1 - Devil at the Dreaming Palace (GM Reference)


Agents of Edgewatch

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My players had some bad diplomacy rolls and ended up in fights during the patrol. That thief that runs off can be dangerous. She did some decent damage to the party members.

I did not do the menagerie on the same day as the patrols. Even starting the day with it, the encounters proved tough. The owlbear wasn't the easiest. Then you move on to the cockatrice, which actually stoned one party member. A DC 20 fortitude save not the easiest at low level. Most of the other encounters were nuisance encounters, but they did drain hit points. The ankhrav at the end tough after everything else. I can't see many 1st level parties surviving the patrol and menagerie in the same day without a whole lot of luck.


I just ran the first parts of chapter one. Notable houserules are I'm using double class feats, and started at level 2. My players managed to get through the entire first encounter without combat.

I started the campaign with them talking to Prachett, then later flashed back to the conversation with the Lt.

I decided to run the halfling as being tricksy and taunting the guards, but if you could keep up with her tricks she's be impressed and just want to peacefully show off more (diplomacy or perception to pacify). The Dwarf was just generally surly but a bit cowardly, so intimidate or a harder diplomacy check could calm him down. The Elf was angry at the dwarf, so she'd try to make him mad each turn, but could be distracted with talking about Arcana. The Cleric was just a bit too in his cups, but could be shamed with religion. The players navigated it well, and it didn't come to blows. I'm pretty excited, because the players really developed some ties to the adventurers.

During the rounds, they fought the skeletons first, then went by the mage's cottage, and ended at the merchant stalls. The skeletons were pretty easy, and I let them use Society to notice they had guard badges and pinpoint where they were. My investi gator (lizardfolk investigator) got a critical success, so I also had him know exactly where the old captain of that area was currently posted.

The wizard encounter went pretty much as written.

The Goblin encounter was fun but went pretty straight forward. I let my alchemist use craft to try and put out the fires, because it just made sense.

I skipped the pickpocket for now, but I'll work it in later. I had each of them come up with a criminal that they regularly ran into in the past, so I'll pick one of those for here.

I let them sleep the night before the zoo, and I'll be running that in a few weeks. This campaign has a lot of encounters that are similar to EC, so I decided to swap a few of those out. Namely, I'm going to have the cockatrice be killed by an enraged unicorn, to really play up the fact that something VERY wrong is going on. I also plan on dropping the hyena encounter, because it didn't seem all that special. I thought long and hard about cutting the viper too, but I think it'll stay in because the poison will put some interesting pressure on them in later encounters.

So far it was a lot of fun! The first encounter took longer than expected, but they seemed to enjoy it. I was surprised it didn't immediately devolve into a brawl.


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I don't know what gave you the idea that kobolds are evil by default. You do understand they are people who can make their own decisions? They can be played as an ancestry? Even if they were, you still need to pay them for labor.

Honestly, you sound like one of those people who think goblins are always evil, and you don't want to be so easily proven wrong, right?


Junker has a point in that some inherent evil in the kobolds might be why they are shown by the adventure as the villains in this situation. But what makes people unhappy whith this is that no ancestry, people, or group is as whole inherently evil, or even inherently on the same side of anything, and Paizo has demonstrated that before.

Kingmaker: Stolen Lands spoiler:
(I know of a certain tribe of kobolds in Kingmaker: Stolen Lands who are manipulated by a devious shaman into going in self-destructive war.)

So, while we know that kobold are intelligent people, enough to be a playable ancestry, and while they could protest against an issue that is both very real, and very realistic in that setting (Absalom is not an ideal place by any metrics), that is to say exploitation of workers because they are at the fringes of acceptable society, the kobolds are written as murderous belligerents with absurd demands.

However! There is room for interpretation whithin that framework, and for any GM, it is perfectly possible to play the Stonescales as a straight evil tribe of Kobolds (Skerix & Rekarek working towards their goals with finesse or lack thereof), as oppressed, rightfully indignated workers, or as a more nuanced tribe of people torn by a strange situation, two competing leaderships, and their admiration for Rekarek's audacity.


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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

As I am currently running this AP for a group that is majority (4 of 6) kobolds, I am definitely going to be reworking this scenario significantly, incorporating many of the ideas discussed here. I will not be surprised if my team avoids combat entirely, honestly, especially given that one of my kobolds is, no joke, focused on labor law in her background and bio.

