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My group and I just completed Neil Spicer's Ashes at Dawn. Here is what was liked, what we (or I) didn't like, what I added and why. It should be noted that I made a few additions due to my PCs attaining a mythic tier at the end of the previous module's climax. This didn't really effect encounter balance too much, and I was even able to use the themes in Mythic to expand upon some of the aims and motives of the prime antagonists of the module. This was due to the excellent structuring of the fights, allowing a GM to escalate an encounter with the addition of enemies in proximity to the fight. Even those that don't escalate have excellent flavor
WHAT WE LIKED
You Can Play it both ways
Honestly, I wasn't sure which way my players were going to go with regards to this, so having the option to play either with or against the vampires was a bold move in my opinion, and with a little bit of fine tuning for each group, pays off in terms of role-playing opportunities and combats. Even if a DM doesn't want to structure the vampires as they are, there are a good half dozen stat blocks to mix and match in the module. For having to chew up so much word count for enemies that have to be classed by nature, the vampires all have unique and memorable flavor while still being transposable.
Caliphas
What's written for it within the module and in the gazetteer are fantastic in terms of re-establishing the Gothic mood as well as giving a DM the tools to setup their own expansions (which I did to a degree. See here). I liked the imagery of fog-shrouded castles sky lining dark streets thriving with decadent nobles. My players dug it as well. It should be noted that I also used Rule of Fear to further supplement the information above, providing a shadowy backdrop of memorable locales and personalities.
Vampire Culture
Half my players and myself are old World of Darkness (second edition) players
, so the individual vampire personalities resonated strongly with imagery of some of the vampire clans in that particular world. I ran with that of course, even having some of the various spawn work different than normal in terms of powers. My players chose to work with the vampires, which made for fantastic role-playing opportunities, especially since one of the players is a Dhampir. Good job on making the vampires memorable, which I think they would have been even without mythic and other back-story elements being added.
DISLIKED:
Vampiric Powers defeated by spells common in horror campaigns
Not so much of a gripe about the module but about Pathfinder Vampires; at the level you begin encountering them, its quite possible to have blanket immunity to their powers. Protection from evil and death ward stop all of their supernatural powers, leaving only the sum of their class levels. This makes a single vampire an easy fight for the most part. Fortunately, there are no single-vampire fights in the module (maybe Radvir, but why would he when he's right next his spawn and the mimics). That aside, there are a number of statistic blocks of different vampires (alchemists, brawlers, and archers) in the Ashes at Dawn DM thread to also throw buffed PCs for a loop. The brawlers in particular are fantastic, behaving exactly like a vampire should; they can actually grab someone and drink their blood without provoking, something I think a vampire should be able to do anyways.
Don't let them fight alone
With the three big bad evil guys, its possible to read the module literally and think that each person waits in the room where you encounter them. While in Aisa's case she has the Blood Knight and whoever it fights in direct view of her, the other two (Radvir and Hetna) are not so lucky. Remember guys, these are all supremely intelligent individuals who know what four experienced hunters can do to one single person (i.e. they understand D+D mechanics as far as their actions and survival) and also know that when outnumbered, its best to get reinforcements or delay the group until their protective magics run out. This might escalate some encounters, but it makes the game more believable and more horrific at the same time. Also, don't underestimate what a group of 11th level PCs with decent wealth and a slight dedication to killing undead can do, especially ones armed with a disrupting, undead-bane artifact.
ADDITIONS (STORYWISE FOR MYTHIC AND A DHAMPIR):
Curing Madness with Conte Ristomir:
Nightskitter in Quartterfaux Basement
Other than the previous fight with the Dullahan, I was still unsure how powerful Mythic was, so introduced an extra fight before the main plot of the module began. This was the Nightskitter, an awesomely challenging Nightshade from Undead Revisited that proved tough, yet not tough enough for an 11th level party with one tier under their belt. I used the aftermath of the encounter to introduce the curator of the archives, a couple members of the Esoteric Order of the Palantine Eye (our bard PC is a member of the group), and generally began turning them loose into Caliphas, running the module as its written with some further expansions.
