silverhair2048
First Post
Not even 24 hours in and they are a third of their way toward the goal.
Pathfinder 1E Richard Pett's The Blight Kickstarter
- Thread starter mach1.9pants
- Start date
This would be the key component. Having read the introductory "book" of the Blight, there would be some very subtle conversion issues to deal with, and it's a long book. Once we get a sense for the 5e participation in the Borderland Provinces Kickstarter, it will provide much more meaningful information than we have right now. I'm pretty sure that the conversion itself would be a fairly monumental task, and we're already preparing the Bard's Gate book for 5e. We're definitely part of the 5e surge, it's just that this particular book isn't -- at least currently -- planned to be part of the overall advance. That could change, but by saying that we are absolutely NOT teasing a plan that's in place. The current plan is that the 5e campaign resources would go from Borderland Provinces to Bard's Gate. Adding a 5e version of Blight would be a massive and unanticipated additional project. Lots of 5e interest would need to crop up, and I mean LOTS, since it would mean putting something additional into the middle of a schedule.
I'm not trying to be a downer, because it is truly a possibility, but I don't want people to take away the idea that this is an actual plan we're offering as a teaser. At present, it's not the plan. A 5e version would represent a change of plan.
mach1.9pants
Hero
[D][/D]Thanks for your reply, and makes sense to me. A nine hundred page book would be a devil to convert. But if we have such a surge maybe it can be squeezed in 
Cross posted your post to 5E
Cross posted your post to 5E
It appears I may have been totally wrong about this, a matter of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing within the company. More information will probably come out shortly about the method by which we're contemplating a 5e version. Apologies for misinformation.
Matt wasn't misinforming; he just wasn't up on the latest info. We've been listening to the cries of the masses--crushed and beaten beneath the tyranny of The Blight's so-called "beloved" monarch--and we have heard you. Just announced: We are adding a 5e version of the pdf to the KS. For now it's just the pdf. Adding a print version of 5e to the KS adds considerably to our production cost, so we've got to make sure we make our funding goal for the physical versions we've committed to. However, once we've funded we'll be looking at a stretch goal to encompass the cost of a 5e printing. Get the details here!
Greg
Greg
mach1.9pants
Hero
.... 'Cos no one else will!
mach1.9pants
Hero
Quoth Pett (interesting stuff about writting an AP:
'Blimmey that was hard.’
Writing a whole adventure path is tricky – very, very tricky - and those who do it all the time, James and Rob and all the lovely Paizo crew, deserve some sort of medal.
So why did I decide to write the Levee Adventure Path as part of the Blight city guide? Was I ill, mad or just masochistic? Probably. More importantly, how was it going to hold its own in such fine company and why would people support it? The end result is very pleasing, but there’ve been some tricky and dark moments on the way to completing Levee, the companion-piece to the Blight city guide and which forms part of the kickstarter book. I hope you don’t mind me sharing a few thoughts on this adventuring beast as she seems to have slithered beneath the oozing bulk of her kin the Blight city guide and been hidden.
First up, the Blight is at the dark and sweaty and gritty end of role-playing; friend or foe is never easy to determine, although being righteous amongst all the sin is something to really be proud of. There are lots of fantastic settings on the market, but to me, great though those settings are, they only really come to life when you walk the streets – when you and your friends take in the air, mingle with the locals and soak yourselves in the atmosphere of the place imagination has birthed. In short, when they have adventures.
For the Blight to truly come to life, she needed to be explored without bounds. So the Blight’s crooked sister Levee was conceived...
Levee is a 9 part AP taking PCs from 1st on to 10th level, where they’ll be attracting the attention of some – if not several – of the Blight’s more formidably unpleasant characters. This doesn’t mean that the AP is a short one, however, it runs to over 300,000 words – in fact as a draft there’s more AP than setting. When I started Levee with Chapter One – Hereafter – I decided that I’d like to keep the whole setting lower level, so the whole AP uses the slow advancement track. There are several reasons for this – first off the setting is low level – it’s almost impossible to get to high level without getting noticed and upsetting someone – or several someones. The second and more important is that lower level is more dangerous, death is a constant potential companion without cure, and to me dangerous is good. To give you a taster, to set out the claustrophobic angle I wanted in the third adventure – Sea’s End – set aboard a demented whaling vessel and her equally disturbing crew, it’s important that escapes are limited, if not impossible, from the vessel the adventure is largely set on.
