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Also, gathering the other shards doesn't do anything; they're artifacts, the PCs have no way to destroy them.It's not specified whether the shards are themselves artifacts and still that difficult to destroy, or whether they have a specific means of destruction. As I said, the AP simply doesn't address this possibility.
The AP doesn't address the possibility, but the RPG has done so. Per Artifacts & Legends, pg 47, the remaining shards are still artifacts and have a specified means of destruction: "the supposedly invulnerable shards left by its destruction can be utterly destroyed if they are consumed by a chaotic neutral being at least as powerful as a demigod."
The AP doesn't address the possibility, but the RPG has done so. Per Artifacts & Legends, pg 47, the remaining shards are still artifacts and have a specified means of destruction: "the supposedly invulnerable shards left by its destruction can be utterly destroyed if they are consumed by a chaotic neutral being at least as powerful as a demigod."
Well then, the PC's either need to find a Protean or Fey creature of demigod level power to take it off their hands or else go the Disjunction route.
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Also, gathering the other shards doesn't do anything; they're artifacts, the PCs have no way to destroy them.It's not specified whether the shards are themselves artifacts and still that difficult to destroy, or whether they have a specific means of destruction. As I said, the AP simply doesn't address this possibility.In Artifacts & Legends the entry for the Shield of Aroden says "The Shield of Aroden is meant to be destroyed, but the supposedly invulnerable shards left by its destruction can be utterly destroyed if they are consumed by chaotic neutral being at least as powerful as a demigod, such as the proteans' Speakers of the Depths or the Eldest known as Count Ranalc."
Anyway, that was published in 2012, so I have no idea how up to date it is.
Within 1e’s lifetime, so up to date unless a later source contradicts it.
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So in my game where the PCs are mythic as well, the cost to saving their souls is to trap some of their essence in the kumaru tree. That costs them at least one mythic tier to do so - permanently reducing their tier as well as their potential maximum tier.
With the WT, I'm going to have it work the same way.. if he survives, he will lose at least one and probably several mythic tiers. As such, he will have to lay low for quite some time before threatening the world so directly. That is, once he reforms, which itself could take a considerable amount of time due to the nature of the damage.
I'm fine with sacrifice. I'm not fine with him coming back despite it.
Especially since the Tyrant canonically has so many untapped armies of undead stashed in so many places (Ever heard of the Cenotaph?) that when he revives he'll be back to being a threat to the world in a matter of months at the absolute longest. And since his Phylactery is all but unlocatable And indestructible, he can't be put down permanently and he won't stop. Ever. Locking him down like the Last Crusade did is really the only feasible option, but that was a bit of a total fluke and he's unlikely to let such a thing happen again.
As written, the heroes have only really delayed and inconvenienced his world domination, not stopped it.
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As written, the heroes have only really delayed and inconvenienced his world domination, not stopped it.Delayed for a long while, as the fact that the next AP after Tyrant’s Grasp isn’t about stopping him and we have the Lost Omens World Guide to go lay everything out.
Considering he spent nearly a thousand years in gallowspire even if he were delayed by a decade thats a drop in the ocean in the grand scheme of things which is why for a lot of people the noble sacrifice part dosent work or would have worked a lot better if he had been actually destroyed.
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Considering he spent nearly a thousand years in gallowspire even if he were delayed by a decade thats a drop in the ocean in the grand scheme of things which is why for a lot of people the noble sacrifice part dosent work or would have worked a lot better if he had been actually destroyed.As written, the heroes have only really delayed and inconvenienced his world domination, not stopped it.Delayed for a long while, as the fact that the next AP after Tyrant’s Grasp isn’t about stopping him and we have the Lost Omens World Guide to go lay everything out.
So in 10 years for the final AP of 2e we can permanently kill him then.
Aka 10 years may be a drop in “the grand scheme of things” but that’s still 10 years to us.
