The Gaming Den

So, I was going to do a stint on the Ponyfinder Campaign Setting, but it was actually only produced in 2013, which makes it ineligible for an OSSR. Come 2023, I will rightfully rip on that product, and being Pathfinder isn't the only thing that makes it terrible. Instead, I'm going to drive myself to the brink of my sanity by reviewing this steaming load of shit.

Contained in the pages of Dungeons #97-116 (not sequential) published between March of 2003 and November of 2004, Shackled City was the first Adventure Path Paizo published. And it shows. Not that their design ethos improved through Age of Worms and Savage Tide (which I have OSSR'd already), but just how clumsily it is all put together.

Consisting of twelve pre-generated adventures that are linked via plot threads, Shackled City was ridiculously hyped and overblown. If you care about such things, at the 2006 ENnies, it won the gold award for Best Adventure and Best Campaign/Supplement and the silver award for Best Cartography. Somehow I think those two should have been switched, because if there's one thing Paizo does well it's art and cartography. Making worlds you want to play in, not so much.

I am not going to do a room-by-room as I did for Savage Tide. That drove me nearly fucking insane, and it was dry, awful, and not the least bit entertaining. I'm going to try to do high-level overviews then point out the batshit insanity.

As usual, these adventures go through the rotating crop of Paizo writers, which means making it coherent was a difficult task and nobody at Paizo even fucking tried. They are, in order:

Life's Bazaar by Christopher Perkins, our introductory adventure.
Drakthar's Way, also by Christopher Perkins, in which there is, I shit you not, a bugbear vampire that 3rd level characters have to fight.
Flood Season by everyone's darling James Jacobs, for levels 4-6. I look forward to shitting on this.
Zenith Trajectory by David Noonan for levels 6-8.
The Demonskar Legacy by Tito Leati for levels 8-10.
Test of the Smoking Eye, also by David Noonan, for levels 10-12.
Secrets of the Soul Pillars, by Jesse Decker, for levels 12-13.
Lords of Oblivion, by returning author Christopher Perkins for levels 13-15.
Foundation of Flame, by Chris Thomasson, for levels 15-16.
Thirteen Cages, by Chris Thomasson for levels 16-18.
Strike on Shatterhorn for levels 18-19, and
Asylum for levels 19-20, both by Christopher Perkins.

You would assume with Christopher Perkins writing nearly HALF of this adventure path, it won't be nearly as schizophrenic. You would be wrong. I'm a little sad that Ben Wooten isn't involved as an illustrator, nor Nicolas Logue involved at any point. Wooten's art was one of the few truly enjoyable things about Savage Tide, and Logue still holds a special place in my heart with the latter half of Bullywug Gambit. It's nice to see Tito Leati again, author of City of Broken Idols, aka where Savage Tide should have just fucking ended.

Our artists for this are far more varied than the writers. They are:

Chris Lukacs, Val Mayerik, Omar Dogan, Peter Bergting, Stephen A. Daniele, Scott Fischer, Thomas M. Baxa, Jeff Carlisle, Mark Jackson, Mark Nelson, Matt Cavotta, UDON (what. How the fuck.), Andrew Hou, Arnold Tsang, Christine Choi, Benjamin Huen, Chris Stevens, Jim Zubkavich, Ramón K. Pérez, Tim Fowler, Eric Kim, and Attila Adorjany. With special mention for Christopher West, who is the cartographer for the entire series.

So, yes. This is the age when Paizo had more artists than it knew what to do with, and the art ranges from 'eh' to 'HOLY FUCK NIGHTMARE FUEL'. There are a few outstanding pieces, which I will happily show, and I will spoilerblock and warn people who are easily disturbed for the more... questionable pieces. The only truly questionable thing is UDON being involved, but this was before they really became big...ish. (Most notable in this context, I think, for doing Exalted artwork and comics.)

I will warn you; there will be rage. White-hot, frothing rage. There will be vitriol. And there will possibly be heavy drinking because fuck doing another one of these without alcohol. I'm also going to pace myself a little more than I did with Savage Tide, because otherwise I will become an alcoholic and possibly a diabetic.

So, join me after Archer's Season 7 premiere tonight for the first adventure. It... certainly is a thing.

I vaguely remember this and look forward to the OSSR.

@*#@&# I was almost done with the Foreword and Introduction and the power went out. Guess I'll have to start using OpenOffice and praying for autosaves.

Foreword & Introduction

Let's talk about this, first. The Foreword is by Chris Thomasson, and starts fairly strong with things near and dear to our Denner hearts – actually thinking about how a D&D world operates. Even better, it starts with thinking about who really runs the world, and comes up with an interesting idea – mind flayers illithids. When you think about it, that's actually a pretty neat idea, and could be true for many D&D worlds without changing much. Annnnnd we drop out of that and start talking about followingin the footsteps of Chris Perkins and pressure to produce a good Adventure Path as a first offering and oh my god dude. I know what's coming, and you are hyping it up WAY TOO FUCKING MUCH. He does eventually bring it back around to mind flayers illithids at the end, so I guess it wasn't a total waste of space. As Forewords go, it's not bad, but it's promising things that this adventure path is woefully incapable of upholding.

I guess I should mention that I am not tracking down all the individual Dungeons for this, and am instead reading from the Collected PDF that was produced in August 2007. In the following Introduction, we're told that in this collection, they've added in content they had to cut to make it fit publication in the magazine. I'm sure every last bit of it is as good as the rest of this crap, guys. It tells us that we'll need the PHB, DMG, and MM, because of course you need those, you're playing fucking D&D. It also says it would be helpful to have MMII, MMIII, Fiend Folio, Draconomicon and Libris Mortis handy. Oh, boy. A 3E book, the book that introduced Warforged, the Zombie Dragon template, and Slaymates.

The Campaign Background takes up the rest of this chapter, from page 5 to page 31. 26 pages. Twenty-six pages. Wanna know what they spend it on?

There are a few short paragraphs about things the players will actually interact with – a few organizations (Striders of Fharlanghan – more on those in a bit – and Cagewrights), and a full page of Cast of Characters – or rather, a page of Cast of Important NPCs, with brief (one-line) descriptions of them. Another full page is dedicated to researching the Villains, by which they mean the Cagewrights, with DCs topping out at 39, with a DC of 40 for identifying ONE of the 13 leaders, which get a similar one-line description.

SIXTEEN of these pages are dedicated to Cauldron. Which, fair enough, a large amount of the campaign takes place here. But oh, my, fuck, there is so much wasted space. There is a full two pages of RUMORS, 41 of them in fact, which you may not even give a fuck about – worse, your players probably don't give a rat's ass about. Not even an experience-giving giant rat's ass. There is a page and a half of a summarized history of Cauldron done through bullet points, stretching back THREE THOUSAND FUCKING YEARS. Holy shit, how about just giving us the salient bits about MODERN CAULDRON and leaving it at that? Why is that so fucking difficult?

We get a little about life in Cauldron (if this wasn't D&D it would be a cyberpunk city ruled by megacorps), taxes, the rumors, and exploring Cauldron. And here we run into my first problem with this: here we have ALL these salient points, introducing us to places around Cauldron, places in the region, and whatnot... and the biggest section, which covers Cauldron? Yeah, it doesn't include Cauldron's map. That MIGHT be a LITTLE fucking IMPORTANT to have RIGHT HERE so you can REFERENCE IT EASILY. But no, the Cauldron map is at the end of the first adventure, on page seventy-fucking-five. Forty-four pages after this section ends. Guys, I know you want to present it the way it was in Dungeon, but GET YOUR HEADS OUT OF YOUR ASSES!