The players must rely on their wits as much as their talents to survive.
Levee is an urban horror AP with plenty of twists and turns, and quite a number of moments where I hope you’ll all go ‘what?’ and doubt my sanity as much as I do.
I also love really well developed NPCs, and Levee is brimming with them, from the early foreshadowing of the BBEG (villain? – perhaps, perhaps not…) to the climax, which brings together all the threads and major NPCs of the AP into a final, potentially very twisted, ending. To give you a sample of that, Chapter 6 – the Susurrus Theatre - is very role-play driven, it needs to be as a foretaste to the carnage and fear of the next adventure in the series - My Benefactor. In this adventure, the PCs wander the Dark Theatre districts of the Artist’s Quarter, and come close (perhaps intimately and uncomfortably close) to some of her strange locals. This interaction is more relationship than just communication, so that as the AP comes to its climax in Utopia, the friends and enemies you’ve made are happy to put their lives on the line for you – or against you.
A good adventure, as James is always happy to point out, needs great monsters, and there are some new and horrible ones to interact with, particularly those birthed in Between, the crooked shadow that lurches alongside the city. A good adventure needs plenty of dice rolling as well as role-play, and there are many moments where a slaughter-without-dialogue approach is the best way; sometimes talking too much might just get you all into a heap more trouble.
So what is Levee? It’s the Twilight Zone meets Hammer Horror, it’s gothic meets Eraserhead, Alice and Frankenstein, Barker and Doyle - it lurches from one district in the city to the next, and sometimes back again. By the time you reach the climax (if you do) the Blight will be home, but by then you’ll have seen her swollen underbelly, her crooked corners, her selfish days and her inbred nights, in gruesome intimacy. Perhaps by then you may have grown to love her - or hate her.
And just to be clear again as Greg has mentioned, I’ve no intention of leaving her; if she does well and there is demand, there will be more and more adventures in the Blight. I love to walk her streets by night when the noise is clearer.
As we begin to drift in the Sargasso of our Kicktstarter – after an awesome first week, thank you - we need all the help of our friends on the esteemed Paizo boards, where I’ve had the privilege of slithering and hobbling for a long, long time now. Please do come along and check out the website for updates, whiz a question or five over these boards and I’ll be happy to help, but do support us if you can – it won’t happen without you.
Rich
'Blimmey that was hard.’
Writing a whole adventure path is tricky – very, very tricky - and those who do it all the time, James and Rob and all the lovely Paizo crew, deserve some sort of medal.
So why did I decide to write the Levee Adventure Path as part of the Blight city guide? Was I ill, mad or just masochistic? Probably. More importantly, how was it going to hold its own in such fine company and why would people support it? The end result is very pleasing, but there’ve been some tricky and dark moments on the way to completing Levee, the companion-piece to the Blight city guide and which forms part of the kickstarter book. I hope you don’t mind me sharing a few thoughts on this adventuring beast as she seems to have slithered beneath the oozing bulk of her kin the Blight city guide and been hidden.
First up, the Blight is at the dark and sweaty and gritty end of role-playing; friend or foe is never easy to determine, although being righteous amongst all the sin is something to really be proud of. There are lots of fantastic settings on the market, but to me, great though those settings are, they only really come to life when you walk the streets – when you and your friends take in the air, mingle with the locals and soak yourselves in the atmosphere of the place imagination has birthed. In short, when they have adventures.
For the Blight to truly come to life, she needed to be explored without bounds. So the Blight’s crooked sister Levee was conceived...
Levee is a 9 part AP taking PCs from 1st on to 10th level, where they’ll be attracting the attention of some – if not several – of the Blight’s more formidably unpleasant characters. This doesn’t mean that the AP is a short one, however, it runs to over 300,000 words – in fact as a draft there’s more AP than setting. When I started Levee with Chapter One – Hereafter – I decided that I’d like to keep the whole setting lower level, so the whole AP uses the slow advancement track. There are several reasons for this – first off the setting is low level – it’s almost impossible to get to high level without getting noticed and upsetting someone – or several someones. The second and more important is that lower level is more dangerous, death is a constant potential companion without cure, and to me dangerous is good. To give you a taster, to set out the claustrophobic angle I wanted in the third adventure – Sea’s End – set aboard a demented whaling vessel and her equally disturbing crew, it’s important that escapes are limited, if not impossible, from the vessel the adventure is largely set on.
