neonWitch's page

Wowie zowie that note of blasting was a lot ! I'd maybe recommend GMs to keep an eye on player health and maybe fudge the rolls a bit. My groups' goblin wizard ran up and grabbed it, and the damage instantly put two out of my 4 party members at true-dead hp.

I would also note it would be possible to enact a version of this plan without even using the obols. Contingencies can be counterspelled, and if the WT tried to pull the same trick he did on Arazni and got counterspelled he'd eat his own Radiant Fire, destroying his body and forcing him to reform without the shard in his hand. Counterspelling is an oft-overlooked strategy, and is one of the few things the Whispering Tyrant has no special precautions against.

I had just assumed that the shard in his hand was stitched to the shreds of soul left in his body the same way that they're attached to the PCs, so it would just go with him to the phylactery.

What's to make them solve the third puzzle rather than just taking the time to try each key in the lock? Is it trapped or something?

"Attempting to use any key other than the Nine-Eaves key, or failing to open the door with a Disable Device check, results in a backlash of magical energy that ages everyone within 10 feet of the door by 1d8 years, dealing 1 point of Charisma damage for every 2 years aged (A PC who succeeds at a DC 17 Fortitude save ages only half as many years)."

Not the most mechanically devastating trap, but for humans and half-orcs? Narratively terrifying.

Is there any explanation for the many holy symbols on Pedipalp, and do they have anything to do with the many holy symbols in Nine Eaves? Just seems like two very odd throwaway things that have nothing to do with each other. Is there some piece of lore about Psychopomps hoarding holy symbols that I missed?

A minor point, but one I just noticed: as a shield guardian, Timberward should have fast healing 5.

(This will make a lot more sense when people see this great adventure in a few months, of course.)

Do you all write all of the books of an AP in advance ? I always thought the outline was written and then they were written as they were published

One of my players has informed me that they wish to play a dhampir, and the obols seem like they could make what would normally be a very campaign and region appropriate race very difficult. Not only does it leach off any spells cast on them that could heal them, it also gives SR against all of the inflict spells.

Now, because the obols are described as "part negative energy, part positive energy" i'm tempted to have it leave negative energy alone on the dhampir, and have it reduce positive energy damage, but I'm still not sure they can survive proccing SR for every negative energy spell. I could just disallow the race, but I'd like to allow it, seeing how well it matches the themes of the campaign.

Umm, this isn't first time Wyrwoods have appeared in AP. In general, only only 0hd races from really recent books haven't appeared in any content :P Which is like... Only rougarou, those psychic mouthless eyeless silhoutte people, those sasquath-lite and reptoids haven't appeared in anything I think. I think they were all from same bestiary and recent enough to not appear in anything?

I don't think the deep one hybrids, wyvarans, gathlain, or those tapir-snouted lovecraftian wizard guys have appeared in anything either, but I might be wrong. In any case, new wyrwood art always makes me happy. I'll have to look for them harder in other content if they've been in more stuff than I thought.

I think instead I'll have a few frantic, mauled petitioners hiding in the tomb from a pack of cacodaemons.

That's a really cool idea, but wouldn't that kinda ruin the big reveal when they step out and see Groetus hanging in the sky and realize that they're in The Boneyard?

Wildebob wrote:

I haven't been able to find any mention of the shield piece that detonates being in Roslar's Coffer to begin with.

The simplest answer might be some thief planting it on the PCs.

Also, if it happens overnight, would the PCs be in their sleeping attire? So, that could be a problem.. sleeping in armor in a room at the inn or in your homes?

My players tend to create fairly optimized, frontloaded characters, so I'm actually taking this in stride and am gonna have each player roll 1d4+2 and have them choose that number of items that their characters have used enough or have a connection to. I'll play it as those items having enough of a psychic connection to the pcs (think occultist implements) that they come with them to the other side, and have them find them placed in canopic jars or positioned like they were "buried" with the PCs. I'm hoping this will increase difficulty, and play up the "survival" aspect.

