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Players stay out !
The campaign as-written has some issues as a lot of people have noted but there is some really neat stuff in there at it's core. So I thought I'd share my experience and some things I've added/taken away. Some of it is particular to my party and their backstory/interactions with the various factions, but some other additions are more static and could be adapted to anyone's campaign.
A bit about our group; This is my first real Pathfinder campaign that I am GMing, but I've played 2nd and 3.0 and 3.5 in the past off and on. My lack of system mastery is pretty well offset by all the veteran players. We are all pretty busy so we only get to play about 1 session/month.
The party
- 2h Fighter-Veteran player; Character is a bit like Tommy Lee Jones' character in The Fugitive. Had the Get the Cargo Through campaign trait and Jask was the cargo.
- Ecclesithurge Cleric-Veteran Player; Priest of Pharasma, but loves gold. Received prophecy about deicide.
- Monkey Goblin Vermin Hunter-Veteran Player; Yeah I know, but it actually works. He wanted a goblin and I knew monkey goblins lived on Mediogalti so it was my idea. He managed to coexist with the locals/Red Mantis because of his mantis mount/pet. Works more like a Cavalier. Only good-aligned character in the party.
- Ninja-New Player; Really wanted to play an assassin. Boarded the ship with a contract to kill Sasha. Secretly hired by Chivane (of the Mantis Cult.)
Swashbuckler-Veteran Player; Dandy pirate. Face of the party. Retired to "service industry" in Kalabuto.
- Pyrokineticist-Veteran Player; Played by former swashbuckler player. Background is a bit flimsy at the moment.
Souls for Smuggler's Shiv
This is a great little book. I didn't change much. Everyone liked it. No one died. Ninja hims and haws the whole time about killing Sasha. Group does all the boon quests from the NPC's. Jask and the Fighter develop a Stockholm-Syndromey bromance. Best fight was the Cannibal camp. Group manages to sneak in and murder the witch and drag her away. Group comes back and ends up fighting the entire camp in an epic battle that lasts the whole session.
Caves of the Mother was surprisingly a cake walk. Ghouls blew their Perception checks so they were basically fought one at a time. Mother got caught in a Light Prison and tore to pieces. Eventually, they find their way into the Azlanti Temple where they take out Yarzoth in short order. This was a bummer as I wanted her to escape and become a recurring villain. The PC's reveal some of what they discover to the NPC's.
Ninja gets the bat curse in the priest's chamber and with the light house repair underway he realizes he is running out of time to kill Sasha. I am worried this will derail the party. I thought maybe in the process of befriending her, he might learn her story and flip on the Mantis - but he doesn't. He kills Sasha in the night, and the other PC's track him back to his tent with great Survival rolls in the morning... great. Sasha was my favorite NPC too. In a burst of inspiration, he makes a Bluff check saying that he has no memory of the event and he is insane because of the bat curse. He succeeds, and instead of murdering him they put the manacles on him and take him to Eleder to have his curse removed. Time for book 2.
Racing to Ruin Pt. 1
This is the book where I start making some changes based on reading peoples' experiences. I know I want to add some more elements of player choice, more detail to the locales, and more pseudo-African flavor. The shrunken head and War Mask of Scare or whatever gives me the idea that I want my PC's to sort of be visually transformed by the journey through the M'Neri Plains and Screaming Jungle. Most importantly, I want to add more Serpentfolk to the campaign and give the impression that they are pulling the strings.
To me it makes sense that there is a small Ydersian cabal in Eleder. People know that Saventh-Yhi is supposedly somewhere in the Mwangi Expanse, so Sargava is a natural place for a serpentfolk sleeper cell, waiting for actionable hints as to the location of their lost god. I haven't stat-ed up all of them yet, but I have ideas for about 6 advanced serpentfolk led by a fanatical bone oracle.
So everyone gets into town, gets to take a breather and make purchases for the first time since the campaign starts. I play it as Gelik is the only one of the NPC's who is interested in running off to the Pathfinders. He is the only one of them that understands the significance of what they have found anyway. The party gets hired on by the Pathfinders and preparation begins.
I run it such that the PC's have to go get Nkechi before the Freeman Revolt. The PC's meet Nkechi, the Fighter almost dies to the Kelpie, but find a feather before the Stormbird comes back to the nest.
Here comes another big change I made. The PC's return to the city to find that the Pathfinder lodge in town has been attacked and copies of the information leading to Saventh-Yhi have been stolen. Guess whodunit? That's right, the serpentfolk. They subsequently sell copies of the information (while disguised) to everyone they can find. Their plan is to infiltrate all the factions, use them to find, secure and explore the city, and eventually play the factions against each other.
The Mantis separately approach the Ninja and give him payment for his assassination. He declines to bring their offer to the rest of the PC's. He doesn't want to push his Bluff check luck explaining why the Mantis contacted him. Chivane basically blackmails him to be his agent inside the other two factions; saying she'll tell the other PC's if he doesn't help her out. He basically says ok (not that he has much choice in the moment.)
