Pathfinder Society Scenario # 7-00: "The Sky Key Solution" [RPG]

 

NO SPOILERS

The Sky Key Solution is a multi-table that caps off Season Six ("The Year of the Sky Key").  I got to play it last year via play-by-post at one of the highest sub-tiers using my half-orc Paladin, Trokkus.  Based on that experience and reading the scenario for this review, I think the *concept* behind the adventure was fantastic--but there are some major plot holes and essentially forgettable encounters that really bring it down.  It does add a tremendous amount of historical setting lore to a rarely-seen race in the game and has some exciting scripted moments, but on the whole, it's more fun in theory than in practice.

SPOILERS!

Much of PFS Season Six was devoted to assembling pieces of the Sky Key, a legendary dwarven artifact that turned out to have been salvaged from a crashed Dominion of the Black starship in Numeria.  The Sky Key, if fed a tremendous amount of power, allows locations from the past to be temporarily brought to the present (contained in a sort of "time bubble").  Although nothing can be removed from the bubble, Pathfinders can enter and see historical events as they actually happened; and indeed, they can even interact with objects and speak with historical personages.  The premise of The Sky Key Solution is that, after a few small experiments, the Society is ready for a major research endeavour: by having hundreds of wizards feed lightning into the Sky Key, the Age of Serpents will be brought into the present!  (More specifically, a serpentfolk city called Sessegishoss that once stood on the Isle of Kortos)  Each table at the special is a group of Pathfinders charged with entering the time bubble and discovering as much historical insight as they can before the wizards run out of magic and the time bubble collapses.

In terms of structure, this special is very similar to all other Paizo specials I've played.  When tables are successful in encounters, they contribute to an event-wide total of "Victory Points" that unlock other encounters or parts of the scenario.  Tables can use "aid tokens" sent to them by other tables, and all skill and save DCs are fixed by subtier.  There's an event-wide narrator who provides the introduction, occasional transition speeches, and reads out the conclusion, while table GMs handle the rest.  And last, despite making the accumulation of Victory Points seem really important, there aren't really any consequences even if every table was an utter failure--there's the same result story-wise and characters "trapped" in the time bubble just need to spend 4 PP to be freed.  

This special is divided into four parts.

Part 1 ("Gathering Outside the Walls") has the PCs assembling in a muddy field outside Absalom called Bloodwatered Meadow, the site for the first large-scale test of the Sky Key.  This part of the scenario is mostly exposition (delivered by Master of Scrolls Kreighton Shaine) about the mission, though PCs can make some Knowledge checks for additional information, buy supplies from vendors, or get some bonuses if they have relevant Season Six Chronicles.  Unlike some other specials I've played, this one doesn't have any little tasks or skill challenges for tables to handle during the mustering process, which is a shame.  The exposition is handled nicely and really sets the grand scale for the adventure to come.

Part 2 ("The Temple District of Sessegishoss") has each table venturing into the sprawling serpentfolk city from 10,000 years ago!  The city has an interesting vertical structure, and PCs start at the bottom but can start moving up as additional options are unlocked.  Whether intentional or not, the day that the PCs experience happens to be both a special serpentfolk festival ("Spent Coils") and the day of an Azlanti slave revolt.  How this all plays out in practice is that each of the five districts of the city has both a combat encounter and a research encounter.  In the Zoological Gardens, the PCs fight serpentfolk and dinosaurs and can decode symbols on plinths for (never-detailed) lore about serpentfolk society.  In the Slave Pens, they can fight troglodytes and talk to a rebel leader.  In the Temple Plaza, there are battles against guardian statues and research into festival preparations.  In the Temple (of Ydersius, a dead serpentfolk god?), the PCs fight serpentfolk priests and more snakes, and can find hidden stone tablets of religious lore guarded by traps.  And last, in the Ophidian Rectory, the PCs interrupt a plan to sacrifice a legendary Azlanti hero and general, Krahnaliara Lac Suhn and can interview him at length about Azlanti lore.

There's a lot here to unpack.  Obviously, the details of each combat encounter varies by sub-tier.  The problem from my perspective is that there's very little introduction to the combat scenes & opponents (PCs are essentially hurled into battle) and there's no interesting terrain or hazards for the combats, which makes them rather bland and forgettable.  Although the scenario taken as a whole establishes a lot about serpentfolk history, the details of what the PCs uncover with their research checks are never provided, making a GM's task a lot harder to provide flavour to what's going on.  But the biggest issue I had is the incomprehensibility of what's actually going on with this time bubble.  PCs can do things like aid and speed up the rebellion, and save the life of that Azlanti general--so is this actually altering the past?  Is it creating an alternative timeline?  Is it all a "holodeck" exercise?  We're not given any answers.  The scenario treats it like helping the "good guys" (Azlanti) vs the "bad guys" (serpentfolk) is really important, but it would almost seem to make a lot more sense if all the Pathfinders went in with illusory disguise magic or something to just observe and report instead of getting actively involved.  This isn't just an abstract armchair nit-pick either, as it really affected what (to me) the stakes were for my PC's decisions while playing.  Time-travel is always a really tricky concept because it creates paradox-headaches, so if it's going to be integrated into a game, it needs to be handled really intelligently--and that's just not done here.

Part 3 ("The Sky Comes Crashing Down") probably over-eggs the pudding.  If time-travelling serpentfolk from 10,000 years ago wasn't enough drama to deal with, the Pathfinder Society has failed to notice a massive external threat.  The Harbingers of Fate--a secret society dedicated to proving Aroden's prophecy to generate his return--has learned of the Sky Key experiment and decided to hijack it for their own purposes.  When the Harbingers take control of the Sky Key, something goes wrong (or right?) and hurls the Pathfinders and the Harbingers into a different point in time: right before the legendary starstone is about to crash into Golarion and launch the Age of Darkness!

The goal in this part is for the Pathfinders to hurriedly explore the Azlanti city of Lacshuhnolio (named after the general from Part 2), find the Harbinger "anchors" who maintain the new time bubble, and either kill them or coax them into surrendering.  It's a pretty cool (cinematic) premise in the sense that the Pathfinders have to solve the problem quickly or face an impending worldwide apocalypse (my Oracle of Groetus would have loved it!).  Again though, in practice, the scenario doesn't live up to the premise.  There's very little flavour provided for this ancient Azlanti city or its people, and the poor table GM won't be able to fill in any gaps as they have an enormous workload (keeping track now of "Anchor", "Discovery", and "Vault" points as well as running a copy of Kreighton Shaine to aid the PCs).

The combats here can be a bit of kooky-fun, as the time disruption has brought primordial oozes and cavemen from the past and undead (bearing uncanny resemblance to the PCs!) from the future. (The flip-mat chosen for these fights, Village Square, is super-mundane for an ancient Azlanti city.) Each of the Harbinger anchors is given a surprising amount of background, but if (as is likely the case) things boil down to a fight, they'll be outnumbered 5 or 6 to 1 and easily dispatched.  Mid-tier and higher level groups can then take the fight to the Harbinger leader herself, Lady Arodeth--statted up as a magus.  I do like how the scenario presents combat and diplomatic alternatives for dealing with her.

The Conclusion records that after dealing with the Harbingers, the Sky Key is lost but the Pathfinders are returned to their normal time.

