A Pathfinder Society Scenario designed for 1st to 7th level characters (Tiers: 1–2, 3–4, and 6–7).
When four statues of unspeakable power were found in a tomb in Osirion and then stolen, the Pathfinder Society assumed they were gone forever. When they appeared again in the illicit inventory of a Qadiran smuggler in the massive trade city of Sedeq, the Society wasted little time dispatching you there to recover them. Finding the smuggler dead and a familiar face from Absalom responsible, your task quickly becomes a race to retrieve the statues before their brutal power can be unleashed on the citizens of the Satrap. Can you find the statues in time or will Sedeq be swallowed in a plague like none Golarion has ever seen?
Written by Jonathan H. Keith
This scenario is designed for play in Pathfinder Society Organized Play, but can easily be adapted for use with any world. This scenario is compliant with the Open Game License (OGL) and is suitable for use with the 3.5 edition of the world’s most popular fantasy roleplaying game.
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I ran The Many Fortunes of Grandmaster Torch at Subtier 3-4 via play-by-post. Since he's in the title, it's no spoiler to say role-playing with Grandmaster Torch is the best part of this scenario. The encounters and story are fine but unremarkable, and one plot element needed much more development. Nowadays, this is a fast and relatively easy, straightforward scenario to run and play.
SPOILERS!:
The backstory to this scenario is reasonably interesting. A pair of archaeologists discovered an ancient vault in Osirion that contained four statues, each capable of magically conjuring insects. Notorious information broker Grandmaster Torch arranged for them to be smuggled out of Osirion and into the Qadiran city of Sedeq, where he then split up the statues and sold them to four separate buyers. Only after selling them did a report from Osirion reach Torch indicating that stray spells could easily activate the statues, conjuring swarms of insects answerable to no one. Because Torch's reputation would be ruined if he were known to have sold defective goods, and he knows the Pathfinder Society is after the statues as well, he plans to arrange for PFS agents to intercept all four of his buyers--thus, the PFS will be thieves and Torch's hands will be clean of any apparent wrongdoing. It's a cunning plan, and a good demonstration of Torch's ability to manipulate events behind the scenes.
The briefing, with Venture-Captain Yasmin Kal'al in what I think is her only appearance ever, is pretty quick and to the point. The PFS wants those statues, and the PCs need to go get them. She sends the PCs to a bathhouse that the person who physically smuggled the statues into the city is known to frequent. In a well-staged scene, the buyer sprints away from the Pathfinders through various steam-filled rooms in the bathhouse, only to end up with his throat cut by one of Grandmaster Torch's bodyguards. The murder is staged as the act of an overzealous personal bodyguard, and serves as a dramatic introduction of Torch himself. Torch pretends to be purely an information broker here, with no personal involvement in the statues being smuggled or sold, and then has the (endearing, to me) gall to offer to sell the names of the four buyers to the Pathfinder Society. Groups can either pay for the information outright, or agree that they owe Torch a favour to be named and collected upon later. I really like that the "favour" option initially seems like a no-brainer, but becomes a sort of anti-boon on the Chronicle sheet. I'm sure it comes into play in a later scenario, and perhaps contributes to why a lot of players hate Torch so much.
Anyway, once the PCs know the names and whereabouts of the four buyers, they can go after them in any order. A handy map of the city is included to aid with the planning. Along with some particularly nasty faction missions (poison someone! burn down a refinery!), the fact that the Pathfinder Society is perfectly happy to rob or murder folks for these artifacts is a good example of how different the ethos of the organisation was in these early seasons.
Each of the four subsequent encounters has a twist to keep it from being simply "we beat up a merchant and take his stuff." One of the merchants is being shaken down by a local street gang operating a protection racket when the PCs arrive. Another tries to cast a spell to escape when confronted by the PCs, inadvertently triggering his magical statue which conjures several monstrous centipedes the PCs have to take care of. A third drinks an invisibility potion and dashes into a spice refinery that is extremely flammable. This one was interesting in concept but difficult to run for two reasons: there's no map of the encounter provided, and there's a discrepancy between the text and the enemy's tactics on what he tries to do (hide and escape out the front or dash through the back exit). A fourth merchant has set up shop in a place called The Secure Market, which not only bans all weapons but is protected by an anti-magic field! I'm on the record as enjoying situations like this, where PCs can't always use their go-to combat tactics and have to improvise. When GMing the scenario, I didn't feel like any of the encounters were particularly difficult for the PCs--though there's certainly a difference in power levels between six modern Pathfinder characters and four D&D 3.5 characters (as the scenario was originally designed for).