Vampire The Masquerade Tropes I played this up to a large degree as far as each main vampire encountered (Marrick Sais=Gangrel,Luvick Sievrage=Ventrue, Lady Evgenya Zunaida=Toreador, Radvir=Brujah), going even so far as to altering some of the powers of the Advanced Spawn so that removing the bonus in one stat resulting in an additonal power (like giving Merrick's spawn no bonus to intelligence but additonal armor in the form of barkskin. In this way, it made it more memorable when each set of spawn and their master were encountered. I omitted Desmond Kote from the vampires above because I knew his presence might start a fight, so I instead used him as an enemy in a later part.
A Player's PC Dhampir Backstory As I've written here, there's a lot to consider if you have
a Dhampir PC in the party. For my part, this paid off at the Noblemen's Stitch where the Dhampir's father, after being used as a red herring in the murders, was chained up in a vampire death-trap room (ropes tied to curtains, a triggered create water followed with control water trap and a dimensional lock in place.) This allowed me to have another personality who could expand on the goals of Radvir and the witches without directly having them do an unnecessary villain monolgue.
Involving the Churches and (pre-)Killing a Paladin:As written the Church of Pharasma seems kind of ineffectual in not only dealing with the vampire murders but also helping against the Whispering Way as a whole. I try to explain the reasoning for this in the aforementioned “Expanding Caliphas” thread I wrote, yet still had a hard time telling my players that one of the most powerful clerics of a religion dedicated to destroying the undead wouldn't help them in wiping out a group of vampires. Fortunately the Pharasmans aren't the only gang in town; there's also the Church of Iomedae. In this regard, I had relations between the two churches on good terms, further deciding that it would be awesome for the fallen vampire paladin (Halloran Indriss) encountered in the Abbey's basement to accompany my PCs as a living Paladin before his demise. In this regard I had favors exchanged between the two churches that allowed the Paladin to accompany them into what would be a glorious battle. In the big fight described beneath, I was able to have the Paladin die to Energy Dtain and then have his body retrieved by the plot's antagonists. A tricky act to pull off, but ultimately one that worked well.
The Urgathoan Vampires (The Biggest Plot Deviation)
I had both the PC's father and the Urgathoan vampires serve as Red Herrings for the vampire murderer. The Urgathoan cabal consisted of the Death Priest given the vampire template and Five Tiers of Mythic Vampire, the sample Mythic Vampire in Mythic Adventures, Desmond Kote (re-skinned as an Urgathoan Inquisitor), three vampires swiped from the Council of Thieves AP (again re-skinned Urgathoan), and the other four vampires presented on the DM thread and in the bestiary. Wish I'd had the Monster Codex when I ran this, but in total, 10 unique vampires and 16 Advanced Spawn. They lurked in the deepest catacombs beneath the city in the remains of an abandoned theater and required the Dhampir's vampire rival (home-brewed Duelist, Feisty Hotspur re-skinned as human and given vampire template.) to guide them to it. This is the fight where the PCs lose their paladin ally to the vampires before Radvir (who follows them) shows up, kills the Dhampir's Rival (who he had just reconciled with), grabs the Paladin's body, then flees to let his allies prepare an ambush for the returning PCs. This helped me to set up the fact that Mythic power was being used among some the of the vampires and involve the Dhampir personally against Radvir.
Mythic Wight Lord
I took the Wight Lord from Undead Revisited and gave him four Mythic Tiers as well as a half dozen mythic wights from Mythic Monsters: Undead to setup an ambush on their way back from their strike against the Urgathoans. I began to realize that the biggest thing Mythic monsters need is survivability, whether the ability to avoid an attack, re-roll a save, or survive a high damage critical hit. Good fight nonetheless, and helped whittle down my four riders from the beginning to two.
