Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4. Goblin Squad Member. Organized Play Member. 602 posts (618 including aliases). 3 reviews. No lists. No wishlists. 2 Organized Play characters.
Just wanted to formally create a place for discussion, questions, comments and/or verbal abuse related to PFS #11.
Honestly, I love, love, LOVE what my friend, associate & fellow contributor Steven T. Helt (AKA Ancient_Sensei) has been doing regarding his Scenario. And if imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, well, then ... consider yourself FLATTERIZED, Helt!
Behold: sad fog, tinged red with Titan’s blood,
Rolls thick from Hubris in an endless flood;
Behold: a shard of Hell that breached the world,
Death births a Tyrant to godhood full;
Behold: the Storm subsides to quell, in part,
Those flames that burn in Hell’s own Heart.
- from The Riddle of Shattered Godhood
Tomb of the Titan A GameMastery Module designed for four 13th-level characters.
By the end of this module, characters should be well into 14th level.
This heroic, swashbuckling adventure sets the PCs on the run, framed for a high-profile murder – and into a desperate, high-seas chase after the villainous agents of Onuyaka, the All-Seeing Eye. Monstrous sorcerers and swordsmen in service to the Machiavellian Ogre Mage seek to uncover the Shard of Hell’s Heart, an otherworldly artifact hidden deep in the lost tomb of the Dark Titan Kothari-Khasis, ancient Chosen of Asmodeus. Racing these brigands to the strange and haunted Isle of Shattered Godhood, the PCs must face horrid monsters, deadly traps, unexpected betrayal, and the bloody memory of Kothari-Khasis himself.
Dinner with the Duke
The adventure begins when PCs are invited to a fine dinner – and a meeting with Duke Harrigan Ambyrs, a wealthy tradesman and powerful merchant-lord who dwells in the bustling port city of Korvosa, jewel of Varisia. Watched over by an azure-robed mage and his daunting, adamantine Shield Guardian, the Duke bears with him many charts and notebooks – and a bag heavy with coin.
“Tales of your exploits have reached my ears by a number of channels. As a company, you have an impressive reputation for mischief; more importantly, you have a reputation for marked competence at out-running your various disasters.
“Two months past, a trade-ship of mine was blown far off course, into uncharted waters – there, the crew beheld a great, shadowed island unknown to them. Locked against them from any form of teleportation or divination, they sought to investigate further. Rowing to the misty shore, a few of my men made a foray into the woods – an errand from which not all of them returned. Alasdair Travaile, a chirurgeon and Dream-Watcher of Desna in my employ, then cast a mighty divination – which cost him his life; the legend lore that emerged from his blood-tinged lips before he passed, however, was a riddle that has haunted all who have heard it.
“My nights are sleepless, my days filled with nightmares; I wish for you and yours to take my finest vessel, The Foolish Pride, and travel back to that strange place – to see if you can unravel the mystery of the Isle of Shattered Godhood.”
Rumor, Assassination and Frame-Up
In possession of two Lesser Shards of Hell’s Heart, strange and burning crystals that grant him dominion over men and devils alike, the powerful Ogre Mage called the All-Seeing Eye has long searched for some rumor as to their ancient progenitor – and when his servant Kettrick Vale revealed to Onuyaka the legend of the Isle of Shattered Godhood, the All-Seeing Eye began to move his many pieces into place.
Secret master of the Hex-City Kaer Maga, Onuyaka has sent deadly assassins to relieve the foolish Duke Ambyrs of his life – and of the maps that should lead the All-Seeing Eye’s envoys directly to the epic Shard of Hell’s Heart. He has employed his most loyal servant, the deadly Jade Monkey, to obtain the charts and notes of Duke Ambyrs, slay the Duke, and frame a group of sell-swords to take the fall while a hand-picked group of pirates and monsters, led by his three vicious sons, journey to the haunted Isle.
The Jade Monkey herself, disguised as a serving girl, has planned this assassination to the letter: an explosion in the street, a burst of obscuring smoke, and suddenly Duke Harrigan Ambyrs is dead – a blade belonging to the PCs embedded in his throat.
Particularly perceptive characters will note, however, that his bodyguard stands ready to dispel any effect that they might raise to save the Duke’s life, and that he makes no motion to stop the assassin as she vanishes. As the smoke clears, the Duke’s charts and notes are gone; the platinum he carried lays scattered across the floor, and the Duke’s arcane bodyguard Kettrick Vale immediately summons the Mage-Captain of the City Guard – as guards rush to the scene of the crime, the PCs are accused of murder most foul.
As swarms of city watchmen and militia attempt to arrest the PCs, the three terrible Sons of Onuyaka and their dread companions steal his great ship The Foolish Pride – and the PCs are now wanted for conspiracy.
A Meeting with the Cabal
Whether PCs allow themselves to be taken into custody or flee the city guard to go into hiding within the vast port city, they are swiftly approached by the Cabal of Storms – a secret society of mages and loremasters dating back to the ancient days of Xomauji the Storm Scholar.
The historians of the Cabal also seek the Isle of Shattered Godhood, to prevent Kothari-Khasis from waking out of his icy prison and to guard the world from the power of his terrible weapons. Unfortunately, they possess few combat-ready field-operatives; thus, the Cabal of Storms will arm the PCs with what knowledge and magic they are able and furnish a vessel to chase down the stolen Foolish Pride.
An Unexpected Visitor
The famed bard Durriken Cervini – a double-agent, loyal to the Cabal of Storms, who operates within Onuyaka’s shadowy legions – quickly locates and speaks with PCs who hide anywhere within his home-city of Korvosa. The bard alerts them to the terrible danger posed by the god-forged Shard, explains Onuyaka’s terrible plan, and tasks the PCs to obtain the Duke’s second set of charts.
Jailbreak
PCs who have been lawfully apprehended by the city guard are met at the gates of the Korvosa Military Prison by the Dwarven advocate Lord Magistrate Chemyakin Terzya – he immediately requests that the PCs, as wanted war-criminals in Zavaten Gura, Land of the Stained Peaks, be prepped for transfer and extradition.
After they are placed in a temporary holding cell, Terzya quietly informs the PCs that he serves the Cabal of Storms – and provides them with daring plan for a midnight escape and a rendezvous with Durriken Cervini, for there is no time to waste!
Breaking and Entering
The bard Durriken Cervini possesses a rough map of Duke Harrigan Ambys’s estate: the PCs must obtain the Duke’s second copy of the charts and notes that lead to the Isle of Shattered Godhood, locked away in a secret vault within his study – and there, face off against the murderous mage Kettrick Vale and his terrible machine.
Rendezvous with the Storm’s Spite
A swift ship captained by the half-silver-dragon corsair Japheth Crosswind, The Storm’s Spite is well known in the waters near the city-state of Korvosa as a deadly privateer vessel. Allied with the scholars of the Cabal of Storms, Captain Crosswind and his rag-tag crew will follow the Duke’s charts and notes to the Isle, but they cannot smuggle the PCs out of Korvosa’s harbor.
The heroes will have to escape town and survive an assault by the Jade Monkey and her team of rogues to meet up with the Storm’s Spite in an abandoned smuggler’s cove, now home to a lamia and her scrag minions, two days east of town.
Attack of The Devil’s Silent Howl
Once the PCs board the Storm’s Spite, their troubles are far from over – Onuyaka has readied an attack on any pursuers by the dreaded Devil’s Silent Howl, a pirate vessel captained by the half-fiend werewolf Rysha Spurr and crewed by his hideous werewolf pack.
Unraveling the Riddle of Shattered Godhood
Many clues about the nature of the treasure Onuyaka seeks are buried in the twisting, fatal poem that flowed from the mystic Alasdair Travaile in his final moments – once the PCs have downtime to examine all of the notes belonging to Duke Ambyrs, erudite characters may be able to piece together a number of clues as to the nature of what lies ahead.
Racing the Foolish Pride
Though undoubtedly the swifter, the Storm’s Spite is no match for the much larger vessel in open battle. In addition, the PCs will have a great deal of difficulty outpacing the mighty Foolish Pride, especially considering their delay – a series of dangerous gambits, including taking the Storm’s Spite near sahuagin-infested waters, pushing through a vampire-filled ship’s graveyard and braving a massive tempest may be the heroes’ only hope for reaching the Isle in time.
Horrors in the Night
Onuyaka has spared no expense to protect this, a masterstroke of manipulation that could see him ascend to godhood – when Onuyaka’s three sons discover that they are followed, they attack the Storm’s Spite en masse with spells, monsters and steel.
Keyed to his brothers via message spells and an interlinked series of unique lesser bracelets of friends, the chill necromancer Onu-Ichi braves the open night air with his murder of loyal Ice Mephits to lay siege on the Storm’s Spite from above.
The shadowy assassin Onu-Nikkyo, meanwhile, slips aboard the Storm’s Spite in the form of invisible mist, where he murders a crewman and takes his place – if his treachery is not discovered, the Ogre Mage rogue secures dangerous vials of alchemist’s fire in vital places around the ship.
The wild pyrokineticist Onu-Koshiro remains behind to keep the Foolish Pride secure – biding his time to slay foes in his father’s name until the Isle of Shattered Godhood is reached.
Battle as the Storm’s Spite Burns
With luck, skill and tenacity, the PCs can close the gap between the Storm’s Spite and the Foolish Pride – but no matter how swiftly the PCs move, the Sons of Onuyaka arrive at the Isle of Shattered Godhood ahead of them, where the fiery Onu-Koshiro springs a deadly trap!
