treblignotrub's page

Thankyou all for the feedback.

I opted to start each Game session spotlighting one of the PCs. I do a 10 to 15 minute RP piece Focused on the PC's background and the 2 to 3 days leading up to the morning of the Remembrance Moon. I use this to foreshadow the interactions in Book1 Part 2 and Book2.

I have highlighted interactions with the old couple/ flowers at the Statue in the town square(BK2), The young man at the Jewelers shop (bk2, he is brother to one of the PC's), Tharmaention and her ancestor Garrid(Bk1 Part2), the children(Bk1 Part2, and BK2) and the Grey lady (Arazni).

The party still does not know how they got into the Tomb. Next session they will be getting out of the tomb and I have 2 PC's left to do. One will be at the start like I have with the other players. Once they leave the Tomb and find they are in the boneyard I will stop and do the Last PC. During his spotlight I will cover up to the "Blast".

I think the players have enjoyed these spotlight vignettes. they are long enough to get out some good info and short enough to not take away from the nights game session.

5 PC's. all from RC originally. Most have come home for the Remembrance.

This is the 3rd AP I have run start to finish. I am glad it is done. There are numerous things I would tweak if I knew at the start what I know now.

If you are looking to run this AP do not let that opening statement push you away. As a GM I found the story to be excellent and well connected Book to Book. Nothing came truly out of left field story wise, it flowed logically in my mind. I found the full use of Mythic rules to be tough to counter mechanically. Part of that was due to having a party of 6 player. So be prepared.

Story Elements.

Number 1 I can not strongly enough recommend reading the "Narrative Prologue/Cut scenes" post started by Stip.

Thank you Stip.

The narrative juices that started to flow for me after reading these had a major impact for how the story unfolded. I also made liber use of them during my playthrough and the players loved them for the expanded story.

Number 2 Like all AP's, there needs to be more foreshadowing of the BBEG's in each Book earlier in the campaign. The campaign traits do a good job tying in backstories which resolve well in Book 3. But I would still recommend doing some name drops at least earlier on. Maybe as part of session zero character backgrounds, personal grudges, or during the play session via military reports or conversations that mention named bad guys from the next book out.

Number 3 Try to encourage having a Paladin PC in the party. Radiance/Yaniel is a good story line that should be explored.

Number 4 If your party likes relationship story lines, all I can say is Arueshale.

Number 5 Nocticulas Boon. This worked well for me since we game online via FoundryVTT. Instead of having this particular interaction happen in front of everyone fully in the open. I emailed each player an individualized offer from Nocticula. During the session I described this as she speaking to each PC mentally. No one knew what the other was offered and Nocticula told them "no need to decide now. get back to me if you are interested". two players email me back to accept. No one in the party discussed each others decision. For our group this ended up being more of an RP opportunity through the last 3 books.

Number 6 I might recommend enhancing the events that grant mythic trials. To sperate from level grinding xp character progression and show that Mythic is something special. Maybe describe some little spark or some feeling each time they complete a trial and a bigger jolt when they reach a new tier. A radiant glow or something. Make it feel more special than just another leveling mechanic.

Enough story stuff for now.

Mechanics.

Mythic... Mythic provides PC's a free second class. In a 4 person party, you can use the full rules. If you have a large party, like I did, I would recommend not using the full Mythic rules. It is just too over powering. I found that he who wins Initiative win the fight... quickly. I spent a lot of time preping for fights I thought would be good, only to have it end in one round. With a large party I would suggest only using the Base Mythic Abilities(table 1-1 in mythic book), and skip the Paths. If you like rebuilding encounters to make them challenging then feel free to use the full rules.

Also
Keep good track of the Mythic Trials that the PC's complete. Later in the game they will need multiple trials and I actually lost track of what they had completed towards the end and had to wing it.

Radiance... make yourself a list of when Radiance gets it power bumps, they are easy to miss and spread across multiple books.

In book 2 I found the Army mechanic to be wonky. I might recommend scrap it and do something different. I dont know what exactly, maybe use some troops vs troops. Or maybe use it in the background and have a better narrative cutscene to describe what happens. As a GM I fell I stumbled through this poorly.

Book 4,5, and 6 Make sure to use and emphasize the Abyssal Traits that debuff the party. the impacts are worse LG players than LN or NG.

There is a typo at the end in Threshold where to place Dimensional anchors. The book references one wrong room and a room that does not exist. I think they should be F2,F6,F17 and F21.

We started this AP in March of 2023. It has been 2 and a half years, gaming roughly every other week in four hour sessions. In the game world the Campaign started with the fall of Kenabres on Arodus 16th of 4713AR and the Wound was closed roughly a year and a half later, I stopped keeping track of the date towards the end.

That is everything I can think of the morning after completing this AP. On to the next one.

Tyrant's Grasp

fast forward serveral session. Last night was our final session of the AP. there will be one more end of campaign half session/wrap up where we talk about what the PC do now that the wound is closed.

Recap of the Party
Several very experience gamers here, three I have been playing DnD with for 40 years.
We are using foundry, with the PF1st ed rules. I still consider myself a mediocre DM.

The party is 19th level 8th tier as the session starts.

Adamar Elven youth, NG Arcanist 19, Archmage 8. Mythic abilities allow him to cast just about any spell in the book quickened. also has some healing ability. RP he is a Riftwarden Orphan, his parents killed by the Worm-that-Walks Xanthir Vang. Party magic item crafter. frequently used spell Chains of Light.

Cerritulus Human LG Paladin of Iomedae 19, Guardian 8, player joined the game in BK2. Rescued by the party from prison cell in Drezen. Claimed Radiance. RP he was Exposed to Awfulness as a youth, rescued by disguised Areushalae unbeknownst to him. has a mix of Guarding and Champion mythic abilities. Killed woundwyrm Scorizscar in one round during BK3.

Hskoro NG Human PieZen Practitioner Oracle of Sarenrae 19, Heirophant 8. healer extraordinaire, has brought back characters from negative con dead state. Continual use of LifeLink healing, Obscuring mist combined with Ashen Path. RP Touched by Divinity, the child of Sarenraes Herald. his early life was as a herbalist (drug dealer), finds out in BK3 many of his sales were for ingredients the enemy used in the nyhindrian elixer. has leadership and a close follower Ella LG multiclass.

Kenrick If you have read Order of the Stick. this is Belkar with a bow. Human NE Slayer 10, Rogue(unchained)3, Fighter 6, Champion 8. thank god for FoundryVtt, there are not enough d6's for the rolls he makes on a full attack action. needless to say he is maxamized for ranged combat against demons and criting. RP Stolen Fury and accepted Nocticulas boon in BK 4. caused some good RP interactions. The players original character stayed in Kenabris, this one took over in change between BK1 and BK2.

Leotis Human started LG Scaled Fist Monk 9, Ninja 7, Shadowdancer 3, Marshal 8. Primary weapon is a Double-chained cold iron Holy Kama. Melee whirlwind with reach. RP Child of the Crusade. his family has been guarding the Queen Galfray since before the Worldwound opened. My head cannon is the the Queen intended to marry his great grandfather, but the wound opened.. He is part of Queens Guard and is in love with her. he joins the party at end of BK3 when Queen arrives in Drezen and puts him in charge of party for BK4. this is the 2nd character for this player. his first returned to Kenabris after the events of BK3. reason is that player felt the origin PC build was getting too powerful.

Vanidur 1/2 Orc N Skald 19, Trickster 8. known for inspiring rage for the party and getting killed in Drezen by Soltengrebbe due to tactical miscalculation, First Mythic monster with dual intiative. Save by Hskoro from permadeath. RP Chance Encounter, saved from demon slaughter of her orc tribe by Arueshalae. when Arueshalae is meet again she bonds with her. Sister relationship.

So into the final session.

Starts at the Top of Threshold with initiative rolls. Party had avoided the dragons and Raspers on the way in but took them on, on the way out. combat lasted the typical 2 and a half rounds with the bad guys not getting to do much. They move out of the immediate area and start communicating back to NPC's about the ritual. Leotis and Adamar teleport to NPC's and return with Irabeth, Aravashnial, Arueshalae, Sosiel and the Queen.

they rest up in Magnificant mansion and next day prepare for ritual. Spells are cast to avoid hazards of F11. Adamar is to lead the ritual. the players make their skill checks, high result is a 60, low a 48. I reveal the DC. then start announcing the modifiers one at a time. final DC is a 38. they throw the lexicon into the Worldwound and it implodes.

Since we are using foundry i had prerolled the random location for deskari and his minions. Deskari ended up in the large building by himself and the others scattered around the space. I had each PC roll for their location and the NPC they are most associated with. I move the toke onto the board and activate the session. Irabeth and Ella are nowhere to be seen, roll initiative. The first name the players see on the the list is Deskaris.

