A Pathfinder Society Scenario designed for 1st- through 4th-level characters.
A skull with glowing eyes was among the many objects which recently turned up in the Pathfinder Society's vaults, and none of the other objects are quite so talkative as this one! In fact, the skull isn't an object at all, but a person. The Society isn't sure who, or what, they are, and the skull seems to have lost their memories. Nonetheless, the skulls requests—no, insists—that the Society return them to their former glory at once!
Grand Archivist Zarta Dralneen has determined that the skull is from Quantium, the magic-filled capital of Nex. She dispatches a group of Pathfinders to conduct a simple research mission and guide the skull around the city, hoping to jar the skull's memories and learn the truth.
"See the world," they said. "Simple research mission," they said.
This adventure is the first part of the two-part Skull & Scroll metaplot arc in the Year of Boundless Wonder.
I actually really enjoyed the scenario but I understand that this one is definitely not for everyone.
There's lots of skill checks and lots of roleplay. If you've got a group that likes their combat, this one's not really going to interest them. That was a flaw for one of my players.
The main flaw is that one encounter in particular within this scenario feels like it was made for a 3-6 scenario. It's REALLY swingy and REALLY dangerous for low level characters, especially those at level 1. The encounter seems much better at a higher tier, as it can't swing nearly as hard, but I legit almost had my first character death as a GM because of this one and how all the things added up.
But overall, I enjoyed it, and most of my players did, too!
My group had a great time with this one. The setting is rich, and the author captures Nex quite well. The key NPC is one of my favorites I've encountered playing PFS in quite some time.
While the faction reputation missions are somewhat opposed, it's possible to do both (we did). It's nothing like the PF1e PFS days in regards to conflicting faction missions at least. This scenario rewards roleplaying opportunities, and I'm all for that. Again, really enjoyed this one.
A fun climax, but only after enduring the tedium of getting there.
Progress through a scenario being gated by skill checks wasn't fun in PFS1 - remember chase scenes? - and is isn't any more enjoyable in PFS2. If you're lucky enough to end up with a party with the right mix of skills you're probably going to be able to breeze through the checks, but if that isn't the case then there's not really that much you can do about it - you're stuck with whoever signed up to play the scenario. And just to make it even worse, this mechanism is used for two different parts of the narrative.
I also didn't like the conflicting goals that different factions had; this meant that if, like us, you ended up with a party containing factions with differing objectives you could well end up with party members pitted against each other. I thought we were supposed to "Explore, Report and Cooperate", not fight amongst ourselves ...
That being said, though, I did enjoy the setting, and the narrative story line - I look forward to playing the second part of this story arc.
I ran this at the weekend and thoroughly enjoyed it. It is fairly straight forward to prepare, highlights a region we havent visited much before and has one of the most amusing NPCs to run that we have seen in quite a while.
I would highly recommend this one to people. Lots of fun and games. If your party are lacking in skills then it could run long. Mine werent, they avoided all of the avoidable combats and we finished up in around 3 hours.
A cute trip around the friendlier side of Quantium
The Impossible Lands have gone sorely under-utilized across much of Pathfinder's history, but between this scenario and the imminent Lost Omens release, that's finally being fixed. 'The Arclord Who Never Was' features a vision of Nex's capital city that leans much harder on wonder than we've seen before; much existing material would have you believe the entire nation is populated entirely by assassins and cackling warlocks, but that's almost nowhere to be seen here. I love a lot of the local flavor, but the dissonance with what's come before was a little surprising - I'd certainly imagined Nex as being closer to the Cheliax and Nidal end of the scale, but #4-05 makes it seem quite lovely.
In this module, the Pathfinders are dispatched to carry an amnesiac talking skull around Quantium's streets, trying to jog her memory - the Society believes she's an Arclord, but has little else to go off of. Mechanically, this entails hitting six locations and rolling various skills at each one; what precisely you're doing with these skills was a little vague, and I would've appreciated more here. Each locale comes with a joke, pun, or prank that the skull attempts - some might like this, but I found it a little grating.
Following this, there's a narrative fork (you can do both tasks in either order, but one seems much more plausible and basically assumed) involving two potential allies - but befriending the one you're much more likely to meet first makes befriending the one likely to come later harder. I don't really understand this choice, especially when the reasoning (the first group has a very specific bias that isn't elaborated on enough here to make a ton of sense) feels a little shaky.
Simple to run and much more light-hearted than any murderous dungeon-delving, this is a comedic scenario that rewards roleplay and acts as a fun (if all too brief) tour of a place Pathfinder has so far ignored. I think folks will like this one!
brief note on flavor:
The variety of Ancestries on display really helps this one sell the flavor of the Impossible Lands: an Oread with some really striking art appears, as does a friendly Girtablilu musician, and the note that many of Nex's inhabitants are planar beings. I enjoy that we see an Arclord-founded school for students of 'monstrous' peoples, even if a Chaotic Good, diversity-focused Arclord is something I never would've considered before cracking this one open.
Just played it with the author; it is fantastic. My table and I all had moments of sheer cackling at the jokes, then we got a little teary eyed at a certain point.
Cannot recommend it highly enough, and if you can catch it with the author sometime, please do. I hear he's a top bloke ;)
Just cruel forcing a GM to play an NPC that has to tell puns. Heartless in fact.
Disembodied skulls should be considered to have expert proficiency in being heartless. I'd call this a tongue-in-cheek fact, but that also does not apply here :P
Disembodied skulls should be considered to have expert proficiency in being heartless. I'd call this a tongue-in-cheek fact, but that also does not apply here :P
Very much enjoyed this one Mike :) Thanks for the humor.
