Hey, one last question. At the back of the book there is a segment guilty blood: common ashes. When am I supposed to refer to this? I can't find any instance in the adventure where the players happen upon any journal entries from here, so what is it for?
Guilty Blood...? Oh! The short story! One of the common features in most (all?) Paizo Adventure Paths alongside the actual adventure, the bestiary, and the lore article, is a short story that fleshes out more of the Lost Omens Campaign Setting and presumably touches on themes of the adventure as something of a flavour piece to set tone. The only relevance it has to your adventure is if it gives you a feel for the region. I think you'll find that all 6 books of the AP include a portion of this narrative
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Hey, one last question. At the back of the book there is a segment guilty blood: common ashes. When am I supposed to refer to this? I can't find any instance in the adventure where the players happen upon any journal entries from here, so what is it for?Guilty Blood...? Oh! The short story! One of the common features in most (all?) Paizo Adventure Paths alongside the actual adventure, the bestiary, and the lore article, is a short story that fleshes out more of the Lost Omens Campaign Setting and presumably touches on themes of the adventure as something of a flavour piece to set tone. The only relevance it has to your adventure is if it gives you a feel for the region. I think you'll find that all 6 books of the AP include a portion of this narrative
Ah, I see. Thanks much.
Also, I thought you would want to know. My players finished the 5 haunts last session and returned the badge to Vesarronia. They had an absolute blast with the campaign and can't wait for more. A large part of this is due to your help, so thank you very much for it.
I am currently prepping the trial of the Beast.
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First of all want to thank this board for a whole bunch of great ideas. I'm running HoH (just had our first session) after a long time away from GM-ing and this has been an awesome resource. I did want to see if anyone had ideas/recommendations for a few thoughts I had that aren't exactly covered here:
As background, things I've adopted (stolen) or plan to:
- Adivion present at the funeral (my PCs were immediately wildly suspicious of him)
- Local ordinance prohibiting anyone from going to Harrowstone to encourage exploring the town (if they break it they'll get tossed in jail for a night, create some tension with the Sheriff)
- Letters from "A" (ideally I want them to suspect Adivion for the first two books, but slowly learn about Vrood; then end of TotB Adivion fakes his own death and they spend book 3 chasing Auren Vrood before a big Adivion reveal once Vrood is killed)
Two things I'm working on related to the above:
1. I want them to slowly learn about Vrood and ideally learn his first name starts with "A" at or near the end of TotB. I was trying to think of a way to have Vrood be involved in the story (similar to how I plan to have Adivion be hosting them/around in Lepistadt) but he doesn't seem an easy/plausible character to have playing say, some guy trying to date Kendra. Just drop clues about his name probably?
2. I like the idea that Professor Lorrimor's ghost has become a rapping spirit in his old study in the house. Can't leave until Kendra is safe. I might have him continue to follow the party in various forms to other books (makes sense for Lepistadt at least), and ideally the PCs could use the Planchette to learn about Vrood and eventually get his name. My one concern is if the Professor would naturally have too much information to give the PCs access to?
By default I believe the name Auren Vrood is first revealed to the party in Ascanor, since some of the staff there heard and saw him enter the lodge and meet with Estovion. It shouldn't hurt (and might improve) the party's reaction to this by inserting his name in the end of TotB, perhaps learned from Caromarc after freeing him. I like the idea that the party has their suspicions of AA diverted to broody Vroody only for it to be revealed that he was working for a bigger boss.
As for Lorrimor, if he knows Adivion, he may know or suspect too much, but I like the idea of him lingering as a spirit in book 1. The cure for him knowing too much of course is death amnesia--perhaps he only remembers general things that would be lot relevant
By default I believe the name Auren Vrood is first revealed to the party in Ascanor, since some of the staff there heard and saw him enter the lodge and meet with Estovion. It shouldn't hurt (and might improve) the party's reaction to this by inserting his name in the end of TotB, perhaps learned from Caromarc after freeing him. I like the idea that the party has their suspicions of AA diverted to broody Vroody only for it to be revealed that he was working for a bigger boss.
As for Lorrimor, if he knows Adivion, he may know or suspect too much, but I like the idea of him lingering as a spirit in book 1. The cure for him knowing too much of course is death amnesia--perhaps he only remembers general things that would be lot relevant
Thanks for the tip on when Auren Vrood first gets named - I've read through TotB but no further yet. Definitely going to have Caromarc know his name so they get it earlier and are linking him to the letters they'll be getting.