By the way, let's show off the Cauldron map real fast. I wanna point out something interesting.

See there, number 21? It's the Vanderborens! Ancestors of Lavinia and Vanthus, though I'm not entirely sure how far back in the past this adventure path is from Savage Tide. I thought it was neat. Here's what the Introductory bullet points have to say about Vanderboren Manor:

This large manor houses the members and servants of the Vanderboren family, Cauldron's newest nobles. The Vanderborens are the equivalent of real estate tycoons. Less respected by the other nobles because they're self-made, they constantly look for ways to make the other nobles look bad to increase their standing among their new peers. They also own and fund the Lantern Street Orphanage. Both Vanderborens got their start on their feet: Premiach as a runner for a messenger service and Aeberrin as a server at a tavern.

No pictures of them in this section, but hey. This is before they became a reference Paizo likes to make.

Let's talk about Cauldron a little more, though. We get to see that Cauldron is built by the DMG rules, so of course it can't be interesting mechanically. Cauldron is a Small City, with a population of 7,500 adults and a 15,000gp limit and 5,625,000gp in assets. The population spread is 79% human, 9% halfling, 5% gnome, 3% dwarf, 2% elf, 1% half-elf, and 1% half-orc. The Authority Figures are Lord Mayor Severen Navalant, a male human aristocrat 10 (an elected leade), Terseon Skellerang, a male human fighter 8 (captain of the Town Guard), and Lord Vhalantru, advanced beholder (the true power behind Cauldron's government).

Oh, okay. Wait. A fucking ADVANCED BEHOLDER is in control of this town? Oh, yeah. Expect to see him become a penis extension for Mister Cavern. Sorry for the spoilers, but this was what made me want to do this, because oh my christ, it is the biggest railroading shit I have ever seen. We also get a little information on how the guards are set up, how the guards change as the story progresses, and so on, so forth.

So far the art in this section isn't awful. But let's talk about cartography for a second, while we're on the subject. This section also introduces us to some of the areas around Cauldron... and this is the region the PCs are going to be spending most if not all of this adventure path.



Kind of tiny, right? Here's the map the PCs get:



What the everloving fuck. Just... just give them the first map. I mean, I get the aesthetic thing, I really do, but unless you print that out onto a cloth map and age it, it's just not going to look right printed out. Just get some glossy paper and print out the first one, make your players happier.

There is one outstanding bit of art in this section, though; Lord Vhalantru's human form. He looks like a goddamned GUMMI BEAR.


I shall call you... Asshole Gummi.

There's also a section on the Striders of Fharlanghan, which I don't think any 3E book had bothered to go into any detail, which is a shame because the Striders are one of my favorite organizations. They're like Faerun's Harpers, only less of assholes. And also they're totally easier to join, and you can do it in this campaign. All you have to do is show a healthy respect for the natural world, and have Diplomacized the three Strider agents in Cauldron to Helpful, and also have 4 ranks in four of any of Gather Information, Hide, Knowledge (local), Knowledge (nature), Listen, Move Silently, Sense Motive, or Spot. Then the Strider leader Meerthan offers membership, which comes with some cool little benefits.

You get a permanent telepathic bond with Meerthan, which is supposed to be used to make reports, but you can call for help from Meerthan, who is a half-elf Wizard 14. ...Who could destroy absolutely everything in the first few adventures, but still comes to the PCs for help at some point. What? Anyways, call for help three times and your membership is revoked. Fair. Free room and board at the Drunken Morkoth, an inn in Cauldron, and Meerthan willing to cast any spell he knows or any provided to him on a scroll for a member of the Striders free of charge, though he usually needs a day to prepare it. Up to 1,500gp in potions and scrolls per month, arriving 1d4 days after making the request, and access to the Pathwarden prestige class... which I will cover in the next post.

And really, that's the introduction. Some wasted space, way too much spent on Cauldron's history and rumors, very little on the actual current state of what Cauldron is like today, a spiel on taxes (FUCKING TAXES. IN A D&D GAME. REALLY.) and some art. The history does mention Kyuss raising the Spire of Long Shadows... 2500 years ago. And so much of this history isn't the least bit relevant, like who originally ruled the area Cauldron is in and the last of the kopru being driven off by spell weaver explorers and ugh. SPEND MORE TIME ON WHAT ACTUALLY FUCKING MATTERS TO THE PLAYERS, PLEASE.

You can see that Paizo didn't develop this problem later; it was there right from the goddamned beginning. And it's one that plagues us to this fucking day.

In the interests of total fairness, however, I believe this chapter was written specifically for the Collection book. But this is just the very tip of the iceberg.

Next up: Character Creation, because I am just killing time until Archer.

Is the adventure path written so that you go straight from one chapter to the next? Or is the assumption that you will occasionally have side-adventures? Because if it is the latter, a rumor table is super useful.

How is the lord being a beholder an invitation for Mister Cavern to railroad the PCs? In-setting, is he known to be a total badass? Does something happen early on that reveals his nature to the PCs? Because if not, they have no reason to treat him any more seriously than they would any other random government dude.

Oh, Blicero. Wait for Chapter One. You'll see. Also the assumption is SOME downtime between chapters, but I don't think we have anything like the SIX MONTHS OF DOWNTIME like in Savage Tide.

Character Creation

Way in the back of the Collection book is a section dedicated to Character Creation. I glossed over this bit in Savage Tide, because it was a lot of bullshit-flavored bullshit and weak-ass feats. But I'm going to go over this one, because I feel it sets the tone for the sort of game that Paizo wants you to play while going through this Adventure Path.

It opens up with saying that Vhalantru has his eye on your characters by the end of Life's Bazaar, and will be sending them on quests in hopes of getting them killed because he sees potential for them to become a threat to him. Fair enough. Wait. He's a fucking beholder. He can disintegrate them at will. WHY IS HE NOT JUST KILLING THEM BEFORE THEY BECOME A GODDAMNED THREAT?!

The character creation section goes on to tell you that you should inform your players that this is a difficult campaign. Also that you should (or should not) drop subtle hints before they come up on a tough fight that they really should cast rope trick and rest and recover a bit before continuing towards the possible TPK.

It does throw the players a bone; it suggests rolling 4d6 drop lowest, and generate three sets and let them choose which set they want. Then it fucks them up the ass by suggesting using 28-point buy if you prefer point-buy. Reminder, this is D&D 3.5, not Pathfinder, where 28 points is... well, no, 28 points in Pathfinder is still shit-flavored shit. It suggests that this is “an edge” for the players. Whoever wrote this, please, find a meat grinder, turn it on, and put your face promptly to the blades.

Then it goes into telling you about class choices, but since base classes are supposed to be flavor-neutral, I don't even know what the fuck. Let's go through the options.

Barbarians are told to fuck off, or to spend their skill points in Climb, Intimidate, Jump and Listen, and if one is in your party, to also to spend time on the plight of the half-orc mercenaries who are brought into town in Chapter Four to give the Barbarian a group to identify with. Except... Chapter Four is level 6-8, so the Barbarian is probably having a hard time identifying with himself and his fucking role in the party.

