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Pathfinder #11—Curse of the Crimson Throne Chapter 5: "Skeletons of Scarwall" (OGL)

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Chapter 11: "Skeletons of Scarwall"
by Greg A. Vaughan

The heroes have learned the identity of the evil that plagues Korvosa—the vile remnants of an evil dragon who once ruled much of Belkzen as a sadistic warlord. In order to defeat him again and save both Korvosa and the queen, the PCs must journey deep into the orc-held lands of Belkzen and brave the haunted reaches of Castle Scarwall, once the dragon's seat of power. Somewhere deep inside waits the holy weapon Serithtial, the sword responsible for his defeat hundreds of years ago. Only on its edge can the dragon be driven from the world.

This volume of Pathfinder also features a gazetteer of the brutal lands known as the Hold of Belkzen, a presentation on Zon-Kuthon (god of darkness and pain), and several new monsters native to Belkzen and the haunted depths of Castle Scarwall.

For characters of 12th to 14th level.

Pathfinder is Paizo Publishing's 96-page, perfect-bound, full-color softcover Adventure Path book printed on high-quality paper that releases in a monthly volume. Each volume is brought to you by the same staff which brought you Dragon and Dungeon magazines for over five years. It contains an in-depth Adventure Path scenario, stats for about a half-dozen new monsters, and several support articles meant to give Game Masters additional material to expand their campaign. Because Pathfinder uses the Open Game License, it is 100% compatible with the world's most popular fantasy roleplaying game.

ISBN–13: 978-1-60125-099-5

Other Resources: This product is also available on the following platforms:

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SoundSet on Syrinscape
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Haunts and Horrors

5/5 —

This adventure breaks the line of CotCT style in an excellent way.

The adventure is a huge creepy "dungeon" that if the DM finds a way to expose the backgrupnd to the PCs, he can keep the PCs a the tip of their toes on every turn. This adventure was plenty of hack and slash yet if the DM sets the mood right, the combat feeling gets entirely different. The dungeon has such a great background that if you develop it nicely you can forget that you have beed dwelling in the same site for the past several encounters. The partition of the castle in wings makes a great way to imprint different feelings on each area and braking the phase of the castle giving the players a break on the "same place" feeling.

If you don't play CotCT I greatly recommend this module since its totally isolated, you can place it almost anywhere in most homebrew campaigns. A bit of a backgruod twist can fit it nicely into any home campaign.

On of the greates adventurers in the CotCT path!

Ravenloft meets Hellraiser

4/5 —

As far as dungeon crawls go it doesn't get much better than this. Scarwall ranks up with Ravenloft as a classic haunted castle adventure.
Lots of great encounters/scenes. The danse macabre is particularly memorable and the Hellraiser touches are quite delightful. The spirit anchors give some focus and purpose to the crawl rather then it be an aimless wandering down (well the monsters get tougher going down so we must be going the right way...)
The Zon-Kuthon article is a great addition and fleshes out the creepiness.

Welcome to Castlevani- er, I mean Castle Scarwall!

5/5 —

“Skeletons of Scarwall” is my favorite entry in the Curse of the Crimson Throne path so far (“Seven Days to the Grave” now officially being my second favorite). It’s a site-based adventure set entirely in the titular Castle Scarwall, an eerie, brooding place packed full of all sorts of goodies. Undead are the most plentiful bad guys here, but there’s a handful of other critters to keep things interesting.

Designed in the style of gothic horror, Skeletons of Scarwall takes its cues from classic films such as Dracula, and classic D&D adventures like Castle Ravenloft. Its winding halls, elegant yet creepy décor, undead guardians, and occasional “boss monsters” also reminded me very much of the classic Castlevania video game series. Speaking of bosses, there’s a nastily iconic surprise towards the end of the adventure that will be sure to strike fear into any veteran player. I won’t ruin it, but let’s just say that fans of the classic “Tomb of Horrors” will be pleasantly surprised.

