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[Let's Read] Historica Arcanum: The City of Crescent
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<blockquote data-quote="Libertad" data-source="post: 8972729" data-attributes="member: 6750502"><p style="text-align: center"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/4QGbKs0.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p><p></p><p>The PCs hit level 4 at the start of the Second Act, and while they have several means of entering the Undercity the most convenient route is Mosolite Nazif’s now-abandoned shop. The cats of the Council of the Ninth Life will attempt to stealthily follow the PCs, and their leader Sheraf will reveal himself as the route’s new guardian. He will grant the party passage, provided they do some odd jobs for his syndicate once they leave the Undercity.</p><p></p><p>The PCs can find Kore and Mervhan easily enough, and the party can either speak with them or find out through other means that they gave the journal to the Ghost himself and it’s in his headquarters. The Sekbans are unable to crack the code and thus the journal has no more value to them. The Ghost will part with it if the PCs can do the Undercity community some favors to prove their good intent. We have three short adventures they can take: find a cure to a tiefling child’s unique magical illness that involves a Realitymender and some herbs; sniff out a turncoat among the Janissaries to improve relations between them and the Sekbans; and retrieve a magic sword belonging to Yakup, Ahra’s father, which was thrown into the ruins of an old undead-haunted manor after Alemdar’s sacrificial explosion. All of these missions have some degree of risk or further character development; a Realitymender can be hired in the city but is being monitored by a Certain Community, the renegade Janissary is a Sekban in disguise whose wife was killed for being a magic-user and doesn’t want his organization to ally with her killers; and the manor contains the ghost of Ahra’s father who can be communicated with by the party.</p><p></p><p><strong>Missions For the Palace:</strong> At a time narratively convenient, the PCs and Osman will receive an official invitation to a banquet in Topkapı Palace. Beyond the stress that comes with such a high-profile meeting, Osman suspects that the banquet has an ulterior motive. He is correct: Kavalan Pasha, the current ruler of Egypt, recently raised an army to declare independence from the Ottoman Empire and is making an alliance with Russia, an archrival to the Ottomans. He is visiting Istanbul to engage in discourse about the terms of surrender, although nobody expects him to just give up that easily. Although the PCs are free to refuse, this will greatly lower their standing in Mejid’s eyes.</p><p></p><p><strong>The Lies We Told:</strong> Pretty much every Empire of note used private troubleshooters/mercenaries to do their dirty work during certain times, but the people of such occupations are far beneath an Ottoman Sultan’s notice. In real life, mercenaries would’ve met with lower-ranking government officials for business matters, and Mejid would’ve never had to learn their names, much less meet them personally.</p><p></p><p>While visiting the Palace, the PCs can run into Bergüzar and recognize her as the woman from their dreams on a successful Perception check. She would tell the party to keep this information a secret for the time being, and if a character is so brazen to announce this in front of Mejid they will be arrested and thrown in the dungeons.* During an audience with Mejid, the head of a Certain Community Aziz Sefa** will do much of the talking. He will explain that one Hamitz*** the Quartz, one of Kavalan Pasha’s assassins, is active in Istanbul. He is to be taken in alive so that they can find out what he knows, and the PCs are given a magical scroll made by Bergüzar that can remove the assassin’s memory of the PCs for the upcoming plan to trick Kavalan.</p><p></p><p>*in such a scenario the adventure doesn’t explain ways for the PC to break out/be released. I take it to be a Nonstandard Game Over.</p><p></p><p>**I don’t know why the text has removed the “Bey” title.</p><p></p><p>***the text alters between calling him Hamitz or Hamit, I don’t know which one is right.</p><p></p><p>The PCs can learn about Hamitz’s whereabouts by pressing on contacts and the use of skill checks. He’s staying at the Pearl, and if the PCs convince the owner (auto succeeds if they mention they’re working for the crown) she can make sure no words spread about their intrusion. If captured and interrogated Hamtiz will reveal that his mission is to assassinate Mustafa Pasha, the Ottoman Vizier, to throw the peace talks into disarray.</p><p></p><p>In terms of stats Hamitz is pretty strong: he has 120 hit points, an AC 18 from a magical Vest of the Sphinx that is basically plate armor but no disadvantage on Stealth, a variety of potions on his person he can drink as a bonus action, and is somehow able to carry 14 weapons on him* and can freely mix pistol/crossbow and scimitar attacks with Multiattack. But if the PCs corner him while he’s…well, naked he will surrender.</p><p></p><p>*Aziz mentions that he’s noted for having a seemingly endless arsenal of guns. No he doesn’t have a Bag of Holding or magical talents.