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This is a spoiler-filled resource thread for GMs running the Age of Ashes Adventure Path, specifically for the first adventure, "Hellknight Hill."
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Having just skimmed through the adventure, I am in love with NPC Alak Stagram and want to make sure he plays a prominent role. As such, I think I'll tamper with the beginning so that Alak is the one looking to hire adventurers to help find his ancestors' ring. Calmont, having eavesdropped information about Alseta's Ring without knowing what it is, thinks they're one and the same but was rebuffed by Alak and the council as not being a qualified adventuring party, giving him a grudge against everyone involved that leads to him setting the fire.
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I'm a bit taken aback by the tactics of the gelatinous cube in B4 -- more specifically, that a gelatinous cube has tactics. I've always thought of them as a Roomba, not as something that sets an ambush.
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Gelatinous Cube Roombas? Someone get on that.
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I'm a bit taken aback by the tactics of the gelatinous cube in B4 -- more specifically, that a gelatinous cube has tactics. I've always thought of them as a Roomba, not as something that sets an ambush.
I can't unsee, nor do I want to.
But also Roombas can be crafty.
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One thing to note is that in chapter 3 some text seems to reference the map as if north were to the left, not the top of the page as indicated by the compass rose. Other text seems to agree with the map.
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Having just skimmed through the adventure, I am in love with NPC Alak Stagram and want to make sure he plays a prominent role. As such, I think I'll tamper with the beginning so that Alak is the one looking to hire adventurers to help find his ancestors' ring. Calmont, having eavesdropped information about Alseta's Ring without knowing what it is, thinks they're one and the same but was rebuffed by Alak and the council as not being a qualified adventuring party, giving him a grudge against everyone involved that leads to him setting the fire.
Alak really rubbed me the wrong way. He is a "cool bro" who thinks Asmodeus totally rocks, even though he doesn't do that religion thing. He's also an armiger of the Nail, the order responsible of bringing "civilization" to the "savages" by force. Despite this, your idea is good for groups that might like him.
I had, surprisingly, no problem with Warbal and Helba.
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Is anyone else getting dragonlance vibes from this module. A bit of a mix of Chronicles and some of War of the Souls with a bit of the terrible live action D&D movie thrown in.
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Having just skimmed through the adventure, I am in love with NPC Alak Stagram and want to make sure he plays a prominent role. As such, I think I'll tamper with the beginning so that Alak is the one looking to hire adventurers to help find his ancestors' ring. Calmont, having eavesdropped information about Alseta's Ring without knowing what it is, thinks they're one and the same but was rebuffed by Alak and the council as not being a qualified adventuring party, giving him a grudge against everyone involved that leads to him setting the fire.Alak really rubbed me the wrong way. He is a "cool bro" who thinks Asmodeus totally rocks, even though he doesn't do that religion thing. He's also an armiger of the Nail, the order responsible of bringing "civilization" to the "savages" by force. Despite this, your idea is good for groups that might like him.
I had, surprisingly, no problem with Warbal and Helba.
Your concern is absolutely valid, though I would temper this only by mentioning that this is book 1 of 6, and we don't know what role (if any) he serves in the remainder of the story. Regardless of whether Arak is meant to be a recurring character by the rest of the AP, it is possible that he could examine those beliefs of his and decide that Asmodeus isn't all that great a guy and the Hellknights really aren't for him, should the players show interest in reforming him and the GM respond in kind based upon their actions.
One thing that is stated is "if Alak survives" - the AP doesn't assume he does and does not rely on him as a plot-bearing character (especially as I don't believe any of the Portals lead to Varisia). So in all likelihood he goes the way of Rexus from Hell's Rebels - he helps in directing some of the adventure but then ends up the GM's plaything and likely in time leaves and heads back to Varisia to become a proper Hellknight.
No doubt the primary reason he remains at all is in case the players decide they want to run Hellknights, especially as they have the ancient history of the Order of the Nail and know what is needed to pass the various trials. Some folk like the Hellknights, after all.
