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GameMastery Module J3: Crucible of Chaos (OGL)

4.80/5 (based on 9 ratings)
GameMastery Module J3: Crucible of Chaos (OGL)
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A journey adventure for 8th-level characters.

The Lost City has been found, hidden in a remote mountain valley. As adventurers rush to plunder its fabled treasures, a hungry terror prepares for their arrival. The dream of the Lost City is gone, warped by eldritch forces into a living nightmare that only the bravest can ever hope to escape.

Written by Wolfgang Baur

ISBN-13: 978-1-60125-074-2

GameMastery Modules are 32-page, high-quality, full-color, OGL-compatible adventures for use with the world's most popular fantasy RPG. All GameMastery Modules include four pre-made characters so players can jump right into the action, and full-color maps to enhance play.

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A Perfect Sandbox Adventure

5/5 —

NO SPOILERS

Crucible of Chaos by Wolfgang Baur is one of my favourite of the early GameMastery-branded Pathfinder modules. I ran it some months ago in my “Roots of Golarion” campaign, and found it one of the highlights of the campaign. Like another one of my favourites of the early modules (Conquest of Bloodsworn Vale), Crucible of Chaos gives the players a lot of agency. There’s a wide variety of motivations, approaches, and goals they can have in this one, which makes it exactly the opposite of the clichéd railroad adventure. And depending on how they play it, it could be the springboard for a whole new series of adventures. Another advantage is that the location where this adventure occurs is left intentionally open, so the GM can slot it pretty much wherever they like without creating canon or story issues. But it still provides a memorable addition to the lore of Golarion. I’ll also add that the artwork (both the cover and in the interiors) is excellent, with some of it effectively scary! All in all, this one’s a winner and is definitely worth tracking down.

SPOILERS!:

In Crucible of Chaos, the PCs will discover the ruins of Ulduvai, one of the legendary flying cities of the ancient Shory civilization. The adventure starts with the premise that the PCs have discovered the lost city high in an unnamed mountain range far from civilisation (allowing for GM flexibility on the precise setting) after following a new magic item called an Unerring Compass. Exactly how or why the PCs came into possession of this compass is also left open for the GM to devise depending on what’s going on in the campaign, though a few suggestions are given. This may require some advance planning for the GM, but is better than a “one size fits all” solution that may be anything but.

In Part 1 of the adventure, the PCs reach a valley in the mountains warmed by geothermal heat. The valley has a sort of “Lost World” feel, with dinosaurs, lizardfolk, and even a new creature called “zothians” (a kind of lizardfolk-centaur!). There’s a lot to explore in the valley, and the module provides both a list of random encounters and some fixed location-based encounters. PCs might try to bulldoze their way right to Ulduvai, or they may gather information and treasure from the areas around it. Again, it’s pretty open-ended. PCs who manage to make peace with the lizardfolk and visit their village can gain some really useful tidbits that make success in Ulduvai itself more likely.

In Part 2, the PCs can explore Ulduvai in any way they wish. The Lovecraftian-backstory to why the city crashed is key to understanding what’s happening there now. Millennia ago, cabal of powerful wizards worshipping Azathoth (a god of mysteries and secrets) discovered a powerful artefact called the shoggoth stone and brought it to Ulduvai. Thinking that a ritual would provide them power and immortality, they instead inadvertently transformed every living creature in the city into an immense, fleshly mass of fused viscera! Although three of the wizards had enough magical wards to survive the experience and exist to this day as undead, the city has been infused by pure chaos. For the PCs, this backstory plays out as an atmosphere of inexplicable and unnerving phenomena in the city. Multiple sidebars and examples are provided to help the GM create this feeling of uncanny dread as the PCs explore, and as a sidebar mentions, it is atmosphere that keeps every adventure from becoming just routine battles with different scenery. One of my favourite bits are the rules on getting lost, which has the GM secretly track where the PCs are going as if the map is turned 90 degrees!

There’s a ton for the PCs to discover in the ruins of Ulduvai, and what they’re interested in is left completely up to them. Some groups may be keen to discover why the city crashed (once they realise it was a flying city to begin with), a goal that can be helped by the discovery of an extensive library (with several named texts), the chance of meeting the chief of the derhii (flying apes), or conversation with the three surviving cultist-wizards. Each member of this latter group is fully fleshed out (pardon the undead pun) with their own motivations, domain, and artwork, and can serve as either “mini-boss” combats or as opportunities for intrigue and role-playing. Another goal some groups may have is getting the city flying again, something which requires tracking down some scattered magical items, figuring out how they fit into the city’s unique architecture, and rebuilding some damaged parts. This is the sort of thing that can make for a unique campaign, and sidebars provide the GM with advice on how to make this easier or harder depending where they want the campaign to go next. The PCs I ran the adventure for decided Golarion wasn’t ready for the emergence of a flying city, and, perhaps wisely, left its location a secret. Finally, some groups might be pure treasure-hunters, hoping to loot as much as they can and get out quick. There’s plenty of valuables in the city to make it worth their time.

