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Legacy of Fire 2 has the entry on Sarenrae. You'll probably want to use doves and citrines as a signs of her favor, have a day-long consecration of song and circular dancing, knock out the belfrey for an open-air top, add a sun dial at the entrance, and cultivate a garden of sunflowers somewhere adjacent to the temple.
I would imagine a skill challenge would handle it after they defeat the denizens of the belfrey. Possible skills: knowledge/profession engineer, knowledge/profession nature/gardener, handle animal (the doves), and end with the two perform skills paired progressive checks to avoid exhaustion.
Interesting tidbits to work with include:
"Sarenrae indicates her favor with sightings of doves, or through the shapes of ankhs appearing in unexpected places. Other signs of her favor are rays of dawn or dusk sunlight lasting far longer than they should, the discovery of yellow stones or gems, or the sudden soothing of aches and pains.... Sunflowers may bloom around the faithful to show her favor, or a dead enemy may sprout them from its mouth."
"Religious ceremonies for the Dawnflower always involve singing (or sometimes ululation or even speaking in tongues) and usually include vigorous dancing, with participants spinning or moving in great circles representing the sun’s path through the sky. Cymbals, bells, and drums are popular instruments, accented by hand-clapping.
"Temples are open-air buildings (with satellite buildings having ceilings) open to the sky, sometimes with large brass or gold mirrors on high points to reflect more light toward the altar (always in such a way as not to blind anyone present, though older priests tend to develop a squint and crow’s feet from the bright light). Sun-motifs are common decorations, as are white or metallic wings and images of doves. Most temples have a sundial and markings tracking the solstices.
"Sarenrae’s sanctuaries are surrounded by sunflowers or other plants with large golden flowers. These may be flower gardens or simply wildflowers that flourish because of the goddess’ will. In poorer communities, sunflower seeds are eaten, either whole, as a nutritious paste, or dried into powder and used like flour to make bread. “Dawnflower
bread” is small loaves of sunflower bread marked with an ankh on top, distributed to the needy by the church.
The first session of Book 5 was nice and relaxed.
There was a very long shopping trip as the team sold their mountain of loot that had been stacking up from the Ruby Masquerade in Absalom. There was some fun setting roleplay as the local temple of Abadar wrote a letter of introduction for an associate in Absalom to act as a broker due to the pure volume of valuables they were selling. But must the session came down to the players figuring out what cool new loot they would buy.
The characters also got time to fill in some more mundane rolls. The ex-guard returned to patrolling the streets, the inquisitor started purifying the temple, the investigator started trying to track down what happened to the bloodletting kukri. There was some half-hearted campaigning for mayor.
They found out about the kidnapping and steam-rolled that encounter. They laughed about have the easy encounter after the 9 days of hell they just went through. They then took the surviving kidnappers/slavers and held a trail with the hellknight character appointing themself as judge. So I'm pumped for the common-law precedents they are setting. (Punishment was 20 years of labor in the salt mines.)
They deciphered the Heart's Harvest ritual and now know that if Thrune's heart is not returned to his soul in hell, he will return as a genius loci. Unfortunately they did not discover the Kintargo Contract, Although I like the idea of them not telling Cheliax about the contract and seeing the entire contract with hell dissolve, I'm not a fan of them just missing the Contract entirely and having Kintargo burn in the epilogue... So I need to find a way to bring their attention back to that secret page...
They briefly discussed raising some of their dead advisors from the dead (Laria, Rexus, Lady Docour).
Book 5, Session 2:
I knew that if they caught a whiff of a serial killer they would not let it be... I should have known better...
I opened the session by having the character that was deciphering the Heart's Harvest ritual notice that something was wrong with the prayer that the Kintargo Contract was disguised as. From there they were able to dispel the secret page and decipher the Kintargo Contract (the investigator is rocking the skills). Now they know the secret of the Kintargo Contract and it is up to them if they inform Cheliax if it's details.
During this time they were able to reach out to the sea-elves with a sending to start investigating the ocean vortexes.
But I also interrupted them near the end of their work on the contract with the third Mangvhune murder (They caught rumors of the first two rumors but since they were not with a kukri, they didn't connect them to any ongoing plots). They were single minded about this murder and started investigating it ruthlessly. After their divination attempts failed to bring up anything conclusively (speak with dead, scry) the inquisitor as a joke sent a sending to 'Mangvhune' (this spell has been a favorite of his to provoke his enemies and pester his allies). They were shocked when a reply came inviting them to a candlelit dinner in front of the new temple of Sarenrae. They waited in front of the new temple and Mangvhune sneaked in to deposit the display of the fourth murder. Due to the song of silver he had trouble teleporting away and they almost caught a glimpse of his, sadly his stealth was too high.