The players must rely on their wits as much as their talents to survive.
Levee is an urban horror AP with plenty of twists and turns, and quite a number of moments where I hope you’ll all go ‘what?’ and doubt my sanity as much as I do.
I also love really well developed NPCs, and Levee is brimming with them, from the early foreshadowing of the BBEG (villain? – perhaps, perhaps not…) to the climax, which brings together all the threads and major NPCs of the AP into a final, potentially very twisted, ending. To give you a sample of that, Chapter 6 – the Susurrus Theatre - is very role-play driven, it needs to be as a foretaste to the carnage and fear of the next adventure in the series - My Benefactor. In this adventure, the PCs wander the Dark Theatre districts of the Artist’s Quarter, and come close (perhaps intimately and uncomfortably close) to some of her strange locals. This interaction is more relationship than just communication, so that as the AP comes to its climax in Utopia, the friends and enemies you’ve made are happy to put their lives on the line for you – or against you.
A good adventure, as James is always happy to point out, needs great monsters, and there are some new and horrible ones to interact with, particularly those birthed in Between, the crooked shadow that lurches alongside the city. A good adventure needs plenty of dice rolling as well as role-play, and there are many moments where a slaughter-without-dialogue approach is the best way; sometimes talking too much might just get you all into a heap more trouble.
So what is Levee? It’s the Twilight Zone meets Hammer Horror, it’s gothic meets Eraserhead, Alice and Frankenstein, Barker and Doyle - it lurches from one district in the city to the next, and sometimes back again. By the time you reach the climax (if you do) the Blight will be home, but by then you’ll have seen her swollen underbelly, her crooked corners, her selfish days and her inbred nights, in gruesome intimacy. Perhaps by then you may have grown to love her - or hate her.
And just to be clear again as Greg has mentioned, I’ve no intention of leaving her; if she does well and there is demand, there will be more and more adventures in the Blight. I love to walk her streets by night when the noise is clearer.
As we begin to drift in the Sargasso of our Kicktstarter – after an awesome first week, thank you - we need all the help of our friends on the esteemed Paizo boards, where I’ve had the privilege of slithering and hobbling for a long, long time now. Please do come along and check out the website for updates, whiz a question or five over these boards and I’ll be happy to help, but do support us if you can – it won’t happen without you.
Rich
Sample Gazetteer Extract – The Hollow and Broken Hills
SPOILER ALERT. To give purchasers a chance to see the bulk of the city guide, here is a very short extract from one district, the Hollow and Broken Hills—the Blight’s main religious district. As it contains potential spoilers for the guide (but NOT the Levee AP) please do not read the extract if you intend to play in the city itself, although, to be truthful, the sample below is a tiny fragment for a vast whole…
HBH6 The Church of Saint Almonia
An island that is a single construction; a vast cathedral swallows this stack of stone that lurches from the edges of the sea, a similarly bloated town beyond smothering a wider stack. The town appears to be on the edge of ruin; its flanks are smothered in the uncertain embrace of a forest of scaffolding.
A huge swaying rope bridge links the island to the crowded mainland.
Also known as the Beacon, this church is the oldest in the district, and closer inspection reveals that it is in a state of collapse. One whole wing of the church fell into the sea only five years ago, and an almost daily cascade falls from one part of it. Within, the church is a curiously lop-sided thing; its wings and walls and buttresses have slipped, giving the whole place an askew angle of Between. Some say that it is the hateful presence of the Borxias (Area#HBH24) that has laid a curse upon the place and caused its demise.
Worship here is certainly a matter of faith; aisles are riven with shafts that plummet into the dark sea, transepts cling to the edges of breaking cliffs and distended naves grip on for dear life. The Sacred Brotherhood of Saint Almonia are charged with the upkeep of the church. The monks, devout worshippers of Mother Grace, are an arm of his Holinesses’ fighting wing, and are warriors without fear. Sometimes called the monks in iron skins, the brotherhood spend almost all their time now constructing and repairing, and have fallen into sin, brought on by their neighbours the Borxias. Outwardly, the monks and church are devout; their devotion to their collapsing home an article of faith and admiration, but below, after dark, sinning is embraced. A Cathedral of the Great Coven, the elemental bowels of the church are opened up to depraved orgies, summonation and sacrifice.