Apart from the all of the mysteries and dangers in the city—invisible bridges, electrical generators, trapped demons, etc.—the real threat in the city is the shoggoth, which is a CR 15 creature! As the module is for PCs of Level 8, this is not a monster that should be fought, but instead used as a tool by the GM to invoke terror, drive the action forward and—if a lesson needs to be taught—grab up and consume a foolish PC. As a potential big climax to the module, PCs can discover a ritual to destroy the shoggoth by destroying the shoggoth stone that summoned it, but it’s not easy and, one begun, has to be done quickly before the shoggoth arrives. I used this when I ran the module, and it was fantastic—tense and exciting.

I’ve been gushing about Crucible of Chaos, and some of that could be the hazelnut coffee talking. But nonetheless, I think it’s a great adventure and a memorable campaign centrepiece.

Excellent Module with Cthulhu Flavor

5/5 —

A very fun adventure, for both GM and player. An atypical blend of exploration, NPC interaction, and dungeon crawl (if you consider a ruined city shrouded with green fog and horrible monsters a "dungeon", which I think you can). The module provides a lot of details, and a lot of gaps, which I view as ideal for any adventure: There is plenty of structure and pre-planned encounters, but endless opportunity for the GM to make up anything. For example, the city can be hidden pretty much anywhere, and I made it a fairly epic wilderness adventure just to find the place. The module gives details for only so many city buildings, meaning the GM can concoct additional adventures around all of the other countless buildings, if desired. There are Lovecraft flavors peppered here and there that boost the fun. My experienced group of players really embraced and enjoyed the mysteries of the remarkably unusual city.

Spoiler:
I agree with the other reviewer about the "Return of the Eaten" optional ending. To me, the notion of a few high-ranking Shory citizens consumed by a shoggoth 6,000 years ago suddenly coming back to life when you kill the shoggoth was too much to swallow (pun intended). That just didn't make a lot of sense to me: once a shoggoth eats you, nothing short of a true resurrection can help you. At the same time, I like the idea of that optional ending: a few knowledgeable people of the Shory culture showing up who could really help get the city back to full operational capacity. So I tinkered with this piece of the adventure, and added deposits of magic amber here and there. The idea was that when chaos magic overran the city six millennia ago, some of that manifested as random blasts of amber goo that froze -- and preserved in stasis -- some of the citizenry. I also added a few traps that blasted PCs with the amber. That seemed to work well: the PCs found someone trapped in amber whom they broke free, the NPC didn't experience the passage of 6,000 years, and he eventually turned into a replacement PC when another PC died. At the very end, there was an amber pocket under the "Shoggoth Stone" where there were a couple of the named NPCs described in the "Return of the Eaten" segment. So, the ultimate plot point was preserved: knowledgeable NPCs showing up at the end.

Great Lost City Sandbox

5/5 —

I ran this adventure for my Skulls'n'Shackles group. It required some wrangling to fit it to a 5th-level group, but in the end everyone, me included, had an absolute blast.

Wolfgang Baur sure knows how to build a mysterious lost city that keeps players interested in discovering "what exactly happened here?". The encounters run along coherent themes and are memorable, there's plenty of opportunity for both GM and the players to improvise, what's not to love?

Also, shoggoth.

The Crux of my Campaign

5/5 —

As my title may indicate, I used Crucible of Chaos to begin my weekly Monday night game (and the game group call themselves the Monday-Knights). This was one of those modules (like another reviewer had said) a few pages into it and you WANT to run it, it's that good. I had a slightly larger adventuring party (mostly 6, sometimes 7) players. I did kill about half of the original party at one point or another.

Spoiler:
(The babaus,& the lightning trap were the culprits).
I would have enjoyed using the "return of the eaten" but my group wouldn't have gone for it. They plan to rebuild the city, and make it their own. (Of course they need to survive the last part of Legacy of Fire first). If they do, it's on to the Ruins of Kho, find any parts that can help rebuild Ulduvai, and get back in one piece. I also LOVED the Derhii, and I WANT a miniature of one SO badly. An Awesome module! Highest recommendation possible.

Awesome!

5/5 —

This really is one of the best adventures I've ever seen. Lots to do, plenty of hooks and NPCs, helpful hints and examples for creating a "weird" atmosphere, and winged apes! 5/5 and a 'must buy' award if you're a pulp/Lovecraft fan.

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Scarab Sages

Is this module set in or near the Xin-Shalast portion of the Rise of the Runelords Path?