Greetings. I've noticed something new regarding this book. I'll express myself in 2 topics. First, if we look back at book 1, in the page which shows the "key players" of the adventure path, we find a few familiar faces, and also get namedropped a few other npcs.
Two of those are the Demilich Geir of Ghasterhall (who even gets artwork) and the vampire general Malyas from castle Khonquist (first presented in book 6 of cc). I also recall the sighting of the marilith Kaltestrua between the forces which are present in the nation of lastwall. Yet, none of these named npcs take part in what should be considered the "main battle" for the Whispering tyrant.
We get a demilich, but he's not Geir; we also get the premise to "assassinate baphon's generals", but ignoring those present in the castle, no other "names" are present in the battle, and what we get is "standard monster hunting" against not named adversaries.
While i can see Malyas needing time to reach the location of Hammer Rock with his forces - though, until now Tar Baphon has been quite liberal with his "mass teleportation effects" -, and i can see even reason for him to "refuse" the first calling of Baphon (due to Urgathoa's displeasure over him), I see no reason for a Marilith general to not take part in the battle for Absalom (fighting her would also offer a bit of variation between the waves of undead).
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Another observation came from the pagecount of this book. The first part of this adventure is around 8-9 pages. The second part is 39 pages, and the third part - and the final of this adventure, is just six. Moreover, the first and the third part almost lack of any maps, except for the pyramid near which the last stand takes place.
My problem is now that, after a second reading, part 1 of book 6 is a big "wait sign". While mechanically interesting, it forces the pcs to pass through a new formed forest which, following the rules of the explosion of the radiant fire, should be no more than 3 mile wide, and offers no mechanic reasons to be traversed except to "look for the bodies of the precedent shout team".
I find this section could well be entirely skipped by flying above it (a feat quite possible for 16th level characters). Also, since the forest as been recently traversed by an horde of thousands of undead guided by a trigger happy lich, there should be a wide path of destruction to follow to reach Hammer Rock, a "whispering way of unlive" whose general area should not be able to sprout life of any kind.
But most damning/amazing of all: Radiant fire explosions cause, apparently, the "spontaneous birth of small dinosaurs and tapirs"... Best nuke ever!
Jokes aside, To justify this exploration, i would well make so that this forest "cannot be skipped" since, due to a mythic wish made by Baphon, this lands now belongs to the feywild, controlled by some higher being of which the blight is a manifestation, and that by gaining this foothold in the material basically shields any magical invasion of Hammer rock, making it some kind of "Nightmare realms" or something, which can be traversed only by it's makers and those made by it. If you fly over it, you find yourself over a "spooky" forest which end at the other side of the ring, never reaching Hammer rock! By befriending the wild hunts, the Pcs gets the unique chance to understand the rules of this place, and then, by killing the blight, the entire forest returns completely into the material (goodbye fey tapirs).
Without this kind of justification, i cannot see why devolve 9 pages for a challenge that could be completely avoided, which also doesn't move the story much. The first team only use for the pcs, except be rescued and entombed, it's a generic information on maybe 2 traps active in Hammer Rock, whose effects can be easily avoided or countered by a party of level 16 characters. What I see - maybe a bit biased - is 9 pages of thematic variation that weight heavily over the ending of the book, with find itself at the short part of the stick, and not at the "climax" of the story.
Where is the Marilith mentioned?
A powerful marilith is mentioned in book 4, which is probably the same that killed the gold dragon that appears in book4.
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Where is the Marilith mentioned?A powerful marilith is mentioned in book 4, which is probably the same that killed the gold dragon that appears in book4.
Hmm, reading over that section I didn't get the impression that she's really an ally of Tar-Baphon, but possibly just one of the "extraplanar horrors" trapped there when tar-Baphon claimed the school.
Has anyone run this combat against mythic TB with level 18 PCs? I'm curious how it went.
Sorry to bump this thread that has been dormant for a while, but I am very curious if anyone has run the final encounter and, if so, how it turned out?