Creative Director
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Your concern is absolutely valid, though I would temper this only by mentioning that this is book 1 of 6, and we don't know what role (if any) he serves in the remainder of the story. Regardless of whether Arak is meant to be a recurring character by the rest of the AP, it is possible that he could examine those beliefs of his and decide that Asmodeus isn't all that great a guy and the Hellknights really aren't for him, should the players show interest in reforming him and the GM respond in kind based upon their actions.Having just skimmed through the adventure, I am in love with NPC Alak Stagram and want to make sure he plays a prominent role. As such, I think I'll tamper with the beginning so that Alak is the one looking to hire adventurers to help find his ancestors' ring. Calmont, having eavesdropped information about Alseta's Ring without knowing what it is, thinks they're one and the same but was rebuffed by Alak and the council as not being a qualified adventuring party, giving him a grudge against everyone involved that leads to him setting the fire.Alak really rubbed me the wrong way. He is a "cool bro" who thinks Asmodeus totally rocks, even though he doesn't do that religion thing. He's also an armiger of the Nail, the order responsible of bringing "civilization" to the "savages" by force. Despite this, your idea is good for groups that might like him.
I had, surprisingly, no problem with Warbal and Helba.
What role Alak plays in your campaign beyond the first adventure is 100% up to you—he has no hard-coded role beyond the adventure he appears in. This goes for all of the NPCs in Age of Ashes, pretty much. When we do an Adventure Path where an NPC has roles that go beyond the scope of the adventure they first appear in, we generally go out of our way to let readers know this (as in the case of things like Jade Regent or Wrath of the Righteous, for example).
Alak is, though, as far as I can tell, working as intended. He's a complex NPC who might make sense for some folks to ally with and some to not ally with. That part of what makes him an interesting NPC to me—that each group might interact with him in a different way.
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Alak strikes me as someone who is in the Order because his parents and other family members were, not because he has any particular love for Asmodeus. He even states that he doesn't worship Asmodeus if asked about it. It seems to me that he is someone that does his duty for the simple reason that it is expected of him.
What's the deal with the Soulbound Doll in the basement? It references Bestiary 6, a PF 1st edition product, which bizarrely doesn't even have that monster in it.
Are Soulbound Dolls in the 2E Bestiary, and this was just a weird typo or something?
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Are Soulbound Dolls in the 2E Bestiary, and this was just a weird typo or something?
I didn't even notice that typo, but I was skimming. They are in the 2e Bestiary, though.
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Elite Soulbound Doll, Creature 3
Pathfinder Bestiary 6, 304
Not a typo. P2e Bestiary, page 6 for the Elite adjustment and then page 304 for the basic Soulbound Doll.
P2e Bestiary, page 6 for the Elite adjustment and then page 304 for the basic Soulbound Doll.
Ah, that'd explain it! My books are in the other room, so I didn't check personally.
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Aha, the 6 isn't italicized. Thanks!
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In area D7 on the Goblinblood Caves map parts a, c, d, and f are mislabeled. The labels are on the benches in the alcoves and not on the gates. Parts b and e are correct.
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I'm a little concerned that the halfling is too forthcoming. He tells them who the bad guy is, what she's after, and where to find her, and even implies she worships Norgorber. The DM can try to steer them back towards the secret entrance and clearing out the goblin territory, but I can already guess that some parties will pursue the Voz lead relentlessly.
Also, it sounds like Voz triggered the necromantic wards before the cultists came (she'd been making multiple trips through the secret tunnel), but the stairwells wouldn't have been collapsed at that time, so I'm a little confused on the order of events.
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Voz never made it to the stairs on either basement floor so I don't see any discrepancy with the timeline. On the tomb floor, she fled as soon as she realized there were undead (that she triggered). She then started using the tunnel in the Goblinblood Caves but hadn't yet reached the spiders.
For me, the main issue is that there are three (!) secret entrances into the citadel's two lower levels. That sticks out to me as being contrived to get around the blocked stairs. Surely there must be a better way to seal off the basement than this while still allowing the PCs access. I suppose that only the stairs from the first floor to the basement need to be collapsed to ensure everyone stays where they are until the PCs show up, but that would eliminate the Guardian's Way encounters. That way one could remove two of the three secret entrances, keeping just the one near the rear of the citadel.
