Wake of the Watcher (GM Reference)

[Tommaso Gollini]

i have it on a word document. need to find it then if you pm me your email i will send it to you

[Tommaso Gollini]

A question about the exit from the dimension door in area F3/F22.
It's a 2 way door ? i cant find the part on the F22 side that says something about the "place" where the key can lodge and the door opens.
Also, the amulet/key need to stay in place ? or has just to be "applied/in contact" and act as a key (door opens) even if the amulet isnt in contact with the surface anymore (from F3) ?
and from the other side ?

[Tommaso Gollini]

(isnt a dimensional door, sorry but i dont have the reference in hand here at work)

[Zhangar]

The phase door?

Yeah, there's no explicit mention of a depression, but an amulet in F22 is identified as also working as a key.

So I'd just assume there's a similar depression on the F22 side.

Placing the amulet in the depression opens the phase door for 1d4 rounds (and sets off a variant alarm in the F22 side, but the local skum barbarian chief is too bonkers to care).

Since there's a key on other side, you could go with having to leave the amulet in the depression up top.

[Screenmonkey2099]

My version of Raven's Head tweaked for a priest of Sarenrae into a scimitar:

History:

The Raven's Blade

The Raven's Blade was the holy scimitar carried into battle against the Whispering Tyrant by the Sarenraen Paladin, Salathiel Cleophas, also called, the Raven, by Ustalavian's due to the black feathered appearance of his armor, a stark contrast to the typical follower of the Dawnfeather, and the golden and black scimitar that looked to be of a raven being transformed into a phoenix. He came to Ustalav to battle with the Whispering Tyrant, after having a vision about the danger Tar-Baphon posed to the entire world.

Salathiel was slain by the undead archmage along with the entire crusader army led by Ustalavian Prince Adamondais Virholt at the battle of Adorak in 3205 AR. His weapon was lost for centuries until found by heroes beneath Lake Encarthen.

The tales of Salathiel's valor and sacrifice for a nation not even belonging to him has endeared him to the citizens of Ustalav, and later inspired many Sarenraen faithful to join the Shining Crusade in defeating the Whispering Tyrant in 3827.

The Raven's Blade (Minor Artifact)
Aura strong conjuration (healing); CL 20th
Slot none; weight 4 lbs

Description
Sacred among the faithful of Sarenrae foremost, the faithful of Pharasma also deem it a sacred relic (though belonging to the church of Sarenrae), and imbued with the power of all of the bishops of the Sarenraen faith, this gold plated +3 undead bane scimitar has a hilt fashioned to appear as a Raven/Phoenix, the head being the pommel of the blade, with the wings swept forward through a fiery ring of rubies that makes up the cross-guard. The blade itself appears as etched feathered wings, ablaze with fire, as if the Raven were being transformed into a phoenix upon passing through the fiery ring.

A character with the ability to channel positive energy gains the Channel Smite feat while wielding Raven's Blade, if she does not already possess the feat. In the hands of a cleric of Sarenrae, Raven's Blade gains the Lifesurge quality, and the wielder can use the Channel Smite feat as if she were a cleric of 4 levels higher (+2 on DC and +2d6 damage) and an extra three times per day. This weapon is an important part of Ustalavic and Sarenraen history and is immediately recognized by any priest of Sarenrae or Pharasma, grantint the bearer a +4 circumstance bonus on Diplomacy checks with such individuals.

Destruction
If successfully used as a component in the creation of a lich, Raven's Blade's power is broken forever.

[Hellwolve]

Planning ahead is often a good idea and given that I've seen Wake of the Watcher mentioned as most 'jarring' in terms of theme, I decided to peruse this thread.

Basis for the argument seems to be that Lovecraftian Mythos is all fine and dandy, but not befitting for a Gothic Horror campaign. I'm inclined to agree and reading this thread, the idea of doing something with plague stuck for now.

I've got the idea of this town filled with Plague worshippers, with a Black Death theme, complete with Plague Doctors and whatnot. Maybe they secretly worshipped Urgathoa and got in over their heads or somesuch. Basically roughly the same plot, but instead of a Elder God, the PC's need to stop Urgathoa from popping up.

[Kalindlara]

You might want to check out Pathfinder Adventure Path #8: Seven Days to the Grave. While written for a lower-level group, it may still have some ideas you can poach. It's also written for a larger city, but with some rewrites, you could set it in Caliphas and interweave it with Ashes at Dawn. (They even share a major NPC!)

[Hellwolve]

Reading the brief, that certainly seems the case. Guess I might take a chance and grab it :-) Thanks for the tip!