So they eventually came around to investigating his old offices. When the found the melted locks the investigator had a great 'I told you so' moment as checking out the old offices was his first recommendation before they started using divination. We ended the session with rolling initiative as they opened the door from area E1 to E2, illuminating the dark hall with their light.
I'm concerned that this Mangvhune fight will be lackluster, if he tries to play cat and mouse it will be plenty time for the party to come up with a creative solution to foil him. If he can study the group before engaging that death attack will happen twice, We will see if the group survives the fortitude saves. I think I'll have him move to the fight very quickly so that he can study the group as they move from the first fight to the next fight. He has a pile of hit points but the group has 6 players with 3 hard hitting melee.
So ya, session 3 of the new book and they are going after the last boss...
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I am interested to hear how the fight goes as it seems to me like it could either be really lacklustre (notably if he has no allies) or really brutal (if he gets chance for death attacks and the saves are failed as breath of life from the song will not bring people back)
I am already thinking ahead to a hypothetical scenario of killing the PC with teleport (not deliberately but if it happens). Then the group don’t seem like they can easily get out (but I might be misremembering) and might be picked off...
I figure that they have enough powerful allies that if they go missing, their allies will start searching for them with any means they can gather (sending or scrying come to mind).
No one will rest easy if the Heroes of the Nine Day War (book 4) go missing.
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I definitely will be spending this weekend reviewing the stealth rules. (jealous of the PF2 system for stealth...)
DM Livgin: do you know how long does the entire campaign take place in terms of the characters' perspective? 6 months? 2 years? (from beginning of Book 1 to end of Book 6)
It is really up to the GM and the players.
For my game it has been approximately:
Book 1: one month character time.
Book 2: one month
Book 3: one month
Book 4: nine days
Book 5: looking like two months
Book 6: ???
I struggled with books 1 and 2 to intentionally slow things down so that the group could have a few rebellion phases. I had to just tell them that their characters go and have a life/day job for a few days before meeting on the weekend.
Beginning of Book 6 foreword by James Jacobs suggest Book 6 starts about a year after beginning of book 1, but your timeline seems more along the lines of mine. I don't have a lot of crafters in the group, but beginning of book 5 required about 6 to 8 weeks of infernal contract research before they went in Hell... so yeah, yours and mine are pretty close. Thanks for the quick reply!
Book 5, Session 3: Mangvhune's Heart
They were able to clear out and this dungeon in a single session. Since they came here first, they were level 13 for all of this.
The previous session ended with the Investigator unbarring the door of the first room and opening, casting light into the hall and alerting their enemies. At the start of this session I realized that was unfair to his +35ish perception, so I retconned that he heard the Disciples of Shax milling around while he was unbarring the door. With this new information he mixed up a communal darkvision extract for the group that made the rest of this dungeon much easier.
The Disciples were a bigger roadblock than expected, with the 28 AC and a sack of HP. They were able to nickel and dime the group while once getting off a lucky blindness spell.
The alchemist was the big threat of the night; pre-buffed with haste he was making 4 attacks per round and my group had not focused on touch ac. My 6 player adjustment was the addition of 2 more Disciples to act as meat shields. He was able to knock out one character each round (2 characters) until he failed a save against fear and fled into the circle of recall in a panic.
Mangvhune was not able to effectively cat and mouse because; 1) the lantern of revealing stripped the greater invisibility leaving him exposed after breaking stealth, 2) Communal darkvision removed the protection of darkness, and 3) the investigator's perception allowed him to beat Mangvhune's stealth enough to prevent the studied death attack. So he didn't get to use his cool tricks, but the group got to feel super confident in controlling the battle.
Now... the group appears to be in position to move on to book 6 so I'll be doing some extra prep this weekend to account for most the directions they can go from here.
Book 5, Session 3: Mangvhune's Heart
They were able to clear out and this dungeon in a single session. Since they came here first, they were level 13 for all of this.
The previous session ended with the Investigator unbarring the door of the first room and opening, casting light into the hall and alerting their enemies. At the start of this session I realized that was unfair to his +35ish perception, so I retconned that he heard the Disciples of Shax milling around while he was unbarring the door. With this new information he mixed up a communal darkvision extract for the group that made the rest of this dungeon much easier.
The Disciples were a bigger roadblock than expected, with the 28 AC and a sack of HP. They were able to nickel and dime the group while once getting off a lucky blindness spell.
The alchemist was the big threat of the night; pre-buffed with haste he was making 4 attacks per round and my group had not focused on touch ac. My 6 player adjustment was the addition of 2 more Disciples to act as meat shields. He was able to knock out one character each round (2 characters) until he failed a save against fear and fled into the circle of recall in a panic.