Bards are said to be an excellent choice for this campaign because there's all sorts of skill checks to make and suggests enchantment and illusion spells are a great help in dealing with large crowds of people as occurs in chapters four, five and nine. Except...I don't think bards get any spells by those levels that are Mass versions. And large crowds are typically greater than “One per level, no more than 30ft apart”.

Clerics get shafted as there are only four established temples in Cauldron; St. Cuthbert, Pelor (THE BURNING HATE), Kord and Wee Jas. There's also a shrine to Olidammara in the Last Laugh thieves' guild, and a shrine to Fharlanghn at the Lucky Monkey. There are also shrines to Pelor, Wee Jas, Moradin, Yondalla and Garl Glittergold in the outlying towns and villages. Worshiping one of the deities have a support structure (of sorts) in the region, though Wee Jas worshipers will get shafted in one of the chapters... which is sad, because Wee Jas is the second-best Greyhawk deity, right after Fharlanghn (Travel? Celerity? Luck? Best domains). It also makes a suggestion that you don't focus on turning undead and you should consider other [Divine] feats that use the uses for other things. That sounds like tacit permission to use Divine Metamagic to me!

Druids are told to fuck off because urban, just like Barbarians.

Fighters are told they are useful. We all know what a fucking lie that is. Next.

Monks have no local monasteries, and that inhabitants might be regarded by locals with a mixture of curiosity and awe. (“How the fuck did anyone want to become a Monk? That guy is amazingly stupid.”) It also suggests changing one of the NPCs' advancement schemes to focus more heavily on Monk than Druid, which... ahahaha, I can't even finish that.

Paladins are also told they're useful. Also that they can detect evil the big bads.

Rangers are told to fuck off like Barbarians and Druids, because urban. It does give you a sample of which Favored Enemies are most useful, which is … unusually kind for an adventure path. (Animals, dragons, humanoid (human, goblinoid or orc), or outsider (evil).)

Rogues are told they're useful. Then Pathfinder nerfed flask rogues for no reason. I wonder if this advice had something to do with that. It also suggests that the party rogue might want to join the Last Laugh thieves' guild, and that the PC Rogue, if he's a strong, charismatic leader, he could become the fucking head of the thieves' guild. Right fucking on. High marks for this one.

Sorcerers are given some fucking ancestry tips to tie them into the campaign. Fuck you.

Wizards... well, they give the usual advice. Make sure the Wizard has downtime for scroll scribing and create items, even to the point where you should insert some into later parts of the adventure. High marks again, and fucking surprising from a Paizo publication.

The Local Heroes section tells us that the adventure works best if the PCs are locals. We all know that's not fucking true, because adventurers roll into town and save the world from destruction all the goddamned time in fantasy literature. It's a fucking STAPLE. But choosing a surrounding area or Cauldron for your backstory lets you take some shitty traits. At least they're not FEATS.

These Traits are kind of terrible; but Traits are always terrible. The penalties are always worse than the bonuses. One gives +2 to all saves vs disease but -2 when in the ruins of a shithole town that got ruined by the Vanishing. Another makes you treated as evil for all spells and spell-like abilities with the evil descriptor, as are magic items, and spells like Unholy Blight. Drawback? The same thing but in reverse for [good] descriptors, magic items, and spells like Holy Smite, regardless of your alignment.

There's two cream of the crops here; one lets you never take penalties for being fatigued, in exchange for a -2 to saves vs madness or insanity effects and sleep effects – or if you're a dirty elf, you lose your sleep immunity (or anything immune to sleep). The other automatically stabilizes you at negative HP, and gives you DR 5 vs negative energy damage. The drawback, though? You gain 1 less HP PER LEVEL from healing spells, to a minimum of 1. That is... exceptionally awful, given how little HP healing spells actually, you know, heal. Learn to love Lesser Vigor, I guess.

One of these traits makes you a no-shit noble, with +200gp to start with and +1 to all Diplomacy and Intimidate checks made against citizens of Cauldron or nearby villages, in exchange for taking a -4 to Disguise rolls made against citizens of Cauldron or nearby villages. Also depending on your family certain NPCs are expected to treat you like shit.

But the ultimate? +2 initiative, for -1 Will saves. Fucking sold.

There are some hidden “Gotchas” in these. The one that gives you +2 initiative and -1 Will? You're one of the Shackleborn, with the Carcerian Sign plainly visible on your face if you're in the radius of an invisibility purge, anti-magic zone, or other region that suppresses invisibility, or if someone with See Invisiblity (what about Arcane Sight?) looks at you. That means the Cagewrights are always wanting to capture you. So it's literally Frank & K's outcast noble background that sends ninjas after you, but with a better benefit and a similarly inconsequential drawback. The text detailing the "gotcha" of this one also says that this benefit and drawback are "intentionally underwhelming to discourage PCs from taking the trait and thus complicating the campaign". Hi, people who didn't understand 3rd Edition back in 2003! A practically free +2 initiative is about as not-underwhelming as you can get!

And that's character creation. Some shit-flavored shit, something laughably awesome, and some terrible fucking advice for certain classes. Overall, about standard. I'll give it a passing grade.

Next up: Archer! But really, I'll get to work on the actual Chapter One soon.

Oh right, there were two prestige classes in this book. Here they are, in all their terrible glory.

The High Handcrafter is open to members of the Chisel who are sponsored by other members, and led to Redgorge to meditate in front of the Earth Pool for an hour before they can take the class. They also need a Good alignment, 10 ranks in one Craft, 6 ranks in another, and Knowledge (architecture and engineering) 5 ranks. They also have to be able to speak Terran. They get 6+INT mod skills but only have 5 class skills; granted, one of those is Craft, but how many skill points do you want to set on fire with different Crafts? They gain proficiency with all light armor and simple weapons, and when they take Skill Focus feats, they get a +4 bonus instead of +3. This is a five-level prestige class that gets 3/5ths casting (losing 1st and 3rd), and there are some other class features.

One of those is the ability, starting at 2nd level, to Rebuke/Command Earth Elementals... as a Cleric equal to twice his High Handcrafter level. So maxing at 10th level Rebuking, which probably isn't going to get you very far against actually dangerous elementals. But it does stack if you're a Cleric with the Earth Domain.

There is also a progressing class feature called Planned Save, which gives you a +1/+2/+3 bonus to saving throws against something expected... like making a Spellcraft check and identifying a spell as it's being cast against you. Or if you try to open a treasure chest and expect a trap. Or if you were fighting a medusa and knew about their stone gaze, you get the save because of course you know she's going to try to turn you to stone at some point. It progresses at 1st/3rd/5th level.

They get the ability to make an Earth Talisman, which they can spend 100xp and 1400gp on to craft themselves, and can use it to cast two of heat metal, make whole, resist energy, shatter, soften earth and stone or stone shape once per day. The Talisman only functions for the high handcrafter who made it.

At 4th level, they get to cast summon monster VI... and there's no use limit on it. They can only use it to call a large earth elemental, 1d3 medium earth elementals, or 1d4+1 earth mephits. That's... actually quite powerful, since they can apparently use it at will.

