clcman's page

I like the idea of unlocking spirits in the asylum. I'm curious as to why you went with the mythic paths rather than say something from the Harrow?

I'd maybe switch them out for Books, Hammers, Shields, Stars, Crowns, and lastly Keys.

This ties them in visually and thematically to the Harrow. I like to use the Harrow in all of my Golarion based games at some point. Doing a reading for the group often has either hilarious or spooky results.

Well, the Medium class uses the mythic paths to categorize its spirit types, so that was what I was referencing. ( [url=https://www.aonprd.com/MediumSpirits.aspx[url] ) The spirits themselves will have names (Captain Atherton for Champion, Count Lowls I for Marshal, haven't made names for the others yet). I might use some Harrow symbolism with regards to the Medium character (maybe give him a deck in his gear, see what he does with it).

In other news, I have had my first session! The players seem to really enjoy my extended version of the dream sequence, which started with them separated and wandering around a nonsensical maze of alleys as weird things happened (a "mirror" that pulled a PC into it, pathways that go to random parts of the map, carvings that change when you aren't looking at them, your bag being full of sand instead of your items) before they found each other and Tatterman showed up to do his thing. The players responded particularly well to the description of Tatterman having "rags that look like skin and skin that looks like rags."

...They've also captured Ilesi Scaen (stole her keys right off the bat, PC lured her over while the others were released, Bloodrager slammed her into the bars from behind and Occultist got a nat 20 to grapple her before the Witch used the Touch of Fatigue cantrip with freshly-generated sweat as the material component), so that'll be interesting. Scaen probably has the stats to break that grapple and escape, but it was such good teamwork that I think they deserve to get some information out of her. This also means that Campre the orderly is alive as well, so I'll need to consider that.

Hello. I'm preparing to run In Search of Sanity as a single-book adventure. One of my players will be playing a Medium, and since I'm only running this one book that only takes place in one location, I thought it would be cool to give some specific personality traits, history and background knowledge to each of the spirits, as well as tie them to a specific location in Briarstone. The player has already agreed to this "unlock spirits as you explore the place" concept. Here's what I've come up with:

ARCHMAGE Location: Library. It could be the spirit of one of Briarstone's scientifically-minded doctors, but I'm thinking either a doctor from the early part of Briarstone's history with a more amoral/immoral outlook on learning about the humanoid mind who did some unethical experiments, or perhaps a wizard who was exposed to too much Mythos stuff, went insane and was committed until they died.

CHAMPION Location: Starting basement or the destroyed morgue area. (Someplace underground, since they lived and died before the asylum was built.) I'm thinking the spirit of either a soldier who lived at Briarstone when it was a fort, or a raider or pirate warlord who was killed in fighting there. (Perhaps even Captain Atherton, the overseer whose murder ended the fort's construction.) This would give them some insight into old tales of the Tatterman, Briarstone Witch or Star Stelae, as well as Briarstone's history.

GUARDIAN Location: East Wing. This spirit is of a devoted orderly who cared deeply for their patients, or possibly a simple-minded but kind patient who saved many lives in a fire. They would know a lot about the layout and function of the asylum, and advise the PCs to use limited force against the Acolytes in Orpiment, since they are victims too.

HIEROPHANT Location: Chapel. This spirit is almost certainly that of a Briarstone chaplain and Cleric of Pharasma or possibly Desna. (I suppose they could be some sort of dark cultist who had secretly worked there, but I don't know if that provides much benefit.) They might have some insight into nightmares and insanity, since that was something they frequently helped patients with.

MARSHAL Location: Director's Office or Entrance Hall. This spirit might be a prior administrator of Briarstone who ran it well, but I'm thinking Count Haserton Lowls I, the count who had Briarstone Island cleansed and the asylum built 100 years ago. His knowledge, foresight and political charisma would make him a skilled leader and useful ally.

