Hi to everybody!
I have some doubt about Adimarchus role in the whole story: it seems to me that it's role is extremely secondary and that after the PCs have destroied the cagewraiths thare is no clear reason why they should go to the Carceri to fight him (apart the fact that he is resurrecting enemies against the PCs... doesn't sound so good to me as hook).
For what I have understand the only cagewraith "touched" by A. is Fetor Ab-something that appear in Secrets of the Soul Pillar: he's supposed to be the one that helps the cult with the idea of the tree and cages to open the portal. But why? What advantage would Adimarchus gain from that? He would still be prisoned! And why at the end the surviving cagewrights would go to the Carceri to try to free him? Why Ebril do that? Did she even knew about Adimarchus? Have I missed something?
Apart from this point it seems to me that Paizo is doing a wonderful work and I hope that they will print a AOW book!
The only this that a book of this size needs is an index and a short summury of the story, not only of the back story.
Great job anyway!
And sorry for my english!
Ciao!
I think you're right - there is no real reason for Adimarchus. Infact you could run the whole AP leaving out the last two chapters and possibly The Test of the Smoking Eye and the players would still feel just as satisfied with the end result.
Adimarchus was more of an after thought than a ultimate villian. The cagewrights are the ultimate villians in the AP, Adimarchus is just an add on.
Now in saying all this Adimarchus is a great BBEG and provides a fitting opponent for the high level party when they combat him. The secret with Adimarchus is foreshadowing and unfortunately, due to space/time etc, you will find little in the way of foreshadowing of him in the magazines or Hard Copy. James Jaccobs added a few character creation links to him and an outbrake of insanity in the SCHC, the adventure - Test of the Smoking Eye reveals his existance and Fetor (Demonskar Legacy) and Abtus(sp?)(Foundations of Fire) follow/worship him but even this fact is noted more as a foot note for each than a concrete link.
My advice is to create more foreshadowing yourself. Create more followers of his - infected by his madness earlier on which combat the party. Have a few of the main villians bear his mark or outright worship him. Have more cagewrights be his servants and change their motivation to ultimately use the planar gate to drop the Asalym and Adimarchus onto the material plane and therefore releasing him or something similiar.
Come up with legitimate reasons why the cagewrights and the evil that is befalling Cauldron is a direct result of HIM.
Without this type of foreshadowing Adimarchus is a fairly meaningless villian, no matter how tough and scary he is...
Delvesdeep
I have some doubt about Adimarchus role in the whole story: it seems to me that it's role is extremely secondary and that after the PCs have destroied the cagewraiths thare is no clear reason why they should go to the Carceri to fight him (apart the fact that he is resurrecting enemies against the PCs... doesn't sound so good to me as hook).
Your English is better than most! =)
One of the weaknesses of the first AP was the lack of foreshadowing. It was a lesson learned on AP 2 (and hopefully AP 3), but it does require you to make the linkages between the score of NPCs and your PCs. Alek Tercival's death (for example) is far more effective if the PCs encounter him before the adventure he makes his appearance in.
Adimarchus is tough - he's the ultimate reason behind the AP, but he's such a behind-the-scenes figure that you're going to have to throw linkages at the party. If they are doing research, give them hints about the demon prince. If they use the Soul Pillars, allow them cryptic phrases. When the PCs defeat the Cagewrights, have Dyr'ryd or Fetor's notes include ramblings about Adimarchus. Remember that Strike on Shatterhorn does indicate that Adimarchus' madness has infected the Cagewrights to a certain extent - IMC, the psychic exhaustion from the ritual allows him to seep into their subconscious. If worse comes to worse, allow anyone with the Smoking Eye template to gain growing insight into the madness surrounding the Cagewrights.
I think you're right - there is no real reason for Adimarchus. Infact you could run the whole AP leaving out the last two chapters and possibly The Test of the Smoking Eye and the players would still feel just as satisfied with the end result.
Adimarchus was more of an after thought than a ultimate villian. The cagewrights are the ultimate villians in the AP, Adimarchus is just an add on.
Now in saying all this Adimarchus is a great BBEG and provides a fitting opponent for the high level party when they combat him. The secret with Adimarchus is foreshadowing and unfortunately, due to space/time etc, you will find little in the way of foreshadowing of him in the magazines or Hard Copy. James Jaccobs added a few character creation links to him and an outbrake of insanity in the SCHC, the adventure - Test of the Smoking Eye reveals his existance and Fetor (Demonskar Legacy) and Abtus(sp?)(Foundations of Fire) follow/worship him but even this fact is noted more as a foot note for each than a concrete link.
