In chapter 3, in the lower Moonstone Halls, PCs encounter Sarshellix and her Triceratops. How has anyone else run this fight? Does the adventure intend for the GM to use Mounted Combat rules for the Xulgath Mage and their dinosaur, or is the Xulgath meant to slip off the beast?
Ooh, I just had a thought that would be awesome if I could make it work: set the fight up to mirror a circus performance, with an opener, a build-up, a big number, and then facing Dusklight in a finale. I wonder if it'd work if I just made the lead-in fights extra easy.
This might work as well. Dusklight, as I'm running her, is enough of a drama queen to toy with the PCs through a whole show. Even so far as giving them a 10 minute rest while each act sets up.
I'm also tempted to just handwave the actual time and give them a "10 minute" rest for free before the boss. After all, it's my decision to have one fight after the other, I don't want to punish them like when they choose to rush ahead.
After sitting down with this book last weekend, I like most of what's here, but I think I'll be redoing all of chapter 4.
This just doesn't evoke anything I wanted from the Celestial Menagerie. It feels very dungeon-y in the Heavenly Gallery Gauntlet, and I'm confident my players will just want to crash through the wall at the far side when they find out Dusklight is waiting at the end. But even if they don't, I don't think a variety hour funhouse dungeon crawl does the CM and Dusklight justice. My PC's are in Book 1 Chap 2, and she's already been built up as a big bad that imo needs a more cinematic fight.
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Have you managed to work out how you're going to approach this? I'm intrigued by your idea and want to do something similar.
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Have you managed to work out how you're going to approach this? I'm intrigued by your idea and want to do something similar.
I'm still a long way to this point, but I have a tentative plan. Sorry for this wall of text.
I got into the weeds of encounter building now, and realized how little variation there is in this chapter, and this book overall. Nearly all moderate encounters, with a spike of severe in chap 3. I'm gonna make a few things easier, especially toward the start of this chapter. This will be in addition to the finagling I need to do to bring Paldreen along for the ride (whom I will try to hand over to a guest player).
1. Combining D1 and D2. Nothing drastic, just makes more sense to put the tickets before the attractions.
2. Adding the Wheel to the Midway. Don't know why this was separate from the other games. Kagrud will prod the heroes to use it, instead of Adrivallo. Might change Kagrud to a catfolk.
3. Making the Sideshow mandatory. There are two ways forward, through the Sanctum of Sublime Spectacles or through the midway. You can't just leave a circus like this, they want your money. Either your tips in the sideshow, or the cost of any games you play on the midway. If I left it out of the way as written, I foresee a 90% chance my players will never see it.
4. Rearranging the Heavenly Gallery. The paths through the midway and sideshow rejoin, to split again shortly after. It forks with the Heavenly Gallery on one side, and the Hall of Mirrors on the other. The Gallery is in a large tent with a shining sun motif, while the hall is moon themed.
In the Gallery are the Lamias playing on a stage, who attack as normal.
In the Hall of Mirrors is the Zuipnyrn. A gaze-based creature is far more interesting when encountered in a hall of mirrors.
If the PCs are doing well, some carneys from backstage release the smilodons into whichever path they took.
5. Stopping the Show. The PCs arrive in the Big Top during a show and interrupt Jasmaile and the giant clowns' act. She feigns appreciation from the trapeze and exclaims, "I'm saved, heroes have arrived." while subtly harrying the heroes as they fight the giants.
6. Take Five. Book 1 Chap 1 showed me the danger of gauntlets. There will be three encounters in center ring, and the PCs will need a break. As the next act is set up and announced, I'm going to treat that as "10 minutes"-ish to refocus, treat wounds, etc. between each of these encounters.
7. The Big Number. Evora and Gigi arrive on stage to protect their home. This one is very clear in my mind.
The lights go out, maybe the CM even has Darkness Spotlights to plunge the stage into total darkness. A single, tight spot shines down on an orc. She challenges the party, to the effect of, "Who are you to stand on this stage? Mere exiles who could not hack it in the greatest show on Golarion! And now you have returned, take this chance to beg forgiveness, to grovel your way back into the Celestial Menagerie!" She paces while talking and ends with a flourish, jumping forward and sliding down Gigi's trunk as she finishes her monologue and the spot grows to show her mammoth as well. Then she attacks, the center ring is illuminated but the rest of the tent kept in darkness. Paldreen peels away from the group, tells them to handle this, she's going to ensure Dusklight doesn't get away.