Now that everyone is in the game, the PC's get counter offers from the other factions with the exception of the Mantis. A small bidding war ensues, but I don't let it escalate too much. Rolling some great Diplomacy, the PC's secure a two-way alliance with the Pathfinders and the Pirates.
The Freeman Revolt happens, they save the warehouse and Aerys from the rebels in a protracted combat. The PC's embark on their journey.
Racing to Ruin Pt. 2
I know I want some more encounters along the road and I want to play up the local flavor so I stat up a human cleric of Angazhan and use some stock slaver stats and have a couple encounters in the edge of the Bandu Hills against Bandu slave catchers. The cleric has a Slaver's Madu which is a cool, in-theme magic shield. The PC's dispatch these guys pretty easy.
I make it a real choice whether they go in the cave or not, but they choose to go in after narrowly avoiding a fight with Athyra. The Salt Mine and the Cock Fight are both pretty uneventful. The PC's declined cheating by casting spells on the birds.
When the PC's get to the Chemosit Village, they are immediately and hilariously paranoid about all the nice people and leave before meeting the shaman. I assume she uses her mojo to send the chemosits on them the next night where a brutal fight ensues. The Fighter dies and gets his head eaten off. The rest of the party barely gets them down after the Fighter dies. The cleric successfully raises the Fighter using the scroll from the island.
As written, at this point in the book there is a huge empty nothing as the PC's cross this stretch of plains. What a waste. So I was inspired by the film The Ghost and the Darkness. As the PC's are crossing the plains, I tell them that they hear lions across the Savannah at night and eventually their main expedition sends them a runner informing them that a pair of male lions has been attacking the caravan and killing porters. They don't don't eat people so much as kill them. They even drag wounded people off to lure others into a trap. This is a clue that these aren't normal lions. This keeps happening each night. The PC's can either risk losing too many porters or lose a day (or more) of travel heading back to the expedition and confronting the lions. My PC's head back to the expedition after the 3rd attack and manage to track them back to their bone-strewn den. "The Devil and His Shadow" in my campaign are actually a Lion Shaman (Druid) and his animal companion backed up by a small pack of female lions. Between tall grass, pounce, and a well-placed Shifting Sands, it was a tough and exciting fight, but there were no deaths. Exactly how I wanted it to go.
The party makes it to Kalabuto. One player is tired of his Swashbuckler, and basically swaps in the Kinetiscist. Fair enough I guess. Chivane secretly meets up with the Ninja and she lets him know that an ambush is coming and that under no circumstances can the Pirates learn about the mantis blade when everyone gets to Saventh Yhi, because Kassata has a blood feud with the Mantis. The party gets ambushed at Cheiton's house, there is some combat.
At this point I want to introduce the serpentfolk infiltrator to the PC expedition. It would be simple enough to say, GM fiat, and have a porter get replaced, but that is so boring and doesn't build enough narrative. Early on I thought about what positions in Eleder would let a serpentfolk collect information and have access to all rungs of society. The best I could come up with was the madame of a brothel. So this serpentfolk is in Kalabuto under the pretense of setting up a "franchise" location. That falls through (supposedly) and she approaches the PC's to have her and her small coterie follow the expedition, capitalizing on lots of newly rich people far from home and comfort. The PC's are of course skeptical, but the sorceress can Bluff like a boss and she offers them a cut of her funds to sweeten the deal. The PC's agree and the Pirates take no convincing. With a decent diplomacy roll, Amivor and the Pathfinders are also convinced. The snake is in the grass.
Racing to Ruin Pt. 3
This is where we have left off so far. Next session I'll have another Aspis-funded ambush when the PC's cross the River of Lost Tears at Kalabuto. After that I want to play up the idea that the PC's have crossed into an area that is not only beyond civilization, but also lost to time. I want to add a couple dinosaur encounters, as well as maybe a mob of Biloko's and an evil shrine. I am also going to have the PC's encounter the village that the necromancer is from otherwise that cool story about looting an old folk hero's tomb is really random and pointless.
At Tazion, I know I want the serpentfolk there to be part of part of the same cabal as the others (because why wouldn't he?) who managed to race ahead of the others with Overland Flight and Invisibility spells. To his surprise, he finds a willing army of Charau-ka provided by Ydersius.
Wow, this ended up being really long. I'll save my ideas and changes for parts City of Seven Spears and Vaults of Madness for a separate post which are even more extensive. Let me know what you think.
Seems like good ideas so far! I'm interested to see what you have planned for the rest, especially since you have so much intrigue going on.
This is some great stuff... my group is just done with the 'bodies on the riverbank'... I've been thinking of how to start introducing the serpentfolk a little more as a better build up (alas, my players destroyed Yarzoth as well).... good idea with the infiltration, could even be a Coil of Ydersius or something... I may have to use that.
Thanks for the vote of confidence Al. On to the City of Seven Spears. Wow, in some ways I feel like this book was a missed opportunity. Here is a whole lost city for the big lost civilization of the entire setting. There are so many cool things that could have been here. To credit the authors, it is kind of too big to fill in all the details. So a big part of what I feel compelled to do as a GM is to fill in the place, without having a situation where I have to detail.