Vampire Freedom, Mythic, and Elixirs A big theme I continually highlighted throughout the module was freedom versus blood-bound slavery that the vampires represented. In various dialogues, I reinforced the fact that vampirism was a form of slavery; one would constantly be enslaved to their hunger as well as the will of their creator. In this way, I gave Radvir a real, almost human reason for rebelling against Ludvick and setting so many other spawn “free”, though in a way, the drug that frees them represents a form of slavery all its own. To further up the ante, I decided that what truly made the Bloodbrew Elixir insidious was that it bestowed real power on its user temporarily, in this case Mythic. I felt that a small army of Mythic Vampire Spawn would constitute a real threat that would have to be dealt with whether by the PCs or by proxy. With the Blood Knight being Mythic, I had his blood be the catalyst for the creation of not only that elixir, but also a second kind, a potion that Aisa used to fuel her ascent into vampirism. This got me thinking about the overall plot of the module with regards to the AP itself: What if the endgame here was a potion that could turn a mortal into a vampire simply by drinking it? What if such a thing was to be used as a backup plan in case the Carrion Crown failed, what if they simply needed any sentient undead related to Tar Baphon to be present atop Gallowspire and accept his soul? It made sense to me to have the organization possess contingencies in case their main plot failed, and further helped cement the goals of the Whispering Way beyond “lets mess with the vampires because they might be enemies when our plan comes to fruition”. Finally, it let me give my PCs an ever-present physical temptation that could give them unspeakable power at great cost. This was not the only temptation of vampirism I presented, and the role-playing between my players discussing such things was utterly fantastic.
ENCOUNTERS
Encounters that I would have changed
-Bone Devil Trap:
Stopped by a bard, essentially. Never underestimate the power of this class, especially when they absolutely have to make a skill check. Not that I would have changed the encounter, it just never got triggered. I'm probably just being critical because I knew that it would have been a good fight had it happened.
-Invisible Stalkers:
I just wish these creatures could do more than they can. Even having four of them gang up on one PC, there's still the issues of mirror image, blur, and the ease with which a 12th level PC can see an invisible attacking creature (only DC 20). I had this fight occur while the party was engaged with Hetna and her guards (the Dhampir tried to take a piece of bone from the Oothi's skeleton as a 'threat'), and they still weren't enough of a threat to seriously hinder the players In hindsight, I would have put that new-fangled glyph from the ACG that lets you attach a hex to it on the bones, then perhaps summon something worse, like an Advanced Leukodaemon.
-Spirit Nagas:
In my opinion, where you encounter them in an anti-climatic afterthought to the main fights of the abbey, yet there needs to some form of guardian if the PCs take the alternate route in through these caverns (my players didn't, and did the typical top-to-bottom sweep). In this case, I would keep them if your players enter through the sea-side caverns, omit them if they've already fought Halloran, Aisa, and Konas.
Good Encounters
-Barliss Rask (Dullahan):
I gave the Dullahan's fighter levels to a Mythic Dullahan from Legendary Game's Mythic Monsters: Undead but other than the distant approach of three other horsemen ran this encounter as written. A good gauge to the powers and prowess of your players and a good setup for the module's path.
-Greenhouse of Doom:
Remember that if you have either Quinley in the party or a Dhampir with back-history, you will need to inform the PCs of the reason for the vampiric druid's stauch defense of her “grove”. There is also the issue of the high probability of a fight taking place in the daytime, in which case the DM will need to remember the druid's power over plant-life, cover, and that sort of thing. Without even altering it, all the tools are present here to make an awesome fight: a powerful singular guardian paired with a beefy monster and a number of minions to boot. In my opinion, this is meant to be a dynamic encounter, using all the tools at the DM's disposal to challenge their players. I of course used some of the alterations found with the DM thread, including an additional group of 7th level adventurers (nature lovers) and a number of advanced Topiary Guardians (from that module's bestiary) to augment Merrick to account for the Mythic tier my PCs possessed.
-The Nobleman's Stitch: A fun, dynamic fight to run. Remember about the lighting effects of daylight similar to the Greenhouse encounter, utilizing tapestries and heavy curtains to block sunlight where necessary. For my part, I changed the guards for a group of adventurers who had been charmed by Radvir and substituted some of the vampire sorcerers for alchemists, adding a Vetala Vampire contracted by Radvir to serve as the shop's face. (These additions are in the GM thread). Again, enough tools here for a GM to craft a good fight.