Onu-Koshiro watches, invisibly, from just over the water at the edge of the beach for his brother to assassinate Captain Crosswind and light a signal fire among the sails of the Storm’s Spite. He dimension doors Onu-Nikkyo to his side with the power of his lesser bracelet of friends and then flies towards the Storm’s Spite, still invisible – and bearing with him the deadly medusa monk called Obsidian Mask, whom he drops upon the deck to deal with the crew while laying lethal bolts of flame unto the burning ship.
Cut Off from the World
The unique arcane conditions of the Isle of Shattered Godhood lock the island away from all magical communication, perception or travel beyond its borders. The Isle itself possesses its own weird bubble-parallels of the Astral, Ethereal and Shadow Planes – but they cease at the ocean’s edge.
In addition, sections of the haunted Isle still roil and heave with the vast mystic energies unleashed in a war between an arch-wizard and a titan-demigod: spells and effects such as divination, flight, teleportation, or summoning can prove fatal in such areas.
Into the Wilds
Crossing the mist-choked mountains, the thick, stinking jungles and the over-grown ruins of the massive Isle of Shattered Godhood will bring the PCs into conflict with all manner of strange foes: the brigands of the Foolish Pride, predatory beasts of ancient origin, hives of alien Dromite hunters who occupy the low-lands, tribes of deadly grimlocks that lurk in the mountains, and above all the nightmarish Echoes of the Tyrant-Fall.
Holocaust Phantoms are unhallowed, flame-wreathed ghosts of those fanatics who sacrificed their own lives in an great ritual of fire and blood to imbue the Dark Titan with the power of Asmodeus himself - their Lord extinguished, these self-executed faithful were bound forever to hateful undeath when Kothari-Khasis failed in his bid for Deific Ascendance.
Shattered Devils are the shambling, barely-sentient remains of Lawful-Evil outsiders in service to Kothari-Khasis and his clergy – their souls were lacerated and consumed in flayed shreds as the Dark Titan was bound into his frozen grave, but their rotting forms still seek to obey the clouded will of the Lord of Tyrants.
Font of Lost Souls
The epic dimensional barrier that contains the Isle of Shattered Godhood is absolute – the spirits of those who die here cannot escape across the Astral to their appointed afterlives. Those who die in service to Asmodeus are doomed to wander forever as undead, and strange, totemic “gods” devour the souls of perished Dromites.
PCs who are slain on the Isle will wake, incorporeal, in a strange underground lake fed by a warm spring – there, they will discover the forgetful, slowly unraveling souls of Xomauji, Alasdair Travaile, and other beings. Resurrection magic is tricky business here, but death may not be the end for crafty PCs.
Gallery of Twisting Shadows
From a crumbling temple dedicated to the Chosen of Asmodeus, the burning spirit of Priest Azul commands armies of Holocaust Phantoms, corpses, Shattered Devils and zealot grimlocks to journey up the dark, red-misted slopes of the Mountain of Hubris to destroy the great Storm-Stone Eidolons who watch over the frozen Pit of the Tyrant-Fall – and always, his legions are beaten back.
Alerted to the presence of foreigners by his eyeless servants, Priest Azul and his Holocaust Phantom acolytes will seek to capture and possess the PCs; to use their strong bodies and mighty magical items to scale the great peak and finally wrest the Shard of Hell’s Heart back from the icy tomb that binds their Lord.
The Blind Swordsman
The champion of Priest Azul is Czhyrn, grimlock Paladin of Tyranny – after the charred ghost of his master is defeated, this fanatical warrior faces off against the PCs in the basin of a decaying waterfall shrine as his tribe crowds close around.
Should they defeat him, the PCs become the new kings of the grimlocks – and will be treated as emissaries of the gods.
Against the Necromancer
The foul Onu-Ichi, allied with his remaining Ice Mephits, has reanimated the bodies of the Foolish Pride’s slain crew – in the heat of the jungles, this cold master of the dead ambushes the PCs with spells and multitudes of zombies in a desperate attempt to slow their progress.
The God with Ten-Thousand Legs
The most powerful Dromite hive of the Isle of Shattered Godhood worships an Advanced Hit-Dice, Phrenic Colossal Monstrous Centipede called Chylo-Phodu, the Song of Disharmony; once a group of dangerous foreigners repel a hunting party of Dromites, the great and twisting beast is set loose upon the verdant Isle to hunt them.
As the Waters Roar
The many-legged god of the Dromites now slain, the PCs must cross a vast chasm over swift rapids upon a shaking rope bride while assaulted by waves of Phrenic Large Monstrous Centipedes, Dromite warriors, and their terrible Mind-Shaman leaders astride horrid Yrthak mounts.
Keeper of the Storm’s Secrets
In the center of a half-sunken, trap-filled temple occupied by a cult of sorcerous will-o’-wisps, the Storm-Scholar Xomauji placed a lone Marut to guard over the secrets of Kothari-Khasis – especially the Dark Titan’s bid for Godhood. By answering the great construct’s riddles, or laying it low with steel and spell, the PCs can discover a secret way to scale the forbidding Mountain of Hubris, bypass the ring of epic Storm-Stone Eidolons, and access the chill Pit of the Tyrant-Fall: the Crimson-Shrouded Labyrinth.
The Crimson-Shrouded Path
Hidden from the Holocaust Phantoms of the Tyrant-Fall, this winding extra-dimensional maze leads through a thick sea of fog, tinged red with the blood of the Dark Titan himself. This decaying, phantasmal dungeon was created as a temporary “backdoor” by the raw arcane power of Xomauji, and it shudders with dangerous eddies of magical power that are home to deadly illusions, traps, a tribe of horrid Xill – and the revenge of the deadly assassin Onu-Nikkyo!
The All-Seeing Eye is Betrayed
In the final hours of their mission, any remaining members of the Three Sons of Onuyaka and their team are slain by their arcane scholar, the unique fire-giant lich called Tsuko-Kani – their heads are stamped on pikes at the end of the Crimson-Shrouded Path as a warning to any who follow, as the devotee of Asmodeus journeys into the Pit of the Tyrant-Fall to claim the Shard of Hell’s Heart for himself.
A Mountain-Top Temple
It was here, in a vast shrine built by a Titan to honor a God, that Kothari-Khasis ended a thousand and one lives while the moon hid her face; this ruined place where the Chosen of Asmodeus battled the Storm-Scholar spell against spell, and was cast into an eternal, icy sleep. Here, amongst broken pillars that once scraped the heavens, dwell the most wretched of the Echoes of the Tyrant-Fall: insane Holocaust Phantoms and Shattered Devils who suffer in the very shadow of their Lord’s defeat, thirsty to slay the living.
A Desecrated Grave
The raw power of the spell that binds Kothari-Khasis consumed Xomauji’s life; he bartered his own existence for the sake of the world. Laid to rest by his sorrowful apprentices in a makeshift cairn as they fled the Isle, the Storm-Scholar has been disinterred – his desiccated body cast casually to the side, and his spell-book taken.
Battle in the Pit
The mountain heaves and the skies boil as the great undead mage Tsuko-Kani rages to uncover his legendary prize; unweaving the Storm-Scholar’s centuries-old spell of binding and sheering away sheets of the blood-thick ice that encases the colossal form of the Dark Titan.
Suffused with the power of the burning, symbiotic crystal, the undead sorcerer-giant will be able to bend the world to his whim – a battle of epic proportions ensues as the heroes seek to destroy the Hellfire Lich and his summoned devils before his spells are complete and Asmodeus walks the world.
Look, I don't want to sound like a big jerk or nothing - the Superstar Judges work harder than anyone I know - but I'm probably not the only guy who feels that the only thing that keeps me sane (or "sane", maybe) for the twenty-four LONG hours between Fan Voting Ends and Winners Announced, other than trying to watch a whole season of 24, is throwing out ideas on how the NEXT round should be formatted.
So: are us Paizo voters desperately needed to help slice open some Gordian Knot of technicality for this next Round's rules?
History: At the haunted heart of the fallen Ordained Cathedral lies the Impartial Tribunal, where the Impartial Lord Adjudicator and his Three Peerless Justices once held supreme jurisdiction over the affairs of arch-wizards, dragons, various outsiders and more than a dozen nations of men, elves, dwarves and orcs. After an evil, chaotic miracle of great power (see “Campaign Notes: The Impartial Lord Adjudicator’s Curse”, below) robbed the Impartial Lord Adjudicator of his senses, the mighty kolyarut brutally scoured the chamber clean of life – and here he remains, quietly awaiting visitors to be judged . . . and executed.
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Read-Aloud Text: This chamber was conceived and built, by divine decree and zealot hands, solely to reinforce in the Accused a dread sense of their own insignificance before the awesome, crushing weight of Judgment - of that, there can be no doubt. Above the cracked, iron-shod doorway is bolted a steel placard emblazoned with a single phrase: “Obedience through Knowledge, Knowledge through Obedience.” In ages long past, this was a Paramount of Law Absolute – now, it is a tattered and ruined place of madness, loss, and the unburied dead.
Dried leaves and brittle, shattered bones crunch underfoot as the ancient doors swing wide. Towering to the vaulted ceiling, a massive pillar of finely wrought glass suffused with shimmering echoes of blue lightning commands your view – it faintly illuminates a dark-hued room of grand scope, celestial design, and artful symmetry. The way before you slopes gently up to the stone foot of the pillar, creating a dangerous chokepoint – while walls of polished mahogany, badly scarred with cuts and claw-marks, sweep toward the dark heavens on either side.
Layout: Because the players may already possess a fairly accurate map of the ancient chamber via contact with various NPC sages and lore-masters, research & use of Knowledge: History or spells such as legend lore, very little of the room’s layout may be mysterious to them. What lurks in the darkness of the Tribunal, however, is not immediately apparent.