Mangvhune was not able to effectively cat and mouse because; 1) the lantern of revealing stripped the greater invisibility leaving him exposed after breaking stealth, 2) Communal darkvision removed the protection of darkness, and 3) the investigator's perception allowed him to beat Mangvhune's stealth enough to prevent the studied death attack. So he didn't get to use his cool tricks, but the group got to feel super confident in controlling the battle.
Now... the group appears to be in position to move on to book 6 so I'll be doing some extra prep this weekend to account for most the directions they can go from here.
Lantern of invisibility is such an awesomely powerful item that was included as treasure. And I am sure other writers forgot or didn’t know they have this - notably at this stage
I would say I would bend the rules to make greater invisibility beat it but that seems harsh. Perhaps in my game it would downgrade it to normal when I do it
*
I am jealous that a sack of HP and 28AC is a road block to your group. I have a Kineticist that will laugh at that. I need ACs of that or higher now in Book 4
Lanathar; A bigger road block than expected.
It also helped that they came here after Mangvhune baited them with the candle murder, so they were only half-buffed.
Alternatives ways to significantly increase the challenge without downgrading the lantern of revealing are;
1) Give Mangvhune true-seeing through some means.
2) Give him a wizard/sorcerer ally than can dimension door him and a mook into flanking (or a bard using jester's jaunt).
3) Give the mooks the persistent spell metamagic feat so they can cast a persistent blindness spell.
4) Give Mangvhune skill focus stealth.
Lanathar; A bigger road block than expected.
It also helped that they came here after Mangvhune baited them with the candle murder, so they were only half-buffed.
Alternatives ways to significantly increase the challenge without downgrading the lantern of revealing are;
1) Give Mangvhune true-seeing through some means.
2) Give him a wizard/sorcerer ally than can dimension door him and a mook into flanking (or a bard using jester's jaunt).
3) Give the mooks the persistent spell metamagic feat so they can cast a persistent blindness spell.
4) Give Mangvhune skill focus stealth.
Ah I missed the “than expected” part. Now you mention it I have been caught out by that a few times thinking that things aren’t going to be much of a block. And then a couple of bad rolls and they are still hanging around! Advanced host devils in the temple raid were the most recent example of that !
Book 5, Session 4:
The Silver raven sent out teams to investigate various parts of Ravounel including the mysterious shadow pyramid some of the knowledgeable characters had heard about. One team found them Xerelilah and the Terapasillion team never responded to sendings (new favorite house rule; all sendings must be in haiku format), so off they went to rescue the team.
The team is definately hitting the I'm a superhero and am going to be reckless phase. The Bloodrager walked over the illusionary floor because he wanted to pass the will save himself instead of trusting his team, falling prone in the pit and staring the encounter with the team upstairs.
I upgraded the Nightwing to advanced as my 6 player adjustment. It frightened them when they all provoked jumping into the pit, but the single attack on it's turn kept it balanced. The greater shadows didn't land a single blow...
I added a third giant at the 6 player adjustment. This was a fun fight to GM but was stressful for the players. These giants destroyed two of their magic weapons, good thing they now have access to greater make whole. Also the mesmerist possessed one of the giants, and in the 13 hours they shared the same head, the mesmerist recruited the giat to the city guard...
When they exited the pyramid and found the actual dragon, they were all to eager to negotiate peace (with two party members on back up weapons). The negotiations were aided by two of the group members being devout atheists (Rahadoum style).
They still only have 1/5 council names and are completely missing the Odexidie quest hook... I'm really looking at ways they can get the rest of the names without following up on that hook; They got one name out of Jackdaw (I'm emphasizing that Jackdaw was in solitary for 80 years and is in a real bad place), I'll have Xerelilah provide one after communing with Desna. And I can figure out the rest as I go...
I'm sorry but the meeting with Odexidie is the best part of this book. Those missions in Ravounel are actually filler IMO... I would have them find out that this Odexidie devil knows all the details in regards to the names of the 5 bloodlines if they haven't done so yet...
Book 5, Session 5:
Odexidie... Finally...
We were down to 3 players due to circumstances. After a quick discussion we opted to play instead of having a board game night instead, The thought of it not being 30 minutes between turns really sold the group on playing...
Nothing unexpected this session. The group hung out in the boardroom before going exploring. With their high skills they were able to notice that they were being watched.
- passes the hard perception check; you hear a faint thwomp sound as something about the size of the keyhole slips through the keyhole.
- passes the hard arcane check; that keyhole is exactly the right size for an arcane eye to slip through.
After a few hours of boredom they went exploring fighting the ice devil and choosing to avoid the rest of the fight. The no-nonsense secretary was a fun scene. Then the meeting with Odexidie was entertaining and the group tried to figure out why this devil was just giving them information, then explained why it was just giving them information!
