Pathfinder Flip-Mat: "Cathedral" [RPG]

I got a great opportunity to use the Cathedral flip-mat over the weekend while running The Demon Within.  One side is a nice, big interior shot of a classic church interior: pews, an altar, columns, an office, and some storage rooms.  It's very well-detailed, and I don't really have any complaints.  I could quibble and say a staircase leading down (presumably into a mausoleum or something) would have been a good add, but really it's a great layout.  The other side is a sort of "mirror image" of the cathedral if it had been desecrated and the site of a bloody ritual.  It's much darker (and I like how the squares are illuminated if they're next to the torch sconces) and there's a massive trail of blood coming from the front doors to some sort of ritualistic sacrifice/summoning circle.  It's very cool.  I think I would probably prefer having a completely different cathedral on the flip-side, as I could always add the spookier elements like blood trails, etc.  But overall, this is a solid and useful purchase that gives the GM a handy option anytime the PCs visit a temple, a cultist's headquarters, a town hall, etc.

Curse of the Crimson Throne Recap # 47 [RPG]

[Moonday, 29 Sarenith 4708 A.R.]

In the depths of the Acropolis of the Thrallkeepers, The Reckoner and Goldcape reach an accord on how to share the treasures found in a secret vault.  When, along with Yraelzin, they return to the first floor of the complex by levitating up the shaft of emerald light, they see that Anorak has arrived!  The dwarf enthusiastically shares that he’s had an important vision—but that relating it will take time, and that he wants to wait until later.  The Reckoner recounts what he, Goldcape, and Yraelzin experienced in the Acropolis.  After telling about emerging from the globe with the Thrallkeeper’s Mark and a newfound sense of power, The Reckoner asks Anorak if he feels like taking a risk.  The dwarf is keen, so the group return below.  But when Anorak places his palm on the globe, he finds it much harder to return from the vision of soaring amongst the stars!  Although he’s able to tear himself free and emerges with the Mark, he also knows there’s something evil and terrifying inhabiting the Acropolis.  Remembering the Harrower’s prophecy that he will encounter a foe that cannot be defeated, he tells the others that it’s time to leave.

 

When the group return to the first level a second time, they notice the dark waters of the pools are sloshing and churning.  The Reckoner is curious about what happened to Krojun and his men, but with no sign of them, the group head for the exit before realising there are areas of the Acropolis they haven’t explored yet.  They backtrack and start searching, staying well clear of the pools.  Some areas of the complex are impossible to reach, as ancient rock falls have collapsed corridors, but some chambers remain intact.

 

They find the walls of one room are decorated with six life-sized bas-relief carvings that depict a diverse collection of priests, each adorned in billowing robes covered in Thassilonian runes.  An intricate scripture winds around the carvings, coiling across them and along the walls like an immensely long tangle of ribbons.  Several ancient skeletons, some clad in hide armor or clutching Shoanti weapons, lie scattered around the room.  Goldcape discerns that the runes are enchanted and some type of trap—but only for those capable of understanding them.  Thus, in this case, ignorance of history has had the ironic effect of protecting the group.  Goldcape writes a warning on a piece of parchment in case other explorers enter the room in the future.

 

Another room looks like a shrine of some type, displaying a brilliantly colored bas-relief carving of a woman with six wings and a serpentine lower body.  The coils of her lower body wind in and out and around a large seven-pointed star, and tiny shards of gemstones embedded in her tail make her scales glisten as though with moisture, but in more places, chunks of the carving have cracked or crumbled away, giving the depiction of the serpentine woman a strange but undeniable look of age and decay.  After confirming that there are no traps, The Reckoner breaks off the shards of gemstones even though they’ll only be worth a handful of gold sails in Korvosa.

 

The group then return to a previously-explored chamber that contains a similar statue holding a whip in one hand.  Having already identified it as a potent magical weapon against chaotic beings from other planes, Anorak wrenches it free.  But when he tries to hand it to The Reckoner, the dwarf realises he’s actually tucked it into his own belt!  Suspecting the item may be cursed, Anorak reluctantly places it back on the statue.

