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The solicit reads:
Trouble rumbles in the Darklands beneath the world’s surface! Magic capable of astonishing transformations may just have fallen into sinister hands, with mysterious villains poised to transform an entire underground region at their whim. Your characters must trek through the monster-infested Darklands, from claustrophobic tunnels to jungle-filled hidden worlds, pursing an enemy connected to an ageless evil. Can you untangle sinister plots and ancient rivalries set into motion before human reckoning?
I'm excited for a high level Darklands adventure, for sure!
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The solicit reads:
Trouble rumbles in the Darklands beneath the world’s surface! Magic capable of astonishing transformations may just have fallen into sinister hands, with mysterious villains poised to transform an entire underground region at their whim. Your characters must trek through the monster-infested Darklands, from claustrophobic tunnels to jungle-filled hidden worlds, pursing an enemy connected to an ageless evil. Can you untangle sinister plots and ancient rivalries set into motion before human reckoning?I'm excited for a high level Darklands adventure, for sure!
Transforming an entire region through magic plus Darklands makes me think of the Vault Builders.
And also of Impossible spells TBT.
Sure sounds exciting.
Creative Director
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I hope we can finally have here an AP where both good and evil PCs can collaborate to prevent the end of their world.
I mean... that's something that most Adventure Paths can accommodate. The trick is for the PLAYERS to want to work together as a team, regardless of their split between good and evil.
You don't have to be a good person to want to oppose the expansion and power grabs made by Cheliax, or the corruption caused by Treerazer, or to go on a big dungeon crawl, or to want to seek fame and glory in Curtain Call.
You DO have to work well with the other players, becasue regardless, Pathifnder is a team sport, not a solo sport.
Cavern eves were mentioned in the Gencon opening address. I don’t think they’ll be a big part of the AP but I’m glad they’re gonna address the changes that’s happening in the region.
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...to ask if anyone knows anything about this AP?
I do!
It's great!
I hope this AP provides some cities and territories in the Darklands that aren’t inherently dangerous for characters exploring the earthen depths. Was recently reviewing the darklands lore as it currently stands and, while I respect that the darklands is for higher level play, there didn’t seem to be enough nice places for characters to rest and restock. Everything seems to be trying to kill you, enslave you, eat you, or parasitize you. It’s very grim and complex. Lots of mature content as well that while suitable for some games, threatens to overwhelm players in its bleakness when considering a darklands campaign.
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Sample pages just dropped! Articles are about something called Lattiskar, I wanna guess a location, but it's not already in the Wiki, and "Darklands Dangers," which is hopefully a broad gazetteer of some sort.
Also, we're apparently getting monster stats… for Yig? As in Yig??? Yeah, sure, Ayindilar and more fleshwarps and Xiomorns, but are we fighting YIG??????
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Creative Director
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Sample pages just dropped! Articles are about something called Lattiskar, I wanna guess a location, but it's not already in the Wiki, and "Darklands Dangers," which is hopefully a broad gazetteer of some sort.
Also, we're apparently getting monster stats… for Yig? As in Yig??? Yeah, sure, Ayindilar and more fleshwarps and Xiomorns, but are we fighting YIG??????
YIG! AKA...
Sample pages just dropped! Articles are about something called Lattiskar, I wanna guess a location, but it's not already in the Wiki, and "Darklands Dangers," which is hopefully a broad gazetteer of some sort.
Also, we're apparently getting monster stats… for Yig? As in Yig??? Yeah, sure, Ayindilar and more fleshwarps and Xiomorns, but are we fighting YIG??????
YIG! AKA...
** spoiler omitted **
Is this what you meant when you said Ydersius wasn't a major topic in Vaultlines? I see now how the the crescent moon on the cover could foreshadow some stuff. Won't lie, I'm a little disappointed we won't be getting more about Ydersius anytime soon but excited to see Great Old Ones become play an important part of the lore again.
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Creative Director
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Is this what you meant when you said Ydersius wasn't a major topic in Vaultlines? I see now how the the crescent moon on the cover could foreshadow some stuff. Won't lie, I'm a little disappointed we won't be getting more about Ydersius anytime soon but excited to see Great Old Ones become play an important part of the lore again.Sample pages just dropped! Articles are about something called Lattiskar, I wanna guess a location, but it's not already in the Wiki, and "Darklands Dangers," which is hopefully a broad gazetteer of some sort.
Also, we're apparently getting monster stats… for Yig? As in Yig??? Yeah, sure, Ayindilar and more fleshwarps and Xiomorns, but are we fighting YIG??????
YIG! AKA...
** spoiler omitted **
In part, yes. But the main reason remains Ydersius had an ENTIRE ADVENTURE PATH about him and his followers, so we were less interested in duplicating those efforts and more interested in giving serpentfolk more variety and more interested in a different story entirely.
That said, apart from writing up stats for Yig, I wasn't significantly involved in this Adventure Path's writing or development, so I wouldn't be surprised if Ydersius gets name dropped here and there. But it's very much not meant to be a Ydersius story. Again... because we told that one already.
