Curse of the Crimson Throne Recap # 42 [RPG]

 [Moonday, 22 Sarenith 4708 A.R. continued]

 

In the anarchic streets of Kaer Maga, after a journey filled with disagreement and tension, The Reckoner brings everyone together to clear the air and find a way forward as teammates.  The Reckoner undertakes not to needlessly kill animals or magical beasts, while Goldcape agrees not to go off on her own unless it’s a group decision.  Everyone agrees that it’s all for one, one for all when it comes to combat.  They also discuss the best way to pay for resurrection magicks should a party member die in the course of their quest to bring down the cruel Queen of Korvosa.  The conversation goes well, and the renewed spirit of teamwork seems to bode well for the future.

But as the group’s discussion is winding down, panicked shouts and screams can be heard coming from the mazelike collection of streets known as The Warrens.  Goldcape drags Yraelzin onto Rocky’s back to scout from the air, and they see a scene of utter chaos!  Discrete knots of Kaer Magans are acting incredibly strangely—babbling, hitting their heads against the wall, or even clawing and biting each other!  The strange behaviour is clearly clustered around something even more disturbing: slithering, tentacled horrors larger than horses!  “Seugathi!” Yraelzin calls out, explaining they’re evil telepathically-powerful creatures from below the ground.  Goldcape steers Rocky toward the closest seugathi, but they’re not the first responders to the emergency: Hellknights are there!  The merciless warriors wearing black, spiked-armor and wielding ranseurs have also engaged the seugathi.  Goldcape points out a rooftop just overlooking the nearest monster for Rocky to land on.  The tentacles of the seugathi are incredibly long and somehow wield both blade and wand, leading to several injuries.  But although they feel a psychic assault, Yraelzin, Goldcape, and Rocky manage to resist the aura of madness that has affected so many of Kaer Maga’s residents.  With the help of the Hellknights, the first monster is quickly destroyed.  Goldcape has Rocky fly herself and Yraelzin toward another seugathi, while the Hellknights attack yet a third, demonstrating a willingness to trample any Kaer Magans too slow to get out of the way of their heavy warhorses!

Anorak and The Reckoner try to follow their allies on foot, but The Warrens are difficult to traverse: dead end streets, an open sewer channel, and fleeing pedestrians all make progress toward the threat incredibly difficult.  When Rocky lands near the second seugathi, disaster strikes: the grotesque horror launches a powerful mental attack that makes Goldcape imagine she’s being attacked by a massive molten-red worm so large it blocks out the sun as it looms over her!  The overwhelming fear is just too much for the vanara’s heart, and she dies instantly, tumbling from Rocky’s back to land on the street below.  Rocky, too, is affected by the seugathi, as the roc becomes unable to distinguish friend from foe and attacks Yraelzin!    The priest of Razmir uses short-range teleportation magic to escape and fetch help.  Meanwhile, The Reckoner’s magical boots have allowed him to run, jump, and climb a circuitous route to reach the battle.  He smashes into the seugathi with his earthbreaker, leaving it badly hurt. When Yraelzin teleports back with Anorak at his side, the dwarf conjures a powerful lightning bolt that nearly blows the seugathi apart!  Several streets away, the Hellknights have triumphed over the last seugathi, but not without also paying a price: the madness aura caused one of their members to slay another.

With the sudden threat ended, the streets of Kaer Maga return to as “normal” as they get.  The surviving members of the Harrowed Heroes pool their gold and pay a (not-too-inebriated) cleric of Cayden Cailean to cast the necessary spell to call Goldcape’s spirit back to her body.  The vanaran wakes up shouting about the monstrous apparition, but the others manage to calm her down despite her protestations that it couldn’t have been a mere illusion.  Still, she’ll be weakened by the experience for several days.  Anorak raises an important question: why did the seugathi attack on what seemed like a suicide mission?  The Reckoner speculates it could have been an attempt to sow chaos and undermine any resistance to the giant armies of the north, perhaps in the same way that the sabotage of the earth elemental’s summoning circle might have been intended to slow down the production of weaponry by the dwarves of Janderhoff.  The tired adventurers decide to find an inn for the night, passing by an entrepreneur buying and selling corpses from the back of a cart—including the body of a slain seugathi.

