can keep Kakishon for some very elaborate rope trick kind of sanctuary, if the don't side with the proteans. Lets face it: they will have their hands full with all kind of big stuff, when they are on the plane fire and in the last part try to save Kelmerane again, so it won't matter, that they have a paradise to retreat to, right? Might be interesting to roleplay the meeting with Nafeshti, when they have the map, she would most likely want to visit the place of her love-ones death, and this would most likely strengthen her bond with the PCs.

Well, that is still very litteraly month away, since my players will not start 'house of the beast' for about two month, but still :D

EDIT: I totally forgot to mention, why I wrote this comment in the first place :D So: we got this extra content for 'end of eternity', I think mostly because, the product that got published wasn't the product that everybody wanted, more sort of a compromis to get it out in time because the thing got to big or something like this. And I totally suport this, the published stuff is in no way bad, but one of the best adventures of the AP. Still, you can feel in a few places, that not only corners had to be cut. So, is there any possibility, that we could get some extra content with other modules? I bet during the design of APs you guys must have to gut so many good ideas, that it is a shame. I too understand, that you can't do this everytime, because everything that doesn't get used now could be some work that you don't have to do in the next or overnext AP. But still, I love this stuff and would really like to get a whiff of the other stuff that could have been but never will be :>


Silent Saturn wrote:


The whole reason I suggested the one-hander was indeed to relieve you of the need to dip into fighter. You certainly didn't seem too enthused about a fighter dip, and your dwarven weapon proficiencies are nothing to sneeze at. Though without the fighter level, you still come up short for your Power Attack line. Decisions, decisions...

You can indeed take one hand off your two-handed weapon to cast a spell, but then you're not "weilding" it, which means you cant take AoO's. I believe that also means you don't threaten enemies and anyone you were flanking is no longer flanked. It's up to you to decide how much that means to you.

Inquisitors get shield proficiency too. You could try a shield and an empty hand. A spiked heavy shield deals decent damage, and then you get an AC bonus during any round you don't make a melee attack. Maybe take Imp. Shield Bash so you get the extra AC all the time?

That is some good thinking there with the one handers, might be the reason why classically the cleric doesn't fight with two-handers, too. Just fighting with a shield isn't my cup of tea, it sounds too meta-gamey. I can't envision that I would just grab my trusty spiked shield and feel ready to go out there to sent the evil guys screaming to the nine hells, while leaving my axe at home :D

Furious Focus is a feat that I don't like with full BAB fighters, because their first attack is most likely to hit anyways and they get so many more, but 3/4 BAB fighters really get something for their money, because they always lag a bit behind. And powerattack is really worth using with two-handed weapons ... but you can always wield a one-handed axe two-handed, so that isn't that much a problem.

But, all considered, the one level dip isn't worth to get Furious Focus and some bigger weapon, the bane ability already cancels out the worse attack roll from the power attack, so I will stick with the pure Inquisitor build.

How do you feel about item creation feats? Higher grade magic weapons can become really costly, not forgetting armor and shields, and we have a heavy armor and towershield dwarf fighter in party. Wondrous Items, of course, is the most flexible of the lot. So maybe get craft magic arms and armor as the 5th level feat instead of the 3 extra rounds of bane (what would me practically allow to use bane against all major enemies a day)? I would really love a vicious holy weapon with bane added for extra hurt at will :> (the fast healing judgement should work wonders to manage the vicious damage).


Silent Saturn wrote:
If you're looking for a good weapon, I'd say don't worry about it being a two-hander and just go with an ordinary battleaxe. You need a free hand to cast spells anyway, and with Bane plus your +dmg Judgment, the fact that your weapon's base damage is 1d8 instead of 2d6 means barely anything.

This would, actually, render the level dip into fighter moot. Can't a two-handed weapon be held in one hand, if you don't fight with it in a round, in that you cast? I remember something about changing a one-handed weapon into the shield hand to cast etc.

