This is a spoiler-filled resource thread for GMs running the Tyrant's Grasp Adventure Path, specifically for the third adventure, "Last Watch."
Gotta say I personally love the segment chasing down the seal breakers through the sewers. Is there a race of turtle people in Golarion so I can throw in a TMNT reference?
On a more serious note, has there been a writeup on Vigil before? Where should I go looking for ideas to liven up the city and get the "city statblock"?
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Gotta say I personally love the segment chasing down the seal breakers through the sewers. Is there a race of turtle people in Golarion so I can throw in a TMNT reference?
On a more serious note, has there been a writeup on Vigil before? Where should I go looking for ideas to liven up the city and get the "city statblock"?
Vigil has a writeup in Cities of Golarion.
I’m a bit sad that the relics aren’t incorporated into the adventure like they were in War for the Crown, but that’s honestly just a nitpick at this point.
Also, what god does Yosiduin worship?
Follow-up question: is there an image of Arazni’s holy symbol from before she died? I know that Eulogy for Roslar’s Coffer introduced her unholy symbol, but I can’t shake the feeling that her holy symbol looks different (Considering How menacing the symbol in EfRC looks).
COMPLETELY missed that! Thanks, Ron!
EDIT: Okay, so the Seal-Breaker antipaladins are more antipaladins of a philosophy than of religion. Got it!
Are Kilibrandt and Dondun Daradun the only two identified of The Six Wise Crows? I've only had the third book for a day or two now and I was hoping to give The Crows a little more depth so they can take part in my party's run through of The Shattered Shield PFS scenario.
My plan is to have one of my Tyrant's Grasp PCs get sent on a quest to Rahadoum by their arcane master on behalf of the Pathfinder Society. In actuality, they will be unknowingly operating as agents of The Whispering Way(and eliminating the dark lord's adversaries in the process with Zaashakar) as they will recover the shard and deliver it straight to Roslar's Coffer in time for the 1 year anniversary festival of another group of heroes' triumph over the Red Reaver.
Sorry, got a little carried away there, but is there any more to the Six Wise Crows, or is that mine to play with?
They're all named in the background on page 3. Kilibrandt is their leader. She brought in three friends named Barrush, Jasaxi, and Velien (they're all humans, and become the spectres on page 17). Gildais added Dondun Daradun and Usundra to the group, although no one much liked Usundra. No honor among thieves, and all that.
They sure are! Thank you for the quick response... I will be sure to start at the BEGINNING of the book next time. Either way, thank you! Our group cannot wait to start TG!
IIRC, there was a reference to one of the shards given to Gildais being another fake, and that that shard being in the possession of one of the Six Wise Crows (too lazy to try and find where I read that), so why is that never mentioned in Book 3?
EDIT: Also, is there something I’m missing about the marks of justice references all over the place? That spell curses targets when a condition is met, so I find it strange that every Vigil citizen would subject themselves to that. Additionally, what WOULD the condition be for the curse to activate? Just seems like a strange detail for a LG city.
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IIRC, there was a reference to one of the shards given to Gildais being another fake, and that that shard being in the possession of one of the Six Wise Crows (too lazy to try and find where I read that), so why is that never mentioned in Book 3?
This is mentions in PFS S10-10, The Shattered Shield. I am planning on bridging some gaps with the shield's story by integrating this module in my campaign. I plan on using
My guess as to why there is no mention of the fake shard is that it is ultimately irrelevant to the overall plot, considering there are other shards of the shield that can be used by the Whispering Tyrant.
For the map of the Redoubt on pg. 20 there's two squares labeled with a "C" , what is that about?
I’m a bit sad that the relics aren’t incorporated into the adventure like they were in War for the Crown, but that’s honestly just a nitpick at this point.
Also, what god does Yosiduin worship?
So I'm incorporating a PFS module - night march of Kalkamedes - as a prequel to this AP. The macguffin at the end will be the Grace of the Last Azlanti. The PCs will then be tasked to take it to Lastwall. En route, they stop at Roslar's Coffer for AP1. The relic is what protects them and sets in motion the events of TG.
So I'm personally glad the relics aren't already added.
Really good scenario once again ! I really like how this AP is going. I have to admit, I did not expect you to destroy Vigil !
Do the surviving civilians of Vigil have an obol too, since they have been exposed to the Radiant Fire ?
How do you "disable" the Tome of True Names with Disable Device ? You would need to read the book and blank the "dangerous words", but that would trigger the trap.
1st session of this book last week. The players were stoked to finally be able to shop and interact with non-combatants in a relatively normal setting. They interacted with 2 NPCs initially (the Iomedaean priestess and the retired reliquary guard), then went to go find Doeswyn. Completely trounced the encounters at the guard post. The mortic + death priest encounter was very cramped.
Found the notes, so they headed to the blacksmith. I had some interesting adjudication for an Aqueous Orb rolling around the area, reasonably putting out fires and reducing the heat hazards. I ruled that it removed the flaming collapse ceiling and moved the line for the round-by-round heat damage, then dissipated against the fire elemental. One of my players was SUPER FRUSTRATED when he found out that it was a summon because they really went all out on that poor elemental and killed it round 4.
The courier note for the ambush worked beautifully. The fact that directions were included made the players not question it at all, so there was no follow-up to determine any of the relevant red flags. Quoth the players: "Ugh, fine, we'll go talk to the Pathfinder and then go take a nap." They were very low on resources at this point.
Kilibrandt was a tough fight, even with her sneak attack being effectively disabled by her height advantage. The PCs did opt to release her after interrogating her under a Candle of Truth, which they realized made everything about the encounter more difficult since they knew she wasn't lying. They forced her to promise to immediately leave town and said no closer than Absalom, so I have a rebuilt level 16 poisoner rogue to play with in Book 6. Haven't decided what I'm going to do with her yet, but figured I'd share. She's very, very poison focused and I gave her the upgrade of going Unchained, as well.
Session ended after that, will be doing the rest of not-yet-in-the-sewers next session.
I'm imagining the look on your players' faces when they realize that they are indeed at Absalom and oh, there is a book 3 villain. "No closer than Absalom you say..."
I'm looking forward to it. My general impression is that if the party is struggling, there will be special consideration for known criminals who contribute to the city's defense, leading Kilibrandt to help the PCs in some combat. If they're doing fine, then she'll add into some combat.
In either case, not much is going to be hitting that +45 stealth mod as she max range sneak attacks with the goggles added. ;-)
This is the only book where we talk about the Seal Breakers, correct ? I'm wondering about changing them as just being an obscure branch of the Whispering Way if that's the case.