 

[Toilday, 23 Sarenith 4708 A.R.]

 

The final step of the journey toward the Kallow Mounds begins as the team make their way through The Warrens and out of the city without any further complications.  The journey east introduces the group to the unforgiving nature of the Cinderlands, a rugged, inhospitable terrain full of rock formations, canyons, gullies, and deep gorges.  Large areas are solid rock, but other areas have stretches of leached soil and silt.  Short, weedy scrub grows in patches throughout the Badlands, interspersed with occasional sights of more exotic plants, but it is clear food and water will be hard to come by.  The wind is ceaseless and unrelenting, and dust and ash get into everything: backpacks, canteens, boots, eyes, and nostrils!  But it’s the boiling heat that quickly takes a toll on the group, leaving them sweating and tired after just a few hours.  Goldcape uses magic to alleviate some of the fatigue, but even her spells have limits, and the travellers make the risky decision to remove their armor to make it easier to deal with the heat. 

 

At one point during their journey into the barren landscape, they come across a gruesome display: the rotting head of a Shoanti man mounted on a sharp wooden pole, the other end of which has been jammed into a cleft between two rocks.  Bright red crossbow bolts, aged and weathered, have been driven into each of the head’s eyes.  From her research in Korvosa, Goldcape immediately recognises this as a totem left behind by the legendary Cinderlander: a mysterious figure that has stalked the Cinderlands for many years, attacking lone Shoanti braves with strange, screaming crossbow bolts.  Goldcape relates that she came across plenty of legends and tales about where he’s from and why he hunts Shoanti.  The Skoan-Quah (Clan of the Dead) believe he is the unquiet ghost of a Korvosan general who stalks these lands and will continue to slay Shoanti until the number he kills equals the number of friends and family they took from him.

 

After about a half-day’s march in total, the travellers come across an area spotted with hills of blackened rock pouring smoke.  Before they journey into the area, one of the hills explodes into a fountain of magma, ejecting globs of half-cooled rock hundreds of feet into the air!  With the beating sun continuing to beat down on them and progress through the area looking extremely dangerous, the decision is made to look for a place with shade to cool down before continuing through.  A little backtracking secures the group some shade in a steep-sided gully.  Goldcape persuades the group to pitch camp for the rest of the day and plan to complete their journey to the Kallow Mounds in the morning. 

 

But as they’re enjoying their evening meal, the ground around them begins to shake.  Chunks of rock roll down the sides of the gully, and in the distance, the ground has started to split apart in a crack slowly headed right toward them.  The Reckoner is the first to realise this is no natural phenomenon when he spots some sort of dark purple plates in the crack.  Suddenly, a truly gargantuan worm rises up out of the ground, its giant, tooth-filled maw capable of swallowing an ox!  With only seconds to act before it arrives, the Harrowed Heroes better act fast.

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

GM Commentary

The seugathi encounter was pretty exciting.  I think I put it in for a few reasons: to add a bit more excitement to what would otherwise be another travel session; to give the PCs a chance to interact with the Hellknights, something that didn't really happen in Korvosa; and to get a chance to use some new urban flip-cards I had.  The flip-cards definitely made a maze of streets, but one of the unanticipated consequences was that there wasn't always a land path to get from one of the monsters to another!  Fortunately, Rocky could fly some of the PCs there and The Reckoner could climb and jump well.  The seugathis' aura of madness was a pain to manage for me, as I had to roll checks for all the NPC Hellknights and even some attacks they had against one another.

Notably, Goldcape died in the battle--the result of a phantasmal killer.  Even though she was raised from the dead right afterwards, it was probably eye-opening for some of the players.  I think it was good in the long run because it kept the group from thinking they would automatically easily win battles by playing on cruise-control or that I would intervene as GM to make sure nothing really bad ever happened.

This scenario also has the PCs' first taste with the Cinderlands.  I tried to work hard to really bring out just how inhospitable of a landscape it was.  And despite the warnings they had back in Korvosa, the PCs weren't ready for it.  The high temperature alone really started to wear them down.