The present master, High Priest his most Sacred Devotion Earl of the Isle Hassop Brome (LE male human cleric of Mother Grace 7/diabolist 4) bastard child of Ambrogio Borxia (see Area#HBH24) is considered one of the most holy people of the city, and yet festers within the Great Coven; this church one of its strongholds. Part fortress, part living hellish thing, the lower reaches of the church house a devil-bloated awakened sailing vessel the Retribution, and a foul library containing infamous texts, unheard of spells that enslave and punish, and devil-bound creatures.
HBH7 Saint Lether’s Chapel
A gigantic natural arch clefts this island, which like others is carved into a towering cathedral. Ships pass below the archway, ringing their bells.
The mariner’s fortune, Saint Lether—patron saint of calm seas—has his chapel here. The vast rambling building is only manned by a skeleton staff now, led by Bishop Thresh (NG cleric of Brine 6). Ships that are able pass through the archway to receive blessings for their voyage and—so far—not a single vessel that has passed below the arch has been lost at sea.
Thresh is a curiously bookish character; fascinated by demonology and devil-worship, but purely from a confrontational viewpoint. Those invited across the rickety rope bridge that links to the mainland find a place oddly crammed with arcanum and grimoires. Thresh frequently tries to draw devils and demons into the building to question them, and has—through a number of secrets—been able to enslave a handful of demons to act as assistants in his research.
HBH8 The Tower of Heaven
A vast, almost mockingly tall structure slowly rises from this isle into the looming sky above. It is a supplication to the glory of Heaven, a growing tower that rises towards the sky above and pierces it.
Justice Weld Shortstone I – Master of Structures (NG male gnome fighter4/illusionist 5) is presently overseeing the construction of this holy building, a place seen by his Holiness in dreams as a stair to get closer to Heaven. An army of arcane engineers are working on the structure through calamity and disappointment. The whole structure collapsed during a storm six years ago and the story whispered about the city is that the place is doomed, but that his Holiness will not give up his vision for fear of injuring his reputation. So Shortstone toils, and uses his lofty vantage and location to feed information back to his true sponsor, Princess Rebecca of Mourney, who has several agents across the city state within the city-state but regards Shortstone as one of her most loyal. To keep his tenuous position, Shortstone ensures that rumours of his cruelty and vengefulness reach the right ears, despite his honesty, and his true cruelty when dealing with evil and wickedness is cold.
Convicts work on the fractious outer scaffolds of the place, which currently stands at almost nine-hundred feet. That Shorstone treats those in his care relatively well may be his undoing; his nature has been noted by many, and word and lies are spreading about his instability and the fact that he is deliberately failing to weaken his Holiness. The convicts work high on the structure and as they rise, a small township rises with them.
Within the convicts, a small group of briny, agents of the Madness of the Mirrorstorm, are implanting glyph-carcasses within the structure at arcane points; aiming to use the completed structure as a beacon to draw in a whirlwind storm-land plagued by kraken into the world.
HBH9 The Palace of the Holy
Here truly is a garden of paradise, an isle infested with statues and flowers and twisted ancient trees.
His Holiness’ sanctuary within the city-state, the Palace is a series of gardens and chambers linked across fabulous grounds. That his holiness does not invite visitors here—nor have any of his predecessors—has of course led to rife speculation about what is here. Wilder stories suggest that within the palace is a book which outlines all events in history—including those yet to come until the world is destroyed by fire. Some have conjectured that the devil himself is imprisoned in the bowels of the palace and merely seeing him would be enough to drive any lesser mortal mad.
A singular watch guard the palace—the Sanctum Paladinhood. These holy warriors are led by Sanctum Paladin Lord Grace (NE male human fighter5/aristocrat3/necromancer 4) who has spent the last years trying to gain access to and locate the secret chambers below. He is aware that somewhere below lurks a cyst within which are objects of incredible value and power, yet his cunning has not even come close to finding them. His followers, who number two score of fighter/wizards (all around level 8 in total).