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The write-up for area D2 suggests that Renali will intervene in the fight between the PCs and Ralldar in D3 if they haven't already found her, and says to see that section for more info, but I'm not seeing anything in D3 about Renali. Frankly, the Ralldar fight looks pretty nasty, so having an extra combatant on the PCs' side makes sense, but is there anything specific about her appearance or interaction with the PCs there that we need to know about?
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I'm guessing that art came back wrong at some point, but the area outside the town hall is Monument Circle with a statue of Lamond Breachton at the center of six wells at some points and Fountain Circle with a fountain at the center of six water pumps at others.
You can't sink a well through Breach Creek*, so they really do have to be water pumps, as described in the tactics of Snickers in the Smoke.
EDIT: James Jacobs clarified in another thread:
The six water towers are supposed to be water towers, not wells. The art is correct (and delightful). The text slipped through the cracks.
slightly unrelated question: does the Adventure path begin in 4719 AR. I'm just trying to pre-plan what my groups kingmaker kingdom is at the time the AP starts.
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I share the concern about the halfling divulging the identity of the main villain too early. Would that not push the party into skipping chapter 2 entirely, and jumping straight into chapter 3, underleveled? The entire investigation in the Pickled Ear can be skipped because the PCs already know that Voz is the culprit right from the outset.That'd be kinda hard since you don't encounter the halfling till the end of chapter 2. If you meant skipping chapter 3 and going into chapter 4 it's because those cultists are a nearby and active threat, whereas Voz has skipped town by now.
The end of chapter 3 prescribes that Alak should depart from the party by the time chapter 4 starts, but chapter 4 contains numerous references to Alak tagging along with the party. How does this actually work?
If the made him friendly enough the party can convince him to stay through roleplay and the like.
Alak is said to be wearing something other than Hellknight armor, and he is listed with a greatsword. The art depicts him with Hellknight armor and a greatsword, and later, in chapter 2, undead ignore him because he supposedly wears Hellknight regalia.
Does Alak wear Hellknight armor, or regular armor? Does Alak wield a greatsword, or a halberd? Likewise, chapter 2 mentions the possibility of bypassing the undead by wearing Hellknight regalia, but is there really any avenue for the PCs acquiring Hellknight armor in this adventure, apart from the shoddy full plate that is said to be useless against anyone familiar with Hellknights? How are the PCs even supposed to know that wearing Hellknight regalia this way will cause the undead to ignore them?
The art depicts him with Hellknight armor and a halberd, not a greatsword, so the art is in error.
As for the undead, regalia is more than just armor, and he can intrsuct the PCs of this.
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Let's think about Calmont. You have a disgruntled halfling who set fire to the town hall and then ran off. His boss Voz says "I fired him a week ago" if anyone asks before the PCs head off to Hellknight Hill, and then quietly packs her stuff and leaves without telling anyone so most folk don't even know she's gone.
Why would anyone in town believe Calmont? He's a "disgruntled employee" who is blaming everyone but himself. Heck, with a quick read of the encounter that's pretty much how this scene plays out. It's upon heading back to town and finding out Voz was using a tunnel to sneak into Hellfire Hill that the players realize Voz was in fact evil... and they may very well have forgotten what Calmont had said about her in the meantime.
Likewise, chapter 2 mentions the possibility of bypassing the undead by wearing Hellknight regalia, but is there really any avenue for the PCs acquiring Hellknight armor in this adventure, apart from the shoddy full plate that is said to be useless against anyone familiar with Hellknights?
I'm pretty sure it's referring to the Order of the Nail insignias the party can find in A6. Read that way, Alak can be 'out of uniform' as the adventure indicates but still wearing a small insignia on his civvies.
How are the PCs even supposed to know that wearing Hellknight regalia this way will cause the undead to ignore them?
If Alak is with the party, the text notes he can tell the party about the old-fashioned necromantic ward Hellknights used to use; I'd assume that would include the information that they won't attack those wearing Hellknight insignias.
