Creative Director
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Spoiling because I'm super nervous about saying too much about a spoiler-heavy Adventure Path. Here's several possible solutions:
The adventure does assume that a PC can speak both languages, but in retrospect that's does gatelock things if no PC can do so. If you have two different PCs who can speak the languages, then I'd say that they can work together to make that research check; let one PC make the main check, and the other PC can Aid that check.
Getting the notes translated is for sure an option, and in fact the PCs can bring them to someone in town and ask them to study the notes. Just pick an NPC (or make one up) from those that might know both languages (Igawa Jubei would be my choice), and then let them look the notes over. In this case, the skill check to "Study Zoudou's Notes" should be different (to model the fact that the PCs aren't the ones doing the work) and should be a Research Check of DC 21 Perception to correctly understand the complexities of the translation that Igawa Jubei presents. Alternately, if you just want someone to translate the text, they can do that (for free since everyone's working together in the town) over the course of a week, but in this case I suggest increasing the DCs to DC 18 Academia Lore or DC 20 Religion to account for information that's lost or confused by the translation.
The SIMPLEST solution is to simply change the 10+ research points category to 9+. This means that a party who can't Study Zoudou's Notes will have to max out all the other research topics.
One more option is to just reveal to the PCs that they simply can't figure it out, but that what they HAVE figured out will help someone like gawa Jubei finish up their work. Then, have them finish the work and be able to teach the PCs how to research the ritual at some point later in the adventure when they reach 5th level, so that once they're 5th level they'll have the ritual to go forward with. This takes some of the agency and glory out of the party's hands, but at the same time it lets them focus on the many other things in Chapter 1 that they can and should be doing rather than beating their heads against this research topic. It also gives you, the GM, an elegant way to time the start of Chapter 2 so that the PCs don't rush into that more dangerous chapter while they're still 4th level.
Hope some of that advice helps, and thanks for playing Season of Ghosts!
AHA!
This was my next question. We start book 2 Sunday. Thanks for this information!