And as for that last bit at the end, they triggered a random encounter and when I rolled on the table, it was the very worst danger: a purple worm!

Curse of the Crimson Throne Recap # 41 [RPG]

 

[Fireday, 19 Sarenith 4708 A.R. continued]

 

The journey toward the Cinderlands has reached Janderhoff, a dwarven sky citadel at the base of the Mindspin Mountains.  After a day spent in the markets and conversing with a potential employer, the Harrowed Heroes have settled in for a night’s rest at nearby inns.  But their slumber is shattered by a loud rumbling that shakes even the solid stone walls around them!  Goldcape wakes up to realise that hairline cracks are forming, and hurries to pull Yraelzin out of his room to investigate.  Hearing shouting and screams in the distance, they rush to investigate.  Meanwhile, The Reckoner wakes to the noise and quickly dresses while Anorak snores loudly, adding to the rumbling.  The Reckoner finds other guests and the innkeeper assembling in the common room, spreading word of what’s happened: a bound earth elemental at a nearby forge has somehow broken free!  The Reckoner rushes back to wake Anorak, and helps the dwarf begin the laborious process of donning his enchanted chainmail.

Some tunnels away, Goldcape and Yraelzin investigate (despite the latter’s suggestion to just leave it to the dwarves).  Goldcape moves quickly toward the source of the rumbling, flying on Rocky’s back through tunnels barely wide enough to accommodate the roc’s wingspan.  Suddenly, rounding a corner, Goldcape sees the cause of the chaos: an earth elemental, almost forty feet tall, smashing everything—living or nonliving—around it!  The forge where it worked is in ruins, as is the summoning circle where it was bound.  Sword blanks lay shattered on the ground, troughs of quenching water are overturned, and bellows lie crushed under the stony heels of the elemental. Those forge-workers who didn’t escape in time lie bleeding and unconscious, slumped against the walls.  Goldcape conjures ice spears that only enrage the elemental further, and it grabs a nearby a wooden cart and hurls it through the air to smash into the vanara!  Goldcape, wounded, decides flight beats fight, and beats a hasty retreat.  The sounds of destruction continue for several seconds but then terminate suddenly, with the unbound refugee from the Elemental Plane of Earth presumably sinking somewhere deep below the ground in search of its home.

Before long, The Reckoner and Anorak arrive at the scene and Goldcape and Yraelzin return to investigate.  A patrol of several heavily-armored dwarves arrive and intently question everyone around—including those metalsmiths who can be revived.  The dwarves were forging weapons for Janderhoff’s contribution to the war effort.  One recalls seeing a gnome with a white beard and a red hat near the summoning circle just before the elemental broke free, but there’s no sign of the likely saboteur now.  Frustrated but largely unharmed, the Harrowed Heroes return to their beds.

 

[Starday, 20 Sarenith 4708 A.R.]

 

In the morning, Goldcape notices that Yraelzin still seems curiously subdued.  She gets him to open up, and he says he’s been pondering The Harrower’s reading and wondering what it means that his card, The Forge, came up reversed.  If a forge is normally used to make something, he says, perhaps he’s meant to do the opposite: destroy something!  He removes his iron mask and holds it up for examination.  Sighing, he puts it back on.  He says he doesn’t doubt Razmir—proof of the Living God’s reign is indisputable.  But, he says, he has been wondering if he was sent away from Razmiran on that colony ship bound for the Arcadian Ocean because his fellow priests thought him annoying or unworthy.  After breakfast, he heads out into Janderhoff’s labyrinthine markets alone.  The others shop as well, with Goldcape purchasing a magic wand allowing her to change her voice and The Reckoner initially commissioning the construction of a magical headband that would make him smarter, before changing his mind.  Later, he purchases a magical backpack that can hold far more than one would think.