Frankly, that's one reason why I'm switching the main quest to being Alak's ring rather than the goblin tribe. It makes sure the party has the chance of Alak being with them (despite, as already mentioned, the adventure specifically saying he leaves the party and then going on to describe what happens if he's with the party later). And it makes sure the party doesn't skip chapter 3 after finding the goblins, because they haven't found Alak's ring yet.
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Given that, I'm going to make Calmont the sole survivor of a halfling village wiped out toward the end of the Goblinblood Wars. His trauma at seeing his family and neighbors killed is multiplied by the fact that he survived by hiding (and perhaps refused to let a sibling or friend share his hiding place and then saw them die) and lives with survivor's guilt. He has an undying prejudice against goblinoids, as a result of his childhood experience. He is known around town for his bigotry and general untrustworthiness.
Voz, on the other hand, has a reputation as shy but kind to the point of naivete for giving the halfling a job. (In reality, she hired Calmont because she considers him too stupid to pick up on her machinations -- and too little respected to be believed if he were to say anything about her private persona to the townspeople.) When Voz turns up missing, suspicion in Breachill thus immediately falls on Calmont (now a proven arsonist and goblin-attacker) rather than on Voz being up to anything unsavory. This also gives me the chance to do the cliched Hollywood thing of having the buttoned-up-librarian type take off her spectacles and let her hair out of a bun to be hot and evil if I make sure the party sees her before the Call for Heroes, which is always fun.
So! When Calmont knows that Alak is hiring adventurers to search for his ring, having been warned by the town that Calmont isn't all there, he sets fire to the town hall. But! He does so in a crude goblin mask to deflect blame to the Bumblebrashers, whom he has always hated and urged the town to wipe out or drive away, not only keeping his crime secret for the moment but also giving the townsfolk a reason to avoid the Citadel until he can locate Alak's ring. It's not terribly convincing, but the guards' confused sight of him from a distance through the flames is enough to start rumors. At which point Warbal approaches the PCs, knowing they are headed to the Citadel anyway, and pleads with them to prove the goblins' innocence. (The party will find the discarded mask on their way to the Citadel, thus proving that the Bumblebrashers aren't to blame.) Thus removing the "I've known my people have been in danger for weeks but didn't do anything about it until now" thing, which bugs me.
When the PCs confront Calmont, he tells them he knows about Alseta's Ring from a book he read in Voz's store (still not wanting to admit that he eavesdropped the information lest he be forced to share the reward). This gives the PCs a good reason to investigate Voz's store when they return to town, even if they don't run into any other reason to suspect her right away.
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Alak is said to be wearing something other than Hellknight armor, and he is listed with a greatsword. The art depicts him with Hellknight armor and a greatsword, and later, in chapter 2, undead ignore him because he supposedly wears Hellknight regalia.
Does Alak wear Hellknight armor, or regular armor? Does Alak wield a greatsword, or a halberd? Likewise, chapter 2 mentions the possibility of bypassing the undead by wearing Hellknight regalia, but is there really any avenue for the PCs acquiring Hellknight armor in this adventure, apart from the shoddy full plate that is said to be useless against anyone familiar with Hellknights? How are the PCs even supposed to know that wearing Hellknight regalia this way will cause the undead to ignore them?
Oops... that's an art error we didn't catch in the mayhem of getting about 2000 pages of product out into the world in a single month; sorry about that.
Alak's stat block is correct. Think of the art on page 20 as depicting him in the future when he becomes a Hellknight, graduates to halberd and armor... and rules for Hellknights are availalbe!
(The Hellknight rules are coming VERY soon but couldn't be out in time, really, to play a role in this adventure, so I deliberately softballed the Hellknight armor stuff as best as I could. Plus, Alak's still an armiger anyway so he shouldn't be fully kitted out as a Hellknight.)
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Apparently, I cannot type "halberd" and cannot count chapter numbers. My apologies for that.
