Children of the Void (GM Reference)

[baron arem heshvaun]

Great concept for the AP and even better 'visual flavour' Joey !

I'm sure Mondraer will become a memorable part of your campaign.

[Joey Virtue]

baron arem heshvaun wrote:

Great concept for the AP and even better 'visual flavour' Joey !

I'm sure Mondraer will become a memorable part of your campaign.

Thanks I think it will be cool and the funny thing a Player who is just now joining our group is a Chaotic Good Fighter with a Bastard Sword

[Joey Virtue]

On Page 17 when it talks about things to do on Devils Elbow its says discovering the secrets of Virashi's curse and the location of her treasure well where is her treasure this seems to been have removed from the book I want to know what it is

[Are]

Virashi's lair was in the Sea Caves, which is the headquarters for the drow on the island. I'd imagine they have discovered and confiscated her treasure, so it would be scattered amongs their possessions or may even have been sent back to the main drow settlements.

[DMFTodd]

The cinematic fight in the tower is cool, but hard to pull off in my mind. If you give the players fair warning, they will - very logically - leave the tower. If you sneak it in, they'll cry foul and b!@@$ & moan throughout, ruining the cool factor. If you thread the needle, some PCs will leave and will then have to sit out while the tower is resolved.

[Joana]

The tower scene was my players' favorite part of the adventure. They loved being part of the big action scene!

What do you mean by "fair warning?" If you have someone who can make the DC 20 Knowledge (engineering) check, then they know the tower is unsafe from the beginning. By the time the akata siege begins, leaving the tower is no longer the obviously logical thing to do. When the tremor hits and the tower starts leaning, the party will try to leave. Most of my players, however, were on top of the tower out of reach of the akatas and firing ranged weapons; they and the cyphermages had to run down the stairs. Everyone has to get through the door single-file; if they have any nobility (or are trying to impress Samaritha), they won't want to run away and leave the mages behind to fall.

In my game, a few of the characters did make it out just as the tower was falling and got to watch their friends roll down the hill. They were more than occupied during the descent by fighting akatas. And then it was fun afterwards to have some people on top, one who escaped and made his reflex save somewhere in the middle, and the rest at the bottom trying to figure out a way to get back together again!

[DMFTodd]

Am I not seeing the level recommendations for this adventure? It starts at 4, when to go to 5 and 6?

[Joana]

I don't see it in this volume; I don't think they started putting it in every book until after this. Here is a thread where James Jacobs discusses the amount of XPs available in this adventure.

[DMFTodd]

So confirmation that the XP is a bit light this adventure, which is what I'm seeing even having thrown several wandering monsters at the party. I'm going to say:

Level 5: When they reach Zincher's camp. Clegg is a CR8 on his own and has a CR6 semi-helper. (And since my party hates Clegg with a passion, there's no chance of parley).

Level 6: At the caves. There's a CR7, CR7, CR5, CR8 (assuming Shndiira doesn't get reinforcements).

Which should put them close to level 7 where they need to be for Echo.

[DMFTodd]

Speaking of hating Zincher, I wonder how PCs are supposed to find the sea caves if they refuse to work with Zincher and instead kill him?

Perhaps Yaris' as a wraith can help? A suicide not scrawled on the wall of the eastern lighthouse? A captured henchman complains of Zincher's nightly fishing trip but that he never catches anything?

[Joey Virtue]

I believe Zincher has a map marking the Seas Caves

[El Baldito]

Joana wrote:

I don't see it in this volume; I don't think they started putting it in every book until after this. Here is a thread where James Jacobs discusses the amount of XPs available in this adventure.

Hi,

If you check the bottom of the fourth page of each book (Credits page), it says in very tiny tiny characters what the starting and ending levels are.

For book 2, it states that the adventurers would start as 4th level and finish as 6th level,

Actually, this is a bit confusing because the third book states that the adventurers start as 7th and finish as 9th.

And the same confusing issue occurs with books 4 and 5.
Book 4: Start as 9th, end as 11th
Book 5: Start as 12th, end as 14th.

Since the group that I am DMing (1st time for me) does some weird things anyway (never follow a script), it does not matter for my adventure.

Cheers,

André

[El Baldito]

Good day to all,

I am running the ”Second Darkness- Children of the Void” campaign (first time being a DM, as mentioned in a previous post).

I have a question regarding a spell.

Chmetugo used Magic Jar and took over the body of the cleric in the party (the party took forever to get to this point and was able to use the spell again). Chmugeto was in area G9D and the party was in G8, waiting to go into area G9.

The (possessed) cleric went to the barbarian in the party and in order to cast "cure light". The barbarian accepted and the cleric then tried to stab her in the back instead (and missed).

The barbarian hit the cleric back and knocked him unconscious (well, currently at negative 3). She is an impressive barbarian.

I checked the spell in details but cannot find the answer to the question.