Major Plot Arcs
So where to start? Well, let's start with each districts' "victory condition." The current ones seem a bit too static for my tastes. There's maybe 1. My idea is the following: each district has a small number of "Towers of Light," which are a sort of magical defense tower. The towers require magic items known as "The Spheres of the Sky" in order to function. These are sort of swirling blue and white, super-sized ioun stones. They weigh a substantial amount (say 75lbs?), and by themselves only grant True Sight. When held at the top of a tower, it allows the bearer to cast a spell as a standard action. I haven't decided which one(s) yet, maybe a maximized, empowered Lightning Bolt or Scorching Ray. Basically, it's a deathray. I might also include some defensive tech as well; maybe Shield or something. Now, it won't be immediately obvious what these towers are or what they do. That will require some research on the part of the PC's and their expedition. Also, they actually have to find the Spheres of the Sky which are scattered throughout the city. The towers are obviously powerful but won't stand by themselves to a full assault by the other factions or tribes of the City. So the towers are natural strongpoints, but to hold them the PC's have to pacify the district and/or secure the area with their expedition.
I think this gives the PC's the incentive they need to explore, research, and pacify/ally with the various districts until until events unfold leading them down to Ilmurea. To that point, I never liked that Sozothola was an independent agent. So in my campaign, he is indeed a serpentfolk from the time of Ilmurea, but he gets dug up by Vyr-Azul and gets sent on the errand to recapture Juliver. He isn't happy about it, and if he gets the chance he'll try to assume control of the serpentfolk on the surface and create a small undead army.
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This all sounds terrific. We're about halfway through Smuggler's Shiv; at the current rate of 1-2 short sessions / month, we're looking at finishing it in March or April. So a lot of this is directly relevant.
I particularly love your Ghost and the Darkness add-on. Could you give a little detail? What was the druid's motivation, and what did his build look like?
Doug M.
Thanks Doug. Basically the druid's motivation is that he is an escaped slave who hates the colonials and their collaborators. That backstory isn't directly available to the PC's though. As I said I had the lions attack the expedition each night, killing some random number of porters and eventually 1 or 2 faction agents (in my case a Pathfinder). With a good survival roll my PC's track them back to their lair, which for me was natural cave formed by a rocky outcrop on the savanna. The area surrounding the cave was a mix of short and tall grass (total concealment) and trees decorated with human bodies mostly stripped of meat. I adapted the Lion Shaman from the Rival Guide to be human, changed his gear and spell loadout a bit and I was ready to go. One thing I included was basically a +2 Belt of Strength that instead used a cloak slot because I saw a picture some aboriginal Africans with these beautiful woven bead mantles and I wanted to include something like that for the PC's to find; again adding to their visual transformation throughout their journey.
During the actual battle he got Magic Fang on his lion companion as well as Shifting Sands on the party. After that he got grappled by the Vermin Hunter's mantis and was effectively out of the combat until he was cut down by the fighter who finally finished slogging through the other lions. That sounds a bit anticlimactic but it was a tight an tactical fight because the PC's didn't know how many lions were lurking in the grass and they were mired in dirt.
After the fight the PC's see the lion shaman is in fact human and not a lion. They also see evidence on his back of being scourged at least once as well as slave brands from both the Bekyar and Ombo (Knowledge Local). The point of this is to give the PC's a twinge of... maybe not guilt, but something. Sympathy, perhaps. Anyway, it is another opportunity to explore the theme of imperialism and occupation which I think was another missed chance in this book.
Thanks guys, more to come.
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City of Seven Spears/Vaults of Madness
I am still prepping for theses books so I haven't hashed out the specifics yet.. I hope to do that in the next week or so. I plan to run these books, pseudo-simultaneously since they occur in the same place. Book 3 essentially ends whenever Sozothola appears and then Book 4's events start to unfold. I am at a bit of a loss on how to structure this so I'll start with general thoughts on the city, mention ideas for each district, and then close with some inclusions I want to make but haven't specifically placed yet.
General Thoughts
So here we have a whole magnificent lost city with some NPC bosses and attendant goons, some set piece monsters (with no battle maps), random encounter tables and some events. For me the city just needs more everything; more interesting encounters, more distinct locations, more uniquely Azlant flavor (where are the ioun stones?)
For starters each faction and tribe gets a couple more named NPC's. Each faction has their leader, some lieutenants, a guide of some kind, and a few different kinds of 'troops' plus support staff. I had this in mind in the previous book and visually introduced the ninja to Chivane's lackies which include a fellow ninja and a monk (guess what style he uses). I also have in mind a rough scale for the size of each expedition. Here is a rough sketch of the Sargavan expedition, which happens to be the largest.
Sargavan Expedition
Leader: General Havelar
Lieutenant: Praetor Daugustana, Paladin of Iomedae
Guide: K'Fusi, Juju Oracle from the Laughing Jungle (actually a serpentfolk oracle)
Main troops: 80 Sargavan Guardsmen
Cavalry: 16 Sargavan Knights (Cavaliers)
Auxiliaries: 25 Scouts/Pickets (Mwangi Rangers)
Support: 8 Medics (Sargavan Clerics of various stripes)
Non-combat: Roughly 100 porters, cooks and non-combat staff.
