Vessani's page

In my game the shrine and tomb has been unbreached since earthfall. Recall that it was also constructed after the Azlanti conquest of Ilmurea. Given this, I wanted to expand and introduce some of the "Savith's legend" pieces alluded to in book 6 (her companions, etc). Since I am a shameless thief, I looked up a lot of images of Roman army graves and learned a little latin (Azlanti) to throw in some funerary inscriptions. I wanted Acavna to be the central deity this tomb was dedicated to but was a bit dissapointed there is so little in-game fluff to describe her, so I took what little there is and carbon copied a Golarion version of Athena/Minerva to fill in the rest. I inserted fluff elements and minor treasures about Azlanti deities (A holy symbol left on a clay plate in a tomb with 'Desna protect us as we make our way to this distant land...' etc).

I described accounts of Savith's beleaguered march across the proto-Mwangi with 9 legions, fighting and making peace with various local human tribes, cyclops peoples, and even some of the serpentfolk's rebellious thralls (lizardfolk), before eventually describing a large battle that took place in the valley that would become Saventh-Yhi between Savith's assembled army and the serpentfolk and their Xulgath (troglodyte) slaves. Over the course of the march, one of her legions acts shamefully and pillages and loots several local tribes, which causes rifts and tensions Savith must overcome (this shamed legion eventually gets the job of garrisoning Ilmurea, below), while another legion abandons the mission entirely due to racial tensions with Aveshai's cyclops and the lizardman auxiliaries, turning to raiding and banditry (I had the Zuran cultists associated with descendants of this bunch). The thiing I wanted to convey is that the Savith who landed on the shores of the Slithering coast to seek the Apophites (how the Azlanti refer to their serpentfolk foe) had a very different army makeup compared to what she would have when she eventually did face down the serpents (foreshadowing later themes) with her 7 remaining legions and their allies. So the tomb itself was basically a memorial to the hero, her army, and Acavna.

I also wanted to connect it to Urschlar a bit, so I introduced a little conspiracy involving two outsiders inhabiting the dungeon. The first outsider was a trumpet archon bound to protect the tomb and serve as a divine messenger (similar to the muse I guess). Since Acavna was long gone, this archon went fully insane (broken soul template), and was basically pacing the floor in Savith's mausoleum at the bottom of the tomb. Meanwhile, I decided Urschlar would have needed help getting his hands on midnight spores and moving the Argental Font (since this requires wish), so I decided his long paranoid road to damnation was helped along by someone who WOULD hear his prayers and offer guidance (since Pharasma would not), and introduced a Glabrezu who took the form of a Solar and who was responsible for locking the Argental Font away, and feeding Urschlar's madness and paranoia as well as helping him get to Pharasma's domain and find the midnight spores growing under the light of Groetus.

Level 1 was a fortified tomb and shrine built atop a rock mesa (as the module describes). During the Serpent War this would have been the Serpentfolk's main headquarters and route down to Ilmurea, but after the war the Azlanti levelled the Serpentstone and built their monument here to their hero and war dead. The upper level was a shrine with a few priests of various religions, mostly Acavnites and Pharasmans. I put a noticeably absent hole as a central feature (the missing Argental Font that Adonai wished into Urschlar's vaults).

Level 2 was a labyrinth used to prevent the spirits of the Azlanti dead from wandering out into the world. There is some good advice for building a labyrinth in wrath of the righteous but mine was much simpler - basically I followed the commandment to resist the temptation to map it. As a result I basically just had a list of encounter areas, a % chance of finding them, and a survival DC for navigating back to any given encounter area once it was discovered. I used a few CR appropriate traps, a "getting lost" mechanic, a few ghosts and wraiths to foreshadow the later levels, and petrified minotaur statues as guardians reanimated by stone to flesh traps (I ruled that being petrified for 10,000 years had given them a temporary stoneskin effect upon being returned to flesh to make these a more credible threat, along with some barbarian and fighter class levels).

I wasn't sure how to square the minotaurs with what I knew of the Azlanti, but I knew that I wanted to include them to complete the mythic feel of this dungeon... so I described funerary games (apparently an actual proposed origin of gladiators?) and reasoned since minotaurs were cursed Azlanti that they might be a sort of deep Azlanti slave underclass used in pit-fighting. It also gave rise to another villain who would appear later, a gladiatrix who took the role of "Savith" during the games and wore a medusa mask capable of petrifying her opponents on a thumbs down. Hence the petrified minotaurs defeated in the games serving a dual role as guardians and embellishments for the tomb. I described this backstory through murals of what appeared to be a masked and armored woman fighting various arena foes interspersed throughout the tomb.

The "Boss" of Level 2 was the Glabrezu Adonai, who appeared as a beatific angel and guarded the seal down to level 3. I had him describe himself as the guardian of the shrine and that he is bound to protect it for all time against the enemies of Azlant. I had him act a bit suspiciously but overall not something an APL 10 group wanted to mess with, so they took his quest which was to destroy the original protector of the tomb which is sealed below and prevent her from continuing to disturb the spirits of the dead. Of course, "Adonai" is actually the one responsible for this disturbance and the "corrupted" trumpet archon he wants destroyed isn't beyond redemption.

4 switches activated throughout the labyrinth open the seal down to level 3.