When the PCs get all the statues, Grandmaster Torch invites them to a sumptuous dinner. It's an interesting idea, but there's not enough content provided to make it really workable and it's somewhat anticlimactic because nothing hinges on it. I also think the more exposure the PCs have to him, the greater the likelihood that they just try to kill him!
One major thing the scenario falls down on is on how these statues work, exactly. There are some passing mentions that they won't activate if a spell is cast nearby and they're in a bag, but apparently thick linen wrappings aren't enough. There's a reference to the statues only having to be in the "presence" of a spellcaster (not necessarily held) to activate, but that's a pretty vague term. It's not clear how often they can activate. It's not clear who, if anyone, controls the insects that are summoned or how long the summonings last. And although there's only one scripted time a statue is activated, some of what the other statues can summon are pretty nasty. Last, it doesn't sound like any thought was given setting-wise to how powerful these statues could potentially be as mobile, 100% successful automatic spell absorbers! When coming up with Macguffins, writers need to be careful they don't accidentally get more than they bargained for.
Overall, I'd rank The Many Fortunes of Grandmaster Torch as average. Other than perhaps Torch himself, there's not a lot about the scenario that's particular creative or memorable. Some use is made of the setting, and the combats are a step above being generic fights. I'd consider it important for players who want to get the full story of the long-running Grandmaster Torch story thread in PFS, but nonessential otherwise.
This adventure can best be described as a sandbox where you have to complete 4 different tasks in whatever order you as a party see fit. Immediately it should be clear that creativity gets rewarded and that there’s no clear path you can take. You have a lot of freedom and that’s something people either love or hate. That alone makes it hard for me to decide whether to recommended it or not.
The four separate assignments are fun and different from one another. I particularly liked the factory one, though I can understand why the faction mission related to that one is no longer legal. However I will have to say that the scenario lacks an obvious ending. The end right now suffices, but doesn’t feel satisfactory. Sure, you’ve done all the tasks, but you don’t feel like you really made a difference. There’s no showdown to wrap things up, no feeling of accomplishment.
And that’s a shame and the main reason I rate this scenario so low. I really enjoy sandboxes and the opportunities it offers to players. However this time around the freedom you receive is at the expense of the storyline. What starts of great with a fun chase scene in a unique location, soon turns into four minor fetch-quests followed by a very rushed and anticlimactic ending. If you have a group that can really embrace the sandbox aspect, it’s worth running. Otherwise, I’d probably look for something else to play or run instead.
While this scenario is pretty mediocre on its own, a creative GM can make it shine.
Its a fairly straightforward story, making it good for new players. Having different locations to visit, with each a different approach, gives a good showcase of what is expected of Pathfinder Agents.
For experienced player it could feel like 'been there, done that'.
The scenario gives only one option for most encounters. I think this is where a lot of the one star reviews come from. But its writen in a, IF a THEN b, way. So if the players dont do a, you are completely free to handle the encounter you see fit. This freedom makes me give it 4 stars. (its also nice and flavorfull)
Osirian is a bureaucratic nightmare, not least to your average adventurer: consider a place where every 'treasure' you find must be not just reported but handed over to the authorities, who may or may not return it - and even if you get it back, there's probably a fee to be paid! Whilst this system is a blight on Pathfinder Society activities too, other people have learned to manipulate the system to their own advantage. This is the tale of one such manipulation and how things can go awry!
The adventure begins with the party having been dispatched to the Spice Markets of Sedeq in Qadira to aid Venture-Captain Yasmin Kal'al in obtaining four exotic Osirian artefacts. She has a lead to someone who's smuggled them out of Osirian and although he has already sold them on, if the party can find out who they were sold to, the Society can put in its own offer. Time is, of course, of the essence...
The party's first stop is at a Sedeq bathhouse, which the smuggler is known to frequent. This leads to an interesting - and potentially informative - conversation with none other than Grandmaster Torch! From here on in, their quest will lead them all over Sedeq... a madcap and highly entertaining rush around town with plenty of interaction and the opportunity for the odd brawl. This is an adventure in which the ready tongue is of more use than the ready blade, however those who prefer to fight their way to their goals will find people ready and willing to oblige them.
It's a lively and charming adventure, and the Faction missions fit in well with both plot and setting. This is one you can really have fun with!
Hey, not fair Josh! In the UK we have been away at Conception running the Pathfinder Organized Play for the last five days. (It was great and all the 5 slots I ran were 200 percent over subscribed by players.)
I would have snapped up these two recent modules with the rest of my January purchases and used the voucher you sent out. Now I try to buy them and the "Add to shopping cart" doesn't work and the expiry date has passed. Why didn't you make these new modules public last Wednesday?
Why didn't you make these new modules public last Wednesday?