8. The Grand Finale. Evora is defeated or swayed (Gigi ceases fighting if Evora does), the final act is announced, one of the side rings is illuminated to reveal Dusklight. She gets her chance to monologue, during which she taunts the PCs by revealing she has Paldreen as a hostage. The third ring is lit, Darricus stands by a glass water tank for escape artists, a lever in his hand, which would release Paldreen (tied and stuffed in a burlap sack) headfirst into the tank.
Combat begins. As soon as a PC attacks, Darricus uses a readied action to pull the lever. This puts a timer on one aspect of the fight, but it's very adaptable. Paldreen could have up to 10 rounds of air, she could try to attack the tank each turn, taking her down to 5 rounds, or she could already be unconcious in which case she needs to be saved immediately.
As this encounter is setting up, I'm going to have a little cutscene to Mazael because I love the aesthetic. The camera follows behind this aasimar in golden armor with snow white hair, so pure he seems to glow. He stalks toward the brightly colored fabric of the circus tent and pulls back the curtain. Inside is a single faint beam of light shining down some distance away on the party, and all else is darkness. He steps inside and disappears into the dark.
In Dusklight's ring, I'm puling out all the stops. My inspiration for this fight is the Revue of Pride scene from Revue Starlight. She constantly provokes the heroes, with lines like, "Do you honestly think you escaped? If any one of you were worthy of the Celestial Menagerie, I would have had you back in an instant!" I'm giving her what I'm calling a "circus action," essentially she's quickened and can use the extra action for a stride*. This stride can be performed vertically, imagine her grabbing ropes or set pieces that get hoisted up over the stage. The ring will be marked with all sorts of indicators that tell the actors where to stand (Circus Lore to let the PCs interpret them). At one point early on, I'm having her step onto a plywood facade of a castle hidden under a covering of dirt and hay, when she does so, it gets pulled up so she's standing at the top (maybe with some slight cover), and this prompts Mazael to enter initiative, bursting through the newly raised castle doors to attack. All the while her fighting is extremely performative, she never stops putting on a show. These are the things that will make her The Circus BBEG that my group will remember.
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No need to apologise! Your wall of text is helpful, and you have great ideas. Your insight helps my own approach I'm planning.
Really appreciating the Xulgath chapter. It's led to a lot of interesting twists to roleplaying Cavnakash (which my circus recruited with a crazy Diplomacy check, and some convincing circumstances); like teaching him to bath himself in a river to get the natural skin oils that stink up places out of his skin for a moment and a weird roleplay moment when he made a tent out of a tarp and was creating a small fire within it and the players were confused about smoke inhalation (which he saw as a rite of passage to cull the weak). It's definitely made Cavnakash a party favourite the last two or so sessions, complete with running jokes (like refusing to translate for the fighter in the group, because they're trying to convince Cavnakash to be LESS warlike).
It's so cool to hear someone else pursued this concept! In our case, it was Ashagith, rather than Cavnakash (the thought crossed my mind about the boss, but I didn't have the audacity). As she and her group were the penultimate encounter after having slain everything else in the tower, our GM changed her personality and had her issue a challenge for a duel, rather than fight the group that had just systematically annihilated the tower's defenses. If she won, the rest of our group would be allowed to live but must leave the tower, and if we won, her warriors were instructed to let us pass. My lawful good monk took particular interest in the idea of a xulgath with a sense of honor (even though in reality it turns out she was just overconfident and invented a deal she herself wouldn't refuse). Much to my--mostly neutral--party's dismay, my monk only knocked her out after a narrow victory, and took her back to the circus.