Shadow Lodge Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 8

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My take is, if we write issues like this off as being inevitable, or as being mere fiction, it becomes awfully easy to stop caring.

We don’t have to censor games, but we also shouldn’t get complacent. If an adventure misses the mark or includes a not-so-great element, it’s important to recognize that and try to do better next time.


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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

Unsurprisingly, my party of 6 level 2s have handled everything Chapter 1 has thrown at them so far, even with boosting DCs to fit their level and adding Elite to a lot of stuff, and are now halfway through the Menagerie. Notable alterations I've incorporated to this point, inspired in part by this thread:

Non-lethal damage
Each Agent of the Edgewatch is issued a very special, experimental magical device called a Peacekeeper's Badge.

Details:
Developed by Antonizi Fizwittle of the Pathfinder Society, based on his extensive study of Azlanti Wayfinders and using an artifact recovered from Arcadia. Crafted in the shape of the traditional Badge of the Absalom Guard divisions and featuring the seal of the newly formed Edgewatch of the Precipice quarter, when worn the Badge magically transforms all attacks so that any damage rendered is nonlethal, keeping all other properties of the attack unaltered. The only exception to this attack-altering effect is positive and negative energy effects, which do not gain the non-lethal trait. The badge can be deactivated with a two action Interact action that has the manipulate trait, which causes the badge to glow with a soft red light. Each badge must be recharged with a 10 minute exposure to the Azlanti artifact once daily, or it ceases to function, aside from emitting the soft red glow.

Reworking the Asset Forfeiture Loot System
Details:
Pay is irregular due to bureaucratic issues as well as the variability implied in the following mechanic, but in order to recruit more experienced guards the Edgewatch is paying on "adventurer scale." This is funded, in part, by an asset forfeiture system in which criminals found guilty of the use of lethal force have their valuables confiscated by the Edgewatch. After a civilian review board approves the seizure, the goods are made available for purchase for a limited time by the Edgewatch Agents at half price, then resold through a Precipice Quarter storefront at full market value. If, in the course of fulfilling their duty, an Edgewatch Agent comes across equipment or consumables that would be of vital assistance in the completion of their immediate task, they may do so, so long as damage to equipment and usage of consumables is accounted for in their post-duty reports. In non-game-world terms, the way I make this work is that all the gold the agents are supposed to loot goes into their salary, plus one half the market price of all the gear they’re supposed to loot, minus whatever consumables or what have you they actually wind up using or receiving straight up during their adventuring. If it’s gear they would recognize (I don’t even describe what a lot of their opponents would give them if they looted them unless they ask specifically, so that stuff shows as available right away), it shows up in the Requisitions Office (implemented as a user-accessible merchant in the Edgewatch HQ in FoundryVTT) a few days following the encounter it was seized, then gets “shipped out” to the resale shop.

Plot modifications:

Making Hendrik less obvious/more sympathetic This is harder than it should be, and I was not entirely successful. In his introduction in the Tipsy Tengu, I shortened his dialog and omitted the extraneous inclusion of his ownership of the Dreaming Palace. Thanks to his stupid f$~$ing art and weird speaking style, he still seems super suspicious. To try and defuse this further, I had the Skeleton Guards encounter be right around the corner from The Dreaming Palace, and had Hendrik bleeding from yet another head wound, stunned and crawling away from the scene when the Agents arrive, an idea I stole pretty much whole from someone in this thread (Thanks!). I used the following in my notes to run the scene:

Hendrik and The Risen Dead (my Thrash Metal cover band):
The waves of negative energy from Pratchett's necromantic experiments are actually responsible for the reanimation of the skeletons, although he was unaware of their presence prior to the collapse that killed the foreman and wounded him. When the Agents help him out, he's grateful and explains his presence truthfully: "My heroes! Thank you for helping me yet again! I run a hotel just around the corner, there, "The Dreaming Palace." I've got a couple of Newlyweds in the Honeymoon Suite, right now, and they asked me to come ask the workmen if they could start later in the day. I didn't bother to tell them it was the middle of the afternoon, and just came out to chat with poor Foreman Jarik over there," he gestures to a fallen construction worker nearby, "when that wall over there collapsed on the both of us. Knocked me for a loop! Then those...horrifying things started coming out of the rubble, and everyone was running and screaming...I just dragged myself out of the way and tried to avoid their notice, until you fine fellows came along! I'll be recommending you all for a commendation, and next time you're in the neighborhood you stop by the front desk and Ralso will have some fresh tea for you!"