Does Alak accompany the party into the final chapter or not? The end of chapter 3 says that he is supposed to (and indeed, it is essentially impossible to find the tunnel but not also find the ring), but chapter 4 makes references to Alak's presence.
Also, is there any guideline on how often characters are expected to take an 8-hour rest? This is a new system with a new set of expectations for daily resources. It would be nice to advise GMs on how often the party should be allowed to rest. I can find no such advice in the core rulebook's GMing section on the matter.
After all, if the party can just slink away and rest whenever they please, then the daily resource management is pointless, no?
Whether or not he accompanies the PCs into the final chapter is up to the GM; the original turnover assumed he would but during development I wanted to leave that up to the GM, since not all GMs are comfortable with running helper NPCs as extra party members. He's not required, but if he does tag along, then yeah, some extra things happen.
My guideline is that characters are expected to take an 8 hour rest once a day, just as that's more or less how we humans do things in the real world.
That said, check pages 499–500 of the Core Rulebook for a discussion of resting.
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Pages 499-500 do not quite cover what I am asking. I know that characters can take an 8-hour rest once per day, but what is the expected number of times that characters can slink away from the dungeon and go, "Actually, we are going to take the rest of the day off until we can rest again"?
I cannot find anything in the GMing section on the core rulebook on the recommended number of encounters per day, essentially.
We may have more advice on topics like that in the upcoming GM's guide, but the real answer is still gonna be "As often as the GM feels it makes sense."
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I get that the rest of Isger is not of too much importance to this campaign, but I found the lack of labels on the roads out of town a little confusing.
Given what I read about secret passages and such, I'm assuming that since Citadel Altaerein is NE of town, it is on the north side of the river, and that the way to reach it is to take the road running NW out of town, because it climbs the rise labelled on the western edge. Is that right? I'm assuming yes and inferring that the described road to the keep is a spur off of this road, which goes somewhere important enough to be traveled.
Most of the descriptions imply the keep is 1 mile away, but page 63 has it as 10 miles.
Also, where do the three roads going out of town lead, in general? Does the road running to the eastern edge of the map go to Andoran, Druma, or the mountainous spit of Cheliax on the Inner Sea Primer map? For the road going northwest, does that go to Cheliax, deeper into Isger, or Molthune? How is it different from the road running west on the southern bank of the Breach Creek?
To be clear, which direction is Breach Creek's downstream? Does it end at sea, and if so how does it drain, by which I mean Lake Encarthan in Molthune, LE in Druma, direct to the Inner Sea via a river in Andoran, or via Cheliax? Or does it just empty into some smaller lake somewhere?
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To be clear, which direction is Breach Creek's downstream? Does it end at sea, and if so how does it drain, by which I mean Lake Encarthan in Molthune, LE in Druma, direct to the Inner Sea via a river in Andoran, or via Cheliax? Or does it just empty into some smaller lake somewhere?
It almost certainly joins the Conerica River. Flowing to Lake Encarthan would involve crossing a water divide.
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slightly unrelated question: does the Adventure path begin in 4719 AR. I'm just trying to pre-plan what my groups kingmaker kingdom is at the time the AP starts.We don't say so in print, but that's the general idea, yes.
Page 76 :P
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Sorry if this has been brought up elsewhere, but I'm looking at the interactive maps, and there doesn't seem to be a "Player View" option like there was in other Pathfinder interactive maps. It's causing the "S" for secret doors to show up no matter which options I select. Anyone else running into this issue?
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It strikes me as odd that the Hellknights would abandon the Citadel and not take care of the Sepulcher and other interred bodies. The attention they gave to them (burying them with a +1 weapon or an item of personal significance, setting up the undead guardians, etc.) seems inconsistent with just abandoning the whole thing without doing something with/about them when they moved. Alak more or less just shrugging at robbing the graves is also a bit off.
The undead, at least, are needed to scare of Voz, and it does seem time to give the players a few magic items, but the setup troubles me. Does anyone have any thoughts on this?
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It strikes me as odd that the Hellknights would abandon the Citadel and not take care of the Sepulcher and other interred bodies.
