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From Time's Depths
Synopsis
A millennia-old artifact resurrects an ancient city from the depths of the sea, and the race is on to plunder the riches of a forgotten age! The heroes must overcome dangers past and present, including bloodthirsty pirates, hungry sea creatures, and the city's horrific last living survivor if they wish to uncover the mystery of the resurfaced city and survive to tell the tale.
From Time's Depths is an exploration-oriented dungeon adventure for 6th-level characters. The PCs should be 8th level at the module's conclusion.
Adventure Background
The aboleths summoned the Starstone and an enigmatic entity dwelling nearby, the starstone scion. They sent the starstone scion just prior to the Starstone's arrival, sending Uthua to the bottom of the sea. With Azlant's most powerful mages entombed miles underwater, the Starstone crashed into Golarion, destroying Azlant utterly.
However, the starstone scion had an unforeseen effect on sunken Uthua – its impact partially severed the city from the normal flow of time, causing small areas within the city to endlessly repeat the events occurring just prior to the catastrophe.
Adventure Hook: Mysterious Map
Before the adventure begins, the party acquires a blank metallic scroll and a small crystal pendant. Depending on the circumstances, they might win one or both of the items in a game of chance, steal them from a dying pirate, or receive them from a mysterious patron. When the crystal is exposed to magical illumination and held near the scroll, magical Azlanti writing points the way to a city of great magical power near the northeastern tip of the sunken continent. Wearing or holding the pendant also grants the user the ability to understand and communicate in the ancient Azlanti language.
The adventure begins after the PCs have deciphered the strange map and chartered a vessel to the sunken continent of Azlant.
Opening Scene
As the party's ship navigates the treacherous rocky outcroppings near Azlant, a vessel is spotted on the horizon that resembles one of the swift cutters piloted by the hostile Mordant Spire elves. Unfortunately for the PCs, these are no mere elves – when the vessel spies them, its sails flare blood-red and display a horned skull with two crossed barbed tentacles, the symbol of the notorious pirate that men call the Devilfish.
The Devilfish (male half-fiend ogre witch):
The enigmatic figure known as the Devilfish is one of western Avistan's most notorious pirates. If one believes the whispered tales told in rum-soaked coastal taverns, his mother, an ogress from the hills of the Devil's Perch, consorted with a minion of Hell and was gifted with a son. The child escaped to Cheliax's capital where he received training as a Hellknight before he deserted, slaughtered an admiral, and commandeered one of the Navy's prize ships with the aid of a murderous tribe of sahuagin.
The truth about the Devilfish is terrible enough. He stands ten feet tall with a bristling black beard, red longcoat, and a giant black cloak concealing his massive diabolic wings. He delights in his bloodthirsty reputation and chose the name of one of Golarian's most feared ocean denizens to better sow terror in his wake. While the Devilfish does possess the cruelty common to all ogres, he is somewhat more cautious and far more cunning than most. One of his favorite tricks involves setting hapless adventuring parties on the trail of fabulous riches, then swooping in to overpower them once the exhausted explorers try to return home with their spoils.
In combat, the Devilfish is capable of withering foes with hexes from afar, or slicing them in two with his razor-sharp falchion while his archeopteryx familiar swoops in to deliver debilitating spells. His crew consists of combat-seasoned sahuagin skilled in the use of weighted nets to entangle “little fishies”, the term they reserve for their unfortunate victims. The Devilfish's current ship, the Frenzy, was stolen from the Mordant Spire elves and has proved quite useful in helping him plunder Azlanti treasures without interference.
Combat:
Once the Devilfish reveals himself, he launches a dragonnel (ToH 170) from the deck of the Frenzy. The creature quickly approaches the PC's ship on great leathery wingbeats, and as its shadow falls over the ship, four sahuagin dive from its back(taking 10 on their +15 Swim checks to avoid damage from falls up to 150 feet) and the dragonnel drops a large smoke-bomb. Hidden by the choking smoke, the sahuagin divers climb on board while the dragonnel descends. When the dragonnel reaches the deck, a four-armed one-eyed sahuagin - the Devilfish's vicious bosun Bloodgill - leaps from its back. Unlike the nets carried by the sahuagin divers, Bloodgill's nets have trailing ropes attached to the dragonnel. An entangled PC must escape the net or cut its trailing rope before the dragonnel takes to the air, or climb up the rope and goad the angry reptile back to the ship.
Uthua Rises:
At a dramatically appropriate moment during or after the battle, the starstone scion senses the pendant and triggers a massive earthquake. The Frenzy flees as massive waves rock the PC's ship and giant slime-encrusted buildings break the water's surface. For the first time in five thousand years, Uthua, ancient wizard-city of the Azlanti, escapes its deep ocean prison.
Exploring Uthua
The water around Uthua is too shallow for the ship – the PCs need to row, fly, or swim to the city, with a half-submerged columned temple offering the easiest point of entry. Most of the city bears the mark of its time in the ocean depths - pulsing growths and bone-white corals cover its paving-stones and decaying walls, and the grotesquely bulging bodies of strange fish litter the streets. However, in small areas called timestorms, Uthua appears as it did in ages past.
