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This is a spoiler-filled resource thread for the second volume of the Shades of Blood Adventure Path, The Broken Palace by James Jacobs.
The GM Reference thread for the first volume, Thirst for Blood, is here.
The GM Reference thread for the third and final volume, To Blot Out the Sun, is here.
Now that we’ve had our discussion on book 2 livestream first and foremost I’d like to thank Kait (Mispelled it Kate before) in customer service for getting us the pdf sooner and answering my questions. She was extremely helpful in understanding the situation, and that the humble bundle was causing some issues with no longer available physical books of FotRP at the same time they were dealing with a technical issue for the foundry vtt bundle for Shades of Blook 2.
I’m much more understanding of having less time to work with a new release, and my heart goes out to those in customer service during those kind of problems where they are caught between releasing a public message, or fixing the issue to ensure less complaints overall. I am glad I called and put in a ticket when requested, Rue was helpful in getting me some information as well that things were going on behind the scenes on the press discord, thank you Rue.
Alright, this is another megadungeon delve as advertised but the actual material here suggests otherwise. I’ll deal with that first, before getting to the lack of combat challenges presented in the book as that was the number 1 complaint made by everyone on the discord and discussions- surprisingly not me. I’ll let someone else elaborate on the number of trivial encounters, as it’s their feedback and not mine.
Shades of Blood’s En Gokal is a megastructure, not a megadungeon. A megadungeon like Emerald Spire and Ambonation Vaults is a collection of maps that presents actual gameplay battlemaps to the player to navigate and experience the story through exploration, and includes multiple methods of travel and passages to all reach destinations, sometimes even shortcuts and secret passages, for the player to take a nonlinear path through and reach their goal.
Megadungeons have not in the past, focused on item crafting or crafting methods, and the pace at which a player progresses is meant as a sense of urgency for something bad happening in the background, slowly getting worse as they progress further into the megadungeon.
A megastructure is an extremely large dungeon, but not a lot of maps or playable area, as travel between locations is entirely linear or similar to a hallway design between rooms and playable battlemap areas that gives the player the sense of progression by getting to a singular exit to reach the next playable location. Crafting as well as subsystems involving subsisting are given to the player, with the added bonus of being focused on saving time to make this progression at a faster pace since there is less playable area to cover overall.
En-Gokal is made up of 3 such structures, the entryway/isle, the subterrain broken palace, and the lighthouse all connected together by exploration, but not by actual gameplay. Calling it a megadungeon in advertising is not accurate nor does it compare to previous megadungeons released with that missing playable content, and alternative routes.
Both times in both books there has been a singular exit to the next area with no alternative means to reach them, nor has a single passageway yet acted as a shortcut to previous areas already visited.
In fact for this module the players are trapped in the subterranean and cannot revisit town, or the Azlanti Engine- a previously established method of crafting valuable items that can be used to open locked doors in the prison, as well as rune crafting and swapping something players continue to need at all levels of play. It’s odd they would take this away from the player after going through such great lengths to establish it in book 1. A group will be unable to return to it for at least 6 sessions, which in itself isn’t that long and only shows how short this adventure really is in scope of AV’s second book.
To replace this, essence forges are presented to the players. Forges of great power that are extreme time savers for player crafting. The catch is that you need not only crafting but the discipline of magic such as occultism, nature, religion, or arcane to craft an item of that study on the appropriate essence forge along with the requisite wealth for market cost. Odd how the forges understand how prices like that work, but that’s mechanical crunch in a system, not the ancient magic.
These seem very useful, but also very heavy. 20 bulk means they won’t fit inside the opening of an extra dimension pouch, and they cannot be carried out of a structure we are locked inside of currently or taken on the transport to the next section. The adventure writes that nothing is stopping the players from taking it, but assume the Azlanti and essence forges remain mutually exclusive to the player’s use for each module.
The adventure works much better on the premise of the players being agents of Andoran looking for Azlanti magic and technology to give them an edge in the Hellfire Crisis. I believe that’s how the grant for Andoran it sent out to its people was intended to do, and that these forges will be weaponized for that conflict. Having them just as a means for adventurers makes little sense in the bigger metaplot, but it’s convenient.
This also ties back to what the astrologer told us before that she needs to give the Andoran government something, even after explaining to the players it’s all about getting free money to improve society. It was in fact an investment in Andoran’s people to shore up developments and infrastructure for the coming war with Chilleax.
Now that we have this huge piece of information, we can start to fix the adventure. No more are the players, several randomly hired adventurers, but spies and investigators for Andoran that are focused on getting their hands on Azlanti relics of use for the war. That to me seems much more interesting and gives credence to the reason they would remain after the shadow creature attack in book 1, as normal adventurers wouldn’t be paid to investigate the potentially vampire filled structure that could be much large than it first appears in the entryway.
Having a cult at the base of the prison that connects to a society was a great idea, but falls apart when you realize Romi could have gotten any of these other vampires serving Nalushae to turn them into a vampire. His motivation seemed to focus on her, for whatever reason not just tied to a deal to provide victims.
General Aside: We also learn that Romi has supplied well over 100 people out of an 800+ population town, with a window of 25 years per victim. I’m not sure why vampires think blood tastes best, but kudos to Nalushae and Romi for not making it weird and taking children who are easier to abduct and put up less of a fight. We aren’t going for realism here in the story anyway.
Okay, now we have a whole town underground that thinks Vampires are their protectors and that getting to age 25 means they get to live in the palace, but they are in fact just being taken as food. We can’t just start setting people free because first there is no way for them or the players to escape at the moment, and they are under the impression Vampires are the best part of their society and protectors.
This is an extremely dark turn, and I love it. A shame it isn’t developed or elaborated on, but told to us in passing. Huge missed opportunity here to have one such celebration of a 25 year old and use that as the means to infiltrate the palace. We cannot sacrifice one of the 100+ people to rescue to get the job done and cross into a morally grey area, or even cause a riot/uprising against the vampires.
The one interesting relationship was a rivalry between two minor villains, the players may not even find out about it given one appears as a monster and is inside of the palace, and the other is in disguise and wants to kill them outright.
Assuming the players kill everything inside of the palace and do manage to convince 100+ prisoners to escape, where can they go? The transport isn’t big enough for that many people, nor does it say it can be sent back on the other side, or that there is an exit further towards the tower. If the players take a boat back in book 3 it definitely will not hold 100 people nor can they sustain themselves once free. It’s more than a small plot hole when it’s the focus of the adventure to liberate them and be directly rewarded on the number freed. (I looked ahead at book 3, no mention of rescue for those 100+ people is mentioned nor are they returned to TB, only the players along with no method of transporting that many people as navigation without the sun and stars is very dangerous).
My hope is that Nizca is actually going to give a reason that she didn’t just use the essence forges to make an item to teleport across the ocean, but given the amount of resources at her disposal at this point it feels like she was built up into this saturday morning villain that underutilized all these resources in En Gokal. Nor does she use sending or similar messaging to her lover and establish contact.
Still no mention of Sarenrae anywhere, I guess she doesn’t mind Nizca blocking out the sun. Get to work Kyria, mug that interior artwork.
Clearly still not feeling like a megadungeon, which I apparently didn’t need to convince Niktorak or Ironbear on, as once inside the entryway we’re missing a large portion of the megastructure to explore travel between maps as playable contact. That to me is empty nonplayable space which equates to less content, wether we have maps for those portions of the dungeon or not focusing on ecology which can be a single sentence explanation.
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