Overall, I don't want to be too hard on The Sky Key Solution.  It's certainly an epic task to generate encounters for so many subtiers, a plot that seems suitably epic for a yearly special, and a ways to make it feel like the tables are cooperating in a joint effort.  And in addition, by doing it play-by-post, I missed out on that buzz of energy and excitement that comes from playing it in-person with dozens of others.  Still, the scenario needed to spice up the meat of the gameplay (the battles) and better explain the core question about how the time-travel elements worked.  As a capstone to Season Six and a source of lore on both the serpentfolk and the Harbingers, the scenario succeeds.  Otherwise--not so much.

Curse of the Crimson Thrones Recap # 1 [RPG]

An epic story is about to begin in Korvosa, an independent city-state in Varisia.  Situated at the mouth of the Jeggare River, Korvosa was once simply a colony of a distant empire.  Built on land sacred to the native Shoanti peoples, the history of the city is one marked in bloodshed and strife.  Today, Korvosa is a major mercantile player in the region.  Yet tensions abound.  King Eodred II is reputed to be in poor health and hasn’t made a public appearance in months.  An army of giants, apparently summoned by a wizard of legendary power, is being amassed far to the north.  Discrimination and outright hostility against the nomadic Varisians and tribal Shoanti serve as reminders of the city’s bloody origins.  And the gap between rich and poor only seems to widen as the city grows. 

Priests of Razmir, like Yraelzin,
are not popular in Korvosa.

But the true fate of Korvosa is about to turn not on grand forces but on the actions of a small handful of seemingly ordinary Korvosans.  Four such figures are present as the story begins, but more will surely follow.  Goldcape, a fur-covered, monkey-like Vanara from the distant jungles of Casmaron came to Korvosa with her husband, only to witness his murder outside of Kendall Amphitheatre.  Tharl, a half-orc, was raised in brutally harsh orphanages before discovering the faith of Sarenrae and becoming a holy Paladin.  Ralph Blackfeather, the only son of a merchant father whose life work was stolen before dying in a brutal back-alley ambush, seeks justice—or vengeance—for all those wronged by criminals who have evaded the law.  And Yraelzin, Priest of the Third Step of Razmir, stranded in Korvosa after he was ousted from his berth on a ship (for annoying the passengers and crew), found his only chance of returning home stolen from him, along with his money, in a cunning betrayal.  But behind all these disparate tales of tragedy is one common factor:  Gaedren Lamm, a notorious lifelong criminal who has always escaped justice.  But, perhaps, that is about to change.

[14 Gozran, 4708 AR]

It starts in the early afternoon of a normal spring day.  Scattered across the city, utter strangers to one another, the four fated figures return to their respective homes to find a cryptic message containing an address and a promised opportunity to bring Gaedren Lamm to justice!  Goldcape finds the note in her backyard treehouse on Pillar Hill in the city’s Midland district.  After a hasty lunch with her friend and benefactor (known locally as “Old Lady Cloggins”) she heads to the address on the note.  Tharl does likewise from his tenement flat in the city’s rundown Bridgefront area.  After disguising himself as an old man, Ralph Blackfeather departs from his lodgings at the Burnt Honey Inn in North Point.  Yraelzin sets off from Leftover’s, an inn in East Shore. 

Ralph arrives first and takes up position on a bench across the street to surveil the area.  Tharl—clad in heavy armor and wearing a greatsword strapped to his back—sits down on the same bench.  Down the street, Goldcape easily scales the wall of a building and stands on the roof to have a look around—much to the delight of some passers-by who laugh and point at the exotic simian.  All three hear something of a disturbance from around the corner—Yraelzin has taken the opportunity to preach the glories of Razmir, the Living God, to the almost wholly uninterested citizens of Korvosa!  The afternoon passes slowly, as no one comes in or out of the small, single-story house.  Locals report that it’s the home and shop for a fortune-teller named Zellara, but that she hasn’t been seen in months.  Finally, the sun begins to set and the four figures enter separately.

The interior of the small, humble home consists of a single cozy chamber filled with a fragrant haze of flowers and strong spice.  The aroma obviously comes from several sticks of incense smouldering in wall-mounted burners that look like butterfly-winged elves, with the smoke giving the room a dreamy feel.  The walls are draped with brocaded tapestries, one showing a black-skulled beast juggling human hearts, and another showing a pair of angels dancing atop a snow-blasted mountain.  A third tapestry on the far wall depicts a tall, hooded figure shrouded in mist, holding a flaming sword in a skeletal hand.  Several brightly colored rugs cover the floor, but the room’s only furnishings are a wooden table covered by a bright red throw cloth and several elegant, tall-backed chairs.  A basket covered by blue cloth sits under the table, while on top of it is a note held down by a stone paperweight.  Goldcape glances at the note and pulls out the basket, uncovering it to reveal a fresh loaf of bread and a jug of water.

As the four stand around, waiting for something to happen, they quickly realise they’ve all come in response to an identical note!  The mystery of who summoned them begins to lessen when a Varisian woman with long, dark hair and her face covered with a gauzy veil enters the room.  She produces a deck of fortune-telling cards from her pocket and begins to idly shuffle them—they seem to float and dance between her fingers, leading Ralph to correctly surmise this is no ordinary seer—but The Harrower, a reclusive figure known for intervening with perfect timing to stop terrible crimes just as they’re about to start.

The woman nods at the four strangers and motions for them to sit at the table before taking a seat herself.    “Thank you for coming.    I also thank you for putting up with my unconventional method of contacting you.  I have reason for our meeting to remain hidden, you see—a vicious man would see great harm done to all of us if he knew I was reaching out for help.  This man has done something terrible to each of you as well.  I speak, of course, of Gaedren Lamm, a man whose cruelty and capacity to destroy the lives of those he touches are matched only by his gift for avoiding reprisal. This criminal has evaded the law for decades.  But you know of these frustrations as well, for word on the street has it that Gaedren has wronged each of you, too. Some of you may know me by reputation as The Harrower.  I’ve always tried to help the people of this city through my gifts of foresight. Once, months ago, I tried to apprehend this infamous criminal on my own—a foolish mistake, for which I paid the price.  Gaedren fled, and established a new hideout with his gang somewhere in the city.  It took me months of searching, but finally my efforts were rewarded—I know now where Gaedren currently dwells.  He can be found in an old fishery north of here, at Westpier 17, where he trains abducted children to be pickpockets and counts his stolen treasures.  So there we are.  It is time for him to pay.  But I am now in no condition to fight, and the Guard moves so slowly that Gaedren would certainly know of their coming well in advance and escape yet again.  Thus . . . I’ve assembled the four of you in the hopes you could accomplished what I could not, and finally bring this criminal to the justice he so richly deserves.”

After the four agree, the Harrower tells them she’ll look to her cards in the hopes of assisting their risky quest.  She proceeds to conduct a Harrow reading—first for each individual, and then for the group’s future as a whole.  Ralph draws The Peacock, a card indicating a sudden personal shift.  The Harrower looks at him and nods knowingly.  Yraelzin draws The Crows, a card indicating the taking of loved ones or items.  It seems to fit the victim of theft perfectly—and also offers the opportunity to set things right.  Tharl draws the Rabbit Prince, a card that traditionally refers to the capriciousness of combat.  The Harrower suggests it means the holy warrior will meet difficulty in the battles to come, but ultimately prevail.  Goldcape draws the Demon’s Lantern, a card that indicates a seemingly impossible situation is to come her way.  The Harrower looks stricken, but reminds those assembled that the cards only foretell possibilities, not certainties, and fate can be changed.  Last, she conducts a more involved reading for the table that looks at the past, present, and future in more general terms.  The results seem particularly ominous, as the cards indicate a sudden reversal of things, darkness instead of light, and chaos instead of order.  But The Harrower can offer nothing more specific beyond general advice that in times of turmoil, relying on one another may be the only way to survive.  With a final significant glance and an invitation to return after the potentially bloody business with Gaedren Lamm is concluded, The Harrower shows the foursome out.

