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.