While your Cavnakash sounds like he was intelligent enough to be swayed by the merits presented in a diplomatic overture, Ashagith was not. Despite her clever streak, she was a strong product of nurture. Initially, she remained quite violent, and only her grievous injuries kept her submissive. The only way to hold her attention in the early days of the long acculturation process was to spike her charred food with the pollen of a yellow musk creeper that our GM had planted as a loot ingredient in the kitchen of the hermitage, and present it to her bit by bit personally to encourage a bond. Honestly, it was like taming a pet raptor that could talk in very broken Common. She was introduced to utterly alien concepts like what a friend is, and that the cows and horses around the circus weren't meant for eating. While she revered Zevgavizeb, her underlying terror of being consumed by him after her death was used as leverage to convince her she could choose a life that would let her escape the Gluttondark god by rejecting his teachings. When my monk made her aware of Irori, a mortal that achieved his own godhood, she latched onto the idea immediately, convinced that if she could become a god herself, Zevgavizeb could no longer consume her. After that, she became far more attentive and amicable, working to help the circus by hunting and acting as a butcher in the kitchen. To everyone's great relief, she even learned to emulate the Stalker's trick of suppressing her scent, with the help of herbs she observed Lakkai One-fang using. She doesn't really understand even the basic tenants of Irori as anything but a means to an end, and they along with most surface-dweller behaviors seem overly-complicated and "dumb," but the life has been growing on her. She's taken a budding affection for my monk, who has been her primary teacher, even though, again, she has no concept of the emotion, having come from a culture where it was natural for everyone you know to stab you in the back the moment you displayed a sign of weakness and they had something to gain. She built a nest on the roof of his wagon, and for a few days was under the impression that so long as she went to sleep after him and rose before, he'd be none the wiser. She was discovered rather quickly to his amusement; as if the pile of leaves and sounding like a dog on linoleum wasn't enough, she slept in one day with her tail hanging in front of his wagon door.
It's been 20 or 21 8-hour sessions since then, and she's showing a strong interest in joining our adventuring party. The problem is, above-game she's still technically an NPC with her acculturation incomplete. Therefore, she's only LVL 3, even through the rest of us are LVL 9, and has yet to choose a class. Released from the cage of a xulgath mindset, she looks at the world with a childlike mix of enthusiasm, frustration, and impatience, so it's both easy and difficult to insist that she's not yet ready. But in the epilogue of Dusklight's defeat and our final show on the Isle of Erran, we're making a trip back to the Aeon Tower, to see if she's willing to accept the blessing of Aroden and his ancient controversial decision, thereby determining for herself which world she'd committed to defending.
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After sitting down with this book last weekend, I like most of what's here, but I think I'll be redoing all of chapter 4.
This just doesn't evoke anything I wanted from the Celestial Menagerie. It feels very dungeon-y in the Heavenly Gallery Gauntlet, and I'm confident my players will just want to crash through the wall at the far side when they find out Dusklight is waiting at the end. But even if they don't, I don't think a variety hour funhouse dungeon crawl does the CM and Dusklight justice. My PC's are in Book 1 Chap 2, and she's already been built up as a big bad that imo needs a more cinematic fight.
The encounter with Evora and Gigi sets up to potentially deliver what I've been imagining, a showdown in the three rings. That's the battle I want for Dusklight. And I want an audience.
First two assumptions I'm throwing out:
1. The heroes arrive in the off hours - This should go down during the circus show. It's time to repay the favor.
2. The heroes are sent off alone - They're either working with the law or they aren't. I'm gonna have the professor advise them to get Paldreen, and then she will say something to the effect of "We should take care of this immediately, but all my men are occupied. Heroes, if you would be willing, I deputize you to assist me in this arrest. Bear in mind, Dusklight is not the only rotten apple in this bushel, be prepared for a fight from any number of her clowns."After that I'll be making a new map that puts the Heavenly Gallery as a lead-in to the bigtop. Of course, it will be arranged for operating hours, not as a defensive murder maze. In the bigtop they fight Evora as normal. Paldreen splits off to keep Dusklight from escaping, but she has no desire to do so, she wants to stick around and taunt her foes. Off screen, Darricus and a bruiser get the better of Paldreen. The tent will have to be larger, and lighting will play a key roll. The spots will illuminate only Evora and the heroes in center ring until they defeat her. Then two spotlights peel off to...
I busted through dozens of walls of text earlier in the thread looking just for this!
Heartily agree, and since this book (starting soon after a new group replacing those TPKed by Cavnakash finish Book 1) will now be our campaign finale - the promise of "circus AP did not play out as hoped, for us - I need this final throwdown with Dusklight to be suitably epic and worth the Moonstone slog.
Did you end up making and playing through these adjustments, Bosco? What mechanics did you use during the circus encounter, if any? I am wanting to bring in some mechanics for swaying Menagerie members to their side, and maybe have them tussling with Wayward Wonders members in the background.
Thanks for anything you can share.
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I don't think the city intended for the neighborhood to become filled with drug houses, gambling dens, etc., or for the ground to be unstable and at risk of causing sinkholes. It's just been over 100 years since Aroden's death and the temple being buried, and it seems that time hasn't been kind.