This level was a crypt burrowed out of the former serpentfolk's tunnels down to Ilmurea. Between levels 2 and 3, I used the pendulum stairs trap described in the AP volume with all the nasty traps. I got to get my history war nerd on here and describe tons of Azlanti soldier's graves (Roman graves, google images has you covered), as well as the graves of their local auxiliaries which were different; eg Cyclops graves with various mummification/cremation practices, Proto-Mwangi tribal graves, and even a part where the nearby river system runs through the cave that was set aside to inter the lizardfolk Auxiliaries who fought in the war and subsequently earned freedom/manumission in the funerary games (net and trident lizardfolk!). This was the undead level, because I guess 10,000 years of missing rites plus the tomb being desecrated by a glabrezu while its rightful guardian goes insane and Acavna being dead is enough to raise some skeletons. I statted up cyclops skeletons, the occasional skeleton crawling out of its grave (hardly a credible threat at this level but it kept them wary), etc. The CR appropriate stuff was in the from of Cyclops burning skeletons rising from their ash pits (cremation rites!), a few mummies, skeleton champions fighting in rank and file with shortswords, tower shields and banded mail/chainmail, as well as a room full of spartolos. I tossed in some advanced cairn wights to represent the mwangi dead (fighting with ceremonial greatclubs), and statted up some lizardfolk ghasts. Lastly I wanted to show how the Azlanti were the authors of a tradition of spellcasting involving sword and blade (since this is alluded to with some archetypes and later descriptions of Aroden), so I tossed in a skeleton champion magus in an officers mausoleum that made good use of his undead immunities with things like stinking cloud. The boss of the level was an Azlanti graveknight (acid type) that was the gladiatrix who fought in the funerary games. I wanted the PC's to meet it and think "is this Savith?" since the gladiatrix "played" Savith in the funerary games. I had the gladiatrix meet her mortal end to a chimera's acidic breath, so her energy type was acid and her tomb was adorned with a large petrified chimera (which was not released). Treasure for this level was in the form of funeral offerings. Beneath the gladiatrix's tomb was a descending passage to Savith's true tomb, unlocked by retrieving the seven standards of the legions located throughout this level and inserting them into the correct points to operate the descending mechanism. This was to foreshadow later in the AP with the spears.

The final level was a tomb where I basically described through imagery Savith's battle with Ydersius, a giant mosaic ceiling, Savith's grave, her destroyed mithral sword dissolved by acid, etc. I didn't know how this level would play out since it wasn't so much an encounter but a scene, so I'll have to describe it as such.

A broken-soul Trumpet Archon formerly of Acavna's host was hilariously over-CR'd given that I had softcapped my PC's at level 10, but it was not designed as a combat encounter. Basically she began as hostile (since the party had been graverobbing and she was insane) but she was unstable and engaged in a lot of terrorization rather than just straight out murdering anyone with her greatsword or magic. She blew her trumpet (I gave her a free 'horn of valhalla' effect but had the summoned warriors be Advanced Udaeus in a quantity proving worthy of CR), cast deeper darkness and taunted from the shadows, while they fought her minions and they heard her casting her buff spells etc to buy some time for the PC's to figure out a) what was happening and b) that she was too much for them. She accused them of being sent by the deceiver (pressed on this subject, she would reveal through angry accusations that the deceiver and they were responsible for imprisonment, that it was he who took the light of the gods away, etc) and since they already didn't trust "Adonai" they were able to figure out what was happening somewhat and fled this level to leave her to her misery rather than face her wrath.

They confronted Adonai back on level 2 about what they'd seen and he dropped the charade because the wizard had brought true seeing (actually he'd brought it earlier as well to confirm his Adonai theory but I had the glabrezu absent from his chamber while the "quest" was in progress) this time the Glabrezu took the opportunity to gloat and revealed his true form to start the real (and much more CR appropriate) Labyrinth boss fight. I stunned the wizard which turned this into an actual challenge for the PC's with some affected by reverse gravity and others trying to maneuver for a flank. Eventually they pulled it off.

I handwaived that the Glabrezu's corrupt wishes are undone upon his death/banishment, which meant the Argental Font was now back in the reliquary on level 1 rather than in the vaults, but I didn't provide any further direction for the party as to how to resolve the scenario, other than to throw the graveknight at them again (having regenerated). They eventually sought to manufacture the resolution they desired, which is what I hoped would happen. First, after fighting the graveknight again a high knowledge (religion) check revealed that the only way to permanently destroy the graveknight would be an overwhelming source of positive energy (they immersed the graveknights armor in the font which did the trick). As they did so, the trumpet archon had ascended the dungeon from her prison at the bottom (since Adonai and the undead were cleared out), and basically I had the archon in a moment of fugue/lucidity given she'd just witnessed the PC's set right one of the principal wrongs which were vexing her (the graveknight being a defilement of Savith's image).

I had the archon relate a few events she'd witnessed in her long life; long years spent trying to undo Adonai's manipulation of Urschlar and steer the city back from a destructive path; the moment of earthfall when her goddess and god-husband were vanquised by the starstone; the purity of Savith whose tomb she'd failed to protect; etc. All while she inched toward the font with a blade pointed to her own chest. The PC's had to make a series of rolls to more or less undermine her reasoning at each "step" forward toward the font upon each subject (using knowledge and reasoning they'd hopefully gathered from the tomb and their own experience), with varying DC's. Strong magic and disarm/grapple maneuvers that might have affected the outcome wouldn't be much help given her saves, SR, and CMD (but they were certainly able to try in a bid for more time) so this was more of a roleplaying moment to see if they could redeem the character and prevent her suicide (which would have destroyed the artifact).