 

Having explored every nook and cranny of the Acropolis, the group decide to leave.  Anorak’s curiosity gets the better of him, and he tries to disturb whatever seems to be lurking in the pools by throwing stones and even an enchanted torch into the wall—but gets no result.  Outside, Goldcape uses her new mask of the mantis to see in the dark and discerns that Krojun and his men headed to the southeast, while the Bonekeepers’ (and the group’s two horses) headed to the west.  The Reckoner wants to try to talk to Krojun, but the prospects of a wearying march into the nighttime dangers of the Cinderlands persuades him to reluctantly start setting up camp.

With time now to talk, Anorak enthusiastically shares with them the content of the visions that led him to temporarily leave the party.  It started, he said, with a dream about a strange rock circle in the Cinderlands.  When he awoke in the middle of the night with an almost overwhelming urge to travel there, one of the Boneslayers recognised his description and said it was close by.  Anorak relates he spent hours sitting in the rock circle, scalded by the heat and utterly bored.  But when he began to nod off, he found himself in a dreamlike representation of the recent past.  He was in the markets during the group’s brief stay in Janderhoff when he noticed a curious secret door down one of the corridors.  But in the dream, instead of bringing a non-dwarf with him as he actually did, Anorak went alone.  The temple he found wasn’t a lonely, dusty, forgotten place—it was a rich, vibrant display of dwarven culture and the spiritual strength of his ancestors!  A statue of Torag’s son, Trudd, embodiment of the strength of the dwarven race, seemed to call to Anorak.  When Anorak moved closer, carvings on the wall next to the statue became vivid and seemed to move!  The carvings first represented a map of Varisia, but as Anorak watched, it was as if his eyes were zooming in to the Cinderlands.  He saw the orc city of Urglin and could even make out thousands of tiny figures representing each inhabitant.  But then other figures—larger—began to surround the city, and Anorak realised he was watching armies of giants put Urglin under siege!  In the vision, days began to pass, and soon the orcs were overwhelmed and defeated.  The giant conquerors enslaved the orcs and thus added even more numbers to their army before setting march south—and eventually, attacking Janderhoff itself!

 

With bloodthirst in his eyes, Anorak tells the others he wants to travel toward Urglin and see if there’s a way to stop the giants before it’s too late.  The others, however, are not so sure—both because the armies of the north are reputed to be quite powerful, and also because the major resistance action in Korvosa is less than two weeks away.  But no conclusive decisions are reached, and the explorers set up camp for the night, knowing the Boneslayers promised to return at dawn.

 

[Toilday, 30 Sarenith 4708 A.R.]

 

In the morning, a thick layer of reddish-black dust covers everything, spread by an intense ash storm that started overnight and is still going strong.  The fine, gritty ash stings the eyes, clogs the nostrils, and seems to get into everything—even canteens and cook-pots!  When the Boneslayers emerge from the swirling winds with the group’s horses, they are impressed that Anorak and The Reckoner have obtained the Thrallkeeper’s Mark.  But as the ash storm could last several more hours, the Shoanti recommend not travelling in such treacherous conditions.  The newcomers to the Cinderlands agree, and retreat to the shelter provided by the entrance of the Acropolis.  

 

While waiting out the storm, Goldcape asks Yraelzin to send someone a message through his sending spell.  Nearby, Anorak tells Ahalak and the other Boneslayers about his vision of giants marching through the Cinderlands and tries to enlist the Shoanti in the fight.  But Ahalak says the Shoanti know full well there are giants in the northern reaches of the Cinderlands, but that they have provoked little concern: giants are slow, clumsy, and easily evaded.  And because the Shoanti are nomadic peoples, they can outrun and outwit the giants without the concerns that “wetlanders” have about their fixed cities.  Afterwards, The Reckoner talks to Ahalak about Krojun, but the Boneslayer says the ways of the Sklar-Quah (Clan of the Sun) are as mercurial as the sun.  When The Reckoner mentions the strange globe below the ground in the Acropolis, Ahalak makes it clear that whatever lies within should not be spoken of.