</p><p></p><p>If the PCs use the scroll to wipe Hamitz’s memory, they may recognize it’s the same spell afflicting Osman. This is a bit of a red herring, as it may cause the PCs to presume that someone in the Imperial court cast the spell on Osman (Aziz doesn’t say who made the scroll).</p><p></p><p>At various points between the beginning of this Act and Defense of the State, the PCs can take on more <strong>Side Quests.</strong> In fact, at this point in the adventure path they can do just about every quest within their recommended level. Only 2 of them have a Recommended Level of 5, which is the highest number for them all.</p><p></p><p style="text-align: center"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/RupsSlV.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p><p></p><p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DuHk81OLvmM" target="_blank"><strong>Defense of the State:</strong></a> The PCs level up to 5 now. This is a very involved “tower defense” section, and the adventure’s a bit railroady in that it presumes the PCs managed to capture Hamitz alive and erased his memory without a hitch. After reporting their findings back to Aziz Sefa Bey, he lays the next plot in motion: the Vizier will be taken to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yedikule_Fortress" target="_blank">Yedikule Fortress</a> ostensibly for protection but in reality is to…draw Hamitz and his hired goons out as bait and capture him alive.</p><p></p><p>Wait wait wait, the PCs earlier had Hamitz at their mercy in the Pearl! Why the need for this roundabout stuff, which puts the Vizier in danger on top of things? The text does explain they can’t use a body double for the Vizier, and Hamitz isn’t the only one gunning for him, so I don’t understand why Hamitz had to be let go in the first place. The adventure still flows just as well if the PCs manage to learn about Hamitz’s plans but it’s revealed there are other bad guys gunning for the Vizier.</p><p></p><p>Anyway, on with the show. The PCs have 2,500 gold worth of discretionary funds to further secure Yedikule Fortress, from buying and placing traps courtesy of Trap Maker Daniel, hiring mercenaries with larger sums granting more powerful stat blocks, and in a moment of desperation draw desperate people from the Ottoman Empire’s prisons to fight for their freedom. And yes, they have lower morale and will react less than tactically sound in a manner akin to (but not the same) as the Confusion spell at the end of every <em>turn</em> in combat. Not every round.</p><p></p><p>The PCs can also spend gold to make repairs and fortify sections of the fortress, too. All of these options have involved detail, from unique trap stats to even stat blocks for some of the more powerful prisoners. The fortress also has a map with 17 detailed rooms and it’s up to the party where the Vizier is placed.</p><p></p><p>The PCs have a day and a half to prepare for Hamitz’s strike force to arrive. In addition to him he is aided by three other assassins: Seyfeddin a Janissary-turned-mercenary who fights with a magic longsword and has Champion Fighter abilities, Ziya an assassin who killed off lots of Kavalan’s political opposition, can Sneak Attack like a Rogue and thus prefers to fight with a longbow rather than loud guns; and Hamza the barbarian and train robber, who has Barbarian abilities.</p><p></p><p>That’s a lot less than I was expecting, and none of them have supernatural abilities. They do have some pretty high skill modifiers so Hamitz and the assassins can easily outmanever the average mercenary, but they don’t have any antimagic counters to deal with things such as the Alarm spell or putting the Vizier in Leomund’s Tiny Hut.</p><p></p><p>Once again the adventure proceeds with the expectation that the Vizier is alive and the PCs manage to take in Hamitz alive…again. The PCs are invited back to the Palace as the diplomatic talks are taking place, and in rather dramatic fashion Mejid has the PCs and a bound Hamitz escorted in. As he announces to the gathered attendees that he captured one of Kavalan’s assassins, the Egyptian rebel suddenly interrupts the speech to go over to Hamitz, suddenly whipping out a dagger to slice the assassin’s throat and casting a spell upon him, causing Hamitz’s eyes to glow shortly before he dies.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>What Mejid is privately realizing is that he doesn’t need Osman alive anymore, but that simply killing him and using divination to pick at the now-unlocked contents of his brain will be enough. The “diplomat” leaving the talks is an informant of the Sekbans, which means that the Ghost of March will soon learn of this as well.</p><p></p><p style="text-align: center"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/FLNCfzw.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p><p></p><p><strong>Moment of Truth & the Death of a Mentor:</strong> This is the major turning point in the adventure path. In video games with branching pathways and moral systems, this would be the moment where the player chooses to side with good or evil, or not-so-good and not-so-evil in this case. Osman will meet with the PCs one last time, where he starts off with a friendly discussion about <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tortoise_Trainer" target="_blank">his newest painting</a> before moving on to political matters. The subject of the Ghost of March and Padishah Mejid will be brought up; he is conflicted on who he should support and wants the honest opinions of the PCs. He suspects that the Ghost of March is Alemdar Pasha, and while officially working for Mejid acknowledges that the Ottoman Empire’s new ruler has made hasty decisions that have done more harm than good for the common people. Based on who the party argues in favor for or side with determines future events and missions for Acts 3 and 4.