A Pathfinder Society Scenario designed for Levels 5–9.
On an isolated demiplane, the Pathfinders explore an Osirian ruin transported from Golarion by a powerful sorcerer centuries ago. And though the Pathfinder Society believes the fruits of their delve to be ripe for the picking, the unnatural landscape surrounding the tomb and a run-in with an unexpected guest make getting out with the treasure a tough task for the PCs.
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 Pathfinder Roleplaying Game.
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This is how you handle a good delve story. It’s just a shame that the title and offering of the mod suggested a different quest entirely. I was expecting planar mystique, so it was weird to find a story that’d probably be better suited to Osirion itself.
PRO:
-This is a creatively written and well handled dungeon trawl. I have added a star for the ingenious combinations of monsters and environmental hazards that cover the opponents bases and make for a more difficult and challenging number of combat encounters. Both the thinking behind the encounters, the dangers of the environment and the layout of the dungeon are top notch. Jonathan Keith knows how to write a good delve.
-A dungeon puzzle that is just hard enough. I was grinning while sitting back and watching my players try to decipher the hieroglyphics.
CON:
-The elephant in the room for the 'Wonders of the Weave' series is the lack of imagination seen in the creation of Hao Jin’s tapestry demiplane. A demiplane can be anything – a crystalline forest, an MC Escher landscape, the innards of an enormous creature. Anything! What we get instead is a misty, featureless swamp, inhabited by creatures found in material plane Golarion. It’s a lost opportunity that the world within the weave wasn’t actually wonderful. This was a great opportunity for an imaginative and interesting adventure locale for PFS play and the developers blew it.
-The finale with the antagonist isn’t that interesting, leading the penultimate combat to be seen more as the ‘boss battle’ than the actual boss himself. While it’s good that there’s a chance to talk many of the NPCs out of the fight, there’s not enough storyline here to provoke much interesting conversation apart from ‘him bad, we good’.
-The Canid Carcanet is a cool item, but it’s cost value is prohibitively expensive. I can’t imagine any PFS character making the choice to lose their neck slot and losing 15,000 gold to this item, as flavourful as it is. Which is a shame, because it’s a great versatility-boosting relic that could be really nicely used in future games. Please cut the cost to 10,000 gold.
-We’re beginning to suffer here from pointless faction missions, in particular, the Qadiran faction mission. How exactly does a useless bauble improve their standing in Absalom, exactly?
I enjoyed playing and GMing this scenario. After entering the weave, there are a series of battles & puzzles to solve. The Ancient Osiriani puzzle is now my favorite from all the PFS games I have played. Combats were difficult, but not impossible, and it was nice to have alternate solutions to some of them. Although this takes place in more of a jungle/swampy environment, it still reminds me of ancient Egypt.
There were a few things that left me hungry for more story. We actually never see how the you-know-whos got into the weave. Both times I ran this, the party wanted to track it down, and it wasn't part of either part 1 or 2. Also, the relic doesn't get used in any way. It seems like a nebulous 'relic', used to get the Pathfinders to do stuff.
The Dog Pharaohs’ tomb has everything that should be in an iconic Pathfinder scenario. A good story, traps, puzzles, challenging fights, it awards players who think, and it even has some roleplay.
Several of the fights can be handled in many ways, and if the PC charge without thought, they could suffer. I found them innovative. This is exactly what I’ve been looking for in scenarios.
The puzzle could have been a little more difficult. My GM made a mistake and didn’t give us the 1st handout and we still completed it (quickly).
"Pathfinder skills" are strongly needed in this scenario. In this scenario, you’re made to finally feel like a Pathfinder.
This scenario has every element that I want in a scenario, so for that it deserves 5 stars. I had a good time.
Length: Easily fits into a 4 hour slot.
Sweet Spot: TBD.
Experience: Player at subtier 5-6 with 4 players.
Entertainment: Tomb has every element I want in a PFS game. Something for everyone. (9/10)
Roleplay: Not much roleplay, but it was still good to have some. (7/10)
Combat/Challenges: Good challenge for 4 players, could be too easy for 6. GMs should play this scenario "hard", not easy! Success or failure will also heavily depend on both luck and player intelligence. (10/10)
Maps: Good simple maps that are easy for the GM to draw, appropriate to the setting. (8/10)
Boons: The boon is in the next scenario of the series. I don't like that they must be played consecutively. (n/a)
Uniqueness: Finally a "Pathfinder" scenario. (9/10)
Faction Missions: Above average. (8/10)
Overall: Wonders has a great Pathfinder feel to it, it has it all. (9/10)
The "Wonders of the Weave" scenarios are perhaps the most iconic Pathfinder scenarios I've played so far. I highly recommend running this series.
Setting the adventure in a magic tapestry was a very cool touch. I was excited when I first read the description of this scenario and was curious how it tied into the Ruby Phoenix Tournament. I wasn't disappointed.
Spoiler:
There was a good mix of roleplaying (between the lizardfolk at the end), puzzles (see below), and combat (the mummies encounter really put the fear of the undead into my players). There was a nice overall "Indiana Jones" feel throughout the adventure.
It was also a nice surprise to merge the assumed desert setting with a swamp environment.
The CONs primarily relate to the puzzle room. The players figured out the Ancient Osirian equations too quickly. If the symbols had been scrambled instead of laid out in numerical order, it would have prevented easy assumptions on the part of the players. I realize puzzles can be a time-sink and bog down the action, but the puzzle room could have been circumvented altogether by traveling under the tomb through the various trap locations. As such, I wish the author had not pulled any punches by making the symbols so easy to decipher from the handouts. If you have access to Photoshop or other graphic editing software, I recommend scrambling the 1-10 symbols on the second handout so that the numbers cannot be easily guessed.
The other CON is that with the exception of the final fight, the combat encounters were too easy for my players. We played at Tier 8-9 and had two rogues (one was a Knifemaster), a cleric, a cleric/ranger, an archer, and a water sorcerer. It's possible that my group was just THAT good at being an efficient party, but they mowed through the Shambling Mound in one round! It didn't get a chance to retreat to the room with the Shocker Lizards to repair itself. The Aspis Consortium agent at the end gave them the most trouble as he couldn't be sneak-attacked. The leech swarms confounded the players until the water sorcerer cast lightning bolt on them (almost frying his companions in the process as nearly everyone was swimming about). Several PCs were paralyzed by the mummies' despair, but that didn't stop the sorcerer from blasting them apart with Scorching Ray.
(based on 14 ratings)