My advice is to create more foreshadowing yourself. Create more followers of his - infected by his madness earlier on which combat the party. Have a few of the main villians bear his mark or outright worship him. Have more cagewrights be his servants and change their motivation to ultimately use the planar gate to drop the Asalym and Adimarchus onto the material plane and therefore releasing him or something similiar.
Come up with legitimate reasons why the cagewrights and the evil that is befalling Cauldron is a direct result of HIM.
Without this type of foreshadowing Adimarchus is a fairly meaningless villian, no matter how tough and scary he is...
Delvesdeep
You mention Fetor (Soul pillars actually)following / worshiping adimarchus. I have also seen, but not followed closely a thread on this messageboard were some discussion of a thrall and cult of Adimarchus has been proposed. I was wondering if anyone has an idea of a suitable symbol to represent Adimarchus?
You mention Fetor (Soul pillars actually)following / worshiping adimarchus. I have also seen, but not followed closely a thread on this messageboard were some discussion of a thrall and cult of Adimarchus has been proposed. I was wondering if anyone has an idea of a suitable symbol to represent...
I use the smoking eye symbol listed in the SCAP as his 'holy symbol. =)
My take on the 'cult of Adimarchus' was that Yeenoghu and Adimarchus fought over the Demonskar region, and that Adimarchus' minions holed up in the caldera that would become Cauldron. When Surabar Spellmason cleared the area of demonic taint, he also broke the back of the cult in the volcano. This also allows me to place a heavily modified "Demon God's Fane" in the center of the lake, which the party will discover after Flood Seasons is up...and is the source of the Morkoth.
It also helps to foreshadow his role if you keep in mind that pretty much any time somebody is described as going mad, or behaving wildly against their character, they're being influenced by Adimarchus, the Demon Prince of Madness: Triel, Zenith, and a few others off the top of my head. They don't make a big deal of it in the HC and I haven't read the Dungeon magazine version, so it might not show up much at all in that version.
Sort of like they don't make a really big deal out of it, but every single non-evil PC-class NPC in town is the last surviving member of an adventuring party that survived an almost TPK... I wonder how long it's going to take my players to catch on to the fact that somebody keeps setting heroes up for a fall in this region.
It also helps to foreshadow his role if you keep in mind that pretty much any time somebody is described as going mad, or behaving wildly against their character, they're being influenced by Adimarchus, the Demon Prince of Madness: Triel, Zenith, and a few others off the top of my head. They don't make a big deal of it in the HC and I haven't read the Dungeon magazine version, so it might not show up much at all in that version.
Indeed. I'm twisting part of the Istvin campaign arc and replacing Magog with Adimarchus. Did I mention I'm heavily modifying things? =)
Sort of like they don't make a really big deal out of it, but every single non-evil PC-class NPC in town is the last surviving member of an adventuring party that survived an almost TPK... I wonder how long it's going to take my players to catch on to the fact that somebody keeps setting heroes up for a fall in this region.
You know, that is a /very/ good point, and one that I hadn't quite connected the dots to yet. It does seem that way, doesn't it?
I have been wondering when my players are going to notice there are a lot of crazy people around Cauldron. Zenith and Crazy Jared where the two most obvious ones.
Also, if you read the descriptions of the Thirteen, quite a lot of them have some psychic troubles. Some seem to be psychotic, others only neurotic. I believe one is terribly paranoid and one female cagewright seems to have 'fear of getting dirty' (sorrty, I have no idea what it's called in English). My party rogue had an encounter with her where she was saying what a dirty girl she was and that she needed a good cleaning.
My party had also hired a gnome sage to do some research for them (finding out more about Terrem's birthmark). He found some info and then disappeard while investigating further. They forgot all about him and found him when they cleaned out the Temple of Wee-Jas. At least they found his body, there wasn't much left of his mind. They then went and put him in the Asylum where they learned they had a lot more crazy people than before. One of them even claims to be some weird guy name Ady Marcus or such...
So I'm basically trying to bring the element of Madness into the campaign without it being to obvious.
Thanks to all of you! Your opinion was very helpful!
I was wondering if any of you have found a way to connect the cagewrights' plan (opening a gate to carceri to rule cauldron and the region) and Adimarchus' desire of freedom. How the cagewrights' work could help Adimarchus?