The large, glowing glass pillar in the southern half of the chamber is purposefully placed at the top of the ramp to ruin line-of-sight to the throne or central witness stand, break charges & prevent easy raid-access to the room – the only way to obtain a better overview of the room is to move further in. As the players begin to explore, either moving up the ten-foot wide, twenty-five foot long hallway at the far south end of the chamber to obtain a better angle of observation or by using flight, divinations or other means to otherwise scout the room, read the following:
Investigating the ruins of the Tribunal, it becomes clear that the tome you seek must lie in the dimly lit libraries that frame the great throne at the far north end of the room – from which a shadowed, iron-plated figure silently watches you with impassive, glowing eyes.
Within the History Bookshelves on the far northwestern side of the chamber is tucked the only known copy of Xomauji’s Accounts of the Grey Spirit Void, a work of priceless antiquity – and the key to the party’s quest. Locating that particular work among the hundreds of other volumes here will require a mere DC: 20 Search check in the right part of the library, but the area is trapped, the bookshelf itself is poorly lit, and more than half of the library’s vast surface area is in exceptionally tight quarters. Using full-round actions to locate the book during a fight is a potentially suicidal endeavor.
Much of the southern half of the chamber is difficult terrain, crowded with the broken bodies of those who were slaughtered en masse on the fateful day of the Impartial Lord Adjudicator’s cursing. In addition, this vast circular chamber is lit poorly for combat purposes – the light sources in the room are:
The three glass pillars (hardness 1, 120 hp) that support the dome roof section in the center of the room,
A mirrored pair of fifty-foot-tall, ten foot wide floor-to-ceiling false windows (hardness 1, 6 hp) at the extreme east and west points of the room,
Two three-foot diameter glass globes (hardness 1, 36 hp), located east and west at the tops of the stairs to the Viewer’s Area in the southern half of the room,
Two three-foot diameter glass globes (hardness 1, 36 hp), located east and west next to the bookshelves in the northern half of the room, and
A twenty-foot tall glass statue of the God of Justice (hardness 1, 84 hp), located at the extreme north end of the room, which backlights the Impartial Lord Adjudicator’s Throne.
All of these light sources are cunningly crafted of smooth, magically treated glass imbued with the power of lightning, and all shed a cold, bluish electrical light much like a torch (20 ft. illumination). This leaves large sections of the room in shadows, especially the Viewer’s Area in the southern half of the room and the library in the northern half of the room, where acolytes and monks burned candles during observation or study. The domed ceiling in the center of the room does not shed any light itself, but reflects a great deal of light from the three glowing pillars that support it – treat the witness stand in the exact center of the room as being brightly lit, as per a daylight spell.
If destroyed by violence, any light source bursts in a spray of hot glass powder, an unleashed bolt of lightning and a scream of divine energy; treat this as a 13d6 flame strike, centered on the point of destruction, that does electricity damage instead of fire damage.
Traps:
A trio of wail of the banshee traps (CR 10 apiece) are located in the northern half of the room, thirty feet south of the far northern wall. The alarm spells that trigger the wails run in a line of continuous effects and are centered, respectively, on the southern-most tip of the History Bookshelf in the northwest, the southern-most tip of the Arcana Bookshelf in the northeast, and at the foot of the Throne. These traps were designed both to prevent theft of the precious tomes and to protect the Impartial Lord Adjudicator from would-be assassins – the password to circumvent the alarm is “Obedience”. Neither the Impartial Lord Adjudicator nor the Three Peerless Justices are capable of springing any of the traps.
Creatures:
Slain by powerful necromancy and sworn to protect the Impartial Lord Adjudicator until released of their oaths, the undead remnants of the Three Peerless Justices lurk here as Dread Wraiths, hidden beneath the floor, inside the walls, and within the stone feet of the pillars inside the chamber. Although the Justices immediately become aware of the PCs upon their entrance due to the Dread Wraith’s 60 ft. lifesense ability, the Three Peerless Justices wait to attack until the Impartial Lord Adjudicator is struck or speaks the word “oath-breaker.”
Upon the Throne at the far north end of the chamber sits the Impartial Lord Adjudicator, silently awaiting those who seek his judgment. The Impartial Lord Adjudicator is a tragic figure, a broken puppet trapped in a repeating pattern of misjudgment and summary execution. He is certain that the world has gone mad – that every object, every spirit and every living being has become corrupted, body and soul, by Foulest Chaos.
He begins all encounters with the starting attitude of ‘indifferent,’ but rapidly becomes angry and hostile, convinced that visitors are madmen, liars, thieves and oath-breakers. A single Sense Motive check, DC 20, will reveal that the eerily silent Impartial Lord Adjudicator grows more and more hostile with each breath the PCs speak and with each step forward that the PCs take. A result of 35 or more reveals that the Impartial Lord Adjudicator is trying to talk to them, and believes that the PCs are ignoring him.
After three full rounds of failed parlay, the Impartial Lord Adjudicator denounces the PCs as “oath-breakers”, a word which echoes with power throughout the chamber, and moves to execute them. Upon that pronouncement, the Three Peerless Justices attack as well.
Dread Wraiths (3)
CR: 14 (11 apiece)
hp 104
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Tactics
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During Combat: The Three Peerless Justices use the terrain, their speed and their ten-foot reach to great advantage, fading into walls, floors and ceilings and striking via Spring Attack. They are clever opponents, and will focus the majority of their attacks on arcane spell-casters, rogues, and other opponents with traditionally low Fortitude saves and similarly vulnerable Constitution scores.
Morale: Sworn in life to unswervingly serve the Impartial Lord Adjudicator in all things and killed without release from that bond, the Three Peerless Justices will never retreat from combat. They cannot leave the Tribunal Chamber under any circumstances, although the wraiths that they spawn do.
The Impartial Lord Adjudicator
CR: 12
hp 91
Note: The Impartial Lord Adjudicator has all of the statistics and qualities of a standard kolyarut, except that the feat Quickened Spell-Like Ability (suggestion), which The Impartial Lord Adjudicator can no longer use, has been replaced with the feat Quickened Spell-Like Ability (invisibility).
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Tactics
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During Combat: The Impartial Lord Adjudicator begins most fights with a an enervation ray, usually fired at spell-casters, a quickened invisibility, and a move to the most advantageous ground available, presumably within range of the Wail of the Banshee traps, to which he is immune. He repeats this pattern as best he is able until dropped to half hit points or attacked in melee – the Impartial Lord Adjudicator is a well aware that his vampiric touch ability is simultaneously his most dangerous melee weapon and his best defense, using that ability almost exclusively.
Morale: Unable to leave the Tribunal Chamber for any reason, the Impartial Lord Adjudicator will fight to the death to defend his ordained court against interlopers infected with Supernatural Chaos.
Treasure: Although neither the Impartial Lord Adjudicator nor the Three Peerless Justices carry or possess any form of treasure, the value of the hundreds of tomes contained in the bookshelves should be calculated as treasure with value equal to that of a standard CR 16 Encounter, assuming that the PCs can find buyers.
In addition, finding the copy of Xomauji’s Accounts of the Grey Spirit Void should unlock many mysteries and allow the PCs to head into the final stage of the adventure.
XP Awards: Because this is a potentially exceptionally lethal encounter, the PCs should receive experience awards for defeating and overcoming the three wail of the banshee traps, the Three Peerless Justices and the Impartial Lord Adjudicator even if the PCs engage the encounter as a capture-the-flag smash-and-grab and do not defeat all of the creatures or spring all of the traps. Parties that successfully remove the Impartial Lord Adjudicator’s curse should receive an additional +20% reward on XP.
Campaign Notes: Scaling the Encounter
Spoiler:
Adding a massive dimensional lock or forbiddance effect to the throne and library section in the northern half of the room adds to the difficulty to this encounter considerably, forcing the players to deal with a number of deadly foes head-on.
For parties of 13th-14th level characters, consider replacing the three Dread Wraiths with five standard wraiths (the “Five Peerless Justices,” as it were) and removing the wail of the banshee trap in front of the throne.
For parties of 18th-19th level characters, consider adding a pair of massive glass constructs, treated as Greater Stone Golems, located south of the two secondary witness stands guarding the stairs to the viewing areas – they attack at the “oath-breaker” command of the Impartial Lord Adjudicator, fighting until destroyed.
Campaign Notes: The Impartial Lord Adjudicator’s Curse
Spoiler:
Of interest to the players may be the specifics of the Impartial Lord Adjudicator’s unique affliction – and its potential removal, which would require nothing short of a powerful and carefully-worded wish or miracle. The complex mind-clouding curse that afflicts the Impartial Lord Adjudicator is three-fold and one:
May the Impartial Lord Adjudicator hear only and always the vilest of Falsehoods, even when only the noblest of Truths are spoken.
All statements made in the presence of the Impartial Lord Adjudicator register as deliberate, premeditated, damning lies for the purposes of his Spell-like Ability Discern Lies
May the Impartial Lord Adjudicator speak not a single word but Oath-Breaker, though his mind tell him that he judges long and wisely.
Although he believes that he speaks, the Impartial Lord Adjudicator produces no sound except for the word “oath-breaker”, spoken before he kills. He becomes confused when other beings ignore and interrupt him.
May the Impartial Lord Adjudicator recoil at the bite of every blade, the crack of every stone, and at the touch of every being as if that weapon, man or beast were wrought of the raw madness of Chaos incarnate.
Although it neither overcomes his damage reduction nor deals additional damage, the Impartial Lord Adjudicator reacts, psychologically, to contact from any weapon, natural or manufactured, as if it were Chaotic-aligned and Construct-Bane. He suffers a sort of scalding spiritual burn at any touch; this is proof positive to him that all of his assailants are beings of supernatural Chaos.