At 5th level they can improve their Earth Talisman with 30 days of work, 1,000xp, and 15,000gp of raw material. They can then add two more spells to their talisman to cast once per day, from a new list: fabricate, lesser planar binding(creatures with [earth] subtype only) major creation, transmute mud to rock, transmute rock to mud, or wall of stone. The talisman also gives them a +2 competence to Craft checks.

Really, the unlimited SNA VI for earth elementals and the talisman (with major creation, fabricate, or lesser planar binding as SLAs) might be worth giving up two caster levels.

Unfortunately, the Pathwarden is not as awesome as the Striders themselves are. To take it, you must be non-evil, Gather Information 6 ranks, Knowledge (geography) 6 ranks, Listen 10 ranks, Spot 10 ranks, Survival 6 ranks, Run and Track as feats, and must be sponsored by another Strider. 4+INT mod skills for a skill list that looks like a Barbarian's but with some Knowledges, and Concentration for whatever fucking reason. Oh yeah, this class grants spellcasting... for two out of five levels. Either increased spellcasting or a bonus feat list that looks like a Fighter's.

The Pathwarden gets +5 movement speed at 1st, 3rd and 5th level. Ooh. Scary. They also get to get ignore difficult terrain. At 3rd level they gain +2 dodge and +2 insight to Reflex on any round during which they move at least 30 feet... which if you take this as a martial class you're just not fucking doing.

At 5th level, they can "seek out a specific location of great beauty or latent power" and "enter an introspective meditative state" by spending a "small" amount of experience points... to the tune of 1,000xp. They get some bonuses for it? Meditating in the den of a living animal of at least CR 7 gives you +2 inherent to Dexterity. Meditating in a cavern at least a mile underground grants darkvision 60ft. Meditating within the Demonskar gives SR 10+Character Level against spells and SLAs cast by demons. Meditating in a dragon's lair while the dragon is alive and present gives you a +1 to your natural armor, and the dragon has to be CR 7+ and within 60 ft of you at all times.

Meditating on a glacier gives you cold resist 30, meditating while floating on a lake of at least 1,000ft in depth gives +2 insight to Will, meditating at the base of the Spire of Long Shadows gives you immunity to level drain, meditating onthe peak of a mountain at least 12,000ft high gives +2 inherent to Constitution. Meditating while floating on the ocean gives +2 insight to Fortitude saves. On a river at least 100 miles long grants +2 insight to Reflex. Meditating in Shatterhorn's ruins gives immunity to poisons. Meditating on a mountaintop or treetop gives you electric resist 30. Meditating at the base of the largest tree in a 100 mile radius (minimum 100ft height) gives you +2 inherent to Strength. Meditating in the caldera of a volcano (so... Cauldron?) gives you fire resist 30. And the MC is free to create new effects.

The Pathwarden is just... awful. Did I mention the meditation takes 8 hours? What dragon is going to stay within 60ft of you for 8 hours while you zone out like a hippy? The High Handcrafter is maybe worth it if you like some 1/day SLAs and unlimited SNA VI, but I cannot see anyone taking the damned Pathwarden. Introspection needs to come at first level, not fifth, for it to be worth anything to martials, and casters don't want to lose three caster levels.

RelentlessImp wrote: Rogues are told they're useful. Then Pathfinder nerfed flask rogues for no reason. I wonder if this advice had something to do with that..

If I recall correctly, it a fuck-you from Jason Buhlman, to Frank, after Buhlman found out about the flask rogue.

Chapter One: Life's Bazaar
by Christopher Perkins

Punny titles. sigh Might as well roll with it, right? Let's roll.

There are three distinct sections to this chapter; getting the PCs involved, the first dungeon, and the second dungeon. Yes, there are two separate dungeon crawls involved for levels 1-3, and both of them are quite large. I don't know why anyone thought this was a good idea. I actually cannot find the maps involved in this dungeons in the book itself, so that's pretty fucking terrible. Armed with just this collection, you have to go to Paizo's site to get the maps, and they're not marked with the numbers in the book. However, in the Dungeon magazine (yes, I tracked it down), the maps are actually useful. I'll be using them.

For once, I applaud the opening to a chapter. There is brief, salient points about what's going on and works to get the PCs to care about what they're doing fairly quickly. We get barely one column of backstory telling us why we should give a shit, immediately spoiling that Vhalantru is a beholder, and getting us right to the point about there having been a string of abductions recently, the most recent of which are four children from the Lantern Street Orphanage.

Apparently the kidnappers have been bullying the locksmith of Cauldron and gotten some skeleton keys, which let them abduct people fairly easily as they creep out of Ghelve's Locks. We also get almost a full page of recent abductees, which are pretty varied - especially for people who are selling slaves to the Underdark. Until recently, they've all been of Adult age for their race; 91, 74 and 72 year old gnomes, humans aged 18 to 36, half-elves, halflings in their 30s. The most recent abductees, and the focus of this adventure, are:

Deakon Stormshield, male dwarf, age 20, who was taken in by the orphanage at age 6.
Evelyn Radavec, female human, age 9, whose parents died to a recent filth fever plague.
Lucinda Aldreen, female human, age 8, a "gregarious but superstitious child" who was given to the orphanage at age 4 because her mother was too poor.
And Terrem Karatys, male human, age 9, whose parents died in mysterious circumstances.

We also get a brief note that the Cagewrights have all of the soulcages they need to do the ritual of planar junction. Yes, at this point, this is a word salad, and it won't really make sense until later.They have eleven of the thirteen Shackleborn they need for it, and Terrem is the 12th Shackleborn, hence his abudction.

And then we begin. Not bad, considering that later Adventure Paths would spend pages upon pages expounding on a backstory the PCs didn't give a flying fuck about, especially in the first chapter. It's snappy and gets to the point, and gives us brief salient details about the abductees, and a hook to the rest of the underlying plotline. It does this in 2 and 1/4 pages. Good job, Christopher Perkins. You get a gold star.

Our adventure begins with an encounter in the streets, and an EL 3 encounter. And we run into a problem with this book; all the statistics point to Appendix 4, which is 300+ pages away from this section. Anyways, 3 human warrior 2s, with Quick Draw and Toughness, short swords, padded armor, and 1d6 sp and 2d6cp are accosting a priest named Ruphus Laro (human cleric of St. Cuthbert 2) with 12hp who's already taken 10 nonlethal damage. The PCs come across it as thugs are shoving Ruphus's face into the ground and threatening him to stay away from the orphanage, and have faces painted half white and half-black, which a DC 15 Knowledge (local) or Bardic KNowledge check reveals them as members of the Last Laugh Thieves' Guild.

One of the thugs is watching the street, who gets a Spot check opposed by PC Hide checks to notice them. If it fails, the PCs get a surprise round, assuming they want to get involved. The Priest was sent to the Orphanage to console distraught children and staff members after the recent theft of four children, and the Guild doesn't want the Church of St. Cuthbert poking around, in order to give Lord Vhalantru a chance to track the child down and prevent outsiders from learning that one of the children is Shackleborn. Again, not things the PCs are going to know about in this encounter, so some wasted space.

The thugs are basically nothing with 14hp. Ruphus actually helps out by casting Bless on the PCs, Magic Weapon on himself, and Enlarge Person on himself before wading in to beat on things - except that's three rounds, and a single sleep spell ends the encounter.