If anything is too important to their classes, i'll probably scatter a little extra loot around. Nothing makes an alchemist player happier than finding a masterwork portable alchemy set in loot when they didn't have one

I haven't been able to find any mention of the shield piece that detonates being in Roslar's Coffer to begin with. Was it in some museum or on display in the town hall?

It was kept in the capital of Lastwall, Vigil. The fate of one of the stolen shards (that one of the thieves ended up taking for themselves and eventually hocking in Rahadoum) is detailed in PFS scenario 10-10, The Shattered Shield. It doesn't have much to say on the actual stealing, other than

"After the war and the establishment of the nation of
Lastwall, the shards of the shield were moved to Vigil, where
they became a ceremonial object used by the Watcher-Lord
during the swearing of great oaths, and where they have
remained to this day."

and

"Unbeknownst to the Society or virtually anyone else,
Tar-Baphon telepathically commanded his servant, the
winterwight Gildais, to travel to Vigil 2 years ago and recruit a
crew of expert thieves, the Six Wise Crows, to steal the Shattered
Shield of Arnisant and replace all but one of its fragments with
expert fakes. Led by a gnome thief and poisoner, Kilibrandt
Erstwhile, the gang successfully purloined all of the shards
and replaced them with replicas (or so most of crew thought).

Though Kilibrandt gave what she believed were all of the real
shards to the Whispering Way by handing them to Gildais’s
appointed steward and death priest Usundra, another
member of the Six Wise Crows, Jasaxi, coerced the same smith
the Crows used to produce the fake fragments into creating
an extra fabrication of one of the shards, ensuring that the
extra replica went to Kilibrandt (and by proxy, the Whispering
Way)—all while keeping the authentic shard for himself"

I hope this helps, and I'm planning on running my players through the PFS scenario before I run this AP :)

Who are the iconics for this?

I believe the brawler, kineticist, paladin and....

a human version of the inquisitor?

In the first picture of the PCs climbing out of the sarcophagi, there's a woman dressed like the iconic inquisitor but she has pink skin and no tusks, so I'm not sure what's up with that.

In other news, there are TWO (2) wyrwoods (wyrwood? wyrforest?) in this, which is absolutely rad cause I thought they went the way of so many other weird bestiary pc-playable-races that are never mentioned again in any content whatsoever.

I'm GMing Strange Aeons and,

As for a kid, we haven't started yet but I have a 15 year old varisian diviner set as my PC for Ironfang. She has been raised from a child to be the next harrower of the clan by the family elder as my way of explaining having a level in wizard as an adolescent.

Rules wise, in my Strange Aeons game we have an **old** investigator as a part of the party, and we just treat his starting stats as his "Old" stats, reverse engineering as appropriate when youth spells are thrown around. Of course, this would lead to some weirdness if he started as a character with high physical stats, but with the stats he rolled the narrative seemed to fit the crunch. In general, that'd probably be the simplest way of dealing with this kind of stuff, but the young template probably would help really cement the idea of "little kid"

I thought the Hooded Harbinger was too cool to not use, so when the party was asking around to find the dockmaster and get more information on Miacknian, I had some things happen.

When they entered the bar, I put on a playlist of guitar-y folk music and said it was being played by a half-elf on a little stage in the bottom, drinking section. Third in the music queue, I placed "The Pallid Mask" by The Petals and had it play on repeat afterwords. In the middle of talking to the bleachling gnome, a player stopped mid sentence and said "Did the singer just say 'Carcosa'?"

After her set, the investigator and the psychic talked to the singer and they initially bought her story that she had learned the song while on a bohemian sojourn in Osirian, but a detect thoughts dashed that. The bard's sense motive realized that the psychic was focusing on a spell (a house rule that we use for all of the detect thoughts type spells is that concentrating on a spell like that involves an opposed sense motive check per minute of conversation)

In my mind, this was a hastur cultist (of the Yellow King/Decadent Bard mold) who had seen in portents that the stars were almost right and was trying to seed worship of her god.