Praetor Daugustana is my own invention of course and has made a couple appearances so far as the man who tries to recruit the PC's as well as on the road they briefly meet him and his Cavalier retinue on their way to find/pick up K'Fusi near the edge of the Laughing Jungle. I did this to introduce him and to remind the PC's that while they do have a short lead on everyone, it is still a race.
Anyway this is to break up the homogeneity of the groups a bit (though the Sargavans may be the most homogeneous force) and add some tactical and visual interest. I'm also going to do something similar for the other factions and tribes.
Other general thoughts include making a list of pre-written descriptions for bits of art, sculpture and so forth that reveal details of Saventh-Yhi that can be mundane or important. There are also tons of buildings and promenades and none of them have any sort of map. Some of these I'll discuss in the individual district sections, but I am also going to make a set of maps I can use for various buildings like storefronts, homes, and warehouses. There aren't very many clear depictions of Azlanti architecture. I think I read somewhere they like tall domes? Other than that, they seem to be a mish mash of every ancient human culture. I'll just take that as license to do whatever I want, so a lot of the smaller buildings like homes and stores will be patterned off of Roman equivalents. There are even floor plans for some of these.
I don't want to have to detail every building so I felt like I needed a reason that I wouldn't have to. In a few districts, there are several places where there is plenty of justification for buildings being filled with silt or plant life. That still left a lot of real estate where I didn't want to have to say "you search for an hour and don't find anything." That is boring. My solution is called the Giant Mud Dauber.
These man-sized, industrious, parasitic wasps moved into Saventh-Yhi a few thousand years after it fell. They mostly prey on the plentiful crocodiles, snakes and giant lizards that live in the lakes and swamps, but they'll pick up an isolated humanoid from time to time as well. They reproduce by paralyzing their prey and caccooning them in mud. Their larvae then hatch, devour their first meal, pupate, and become the next generation of wasp. After several centuries of being creches for wasp larva, some unoccupied buildings essentially became filled with mud and the remains of wasp meals. The nearly fossilized mud has to be removed carefully (by the expeditions essentially) in order to prevent damage to artifacts, frescoes, and any interesting remains the wasps may have entombed. This basically lets me say "well this building is filled with ancient, caked mud; your expedition will have to remove it carefully," and I don't have do detail exactly what is inside. This lets me put encounters where I want and I can hand wave the rest.
Speaking of encounters, I am not a huge fan of "random encounters," though I think Saventh-Yhi streets are a reasonable place to put some of them given the number of mobile, hungry citizens it has. That said I think I'll follow the example of Book 1 in this AP and put a number of lairs for many of these monsters around the city and if they are all cleared out, those critters are effectively removed. I'll do this for things like keches, sabosans, camulatzes and pterosaurs. These lairs are also good places to hide the Sphere's of the Sky that I mentioned before.
Whew - another long post. I guess I'll post my thoughts for the individual districts in another post when I have time.
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City of Seven Spears/Vaults of Madness - The Districts
Military District and Northwestern Outskirts
So for listed locations we have the fortress, the shamans hut, the plaza and the district's ziggurat. That leaves a lot of unlisted real estate.
Of visual interest on the map, we've got this enormous circular structure with the stairs near the west, a big circular structure with plaza near the south, 4 small pyramids in the south east, 6 square structures in the northeast, 3 canal type things in the west, and several square structures near the ziggurat.
Big circular structure with stairs-> Chronomantic Astrometer. The stairs here lead to an almost 100 tall foot circular platform. The pillars here are actually composed of independently rotating sections that are adorned with faintly glowing Azlanti runes. The sections rotate at different speeds, some almost every second, some appear unmoving, and some seem stuck moving back and forth. During the time of the Azlant, this structure served as a timekeeping device and described the alignments of stars, planets and stranger things from Beyond the Stars. Now, due to the slightly different procession of Golarion's axis after Earthfall, predictions made with this device are unreliable and some pillars no longer even function. A Knowledge Arcana or Engineering check can reveal the structure's former function to the PCs and an accurate written/drawn description of the device in a particular configuration might fetch a tidy sum from various arcane societies, religions, or the Pathfinders.
3 canal-type things -> The Racing Pools. These long pools hosted competitive swimming and kayaking events for the Azlant and the neighboring structures held equipment and changing areas. Some of the magical equipment may still be good? Ideas anyone? Magic kayak? The pools are still very clean and smell faintly chemical because of a bound, long mad, water elemental.
Square structures near pyramid -> Azlanti Barracks/Armory This area housed the best weapons and armor of the Azlanti as well as a permanent retinue of guards. During the mass exodus and paranoia that destroyed the city, many of these weapons were taken and lost, but perhaps some remain? Maybe a Scalerazor or Elysian Bronze weapons and armor? The question is, if it is still there, why haven't the Charau-ka stolen it yet? Maybe they have? Anyway, I want to play up the sense of beauty and civilization lost here. Wrecked stone armor racks, destroyed frescoes of Azlant military victories, etc.