Rescuing Ruphus has him ask they escort him back to the temple, and gives them a brief spiel about having just recently visited the orphanage when he was jumped. Then some overzealous Thieves' Guild member named Jil is standing on a rooftop and, if Spotted, reveals herself. She is way too dramatic at the PCs, and there is actually text detailing what happens if she's charmed, or hit with a DC 25 Diplomacy check, but she doesn't stick around to be captured.

Captured thugs (they're not captured. They get CDG'd) will reveal with a DC 25 Diplomacy check or a charm person that they're not actually members of the Last Laugh, but that Jil hired them to "send a clear message" to the Church of St. Cuthbert to not investigate the disappearance of the children from the orphanage. Then they reveal that they ACTUALLY work for the Town Guard and needed the money, and only agreed because the arrangement didn't involve killing Ruphus. PCs can send them off to the town guard, but they're only held for three days. Might as well fucking kill them. There's also a little stint about if the PCs get in trouble in the fight, which is... probably not going to happen to anyone with a brain, even at level 1.

I do have a pretty big problem with this... namely, it's the church of FUCKING ST. CUTHBERT. You know, the GOD OF RETRIBUTION. His entire schtick is exacting REVENGE and JUST PUNISHMENT. Accosting one of their priests should rightfully bring the local church down on the fucking thieves' guild's HEAD. Agh. Where was Perkins' brain with this?

Anyways, moving on, the PCs are assumed to escort Ruphus back to the Church of St. Cuthbert, and meet with Ruphus' superior at his request. They meet with Jenya Urikas, a female human Cleric of St. Cuthbert 5. She thanks the PCs for helping Ruphus, who fucks off elsewhere, and she invites them to stay to hear a proposal. The most recent attack hasn't put her off helping the Lantern Street Orphanage "despite the recent attack on Ruphus Laro". Chris, this should really be "especially due to the recent attack on Ruphus Laro", because, again, GOD OF RETRI-FUCKING-BUTION. Sheer spite should have her telling the thieves' guild to fuck off.

Anyways, she lays some knowledge on the PCs about the recent kidnapping of four children, and even goes into some detail about the orphanage itself (two common bedchambers, one for each gender, on the second floor, two children from each room), the orphanage has barred windows and excellent locks, and the children are locked in their bedrooms at night. Further, the Church of St. Cuthbert has publicly vowed to locate the children and bring the kidnappers to justice. Jenya had borrowed a +1 holy heavy mace called the Star of Justice that can cast divination once per week to help locate the children. Also, the High Priest of the church is missing, so Jenya feels completely justified using it in his absence.

The Divination she cast with the help of the mace was a question to ask about where the children were. She got a riddle in response.



Jenya even offers a little help in solving the riddle, in that she belives the locks refer to the ones at the Orphanage. Jenya further wants to hire the PCs to find the abductees, especially the children, and pays the PCs with a potion of cure moderate wounds each, and a further 2,500gp (total) if they bring the children back.

A Gather Information check (DC 10) reveals that all the locks in town come from a single source; a gnome locksmith named Keygan Ghelve, who runs a shop called Ghelve's Keys. Seriously, though. Jenya is a Cleric, so her Wisdom should be decent (it's a 16). Further, taking 10 is a thing. She probably could have found this information herself with a fairly simple check, but instead she points the PCs to the Orphanage.

The Orphanage is up next, and the PCs can roll over to it. The matron, a 72 year old female halfling commoner 1, won't let them in without a DC 15 Diplomacy check, or flashing the symbol of St. Cuthbert on the potions Jenya gave them. There are five other staff members; a 99 year old male dwarf commoner 1, Jarmoir Copperbeard, the Gardener; Neva Fanister, the nurse, a 31 year old female human expert 2 with a +6 Heal modifier; Temar Flaongstern, the cook, a 48 year old male human commoner 1; Willow Atherfell, the schoolteacher, a 54-year old female half-elf commoner 1; and Patch, the janitor, a 23-year-old male half-orc commoner 1/rogue 1.

The following information Gretchyn, the matron, gives them should immediately point them to Patch; namely, they've all worked here for several years, and Gretchyn trusts them implicitly but holds a special affection for Patch, who was an orphan himself.

Patch himself works for the Last Laguh, who was hired by a low-ranking guild member who gave Patch 50gp to "keep his eye" on Terrem, one of the kidnappedchildren. A DC 15 diplomacy check on Patch, or other means, gets him to reveal what he knows and beg the PCs not to share it with Gretchyn. He doesn't know who took the children, but suspects the Last Laugh may be involved. They get an EL1 reward for doing this.

Somewhere between the Orphanage and Ghelve's Locks, the PCs will get to encounter two of the Strider agents in the city; a pair of half-elves named Fario Ellegoth (half-elf rogue 1/fighter 1) and Fellian Shard (half-elf rogue 1/cleric of Fharlanghan 1). They follow the PCs, spying on them, and try to stay out of sight. They can be Spotted, and they actually tell you to add the -1 penalty to Spot for every 10ft of distance, and another -2 if it's raining or foggy. If the PCs attack them, they run away, and if the PCs pursue them relentlessly they quaff potions of invisibility and run harder.

If the PCs are ever in danger of death, these two are supposed to roll up into the combat and flank and help, after which they offer to accompany the PCs for the rest of this adventure. They lie, of course, and say they're friends with Elethor Ashstaff, a half-elf wizard who was abudcted from his home, and don't actually reveal that they're Striders.

Anyways, now we're to Ghelve's Locks, assuming the PCs actually want to check out all the clues pointing them to investigating a locksmith, including the orphanage straight out saying they got their locks from Ghelve. So, let's move on to...



Ghelve's Locks

Keygan Ghelve himself is a male gnome expert 3/illusionist 1, who doesn't like being accused of criminal wrongdoing. A DC 15 Diplomacy and "good roleplaying" can get him to reveal the truth, or just a straight up charm person. As a side note: WHERE THE FUCK WAS ALL OF THIS TALK OF CHARM PERSON LATER IN SAVAGE TIDE WHEN VANTHUS WAS BEING A COCKSUCKER? Keygan can tip off the PCs that there are people listening, so he doesn't straight up tell them anything... yet. He makes a DC 15 Bluff check to convey this information, but his Bluff is +0, and he can come across as trying to invite one of the PCs into the back room for a little fun. He's a 110 year old gnome, though, so...

There is a skulk guarding the shop, creeping around and listening in, and jumps on people who detect the secret door under the staircase or even motion towards it.

Killing Keygan without provocation gets you half XP. Convincing him to help gets you full XP for him as if you killed him. The skulk is a CR 2 encounter.

Might I also say that the layout in the Dungeon magazines is much nicer than the layout in the Collection? A Collection should make the work easier to use, not harder. Fuck this collection, seriously. Once Keygan is helpful, the PCs can get information out of him. Such as that the kidnappers stole his rat familiar, who is located in a dark place within one mile, the kidnappers have two types of creatures, "tall naked hairless genderless humans" and "short sinister gnomelike creatures with pallid skin, large noses, and soft black hooves for feet". They share a language that Keygan doesn't recognize, and they don't seem to have a leader. Further, Keygan gave them three skeleton keys to open most of the town's locks (those with DC 30 or lower). Oh, and also the kidnappers live in Jzadirune, which was abandoned by its gnome spellcaster inhabitants 75 years ago when a disease called the Vanishing spread through it, which caused those afflicted to slowly vanish away into nothing, and Keygan has no idea if it's still a threat. He most definitely will not accompany them to Jzadirune, which is of course their next destination, but he will give them a map of the place.