At one point, while walking down a side tunnel, Anorak’s keen eye for stonework notices a secret door.  He hurries back to the markets to find The Reckoner.  Anorak opens the secret door and hurries down the tunnel beyond, but The Reckoner runs into a thick, viscous, invisible magical field!  The vigilante is determined, however, and pushes his way through.  The tunnel winds for some distance through the fortress before opening up at a vast cavern memorialising the Quest for the Sky—the generations-long trek of the dwarven people to reach the surface of Golarion.  Once there, the dwarves built ten sky citadels—including Janderhoff—but many have been lost to memory or conquest.  The cavern clearly also serves as a temple, with statuary and shrines to the dwarven pantheon and Torag in particular.  Anorak and The Reckoner pay their respects before departing.

Over at the Stork & Gull Inn, Yraelzin arrives bearing a deck of Harrow cards he says were hard to find and quite expensive!  He tells Goldcape he can’t figure out how they work, as they didn’t come with instructions.  Goldcape says they should find the dwarven equivalent of a library.  Alas, the stacks of carved stone tablets and crumbling vellum scrolls are mostly written in a language that neither can speak.  Once back in her room, Goldcape decides to finally read the stack of papers they took from Vencarlo Orisini’s house while searching for him.  The papers look like accounting ledgers, and detail how Orisini Academy’s finances suffered over time—partially because Vencarlo stopped teaching regularly.

 

[Sunday, 21 Sarenith 4708 A.R.]

 

In the morning, the group discuss how to proceed on their journey.  Goldcape doesn’t want to head for Kaer Maga, citing the reports of how strange and dangerous it is.  However, The Reckoner wishes to make some purchases of goods he hasn’t found in the other stops during their journey so far.  With Anorak curious about Kaer Maga and hoping to find adventure there, and Yraelzin offering only a shrug as he tries to puzzle out the Harrow, Goldcape relents.  She has Rocky fly the group along the road.  The group thinks they’ll be able to at least reach Sirathu, but it appears that the scale on the map of the area they purchased in Korvosa is wrong!  Fortunately, no dangers arise as they camp for the night.

 

[Moonday, 22 Sarenith 4708 A.R.]

 

Over breakfast, there’s further discussion about whether or not to go to Kaer Maga.  Goldcape and The Reckoner reach a compromise: they’ll go there, but just for one day.  A few hours’ flight is enough to reach Sirathu, a hamlet on the Yondabakari River.  Ramshackle walls, muddy streets, and a beautiful fountain of white stone from which not a single drop of water flows marks it as a forlorn place.  Shouts of “is anyone here?” lead to the keeper of a rundown inn stepping out with an accusatory glance.  Clearly unwelcoming of strangers (a bad sign for an innkeeper), the man mostly shouts for the newcomers to shut up and leave.  The travellers are able to get a little out of him—something about a young girl who has prophesied the fountain will flow again once “the storm breaks” and the corrupt heart of Korvosa becomes visible to all.  Anorak, frustrated by the man’s unfriendliness, takes a mighty swing at the statue with his waraxe, but is unable to even chip it.

 

The Harrowed Heroes reach Kaer Maga in the early afternoon.  The hexagonal, 80-foot-high walls of the city sit at the edge of the cliffs of the Storval Plateau—a vertical barrier of hundreds of feet separating the southern part of Varisia from the north.  The Reckoner directs Goldcape to fly Rocky toward the base of the cliffs where huge bronze double-doors covered in strange runes lead to the Halflight Path—the only practical way for land traffic to ascend to Kaer Maga.  However, Goldcape flies Rocky higher and higher and over the enclosed walls of Kaer Maga before landing in the only area of the city open to sunlight—the center of the hexagonal ring, a vast marketplace full of exotic goods and even more exotic buyers. Irritated with Goldcape, The Reckoner stalks off and purchases light warhorses for himself and Anorak, plus magical horseshoes to speed their canter. 

 

Although the journey hasn’t been a pleasant one, the Harrowed Heroes have reached the final bastion of “civilisation” before the dangers of the Cinderlands.

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GM Commentary

The encounter with the earth elemental was something I added because I thought it might add some excitement to the trip to the Cinderlands and it would tie into the idea that efforts were ongoing in several places to sabotage the war effort of Varisia's city-states against Karzoug's giant army (if I remember right, the "red-hatted gnome" was really a redcap working for the Army of the North).  Like the burning of the granaries in Korvosa, however, I don't think the PCs really put two and two together--but that's okay.  I had the elemental do some big cinematic things (like hurl the cart) and that was fun.  The Reckoner spent the whole time slowly donning his armor, which was kind of funny--encounters at night can really complicate things for some characters.