In the darkened street outside, the strangers-turned-allies discuss how to proceed.  Ralph Blackfeather suggests he stealthily reconnoitre the place first and then return for the others.  But Goldcape’s natural climbing and sneaking ability could also prove an asset, and so the decision is made for both to scout (separately) while Tharl and Yraelzin wait at The Bailer’s Retreat, a disreputable tavern which is just down the street in Midland from the fishery where The Harrower says Gaedren Lamm is holed up.  Before everyone sets off, however, Ralph Blackfeather asks everyone to swear an oath of loyalty and secrecy.  When they do, he removes his “old man” disguise (which Goldcape had seen through earlier) to reveal his middle-aged self.  In addition, he hints at another secret that the others will learn about soon enough.

There’s an eerie stillness in the streets of Korvosa, a portent perhaps of the veritable calm before the storm.  As Goldcape looks around the perimeter of the Old Fishery, Ralph Blackfeather dons a mask and girds himself with heavy weaponry in his costumed guise as The Reckoner.  He then scales the sides of the building and up to the roof.  The Old Fishery is a creaking, dilapidated structure built on the banks of the Jeggare River, with most of the structure extending out over the water on wooden pilings.  From the outside, the place looks dark, quiet, and boarded-up tight.  The reek of brine and week-dead fish permeates the air as Goldcape decides to swim the calm waters of the Jeggare to see if there’s a way into the building from underneath.  She finds a dense array of pilings under part of the structure that are difficult to squeeze between, but she manages to do so and sees an opening above!  Seconds later, she emerges into a chilly room.  Most of the “floor” is taken up by the open water, but a narrow walkway around the pool contains room to squeeze past a collection of old cabinets, lockboxes, and shelves filled with all manner of detritus—likely the results of petty theft and violent assault.  Goldcape can see a large shape in the water some yards away, but her attention is focussed on a man shuffling about the walkway above, deep in thought.  The man is jaundiced and bent from old age and he wears a filthy old suit of gray padded armor.  Instantly, Goldcape realises who this is: Gaedren Lamm himself!

Gaedren Lamm has already
evaded justice--until now

Goldcape tries to swim away quietly to summon help, but Gaedren hears a splash and turns.  Saliva bubbles between his lips in surprise, but then he gathers his wits.  “You!  The girl-monkey!” he shouts, reaching for a nearby crossbow.  “Your friend shoulda left the back door of that theatre open like we asked.  He paid the price, dearie, and now you will too!”  But in a surprising twist, the notorious criminal doesn’t shoot at Goldcape—instead, he calmly fires at the dark shape in the water, calling out “Gobbleguts, get her!”  His first bolt misses, but when the second hits, the dark shape lunges out of the water with a roar from its toothy maw—an alligator!  Gaedren wished to provoke the creature to a terrible rage, and it has certainly worked!  Goldcape desperately swims away but at first can’t squeeze back out from the narrow pilings.  Is it the “impossible situation” foretold in the Harrow?  Just as the enraged alligator searches for a target though, Goldcape manages to slip through to the other side—and safety.  She hears a terrible scream from behind, and can only surmise that Gobbleguts took his anger out on the only other victim available.

Meanwhile, from his position on the Old Fishery’s rooftop, The Reckoner has heard the shouting and screams from somewhere below.  He decides to break a hole in the roof with his warhammer and makes an entry point with just a few powerful blows.  Through the jagged hole, he sees the main floor of the fishery.  There are large vats of foul-smelling slurry, barrels of finished product, over a dozen small hammocks filled with just-awakened, terrified children, and doors to other parts of the building.  Poised for war, however, The Reckoner immediately spots the most immediate threat: a large, one-eyed half-orc holding the very same flail he doubtless uses to punish “disobedient” orphans!  The Reckoner drops skilfully through the hole and onto a catwalk, while the criminal known as Giggles gives a roar of surprise and anger and rushes to repel the intruder.  The two foes are evenly matched as they duck and trade powerful blows.

But The Reckoner wasn’t the only one who heard the sounds coming from the Old Fishery: waiting outside the nearby tavern, Yraelzin and Tharl realise that the others have started without them!  Both rush toward the front door of the building.  It’s locked, but Tharl quickly hacks through with his massive greatsword only to start in surprise as a grizzled dog emerges from under a desk, growls, and launches itself at Yraelzin!  The bombastic priest screams in a high-pitched voice as the dog takes a chunk out of his arm.  “Kill it, kill it!” he shouts.  Tharl manages to subdue the dog, and Yraelzin’s hands glow with magic that knits his torn flesh back together.  Then, with his ungainly-looking “underwater crossbow”, he joins Tharl in advancing into the building’s front office.  But the dog’s barking has alerted another member of Gaedren Lamm’s gang that trouble is afoot.  From an inner room, a sneering, sour-faced man with short blond hair and expensive clothing is here.  He holds a silver wand casually in one hand and curls his lip when he sees Yraelzin and Tharl.  “More grist for the mill, I see,” he says in an aristocratic accent before flicking the wand in their direction—but nothing happens!  He tries again and again, to no avail, before throwing it away in frustration.  Tharl recognises the man as Yargin Balko, Gaedren’s right-hand man and combination advisor, assassin, and fence—and one of the criminals responsible for making his own childhood so miserable.

Yargin discovered using a
wand is harder than it looks!

Battles ebb and flow all throughout the Old Fishery.  Goldcape briefly explores a rotting sailing vessel moored alongside the building, but is forced to retreat from a venomous spider that had taken up residence on board.  The Reckoner, trapped in close combat with Gaedren’s chief enforcer, finds himself overpowered and slides into unconscious accompanied by the brute’s girlish giggling.  But, of all people, the pompous Yraelzin starts to turn the tide by magically triggering first Yargin’s and then Giggles’ flight reflexes, sending both men fleeing in terror!  Soon Goldcape makes her way to the front of the building and joins her teammates inside.  Yraelzin gives a brief but annoying sermon on Razmir as he casts healing magic on The Reckoner to bring the man to consciousness.  Even after the magically-induced fear wears off, Yargin decides to continue to flee and starts tugging on the nearest door, but Giggles returns to the fight.  Tharl and Goldcape are first into the fray, but once The Reckoner gets to his feet, he lives up to his name by delivering a stunningly-powerful smash with his warhammer that kills the bruiser instantly!

Four previous victims of Gaedren Lamm’s depravity have learned that they’re stronger together than they are apart.  Yet the fighting is far from over, and The Harrower has predicted chaos and sudden reversals.  Will her predictions come true?  And if they do, will the four justice-seekers stand together or fall apart?

----------------------------------

GM Commentary

This first recap is a long one, but usually they'll be shorter--there was a lot of exposition and set-up to cover.

