Adventure for Underwater Ghol-Gan Capitol city - Adventure Recommendations for Adaptations?


Advice


Pathfinder Battles Case Subscriber

The cyclops Ghol-gan empire existed thousands of years ago in the region that is now the Shakles/Sodden Lands, and under what is now the hurricane of Abendego. The empire succumbed to evil (cannibalism, ritual sacrifice) before it ended.

Their capitol city is believed to be beneath the waves (possibly beneath the hurricane).

I'd like to run an adventure where the party explores this place.

Does a Pathfinder adventure like that exist? If not, can someone recommend another adventure I can adapt?

Ideally that adventure would be PF1E or 3.5 or 3.0 (but I'm willing to adapt from other D&D editions if necessary), and target PCs of levels 12-14. It should involve exploration of an underwater city, and that city should, ideally be creepy.

Thanks!


1 person marked this as a favorite.

The Ruins of Azlant adventure path features a number of underwater maps. Book 5 uses four relatively complex maps (21 minor maps altogether) with most squares underwater, and you get five big mostly water-free maps on top of that. That's probably better than a flip-mat like Flooded Dungeon.

Personally I'd simply fill these maps with thematic encounters: Undead cyclopses, gory traps (reflavored Symbol of X might go a long way) and haunts. Ancient cyclopses aren't known for using outsiders, constructs or other mortals as minions, but maybe the adventure contains further parties: Immortal creatures that want to keep intruders out of this fool place, rivaling adventurers who want the treasures for themselves or an infamous lich who came out of its hideout to explore arcane secrets. The boss should probably showcase the strange insights cyclopses get.

Don't forget to give players reasons to go for this city. Loot is good, but maybe there is a direct connection to at least one player character, like being plagued by nightmares of this place, or the chance to understand their source of magic.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Liches are CR11ish, maybe there's a lich down here with a veritable smorgasbord of corpses that are still somewhat in tact from the Ghol-gan empire, and he's been casting Animate Dead on them for a while now. Even though he came down here with a small fortune in Black Onyx gems, he has nearly exhausted his supply, and has sent his "intelligent" minion who's dumber than goblin mittens to wear a Hat of Greater Disguise and head into land to go buy some more Onyx gems from a nearby seaport. The PC's arrive at the Seaport and they'll undoubtedly go to the Market or the Tavern and that's where they see this guy, they notice there's something off about this guy. Firstly, he stinks to high heaven of kelp and salt water, and then he even drops one of these Black Onyx gems and quickly picks it back up, and while he picks up the Onyx gems he accidentally drops a bit of platinum coins on the ground, and quickly picks those up as well, then hightails it back towards the docks. Maybe he even notices the PC's noticing him, so he starts a quicker gait, dropping more platinum coins but now he's not stopping to pick them up.

That's when the PC's will instinctively chase this dude. It'll be like a kitten trying to catch a laser pointer. If the PC's don't catch up with "Goblin Mittens" before he jumps off the dock, then there will be a deckhand on the docks who will tell the PC's the rumored tale of Syv'lesh the Lich, and all recent gossip, hearsay, and unconfirmed reports of undead merfolk, undead cyclopses, undead aquatic elves, even undead dwarves swimming around and looking for only-the-gods-know-what all over the ocean floor, with the most sightings being about 3-5km offshore. If the PC's do catch up with "Goblin Mittens", his Greater Hat of Disguise gets knocked off during the tussle and Ta-Da! They find a terrified “intelligent” unarmed undead with about 10,000gp in freshly-purchased Onyx gems, and 712pp in his coin purse; they can interrogate him, and holy-waterboard him into spilling the deets about Syv'lesh.

Once they get down there to Syl’vesh’s operation in Ghol-gan, they find all kinds of undead merfolk, cyclopses, and small amounts of every race of undead imaginable (ex-seafarers from generations long past, who died at sea, so elves, humans, dwarves, gnomes, etc.). They also find a crapton of loot, because these undead have been BUSY since being recently animated, and they're not only compiling a treasure horde from Ghol-gan, but they're also finding all the derelict stuff from nearby shipwrecks.