Round 1 Deskari uses Riftcarver to kill Irabeth dead below negative con and Ella to half HP out of sight of players.
next up is Kenrick standing next to a Balor. full archer attack. First shot is a Critcal confirmation thanks to mythic surge. due to all his feats, features and abilities and min/maxing he does 642 points of damage with one arrow. Balor explodes and damages other badguys more that the party. kenrick shifts remaining shots to next balor takes it out and it explodes. there was an Apocalypse Locus that got caught in both explosions and was down to 12hp before ever being attack by the party.

Round continues in this manner with badguys dropping. Sosiel gets hammered and falls back towards main group.

Round 2 Deskari finishes off Ella below negative con and teleports into main room. free action breath weapon at queen hitting Sosiel in process, he goes down Negative con over the rift and starts to fall. Hskoro contingency goes off and revives him.

Kenrick up next. previously I had remind the two players with nocticula boon that they could call on her in time of need. He calls on her for aide, rolls percentage dice, DC is double his cha and roll fails. He clicks on the full attack action vs the now visible Deskair before I revel the result of his request for aide, and see I see his attack dice roll. Nocticulas reply is "No , I think you have this." He rolled and nat 20 on the hit and a nat 20 on the crit confimation. 628 HP damage. He spends the Mythic points to activate Foe-Biting, doubling the damage on that one arrow to 1256HP.

I had maxed out Deskaris and added Mythic 10 for Demon lord in his home realm. he had 1024. I back up a moment for the party and describe Deskaris last action again. His breath attack at the Queen then a threat to kill her as an arrow flies into his open mouth and partially sticks out the back of his head. the bady falls into the Abysal rift below.

Round continues and other bad guys are defeated or flee.

Round 3 where are Irabeth and Ella. they are found and hskoro casts Breath of life on Ella saving her, but is too late for Irabeth who has been dead for two rounds.

Player asks, surely defeating Deskari is worthy of tier 9. give me a 50/50 roll. he succeeds and I grant mythic 9 , he casts Augmented Breath of life which can go back 2 rounds and saves Irabeth. Session ends 30 minutes over normal end time..

Thank the Gods this Mythic campaign is over. The shear quantity of pulling mythic things out of your but to mess with a DM has been exhausting.

As I said at the start, in two weeks we are going to do a wrap up session before jumping into the next campaign. Tyrant's Grasp. Duhn duhn duuu...

ok... lets see here... last real post was from Book 4. We had ended that night with Nocticula kicking "The Bulls" butt and taking one of his horns.

Book 5 was a quick jaunt for the players. I had lost a little motivation in this book to be honest. 4 out of 6 players being super game savvy with Mythic on top of that was making me less interested in spending significant time modifying encounters to make them challenging. I started to focus more on the RP side of things as we got into these last two books.

Returning from the Midnight Isles the party is brought to Heaven to have audience with Iomedae. She tells them about her captured herald and says that only gods have heralds and that all gods need a herald. She asks party paladin if he would be her mortal herald, he says yes. She charges him to rescue the Hand of the Inheritor.

Iomedae then asks the evil PC what is his deal? is he Nocticulas Mortal Herald? Nocticula has been listening in via her link to the two PC's and practically yells at the evil PC to say yes, which he does. I was disappointed with the players for not commenting on this little bit of logic.

The events in the Ivory Labyrinth only lasted about a week in world time. They got some good rolls with traveling from area to area and actually skipped a bunch of stuff unintentionally before ending up at the prison. They chewed there way through there. they freed some prisoners who they sent back to the Drezen via Planar Shift. I rolled destination direction and range and turns out one group got dropped close to IZ and the other into the frozen north as I recall.

They rescued the Hand and baled back to Drezen as Baphomet showed up. They were not at all interested in fighting him.

Some behind the scenes stuff. The LG Monk (now LN) took Nocticulas boon because in his backstory he was in love with the Queen. so while the party was in the Labrinth, I had Noc give the Queen sexy dreams of the Monk. No one yet suspects he accepted the boon.

the party returns from Labrinth/Heaven trip into middle of the Second Siege of Drezen. Queen stops mid-fight and gives him big kiss in front of everyone, then kills a demon. I do a bunch of RP scenes focusing on what each of the major NPC's are doing during the battle and the party then heads down to kill Aponovicius. Another RP scene with remaining drezen commanders and the party, honoring the dead. I describe Drezen as having lost half its people during the fighting. Queen dismisses everyone and has private audience with the monk. She apologizes for earlier indiscretion with the kiss in front of everyone. then asks him to help her out of her armor and scene cut/ screen to black.

Dreams... Spend some RP time describing each PC's dream instructions one by one. each specific to the PC and his/her patron deity with one piece of the puzzle. the last two are for the evil PC and Monk. Evil pc'd dream is him in bed with Noc and some lass under the sheets. Noc actually has the vision and grabs him to see it. As it ends she screams "what the F*** was that" as he is awoken being thrown from the bed.

the monk is not dreaming but is awoken being thrown out of bed by the Queen as she is the one with the Dream. they get dressed and the party gathers to talk about the dreams. they get thier marching order to head to IZ.

The Yearning house is a cake walk and they recover the chisel.

Head to Soul foundry and the Paladin player is not available so the PC hangs back to "guard the rear" while rest move forward. Undead Terendelev fight starts out bad for the PC's, No Pali to save them from Dragon fear for once. Every thing is going my way to finally give them a tough fight until Terendelev fails a save for something I know is coming and it falls apart again (after fight I realize she would not have been effected). Dragon gets coined to death. Party Arcanis/Archmage (flying 80 ft up)has creative use of Mythic Augmented FeatherFall and a hand full of coins.

And that is where we now are. they should have Soul Foundry finished and Boss fight with Storm King this Friday, then into Threshold for the final push to close the Worldwound.

I have gotten very laze this last few months with updating my play through. I will try to summarize in my next post what we have done up to know. We are part way into Book six now. Finished Yearning House and last session left off at the Soul Foundry. Getting into the home stretch.

As I said before 4 of the 6 PC's have a boon.

Several are very experienced players and will take any mechanical advantage they can, but are good at keeping within the PC's story.

The major impact so far has been RP related.

Our Female 1/2orc Skald is Bonded to Arushalae, the risen succubus considers them as sisters. not much game impact. some RP but not much.

Two players accepted Nocticulas offer. Our evil PC and surprise our LG Monk.
I did the offers via email, and each PC/player received a personalized offer. so no one knows who accepted for sure... except the evil guy which the others all assumed, rightly so, accepted.

The LG Monk backstory is he is part of Queens Personal guard, and is in love with her. so when the offer was made the PC/Player jumped on it. This resulted in some great RP between him and the Queen, (they hook up due to Nocticual sending the queen sexy dreams about him).

The paladin of course accepted Iomedae's Herald offer. When we did this scene I specifically had Iomedae mention that only Gods had Heralds.

Iomedae to Paladin: yada yada yada, Paladin will you be my mortal herald ? paladin responds yes.
Iomedae to group yada yada yada. I sense Nocticula on someone. hey you evil guy, are you Nocticulas Mortal herald?
Nocticula in his head tells him to say yes excitedly..
Evil guy tells Iomedae . yes.

You all see where I am taking this I hope. The players missed it.

No one has called on these boons as yet. Just a bunch of good RP so far.

My group is partway into book 6 and has not paid any attention to the scales in a long time. With all of the normal treasure and mythic power they have the scales are basically useless at this point. We ended last session with them walking into the Soul Foundry Plaza, they hear the loud roar as a creature rises out of the debris filled square. The scales will have an impact here. I need to check the player inventories to see who still has them.

my group is six players so I had to add two. Fell free to change them, especially if it fits your story better. “ The Knights of Kenabres, valiant defenders, carrying Holy relics of Terendalev, defender of the city who gave her life to save others…”.

I should have used that in my game…

Mechanically Making them all the same and demon specific is a nice option for early to mid-game vs. DR until they get better weapons.

Hello all GMs. I will be starting this AP for my group in two months and was looking to see how many GMs jumped right into Roslars tomb or did session zero, or extensive background sessions before dumping the pc’s into the coffins.
I have been listening to two podcasts for this AP, and like the idea of doing significant character background to make the impact of part two more significant. My initial plan is to do a lot via email (who you know, what your link to town is, what they are doing on day -1) and start first live session with stuck in box.
Just looking to see how folks have started this AP off. Jumped right in or session zeros?

As an aside, i have already run We Be Heroes goblin one shot and will be doing the PFS Reavers Roar and the Shattered Shield, as preludes. My head cannon will be that the recovered shard from Shattered Shild will be passing through town when WW sets off test fire.