Had a session last week, but it was quite short. Basically, all we did was the Dyeworks and NPC interactions. They were well aware of the ooze and avoided it entirely, 2-rounded the spectres, and had a jolly romp with not-Hats (the otyughs). As they had completely gathered all evidence and one of the PCs has a Diplomacy modifier in the high teens, there was no issue presenting evidence to the NPCs and soliciting their aid.
Tomorrow night, I get to see how dead the paladin will be when he gets the triple Smite Good thrown at him since the front line is him + 2 animal companions.
Good. That addresses the same issues I was having with the NPCs
I know it doesn’t help anyone who is already started the game, but one of my PC’s backstories is that they are the progeny of the head maiden of the Mourners of Arazni. I’ve had some of the iomedaens growing weary of the MOA and tension building.
She is an aasimar that has trained with Ceto and played out the childhood rivalry aspect. Being a haunted aasimar that is affected by an aspect of Ragathiel has caused our PC to act out in training and stunted her true potential in raising rank in vigil. However, her natural prowess would maintain her in stride with her most fierce rival, Ceto.
During the theft of the shards I had a second guard who was not so lucky and wound up dead. Ceto, at this point on the investigation began stringing together a theory that it was in fact the devils blood in our oracle that possessed her to act out.
She was put on trial and sent out to Roslar’s coffer where she essentially stood post at the dmz around the reaver’s domain until some pathfinders came along and cleared out the beast. She then began aiding the effort to repopulate roslar’s coffer was shunted to level 1 with her first mortal expiration.
Given the drastic measures that our PCs have taken to get back to vigil the towns representatives are willing to give an ear to the party, but are leery because of ceto’s deceptions.
Since our party is currently in the 3rd act of book two I have been supplementing with a few one-shots setting the stage in vigil. Each time if used ceto in a positive way, often the quest giver or trainer. I have also not revealed to my haunted time oracle whether or not she is actually guilty of the crime, so it will be a fun payoff for the mystery to be solved.
This device is giving me the ability to play up the apprehension of the members of notability to aid the PCs or take them seriously. I feel like every time I play up a scenario where the PCs have to warn a city of impending doom, they always ask, “why aren’t they listening to us!?”
I’ve also added some flesh golem attacks from the defiled corpse tribe as they’ve set up in viashau ruin to the north east that ceto has been actually dealing with, so an additional red herring threat will also push the PCs from asking the dreaded question.
Hopefully I’ve given them enough of a reason. I love finding answers in splat books to answer my deepest concerns about a fun and sensible plot.
Hope that gives a little inspiration! I wanted to make Vigil huge... before I blow it up!
I realized I forgot to post about the sewer journey 2 weeks ago (I was mentally on a work trip already). It was remarkably unremarkable, though I did get 2 smite good hits on the paladin in succession, giving him a serious case of daaaaayyyyyyyyyyuuuuuuuuuuummmmm. They were fine, though, because they went invis and flew past the croc.
Party reminder for those not familiar with my group: I'm running a 3 player gestalt table - pally/swash, ranger/warpriest, hunter/slayer.
Redoubt storytime GOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
I had session 1 of the redoubt tonight. The PCs did all of the outer section and arrived battered and bruised at the inner portion. Smartly, they wore the holy symbols to avoid the graven guardian encounter and the Demigod's Demise haunt was noticed and promptly neutralized.
Nobody felt like using their Sense Motive skills on the sump steward and they gleefully walked straight into Snapper. I was kind and did not use AoOs constantly, but nearly killed 1 PC and 1 animal companion. The real problem with the encounter is that the creature had enough mouths to engulf the entire party. Complicating factors included the swash/pally not being able to rapier Snapper because of the climb speed and reach. Quoth the players: "this could be the most embarrassing TPK ever." I had cast a picture of Audrey II from Little Shop of Horrors up when the fight started because it just felt appropriate.
There were a lot of suspicions about the lung jar. It's creepy and fun.
And now, for the grand story of "THIS TOWER IS ***************************S!"
First off, thank you Larry. This was a blast. As much as my players suffered, they really did enjoy everything this had to offer.
So the party sees the boats and decide this is a much better option than a bridge. Cleverquill sees them, comes over, and tells them to leave for face CERTAIN DOOM. I played him as goofy-stupid and the players sufficiently angered him to start the combat. Half the party decided to jump over the water to the island, while the remainder was getting ready to boat. First available target to CQ: the halfling swash/pally, who I unceremoniously Awesome Blow into the water, angering him into blowing many resources to finish the fight. The fight does not go much longer because there was a Smite Evil blown. I call that a success.
The party goes up the stairs, the ranger/warpriest notices the haunt and blasts it before it can do its schtick, they proceed east toward the geist. Open door, combat starts and the geist (amazingly) wins initiative, using the laugh to panic the hunter/slayer and his bird. The hunter/slayer jumps off the bridge into the water to flee, swims ashore, then waits there for the rest of the combat. The rest of the party pretty handily take out the geist, they find the rapier, and ranger/warpriest fails to identify, so they call up the hunter/slayer to give it a shot.
THIS TOWER IS ***************************S!
The haunt has reset because of the geist. Hunter/slayer gets to the top of the stairs, fails to notice in time, and fails the save vs telekinesis. While he's healing, the rest of the party heads over to south bridge to check out this interesting door, then throw a rope down so hunter/slayer can climb up instead of dealing with the haunt again.
THIS TOWER IS ***************************S!
The party notices the Blade Barrier trap and hunter/slayer goes to disarm...and botches, failing by more than 10. Trap goes off, nearly killing the ranger/warpriest's pet (it had failed the save) and soaking the party yet again. It is at this time that they decide to use the bridge. Some expletives are used, not least of which being the bold title of this section of my story.
We ended with the door and the easy avoiding of the rock trap, which I had requested for the sole purpose of being able to erase the map. In 2 weeks, we wrap up the Redoubt and the real fun of book 3 begins. By far, this has been the most laughter and joy of the table so far, with most of the game being practically slapstick in the face of otherwise heavy content.
Hey all, I'm getting ready to prep for book 3 and am looking to flesh out Vigil as much as possible. I have a few players that are going to be chomping at the bit to play out some RP and intrigue after the meat-grinder that is books 1 and 2.