She made her excuses and disappeared into the crowd, and that night summoned a Hooded Harbinger.

The Harbinger broke into the inn they stayed at that night, and got a brutal surprise round on the psychic who was staying with Skywin (who they've convinced to go with them as a kinda guide to the inner sea/errands cohort)

The psychic failed her save against bloodless touch, and when she screamed for help the whole party basically single-file-lined themselves into view of the symbol of confusion. Almost all of them succeeded, which I expected, but when no one closed the door the sign claimed the inn keeper, his wife, and a guard who had ran in to see what the screaming was about.

It was a quagmire of confusions, staggered casters/npcs who couldn't get out of melee and martial type folks who were busy disarming the npcs that were disemboweling themselves for the Old Gods all in one cramped little inn-room.

When the harbinger was defeated and the investigator unwrapped those bandages, the explosion nearly killed two characters and blinded/deafened a whole heck of them. It really hammered in "the PCs are like magnets to this horrific stuff, and innocent people are getting caught in the crossfire."

Rovagug is a big deal, in the way that a spawn of rovagug destroying an empire is infinitely better than Rovagug destroying all of creation. If lancing Gormuz so people wont gather around it and get all possessed and start working to free Rovagug works, it makes sense to me that the gods would consider it worth the planetary consequences. After all, the material plane has many, many more planets and species than just Golarian, and Golarian really only holds importance as 1) where Rovagug was imprisoned, and 2) where a piece of god-trash ended up crash landing.

,’:\

Because the idea of free will is incoherent in a deterministic universe (read: in any conceivable universe)? That’s ah, that’s the joke. Nothing to do but laugh or cry. x)

Though obviously forcing people to act against their preferences is a Bad Thing, and the idea of letting people act on the conclusions they come to, commonly referred to as allowing people to exercise their free will, is a less bad thing (in most circumstances).

Not to necro, but the real-world universe isn't deterministic, it's stochastic. God plays with dice, according to our current understanding of physics.

I have a philosphical question, if the Maelstrom is eating all the outer planes what happens if it succeeds?

Hear me out. If nothing happens to the positive and negative energy planes, then other than the extinction of all non-chaotic neutral outsiders does anything bad really happen?

Because if it doesn't, then Pharsma is subjecting the petitioners to torture purely to prolong the gods various play-pens since the gods do not need to camp out inside of any specific outer plane.

I'd guess that that's when the material plane pops open and Azathoth wakes up ;)

So, disclaimer, I love the weird races. One of my favorite characters was a deep-one hybrid alchemist I played in my skulls and shackles campaign. I love ganzi, I love tieflings, and I love aasimar.

My problem is that one of my players plays only aasimar, and I'm fairly sure they only play them because they hate not having darkvision, but also don't want to roleplay as a pariah. They don't use their angelic blood in any way, never comment on their relationship with the gods, and basically just play as a human with better stats, a spell-like, and darkvision. They have spoken of their distaste for races without darkvision often, and when I've suggested half-orcs, tieflings or drow they treat it like shooting yourself in the foot because of the societal implications.

Should I be trying to rope them into things based on their angelic heritage, and if so do you all have any ideas on how? Is this even a problem, or should I let them play how they want? They don't play tactically enough to be a problem balance wise, and I actually have to help them optimize their characters to keep up with the rest of the party, but that's not from their lack of trying.

I'd rather not ban stuff, but it feels like it weakens other player's stories when they play aasimar in the same group who are actually doing things with their race and kinda kills the idea that aasimar are rare and special when every one of our games has an aasimar in it.

In the chamber of creation (the room in the mysterium with the clockwork mages detailed on page 35), there is a hatpin engraved with "Forever H. K.". Does anyone know if this is a reference to something that I've missed, or is it just a random set of initials?