Hello anyone who has run this AP. I am looking to get an idea from GMs to see if you did or did not use the timeless planar trait in book one. Did you use it in the Boneyard only or Boneyard and Dead Roads? How did the players react to the no natural healing? Did it enhance the game experience or was it a pain? I will be starting this AP up probably at the start of the new year and am looking for some feedback.

So missed posting a few session. By flying low at the edge of the tree tops the party avoided most if the island encounters, I also did not feel like running a bunch of meaning less random encounters. They meet the Foulsome Queen and she warns them about the dragon. They set up an ambush and seriously buff up the Paladin who takes out the Dragon in one round. I spent a couple of hours working on how to make this a challenging fight and it is over in 5 minutes. GGGrrrrrr.
The evening worked out timing wise perfectly. They chew through most to the temple level in a multi session running battle and find Hepzamira. the party takes out Hepzamira with just enough time for me to run the Baphomet interaction as our 11pm end-time came. Perfect way to end the night.

We have finally finished Book 4 and will be starting Ivory labyrinth this friday. I am still stealing away.. I have added one thing to help me sort these scenes and that is to name them with Bk# then scene#. Helps me to keep them straight. There are a few that could be used at the end of one book or the start of the next. Thank you again for all this great content.

Next session will be the start of Book 5 for my game. I am taking the philosophical idea that a god imbues her herald with a smallest of fractions of the gods essence. In effect the Hearld is a part of the god. there is a connection akin to the one shared with Arushalae/PC or Nocticula/PC if any of the players took those Boons.

In this case Iomedae feels the suffering of her Herald. I will be describing her as not looking pristine, like you would expect of a diety. She will appear haggard and in pain. She was a mortal when the Herald Arazni fell and is acutely pained by that experience. When the book calls for the horn blast/ PC damage, this will be as Iomedae cries out in pain felling the torture Her Herald is experiencing. The stained glass will shatter then reform, the horns will blare.

I will be using and heavily modifying Stips Cutscene XIII: The Twelfth Act of Iomedae (see above) as a base for this scene. Stips cutscenes have been a big inspiration for my head cannon in the AP.

Prepping for Book 5 now. Iomedae will offer her boon to the Party Paladin during that meeting.

that will give 4 out of the six PC's with boons

1 PC has bond with Arushalae

Session 46 Midnight Isles, Isle of Colyphyr
Fight at the Colyphyr waterfall against the tentacles. Flight low over river and head upstream. Find barge with undead knight and bogarts, fight ensues and Leotis goes down dead but is revived in time by Hskoro. The tide turns in the parties favor when a Crocodile lunges out of the water at Vanidur. Night ends mid fight.

This brings to 3 the PC's I have killed, brought to negative con or more. In each case they have survived through quick healing or creative use of powers to negate the kill.

So just to update. last night we had the session were the party meets Nocticula. It went very well. some good RP. Our oracle of Serenrae suggested she is on a redemption path like Arushalae, She laughs and says this is all about power. then she makes the offer. I customized the wording of each offer to the specific PC's and they were give directly to each player. I told the players to let me know by email after the game. we game online with Foundry so I used a Private Journal enter only the player could see. this, i think, enhanced each individual players RP experience. I got two player to bite. One I expected and one I did not. The players reasonings for taking the offer were both in line with the way they play the character and the story background of each. we will see how it goes from here.

Session 45 Bad Luck Tavern

After a brief fight with demon named Zerikes (plot taken from the video game) the party is invited to speak with Nocticula. The vision in my head for this RP encounter are Matt Mercer and the Critical Role crew. reality is no where near that but I think it went well.

As stated earlier we use Foundry and game online. So I had several images of Nocticula to display to the party. She is not siting in her thrown, she is lounging, paying more attention to her nails on one hand while moving her other in a suggestive manor across her body.

The entire party had failed her fascinating presence saving throw which had them do at the very start of the session, so I told our talkative player to quiet down for a few. I described Nocticula as speaking in Abyssal but each character hearing it in their head as their racial language.
we went through a bunch of general RP where She agrees do help the party and reveals the she pulled the strings that allowed the party to become mythic. they are in effect her children in my game. then she makes her offer of the Profane Ascension.
I created a journal entry that was private to each player and described that as she spoke they could tell that she was speaking to them alone. I paused at this point and gave the players time to read their journal entry. each was different based on the PC's class and how the character had developed. She ended by saying let me know. I tell the players if anyone is interested to email me after the session. They then enter the pool next to her throne and travel to Colyphyr where we end the session.

We say our good night and log off, its 10:45 Pm we normally end at 11 but I felt this was a good break point. with in minutes I get a response from the one player I gave a heads up to that this was coming. his character is the only one I felt would accept this offer and wanted the player to seriously consider it. His offer journal entry was 3 times as long as the other players. He gave me an excellent In Character response. offer accepted

the next morning I get a second offer accepted from another player I did not expect. apparently what I wrote in the journal enter he felt was spot on for the LG character to risk the Profane. second offer Accepted.

Im waiting to see if i get one more. Two weeks til next session.

Session 44 The Battle Bliss Arena,

Cerritulus vs Glderfang in one on one combat.

Cerritulus gets initiative. throws off his cape and drops his unknowable alignment spell. displaying for all in attendance that he is a Paladin of Iomedae.

I thought this might last more than two rounds, but Cerritulus is built to fight demons and Gelderfang went down quickly, while doing a fair amount of damage of his own. With some successful Performance combat roles the crowd is swayed to the parties side. Max Notoriety is scored for the party.

Minagho was in the crowd and screams out in rage at the Paladins win then retreats. Tease to the party that she is still around.

Party is invited to meet a VIP in the Royal(nocticulas) viewing box.
I run a RP encounter inspired by Stip's Diner with Arelu Vorlesh. It goes fairly well. I emphasized how much power they felt coming off of her to avoid a fight starting. i think it went well.

Party returned to Bad Luck tavern to rest for night and receives Nazirrius offer to double cross Minagho, they decline and he leaves. next day he attacks and is whipped out.

End of session.

Apologies for more inconsistent posting on my behalf. we had a month layoff due to vacations and end of summer stuff, but have returned to the game.

I have played the pc game for this AP and also Balders Gate 3 and due to a lack of creativity on my part have brought into this game some elements for both of those video game. So with that in mind.....

Session 38 Midnight Fane Calistril 20th 4714 AR
The Lab has been destroyed and the portal sealed. The party is now in the Abyss.... Now all that remains is how to find a way home…… They exit the caverns and find the temple ruins. they figure out the ritual to get themselves teleported to the capital of the Midnight Isles, Alushinyrra. they eventually find their way to the Bad luck tavern as a place to stay while in the city.

Session 39 Midnight Isles, Bad Luck tavern in the Demon city of Alushinyrra

While hanging in the Bad luck tavern on the first night, Leotis decides to join a fight in progress in a fighting pit in the center of the tavern.
The combatants are from Baldurs Gate 3 karlach and Lae'Zel. Karlach is flirty with Leotis and LaeVel and a non-leathal fight with no weapons is decided upon. Winner buys the drinks.
Leotis wins fight in pit against Karlach and Lae’Zel. Then he gets lucky with Lae’zel and Karlach.

They meet the Iconics. Ezren, Harsk, Kyra, Merisiel, and Valeros. They are told a way to get noticed is to fight in the battle Bliss arena.

Session 40 Midnight Isles, Bad Luck tavern in the Demon city of Alushinyrra

Moon rise after pit fight in Bad Luck Tavern…. Go to Flesh market and shop and overhear alead on Crystals. Return to INN and get invited to Ten Thousand Delights. Offered job to rescue Succubi from Rotten Guttery.

Session 41 Midnight Isles, Bad Luck tavern in the Demon city of Alushinyrra

Meet at Ten thousands delights to find out about job. Rescue Some “girls” from rotten guttery. It is a trap set up by Chivarro for some reason.
they win fight and return to Ten Thousand delights to confront Chivarro . She attacks party and is banished from Delights for breaking no fighting rule.

"The only taboos here are brawling, moderation and talking politics. Aside from that anything goes."

Delights closes shop for rest of shift to elect new madam. party is directed to employment, an entertainment opportunity at Rupture of Rapture. Party returns to Inn for “night”

Session 42 Midnight Isles, Bad Luck tavern in the Demon city of Alushinyrra

4th night in the Abyss. Head to Fleshmarket to find Rapture of Rupture and entertain Velexia successfully. They Turn down offer to work for her. This earns them first major Notoriety Points. They then follow up on crysatals lead by Heading to manor of demon Zerieks to eaves drop on conversation. Poorly accomplished, and Adamar is spotted. Zerieks is ammused by this and wants to know why he is there. Adamar asks about info on crystal mines. Zerieks offers to find out info in exchange he wants party to kill Movet Honey Tongued of Ten Thousand delights as payment for the information. Party discusses and session ends.