And that's the first section I'm covering. It's not bad, there's better advice here than Savage Tide, and it actually admits the existence of first-level spells that can actually alter how the information gathering works. Overall, it's cleared the (low) bar set by later Adventure Paths that I've read. So far, it's acceptable, with one or two places that I just want to smack people. Expect that to change sooner rather than later, though.

Relentless Imp wrote:Cauldron is a Small City, with a population of 7,500 adults
...
Rangers are told to fuck off like Barbarians and Druids, because urban.

I'm trying to wrap my head around that and I just can't. It's a city which is seven blocks wide. There is nowhere you could be that would make you so deep into the city that the actual wilderness would be more than a five minute's walk away. The entire town has the population of Guingamp, France or Cotgrave, England.

I also don't know how there are supposed to be so many churches and manors and shit for a settlement this tiny. Cotgrave in Nottinghamshire has a single church in it. Also it only had one major family of landholders because there isn't very fucking much land to hold! How can there be competing noble families, there's nothing to compete over!

-Username17

FrankTrollman wrote:I also don't know how there are supposed to be so many churches and manors and shit for a settlement this tiny. Cotgrave in Nottinghamshire has a single church in it. Also it only had one major family of landholders because there isn't very fucking much land to hold! How can there be competing noble families, there's nothing to compete over!

-Username17

The competing families kind of could be believable if the area was more heavily settled and they were competing over a couple dozen nearby villages. Rather than, say, three. And where there are multiple sects competing you can get multiple churches in much smaller settlements, sometimes facing each other across the road; this happened in Wellington, NZ early on.

Edit: I also wanted to add that this slightly higher level overview is a much better and more readable idea than going thru room-by-room.

FrankTrollman wrote: I also don't know how there are supposed to be so many churches and manors and shit for a settlement this tiny. Cotgrave in Nottinghamshire has a single church in it.

Most of England's population believes that there is only one god (if at all), so one church for a tiny settlement would be enough. One building for one divinity.

But in D&D everybody knows that there's a lot of gods out there, and although Pelor and St.Cuthbert and Kord and Wee Jas don't hate each other (at least not enough to demand their worshipers to kill the other god's followers on sight), they probably don't want to share one single temple in a population center either.

If mister Retributive Justice has their own temple in the city, the Burning Hate will not want to be left behind and will demand their clerics to build another temple in the same area for some friendly competition of who can gather more good followers.

My own impression of Shackled City was that the story was far too smalltime for the levels it covered. "Purging a secret cabal that controls a small region and seeks McGuffins that would allow them to free their boss so that they can possibly achieve greater importance" is a mid-level quest at most. If at level 18 the party is not dealing with world-ending threats, players have wasted the time they spent on leveling their character. So I was not interested enough to more that skim it through.

But I enjoy dissestions of bad adventures nonetheless, so keep bringing the vitriol, please.

Vanishing in Jzadirune

Aside from being an annoying name to type, Jzadirune is our first real dungeon crawl. Armed with Ghelve's information, the party is meant to roll out towards the Jzadirune and check out where the fuck these kidnappers are coming from. Once again, Shackled City proves less wordy than later Adventure Paths but giving us a half-page of backstory then gets right to the point. (Short version: Gnomes made a city, Jzadirune was a gnome wizard wo died of natural causes and was the direct cause of the magical plague called The Vanishing due to discovering a spell weaver vault.) Jzadirune now belongs to the skulks and dark creepers, and we move right along to the dungeon.



Jzadirune is full of traps. The gear-shaped doors are all marked with glyphs in Gnomish that are one of the letters making up JZADIRUNE, and to open the doors you need a key with the same letter of the Gnomish alphabet. They have Open Lock DCs of 30, Break Checks DCs of 26, 5 hardness and 60hp, and the traps have Disable Device DCs of 18-20 and Search DCs of 21-22, with each letter having a specific trap.

J Doors have Corrosive Gas Traps with touch triggers and auto-resets, and spread a 10x10x10 gas on either side of the door that deals 2d6 acid for DC 12 reflex half.

Z doors instead have a Leomund's trap which makes people think that there's a trap, and encourages them to try to disable a trap that isn't there.

A Doors have Burning Hands traps that fill two 5-foot squares directly in front ofthe doors. Also automatic resetting, touch trigger. 2d4 fire, DC 11 Reflex half.

D doors are electrical field traps that fill the open doorway that deal 1d8+5 electric damage to anyone passing through. Automatic resetting.

I doors let out six rays of frost at six random targets within 10ft of the door, with a +5 ranged touch for 1d3 cold. The first trap that doesn't reset.

R doors have rat traps that unleash 1d3 fiendish dire rats and automatically reset. It's a SM II effect as cast by a 5th level wizard. Auto-resetting.

U doors trigger alarm spells. As there are enemies in this dungeon, this is bad. The description also says that the 60ft radius of the ringing is reduced by 10ft for each interposing closed door, and 20ft for each intervening wall, which is surprising once again. It also lets out two spectral sickles that swing at the nearest two non-gnome creatures, dealing 1d6 slashing at a +4 melee touch.

N doors release "twilight mist" in a 10x10x10 area on each side of the door, which deals 1d6 Dex/1d6 Dex at a DC 13 fort save. This is the only other trap that doesn't reset.

E doors fill the doorway with three jets of flame whenever a non-gnome pass through the doorway, dealing 3d4 fire with a DC 15 Reflex half.

PCs get XP for the first time they successfully disable or survive a trap and none for subsequent disables. These are all EL 1 rewards, so they're kind of tiny for how debilitating some of them can be. That poison "twilight mist" can render a character useless, after all.

But that doesn't even compare to the dickishness of The Vanishing. You see, every magical item made in Jzadirune is contaminated by the magical plague that caused all the gnomes to vanish into thin air. Players who pick up magic items and use them are completely unaware of the danger, and not even detect magic shows its presence. A true seeing spell is required to find out that the item is infected. DC 15 Fortitude saves are required to resist the disease; afterwards, it deals 1d6 Charisma damage per day after a 1-day incubation period, and they turn translucent as the disease ravages their body, slowly turning more transparent as it eats away at their Charisma score. It does give a +4 to Hide checks, though.

But wait, there's more! You can't save against it to recover from it; oh, no. You need big mojo to clear the disease. Break Enchantment (vs CL 10), remove disease, or remove curse spell is all that can remove The Vanishing. Yes, the players are still first-level when they come here. No, the gnome wizards who built this place didn't figure this out, which makes me wonder how the PCs are going to figure it out. Once reduced to 0 Charisma, the person fades away entirely, and can't be raised by raise dead. They do leave their gear behind, though. But it does say that reincarnate, resurrection and true resurrection can bring them back.