Above all, let the cause of his suffering remain ever hidden – let none of these three Curses become known to The Impartial Lord Adjudicator, that he may drift forever in a sea of doubt, confusion and horror.
Although he possesses a very high Wisdom score, the Impartial Lord Adjudicator cannot (and MAY not) deduce the cause of his ills. Instead, he regards all other beings as infected by the power of supernatural Chaos, fit only for destruction.
If the curse is removed, the Impartial Lord Adjudicator immediately comprehends what has occurred. He releases the Three Peerless Justices of their sworn duties; they instantly vanish, moving on to an honorable afterlife. He allows the PCs to leave with Xomauji’s Account, on the condition that they return it in one year, unharmed. He then returns to his eternal duties of wise judgment – tasking the PCs who rescued him to spread word of his renewed authority and to uncover the villain who cursed him, so that justice might be done. Discovering the source of this horrid affliction can serve as the jumping-off point for an entire series of high-level adventures.
At dawn, our hunters beheld on the southern horizon an unclean darkness – a roiling haze that blew towards us, against the wind, thick and shifting like rust-colored smoke.
Before mid-day, the bloody coils had resolved into a thousand-thousand carrion birds, swarming and screaming in widening clouds above three huge and shambling forms, black mountains hunching slowly towards our village.
High-sun passed, and the three colossi were now visible in all their monstrosity; festering mockeries of great and terrible beasts, walking slowly towards us on shattered legs, driven onward by the black magic of Unlife.
As the sky darkened, the mad, blood-red birds descended upon us; clawing at exposed flesh with hooked, venom-thick talons, their poisons stealing from us strength, sanity, and sight.
When night finally took us, the Ghosts-with-Many-Teeth boiled forth from the bellies of their rotting titans, mere shadows; their drooling servant-beasts, once men and dogs, stalked us with hollow eyes.
In unseen and chattering waves, the Kakuen-Taka hunted.
There was a feast; and our village was no more.
- from the Lost-Spirit Recollections
Legends speak of weird and hungry ghosts that slumber fitfully within walking mansions of pitted bone and rotting flesh, smearing a winding path of desolation and horror in their wake.
As these spirits writhe in their sleep, their vast corpse-castles shuffle along the edges of the world, infectious Feast-Guardians in tow, searching out lonely villages and temples with their ten-thousand glittering eyes – the strange and horrid swarms of crows that fill the skies above them.
And when living meat is found, the Ghosts with Many Teeth slide free of their necrotic homes to feast anew.
Thematic Link:
The Hunger that Moves is a nomadic, alien, symbiotic ecology of interlinked species that aid one another in predation, reproduction and survival.
Bhoga-Kantaka, Ghost with Many Teeth CR 5
Usually NE Tiny Outsider (Native)
Init +8; Senses Darkvision 60 ft.; Listen +18, Spot +1
Defense AC 24, touch 16, flat-footed 20
(+4 Dex, +8 natural, +2 size)
(natural armor bonus is reduced to +4 if the bhoga-kantaka's pseudo-feathers are removed) hp 33 (6d8+6)
Fort +6, Ref +9, Will +6
Defensive Abilities Evasion;
DR 5/magic (this benefit is lost of the bhoga-kantaka's pseudo-feathers are removed);
Immune Poison;
Resist acid 10, cold 10, electricity 10, fire 10 (these resistances are lost if the bhoga-kantaka's pseudo-feathers are removed);
SR 15 (this bonus is lost if the bhoga-kantaka's pseudo-feathers are removed)
Offense Spd 30 ft., climb 30 ft.
Melee bite +10 (1d6+1)
Ranged mwk trident +11 (1d4+1), 10 ft. range increment
Space 2-1/2 ft.; Reach 0 ft.
Special Attacks Sneak Attack +2d6
Tactics Before Combat Bhoga-kantaka prefer to ambush their prey, singling out soft foes, lone targets and those blinded by the poisons of the Meki-Kantaka.
During Combat Bhoga-kantaka use their telepathy to coordinate complex maneuvers to allow for flanking, spell use by their sorcerers and clerics and rapid retreat, if necessary.
Morale Because they are pack hunters, bhoga-kantaka will usually attempt to flee if outnumbered.
Statistics Str 13, Dex 18, Con 13, Int 14, Wis 13, Cha 16
Base Atk +6; Grp -6
Feats Improved Initiative, Improved Natural Attack (bite), Weapon Finesse
Skills
Bluff +12, Climb +21, Disable Device +11, Escape Artist +13, Hide +29, Listen +18, Move Silently +18, Open Lock +13, Search +19, Sleight of Hand +13, Survival +1 (+3 following tracks), Use Rope +4 (+6 with bindings); Bhoga-Kantaka have a +8 racial bonus on Climb, Balance, Hide, Listen, Move Silently, and Search checks - these bonuses are lost if the bhoga-kantaka's pseudo-feathers are removed . Bhoga-kantaka can always choose to take 10 on Climb checks, even if rushed or threatened. They use their Strength modifier instead of their Strength modifier for Climb checks.
Languages none; 100 ft. telepathynote: the specific, unique form of bhoga-kantaka telepathy allows it to communicate with meki-kantaka, patal-kantaka and other bhoga-kantaka even though none of the three species have any form of written, spoken or otherwise understood "language". SQ Evasion, Sneak Attack, Walk With the Dead
Combat Gear 3 mwk tiny tridents, ; Other Gear 1d3 gems
Special Abilities
Evasion (Ex)
Bhoga-kantaka can avoid even magical and unusual attacks with great agility. A bhoga-kantaka that makes a successful Reflex saving throw against an attack that normally deals half damage on a successful save instead takes no damage. Evasion can be used only if the bhoga-kantaka is wearing light armor or no armor. If helpless, they do not gain the benefit of evasion.
This ability is lost if the bhoga-kantaka's pseudo-feathers are removed.
Sneak Attack (Ex)
Bhoga-kantaka can make a sneak attacks like a rogue, dealing an extra 2d6 points of damage whenever a foe is denied his or her Dexterity bonus, or when the bhoga-kantaka is flanking.
Spell Resistance
Bhoga-kantaka possess a spell resistance equal to 9+ their HD.
This ability is lost if the bhoga-kantaka's pseudo-feathers are removed.
Walk With the Dead (Su)
A tribe of bhoga-kantaka can use an ability similar to animate dead to create vast shambling corpses that serve the bhoga-kantaka as walking mansions of rotting flesh. Use of this ability requires a number of bhoga-kantaka equal to the new Hit Dice of the creature to be animated as a zombie, to a max of 32 HD. This ability supersedes the normal 20 HD limit of the spell animate dead, and is most often used on creatures of Huge size or larger.
Using walk with the dead is an intense ritual of dance, howling and violence that requires ten minutes of trance-like activity per new HD of the creature to be animated, and all bhoga-kantaka involved are considered helpless while within the trance.
A zombie of Medium size can hold and house one bhoga-kantaka, a Large-size zombie can carry up to eight, a Huge zombie can contain 32, rare Gargantuan zombies can hold up to 128 bhoga-kantaka, and a zombie of Colossal size could theoretically contain a full 512.
Zombies animated by walk with the dead, often including megaraptors, elephants and Huge specimens of other exotic beings, are controlled via telepathic command by the highest-level member of the group of bhoga-kantaka that created it. A group of bhoga-kantaka can only have one zombie so animated at any one time, and may create a new mansion only when their previous home has been destroyed or abandoned. Freshly hatched bhoga-kantaka band together to kill large creatures and animate mansions of their own.
Bhoga-kantaka without pseudo-feathers cannot participate in a walk with the dead ritual.
Ecology Environment Any
Organization Individual, Clutch (4-7), Pack (8-16) or Mansion (17-32)
Treasure Standard (represented by Gear, above)
Alignment Usually Neutral Evil
Advancement by class; Favored ClassWilderness Rogue. Levels in Battle Sorcerer are nearly as common and are treated as non-associated class levels, as are levels in Cleric. Mansions are led by Wind-Devourers, clerics of the Chichimec with access to the Domains of Madness, Travel, Trickery and Weather.
Bhoga-kantaka with class levels may wear up to light armor without losing the benefits of their pseudo-feathers.
Bhoga-kantaka possess a spell resistance equal to 9+ their HD. This ability is lost if the bhoga-kantaka's pseudo-feathers are removed.
Bhoga-Kantaka, Ghost with Many Teeth Your eyes seem to water and glide from it, but you can perceive crouching before you a shifting and shadowy thing, a kind of hunched, unsymmetrical beast no bigger than a monkey; all chattering fangs and shimmering, scaled feathers and slithering whispers of unknown horrors.
It clutches a wickedly barbed spear in a many-fingered hand; cunning, thirsty intelligence glitters out its many red eyes . . . and suddenly more forms, identical, slink out of the darkness.
You’ve been surrounded.
Freakishly difficult to spot while hunting due to their extremely small size and the bizarre “cloaking” ability of their translucent, scale-like pseudo-feathers, the bhoga-kantaka are dangerously and surprisingly intelligent, making use of tools, servants, pack tactics and terrain-based advantages that laughingly frustrate those who would defend against their relentless assaults.
Without their thick, camouflaging coat of light-warping pseudo-feathers, the Bhoga-Kantaka most closely resembles nothing so much as a heavily fanged, miniature Ethereal Marauder with many eyes, four multi-jointed limbs and a prehensile tail; such bizarre anatomy has prompted the few scholars who have studied dead specimens to tentatively suggest some faint biological connection between the two beasts.
