A Pathfinder Society Scenario designed for levels 3–7.
The eldest daughter of the prominent Blakros family is set to wed an influential Hellknight, and the Pathfinder Society is invited to the festivities. Dressed for a wedding befitting royalty, a team of Pathfinders attend the ceremony on behalf of the Decemvirate, but will their presence ultimately strengthen the Society's relationship with the influential Blakroses, or will events at the wedding bring the already tenuous alliance to a breaking point?
Written by Thurston Hillman.
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 scenario puts the focus squarely on roleplaying, with over a dozen named NPCs making appearances and its success conditions being met through social interaction, clever use of skills, and straight-up creativity on the part of the players.
Now, not every player is a consummate actor, and the designers clearly understood that, providing a skills-based mechanic for how to win friends and influence people. The group I GMed for had a lot more fun with the roleplaying than the rolling, though.
The scenario also provides screen time for some of the campaign's best-known NPCs, including, of course, members of the Blakros family and some of the faction heads. New characters who seem likely to come into play in the future are also introduced, all with distinct personalities and motivations.
Don't worry if you have a table populated by combat "builds." The players just need to be thoughtful and pay attention. Our gunslinger remembered that Sleight of Hand can be used as a Perform check, and our barbarian listened carefully to what others discovered about a guard captain and did a great job approaching her "warrior to warrior" and so actually used Diplomacy instead of Intimidate (earning himself a bonus in the process).
This was my first experience GMing a Society scenario, and in fact, my first experience GMing the Pathfinder system, but I found it welcoming and rewarding despite by newness. A fine, fine scenario.
This adventure, has been what I have been waiting for in Society Play for a very long time. Now granted, there are going to be some who are going to moan and groan at all the RP, but that's too bad.
I will say, that if you have RP challenged people, either socially as a player or stats wise cause they are taking penalties, try and utilize things that they are good at. I had a group when I was ran it, that had no CHA cause they dump stat, but they did have INT, so I was able to tell them a little more about the people they were talking to. I also used Sense Motive to have them hear "rumors", which players then used to help NPC's.
There is more than one way to make it work, but it is important that they DO SOMETHING. Sitting there and passing cause they have bad "people" skills, is not an excuse!
What I specifically liked, was that the BBEG's were scary, but if the players, ran away, they weren't going to be punished for it so long as they RPed and weren't there for just the wine and "attendants" as I call them.
Great job Master Thurston, I would like some more adventures like this if you please.
My first run of this scenario started at 6:30pm, and we didn't roll the first initiative check until 9:45pm. If your character doesn't have any skills that can't be used without rolling initiative, this scenario will show you the weakness to that approach to character building.
Those 3 hours of roleplaying were pure gold. Several of my "top ten" moments at the table were replaced last night by new ones that occurred during this scenario. There is a useful mechanic for quantifying the roleplaying and skill checks, and all success for the Society mission hinges on non-combat events.
There is combat, but it is refreshingly different - story-driven rather than "here's something you know you can win". Maybe you can win, maybe you can't - maybe you're not even fighting the right people because you made a mistake or didn't think before you acted. (And, depending on your favorite weapon, you might be severely hamstrung - security disapproves of people walking around with loaded muskets or longspears at a wedding reception.)
Highlight of the night: our non-Qadiran dervish dancer challenges the Qadiran faction leader to a dance-off.
If you are a Pathfinder in the tradition of Durvin Gest or Eando Kline, you will love this scenario. If you are one of those Pathfinders who can only do maximum damage with a single weapon and not much else, you might be ill-suited to this mission's requirements.
Reading through this it looks like a great RP scenario. But I have to say, the cartographers Jared Blando and Corey Macourek make maps that while artistically clever, really dont lend themselves for use in online games. Im looking forward to running this game twice in the next week and a half both online and at a mini con. Hope it plays as well as it reads.
J-Bone. Thanks! I hope the scenario goes well for you in all runs! As for your concern about the maps...
Spoiler:
Luckily, there are only two combat encounters in the module. One map is a battlemat, so that should be ok.
As for the stylized maps, one is the island overview that doesn't need to be used with minis/combat. The other map might be a bit tricky, but is fairly small and basic.
Depending what VTT you use, it shouldn't be too hard to extract the map and section it in half using MS Paint. Though, the areas are known to the PCs, so you could show them off together as an aide.
That being said, I LOVE the cartography. In fact, all of the art for this module is simply stunning!
Just a small thing, but the infobox on p. 3 says that Pariol Island is 10 miles off the coast of the Isle of Kortos, while the intro on the same page says it's 20 miles. Who's right, Hillman or Moreland?
Just a small thing, but the infobox on p. 3 says that Pariol Island is 10 miles off the coast of the Isle of Kortos, while the intro on the same page says it's 20 miles.
Good question.
PFWiki Scribe wrote:
Who's right, Hillman or Moreland?
Completely unnecessary addition to a good question.
Just a small thing, but the infobox on p. 3 says that Pariol Island is 10 miles off the coast of the Isle of Kortos, while the intro on the same page says it's 20 miles. Who's right, Hillman or Moreland?
Just checked my submitted draft. The only reference I had to miles was "the island is a few miles away". So, we'll have to look for Mark on the exact answer.
I would have expected the influence and discovery checks to have different DCs on the different tiers. They are crucial to the encounters like combats in other modules and should be level based.
Even though my group failed the mission so bad we got no PA we thoroughly enjoyed this.
We had 3 Barbarians, a druid and fighter. Its a nice deviation from the norm.
But maybe there is a way combat focused chracters to help. Like send a lone character to go fight some vermin or something to impress them.
We had real problems influencing people.
Or maybe influencing people with feat of endurance and dexterity(Like juggling torches or something)
I plan on using this scenario as a supplement to my Council of Thieves campaign to add some more social role-play elements. The names and some of the story elements will need to be changed to make it fit in Westcrown.
Spoiler:
However, there is a monster problem with the scenario. At Tier 3-4 the final "boss" encounter is a Young Shadow Demon who starts out possessing a human fighter.
The problem is that adding the Young template to an incorporeal creature does NOT make it weaker.
What could be a good replacement for this creature?