How the fuck does that work for reincarnate? IT STILL NEEDS A FUCKING CORPSE. And the characters are fucking first level (possibly halfaway to third by the end of Jzadirune) but need minimum 3rd level spells to save them? Jesus Christo. At least they're friendly with the Church of St. Cuthbert, so maybe Jenya Urikas will save them, but that still leaves the question of HOW THE FUCK THE PCs ARE GOING TO KNOW WHAT TO DO WHEN AN ENTIRE VILLAGE OF WIZARDS COULDN'T FIGURE IT OUT.

Ahem. Anyways, a nice point is that this dungeon tells us the actual size of the dungeon passageways, which is nice because the map does that stupid fucking 1 square = 10ft thing that INFURIATES ME. It can't be used as a goddamned battle map. Why not draw it to fucking scale, save your MCs some goddamned effort? We pay money for this shit, take some of the fucking effort out of using your shit. Anyways, it says that Jzadirune is unlit, the corridors have empty sconces and the rooms have hooks from the ceiling for lanterns. The 10-ft wide corridors have flat, 10ft high ceilings, and the dark creeper tunnels are tubular (rad, dude) and 5ft in diameter. Ceiling heights for rooms are standardized at 10ft unless otherwise stated. Secret Doors are perfectly indistinguishable from walls, but only need a DC 20 Search to find. And also unless otherwise noted, all magical effects function at CL 12.

Aside from skulks and dark creepers, the gnomes of Jzadirune were also making automatons. The automatons are gone, but the remnant magical energy and bits and pieces form new creatures. Enter the Ragamoffyn from MMII, which have a +4 grapple check and Improved Grab off their Slam attacks, which lets them wrap around their targets and take control of them with a dominate monster-like effect. Trying to attack someone a raggamoffyn is wrapped around deals half to the creatures and half to them. They've taken over several creatures through the complex, and once their host hits 0 hp they leave it and try to possess one of the PCs. These things are interesting encounters mechanically for that alone, but every encounter they're in is more or less an Overwhelming one for 1st-level PCs. There's four or five of these encounters spread throughout.

The ultimate goal through this dungeon is to reach J63, an elevator shaft being guarded by two hobgoblins, which descends into the upper levels of the Underdark to reach the Malachite Fortress, the second dungeon of this adventure path.

I will say this for Jzadirune; it's well-presented, and doesn't waste all that much space. The encounters are kind of interesting with the addition of raggamoffyn-controlled enemies, but... it's a 63 room dungeon for first level characters. It's full of traps, including a bestow curse trap that nails people with -6 Dex. The encounters all range from EL1 (mostly traps) to EL4 (ragamoffyns possessing enemies), and feels kind of like a giant damned slog that just leads into a second slog. I could see this being a great dungeon for fifth-level characters, once the PCs have the ability to go for a while, but this thing is just going to drain resources hardcore and force PCs to fort up and sleep every five rooms or so. A first-level party could spend an entire week clearing this place, or more! I can easily see this place taking 2-3 sessions, and the Malachite Fortress coming up is another 34 fucking rooms.

This section fails on scope and scale. Again, FIRST LEVEL CHARACTERS in a SIXTY-THREE ROOM DUNGEON. That said, that's really the only level traps are a danger, so it seems Christopher Perkins at least understands that much, but still.

Keep on the Borderlands is also a starter dungeon, and it has like sixty rooms.

Do the skulks and shit just autoattack as soon as the PCs show up, or is there any discussion of nonviolent interactions?

They tend to autoattack from my recollection.

Shackled City was my first full campaign, so I have some rose-colored views on it. Greatly enjoying this critique, it should help when I run it again.

Blicero wrote:Do the skulks and shit just autoattack as soon as the PCs show up, or is there any discussion of nonviolent interactions?

In J59, the secret closet, there is a skulk that attempts to surrender when its 9hp is reduced to 4 or less. If he surrenders, he gives up Ghelve's rat familiar in J60 (which has a mimic) and shows them how to reach J63.

The mimic guarding the rat familiar also prefers not to fight, and will speak in Undercommon and offer up the rat familiar for 200gp of treasure or a week's worth of "tasty" rations, half that if changed to Friendly. It can also give some information for free, giving them small amounts of information on their next dungeon and the leader of the dark stalkers in the Malachite fortress.

The rest autoattack. Two rooms out of 63.

I've never run Jzardine, but I do like the idea of dungeon that someone else has partially explored and dug through the walls to get to stuff. It's logical behavior in an abandoned dungeon and it's something I think that more games should either encourage or provide non-arbitrary reasons why people don't do it.

I do agree that it's just too damn long. 63 rooms is enormous. Sure, Keep on the Borderlands is around 70 rooms, but it's also enough encounters to keep a game going for weeks and level up a bunch of adventurers straight out of the Basic set. Each area in KotB is a digestible 8-10 rooms: you kill all the kobolds and go home for the week. The dungeons in Princes of the Apocalypse are around 20-30 rooms, which is a bit long but manageable.

I suspect that the length of the dungeon is based on the need to generate 40 encounters to get everyone up to 3rd level, and there's essentially a lot of padding. Unnecessary and extra encounters to hit level targets were also a problem in Savage Tide, and more generally in all the Pathfinder adventure paths. They don't really have a good idea of level appropriate challenges, so they put too many encounters in the early part of the game and you end up resolving a mid-level appropriate plotline at level 20. I think most of them would do well to be compressed to end at level 14 or so.

Each area in KotB is a digestible 8-10 rooms: you kill all the kobolds and go home for the week.

This is the difference between Keep on the Borderlands and this drek. There is a definite feel of 'this section, then this section', both in how it's written and how it's presented. In this? It's all presented as a single, long slog through 63 rooms as if you're supposed to tackle them all at once, and there is so little actual variety in encounters.

A magic plague that can't be picked up by detect magic?

Are you shitting me?

name_here wrote:A magic plague that can't be picked up by detect magic?

Are you shitting me?

It describes it as using the item's own magical aura to mask it, a'la Nystul's magic aura, but without actually coming out and saying that it does that sort of effect, so it's just sort of handwavium.

The Malachite Fortress/Kazmojen's Bazaar

This subsection has two titles; the Malachite Fortress is detailed as having once been a subterranean dwarven fortress in which the leader of the dwarves took most of his dwarves out into the Underdark to kill drow, their fate to be discussed in Chapter Four, and a half-troll half-dwarf named Kazmojen rolled in about a year ago, conquered entrenched dwarves with hobgoblins, and turned the fortress into a slave market. Again, this is done in a single column of text, so it gets it across quickly and succinctly.

Right after telling us about it, there's a bit of detail for MCs to avoid a TPK; if they get beaten into the ground and not killed, tey wind up capturedand thrown into area M18 and held for days or weeks until an interested purchaser from the Underdark arrives to buy them as slaves. While captured, the PCs are going to get hauled off one by one and get tortured. Fario and Fellian might try to rescue them, but otherwise they get sold in chains to some namedrops that won't be relevant until later. Keep an eye out for the names Pyllrak Shyraat and Vervil Ashmantle to see how long it takes them to show up, because it suggests once they're sold as slaves they might find it easier to escape from those names.



The Malachite Fortress is 34 more rooms, bringing the very first dungeon crawl to 97 chambers that the PCs must explore and clear. M1 is where the crawl starts, as the PCs come down the elevator. M2 has the lever that raises the elevator and there is a secret door between M1 and M2 that the PCs must fine.