The shimmering pseudo-feathers themselves are thinly-woven layers of a semi-translucent, magical keratin alloy unique to the “Ghosts-With-Many-Teeth”; they provide the bhoga-kantaka with a host of advantages including exceptional balance, light-bending camouflage, and sensory input in a manner similar to those benefits provided to a cat by its whiskers. In addition, the pseudo-feathers mystically provide armor, resist extremes of heat and cold and deflect hostile spell energies in ways that baffle sages.
Ecology:
The ghosts-with-many-teeth are vile, carnivorous products of some alien evolution in a place far removed from the world of men, deadly predators at the apex of any food chain. Their wandering corpse-castles travel the length and breadth of many worlds, crossing tundra, forest, jungle, mountain and desert with slow, diabolical purpose. Using ice floes, land bridges and magical portals to cross into new territories, they are guided by the ever-hungry Meki-Kantaka and the divine sky-insight of their mad Wind-Devourer priests, worshippers of the legendary Chichimec, who facilitate communication between the wandering mansions via wide-cast webs of sending spells.
The ghosts-with-many-teeth dwell inside the reanimated bodies of great and fearsome beings slain by thousands of tiny bites and blades – it seems to be a point of pride for their strange tribes to obtain the largest and most horrid forms of zombies for their “walking mansions”, decorated with sweeping whorls of paint and blood. A corpse of Huge size can house and carry a full thirty-two bhoga-kantaka with little difficulty, but the slain bodies of Gargantuan or larger creatures are nearly always beyond the abilities of the ghosts-with-many-teeth to animate. Thus, large tribes often create secondary or even tertiary mansions that travel together in a group, separating to wander in different directions during leaner times.
Society:
Life among the bhoga-kantaka is not well understood, but some elements are clear to scholars: punishments for transgressions within the community, from stealing of food to homicide, are universally applied via a violent gang ritual of forced pseudo-feather removal and expulsion from the tribe.
Those ghosts exiled from the mansions must wander alone, without the benefit of their cloaking pseudo-feathers, their mansion or their tribe, until such time as the ethereal feathers have regrown, a process that can take weeks. Strangely, bhoga-kantaka that survive long enough to reacquire their coats and hunt down their mansions are often placed in positions of high power and authority within the tribe – rewarded for viciousness, cunning and instinct beyond the abilities of their kin.
The bhoga-kantaka spend most of their time fitfully hibernating, gripped fast to the slowly putrefying interiors of their great walking mansions, awaking in shifts of four to seven to scout newly discovered areas, tend their webbed clutches of eggs, craft their masterwork throwing-spears (treated as tiny tridents), consume stores of food (including the Patal-Kantaka, during times of extended famine) and make odd, violent struggles against one another.
Small hunting parties of the ghosts-with-many-teeth, composed mostly of fresh hatchlings, will occasionally leave the mansion for weeks at a time to pursue strange errands understood only by them. Such parties range wide and far, tracking down their mansion when heavily supplied with food, treasure and knowledge of the outside world or forming wholly new mansions. During these expeditions, a clutch of four to sixteen bhoga-kantaka, often led by a priest or sorcerer, will usually travel with two or more swarms of meki-kantaka and possibly a swift-moving patal-kantaka to provide watch.
The ghosts-with-many-teeth wake and move en masse only when their mansions are directly assaulted or when called to the Breeding Feast by the cries of the Meki-Kantaka; swarming in predatory packs upon whatever settlement or feast-place has been discovered.
Combat:
The ghosts-with-many-teeth are feared primarily for their near-invisibility and silence; traits of which they take great advantage in combat. They strike in packs that coordinate their approaches with lethal efficiency, usually led by high-level Wilderness Rogues, Battle Sorcerers and the Wind-Devourers, weird clerics of the Chichimec with access to the Domains of Madness, Travel, Trickery and Weather.
Defense AC 20, touch 20, flat-footed 14
(+6 Dex, +4 size)
hp 58 (9d10+9)
Fort +7, Ref +12, Will +5
Defensive Abilities DR 10/magic; Immune Weapon Damage; Resist cold 10, fire 10
Offense Spd 5 ft., fly 50 ft. (good)
Melee Swarm (2d6 plus poison)
Space 10 ft./10 ft., shapable; Reach 0 ft.
Special Attacks Distraction, Poison
Tactics Before Combat The meki-kantaka are clever, and will attempt to observe the movements of their prey before they swarm, picking out the sickliest and least armored for the brunt of their attacks.
During Combat The meki-kantaka often use hit-and-run tactics, clawing at their prey and then briefly retreating to a safe distance until the blindness effect of their poison has time to take effect.
Morale If reduced to 9 hp or less, a swarm of meki-kantaka will collapse into a mindless flurry of panicked individual carrion birds. Other than that, the swarms will usually fight with extreme aggression, guided by the telepathic commands of the bhoga-kantaka.
Statistics Str 1, Dex 22, Con 12, Int 6, Wis 14, Cha 9
Base Atk +13; Grp -
Feats Ability Focus (poison), Ability Focus (distraction), Alertness, Improved Initiative
Skills Spot +16
Languages none
SQ hive mind, Swarm traits
Special Abilities
Distraction (Ex)
Any living creature that begins its turn with a meki-kantaka swarm in its space must succeed on a DC 19 Fortitude save or be nauseated for 1 round. The save DC is Constitution-based.
Poison (Ex)
Injury, Fortitude DC 17, initial damage is 1d6 Wisdom and fatigue. Secondary damage is permanent blindness. The save DC is Constitution-based.
Hive Mind (Ex)
Any meki-kantaka swarm with at least 1 hit point per Hit Die (or 9 hit points) forms a hive mind, giving it an Intelligence of 6. When a meki-kantaka swarm is reduced below this hit point threshold, it becomes mindless and can no longer be directed via the bhoga-kantaka's telepathy.
Meki-Kantaka, Foul-Winged-Blindness A coil of blood-red wings and hooked talons dripping with thick poison, this swarm of strange carrion birds possesses an obvious and unearthly intelligence – their echoing cries seem almost calculated.
With a sudden burst of rust-colored feathers and jagged screams of lust, a savage beast from another world bursts forward on a thousand wings that beat as one.
A twisting cloud of bloody-tinged carrion birds in the distant air is often the only warning that shambling corpse-giants thick with hungry bhoga-kantaka are on the approach.
Although they bear a more than casual resemblance to normal crows or ravens, the creatures called Meki-Kantaka are the result of a parallel evolution within a wildly divergent, alien ecology; they possess multi-pupiled eyes, exaggerated claws endowed with poison sacs, and tiny, hooked fingers that aid them when they sleep and feed upon the rotting mansions of the ghosts-with-many-teeth.
Bhoga-kantaka use swarms of the Foul-Winged-Blindness to scavenge for live prey, trusting in the predatory instincts of these carrion birds to guide the near-mindless walking corpse-castles inevitably toward under-protected settlements. While the majority of the ghosts sleep, the meki-kantaka ride the winds in spirals around the slowly striding, decayed form of the mansion, hunting down a Feast-Place for their masters.
For their part, the bhoga-kantaka treat the vast flocks of foul-winged blindness that crawl upon and peck at the necromancy-infused flesh of their walking mansions with a casual deference, although Wind Devourer priests occasionally climb across the backs of their zombie households to collect armfuls of meki-kantaka for use in ritualistic, divinatory sacrifice.
Among the most powerful mansions of the bhoga-kantaka, high-level Wind Devourers have somehow succeeded in breeding highly prized half-fiendish flocks of the meki-kantaka.
Combat:
Semi-autonomous swarms of the foul-winged-blindness are used to search out and pacify places for the ghosts-with-many-teeth to hunt and feast. Sweeping into hamlets, temples and other small settlements during daylight hours, they poison and disrupt the populace, blinding or laying low as many defenders as they are able before the bhoga-kantaka and patal-kantaka emerge with the onset of darkness.
Patal-Kantaka Hell Hound, Memory of the Breeding Feast CR 6
LE Large Magical Beast (Evil, Extraplanar, Fire, Lawful)
Init +5; Senses blind, blindsight, scent; Listen +12
Defense AC 21, touch 10, flat-footed 20
(+1 Dex, +11 natural, -1 size)
hp 46 (4d10+24)
Fort +10, Ref +5, Will +5
Defensive AbilitiesImmune fire; Vulnerable cold
Offense Spd 50 ft.
Melee bite +9 (2d6+6 plus 1d6 fire) and
2 claws +7 (1d6+3)
Space 10 ft.; Reach 10 ft.
Special Attacks Breath Weapon, Fiery Bite, Improved Grab, Rend
Tactics Before Combat Patal-kantaka are not smart enough use clever tactics, but obey the commands of the bhoga-kantaka unfailingly.
During Combat A patal-kantaka is simply a powerful, disposable fast-attack shock-trooper, living shield-wall and siege engine.
Morale All patal-kantaka usually obey, even suicidally, the commands of its bhoga-kantaka masters - fighting until dead or retreating as commanded.
Statistics Str 23, Dex 13, Con 23, Int 1, Wis 12, Cha 2
Base Atk +4; Grp +14
Feats Improved Initiative, Multiattack, Track(B)
Skills Hide +9, Jump +17, Listen +12, Move Silently +13, Spot +8, Survival +8 (+16 when tracking by scent)
(Hell hounds have a +5 racial bonus on Hide and Move Silently checks and receive a +8 racial bonus on Survival checks when tracking by scent, due to their keen sense of smell. All patal-kantaka have a +4 racial bonus to Listen checks.)