Because Anorak was a dwarf and there is hardly any dwarf-themed material in the AP, I really wanted to take advantage of the brief stay in Janderhoff to add some flavour.  I thought making use of dwarves' special ability to notice unusual stonework would be a good hook, as well as the magical repulsion-type field that would (ostensibly) only allow dwarves inside.  But The Reckoner just couldn't take the hint!  I think I had some clerical magic stuff planned to go off inside the temple, but it didn't activate since non-dwarves were present.  It probably didn't matter in the long run, as it gradually became clear that Anorak's player just wasn't really that interested in setting flavour and character background, and was more of the "how do I make an awesome build?!?" type.

The little bit with the map having the wrong scale was a real thing.  I think they had the "in-world" map from Varisia: Birthplace of Legends which had the wrong scale compared to my official super-giant Golarion map.  The players were a bit irked, but I just figure in pre-tech fantasy times, it's very likely maps are inaccurate (just like in the real world a few centuries back).

Kaer Maga stressed me out a bit in the sense that I really like to portray settings "accurately" but there was a ton of material to digest (a sourcebook, modules, novels, etc.) and I just didn't have the time or energy for what was only a quick stopover.  I tried to do what I could, but it probably wasn't a great portrayal of what's one of the most memorable places in Golarion.

The Reckoner buying the horses and magical shoes was because he and Goldcape were disagreeing a lot on where to go (there was still tension from the hippogriff incident of a session or two ago), so it gave him the option to travel quickly on his own.

Starfinder Society Scenario # 2-12: "The Colossus Heist" [RPG]

NO SPOILERS

I ran The Colossus Heist at an in-person game at subtier 7-8, using the four-player adjustment.  It has a super fun, high-octane premise that I think a lot of players will really enjoy.  As a gamer heavily interested in setting lore, I can also testify that it adds a lot of background information to one of the most interesting planets in the Starfinder setting.  NPCs are handled well, and there's plenty of opportunity for role-playing in the first half of the adventure.  It's not perfect, however, as the key plot driver is a bunch of MacGuffins, the last third of the adventure is a little bit of a let-down, and the skill check DCs for various tasks seem crazy-high.  I think I'd still recommend it, though it's just not as awesome as it might seem--sorta like the trailer for a mindless blockbuster movie is probably more fun than the movie itself.

SPOILERS!

The Colossus Heist begins aboard the Brass Clutch, Acquisitives faction leader Radaszam's private ship.  Radaszam is over-the-top excited about this mission, which I loved, as he explains that the ship is headed toward Daimalko.  Daimalko is a post-apocalyptic planet in Near Space infamous for the massive, mountain-sized mobile colossi that roam it and devour everything in their path (forcing the native humanoid damai into underground bunkers or small, far-flung settlements with survivalist ethos).    The reason for heading to Daimalko is that three mysterious relics were stolen from the Safe, the Starfinder Society's highest-security vault, and were in the process of being sold to the Aspis Consortium on Daimalko when a tekenki (a particular type of colossus) attacked and swallowed them up--relics included!  The mission then, which verges on the ridiculous or ridiculously fun (depending on your cinematic instincts) is for the PCs to figure out a way to get inside a colossus, find the relics, and then escape with their lives.

The first third or so of the scenario takes place as the Brass Clutch lands at New Valor, a small survivalist colony that has monitoring equipment to closely watch the movements of the colossi.  Here, the PCs will have a couple of different options of well-portrayed NPCs to interact with in order to get a lead on someone who can help them with their mission.  That NPC is Luku Gaiul, an almost caricature of a "grizzled veteran" (he wears an eyepatch, does one handed pull-ups while smoking cigarettes, and can do the splits to avoid attacks).  Luku will tell the PCs that in order to lure the colossus who ate the relics, they could activate some old and remote "lifepulse beacons" which emit an electronic signal that simulates the concentrated presence of living creatures.  But to actually get inside it, they'd have to somehow launch themselves into an open gun port as it does battle with another colossus!  The NPCs are really fun, but the skill checks to persuade them to help are really high--we're talking DC 32 to DC 37 Diplomacy checks just for the preliminary NPCs who point the way to Luku.  