Even with all of that, my Investigator player is super suspicious of Hendrik, but not enough to keep the following from happening...
Eunice The Homeless
The AP doesn't actually say where Eunice has been staying for the two weeks previous to the Agents encountering him, so I said he'd been living on the streets. Since Marin doesn't press charges they don't want to stick him in holding, so they figured "Hey, we have a hotelier who owes us a favor!" ...Yeah, they put Eunice up at The Dreaming Palace. They are currently planning on running him out to the Arcanamirium to see if Kelemenes' old school has had any contact with him, but I plan on Lavarsus shooting that down. I extemporized that Eunice has an uncle in Otari that he could reach out to assuming that locating Kemeneles may not be an available solution in the short term, but now I'm planning to have the Agents return to the hotel to be handed a note "from" Eunice saying that his uncle had come looking for him and was able to find him thanks to the ruckus he caused. I am open to suggestions on what Pratchett and Ralso have actually done with him, with tie-ins to the "Prisoners" encounter in Chapter 4 being most welcome!
The Menagerie
My tweaks here have been mostly mechanical to make the encounters more challenging for my upscaled party. Basically, Rusty and Hoots are combined into one encounter, as are Beaktooth and the Hyenas. They're both Moderate encounters for a 6-player 2nd level party when combined in that fashion.
The Dragonfly Pagoda
As I've previously mentioned, my party is 4/6ths kobolds. My Rogue has, in her backstory, a specialization in Kobold Labor Law, and her player is 1) a certifiable polymath genius with multiple advanced degrees, and 2) one of the most devious and creative GMs I've ever encountered. I've read all the back and forth in this thread about this encounter twice, now, and still feel woefully underprepared for this...any thoughts on how Doopa, Rekarek, and Skerix might change their responses when confronted with a majority Kobold squad?


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

My party ended up waltzing through the Dreaming Palace, directly into Pratchett's office and the basement after triggering only a single trap. I handled that by giving them experience for effectively bypassing most of the traps that wouldn't have to be handled later, like all of the ones that weren't actively endangering civilians.


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

Update: Damn near caused a party wipe by not listening to whomever it was that suggested That Bastard would not have their acid spray available at the time the players encounter them. The only reason the party survived is that I handwaved the acid to stop persisting after two rounds, as they failed every single flat check. I can't imagine level 1 characters surviving that encounter as written!

They regrouped, healed up, and burrowed under the West Wall of the enclosure to get the kid out, then attacked the Ankhrav through the crystal gate, with a readied action to close it between salvos. Killed it in three rounds. They are inexplicably pissed at Sgt. Ollo for sending them to the Menagerie? I am not looking forward to Lavarsus' speech to them the next morning

I plan to play up that Ama is a well-meaning but distant ivory tower type, unaware of the injustices perpetrated by her forepersons, Skerix as legitimately aggrieved, Rekarek as hot-headed and self-absorbed. I also rewrote the implications that the Kobolds are just being Kobolds in being aggressively jerky idiots, and that it was sort of obvious in retrospect that hiring Kobolds to work for you is a bad idea. My players would be legitimately offended if I ran it as written.

Shadow Lodge Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 8

I warned you! :P

Glad they made it through, fighting through the door was a clever strategy.

I'm really interested in hearing how they handle the kobold situation, please keep us updated!


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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

Speech from Lavarsus went well. I knew I'd nailed it when one of my players said "I don't know when this adventure is going to put a Big Bad in front of us, but for now Lavarsus will do."

I had to nudge them a bit to keep them from attempting to pick up Eunice earlier than I wanted them to, but I managed to get them to go to the Pagoda first so that should work out fine.

They've been playing first contact with the Stonescales cautiously with a couple of attempts at subterfuge, which makes sense but is not really something the AP gives guidance on, so I've been winging it a lot, and they haven't made much progress. I will wager, though, that my group is the first one who saw Rekarek's character art and immediately all exclaimed on how sexy she was?

More as the situation develops...


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Hey guys. My players seem keen to investigate the missing persons (they asked Ollo specifically to relieve them of their patrol duties and assign them the cases) so I would really like to expand on the missing persons list and allow them to investigate each missing person individually instead of being pressured to go to the pagoda immediately. Does anyone out there have any mini-investigations (one or two sentences per missing person describing who they were, what they were doing, when they went missing and who reported their disappearance) I could use?