My only problem with “Skeletons” was its map. A few of the rooms are incorrectly numbered (room 38 is labeled 28, room 26 is labeled as 24), while other rooms aren’t marked on the map at all (22 and 29). Furthermore, secret doors don’t show up on the map. That’s a little too secret for my taste. These are relatively small mistakes however, and considering the sheer size of the castle, not unexpected.

My favorite part of Pathfinder 11, however, is the article on Zon-Kuthon. The author pulls no punches here, giving us an unflinching look at the god of pain and his sick worshipers. As a big fan of Clive Barker, I can see his influences all over the Midnight Lord. Fans of Hellraiser will rejoice, especially when they see Zon-Kuthon’s illustration; the dude could practically *be* Pinhead. It’s a shame, then, that this article was smaller than that of the three prior gods. I would have loved to see a Kuthite prestige class...

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Dark Archive

Will there be a PDF version forthcoming?
Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer
David Fryer wrote:
Will there be a PDF version forthcoming?

Yes—it will be available for individual sale on the product's street date: July 30.

Contributor

Hey HANG ON

Pegg and Loute.. despite their appearances they were once human

even karazaon tired of their pedantic drivel...

PEGG

LOUTE

I smell a big hairy rat.
Frog God Games
Richard Pett wrote:

Hey HANG ON

Pegg and Loute.. despite their appearances they were once human

even karazaon tired of their pedantic drivel...

PEGG

LOUTE

I smell a big hairy rat.

sniff, sniff...yeah, I think that's about right.

Greg A. Vaughan wrote:
Richard Pett wrote:

Hey HANG ON

Pegg and Loute.. despite their appearances they were once human

even karazaon tired of their pedantic drivel...

PEGG

LOUTE

I smell a big hairy rat.

sniff, sniff...yeah, I think that's about right.

hahahahahahaha!

*deep breath*

HAHAHAHAHAHA!!(length edited for reader mercy) !

Oh i love this Greg!
Frog God Games
Rathendar wrote:


hahahahahahaha!

*deep breath*

HAHAHAHAHAHA!!(length edited for reader mercy) !

Oh i love this Greg!

Then it is for you, Rathendar, that I have done it...well, for you and mainly for me 'cause I love it to. Ha! Take that, Pett and Logue!

Dark Archive
Greg A. Vaughan wrote:
Then it is for you, Rathendar, that I have done it...well, for you and mainly for me 'cause I love it to. Ha! Take that, Pett and Logue!

Mr. Pett and Mr. Logue, I suggest to take the the Gauntlet!

For your honor and our amusement!
Contributor

Ye shall PAY Greg!!! PAAAAAAAAAAAAY! :-)
Liberty's Edge

but mostly for our amusement!

lol :)

I just bought PF #11 and I have a questions about the contents. First off, I like the descriptions of the deities so far very much, and they help bring a clearer picture of the different faiths of Golarion. Part of what I love about the extra information is the extra spells for clerics of the faith and the prestige class, such as the Spherewalker of Desna, and the variant classes, such as the druid dedicated to Lamashtu.

But when I read the part of Zon-Kuthon, I noticed the lack of bonus spells and prestige/variant class.

Is this because there will be a deities book out soon, and that book will hold that info, or will there be no more extra spells and prestige classes tied to religion from this point on?
Paizo Employee Creative Director

Part of the reason Zon-Kuthon lacks a prestige class or spells is that we had a late-breaking error with our pagination—basically, we had a 98 page Pathfinder the day before we were supposed to ship to the printer, which is a problem for a product like Pathfinder that's only 96 pages long. The spells and prestige class got the boot, as a result. The spells will resurface in the Gods & Magic book, but the prestige class got rolled into a very similar drow prestige class (the Pain Taster) that's scheduled to appear in Pathfinder #15.