6 square things in the northeast -> Not decided yet? Meditative retreats for Azlanti warrior-contemplatives? Flying mount aviaries for the former Azlanti air cavalry?
Big circular building with plaza Gladiatorial Arena? This almost seems too obvious an include here, but it is my only working idea at the moment. It would make a nice big space for a monster now.
4 small pyramids -> Noble Abodes The warrior-mages of the Azlant had swanky pyramids. I am thinking of having most of the interior of these be collapsed with the exception of one which is a monster lair. Perhaps a Korir-Kokembe.
That leaves a lot of empty space. Some of that I'll fill with Charau-ka of various stripes, near the outskirts I'll probably put in some various monsters, and a lot of the rest will be Mud Dauber Nests. I like the idea of having some old foundries in this district with some unworked, unclaimed metals, as well as statues (covered with ape poo) of Azlanti war heroes like the others that fought in the multi-racial coalition with Savith. I might even include the cyclops from the later book with an inscription to the effect of "Lost in the Final Battle" or some such. I might have one of the larger buildings be a strategic academy of sorts, with some valuable Azlant military texts. Lastly, I like the idea that a few loyal Azlanti soldiers never gave up the fight and still defend a small section of the district beyond death; bedecked in their finest armor.
Mercantile Distric
This district has some of the most visual interest on the map but has some of the least interesting inhabitants. The part of this district that I like the best is the treasury with it's shadows. I like the idea that the destruction of the city was hastened by the traps designed to preserve the Azlanti's wealth. This gave me the idea that this should really be (at least in part) the shadow/undead district. The shadows and undead are addicted to the magic of the spears just like the living inhabitants and this is the only reason they haven't overrun the surrounding area. Trick is, I don't want the place to be all undead, so I also want to populate it with a few things that are able to resist the shadows effectively. The Chimeras are fine since, as I read it, their breath weapons effect the shadows (being Su abilities). The giant bat is probably ok too, since it only hangs out in the district during the day and the shadows mostly come out at night (mostly). The keches seem ill-prepared to fight shadows but I don't mind moving them elsewhere to multiple locations because I like keches for some reason. Other inhabitants would have to either be sheltered or able to defend themselves.
So with that in mind let us look at the unlisted locations that appear on the map. We've got a bank of brown square buildings near the pyramid and four large pyramids near the north of the district and a big clump or irregularly shaped buildings near the south of the district. There are also some ruined structure separated by water from the rest of the district.
Rows of brown buildings -> Storage and Warehouses These should be easy to map out. Obviously, most of these were cleared or burned out during the cities fall and the subsequent millenia, but they are great dens for monsters. I think some sabosans might make a good candidate, perhaps with a cleric who discovered an ancient Zuran shrine who can protect his fellows from the renegade shadows.
Irregular buildings -> Guildhouses, Workshops, Foundries Man there's a lot of these to populate, what to fill them with? I'm thinking about a few wights and maybe an Obambo that represents an old member of a tribe that the Radiant Muse befriended and then eradicated. I'm ok with it being a bit rough, this district can be a bit of a no-man's land.
Big Pyramids -> Houses of the Great Merchants and Priests of Abadar More Pyramids. Well, what is a pyramid without some killer traps and mummies. In their greed and paranoia near the city's end, these nobles fortified their homes from the rest of the city, but met their ends at the hands of their family members or perhaps lethal spore concentrations.
Ruined Structures -> Ruins The sunken and semi-flooded ruins are home to aquatic swarms, gray nisps, crocs, and most interestingly "Grandfather Crocodile". The large and old lizardman juju oracle known only as Grandfather Crocodile has lived in Saventh-Yhi as long as any sane member of the city can recall. He's inscrutable, enigmatic, but not overtly hostile. He does like to keep a couple of dominated slaves and juju zombies for convenience, but for the most part he is content to commune with the many spirits that inhabit Saventh-Yhi. Grandfather Crocodile can be bargained with, but he is dangerous if angered.
All for now. Next districts in another post.
My only concern with the spheres in the sky addition is that it might make the vaults of madness repetitive, since in each part you have to find 7 special mcguffins in each of the districts. But that can be worked around and you have a better sense of whether your players would find it frustrating or not.
I like your ideas for buildings in the districts. I'd throw in some haunts as well (perhaps in the mercantile district so you can have undead without worrying about them overrunning the place). Haunts could be a way of providing information about ancient Savanth-yin too.
The racing pools could also be sacrificial pools where they through offerings? Perhaps something has animated these ancient offerings?
My only concern with the spheres in the sky addition is that it might make the vaults of madness repetitive, since in each part you have to find 7 special mcguffins in each of the districts. But that can be worked around and you have a better sense of whether your players would find it frustrating or not.
I like your ideas for buildings in the districts. I'd throw in some haunts as well (perhaps in the mercantile district so you can have undead without worrying about them overrunning the place). Haunts could be a way of providing information about ancient Savanth-yin too.