</p><p></p><p>At this point the Ghost of March will send for the PCs, now willing to give them back Osman’s journal. During (or shortly after) this time the Royal Polymath will meet a violent end. If the party supports the Ghost of March, it will be Mejid himself, killing Osman in one fell stroke with a dagger during a supposedly friendly chat. If the party supports Mejid, then it will be the Ghost instead.</p><p></p><p>By the time the PCs visit the manor again they will find only Eshref the Tortoise as the sole survivor, with Osman’s body taken away. Still in a state of shock and sorrow, Eshref will give the PCs a will and testament written by Osman in the event of his untimely death, where he bequeaths the PCs their manor and its contents in the secret room. The letter also explains that the journal’s contents contain the known location of Mira, Bergüzar’s sister, and how she subconsciously prevents the Queen from making use of her full magical capabilities and thus Sultan Mejid’s grandest ambitions. The journal has several failsafes for its decryption, one of which involves Shahmeran’s aid, who the PCs can learn more about from the Ghost or Mejid depending on who they sided with.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>This is a callback to the chess game at the start of the adventure path. I like this touch, as it brings things around to the very beginning; as Osman lived, so did he die.</p><p></p><p><strong>Thoughts So Far:</strong> Oh boy, where to start. Some of the problematic trends in Act 1 are more prominent in Act 2. Not only does the adventure presume that the PCs will act in a certain way, it also presumes that certain events will play out with the PCs succeeding at a task with a real element of failure. The side quest opportunities seem like a stress relief valve to give a greater feeling of freedom, but even then there are no answers for some totally legitimate questions: what if the PCs decide to infiltrate the Sekban’s hideout to steal back Osman’s journal instead of negotiating with the Ghost of March? What if the Vizier dies? What if the PCs end up in a loud shootout with Hamitz at the Pearl and there’s a huge amount of witnesses who can relay what happened to the other assassins? What if they ask Aziz why the hell they released Hamitz, only to try and capture him again? What if the PCs realize what Kavalan is about to do and interpose themselves between him and the captive Hamitz? What if the PCs don’t like either the Ghost of March or Abd-ul Mejid and take an Enlightened Centrist attitude during the conversation with Osman?</p><p></p><p>These are all very real possibilities I can see popping up in a lot of gaming groups, and the fact that the adventure doesn’t seek to answer them is a real weakness.</p><p></p><p><strong>Join us next time as we descend into Istanbul’s depths to search for the Queen of Serpents and save Mira from a hit squad in a haunted house!</strong></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Libertad, post: 8972729, member: 6750502"] [center][img]https://i.imgur.com/4QGbKs0.png[/img][/center] The PCs hit level 4 at the start of the Second Act, and while they have several means of entering the Undercity the most convenient route is Mosolite Nazif’s now-abandoned shop. The cats of the Council of the Ninth Life will attempt to stealthily follow the PCs, and their leader Sheraf will reveal himself as the route’s new guardian. He will grant the party passage, provided they do some odd jobs for his syndicate once they leave the Undercity. The PCs can find Kore and Mervhan easily enough, and the party can either speak with them or find out through other means that they gave the journal to the Ghost himself and it’s in his headquarters. The Sekbans are unable to crack the code and thus the journal has no more value to them. The Ghost will part with it if the PCs can do the Undercity community some favors to prove their good intent. We have three short adventures they can take: find a cure to a tiefling child’s unique magical illness that involves a Realitymender and some herbs; sniff out a turncoat among the Janissaries to improve relations between them and the Sekbans; and retrieve a magic sword belonging to Yakup, Ahra’s father, which was thrown into the ruins of an old undead-haunted manor after Alemdar’s sacrificial explosion. All of these missions have some degree of risk or further character development; a Realitymender can be hired in the city but is being monitored by a Certain Community, the renegade Janissary is a Sekban in disguise whose wife was killed for being a magic-user and doesn’t want his organization to ally with her killers; and the manor contains the ghost of Ahra’s father who can be communicated with by the party. [b]Missions For the Palace:[/b] At a time narratively convenient, the PCs and Osman will receive an official invitation to a banquet in Topkapı Palace. Beyond the stress that comes with such a high-profile meeting, Osman suspects that the banquet has an ulterior motive. He is correct: Kavalan Pasha, the current ruler of Egypt, recently raised an army to declare independence from the Ottoman Empire and