Try Claw. As in 'I'LL GET YOU NEXT TIME,GADGET!"
There are some big maps in this book, specifically Fallowdeep and Hammer Rock. Is there anyway to get a more manageable version of these maps to facilitate 5'-movement? Like, a map that's been blown up to fit a smaller grid where each square is only 5' (instead of 10' or 20')?
I was re-reading through the final encounter, and noted that TB uses a Gate spell to Call an Obcisidaemon to assist him. An Obscisi is a great thematic ally for TB, and a huge threat in its own right, but I found myself wondering why he didn’t Call an Olethrodaemon instead. An Obcisi is technically outside of TB’s direct control, having 22HD. Meanwhile, an Olethro is under his full control (seems like something he’d prefer), and is a full CR higher. Plus, it’s still a very thematic ally, especially with its Negative Energy AoE Breath Weapon that can simultaneously damage enemies and heal TB for 20d10 every 1d4 rounds. On top of that, the Olethros can then Summon his own Obcisi (which would ironically be in a roundabout way under TB’s full control). I know the reality is that TB’s reputation is such that most outsiders called would just know better than to NOT disobey him, free will or not, but it just seems like his ego would have him prefer to Call the stronger Daemon that is also guaranteed to be 100% subservient. Seems like a no-brainer. It got me wondering, though - would this change make the final encounter TOO difficult? Regardless of any additional allies, I know the combat is still as “simple” as dropping TB to the predetermined hp, where he just novas everything, anyway, but would this make even that too much to hope for the PC’s to handle?
It got me wondering, though - would this change make the final encounter TOO difficult?
To be quite honest, the encounter is pretty much unwinnable as written unless the GM plays the Whispering Tyrant like a complete idiot who doesn't actually use his mythic power (which, to be fair, probably is the intent). The party is taken by surprise without prebuffs active, gets paralyzed for 1d4 rounds with no save, and the Whispering Tyrant can unload 200-400 DPR with his area of effect spells that bypass resistances and immunities if he goes full mythic nova. There's a very good chance the Whispering Tyrant can TPK the party before anyone even gets to act.
I actually don't think the stronger daemon makes much of a difference; any party powerful enough to have a shot of beating the Whispering Tyrant is strong enough that a CR 20 daemon is little more than a faceless mook that can be safely ignored.
Super mundane question: What is the intended starting Pursuit Point total for The Hunt, assuming no concessions? The only reference is abstract - the length of one of their favorite songs - and later references only indicate "a certain number."
Super mundane question: What is the intended starting Pursuit Point total for The Hunt, assuming no concessions? The only reference is abstract - the length of one of their favorite songs - and later references only indicate "a certain number."
I think Ron said that it should be 3. Can't remember where I read that, though.
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First session of the book tonight. I'm glad I was prepared for the problems because man...there were problems. My players had a bit of an off night due to varieties of exhaustion IRL, so the session felt a bit flat. Special note: per request of the players, we agreed to upscale the AP to character level 20 by the end. This resulted in them being level 17 for this session.
The transition from book 5 to book 6 is not particularly well established. The PCs have been gone from Avistan for 3-4 weeks according to the timeline. The only discussion of the transition is an assumption on page 4 that says "The PCs have at last managed to return to Avistan, arriving in Lastwall weeks after their departure." There's no indication from any NPC or discovery as to why the PCs would want to go back to Lastwall specifically. It's been 3-4 weeks, after all, and there's no particular reason to believe that the PCs should believe that they could find survivors if they went there. The instinct from the most experienced player was this:
"Let me prep Eyes and Ears of the City a couple times, we'll teleport to Absalom and figure out what the situation is real quick."
One very pregnant pause later, I asked the player if that's what he's sure he wants to do. Some hemming and hawing later, with the very reasonable justification gone over again, he decides to instead prep Commune and do that instead, getting the necessary information to get on the rails and not immediately get dumped in part 3. Some very short info-dump later, they're on their way to Keirodera.