They were available. I was too busy last week to send out a notifying e-mail, but we did mention them in our store blog all weekend. We just didn't create a discussion thread here.
The last Wednesday of each month is the scheduled date for all scenarios, by the way. (I can't promised they'll never be late, but that's the scheduled date, and Josh and crew work hard to meet it.)
Why didn't you make these new modules public last Wednesday?
They were available. I was too busy last week to send out a notifying e-mail, but we did mention them in our store blog all weekend. We just didn't create a discussion thread here.
The last Wednesday of each month is the scheduled date for all scenarios, by the way. (I can't promised they'll never be late, but that's the scheduled date, and Josh and crew work hard to meet it.)
They were only available for pre-order when I checked earlier and now they are available for actual download so they would never of been eligible for the holiday discount.
They were only available for pre-order when I checked earlier and now they are available for actual download so they would never of been eligible for the holiday discount.
That was just a display issue; the product was indeed available for purchase. (You can't actually preorder a PDF on our site.)
I played this at Pandemonium this weekend. Overall it was fun, but I had real ethical problems with my faction's assignment. Rather than commit a purely evil act (and as a cleric risk serious alignment infraction) I declined the opportunity. I know Pathfinder is morally grey, but are good aligned characters simply not practical? It was only my 3rd Pathfinder, and the GM was fantastic.
I played this at Pandemonium this weekend. Overall it was fun, but I had real ethical problems with my faction's assignment. Rather than commit a purely evil act (and as a cleric risk serious alignment infraction) I declined the opportunity. I know Pathfinder is morally grey, but are good aligned characters simply not practical? It was only my 3rd Pathfinder, and the GM was fantastic.
There will occasionally be missions that PCs won't want to do and that's totally okay. We didn't create the faction missions to be guaranteed successes every time--whether that's from a PC morality choice, a skill roll, etc. You should be able to succeed at more than 75% of your missions in a season, but we don't guarantee any amount.
I played this at Pandemonium this weekend. Overall it was fun, but I had real ethical problems with my faction's assignment. Rather than commit a purely evil act (and as a cleric risk serious alignment infraction) I declined the opportunity. I know Pathfinder is morally grey, but are good aligned characters simply not practical? It was only my 3rd Pathfinder, and the GM was fantastic.
There will occasionally be missions that PCs won't want to do and that's totally okay. We didn't create the faction missions to be guaranteed successes every time--whether that's from a PC morality choice, a skill roll, etc. You should be able to succeed at more than 75% of your missions in a season, but we don't guarantee any amount.
OK, that's fair enough. :) I don't ever expect 100%.
Ran this for a group during MegaCon 2009, just after running Silent Tide for the same group. Was neat to see a continuing character and be able to breath life into it. The group did really well with the exception of a misfired alchemist fire in a certain room making the whole town dive for cover as the refinery went ka-boom! Awesome!
Everyone survived, and had a great time. Definitly some return business here for the new players in the party. Eagerly looking forward to GenCon this year and running some more of these.
Can this scenario still be played in light of Rivalry's End?
What this guy said. I've got an ex shadow lodge character I'm playing and I'm wanting to know if this is a good scenario to run him with in light of the fact that, after rivalries end he's kind of looking to kill Torch or bring him to justice.
Can this scenario still be played in light of Rivalry's End?
What this guy said. I've got an ex shadow lodge character I'm playing and I'm wanting to know if this is a good scenario to run him with in light of the fact that, after rivalries end he's kind of looking to kill Torch or bring him to justice.
You point out a serious problem with the way the Shadow Lodge was dissolved. It left a lot of hatred for Torch, this effectively invalidates earlier scenarios like this one.
Of course, I also feel that disbanding the Shadow Lodge was a mistake. It provided a good foil for the Grand Lodge faction.
Can this scenario still be played in light of Rivalry's End?
What this guy said. I've got an ex shadow lodge character I'm playing and I'm wanting to know if this is a good scenario to run him with in light of the fact that, after rivalries end he's kind of looking to kill Torch or bring him to justice.
You point out a serious problem with the way the Shadow Lodge was dissolved. It left a lot of hatred for Torch, this effectively invalidates earlier scenarios like this one.
Of course, I also feel that disbanding the Shadow Lodge was a mistake. It provided a good foil for the Grand Lodge faction.
You may be right in the fact that it may have invalidate this one, but think about life... sometimes we think we are on one path and then something happens that changes that path. My players loved this scenario because it told the beginnings, (This area has only been organized since January and started with Season 5 stuff, so I have been taking them on a trip through season 0 and season 1 scenarios AND story arcs. The first arc, they loved. This one I believe that are loving as well... :D
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