Pathfinder #6 preview and conclusion: The Lost City of Adventure’s End

I just got the notification that issue #7 was shipped this week. That made me realize that I had to write a short blurb on the final issue of Paizo’s Rise of Runelords Adventure Path.

Issue #6: Spires of Xin-Shalast brings the stories of ancient, evil Sin-magic and the old empires based on them to a conclusion. One such Runelord will awaken from a thousand year old sleep and is ready to resume his conquering of all of Varisia (the country where the adventures were set).

This adventure tries to capture the feel of discovering a long-lost city and the ancient, lovecraftian horror that slumbers underneath it (and we’re not talking about the Runelord here).

<rant>

I must say that I’m growing somewhat tired of 3.x D&D’s/Fantasy d20 over-borrowing of Lovecraftian themes. Maybe it’s just the unfortunate choices of adventures and materials I bought over the years but the whole ‘Elder Evil, World Shattering, Mind melting, Slumbering Evil’ has been done to death. I think it’s because it’s simpler or maybe more ‘fun’ to ‘save a world before the button is pressed’ and Things Man Was Not Meant to Know are natural choices for such tropes.

I think that’s why I’m going for the Nuke the World, Save What You Can trope in my game.

</rant>

Okay, now Pathfinder #6 is set for four 14th level characters and should bring them to the 16th by the end of the Adventure Path.

The usual breakdown:

• Foreword by James Jacob: Where James thanks all the writers and lauds the talent of this adventure’s author (Greg. A. Vaughan) , discusses the creation of a Mortal Big Bad Evil Guy (as opposed to Paizo’s recent Worm god and Demon Lord) and starts talking about the next path.
• Spires of Xin-Shalast by Greg A. Vaughan: A 56 page adventure that takes the PCs on a quest to find and explore a legendary lost city where the ancient Runelord of Greed is awakening. Then a titanic fight ensues that may awaken a slumbering Evil that can literally destroy mountains.
• Karzoug the Claimer by Greg A. Vaughan: A 4 page write-up of the campaign’s BBEG, a CR 21 Arcane Caster loaded with artifacts and unique magical items… (including embedded, non-salvageable Ioun Stones…. sigh)
• Hazards on the World’s Roof by Greg A. Vaughan: A 4 page set of environmental guidelines and rules to play in high altitude, mountainous regions. This covers altitude, Avalanches, Cold, falling and Random Encounters.
• Pathfinder’s Journal by James L. Stutter: 6 pages of fluff of past adventurers. I must be perfectly honest that I never read any of them, but perusing them shows nice maps, journal-like depiction of monsters and treasures. High quality stuff no doubt… just not my cup of tea when I tend to only read what I must to run an adventure.
• The Bestiary by Greg A. Vaughan that feature:
  • The huge ridable Crag Spider
  • The Denizen of Leng which are mandibuled horrifying outsiders (complete with a ‘Lovecraft Again’ side bar… I rest my case)
  • The Kuchrima: A Lamia-like cross between a Condor and a Humanoid
  • The Harridan: another Lamia-like cross between a Hunting Cat and a Giantess.
  • The Hungerer: a Huge swollen sack of oozing, bleeding flesh and claws (Which is a deformed Harridan)
  • The Rune Giant (Yet another Giant!) that can control other giants and blind opponents whenever they use their spell like abilities and Lightning Shower attack.
  • The Wendigo: An Outsider Yeti
• Preview of the upcoming adventure path called Curse of the Crimson Throne that promises to be a more city-focused path.

Overall impression:

While I only read the 1st one in any details, I’ve perused all of them. Enough to conclude that the Pathfinder product is a richly detailed, beautifully presented and highly useful product for DMs. While I won’t play more than the 1st one, I got to use monsters from them in my own adventures and the players really liked them.

I also know from various feedbacks I read on the net that not all adventures were ‘equal’ in quality and fun. Being written by different people, the styles tended to clash widely from issue to issue.

What starts out as a low level romp through goblins and demonic minions switches abruptly to a Slasher Horror adventure to then go into the ‘Hills have Eyes’ degenerate horror theme. After we go in the opposite direction and get the Against the Giant treatment, then go into a huge trap-filled extended dungeon crawl and finish with a Lost City scenario.

If I look at my own players, I know that some of these adventures would not interest them at all and I would have to seriously hack some of them to get a constant level of enjoyment. Then again, such is the case with all adventure paths.
Also, I’m a bit unimpressed with some of the monsters created for the series. The strong Giant and Lamia themes have been visited a few too many times I feel and most monsters definitively lacked the late-design ‘coolness’ (i.e. simpler, cooler special attacks) of WotC’s pre-4e work.

One thing I really liked about the adventures was that the DM was encouraged to tweak things to their players’ tastes. Some pointers were given for doing just that. This was done especially around each adventure’s more controversial issues (like should goblins attack and kill children, how far can the depraved Ogres go, how sexual do you want the adventure to get in the pits of lust?…)

All in all the 1st Pathfinder has been the most deluxe, well supported set of adventure I’ve seen. For those who wanted them, Paizo published many products (Item cards, Map packs, True 20 conversions, etc), which is a good move on Paizo’s.

I’ll maintain my subscription for the next arc, but my interest in 3.5 stuff is definitively waning and will probably stop if the arc after the next is still 3.5.

Thanks for reading. I’ll tackle #7 as soon as I get it.