Languages none, but can be commanded via the bhoga-kantaka's telepathy
SQ blind, blindsight 30 ft., fire immunity, servant to ghosts, scent, vulnerability to cold
Special Abilities
A patal-kantaka hell hound’s natural weapons are treated as evil-aligned and lawful-aligned for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction.
Breath Weapon (Su)
10-foot cone, once every 2d4 rounds, damage 2d6 fire, Reflex DC 18 half. The save DC is Constitution-based.
Fiery Bite (Su)
A patal-kantaka hell hound deals an extra 1d6 points of fire damage every time it bites an opponent, as if its bite were a flaming weapon.
Improved Grab (Ex)
To use this ability, a patal-kantaka hell hound must hit with its bite attack. It can then attempt to start a grapple as a free action without provoking an attack of opportunity.
Rend (Ex)
A patal-kantaka hell hound that wins a grapple check after a successful bite attack establishes a hold, latching onto the opponent’s body and tearing the flesh. This attack automatically deals 2d6+9 points of damage.
Servant to Ghosts (Su)
Creatures with this special quality are always considered to be under the effects of a charm monster spell cast by any bhoga-kantaka that makes contact with them using telepathy. Patal-kantaka hell hounds will even obey suicidal orders given to them by bhoga-kantaka, but the bhoga-kantaka must win an opposed Charisma check against the patal-kantaka hell hound.
Ecology Environment Any
Organization Always in service to the bhoga-kantaka; solitary or mob (2-6)
Treasure none
Alignment Always lawful evil
Advancement 5-8 HD (Large), 9-12 HD (Huge)
Creating a Patal-Kantaka
Spoiler:
"Patal-Kantaka" is an acquired template that can be added to any living, corporeal creature that is not immune to poison (referred to hereafter as the base creature).
A patal-kantaka uses all of the base creature's statistics and special abilities except as noted here.
Size and Type: The creature's type changes to Magical Beast. Its size increases by one step: the creature gains a -1 (or more) size penalty to AC and attacks, a +4 bonus to grapple checks, a similar penalty on Hide checks, a die-size increase to damage on bites, claws and other natural attacks, and an increase in Space and Reach. Do not recalculate base attack bonus or saves.
Hit Dice: Increase base creature's base HD by one die size, to a maximum of d10. Do not increase class HD.
Speed: Base speed is increased by 10 ft., other movement modes remain unchanged.
Armor Class: Natural Armor improves by +6
Attack: A patal-kantaka has a bite attack and two claw attacks, and the bite is the primary natural weapon. Its extreme deformities are such that the patal-kantaka loses any ability it once had to use manufactured weapons.
Full Attack: A patal-kantaka uses its bite and both claw attacks, its secondary natural weapons, when making a full attack. The patal-kantaka loses any ability it once had to use manufactured weapons.
Damage: Patal-kantaka have bite and claw attacks. If the base creature does not have these attack forms, use the damage values as listed in the table found here. Otherwise, use the those values or the base creature's damage values, whichever are greater. Because the base creature increases in size by one category, be certain to increase the base creature's damage values on the table accordingly before you perform the comparison.
Special Attacks: A patal-kantaka retains all of the special attacks of the base creature and gains the extraordinary special abilities of Improved Grab and Rend.
To use these abilities, a patal-kantaka must hit with its bite attack. It can then attempt to start a grapple check as a free action without provoking attacks of opportunity. A patal-kantaka that wins a grapple check after a successful bite attack establishes a hold, latching onto an opponent's body and tearing the flesh. This rend attack automatically deals damage equal to a bite attack, although it deals one and one-half times strength modifier damage.
Special Qualities: A patal-kantaka has all the special qualities of the base creature, plus scent and blindsight to a range of 30 ft. It becomes blind and loses all other modes of vision, including darkvision and low-light vision. In addition, all patal-kantaka acquire the special quality servant to ghosts, losing their ability to fight against the will of the mansions of bhoga-kantaka that spawned and command them.
Servant to Ghosts (Su): Creatures with this special quality are always considered to be under the effects of a charm monster spell as cast by any bhoga-kantaka that makes contact with them using telepathy. Patal-kantaka will even obey suicidal orders given to them by bhoga-kantaka, but the bhoga-kantaka must win an opposed Charisma check against the patal-kantaka.
Abilities: Increase (and decrease) from the base creature as follows: Str: +10, Con: +10, Int: -8 (minimum 1), Wis: +2, Cha: -4 (minimum 1). Patal-kantaka with intelligence scores below 3 lose the ability to understand or speak languages, but may be commanded via the bhoga-kantaka's telepathy.
Skills: Although a patal-kantaka's intelligence score drops precipitously upon transformation, it retains whatever skill-ranks the base creature possessed - its total skill value should merely be adjusted for its new ability scores and larger size category. A patal-kantaka who advances by Hit Dice after its transformation gains skill points as a magical beast and has skill points equal to (2 + Int modifier, minimum 1) x (HD + 3). Do not include Hit Dice from class levels in this calculation - the patal-kantaka has magical beast skill points only for its racial Hit Dice, and gains the normal amount of skill points for its class levels, as adjusted for its sharply lower intelligence.
Treat skills from the base creature’s list as class skills, and other skills as cross-class.
All patal-kantaka receive +4 racial bonus to Listen checks.
Feats: Because patal-kantaka with class levels lose their abilities to use manufactured weapons, replace upon transformation any of the base creature's weapon-related feats with more appropriate feats such as Improved Grapple, Improved Natural Attack (bite), Multiattack and Weapon Focus (bite).
Challenge Rating: Same as base creature + 3 (minimum 4)
Alignment: Always lawful evil
Patal-Kantaka, Memory of the Breeding Feast It was once a man, or something very like one – orc, maybe, or lizard-folk, or perhaps even a wolf. That much can be guessed.
But it has swollen with infection, and thick, rubbery bone and ropy coils of slithering muscle and otherworldly corruption to the hunched shape of a drooling troll, mucus-caked and hollow-eyed, and it lives to serve new masters now; to walk beside rolling castles of festering meat, to protect with potent teeth and claws the monstrous works of horrors from another world.
It is the bodyguard of black magic, a memory of hot blood spilled on cold earth for the orgy of the ghosts-with-many-teeth.
The sad remnants called Patel-Kantaka are the twisted result of the bhoga-kantaka’s horrid mating rituals – “survivors” of the hunt given new life and purpose as guards, shock-troopers, living siege engines and mobile emergency rations.
The creation of patal-kantaka is volatile, messy and infrequent. Bhoga-Kantaka have little or no comprehension of gender, and make no lines of gender-distinction within their society – they divide the necessary chores of their continued existence among the various blood-lines of their mansion in whatever way is most expedient to the ruling elites, often by whim of the insane Wind Devourers.
The exception to that ignorance comes only when a tribe engages in a particularly successful hunt, providing more than adequate food to satiate every member of the mansion and simultaneously refill their putrescent larders. Given the voracious appetites and long fasting periods of the bhoga-kantaka, this usually requires three or more Medium-size creatures per member of the tribe – one hundred humans for a mansion of thirty-two ghosts.
During such a meal, hormonal changes occur over the course of hours, and the vile Breeding Feast commences as the ghosts-with-many-teeth develop secondary sexual characteristics of ghastly design and function. Females double in size as their bodies swell with throbbing eggs waiting to be fertilized, losing nearly all ability to move; males bicker for dominance as they manifest frilled, engorged poison-sacs in their lower jaws. All bhoga-kantaka then enter a “heat,” seeking to breed with as many members of their mansion as possible.
Because males outnumber females by a ratio of about three to one, the many males without partners rapidly become violently agitated. Males waiting to breed vent their frustrations on living prey with dozens of weird, almost gentle “love bites” – often falling upon blinded, terrified humanoids and animals not yet killed and eaten.
The strange poisons of the male bhoga-kantaka enact a horrid and painful transformation on the prey; helpless creatures infused with the toxins collapse into a sort of churning chrysalis, and the hungry, warped things that emerge in the daylight are fed a meal of raw meat, their first as servants to the satiated bhoga-kantaka.
Patal-Kantaka are the lowest of the low within the ecology of the Hunger-that-Moves, guided always by the telepathic command of the Ghosts that the Memories-of-the-Breeding-Feast follow blindly behind, their short lives marked by extremes of violence, deprivation and horror.
The bhoga-kantaka cannot be said to feel much of anything for their drooling servants, though a Huge patal-kantaka - such as a servant generated from a Large size creature like an ape, horse or brown bear or one that increases in Hit Dice – is well-suited for expedient transformation into a meal & a new walking mansion after its death; bhoga-kantaka usually watch such precious creatures closely, hoping to retrieve the fallen body once the servant dies in combat.
As we come to the final 48 hours of voting, I thought there might be some people who just can't decide where to cast their last vote or two.
If this is your situation, may I humbly suggest . . . Abzirael Ul-Shadai?
Let's break it down, shall we?
Like giant flying super-demons from before the world dawned? He is one!
Like flame-lazers? Abzirael's got 'em!
Like adverbs? His nick-name is a PAIR of them!
Like those stupid "good-guys"? Well, neither does he!
Like god-kings (and who doesn't?) The Ul-Shadai is snagging that title back!
Like psionics? Well . . . his powers are easily adaptable to a non-psi game!
And lest we forget, A BIG CRAZY POEM! It smells like . . . backstory!
I hope everyone else is having as much fun with this as I am. Hope to see you in the next round.
To my fellow Superstars: Feel free to add your own last minute voter appeals here. We're all in this together!
In the World before the World that is,
Yha-El-Hial, Gleaming King of Wind & Sun,
contested mightily against
Surtu-Bal-Rashad, Horrid King of Flame & Sorrow.