This campaign started near the end of May in 2020.  I happen to live in a part of the world (regional Australia) that has had the good fortune to escape the worst of the pandemic, and we've been able to play a weekly, in-person campaign with only one or two brief interruptions.  

This campaign is the second Pathfinder AP I've run.  The first, Rise of the Runelords, ended with all the heroes dying in the final battle.  To do that ending justice, the Runelord Karzoug is alive and well at the start of Curse of the Crimson Throne and starting to send his giant armies to conquer Varisia.  We'll see the ramifications of this throughout the campaign.

When this campaign started, there were three players.  My son, 9 at the time, had some experience with Pathfinder and came up in a great character with Goldcape (a vanara hunter with the roof-runner archetype).  I had briefly played some other game systems with the guy who ran Tharl (a half-orc paladin), though we'll see that RL medical issues force him out of the campaign in a few sessions.  I had never met the guy who runs Ralph Blackfeather/The Reckoner (human vigilante) before this session, but he's been a mainstay of the campaign.  I run Yraelzin (human "cleric" of Razmir") as a GMPC (since the AP is designed for four players), and have enjoyed the challenge of giving him a bombastic personality and evolving character arc while simultaneously staying out of the group decision-making process.  As I write this commentary on Session # 1, we've just finished Session # 45 and are well into Book 4.

The very first encounter of the campaign was almost the last one for Goldcape!  I hadn't (and I imagine the writers didn't either) expected a character to swim right into Gaedren Lamm's lair!  Things could have gone very, very badly, but I played everything straight (I never fudge dice rolls) and Goldcape made a narrow escape while Gaedren got some off-screen justice from his own alligator.  The Reckoner got knocked out in this session, but pretty soon he'll be a truly fearsome foe with that earthbreaker and come to dominate battles.  Yraelzin really did make an impact, as simple cause fear gave the group time to regroup.  Having another martial character in Tharl was useful too.

Close readers will note I changed some of the details of Zellara.  Since I knew Blackjack would be an important NPC and we'd have a PC named The Reckoner, I thought it would fun and interesting to continue the theme by turning Zellara into The Harrower, a magic-focussed crime-fighter.  However, I keep most of the rest of her background (including her present . . . condition).

Pathfinder Dice: "Goblins!" [RPG]

 I got the Pathfinder Goblins! dice set in anticipation of playing a goblin character one day.  That hasn't happened yet, so I've instead been using them as GM dice in my biweekly Roots of Golarion campaign.  They come in a nice little cardboard box with a plastic tray inside.  The box says "Each of these 7 dice bears goblin-scrawl suggestive of tiny terrors and manic murder.  Roll the dice and let your foes know that deadly things come in small packages!"  The borders around each numeral on the dice are . . . I don't really know how to describe them, but I guess they do have a messy, chaotic feel.  They also makes it more challenging to see the actual numbers--this isn't a set of dice I'd suggest if you're playing in dim lighting or have poor eyesight!  The highest number of each dice is a special symbol that is very evocative of goblins (dogslicers on the d10, a wooden shield on the d12, a horsechopper on the d8, a goblin face on the d6, and a skull on the d20).  Overall, the set certainly is distinctive and I guess its on theme, but I can't help but feel it could still have been done better.

Pathfinder: "Deluxe Harrow Deck" [RPG]

I've used the Deluxe Harrow Deck several times in my Curse of the Crimson Throne campaign.  It's an impressive set--far more than a simple deck of playing cards.  The 54 cards are larger, tarot-sized cards, with full-colour artwork on one side and an interesting design (tied to the six ability scores of D&D) on the back.  In addition to the main cards, the set contains a extra card for the GM to help them remember how to do a spread, and a few "Harrowing Chronicle" cards to enable them to keep track of particular PC draws and how it should influence the campaign.  There's also a 30-page-long instruction booklet that's well-written and contains some Golarion flavour.  It goes through how to use the Harrow deck for different purposes, such as general fortune-telling for flavour or more concrete predictions to be integrated by the GM into the campaign.  It includes a new spell that creates mechanical consequences for the cards drawn and helpfully summarises other Paizo books and adventures that make use of the Harrow.  Each card is given a description of its meaning, and there's a sample narrative Harrowing on the back so the reader can get a sense of how it all comes together in practice.

Having performed a few Harrowings, I can say it's not easy to do well.  Some solo practice is a good idea, as the cards have very different meanings depending on placement, and trying to interpret the cards in relation to the characters and the adventure can sometimes be a challenge.  Fortune-telling is an art and a skill, but it's pretty cool how the concept has been imported into Pathfinder through Varisians and their culture.  I think my only criticism of the deck is that I'm not a big fan of the artwork--it's more cartoony than I'd like.  But apart from that, this is a really good deck, useful in a lot of different ways.

Doctor Fate # 11-20 (DC Comics) (1988) [COMICS]

 Continuing my review of DC's late-1980s Doctor Fate series (first post is here).  What we'll see in these issues is DeMatteis starting to wrap up his tenure on the book and getting it in position for a new direction (whew!).

In Issue # 11, we get a name villain in Darkseid!  The evil gets his hands dirty by coming to earth, beating up Nabu/Kent, and sending Eric/Fate to Apokolips!  (I'm sure the big bad has some evil plan in mind, but I can't recall what it is)  But Linda/Fate arrives on Apokolips to rescue Eric/Fate, and although it's not a great issue, there's a good cliffhanger at least.

Issue # 12 reveals that Linda is the strong half of the Linda+Eric team.  As Doctor Fate solo, she blasts Darkseid and his parademons and merges with Eric into the combo-Fate.  They make Darkseid retreat with "love".  Yes, really!  But it's not a happy ending, as it's revealed that the "fever" Eric has been suffering since his journey to India is really an effect of Nabu rapidly aging his body, and Eric dies!  Admittedly, I wasn't expecting that.  As an aside, Fate's powers continue to be a bland mix of flight and energy blasts.  Dr Strange could give Fate lessons on how to have some flavour.

Issue # 13 takes place after Eric's funeral, but we find out that Linda is so angry at what happened, she didn't even attend.  She blames Nabu for having aged Eric's body in the first place.  She becomes Fate alone and journeys to the spirit world to bring Eric back to the land of the living, but he doesn't want to return!  However, their souls will apparently be bound together forever.  Yay?  The writing just isn't up to the job for a storyline like this, and the mediocre/bad art doesn't help.

Where's Doctor Fate?  That's the question in Issue # 14, as Wotan (evil wizard guy) interrogates Joachim Hesse (from the beginning of the series) about Fate's whereabouts.  We get a brief origin of Wotan: he wants to absorb Nabu's power and become the God!  He kidnaps Nabu, and Petey (the "comic relief" of the series) goes to the JLI for help.  Now that I can get behind!

Issue # 15 has Blue Beetle on the cover, so it can't be all bad.  And the banter is genuinely funny, as the JLI and Linda/Fate assemble to take down Wotan.  We actually get a mix of heroes from the JLI and the JLE, and it's a fun issue--probably my favorite of the series so far (even if it gets super SBNR-preachy at some points).

Issue # 16 is a classic inventory story (you can tell because there's a different artist for the framing sequence than for the main story, and the main story is set at some point in the past).  Linda recalls a time when she and Eric were Fate together and fought a demon even though they were bickering.  It's a gag-worthy tale about how a monster is actually an abused woman's corrupted guardian angel.  I don't know why people rave about this series as a hidden gem--it's really just not very good.