I've been trying to collect as many of the important PCs mentioned in all of the books so I can give them a very detailed and "alive" city... Before I explode the whole thing :)
This is what I have so far, and will be altering some relationships based on character backstory stuff. I also have some moving parts involving other factions from supplementary modules that I've run along the way. I plan on extending per-catastrophe Vigil quite a bit since this is my group's wheelhouse. Please let me know if I've missed anyone important!
Watcher-Lord Ulthun II(LG Human Paladin of Iomedae 14)I have him as now 22 years old-having held his post for 3 years. In cities of Golarion he is listed as 19 and level 6, but in book 4 of this AP he is far more advanced. I have him leveled up in this instance from his continued training that he continues to undergo even at his elevated position.
Precentor Martial of Scouting Keyron Saiville(CG Human Ranger 2/ Fighter 4/ Low Templar 3) Gorumite Scoutmaster. Not much to read about him, but I plan on using him to further a story-line with our once half-orc turned duskwalker Magus.
Percentor Martial of Magic Veena Heliu(GC Half-Elf Sorcerer 8) Not a ton about her either, but in my game she will have been present for the court-martial and subsequent exile to Roslar's Coffer for my Aasimar Oracle PC. Veena was my PC's biggest advocate, but Ceto(the PC's childhood rival) testified as a witness against her which forced Veena's hand. I wrote a previous post about the tension between my PC and Ceto to aid with the city's apprehension to immediately aid the PCs regarding the threat in Roslar's Coffer.
Precentor Martial of Cavalry - Haven't found anything - I was thinking of making up a character for this post. He or she would be mostly tending to one of the extra-dimensional stables. I would love to have someone for this position just so the PCs can see the awesome capabilities of their cavalry and numbers... Before I blow them up :)
Precentor Martial of Infantry - Haven't found anything - I am thinking of putting Ranton Gandry here and making this festival also serve as his elevation to this post. Part of what got my oracle PC implicated and ultimately exiled was the incident with the shield theft, which at the time even Gandry was fooled. Having Ranton dealing with the guilt as it unfolds could make for an interesting angle.
Precentor Martial of Garrison and Siege - Haven't found anything - Part of the Defiled Corpse tribe story-line was that they sent some doppelgangers to scout and infiltrate Vigil. I was thinking of having this character be one of the Doppelgangers. This would help me generate red-herring situations and help muddle the PCs investigations. I consider to have him played by a rigid Abadarian, since those types usually make the PCs already see red.
I've got a ton more NPCs that I've pulled form the source material, but I just wanted to check with everyone to see if I missed anything on the Precentor Martials. My party will no doubt ask who they are when I tell them about the posts and 5 positions. Please let me know if I missed anything, or if anyone is interested in a list of the other NPCs I've found to help with your game!
Thanks All
2 session update
Redoubt part 2
Honestly, this was pretty uneventful. No crystal golem fight because they were wearing the holy symbols openly, I had Evark join the sealbreaker knights for a marginal challenge. The party accepted Dondun's request and Dondun proved himself to them by dominating Roscasco, whose primary job was to keep monsters away from Dondun. The uranag was sort of a joke and Yosiduin practically did nothing. After the stunning setbacks of part 1 of the redoubt, the party was ultimately more cautious in part 2. It was not a particularly memorable session because of this.
The Grim Dawn
The party was suitably aghast at the devastation and hurried to the cathedral. Troop + Trench Mist was basically a speedbump (though the relatively automatic damage did nearly kill an animal companion), though the introduction of troop rules was unenthusiastically received. The party engaged well with the situation up top, Dondun volunteered himself and the dominated Roscasco to assist with the defense.
The party avoided the Greater Shadow encounter by treating the place with respect and went to Urketikus first. Hydraulic Push remains a mainstay spell for the party and was used to push Aylunna out of the circle, but she was promptly confused by the skull swarm. By the time the confusion was over, the party had obliterated the opposition, so she never really got to help.
Ceto...she hits hard. She went directly for the hunter/slayer as a weak target and temporarily killed him due to a First Aid Glove BoL use. I never had the opportunity to put up Battle Lust because Ceto had to furiously heal with swifts after the first turn to stay relevant. The fallen were pretty ineffective overall - they're probably the most appropriately CR'd critter in B6 - and did very little except soak up actions from the animal companions, but the party did use the incense of corporeality on them. Ceto was ultimately captured alive, stripped of gear, and left with Aylunna for judgment as we ended the session.
Ceto was ultimately captured alive, stripped of gear, and left with Aylunna for judgment as we ended the session.Oh, then I'm sure she'll end up okay. :-)
I haven't decided how to handle that fully, but I think that's ok given the parting of ways in book 4. Just gonna leave that one loose for now. Who knows? Maybe she decides to set out with the watchknights in book 4.
We wrapped up book 3 this weekend and it was fairly anticlimactic from the GM seat.
Writhing Reed was a bit of a joke. The PCs spotted it at a significant distance (Perception 48 or some such nonsense), so it had to close to engage. The hunter/slayer used Thorny Entanglement and made that fairly impossible to accomplish. It did nothing to the PCs but expend a spell slot and some arrows. That said, from a system mastery perspective, that's my weakest player so it was a great choice that played out amazingly well.
The PCs then began the Nightwing prep. They were very cautious with the book before engaging with it, so they discovered the trap and disarmed it successfully, though were stymied by their lack of ability to identify the effects on Veena.
The PCs then asked Evni for relevant assistance before firing the ballista. She committed Prayer and one use of Bit of Luck to whoever was going to fire the ballista. The party quickly realized "oh yeah, smite doesn't have a range, so it's the paladin/swashbuckler's job."
He crit. Anabarondyne failed the save with a nat 1. 164 damage.
Turns out that CR 14 critters aren't very threatening when they don't get a turn. The hunter/slayer landed a follow-up crit on the next initiative tick that felled it.
Moving on, they got everyone to the boat. It is at this point that we discover the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad truth: the draugr troop has evasion. While the turtle is a reasonable melee threat and Charkavo a deadly one, the troop is effectively immune to most effects from spellcasters due to the combination of decent saves, undead traits, and evasion. Given that my party's most dedicated spellcaster during this encounter is Dondun, the troop is sort of a weird threat to them. If they had a specialist caster, the DCs would be higher, but the NPCs best choice abilities all look primarily at the troop, which just sorta matrix'd their way out of the path of a lightning bolt.
The turtle ties up the attention of pally/swash and one animal companion for a few rounds, which is enough for the troop to flood up and engage everybody while providing the flank for Charvako against the ranger/warpriest. The turtle went down in round 3, freeing up those two to engage elsewhere, but ranger/warpriest had to withdraw off the side of the boat while staggered to go heal himself.