Predictably the group refused to agree to the homecoming contract and opted to planeshift home instead. They were concerned about giving any devil an open door in the opera house, especially after it refused to agree not to kill anyone in Kintargo. We had a fun little negotiation phase as the group tried to make the homecoming contact acceptable but in the end they were not terms Odexidie could agree to. In hindsight I could have agreed and then figured out what loophole the he would use later if necessary, but I think having a loophole slip through would have been unfair to the character with a super high investment in linguistics.
Tonight I need to throw a dart at the map to discover where the plane shift lands them... Options are;
1) Mainland Cheliax:
Pros- they get to cause some trouble and maybe help the other rebelion on the way home.
Cons - The players may will get distracted by this and turn it into an excuse the assassinate the queen.
2) Into an ocean vortex:
Pros - jumps right into the next mission.
Cons - Heavy handed.
3) Into the forest:
Pros - Jumps into the next mission (which they are not excited about, these are all city folk).
Cons - Heavy handed. And they will just then teleport to Kintargo.
4) Any place that is safe:
Pros - simple and easy, doesn't make the group scared to planeshift. Makes the world feel real instead of a narrative structure.
Cons - boring.
5) Into the underdark:
Pros - there might be ways to drop hints about the soul anchor and add mor foreshadow.
Cons - To many hints will trivialize future investigations. And I only skimmed book 6, so this will need more prep.
I'm currently leaning towards laying out a map and having them roll a d12 for radian and a d6 for a 50-300 mile radius off target. Then just roll with the dice.
Hermea.
New plan.
Hermea...
Book 5, Session 5
or Ravexit? or KintarGO
Local politics have been inspired by the brexit campaign, so Wexit is trending locally (West-exit). We had a great run on it in the start of the game.
After talking about it for the last 5 sessions the group resolved Urchin's Maw. We are definitely hitting the point where if the group is prepared, they steamroll combats. They are utilizing the dimension door into flanking trick and with three heavy melee it works very well. Encounter design needs fine attention going forward, ensuring I tune bosses to have decoy monsters.
They also rounded up the two more nobles for the Board of Governors. The last member is Urvis. Since Laria is dead I decided to have one of the player characters be the descendant, with their father being the current head of the family. I'm running it that the family changed their name and the player character does not recognize it. Now I'm trying to figure out how they are going to figure this out...
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Legacy of Fire 2 has the entry on Sarenrae.
Thanks for pointing me towards this.
I now have a plan. A Dawnmother from Absalom will come to aid, but also a member of the Dawnflower Cult will attend. They will both ask a different task to help consencrate the temple, from one a gift from any enemy given freely because Sarenrae treats even evil with kindness and respect so that they may one day repent, from the other the blood of one who has refused redemption as there are no second chances in the desert.
Either way will bless the character with Mystmorning, the 'sentient' scymitar.
Book 5, Session 6
We have a Lord Mayor!
This session was mostly a custom side-adventure I made to 1) discover that a player character is an Urvis, and 2) get a tie in with one of the Urvis characters family which she had made a awesome backstory for. The Urvis character fled from the Mwangi to Kintargo about 2 years before the start of the adventure because her brother torched a church of Sarenrae (they were problem children) and she took the blame for it to protect her brother. She had not heard from her family since.
After calling in favors from Captain FancyPants and their allies in Vyre a meeting was arranged with a Mr. White, an elvish information broker who took careful account of the true names of all the refugees and exiles that came from Cheliax during its civil war before they took on aliases, should they prove useful one day... This broker had the new Urvis name but was not happy with gold alone but required a favor of these high level adventurers.
Mr. White required help with a local Ekujae clan. A Worm that Walks had taken up residence in their local burial grounds, a sacred place that only the Ekujae may enter. The monster had proved too powerful for the Ekujae own warriors, putting them between a rock and hard place of needing outside help, but being unable to accept outside help. Mr. White asked them to disguise themself as angels and slay the Worm the Walks, the group decided to instead disguise themselves as powerful Ekujae warriors. I made up some lore and let them claim the title of Avengers, powerful Ekujae warriors that are recognized by their unique insignia and totems (which the group faked).
The fight went exceptionally well. I was aiming for a fight that felt difficult but had minimal actual risk. For the level 15 group of 5 players I used two CR 15 Black Scorpions and the CR 14 Worm that Walks. I gave the Worm still + silent metamagic so that is could still toss a few spells while in swarm form. The group scouted the Black Scorpions but could not get close enough to spot the Worm. So the wizard flew in during the surprise round while all the melee got teleported in with the Scald, the mesmerist ran in. One black scorpion got possessed, one got beat to death over a couple turns. The Investigator used vomit swarm on the Worm that Walks and was able to nauseate it, then the mesmerist stare was able to confuse it, then a prismatic spray was able to planeshift it. It made the players feel awesome. Before dying one of the black scorpions was able to poison the skald, that poison is nasty and almost killed them. In the end the entire group was applying restorative ointments trying to stop the poison before it killed her.
