Chapter 4: "Wake of the Watcher"
by Greg A. Vaughan
No one goes to Illmarsh. An ugly town, unfriendly to strangers and squatting amid the nastiest stretch of swamp in Ustalav, Illmarsh seems to breed rumor and madness, and those who speak of it always whisper of strange disappearances, misshapen shadows, and sacrifices to things terrible and forgotten. But when the trail of the death cultists known as the Whispering Way leads to Illmarsh, it’s up to the PCs to learn the secrets of the sickly village. There they’ll find a desperate people, caught in a war between beings from beneath the seas and invaders from the darkest corners of the cosmos. Can the heroes save Illmarsh from its tradition of terror? Or will they be the next victims of the horror from beyond the stars?
This volume of Pathfinder Adventure Path continues the Carrion Crown Adventure Path and includes:
“Wake of the Watcher,” a Pathfinder RPG adventure for 9th-level characters, by Greg A. Vaughan
Blasphemous secrets of the foul faiths known collectively as the Old Cults and sanity-shattering gods such as Azathoth, Nyarlathotep, and Cthulhu, by James Jacobs
A giant bestiary filled with eight classic monsters inspired by the writing of H. P. Lovecraft and the tales of the Cthulhu Mythos, by James Jacobs and Greg A. Vaughan
Laurel Cylphra’s discovery that the dead aren’t the only dangers in Ardis in a new entry into the Pathfinder’s Journal, by F. Wesley Schneider
Each monthly full-color softcover 96-page Pathfinder Adventure Path volume contains an in-depth adventure scenario, stats for several new monsters, and support articles meant to give Game Masters additional material to expand their campaign. Pathfinder Adventure Path volumes use the Open Game License and work with both the Pathfinder RPG and the standard 3.5 fantasy RPG rules set.
ISBN–13: 978-1-60125-311-8
Wake of the Watcher is sanctioned for use in Pathfinder Society Organized Play. The rules for running this Adventure Path and Chronicle sheet are available as a free download (561 KB zip/PDF).
DriveThruRPG: This product is available as print-on-demand from DriveThruRPG:
By now, it appears the writers have forgotten that they are writing a story about the Whispering Way and just want to toss any old horror setting into a book to just show they can. I’ve seen various groups playing this AP and often they don’t even remember the Whipsering Way any longer and DM’s have to constantly remind them. The Cthulhu aspect is not terribly done and enjoyable if that is the focus of the campaign or one off. But when taken with the return of the theme of the adventure it makes no sense to have it in here other than to just say “We can do Lovecraft in Pathfinder”.
The module is rather enjoyable by itself and does add in a fun creepy factor that people like with the Lovecraft theme but alienates itself completely with the Adventure Path. This departure from over all theme has been reflected in the rating. Take by itself, it’s a five but as a part of the greater whole, it’s a one.
Overall an enjoyable adventure but not a strong entry in the CC AP. The adventure starts off strong with investigation and memorable setting and NPCs. However, it then quickly slips into a hackfest as the party must essentially clear out 3 locations (albeit 3 interesting and well-written locations). There are some great encounters, lovecraftian references that help mitigate this but the adventure still feels like a missed opportunity in using the mythos. Additionally, the background is a muddle and needs to be streamlined. For DMs running this as part of CC I suggest you look on providing the party more motivation to be following the Dark Rider (perhaps some more fleshed out clues as to the Raven's Head) as a DM sticking to the written content may find players wondering why they're going to all this trouble.
Where can I find more info on Dagon? I'm a long way off from running this, but once I get there, I feel like I'm going to need to know a little more about the faith. For example,
page 22 wrote:
Caleb Voltiaro ... vizier of the Order, currently occupies this room, instructing a cultist in the finer points of Dagon’s worship.
Where can I find more info on Dagon? I'm a long way off from running this, but once I get there, I feel like I'm going to need to know a little more about the faith. For example,
page 22 wrote:
Caleb Voltiaro ... vizier of the Order, currently occupies this room, instructing a cultist in the finer points of Dagon’s worship.
What could that entail?
A lot of careful pronunciation, I should think...
"Nonono -- it's 'eeeee-ahhhh eeeee-ahhhh,' NOT eye-ayyyyyy eye-ayyyyyy!!!"
I'm curious - what guidelines do you use for which sources you are willing to draw on for material?
It just seems like with so many clerics of Dagon, squeezing in a Demoniac (PrC from Book of the Damned 1) would have been fitting.
The guidelines are basically: Use what you want and what makes sense for the adventure. That said, when we use stuff outside of the core rules, we tend to reprint a lot of the powers and stuff, and in the case of doing a demoniac of Dagon, we would have had to do just that, making that particular character's stat block longer, which would have forced an equal amount of cutting of content elsewhere.
But the main reason we didn't use the demoniac class was that it just didn't fit the flavor of any of the NPCs in the adventure. A demoniac is someone who specifically lets themselves be possessed by a demon, after all, and that's not really in line with the themes of the adventure.
Where can I find more info on Dagon? I'm a long way off from running this, but once I get there, I feel like I'm going to need to know a little more about the faith.
For Pathfinder, the best place to go would be "Lords of Chaos," but there's a little bit more information about his worship in the Inner Sea World Guide.
If you want a LOT of info, you could always pick up issue #349 of Dragon magazine. There's a giant article about Dagon in there. It's for D&D, but it's basically the same Dagon so a lot of that material works fine.
Beyond that, reading Lovecraft stories, particularly "The Shadow Over Innsmouth," is a great place to go to learn more about Dagon.
Sorry for the necromancy, however...Ijust had to post about this wierd little happenstance.
I *finally* got my copy of this module:
I heard my daughter talking to someone at the door and came out to see. The Truck was driving away and she had a package in her hand. I went "Yay, that's my next Carrion Crown module" She opened it for me and handed me a plastic wrapped insert with Academy of Secrets showing. I was a bit dissappointed until I realized there were two books there. As I shifted Academy to see what the other one was...there was a huge flash of lightning and a loud crack of thunder and it started to pour.