During this time, the only character engaging the troop is Roscasco (who Dondun had dominated in the Redoubt). He's not great at it, but he flurried his heart out in those rounds and did quite a bit of damage. Once Charvako fled and the turtle died, the PCs dealt with the troop and helped the wounded.
In 2 weeks, we begin book 4 and all the excitement it contains. We'll see how that turns out.
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We started book 3 some times ago with my group. This book has some cool ideas, but after talking a bit with my players, they didn't like the execution of the investigation :/
I tried to present them some NPCs from the main ones you have to report to, using the fact that some of the characters came from/to Vigil earlier (the cavalier studied there to become a Knight of Ozem, and the Sorcerer/Draconian disciple met Evni who told her to go to Roslar's Coffer) as a hook.
They immediatly tried to present Valtazar's diary and the fragments of the Fetoring Maw as proof to Varvatos... I had to improv there since it was not told those were acceptable proofs. They found it weird that Varvatos allowed a group of nobodies to investigate in Vigil without believing them and without asking some guards to keep an eye on them, but they ended up accepting it. They also did not ask anybody about Gildais (they explained to me that in their mind, they had to investigate that themselves, and that this was a secret mission), and I had to remind them that they had to investigate on him when they were talking to Evni. They couldn't understand how Evni just thought Ranton was talking about another Gildais without pressing him more about it while she is the one to give them the more backstory on him. Then, there was the fact that Doeswen was reasigned just for sounding a false alarm. That one was really hard for them to accept. The cavalier almost lost his values of hierarchical respect when Veena Heliu told him the group was probably the victims of some illusion magic (quoting my players : "Even if you're right, if someone took the effort of making an illusion of an entire city, then that's because they have something huge to hide"). The straw that broke the camel back was when Brunna told them she did not think that forging a replica of the Broken Shield with cracks in it was suspicious...
So... yeah, my group and I are not great fans of this investigation part, and I had to change some parts afterward.
But, appart from the investigation, the rest of the book looks promising, and they had fun with what we did :)
Anyway, on my summary of those sessions...
*Session 1 : Winning their trust*
They interacted with most of the NPCs on the first day (the only one they did not was Ceto Malderra, and they spoke to Veena later). They were pretty bummed that Varvatos did not trust them, but pressed on with the help of Ranton and Evni nonetheless, decided to save the city weither it wanted it or not, agreed with Varvatos to meet her at the cathedral when the sun set, and went to the Northguard post.
They spotted the hanged guard and had the nice idea to give their Ring of Feather Fall to the druid who polimorphed in a crow, put the ring on the guard's finger, and pecked the noose to cut it. Then they proceeded to climb, and to crush the wights. As they were not particularly stealthy in B3, Usundra and Okagu embushed them behind the door in the corridor next to B3, Okagu acting as a meatshield for Usundra while scarring the sh*t out of the PCs. This was a very neat battle.
They found the documents, and came back to the cathedral to meet Varvatos (who was talking with Veena Heliu at the time), and presented the documents to both of them. Then, with Vavatos and Heliu's blessing, they went to Brunna's forge, killed the elemental, spotted Dondun, and saved Rolf. When they went in C4, the druid was polimorphed as a Fire Elemental, so... Rolf panicked, shot, and the swarshbuckler promptly charged him and knocked him unconscious. They took the shields and ran for an escape... which was fun when Brunna told them to take one of the shield she stocked in C4, and the cavalier got them out of their bag of holding while saying "you mean, those shields ?"
We ended the first session after Brunna told them about the shield.
*Session 2 : Kilibrandt's downfall*
I retconned a bit Brunna at the start of this session, changing her dialog. Basically, I made her explain that she worked for Kilibrandt under duress, playing Kilibrandt as something more of a mastermind. Dondun put a mark on Rolf, and Kilibrandt and him told Brunna to craft a replica of the shield, then to keep silent, or the curse he put on Rolf would kill him. In the end, Dondun activated the curse in order to destroy all proofs, thus summoning the fire elemental. Now that the mark disappeared from Rolf's body, she told the truth to the PCs, and they convinced her to report to the authorities and to seek a mean to check the shield currently displayed to prove it is a fake. They visited the swashbuckler's mom, then went to sleep.
First thing in the morning, they went straight to the Erstwhile Dieworks. On the way, they met "Kilibrandt" (a double that was working for her under duress), and after some talk the combat started. The PCs really liked this battle, as it was very strategic due to the buildings. 10/10 would knock out Kilibrandt again. They captured Kilibrandt (unconscious) and the hunters (dogs dead, body double and one hunter unconscious, the other surrendered), and the last hunter explained to them that his adopted sister (the gnome), his brother and him were - you know the pattern now - working under duress for Kilibrandt, who had captured their father, a merchant. The PCs told Jando to get those suspects to the guards, and ran to the dieworks, fearing that the rest of the Wise Crows were destroying proofs there.
They almost lost the sorcerer to the specters. Those things hit easily. I don't think they are that dangerous, but our swashbuckler really had a hard time because of them (he was the only one to fail his save against them). The Otyughs almost TPK'd, but that was because of an error of translation from one of my players (we translated "sickened" as "nauseated" ^^' Rendering the cavalier and the sorcerer useless for the entirity of this battle). As usual, the druid got grappled (I swear, this happens every time they meet some creature that can grapple, and I'm not even trying to target him).
And then, they met it.
The Putrid Ooze.
This creature absolutely cancelled the group. Red Dragon Sorcerer specialized in Fire spells ? Nope, Resist Fire 20. Druid who's only means of dealing significant damages are Electricity spells ? Nuh-uh, Resist Electricity 20. Cavalier trying to hit it with a sword ? Lol, your sword takes 2d6 acid damages, and take 6d6+16+2d6 slam damages. Swashbuckler trying to hit it with a crossbow ? DR 10 baby.
I think I never saw my players so scared for their lives. And I made them fight Tar Baphon himself last year.
The druid burned the heck out of their Rod of Ice with snow storms just to slow it down, and I allowed the cavalier to make the mill wheel spin so that the ooze is even more slowed. The ooze sniped the druid with its splatter, making him go unconscious, and everybody freaked out when they realized it had a ranged attack. They almost ran away through the sewers, but the sorcerer kept bombarding the ooze with Fireballs, and it ended up dying thanks to some crazy rolls. Huh... As they say, "if brute force is not the answer, that is because you did not apply enough brute force"... They were SUPER proud of them after this, and this was super fun :)
This ooze is insane. If you don't have a character able to make spell damages other than electricity and fire, you need some crazy luck to kill it.