The group easily bluffed the Ekujae and had a resounding success.
Now the Scald/Hellknight Multiclass learns that they are the youngest scion of the Urvis family. But it isn't so simple, their father is alive and well and still the head of the family as far as Chelish law is concerned.
Reunions are in order where we have a great scene where a Hellknight informs a blacksmith that they are a Lord of Kintargo and their presence is required in the motherland (all while keeping their identity as his daughter hidden, the character was very shy about this reunion). They learn that the father is now indebted to the Church as he ended up on the hook for property damage (50,000g) when the daughter fled. The father was slowly paying off the dept while the church extorted her bounty hunter brother to do dirty work for them.
I really should have asked earlier if the character knew what specific church it was... because it was at this point that I learnt it was the church of Sarenrae and the extortion seemed really weird...
So the church became the Dawnflower Cult on the fly and it was recruiting the characters brother to be one of their assassins... However with some high diplomacy and intimidate, the Church accepted the party paying off the debts on the condition that the character return for judgement later (the player will soon be missing a few session).
From here the character returns to her father and has an awkward reunion and talks her father into coming to Kintargo. The brother was off on a Dawnflower mission at this point as I'm leaving that open to a later tie in.
Book 6, Session 1;
The Investigator fails a perception check...
Negotiations have begun. The group is very off balance that Cheliax is asking for sincere peace, they were very on edge looking for Cheliax ambushes. But they started coming around to the idea after crushing the first three negotiations.
To make the negotiations more organic I used the concessions and changes the PCs suggested instead of the ones listed in the book and used the book as a guideline to decide what the negotiated would and could agree to.
Then on the third night the investigator noticed that the groundskeeper, a very Ravounelian looking man, had tied their boots in the Varisian fashion, not the way is normally taught to children in Ravounel and Cheliax... Suspicious! They told the group that something was off then followed the suspicious groundskeeper... They reached the groundskeeper's lodgings and spent two rounds searching for traps, before entering the lodging (missing the dc 52 perception on both rolls)... Then the assassin dropped down from their hiding in plain sight spot on the roof and used their swift death ability in the surprise round, killing the inquisitor outright...
The group with a high perception roll heard the distant sound of the a body falling to the floor and the sounds of a great deal of blood leaving a body all at once... [/ooc]You know what, forgeting the silent death ability made the fight more interesting.[ooc] The group rushed in, had a hard fight, but eventually won in the end.
I'm glad Mangvhune was an easier fight for this group, because it made this fight feel much bigger by comparison.
They accused the negotiator of sending the assassin but discovered from a speak with dead that they were not the true target.
Next session we conclude the negotiation and the Haunting of Kintargo begins....
Perception and Stealth are the skill rolls most commonly opposed to each other and are the most jarring in highlighting the swinging of the system.
This investigator was quite confident in their untouchable perception, I've had my own character that was equally confident in their perception. To the point that we both questioned whether this continued investment served a purpose (already blowing all the DCs out of the water), and if it was disruptive (With a 50 perception you can hear a bow being drawn at 150 while distracted in a busy market, or hear someone walking behind two walls, a door, 50 ft away, while asleep).
And then that skill fails and you die in the surprise round...
I'm just glad none of my players have ever made a maxed out stealth character.
If you want to test a perception skill, have them go up against the disguise roll of a vigilante. Right now, the maxxed out rogue in my party needs a nat 20 vs. a 1 from the party vigilante and a 1 on their inspiration roll.
And that's with the -10 circumstance penalty I've saddled the vigilante PC with.
Then on the third night the investigator noticed that the groundskeeper, a very Ravounelian looking man, had tied their boots in the Varisian fashion, not the way is normally taught to children in Ravounel and Cheliax... Suspicious!
That's all kinds of awesome.
Book 6, Session 2;
Peace was returned to the the Oakrib Inn as apologies were made for the false accusation sincere efforts to ensure the Negotiator's safety were made.
The team did not receive key concessions from the non-aggression pack and refused the military alliance. It was really obvious that two of the more confrontational players/characters were absent for this session, and their negotiations were obviously weaker because of that.
We had some good roleplaying as the inquisitor of Sarenrae discussed their plan for a new church of Asmodeus within Kintargo with the Negotiator. I feel like I'm a poor roleplayer and my games reflect this so I was really happy with how it went. It also helped that the Sarenrae inquisitor was really gunning to resolve the church subplot I'd just given them.