The racing pools could also be sacrificial pools where they through offerings? Perhaps something has animated these ancient offerings?
You know, you are right, it is kind of the same McGuffin. I'm not sure if that makes me what to change it or not. Glowy magic rocks seem to be a pretty consistent theme in Azlanti magic/technology.
I like haunts. They are a cool narrative tool. I just have to write some canned text for them.
Cool idea on the sacrificial pools, but to me they are way too narrow to be sacrificial. Most sacrificial pools are (roughly) circular. Sort of symbolizing a god or whatever eating the sacrifice. Anyway, if they were sacrificial, why wouldn't they be in the temple district?
I like the idea of swimming pools because it reinforces the idea that people lived here in this city and they had hobbies. It's why I am also going to place a bathhouse or two in the city (probably in the residential district) and some other things that only served civic or cultural purposes like libraries and theaters. These people were the pinnacle of science, technology, and learning for thousands or years. As written we don't see that in this book, and maybe that is because S-Y was a fairly minor settlement, almost just an outpost, but I want to add some more 'wow' and interest to the place for my players.
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My group has our first session back after about a 2 month break and I thought I'd post up some things that I have brainstormed for the next part of Racing to Ruin and the upcoming City of Seven Spears.
Racing to Ruin Part 2
The group is about to depart Kalabuto, on a small keelboat that will ferry them downstream a bit before dropping them off on the far side of the river and returning for the rest of the expedition. Once on the water they'll be ambushed from rafts and canoes by another party of faction agents. It's unlikely that the boat will be destroyed, but if it was that would delay the expedition. This is a further reminder of the presence of the other faction and should stoke the fires of hate for the Aspis.
Afterwards, the encounters should progress as written until they reach the Screaming Jungle. I cooked up an extra encounter with an underserved Mwangi monster, the Biloko. I gave a pack of them a level in rogue along with some blowguns, for a nice ambush.
I also wanted to introduce the village Jigeke was from, fill it with a few ghouls and a variant mummy and a few survivors, just so we get that backstory and have a reason to hunt this guy down.
I'm going to throw in a few "random" with some haggard charau-ka that previously hailed from Raogru's tribe, so we get an inkling about the tribal civil war that has taken place.
I also want to include some more dinosaurs, like maybe an allosaurus or pack of deinonychus, but I haven't thought of a graceful and exciting way to do it yet.
Saventh-Yhi: The Mercantile District
I gave this place a little more thought. I tried to think about what sort of places a mercantile district would have besides shops, banks and a Temple of Abadar. Then it hit me, Exchanges. Places where people come to bid and exchange goods with going rates for commodities. Prices inscribed on clay tablets hang on the walls like stock tickers and brokers taking bids on wares. So some of the big ziggurauts will be ruined exchanges for these goods and the players will see how many bushels of yams an Azlanti gold piece would buy the day before the city fell (not very many due to massive panic).
I thought a bit more about the district's inhabitants and how I could logically prevent the whole place from being overrun by shadows and then I found the Sceaduinar. What a beast and it is only CR 7! It eats shadows and the living. I figure that trap that initially create the shadows slowly leaked material from the Negative Energy plane which formed the crystalline egg from which 1 or 2 sceaduinar eventually hatched. I'm also moving Ugimmo to this district, I figure he can handle himself being a bone oracle. I kept the keches too, but put a cleric in charge who can hand out magic weapon and magic stone to his flock. I like keches, so they have wound up being a sort of pseudo-tribe for this district.
Next up, the Farming, Temple, Government, and Residential Districts. I think Farming and Residential will be the easiest and Temple and Government will be the hardest.
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It has been some time since my last post. We've had several games since then, but have had a short break until recently. We should have our next game in the next week or so.
Racing to Ruin Conclusion
This took place over several games. Before the party left the city, I made the decision that I wanted most if not all the factions to be infiltrated by a serpentfolk agent; part of the sleeper cult from Eleder. This includes the PC's party. So I had a group of 'camp followers' proposition the party to come along with the expedition in exchange for little gold up front. The cleric couldn't detect anything from the madame (serpentfolk sorceress) due to an amulet of nondetection. The party seemed uncharacteristically credulous at this, so much so that I wonder if they were just playing along to move the plot forward.
River Run
The river boat attack was fun and featured the party fighter jumping from boat to boat, falling in at almost every opportunity.
Hippos and Warriors of the Child God
These encounters were pretty straight forward and because of good rolls my party mostly blew threw them.
Loco Biloko's
Biloko attack in the jungle was cool. I put in a lot of heavy cover and rough terrain, and the little buggers with their small size and rogue level made them great at sneaking through the bush. With 6 of them, 1 charm person is bound to make it through, though I did forget that one of my PC's is an Ifrit and thus not vulnerable to it - a mistake I'll make more than once.