My gorge is writing as I write about Issue # 17.  Somewhere in the afterlife, a mustachioed fellow (who looks like Sonny Bono!) named "The Guide" shows Eric past lives he's lived.  Eric almost gets to afterlife oblivion, but decides to turn back and returns to life in the body of a middle-aged dude (with a wife and kid) who just died in a car crash.  There's a lot more "all religions are one" pap.  

Issue # 18 is better.  Linda realises that Eric is alive, but he's in a new body with a new family and doesn't entirely remember being anyone else.  A solid issue.

Issue # 19 has a good cover and tagline ("Suddenly . . . A Stranger!") for a guest appearance by the Phantom Stranger.  The interior artwork is also good.  The story involves an Arkham Asylum inmate who becomes a sort of reverse-Fate ("Chaos Warrior") and sets all the other inmates free.  Linda tries to find Eric, but can't, and loses the power of Doctor Fate.  The Phantom Stranger appears to Eric (in his new body, "Gene") and says will help facilitate his rebirth.  Meanwhile, Nabu/Kent takes Linda and Petey to Fate's tower in Salem.  

Issue # 20 has Nabu/Kent, Linda, and Petey finding the mystical helmet of Fate in the tower--and it seems that the (original) Kent and Inza's souls are inside it!  Elsewhere, the Phantom Stranger spouts some "world soul" goop and wakes Eric up, and there's something about a how a new, enlightened spiritual humanity will arise to set things right (apparently a reference to New Guardians, and look how that turned out!).  

Next time we talk about Doctor Fate, we'll quickly be in new creative hands and into some genuinely interesting storytelling.  Persevere!

Pathfinder Flip-Tiles: "Urban Slums Expansion Set" [RPG]

 Anytime my players in Curse of the Crimson Throne head to Old Korvosa, I pull out the Urban Slums Expansion Set.  It's a 24 card expansion to the Urban Starter Set, and features more narrow (1 square) streets, lots of patched stalls, and corners full of random junk.  Like the base set, each card has buildings on one side and then the interior of those buildings on the flip side, and the interiors are plain and the exterior view don't show doors.  For "special" cards, we get a polluted canal (nice!) and then four cards that fit together to make up a "fighting pit" (odd, and far less useful).  Overall, I like these cards slightly better than the base set, but they're still not great and suffer from many of the same problems that my review detailed on it.

As an aside, a GM needs to be careful in using this set--I used all 24 cards for a big encounter only to realise partway through that there was literally no way the place the PCs started from could reach the places where the action was happening.  I figured dead ends and labyrinthine streets are the hallmarks of slums and just rolled with it (making the PCs up and climb over buildings and squeeze through corners), but it could have been an issue.

Pathfinder Flip-Tiles: "Urban Starter Set" [RPG]

I got the Urban Starter Set to test out with my Curse of the Crimson Throne campaign.  It's a sturdy box full of 42 double-sided, 6x6 square gridded tiles (suitable for wet and dry erase markers).  The box also comes with dividers meant to organise the tiles with expansion sets.  I think the *idea* of the set is great, as it's designed to allow endless customisation of city streets to suit whatever the GM needs.  I haven't found them so great to use in practice, however.  First, the cards are slickly coated and slide easily around the table.  Second, the design of the buildings is very limited and exceedingly repetitive.  Third, all the streets are the same (10') width.  Fourth, although I like how each card has a top-down view of a building on one side and then the interior of that building on the other side, the exterior shot doesn't show doors or windows--so PCs can't easily "transition" between them without first flipping and rotating to check where those entrances are.  Fifth, there's very little detail--the streets occasionally have some puddles or a grate, but the interiors never have anything except (oddly enough) a rug here and there).  And finally, the "special" tiles consist only of an outer wall/gate (which is good) and then two of the exact same cards with a fountain on one side and a statue on the other. 

Overall, they are usable--but I'm not sure they're really any faster or more useful than just quickly drawing some squares on a blank flip-mat to represent buildings.

Starfinder Society Scenario # 2-05: "Meeting of Queens" [RPG]

 

NO SPOILERS

I played through Meeting of Queens with my embri mystic, Speaker for the Dead.  I like that the scenario involves the PCs interacting with a rarely-scene species and learning a bit of the backstory for one of the key planets in the Pact Worlds.  The plot has a couple of interesting twists.  There wasn't anything that jumped out at me to make the scenario feel particularly noteworthy, however, and, reading through it afterwards, I can see some obvious ways it could have been improved.  It's a middling scenario overall.

SPOILERS!

Meeting of Queens is the first Starfinder Society adventure set on the Castrovellian continent known as the Colonies (home to the ant-like formians).  The scenario's plot ties into the history of Castrovel, as it involves a ritual reenactment of the "Meeting of Queens", a time when the warring formian queens united together to fight a common foe (the lashuntas on the continent of Asana).  For the first time since a peace agreement was reached on Castrovel three decades ago, outsiders have been invited to participate in this reenactment.  In his briefing to the PCs, Venture-Captain Arvin says lashuntas, staff from Qabarat University, and Starfinders have been asked to play the role of one of the now-extinct formian tribes by making a trek overland from the edge of the Colonies to the meeting site.  Arvin tasks the PCs with essentially making a good impression on their hosts in a high-stakes diplomatic mission.

 As an aside, I still discern a complete lack of personality coming from Arvin.  I also wonder why the decision was made to have all Starfinder Venture-Captains based on Absalom Station instead of spread out across the Pact Worlds.  It seems like a little thing, but it means every scenario starts the same and requires the formality of travelling through the Drift (where nothing ever happens) to reach the point where the adventure really starts.

Once on Castrovel, the Starfinders meet the rest of the delegates for a party the night before the planned departure overland.  There are six named NPCs to interact with here and a series of minor events (one of the delegates is drunk, one offers the PCs some revolting food, one is in a bad mood, etc.) to be dealt with.  Depending on the outcome of some skill checks, the PCs might gain some friends among the other delegates (which generally results in automatic attempts to Aid Another on particular skills from those delegates, which is something very easy for a GM to forget about).  The social "events" are fine, and I always appreciate some role-playing opportunities.  However, when a bunch of NPCs are thrown at the group, they really need to have artwork and personality descriptions--otherwise, it's just too hard to tell them apart and to make the role-playing interesting (unless the GM is *really* good).

The next part of the scenario is the overland travel.  There are six different encounters (though only one involves combat) here, and the main thing the PCs are trying to achieve is to stay on schedule.  If they lose too much travel time (all given in half-day increments) by not dealing properly with the encounters, they could end up late for the Meeting of Queens and that would, of course, make a poor impression on the formians.  An interesting complication, at least for the combat encounter, is that the PCs are expected to recreate the original journey by foregoing all use of powered devices--that means only archaic weapons!  A good challenge, even if some players will whine about their perfect builds becoming less useful for a session.  I also like how the scenario writer made some of the encounters optional and gave the GM explicit instructions to tailor them to how interested the players were in the travel section--some added flexibility is usually a good thing.

