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Hey. Its my group's experiences with the final adventure. I hope you didn't expect me to use code.
It's been over two months since my group finished the Shackled City Adventure Path, and ever since, my fiancee has been clamoring for thier final climactic battle to be recorded on the message board.
After many battles within Skullrot, the group finally ascends to the last level of the asylum to find dark Myrakul and his golem watching over the cage of Adimarchus. Dark Myrakul asks what these interlopers into the asylum of Skullrot are doing. The cleric of the group (as played by my fiancee), by now a high level sword scion of a blade I made containing the soul of an astral deva, demands to know the complete story of what's been going on. Certain that he can defeat these mortal fools, Dark Myrakul tells them the tale of adimarcus and Athux, complete with the final betrayal. The cleric, whose fascination with Adimarchus (and who had sacrificed herself to the phasms, thus acquiring the Sign of the Smoking Eye) was bordering on obsession, decided that good must still lurk in the Demon Prince's heart.
a long battle ensues, and the PCs emerge victorious, albiet minus a few characters that the cleric quickly revives. After the group is rested and healed, the cleric comes up with a plan.
Shortly before running this adventure, I had bought both Complete Divine and the Book of Exalted Deeds, providing the Lawful Good cleric with a battery of new spell options. While the names of many of these spell elude me (and i'm too lazy to walk to the bookshelf to look them up), here's the gist of the plan.
The cleric casts Vengeance Halo (which does tons of damage to the attacker if they kill the character in question) on whichever of the PCs agrees to it, plus Nidrama. The rest of the group buffs themselves, then she breaks the cage. adimarcus, thus freed, sees the cleric has the sign of the smoking eye, and, thus enraged, attacks only her. This onslaught drops her to about 1/3 her total hit points. Then she casts a spell from BoED that does damage to anyone who attacks anyone else in the area, tells the rest of the group to stand down.
What occurs next is two hours of the most intense role-playing I've ever experienced. Everyone was on the edge of their seat. finally, they talk Adimarchus into accepting a spell that cures the effects of his insanity. While still horrifically chaotic evil, he agrees to spare the group and takes them as his "hostages" on Occipitus as he plans his revenge on Grazz't. We haven't yet begun the epic adventures to come involving trying to redeem Adimarchus, raise Occipitus from the Abyss, and fend off attacks from rival Demon Princes yet, but it should be an exciting yourney.
Cool as.
Did you introduce the Adimarchus/Athux story before the adventure?
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Not much- the big revelations came from Dark Myrakul's taunting monologue. Literally, since she figured out that Adimarchus was the head of the cult (or was involved somehow) around "Secrets of the Soul Pillars", she's been planning on how to defeat Adimarchus and raise Occipitus back to Celestia. The wizard, whose skill with Knowledge (the planes) borders on scary, would often research the topic in whatever downtime they could squeeze in, though I made the amount of information regarding Adimarchus' powers and abilities a secret. The majority of the backstory I kept hidden as well, mostly because my characters have a tendency to figure things out if I hint too much. They did know he abandoned his demonic army mid-battle to go to Skullrot, which they knew was a prison or asylum os some kind, but why was a huge mystery.