Now they are taking a break and investigating a bit more, and rescuing Doeswen. Next session : the sewers :)
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Prepping the sewers and the redoubt : the Crystal Golem
Those parts look really fun, and with Serisan summaries as an indication I'm sure we will have a lot of crazy shenanigans.
However, I would like to know if some of you had the chance to try out the Crystal Golem encounter, and how it went out. This thing seems as crazy as the putrid ooze, at least for my players. Just the Explode Head can one-shot anybody in my group, and they don't have any mean to resurect somebody. How well did your groups do ? Do you have any advice on how to run this encounter ?
I'm prepping for Book 3 (we start in a few weeks) and looking ahead at the skeleton of the plot I have a few concerns.
1. My feeling is that hunting down the location of the dyeworks should take an in-game day - that is to say that going through the kidnapping and the burning shouldn't take more than a couple of hours, game time. At that point, my party will likely want to press on and go after the dyeworks ASAP. It'll be a long adventuring day, but it looks like it'll be one day. Which leads me to the question - where do they find time to go back and "Report" to the higher-ups? I think that has to happen later. Though, by this time, they will be aware of the importance of the Shattered Shield. They are just as likely to get distracted by this and head off to Castle Overwatch to investigate that - suggestions on what to do there?
2. By the time the PCs are back on the surface after killing Yosiduin they should be Level 10. What's to stop them from teleporting straight to the ballista bastion (or out of the city entirely)?
3. The Golden Dawnrose is, tbh, too small for all those refugees. I think in my campaign, I'm going to have a small fleet of ships pulling up along the river (not even in the harbor). This fleet will be a trading fleet coming upstream. And while I get the whole idea that the military wants to rally at Castle Everstand, that simply seems like a terrible decision, strategically. (Actually, most of what Lastwall does seems strategically stupid - from the whole Belkzen front to putting Vigil on the wrong side of the river). So I'm having the fleet go east - especially as the senior Lastwall officials left standing aren't from the military. I'll move the castle where Arazni meets the PCs downstream.
I think that's it.
Not sure what to do about point 1. My players just sorta rolled with it.
2. By the time the PCs are back on the surface after killing Yosiduin they should be Level 10. What's to stop them from teleporting straight to the ballista bastion (or out of the city entirely)?
Nothing really "stops" the PCs from doing either of those things. The AP assumes Good (or at least compassionate or patriotic) characters and some amount of appreciation for Iomedae's cathedral sounding a distress signal as they exit the Redoubt. If the PCs don't bite on helping the survivors and instead just leave the city, this should have massive ramifications at the end of book 4 while dealing with the Watcher-Lord's entourage. It may also have an impact on Arazni in the opposite direction - she has no love of Lastwall and would be appreciative of the PCs focus on themselves. She is, after all, a practical woman.
As far as skipping to objectives, it doesn't do so much to advance the story if the PCs go directly to a ballista tower. They probably shouldn't be particularly aware of any single ballista tower being around after the Radiant Fire hits. Lastwall is not small enough that you can reasonably see all structures at once, especially with trench mists and such floating about. If the PCs did avoid Sancta Iomedaea, there's the distinct possibility that the troop + trench mist just rolls through and kills all of the refugees since it's poised to do just that when the PCs arrive on the regular schedule. If the PCs managed to rescue Aylunna, I would consider that adequate success for the book 4 finale because, unless the PCs state otherwise to her, they were just late for the call to arms.
3. The Golden Dawnrose is, tbh, too small for all those refugees. I think in my campaign, I'm going to have a small fleet of ships pulling up along the river (not even in the harbor). This fleet will be a trading fleet coming upstream. And while I get the whole idea that the military wants to rally at Castle Everstand, that simply seems like a terrible decision, strategically. (Actually, most of what Lastwall does seems strategically stupid - from the whole Belkzen front to putting Vigil on the wrong side of the river). So I'm having the fleet go east - especially as the senior Lastwall officials left standing aren't from the military. I'll move the castle where Arazni meets the PCs downstream.
I think that's it.
I think it's worth noting that the rally at Castle Everstand is intended, in part, to be a means for the refugees to provide the book 4 finale influence. If you haven't read that far ahead in the AP, I really, really recommend doing so. Yes, there's a lot of terrible decisions made by Lastwall. The best answer for that in the post-RF world is that they're desperate and panicking, having lost their purpose, home, and loved ones in an instant. Watcher-Lord Ulthun II, however, was not in Vigil, nor were his top advisors. NPCs such as Aylunna and Ceto would likely be aware of this, which is why the castle "makes sense."
As far as the boat, I'm assuming the survivors are basically packed in like sardines.
Re-reading this Book, it strikes me that the state of the city after the Radiant Fire detonates, and the urgency to get citizens to safety would dissuade PC's from resting. In addition, I find it unlikely (but not impossible) that the PC's would like the idea of sleeping in the sewers while tracking down Yosiduin. Finally, after defeating Yosiduin, the PC's could very well rest there in the Redoubt of the Red Crusader, but they could also decide "well, that's mission accomplished, time to Teleport to the surface!", so the GM will probably be predisposed to starting Part 3 shortly after Yosisuin is defeated. Doing this, though, could rightly cause the PC's to immediately Teleport to the surface to see what the source of the quakes is.
What I'm getting at is if things line up above in the worst way, the PC's could be looking at clearing the Dyeworks, the sewers, and the Redoubt of the Red Crusader in one day, then Teleport or otherwise return to the surface without resting, and find themselves in a high-stakes emergency with no chance to rest in sight, which means that after clearing the Dyrworks, sewers, and the Redoubt, they'll need to also help at the Sancta Iomedae, deal with Ceto and the Undead in the Ossuaries of the Fallen, take down the Haunting Dark, and then deal with the multi-wave combat aboard the Golden Dawnrose. On no rests.
Am I missing something? How has the second half of this run for other groups in this regard?
I did not see your post earlier, hope I'm not too late.
I'm prepping for Book 3 (we start in a few weeks) and looking ahead at the skeleton of the plot I have a few concerns.
1. My feeling is that hunting down the location of the dyeworks should take an in-game day - that is to say that going through the kidnapping and the burning shouldn't take more than a couple of hours, game time. At that point, my party will likely want to press on and go after the dyeworks ASAP. It'll be a long adventuring day, but it looks like it'll be one day. Which leads me to the question - where do they find time to go back and "Report" to the higher-ups? I think that has to happen later. Though, by this time, they will be aware of the importance of the Shattered Shield. They are just as likely to get distracted by this and head off to Castle Overwatch to investigate that - suggestions on what to do there?