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I suspect, similar to how Sky King's Tomb didn't require an all dwarf party, there will be some ways for "surface-dwellers" (or those that live close to the surface) to be brought in: explorers, merchants, etc.
Any "surface-dweller" PCs should, however, be focused on underground situations. Just so they can participate fully, instead of being a "fish out of water" (which doesn't make much sense for an 11th level character to start the AP, frankly).
I suspect, similar to how Sky King's Tomb didn't require an all dwarf party, there will be some ways for "surface-dwellers" (or those that live close to the surface) to be brought in: explorers, merchants, etc.
Any "surface-dweller" PCs should, however, be focused on underground situations. Just so they can participate fully, instead of being a "fish out of water" (which doesn't make much sense for an 11th level character to start the AP, frankly).
What do you mean exactly? Could a party who started out playing an adventure like Rusthenge or Seven Dooms and just explored the underground more and more until they were level 11 be appropriate?
Any "surface-dweller" PCs should, however, be focused on underground situations. Just so they can participate fully, instead of being a "fish out of water" (which doesn't make much sense for an 11th level character to start the AP, frankly).What do you mean exactly? Could a party who started out playing an adventure like Rusthenge or Seven Dooms and just explored the underground more and more until they were level 11 be appropriate?
Pretty much.
An 11th level PC for a campaign that is completely set within the Darklands should be considered someone that has extensive experience underground. Not a character that is just traveling to the Darklands for the first time and/or focused on different environmental conditions/terrain (such as forests, plains, etc.).
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Excited for the player’s guide this month!
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Excited for the player’s guide this month!
You did not have to wait long! Out on today's blog!
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Two things that stood out from reading the player's guide:
- Ley Lines! I'm assuming/hoping the AP has updated rules for these though, as they're still legacy (the guide references Secrets of Magic) and refer to the old spell schools in their rules.
- The player's guide considers Common to be its own language, whoops. Another legacy throwback. Replacing that text with something like "In Vaultlines, the primary language spoken is Sakvroth, this language is referred to as Common in this Player’s Guide and throughout the Vaultlines Adventure Path." (based this on the SoG text) is fairly easy, but something to be aware of.
They didn’t mention Rusthenge as a viable entry to vaultlines but I can understand given Rusthenge ends at level 5
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Would be handy to have a remastered version of fleshwarp soon, as one of their heritages is incompatible with remaster (Discarded Fleshwarp).
Also fleshwarp and surki are limited on ancestry feats choices generally (18¹ and 15²), so might be a fair amount of doubling-up if a party has multiple of either ancestry. With the Fleshwarp Researcher background rewarding an Oops, All Fleshwarps! party, that's not an unexpectable risk.
¹unless you somehow come from Nex, in which case 20
²with evolutions I guess more like 22?
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Welp, so much for drow being gone. Welcome, Ayindilar with blue skin and white(-ish) hair!
Honestly, I'm good with that. "All the drow we met in the past were simply evil cave elves" sounds like a plan to me.
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Honestly, I'm good with that. "All the drow we met in the past were simply evil cave elves" sounds like a plan to me.
Or cosplaying sekmins...
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Welp, so much for drow being gone. Welcome, Ayindilar with blue skin and white(-ish) hair!
Honestly, I'm good with that. "All the drow we met in the past were simply evil cave elves" sounds like a plan to me.
I noticed the bit about how their society and especially leaders seem to turn mean when they congregate in large enough numbers and I went "Ohhhohoho, sneaky!" >:)
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Welp, so much for drow being gone. Welcome, Ayindilar with blue skin and white(-ish) hair!
Honestly, I'm good with that. "All the drow we met in the past were simply evil cave elves" sounds like a plan to me.
Easiest way to keep the retcons at minimum. I hope they do something interesting with them beyond the Drows that cannot be.
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Creative Director
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The whole point of going this direction with the Ayindilar is to do something new with underground elves that won't be shackled by the heavy gravity of drow inertia while also minimizing the deep retcons that we started looking at doing back during the OGL crisis. There'll be some in Vaultlines, but the "proper time" to deep dive about them and the Darklands as a whole is not yet.
The whole point of going this direction with the Ayindilar is to do something new with underground elves that won't be shackled by the heavy gravity of drow inertia while also minimizing the deep retcons that we started looking at doing back during the OGL crisis. There'll be some in Vaultlines, but the "proper time" to deep dive about them and the Darklands as a whole is not yet.
I am grateful enough that we didn't lose these elves completely!
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Creative Director
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I am grateful enough that we didn't lose these elves completely!The whole point of going this direction with the Ayindilar is to do something new with underground elves that won't be shackled by the heavy gravity of drow inertia while also minimizing the deep retcons that we started looking at doing back during the OGL crisis. There'll be some in Vaultlines, but the "proper time" to deep dive about them and the Darklands as a whole is not yet.
That was never the plan. In the article I wrote for Sky King's Tomb I tried to set that up, but folks pretty much didn't notice because subltety in that regard got clobbered by the sky is falling, alas.