Going forward, though, the plan is to keep doing a prestige class and one or two new spells for each deity that gets an article in Pathfinder; the next one appears in Pathfinder #13—Cayden Cailean!
Paizo Employee Director of Brand Strategy
James Jacobs wrote:

Part of the reason Zon-Kuthon lacks a prestige class or spells is that we had a late-breaking error with our pagination—basically, we had a 98 page Pathfinder the day before we were supposed to ship to the printer, which is a problem for a product like Pathfinder that's only 96 pages long. The spells and prestige class got the boot, as a result. The spells will resurface in the Gods & Magic book, but the prestige class got rolled into a very similar drow prestige class (the Pain Taster) that's scheduled to appear in Pathfinder #15.

Going forward, though, the plan is to keep doing a prestige class and one or two new spells for each deity that gets an article in Pathfinder; the next one appears in Pathfinder #13—Cayden Cailean!

I hope we'll see a Zon-Kuthon PrC at some point though, as he's my favorite deity so far. We don't have one for Lamashtu either. Will we ever get evil god goodies?

Silver Crusade
Pathfinder Pathfinder Accessories, Starfinder Accessories, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Charter Superscriber
James Jacobs wrote:
Part of the reason Zon-Kuthon lacks a prestige class or spells is that we had a late-breaking error with our pagination—basically, we had a 98 page Pathfinder the day before we were supposed to ship to the printer, which is a problem for a product like Pathfinder that's only 96 pages long. The spells and prestige class got the boot, as a result. The spells will resurface in the Gods & Magic book, but the prestige class got rolled into a very similar drow prestige class (the Pain Taster) that's scheduled to appear in Pathfinder #15.

Couldn't you simply release the booted content as a free web enhancement? Pretty pretty please with sugar on top?

How much background information is contained in this relating to the whole of Belkzen and the orc within vs the specific area for this campaign.
Scarab Sages
Pathfinder Maps Subscriber

It does not really have much information on the Orcs. There is a Pathfinder Companion coming out soon on Orcs. That will have more of the information you are looking for.
Paizo Employee Creative Director
Spahrep wrote:
How much background information is contained in this relating to the whole of Belkzen and the orc within vs the specific area for this campaign.

There is, actually, an 8 page or so gazetteer of the Hold of Belkzen that focuses primarily on describing various locations within that area. But if you're looking specifically for info about orcs, you should check out the above-mentioned "Orcs of Golarion."

James Jacobs wrote:
Spahrep wrote:
How much background information is contained in this relating to the whole of Belkzen and the orc within vs the specific area for this campaign.
There is, actually, an 8 page or so gazetteer of the Hold of Belkzen that focuses primarily on describing various locations within that area. But if you're looking specifically for info about orcs, you should check out the above-mentioned "Orcs of Golarion."

By Gazetteer do you mean "Pathfinder Campaign Setting: World Guide -- The Inner Sea (PFRPG) Hardcover" ? I have the gazetteer and it doesnt have 8 pages on Belkzen :P

Hopefully it will be out soon, im going to try to stretch city of golden death out as much as i can in order to get one of these to spice up the sandbox idea i have that will work through Belkzen :P
Dark Archive

I'm pretty sure James is refering to the article in Skeletons of Scarwall about Belkzen. :)
Scarab Sages

It's funny that I just finished reading this ap. It was fantastic and I also believe James was speaking of the article in the ap. The is also info in the original campaignsetting book with locations and such. I hope that clarifies James statemen.
Paizo Employee Creative Director

Yeah; I'm talking about the Belkzen gazetteer in Pathfinder #11.

"World Guide: The Inner Sea" will have a much abbreviated version of the Belkzen entry. Only four pages long—a combination of what's in the current campaign hardcover and some of the material from Pathfinder #11.

Playing in a group that is going through this adventure, and I was wondering? Was it supposed to be impossible to get through? And why is there no loot to help you get through it in the dungeon. We ran into a nest of Greater Shadows and we were a hairs breath away from not walking out of it in one piece. That seems to be a bit of over kill as far as I am concerned. Also think that there would not bee that many Greater Shadows in one place. A d6 incroprel creatures that do a d8 stat damage is a bit much.
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