Pathfinder Society Scenario # 7-13: "Captive in Crystal" [RPG]

 NO SPOILERS

Although I've only played a few of the season's scenarios, I think the Year of the Serpent (Season 7) of PFS1 may be one of the best.  The scenarios are set in interesting and original locales, have strong plotting, and feature memorable NPCs.  I played Captive in Crystal via play-by-post, and while I didn't catch all of the story elements as a player (more my fault than the scenario's), reading it for the purposes of this review I can see how it's put together well.  It's not a perfect scenario, but it is really good and definitely worth playing.

SPOILERS!

Captive in Crystal has a classic premise: follow in the footsteps of a lost adventuring party, and discover what happened to them.  The premise is well-styled to integrate Pathfinder Society lore by having the lost party led by a former Master of Spells (Sorrina Westyr). With Aram Zey missing, recovering Sorrina Westyr has taken on added importance.  However, Westyr and her team have been missing for over a decade (!) and disappeared while using a unique magical item called the wayfinder of many paths, a device which opens a portal to different destination depending on which type of ioun stone is placed within it.  Westyr was experimenting with it when she and her team disappeared, so the PCs have to be prepared for pretty much anything if they're going to go after her to a location that could be (quite literally) anywhere on (or in!) Golarion.  I thought it a great touch that the PFS had everything from horses to cold weather gear to underwater magic on stand-by depending on what the portal revealed when it opened.

It turns out, however, that the portal opens to a place deep underground.  More specifically, The Crystal Womb, one of the Orvian Vaults deep in the Darklands.  The PCs may find the body of one of the lost explorers almost immediately, and another one not long after.  It would have been good for the adventure to provide some Heal checks or other means to determine what killed them (PCs like to play CSI), though some other exposition later on explains things.  

The first encounter in the game is against a group of scorpion-like earth elemental creatures called chrysmals.  I remember this being a fairly difficult encounter.  Importantly, there's a surprise intervention by a third-party: a shaitan (a sort of earth genie from the Plane of Earth) named Reyshal ik Jalman.  Jalman aids the PCs in the battle, and is a crucial NPC because he knows exactly what happened to Westyr.  After the battle, there's an involved role-playing scene (with multiple skill checks) to strike a bargain with Jalman for information.  Assuming the negotiations are successful (and the adventure smartly explains what happens if they're not), Jalman says Westyr went to an esoteric Orvian library nearby called the Lucent Archive.  She went there because Jalman struck a deal with her: he would provide her a wish to return to the Grand Lodge if she found information exonerating his family from false accusations they committed a crime.  However, Jalman is unable to enter the library (it's warded against earth-type creatures) and has no idea what happened to Westyr or why she never emerged.  There's a lot more backstory for Jalman, and he's a well-rounded NPC (with cool artwork).

When the PCs enter the Lucent Archive, they quickly find Westyr--only to learn she's been turned into an oread through extensive exposure to the place's magic!  Moving initially at almost geological speed, she's lost all track of time.  She explains that the area with the knowledge needed to satisfy Jalman is called the Sapphire Stacks, but it's guarded by several sentinels.  First, the PCs will need to overcome several kineticist (!) pechs.  The battle here takes place on a map that needs more going on, as it's almost abstract.  Then, in a plot element I thought was a bit forced, the PCs also have to deal with an intruder into the Lucent Archive, a "thunder wisp" that has been emanating a destructive soundwave that threatens to shatter the crystal records of the Lucent Archive.  It's a bit of a stretch to think that the Lucent Archive has been here for millennia and the PCs just so happen to arrive at the exact same time that the place is about to collapse.  Anyway, the battle with the pechs was a good challenge (though learning kineticist rules probably isn't fun for a GM), while the wisp wasn't very tough.

Once the PCs get what they need from the Lucent Archive, Jalman keeps his promise and returns the PCs and Westyr to the Grand Lodge.  There's a loose end about another missing member of the original adventuring company (a Shoanti named Grave Treader) that I assume is followed up in a later scenario.  The Chronicle has a neat (at the time) boon allowing a player to be an oread.  Oh, and there's a cool little bonus for characters who use gem or mineral-related skills when they do their Day Job checks at the end.

Overall, Captive in Crystal is a fun, well-written, and relatively straightforward adventure.