Session 43

Partys LG characters decied not to do anything about Movet for now and group finally get around to checking out Battle Bliss. I decide to run this in two parts.
First are some tryouts to see if they are competent enough to compete in main event. I set up a bunch of individual encounters so each player is spotlighted one at a time. Their opponents are the Iconics they meet at the tavern. The party wins 4 out of the five competitions and are selected to represent at the main event.
The competitions were the

Will.I.AM Tell archery. shoot red ball off of Dretches head. Each round ball get smaller (Increasing penalty until someone misses)

The Ninja Warrior Obstacle Course. run an obstacle course (acrobatics skill check) while being attacked by ninja. (each hit gave a penalty to skill check)

Do the Most Damage Competition. There are multiple targets that are assigned a point value, "We call these HitPoints". There were 2 to 3 rounds to do the most damage. Targets were Abyssal larva (bad AC low HP)

Final was a 2 v 2 melee.

As a GM I feel I did a bad job with this. I was not happy with the way it came out. I was inspired to do this when the Olympics were on earlier this year, but it did not work out the way I wanted it to.

Main event time. Party selects the Paladin Cerritulas to go up against Gelderfang. Roll intiative.... session ends.

I plan to have Minagho show her face at the end of the Arena Fight and run away. They Killed her at the mine, but I am hand waving her back to give reason to run Nezirrius. I am having Chivarro be her sister(reason for Rotten Guttery encounter), so party will confront both.

I am also planning to do a variation on Stip's

https://paizo.com/threads/rzs43ly3?My-dinner-with-Areelu-Vorlesh

She is a VIP at the arena and realizing who who the party is decided she wants to meet them.

Until next session.

My final GM thoughts on this book. I know this is an old 1st ed series and there is not much traffic here but anyone looking to run this feel free to reach out for ideas.

I have a campaign summery in this forum for reference.

I can not recommend highly enough reading the “Narrative “ thread by Stip. this was an incredible source of story ideas and cutscenes I have extensively used.

Don’t worry if your players have played the video game. There are enough differences to still make this game fun. I also recommend tweaking things as needed. AP’s are the base framework to use, adjust as needed.

Mechanically, I did not alter this book. I still consider myself a mediocre GM when it comes to mechanical tweaks. I do have a 5-6 person party. So they will level slower due to splitting xp more ways. Once mythic comes into play a large party can get obscene very quickly, so I recommend keeping large groups a level behind recommendations. And you may still need to buff enemies.

I am not a fan of the mass combat rules presented here. Neat idea but kind of anticlimactic as I ran them very clunky. I wish I thought of your idea SqueezeBox of using troop rules. I think that would have worked much better. And allowed for direct player interaction if they wanted to.

Nurah….. no one had played the video game but they instantly did not like or trust her. Luckily for me they always rolled poorly when trying to catch her. I had also added an additional NPC kid as a distraction. If there is player knowledge on this plot point either drop it entirely or stress the Champaign idea of redemption to the players. Try to turn her back.

Make the first fight against a mythic monster ,Soltengerbe, memorable. Bump his stats if need be, fully use his dual initiative. This should be a fight that pushes the party to the brink. stress that this creature is different, enhanced some how (the elixir). I emphasize a purple haze seeping from it. He actually dropped a PC to negative in one round though party was able to revive her the next round befor perma death.

As always I added a lot of narrative that is not in the book. Background on BBEG from future books, events happening elsewhere etc.. reasons to dislike named enemies befor you meet them so there is a reason to take them out other than they are just the next enemy.

My final GM thoughts on this book. I know this is an old 1st ed series and there is not much traffic here but anyone looking to run this feel free to reach out for ideas.

I have a campaign summery in this forum for reference.

I can not recommend highly enough reading the “Narrative “ thread by Stip. this was an incredible source of story ideas and cutscenes I have extensively used.

Don’t worry if your players have played the video game. There are enough differences to still make this game fun. I also recommend tweaking things as needed. AP’s are the base framework to use, adjust as needed.

Mechanically, I did not alter this book. I still consider myself a mediocre GM when it comes to mechanical tweaks. I do have a 5-6 person party. So they will level slower due to splitting xp more ways. Once mythic comes into play a large party can get obscene very quickly, so I recommend keeping large groups a level behind recommendations. And you may still need to buff enemies.

Only real key thing is for the party to grab Radiance. Even if no paladin in the party make sure they grab it. Make a list of all the spots where Radiance levels. It is helpful in future books to remember where to nudge the party. There is a Radiance thread that has the list in it.

for initial narrative I had the party split. They don’t know each other, I greatly expanded the Terendelev scene to include more narrative description and a round of action highlighting each player. A skill check to save some from falling, then you fall, attack a demon to distract it for someone , then you fall, etc. Then all blackness and player one your in darkness moving forward you see figure ahead, add player two, repeat, add Aravashnial, repeat.

From here I mechanically ran the book as written, with a lot a narrative additions.

My party is now in the midnight isles, I hope they will actually decide to do the battle bliss. I was inspired by the Olympics last month to do a series of preliminary fights as a tryout scene for the arena. The party will be facing up against the Iconics that they meet when first arriving in the city. There will be a series of one on one competitions, enough to spotlight each pc, against one of the iconic. Overall winning team gets first crack at champion.

There will be a Ninja obstinate course. Physical skill checks while being attacked by ninjas.

The Will I Am Tell archery competition. Shoot target off head of low level demon. Target gets smaller each round.

Do the most damage. 2 to 3 rounds to do the most damage. Several targets in the field worth differed point for each kill. We call these hit points. Contestant with most hit points downed wins.

There will be 5 divergent competitions, only one pc per. The party skald can chi me in with the performance combat rules each round.

I like the royal rumble idea too, and might do something with that.

A VIP might be impressed by the party and they get a diner invite to meet this patron. Turns out to be Vorlesh a la Darth Vader cloud city scene.

Happy to see you post again. I have been inconsistent in updating my thread. I was getting interested to see how your game was playing out. I am currently on a do nothing vacation. It will consist of sitting by a pool, drinking a beer and rereading everything for the Midnight Isle. This will include this thread. I raise a can to your narrative…

I know it has been awhile since you posted this , but the group i'm GMing has just reached the Midnight Isles. I think a lot will depend on your group. During the interaction with her, I will be describing all communication with the PC's as telepathic in their native racial tongue, while she lounges on her thrown looking disinterested. Most of this interaction will be heard by all, but at one point she will make her offer to each individually. Since we are gaming online I will be setting up a private message to each PC that they will read in real time with the custom offer to each. most of the PC are good alignment and it is not a real offer. there is one PC who is evil who might actually accept and I will be talking to him GM/Player in advance. there is a second PC that through RP in prior book might be susceptible to an offer also. We will see if any one takes it. As a gm i will not confirm who does or does not.

but to answer your questions.

1.) there is mention of Nocticula joining the fight vs Baphomet in Book 5 pg55 if she is called on by the boon pc if they make a successful roll. this looks to be detrimental to that PC. If things are going badly for the PC you could have her show up anyway just as they are about to fall.

Book 6 has some interaction listed on pg 21,23,24 . looks like not directly, but to provide info. and possibly if called to join campaigns ultimate fight vs deskari.

2.) not accepting the offer losses a potential powerful ally(shinny thing) as you mention. As a GM you lose a source of dropping hints to the players and get out of jail free card if you are looking at a TPK.

3.) yet to be seen what the end result will actually be. if one of the possible two pc does accept I will mention it when they meet Iomedae during book 5. She will ask them If they are Nocticula's "Mortal Herald" unintentionally. Only gods have mortal heralds. in my head cannon a god (iomedae) just recognized nocticula as a god. one of many steps Nocticula needs to become the Redeemer Queen of PF2. My intention during the wrap-up once we finish is to state the the PC is raised by her to immortality as her herald.

I have been very neglectful in updating here. summertime, vacations , etc...

A quick summary..

finished book 3, used the trial of Arushalae scene. I think it went well.

Session 31 The Wouldwound, midday 2nd of Abadius 4714
Having climbed out of the Forever Gullet the party continues on toward the Ivory Sanctum. 4th of Abadius the party arrives at the Ivory Sanctum and invades. They meet and kill the glabrezu demon Jerribeth. Session ends

Session 32 The Wouldwound, midday 4th of Abadius 4714
Inside the Ivory Sanctum.

Session 33 The Wouldwound, afternoon 4th of Abadius 4714
Still in the Ivory Sanctum, start fight with Xanthir Vang.
Session 34 The Wouldwound, afternoon 4th of Abadius 4714
Still in the Ivory Sanctum, round 4 of fight with Xanthir Vang. Succumb to Feeblemind, and dropped down Acid Pit.
Arushalae gives anarchic gift to Vanidure.