The Meeting of Queens itself is a little bit of text-box description of the ritual and then an action scene, as one of the delegates (a phentomite graduate student from the university) has activated a psychic feedback device that makes the assembled formians attack each other!  All the fuss about travel delays really boils down to whether the PCs are seated near the front of the event (and thus have an easy time chasing the saboteur) or seated near the back (and thus have to deal with more difficult terrain, the possibility of falling down the rafters, and being attacked by crazed formians).  The saboteur himself surrenders the moment a PC reaches him, and confesses he was bribed by an unknown party to set off the device on the promise that a scholarship fund would be set up for impoverished university students.

The feedback device is in communication with a mysterious ship in orbit, and it falls to the PCs and some climactic starship combat to deal with the problem.  Like with most starship combats, I have no particular recollection of this one, and I'm pretty sure my PC did nothing meaningful in it.

The conclusion offers the PCs a moral decision (and reporting condition) on whether to turn the saboteur over to the formians, over to the lashuntas, or over to the Starfinder Society.  It's not a particularly interesting decision to my mind, as there's no information given to the players as to what the different choices might entail in terms of consequences--if all three options result in imprisonment, for example, then it doesn't seem to matter.  A twist in the tail ending reveals that the previously-undisclosed sponsor of the lashunta delegation is Datch!  I don't think the revelation really hits, as it's not clear how/why the Starfinder Society would have gotten in particular trouble for what happened at the meeting.

I guess I've been pretty hard on Meeting of Queens.  It's not a bad scenario per se, and involves a good mix of role-playing, skill challenges, and some action scenes.  For whatever reason, it just doesn't quite cohere into an especially good scenario either.  I'm going to mark it down as average, with the reminder that an excuse to hang out with buddies, eat pretzels, and roll dice is always welcome.

Starfinder Adventure Path # 3: "Dead Suns, Chapter 3: Splintered Worlds" [RPG]

 

NO SPOILERS

As always with my reviews of AP volumes, the adventure itself is reviewed in the “Spoilers!” section below.  Here, I’ll go over the non-spoilery back matter.  I’ll just mention the cover and interior covers quickly: I love the creepy character on the front cover (far better than the one in Chapter One).  The interior covers are the stats and layout for a Tier 4 vessel called a Nebulor Outfitters Starhopper—it could make a decent ship for a group of PCs.  Anyway, the back matter proper consists of four entries.

·         * Eox (8 pages): This section starts with a two-page spread containing a sort of planetary map of Eox divided into its eastern and western hemispheres and with notable locations indicated by dots.  The locations are then fleshed out in the text, with some of my favorites including Blackmoon (the subject of a Starfinder Society scenario), The Lifeline (a wall protecting the small section of the planet designed for living creatures from the rest), and the notorious Halls of the Living (completely believable and highly immoral reality television).  The section does a good job updating Eox from its original appearance in Pathfinder while maintaining the setting connection.  I imagine this entry is less important now after the publication of Pact Worlds, but it’s still a nice, concise overview of the planet.  The section also contains a couple of pages on necrografts (augmentations that involve adding undead parts to living creatures—some are pretty good given the price).

·       * The Corpse Fleet (8 pages): This section details the (really interesting) history of the Corpse Fleet, renegades who refused to go along with Eox signing the Absalom Pact that created the Pact Worlds.  The history section is adroitly opaque about whether the Corpse Fleet’s creation was secretly anticipated or even intentionally mandated by the Eoxian government.  The section goes through the military structure, goals, and important individuals in the Corpse Fleet, and this last list has a bunch of great story ideas contained within it for homebrew GMs.  The section ends with two pages each on military necrotech (mostly weapons with the “necrotic” property that hurt the living while healing undead) and on new Corpse Fleet ships.  It’s all very well-written, and I don’t think the section has been reprinted elsewhere.

·       * Alien Archives (9 pages): We get seven new creatures: elebrians (a new playable race—the original inhabitants of Eox), ghouls (a necessity!), marrowblights (multi-armed undead with a weird “pounce” ability that isn’t very good), skreelings (offspring of skreesires), skreesires (kinda reptilian generic space monsters), jiang-shi vampires (inherited from Pathfinder and real-world mythology, their culturally-specific associations like roosters and rice sound a bit strange in a futuristic setting), veolisks (kinda like basilisks with a gaze that causes confusion and could be pretty dangerous).

·         * Codex of Worlds (1 page): In this issue, we’re told of Barrow, a rogue planetoid used as a shipyard and repair dock by the Corpse Fleet.  It’s not really worth a full page, as a couple of lines could have done the same thing.

Okay, now on to the adventure!

SPOILERS!

The planet-hopping nature of Dead Suns continues.  If Chapter One was Absalom Station and Chapter Two was Castrovel, Chapter Three is (briefly) the Diaspora and then (mostly) Eox.  At the end of Chapter Two, the PCs learned that the Cult of the Devourer had transmitted information on the possible whereabouts of the Stellar Degenerator to a base in the Diaspora.  The background information is pretty interesting (and involved!), and PCs may have the opportunity to learn some of it in the course of the adventure.  It starts with a long-dead prophet of the Cult of the Devourer named Nyara and her magnum opus, a tome called The Entropy of Existence and Glorious Rise of the Void.  In her cryptic prophecies, allusion is made to what could very well be the Stellar Degenerator as laying somewhere within or beyond a distant, unexplored star system called Nejeor.  As this chapter begins, the Devourer cultists in the Diaspora who received the transmission from the Castrovellian sect have already made the connection and set off for Nejeor.  What they, and the PCs don’t know, is that the Corpse Fleet (renegade Eoxians) kept an eye on things, saw a transmission to this hidden base, raided it for information, and have also set off for Nejeor!  The idea is that there’s a race for this superweapon, and if anyone other than the PCs win, the galaxy will suffer.

The adventure is separated into three parts.

Part 1 (“Field of the Lost”) starts with the PCs’ arrival in the Diaspora, where their starship is immediately attacked by a patrolling pirate vessel named the Rusty Rivet (a Nebulor Outfitters Starhopper from the inside front cover).  This starship combat is intended to go the PCs’ way and can even be handled completely peacefully, as the pirate captain surrenders quickly and invites the PCs aboard so she can be conveniently interrogated about the location of the Devourer base.  The set-up doesn’t speak very highly of the supposed vaunted Free Captains, but I guess that can be remedied in a future AP.

The pirates point the PCs to an asteroid, but the Starfinders will have to comb its apparently desolate surface to find a secret entrance to the underground complex.  But even getting that far could be a challenge, as there’s a rogue sarcesian with a sniper rifle to make it difficult (the rationale for his placement there is a bit far-fetched, but I *do* like long-range encounters).  In addition, there’s a back-matter monster: a skreesire (and its offsprings, skreelings) to be overcome.  A skreesire can take some temporary mental control of foes and that, combined with a nearby acid pool, could prove pretty nasty.

Part 2 (“The Vanished Cult”) starts with the PCs discovering the cultist base is eerily abandoned.  It’s a big complex with lots to explore, and wasn’t left completely unguarded: there are some cool-looking security robots, a veolisk (from the back-matter), and my persona -favorite, an awesome laser wall trap (don’t roll a nat 1 on your save!).  Careful searching my clue the PCs in that the Corpse Fleet came here after the cultists left.  This is definitely one of those (fairly common) situations where a group would be stuck if they didn’t have someone skilled in Computers.  For better or worse, the group I was in had a super-Operative that could make any skill check in the game with ease.  However, all the searching and hacking in the world doesn’t discover that the cultists and Corpse Fleet have set off for Nejeor.  Instead, all the PCs have to go on is a vague idea that if the Corpse Fleet is involved, then Eox should be their next step.  In any event, as the PCs hop in the Sunrise Maiden for whatever destination, two Corpse Fleet fighters who have been watching the asteroid swoop in to attack.  What I find patently ridiculous is that the fighters wait for the PCs’ ship to get going before attacking, as it would have been a sitting duck while parked on the asteroid.  Another example of a forced starship combat that doesn’t really make a ton of sense plot-wise.