 

Six long hours pass, and it is well into the afternoon before the ash storm finally subsides.  When asked, Hargev estimates the House of the Moon is about two days’ journey away.  Other possible destinations are considered, with Goldcape urging an immediate visit to Cindermaw’s hunting grounds, saying that the Harrower told her she should be swallowed by the great beast.  But for now, at least, the group sets off for the House of the Moon.  They cover barely four hours before it starts to get dark, and decide to take the risk of travelling at night, counting on the waxing moon to provide enough light to walk by.  But after just another hour’s march, Anorak and The Reckoner stop the party short: they’ve seen bodies just ahead, covered in the mounds of ash!  A cautious investigation reveals them to be female Shoanti warriors—Moon Maidens of the Lyrune-Quah (Clan of the Moon).  The Reckoner notices they’ve been killed by red-hued crossbow bolts and that the bodies are quite fresh.  Learning this, the other Boneslayers look truly frightened for perhaps the first time. “The Cinderlander!” shouts Ahalak.  “He will strike at dawn.”

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

GM's Commentary

Anorak's player was gone the previous session, and I justified the character's absence through the bit about the vision.  I thought the vision worked well as it provided both some insight into what happened in Janderhoff and raised the stakes of the threat of the Runelord-directed army of giants sweeping down from the north.  I think dilemmas make good role-playing and drama, and here the PCs had to decide whether to stay on their present course or try to help out at Urglin.

Despite the trouble in getting them, I don't think The Reckoner or Anorak ever actually used the magic of the Thrallkeeper's Mark.  Sometimes there's just too much to keep track of, especially at higher levels.

I love the concept of the trap that was fortunately not triggered because nobody spoke the language.  It has an in-game component and an out-of-game component.  The in-game component is that the character is studying the trap intently.  The out-of-game component is that the GM is instructed to keep saying "it'll take just a little while longer to understand".  Once the player/PC finally loses patience and moves to leave, they realize they're stuck there and can't tear their eyes away!  It's clever.

I thought it important to foreshadow the Cinderlander some more, and the end of the session made a good cliffhangar.  I think I also wanted to make sure there was some long-range combats instead of the typical "everyone fights in a broom closet" type of encounter design.

Starfinder Adventure Path: "Dawn of Flame, Chapter 3: Sun Divers" [RPG]

NO SPOILERS

I've been fortunate to have a great group of players to run Dawn of Flame via play-by-post, and Chapter 3 of the AP was where I felt I could repay them for their patience with the previous two instalments (that mostly involved dealing with forgettable terrorists and gangs).  In Sun Divers, we really get into some deep exploration and intriguing world-building.  It's a memorable adventure, and definitely different than anything I've run before.  Let's get into it, shall we?

I love the salamander warrior on the cover--great art, and it fits perfectly with the overall colouring and art design of the AP.  The inside front- and back- covers provide information on a Tier 6 light freighter called the Sun Diver.  No spoilers here, so I'll just say it's well-described and interesting (especially with multiple decks you ascend vertically rather than the standard "flat" horizontal compartment interior layout we usually see in Starfinder).  Inside, there are four pieces of back-matter.

First up is "Noma" (8 pages), a gazetteer of a mysterious bubble-city inside the sun!  My notes say it's "delightfully weird", and I think that's a good descriptor for a city inhabited only by inscrutable constructs conducting unfathomable experiments from sector to sector of the city.  It's perfect for some classic Star Trek-style investigation of "strange new worlds", though the GM may need to add a bit of mechanical "crunch" to flesh out the flavourful descriptions.  The entry also introduces some new technological items; I love the concept of "polyfluid" weapons and armor, which allow the user to switch the damage type of a kinetic weapon (B, P, or S) or the DR the armor provides with just a swift action.  Perfect for adjusting to different threats in the middle of an encounter.  Finally, a new theme is introduced: "Tinker".  The premise is good, but the actual benefits are pretty minor and highly situational (like the vast majority of themes).

Next is "Criminal Organizations of the Galaxy" (8 pages), a useful overview of adversaries a GM can employ in homebrew campaigns.  We're introduced to the Abazobaris (a vesk crime family sort of like the mafia), the Disciples of Grace (a group of reptoid slavers that pose as a religious group--clever), the Golden League (a legacy group from Pathfinder; fairly vague and generic); the Ixo Syndicate (a sort of Old West "company store" mining operation--interesting, though limited in geographical scope), and the Verdant Shield (ecoterrorists with the interesting twist that they've been secretly taken over by a hacker who's only out for money).  Overall, there's nothing spectacular here, but it's a useful introduction.  The entry finishes with some new gear, much of which would be worth it for a stealth mission: micro taps, surveillance jammers, a thief drone, etc.