[archmagi1]

Nearly had a TPK last night in the Below Undiomede area. Three out of the Four PCs failed their save against the Colour out of Space's aura of Lassitude, getting cursed in the tunnel to its room. After some pretty fun RP about making the caves their new home, Whispering Way out of sight-out of mind, they decided to finish clearing the caves to make sure there was nothing else in their new abode. During the fight with the Colour, the one uncursed PC was 11HP from a good dusting (thanks to a 16hp heal in the next to last round of combat).

I gave them another save after killing the Colour, which they all again failed horribly. None of them could Identify the Colour, party had nothing to detect curses. Eventually, the uncursed fellow bound PCs while they slept and used one of more compliant cursed fellows to drag them away from the site. When the bard started complaining about being too far from home and he wasn't going any further, the brawler (uncursed) tossed the two bound bodies a bit further, then forcibly dragged the bard out of the way. 2/3 of them made their daily save from being outside of the mile.

A close victory for the party, although it was a humorous enough of a situation where the players were perfectly content with the off chance that should the brawler have died, the other three would have become permanent residents of the Undiomede House and caves.

[Grankless]

So, my party is likely to start the Recondite Order encounters soon. They'll be speaking to the mayor first before they head in and get warned by him that they're fishy (hoho), but I have to question what a convenient way to get around them murdering a bunch of dudes is. Like, I'll definitely have Greedle recommend they take them alive if possible, and that should do it, but there's so little information on the sheriff that I don't know if I should have him in on it or not.

[Sibelius Eos Owm]

Grankless wrote:

So, my party is likely to start the Recondite Order encounters soon. They'll be speaking to the mayor first before they head in and get warned by him that they're fishy (hoho), but I have to question what a convenient way to get around them murdering a bunch of dudes is. Like, I'll definitely have Greedle recommend they take them alive if possible, and that should do it, but there's so little information on the sheriff that I don't know if I should have him in on it or not.

Having Greedle recommend to take them alive is a good idea, until now I was mostly just imagining that the temple would end in a bloodbath because of all the 'fights to the death' morale entries. Either way, as for the sheriff, I don't recall if it's ever stated explicitly (other than that he is loyal to the Order) but in my interpretation he is one of the townsfolk 'in the know' regarding the cult of Dagon. He does follow Greedle's orders to maintain the facade, but Greedle knows he can't trust the sheriff and my assumption is that the moment he drops the PCs off at the office, he eavesdrops for like 1 minute and then leaves to report to Father Voltiaro (who is not present at the time). For this reason I'm going to have Greedle make a show of listening to see if the sheriff is still around before telling the PCs the real reason he brought them in.

[Might be Mighty Mite]

Zhangar wrote:

...snipping to the part I worked with...

Make the Piper a folk hero, a vigilante who came in the night with his flocks of stirges and purged outsiders and unbelievers, only to finally be laid low by outsiders (the Sleepless Agency? I don't remember how long they've been around) and shipped off to parts unknown, to never be heard from again.

There might be a little shrine to him somewhere. It might even have a flute and a preserved, oversized, stirge - the piper's familiar? - displayed there.

Maybe they have rumors that he'll come back one day and continue his work, and children take up the flute (and play songs the PCs heard back when they fought the Piper!) in the hope that their playing will summon him back.

Being in a place that idolizes some guy whose evil spirit the party put down back at 2nd level should put them even more on edge.

Here's what I have prepped for my group to encounter soon - either from a marsh/forest creature (a fey perhaps?) or over hearing it being told to one of the children in Illmarsh.

After they find a little shrine in the marsh...

the Tale of the Piper:

Rich men came from far away bent on draining the waters from our lands, cutting down our trees and killing our way of life. We were few and weak and they were strong with Iron and many trees were lost to them. The land was wounded and cried out. Blood was lost and Hope was wounded and Fire walked the lands. In it's pain and anguish it cried and all looked to be destroyed.

But a Hero heard it's cries, and answered the land. Played music to sooth the wounded land and came among us and healed the sick. The Piper came to defend us when all was lost, when time looked to be darkest.

So when the Rich Men came again into the swamp to pillage and despoil our lands the Piper rallied the creatures of the land to defend it, and they killed many of the evil men in their sleep. And together we drove them back from the forests and pools and we rejoiced in our victory - but it was to early.

For the day came when the Rick Men returned with Hunters from far away, with powerful magics and they tracked the Piper to were he slept and they fought the Big Fight. Much magic was thrown, songs against fire spells, much blood was shed, Iron against Wood, and in the end... the piper sacrificed himself to save our lands. When the dawns came, the Rich Men and their hunters were driven from our lands again... but so to was lost the Piper, no where to be found. No body was ever found - he had returned from where he had come when the land cried out in pain, there to heal his wounds and bide his time and recover, as the lands did.

Now we know, in our time of need, when the land cries out it's anguish, then the Piper will come again. So we stay true to him, and keep this place, where the Great Fight took place. Here we prepare flutes to teach the Songs for when they will be needed again to fight Magic. Where we can remember the triumph of Songs over Magic, of Blood over Iron, of Little over Big.