Make this loot as BORING as possible. Books, art, non-expensive gems, shiny rocks, all kinds of mundane stuff that dumb undead would think is valuable, and so much stuff that Syv'lesh couldn't possibly go through all of it by himself.

=====================================

Story Hook 1: Among the lootpile, one of the un-boring things they find is a book with lots of notes written in the margins and these notes are written in good handwriting, and they talk about something called a Rain Temple, and wouldn'tja know it, they even find a hand-drawn map in one of the margins with a red X that says "Rain Temple". The book goes on, and the notes in the margin continue, but basically they find out that the Rain Temple was once a massive holy place to the Undines, and is fabled to hold an artifact called the Storm Scepter. The PC's arrive at the X on the map and they don't find $h1t, there's not even an island. You as the DM are going to have to do some minor leading here, either with overly-excited dolphins who lead the PC's, or some flashy lights off in the distance, w/e. Something is going to have to lead these PC's off-course to about 1.5km to 2km AWAY from the X on the map. Once there, the PC's find that the "Rain Temple" and the entire island has been reclaimed by the sea, and the Temple is now in ruins at the bottom of the ocean. It is completely covered by the ocean floor and hidden well by a thriving kelp forest, and at the middle of this kelp forest, they find a cracked hole in the barely-visible marble ceiling that is the only way inside the temple.

Story Hook 1a: They reach the chamber where the Storm Scepter is held, and only half of the Scepter is there. The bottom half of the Storm Scepter is resting on half of the pedestal, and it's off-kilter because it's no longer long enough to sit horizontally on its two forks (it would be able to if the scepter was whole, but for now, it rests "unbalanced"). The entire chamber has been scrawled with the insane psychobabble of a madman, and it appears that whoever wrote all this nonsense on the walls has been there for decades, and the writing on the walls depict his descent into madness that goes from "kinda-psycho" (his first decade there), to "mostly-psycho"(his second decade there), to "absolutely-psycho"(third decade), to caveman-like scribbles that make zero sense at all((fourth, fifth, and sixth? decades? maybe more?). The insane scribblings on the wall say things like "do not use the Holiest of All Weapons", "it mustn't be used", "i cannot get free", "it won't let me leave", "must find the scepter", "I cannot leave", "the scepter must be whole again", "that's when the storm will end", "all will be right when the scepter is whole again". During the entire time that they're going through the half-destroyed Rain Temple, the whole thing has been booby-trapped by this dead guy, to prevent anyone from getting in and finding this piece (his plan was to get out and go search for the 2nd piece because he knew the safe path to go through his labyrinth of booby traps, but the scepter had too much control over his mind by this time and forced him to stay).

Story Hook 1b: In the corner of the Storm Scepter's chamber, they find the skeletal remains of a Cecaelia, who is wearing ceremonial armor that depicts his Royal Lineage on the armor from a Cecaelia kingdom roughly half way across the ocean, and he's holding a journal that's full of the caveman scribblings (apparently he ran out of wall space and stuff was still on his mind). Knowledge Nobility, History, or Local will reveal that he's from a kingdom called Aecimulus, and they are known slavers of merfolk and other underwater races. At the very last page of this journal full of insane scribblings and caveman art is a clearly printed name in all capital letters: KAERIUS.

Story Hook 1c: They go to Aecimulus and mention the name Kaerius once and that person secretly calls the guards and the PC's are instantly get thrown into jail, put before a judge, and they'll talk their way out of being summarily executed, and the judge will sentence them to Trial by Combat. While the PC's are jailed, they learn from the other prisoners that Kaerius and the insane guy in the Storm Scepter chamber were brothers, and the insane guy's name was Idraneres. Kaerius's and Idraneres's father wanted to claim the Storm Scepter, so he sent his sons to retrieve it, and once they found out the horror this thing could unleash, they were unable to destroy it, but they at least broke it into two pieces, and they each hid the pieces. Kaerius was captured, tortured, and brutally killed by his father without ever divulging where he hid the 2nd piece. Idraneres, the younger of the two brothers, hid his piece of the artifact, but he somehow became mindlinked with it, and drove him to madness, and it forced him to recover and return his piece back to the Rain Temple.