This issue's "Alien Archives" (8 pages) introduces six new creatures: djinni (basically the nice opposites of efreet), ghuls (undead corpse feasters), photonic anomalies (natural hazards for starships), protocite reclaimers (constructs that recycle broken robots or building rubble), protocite speakers (not really useful outside a very specific context), and wysps (surprisingly friendly and likable despite their alignment).

Last, in the "Codex of Worlds" (1 page) is a moon named Elao that orbits a gas giant in the Vast named Irtanza.  Elao is a lush jungle world undergoing a radical transformation as crystalline structures have started consuming more and more of it.  It would be a good setting for a homebrew adventure.

Okay, on to the adventure!

SPOILERS!

If you read the non-spoilerly section above, you probably put two and two together and realised the adventure was going to involve taking the new ship, the Sun Diver, into the new sun city, Noma.  The premise for my campaign was that the PCs are a group of scientist/explorers sponsored by an academic consortium from Near Space, and have been sent on an expedition to investigate the Pact Worlds' sun.  Here, that idea finally starts to pay off, and I found Chapter 3 the best part of the first half of the AP.

Part 1 ("Securing the Sun Diver") has Nib from the Deep Cultures Institute reveal that there just might be a way to actually get to the mysterious "Noma" whose coordinates deep inside the sun were discovered at the end of Chapter Two.  Nib says a member of a rival organisation, the Corona Artifact Divers, has developed a prototype ship called the Sun Diver that can allegedly survive a journey into the sun and back.  The PCs make a quick visit to the HQ of the Corona Artifact Divers and interact with a fun osharu NPC named Pahdric to learn more.  It seems that the inventor of the ship, a woman named Lurian, has been spending most of her time at a casino called the Vestrani Gaming Complex in the nearby bubble-city of Verdeon.  

When the PCs get to the casino, Lurian's location isn't obvious.  The PCs need to track her down (which may take a few days), and when they do, they'll learn that she's deeply in debt to casino and that it's holding onto the Sun Diver until she can pay off her debts.  The most straightforward way the PCs can help Lurian achieve this is to gamble, and gamble well!  The casino is fully fleshed-out with a variety of games suitable for different skills (there's even something for the more athletic PCs to do), and there's enough staged incidents (an assassination attempt, potential recruitment in a heist, a performer who needs a PC as a last-minute fill in, etc.) that the sequence never devolves into simply rolling dice.  I thought it was fantastic fun and very open-ended (the PCs can even try to break into the garage and just steal the Sun Diver), but I can see how some players think it goes on too long.

Part 2 ('Into the Fire') assumes the PCs have obtained the Sun Diver.  I really like the concept of the vessel, and it provides a logical reason why the PCs are the centre of the story, which is something some adventures struggle with (here, there's only one ship, after all!).  The ship has a sort of "yee-haw!" cowboy voice for its AI, which was a lot of fun to role-play.  Anyway, into the sun!  One of the things that's done well is that for every day of travel, the Sun Diver takes Hull Point damage that can't be repaired--so the players get more and more nervous as they see their ship slowly disintegrating before their eyes, knowing that the further they get into the sun, the longer the journey back out will be as well.  I think it added a nice sense of foreboding (along with the fact that no one can come help if they run into trouble!).  

The bulk of this part of the chapter is exploration of Noma.  As I said in the non-spoilerly section above, I thought this was some good world-building.  Some of the sectors need some fleshing out (and maybe the GM should add an encounter here or there to keep things exciting), but for the most part the adventure ran well as written.  It's really good to have some genuine, curiosity-driven exploration in a game that can unfortunately sometimes devolve into "encounter-encounter-encounter-boss" type of gameplay.

