A killer stalks the streets of Caliphas, a murderer whose victims are already dead. Something is preying upon the ancient vampire clans of Ustalav’s capital, a mysterious foe who threatens the centuries-old truce tenuously held by generations of both the living and the undead. Into this madness enter the heroes, closing in on the death cultists of the Whispering Way. What role do the deadly necromancers have in the undead murders plaguing Caliphas? What secret grudge exists between the cult and the rulers of the night? And will the heroes be able to save the capital without sacrificing their very souls?
This volume of Pathfinder Adventure Path includes:
“Ashes at Dawn,” a Pathfinder RPG adventure for 11th-level characters, by Neil Spicer
A gazetteer of fog-haunted Caliphas, the mysterious and deadly capital of Ustalav, by F. Wesley Schneider
A terrifying look into the blasphemous church of Urgathoa, goddess of gluttony, disease, and the undead, by Sean K Reynolds
Laurel Cylphra’s attempt to steal a soul stealer in the Pathfinder’s Journal, by F. Wesley Schneider
Six new monsters by Crystal Frasier, Patrick Renie, and Sean K Reynolds
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: 978-1-60125-312-5
Ashes at Dawn 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).
Other Resources: This product is also available on the following platforms:
In my opinion, this is an excellent role-playing module for mid-level characters due to the opportunities it presents and morality questions it raises. I feel that Neil Spicer did an excellent job detailing an excellent array of villains with various motivations, despite their inherent nature of eating up a massive word count (vampires are always classed NPCs). I felt that this module does a good job at giving a great framework for setting up its different combats while keeping the role-playing heart of that intact. What's even better is that the writer has ambitiously written it so that the PCs can either join with or fight against the vampires encountered, allowing for two different ways to play it depending on the motivations of the group. While the module has its share of weaknesses, on the whole, its quite excellent. A more detailed review can be found Here .
There's quite a few good things about this installment:
1. Caliphas - great setting, gazzetteer article has some wonderful details to help bring this gothic urban setting to mist-shrouded life.
2. The vamp courtyard - Quinley, Luvick, Countess are all interesting NPCs and their is some good story/rp potential for the notion of helping the vamps.
However, this adventure comes on the heels of a side trek and mostly feels like a side trek as well. The background motivations for the villain's plan are too opaque to the players and as written most parties would probably wonder why they are going to this bother. Additionally, the
Spoiler:
tailor villain
is fairly forgettable and the last part of the adventure while a well written crawl feels stapled on. All in all, this is a very uneven adventure but with some good parts that a GM willing to hack together to fit the campaign better will get some good mileage out of. With the support articles the book would merit 2 stars but as this primarily a review of the adventure material I will indicate 1 star.
Ashes at Dawn or We haven’t done vampires yet, right?
If you are looking at this book expecting it to be a part of the Carrion Crown Adventure Path, it is attempting to reconnect with it. In the same way you attempt to halfheartedly reconnect with relatives you don’t like but try either way cause, “hey they are family….I guess”.
The module is a meh as a vampire story. More could be done with the vampires instead of just making them victims who don’t really care what is happening to them, but dismissingly get the PC to solve their problem be blocking them from proceeding or TPK them.
Overall, the adventure path is just starting to remember about the overall theme of the AP and attempts to wake itself up to that fact. Yet it has left the plot so neglected it has to block the PCs from advancing just to make sure they know what they are supposed to be doing.
Module is meh alone, but when a part of the AP it becomes easily forgotten.
I don't have much to say about this adventure other than that if you like vampires (which everyone should), then you'll like this adventure. I'm not sure why other people are being so negative about this one, it's probably my favorite adventure in the whole adventure path!
Probably because it's part 5 of Carrion Crown - even if an adventure is great all by itself, people might not want to buy something marked "Part 5" without parts 1-4.
Marco Massoudi wrote:
It is a great atmospheric vampire murder mystery adventure and there are less than 25 in stock!
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