-The Nabassu:: I didn't really have high hopes for these guys, especially since I knew my PCs would likely be buffed with death ward and protection from evil, rendering most of the creatures' spell-like abilites useless, if not their powers. Surprisingly, despite the presence of the aforementioned spells, it was still kind of an interesting fight; some fai;ed saves against paralysis occurred through the combination of the ghouls and mass hold monster, while the creature's sneak attacks and silence kept the healing from not being quite-so-automatic from the Life Oracle. There is the slight chance that your entire party could have an unlucky round against paralysis, which makes this worth running.
-The Basement Vampires:
Couple of changes in my game: I made an alchemical mist-maker (like dry-ice) fill the big basement room with 5-foot-deep fog, then had the vampire spawn (huffed up on Mythic juice) and remaining vampires use their stealth and gaseous form (even attacking from prone to confuse their position) to harry the PCs. Made for an awesome fight that continued into the encounter with Radvir.
Radvir Giovanni
I hear he's quite effective when used as a hit and run rogue, but for my group of super-powered badasses, I decided to use a really dirty build to account for his ability to to single-handily take down vampires (others have pointed out the unlikeliness of using a wand of halt undead to accomplish this). I used the Tetori Monk rewrite in the Ashes at Dawn DM thread, which worked extraordinarily well. Between his grapple abilities, Body Shield, and his other feats, he proved quite an awesome fight, one lasting about ten rounds. If you think your PCs are having an easy time of it, use this substituion; just be careful, he's TPK material if played correctly.
Coffin Mimics:
I purposefully avoided having the mimics encountered in Trial of the Beast look like coffins so I could use the ones here. While they almost got the fighter, the memorable part was them surrendering and offering information in exchange for their lives. Overall, a fun one to run.
Glabrezu:
At the level you encounter him, the Glabrezu is a great, unexpected ecounter with lots of tool for a DM to use. In my case, he joined the fight with Hetna and her guards on the upper levels, using his summons and spell-like abilities to great effect. He eventually got annihilated by a critical hit, but not before nearly dropping two PCs.
Hetna Dublesse:
As stated above, don't let her fight alone; the nature of her hexes and spells insure that even if she locks down one PC, she still has three other ones to contend with. Witches have a strange spell list, so using what she has, its best to play her at range and use her minions to provide a melee threat. In my case, this was the entirety of the upper floor's enemies, but due to the length of the fight, made sense. She was nearly dropped (thanks to the bell trap of all things) but teleported away, only to die at her sister's vampiric hands.
Charmed Guards:
A decent stat block for the pre-NPC Codex , which can substitute these stats with a different 8th level NPC of another class with ease. They pack a decent punch, work alright in groups, have an okay ranged option, and are believable mooks for the witches and Radvir to have charmed. For my part, I made heavy use of the NPC Codex and NPCs from the GMG to substitute some of these out for different builds, though in the case of the abbey used only the printed adventure's due to the number of encounters that were likely to join together. Remember guys, just because they are charmed doesn't mean they are stupid. If they are looking to defend someone from intruders, they are going to move to and setup positions of superiority and use them to their advantage.
Falling Bell
Things like this are the stuff that I love to have present during any combat encounter: An obvious trap that can be utilized by either enemies or the PCs depending on their positioning. In this case, our Dhampir PC used it to whallop Hetna, forcing her to flee. In my opinion, traps always work the best when they are part of the environment of a fight and are either so obvious as to be usable or hidden enough that the PCs don't have time to look for them while fighting, triggering them during the fight.
Witchfires:
My PCs negotiated due to the mutual desire to end the plans of the Barstoi Witches and a fight was avoided. They already knew some of the backstory of Oothi, so this let me expand upon that a little bit. My players wanted to come back and clear them out, but the “rapid timeline” of the next module's events has assured that there going to leave them and go straight to Virlych. I like encounters that don't always end in combat, despite the obvious natures of its opposing sides.
Konas Esprillon (Blood Knight) As written, a very effective bruiser who should buy time and actions for Aisa to buff herself and eventually join the fight. What can I say, I know he's a templated 12th level fighter, but the artwork, flavor, and special abilities won me over. This was before I even added five mythic tiers, which made him an absolute beast. I will post his Mythic stats as well as Aisa's in my mythic additions for Carrion Crown thread.