Part 3 ('The Core') starts when the PCs reach The Core, the sector of the city that records the results of all the experiments going on in the other sectors.  Here, the PCs will realise that, only some weeks before, another expedition landed and partially looted the place before leaving.  However, that expedition (a scouting team from General Khaim's forces led by a commando salamander named Sulphrax) overlooked something: a horacalcum tablet.  Assuming the PCs recognise its value, they've found a valuable key to another location even deeper in the sun (which leads into Chapter Four).  But Sulphrax and his troops return to Noma for a second search, and a big firefight is inevitable.  I would have preferred a different climax, as the timing is too coincidental and the PCs still don't really get any insight into what's going on behind the scenes.

And that's Sun Divers.  Overall, I thought it was great.  If you can keep your players' attention through the first two chapters of the AP, this is where it starts to get really good.

Angel: "Redemption" (2000) [BUFFY]

Redemption

By Mel Odom (Pocket Books, 2000)

RATING: 4/5 Stakes 

SETTING: Early Season 1

TV/MOVIE CHARACTER APPEARANCES: Angel/Angelus, Cordelia, Doyle, Darla, Kate Lockley, 

MAJOR ORIGINAL CHARACTERS: Moira O'Braonain (Blood Cadre vampire slayer); Whitney Tyler (actress); Gunnar Schend (producer); Darius Lynch (vampire sea captain); Fiachra O'Domhnallain (Blood Cadre leader); Mama Ntombi (spiritualist); Father Gannon (Blood Cadre agent)

BACK OF THE BOOK SUMMARY: "When their investigation agency books a walk-in client, Angel, Cordelia, and Doyle couldn't be happier.  Whitney Tyler is a beautiful, widely adored actress who plays a vampire on a popular television series.  Trouble is, a cult of viewers seems to think she's a real vampire, and has made attempts on her life.  Cordelia has got stars in her eyes now that she's rubbing elbows with Hollywood's elite, and Doyle's just relieved to have signed on a case that didn't start with a vision--and a blinding migraine.  But when Angel lays eyes on Whitney, he's astounded--she's the spitting image of a young woman warrior whom he encountered during his early days as the scourge of Europe.  As the attempts on Whitney's life continue, the trio uncovers a symbol that links the perpetrators to an ancient cadre sworn to battle creatures of the night.  But what could connect Whitney to someone that Angel once knew--almost two centuries ago?"

REVIEW

It might take me twenty years after buying a book to read it, and another six months after having read it to review it, but sooner or later I get there!  Redemption has a lot of similarities with the excellent Season 1 episode Eternity, so many in fact that I wonder if the episode inspired the novel or the novel inspired the episode (they were released within just a few months of one another).  As the back-of-the-book summary indicates, Redemption centers around an actress who plays a vampire on TV.  When there are threats on her life, Angel gets hired as her bodyguard.  Those last two sentences are the exact plot of Eternity!  From there though, the two tales diverge.  In the novel, the actress isn't hoping to stay young and salvage her career by becoming a vampire; instead, she's (unknowingly) an immortal who carries a curse dating back two centuries to when Angelus still stalked Ireland.

The novel alternates chapters between the past, in which Angelus and Darla try to escape from a group of vampire hunters called the Blood Cadre, and the present, in which Angel, Cordelia, and Doyle try to keep the actress safe.  Angel can't get over the stunning resemblance between the actress (Whitney Tyler) and a member of the Blood Cadre (Moira O'Braonain), and the mystery behind their connection (as well as who keeps murdering people in Whitney's vicinity) is what moves the book forward.  I was a little fuzzy on the answer to the first question (it could have been fleshed out more), but it has to do with Moira being unwittingly possessed by an evil entity.  The Blood Cadre is still around (the Buffyverse loves ancient secret societies that persist throughout centuries but are only ever mentioned in one episode or novel), and Angel is faced with the decision about whether he should let them kill her to stop the demon inside.

I liked Redemption.  It portrays Angel, Cordelia, and Doyle well, even though the three are split up for most of the book (Doyle's encounter with a toe-collecting crime boss he owes money to is pretty fun).  The action scenes are strong and there are enough red herrings that I didn't guess the "whodunnit" element right away.  I think the strongest writing comes at the end, as Angel argues for Moira's redemption in ways that parallel his own struggle (a major theme of the whole series, of course).  In sum, it's one I'd recommend.