*Spoilers* Clarifications are welcome about K*******

[Deuscane]

Hey guys! I have read only the first book so far, so maybe I do not have the entire picture, but some missing points are emerged and I'd like to be fulfilled.

- I will go straight to the point, How and where is really Kugaptee? is Kugaptee a physical (or only the influence) fiend present outside or inside the Mindscape of the PC?

- In addition, I didn't get if the Heh-Shan Bao's failed ritual led to the release of the fiend, flesh and blood, in the real world (not mindscapes)?

[James Jacobs]

The remaining books go into much more detail about all of this, but...

Spoiler:

Kugaptee was a nindoru demigod, similar in power to a demon lord or arch devil. While he was killed, his presence lingered, and the Adventure Path is more or less about him trying to come back to life. If the PCs can stop this plot by succeeding at the Adventure Path, the world will have a new very high level mythic villain to contend with. Until then, Kugaptee is a spiritual influence who can manifest a wide range of physical threats, starting early with lower level monsters (like many of the things the PCs face in the mindscape), building up to more powerful creatures and incarnations of himself as things go on.

The failed ritual is what allowed Kugaptee to speed up his self-resurrection and resulted in the creation of the mindscape, which you can think of as Kugaptee's "workshop" to bring himself back to life. The failed ritual killed the village and trapped them between life and death in the mindscape, where Kugaptee's influence has been working at coming back to life over the past 115 years or so of repeated cycles, but doesn't have a significant impact in the modern living world unless the PCs fail at the Adventure Path.

Kugaptee's physical remains are buried under the Tan Sugi Monastery, a location the PCs explore in Book 2, "Let the Leaves Fall," in which they face a spiritual manifestation of the dead fiend; not quite a ghost, but similar.

Book 3, "No Breath to Cry", has a backmatter article about nindoru fiends that includes a section that talks about nindoru ascetics (this fiend type's version of demon lord or arch devil or rider of the apocalypse), and gives 3 examples of them, one of which is Kugaptee.

Book 4, "To Bloom Below the Web", provides an illustration of Kugaptee, notes on what happens if he come back to life in the case of an Adventure Path fail, and details on how the PCs can defeat him and prevent him from coming back to life by engineering his "final death."

While nindorus and Kugaptee are fiends, they are meant to be mysterious and strange and unknown to the players as they go through the campaign, in any event, and that's not something we could have really pulled off if we'd instead gone with more well-known supernatural foes like demons or oni or whatever. Your players should be struggling with what exactly Kugaptee is as the campaign goes on, but in the simplest terms...

TL;DR Kugaptee was a powerful fiend demigod who died and now haunts the region and its mindscape.

[Deuscane]

Thanks you, James! I forgot to answer, but you have arisen in me the Sherlock Holmes .
Now, I'm reading through Book 3 and since I'm totally excited with this AP I'd like to comprehend the whole story and aspects. Therefore, some issues are emerged:

Issue Points:

Considering what you said and what I've read, I ended up with several critiques that I love to be dissected:

Tan Sui-Jing killed Kugaptee. The former's soul reincarnate immediately as sugi tree, while the latter was buried below the tree's roots. This event assumes that the fiend is dead, but according to following events—such as monks became corrupted, Xin Yue served Kugaptee, Woodcutters cut the tree, Heh Shan-Bao ritual and subsequent revelations—seems better that this fiend was almost entirely sealed losing its body, not died; and slowly started to wake without a real triggering event (see next point for the reason).

Monks corruption and Fall of the Monastery. The first question was: How did Kugaptee talk to Xin Yue and corrupt her, along with other monks, if nothing happened before? I mean, the only first crucial event reported in Book 2 was the sacrifice of the woodcutters and the conjuring of some nindoru fiends, that I do not understand how this can merge with the Kugaptee's awaken (maybe because some souls are sacrified and transferred to Kugaptee's domain?).
– There is also some ambiguity in this conjuring. Book 2 states: "...bodies of the woodcutters were then used to perform a grand conjuration of nindoru fiends, which were subsequently sent down to Willowshore with a warning. Wearing the bodies of the slaughtered woodcutters and wielding their broken weapons..." This means that nindorus can possess (or at least control) mortal bodies. Another explanation could be that those nindorus were Akashti, capable to Manifest the Body of the slaughtered woodcutters. I do not know.