I want to start SCAP with my group and I would like to be ready and have a good plot since the beginning. I already have plans to incorporate many NPCs earlier (Alek, Celeste, the bad guys at the meeting in lords of oblivion, etc..) but I'm still not sure what to do with Addy (Adimarchus).
Any ideas?
This is my second attempt at replying to this thread so fingers crossed!
You mention Fetor (Soul pillars actually)following / worshiping adimarchus. I have also seen, but not followed closely a thread on this messageboard were some discussion of a thrall and cult of Adimarchus has been proposed. I was wondering if anyone has an idea of a suitable symbol to represent...
Sorry I haven't had time to come up with any further ideas on the Thrall. I've been busy writing up a few side treks based on my characters backgrounds and work keeps getting in the way of fun!
Gwydion beat me to the punch. I use the symbol of the smoking eye for Adimarchus and his followers. I have them tear an eye out and wreath it in smoke either with ash, tatoo or magical spells depending on their rankings. Fetor and his cohort Triel (in my campaign of course) bore this sign. I'm going to give Fetor some powers of madness and a gaze attack when I get around to it.
By the way have you noticed the sheer amount of references to eyes in the path - symbol of the city, beholder as villian, cagewrights, adimarchus even the volcano itself at a stretch. Interesting.
As to coming up with a 'logical' rationale as to why Adimarchus should be the main villian of the whole plot well I have a few possibilities -
1) Fetor is one of Adimarchus followers - influenced by his mad dreamings and directed? by through them. The ritual of planar junction was concieved by the Spellweavers and shared with the Cagewrights by Fetor. Adimarchus added to the ritual. This addition will not only open the gate but moments later free the demon lord onto the material plane. Adimarchus will then use his cagewright followers to 'influence' the remaining thirteen into serving him, he will have a ready made army of demodands to lead into battle and the staging point (Cauldron) to launch his revenge.
2) Adimarchus madness first seeped across the prison plane and infected many of the demodands that call the place home. One particular powerful demodand mutant (Shaator sp?) called the call of insanity and followed its urging to travel to the material plane and form the Cagewrights. Adimarchus knows that when the gate is opened the prison he is keep in will fall into the material plane and he will be released,
3) Adimarchus is using the planar junction/gate as a masssive ruse to bring the one person who could release him to his prison. Through his mad wanderings he has learnt of a group and a individual that bears his sign and hopes to first test them, then empower them before finally luring them to him to face his jailor and then releasing him.
I like the first option the best but feel free to use none or any of the ideas if they help make Adimarchus make sence.
Delvesdeep
There was an older thread that discussed the same thing, but I couldn't find it. I tried to have a Top Ten list of how Adimarchus figures into the grand scheme, and why it should be necessary to destroy Adimarchus at all.
It went something like this:
1. Adimarchus is a demon prince, Lord of Occipitus, held in Carceri.
2. Adimarchus went insane, and his insanity has crossed the planar boundaries, affecting certain people.
3. The Cagewrights are an organization that wants to open a permanent gate to Carceri and make a pact with the demodands upon their release.
4. Certain powerful people have attached themselves with the Cagewrights with different intetions:
5. Vhalantru wants power in the new regime.
6. The Ebon Triad wants to fulfill the Age of Worms prophecies.
7. Fetor, who was inflicted with Adimarchus' insanity, wants to use the Cagewrights' plan to further his own goal of freeing Adimarchus.
8. As the Cagewrights get closer and closer to their goal, they eventually succomb to Adimarchus' insanity, and lose sight of their primary goal of an alliance with the demondands, and at the end, only want to free Adimarchus.
9. When the plan to open the gate to Carceri fails, the Cagewrights hastily scheme up other ways to serve their new Lord, Adimarchus.
10. If Adimarchus is not killed, his insanity will continue to cross the planar boundaries.
The "Drive It Home" point is #10. In the end scheme of things (as written) the ressurection of Vhalantru is only an indication that something bigger is going on, but this is really an insignificant effect of Adimarchus' power.
Eventually, hundreds of thousands will succomb to the madness. If the PCs aren't moved into action to help every known inhabitant of your Game World Of Choice, then go to the next step.
Eventuality #2: Sooner or later, some *extremely* powerful forces will become affected and will try to free Adimarchus, and will want to secure Occipitus in his honor.
I think that the SCAP gives plenty of reason to take on Adimarchus. The fact that Adimarchus' insanity will eventually take over the material plane is supposed to be a big motivation. Since you can't kill Adimarchus in his cage, you have to release him. To release him you have to have the smoking eye, which makes The Test of the Smoking Eye a necessary adventure.