There are indeed secrets within the palace, hidden behind countless secret doors and corridors is a holy treasury for the darkest and most powerfully wicked knowledge, including at its dark heart a copy of the Book of the Damned and the Song of Extinction (Pathfinder Campaign Setting—Artefacts and Legends). Within the secret horde are several minor artefacts and objects taken from Between.
HBH10 The Penance
The screams echo far from this tor which thrusts from the dark sea. This is a prison—of that there is no doubt. A thousand barred windows stare helplessly from the dark granite, whilst two fortresses bear sturdy iron bridges away from the place.
Welcome to the holy prison—god’s help you is the welcome prisoners receive when they are thrown into this open hell-hole. Those who are brought here are thrown into the township that blights the tor it is swallowed by; a lawless endless misery from which there is no escape. Some say that occasionally a doorway opens into the Furnace, and so desperate are the interred that they walk openly into that hell to escape this one. Grand Warden Briar (LE tormentor devil evoker 7) (Tome of Horrors Complete 201) rarely bothers to wear his human skin these days—unless his Holiness sends an emissary to question one of his brethren, that is. Briar is the consummate psychotic, and his questioning techniques are much prized by the more powerful and better contacted villains across the city; it is said that Briar can make anyone or anything talk, and talk long and loud and truthfully. To assist him, he engages a small cabal of amaimons (Tome of Horrors Complete 194) and a harem of sublimely vicious lilins (Tome of Horrors Complete 199) whose dark arts of drugging and poisoning have their roots in Little Chi’en’s apothecaries.
Two thousand is the average population of the Penance, but it changes daily; sometimes it swells after a purge, at other times sickness sweeps the place and its population falls to a few hundred. The prisoners are not fed or watered, and rely upon gifts from desperate relatives, or occasional slops from his Holiness. Tourists are actively encouraged, and various guides lead parties of curious or voyeuristic nobles, many of whom bring food to toss to the prisoners for amusement. A desperate disorder has blossomed into some sense within the place, and the current overlord of the prisoners, the terrible Mister Shingle (N male human rogue 7/commoner 3) rules the roost with the help of hand-picked thugs. Shingle lives a life totally detached from the prisoners, has his own tower and private chambers, and listens to songbirds singing whilst eating in luxury. Shingle is the Guild’s man on the inside, and is completely open and known to Briar, who accepts bribes from the Guild in exchange for turning the other cheek and allowing Shingle to question and investigate the prisoners at his leisure. Quite often certain facets of the Guild find a visit to the Penance very useful in loosening tongues.
THE PENANCE
N small town
Corruption +4; Crime +5; Economy -3; Law -7; Lore+0; Society -4
Qualities Notorious, Tourist Attraction
Disadvantage Anarchy (leader accepted but disinterested)
Danger 40
Government Autocracy
Population 2000 (1900 human, 50 gnomes, 50 others)
Notable NPCs
Mister Shingle (N male human rogue 7/commoner 3)
Pastor Heddlin, holy man of the Penance (NE male human rogue4/cleric of Brine 1)
Mistress Saddle, Queen of the Penance Whores (N female human urban ranger 2/rogue 3)
Base Value 1,200gp; Purchase Limit 7,5000gp; Spellcasting 3rd
Minor Items 3d4; Medium Item divine scroll of dictum, iron bands of binding, medallion of thoughts, +2 wounding scourge, wand of legend lore
SPOILER ALERT. To give purchasers a chance to see the bulk of the city guide, here is a very short extract from one district, the Hollow and Broken Hills—the Blight’s main religious district. As it contains potential spoilers for the guide (but NOT the Levee AP) please do not read the extract if you intend to play in the city itself, although, to be truthful, the sample below is a tiny fragment for a vast whole…
HBH6 The Church of Saint Almonia
An island that is a single construction; a vast cathedral swallows this stack of stone that lurches from the edges of the sea, a similarly bloated town beyond smothering a wider stack. The town appears to be on the edge of ruin; its flanks are smothered in the uncertain embrace of a forest of scaffolding.
A huge swaying rope bridge links the island to the crowded mainland.
Also known as the Beacon, this church is the oldest in the district, and closer inspection reveals that it is in a state of collapse. One whole wing of the church fell into the sea only five years ago, and an almost daily cascade falls from one part of it. Within, the church is a curiously lop-sided thing; its wings and walls and buttresses have slipped, giving the whole place an askew angle of Between. Some say that it is the hateful presence of the Borxias (Area#HBH24) that has laid a curse upon the place and caused its demise.