Speaker for the Dead
I added a story encounter with some Mwangi refugees from Jigeke's village to foreshadow that subplot a bit and fill out the local Mwangi cultures with some interesting flavor. You see this local tribe practices a hybrid form of necromancy and ancestor worship. Bodies of honored ancestors are not buried but interred in sealed earthenware vessels. In times of great need, like continued attacks by desperate charau-ka (more foreshadowing), the spiritual leaders will commune with their ancestors and offer them gifts in exchange for the spirit's permission to reanimate their bodies. When the service is complete, the bodies are re-interred. Jigeke's crime, was his refusal to re-inter these ancestors in reaction to continued charau-ka attack. He was banished, but didn't take it laying down. He killed his mentor, brought him back as a bog mummy, turned the chief into that tongue monster from the bestiary and spread ghoul curse throughout the town.
This was a fun bit of hack and slash encounter that I think injected some nice flavor that this part of the AP was missing. For treasure I included a +1 spear and a teapot that allows the owner to speak with animals 1/day if an animal is placed inside. You have to whisper into the teapot and then stick your head near the spout to hear the answer. Pretty sure the party sold it, but I thought it was cool. My party's cleric of Pharasma insisted on actually burying all the remaining sacred, jarred, ancestors which was interesting. "Sorry about your millenia-old traditions, Pharasma's orders."
Jigeke the Exile
From the refugees, the party knows that Jigeke planned to loot the tomb of a local folk hero and they pick up his trail when they find the slaughtered boar. His fast zombie gets taken down quick and then he exits the tomb while flying and exchanges spells and bows with the PC's for a bit before the fighter knocks him out of the air with a javelin and he lands with a nasty crunch.
Bodies on the Riverbank
I mentioned before that my party totally skipped the village from the chemosit encounter so they didn't have the item to banish the shadow demon. Man is this a TPK waiting to happen. The party comes up on some dead Red Mantis agents, which is the first clue to everyone besides the ninja that the Mantis Cult is even involved. Gorilla goes down fast and then the shadow demon comes out. Everyone gets feared except the fighter. Fighter eventually gets dropped to zero. At this point, I pull my punches a bit. Tactically the right move is to have the shadow demon chase down everyone with his great flight speed and murder them one by one. Instead the shadow demon possesses the unconscious but stable fighter to mess with the rest of the party. I justify this because the shadow demon is more sadistic than it is tactical. Everyone comes back, heals up the fighter and I get to do the whole "I'm totally not a demon" act which is kind of fun. Fighter has watch, inevitably tries to kill everyone, but the party manages to drop him without killing him. Demon pops out again, and fears again. This time only the cleric runs, leaving the hunter and ninja to fight the shadow. Again the smart thing tactically would be just to use flight, darkness and fear to pick everyone off but instead I elect to just go full attack happy. Eventually the pair manage to take him down, but the giant mantis companion of the hunter is slain. Deadly, deadly encounter.
See no evil
I added another encounter with dangerously cursed shrine to Angazhan (more foreshadowing) that is loosely based on the Blood Totem's Gaze. Basically, ever 1d4 rounds, this shrine would shoot eyebeams that behave like the moonstruck spell. In our party, the fighter took the hit, but was light prisoned by the cleric while everyone else beat up the shrine. For treasure, I added several offerings to Angazhan including a set of Ekujae Jungle Armor. This makes my ninja almost too good at sneaking around, but everyone has to be good at something.
Dance Dance Evilution
The whole party was very leery of the beautiful ladies that wanted to take them in to their cabin, which I guess was wise. They try to poison them, the succubus orders the dancers to attack. The party manages to subdue them, but the succubus manages to get out of the house and keeps hitting the party with attempted mind control. Without the flying mantis, and with the succubus's resistances, the party has few ways to damage her in the air. So the party hatches a plan. They ask if the hunter can piggy-back on the pyronkineticist's back for a flying charge. I make them roll a fairly high acrobatics check (DC 25 I think) to pull it off and they manage to, getting enough damage on her to make her teleport off. Everyone awakens their spirit animal, except the cleric who doesn't accept false idols. I still give the party the reduced travel time benefit.
Tazion - the Ruins to which we Race
I mention to the party as they close in on the ruins, that they see one of the other expeditions in the distance, just to remind them that the others are only days behind. They circle the compound first taking out the patrols. Then they proceed to the pyramid, coming in from the top, making short work of the girallon and the charau-ka up top. They end up fighting the enchanter, which become a huge slog fest. With webs, mirror image, flaming sphere and spider climb, the guy has tremendous staying power. No to mention the kineticist was fairly useless with resist energy up. They do manage to get him down, though the fighter got dropped to zero if I remember correctly. The party finds a note in Aklo written to the other members of the "Hidden Scale" saying that much to his surprise, he has found a loyal charau-ka cult provided to him by Ydersius and loyal patsy Raogru. They make work of the other monsters including wasps and altars. One giant wasp is captured and bound to be the hunter's new companion. No one is able to identify the religios significance of any of the rooms except for the one devoted to Desna. The leech swarms are sort of a nasty surprise to the first person to walk into that room. Raogru and his crew get taken out next in a long combat, mostly because the map is so big. Raogru himself gets taken out easily. The kineticist is MVP this combat because he is blasting around one-shotting enemies with his fire. Cool class. The team gets the gems, figures out how to use the pillars of light and find the way to Saventh-Yhi.