Aisa Dublesse
I had similar problems with Aisa that I did Hetna, but in this case, the help augmenting her was a lot more effective than the charmed guards. I used the Blood Knight, all three Elemental Gems, and an Advanced Leukodaemon summoned by her scroll of planar ally to give her the range and time to be effective. Like Konas and Radvir, she had four mythic tiers to help her power level and a couple of different gear choices. Overall, my players really enjoyed the fight. My only gripe is the nature of witches as bad guys; most of their spells are save-or-suck, so either your PCs roll well and nothing happens or the exponentially get weaker with each loss, probably resulting in a TPK.
Wood Golems While this was an 'after-fight' (a term I use for battles that take place after the biggest fight of the module), I kept it intact due to the awesome flavor of the golems (stakes for arms). My PCs chewed right through them, but again, as long as a speedbump encounter is well detailed (which the room where you encounter them is), I like keeping it. Great flavor here.
Halloran Indriss I recommend pairing him with any vampiric survivors show he can spend the first few rounds trying to fight his vampire nature before it or Aisa's commands take over. Even still, since my PCs were completely depleted at this point, it made for a dicey fight when the ex-paladin actually decided to defend himself. Eventually, he was defeated, Aisa was killed, and Atonement was cast on him. Now to figure out what fight he will suicidally give his life to in the next module to repay his debt to my PCs… A great role-playing opportunity, good enough that I foreshadowed him earlier in the module.
In my opinion, this module was one of the stronger ones of the AP. This was due to the excellent writing, encounter diversity, and the ability to come at the story from multiple angles. I really want to thank Neil Spicer for being present on these boards to answer questions about what was printed, left out, and the backstory of some of the different elements within. Now, to take a slight break to play my Half Orc Inquisitor in War of the River Kings, then its onto the final part… Shadows at Gallowspire!
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Glad you had fun with this one, Rakshaka. The mythic additions you implemented make perfect sense, and tailoring the adventure to your play group is exactly the best way to get the most out of it. My best to you and your players. Also, if you have the time, please write a review of the adventure and post it here at Paizo. Even with the caveat of having changed a fair amount of stuff, any guidance you can provide to potential buyers on the NPCs and storylines involved would probably be helpful. Same goes for the rest of the Carrion Crown adventures you've played. Give back by writing a review, not so much for the authors, but rather as a way of lending insight to those considering running the campaign for their groups, as well.
Done and done. Again, thanks for all your feedback and information about the module's details; it definitely helped expand on a lot of what is written.
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My group is currently playing the Carrion Crown adventure path. We're running this path on a rotating GM setup. We have a fairly large group (8 members, total), and each member has a character (8 PCs). Each chapter in the path is run by a different member of the group. Two of our players are very green, so they are not running any of the chapters. We doled out the chapters based on the individual players' levels of experience with the gaming and the d20 system. I am the most experience player, so I chose one of the final chapters. I love vampires, so it was sheer luck that I managed to randomly choose (between 5 and 6) the chapter dedicated to them! (Yay me!)
Some of the less experienced players have been a bit Monty Hall-ish in the loot department, so this is going to make my job a bit more difficult, but I'm a good GM and can accommodate.
As I've just read through most of the Ashes at Dawn chapter, I wanted to give a few of my pre-play impressions.
1) The Masquerade: So, I know this isn't White Wolf's "Vampire: The Masquerade", and that's fine. HOWEVER... I have a huge gripe with the approach to getting the PCs involved. These vampires have been around for CENTURIES, and have learned to keep their existence hidden from the public, managing to form a sort of secret symbiosis with the living. The vast majority of the people of Caliphas are supposed to be oblivious to the presence of the vampires, or at least that's the impression I got. So, the way the adventure plays out, the PCs are basically told there are vampires all over, they are being killed, and here's where they hang out. WHAT THE HECK!? To make that worse, when the PCs meet the vampires, these creatures of the night basically come out and say "Hey! We're vampires! We prey on the living and our people are being killed. Help a brutha out!?" They make absolutely NO attempt to hide their nature and manipulate the PCs into helping them. How about "Someone has been preying upon the most influential of the noble houses here in Caliphas. We have heard you're looking for this Whispering Way. We may have some information for you, if you'd help us track down the killer and bring them to justice."? Throw in a little (subtle) vampire domination and the PCs are basically oblivious to the fact they are helping vampires... at least for a time. Eventually yes, the PCs should (if they're not entirely oblivious morons) eventually figure out they're helping vampires, and then be struck with the moral dilemma. The vampires should be trying to keep their secret hidden!