Sarenrae Sub-Plot!
After the Nine Day War, the Inquisitor of Sarenrae took the temple of Asmodeus for Sarenrae. But after 100 years of inheritance and amount of powerful magic that had been poured into it they were struggling to remove or reconsecrate large parts of it. They requested help from Absolom, and with the Dawnflower Cult involvement in the Skald/Hellknight sub-plot they also offered help. So two knowledgeable priests of Sarenrae are in the temple consulting the Inquisitor. The keystone obstacle to consecration is one particularly stubborn font of hellfire, both priests agree that an appropriate offering to Sarenrae would be appropriate. One recommends a gift given by an enemy, the Dawnflower cult recommends the blood on an enemy that has refused redemption
An enemy that refuses to repent is easy, as almost any enemy can be offered mercy and redemption and almost all their enemies will refuse it. No the Negotiator gifting her mithral bracelet is what I had planned but the Inquisitor missed the first negotiation session, and I didn't want this sub-plot resolved an hour after it was introduced... So The Negotiator parted on good terms but did not gift the bracelet. The instead House Thrune will offer a gift when the Inquisitor follows through on his plans and gives the Asmodians their own church again.
The inquisitor had already earmarked the former church of Zon Kuthon for the Asmodians and had put out job applications for a non-chelaxian high priest to 'witness it's contracts'. All that need to happen in the next session or two is for a priest to arrive and for the Silver Raven to not kill them...
Either way, the reward will be the same. The holy fires will turn the inquisitors scimitar into Mystmorning, an intelligent item with the powers of a unicorn, or an actual unicorn in a blade (the divine is unknowable). This will be a pretty powerful weapon compared to other intelligent weapons, so I'm worried I'm overshooting. I might unlock it's powers slowly as crisis strikes the group, I'm just nervous about making it feel organic, not like deus machina.
Back to Kintargo.
The teleported back to find a haunted city. The first signs being the clouds hanging over the temple and, the smell of sulfur and the paw prints of huge hounds scorched into the streets of Old Kintargo. After a little investigation the team decided that this called for the Song of Silver. Which was a perfect gathering of the Silver Raven and their allies for the Hounds of Old Kintargo to attack.
The team also starting hearing rumors of events in the Greens, the Silverspan, and in the Temple District.
Does your group have someone who can sing the Song of Silver? Or does Shensen do it for them?
The Skald / Hellknight, Lictor of the Order of the Torrent, normally sings it. It is comes across pretty metal...
For this performance Shenshen performed it because the Skald player was absent.
Book 6, Session MANY!!
I've fallen really behind on my posting...
The team cleared out all the haunts. The Greens was my favorite fight, the attacks in waves worked really well.
Then they found their way down to the soul anchor. The ghost rolled minimum recharge time on the breath weapon and was able to kill the mesmerist, luckily they had Shadow Endurance up, so they dodged death. But because the spell would deposit their unconscious body at the dragon's feet at the end of the duration it put a lot of pressure on the team to win instead of fleeing.
The memories of past and future lives was the most fun part of the soul anchor encounter. I described flashes of memories of the player's other characters from starfinder, pathfinder 2, society games, or NPCs they GMed.
The mesmerist caught glimpses of Absalom Station and latched on to Golarion being gone. Group headcanon is now that the mesmerist will dedicate their life to finding out why Golarion goes missing (using the soul anchor to continue after death if required), they will then find out about an unknown impending cataclysm and decide to hide golarion to keep it safe, wiping the whole universe's memory to keep the location hidden... This is of course the mesmerist the got elected Mayor, with no one remembering exactly why he was voted Mayor... suspicious?
They were able to use the Font of Visions to witness Barzillia's torment on the Tower of Bone, so are in a good position to storm hell. At the end of the last session they were fishing for side quests, so I think they are enjoying their characters and not ready to wrap things up. I think this means the we need to eventually do a retirement arc.
The inquisitor gave the Asmodians the old Zon-Kuthon temple, in return the Queen Thrune sent a mithral bracelet as a gesture of goodwill. This bracelet fits the same plot device that the bracelet from the ambassador was intended to. So with a ritual the old temple was re-consecrated to Sarenrae and the Inquisitor's sword was blessed. Their scimitar is not Mystmorning and the powers were gradually revealed over a few sessions. The only power's not revealed are the neutralize poison and teleport abilities (Unicorns can only teleport within forests, should this sword have the same limitation, or should it be only within consecrated ground, or only to consecrated ground?).
They know that is is intelligent but I gave it extremely limited communication, so all they know is if it is content or distressed.