Story Hook 1d: Where in the heck is this 2nd piece? The trail goes cold. Meanwhile, for funsies during all of this time, have the half of the scepter that the PC's control constantly screwing with their minds and dreams.

Story Hook 1e: PLOT TWIST: After MONTHS of sessions, maybe even a year, and after this scepter has been screwing with them the whole time, then once the PC's are of proper level (probably 17+) to own an artifact, they meet an NPC in a tavern or w/e, and he knows the full story of Kaerius and Idraneres, and he finally reveals to the PC's that Kaerius is actually SYV'LESH THE LICH (your players will hopefully flip the table), and Syv'lesh has been using his unlife to relentlessly and thoroughly comb the ocean in search of his brother's half of the scepter. This particular NPC was a personal lackey/acolyte/living sacrifice of the necromancer who raised Kaerius, and this NPC finally managed to escape this necromancer about 6 months ago. This NPC has burn marks, cut marks, missing fingers, missing toes, missing nose, a missing eye, and a missing ear. Each of these wounds have been professionally and surgically inflicted, sutured, and healed. The PC's will undoubtedly rifle through all of the Syv’lesh’s personal belongings with a new spark, and they'll find that the lich's bracer, ring, necklace, or something, holds a very miniscule demiplane hidden inside it, as well as the map to where he left his half of the scepter. This demiplane also holds the lich's phylactery, and he has of course "respawned" inside this demiplane and he is PISSED. Epic Boss fight ensues. Once they defeat him, they take the map, and find the 2nd half of the scepter. This 2nd half of the Scepter is actually a sword, and on the pommel of the sword holds the adorning jewel that gives the artifact its true power. The first half of the scepter that PC's already had acts somewhat similar to a Cane Sword, and is the sheath for the sword. But only once the two pieces are combined can the Artifact reveal its true strength. When the two pieces are joined, this artifact casts Control Weather or Control Water as a 20th level druid, and some other fun stuff that the DM wishes.

Story Hook 1f: The PC's could search for this necromancer who raised Syv'lesh, or... maybe this necromancer could find the PC's. Maybe this necromancer had a strong tie to Syv'lesh and sensed when the PC's killed him. Who knows!

==================================

Story Hook 2: Amongst the lootpile of Syv'lesh, they find all kinds of books on the breeding and mating habits of Northwestern Pygmy Whalefish. Soon enough, an Aquatic Elven Druid will march up in a huge hissy and say 'GIMME BACK MY BOOKS OR I SWEAR I'LL DO SOMETHING VERY VERY BAD TO YOU AND I WON'T EVEN FEEL BAD ABOUT IT BECAUSE THE NORTHWESTERN PYGMY WHALEFISH ARE ON THE VERGE OF EXTINCTION AND IT'S MY JOB TO SAVE THEM". Fight her, give her the books back and befriend her, w/e.

Story Hook 2a: The druid tells you that Poachers are the ones responsible for killing the Northwestern Pygmy Whalefish because their blubber is used in a life-saving medicine and this blubber goes for 300gp/lb.

======================================

Story Hook 3: Amongst the lootpile of Syv'lesh, they find what is clearly a captain's chest that is locked with a "DC: Don't even bother rolling" lock on it. Whenever they finally figure out a way to get into this thing WITHOUT picking the lock, they find the precise coordinates of an underwater black market / pirate's cove / rumrunner's hideout / smuggler's den. There's only about a thousand story hooks that can come out of this one. Maybe someone here hires the PC's to pull a "heist-on-a-heist", maybe some smugglers/bandits found a nice juicy target, and your mission is to "interrupt" their getaway and let these patsies take the fall while you get away with the loot.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Battles Case Subscriber

These are really great recommendations. Thank you.

Professional underwater maps seem extra important in an underwater setting because there is an extra coolness factor to these places. The lich works particularly well because there is known lich on the loose in the Shackles (Raugsmauda).

Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder First Edition / Advice / Adventure for Underwater Ghol-Gan Capitol city - Adventure Recommendations for Adaptations? All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.
Recent threads in Advice