Deep in the Osirian desert stands the blank-faced monument known as the Sightless Sphinx. In search of the stolen mummy of Chisisek, the architect of the flying tomb of the Sky Pharaoh Hakotep I, the heroes track the cult of the Forgotten Pharaoh to its secret headquarters inside the sphinx. There they must face monstrous mercenaries and servants of the demon lord Areshkagal before finally confronting the masked cultists and their leader, the Forgotten Pharaoh, who has been possessed by a fragment of Hakotep’s soul.
"Secrets of the Sphinx,” a Pathfinder adventure for 10th-level characters, by Amber E. Scott.
An exploration of the sinister world of curses, by Russ Taylor.
Two exciting additional encounters in Osirion’s wastes, by Greg A. Vaughan.
Reptilian rage and unexpected rescue in the Pathfinder’s Journal, by Amber E. Scott.
Five new monsters to challenge player characters, by Michael Kortes, David Schwartz, and Larry Wilhelm.
Each monthly full-color softcover 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 world’s oldest fantasy RPG.
ISBN-13: 978-1-60125-591-4
Secrets of the Sphinx 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 (595 KB zip/PDF).
Other Resources: This product is also available on the following platforms:
Not giving this 1 star because nothing was actively bad, nothing too big or exciting happens. This adventure was as the title says. A few good roleplaying opportunities in the desert (hexploration). Then you finally find the sphinx. After that, it's room after room of pretty much the same baddies. A single character moment happens within the sphinx but otherwise its pretty munckin-esque. The final fight seems pretty fun, but otherwise the adventure pretty straight forward.
Short Version: It's a hex crawl you don't want to skip and a dungeon crawl with ample roleplaying.
The first section, finding the sphinx, is handled as a hex crawl. I'm not a big hex crawl fan, but it's handled very well here. In particular, things you find or learn during the hex crawl directly provide more options during the rest of the adventure.
The second part of this adventure reminds me a lot of the best sections of Shattered Star, where the relations of the NPCs in a dungeon are as much the "map" as the physical layout is.
Secrets of the Sphinx by Amber E. Scott is an example of a dungeon crawl done well. It wraps together an interesting storyline with a compelling cast of characters (and lots of opportunity for roleplay with those characters), and places it all down in a setting that is more than just a static collection of locations and rooms.
The adventure also advances the plot of the Mummy's Mask Adventure Path in one of the most significant ways so far, leading at last to a confrontation between the PCs and one of the key antagonists. It's the first adventure where the PCs will feel that they've achieved a major accomplishment at the end of it.
This latest installment in the MM campaign noticeably differs from the previous installments: there the PCs had to participate/play-act a lot of social interactions, as they maneuvered between the haty-a of Tephu and her excellency Mumminofrah of Sothis. Most of that adventure felt like a theatre - and not everyone liked it. This one feels like a prolonged dungeon crawl instead.
In a sense, of course, this is what is is: most of this adventure feels like a continuation of the final part previous installment: the PCs go on walking through the Parched Sands, after barely a break in action at the intermediate showdown with the cult at Chichisek's tomb. The style of the campaign is the same, the format is the same, and the feel is the same: several random encounters in the desert (further supplemented by the secondary features in this book), which aren't interconnected with each other, complete with some maflet/girbatallu add-ons. Mind you, this approach is still better than what had happened in the previous installment; battling the genies in the second part was very fun (for us, the players, at least), but it is still weird, and several times felt like unnecessary add-ons to the main campaign, places where the players could raise their XPs before tackling the titular sphinx statue, etc.
The final part was different. It was still a dungeon crawl, but a very confusing one. Not only the chambers inside the sphinx were practically a maze, but their descriptions seemed rushed and it was hard for the DM to explain why this or that monster was in that chamber, and not out on the prowl, for example. Yes, the book gave some idea, but still it was erratic and left the players with a sense of incompleteness, as a matter of speaking.
As for the supplementary material, instead of the encounters/curse elaboration, maybe some more information about the maflet would've been in order? Interacting with them raised questions what are they really like, and this book provided no answer.
Solid addition to the Mummy's Mask - or any campaign
Amber Scott did an excellent job with this adventure, managing to seamlessly blend a mix of fighting, rping, and skill checks all into one big encounter. It comes at a perfect time in the campaign, allowing for a triumphant return to dungeoneering and monster-fighting action, if your players have tired of doing research and pleasing their patron in the last book. Alternatively, if you have a bunch of diplomancers and skill monkeys, there are a number of just brilliant ways to allow them to continue to shine. There is no one set path through this installment, and there are even a couple of short, but satisfying "what happened next" stories for the effects of possible actions the PCs might take. It really is impressive how perfectly this fits with the rest of the campaign thus far; it feels tied in, the things that happen are exactly what players are looking forward to, and the very well-thought-out paths through the dungeon genuinely fit the interests any group of players might have.
It's not a stunning or revolutionary book, but it doesn't need to be. It's got a compelling story, unusual creatures that don't often get explored, and fun combat. Rock-solid book, I'd recommend it even for use outside of the entire Mummy's Mask AP.