The first review seems to indicate that it does, but I wnat to know for sure before purchasing.

Thanks
Steve

Crucible of Chaos can be set in any mountainous region, it was not set specifically anywhere.

Spoiler:
since it was a flying city, the logic is that it could have come to rest just about anywhere, and remained undiscovered in a hidden valley in the mountains.

BY far the most absorbing of the series so far.

The depth you've managed to fit into the cthulhu-esque inspired crashed floating city is amazing, as is the flexibility for the players to choose their own goals.

Hidden mountainous verdant valley complete with waterfall and jungle. Lizardfolk on dinosaurs. Chaos warped lovecraftian madness. Flying kick ass apes. Mutated sorcerer cultists. Flying cities. Long gone civilisations. Ancient technology. What isn't in this adventure!

As for me, I'm fitting this into my homebrew as my players next adventure.
Paizo Employee Director of Brand Strategy

Several questions:

1) Since there's no mention of where in Golarion this location is, what have people been doing to tie it in with the rest of the world? I'd love to establish it as existing in a specific location so players can return to it, especially if they get it up and running again (which I can more than see them doing.)

2) This one's more for the editorial staff. Are there stats for running the Derhii as PCs? I assume there's a few levels worth of Level Adjustment, but beyond that, what are the Ability bumps, etc to consider?
Contributor
yoda8myhead wrote:


2) This one's more for the editorial staff. Are there stats for running the Derhii as PCs? I assume there's a few levels worth of Level Adjustment, but beyond that, what are the Ability bumps, etc to consider?

There's some great suggestions on how to build the Derhii as a PC race in this thread.

I know that many of you are probably GMing, but I wanted to let everyone know that I will be starting a email game using Crucible of Chaos. If you are interested please email me at GMWayne@personamgames.com.
Dark Archive
1 person marked this as a favorite.
yoda8myhead wrote:

Several questions:

1) Since there's no mention of where in Golarion this location is, what have people been doing to tie it in with the rest of the world? I'd love to establish it as existing in a specific location so players can return to it, especially if they get it up and running again (which I can more than see them doing.)

Actually I found this in the Blog from Jason Bulmahn (emphasis mine)

Jason Bulmahn wrote:

Uncover the ruins of the flying city

Legends speak of an ancient culture that drifted through the clouds atop immense floating cities. These same tales speak of a horrible catastrophe that brought them low, but no one has discovered the true cause. Now, a mystical compass has been discovered that seems to point to an unexplored valley, one that just might hold the secrets of this lost empire. But will the same catastrophe strike again?

Crucible of Chaos is a journey-based adventure for 8th-level characters compatible with the world's most popular fantasy roleplaying game. This adventure contains details on the valley containing the crashed sky-city, including the natives who live there, as well as information on those who brought about the city's downfall.

This adventure is set in the unexplored reaches of the Realm of the Mammoth Lords, one of the nations in the Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting, but it can be easily adapted for use in any setting. For more information on this area, check out the Pathfinder Chronicles Gazetteer.

Jason Bulmahn
GameMastery Brand Manager
Sovereign Court

My only concern is that if I put it somewhere and later that area is used in an Adventure Path then I 'll have to move part of that path around. So if he suggested the Mammouth area, that's where it will go. With all the Setting books coming out this summer the journey there will great exploration type adventure stuff.

What level will the PC's be at the end of this mod.?
Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer
stuart haffenden wrote:
What level will the PC's be at the end of this mod.?

10th.

Scarab Sages
Adventure Path Charter Subscriber

There is mention on the back cover of the ruin of the city being somewhere in the Mwangi Expanse (which of course is...huge!).

There is a point in the NE corner of the expanse called the Ruins of Kho, which is mentioned in the PfCG as a Shory ruin. I think I would put Uldavi in the Bandu Hills though, probably in one of those valleys in the northeastern stretch of these rugged mountains. (It is also close to Bloodcove, a possible entry port into the expanse).

The other alternative is placing Uldavi in the Barrier Mountains south of Thuvia, though that might be too close to Jaha, which does not seem to be a pleasant place.

About to put this in to my homebrew as a cross over adventure.

Any chance of getting another map of the city, but without the invisible bridges or descriptions?

Running this module right now for my party and they love it.

Great job on this one Paizo and WB.
reinbowarrior wrote:

About to put this in to my homebrew as a cross over adventure.

Any chance of getting another map of the city, but without the invisible bridges or descriptions?

Email me privately ( sozinsky at gmail dot com ) and I can send you a set of edited maps. I use digital projecter and and photoshopped everything out manually. (Hey, Paizo, I know I sound like a broken record, but it would be beyond great if you could start releasing un-annotated maps...)

sozin wrote:
reinbowarrior wrote:

About to put this in to my homebrew as a cross over adventure.