Part 3 (“Planet of the Dead”) has the PCs’ headed to Eox to meet up with a contact provided by their Starfinder Society contact, Chiskisk.  Chiskisk explains that the authorities on Eox have set up a specialised government agency called the Ministry of Eternal Vigilance to investigate the Corpse Fleet and that it’s headquartered in a city called Orphys.  Like some real-world government agencies, the “Ministry of Eternal Vigilance” is essentially a tiny pro forma office that does little and mostly exists so that the authorities can claim to be interested.  The Ministry of Eternal Vigilance is headed by a bored ghoul bureaucrat Waneda Trux, and this was probably my favorite part of Chapter Three.  Props to the GM for making Waneda really come alive (pun!) as an NPC with limitless time and a limitless fondness for rules and regulations. 

Waneda has a couple of leads to follow about Corpse Fleet activity in Orphys and, depending on how the PCs handled the Eoxian Ambassador’s special mission in Chapter 1, provides some different resources (a nice tie-in).  The leads were actually planted by the Corpse Fleet to lure the PCs into a trap, and from a metagame perspective they work perfectly because plenty of adventures are premised on PCs following even sketchier evidence to get to the next encounter.  But this section of the AP is far less of a railroad than earlier parts, as the PCs have some time to explore Orphys, a city given some memorable flavour by its connection to the flesh vat and necrograft industries.  I particularly love a shopowner who calls himself Gentlesage—a corpsefolk wearing archaic finery (like a dented monocle and dingy top hat) who considers himself too fancy for his surroundings.

The clues eventually lead the PCs to a hermit outside the city (and outside of its environmental protections for living creatures).  The hermit is a marrowblight Corpse Folk sympathiser (with cool artwork!), and she ambushes the PCs with the help of a pet ellicoth.  Alas, this is the battle where my dearly departed barathu envoy B’rrlb’lub (a.k.a., “Excitable Flying Jellyfish”) was killed and added to the marrowblight’s “Skin Shack”.  To add insult to injury, in our group’s next session we were walking back from the marrowblight when the *real* boss of Chapter Three (a jiang-shi vampire) springs her ambush.  My new PC, a really interesting (honest!) wannabe-ghoul, got bull-rushed into a pool of acid for 20d6 damage per round and died.  (A real bummer for me, but I can’t blame anyone but myself for that gaffe!)  The vampire has a data module that provides the link the PCs need for Chapter Four—again, though, without some *really* good skill in Computers, a group could easily be stuck (especially because the data module has self-deletion countermeasure with some failed checks).

Despite losing two PCs in short succession, I really enjoyed the Eox portions of Chapter Three.  The Diaspora stuff, on the other hand, was fairly forgettable, generic space-dungeon crawling.  Next chapter, we leave the Pact Worlds behind and set off to explore strange new worlds and new civilizations.

Pathfinder Society Scenario # 0-25: "Hands of the Muted God" [RPG]

NO SPOILERS

I ran this retired scenario as part of my “Roots of Golarion” campaign of odds and ends.  It starts with a fantastic hook but then makes a hash out of it, and is probably best used today as inspiration for a better, homebrewed adventure. 

SPOILERS

Hands of the Muted God is a perfect example of a scenario that starts with a great premise but then tells exactly the wrong story with it.  In a briefing by Venture-Captain Adril Hestram, we learn that there was once an aspirant for divinity who called himself the Muted God.  But when he took the Test of the Starstone, he never emerged, and his name was added to the Shrine of the Failed and the vast majority of his followers abandoned him.  But a small kernel remained steadfast, reasoning that perhaps a God of Silence and Serenity would ascend into godhood without trumpets and fanfare.  These loyal followers, the eponymous “Hands of the Muted God”, have stayed in the Puddles District of Absalom ever since.  But recently, many of them have started exhibit powerful magical powers which, rumor has it, are traced to their pilgrimage to a mountain called the Weeping Grandfatheg, on which the Muted God supposedly spent a year and a day in meditation.  Now that’s intriguing!  Did the Muted God ascend?  Why are his worshippers gaining power?  What are their beliefs and rituals like?

But the story we get isn’t nearly as interesting.  It seems that Hestram sent a team of Pathfinders out to investigate the Weeping Grandfather, but they haven’t returned and the PCs are sent to discover their fate.  (they’ve only been gone a week, which seems a bit too soon to panic where wilderness treks and mountain climbing is involved!)  The scenario then jump-cuts from the briefing to the discovery of the missing Pathfinders’ campsite.  The Pathfinders are dead, but their bodies have been booby-trapped with insect swarms to deter pursuit. 

The identity of the booby-trappers is spoiled in some of the faction mission handouts, but also becomes obvious in the second encounter once the PCs start ascending the mountain:  drow!  In an unconvincing backstory, the demon lord Abraxas has had some divination about a source of great power hidden in the mountain and has sent his own cultists to secure it.  I think this whole drow-derail was a major mistake in plotting.  First, the drow are treated as just more monsters to overcome—we don’t get to see any of the culture that makes them so interesting.  Second, I found it a real stretch that drow would be operating so boldly on the surface—one of the distinctive things about Golarion is that the existence of drow are a closely-guarded secret and viewed by most surface-worlders as simply a myth.  The scenario sets up this really interesting, original storyline involving a failed(?) aspirant to divinity and then gives us three forgettable encounters against drow (plus a battle against some chimeras, seemingly thrown in just to pad out the scenario some more).  The leader of the drow expedition is a drider who, at high subtier, will be accompanied by a vrock.  I’m not 100% sure why the scenario was retired, but my guess is that drow sleep poison could be a TPK-generator with some poor saving throw luck.

The epilogue, at least, is interesting.  After defeating all the drow, the PCs will gain access to the site of mystic power: the Hall of the Zero Incantation, a vast shimmering cavern of crystal with a serene, silver lake in the middle.  The lake is capable of recharging any chargeable magic items, which is pretty powerful indeed!  But, there’s a twist that makes perfect sense: if anyone entering the hall makes the slightest sound (e.g., failing a DC 30 Move Silently check) the entire cavern crumbles.  This is the Muted God we’re talking about!  Though, he has stayed very, very muted since and has never been mentioned again in any Pathfinder product.

Starfinder Society Scenario # 2-16: "A Scoured Home" [RPG]

 

NO SPOILERS

I played A Scoured Home via play-by-post with my skittermander Steward, Officer Swizzers.  The game seemed really rushed and I didn’t enjoy it much at the time, but reading through the scenario for the purposes of this review, it looks pretty solid.  It makes great use of the storyline established in previous Starfinder Society scenarios and adds even more depth to an interesting species.  The encounters require some interesting tactics and the map layouts are pretty cool.  I’m not saying it’s the best scenario ever, but it’s definitely better than my first impression.

SPOILERS!