Session 35 Drezzen, morning of 15th of Abadius Oathday 4714
Funerals have been held, Rites of passing completed. Healing continues for those most greviously injured from the 2nd Battle for Drezzen. Word has been sent to the capitol and reports back that the Queen is coming.

Session 36 Drezen 17th Abadius 4714
Party readies to go to Midnight Fane, shopping in Absalom, 20 day travel to the midnight fane arrive on 20th of Calistril
Enter the fane and engage Minagho.

Session 37 Midnight Fane Calistril 20th 4714 AR
Round 3 of fight in the fane with Minagho.

I see it now, listed in d20pfsrd.com and also in aonprd.com. I would have thought they would have pointed that out in the AP Book with Nocticula or Book 5 with Baphomet. One of a million details that might have gotten lost in word count limit.

It looks like it is from Bestiary 4 which came out at the same time as the AP and Mythic Adventures. I don't have a copy of Bestiary 4 to check original source. Thanks for pointing out the proper semantics. I was using tier/rank interchangeably.

I know my party will jump at the chance to fight a Demon Lord so I will be doing more than adding Mythic 10 Ranks.

I am not sure where you see that Demon Lords should have 10 Mythic ranks.

I went back to book 4 and Nocticula (CR30) does not have any Mythic tiers either. These three Big Baddies were probably stated out long before the Mythic Rules were released and thus did not have any Mythic tiers.

From a story perspective, The Mythic tiers, in my opinion, are to bring the PC's up to their level. To make mortals capable for going against high level opponents of the Outer Planes. To make them semi-divine in their own right.

Demon Lords are effectively demi-gods, especially when in their own realm. If you do not think they are tough enough for the PCs, due to game mechanics, then just crank up the HP or add a few levels.

If it is a flavor thing you are looking for then pick and add what you think would be a compatible Mythic path or a few feats. I recommend Dual-Initiative, or maybe just give them some mythic power dice to use.

To me there is only so many actions you will get to use during a fight that adding more option (Mythic Tiers, or class level) gets overly complicated. With all the things I need to track as a GM I would rather just add some hit dice with corresponding HP and To Hit bonuses. the simpler the better for me.

Session 30 Arueshalae’s redoubt, Kuthona 26th Midday.

The Bell Tower of Desna

The Party returns to their manor house in Drezen via teleport with Arueshalae. They bring Irabeth to meet her and recount what has occurred. Irabeth has great reservations, but trusts the party. They plan to go after Xanther Vane With Arueshalae’s help. Spend a few days re supplying and crafting.
Kuthona 31st, teleport back to the Redoubt and travel overland towards the Ivory Sanctum. Random encounter a Dwiergeth. Round of range attacks as it closes towards melee. Cerritulus the Paladin charges it to attack but provokes AoO and gets Swallowed Whole into its Forever Gullet. For visual effect I say his foot can be seen sticking out of its mouth. Adamar the Arcanist inquires if his foot is actually there and I decide yes. He Dimensional Slides to the creature intent on grabbing his foot, but this teleportation like ability sends him into the Forever Gullet. Not sure how he got there he makes concentration check to Teleport out but ends up back inside. The remaining players out side take 2 rounds to kill the monster and free those trapped inside.
Session ends midday 2nd of Abadius 4714.

Session 29 Arueshalae’s redoubt, Kuthona 26th Midday.

A feminine voice has been calling Vanidur in her dreams eastward for the last three weeks. You have finally reached your destination. The voice reaches out again, warning of demons and to seek her at the Bell tower. It is midday and we find the Warriors of First Light shrouded In a haze of smoke. Before them Is a rising path to the narrow gate of some former castle. 30ft above the plain sits this keep on the only hill for miles. It lies in ruin save for a belltower in the SE corner. This tower appears as if newly constructed. There is the faint hum of a tolled bell. Dead on the ground, there lies a Drake rider, half a dozen arrows protrude from his chest. His drake swooped out of line of site behind the crumbling walls screeching in a Draconic tongue.
Adamar speaks “well It has raised the alarm… want me to stop crafting?” Roll Initiative.

I beefed up everything in the redoubt and they still effectively chewed through it all. I was glad to see everyone fail the Bell save ... I got to damage everyone on that one. No CG pc's or Desna followers in the group. They finnaly meet Arueshalae and session ends.

I see it now, BattleBliss Arena, a row of VIP suits along the top... Vorlesh and Hepzimiriah in one. Across the arena Nocticulas Private box all blacked out, half way though maybe you see Shamira watching the event from its railing. at last fight just a hand on the railing out of the blackness... Nocticula watching?

This coming session will be the fight at Aruselaes Redoubt. I maxed all of the HP on enemies. Added 2 levels of Cleric to the Hag and will be adding in 6 Brimoracks with fireball because the Party like to use a smoke screen that they can see through. I have reread the Bell of mercy several time to make sue I have it correct because no one in the party is CG. hehehehe. " Areushalae we are here to save you.... ouch.... what the F*&^....."

Back to the real question, how to tweak the in AP story.

Again I can not thank STIP enough, and as I recall a few by MightyPion for the Narrative post.

Most of what I have changed is more for me as a GM. I dont think my players have played the VG version. one player is running this AP for his kids but on a much more irregular basis and we have now passed were they were at.

Book one.

I modified Stips Narrative intro to my party. groups of two pcs know each other and one main NPC but not the other PC's. I do a little background for these 3 groups of two then go into the modified Into scene and at various points to break up a long narrative for each group to do a one round combat/skill challenge before falling into the riffs and it all going dark.

from there game goes as written until end of book 1. I do introduce an additional NPC, a tiefling kid who I intended to be MY PC in Strength of Thousands AP by our other GM/player. at end of book after final fight they go unconscious for one month as body adapts to the divine (Mythic) energy they absorbed and They have more STIP Narrative dreams.

Book 2 as written with the addition that the Kid comes along as a page/gopher and is used by Nurah as a patsy to draw attention from her. she made all her rolls, PC's failed all theirs in our play through. They suspected but never caught her. also suspected the kid. If your players have done the VG then I would preface this AP by saying you have changed things because of that then dont just to mess with them. Sprinkled in some STIP Narravtives.

Book3 no changes really. continue the Nurah/kid stuff. They never came across Kiranda in Book 2 so now she is impersonating Nurah to do mischief. I specifically did a scene where Nurah was having conversations with two different groups of PC's at the same time and they missed it. The group is not delving into the RP aspect of trying to redeem NPC's as much as reveling in combat. Nurah, Jestak, Jorha Vane, Jesker possibly others from future books. I hand waved the reconstruction of Drezen and just decided on two and a half months of time for rebuild. next session is The Redoubt. then we have Ivory Sanctum. other than beefing up the combat do to party strength I have done no story changes. I cant wait for the PC to take damage from Desnas ward at the Redoubt. No CG pc's in the party. The last thing I am going to do is use the PFS module Siege of Diamond City(Drezen) for the closing of this book. It is just to give me a frame work for massive combat to completely ware down the PC's to the point of failure where I will have Irabeth Atop the wall of citadel Drezzen raise the Banner and summon Hand of Inheritor to save the day.

Planning stages
Book 4 expand Battle Bliss to include fights against past PC's characters and foes form other AP's already played.

More RP with Nocticula.

Conacer, feel free to reach out directly if you want more details but here are the major changes I have made.

Head Canon/ Stuff the PC dont know.

Demon Lord Motivations
Deskari - Expand his abyssal realm into the material plane through the Worldwound to gain power by slaughter and eventually become a god. Mortal world thinks he is just taking advantage of Areelu Vorlesh opening the worldwound, but this has been in the works for centuries.

Baphomet - Provide just enough support to convince Deskari they have allied goals. if opening presents itself take it all for himself, or pull back and wash hands of the endeavors if deskari screws up.

Nocticula - The most important player in this game from the PC's perspective.
There is one god in the Abyss, and she has no intention of allowing these two idiots to be a second. The Bugs plans threaten the the world holding Rovagaug and the Starstone. If they win there is the risk of destroying ALL reality. She knows the Gods of good can not interfere directly but she can, she is not a true god. but how to go about it?
the saying "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" is not quite true. they are still my enemy but why not use them for my one ends. With that in mind, over the last 100 years of conflict Nocticula has pushed certain mortals into position where,if the conditions are correct, they will gain a bit of Divinity, (become Mythic).
In one way or another Nocticula caused the PC's to get their Campaign trait. she caused Arushalae to rise, and be in position to save the Chance Encounter and Exposed to Awefulness pc. She caused the seduction of the mother of the Touched by divinity, etc. maybe even had a hand in Queen Galfrey getting the imortality elixers that keep her young and fighting, or Yaniel.
She has no interest in direct action against the BUG and Bull, she works from the shadows unless she cant. when the party meets her in book 4 she will be referring to them in motherly familial terms, my childern, young ones, Daughter for Arueshalae if she is there.
since my group games online, When she offers her profane blessing to the group openly I will be sending each PC a separate email revealing to each her involvement in their backstory and the individualized offers. but we are not there yet.

the GODs of Good. transparent modivation. stop all demons.

that is enough for one post. more in the next.

that is the enough for one post.