TRICKSTER Location: Starting basement or visitor's room. This spirit is of a con man and lifelong criminal who attempted to evade a harsh sentence by faking insanity. Once at Briarstone, they quickly saw through his rouse but diagnosed him as a narcissistic psychopath and kept him there until one of his many escape attempts ended in his death. He wouldn't know too much (though he might try to convince the PCs to be suspicious of the doctors), but might know about secrets like the safe with the Red Destiny sword in it.

That's what I've come up with so far. I'm open to critique or suggestions on any of them.

Super-necroposting here, but it seems like this is a recurring enough issue for people that I thought I'd share my solution.

When the PCs get up into the courtyard and look around, they see one of Scaen's knives on the ground, next to a line of footprints in the muddy grass that just... stop in the middle of the courtyard. They look around some more, but don't see or hear anything.

Eventually, they move on towards the door. As they do, they hear a shriek and something comes tumbling out of the mist from above, slamming into a nearby rooftop with a sickening crunch before bouncing off and splattering onto the ground.

The corpse of Ilesi Scaen, a look of horror on her face, slowly morphs into her true doppelganger form (which the PCs had not previously seen) as sharp-eyed PCs catch a glimpse of large, bat-like wings flying away into the mist...

There. Loose end clipped without making hard fights harder, doppelganger nature revealed, Nightgaunt foreshadowed, "there are bigger fish here" established, players freaked out. Objective complete.

I'm planning to run "In Search of Sanity" as a stand-alone as well, and there are a few possibilities I thought of for dealing with the PCs' identities.

The simplest possibility is that Lowls didn't sacrifice them and dispose of them at Briarstone, but instead sent them there as his agents to help perform the ritual on Zandalus. Dr. Losandro's diary instead talks about her suspicions about the "experts" and "security" Lowls sent (with descriptions that make it clear who they were). The ritual did not go as planned (or at least as the PCs expected - Lowls might have desired this outcome) and the PCs' minds were destroyed by the feedback. This gives the basic but useable twist that the PCs are actually responsible for the crisis. Of course, Lowls gets off scot-free unless the campaign is continued somehow.

A more complicated idea was that the PCs had ended up in the Dimension of Dreams through various means and fell out into the asylum along with the rest of the monsters. The twist would be that they are from all over the world and even different time periods without realizing it - a PC might not realize they are 200 years in the future until historical events are mentioned that they don't recognize. Kind of a complicated idea to convey, though, especially for players who aren't super-experienced with Golarion.

The idea I've decided to go with, though is that the PCs are people Zandalus met on his travels before or shortly after he went insane. All of them left an impression on him, due to their bravery or kindness or power or personality. When the ritual was done on him and his psyche began leaking into the asylum, part of him wanted to stop it. Helpless to move directly against the Tatterman, it conjured up duplicates of people Zandalus thought might be able to stop Tatterman out of the dream mist. The PCs lack memories not because they lost them, but because they never had them in the first place - they only know what Zandalus knew of their progenitors. For added fun, the PCs popped into existence inside the asylum before everything went south (I'm adding a few days, possibly a week or more between the ritual and the total breakdown, rather than it happening the first night Zandalus was 'cured'). The PCs were quickly captured by security (they didn't fight back) and claimed to know nothing but their names. Losandro, unnerved by this, decided to keep them secretly detained until she could determine their identities and how they got into the building. She also contacted the Royal Accusers and Church of Pharasma for assistance, hence the arrival of Winter and her associates.

• The way I expect this to work out for the players is like this:
• they have no memories but names ->
• the staff don't recognize them (so they can't be staff or regular patients) ->
• someone higher-ranked (York?) admits there were secret patients ->
• patient files tell how they mysteriously broke into the asylum ->
• in-depth background checks by the Royal Accusers include shocking information (like that one PC died 15 years ago or something) ->
• Zandalus or similar reveals the truth

Of course, if they put the dream mist threat to rest (and/or kill Zandalus and Tatterman), the PCs may or may not fade away... Which could be either depressing or inspiring depending on the context (on the one hand, they didn't really survive, but on the other they saved a bunch of people, and may be remembered as heroes).

It's crazy, but I think it will be a good twist that I feel confident the players won't figure out way in advance.