My players are trying to outwit the adventure path, and I've promised to "allow" this and run the adventure path exactly as written, taking their actions and coming up with the logical conclusions. It's their hope that they will have a much more survivable game as a result.
So: they're recruiting people in Kakishon to go through the Earth Seed (activated using their ruby tuning fork) to go through and take care of whatever security has been placed around the Scroll back on the material plane (or so they believe).
First, most of the group won't go through, since the gate doesn't work for Kakishon natives. I think it will primary (or possibly entirely) be the NPCs they brought with them. Second, the process will destroy the scroll and forever prevent that method of travel to and from Kakishon. I've recruited a second set of players who will play out what the NPCs do in Bayt al-Bazan, but the regular PCs will likely never interact with it.
According to the AP, the destruction of the scroll settles the demi-plane into the deep ethereal (assuming that the protean threat isn't realized). Since Kakishon's proteans all have ethereal jaunt as a spell-like ability I'm assuming that they'd immediately escape. After some time in the Maelstrom they might eventually come back and cause problems, but that's probably not an immediate issue.
Any genie who wanted to leave could then do so, via plane shift, but couldn't easily get back that way. I'm guessing that this won't be used much, since most of the genies who wanted to leave will have already done so.
A bigger question concerns who's likely to arrive in Kakishon. For example, I suspect that the Sunset Ship will sail into port once every seven years, adding this destination to its itinerary. Various dream creatures and possibly night hags might wander in. Wakeless clergy of Desna will eventually find the place.
I'm guessing that for the PCs it's going to be a matter of gaining experience until one of them can cast plane shift and then escaping, but in the meantime I want to show that Kakishon itself is changing in a permanent and significant way. Has anyone else done anything with its arrival in the deep ethereal?
The biggest change that I'm making is that the edge of Kakishon is now surrounded by some sort of ethereal curtain instead of a waterfall to Andakami. (The Isles of Not are resting in the Deep Ethereal relatively near to Kakishon.) Andakami itself is gone.
Presumably the proteans made it so that there is a lot of water coming from somewhere. Logically, this would be created from the raw potential of Andakami (the same as summoned creatures). There aren't any major rivers shown on the map of Kakishon, and there aren't any strong currents near the islands, so I'm guessing that the water is much deeper in the middle of the disc and shallower near the edges. The water could well up anywhere in the depths and remain unnoticed by most of the residents. (It's got to come from somewhere if there's an eternal waterfall over three hundred miles long, but with no current I'm not exactly sure how it would work. This is just my best guess.)
So once the demiplane no longer sits in Andakami and has instead settled into the deep ethereal, is this water still arriving? If yes, then the water level in the demiplane is going to rise unless the proteans enable a waterfall flowing into the ethereal. As I understand it, the default is that one can will oneself through an ethereal curtain but that raw elements (such as water) would be constrained by one. If the water creation has stopped then there won't be any immediate big effect, though mountain streams might stop flowing and creatures such as Kirhosk the Turtle King would notice the drastic change in sea currents. Eventually the sea may stagnate.
In either case, the proteans could fix it. I have no idea why they'd want to, and regardless they're long gone. A sending could reach them, and a sufficiently diplomatic PC could theoretically convince them that they owe the party a favour.
Any thoughts?
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I wish I could offer some thoughts on this Tbug, but alas, I can not. I am gearing up DM'ing my own Legacy of fire, and this plane is so different for mine that I dont know if I can start contributing to your idea and not get mixed up in what is written, what is mine, and what is yours... :D
Like James, I am intrigued at what your players are trying to get at, but I am not sure, by your original post, if this is "in character" or player designed to exploit an undefined anomaly in the prison plane of kakishon as written.
CC
Sorry, I probably should have clarified.
My players like a path, but not a railroad. I pay Paizo to write a railroad (really - that's not sarcasm, and I love the way Paizo writes APs), and then if my players don't stay on the tracks I come up with what is logically happening outside the train. The path is what's written (hence the name Adventure Path), but my players like to have their choices mean something. If I changed the adventure from what it currently says (namely that one group can exit Kakishon via the Earth Seed before the scroll immolates) so that they're forced to stay on the path (in this case by saying that two groups can exit that way before the scroll self-destructs) then I'm taking power away from them. That's what they've asked me not to do.
So what I want is to run the adventure path exactly as written instead of adapting it so that the same stuff happens no matter what my players do. We've been told that once the scroll burns up then Kakishon settles into the deep ethereal, so I'm trying to figure out what the implications are of that.
I get that the purpose of chapter four is to delay the PCs long enough that they are forced to do chapter five, but the choices that the PCs have made mean that (by strict reading of what's written) that option is closed to them. I can easily come up with ways to impose a trip to Bayt al-Bazan on them, but at least for a little while I want to let them see the results of their actions on Kakishon. (Even if a group does the AP exactly as written they might want to return to Kakishon once everything is over, so hopefully this thread will benefit people other than me.)
Out of character, my players want to play the adventure path. I want to make sure that they have a chance to see The Impossible Eye, so if they do manage somehow to bypass it then once the campaign is over I'll give them a chance to go back and play the scouting team they sent through (composed of Dilix, Magiyawala, and several janni eunuchs).
Is that clearer?