Pathfinder Society Scenario # 7-00: "The Sky Key Solution" [RPG]

 

NO SPOILERS

The Sky Key Solution is a multi-table that caps off Season Six ("The Year of the Sky Key").  I got to play it last year via play-by-post at one of the highest sub-tiers using my half-orc Paladin, Trokkus.  Based on that experience and reading the scenario for this review, I think the *concept* behind the adventure was fantastic--but there are some major plot holes and essentially forgettable encounters that really bring it down.  It does add a tremendous amount of historical setting lore to a rarely-seen race in the game and has some exciting scripted moments, but on the whole, it's more fun in theory than in practice.

SPOILERS!

Much of PFS Season Six was devoted to assembling pieces of the Sky Key, a legendary dwarven artifact that turned out to have been salvaged from a crashed Dominion of the Black starship in Numeria.  The Sky Key, if fed a tremendous amount of power, allows locations from the past to be temporarily brought to the present (contained in a sort of "time bubble").  Although nothing can be removed from the bubble, Pathfinders can enter and see historical events as they actually happened; and indeed, they can even interact with objects and speak with historical personages.  The premise of The Sky Key Solution is that, after a few small experiments, the Society is ready for a major research endeavour: by having hundreds of wizards feed lightning into the Sky Key, the Age of Serpents will be brought into the present!  (More specifically, a serpentfolk city called Sessegishoss that once stood on the Isle of Kortos)  Each table at the special is a group of Pathfinders charged with entering the time bubble and discovering as much historical insight as they can before the wizards run out of magic and the time bubble collapses.

In terms of structure, this special is very similar to all other Paizo specials I've played.  When tables are successful in encounters, they contribute to an event-wide total of "Victory Points" that unlock other encounters or parts of the scenario.  Tables can use "aid tokens" sent to them by other tables, and all skill and save DCs are fixed by subtier.  There's an event-wide narrator who provides the introduction, occasional transition speeches, and reads out the conclusion, while table GMs handle the rest.  And last, despite making the accumulation of Victory Points seem really important, there aren't really any consequences even if every table was an utter failure--there's the same result story-wise and characters "trapped" in the time bubble just need to spend 4 PP to be freed.  

This special is divided into four parts.

Part 1 ("Gathering Outside the Walls") has the PCs assembling in a muddy field outside Absalom called Bloodwatered Meadow, the site for the first large-scale test of the Sky Key.  This part of the scenario is mostly exposition (delivered by Master of Scrolls Kreighton Shaine) about the mission, though PCs can make some Knowledge checks for additional information, buy supplies from vendors, or get some bonuses if they have relevant Season Six Chronicles.  Unlike some other specials I've played, this one doesn't have any little tasks or skill challenges for tables to handle during the mustering process, which is a shame.  The exposition is handled nicely and really sets the grand scale for the adventure to come.

Part 2 ("The Temple District of Sessegishoss") has each table venturing into the sprawling serpentfolk city from 10,000 years ago!  The city has an interesting vertical structure, and PCs start at the bottom but can start moving up as additional options are unlocked.  Whether intentional or not, the day that the PCs experience happens to be both a special serpentfolk festival ("Spent Coils") and the day of an Azlanti slave revolt.  How this all plays out in practice is that each of the five districts of the city has both a combat encounter and a research encounter.  In the Zoological Gardens, the PCs fight serpentfolk and dinosaurs and can decode symbols on plinths for (never-detailed) lore about serpentfolk society.  In the Slave Pens, they can fight troglodytes and talk to a rebel leader.  In the Temple Plaza, there are battles against guardian statues and research into festival preparations.  In the Temple (of Ydersius, a dead serpentfolk god?), the PCs fight serpentfolk priests and more snakes, and can find hidden stone tablets of religious lore guarded by traps.  And last, in the Ophidian Rectory, the PCs interrupt a plan to sacrifice a legendary Azlanti hero and general, Krahnaliara Lac Suhn and can interview him at length about Azlanti lore.