Unsealing Kugaptee. This includes several aspects: in Book 2: "...what Kugaptee wanted was to instead reincarnate into the mortal realm, and to do so, the sugi tree needed to remain intact to serve as the raw materials for his new incarnation. Kugaptee wished to use what remained of his old enemy, Tan Sui-Jing, as his method of reincarnation into the world." But in the room E13 The Tan Sugi of Book 2 there's written that if the Tan Sugi tree will fall, the mindscape dissolves, souls are absorbed into the Kugaptee's domain and the fiend is released in the modern world. I'm confused, before he wanted that the tree remained intact, but then if falls it can release the fiend. In addition, in E13 there is a Kurobozu "The Chewer" that tries to chew the roots to speed up the decay of the tree.
– How does it achieve this? I assumed that he needs to consume souls or to received several ritual offerings as Xin Yue has been doing so far. In the room E16 Kugaptee's Grave of Book 2 there is a Xin Yue's monologue in which states that PC's souls can quicken the process of awakening. BUT, since it is written that after Zhi Hui's death, monks cut ties with Willowshore and "...ages have passed since they’ve last had visitors." Where did they collect souls (I suppose those of the monks that eventually died, but they died when mindscape was made)? Moreover, can only the four PC's souls quicken the process of Tan Sui-Jing's soul consumption? One may say that PCs' souls reincarnated multiple times and therefore retain "high value" for this purpose. I'd like to know if there is something missing. Noteworthy, in Book 2 is reported: "Xin Yue and their followers know that they’ve been repeating the years over and over but have been powerless to break free.". To me, it means that Kugaptee is "effortless" to awaken.

The last: Kugaptee and the Mindscape. I won't stress enough this point. The mindscape was generated spontaneously via a failed ritual. Kugaptee and the Sugi tree are considered "Anchors" in Book 3 which give structure and project manifestations into the mindscape. Honestly, I found only Kugaptee manifests its dreams and thoughts. In Book 3 it's written: "More powerful nindorus can manifest creatures, alter their environments, or manifest emotions or memories instead of physical objects.". Is the Mindscape a Kugaptee's property, resulted from his ability to generate things from his mind? If the answer is No, how do you conciliate the statement in Book 2: "...Tan Sugi tree will fall, and Kugaptee will escape, an event that will destroy the entire mindscape, absorb the souls trapped within (including the PCs) into Kugaptee, and release the powerful fiend into the modern world." This, to me, means that the mindscape is some sort of parallel realm ruled by Kugaptee.
– How Kugaptee interact with the mindscape. This issue arose in Book 1 when i read this statement: "But with Ugly Cute’s death during the final days of spring, something strange happened. Without the spiritual protection afforded by the guardian beast, Kugaptee’s influence grew even more quickly. It created a ghostly shell around the deeper regions of Willowshore’s hinterlands, manifesting in the mindscape as a frightening “Wall of Ghosts.” As Kugaptee slowly woke from his death slumber, the fiend’s thoughts manifested in physical form, infesting the mindscape with all manner of monstrous creatures." First, how is even possible that Kugaptee—sealed and "dead" under the Great sugi tree in the modern world—is capable to exert his influence into a extra-dimensional parallel reality (I read in Dark Archives that mindscapes are extra-dimensional realities located in the Astral Plane, therefore are far outside from Material Plane, where the events of the modern world happen), this is HUGE! He can do such things even though is sealed and "dead". Second, what do you mean with the term "Influence", a some sort of invisible reddish eerie fog arose from the roots of the Great sugi that moves around the Hinterlands capable to corrupt and influence living beings? Why this digression? Also in the text cited above, I suppose that Ugly Cute in the modern world, somehow, defended the ruined town from the "Kugaptee's Influence" and when Ugly Cute died, the influence could spread without any hindrance. That said, the influence is something that is originated and present in the real world. So, Third, how can this Influence pour into the mindscape? Is there some sort of "ethereal supernatural link" between that land in the Material Plane and the mindscape in the Astral Plane? What is the mechanism of this Influence.

Thanks you very much

[Deuscane]

EDIT: I corrected the points and organize better for a good view:

First Point:

Tan Sui-Jing killed Kugaptee. The former's soul reincarnate immediately as sugi tree, while the latter was buried below the tree's roots. This event assumes that the fiend is dead, but according to following events—such as monks became corrupted, Xin Yue served Kugaptee, Woodcutters attempted to cut the tree, Heh Shan-Bao ritual and subsequent revelations—seems better that this fiend was almost entirely sealed losing its body, not died; and slowly started to wake without a real triggering event (see next point for the reasoning).

Second Point:

Monks corruption and Fall of the Monastery. The first question was: How did Kugaptee talk to Xin Yue and corrupt her, along with other monks, if nothing happened before? I mean, if the fiend is “dead” how could have received the force to contact the monks? The only first crucial event that I assume can give a bit of vitality was reported in Book 2: "...bodies of the woodcutters were then used to perform a grand conjuration of nindoru fiends”. Nonetheless, I do not understand how this should connect with the begin of Kugaptee's awaken (maybe because some souls are sacrificed and transferred to Kugaptee's domain?).