Venture-Captain Fitch’s kids are up to more hijinks as she delivers the briefing aboard the Master of Stars.  It seems the inhabitants of several Pact Worlds colonies are coming down with virulent diseases, and Big Potion (what we would call “Big Pharma”) has been slow to respond and is charging prices that are out of the reach of many.  But the Starfinder Society has an ace up its sleeve: the izalguuns of the planet Izalraan have extremely advanced medicinal synthesis techniques, and have agreed to help the Society for cost.  But one of the izalguun elders, Naarma, has asked for a favour in return: it seems a particular region of the planet is suffering from low-level radiation poisoning, and they’d like Starfinder help in finding out the cause.

The izalguuns were first encountered by the Starfinder Society in # 1-13: On the Trail of History and then again in # 1-17: Reclaiming the Time-Lost Tear.  There, the Society learned the izalguuns were once an extremely technologically advanced culture residing in the system that came to be known as the Scoured Stars.  When the izalguuns escaped the clutches of their over-protective deity through a mass exodus to Izalraan, they decided to leave their technological ways behind and live in harmony with their surroundings.  The PCs in those early session had, as a reporting condition, to decide whether to keep the existence of the izalguuns secret from the wider galaxy (as they desired).  It seems like most groups did, though my drug-addicted character Troivayan was happy to exploit them for the associated boon discount on medicinals.  Ah, good times!

Anyway, the PCs have no trouble getting to Izalraan and meeting with Naarma.  As she takes the list of medicines that need to be manufactured, she points the group in the direction of the irradiated area.  Radiation is pretty nasty in Starfinder, though armor can protect against low levels and the PCs have had a warning that they should be prepared for it.  Later on, however, they might be exposed to more severe levels of radiation, and then things can get serious.

The first encounter in the game is against some native bovine megafauna called ovibovos.  The ovibovos have suffered severely from radiation-induced cancer, and their bodies slough off mobile tumors that can latch onto PCs!  It’s simultaneously gross, funny, and memorable.  I do like that the scenario provides a way to resolve the situation peacefully in addition to the usual combat option.  What surprises me the most is that one of the Chronicle boons for the scenario is the opportunity to select an ovibovo as an animal companion—these are Huge sized creatures!  I hope the Society starts manufacturing larger starships.

Speaking of starships, the source of the radiation leak will quickly be discovered as one of the large transport vessels from the initial izalguun exodus from the Scoured Stars system.  But although the izalguuns have abandoned technology, they knew what they were doing and built their vessels to last (or, at least, to degrade safely)—so there has to be another reason for the radiation leak.  Before the PCs can figure out the answer, they’ll have to contend with some of the ship’s automated security robots (cleverly designed to resemble izalguuns, which makes perfect sense) and persuade the vessel’s artificial intelligence to help out.  The latter obstacle was a smart addition, as it provides an extended role-playing opportunity in what might otherwise be a fairly straightforward combat-heavy scenario.  The AI can also provide some interesting insight into the history of the izalguun, building further on what’s been learned previously.

So what is behind the radiation leak?  Sabotage—by jinsuls!  Although they were conclusively defeated in # 1-99: The Scoured Stars Invasion, a small band led by a zealot mystic named Dvimnix escaped and have come to Izalraan for revenge on their ancient enemy.  They’ve been working for weeks to break down the ship’s reactor in the hopes of poisoning the planet.  I think it was clever to see the jinsul again, and to remember that an enemy defeated isn’t an enemy vanquished forever.  It’s a nice tie-in to the Season 1 storyline.  The main battle against the jinsul takes place in an encounter in which they can direct radiation leaks at the PCs, the PCs can try to shut down the reactor, and there’s plenty of combat to give everyone a role to play in the group’s success.

Assuming the PCs are successful in stopping the jinsul and curtailing the radiation leak, they can return to Naarma and will learn that the new medicinals are ready to go (izalguun work fast!).  There’s a hint in the epilogue that Big Potion may be intentionally slow-walking their response to the disease outbreaks, and I suspect this will tie into Season 2’s overall storyline.

In reading the scenario, there’s very little that I didn’t like.  The artwork for Dvimnix (the jinsul leader) was pretty poor, but the rest of the artwork is strong.  There’s an unconvincing rationale for why the PCs can’t just take a shuttle to the source of the radiation and have to go on foot, but that’s par for the course for Starfinder encounter design which has never really grappled with the increased mobility of a futuristic setting.  One would think the ship’s AI would have previously detected the jinsul incursion and done something about it.  The Starfinder Society seems more interested in getting good publicity then in actually saving lives.  And yeah, I’m not sure about Huge-sized animal companions that can be ridden as mounts and trample foes.

But those are all pretty small nit-picks in what’s overall a really strong scenario that shows the value of deep research into previous scenarios.  I think most groups will enjoy it—just bring radiation buffers!

Pathfinder (GameMastery) Compleat Encounters: "Terror in the Chamber of Pain" [RPG]

 

NO SPOILERS

Terror in the Chamber of Pain was a very early Paizo product, part of its “Compleat Encounter” line that combined a few miniatures, a short adventure, and gridded cards that fit together as an encounter map.  I’ve run a few of these now, and I wasn’t particularly impressed with this one.  The cards fit together in a confusing way and don’t always match the room descriptions given in the adventure text.  The artwork for the two NPCs in the set is fine, but neither one is particularly tough for the planned party of 8^th level PCs.  And although I only have the cards, in the picture of the three minis, one of the minis is very different than what’s promised.  The adventure backstory doesn’t make a ton of sense either.  I guess the one good thing I can say is that the adventure is cleverly written to be easily inserted into pretty much anyplace the PCs find themselves.

SPOILERS!

Terror in the Chamber of Pain involves an evil cleric/torturer named the Seeker in Shadow, who, with the aid of a half-orc assistant, wanders the planes inflicting pain on hapless victims out of a sheer delight in cruelty.  The backstory is that the Seeker in Shadow was once a cleric of “Astanoth, God of Truth and Beauty” (a deity that never appears elsewhere).  But after his family was savagely murdered, the cleric fell into madness, despair and a thirst for vengeance, so his god cursed him to wander the planes for all eternity in his perverted chapel, the “Chamber of Pain.”  Astanoth isn’t exactly inspiring confidence in his decision-making as a deity.

Anyway, the cool thing is that the Chamber of Pain, being a mobile, inter-planar building, can appear literally anywhere.  There’s a ton of easy adventure hooks to get the PCs involved in checking it out—such as the kidnapping of an NPC they know, being hired to investigate disappearances on the streets, or simply stumbling across it in the wilderness where it wasn’t when they camped the night before!  But apart from that useful premise, the adventure itself falls very flat and is rather unmemorable.  The Seeker in Shadow is a chump and no threat to the party, while his assistant is dangerous only if he lands some shurikens laced with purple worm poison.  The “Compleat Encounter” products usually include a unique magic item or artefact, and in this case it’s a fairly uninteresting “Rack of Ruin” that provides a bonus on Intimidate checks to interrogate a foe.  The artwork for the “Rack of Ruin” looks like one would expect (a medieval torture device), but the pictured miniature is just a wooden table with some tools on it—not sure what happened there.

All in all, there’s not much reason to track this down and play it.  Unlike some of the other “Compleat Encounter” adventures, it doesn’t even have a proto-Golarion lore element.  Probably best to leave it forgotten.