Let's talk about maps real quick. There aren't any in part 1. I get it - there was a lot better stuff to spend word count and layout space on in this adventure. I grabbed a couple from various PFS scenarios - specifically, Mysteries Under Moonlight part 2 (encounters 1 and 2, for blight and WH respectively) and The Sealed Gate (the final encounter, intended for rusalkas).
Upon arriving outside the wood, the PCs decided to use spells to scout and avoided the Barometz entirely. The Wild Hunt, however, came over and started their thing. One of my PCs is a Mortal Usher, however, and Calm Emotions hit 5 out of 6 members of the Wild Hunt. The PCs then engaged in combat in such a way that there was literally no chance of the WH critters doing anything, then gracefully allowed their surrender and departure. It was...honestly kind of sad.
I forgot the rusalkas entirely. Whoops. I purposefully skipped the viper vines because it's kind of a non-encounter at this point. The PCs killed 2 of them in Jolizpan. Adding a 3rd does nothing.
The forest blight was entertaining, but I had no interest in doing anything except brute force. It slapped the hell out of the archer and got absolutely obliterated. In hindsight, I probably should have removed the degenerate template to be more appropriate for my party.
The funny haunt got noticed by the cleric who resolved it with Mass Heal.
We wrapped up for the night there, with Hammer Rock in sight. Per that acceleration, I had them level to 18.
First session of the book tonight. I'm glad I was prepared for the problems because man...there were problems. My players had a bit of an off night due to varieties of exhaustion IRL, so the session felt a bit flat. Special note: per request of the players, we agreed to upscale the AP to character level 20 by the end. This resulted in them being level 17 for this session.
Upon arriving outside the wood, the PCs decided to...
Hello, Serisan. I invite you to se my rewriting of book six, since it tries to solve a few of the problems you are pointing out. You may find in in the general chat for TG.
Wyrmwraiths are dangerous, even when the party is overleveled. The short version of the fight is that breath weapon + quickened Finger of Death is incredibly threatening if you don't have Evasion to avoid the first half of that.
The main thing I did with the initial Hammer Rock section was to say that the sun was setting, so the buildings were casting some shadows. For initial scouting, the PCs sent the hunter's bird scouting, which was spotted by the wyrmwraith. The PCs were investigating the chapel area toward the barracks, ran into the dreadwraith, and the wyrmwraith joined the party a few rounds in, penning the PCs into the northeast side area of the chapel. The PCs had a better fight than expected because of the level bump because of Mass Heal, but still a significant threat nonetheless.
End result: cohort Dondun Daradun has died...and became a dreadwraith...and is not easily returned to life. The dreadwraith has died because the players camped the body, but that whole "dying to a death effect" thing is an issue for them.
Next session is in the new year. We'll see how that goes.
Double session report:
The PCs finished clearing out Hammer Rock proper, taking care of the death chariot and getting the Tsomar info dump. Using Insect Spies to scout, the parties learned the full layout of the cellar area and locations of the encounters, then chose to quietly head toward the nemhain. I've never had a party so easily dispatch a nemhain. Usually, they're rough encounters. This one went down in 1.5 rounds.
End session 1, it was relatively short because we had a very tired player and I needed to figure out what I was doing on the cohort front to replace the deceased Dondun. I spent a couple weeks pondering this off-and-on, but ended up with an acceptable replacement cohort.
Meet Aikio Wayminder. She's a follower of The Passage who took a vow of silence. Umble, the nosoi from book 1, is her familiar now and Umble does all the talking. She is built currently as 20 point buy and roughly half a level 16 PC's wealth. Since Umble does the talking, she's not particularly able to clearly explain what Aikio can do, nor does Aikio have a particular interest in demonstrating until necessary. Her goal in most combats is to stay back and provide support, observing the battlefield and making adjustments as necessary. With appropriate adjustments, she can serve as a ready-to-go replacement character or cohort under the premise that Barzahk notices a particular "marked soul" in the Dead Roads and sends his follower to where it came from.