There is also some ambiguity in this conjuring. About the same event reported above it was also written: “…which were subsequently sent down to Willowshore with a warning. Wearing the bodies of the slaughtered woodcutters and wielding their broken weapons…”. This means that nindorus can possess (or at least control) mortal bodies. Another explanation could be that those nindorus were Akashti, capable to Manifest the Body of the slaughtered woodcutters. I do not know.

Third Point:

Unsealing Kugaptee. This includes several aspects: in Book 2: "...what Kugaptee wanted was to instead reincarnate into the mortal realm, and to do so, the sugi tree needed to remain intact to serve as the raw materials for his new incarnation. Kugaptee wished to use what remained of his old enemy, Tan Sui-Jing, as his method of reincarnation into the world.”. But in the room E13 The Tan Sugi of Book 2 there's written that if the Tan Sugi tree will fall, the mindscape dissolves, souls are absorbed into the Kugaptee's domain and the fiend is released in the modern world. I'm confused, before he wanted that the tree remained intact, but then if falls it can release the fiend. In addition, in E13 there is a Kurobozu ”The Chewer” that tries to chew the roots to speed up the decay of the tree.

How can Kugaptee unseal? I found that he needs to consume souls, maybe by several ritual offerings as Xin Yue has been doing so far. In the room E16 Kugaptee's Grave of Book 2 there is a Xin Yue's monologue in which states that PC's souls can quicken the process of awakening. But, since it is written that after Zhi Hui's death, monks cut ties with Willowshore and "...ages have passed since they’ve last had visitors.”. Where did they collect souls (I suppose those of the monks that eventually died, but they died when mindscape was made)? Moreover, can only the four PC's souls quicken the process of Tan Sui-Jing's soul consumption? One may say that PCs' souls reincarnated multiple times and therefore retain "high value" for this purpose. According to this, seems that awaking Kugaptee requires a low amount of resources.

Fourth Point:

Kugaptee and the Mindscape. I won't stress enough this point. The mindscape was generated spontaneously via a failed ritual. Kugaptee and the Sugi tree are considered ”Anchors” in Book 3 which give structure and project manifestations into the mindscape. Honestly, I found only Kugaptee manifests its dreams and thoughts. In Book 3 it's written: "More powerful nindorus can manifest creatures, alter their environments, or manifest emotions or memories instead of physical objects.". Is the Mindscape a Kugaptee's property, resulted from his ability to generate things from his mind? If the answer is No, how do you conciliate the statement in Book 2: "...Tan Sugi tree will fall, and Kugaptee will escape, an event that will destroy the entire mindscape, absorb the souls trapped within (including the PCs) into Kugaptee, and release the powerful fiend into the modern world.”. This, to me, seems that the mindscape is some sort of parallel realm ruled by Kugaptee.

How does Kugaptee interact with the mindscape? This issue arose in Book 1 when i read this statement: "But with Ugly Cute’s death during the final days of spring, something strange happened. Without the spiritual protection afforded by the guardian beast, Kugaptee’s influence grew even more quickly. It created a ghostly shell around the deeper regions of Willowshore’s hinterlands, manifesting in the mindscape as a frightening “Wall of Ghosts.” As Kugaptee slowly woke from his death slumber, the fiend’s thoughts manifested in physical form, infesting the mindscape with all manner of monstrous creatures."
First, how is even possible that Kugaptee—sealed and "dead" under the Great sugi tree in the modern world—is capable to exert his influence into a extra-dimensional parallel reality (I read in Dark Archives that mindscapes are extra-dimensional realities located in the Astral Plane, therefore are far outside from Material Plane, where the events of the modern world happen), this is HUGE! He can do such things even though is sealed and "dead". Am i wrong?
Second, what do you mean with the term "Influence", a some sort of invisible reddish eerie fog arose from the roots of the Great sugi that moves around the Hinterlands capable to corrupt and influence living beings? According to the text cited above, I suppose that Ugly Cute in the modern world, somehow, defended the ruined town from the "Kugaptee's Influence" and when Ugly Cute died, the influence could spread without any hindrance. That said, the influence is something that is originated and still present in the real world.
So, Third, how can this Influence pour into the mindscape? Is there some sort of "ethereal supernatural link" between that land in the Material Plane and the mindscape in the Astral Plane? What is the mechanism of this Influence.

[James Jacobs]

I'll go ahead and address the corrected/better organized points.