The first encounter in this dungeon is a Stone Spike, a CR 2 medium elemental with the Earth subtype. There's nothing really interesting about it, except for the fact that these things like dwarves, and it only doesn't attack if the PCs are accompanied by one or both of the hobgoblins that were guarding the elevator up top. Fighting this thing also drags the Major-domo in one round later.

The major-domo is an otyugh that was polymorphed into an ogre by a PAO trap who is loving his new form. I don't know why this guy is a threat, as he has no proficiency with his weapon, and an ogre is vastly less dangerous than an otyugh.

What follows is several rooms of hobgoblin encounters, occasionally with additions (a mass of chains/medium animated object, giant fire beetles, a mimic that autoattacks, some hammerer automatons, two lemures, and some traps).

There are two opportunities to rescue some slaves; M21, the Torture Chamber, and M27, the Forge.

In M21, there is a fire beetle, 2 hobgoblins, a hobgoblin warrior 2, and a female human rogue 1/sorcerer 2, described as an "attractive middle-aged woman named Coryston Pike", who is an ex-adventurer. Also, there's some descriptive text about these guys being "EVUL" as most of the bones in the cages were "placed here to add to the dècor". Saving Coryston Pike is worth 150XP for returning her to Cauldron alive, half that if her body is returned for burial. Getting her out is kind of difficult, as she only has 5hp from torture by the time the PCs arrive.

In M27, a dwarf commoner (Sondor Ironfold, one of a husband/wife pair that were kidnapped), a halfling commoner (Jeneer Everdawn), and a halfling rogue (Maple) are being forced to (badly) work the forges. There are 4 hobgoblins and 3 goblins in here to kill, and if the hobgoblins die the goblins surrender and if pressed into service by the PCs they are untrustworthy and turn on the PCs to save their skins. Because of course they do. Each saved person rewards 100 XP if returned to Cauldron alive, half that for each corpse.

The ultimate goal is M36, in which Kazmojen has three of the children chained to slave posts - Deakon Stormshield (the 20 year old dwarf), Evelyn Radavec, and Lucinda Aldreen. Terrem Kharatys, the important one, is being held by the shackles to be inspected.

The fight here is with Kazmojen, a half-troll/half-dwarf Fighter 3, Prickles, a jvenile howler, Pyllrak Shyraat, a durzagon, and two hobgoblins. They interrupt Kazmojoen trying to negotiate with Pyllrak for a price for Terrem. I mean, there's a peaceful kind of chance, because the PCs are welcome to bid on Terrem who Kazmojen is trying to sell for 30gp (the other children rate 50gp apiece and are already sold).

Rescuing all four children doesn't necessarily have to be a fight, it says; you can purchase them. Pyllrak will sell them for 450gp that the PCs pay, but a DC 15 Diplomacy check will make him drop his price (no lower than what he paid, 150gp), and Kazmojen can sell Terrem for 100gp (50 with a diplomacy check).

If a fight breaks out, Pyllrak turns invisible and when Prickles or Kazmojen dies, he runs away and flees into the Underdark. Additionally, if the PCs haven't killed all the other hobgoblins, Prickles' howling is heard by all of them except Xukasus and they converge on the auction chamber.

All told, Malachite Fortress isn't... terrible, aside from being a long dungeon slog on the end of a second long dungeon slog, but the chance to just buy the children is one that doesn't crop up very much. I'll call this one a pass.

Once the PCs are leaving with the children, however, Vhalantru shows up. His level 13 Transmuter greater invisibilities up, Vhalantru assumes his true form, and the Transmuter teleports them both directly to Terrem's side.

This is where things turn on the railroading bullshit. Vhalantru wants to take Terrem back to Cauldron, but what PC is going to turn over their quest objective to a goddamned beholder? He doesn't talk except to tell them to turn Terrem over. He offers them 50 platinum pieces, but... ugh. If the PCs try to fight, he disables them with charm person, fear and sleep rays, and the wizard similarly goes for non-lethal maneuvers.

All this just so Terrem can be mysteriously returned to the Orphanage without the PCs. Just... augh. Why did this even need to be here? They could have shown up invisibly, seen that the PCs were handling it, and shadowed them a little to make sure they get home safely. There didn't need to be a giant penis-waving encounter with the fuck-off Beholder, nor a level 13 Wizard, and especially not both at once.

And the chapter ends once the PCs return the children and/or other slaves. The Church of St. Cuthbert pays them the 2,500gp (total) and Jenya puts in a word with the office of the Lord Mayor to get them an audience. Any dead children reduce the gp reward by 500gp each. And that is the final word on Chapter One, Life's Bazaar.

It is ... a serviceable opening to an adventure path. Kind of. Two long intensely long dungeon slogs is not what first-level characters are equipped for. The Vanishing is a giant pot of what-the-fuck because the PCs shouldn't be able to figure out how to cure it when again, an ENTIRE VILLAGE OF WIZARDS AND TINKERERS couldn't figure it out. It's also a stupid, stupid way to deny magical treasure to the PCs. The appearance and confrontation with Vhalantru didn't need to happen at fucking all, especially when we've already established a precedent of being shadowed with the Striders. Hell, they could have just invis'd up, touched Terrem, and teleported away without announcing themselves to the PCs whatsoever. There are a thousand ways they could have handled this better than a fuck-off pair of NPCs that result in an EL18 encounter that immediately removes any sense of agency or feeling of worth that surviving and rescuing the children might have imparted to the PCs - and might even raise the question of "Why the fuck did we need to come anyways?"

It's the dumbest fucking thing that smacks of AD&D MCs just fucking with the players, and even in 2003 it didn't need to be there.

In addition, given the way that it talks about Vhalantru in the character creation section, and the fact that he was getting a slice of profits from the slave trade, him showing up should take about four rounds: one Disintegrate eyebeam per party member, for fucking with his arrangements and disrupting Kazmojen's slave trade. There's no internal consistency here at. Fucking. All.

I'll leave you with a picture of Terrem, who is important enough to get some artwork done of him.


Oh yeah, he looks like he'll become a productive member of society.

I literally do not understand why people keep inserting dick waving NPCs into their adventures.

I made the mistake of trying to play Pathfinder Society about a year back. The brand new adventure had a 12th level wizard give the PCs an assignment (check out this flooded library) when he could have resolved the problem in 5 seconds.

For bonus stupid shit points, the antagonist disguises himself as said 12th level wizard...and if you attack said 12th level fuck you wizard normally, the DM is supposed to take your character sheet and ban you from PFS.

I don't see any such language about banning, but why would your character attack a superior? (Not that this is relevant to the topic at hand, come to think of it.) The big sin in my view is that the rules don't allow the imitation, at least as the NPC is written.

I think the interesting thing about Jzadirune is that the PCs don't actually have to clear every room. I had a party go Seal Team 6 and follow the exact route to reach the elevator in about 20-30 minutes of game play, simply by following the skulk's tunnels and finding the secret door.

I think the GM-penis evaluation is valid, but I also see it as the big bad not taking any chances in losing his vital component (the kid) due to accidents on the way out. I will definitely remember to allow for negotiation as bodyguards for the kid and returning him to the orphanage on pain of disintegration. The thing I always liked was showing the party there was a powerful villain in play, to cast a shadow on the campaign for them to deal with later. Maybe this isn't a great idea like I first thought, but all of my players have enjoyed the shock of it.