Pathfinder Module: Tomb of the Iron Medusa (PFRPG)

I've bought multiple copies of this module over the years to give or trade away at gaming conventions. It is a proper "dungeon crawl"with a nice blend of puzzles, fighting, and role-playing. The theme is epic in scope and extra imaginative in its execution.

I find it difficult to challenge high-level players with a traditional "dungeon crawl" setting. This adventure pulls it off with pocket dimensions, puzzles based off of role-playing rather than mechanisms, and truly awesome encounters.

Personally, I'm a big horror fan and I'm always attracted to anything that takes place in a graveyard. But at 14th level, the thought of level draining undead almost becomes a cliche' and certainly nothing my players want to gamble on. This module turns that on it's head to the point where PCs are sometimes interacting with undead and, while there are still level draining baddies inside, every encounter feels very different and with unique adversaries to keep players on their toes. Plus, a super cool BBEG at the end.

Top marks all around!

I agree with the other reviews. This module is a puzzle crypt with some fights. This module took my group of 4-5 PCs from level 14 to level 15 just before the end, which was pleasing to me. Just some advice for the running the module: As with any module, try to find relevant pictures on the internet for showing so that players get a good sense of what this place is like. The module gives some DC’s so that the players can make checks to find out how much of the story their characters know. I recommended thinking of other ways that players could come to learn the story apart from the module because it is a good backstory. Remind the players that this place was not built as a deathtrap; it was a real necropolis that a noble family used for a long time back in their day. There would have been caretakers and what not here on a regular basis, but the place would have safeguards against grave robbers. Of course let the players try to figure out things on their own first, but consider allowing Knowledge (Engineering) checks to give them some clues about how to open the doors if the game is grinding to a halt in the first room because of it. Consider Knowledge (planes or arcana) for clues about leaving the crypt. Lastly, consider Knowledge (religion) to understand the natures of some of the relics within the crypt.

My DM ran this module in between Kingmaker module 5 and 6. My worry going into it was that the encounters would either be, for our level, too challenging (TPK) or not challenging enough. Instead, this module was one successful "gotcha" after another, in which every member of the party was forced to think how we get out of each situation. No spoilers here, but we had to deal with domination, blindness, petrification, and, of course, mortality. The best part is that I can see this going a completely different direction if we had made different choices.

I haven’t written a product review in almost 2 years, but after reading this module I felt compelled to do so.

Tomb of the Iron Medusa is the best adventure that Paizo has ever published in its Pathfinder Modules line and it deserves to be read and played by more people.

I’ll admit I’m late getting to this. I got this module through my subscription when it first came out, but it wasn’t until I was looking for some additional content to insert into my Kingmaker campaign that I started flipping through the pages of my many Paizo modules.

As I picked up Tomb of the Iron Medusa and started casually reading the introduction, I was immediately impressed by the refined quality of the narrative. I became intrigued about the mystery of the Adella Curse and felt engaged by the large cast of complex NPCs. The more I read, the more possibilities I saw for how the adventure might play out and by the time I finished it, not only could I imagine myself easily fitting Tomb of the Iron Medusa into my Kingmaker campaign, I also felt a real sense of excitement at the thought of doing so.

The Story

The adventure takes place in Taldor, a country desperately trying to hang on to the echoes of its former greatness. However, having said that, I think the adventure could very easily be set in any other country under the rule of a monarchy.

A merchant who claims to be the last surviving heir to a disgraced Taldan noble family known as the Adellas contacts the PCs and asks them to venture into his family’s ancient necropolis, the Tomb of the Iron Medusa. Legend has it that the Adellas were stripped of their titles under mysterious circumstances by one of the previous rulers of the Taldan Empire and that the family then proceeded to fade into obscurity. The merchant suspects that the Adellas had been framed and believes that the family sword, Infensus Mucro, is the key to proving his family’s innocence and he wants them to retrieve it for him.

This may sound like your run-of-the-mill adventure hook but, as the players will slowly discover, things are not so clear-cut. For buried in one of the ancient and dusty vaults of the Tomb of the Iron Medusa lies a secret, that if exposed, could shake an empire down to its very foundations.

The Adventure

Overall, the encounters in Tomb of the Iron Medusa are interesting and provide a good mix of combat, role-playing, skill use and even some old-school puzzle solving. Over the course of the adventure, the PCs will have the opportunity to have such wildly disparate experiences as fighting hordes of undead and outsiders, answering the riddles of a proud and angry ghost, and even laying back and enjoying a break in a cozy study found inside a portable hole.

The traps are well crafted with some going beyond the usual predictable scope of such game devices. One encounter that I found especially refreshing features the reliquaries of two feuding twins that, depending on how successful the players are in dealing with the wrath of the twins, can very much impede or facilitate the PCs’ progress through the dungeon.

One thing that really stands out as you read through Tomb of the Iron Medusa is how very much content has been stuffed this module. No space is wasted, no opportunity missed and every page practically oozes with interesting details and possibilities. Consider, for example, that most important crypts found in the necropolis feature the name, dates of birth and death and on occasion even a fitting epitaph for the deceased. In most other adventures this would be inconsequential fluff of little importance. In this case, however, in addition to giving the module extra flavor, the writings on the crypts often provide clues to attentive PCs on how to bypass difficult encounters or point the way to the secret entrance to a set of hidden catacombs.

Yet, despite the astounding amount of content, the module does not overreach. It elegantly accomplishes what it sets out to do, which is to build an evocative site-based adventure that is part sandbox, part dungeon-crawl and part narrative. I suspect that the Paizo developers who edited this module are as much to thank for this show of restraint as the author.

The Road Less Traveled

Apart from the plot and encounters, what really drew me into this adventure was Mike Shel’s knack for creating deeply flawed and tragic NPCs that you can empathize with. From Cadimus and Bartolomae to Micheaux the Magnificent, every important NPC, whether vile or conceited, is given a moment where you can glimpse their underlying humanity. The acknowledgement that the NPCs are capable of experiencing a wide range of emotions makes them more believable, and lends a realness to this adventure that I’ve never encountered in any other Paizo module.

For me, adventures like books, movies and music are at their most powerful when they can help me better understand another perspective. Tomb of the Iron Medusa achieves this transcendant quality through the character of poor, conflicted Cadimus who serves as the common thread to the saga of the Adella family. Did Cadimus make the wrong decision in the final moments before he was about to die? Of course he did, but going through this adventure, it will make sense to the players why he did what he did and how truly desperate he must have felt.

Mike Shel also does what few other adventure writers are capable of by bringing the full extent back-story of the module to the attention of the players. He chooses to do this through the effective and judicious use of cutscenes. I think this is a gutsy move, knowing that many RPGers (myself included) are strongly biased against cutscenes considering them to be a heavy-handed way of delivering the story to the players.

However, I like the cut scenes in this adventure. I think that the cut-scenes work because they are used sparingly, seamlessly (in most cases the players don’t even know that they are witnessing a cut-scene until after it is over) and allow for the players to make use of several skills while they are taking place. In fact, my favorite encounter in the entire module is the cut scene where the chilling and dreadful meaning behind the curious epitaph “Then Let Them Drink” is finally explained.

The Bottom Line

Mike Shel packs more adventure into Tomb of the Iron Medusa than I’ve seen in any other Pathfinder Module. He has masterfully crafted a fun, evocative and challenging dungeon-crawl that skillfully tells the tale of one family’s tragic fall from grace.

The Adellas are cursed! You owe it to yourself to find out why.