Not sure about how they buried the hall, though this is a pretty magical world so it could've been judicious applications of spells like shape stone. Otherwise I think either of your other suggestions could potentially be done through some mix of ingenuity and hard labor.
As to the reasons they buried the temple instead of keeping it up or tearing it down for parts, I'd say it's probably a mix of the city wanting to use the land for its own development and wanting to appease those who'd object to destroying the temple. I'd imagine there was probably some push-back, but most of the priests had moved on to other gods or left their old lives behind. There's also the matter that the building is haunted by a ghost already, and that destroying or "desecrating" the temple by rededicating it might have caused some further problems of a supernatural sort
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Hey there, I'm currently reading through Book 2 in preparation and one thing that bothers me is *why exactly is Moonstone Hall buried*? It says it was buried to make room for civic improvements to the Woodworkers District, but that doesn't really make sense to me.
I also had a difficult time reconciling this. The AP mentions in passing that it was buried "to make way for civic improvements" like that's a totally normal thing that just happens and not an absolutely wild assertion. For my game, I decided the best way to make some sense of this is a slight tweak to the presented lore:
If asked about ruins below the city, locals impart the common knowledge that all the old ruins under the city were converted into an expansive sewer system several decades ago(although this popular assumption is erroneous).
In my Escadar, much of the older city had fallen into disrepair and been condemned. It may seem odd to us that a church of Aroden on the island he created would just be abandoned like that, but we can't really fathom the impact of a provably extant god dying. The priests lost all their power so the church really didn't fulfil its purpose anymore. More than anything, it was probably a painful reminder. There may even have been riots after Aroden's passing centered on Moonstone Hall that further ruined this part of the old town.
Then the church of Abadar stepped in to seize an opportunity. They could have repaired and renovated the condemned old town, but the alternative was too alluring. Raise the earth and build anew over the ruined city, and turn those old ruins into a world-class sewer system.
I think that's sufficient to explain the oddity, though I'm going a step further because I can't help myself.
I'm reworking chapter one to take place primarily in the sewer. Adding to the undesirability of the land the circus is given, Escadar's sewers empty out right into the swamp and everything that was in the cave is in the sewer instead. Kalkek's attacks lure the PCs in to explore the sewers where they find a collapsed tunnel that reeks of xulgaths. I'm doing away with the mermaid fountain entrance, because it makes zero sense to have a full time staff of four guards permanently stationed at a sinkhole that could be fixed with one spell and that leads down a set of stairs to a major historic holy site and they've heard the sounds of crime and/or monsters down there but have taken no efforts to close the sink hole or investigate at all. Instead my PCs will need to clear rubble in the collapsed tunnel to access Moonstone Hall. And to do that, they need a writ of passage because the sewers are off limits and there are guard patrols in the sewers to reduce crime. Most criminals, monsters, and adventurers can avoid the ineffectual guards, but not when they're taking several hours to clear a passageway, so they will need to get permission.
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Did you end up making and playing through these adjustments, Bosco? What mechanics did you use during the circus encounter, if any? I am wanting to bring in some mechanics for swaying Menagerie members to their side, and maybe have them tussling with Wayward Wonders members in the background.
Unfortunately my game is a pretty slow pace because I'm alternating sessions with another GM's game, it'll probably be a while before we reach the end of book 2. If you end up running the Celestial Menagerie before me, I'd love hear anything you did to spice it up.
Hello, all.
First time asking something here, not sure if I'm in the right place. But well, on to it. My group is about to go into the Celestial Menagerie in chapter 4, and I am a little confused on room D10b, the "Terrors of the Jungle". Second paragraph states <<Some of the leaves scattered on the floor are oiled underneath, making footing treacherous. The indicated squares on the map are uneven ground, requiring a DC 22 Acrobatics check>>.Am I severely missing something here? There doesn't seem to be any indications of which squares are the uneven ground ones.
Thanks in advance!
As I'm nearing ready to host this segment tomorrow night, I find myself wondering about this as well!
I love Bosco’s idea for the climactic finale and Staffan’s addition to mirror the 4-stage circus format! We’re just finishing chapter 1, but my players are eager to take on Dusklight. I started our session zero with a cinematic scene with two of the party being rescued from an earlier version of the oubliette, so they in particular want revenge. They already snuck in with bad intent once, got charmed and sent away by the satyr, then returned to rescue the azarketi, barely escaping themselves.