Queen Domina gave them a really huge bribe. Also, they did leave guardians behind when the first moved house, and they dwindled and died off over time. Standard fantasy stuff.
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I noticed something in the Toolbox chapter, specifically the entry on the anadi. They're listed as Medium size, but they were specifically described by their initial creator, Crystal Frasier, in this Twitter thread before they had stats, she described them as "halfling-sized." And why do they have those tall humanoid looks in the book as opposed to the image from Faiths of Golarion clearly has a much more spidery look? I know Crystal's not with Paizo directly anymore, but I thought she was still contributing to Paizo's stuff. Was she not consulted on her own creations?
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I noticed something in the Toolbox chapter, specifically the entry on the anadi. They're listed as Medium size, but they were specifically described by their initial creator, Crystal Frasier, in this Twitter thread before they had stats, she described them as "halfling-sized." And why do they have those tall humanoid looks in the book as opposed to the image from Faiths of Golarion clearly has a much more spidery look? I know Crystal's not with Paizo directly anymore, but I thought she was still contributing to Paizo's stuff. Was she not consulted on her own creations?
Crystal is a great writer. That said, she wasn't the initial creator of the anadi. That would have been me, back during the creation of the Inner Sea World Guide, and then I worked with Crystal and other writers later on when it became time to expand on them. Originally, I was going to write the entry on Holomog in Distant Shores, since it was a nation from my homebrew, but I felt that the presentation of a matriarchal nation would be better served by a woman writer, and as I said above, Crystal's a GREAT writer, so I was delighted she wanted and was able to write that chapter instead of me. Several of us had input on them, and she was assigned the most significant initial bit about them... but what's said in a Twitter thread is not canonical. I don't follow Twitter, as an example, so this is the first I've heard of that... so it's no surprise that it wasn't on my radar. Or Amanda's for that matter, the person who wrote up their stats for the first time in Hellknight Hill.
But in the end, creating the content for Golarion is very much a collaborative process, and sometimes there's miscommunication. I always wanted the anadi to be medium, and had I been consulted on that before hand I would have talked it over with Crystal and come to a conclusion that made us both happy. That talk never happened, and as a result... what's said on Twitter stays on Twitter, I guess. Sorry if that disappoints anyone.
When a writer writes for Paizo, their creations become Paizo's, and they become something that anyone who works here or we hire could expand upon. That's one of the things you need to be at peace with when you write for hire. I do hope Crystal wants to keep writing for Paizo. I'd LOVE to work with her again. Whether or not she wants to work with me is her call though.
As for their different looks... we've adjusted and tinkered with a lot of creature appearances during the edition switch. The anadi are not alone there.
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Cracked open Hellknight Hill at Gencon last night with some folks. While we enjoyed the session mightily, a few things didn't track well for the group that I wanted to point out for those looking for potential stumbling blocks:
1. The group felt it was a little ridiculous (in character and out) that a citadel crammed with baddies is only a mile outside of town. It made them feel as though the town should by rights have been facing a lot more danger, as well as that the town leadership was kind of crazy to wait to go investigate the source of the goblin distress signal when it can practically be seen out the window.
2. As soon as it was revealed that Calmont was seen running away from the scene of the fire, and that he worked for the bookseller, the very first thing the group did was to go try to find/break into Voz's shop. We anticipate that many other groups will do something similar, setting up some issues in terms of plotting.
Other than that, we felt that the theme/plot was probably intentionally meant to feel a little bit "back to basics" with the system reset, but came away a little disappointed that the kickoff didn't offer something a little more unique as in past first volumes of APs, and definitely felt somewhat railroady.
Again, we enjoyed the heck out of it, and a lot of the meatier plotting/interesting encounters are a bit further down the road in the adventure, so not huge concerns - just things I wish I had taken a deeper look into before we started the session.
Hey I am wondering about the new format for detailing NPCs in adventure paths..I noticed some, like Dmiri have race and class listed (hobgoblin ranger 4) whereas other NPCs like Voz don’t have any of that listed. Is that just an oversight for Voz or is that a difference in design?
Thanks!