Question on difficulty in general: I'm pretty confident in how to tweak encounters to party strength. My group has 5: Bard/Brawler multiclass (long story); Undead Scourge Paladin; Dhampir Inquisitor; Aasimar Cleric; Magus (we rolled ability scores and the Dhampir/Aasimar rolled s$!! so I gave them leave to use advanced races). Generally speaking the party is well set up to handle the haunts/ghosts - I have read a few places that Undead Scourge is almost too optimized for this AP, but I think between him focusing on Greatsword vs. skelly's slashing DR and the Lopper/Splatter/other incorporeals there are enough encounters where others will outshine the Paladin. I'm thinking I'll use max HP for most monsters but not planning on further modifications yet, but this is my first group with more than 3-4 players so a little worried the action economy is going to ruin single enemy boss fights?
I'm afraid I've been running this AP in 2e, so I don't know what the difficulty curve will look like for a 1e party of any number. That said, any solo boss you're worried about getting out-economied too badly can always have a few low level minions added to their room to sponge up damage and actions. The final boss of the AP is actually such a fight where I've seen this recommended. I can't remember if Vrood's minions were written in his fight but I know I ran him with something.
I'm afraid I've been running this AP in 2e, so I don't know what the difficulty curve will look like for a 1e party of any number. That said, any solo boss you're worried about getting out-economied too badly can always have a few low level minions added to their room to sponge up damage and actions. The final boss of the AP is actually such a fight where I've seen this recommended. I can't remember if Vrood's minions were written in his fight but I know I ran him with something.
Much appreciated on the responses. One other issue I'm running into having read and re-read Harrowstone a few times - I don't see how the PCs are reasonably going to get into the Property Room (and then the hidden vault) as written before they acquire the Warden's keys. The group doesn't have a Rogue, so even if the Inquisitor or someone else takes Disable Device they won't be able to hit the 30 DC. I guess they might spend the time to break down the door if I really emphasize the importance of the items through Vesorianna?
Otherwise I think it's most likely they would only be able to get the items right before they face Splatter, which will not only make the encounters much harder but removes the potential fun of the cursed items and trying to figure out what each does.
My current plan is to start by just emphasizing the importance of the items and see if they figure out how to break down the door (or go buy a Knock spell in town). Just wanted to make sure I'm not missing some other obvious way they can get in there?
Iirc my party found the vault first and went searching for the keys. When they saw a glint of light in the elevator hole they immediately cast Mage hand to being the keys up (in hindsight, the keys being found at the bottom of the shaft might have been a change I made specifically for this reason)
My players handled this book fairly well. the only issue being the DC's on anything locked was well above what the rogue could handle, and the constructs having DR 10, was more than almost any character could over come.
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I actually made a modification on the scars from the Branding Room, and I'd like other persons opinion on the creepy factor.
If examined closely, a person can just make out a number in the brand - each of the scars gives a different number (Last time I did a 3 digit number, but when I do it again, I think I'll make it a 4 digit - more prisoners).
Research using the records from The Offices (S3) turns up the Prisoner numbers/names associated with those numbers, and the last time I ran this I just used random numbers, but this time I think I am either going to use numbers for the Big Five prisoners, or else have the PCs discover their own names in the Prison Records... I'm not sure which...
This idea is pretty cool as heck, aesthetically speaking. Only thing I might say is that I can't imagine why the prison would have need to track more than a thousand prisoners simultaneously. I don't know how this kind of system would work realistically, but it feels like there's not much reason to permanently reserve a particular brand number to a particular prisoner after they've been executed, so even a prison which operates for decades could/should probably start reusing brand numbers eventually?
(also are there 1000+ individual brands or does each brand only mark you with 1 number and you need to be branded multiple times to get a full code?)
Still, feels like a great idea, and discovering your own name in the prison records only to blink and find it's not there anymore is a great option for a paranatural phenomenon related to names.
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yeah - maybe 3 digits would be enough... looks like there were only about a hundred cells anyway...
I would actually consider the need to track each prisoner uniquely, so that when someone showed up and said "The Grand Duke wants the man in the Iron Mask... is he still alive?" - the Warden would be able to turn to the Clerk and say "Prisoner #643?" and have the Clerk respond "Died thirteen years ago sir! Buried in an unmarked grave in area B-14." and not have to worry if there is a Different Prisoner #643. Kind of like serial numbers for soldiers. Don't reuse them just because someone died/retired...
and maybe the Prisoner Numbers would contain coded information, like :
the year they arrived,
their "rank" (Major Crime, Political Crime, Possible to be Released)
their release date if they are on a time sentence
or other info.
But yeah...
As to numbers of brands... just use a set of movable type like an old style printer. Change out the numbers between prisoners... they'd need a few "irons" to heat up, and it would take a wait between sets of prisoners, but that would add to the horror of the moment right? Having to wait around while the Iron is "set", then heated...