The middle portion of the scenario has the PCs travel to Dead Reef and try to activate the lifepulse beacons.  There are some dangers in their way, including sharpwings, razor-sharp coral formations, and quicksand.  Once they succeed (or even if they don't, because Luku will do it for them), the two colossi are lured to the site and start to do battle.  The PCs then use launch tubes ("escape pod launchers") on Luku's vehicle to try to get into the open gun port.  Again, the DCs are pretty incredible--activating a lifepulse beacon is a DC 37 Computers check (or DC 42 in Subtier 9-10!).  The fact that it doesn't really matter storywise because Luku will do it for them if they fail is sorta insulting, and it gives the impression that unless a a character has max ranks in a skill and has maxed the accompany ability score, there's no point in even trying to roll.

The final third of the adventure takes place inside the tekenki as it's involved in a battle with another colossus.  There's a little random table of enviromental effects/hazards to replicate the course of the battle, which was a good idea (though could have been expanded and improved).  The relics are scattered about a sort of open-plan mini-dungeon level with laser grids, automated defence turrets, and (perhaps inexplicably) monsters like caypins and assembly oozes.  Did the makers of the colossi really think internal defence mechanisms of the sort were necessary?  The Perception DCs to spot the hidden relics were again super high, but fortunately they could be detected with detect magic.  I found this the least satisfying aspect of the adventure, as it goes from a larger than life cinematic spectacle to a somewhat confusing anti-climax.  And unfortunately, the relics are just MacGuffins in the purest form--mysterious, indecipherable femur-sized objects for which the scenario provides no background on where or how they were found or why they're considered so important.  PCs will discover that a certain troublesome ysoki was likely behind their theft, but it seems like a pretty desperate link to the Season 2 meta-plot.

I think I started this review in a more positive frame of mind, but despite the coffee, I've talked myself into a lower opinion of it.  I think maybe the moral of the story is that if you want to portray the equivalent of a special effects action blockbuster movie, really go for it--keep the DCs reasonable, the story moving quickly, and the climax suitably epic.  The Colossus Heist is a great elevator pitch, but the execution just can't live up to the promise.

Pathfinder Online: "Goblin Squad T-Shirt" [RPG]

 Paizo's Goblin Squad t-shirt has a fun design, with five prominent goblins being silly on the front.  One sleeve has the short-lived "Pathfinder Online" logo from when the company was trying to launch an MMORPG.  I like having this one as part of my collection because it's definitely a different style to the others and doesn't necessarily scream "RPG Enthusiast" unless you already know a bit about Pathfinder.

Pathfinder Modules: "The Pact Stone Pyramid" [RPG]

 NO SPOILERS

The Pact Stone Pyramid lives up to its reputation as one of the best of Paizo's 3.5-era modules.  I ran it as part of my "Roots of Golarion" campaign of pre-PFRPG adventures, and everyone at the table agreed it was excellent.  The adventures works perfectly as a standalone experience, but also ties intriguingly into the Aucturn Enigma storyline that began with Entombed with the Pharaohs and concludes (many real-life years later!) with the Doomsday Dawn playtest adventure.  The adventure has a great combination of open, sand-boxy elements, strong NPCs, and some really original dungeon-type challenges.  Getting to experience some of this early material is one of the two main reasons I started the Roots of Golarion campaign (the other being to game regularly with my son), and I'm really glad I did.

SPOILERS!

Set entirely in the Egypt-analogue country of Osirion in Golarion, The Pact Stone Pyramid adds some fascinating lore to the setting.  Several millennia ago, Osirion was ruled for a time by the legendary Four Pharaohs of Ascension--the Fiend Pharaoh, the Radiant Pharaoh, the Cerulean Pharaoh, and the Pharaoh of Numbers.  To ensure they would never betray one another, they used an artifact called the Pact Stone to magically bind their life forces together, so that the death of one would be the death of all.  The Pact Stone was hidden in a temple called Ahn'Selota outside the ancient city of Tumen.  As every Osirionotologist knows, one pharaoh died from an incurable disease and thus dragged the others to their deaths, thus ending their reign.