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Naurgul wrote:
Hey guys. My players seem keen to investigate the missing persons (they asked Ollo specifically to relieve them of their patrol duties and assign them the cases) so I would really like to expand on the missing persons list and allow them to investigate each missing person individually instead of being pressured to go to the pagoda immediately. Does anyone out there have any mini-investigations (one or two sentences per missing person describing who they were, what they were doing, when they went missing and who reported their disappearance) I could use?

Sure! Its a bit tricky because a lot of the trails run cold pretty fast, but that's kinda the point because eventually the PC's realize the Dreaming Palace is a tie between all of them which triggers the final act of the book.

Kemeneles: missing wizard, master of Eunice. Eunice knows Kemeneles had gone to apply for jobs at the Arcanamirium, Forae Logos, Pathfinder Society, and noble houses but failed. The PC's can spend a few hour in-game asking these groups for info but finding none. The last known place Kemeneles was seen was the Dreaming Palace, with Honeywell or Ralso seeing him walk out for a job interview. I'm having my group get Eunice enrolled at the Arcanamirium's classes so the poor kid has a place to stay.

Archibald Knight & Minera Frum: missing zookeeper and veterinarian who were having an affair, but the beds in their wagons were cramped so they went to the Dreaming Palace for more comfortable accommodations. The other zookeepers are aware of the affair and the wagons are cramped (also Minera's diary mentions finding a more comfortable bed). It would be reasonable to assume the lovers eloped, but they left their livelihood behind (the zoo and a lot of coin/equipment) so that doesn't check out.

Mentioned in the sidebar on page 23, but not fleshed out further (no judging, gotta keep the page count under control)

Anastatia Corvis: Irriseni merchant who came to sell icewine. I'm going to have this be a complaint from a noble house that was going to buy the icewine and had paid some in advance but then the wine seller went missing. The noble remembers meeting Corvis at a hotel, but can't recall the name.

Elama Mohaso: dwarven scholar from Rahadoum who came to the city to study at the Forae Logos. Can tie this into Kemeneles's investigation if you like or at least use the same NPC's. I'm going to do that and also tie Mohaso's research into the Radiant Siege to plant the seed of that idea in the minds' of my players.

Lyrma Swampwalker: a gnome ranger from Vidrian who came to Absalom to see the fair. We don't get much about Lyrma, but she does have a trident and comes from Vidrian, so I'm thinking of making some jokes about her hunting a grippli criminal who murdered her family named Constantine or Kermit or something (the Muppet-pun will make it look like a lame joke to my players, so they won't take it seriously.

The Sachta Family: a family of Jalmeri tourists consisting of mother and father Vindi and Sudhar and their 8-year-old twins Bashar and Nita. I'm going to have the twins cause some mischief that gets them in trouble, but nothing serious or harmful (lvl 1 Heal spell would be enough to remedy any damage, if that). The family will be a minor blip on the radar, just another set of faces, until the Jalmery consulate files an official request (which is what Lavarsus includes in the file for the PC's).


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OmegaZ wrote:
Sure! Its a bit tricky because a lot of the trails run cold pretty fast, but that's kinda the point because eventually the PC's realize the Dreaming Palace is a tie between all of them which triggers the final act of the book.

Thanks a ton OmegaZ! Those are all very good! I love them! However you timing is a bit unfortunate, by the time you posted I had already made some of my own. Funnily enough, a lot of mine are surprisingly similar to what you came up with.

Here they are in case anyone needs more missing persons:

Date: 2 Sarenith 4720
Name: Archibald Knight & Minera Frum
Description: Owner and vet of menagerie. They used to elope together but always returned on the same day. Their last outing was a week ago and they still haven't showed up.
Witness: Remy, zookeeper

Date: 1 Sarenith 4720
Name: Kemeneles
Description: Taldan wizard. Studied at Arcanamirium decades ago. Possible connection with another mage from his days there. Case should be moved to Learned Guard, it's their jurisdiction.
Witness: Eunice, apprentice wizard

Date: 28 Sarenith 4720
Name: Cody
Description: homeless
Witness: Esker of Ormuz
GM Notes: Esker did not witness the disappearance with her own eyes but knows Cody -despite her warnings- used to beg the passerby to take him with them and feed him / house him. She suspects the Aspis Consortium is behind the disappearance.

