Pathfinder Society Scenario # 0-26: "Lost at Bitter End" [RPG]

 

NO SPOILERS

 

Lost at Bitter End is an interesting scenario with an original story.  It doesn’t quite live up to its potential because it doesn’t make good use of its memorable setting.  Still, as Season Zero scenarios go, it’s certainly playable.  I ran it via play-by-post at high subtier.

 

SPOILERS!

 

The first thing that’ll jump out to players in Lost at Bitter End is its setting: the Mana Wastes!  In both the briefing and a special reminder that GMs are supposed to tell players, the Mana Wastes are extraordinarily dangerous because its largely a dead magic area.  Dead magic zones hold such potential for interesting encounters (what does the wizard do when he can’t cast spells and how do PCs deal with the fact they can’t heal almost infinitely at-will with cheap wands?).  Unfortunately, despite the multiple warnings, there’s only one encounter actually set in a dead magic zone, and even then its intermittent (magic has a 50% chance of working every round).  My biggest critique of Pathfinder is that conventional encounter design in adventures helps to reify the “perfect build/one trick pony” problem.  If there were more encounters at long range, or against dozens of foes, or where weapons have to be turned over at the door, or in wild magic zones, PCs would really have to stretch to meet different unpredictable eventualities.  Ok, mini rant over.

 

The scenario starts with a briefing by Venture-Captain Adril Hestram.  It’s one of those odd Season Zero briefings that’s technically a flashback.  Hestram explains that a Pathfinder cleric of Nethys named Rijana has made a career of studying wild and dead magic sites (a clever concept for a Nethys-worshipping character).  Most recently, Rijana has been in the Mana Wastes where she reported a potential discovery that could return magic to that blasted land.  Hestram is so excited that he doesn’t want to wait for the cleric’s next report to reach him the old-fashioned way.  Instead, he arranges for the PCs to teleport to her last known location so they can talk to her and get her journals for inclusion in the Pathfinder Chronicles.  So far, so good.

 

Act One has the PCs arriving at the town formally known as Geb’s Rest (and colloquially as Bitter End), which is near the border of Geb and Nex.  Only, once the PCs start looking around, they quickly realise that everyone’s gone!  In classic Marie Celeste fashion, it seems everyone vanished in the middle of whatever routine activities they were doing.  As the PCs explore, they’re ambushed by several juju zombies (and a bone devil at high subtier).  After defeating the foes, they find Rijana’s body—dessicated and showing signs of unnatural death due to performing some sort of ritual.  As an aside, I really like the map of Geb’s Rest.

 

Act Two has the PCs using a journal found on Rijana’s body to realise she had journeyed to an ancient stele (a type of metal monument) two days north of Geb’s Rest that she believed might be the key to returning magic to the area.  The PCs naturally head there to investigate the mystery, but they’re attacked by a pair of hellcats (like hellhounds, but feline!) on the way.  This is the only encounter that makes even limited use of dead magic zones in the Mana Wastes.

 

Act Three is where things really start to pick up.  When they reach the stele, they find more journals from Rijana and learn of an incantation she translated from it.  Because the PCs were specifically charged with finding four journals and have only found three, they can’t turn back. (though that would probably be more logical)  Instead, they’re expected to read the incantation which transports them to a pocket dimension!  What’s really going on is that, centuries ago, when Geb and Nex were at war, Geb created several pocket dimensions full of undead that could be unleashed by reading the incantation on the stele if the country were invaded.  When Rijana intoned the incantation, she entered the pocket dimension (“Geb’s Accord”) and somehow drew all of the people’s of Geb’s Rest with her.  A bone devil general wants to come back to the Material Plane, but Rijana failed to properly read the incantation that would do the job, and died instead.  I’m a bit fuzzy on exactly the story and sequence of events here, but that’s the gist.  Anyway, once the PCs appear in Geb’s Accord, they have to fight off some more juju zombies.

 

In Act Four, as the PCs are travelling from the site of the stele to the pocket dimension’s version of Geb’s Rest they come across a massive army of undead held in stasis.  Some of the warriors and an ancient Gebbite battle cleric are awakening though.  I liked that this encounter had eleven foes to fight at high subtier.  (they were still a push-over for a modern Pathfinder party, but it made the battle a bit more interesting anyway)

 

Act Five has the PCs reach the mirror-Geb’s Rest and learning that the bone devil general (“Zepteffis”) has the townsfolk imprisoned and is using them to try to activate the stele.  Another big battle lies in store before the Pathfinders can return home.  Someone in the group better be trained in Knowledge (arcana) in order to activate the stele, or this whole adventure could get very tricky!

 

All in all, I liked Lost at Bitter End.  I just wish that, for a high tier adventure, it could have taken better advantage of the setting and proven more of a challenge.