Any chance of getting another map of the city, but without the invisible bridges or descriptions?

Email me privately ( sozinsky at gmail dot com ) and I can send you a set of edited maps. I use digital projecter and and photoshopped everything out manually. (Hey, Paizo, I know I sound like a broken record, but it would be beyond great if you could start releasing un-annotated maps...)

I'm starting this next week in my homebrew as well. I would love a copy of those maps as well if you are amenable. I'm mixing it in between a couple of the fantastic location adventures and another gamemastery. I hope it goes as well as some of you have indicated. I have some reservations but overall I think it will be cool.

Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer
sozin wrote:
Email me privately and I can send you a set of edited maps. I use digital projecter and and photoshopped everything out manually. (Hey, Paizo, I know I sound like a broken record, but it would be beyond great if you could start releasing un-annotated maps...)

Please don't redistribute our maps, or altered versions of our maps.

Also, in our more recent PDFs, maps are now usually saved in a format in which the untagged art layer can easily be selected and extracted.
Vic Wertz wrote:
sozin wrote:
Email me privately ( sozinsky at gmail dot com ) and I can send you a set of edited maps. I use digital projecter and and photoshopped everything out manually. (Hey, Paizo, I know I sound like a broken record, but it would be beyond great if you could start releasing un-annotated maps...)

Please don't redistribute our maps, or altered versions of our maps.

Also, in our more recent PDFs, maps are now usually saved in a format in which the untagged art layer can easily be selected and extracted.

Eek! Yeah, that occured to me after I posted. Sorry Vic (and others!), I'll go up and edit that post away.

I just tried to do what you described above (find untagged art layer) in the Curse of the Crimson Throne mappack, but without luck ... is there a FAQ or README somewhere that describes how to do this?
Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer
sozin wrote:

I just tried to do what you described above (find untagged art layer) in the Curse of the Crimson Throne mappack, but without luck ... is there a FAQ or README somewhere that describes how to do this?

D'oh! Looks like that one went through the wrong PDF exporter, so you can't do it with that. I'll see if the art department folks can fix it sometime soon.

Normally, you use the Select tool (the one with the arrow cursor) to click on the image, and then you can copy-and-paste, or drag-and-drop.

(I'm told, though, that Adobe removed this feature in Reader 9, but I haven't actually checked that myself.)
Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer
Vic Wertz wrote:

D'oh! Looks like that one went through the wrong PDF exporter, so you can't do it with that. I'll see if the art department folks can fix it sometime soon.

Normally, you use the Select tool (the one with the arrow cursor) to click on the image, and then you can copy-and-paste, or drag-and-drop.

(I'm told, though, that Adobe removed this feature in Reader 9, but I haven't actually checked that myself.)

Looks like the two large maps went through correctly, but because those are full-page maps, Adobe Reader thinks the map image is a page background, so you have to Option-click (Mac) or Ctrl-click (Windows) to select it.

Dark Archive

GM's may want to show this picture to their players when they enter the crucible.
The mountaineers in the picture are non-descript enough that they just might be adventurers carriying shields - no photoshopping required. I wish I found this before running the adventure :(
note: It's not my photo, but it's perfect for this adventure.

How difficult is it to adapt this to PFRPG? Substituting final statblocks from the Bestiary is simple enough, but I'm curious about adapting the difficulty of traps and such.

Figured it out. Been converting all day.
Pathfinder LO Special Edition, Maps, Pathfinder Accessories, PF Special Edition Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Starfinder Superscriber
Brother Fen wrote:
How difficult is it to adapt this to PFRPG? Substituting final statblocks from the Bestiary is simple enough, but I'm curious about adapting the difficulty of traps and such.

Been looking at that myself lately. The Shoggoth in particular bothers me. Also, I know virtually nothing about EL except that it comes from that other game, is short for "encounter level" and seems to have been entirely replaced by Challenge Rating (CR).

I haven't looked at traps yet.

The DC's pretty much translate directly over, unless you want to +5 here or there. Substitute the 3.5 skills for PFRPG skills (Perception and Disable Device) and it's all done.

Spoiler:
The Shoggoth in the Bestiary is a much higher CR than the one in the module. I imagine it doesn't matter much because the party is not meant to fight the Shoggoth. They are meant to run from it.

The higher CR is negligible. I've noticed in adapting these older 3.5 Pathfinder modules that most of the CRs and ELs line up. The Shoggoth seems to be the exception to the rule.

1 person marked this as a favorite.

I just ran this with a party of six 7th level pathfinder PCs as a one shot. It ended when the two amazon PCs got tentacle snatched to death and the rest of the party bugged out for good. Before the end one PC got swallowed whole, one was energy drained, two had their internal organs rearranged, and at one point four out of five remaining PCs were confused. A good time was had by all.
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