All of that is history and legend, but the immediate background to the adventure involves a powerful noblewoman named Exemplar Khymrasa.  Khymrasa has developed an obsession with the tales and believes that, if she finds the pyramid where the Pact Stone is hidden, she can resurrect the other three Pharaohs of Ascension and then out of gratitude they'll welcome her as the new fourth member of the quartet, displacing the current government of Osirion entirely and ushering in a new age.  To that end, Khymrasa has used her vast resources to search high and low for Ahn'Selota, and has finally pinpointed the site.  Though the pyramid is buried under tons of sand, she's launched an extensive excavation operation.

This is where the PCs come in.  The Pathfinder Society also has an interest in the ancient pyramid, though (perhaps a bit oddly) not particularly because of the Pact Stone.  Instead, Venture-Captain Jalden Krenshar explains in Sothis, it's because a cache of ancient lost seeds may be preserved there--seeds that could help the deserts of Osirion flourish with life.  An horticulturalist sage named Hoffenburrow is on his way to the site from another mission, but Krenshar needs the PCs to slow down the dig for a week or two until he arrives and they can help him retrieve the seeds.  Krenshar explains that the Pathfinders have one ace up their sleeves: an agent known only as the Mithral Scarab (recurring from Entombed with the Pharaohs) has gone undercover as a slave at the dig site, and will be the PCs' contact person there.

The module handwaves the journey to the dig site and assumes the PCs will be easily able to disguise themselves as slaves on the premise that there are thousands of people working there and no one really knows anyone else.  I probably would have liked to have seen these aspects of the adventure fleshed out a bit, as the Disguise skill is often underused in adventures and would have been excellent to spotlight here.  In any event, the Mithral Scarab soon finds the PCs and fills them in on her plan.  She's been subtly spreading word that the dig is cursed, and that terrible things will happen if it continues.  If the PCs can assist with some tangible sabotage, that will lend credence to the rumor and slow things down.  This part of the adventure is really fun and open-ended.  The module suggests several different things (with associated skill DCs) the PCs can do for sabotage, such rigging pulleys to fail, cutting wagon axles, or even animating the dead at the slave graveyard!  PCs love to have an excuse to be sneaky and creative in wrecking things--for example, my son used illusion magic to help bolster the curse story.   My only suggestion for this part of the adventure is that it would have been really helpful if the module gave the GM more information on the timeline of the dig and how much certain actions would slow it down--something like an abstract "Sabotage Points" mechanism would have been great here.

The dig site isn't unguarded, of course, and as the sabotage mounts Exemplar Khymrasa will start sending out forces to find the culprits.  These include her allies, the Sand Sage (an expert in divination magic!) and Master Soan and his monks from the Shrine of Horns in Egorian.  These NPCs have full artwork and write-ups in the appendix (as does Khymrasa), and are suitably dangerous foes with interesting backstories.  There's a lot of flexibility in how the GM handles this section of the adventure, which is something I always appreciate.

At some point, despite the sabotage, Khymrasa's army of slaves will succeed in uncovering the pyramid.  The second part of the module takes place inside Ahn-Selota and assumes the PCs either rush inside to explore it before Khymrasa's scouts can, or that they actually strike up a deal with her by promising to bring her the Pact Stone on the condition they keep anything else.  The pyramid itself is certainly not another dull, uninspired dungeon crawl.  True, there are traps, monsters, and treasures, but some real originality and thought went into designing it.  For foes, I loved the "reincarnix" (a monster that, once killed, comes back to life in a different form a few rounds later), the "portal golem" (a golem with a permanent passwall in its chest that provides access to different areas of the pyramid), a swarm that's a deadly combination of invisible and has an aura of silence around it (meaning a PC might be getting chewed up by something they can't see and can't warn the others about), and more.  For traps and puzzles, there's a classic "doubling coin" trap (more money seems great at first until the hoard risks crushing you to death), a treasury protected by an antilife shell, gem-capped stakes that, when pulled out of the wall brings a vampire on the other side back to life, and the need to figure out to use gaseous form (or super-shrinking) to navigate narrow tubes connecting one level to the next.  There's some really clever elements here.  (My PCs actually ended up bypassing some of the early rooms by deciding to simply dimension door in, and I had to quickly do some math to see where they ended up.)

