Hi all,
From early 2019 to early 2022, our little group played a weekly game of Tyrant's Grasp. Over the course of 100+ sessions of 3-4 hours a piece, we told the story of a wildly divergent AP that brought in lore from all across the PF multiverse. Although going into any real detail would be at least a novella, I thought that it might be interesting to share at least a brief summary of what occurred.
Note: The following summary contains spoilers to not only TG, but also minor spoilers to portions of at least a half dozen other modules and APs. It also takes place in a Golarion where two other APs have occurred. Our group has been playing in the PF universe for a decade now and has quite the unique local history. If asked, I will gladly explain things in detail:
Thirty-six Days till the End of the World - A Tyrant’s Grasp recap
Part One - the beginning to the fall of Vigil.
1 Arodus 4739 - In the new nation of Veridia in the Stolen Lands (Veridia was created as a result of the Kingmaker campaign), a band of young adventurers assist the King Orla Brandywine in her unnatural sleepwalking escapades. (Content taken from “The Night March of Kalkamedes” as a way to introduce the party). At the end of the adventure, the party meets a Ghaele named Suliana and is tasked with taking an artifact - The Grace of the Last Azlanti - to Yarlzan Urgol in Lastwall. Yarlzan was one of the heroes of the Kingmaker campaign. With Orla’s blessing, the PCs agree to make the overland trek to Lastwall under the guise of a diplomatic envoy to Lastwall.
The party consists of:
Decibel Rieveres - a human female bard and resident of Roslar’s Coffer in Lastwall. She grew up in Veridia, a refugee from a massacre that happened in Roslar’s Coffer many years ago.
Nico Polio - A human male cleric in the employ of the Lastwall military. He comes from a military family long in service of Lastwall.
Rina Osi - a male tiefling paladin who grew up in Vigil among some of the leftover clerics of Aroden’s faith. He took the halfhearted teachings of Aroden so close to his heart that he somehow managed to exhibit paladin abilities even though he was following a dead god.
Cole Mishkal - a male, half-elven spellcaster and offspring of another of the Kingmaker heroes. His father disappeared several months before the start of the adventure.
Queyen - a male Vanaran monk. He exhibits the uncanny ability to annoy anyone he talks to.
Rava - a male Vanaran ranger. He is in Avistan for the first time to broaden his horizons and find adventure.
2 Arodus 4739 - The PCs leave for Lastwall, travelling overland and booking passage on a boat across Lake Encarthan.
17 Arodus 4739 - The PCs arrive at Vellumis in Lastwall. Here, they learn the direct route to the north to Vigil is unsafe to travel due to orc raids from the forest. They book passage along the river to Roslar’s Coffer to go the ‘long way around’. Nico checks in with his superiors to find that the Lastwall military is spread more than usual due to increased humanoid activity. The feeling is that Belkzen is prepping for another major push against the country.
21 Arodus 4739 - The PCs arrive in the afternoon at Roslar’s Coffer. Deci reunites with friends and family. She learns that two friends - Saisha and Frederick are to be wed in the fall. Nico reveals that this town is important to him as well - his father was slain as one of the defenders of the orc massacre here years ago. He and Rina travel to his father’s grave.
In the evening, the party dines at Deci’s aunt and uncle’s tavern. Following dinner, over tea and beer, everyone in the town is destroyed by the Tyrant’s first test of the Radiant Fire.
22 Arodus 4739 - The party awakens in the Boneyard, and escapes the shadow representation of the tomb in the Boneyard’s version of Roslar’s Coffer. Queyen is killed along the way (the player dropped out of the campaign). The remainder of the party recognize their location in the multiverse. They meet a psychopomp who explains to them how to get out of the Boneyard. They talk to the waiting spirits and learn a little bit about what happened to the town including the fact that a hooded crone was seen walking the streets the night before.
23 Arodus 4739 - The party fights its way through the Nine Eaves.
24 Arodus 4739 - The party fights its way through the Scriptorium. They meet Berthold, a ratling and adopt him. Berthold becomes interested in Rina, the Paladin and by extension, Aroden. Ms. Pedipalp manages to escape the PCs, leaving them anxious she might return later.