Session 2 started with the PCs meeting Aikio with only half an introduction as mentioned above. The PCs then did the fabulous chain-encounter of the cellar. Tomb Giants were not particularly significant threats against my party, who has an established front-line with sufficient defenses. Even having the encounter split between C1 and C5 while the enemies streamed in through both northern doors of C13, the party was able to effectively split their attention and manage the battlefield well.
We ended session 2 with this, having fully cleared the floor at this point. I've got 3 weeks to pull together the Fallowdeep dungeon, which is obnoxiously large.
Another double session report thanks to *gestures vaguely at everything.*
Session 1: We spent a fair bit of time just catching things back up. We had scheduling conflicts for nearly 3 months, so it was unavoidable. Eventually, they headed north. They negotiated with Moluom because I really talked up the elixir and never engaged the hand swarm. As a result, that wing was very easy.
One of my group's PCs is a Mortal Usher and therefore has at will invisibility. He effectively solo'd the southern wing by reanimating things for the smashings. I was a bit lenient here, but I want high level characters to do awesome things and not just grind their faces into combats for the sake of combat.
The PCs briefly met with Gildais before moving to the east wing. Demiliches are scary, but paladins are scarier. Ceto basically fell over. I was not surprised by either of these things.
Session 2: The shinigami got 1 action and it was completely blocked by Death Ward. Iuphasti similarly saw very little screen time due to aggressive PCs. I think she also got all of 1 turn, as well.
Lyanthari is scary, however. She ate a full round from the archer, then decided it was time for Greater Invisibility and vital strike games. I nearly 2-rounded one of the melee, who had Righteous Might and rage going for bonus HP. An area Greater Dispel Magic stripped off the GI and she proceeded to get wrecked.
We did plot clean-up (Gildais stuff, Tsomar's ghost stuff, etc.) and intro'd the end-game to wrap up a relatively short session.
Keepin' this short and to the point. My players have added alchemical defiled paladins based on helping Moluom. Roughly half the party has evasion.
Cairn King - this encounter does not functionally exist against competent archers and parties with any amount of flight. Specifically, Clustered Shots solves for a lot of problems. There seems to have been an assumption that you engage the Cairn King on a standard map. It's 120' tall. Standing on its head, a composite longbow still has a range increment penalty to shoot his toe. No party in their right mind is going to do that. Because of that fact, I did this encounter as theatre of the mind.
Ecorche + Nightwalker + Troop - I put this one on Hill Country as a map. My players just dunked on this, but a big part of it was that the Nightwalker didn't get a turn. YMMV. The ecorche's tactics are understandable but not functional - he ends up just wasting a lot time closing distance for very little payoff.
Frustration 6 event - TB targeted the PC who waved the shard of the shield for the bonus. They failed the save, but another player cast Miracle. I ruled that it was sufficient for the targeted PC to make the save instead because I didn't want to exclude one of my three players entirely from the end-game and Miracle does that sort of thing with a 25k diamond involved.
We did it. It's over.
Naraga + Gallowdead - The archer won initiative and shot 200 health off Naraga on the way in, prompting the dragon to invis and shake the gallowdead off for hope of doing something worthwhile. The other PCs then put invis on the archer and we played "who has better range on detection and who attacks first?" The answer to the first question is the dragon, the answer to the second is "Naraga casts wall of force every time an invisible creature is sensed with Blindsense."
Eventually, Naraga moved back, cast invis on the gallowdead, and headed in to double-whammy a target. I managed to connect both vital strikes + power attack on the paladin, which resulted in the paladin going down to not-quite-unconscious before he healed himself and obliterated Naraga. The gallowdead was not a threat against PCs with communal air walk.
The final showdown:
A few notes up front.
- There's only one map in the final chapter. I had introduced that map as the forward operating base initially, so the giant hole was considered a pre-existing condition. I just wrote off the Wish.