This is of course the mesmerist the got elected Mayor, with no one remembering exactly why he was voted Mayor... suspicious?
Interesting! How'd they pull that off?
At the end of the last session they were fishing for side quests, so I think they are enjoying their characters and not ready to wrap things up. I think this means the we need to eventually do a retirement arc.
Might I suggest trying to stop book 6 of Hell's Vengeance as the villains do their missions? Just tone down the angelic defenses and they're crucial to keeping the gains of the Glorious Reclamation.
They have expressed interest in interfering in that rebellion (non-aggression pact be damned). But I'm apprehensive about skimming 6 books to try to piece together the plot :(
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You don't really need the other five books. It's your basic ...
villains defend their village from the forces of good, get patronage with a tricky Baron, overthrow the Team Good unlawful conversion of Kantaria, mess with a gate to hell that doesn't really play a huge role in their later adventures, throw off the repression of their patron in favor of the patronage of the Queen herself, destroy the HQ of team good, then go destroy Team Good's occupation of Westcrown.
Basically. you'd just need the last two books, if that.
Book 6, Session 6;
The side plots have been resolved, the money has been spent, Thrune has been located, the Silver Ravens are ready to swoop in for a decisive end to this battle for Kintargo;
Everyone got buffed up, ready to rock, opened a portal to Thrune... and ended up somewhere else in Hell.
I'm particularly happy with the Mephistopheles method of re-routing any planar travel. They used the Font of Visions to locate and open a portal to Thrune and dived in fully buffed. My mini map is an old TV with the PDF full screen and zoomed in, so it was set to the Thrune battlefield. Then when they jumped in the portal I started scrolling up past all the rooms on that page in the document, hopefully giving a sense of distance.
The group is engaging with the backstory which I'm happy with, and anytime the content becomes uncomfortable they defuse it by making jokes at Thrune's expense. So successes there. We are just entering the third room.
Nox:
As they discovered that this tower houses all who served Thrune in life, they joked about seeing Nox again... So I need to stat up a Nox and include her somewhere.
I'm considering adding her as my 6 player adjustment to one of the existing encounters (easily a CR 18 or 19 creature), the room for those that 'didn't quite fail' Thrune where petitioners are becoming demons is thematically appropriate if she is going to be a bearded devil with fighter levels. The other option is to add her to the Thrune fight as my 6 player adjustment (this adjustment might be the best adjustment to that fight).
The other decision is what she should be. Making her like Thrune and adding the fighter levels and the broken soul template to a bearded devil is easiest and looks like a good option, it does hint of what those that dipped in the soul anchor can become; but having a second person-devil detracts from Thrune's uniqueness and specialness. I'm open to other options, some type of undead?
Thrune; weakened vs enhanced.
I've been thinking about the players ability to weaken Thrune by taking on the flaws. The having been taking these flaws, because they engage with every mechanic, and are well on the way to to reducing his soul points enough that he will be weakened. I feel like if the players knew the they were making themself weaker to make Thrune weaker, they would instead want to fight him at full strength while full strength (because maximum epicness).
So instead of weakening Thrune, I'm considering giving the group either a mythic tier or a level if they get his soul points below 6. I could explain the mythic tier by having Azrana the psychopomp arrive and bless them; or by explaining that that weakened resolve has to go somewhere and they could leach it, but by leaching it some of the resolve would return the Thrune.
Book 6, Session 7+8;
Crawling through hell is largely going as planned. The portals are making it easy to manage rooms and encounters although the portals (and Mephistopheles rules) prevents much of the shenanigans the party may have been tempted to try.
The high AC of Fangrave slowed the group down and made a memorable fight.
The flashbacks to Thrune's life are working great. They are visceral enough to make an impression on the group, but short enough that it doesn't feel like exposition.
I spoiled some signs of Nox. So ya, I need to stat up a CR 19 devil, broken soul, fighter that delivers on their history of her kicking their ass, while not overshadowing Thrune.
The warmonger devils in the The Cantonment was a slog. I added two more devils as the 6 player adjustment. With my group's high ACs I should have added the advanced template instead.
Book 6, Session 9;
This session only included Corinstian in the Solitary Thousands and Thrune.
For the Corinstain encounter I added an additional Horned Devil and made all three devils advanced as the 6 player adjustment. A round one prismatic spray was able to planeshift Corinstain away before he could even act... that spell is a literal spray and pray. The horned devils performed well; they had a high enough attack bonus to land a few blows and the fear aura was able one of the melee characters.
For Thrune I traded one of his crafting feats out for quickened metamagic so that he could get divine favor up, I also used the mythic power Thrune and told the players these was the weakened version due to the flaws they had taken on (when you read this, sorry). As a six player adjustments I leveled Nox up to a 18 hit dice bearded devil, broken soul and added her in, she was such a memorable villain that it felt right to have her with thrune at the end.