2) The Esoteric Order of the Palatine Eye: Here again, we have a secret society of folk who (kinda) know what's really going on. First off... SECRET society. They don't make their presence well known, but the PCs should have NO trouble finding them!? WHAT THE HECK!? Do these adventure paths assume the players are idiots and can't figure stuff out? I digress. Secondly, they know WAY TOO MUCH! Sure, they're an educated organization, similar to the likes of the Freemasons, but they're also primarily composed of diplomatic types who seem to spend most of their time socializing and/or pouring over ancient tomes and artifacts. They are NOT adventurers. It would make more sense (to me) for them to be aware of the presence of SOME vampires; possibly even correlating the recent string of murders to vampires (though I think it would be more interesting if they had not made that correlation); and they may even know that Restoration Park is a "somewhat common hunting ground for these creatures of the night". It's my opinion, they know way too much and it's too easy for the PCs to garner this knowledge from them.
3) An Unlikely Ally: Quinley Basdel is A) an unnecessary character whose only purpose seems to be functioning as a cattle prod to push only the dimmest or laziest of heroes/players in the right direction, and B) far too obvious! This guy is a Dhampir who totally looks like an evil vampire! He's been a member of the vampire society for years, understands the politics and secrecy involved, and is just giving it up like a drunken tramp to anyone who MIGHT show some potential as an ally for tracking down his mother's killer. COME ON! If your players still need you to hold their hand at this point, you haven't been playing the Adventure Path right! I'm deleting this character from this chapter of the game, or at least making him a more subtle source of information. This is almost as bad as setting up an encounter which can only be defeated, in a cinematic but anti-climactic manner, by a beast the heroes have been tasked to defend! (Yes, I hated that portion of that chapter of this AP.)
Summary: This entire Adventure Path is supposed to be about mystery, intrigue, and suspense, with the added bonus of being set in a Gothic Horror-style setting. Where is the mystery, intrigue, and suspense when you just hand them everything they need to learn on a silver platter, with a complimentary helping of everything they will need to stomp all over the villains!? If your players are so dim and lazy they can't do a little footwork to learn things on their own, especially when they are this close to the end, quite frankly they will deserve it when you wipe their party out. Aside from the fact that I will need to alter the difficulties of EVERY encounter in this chapter because my party is both very player heavy AND very heavily equipped, if I want this to feel like an actual freakin' murder mystery with a dark twist, I'm going to have to modify pretty much every facet of this adventure, including: presentation, dialogue, pace, encounter dynamics... etc. Virtually no stone can go unturned if I want this to actually be interesting and challenging.
Am I alone in my feelings here?
. . . . .
What I DO like:
Alright. Ranting aside, I do like the core concept of this module: Vampires hate the Whispering Way. Vampires are being systematically and selectively slain by a supporter of the Way. Vampires have information as to the whereabouts of the Way. Vampires need the help of the PCs in order to track down the killer. Vampires will give the PCs the information they possess if the PCs help the vampires. I even like the basic ideas of the Esoteric Order of the Palatine Eye, and how the Order knows things to which the general populace is oblivious, and how they will help the PCs in order to further their own objective. And how one of the locals has a personal grudge against the killer for having slain his mother, and is willing to assist the PCs to his own end, as well.
