GM question re: rewards for 8-16 House of Harmonious Wisdom mini-quest 5 "Prophecy"

[Khouri P.]

I have a question about rewards for the 5th mini-quest "Prophesy" in 8-16 House of Harmonious Wisdom before I GM it.

House of Harmonious Wisdom (Prophecy) pg.31 conclusion:

"If the PCs return to Ashima with the bejeweled scroll case, Mai Chun is ecstatic. The entire town celebrates the PCs’ triumph in the temple square. If the PCs also persuaded Song Rui to return to Ashima with them, Mai Chun and the old princess get on famously, and the phantom flits awkwardly about the riotous village party to celebrate the PCs’ success. Mai Chun pledges to publish an entire book of interviews based on their conversations, and she delights in trading poetic couplets with the well-educated phantom. A local representative of the Sun Shogun provides a reward of 3,000 gp AND access to a store of magical talismans in gratitude; if the PCs do not return the scroll case to Mai Chun, cross off the Sun Shogun Talismans reward from the PCs’ Chronicle sheets.

If the PCs gave away the scroll case to a foreign agent, they receive the reward offered by the agent and nothing more."

To me, I would take this literally, as in, these are the rewards based on who you give the scroll case to:

Spoiler:

-> Chun Mai -> 3000 EXTRA gold AND Sun Shogun Talismans boon on chronicle sheets
-> Jianghong -> "Marvelous Pigments" purchase option on Chronicle sheets
-> Jiang Fei -> "Headband of Inspired Wisdom +2" purchase option on Chronicle sheets
-> Yue Xin -> a writ of exchange for the "Star of Changdo," a diamond worth 5,000 gp. The diamond can be claimed in Po Li with the signed writ. (Also NOT mentioned on chronicle sheet!)

Yet there is not actually anything on the Chronicle sheet to notate that, in fact the text seems contradictory because the Chronicle sheet says:

Chronicle Sheet: "Variable Rewards" wrote:

The gold, XP, and Prestige Points you earn on this Chronicle sheet are based on YOUR LEVEL and HOW MANY OF THE QUESTS YOU COMPLETE. [...] Calculate your rewards for this chronicle sheet based on the table below."

...but with no mention of the specifically variable monetary rewards in mini-quest 5 "Prophesy."

I can find no other discussion of this anywhere online?

[Nefreet]

Probably best to ask in the GM Discussion Thread, just to keep everything consolidated in one place.

[Khouri P.]

Ok sorry, I did see that but since it was from 2017, I've been told to not "necro" threads so I wasn't sure.

Thanks for the tip!

[Nefreet]

Oh, Lol, I suppose thread necromancer jokes are a thing.

Sometimes a topic has evolved so much over time (through Errata or FAQs) that necroing a question from before the changes skips all of the answers that have been given since.

I've always thought of the GM Discussion Forum differently: if you're prepping to GM an Adventure, reading one collective thread is often more favorable to searching for many.

And actually now that I have the time to read through it, I believe the answer to your question was posted toward the end anyways.

Fun scenario. Hard to believe that was 5 years ago.

[TriOmegaZero]

It's a darn good one.

Official answer is that any rewards mentioned in the scenario that are not on the chronicle are there for GMs using the adventure outside of organized play. PFS characters only receive the rewards listed on the chronicle, as most of the in story rewards are claimed by the society and then split among the party. (Which is why you will see GP amounts removed if the party fails to earn them. 8-16 was the first experiment with level based reward tables, I believe, so it's a bit unusual.)

Josh Frost ruling.