Worship here is certainly a matter of faith; aisles are riven with shafts that plummet into the dark sea, transepts cling to the edges of breaking cliffs and distended naves grip on for dear life. The Sacred Brotherhood of Saint Almonia are charged with the upkeep of the church. The monks, devout worshippers of Mother Grace, are an arm of his Holinesses’ fighting wing, and are warriors without fear. Sometimes called the monks in iron skins, the brotherhood spend almost all their time now constructing and repairing, and have fallen into sin, brought on by their neighbours the Borxias. Outwardly, the monks and church are devout; their devotion to their collapsing home an article of faith and admiration, but below, after dark, sinning is embraced. A Cathedral of the Great Coven, the elemental bowels of the church are opened up to depraved orgies, summonation and sacrifice.
The present master, High Priest his most Sacred Devotion Earl of the Isle Hassop Brome (LE male human cleric of Mother Grace 7/diabolist 4) bastard child of Ambrogio Borxia (see Area#HBH24) is considered one of the most holy people of the city, and yet festers within the Great Coven; this church one of its strongholds. Part fortress, part living hellish thing, the lower reaches of the church house a devil-bloated awakened sailing vessel the Retribution, and a foul library containing infamous texts, unheard of spells that enslave and punish, and devil-bound creatures.
HBH7 Saint Lether’s Chapel
A gigantic natural arch clefts this island, which like others is carved into a towering cathedral. Ships pass below the archway, ringing their bells.
The mariner’s fortune, Saint Lether—patron saint of calm seas—has his chapel here. The vast rambling building is only manned by a skeleton staff now, led by Bishop Thresh (NG cleric of Brine 6). Ships that are able pass through the archway to receive blessings for their voyage and—so far—not a single vessel that has passed below the arch has been lost at sea.
Thresh is a curiously bookish character; fascinated by demonology and devil-worship, but purely from a confrontational viewpoint. Those invited across the rickety rope bridge that links to the mainland find a place oddly crammed with arcanum and grimoires. Thresh frequently tries to draw devils and demons into the building to question them, and has—through a number of secrets—been able to enslave a handful of demons to act as assistants in his research.
HBH8 The Tower of Heaven
A vast, almost mockingly tall structure slowly rises from this isle into the looming sky above. It is a supplication to the glory of Heaven, a growing tower that rises towards the sky above and pierces it.
Justice Weld Shortstone I – Master of Structures (NG male gnome fighter4/illusionist 5) is presently overseeing the construction of this holy building, a place seen by his Holiness in dreams as a stair to get closer to Heaven. An army of arcane engineers are working on the structure through calamity and disappointment. The whole structure collapsed during a storm six years ago and the story whispered about the city is that the place is doomed, but that his Holiness will not give up his vision for fear of injuring his reputation. So Shortstone toils, and uses his lofty vantage and location to feed information back to his true sponsor, Princess Rebecca of Mourney, who has several agents across the city state within the city-state but regards Shortstone as one of her most loyal. To keep his tenuous position, Shortstone ensures that rumours of his cruelty and vengefulness reach the right ears, despite his honesty, and his true cruelty when dealing with evil and wickedness is cold.
Convicts work on the fractious outer scaffolds of the place, which currently stands at almost nine-hundred feet. That Shorstone treats those in his care relatively well may be his undoing; his nature has been noted by many, and word and lies are spreading about his instability and the fact that he is deliberately failing to weaken his Holiness. The convicts work high on the structure and as they rise, a small township rises with them.
Within the convicts, a small group of briny, agents of the Madness of the Mirrorstorm, are implanting glyph-carcasses within the structure at arcane points; aiming to use the completed structure as a beacon to draw in a whirlwind storm-land plagued by kraken into the world.
HBH9 The Palace of the Holy
Here truly is a garden of paradise, an isle infested with statues and flowers and twisted ancient trees.
His Holiness’ sanctuary within the city-state, the Palace is a series of gardens and chambers linked across fabulous grounds. That his holiness does not invite visitors here—nor have any of his predecessors—has of course led to rife speculation about what is here. Wilder stories suggest that within the palace is a book which outlines all events in history—including those yet to come until the world is destroyed by fire. Some have conjectured that the devil himself is imprisoned in the bowels of the palace and merely seeing him would be enough to drive any lesser mortal mad.
