The demon army of Tanglebriar is on the march, bringing death and terror to the elven nation of Kyonin. Can a group of heroes complete a desperate mission deep behind enemy lines to stop sinister forces from completing a secret weapon before the demon Treerazer can use it to win the war?
The Secret of Deathstalk Tower is a Pathfinder adventure for four 14th-level characters. This adventure continues the Spore War Adventure Path, a three-part monthly campaign in which a group of adventurers aid the elves in a war against an army of demons. This adventure also includes an article about the demon lord Treerazer (the primary antagonist of this campaign), an exploration of the sinister ooze monsters known as blights, powerful new magic items to aid heroes against their foes, and several sinister new monsters.
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.
Written by: James Jacobs, Linda Zayas-Palmer, and Aoife Ester
ISBN-13: 978-1-64078-646-2
The Spore War Adventure Path is sanctioned for use in Pathfinder Society Organized Play. The rules for running this Adventure Path and Chronicle Sheets are available as a free download (653 KB PDF).
Picking up where the first Book left off with Tarbapon, the players are given elven relics of their most famous heroes by Queen Telandia and tasked with a series of mission impossible style adventures which are meant to weaken the tanglebriar. Most of the tasks are damage control, and there is no real offensive. The Queen spends the book being sad.
War interludes serve as a way to see the war unfold without the PCs directly influencing the events, other than spending a Triumph Point to avoid further damaging Kyonin. Those same Triumph points are also needed for the conclusion to determine the outcome of the war, with no threshold system in place possibly in book 3.
I don't feel cutscenes work in TTRPGs as a DM, since players can have this information and decisions conveyed through NPCs and roleplay which the module doesn't encourage. The players will be in the Tanglebriar for the entire book behind enemy lines, with no real connection to anyone you forged bonds with in Book 1.
The call back to an NPC from Jade Throne is nice, but her rangers only act as support. The best part is the Spore Queen battle, but the same energy and passion isn't in the rest of the book and lead up.
Oh i see Thaleon is one of this adventure's iconics!
It makes sense. The elf AP should feature the elf characters.
Exactly! The iconics we're using to illustrate Spore War are Merisiel, Thaleon, Jirelle, and Seelah (who makes sense for a war against demons Adventure Path, but also to show in art that you don't HAVE to be an elf to play this Adventure Path).
Pathfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
Spoiler:
Gone are all references to shadow, the art has changed from black shadowy look to a green smokey look, and it has a fun new reaction to deal you part of the damage you dealt it.