All the elements are here for a suspense-filled romp through the dark and dangerous underbelly of a creepy Dracula/Ravenloft-esque city. The PCs are met by an undead agent of the cult which they've been hunting. As he's tied to the cult, he has no direct correlation with the Vampires of Caliphas, so there is yet no reason to even associate this city with said night stalkers. The PCs awaken the next morning to the cries of murder, at which point they are advised there is a serial killer on the loose and, like Mystery Inc., are likely to step up to the challenge of tracking them down. In order to do this, they must track down clues which will gain the attention of a small sect of a secretive society residing here in Caliphas, as well as that of a dark stranger with a personal vendetta. A few more clues will lead the PCs to a well kept park where they can find more clues as to strange happenings which, at first glance, seem to have no correlation with the investigation at hand. Poking around a bit, and maybe garnering a few more rumors and clues, the PCs will either stumble upon OR be directed to a secret, exclusive, underground club for only the most elite and long-standing aristocratic and noble families of the city. Managing to earn the trust of these upper class folk, or otherwise working their way in, the PCs hear a few conspiratorial theories regarding the targets of these serial killings. Some hobnobbing with the eccentric club members will reveal they know a bit about the whereabouts of the evil cult, and they would be willing to part with that information if the PCs can bring to justice this vicious killer.
At what point did the PCs have to be told "Hey! We're vampires, by the way!" They can figure that out on their own (or not figure it out) at any point during their investigation.
When the PCs finally track down the killer, he's a vicious, malevolent vampire who (at this point, maybe villainous monologue?) must eliminate the highest ranking among his nocturnal peers in order to minimize resistance when the Whispering Tyrant is resurrected, AND ensure his own position as head of the Caliphas vampires AND among the followers of the Tyrant.
I like the core elements of this adventure path and, in particular, this chapter within. Unfortunately, I feel there isn't enough mystery, and the mystery that is present is about subtle facts that go unrevealed for so long, eventually the players will forget about them or no longer even care. All of the subtle backstory from the previous four chapters of this Adventure Path become available in this chapter (via the Esoteric Order), but why should the players even care about them at this point?
I know I sound like a hater, but I actually like this Adventure Path. I just feel the writers could have done a LOT BETTER at: playing up the mystery, intrigue, and suspense elements of each chapter; doling out the secrets contained within each chapter as said chapters unfolded; using both of these factors to better draw the players into the conspiracies and dark machinations of the evil cult, The Whispering Way.
Advice:
For anyone looking to run this Adventure Path, I recommend doing a LOT of work beforehand. Read through the ENTIRE SERIES before running it (maybe a couple of times), make a LOT of footnotes, be prepared to alter much of the presentation, dialogue, and encounters, and try to filter in more of the important background information as it is presented in the module, rather than FIVE CHAPTERS IN when nobody will give a crap about it anymore.
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Thanks to Belefaunte for resurrecting this thread, because I missed it when it was first posted. There is some excellent advice here.
It's also interesting to see that the two GMs who posted above made some of the same choices I did, although for different reasons and sometimes ending in totally different results. I also planted a nightskitter in the basement of the Archives and highly recommend that monster as a strong challenge to remind the PCs just how vulnerable they potentially are. I agree with the last post's observations about Quinley as well; he struck me as kind of a dull, useless NPC and I omitted him accordingly--but I replaced him with Qvotgar Haas from Castles of the Inner Sea, which made for some nice hero worship moments between him and the star-struck party paladin, and also foreshadowed the future possibility of having to travel to Castle Kronqvist and find out what happened to the poor sot.
Ashes at Dawn offers a LOT of great roleplaying opportunities for a diplomatically-inclined party and a smart GM who can alter his or her voice and mannerisms to breathe life into the NPCs. I played Radvir as a complete dandy fop, which really disarmed the PCs against him in their initial interactions and mad for a better surprise when he turned heel during the ambush in the park. Siervage is classic evil genius fodder, and if played correctly, he will really put your players on edge--the reality of just how perilous their situation is should sink in quite easily once they realize how much power he wields and how unreluctant he is to use it if it means crushing an enemy. And of course, Ramoska Arkminos is just a gem of a character--I played him up as creepily as I possibly could, with a leering, nasal faux-Romanian voice, but also with an undercurrent of joviality. By the end of that subplot, even the paladin in the group got along fine with Arkminos despite being a little wigged out by him.
Great modifications. Thanks for posting.