A singular watch guard the palace—the Sanctum Paladinhood. These holy warriors are led by Sanctum Paladin Lord Grace (NE male human fighter5/aristocrat3/necromancer 4) who has spent the last years trying to gain access to and locate the secret chambers below. He is aware that somewhere below lurks a cyst within which are objects of incredible value and power, yet his cunning has not even come close to finding them. His followers, who number two score of fighter/wizards (all around level 8 in total).
There are indeed secrets within the palace, hidden behind countless secret doors and corridors is a holy treasury for the darkest and most powerfully wicked knowledge, including at its dark heart a copy of the Book of the Damned and the Song of Extinction (Pathfinder Campaign Setting—Artefacts and Legends). Within the secret horde are several minor artefacts and objects taken from Between.
HBH10 The Penance
The screams echo far from this tor which thrusts from the dark sea. This is a prison—of that there is no doubt. A thousand barred windows stare helplessly from the dark granite, whilst two fortresses bear sturdy iron bridges away from the place.
Welcome to the holy prison—god’s help you is the welcome prisoners receive when they are thrown into this open hell-hole. Those who are brought here are thrown into the township that blights the tor it is swallowed by; a lawless endless misery from which there is no escape. Some say that occasionally a doorway opens into the Furnace, and so desperate are the interred that they walk openly into that hell to escape this one. Grand Warden Briar (LE tormentor devil evoker 7) (Tome of Horrors Complete 201) rarely bothers to wear his human skin these days—unless his Holiness sends an emissary to question one of his brethren, that is. Briar is the consummate psychotic, and his questioning techniques are much prized by the more powerful and better contacted villains across the city; it is said that Briar can make anyone or anything talk, and talk long and loud and truthfully. To assist him, he engages a small cabal of amaimons (Tome of Horrors Complete 194) and a harem of sublimely vicious lilins (Tome of Horrors Complete 199) whose dark arts of drugging and poisoning have their roots in Little Chi’en’s apothecaries.
Two thousand is the average population of the Penance, but it changes daily; sometimes it swells after a purge, at other times sickness sweeps the place and its population falls to a few hundred. The prisoners are not fed or watered, and rely upon gifts from desperate relatives, or occasional slops from his Holiness. Tourists are actively encouraged, and various guides lead parties of curious or voyeuristic nobles, many of whom bring food to toss to the prisoners for amusement. A desperate disorder has blossomed into some sense within the place, and the current overlord of the prisoners, the terrible Mister Shingle (N male human rogue 7/commoner 3) rules the roost with the help of hand-picked thugs. Shingle lives a life totally detached from the prisoners, has his own tower and private chambers, and listens to songbirds singing whilst eating in luxury. Shingle is the Guild’s man on the inside, and is completely open and known to Briar, who accepts bribes from the Guild in exchange for turning the other cheek and allowing Shingle to question and investigate the prisoners at his leisure. Quite often certain facets of the Guild find a visit to the Penance very useful in loosening tongues.
THE PENANCE
N small town
Corruption +4; Crime +5; Economy -3; Law -7; Lore+0; Society -4
Qualities Notorious, Tourist Attraction
Disadvantage Anarchy (leader accepted but disinterested)
Danger 40
Government Autocracy
Population 2000 (1900 human, 50 gnomes, 50 others)
Notable NPCs
Mister Shingle (N male human rogue 7/commoner 3)
Pastor Heddlin, holy man of the Penance (NE male human rogue4/cleric of Brine 1)
Mistress Saddle, Queen of the Penance Whores (N female human urban ranger 2/rogue 3)
Base Value 1,200gp; Purchase Limit 7,5000gp; Spellcasting 3rd
Minor Items 3d4; Medium Item divine scroll of dictum, iron bands of binding, medallion of thoughts, +2 wounding scourge, wand of legend lore
silverhair2048
First Post
Update 8 has an interesting interview of the FGG crew by Undead Viking. catch it if you can.
AD6_gamerati_skyscraper
Recent & Upcoming Releases
-
April 16 2024 -
May 31 2024 -
June 3 2024 -
June 4 2024 -
June 18 2024 -
July 16 2024 -
September 17 2024 -
October 1 2024 -
November 12 2024 -
February 18 2025