Timestorms:
Created by the sleeping starstone scion, a timestorm is a reflection of an event that occurred long ago when the strange creature destroyed Uthua. The events within a timestorm endlessly repeat, unfolding exactly the same as they did in Uthua's final hours. Outside entities are free to enter, exit, and interact with the timestorm, though they cannot remove the original objects or creatures from the area. The timestorm counters minor alterations with small coincidences, but events involving the timestorm's major actors - like saving a life, killing someone, or altering a similarly important occurrence - turn the timestorm into an imperfect reflection of past events, erasing it and freeing the trapped souls inside. The ethics of a timestorm are not straightforward – is killing in a timestorm an evil act if it frees souls from endless recursion?
As the PCs explore Uthua, they will discover timestorms and other strange sights in the ruins of the ancient city. Listed below are some of these areas:
- The ruins of a large central structure containing a strangely helpful timestorm-trapped aboleth that realizes it doesn't precisely exist
- The wreckage of a gutaki(PF#7 81) enclave, its hideous octopus-like inhabitants reduced to bloated waterlogged zombies that can barely move
- An unfortunate timestorm in which Azlanti guards are torn apart by an enraged mob of escaped elven experimental subjects
- A forest of abandoned white worm-tubes
- Inside a timestorm in Uthua's Great Library, a mage screams for his apprentices to grab a scroll while monolithic shelves crash down, killing many of the youths
- A titanic sea serpent in its death throes, tormented by swarms of flesh-eating crabs while it spasms and thrashes
As PCs enter timestorms, they will eventually meet Oguuth, Uthua's last living survivor.
Oguuth (black pudding id ooze sorcerer)
Before Azlant fell, Oguuth was one of Uthua's most respected mages. He received instruction from the aboleths themselves, absorbing both their incredible arcane knowledge and incomparable selfishness. When the Starstone tumbled towards Golarion, others tried to stop the meteor's inexorable descent, but Oguuth sought only to save himself. As the city sank, Oguuth's protective wards held, but they could not fully withstand the crushing blackness of the deep, transforming him into a hideous mass of corrosive protoplasm.
Trapped in the ocean depths, Oguuth found his new body abhorrent, but discovered that he could assume the guise of his previous human form – an obese smooth-shaven man with imperious mien – by staying within the strange timestorms created by the creature in the crater at the city's center. The long press of time and the restrictions of his amoeboid body have robbed Oguuth of social graces and much of his magical knowledge, which now manifests at a lesser, almost instinctual level. Oguuth only converses from within a timestorm in his human form, and goes to great lengths to hide his inhuman nature from visitors.
The first time the party enters a timestorm with Oguuth present, he is eager to make small talk and to hear news of the outside world. If questioned, he claims merely to be part of the current timestorm, a lie that will wear thin as the party repeatedly encounters him. If the PCs do not yet realize that timestorms are erasable, Oguuth can be tricked into revealing it. Once the party attempts to erase a timestorm, Oguuth reacts poorly, fleeing into a nearby crevice (or casting invisibility) if the party appears likely to succeed and reveal his true form. If the PCs become suspicious about Oguuth's presence in so many timestorms and confront him, he mutters something about protecting his treasures in the crater, and disappears a final time.
Listed below is an encounter that may feature Oguuth.
The Speech:
In a timestorm within Uthua's ruined amphitheater, an Azlanti demagogue rallies citizens against the tyranny of their aboleth rulers. If the party attempts to alter events, there are three obvious courses of action: kill the speaker before he finishes the speech, convince the crowd (using the pendant or some other means to speak Azlanti) to ignore the call for rebellion, or simply disperse the crowd before the speaker incites them to action.
If Oguuth is present, he observes the speech with a wistful look on his face. He flees at the first sign of violence, but speaks alongside the demagogue if the PCs attempt to rally the crowd.
When the timestorm dissipates, the now-ruined amphitheater appears, covered in fibrous orange polyps. A dripping hole in the floor gapes from behind the speaker's stone podium.
Monsters of Uthua:
Because Uthua has recently risen from the ocean, most combat occurs out of the water, and most aquatic fights happen in waist-deep or shallower water.
Listed below is a sampling of the creatures PCs might encounter while exploring Uthua:
- Ghosts of long-dead Azlanti soldiers who regain their living appearances when they pass through a timestorm
- A wounded albino giant squid fleeing a ravenous pack of lacedons
- Hounds of Tindalos (PF#4 82) who harry PCs entering their timestorm lairs
- Swarms of blind white scavenger crabs eager for a chance at fresher meat
- The dreaded thesselmoray(ToH 407), an eight-headed moray eel
- A tribe of skum with the features of deep-sea fish, including the hideous Deep Mother
NEW MONSTER: Skum, Deep Mother
Faced with a lack of females to carry on their kind, the skum of the deep ocean trenches resort to an unpleasant ritual in which an individual ingests prodigious quantities of fluid extracted from the glands of female fish. Over time, the now-feminized skum grows to enormous size, with a bloated ovoid body, a sprawling quadrupedal posture, and a yawning toothy maw capable of swallowing a giant squid whole. The atrophied bodies of male skum hang from her corpulent form, and a long filament projects from between her eyes, terminating in a glowing orb.
