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I finally got my game of Strange Aeons going! After a lot of planning and coming up with backstories for all my players, we finally began. Our group consists of four players and myself, the GM. The party has a human abjuration wizard, a fetchling sword and board fighter, a healing focused human cleric, and a gnoll monk. We're doing something a bit experimental with the latter one. He's an unchained monk with a non-unchained archetype that I homebrewed into trying to fit the unchained version of the class. We'll see in time if it breaks anything.
I talked to my players as to how they wanted to handle the fugue state/amnesia. Two of them asked me to go nuts and fully come up with their back stories so that they can discover who they were slowly through the adventure. The other two players weren't too comfortable with giving me full control, so they had their own backstories. I DID tell them that the last couple of years of their characters' lives had to be blank so that I can fill them in with the events leading up to adventure. So they still have things to discover along the way.
As for the adventure itself, we have had a few session now and I wanted to share the brief summaries of the party's experiences. I try to keep them short. Please note this WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS for the Adventure Path Strange Aeons. Enjoy!
The group woke up in a set of dingy cells. Disoriented, they had little time to collect their thoughts. In front of them, an old man was tied to a table, screaming for help. Fine, red lines of blood covered his body. A menacing individual in a doctor's coat and holding a sharp object circled around the table slowly, pondering where to make the next incision. The hyena man quickly made himself a nuisance for the would-be medic, causing the individual's attention to be directed at him. The bound man wriggled one of his legs free and kicked the doctor against the bars of the cell, and gave the hyena man the chance to grab at him and steal his keys. From across the room in an opposing cell, the swords woman found a broken shard of glass and tossed it through the bars at the medic. The hyena man unlocked his cell and made his way to free the others. The fellow in blue robes and the long haired man helped free the bound man, while the other two chased the doctor away.
They finally had a moment to breathe. They all recognized each other from their dream, but from nowhere else. A sinking feeling came over them when they realized they had no idea where they were or how they got there. In fact, huge pieces of their memories were missing, in some of them their memories were entirely gone. They tried to retake what little control of their lives they could by introducing themselves. The long hair wizarding fellow was named Danronka. The unassuming blonde in blue robes was Tom, the pharasmin priest. The swords woman with deathly pale skin and glowing yellow eyes did not remember her name, but found her hip flask full of her favorite drink, moonshine, and chose to go by that name. The rowdy gnoll barked and cackled unintelligibly. To everyone's surprise, including her own, Moonshine spoke his language. And so, he translated the gnoll's name, Ed.
After they made acquaintances with each other, they directed their attention to the old man they freed. Surely he knew something. He introduced himself as Hampre, the gardener, and offered what little useful information he had. They were currently in the basement of Briarstone Asylum, in the city of Thrushmoor. A couple of weeks ago, the terrifying earthquake shook the island and he hid down there, but the crumbling rubbled trapped him until that strange individual, a doppelganger in the guise of a doctor, came down and began torturing him. Old Hampre suggested that perhaps the strangers themselves were asylum patients, on account of their amnesia. Incredulous, the strangers decided to leave the basement in search of clues. Maybe once they reached the town of Thrushmoor they could get answers.
Exiting, however, proved to be trickier than they thought. The next room east had a few cages meant for small animals, where Danronka found his beloved owl Hermes. After a tender reunion they examined the chamber closely. The room featured a service chute about 8 above the ground level, the exit route the doppelganger took. Right below, a convenient pile of rotting corpses. The bodies had been there for several days, and the smell was unbearable. But the stairs leading up were blocked by collapsed rubble, so the only way out appeared to be the chute, easily accessible via climbing the mountain of the bodies. Unable to do more, Tom quietly said a prayer for the poor souls and began his ascent. The chute was narrow, but not so much to risk getting stuck, the slope was gentle and the climb easy enough. As they reached the top, the sound of roaring rain was heard, falling furiously on the roof of the storage shed where the chute led them. Not wanting to venture into the storm, they took a moment to converse and to wait out the rain. The conversation was pleasant. They recounted what they remembered from their lives, and hypothesized on what happened to them. After some time passed however, the rain refused to relent. Curious, Ed opened the door with caution. As soon as the door opened, the sound of the storm disappeared, and the outside world was dry, not a drop of rain in sight. In shock, the group saw a ruined garden, full of trampled flower beds and decaying trees. Peeking from above the garden walls, tendrils of yellow mist gently descended down to the withering grass, and above them a familiar swirling sky. And at the other end of the garden, the not-doctor doppelganger spotted them and yelled with contempt.