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So I noticed that, in Abadar's Pillar, h37 is described as having two Tophets in it.

The tricky part of this is that h37 is basically a 10 by 10 room, and Tophets are large creatures.

How did other people who have run this bit resolve this?

Name: Maho
Race: Drow
Classes/levels: Sorcerer (Daemon-bloodline) / 11
Adventure: City in the Lion's Eye
Location: Seven Forms of Sin Monastery
Catalyst: 70' move speed

The Gory Details:

The party was fighting several monks off at once. Scott, the party Barbarian, and Aric, the party Phantom Thief, were doing a pretty solid job of holding most of them off at the northern entrance to room f6.

Then I realized to myself "Wait, these monks can have potentially ridiculous move speeds." Two of the ones a bit further in back, unable to engage the melee fighters due to lack of space, used Ki to boost their move speed, and just went the long way around. Needless to say, next round, flurry of blows and sneak attack combined made pretty short work of poor Maho, who had positioned himself "behind" the rest of the PCs to avoid just that sort of fate.

At the time, upon realizing that the last attack actually sent Maho straight past negative con hp, I was nice and said "Okay, that last one was nonlethal damage to try to take a prisoner for questioning later." But one or two sessions later the player in question had to drop out of the campaign due to having a kid, so I retconned my fudging and gave Maho the death he technically should have had all along.

Here's how I see it:

Maxillar may be the rightful ruler in HIS mind, but unfortunately, not all of Taldor sees it that way: some see Eutropia's status as a blood relative, or even the fact that she's been heir for longer, as taking precedence over simple physical age. And frustratingly many people just LIKE Eutropia more. It shouldn't matter, but when "which of these two heirs are the legitimate one" is an open question, it IS important. Both have their supporters, and neither can just claim the throne unchallenged as things stand.

Maxillar probably hoped that rescuing Stavian would lend legitimacy to his claims to the throne: both by triumphantly saving the Grand Prince, and through Stavian's direct and unquestioned approval, which he didn't get a chance to publicly receive before the events of the Gala. That said, he didn't want to be known as the person who FAILED to save the Grand Prince, so he kept it secret until he know if Stavian's recovery would be successful.

Unfortunately for him, Stavian came back physically intact, but even more mentally broken than before. Revealing him might hurt Maxillar's legitimacy: his enemies might ask if Stavian was mad even before signing the adoption papers. But having him killed is also a big risk: what if someone CAN bring him back without a body, or even just contact his spirit somehow, and find what Maxillar did? The safest course, unquestionably in Maxillar's mind, is to keep the status quo: keep Stavian hidden and under wraps until he secures the throne and THEN resolve this mess through whatever means seems most expedient at the time.

Meanwhile, yeah, the Ulfen guard searched high and low for the body. But it's not really unreasonable that one couldn't be found. Anyone who wants to kill a noble knows they need to take the body, or else it's just one raise dead away from being an unsuccessful assassination. True Resurrection, on the other hand, is a lot harder to come by as a 9th level spell. And securing a room safeguarded against divinations is probably simple for a man of Pythareus's means.

You COULD just say "No, Stavian actually died": the twist of his being alive isn't really necessary for the campaign (and honestly, my PCs predicted it basically the instant his body was unable to be found.) That said, it IS an interesting character moment to see, not as a surprise, but as a choice: what do the PCs do with Stavian? It's a very complicated situation with no clear-cut "correct" answer and it's the things like that tell us who the PCs really are.

Name: Endimion Graniteson
Race: Tiefling (Dwarfborn)
Classes/levels: Psychic (Psychic Duelist) 7
Adventure: The Twilight Child
Location: The Church of Abadar
Catalyst: Being a good person
The Gory Details: After several near misses, my campaign's first obituary! (the Guardian Scroll, the Clockwork Soldier, and a random encounter with a Dire Tiger all got a PC to dying (the scroll actually got two: that grapple check and bleed is a bit ludicrous at low levels) but no actual DEATH deaths until now.)

Chief Enumerator Abrun Palliettor went down in a single round to being flanked by invisible rogues who rolled well on damage. Due being at negative hp with bleed damage, the party was fairly worried about his ability to survive his next turn. The party ALSO had no magical healer, so Endimion went up to Abrun, and sucked up an attack of opportunity to non-magically treat the bleeding with the heal skill... which put him right next to the rogues, who went next, and thus got two flanking sneak attacks, one a crit, dropping him straight past negative con hp and killing him.

Once the rogues were defeated by the party's Gunslinger and Phantom Thief, as payment for their services in defending the temple against attack, Abrun offered an at-cost raise dead and Restoration on top of the loan of Scofflaw Hunter, as well as the promise of another at-cost Restoration in a week's time.

The book has the palace's petty funds lockbox also including a "mummified pinky finger" with no description of the object's history or what it's doing in there. Which is fair except one of my players is playing a psychic who can do some psychometry and I suspect might be curious.

My go-to answer is the finger of the first servant who ever tried to steal from Gul Guisarne, that he kept as a reminder to trust no-one (and a warning to any other servants who actually get into the lockbox), but I'm curious if anybody else has come up with their own explanation, or if there's one in the book that I missed.

One possibility I've considered that would admittedly take a bit of legwork is running a few debates using the verbal duel rules: there's still crunchy system interaction, but it's tied to the existing skill mechanics rather than a whole new subsystem. You'll need to figure out audience biases and all that, though.

The "cult gives secret support" bits can just be run as actual scenes: I feel it'd be less about skill checks and mechanical bits and more about the interesting question of how the PCs react when it appears their opponent is fighting dirty: do they respond in kind? Do they openly confront her or secretly investigate her? Do they whip out high-level magical divinations and put two and two together when they get inconsistent results similar to those used to try to find Taldoris?