I would suggest a worst case scenario and find a way to give them the rewards at a later time, without having them report. My players wanted to do everything ASAP too.
I mitigated the problem by telling them the night was settling once they returned from the watch post, and then telling them they are starting to get really tired and that they were deep in the night after they saved the dwarves.If they want, allow them to go find the different NPCs where they normally work during the night or early in the morning (like the church for Varvatos) so that they can talk to the NPCs outside of the "normal hours" once they met them at least once.
For number 2, Serisan already said it all. You will see that a big amount of the campaign will count on the players being "good hearted heroes" more and more frequently.
3. The Golden Dawnrose is, tbh, too small for all those refugees. I think in my campaign, I'm going to have a small fleet of ships pulling up along the river (not even in the harbor). This fleet will be a trading fleet coming upstream. And while I get the whole idea that the military wants to rally at Castle Everstand, that simply seems like a terrible decision, strategically. (Actually, most of what Lastwall does seems strategically stupid - from the whole Belkzen front to putting Vigil on the wrong side of the river). So I'm having the fleet go east - especially as the senior Lastwall officials left standing aren't from the military. I'll move the castle where Arazni meets the PCs downstream.
I think that's it.
I think it's worth noting that the rally at Castle Everstand is intended, in part, to be a means for the refugees to provide the book 4 finale influence. If you haven't read that far ahead in the AP, I really, really recommend doing so. Yes, there's a lot of terrible decisions made by Lastwall. The best answer for that in the post-RF world is that they're desperate and panicking, having lost their purpose, home, and loved ones in an instant. Watcher-Lord Ulthun II, however, was not in Vigil, nor were his top advisors. NPCs such as Aylunna and Ceto would likely be aware of this, which is why the castle "makes sense."
As far as the boat, I'm assuming the survivors are basically packed in like sardines.
Even though your explanation makes sense, Serisan, I still think that it would be more logic to have the boat go away from Virlych rather than closer. There's no explanation in the book itself that tells us it's because Ulthun is there. I think the surviving spellcasters should send him a magical message instead of throwing citizens in the maw of the beast on the offchance that Ulthun can save them.
I agree with your idea of having multiple vessels. You can even make the giant turtle destroy one or two ships when it appears for dramatic effect.
Re-reading this Book, it strikes me that the state of the city after the Radiant Fire detonates, and the urgency to get citizens to safety would dissuade PC's from resting. In addition, I find it unlikely (but not impossible) that the PC's would like the idea of sleeping in the sewers while tracking down Yosiduin. Finally, after defeating Yosiduin, the PC's could very well rest there in the Redoubt of the Red Crusader, but they could also decide "well, that's mission accomplished, time to Teleport to the surface!", so the GM will probably be predisposed to starting Part 3 shortly after Yosisuin is defeated. Doing this, though, could rightly cause the PC's to immediately Teleport to the surface to see what the source of the quakes is.
What I'm getting at is if things line up above in the worst way, the PC's could be looking at clearing the Dyeworks, the sewers, and the Redoubt of the Red Crusader in one day, then Teleport or otherwise return to the surface without resting, and find themselves in a high-stakes emergency with no chance to rest in sight, which means that after clearing the Dyrworks, sewers, and the Redoubt, they'll need to also help at the Sancta Iomedae, deal with Ceto and the Undead in the Ossuaries of the Fallen, take down the Haunting Dark, and then deal with the multi-wave combat aboard the Golden Dawnrose. On no rests.
Am I missing something? How has the second half of this run for other groups in this regard?
I think you are correct. That indeed can become problematic. As of now, my players did all the sewers in one go until the old temple of Arazni with Snapper and decided to sleep there after being allowed by its guardian (I will post about it later). When the explosion will detonate on the surface, I will probably act as if the obols react to the explosion and knock uncounscious the PCs, thus forcing them to take a long rest before starting the 3rd Part. Maybe you can even use Evni's motherly persona to force the PCs to take a rest when they get to the tower, stating that she thinks the PCs are in a really bad shape and need some rest.
The trickiest part will probably be to make the explosion without exposing the teleporting players to it directly, so to not kill them. Again.
Session 3 : The sewers
So, last month we started the sewers section. I'm globally satisfied with this session.
I used the first seal-breaker knights to dump some infos on Yosiduin and the otyughs while arguing with each other as suggested by the scenario. The battle went pretty well. One knight has been sent in the water, soon joined by the Cavalier who failed his acrobatics skill check after the Sorcerer fumbled her own skill check while she was trying to pass his square (I ruled that the section they were on was too slippery and small for them to pass each others space without problems). The Druid was hidden in the water as a Water Elemental and casted spells from afar to help the others, while the Cavalier was desperatly fighint with the submerged knight while the Sorcerer tried to help out with her reach weapon, and the Swashbuckler and Jando were fighting the other knights. The battle went on pretty long. There was an Indiana Jones moment with a Knight and the Swashbuckler gauging each other front accross a bridge for one round, swords in hands, before the Swashbuckler whiped out his arbalet and shot the Knight, enraging him enough to make him charge on the brigdge... for the Druid to Vortex him to death.
They managed to keep one Knight alive, but decided to keep going in case they lose the other Knights tracks.
They met with the Otyughs. The encounter went on pretty well, with the PCs parleying with the Otyughs and promising to defeat the knights (while awkwardly trying to dodge the subject of the soothsayers to not tell the Otyughs they were the ones who killed them) and recovered the Glove of Storing. It took them some times before thinking about checking if something was stored in it. The Cavalier discarded his own scabbard, which was promptly taken by the Otyughs. Jokes about the poor next party of adventurers who would have to settle for a normal scabbard as a gift of thanks from the Otyughs ensued.
Even though they were warned about Old Leatherback, the combat was tough. I had put the Evolved archetype on the dire crocodile so that it would not die too quickly, but that was a big mistake. Sorcerer and Druid were enough in the back to be able to cast, but after one or two turns Old Leatherback one-shoted Cavalier after a nasty death roll. It's a miracle that Swashbuckler did not get hit, and he had to focus on defense to dodge every attack while not being able to hit himself. I kind of aggravated the fight when I said that Old Leatherback went back underwater on turn 2, making it untargettable by anyone except Druid who was still a Water Elemental... My players really did not like this battle. Old Leatherback already deals massive damages, and evolving it really was not a smart move in retrospect. Anyway, Fireballs and Explosion of Electricities were dispensed in large amount.