Spoiler:

Note that a lot of this comes down to a mix of "not having mythic rules to express Kugaptee and Tan Sui-Jing's capabilities" and "not wanting to use up too much wordcount on historical text because we want to save as much wordcount as possible to present actual adventure text."

First Point

Spoiler:

Kugaptee was killed, but would have come back to life if they just left things as is after his defeat. The growth of the tree over his grave is a symbolic seal that keeps him dead, but isn't as effective at keeping his haunting presence/unquiet spirit sealed away; that requires mortals to remain vigilant and they don't. Eventually some fall to corruption and spiritual contamination from Kugaptee, a thing that was compounded by damage to the Tan Sugi tree.

Second Point

Spoiler:

Zhi Hui's leadership over the monks of the monastery is what initially helped keep Kugaptee's unholy "from beyond the grave influence from establishing toe-holds in the souls and spirits and minds of the monks who stood guard over his grave. When Zhi Hui passed away, the fact that the monks fell to bickering rather than keeping up with Zhi Hui's teachings is what first allowed Kugaptee to start to "leak out" from his grave, and it was into Xin Yue's dreams that his influence found the most fertile soil to grow in, at first using Xin Yue's overwhelming grief at Zhi Hui's death to worm in, and then growing more quickly thereafter as the spiritual health of the monastery continued to decay in the wake of the loss of their beloved leader. The attempt to harvest the Sugi tree several years later is the axis point at which Kugaptee's influence over the monastery pretty much took over completely. Zhi Hui's death and how it impacted the spiritual strength of the monks is the first thing that allowed Kugaptee to start to spread his influence out of his grave, not the desecration of the tree from the woodcutters.

The bodies of the woodcutters who died after they attempted to cut down the sugi were used by Kugaptee as manifestation points for a bunch of akashti nindorus perhaps led by a few shisagishin leaders. The ambiguity in the wording is a result of the combination of wordcount, and the fact that this information was finalized before the akashtis and shisagishins were finalized—at that point, they were still just concepts in my original outline that didn't yet have names. But mostly the former—a space saving choice.

Third Point

Spoiler:

The release of Kugaptee is explained 100% by narrative and not through expressions of rules. Part of this is becuase at the time we didn't have 2nd edition technology to encapsulate what Kugaptee could do—in 1st edition, he would have been a high level nindoru demigod, somewhere between level 26 and level 30, and would have thus interacted in some way with that editon's mythic rules. Since we didn't have mythic rules for 2nd edition yet at the time of this Adventure Path's creation, it wasn't possible or responsible to give rules explanations for how this all took place... but also not necessary, since it's all events that take place in the past and that the PCs have no opportunity to interact with.

What Kugaptee wants is to be alive again in the world as a living nindoru demigod. His path is hindered and opposed by the Tan Sugi, which is a physical manifestation of his old enemy, Tan Sui-Jing. It blocks his reincarnation. He wants to use what remains of Tan Sui-Jing as his portal and method into the world—as a way to completely defile her memory and destroy her legacy. If the tree were to simply fall over, then all of that work to corrupt Tan Sui-Jing would be wasted. Since this isn't intended to be a possible plot point, I didn't go into much further detail, but for a little more context—if the tree falls, Kugaptee's reincarnation into the world results in him coming back as something less powerful than he was at his height (again, without mythic rules at hte time it was impossible to quantify this, but the idea was that if he corrupted Tan Sui-Jing fully and used the mindscape to gestate back into life he would come back as the level 26+ demigod he was before he died; but if that process was rushed, as would be the case of the tree dying too soon, he'd reincarnate as something lesser and have to work his way back to power... AND Tan Sui-Jing could potentially come back to life as well to oppose him again). Basically, the method he is using will ensure he returns at full power while preventing his enemy from ever returning.

The Chewer isn't trying to topple the tree, but just to speed its corruption so that the process works in the first place.

The souls referenced here are those trapped in the Willowshore mindscape, but also anyone whose soul in the living world got trapped in the haunted region over the course of the 115 years that passed during that time. Of ALL the souls trapped in the mindscape, the PCs' souls are the most significant and most potent, by dint of them being the ones who have the strongest destiny and all that to rise to the occasion of being able to potentially stop Kugaptee. In short, "Because PC souls are more nutritious to monsters than are NPC souls."

It would have been too complicated and annoying to build in a point-based system or something like that to model how Kugaptee can escape and reincarnate and all that... but also that would not be good for gameplay. The way Kugaptee can unseal is "The PCs fail at the Adventure Path." The amount of time and resources it takes is "How long the Adventure Path takes." Which means that if you, the GM, want to fill that up with more info, that's fertile ground for you to do so, I suppose.