25 Arodus 4739 - The party fights its way through the tooth fairies’ castle, declining to give up any of their teeth in the process. After this session, the party is 4th level and several players are at least a little uncomfortable about the dark tone of the AP to this point.
26 Arodus 4739 - The party returns to the Boneyard version of Roslar’s Coffer. Deci insists on saying good-bye to the many people she knows there. She is concerned because some of the people she knows are not present in the Boneyard - specifically Saisha, Frederick and her aunt and uncle. Umble and Thoot (the psychopomps) tell them how to get out of the Boneyard. But en route, a garden blocks their path and the PCs have to fight their way through it. They meet and befriend Reedreaper - a warrior from Osirion - who allies with them. They encounter Mictena and convince her to let them pass back to Golarion. They return to Golarion to discover they each have somehow achieved a mythic tier.
27 Arodus 4739 - The party wakes up on Golarion in a ruined version of Roslar’s Coffer. They discover Saisha survived by hiding in a cellar under the barn, and that she is secretly an earth kineticist. They make their way through the town, and encounter Tuuli Kanerva, a female duskwalker sent by Pharasma with the essence taken from Queyen so that she also has a Mythic Tier (a new player joined the campaign). Deci finds and frees the bound spirits of her relatives in the town, but upon freeing them, they merge with her musical instrument - an oud. They set Frederick’s spirit free as well.
28 Arodus 4739 - The party ambushes some of the Whispering Way cultists and kill them. Rava finds a half-starved cat and adopts it as his animal companion. They find other WW cultists and manage to interrogate them for some other information including how to get out of Roslar’s Coffer.
29 Arodus 4739 - The party enters the graveyard at the southeast of town. A worm that walks, formed of partial essences of the good people who dewlled in the town greets them. The party decides that ‘Roslar’ as the WtW calls itself is not evil and allows it to leave in peace. Nico notices his father’s grave has been excavated.. possibly from within. The party grimly travels through the tomb, clearing it out. They meet Regio Polio - Nico’s father, now a graveknight. A brief conflict ensued and Regio was slain. Nico was confused, first by the ineffectual tactics his father used, second by the graveknights seeming desire to escape rather than fight and third by his father’s utterance that he was “Only following orders - like at Kassen”. Nico kept his father’s armor for cleansing.
30 Arodus 4739 - The party fought through the Bastion of Light, clearing the first floor.
31 Arodus 4739 - The party nearly died clearing the second floor of the Bastion of Light. They found two sisters, Orlava and Savenna, who were accomplices to the WW and provided the party with a wealth of information about what was happening in Roslar’s Coffer. The party took them as prisoners with the intent to return them to Vigil.
Later that evening, the party met Arazni in disguise as a hooded old crone. She urged the party to head to Vigil, report the use of the radiant fire and look for someone named Gildias.
1 Rova 4739 - The party repelled an orcish attack at a border fort north of Roslar’s Coffer. They managed a sending off to Vigil and received teleportation to the city. Once in the city they were debriefed and made a temporary base at a tavern called ‘The Shield’s Banquet’. The party debated whether to (a) hunt for Gildias, (b) investigate a Dwarven monastery to the south near Falcon’s Hollow (the location of one of the seals that keeps the WT in check) (c) investigate whether the shards of the Shattered Shield have been stolen or (d) try to convince the important people in Vigil of this new threat.
2 Rova 4739 - The party spent half a day trying to convince the important people in Vigil with little success. Rina spent part of the day touring Arodenite places. Rava spent the day sightseeing. Deci and Saisha partied. In the end they decided to visit Falcon’s Hollow and see if that seal remained intact.
3 Rova 4739 - The party arranged teleportation to Falcon’s Hollow. There they learned that the seal had, in fact, been broken years before. They relayed this information back to Vigil via sending.
4 Rova 4739 - The party solved Falcon’s Hollow’s societal problems and left as heroes. Several wondered if Aroden had returned. Rina explained that Aroden had not, but Aroden’s ideals carried weight and if people kept those ideals in their heart, it would be as if he never left.