Date: 26 Desnus 4720
Name: Roji Aozo, Asao Iruya, Nakura To, Shuno Danoma, and Takeko Lon
Description: Minkai stonemasons working at Dragonfly Pagoda. Just didn't show up at work today.
Witness: Ama Uomi, pagoda architect and special envoy from Minkai

Date: 23 Desnus 4720
Name: Iven Listerov
Description: Barker and assistant for the Nex exhibits.
Witness: Sabbion Retrokav, Nex archmage
GM Notes: Sabbion only lodged a complaint to prove a point, thinking that Absalom is sabotaging him to outshine his magical performances. Cares little about some lowly assistant's fate.

Date: 22 Desnus 4720
Name: Relan Voni
Description: Worked at Aspis Pier. Had told his brother he would stay a few extra days before going home after construction was completed
Witness: Telan Voni, worker at Aspis Pier
GM Notes: Voni didn't leave an address so he will be hard to trace. Lives at Puddles and is poor. Checks in at the Edgewatch HQ every week or so.

Date: 20 Desnus 4720
Name: Lena Korivian en Bodo Soreno
Description: Andorran tourists. Last seen entering mystic gardens, never to be seen emerging again.
Witness: Kenior Vepino, tourist
GM Notes: Kenior has left no address. Stays at some random hotel. Knows nothing more. Contacting Dieralik Jhovanki he will say some tourists have overractive imaginations. Possibly blow up cover for separate higher-up investigation on him.

Date: 18 Desnus 4720
Name: Lyrma Swampwalker
Description: Vidrian ranger. Made a name for herself catching fish at Snowdew Pond with her trident.
Witness: Dullen, Ollo's nephew
GM Notes: Ollo is just humouring the boy who idolises the ranger after witnessing her performance. Ollo fully believes Lyrma just moved on.

Date: 17 Desnus 4720
Name: Barthelme
Description: Sent a letter by pigeon to Taldor. Never came back to receive the reply.
Witness: Jiji, Absalom Post employee
GM Notes: Show the players the letter on page 73. On the back there is a scribbled reply: "Wow! Looking forward to hearing more tales of your adventures in person -your daffodil, in eternal wait"

Date: 15 Desnus 4720
Name: Elama Mohaso
Description: Scholar from Rahadoum who brought books to be copied at Forae Logos as well as to study some books there. Librarian noted she said she would go to the festival after her work for the day was over, then never showed up the next day. Learned Guard has sent this case to us without even the courtesy of sharing all their info.
Witness: -

Date: 11 Desnus 4720
Name: Vindi Sachta, Sudhar Sachta, Bashar Sachta, Nita Sachta
Description: Family of Jalmeri tourists; Vindi and Sudhar are the parents, Bashar and Sachta are twin siblings. Had mentioned they would be staying for two weeks but didn't show up after one day at corral beach .
Witness: Zuego Vanitas, cheesemaker at the Docks
GM Notes: Kids of both families had a great time at the beach. Promised each other they would meet and play every day.

Date: 7 Desnus 4720
Name: Sonaris Telavian
Description: grilled delicacies propriator
Witness: Kalan Tovemor, grilled delicacies propriator
GM Notes: Kalan and Sonaris considered each other friendly competition at the Aspis Pier. Kalan was worried when Sonaris didn't show up at his stand one day.

Date: 3 Desnus 4720
Name: Anastatia Corvis
Description: Showed up at the Fattened Goat to sell wine wholesale. Took Εμφανίστηκε στο Παραφουσκωμένο Γίδι για να πουλήσει κρασί χοντρικής. Got some money in advance and never delivered.
Witness: Lundy Bursman, owner of Fattened Goat
GM Notes: Now that the goat's underbelly has taken off, Lundy is far more worried about guards snooping around at his tavern than the minor sum of money he lost a month ago.


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

These are neat, but you might want to tweak this one:

Naurgul wrote:

Date: 26 Desnus 4720

Name: Roji Aozo, Asao Iruya, Nakura To, Shuno Danoma, and Takeko Lon
Description: Minkai stonemasons working at Dragonfly Pagoda. Just didn't show up at work today.
Witness: Ama Uomi, pagoda architect and special envoy from Minkai

It's a plot point that all Ama knows about these workers' disappearance is that they disappeared, and that the crew boss who did know them was one of those slain by the Stonescales. It makes much more sense that that individual be the one who reported them missing. They are unnamed in the adventure, but I'm calling them Shirota Kuzu.