Got lots to say about the Saventh-Yhi but that'll have to wait for another post.
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Tazion - edit
I forgot to mention last time, I included another encounter in Tazion with a Deadfall Tracker and a handful of normal charau-ka because the party decided to make camp in the pyramid after the alarm was raised. They ended up killing him and the others fairly easily. I said the kineticist was the MVP in Tazion -- with gather power he was able to one-shot the normal charau-ka most of the time.
Journey to Saventh-Yhi
I added the detail that after pulling out the crystals from the Pillars of Light, the magical image of Saventh-Yhi doesn't disappear entirely, but instead flickers and jumps about. This keeps the advantage for the PC's, while leaving a way for the other factions to catch up. Departing Tazion, the party runs into Nkechi and Athyra who were sent ahead of the main expedition to check on the PC's (and remind the party that these NPC's exist.)
The PC's press on to Saventh-Yhi until they reach the city-behind-a-waterfall-trope. Interestingly, my party was super interested in two things once they got here.
- Clearing terrain to let their expedition get in as fast as possible
- Making it hard for the other expeditions to get in
A Bridge too Far
This encounter can be more fun that it looks. It is a bit hard to represent on a flip-mat though. I told my party that there were surly-looking pterosaurs in this ravine. They decide to cross the bridge anyway. I don't recall if the pterosaurs actually have 'grab' or not but I played it as if they did. So I snatched a PC off the bridge and he got dropped into the water for the crocodiles to go after. My party fighter dove in after him and helped him chop up the crocodiles. I think I let him make a 'vertical charge' with a successful acrobatics check. Overall a pretty cool encounter since it happens in 3D and there is some dangerous and compelling terrain.
After the encounter, the cleric gets the idea to use charges from the wand of glyph of warding the party had gotten some time earlier to 'mine' this entrance. Instead of the traditional explosions, he opts to infuse them castings of the contagion spell. He may have also been able to cast 1 or 2 more glyphs like this from another source (scroll or something) I can't recall. He places these glyphs at strategic places and sets a password so that his expedition can come through unscathed. The next expedition hasn't come through yet, but I think it is unlikely that they will detect all of the glyphs. I'm not sure what consequences this will have for the PC's and their expedition yet.
Lastly, the cleric wanted to use the Control Water spell to raise the water level of the stream to further confound people coming in the ravine, but I decided since the stream empties down a rather steep cliff, that it wouldn't significantly affect the water level.
Exploring the outer Ruins
The party comes upon the ghost's remains really quickly with a good perception check. I thought this would be a tougher combat, but the guy went down fairly quick. The party doesn't know yet that he'll be back, though one player had the idea afterwards to give him credit for discovering Saventh-Yhi, so maybe next time he rises they'll handle him permanently. Unlike what some people have said, my party didn't seem bothered by the fact that someone else had found Saventh-Yhi in the past. I think they were more of the mind, "It would be weird if no one stumbled on it for thousands of years."
Camp Wannalootya
The party decides to set up camp in between the cenotes, noting the availability of lumber and fresh water -- all fair points. Since they united the Pirates and Pathfinders with a good Diplomacy roll back in Eleder, I gave their camp the best of the Pirates and Pathfinder camp scores. I realized later it gives you the option to let the PC's allocate camp scores, but I decided I liked keeping the numerical abstraction of the camp scores out of the PC's hands. I told them they have 'good' supply and exploration and 'ok' defense. I then let them allocate named NPCs to one of the 3 scores for a bonus to those. I've started generating some extra named NPCs for the other factions as well, representing their trailblazers so this doesn't totally favor the PCs.
Since defense is their worst score, they decided to allocate everyone into that for the time being. They told everyone to get to work on wooden barricades and earthenwork fortifications. After establishing camp, the party decided to head into the mercantile district which I'll discuss in the next post.
General thoughts about Saventh-Yhi so far
- Man I wish there were more maps for this book. Drawing up all these locations and trying to make them interesting is really tough. It also takes a ton of prep time. This and the next 2 books in the AP are almost more like Campaign Setting splat books than discrete modules. If they ever wanted to give this AP a sort of 'premium treatment' like they have done for a couple other APs, they could make it 100-200% better with some more encounter maps. Some places like temples to dead gods are just begging for an encounter map.
- My PCs picked an interesting spot for camp. If the other factions come in the same way as the PCs, I don't know how exactly I'll handle the 'encounter' of entire expeditions passing by the PC's camp.
- Order of arrival right now is Mantis->Aspis->Sargavans. The Mantis have the best chance of detecting the glyphs of warding, but if they don't, that may sour any remaining good will between them and the ninja PC.
- The Aspis are the most likely to have open conflict with the PC expedition, given that they have tried to assassinate them twice. They may just attack the PC camp in a grand melee when they enter.
- The Sargavans have a complex political/legal situation with the Pirates. I might be able to exploit this in some way.
Any progress on this camapaign? It's been a really interesting read.
Also how did you go about fleshing out the other districts?