Something akin to a "boss" in the pyramid is Suekahn, a "ghalshoaton devil" bound to the pyramid until it has slain 56 intruders.  He's an interesting figure because he actually wants the PCs to disable as many of the traps as possible so that more people will come into the pyramid, and sometimes he'll bail the group out when they get in a bind.  The appendix has a two-page entry on ghalshoaton devils--they've never been updated and collected elsewhere, potentially because the Osirion-specific nature of their powers and backstory doesn't necessarily fit so well their being devils from Hell.

A great twist is that the legendary Pact Stone is not at all what Khymrasa envisioned.  Instead of a portable artifact that the PCs could bring out to her, it actually constitutes the floor of an entire chamber of the pyramid and is completely immobile!  Just by walking on the floor together, the PCs could become temporarily bound together themselves by its magic, which has some really interesting implications: their hit points are pooled, healing someone heals the pool, but if one dies, they all die!  The pyramid also contains some items tying into the Aucturn Enigma, including a countdown clock and The Last Theorem.

Once the PCs emerge from the pyramid, the third and final part of the adventure begins.  While they've been inside, Khymrasa's forces will have found and captured the Mithral Scarab and Hoffenburrow, and are holding them hostage.  The PCs may be able to trick Khymrasa by giving her something else found in the pyramid and claiming it's the Pact Stone--if so, everyone may be able to walk away without further violence.  Probably more likely is that there's a final encounter that could be pretty exciting depending on how it's handled.

As I said in the intro, The Pact Stone Pyramid features a great mix of scripted and improv-style elements.  The backstory is fascinating, the encounters are original, and there's great flavour throughout.  I highly recommend this one.

Pathfinder Pawns: "Enemy Encounters Pawn Collection" [RPG]

There are two things that the Enemy Encounters Pawn Collection is really useful for.  

First, large groups of enemies!  If you want to represent an entire orc warband, a xulgath (troglodyte) tribe, a large duergar slaving party, and more, this is the set for you.  Each monstrous species is given multiple numbers of variations within the group, so (just for example) the Ogre Family has 4 ogre archers, 4 ogre berserkers, 3 ogre killers, 3 ogre strikers, and an ogre patriarch.  It's a great way to quickly populate a mini-dungeon or cave network on the fly.  I used the Haunted Graveyard pawns (ghouls, skeletons, zombies, and the animating necromancer) for a hastily-planned encounter and it worked really well. 

Second, traps and obstacles!  There are several pawns (both 1x1 square and 1x2 square) that are designed to lay flat to represent traps and obstacles.  For traps, there are classics like floor spikes and pits.  For obstacles, things like rock barricades, piles of bones, and headstones can help add some interesting features to a grid map.  I've found the caltrop and bear trap pawns particularly useful.

The set is very different than Paizo's standard pawn collections, and definitely worth getting.

Pathfinder Pawns: "Curse of the Crimson Throne Pawn Collection" [RPG]

Having just completed a 103-session Curse of the Crimson Throne campaign, what better way to celebrate than a review of the Curse of the Crimson Throne Pawn Collection?  I was very impressed by this collection as it had pretty much every named NPC in the adventure, including some that didn't even have combat encounters associated with them.  It appropriately includes multiple pawns for common members of the various nefarious organizations running around the city, which is incredibly useful (when you need 5 of the same bad guys on the table, it's annoying to only have 1 pawn to represent them!).  The collection also does a good job avoiding overuse of pawns already available in other collections like the various Bestiary boxes (there are some, but only some).  As I sit and think about it, I really can't come up with any examples of important encounters that the set left me hanging for, and that's really the best compliment I can pay.  Definitely worth a purchase.