- I opted to encourage the option to rest via the NPCs, but the trade-off is that the buffs would fall off if they were less than 1 hour per level. The PCs opted to rest.
- I read the stat block for Tar-Baphon as having Mythic Initiative. If I was wrong about this, then the encounter is much less threatening. TB acted on initiative ticks 50 and 30 after low-rolling both the d20 and the d12 surge die. One character split the initiatives (slayer/hunter archer).
Round 1: TB drops Horrid Wilting, Quickened Fireball, and aura rolls a 1 for paralysis duration. Archer shakes off the paralysis, TB sees the paladin/swashbuckler is not affected and throws an Energy Drain for 5 negative levels. Paladin/swashbuckler moves in to threaten TB before the daemon acts. Daemon sees multiple targets no longer paralyzed, casts Mass Hold Person. Erga moves over to cleric/fighter/mortal usher and uses Lay on Hands to clear paralysis, who then moves in on TB as well. Source Severence (arcane) countered with Immediate Counterspell + Greater Dispel Magic.
Round 2: Mythic Time Stop, bonus targets = daemon, cohort, cohort's nosoi, Erga, and Yesel. 5 rounds. Cohort is completely worthless due to unremovable shaken condition and being a psychic caster. Handwaive all NPCs as dead with an arbitrary amount of damage on the daemon and some spells taken off TB. TB is repositioned to a better location. Slayer/hunter repositions out of the hole, gets ready to fire. TB disintegrates Gildais. Paladin/swash smites, hits, and triggers the banishment on daemon, daemon is defeated. Cleric/fighter/MU buffs up and moves up to close the gap.
Round 3: TB uses Forcecage on archer, archer saves. Archer fires, misses every shot due to 52 AC. TB uses Mythic Maze on archer, paladin/swash moves in, smites, and hits for substantial damage. Cleric/fighter/MU moves in and swings, but misses.
Round 4: TB Cone of Cold, kills last animal companion and we're officially down to PCs only. TB Finger of Death + Quickened Magic Missile on paladin/swash, who saves. Realize I'm getting down to some dregs on the remaining spells just in time for paladin and cleric/fighter/MU to come in and swing for the morale condition.
Resolution: Only remaining PC on the plane with an obol is paladin/swashbuckler. Cleric/fighter/MU was nowhere near an explosion to have similar situation and archer is still in the maze. Cinematic explodey, Cleric/fighter/MU uses Miracle to retrieve the archer from the maze.
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So, in your campaign 2 Pcs actually survived, with the paladin getting a final moment of awesome, doing on this regard better than both Arnisant and Iomadae never did! Awesome.
So, in your campaign 2 Pcs actually survived, with the paladin getting a final moment of awesome, doing on this regard better than both Arnisant and Iomadae never did! Awesome.
100% true. The paladin's player was really happy with that outcome. The hunter/slayer's player was surprised that the doomsday device in the character's chest is instead just super overpowered healing, and the cleric/fighter/MU player declared post-campaign intentions to hunt down certain enemies that had escaped their grasp.
Everyone ended up remarkably satisfied in that regard.
Tyrant successfully neutralized!
My players enjoyed this one a lot. I only made a small change to the whole "obols destroy your soul" thing. I had their souls left in tatters—too weak to be raised, but they could at least get their afterlives. I also told them that the obols' fusion with their souls was slowly eating away at them. They should be dead, and they'll be really dead within a couple of years anyway.
As for the fight, it went very in the PC's favor, enough that I need to tell you about it.
First round right after the wall blew up. Party is in bad shape after a horrid wilting, although the fighter has the Unbreakable archetype and saved, so has no damage. Oracle can't see everyone, so doesn't want to use mass heal yet. I took a look at Gildais' spells and saw wall of ice, so I used that to block the hole in the wall. Cost the tyrant a round and a mythic surge to get rid of it.