With the cleric unconscious, would Chmetugo’s spirit/soul also be unconscious in the body of the cleric, or would the demon be able leave the body and try to take another one?

When looking at the spell description, the line “The body retains its Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, hit points, natural abilities, and automatic abilities.” seems to indicate that, if the “possessed” character’s hit points go below 0 and the character is now unconscious, the demon would not be able to leave the body either until the character regains consciousness.

The cleric is not dead… yet.

Another question would be about the distance. Assuming that transference cannot occur while the body is unconscious, and the party leaves the caves to go on top of the cliff above the entrance of the caves (to see if people come out), the way I understand the spell is that the distance would be too great for the demon to go back to the jar (I think that the maximum distance in this case is 170 ft and there is a lot of rocks between where the jar is and where the party plans to relocate).

Any clarification/suggestion would be greatly appreciated.

To make things more interesting, there is the fact that the demon put his jar in area G9D (he was in a bit of a rush), which is where Depora is located. Not sure yet if Depora will try to destroy the jar just to bug Shindiira.

Thanks,

André

[DMFTodd]

I have no rule for you, but I'd say the spirit can leave the unconscious body. I view more as "the spirit takes control of the body", not that the spirit becomes the body.

[El Baldito]

DMFTodd wrote:

I have no rule for you, but I'd say the spirit can leave the unconscious body. I view more as "the spirit takes control of the body", not that the spirit becomes the body.

Thanks, Todd.

I appreciate your input. I was initially (and still am) leaning towards this way of thinking too.

I have also received many answers in other forums where I was told that the demon would not be able to switch until the host is awake.

Hmm! Have to give more thought to this.

André

[RPGeezer]

In Children of the Void are the Sea Caves dark? Or are they lit some sort of way?...

[Kyto]

I am unsure if anyone still looks at this forum as the adventure is so old, but I'll give it a try.

Are void zombies still undead for effects like command undead? I assume they are since they are described as having "undead traits".

I ask as one member of my players is an Anti Paladin with the command undead feat. I lucked out that he failed his attempt the 1st time he encountered one, but concerns me that the core "fear" of the akatas & void zombies in this adventure is negated if the zombies are easily commanded

I also found it odd that there has not been an abundance of "magical loot" in either of these 1st 2 books, yet when the players get to the sea caves, they need to fight a demon (Chmetugo) who is immune to all but magical weapons due to "incorporeal traits". I can just be sure to add some appropriate weapons for each player before this point but I found it odd that sticking to the story would put the players unequipped to fight that demon.

[Joana]

According to the PRD, void zombies use the stat block of a fast zombie, which would include undead traits. I suppose you could give them channel resistance or just fiat that they can't be controlled due to their alien origins.

[Ogrork the Mighty]

How is the name "Chmetugo" (the shadow demon) pronounced?

As an aside, Chmetugo ("the Smokerake") gets a mention on page 31 of Demons Revisited.

Also, did Avery Slyeg go to Devil's Elbow himself or did he just send an expedition? Originally I assumed he went himself but after carefully reading the text it isn't clear and could be interpreted that he sent an expedition (who were all slain by the drow on the night of their arrival) to recover the skymetal for him. It's not clear if Slyeg is alive or dead at the end of the module.

[Raphael]

Each of the expeditions to Devil's Elbow arrived on a ship. The fate of the first two ships to arrive (The Black Bunyip and the Dark Pearl) are described (Clegg seizes the Black Bunyip and has his men sail both ships to a neutral port). What happened to the Foamrunner, the ship the Cyphermages arrived on? If it returned to Riddleport, it should have arrived before the PCs set out. This really confounded my players and I'm afraid I made some lame excuses at the table. And where did the Mithril Wave go?

[Joana]

I assume that sailors on other ships were as superstitious as Josper Creesy and set a date to return rather than hang around a haunted island. They don't just have to have gone back to Riddleport, though; they could have had cargo for another port and just dropped the Cyphermages and dwarves off on their way. As such, they wouldn't plan to return to Riddleport until after they've picked the groups back up from Devil's Elbow.

(This isn't spelled out in the book, obviously, just a handy rationalization.)

[Sintegypsy]

Okay, I know I’m REAL late to the party with this, but I am hoping that someone is still monitoring this thread. I am currently running Second Darkness for a group and the party just entered Witchlight. After signaling to the Cyphermages and Samaritha responding with “say something so I know you’re alive” the party’s cleric decided to channel positive energy as they approached the Goldhammer Expedition bodies lying outside of the ruined store.

Since the Void Zombies are essentially parasitic but have undead traits would this work to damage them or not? I saw where this had already been asked in this thread, but couldn’t find a response.

[Joana]

Since Second Darkness was published, Paizo released akatas and void zombies in Bestiary 2. That write-up clarifies that void zombies are variant fast zombies with extra attacks, so, yes, they should be vulnerable to positive energy just like any undead.