Fourth Point

Spoiler:

The mindscape is a self-contained parallel world, not one ruled by Kugaptee, but one in which his influence grows with each passing repetition/year. The ways in which he interacts with the midnscape are as they appear in the adventure itself. Again, without 2nd edition mythic rules, we didn't want to fake things and potentially create methods for a mythic creature to do things that might have been rendered awkward or "wrong" once we DID do mythic rules (at the time I was creating this outline, the design team was only just starting to figure those rules out), so the methods by which he interacted with the mindscape were 100% handled behind the scenes via the adventure's narration.

The Willowshore mindscape breaks a lot of the "rules" of the normal mindscapes presented in Dark Archives. It's as much its own demiplane as it is a mindscape.

Kugaptee can do all this because he's a supernaturally powerful entity. It's not 100% accurate to call him a complex haunt or a ghost, but if it's easier to think of him in those terms, then that's not entirely off base.

His influence is basically his ghost/haunt/spirit manifesting magical and physical and spiritual effects in the mindscape in the form of weird weather, monsters, and all the rest.

It can manipulate the mindscape because it created the mindscape, but it can't do anything it wants in the mindscape because it is opposed by the legacy/spirit/presence/influence of his enemy.

[James Jacobs]

If you're interested in expanding more about how the background elements of Season of Ghosts works, narratively, or coming up with your own reasons for how things work where we don't provide a lot more detail or rules, my main suggestion would be to look to Asian horror stories for inspiration. Large swaths of Season of Ghosts was inspired by numerous horror movies, for example. "Noroi: The Curse" was the most influential to me in coming up with the initial plot of Season of Ghosts (which is why I used a quote from it at the very end of the last book), but dozens of other Asian horror movies I've watched over the decades have as well. I'd suggest looking into various forums online like Reddit or looking at places like IMDB to start looking for Asian horror movies that might be of interest to you. Note that a lot of these, as with any horror movie, delve into some really mature content that won't be for everyone.

Here's a starting place—the first ten Asian horror movies that come to my mind as having some influence on the story of Season of Ghosts (not including a lot of really great more recent movies, and note that some of these movies are tough to track down in the USA):

Spoiler:

Noroi
Ring
The Grudge
Dark Water
Carved: The Slit-Mouthed Woman
Cure
Pulse
One Missed Call
Kwaidan
Marebito

[Deuscane]

Thank you, James! It was a pleasure discussing about this topic. I'm completely satisfied.

Overall, this AP is amazing. It's is very interesting and I really love this kind of adventures that span between action and downtime, instead of dungeon crawling based adventures.

I also add that this AP is not easy for a new GM; there are a lot of stuff, events, NPCs with their own purposes, requests and so on. Indeed, I spent a lot of time in prepping quick references for each NPC at Willowshore, quests to keep things smooth during play and I don't feel ready yet.

[James Jacobs]

Deuscane wrote:

Thank you, James! It was a pleasure discussing about this topic. I'm completely satisfied.

Overall, this AP is amazing. It's is very interesting and I really love this kind of adventures that span between action and downtime, instead of dungeon crawling based adventures.

I also add that this AP is not easy for a new GM; there are a lot of stuff, events, NPCs with their own purposes, requests and so on. Indeed, I spent a lot of time in prepping quick references for each NPC at Willowshore, quests to keep things smooth during play and I don't feel ready yet.

It's not intended to be an easy Adventure Path to GM, of course, and in fact, I would never suggest to a new GM to start with an Adventure Path. Even if you make no changes to it to customize things to your table, they're much more complicated to run and much bigger commitments to a game that a new GM might not realize isn't for them. The Beginner Box products are better on-ramps there. Dungeon crawl Adventure Paths are perhaps the best option for new GMs to run since they're very simple, conceptually, and since the structure of the dungeon itself serves as a sort of interactive flow-chart that narrows choices and prevents option paralysis and discourages PCs from going off-script.

Season of Ghosts, with it's sandbox elements and complex themes, is not for first time GMs, but for GMs who have some games under their belt, I feel like it's a great teaching tool for how you can use the game to present horror, complex social encounters, research, roleplay-based story advancement, and the like. This is an often unmentioned value to published adventures—I know that I learned more about creating non-standard adventures for RPGs by reading ones that step out of the expectations to do new things than anything else.

So, have fun running Season of Ghosts, and I hope it doesn't get too intimidating to run! (One bit of advice there I have is to let your players know "This is a tough game to organize and run, so please be patient if at times I have to take a short break to sort something out behind the screen!")