They arrived just before the door to the redoubt at the end of this session.
Session 4 : Unexpected discoveries
This session started on a great start. The players were sure the door was trapped. They went on to examine the door... but did not think about checking the floor in front of it. Two characters were hit by the trap. The trap dealt so much damages that I stated that the characters could get out of the area of effect by crawling for one turn, because otherwise I would have two kills. Between this and the previous session, everyone is ill (except for Druid who is immune to illnesses at this point).
Druid summoned an Earth Elemental to the other side of the door, since he could see through the crack between the doors, and asked the elemental to open it for them. The knight immediatly casted their Protection spell to make the Elemental unable to approach them and remained hidden. As usual, Sorcerer was ready to cast a Fireball in the room to kill everyone, but was convinced otherwise in case the barrels contained explosive materials. In the end it was Druid who casted his Explosion of Electricity. My players sure love their AoE spells.
The rest was pretty uneventful until they discovered the Bloodstone. They destroyed the statues, triggered the haunt (my players hate haunts because they can't do anything about them, but at least it gave some backstory to this place and allowed them to confirm that these ruins are linked to Arazni), and explored the overgrown temple. Snapper was a tricky battle since he grappled Cavalier pretty quickly, but other than that things went well.
Then they explored the temple and fount the Bloodstone, which was standing in a pool of blood. "Awesome, some urn that has an aura so powerful that it blinded Druid, sitting in a pool of blood. This is not creepy at all" said Cavalier in a creeped out voice. They retrieved the Bloodstone, gave it to Druid (who was pretty happy with his new toy), and now are resting in the overgrown temple after being offered to do so by the Sump Steward.
Even though your explanation makes sense, Serisan, I still think that it would be more logic to have the boat go away from Virlych rather than closer. There's no explanation in the book itself that tells us it's because Ulthun is there. I think the surviving spellcasters should send him a magical message instead of throwing citizens in the maw of the beast on the offchance that Ulthun can save them.
I agree with your idea of having multiple vessels. You can even make the giant turtle destroy one or two ships when it appears for dramatic effect.
The only other things I'd point out with the direction of sailing are:
1. Sailing east means having a forest on the Ustalav side until the fork in the river at Hallein Town, as well as sailing toward Caliphas and The Isle of Terror. Sailing west has open visibility for a shorter piece of the Ustalavic border, then heading south into theoretically safer Lastwall territory. In these cases, you're comparing about 50 miles of Ustalavic border going west vs 200 miles going east to Lake Encarthan.
2. Castle Everstand could well be an established rally point, much like how real world people have plans for escaping a burning building and rallying after.
Even though your explanation makes sense, Serisan, I still think that it would be more logic to have the boat go away from Virlych rather than closer. There's no explanation in the book itself that tells us it's because Ulthun is there. I think the surviving spellcasters should send him a magical message instead of throwing citizens in the maw of the beast on the offchance that Ulthun can save them.
I agree with your idea of having multiple vessels. You can even make the giant turtle destroy one or two ships when it appears for dramatic effect.
The only other things I'd point out with the direction of sailing are:
1. Sailing east means having a forest on the Ustalav side until the fork in the river at Hallein Town, as well as sailing toward Caliphas and The Isle of Terror. Sailing west has open visibility for a shorter piece of the Ustalavic border, then heading south into theoretically safer Lastwall territory. In these cases, you're comparing about 50 miles of Ustalavic border going west vs 200 miles going east to Lake Encarthan.
2. Castle Everstand could well be an established rally point, much like how real world people have plans for escaping a burning building and rallying after.
Hmm... If you see it this way, that makes sense. I have to admit I'm not a "Golarion" expert, so I did not think about the forest x)
I still have some questions and remarks though, if you don't mind :)
Isn't Caliphas supposed to be a relatively safe place where people could hide, since Tar Baphon seems more interested in destroying Lastwall right now ? That said, this would mean having a deal with Caliphvaso to take in the citizens of Vigil in her city. And with the south-west border of Ustalav being Vyrlich, it may not be really safe to sail this way (as evidenced by the attacks at the start of the next book). I don't know enough about the Isle of Terror and Hallein Town though (I only DMed Carrion Crown in this area).
I'm curious now. Has someone had their group try to convince the NPCs to go to the east ? If so, what did you do ?
...
Okay, now that I'm typing here, I'm even more curious about something else. Do we know what the other countries are doing meanwhile ? Especially Ustalav and Nirmathas ? What about the Palatine Eye Order ?
I think you are correct. That indeed can become problematic. As of now, my players did all the sewers in one go until the old temple of Arazni with Snapper and decided to sleep there after being allowed by its guardian (I will post about it later). When the explosion will detonate on the surface, I will probably act as if the obols react to the explosion and knock uncounscious the PCs, thus forcing them to take a long rest before starting the 3rd Part. Maybe you can even use Evni's motherly persona to force the PCs to take a rest when they get to the tower, stating that she thinks the PCs are in a really bad shape and need some rest.
The trickiest part will probably be to make the explosion without exposing the teleporting players to it directly, so to not kill them. Again.
Good ideas all around - thanks for the input :)
So thank you for the replies - it certainly gave me something to consider. I'm still going to have the ships head east with the party. The simplest and most obvious reason is that direction is downstream and you can make better time. Going west means going towards both the WT and the orcs. Certainly some of the troops could march that way, but the route that makes the most sense for the refugees is to go east to Hammer Rock and then cut across country to Vellumis. Although the provided campaign map doesn't include it, I presume there must be major roads cutting across the cultivated fields of eastern Lastwall.
Update on our campaign (Some of it can be found here.)
Wanting to slow the pace of the AP down and put a little more time between catastrophes, I decided to give the PCs some hints that one of the other seals was located in Darkmoon Vale. They checked up on it, and found it compromised a few years before. (note: there was a lot of complaining as to how Lastwall could let something so important as a great seal fall into such disrepair. And to be honest, a lot of that is justified. More on that later). That ate up a month of our weekly sessions which was great. The party also caused a bit of an international incident and subdued an adult green dragon. Now they're back in Vigil. They learned that Gildias was a major lieutenant of the WT and that he's pretty high CR, which has got them shying away from pursuing him. Moreover, the party went directly to the Lastwall government saying that a seal has been broken and that the city is in danger. (spoiler for that seal - it's a very early Paizo module and in one of the rooms there's a map showing where all 3 of the lesser seals are on Golarion. So if you run that module as is, you give the PCs a huge chunk of information.)