There's a lot here to unpack.  Obviously, the details of each combat encounter varies by sub-tier.  The problem from my perspective is that there's very little introduction to the combat scenes & opponents (PCs are essentially hurled into battle) and there's no interesting terrain or hazards for the combats, which makes them rather bland and forgettable.  Although the scenario taken as a whole establishes a lot about serpentfolk history, the details of what the PCs uncover with their research checks are never provided, making a GM's task a lot harder to provide flavour to what's going on.  But the biggest issue I had is the incomprehensibility of what's actually going on with this time bubble.  PCs can do things like aid and speed up the rebellion, and save the life of that Azlanti general--so is this actually altering the past?  Is it creating an alternative timeline?  Is it all a "holodeck" exercise?  We're not given any answers.  The scenario treats it like helping the "good guys" (Azlanti) vs the "bad guys" (serpentfolk) is really important, but it would almost seem to make a lot more sense if all the Pathfinders went in with illusory disguise magic or something to just observe and report instead of getting actively involved.  This isn't just an abstract armchair nit-pick either, as it really affected what (to me) the stakes were for my PC's decisions while playing.  Time-travel is always a really tricky concept because it creates paradox-headaches, so if it's going to be integrated into a game, it needs to be handled really intelligently--and that's just not done here.

Part 3 ("The Sky Comes Crashing Down") probably over-eggs the pudding.  If time-travelling serpentfolk from 10,000 years ago wasn't enough drama to deal with, the Pathfinder Society has failed to notice a massive external threat.  The Harbingers of Fate--a secret society dedicated to proving Aroden's prophecy to generate his return--has learned of the Sky Key experiment and decided to hijack it for their own purposes.  When the Harbingers take control of the Sky Key, something goes wrong (or right?) and hurls the Pathfinders and the Harbingers into a different point in time: right before the legendary starstone is about to crash into Golarion and launch the Age of Darkness!

The goal in this part is for the Pathfinders to hurriedly explore the Azlanti city of Lacshuhnolio (named after the general from Part 2), find the Harbinger "anchors" who maintain the new time bubble, and either kill them or coax them into surrendering.  It's a pretty cool (cinematic) premise in the sense that the Pathfinders have to solve the problem quickly or face an impending worldwide apocalypse (my Oracle of Groetus would have loved it!).  Again though, in practice, the scenario doesn't live up to the premise.  There's very little flavour provided for this ancient Azlanti city or its people, and the poor table GM won't be able to fill in any gaps as they have an enormous workload (keeping track now of "Anchor", "Discovery", and "Vault" points as well as running a copy of Kreighton Shaine to aid the PCs).

The combats here can be a bit of kooky-fun, as the time disruption has brought primordial oozes and cavemen from the past and undead (bearing uncanny resemblance to the PCs!) from the future. (The flip-mat chosen for these fights, Village Square, is super-mundane for an ancient Azlanti city.) Each of the Harbinger anchors is given a surprising amount of background, but if (as is likely the case) things boil down to a fight, they'll be outnumbered 5 or 6 to 1 and easily dispatched.  Mid-tier and higher level groups can then take the fight to the Harbinger leader herself, Lady Arodeth--statted up as a magus.  I do like how the scenario presents combat and diplomatic alternatives for dealing with her.

The Conclusion records that after dealing with the Harbingers, the Sky Key is lost but the Pathfinders are returned to their normal time.

Overall, I don't want to be too hard on The Sky Key Solution.  It's certainly an epic task to generate encounters for so many subtiers, a plot that seems suitably epic for a yearly special, and a ways to make it feel like the tables are cooperating in a joint effort.  And in addition, by doing it play-by-post, I missed out on that buzz of energy and excitement that comes from playing it in-person with dozens of others.  Still, the scenario needed to spice up the meat of the gameplay (the battles) and better explain the core question about how the time-travel elements worked.  As a capstone to Season Six and a source of lore on both the serpentfolk and the Harbingers, the scenario succeeds.  Otherwise--not so much.