He began the encounter with a blade barrier instead of the summoning spell his tactics use. I had serious reservations about the opening with the summoning spell tactic on a villian: If the team is not able to interrupt his casting; then the fight is now harder when they were already struggling. If the team does their round one alpha strike and interrupts the summoning; the villain has now done nothing for a round against a group that performing well. Enemies summoning in combat has a great place for soft balling encounters without it looking like a softball; The summoned creature is rarely strong enough to be a threat, but it sure feels threatening. In this case it was the worst of both worlds; the pit fiend summon was strong enough that it would make the fight harder, but the group was strong enough that Thrune needed to use every action well. So he won initiative and dropped the blade barrier right on the mesmerist so that he would have to dodge into the ring with Thrune, or back into the column of hellfire. (The mesmerist chose back for 20d6 hellfire damage, protection from fire mitigated half of it...)
Nox performed exactly as planned, in round one she was able to cleave to take a chunk out of two characters, then immediately failed a will save against a hold monster cast by a summoned monster and was coup de graced by the investigator. It was great the this villian that had caused so much pain in the early books went down so trivially. When I made her she had bad saves and intentionally left them bad because Thrune had such good saves, needed to throw a bone to the save or suck spells. I was half expecting the mesmerist to possess her, but this worked just as well.
All told it took the silver ravens 3 rounds to kill Thrune. In round 2 Thrune rolled less than 8 on every attack roll during his full attack and the bloodrage was able to get 200 damage in in one turn even past the 45 AC due to the large number of natural attacks. In round 3 Thrune dropped his critical stagger on the bloodrager hoping to buy some time, but then critically failed his fortitude save against a blinding critical from the investigator; which dropped his AC into kicking circle ranges. At the end of the round he was down, and the heard was returned...
With that the projection of Mephistopheles sent them on their way. I gave a short epilogue hinting at their actions over the next few years and we wrapped it up there. I still hope to do an actual epilogue campaign after a break, as there are several good plot hooks available. But for now, I get to be a player for a while.
Romulus; Sorry for dropping your mini and breaking his arm, I'm even more sorry that you broke his other arm leaving the last game. Your character concept of this 17 year old teenager was a great contrast to highlight the literal and actual hell the Ravens went through.
June; Sorry that we never got to deliver on the brother plotline, it is a huge regret of mine. I loved how this character changed over the course of the rebellion, they started out as a friendly server and ended as a hellknight who was removing a stranger's ribs in hell to execute a contract of hell. Thanks for raising the bar on the food rotation, I always looked forward to your turn on food.
Pulver; Sorry it wasn't the banks all along. Pulver was an impressively consistent character which matched their compulsiveness perfectly. Your roleplaying really brought the whole table up.
Nova; Sorry everything you tried to disintegrate had a good fort save. I feel like in every boss fight, your summons tipped the scales (ants dragging survivors away at the opera house, turtles tanking dragons in the temple, paralyzing Nox in hell). Thank for running the treasure sheet.
Laetonia; Sorry for casting hold person on your tiefling that was immune to hold person and then coup de gracing them. Thanks for all the out of game contributions; The rebellion spreadsheet would have been a lot more difficult without you, your rules expertise was a great resource.
Sigmund; Sorry we never got to develop and use the possessed corruption. As soon a your mesmerist got elected mayor we all just decided he was actually a super-villain and was secretly pulling all the strings, Sorry for making Sigmund's time in the spotlight a running joke. As much as I complained about it slowing us down, I loved the humor you brought to the table.
This was a great group and I am truly fortunate to have met every one of you. I now challenge you to expand this group and find more strangers to game with, because 6 players is a lot and we should split into to two smaller groups, but more importantly because it is an investment in all future games. We will not always play together, but we will always play; Now is the time find others and show them the joys of a group with regular attendance, the ability to identify and resolve our conflicts, and a healthy discussion on the appropriate amount of quarterbacking.
Even though we have similar tastes and play well together, we all prefer different levels of role playing versus tossing dice. You should strive for the perfect game for you, find more players that like more of what you like while knowing who to game with when you want a fix of something different.
With that; fare well Silver Ravens. I look forward to playing with you in the next Adventure Path.
- DM Livgin.
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Bravo, DM Livgin.
I've almost never commented, but I've enjoyed reading about your game from start to finish. The entries are short enough that they don't drag / get into too many details but long enough that others can easily follow along. It's great to see that you completed the AP and that it all went so well.
Be sure to let us know which AP your group plays next. Hopefully either you or the GM start a thread like this one in the forum of that AP.