Back at it with just the highlights. Party is currenlty 6 9th level characters with 3/4 mythic tiers and they are wiping everything out. I will end up frustrating them with slower level advancement while keeping the mythic going per the AP schedule.

I can not wait for Book 4 to introduce Nocticula.

Session 22 5th of lamashan Sunday
Two days have passed after the town and citadel of Drezen have been liberated. In a Ceremony of Victory the banner, The Sword of Valor, is raised above the gates of Citadel Drezen to the cheers f the amassed Knights of Kenabres. It is later hung in a place of honor within the Citadel’s templars’ Court. The Party has a chance to rest for a few days while the Army under Irabeth Tirabade starts the task of restoring the town of Drezen and the Citadel to a defensible state.

11th of Lamashan Starday Search for Jesker Helton
12th Sunday head out into the worldwound

Session 23 12th Lamashan Sunday
Head out towards Wintersun hall and return on 22nd of Lamashan. Defeat the Barbarians and Mythic trial for Mike

Session 24 23rd of Lamashan
Review last few sessions, Mikes Mythic Trial, Read Our Lady in Shadow to introduce Nocticula. 15 days spent in town to craft items. 7th of Neth 4713AR 8th Neth head towards Seekers Gully. Clif hanger at final fight.

Session 25 10th of Neth.
Mid fight in the crypt of Seekers Gully. Drazz Mythic trial

Session 26 18th of Neth.
Worldwound Marchlands seeking out Scorizscar the woundwyrm. Move into Fallen fane hex. Win the fight. One got away. Temple cleansed. Hskoro Mythic trial.
Session 27 19th of Neth, 3 months since fall of Kenabres
Dawn at the Restored Fane of Sarenrae. Kenrick dreams. Seek out the Woundwyrm. Easy win , explore, current 27th neth. Molten Scar on the Kuthona 4th.

Session 28 Out in the Worldwound a month since leaving Drezen to explore.
Return to Drezen on Kuthona the 11th Starday. Leave Drezen on the 16th. 14 days to Arushelaes redoubt

I am going to pull out PC's my players have run from prior campaigns and put them in as contestants. Most likely some evil ones from 3rd party campaign "Way of the Wicked" that I ran. And also maybe another good guy party with Pathfinder Iconics.

I was also going to run fight after fight after fight. no long rest, all magic buffs wiped out as they pass through the gate into the battle floor. a bunch of stuff to nerf the party.

I have played the video game and now I'm running the AP, almost done with book 3. As previously stated above there are enough difference in the two games There are 2 spoilers from the VG that I see. Nurah and Arueshalae. This only matters if your group has played the VG.

Nurah as a spy, I might possibly keep her as untrustworthy due to her background but shit the actual betrayals to maybe Sosiel. Blame it on the loss of his brother Trever which is found out in book 3, or drop that story line altogether which is easily done.

For Arueshalae, I have tied her into the backstory of 3 of my player, not just the Chance Encounter Trait. Every time i have shown her she is described as a Tiefling, never shows her demonic for. Her Demonic form is always referred to as the traitor or heretic by the forces of the world wound.
The party is about to meet her face to face at the end of book 3 and she will do the reveal of her true form.

Suture has almost no presence in the AP, much bigger role in the VG.

I do not see much need to change Areelu Vorlesh. Her history is well document by the crusades, and an obvious BBG. you can tweak her motivation if you want, but she does not show until late in the AP.

I can not strongly enough recommend delving into Stip's Narrative/Cut scene Thread for story ideas. I have tweaked many of the entries there for my specific party. It also served as a springboard to my own twist for this AP. Nocticula is pulling the PC's strings. She has foreseen where this conflict will go and has seeded the worldwound with children able to touch the devine, ie become mythic. Basically Nocticula was the cause of all the players background campaign traits.

I also concur with stip above in limiting the Mythic power. I have a large group of 6 using the full mythic rule and most fights last no more than 2 rounds. also give every Mythic bad guy Dual Initiative.

I did actually find the entry for Epic. In Mythic Adventures pg 7.

DR/Epic: A type of damage reduction, DR/epic can be
overcome only by a weapon with an enhancement bonus of +6
or greater (Pathfinder RPG Bestiary 299). Weapons with special
abilities also count as epic for the purposes of overcoming
damage reduction if the total bonus value of all of their
abilities (including the enhancement bonus) is +6 or greater.

Here is how I am running Radiance in my game. Based on what I could find in the AP books reading them though. We are currently in the Middle of Book 3.

When discovered in Book1 it is asleep, inert. It is a cold iron longsword.
and stays that way unless handled by a Paladin. Which it was in my game.
When a Paladin takes it, it awakens and becomes a +1 Cold Iron Longsword (that paladin's diety weapon).

When the Paladin becomes mythic at the end of BK1, Radiance gains Legendary status per the Mythic rules and Bonds to the Paladin once used in combat. Legendary is not the same as Epic.

In Book 2 once the party Reclaims the Lost Chapel Radiance gains an additional +1. +2 Cold Iron Longsword Legendary. Still not Epic.

Once Drezen is Liberated and the Sword of Valor recovered in BK2 it gains another +1. +3 Cold Iron Longsword Legendary. Still not Epic.

Book 3 recovering Yaniels Armor from room Q12 adds Holy. Radiance is now a +3 Holy Cold Iron Legendary Longsword. Still not Epic. +3 magic, +2 for Holy equals +5 item. epic is +6.

Book 4 Reviving Yaniel and putting the Sword in her hand fully restores the Sword Radiances' power as a Legenday, Epic, Holy Avenger in the hands of a Paladin. For a Non-Paladin it would be +2 cold Iron Longsword. At this point I will call it Epic. +5 Magic and + 2 for Holy equals +7, Epic in my game.

I am running Epic based on total value of bonuses.

I can see the point of saying that Epic is referring to the to hit/Damage magic modifier and in that case only high level bane weapons would be epic, and only against their chosen foe. The rules for Overcoming DR do specify Enhancement Bonus(Core pg 562), which has a max of 5 per item creation rules.

So in this interpretation Radiance would also need to be a Bane weapon to be Epic and only against its chosen foe. It would have to be Demons in my opinion for obvious RP reasons.

Several week layoff on my game due to holidays and Work On-call schedule.

We are up to session 24 of the campaign. We are well into book 3 Demons Heresy. I have jumped the characters to 9th level. One player has completed the their campaign Mythic trial so far and getting ready for the 2nd PC to do so also. If they go after the Woundworm next those two will tier up befor the others.

I used the Stip Prologue "Our Lady In Shadow" to blatantly introduce Nocticula who I will be having a big behind the scene role in the Campaign on the PC's side. We are 3 and a half months In World time since the start of the campaign in Kenabres. When everyone shows up we anve a virtual table of 6 PC's.

I had a group of Hell Knight show up while the PC were away. They are in the region looking for Relics to use in the fight against the Demons. The Prior campaign I ran was Hells Vengeance which takes place 3 years Paizo timeline after WotR. So I used the Hell Knight names from that AP with the idea that this is when they find Iomdeas sword from that AP. I also dropped that they were looking for runaway Halfling slave as a hook to try to give the PC's a Nurah redemption path. No one has bit the Hook though.

Inconsistent updates due to inconsistent game night. Drezen is liberated. This is the first of several quick emails that I sent to players to close out book 2.

Wrath of the Righteous email 2
Timeline

16th Arodus 4713 AR, Starday.
Official start to Armasse festival is shattered by the Destruction of the Kenabres Wardstone and the Fall of the city to Demonic attackers. Terendelev , the dragon defender is slain by the demon Korazmedan The Stormlord.

21st Arodus 4713 AR, Oathday.
Remaining defenders under command of Irabeth Tirabade , captain of the Eagle Watch, start to form a plan to take the city back.

25th Arodus 4713 AR, Moonday.
The remaining troops within Kenabres raise up in a combined assault through out the City. Within the Grey Garrison and small team of fighers destroy the last remaining piece of the Wardstone causing a cascade destruction of the entire Wardstone line surrounding the Worldwound. The resulting pulse of divine power devastates the Demons all along the borderland, but the protection this ring afforded is lost.

19th Rova 4713 AR, Fireday, Day of the Inheritor.
Queen Galfery of Mendev declares the start of the Fifth Mendevian Crusade. A small Army of 200 plus Paladins and soldiers leaves Kenabres under the command of Ireabeth Tirabade.

28th of Rova 4713 AR Sunday
The Knights of Kenabres arrive at the outskirts of drezen. Over the next few days the Large town is secured.