Where the Piper will come again...

[Might be Mighty Mite]

you know, ...it kind of looses the "Insanity Inducing Horror" of encountering Human Skum hybreds - when my players point out that that 4 of my 5 PCs are Half Humans Hybreds themselves... Why would this cause the PCs to make a Will Save or loose 2d6 Sanity Points?....

Player One: "Oh PHARASMA! they have been having sex with creatures that are only HALF HUMAN! Degenerate sub-human SKUM! (that's even their name)! Oh the HORROR of it all!"

GM: "Wait - did you just roll a Nat-one on the save?"

Player One: "ye-up, sure did"

GM: "And you only have 1 Sanity Point left?"

Player One: "Ye-up."

Player Two: "Sucks to be you. But join the Crowd - I drifted into insanity back when we encountered the funny looking squid faced thing that wasn't a Mind Flayer..."

[Sibelius Eos Owm]

Hah! Yeah... the Sanity loss for some of these things makes a lot less sense once you step outside the virulent Lovecraftian racism and take a moment to realize that humans interbreeding with other creatures is actually quite common in fantasy. For that matter, the ulat-kini are actually made from human stock in the first place! At best you can say that the abhorrent conditions and treatment of the humans is what provokes the sanity loss, but at that points, why is this case more mind-shattering than the werewolves of the Shudderwood or just basically 90% of Harrowstone?

This is not the least of which reason I opted to make some modest edits to the narrative of this book so that I might cut down on some of the unintentionally racist (and ableist) themes that slipped in, thanks largely due to the source material playing on fears of degraded or debased humanity.

Now, there is an argument yet to be made that some of the otherworldly horrors are just so alien and unknowable, but I personally did away with the Sanity system since I was already adapting to 2e

[nosig]

One or two posters commented on the lack of Traps in this AP, and having a fondness for a well placed (and well thought out) trap I actually gave it some consideration. I do have a PC in my group with levels in Rogue, and have noticed that at times they feel those abilities wasted. So I like to drop in a trap or two in areas that make sense for them to interact with. (often as part of a puzzle).

Anyway - it seemed like Part Five, would be the kind of place one would encounter Glyphs of Warding. Inhabited by high level clerics for a long time, an area they would have wanted defended, yeah. Glyphs triggered by Non-Skum/Non-Humans (wouldn't want to harm the Fishwives), perhaps with some finer targeting for triggering... so I backed up a bit, looked it over and dropped Greater Glyphs on the two main points of entry to the tunnels - figuring they were areas that would need to be defended. With the Trigger to be set off by "Non-Skum creatures in combat". I figured (correctly) that the PCs would trigger the first one, and should likely locate the other. I actually didn't place one on the entry to area G11, as that was added recently and not by Clerics. I did however, also place one in G-10 just where I thought the sealed tunnel entrance would have been, so that all the tunnels into complex would have been protected by glyphs.

I then placed a pair of Glyphs in the tunnels just outside the rooms at G3 - but these were for the Spell Greater Positive Pulse - set to trigger by Undead moving past the Glyph. This would have been designed to protect the Fishwives if the tunnels were ever attacked by undead, as this spell only harms creatures harmed by positive energy (undead and Dhampir) and it is actually helpful to living creatures... and as there has never been undead in any of the tunnels these traps would still be in place. As you can guess, my players have a pair of Dhampirs - one of whom looks like a full vampire, so they actually triggered them - but they concluded the Glyphs had been placed there to defend from attacks by the Whispering Way...

[Might be Mighty Mite]

ok, I modified the encounter with the Devilfish slightly - changed up a feat or two and gave her the Summon Feat that let her summon Aquatic animals rather than Fiendish ones (no Good PCs in the party). So - summoned up a pair of Dark Sharks to draw the PCs attention, then, out of the darkness on the map rumbles a line of (I had to really search the internet for Icons for this) Aquatic aurochs... yes, a stampede...

this shock on the faces of the players was priceless.

One player pipes up in total disbelief... "Are we being trampled by Sea-Cows?"

next player - "Oh! the horror! - the huge manatee!"

and I'll be darned if the things weren't kind of effective. They even (while there were 3 of them) got to stomp some on the Diving Bell (as the Stampede attack can trample targets of Large size...).

The PCs were so much in shock they didn't attack them on the first pass by... compare that to the Sharks the turn before where they had surprise and one was dead before it even got an attack in.

"Yeah, we got trampled in a stampede at a depth of 200 feet underwater..."

[nosig]

the party came into Undiomede house thru the hole in the wall, fought the Spectors, and proceeded right to the Head Cleric. so - after that fight, and looking over the room, they use magic to peek thru the door to the room with the Giant, who heard their fight so she filled her room with mist and is waiting for the door to open... she'll drop confusion on whatever door opens...