There's also an issue with the Voni brothers, in that all missing persons were explicitly specified as Non-Absalomians.


That's some good points, GreatGraySkwid.

I was thinking Ama should be the one filing the report because she's the best point of contact between the Absalom government and the Minkaian delegation. That also makes more sense gameplay-wise because she doesn't know enough information to make a good report. But I could see it work fine either way.

As for the Voni brothers, the whole point is that Pratchett is targeting people who won't be easily investigated. That means mostly travellers but not necessarily only travellers. As long as someone conceivably stops by the hotel and Pratchett can verify he's meant to not stay long and has no contacts, he's a valid target. That was my thinking when I added it initially but now I see that the bit with the surviving brother visiting the HQ every so often kinda contradicts the principle.

Also note that it's not necessary that all the missing persons were Pratchett victims. I purposefully left the details vague so it works both ways but realistically it's extremely unlikely that ALL missing person reports filed are due to that one singular serial killer the AP is about. Conceivably some might be due to other crimes or just people deciding to move on unexpectantly. Also there are bound to be some Pratchett victims that no one knew or cared enough to file a report on.


Follow-up: the investigation was more or less a success. My players have reached the pagoda, charmed Rekarek and are on the way to the hostages with her as a guide.

Anyway, I have a new concern now:

Of all the things they've come across so far they keep returning to the Snowdew Pond and the smelly smell therein. They want to figure out the source of the stench and are convinced it has something to do with the disappearances. I would love to indulge them. Has anyone expanded on that mystery so far? Googling hasn't yielded any results.

I wouldn't mind making up some mini-dungeon of my own but I have some questions about it: I found the old modules that are roughly about this area and it seems like the closest match is The Drownyard, a flooded place where a school used to be. Do you guys think it makes sense to say the Drownyard eventually became the watering hole that is mentioned in the Snowdew Pond entry in the AP? The old society scenarios say that the Drownyard was locked behind an iron fence, so it couldn't easily have been a watering hole for vagrants and orphans... or could it?

Ideally I would like all this to be connected to some other things coming up in the AP to foreshadow them, for example, the "Skinner" or the "Infector".

Any additional ideas and guidance would be appreciated.


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Maybe some trickster-y fey creature is trying to scare people away from the pond after taking a liking to the 'Crimson Duck'. So they've been protecting the fish from the various fisherman's lines and building up the legend of the uncatchable fish.

If you want a link to later adventures, maybe throw in a reference to book 4 with the harrow deck of a card named after the fish, and that the fey creature came from that the Harrowed Realm in search of it's master/friend.


Sounds great thewastedwalrus. Thanks for the suggestion! I could play up the fey connection with the fish starting out fake and becoming increasingly real through fey magic.

My only reservation is that the Harrowed Realm stuff appears very late in the AP and RPG campaigns have a tendency to get cancelled way before they reach the end. So something that would pay off in the coming weeks instead of several months later would be a safer choice.

Dark Archive

Adventure Path Charter Subscriber

Hey - trying to decide on running the Edgewatch AP or Extinction Curse (since those are the only 2e APs on Roll20). I'm struggling with trying to determine: is the map of the Radiant Fairground Festival also a map of Precipice District (or most of it)? The coastline looks similar.

And if so, where on the map do the encounters prior to the Zoo take place. My players would want to want to know the beat they are walking (the route), and where these encounters are taking place. Maybe I missed it, but how the locations relate to the Festival map are a bit fuzzy to me.


rokeca, this was briefly discussed in the Community Created Content thread. One person says

Sovaka wrote:
it seems as tho the Fairground map IS the new Precipice Quarter. And if you compare shore line features, it does somewhat fit, especially with the wall on the East.

Another says

fevian wrote:
In another thread, James (I think it was anyway) discussed how the scale presented in the book was distorted. He suggested that it might be twice as large as it really should be, so the festival should only take about 1/4 of the entire quarter.

So it's a bit unclear. I was as confused as you are and made a thread on reddit to ask the same question which didn't yield a lot of straight answers.

In my case, I'm running it as though that map is the whole Precipice Quarter.