1AM 2nd of Lamashan 4713 AR Oathday.
Command tent of the Knights of Kenabres. A table with scattered maps is surrounded by Commander Tirabade, various captians and sergeants, and a few specific others.
“Anevia, your final scouting report.”
“Commander, there are three armies remaining. Dretches, Cultists and Tieflings. They outnumber us 2 to 1 and have the advantage of the Citadels wall. But they appear to be somewhat disorganized. We have not seen their commander, Staunton Vhane. We even observed a barbarian on the walls of the citadel lop the head off of some trooper before chasing more back into the citadel.”

“Vaenic, Priest of the Eternal Rose, your report”

“ With our victories outside the fortress and the liberation of the mercenaries, our forces believe that Victory Is Assured. With the assistance of Jesker Helton ,Priest of Erastil, a forward triage area has been set up for the assault. It should help with healing for the upcoming assault.”

“Arles Jhestander, front and center. You are a seasoned warrior of the 4th crusade. Though your faith faulted in Iomedae’s eye, you have shone a true desire to regain your righteousness. Your work with the mercenaries has quickly restored their will and ability to fight. Let this serve as your first penance, I name you Captain of the mercenaries.”

“Thank You Commander, I will endeavor to lead according to the will of the Inheritor. The troops have a request. A standard of their own and to be know as The Liberated of Drezen.”
“ It is so granted”
Aravashnial and Gwerm, While all eyes are on us tomorrow, take advantage of the time to scour the Southbank for anything of value, supplies , magic. Anything you can find.”
“As you command Tirabade.”

“Kir, Dendiwhar, once the walls are breached, see if you can get any of those ballistae functional.

“Finally, our volunteers, take advantage of our initial charge as cover to get to the Citadel. Find your way inside and take out the head of this Demonic Snake”

“That is all for now. See to your troops. Go Forward in Light to Combat the Darkness”

The tent empties.

What passes for dawn in the edge of the Worldwound arrives. Mounted Knights of Kenabres are at the ready. With a last passionate kiss for Anevia, Ireabeth Tirabade, Commander of the Knight of Kenabres Mounts her Charger. Drawing The Sword Radiance for it sheath, “for the liberation of Drezen” she yells and spurs the horse forward. 50 Mounted Paladins charge across the Ahari Bridge and throught the gates of the Citadel Courtyard heading left to engage the Dretches. The Cultist army moves in to surround this small troop of Kenabres Knight when the remaining Knights Pour in through the gates. The mounted Warriors keep up the charge circling around the inner walls of the western side to keep up their momentum. Seeing a chance to encircle the Knights, the tieflings in the eastern courtyard move to engage, leaving the breach in the easter wall unprotected. Under the Command of Jestander, the Liberated of Drezen, some 300 strong surge through the breach, attacking the tiefling from the rear and taking to the walls for archer support. This day will be long and hard fought, but by the grace of the Gods of The Crusade, Drezen will be freed.

In the midst of the initial attack, a small group of volunteers, entered unobserved, into the citadel.

Mid-morning, 3rd of Lamashan 4713 AR the Celestial Beacon Tower above Citadel Drezen.

The Sword of Valor, The banner carried by Iomedae herself when mortal in the Shinning Crusades, is raised above for all to see. What little remains of the defenders will is broken, some surrender, some flee. The Dretches were not given any quarter and were slaughter to the last.
Drezen is Freed.

Lazy poster here.

So we have had two sessions since my last post, and will be playing again on this Thursday. In that time the players have decided that they do not care for the Army rules. We have had similar issues in the past with kingdom rules and Kingmaker AP. They were happy to hear it was basically just this book. So everything south of the river has been cleared out and one of the Armies finally took damage from the Ghoul Army. In the Haunted Vault , the front line fighter Drazz rushes in with Vanidur, both raging. Drazz gets surprise struck by the resident baddie and is paralyzed for the entire combat.

Irabeth has the war camp moved into the Southside of Drezzen to prepare for the Citadels invasion. Little bit of down time RP where Drazz finally makes some roles to figure out that Norah is up to something, and the rest try to figure out what is up with Aron.

I do a quick cut scene inside the Citadel where Stanton yells at a captain for “LOOSING THE SOUTH SIDE IN TWO DAYS” grabs weapon…lops head off..” lieutenant prepare troops and wake up Soltengreebe”. In a Darth Vader inspired promotion scene.

No army stuff this time just fighting in background, Aron tries to run away but is KO’d. party gathers in generic town square map to fight Soltengreebe.

He lands on a roof and sound effect roar ensues. Players position and initiative ensues. Drazz rushes to base of the building Soult is on while others stay on far side. Soult flysdown towards the others and breath weapon hits 3 of them hard. Vanidurs Orcish side takes over and rushes into melee. 3 points damage. 5DR. Whatever. Mage and Archer do some actual damage. Then they discover dual initiative as Soltengreebe rag dolls Vanidur. Both bites and the crushing jaws bring her down to 17HP. Drazz races up and is ineffective with his giant greatsword. Soltengreebe again rag dolls Vanidur befor she can go again and bring her negative with both bites, but not dead. I hesitate for a moment then decide I have to do it. There is a chance if I roll low that she will be above negative double con. His crushing jaws bring her to one more than need. Vanidur is dropped the the ground dead. Adamat and Kendrick do signiant damage again and Soltengreebe goes after Kendrick this time. On the following round Adamar’s mystic , empowered, pushing, and a bunch of other crazy stuff magic missile knocks it over and in a rage over Vanidurs death Drazz finally hits for massive damage. Driving his sword into the monsters exposed belly, killing it.

He rushes to the the fallen Vanidur.

In major climactic fights, as a GM I like to bring at least one player down to nothing. But not topically kill them. As the players check to see if anyone has a spell up their sleeve to save the one round dead character, I asked Louise the player if she liked her character Vanidur. She said yes.

To the party I read.. Vanidur, your vision fades from red to black, you see hands clasped befor you and a bow on the floor. I read “Arueshalae’s Prayer” to them. The bow is picked up and a shot fired. Vanidur lives. At negative HP and is not benefiting from healing at the moment. The party is Mythic tier two. Session ends.

I had some discussions with the player of Drazz and will be recapping this last fight at the beginning of this coming session. Had a few after the fact ideas that I think will be good.

Last session the Knights of Kenabres have reached the outskirts of Drezzen. The army took Paradise Hill and freed the Rescued Mercenary Army. Based on the luck of the die rolls, the army fights are going to be a minor distraction and I am debating on just making them narrative events to speed up the sessions. The party suspects Nurah and have missed all checks on Aron so far. He will disappear soon I think.

This coming session should complete the skirmishes and battles.

I did another round of dreams to show the moment that the players were “touched” with the spark that would allow them to become mythic. This is separate from, but in addition to the champaign trait background. The Bug and the Bull are not the only demon lords playing the long game. Our Lady in Shadow will not tolerate a second god in the abyss. Of course in 2nd ed, The Redeemer Queen does not reside in the abyss.

I am not planning on this altering the Champaign flow, just more behind the scenes NPC motivation for me. Filling in the story holes.

The Campaign continues every other week, I have just been lazy with updating this thread.

The final fight leading to Mythic ascension went smoothly for the PC's. I used an extended narrative inspired by STIP. To honor the passing of our friend and gaming companion John, his character Ulgarrt was consumed in the holy light of the shattered Ward Stone and ascended to Sarenrae's divine court. the fight won, the remaining pc's passout, have a dream where they have an initail meeting with Iomedae and gain their Mythic tiers and Devotion point boons. They awaken a month later and the Queens army is there. The march towards drezen is a slaughter. The Paladin army tears through every enemy they encounter, not even taking any damage. We have just completed The Lost Chapel. So far they have missed every chance to find the traitor in their midst or discover the addict. They did restore hope to Arles. Next session will start with the cleansing of the chapel a chance to discover the addict and Arles asking for Atonement. They will have a brief Dream session that night befor befor heading onto the swarm and they should reach the outskirts of Drezen by the end of next session.

for characters we are currently at Class/mythics we have

Adamar Arcanist(white Wizard)5/ Archmage 1
Drazz Slayer 4/ Fighter 1/ Champion 1
Kenrick Rogue 2/ Slayer 3 / Champion 1
Vanidur Skald 5 / Trickster 1
Hskoro Oracle 5 / Hierophant 1

Recently, my gaming friend of 20 years John the player behind the Goblin Paladin Ulgarrt passed away. Last weeks session was a one shot in his honor allowing us all to share memories of his past characters. I know how I wish to honor him in this game, but do not know if the gaming gods will align for it. In the mean time.