I want to build up a big circus showdown, where the heroes return from a long meeting with the constables to find the circus in ruins, with many captured and six silver tickets inviting them, Paldreen, and Stallit to the big show. When they arrive, they will learn from the satyr or magic mouths that they must play along if they want to rescue their friends. The lives of the professor and a backstory friend in particular will be at stake. Dusklight will “welcome” the wayward performers to a packed house and challenge them to perform the Opener. Nothing will be good enough for the charmed crowd, so Send In The Clowns! And the gauntlet begins with the Hill Giant fight.10 minutes or more as needed between performances, with music and side acts entertaining the crowd while new acts are moved into place in the darkness and the team heals up.
I envision a two-ring Build Up where animal trainers must be rescued: Elizia from the anaconda, perhaps Danika and Axel from the smilodons. I agree Evora and Gigi make a good Big Number. Then the Finale is another rescue of friends. I’m thinking a dwarf acrobat in a real ballista, Mordaine in the water escape act but truly chained, and the halfling’s friend who helped in the rescue being sawed in half by mechanical carnies.
But Dusklight has to outdo the rival circus, so her show is longer. That’s when I’d like to bring back a feeble minded constable, Vote Paldreen banners flying, as she’s holding “fireworks” that threaten the whole tent. Stallit drops her in the drink to “save the good citizens of Escadar”, and that fight goes down with Vote Stallit banners now showing. Dusklight is actually setting up her own move to become Chief Constable after Stallit falls. Vote Dusklight banners fly, with angelic supporters running the spotlights, and she vows to bring these circus-murder-hobos to justice.
Yes, 2e is not designed for such a string of fights, especially leading to the boss, so I plan to seed the audience and backstage with friends from along the way who grow braver as the heroes inspire them or need help. A new bag of bombs or elixirs for the alchemist from Fidget and her sisters. The azarketi are grateful, and so are other folks in town. After all, Dusklight wants to show off in front of the elite in town, so anyone they met could be present. My party asked for an epic end to the Dusklight arc, and finishing in the circus framework seems perfect. Thanks for the inspiration!
Now I just have to figure out what to trim so I can get to the circus showdown they really want, while still laying the motivation to care about the rest of the adventure…
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How is one expected to run the maze of mirrors exactly? The hazard block seems not to explain it well.
The “Greatest and Last” show at the Celestial Menagerie just went down as I described above, and we had a great time. The players cooperated with my plan, and didn’t force it off the rails that Dusklight (and I) had laid down. Because they had already infiltrated the circus once, they’d already seen most of the flavor written into chapter 4, so the fast series of combats didn’t leave much out. I did leave out the mirror maze, even though it could have been a cinematic final battle location, because I couldn’t figure it out either.
The heroes didn’t need any of the help seeded in the audience, however. They had plenty healing to get to the final stages with only a few 10 minute intermissions (free archetype herbalist helped a lot). But the final battles turned heavily on a couple saves. Stallit crit fail vs. fear first round, so he ran away leaving Cobbin alone to be repeatedly knocked prone by hammer crits. Stallit’s eventual demise underneath the grandstands set up Dusklight’s entrance. But Dusklight failed vs. Slow in round 1, so it never felt like an Extreme encounter.
We all enjoyed the session, though, and because Dusklight was cruelly manipulating everything throughout the session, we still got the feel of an epic showdown despite no PC going down in the final battles. My players said it was a creative way to end the Dusklight story arc, so thanks again for the fun ideas!
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Why is the whip of compliance worth 3000gp? That's an extremely high amount for a 9th level item..
I was surprised by that, too. I wasn’t sure anyone in town could afford to buy it or would want to. I was let off the hook when two PCs left the party because they were motivated by revenge against Dusklight (and the players love trying new classes). So splitting the proceeds before they left was roughly equal to adding two level-appropriate runes to the party.
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My group just put on their first show in Escadar and upon finding the "CM" Tickets they have now decided to go and see what the competitions show looks like. My players are smarter than to attempt to make this into a combat/assault. They most likely won't even attempt to retaliate with their own sabotage.
I'm debating on letting them come see a show. Any major flaws to letting them do this? Should I ban them from the show? Or should I start writing up a performance of the Celestial Menagerie..?