Specifically for the patrol route, this is what I went with:

click to see image

The goblin fight the book says takes place at a park near the harbour. The mugging takes place at the silver lawn, where the walking castle is (don't forget to foreshadow the graveraker, the menagerie and the pagoda when you get to this part!). The risen dead I assumed took place somewhere near the northern border where the reconstruction was not yet finished and the magic shop where the apprentice is doing a sit-in falls neatly at the other end of the beat, near the hall of nations.

Hope it helps.

Dark Archive

Adventure Path Charter Subscriber
Naurgul wrote:


In my case, I'm running it as though that map is the whole Precipice Quarter.

Specifically for the patrol route, this is what I went with:

click to see image

The goblin fight the book says takes place at a park near the harbour. The mugging takes place at the silver lawn, where the walking castle is (don't forget to foreshadow the graveraker, the menagerie and the pagoda when you get to this part!). The risen dead I assumed took place somewhere near the northern border where the reconstruction was not yet finished and the magic shop where the apprentice is doing a sit-in falls neatly at the other end of the beat, near the hall of nations.

Hope it helps.

Thank you Naurgul - this is exactly the type of insight I was looking for. Your beat route and links from the Reddit discussion are very helpful, putting this AP back into contention for my group.

I haven't done a deep dive into the Festival Grounds write up, but my initial pass had me concerned that the connective tissue between the background content and the actual adventure was very weak. While I know this wasn't a concern for many others, for me it was almost a dealbreaker - and sadly only a few pages into the AP!


I have started making my own version of the Precipice Quarter / Radiant Festival grounds. In an effort to make it feel more like part of the city, I am including some residential areas.

Early work in progress map on Google Drive


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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
rokeca wrote:
I haven't done a deep dive into the Festival Grounds write up, but my initial pass had me concerned that the connective tissue between the background content and the actual adventure was very weak. While I know this wasn't a concern for many others, for me it was almost a dealbreaker - and sadly only a few pages into the AP!

The Festival write-up is actually quite flavorful, and includes undeveloped plot hooks for every exhibit area that aren't explored as part of the written adventure, which gives you plenty of room for adhoc side-quests in the PQ.


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

Update to the ongoing adventures of the Hookclaws of the Edgewatch:

After their first couple of tentative contacts with the Stonescales (consisting of a semi-ruse of telling Doopa they wanted to sell them mushroom pies, and an attempt to get Rekarek out to talk to them as the Hookclaws by shouting at the balcony guards ended with Rekarek agreeing not to shoot at them if they left right away), my kobolds decided that coming at Doopa as being really impressive Kobolds In Charge would be the right path, and flexed their authority as Absalom Guard members, which wowed the heck out of Doopa. What happened next would depend on phrasing.

If the players demanded Doopa to bring out Rekarek, then it would have been the whole mess of combat/trap/combat/trap and so on, as the scenario was largely written. If the players asked, instead, to speak to Doopa's leader, then Doopa would look confused for a moment and ask "Do you mean Skerix? No, you must mean Rekarek."

Lucky for them, they asked for the leader, and bam: peaceful negotiations achieved! Skerix comes down, explains that Rekarek seems mad with glory -lust and committed murders the rest of the kobolds had no part in. She agrees that if Ama will arrange for backpay to match the human night-crew wages, she will have all the kobolds except for Rekarek's Elite guards withdrawn and all the traps deactivated. They logically had to deal with the bloodseekers, too, getting all the troops out, so I waved that as well.

Ama, in my version, was baffled at Skerix's request for equal back-pay. Her contract hadn't short-changed the kobolds, after all, it had been embezzled by the crew boss character I invented, who was one of the ones Rekarek murdered and on whose body they found a concealed coin pouch with 50 gold. Rekarek was dealt with (although she did get in one haphazard hack, downing our Investigator in a single crit), and Ama immediately handed over the gold the crew boss had skimmed as a preliminary payment to the Stonescales. Doopa, meanwhile, assisted with the prisoners and is going to be joining the Edgewatch after a couple of weeks training. That should be a fun reunion!

Next up, the crew headed back to the Dreaming Palace, where they had stuck Eunice, only to find he was no longer there and were handed a (very well forged) note by Ralso explaining his uncle had collected him and taken him with him. Still not decided on what his fate will actually be. Anyway, the crew is still super suspicious of Pratchett because of his effing character art being so insufferable, so they demanded a brief tour. None of their Perception checks beat the DC to spot anything untoward, thankfully.

Now they're all playing dress-up with Heroforge, beginning the Back Door in our next session (after a bye week).

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