Daemon comes in to vital strike the skald, who's closest, but misses by 1. Smoke's cleared, arcane trickster successfully banishes the daemon.
Here's a screenshot of my game right after that happened.
Tyrant swoops in, paralyzing everyone, sees Gildais, and starts blasting, not using wail of the banshee because Gildais is immune. So meteor swarm and quickened fireball go flying, but not enough to kill people. Trickster has tricky spells, so I allow a greater dispel magic cast since it has no material component, but spell turning gets the first one and the second fails.
Meanwhile, the fighter has the unbreakable archetype, remember? She can ignore paralysis for one round, enough time to activate freedom of movement. She flies up to the Tyrant, rolls a natural 20, uses a rage power from the skald (who'd been freed by the paladin) to auto-confirm the crit, and between Greater Vital Strike and the bonus damage from the allies, deals 200 damage to the Tyrant. Should have cast that displacement spell, buddy.
Tyrant used the Radiant Fire on round 5.
Things would have gone very south for them if not for that big damage roll. I'd probably have mazed the fighter, and it probably would have been up to the arcane trickster to find a way to finish the job.
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We finished a few weeks ago. Because of the obol allowing a player to accept someone else's damage, two PC's survived.
The NPC paladin lived long enough to grant the PC's a smite then fell to splash damage and daemon. TB saw the NPC cleric tossing ranged healing at the party and did the mythic disintegrate trick on said healer (poof). I think the fight went 6-7 rounds. Our monk had to turn off power attack for the third time in the campaign (only slightly joking). None of the PCs dropped until the bomb went off, mostly due to the use of channels and a few Heal spells. Between our scaled fist monk and gunslinger they eventually got TB down to his morale threshold.
I figure the gunslinger who walked away from the blast with the Horns has a few weeks to get drinks off the story before TB comes to collect.
Quick question, is the halfling scout who died at Hammer Rock related to Janira from the Pathfinder Society?
1. I believe that would be the events of the PFS scenario Siege of Gallowspire. I don't know the details, but you can buy the scenario here and read a review with some description here.
2. I don't have much to add, but I am planning to replace one of them with a PC from our playthrough of Carrion Crown. A lot of campaigns wrap up in that level range, so you might consider doing the same if you previously had a relevant PC from the area.
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2. There are some pretty big deals introduced as NPCs in Part 3. Or, at least, I assume they’re big deals; sure 16th- and 17th-level NPCs are by their very existence big deals, but the book implies that Commander Erga Sweirhall and the leader of Osirion reinforcements, Yesel of Sothis are some big-time heroes. Even the guy who brings the PCs to meet these heroes - Captain of the First Guard Rothos of House Vastille - seems like he’s pretty significant, just by virtue of his lofty title and rank. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to find a shred of information on any of these NPC’s, not even House Vastille. I can certainly fabricate some resumes for these NPCs if needed, but it just strikes me as odd that Paizo would give the PCs two very high-level NPC allies with no established backgrounds, credentials, or accolades. NPCs beyond level 15 are almost exclusively BBEGs or else load bearing plot devices. So it’s just super weird to me that two of them are just dropped here at the very end as…fodder? Don’t get me wrong - I love that they’re fodder, it makes the stakes all the more monumental - but it does really bother me that these NPCs are just names with no history. I don’t need a dissertation, but not even a single sentence or reference is given to run with. Sorry, it’s just super weird. Am I missing something?
no, you aren't missing anything.
these npcs are likely to die in the course of this adventure.
Paizo could arguably have put in heroes from somewhere in their lore in these slots, AND YOU FEEL FREE TO DO SO, but they chose not to. If you want to have the Watcher-Lord from Book 3 (or any other NPC from earlier) show up and be a jacked to the gills paladin, then go right ahead. I think when we get there, I'll probably run the final encounter dramatically differently than its presented here, but I'll likely look at a particular NPC from Book 1 to make his return on the side of the PCs.