In combat, a deep mother relies on the magical abilities projected from her orb to blind and stun prey so she can swallow them without resistance. The creature can swiftly shrivel the body of an attached skum to heal and regain her orb abilities, and other skum can latch on to her if she requires additional sustenance.
The Final Goal
Whether the PCs desire the starstone scion's power, the riches stored in its crater by Oguuth, or the release of the souls trapped by Uthua's timestorms, they must find a way to access the crater containing the starstone scion, currently blocked by a massive timestorm replaying the entity's destructive impact. If the party recovers one of the ancient artifacts Uthua's mages tried to use to prevent the catastrophe and they successfully activate it, they can “avert” the scion's arrival, erasing the timestorm. Alternatively, the PCs can discover Oguuth's secret tunnel into the crater.
Finale
Once the PCs successfully enter the crater they find the starstone scion: a gigantic humanoid form with a vaguely fetal appearance. Small timestorms are scattered through the chamber; Oguuth stands in one of them, surrounded by priceless Azlanti treasures. He beseeches the PCs not to awaken the scion, as it will destroy the last remnant of his and Azlant's past glory (in that order). If the party attempts to awaken the starstone scion despite Oguuth's entreaties (or they take the Azlanti artifacts in the chamber), Oguuth snaps and steps out of the timestorm, revealing his present form, a hideous oily amoeboid mass with the screaming silhouette of a human face. Before the confrontation, Oguuth split himself into several pieces; as one piece steps from the timestorm, two of the others ooze from cracks in the chamber, muttering curses in disquieting synchrony.
Combat:
One piece of Oguuth blocks access to the starstone scion and readies to counterspell while the two others alternate between spells and melee attacks (each piece of Oguuth draws from the same set of spell slots). All three of the ooze pieces will attempt to grab PCs who move near the starstone scion.
Awakening the Scion
The starstone scion can be awakened if a PC touches it for three consecutive rounds, a task made easier if Oguuth has been defeated. Each round of sustained contact causes the starstone scion to glow more brightly, until the eyes in its oversized head open into perfect circular voids. As Uthua's timestorms cease, the creature gazes at the PCs and unfolds several delicate gelatinous wing-flukes. Wordlessly, it vanishes in a pulse of phosphorescence, and each PC within the chamber gains the blessing of the starstone scion. If Oguuth is alive when the starstone scion awakens, he flees the scene and his surviving pieces(including his hidden fourth piece) merge together before seeking their revenge (see Aftermath below).
Blessing of the Starstone Scion:
Aftermath
Shortly after the starstone scion departs, a shudder reverberates throughout the chamber – another earthquake is sending the city back into the depths! The PCs must race for Uthua's only standing tower as the water rises.
At the tower's apex, the PCs see a ship approaching, but it is not their own – the Devilfish has returned to steal the fruits of the party's labors. Before the tower sinks completely, his crew extends a gangplank, laughing at the party's predicament and telling them they can come aboard like men or like fish. The PCs can fight (see Combat) or attempt to parlay with the Devilfish, but Oguuth is not quite finished with those who destroyed the final illusion of his humanity. When Oguuth split himself, one piece hid while the others pleaded and fought, and it follows the PCs up the tower before latching on to the Frenzy. As the PCs fight or bargain with the Devilfish and his crew, Oguuth dissolves through the hull and bursts onto the main deck, howling for revenge.
Combat:
Once the battle begins, the Devilfish hurls his choking cloak at a nearby spellcasting PC, then attempts to cast misfortune hex on a dangerous-looking melee character. If the hex succeeds, the Devilfish challenges the PC to single combat, using cackle (a deep booming laugh) to prolong the effects of the hex during the fight. If the PC accepts, the Devilfish stays true to his word and directs the crew not to interfere (though he will cast debilitating spells like bestow curse on the PC if the battle goes poorly). His crew gangs up on other likely targets, tossing weighted nets before using their Precise Strike teamwork feat (+1d6 damage while flanking).
When Oguuth joins the battle, he eschews spellcasting for the more personal approach of grabbing and dissolving the PCs one by one. He defends himself against the crew if attacked, but prefers to focus on the PCs.
New Item: Choking Cloak
Victory:
As the PCs stand victorious aboard the rapidly sinking Frenzy, a sail appears on the horizon – the party's ship has returned. Upon their return, the PCs may find themselves bombarded by sages offering large sums of money for their insights into Azlanti culture....that is, assuming anyone believes their story in the first place!