The party also defeated a huge green dragon that was near the village. The party did not kill Thalilurirex, but subdued him and offered him his life in exchange for some future service.
5 Rova 4739 - Rina returns to Vigil and speaks to his old mentors. They confide to him that Aroden’s faith is gone, and his teachings are meaningless. Moreover, real, actual Aroden was a bit of a jerk - not much like the ideal. They have heard about Roslar’s Coffer and are leaving Vigil, rather than stay and help. Enraged, Rina resolves to leave the ‘religion’ of Aroden, but keep the idealised tenets.
Nico gets reprimanded for digging too deeply and independently into the Roslar’s Coffer problem. The investigations are starting to sow panic. Deci charms her way into a private viewing of the Shattered Shield fragments. Cole researches the history of Arazni, Aroden and knights of Ozem. Tuuli visits the high priestess of Pharasma in Vigil and learns that she has been having premonitions of the city being destroyed in fire. Rava finds a wonderful Vanaran restaurant and has a meal. He talks to a bunch of locals and learns about a system of sewers under the city - a veritable city under the city.
6 Rova 4739 - Rava discovers an entrance to the sewers. The rest of the party splits up and manages to track down several leads within the city about Gildias, the possibility of the Shattered Shield being a forgery and infiltration into the city from one of the border crossings. The group reconvenes at the sewers where they learn more about the Whispering Way from a very prescient neo-otyugh.
7 Rova 4739 - The party continues to tread through the sewers, defeating foes as they go. Some of the cultists have the markings of Seal Breakers - a sect devoted to releasing Rovagug from his prison within Golarion! They returned to the surface to learn how forgeries of the Shattered Shield were made. While travelling through the town the party were very nearly TPKed by a sneak attack from Killenbrant, but managed to escape to the church of Iomedae where they find a kindred spirit in the leader of the church - the Second Sword. Yarlzan arrives and everyone compares notes. The Seal Breakers were trying to find a way to steal the shattered shield, but they stopped right after Roslar’s Coffer was destroyed. Later, they also learned that another group did steal the shattered shield pieces and replaced them with forgeries. They party is convinced the answers lie deeper in the sewers.
8 Rova 4739 - The party finds the hidden Seal Breaker fortress underneath the city and begins to systematically go through it. They befriend Dundun, who was untrustworthy until the battle with Yosidium. Because of dice rolls, the battle goes poorly for Yosidium, and midway through the battle another blast of the Radiant Fire is unleashed - this time destroying Vigil. The PCs immediately gain a second mythic tier.
They climb their way out of several hundred feet of rubble into a ruined city. They made their way to the ruined Church of Iomedae and rescued the Second Sword and recovered several important relics. Along the way they encountered Ceto Maldera who revealed herself to be a member of the Knights of the Splinter - a radical sect of Lastwall driven to provoke a final confrontation with the WT regardless of the consequences.
The party then led a large band of refugees to the docks in a running battle through several blocks of Lastwall. The party and refugees were cornered near the docks by waves of undead. The Tyrant himself demonstrated an until now unknown connection between himself and the party, stunning the party with a psychic blast. At the last moment they were saved by Yarlzan and the remnants of the Vigil guard. Among the creatures under the WT’s control were scaeduinar - sentient denizens of the negative energy plane. What role they have in the conflict remains unknown. As the refugees escape across the river, the remnants of Vigil collapse into a giant sinkhole created by the blast, depriving the Tyrant of his instant army. As Yarlzan explains - Vigil was always a trap for the Tyrant. The city was meant to be sacrificed to give the rest of Lastwall time to respond to the threat. Thats why the undercity was hollowed out. When the river broke through into the undercity, the supports eroded away and the city was destroyed.
Coincident with the destruction of the Vigil, the seal over Gallowspire is also destroyed. The WT begins to move his forces. A raiding party of 50 high level ghasts leaves Vilyrich and heads southward. The Witchgates are re-established, trapping Ceto Malderra in the process.