Anyway, the PCs are rather worked up over this. Part of the party is convinced the Shattered Shard is key and want to steal it from Castle Overwatch. Another part of the party thinks the city is already lost and that they should evacuate immediately with or without the local population. The party doesn't really see the point in talking to the locals, so there is a very good chance that the whole Book 3 subplot with the sewers, etc.. will be skipped. lol. Fortunately i haven't added that to roll20 yet. And honestly, I don't see how the PCs doing that or not doing that affects the larger story.
Maybe the PCs work on evacuating exclusively? Maybe they do something else. I've stressed the sandboxy nature of this part of the AP to them and honestly there really is no way they could go wrong (without TPKing). We'll see where they wind up!
Moreover, the party went directly to the Lastwall government saying that a seal has been broken and that the city is in danger. (spoiler for that seal - it's a very early Paizo module and in one of the rooms there's a map showing where all 3 of the lesser seals are on Golarion. So if you run that module as is, you give the PCs a huge chunk of information.)
Anyway, the PCs are rather worked up over this. Part of the party is convinced the Shattered Shard is key and want to steal it from Castle Overwatch. Another part of the party thinks the city is already lost and that they should evacuate immediately with or without the local population. The party doesn't really see the point in talking to the locals, so there is a very good chance that the whole Book 3 subplot with the sewers, etc.. will be skipped. lol. Fortunately i haven't added that to roll20 yet. And honestly, I don't see how the PCs doing that or not doing that affects the larger story.
That was a big pain point for my players too. They were really pissed that nobody of influence believed them (especially with all their proofs from the previous book). If you don't want to skip the investigation part, I would suggest having Varvatos or Heliu ask the PCs to investigate on their behalf. This way, they are backed up by someone in the government and will have less problems with working for them and actually following the plot, thus you won't need to skip this part.
Stealing the shard might be a good idea. You could have them discover from one way or another that the Crows already stole the shards, make the PCs investigate on how they did it (thus allowing them to trigger Gaundry's confession without having to ask him about Gildais), and either use Gaundry's culpability to get the shard or really steal it. But do beware that the shard exploding is really important for the plot as it is written, so either you will need to rework the plot so that it works without the shard exploding, or you have to make your PCs not die when it explodes. Maybe they are still protected by their obols ?
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So... the more I play this AP, the more I come to the conclusion that I will have to make a bunch of modifications to the scenario from now on since we have many problems with how it evolved. Some plot ideas are nice (like Vigil exploding), but the combats are a bit too "you can't do anything against me" or "I touch you you're dead" for our taste (my PCs are still pissed about the croc and the torrent of filth trap). My players really have a bad time with all those surprise encounters they can't do anything against, the fact they can't ready themselves/research their opponents, etc etc...
Session 5 : The Redoubt
Cleverquill was really fun. Peludes are scarry enough with all their spikes to make my PCs weary. I made him climb a column and attack the PCs from there, telling them it was readying its breath and allowing them one turn before it fired. There, my PCs had the idea to use Grease to make it fall (which they succeeded), and he had to climb another column to get them. The tactical possibilities of this environment are really great, I suggest to GMs to really use it at its full potential. They ended up just knocking him down, and, after a heated debate over if they should kill him and check if there are treasures in his belly (wut ?) or letting him live, they left him alone and Cleverquill fleed. I will have to remember making the PCs see Cleverquill swimming away once they flee in the boat ;)
The crystal golem... Man, it is overpowered. Had to debuff his explode head so that it makes damage over time. 14d6 of damages in one go, as a sneak attack since , is just insane, especially when the PCs already took damages at least because of Cleverquill. The PCs never thought about showing the holy symbol of Arazni to the statue, and I think this is pretty legit. Why would you do it ? Anyway, my PCs used the magic key they got in book 1 to open the door at a distance. On the spot, I ruled that the one using the key triggered the golem, but maybe I should have said that it was a valid way to bypass the trap.
The PCs got in the redoubt and slaughtered the knights. There, they met Dondun. They reaaaaaaaaally didn't want to free him. They even threatened to grab his grimoire (luckily he hid it in his cape so they couldn't destroy it, and they couldn't make it come back). After a looooooong discussion, they ended up freeing him and forcing him to come with them, so that he won't attack them from behind or escape. They... pretty much took all his stuff and made him open every door.
Instead of having Evark and Roscasco fight separatly, I made them fight at the same time. Evark had prepared a Symbol of Pain centered around her (which was triggered by Swashbuckler), and Roscasco was hiding besides her and bull rushed the first PC trying to attack Evark into an iron maiden. From what I saw on this fight, having them be separate combats would have made them really easy for my PCs.
I removed the Urannag.
Yosiduin was... a bit disappointing. The fight was greatly enhanced by the fact that he had the mohrgs that were preventing some characters from approaching too much. But on himself, he was pretty weak in my opinion, especially because the obols were negating most of his attacks.
The PCs already had a staff of frost they found on book 1 (under the haunted press). So I would suggest changing the staff of frost in G21 for something else.
Before leaving, they pretty much murdered Leovon thanks to the incense of corporality. Luckily they went to Leovon in the end, because otherwise they could not have used it. Maybe put this item before they get to the redoubt, so that they can still use it on Leovon whichever route they go first.
(Note : Evark's statblock has a typo. She should have 1d3+6 damages on her bite attack.)
My party is almost up to the Yosiduin fight. (they just disarmed the Blade Barrier trap).
I decided Ceto needed something more. So I invented a secret society - The Knights of the Splinter. This is the group who thought that Lastwall was cowardly in locking up the Whispering Tyrant and who realize that the only way to defeat him is to get him out of Gallowspire. When they lost that battle, the decided on "the long game". Ceto is the head of this organization today and has reasoned in her mind that Vigil is an acceptable sacrifice to bring about the "final battle".
Of course, this changes the whole Ossuary dungeon, so I redrew it (I thought it was too small already). I added a section for kings and church heads including a few tombs heavily protected with corpses inside (from the very earliest days of Lastwall). And I added a secret section where the Knights of the Splinter meet and where Ceto has been stashing her ill-gotten goods.
One thing I'm thinking of doing is having the river temporarily redirected into the labyrinthine sewers under the city, allowing the populace to cross without boats (my party has saved a bunch more of the city than expected) and collapsing most of the city in its wake.