So... they decide to by pass this room and check the rest of the 2nd floor, then the roof. In fighting the big guy up top, - as the monster is on it's last legs, the Wizard gets to cast his "Big Spell" - a Summon Monster V (his favorite spell) to summon an Air Elemental... Elemental swings a time or two and misses and the big Monster falls dead... so the Wiz rushes off (with an overland flight spell he flies down the outside of the building) back to squeeze in a small window to get to the door they had bypassed ... so that he can to open it, and get the elemental to move into the room and "blow the mist away". He left the entire rest of the party scattered on the roof, or the stairs to the attic. His reasoning? "because he only has a few rounds left on the Summons spell and needed to do this fast!"
half the rest of the party remembers the last time he went around triggering encounters and say - "Let's just let him deal with it..." the Party Healer says "It cost a bunch to raise him last time he died, I don't want to spend that money again!" and rushes back down stairs - leaving the Tanky PCs on the roof.
The Wizard, suddenly realizing that he is about to start a major fight, with his party rooms away, but not wanting to go back on his plan - takes this moment to leave his Elemental there with instructions to "Open the door, go in the room and Whirl wind the mist away" - and flies back out the window... outside the building, and back to the roof, leaving the room just as the Healer arrives... now, the party is strung out and rushing thru the rooms trying to catch up with the healer, and.... the elemental opens the door and moves into the (mist filled) room. everyone else is scattered thru this building - all in different rooms.

so... door opens, out rolls fog the healer and one other PC are in the area of the Confusion spell that goes off, but all the PCs make their saves... but the Elemental gets Confused - in a fog - the rest of the party streams into the room past the elemental and begins to search for the enemy in the fog...

Rushing back, the wizard figures something isn't going according to plan, so... he uses his bonded object to cast Summon Monster V again... (His comment was "It's the only spell I have that will help!")... to summon up a Babau...

I as the GM say "babau? wha?" he explains "I can get it to dispel the Fog"... so he did a Bonded Item cast to get Summon Monster V to get something to cast a Dispel Magic - (which he has in his book, and he is higher level...)

And...he hears their swordsman from in the fog yell out that he has found a "Big Ugly thing" in the fog and was swapping swings with a Marsh Giant - so... He tells the Babau to "go into the fog and attack the Large Monster" - not to dispel the fog...

Yeah - you guessed it. The Babau attacked the first "Large Monster" it encountered - a confused Large Air Elemental...

Now - the wizard is in a small room, full of fog, with a Babau between him and his (confused) Air Elemental (which he can't see) - which is now locked on fighting his summoned Babau and ... the Alchemist in the fog uses breath bomb to burn off a bit of the fog... The wizard hearing this goes "AH-HA!" and casts Burning Hands (which I do not think he had prepared until then...) ... to clear the fog in front of him... casting it thru the Babau ("It's immune to fire!" he says) ... and into the Elemental ("It got lots of HP and is going away in a few rounds anyway!" he says)... who is still Confused...

This means - he just cast an attack spell - on his own two summoned creatures (and some fog) - one of which was confused, and now he has cleared the fog between him and a confused creature that he just attacked...

I am just speechless...

and I just looked at this in amazement...I could not have rigged that if I had tried

[Archimedes The Great]

Has anybody swapped the whole eldritch/lovecraftian theme of this book for something else? I personally feel like it's a really big straying from the classic undead / gothic European style horror that the rest of the book holds well.

Plus I feel like what makes lovecratian horror stand out is the way it challenges "real life settings". warping realities that we all hold to be true. When thrust into a setting where abyssal demons, and zombie wizards, and mosters already exists, really reduces the impact. Plus the migo are like creatures from space...

I'm just not a fan, but am wondering if anybody else has applied some other sort of theme/monsters/story to this book. Otherwise I'm probably just gonna stick with sea monsters and zombies and suff.

[Valkir]

Keep Calm and Carrion wrote:

...

An alternate take on the Piper would be to make him Manus Undiomede, the final scion of that house, driven mad by the discovery of his family’s pact and his own tainted ancestry. In this version, perhaps his father Cassius was the first victim of his lich dust + stirges MO.

I come to the forums to search for this concept, and sure enough an idea that just came to me was thought about over 8 years ago. Neat.

Timeline checks out, too. Manus will have gone insane and will take out his revenge on the townsfolk, because he despairs for his baby sister.

[The_Mothman]

Sanity rules question:

What happens with the sanity points once the PCs have run out and they contract their insanity? One of my PCs ran out of sanity and now has a phobia. He's able to keep adventuring but I'm unsure how to handle further sanity loss for him. I'm considering just restoring his sanity and giving him another form of insanity if it drops to 0 again.