1d8+2d6 is still quite good damage. Ha, so many stuff to consider ;D


Hmm ... it seems that you are right with that axe stuff ... that is most unfortunate :/ Maybe I should do a one level dip into the fighter? This would give me all the weapons I could ever want to use + heavy armor proficiency and Powerattack/Furious Focus ... Normally I don't like dips and of course this would delay most other stuff, especially spellcasting, but it could be worth it. The one bad thing would be: no bane, yet :/

Concerning the domains: there are really some awfully juicy ones, I have to admit. Actually I am sold on this one :P To amend for the intimidation malus I will go with an Intimidating Cloak (same as Cloak of Elvenkind, different skill). Should I dip, my equipment selection would look something like this:

Weapon +1 2000
Intimidating Cloak 2500
Fullplate 1500

Travel Domain looks really nice. I especially like the Exploration subdomain, that lets you clairvoyance 3+wisdom mod times per day through a door. Interesting, how enlightening a visit in the forums can be :>


pipedreamsam wrote:
To be honest, my group wrecks CR encounters unless I play the monsters like they have super genius Int. It really isn't so much about the power of the monsters, as it is about the ability of your players.

+1 This !

I regularly max the monsters HP to give them a bit more staying power and give them the possibility of using their interesting powers and stuff for two rounds or something like that ;D

Seriously: I don't think that you need to recalculate the CR of any monsters, most of the time the PCs are more then capable enough to handle an encounter of their level. And remember: not every encounter has to be at the maximum level, if you go dungeon crawling I would advice to set half the encounters at a lower level. Several encounters back to back at max level drain your parties resources pretty fast.

The only monsters that where seriously unter-CRed had been the dragons in 3.5, but that has already been taken care off, so even dragons are on par now. To convince yourself: why not take the pregenerated characters and throw them against some of the monsters. Most of the time they will manage quite well (with the possible exception of the first level characters, because they are so squishy).

Just my two cents.


Thank you very much for you replie, I will like to respond to it in kind.

Blave wrote:

Usind a Large Battle Axe gives you a -2 penalty to atack.

With this I don't agree. All dwarfs are proficient with the battleaxe, which is a one-handed martial weapon. Making it large raises the price and availability and raises it into the two-handed martial weapon category, but it still is a battleaxe, al-bait one that does 2d6 damage and that has to be wielded two-handed. Of course, I don't do this too often, so there might be a rule that imposes this -2 penalty to attack. I thought that this penalty only applied, if you try to attack with a weapon too big for you size, like a normal-sized greatsword for a halfling, or a large-sized spear or huge-sized longsword for a dwarf. It might be considered a little munchkinesque, but I don't see it as that, big axes are a staple of fantasy and dwarfs alike.

Blave wrote:

You can't get Power Attack at level 1 because you lack the required BAB of +1. I'd suggest taking Steel Soul instead.

With this you are totally right, it just slipped me, my bad >__< On the other hand: Steel Soul is a great feat for Inquisitors that could be interpreted as some kind of aegis or special training to ward against evil magic. Nice :>

Blave wrote:
I think the Mithral Breastplate is a waste of money. As dwarf, you can't move any faster by making the armor light. Your only benefit is a lower armor check penalty which only applies to one of your chosen skills (Stealth). IMHO, you'd be far better off investing these 4000 gp in other equpipment. Get a weapon +1 and/or an amulet/ring to increase your AC.

Hmmhmm, on one hand you are right, a dwarf wont get as much millage out of Mithral medium armor then, say, a human or elf. But, it opens the possibility for raising dexterity to 20, easily done with some bracers or belts over the curse of the game. And being able to be sneaky is always good, especially with a character like this. I think I will keep the armor, but I will wrap my hand around this part here a bit more. Any suggestions for nice equipment for 5.000GP?

Blave wrote:
I'm not a big fan of the Inquisitions and would prefer a good domain any time. But that's a personal thing so I won't argue with Heresy.

It is right, that there are some realy nice domains, but the Herasy Inquisition helps with the MADness of the Inquisitor. I really like that I am really good at intimidate and bluff thanks to this inquisition, and being able to roll two dice for crucial rolls is not to shabby, either. Are there any domains that stick out as rather good or evocative for an Inquisitor?

Thanks ins advance ;)

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