On the eve of Great Battle, Yha-El-Hial sent his most cunning vizier,
his silver-tongued mage Aishrak-Fazil Qurim, called ‘the Unlit Sky’,
to make counsel with the strange, coiling enemy of his enemy,
the whispered blasphemy called Lilit-Ram-Tha.
In darkness, Fazil drank the secrets of the Efreet.
In darkness, Fazil breathed the weakness of his foes.
In darkness, Fazil paid the Serpent blood, water and life.
In darkness, Fazil escaped, and flew Victory to his King.
And in darkness, Abzirael Ul-Shadai was brought forth,
born to end All the Worlds.
These things, I also saw.
- Account of Ish-Horam the Select,
Fragment from the Testament of Seven Metal Mountains
Thirty feet tall and weighing 20,000 pounds, the vast alabaster giant called Abzirael Ul-Shadai possesses thick, blood-caked claws, a mouth full of sharp, yellow teeth, haunting, sky-blue eyes and thick coils of wiry black beard. The spawn of a uniquely non-good Djinni and a forgotten, multi-gendered Elder Demon of Insanity & Foulness, this ancient beast once again wanders the world, bestowing dark favors to war-leaders and despots.
Spoiler:
Abzirael Ul-Shadai, the Cackling Whirling
CR 16 [CR 5 Djinn, +7 (5 Outsider HD, 8 non-associated class levels w/ Elite Stat Set), +3 Half-Fiend, +1 size increase]
AC 32, touch 19, flat-footed 25
(+4 armor, +4 deflection (from unholy aura), +7 Dex, +9 natural [+3 Djinn, +3 Size Increase, +1 Half-Fiend, +2 magic], -2 size)
hp 224 (12d8+84 from Outsider), (5d8+35 from Pyrokineticist), (3d6+21 from Rogue)
Fort +24 (including+4 from unholy aura) [Djinn +8, +4 Pyrokineticist, +1 Rogue, +7 Con], Ref +26 (including +4 from unholy aura) [Djinn +8, Pyrokineticist +4, Rogue +3, +7 Dex], Will +15 (including +4 from unholy aura), [+8 Djinn, +1 Pyrokineticist, +1 Rogue, +1 Wis.]; +4 bonus on all saving throws against fire and heat spells and effects.
Defensive Abilities: Evasion (Ex), Nimbus (Ps) (see Special Qualities), Unholy Aura: blocks possession and mental influence, just as protection from good does; secondarily, if a good creature succeeds on a melee attack against Abzirael, the offending attacker takes 1d6 points of temporary Strength damage (Fortitude save DC 23 negates); DR 10/magic; Immune acid, poison; Resist cold 10, electricity 10, fire 10; SR 28
OFFENSE
Spd 20 ft., fly 60 ft. (perfect)
Melee 2 claws +29 each [+17 BAB, +13 Str, +1 Weapon Focus, -2 size] (2d6+13 + 2d6 fire on one claw + 2d6 sneak attack, if applicable) and bite +26 [+17 BAB, +13 Str, -2 size, -2 secondary attack] (2d6+6)
Ranged (60ft.) bolt of fire +22 touch [+17 BAB, +7 Dex, -2 size] (5d6 fire + 2d6 sneak attack, if applicable)
Space 15 ft.; Reach 15 ft.
Special Attacks
Air Mastery (Ex)
Airborne creatures take a -1 penalty on attack and damage rolls against Abzirael.
Smite Good (Su)
Once per day, Abzirael can make a normal melee attack to deal extra damage equal to his HD (+20) against a good foe.
Whirlwind (Su)
Abzirael can transform himself into a whirlwind once every 10 minutes and remain in that form for up to 7 rounds. In this form, he can move through the air or along a surface at his fly speed.
The whirlwind is 5 feet wide at the base, up to 30 feet wide at the top and up to 50 feet tall. Abzirael controls the exact height, but it must be at least 10 feet.
Abzirael's movement while in whirlwind form does not provoke attacks of opportunity, even if he enters the space another creature occupies. Another creature might be caught in the whirlwind if it touches or enters the whirlwind, or if Abzirael moves into or through the creature’s space.
Creatures of Large size or smaller might take damage when caught in the whirlwind and be lifted into the air. An affected creature must succeed on a DC 29 Reflex save when it comes into contact with the whirlwind or take 3d6 points of damage. It must also succeed on a second DC 29 Reflex save or be picked up bodily and held suspended in the powerful winds, automatically taking 1d8 points of damage each round. A creature with a fly speed is allowed a DC 29 Reflex save each round to escape the whirlwind. The creature still takes damage but can leave if the save is successful. The save DC is Strength-based and includes a +3 racial adjustment.
Creatures trapped in the whirlwind cannot move except to go where Abzirael carries them or to escape the whirlwind. Creatures caught in the whirlwind can otherwise act normally, but must make a Concentration check (DC 15 + spell level) to cast a spell. Creatures caught in the whirlwind take a -4 penalty to Dexterity and a -2 penalty on attack rolls. Abzirael can have only as many trapped inside a whirlwind at one time as will fit inside the whirlwind’s volume.
Abzirael can eject any carried creatures whenever he wishes, depositing them wherever the whirlwind happens to be.
If the whirlwind’s base touches the ground, it creates a swirling cloud of debris. This cloud is centered on Abzirael and has a diameter equal to half the whirlwind’s height. The cloud obscures all vision, including darkvision, beyond 5 feet. Creatures 5 feet away have concealment, while those farther away have total concealment.
Those caught in the cloud must succeed on a Concentration check (DC 15 + spell level) to cast a spell.
While in whirlwind form, Abzirael cannot make melee attacks and does not threaten the area around him.
Before Combat: If possible, Abzirael first engages in parlay while using invisibility and in gaseous form, employing persistent image to create a decoy. If surprised, he immediately casts unholy aura, a quickened invisibility, and activates hand afire as a move-equivalent action.
During Combat: Once battle is joined, Abzirael power attacks for as much as possible - from invisibility, so as to gain both bonuses to hit and sneak attack damage for his first, fiery claw attack - against the closest target each round, taking no more than a five foot step so as to retain a full attack. He uses quickened invisibility after his attacks each round until his uses are expended, then switches to whirlwind form and offensive spell-like abilities, using nimbus to prevent melee attacks against him and to increase the save DCs of these effects.
Morale: If reduced to 50 hit points or less, Abzirael flees using wind walk, commonly summoning 1d3 vrocks to cover his retreat.
Base Statistics As noted above, without unholy aura active Abzirael's deflection bones to AC and his saves are reduced by 4. If dispelled during combat, he will immediately attempt to recast the spell.
STATISTICS
Str 36 [15 base from Elite Stat Set, +1 Hit Dice dependent ability score increase, +8 Djinn, +4 Half-Fiend, +8 size increase],
Dex 24 [13 base from Elite Stat Set, +1 Hit Dice dependent ability score increase, +8 Djinn, +4 Half-Fiend, -2 size increase],
Con 24 [12 base from Elite Stat Set, +2 Hit Dice dependent ability score increase, +4 Djinn, +2 Half-Fiend, +4 size increase],
Int 18, [10 base from Elite Stat Set, +4 Djinn, +4 Half-Fiend],
Wis 13, [8 base from Elite Stat Set, +1 Hit Dice dependent ability score increase, +4 Djinn],
Cha 20 [14 base from Elite Stat Set, +4 Djinn, +2 Half-Fiend]
Languages Abyssal, Auran, Celestial, Common, Ignan; telepathy 100 ft.
SQ add all special qualities here, listed alphabetically: plane shift, telepathy 100 ft.
Combat GearBracers of Armor +4, Amulet of Natural Armor +2Other Gear Abzirael carries no other treasure
SPECIAL ABILITIES
Abzirael's natural weapons are treated as magic weapons for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction.
Bolt of Fire (Ps)
Abzirael can launch a bolt of psionically manifested fire at any target in line of sight within 60 feet. This effect is treated as a ranged touch attack and deals 5d6 points of fire damage.
Evasion (Ex)
Abzirael can avoid even magical and unusual attacks with great agility. If he makes a successful Reflex saving throw against an attack that normally deals half damage on a successful save, he instead takes no damage. Evasion can be used only if he is wearing light armor or no armor. If helpless, he does not gain the benefit of evasion.
Fire Adaptation (Ex)
Abzirael possesses a +4 bonus on all saving throws against fire and heat spells and effects.
Hand Afire (Ps)
Abzirael can activate this ability as a move-equivalent action. Flames engulf one of his hands (but do him no harm). Such attacks deal an extra 2d6 points of fire damage.
Nimbus (Ps):
Once per day, as a move-equivalent action, Abzirael may cause flames that harm neither him nor his equipment to engulf his entire body. While he is aflame, his Charisma score increases by 4 (causing the DC of all his spell-like abilities to increase by 2) and he can make melee touch attacks for 2d6 points of fire damage. If he is struck in melee, the attacker takes 2d6 points of fire damage. This ability lasts for up to 5 minutes.
Plane Shift (Sp)
Abzirael can enter any of the elemental planes, the Astral Plane, or the Material Plane. This ability transports Abzirael and up to eight other creatures, provided they all link hands. It is otherwise similar to the spell of the same name (caster level 13th).
Trap Sense (Ex)
Abzirael possesses an intuitive sense that alerts him to danger from traps, giving him a +1 bonus on Reflex saves made to avoid traps and a +1 dodge bonus to AC against attacks made by traps.