Session 10 Ardus the 25th moonday, early morning The Grey garrison

Gathered in the Aerie on the second floor. Ulgaart with his mount Squeek climb back out the window to go coordinate defense of the garrison with Irabeth and the Mongrel archers. The five remaining Pc’s start to make their way into the hall and immediately start to descamate the teifling guards in the second floor hall. They raise the call of intrudes and a this turns into a continuous fight across both floors of the garrison as the party takes great damage , mitigated by Hskoro the cleric. Adamar and Kenrick score killing blows against the Schir and Abrikandilu. This will earn them the righteous medal of valor. Drazz gets down to single digit HP several times during this long fight. After about 20 rounds of combat they have cleared both the first and second floor , except for the scrying chamber zombies and above. Sessions ends at 11:20 pm real world as combat finishes after 2+ hours session of continuous combat.

At this point party has 3 devotion points for the garrison

All party members will receive Righteous Medal of Clarity for documents recovered here and in the tower of Estrod.
Drazz, Kenrick and Adama will receive Righteous Medal of Valor for killing blows on Demons of higher level.

Session 9 Ardus 23rd Starday Evening at the Defender’s Heart

Warcouncil at the Defender’s Heart. Many crusader captians in attendance. Irabeth and Quednys Orlun give a rundown of the plan and some wardstone background. Irabeth will lead a party of Mongrel men and the PC’s to the grey Garrison and attempt to find and destroy the remaining chunk of the wardstone.

Ardus 24th Sunday people spend the day making Preparations for the attack on the Grey Garrison.

Ardus 25 Moonday early morning they leave the Defender’s Heart. Irabeth , lann and 6 mongrels along with the PC’s. On the way through the Rind District they have a not so random encounter with 3 demons which they dispatch. Reaching the Garrison they take out the front guard after watching many demons leave to investigate the war horns sounding around the city. They climb the walls to the 2nd story window and enter the Aviary RM13 13b. kill the demonic flys and session ends.

Posted late. this session was 2 weeks ago

Session 8 Ardus 22nd Fireday Late Afternoon tower of Estrod

The party has captured the Tower of Estrod, along with 2 Templars of the Ivory Labyrinth and Faxon (the current Head). They secure the two and rummage through loot and documents.

23rd Starday Ardus morning starts at Defenders heart.

Head south through gate district, Tormented Survivors random encounter. Goblin Paladin with nonlethal feat knocks out the commoners one by one while the rest of the party engages the 3 Quasits. One gets away. Proceed to Nyserian manner and find it destroyed. Return to defenders Heart at night fall to find other party returned from Mongrels and start war council.

Session 8 Ardus 22nd Fireday noon inside Topaz Solutions

Player Ulgarrt will be late to todays session.

The PC’s gather on the main floor to avoid the effects of the Bilious Bottle. Ulgarrt is suffering from a 1d4 nonleathal nose bleed every 10 minuntes for an hour and has glowing red eyes. No one else has long term impact. After the cloud disapates in the basement they head back down and check out the Chest under the table. They retrieve the note and the Holy symbols. Adamar and Hskoro are poisoned, but recover. The party leaves Topaz and heads through a gap in the damaged inner wall to the New Kenabres District. The hear smashing sounds and a woman screaming. run Besieged Shop random encounter and they rescue the shop keepers. Ulgarrt escorts them back to Defender’s Heart while remaining 5 party members head on towards the Tower of Estrod.

They use the password to gain entrance and converse with Faxon. I altered this encounter by adding 6 more cultists. The PC’s had made good bluff vs Sense motive checks so the cultists were caught off guard and I staggered their entrance into combat. Faxon tried to charm and then curse our low wisdom two handed warrior who made his saves and took Faxon down in two rounds. He was stabilized and tied up. Cultists did some decent damage, but thanks to a well placed Obscuring mist the PC’s took them down. Towards the end of the fighting I had the door guards bail just as player Ulgarrt logged into the game. His Goblin Paladin fought them at the main doors. One was subdued but one did get away. Final toll, faxon and one cultist captured, one got away and six killed. Session ended on Ardus the 22nd Fireday late afternoon.

This was a tough fight but 2 cultists (CR1) and Faxon (CR4) as written would have been a waste of time. Party of 6 4th level PC’s has adjusted APL of 5. As I indicated at the beginning am only going to slightly alter the AP as written and rely on 6 pc’s splitting xp to balance our encounter levels. I will probably bump them up at some points in the future. I expect them to reach 5th level somewhere inside the Gray garrison. They will not reach 6th until somewhere in the start of next the book.

Session 7 Arodus 21st Oathday late afternoon (From a great height)
attachment again from Narrative thread

Meet up with various NPC’s.
lot of RP tonight, Meet Sosiel from Book2 as head of the healers at Defenders Heart. meet a Tiefling 10yr old who I will be adding in as a recurring NPC to deflect for suspicions in Book2 (this is my PC as a child in our other game Strength of Thousands)

I tried to give each player a solo interaction scene here. of specific note was our Goblin Paladin. I felt he should take a vow. In front of all assembled at Defenders Heart I had Ulgaarts old Captian adnmister the Sarenrae Paladins oath. I basically read the Edicts and Anathemas from https://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Sarenrae
I then had Irabeth issue The Crusaders Oath. I don't remember where I found this but credit to the creator.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cV4RO9MH0R2RE6iaDyOT2A_S5LAKX7HU/view?usp= sharing

Settle into the Defenders Heart for the night of rest. Party gets fully healed of all hp, and negative effects.

Ardus 22nd Irabeth Assigns two missions. R.J. will join a group of Knights to check on Gwerm, Aravashnial and the Mongrels. The party will Investigate the Templar of the Ivory Labrynth Safe houses. They are assigned a crusader guide named Kerrick Murton. This is where Player changed characters.

Fighting some Fiendish Vultures on the way to Topaz Solutions. The store is not empty, there are half dozen looter who they convince to leave with diplomacy checks. A secret door is found to a basement room. Ulgarrt sets off the magic mouth trap and he and Drazz are impacted by some mysterious effect.
Session ends, noon Ardus 22nd Fireday.

Session 6 Arodus 20th Wealday mid morning

no attachment for this week

The party crosses a rift and into a upscale section of town where they run into a Howler. They put this demonic tiger down but not before Adamar, Drazz and Hskoro are effected but its cursed Howl.
The party continues to Horgus Gwerm’s Home to find it intact but abandoned. He rewards the Party with 2000GP for getting him home and offers his home for the night which the party accepts.

Arodus 21st Oathday. Leaving Gwerm behind, the party sets out for Anevia Tirabde home further north in the Gate district and are attacked by Dire rats along the way. R.J. and Ulgaart contracting filth fevor in the process. Late morning they arrive at the Tirabade residence were they are ambushed by Vagorg, an old advisory of Irabeth Tirabde. Vagorg is subdued and bound. A note from Irabeth is found directing Anevia to Defenders Heart where the remaining crusaders have established an impromptu fortification. After fighting some Cultists staking out the Defenders Heart the Party arrives late Afternoon. Session ends.

Session 5 Arodus 19th Toilday midday still in the Underground. (Prologue 3 Questionof Faith)

Party makes way to sewer level and out into destroyed Kenabres. Fight Cultists in the streets. And arrive at BlackWing Library and rescure Librarians Lenna, Bria, Anna, Court and March. Capture Chaleb Sazomal. Party reaches level 3, rests for the night.

Arodus 20th Wealday Drazz and Hskoro 2nd save success no more fevor and Vanidur 1st success. The Party leaves Blackwing and Aravashnial behind, crosses a rift in the ground and start heading towards Horgus Gwerms manor in upscale section of the gate District. Session ends mid morning.

A session or two ago in preparation for Above ground I had the player each make a percentage roll and a Perception check. I used these 6 rolls to establish in advance the first 6 random encounters. I then did a perception check for the enemy and whoever had the higher got a surprise round. thsi allowed me to set these encounters in Foundry in advance to speed up the game. I the gate district I am doing one random between each main location/ in New Kenabres district I think I will do 2 random.

They gathered a few rumors here.

Session 4 Arodus 18th Midday (Cutscene 1 Dreams)

Rest up in Neatholm and have dreams overnight.
Arodus 19th Toilday Drazz and Hskoro make first of 2 consecutive saves vs Filth Fevor.
Second go at Traitors guard post. Defeat Hosilla and Traitorus Mongrels and 2 Dretch Demons. Recover Radiance. Session ends Midday. Player handout 1 Hosilla’s orders

this session attachment (Dreams) I reworked extensively to fit my specific player backgrounds, but again the core concepts came from the Narrative thread. At this point the characters had reached level 2 and the Goblin Samuri had added Paladin. there are no followers of Iomadea in the group and they were going to by pass Hosilla's room so I had Radiance give Ulgaarth a tug to come find me. I the Goblin Paladins hand Radiance transforms into a Small Scimitar. they skipped the underwater stash and win first fight against Dretch Demons.