Though he has the Rogue ability of Trapfinding, Abzirael possesses neither the skills nor the patience to implement it successfully; similarly, he does not use the Pyrokineticist ability Fire Lash, finding other uses of psionically manifested fire more directly efficient.
Rumors tell that a trio of foolish treasure seekers freed the Ul-Shadai from his unmarked tomb after dozens of millennia of confinement, bound thrice in salt, silver and cold iron beneath the sands of Carnamach. According to tales, the Burning Djinni granted each one of his rescuers a single wish:
The first, a mage, asked for knowledge – and was promptly slain, for in death all things are known.
The second, a warrior, asked for strength – and was devoured whole, for now the soldier and Abzirael are one, and Abzirael’s strength is legend.
The third, a thief, asked only to be spared – and was left, unmolested, deep in the catacombs.
Now, the Cackling Whirlwind strides the globe, seeking to make sense of a world that has moved on during his long absence. Abzirael’s eons-long imprisonment at the hands of the ancient mage Xomauji the Storm-Scholar and his apprentices has weakened him considerably – and made him deeply curious about the state of world he once ruled.
Were it not for his god-complex, unclean appetites and occasional violent psychotic breaks from reality, Abzirael could make a fine ally for PCs – when it suits him, the Burning Djinni is by turns charming, witty, courteous and even generous.
Abzirael woos and tempts black-hearted leaders, – employing persistent image to create a suitable “representative” while watching using invisibility and in gaseous form. PCs might encounter the Ul-Shadai on one of his many tasks – Abzirael offers, in exchange for blood fealty, a bond of three services to those who prove their worthiness to him. Thus, he flies on errands about the world, gleefully completing assassinations, thefts, arsons and other acts of horrifying violence.
I think I speak for each and every one of the 32 contestants, as writers and designers, when I say that I have found the feedback from judges, voters and the internet community during this process absolutely invaluable - and I thank Paizo, especially Lisa, once again for this unique and unprecedented opportunity.
On a more personal note: I, myself, have some concern over the actual utility of putting some of these hard-won lessons into practice, versus the punching-bag effect that I think some creators are experiencing; without the ability (or right) to edit your entry, respond to critics or adapt from your mistakes before getting the axe, I am not certain that some writers will get much more out of this experience than being patted on the back and told to go home.
In short, this contest has been about hitting homeruns, one after another, rather than about leaning to swing the bat - which is certainly for the best. After all, presumably no one arrives on the set of "American Idol" looking for basic singing lessons, and Paizo has been relatively clear in their desire to find, and I quote, a "Superstar!"
Meaning, I assume, a "star" who is also "super".
Of course, all writers, even Superstars, require an editor - from mighty Stephen King or J. K. Rowling all the way on down to little old me or you.
I wonder, then, if in future versions of the contest it might be interesting or advisable to allow for an "Editing Challenge" - at a set (or surprise) time, give each of the contestants twelve hours to rewrite their entire entry, top to bottom, either employing or ignoring the advice of the judges, voters and community. I have a feeling that a challenge like that would serve the contestants, the voting public, and Paizo quite well.
This idea is probably best for late-game, smaller-pool competitions - if reading 32 countries is taxing, then re-reading them after a re-write is plainly a bit much. Similarly, specific contest rules are the purview of much wiser minds than my own.
Still, I can't help but feel that I'm onto something, here.
Or maybe I'm just ON something, come to think of it.
Five Tiger Princes to bright shores came,
In blackened ships that sailed by Night,
Stalked with them Horror, Torture, Fear,
And fell, Our Lands, to Blight.
- from “The Ballad of Ahulrik the Last” by Ulliam Ellis
Cyrehllan, The Isle of Cold Tears
Alignment: NE
Capital: King’s Port, population 23,000
Notable Settlements: Gates of Autumn Loss (pop. 1,500), Gates of Spring Forgotten (pop. 5,000)
Ruler: The Unhallowed Tiger
Government: The Tiger Princes rule their conquered prize absolutely and without mercy, but resistance to their kleptocratic rule burns hot. In addition, the treacherous brothers obsessively engage one another in shadowy campaigns of acquisition and sabotage that may erupt into a full civil war.
Description:
A chill and rugged land, formed at the top of the world in the shape of a curling raindrop, the Isle of Cold Tears is named for the icy streams that pour, untamed, down her sky-spanning mountain ranges, across her wild hills, and out into the wide sea beyond.
For more than five hundred years, a full seventeen generations of men, the high green cliffs and deep, mist-thick forests of Cyrehllan were united under the rule of one crown, one banner, and one name. By decree of Ahulrik the First, who in ancient day slew the Ashen-Fell Serpent, last Wyrm of the Isle, no tribe of men, nor elves, nor goblin-kin of Cyrehllan may make war against any other without King’s Leave – and from that beginning, forged in magical steel and dragon’s blood, sprang the Kingdom of the Emerald Star. Although peopled by many humans, red-haired and fair of skin in the north and dark of eye and hair in the south, this Kingdom established a reign of nobility and justice that upheld order even among orcs, giants, lycanthropes and the Dusk-Wytches of the Western Meres.
The line of King Ahulrik, guarded ever by the lines of his legendary companions, the hereditary Knights of Cold Tears, established four Thrones upon the four corners of the Isle: in the north, the Palace of Summer Resplendent; in the south, the Palace of Winter Fallen; to the east, the Shrine of Spring Dawning; and in the west, the Shrine of Autumn Hope. Each year, the King of Cyrehllan traveled, by the Road of the Emerald Star, the length and breadth of his lands – dwelling at each Throne for a season, attending to the Isle’s many troubles and many gods until moved by augury and tradition to journey onward. During the King’s absence from each of the Four Thrones, appointed Arbiters ruled in his stead, taking council from both Knights and the Speakers of the Tribes.
Guiding by example, council, trade, fair rule and strength of arm, the King and his Knights maintained a peace and prosperity among the folk of Cyrehllan that can scarce be overstated. From the blue-painted ogres of the High North-Reach to the bustling, foreigner-filled docks of King’s Port in the southeast, the rule of Law was firm, watchful, but gentle – and the Isle of Cold Tears was a beacon of light and hope in a dark and often cruel world.
Some fifteen years ago, five great ships arrived in the harbor of King’s Port, bearing five rakshasa sorcerers, their dark elven mercenaries – and nightmare. Within a fortnight, the King, his bride, and the infant prince, Heir to the Four Thrones, were slain; in the wake of this upheaval, the Arbiters were corrupted or put to death, the Speakers of the Tribes were usurped, and the Knights of Cold Tears were disbanded, hunted, and burned.
Gnawing upon the mighty ley-lines that crisscross the Isle of Cold Tears, the Five Tigers have plunged Cyrehllan into an unnatural autumn. The Four Thrones, divided, are now ruled by devil-beasts and their shadowy Drow legions: the Burning-Soul Tiger claims dominion of the south, slaking his thirst on the farmers of those rolling lands; the Pale-Soul Tiger crouches in the north, tutoring ogres in the ways of necromancy; the Eyeless-Soul Tiger stalks the west, werewolves serving beneath his banner; the Grinning-Soul Tiger preens in the east, laying foulest death at the feet of the ghostly, ancient elves; and the Unhallowed Tiger, strongest of the five Princes, commands King’s Port and the Sky-Hold Mountains – each with his teeth always at the throat of another.
Now is a time of sorrow, the Reign of the Tiger Princes, when the few surviving Knights of Cold Tears cower in secret shame, when misery and plague besiege the land, when few dare openly raise word against the Princes.
Haunting the moors, cursing his life, bound by oath, Lord Ayscald Flhynn, last of the King’s Champions, scours the Isle for some clue as to the fate of Ahulrik’s Blade – snatched away at the moment of his King’s murder by some magic beyond Frey’s ken. Meanwhile, hidden in King’s Port at the pub ‘Rest for the Wicked’, the poet Ulliam Ellis pens desperate pleas for aid to any foreign place that will receive them.
From the black heart of the Western Mere, the horrid Dusk-Wytches send their motley hunting parties, war-bands and thieves’ companies of Dusk-Kin, comprised of tieflings, half-orcs, outcasts and orphans of war, against the rule of the Eyeless-Soul Tiger – but the Wytches do not seek a return to the days of the Kingdom of the Emerald Star. Rather, they seek only to usurp the Princes and rule in their place.
Never were there lands more in need of heroes than these.
DM Secrets:
Spoiler:
The Unhallowed Tiger seeks the Horde of the Ashen-Fell Serpent, lost these many centuries – where it lies, none know, but within, legend holds that within he can uncover the key to Lichdom, and perhaps godhood. He does not intend to share his power, of course, so the deaths of his brothers will be a pleasant necessity.
A solar angel keeps the lost blade of Ahulrik– it can be retrieved, and the Kingdom perhaps restored, by those who pass her tests.
This ornate silver and cold iron headpiece floats silently above its bearer's head, roiling with an unearthly flame. Once per day, the wearer of the crown may cast or activate a summoning spell, spell-like ability or special attack as a swift action. The chosen spell or effect is also maximized, as per the feat Maximize Spell, assuming that there are a variable number of creatures who may arrive. In addition, while wearing the crown, outsiders who summon members of their own kind do not risk the normal percentage chance for failure, nor are they ‘beholden’ to those they summon, at least while they still bear the crown.
Creatures so summoned by the crown’s wearer are not considered ‘summoned’ for purposes of their own summoning special abilities; thus, a summon monster VI, empowered by the crown, could, for example, yield to the caster three bearded devils, who might then attempt to summon 2d10 lemures apiece at regular chance of success. All summoned beings, primary or secondary, depart at the end of the normal spell effect or after one minute, whichever is sooner.
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4