is making an alliance with Russia, an archrival to the Ottomans. He is visiting Istanbul to engage in discourse about the terms of surrender, although nobody expects him to just give up that easily. Although the PCs are free to refuse, this will greatly lower their standing in Mejid’s eyes. [b]The Lies We Told:[/b] Pretty much every Empire of note used private troubleshooters/mercenaries to do their dirty work during certain times, but the people of such occupations are far beneath an Ottoman Sultan’s notice. In real life, mercenaries would’ve met with lower-ranking government officials for business matters, and Mejid would’ve never had to learn their names, much less meet them personally. While visiting the Palace, the PCs can run into Bergüzar and recognize her as the woman from their dreams on a successful Perception check. She would tell the party to keep this information a secret for the time being, and if a character is so brazen to announce this in front of Mejid they will be arrested and thrown in the dungeons.* During an audience with Mejid, the head of a Certain Community Aziz Sefa** will do much of the talking. He will explain that one Hamitz*** the Quartz, one of Kavalan Pasha’s assassins, is active in Istanbul. He is to be taken in alive so that they can find out what he knows, and the PCs are given a magical scroll made by Bergüzar that can remove the assassin’s memory of the PCs for the upcoming plan to trick Kavalan. *in such a scenario the adventure doesn’t explain ways for the PC to break out/be released. I take it to be a Nonstandard Game Over. **I don’t know why the text has removed the “Bey” title. ***the text alters between calling him Hamitz or Hamit, I don’t know which one is right. The PCs can learn about Hamitz’s whereabouts by pressing on contacts and the use of skill checks. He’s staying at the Pearl, and if the PCs convince the owner (auto succeeds if they mention they’re working for the crown) she can make sure no words spread about their intrusion. If captured and interrogated Hamtiz will reveal that his mission is to assassinate Mustafa Pasha, the Ottoman Vizier, to throw the peace talks into disarray. In terms of stats Hamitz is pretty strong: he has 120 hit points, an AC 18 from a magical Vest of the Sphinx that is basically plate armor but no disadvantage on Stealth, a variety of potions on his person he can drink as a bonus action, and is somehow able to carry 14 weapons on him* and can freely mix pistol/crossbow and scimitar attacks with Multiattack. But if the PCs corner him while he’s…well, naked he will surrender. *Aziz mentions that he’s noted for having a seemingly endless arsenal of guns. No he doesn’t have a Bag of Holding or magical talents. If the PCs use the scroll to wipe Hamitz’s memory, they may recognize it’s the same spell afflicting Osman. This is a bit of a red herring, as it may cause the PCs to presume that someone in the Imperial court cast the spell on Osman (Aziz doesn’t say who made the scroll). At various points between the beginning of this Act and Defense of the State, the PCs can take on more [b]Side Quests.[/b] In fact, at this point in the adventure path they can do just about every quest within their recommended level. Only 2 of them have a Recommended Level of 5, which is the highest number for them all. [center][img]https://i.imgur.com/RupsSlV.png[/img][/center] [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DuHk81OLvmM][b]Defense of the State:[/b][/url] The PCs level up to 5 now. This is a very involved “tower defense” section, and the adventure’s a bit railroady in that it presumes the PCs managed to capture Hamitz alive and erased his memory without a hitch. After reporting their findings back to Aziz Sefa Bey, he lays the next plot in motion: the Vizier will be taken to [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yedikule_Fortress]Yedikule Fortress[/url] ostensibly for protection but in reality is to…draw Hamitz and his hired goons out as bait and capture him alive. Wait wait wait, the PCs earlier had Hamitz at their mercy in the Pearl! Why the need for this roundabout stuff, which puts the Vizier in danger on top of things? The text does explain they can’t use a body double for the Vizier, and Hamitz isn’t the only one gunning for him, so I don’t understand why Hamitz had to be let go in the first place. The adventure still flows just as well if the PCs manage to learn about Hamitz’s plans but it’s revealed there are other bad guys gunning for the Vizier. Anyway, on with the show. The PCs have 2,500 gold worth of discretionary funds to further secure Yedikule Fortress, from buying and placing traps courtesy of Trap Maker Daniel, hiring mercenaries with larger sums granting more powerful stat blocks, and in a moment of desperation draw desperate people from the Ottoman Empire’s prisons to fight for their freedom. And yes, they have lower morale and will react less than tactically sound in a manner akin to (but not the same) as the Confusion spell at the end of every [i]turn[/i] in combat. Not every round. The PCs can also spend gold to make repairs and fortify sections of the fortress, too. All of these options have involved detail, from unique trap stats to even stat blocks for some of the more powerful prisoners. The fortress also has a map with 17 detailed rooms and it’s up to the party where the Vizier is placed. The PCs have a day and a half to prepare for Hamitz’s strike force to arrive. In addition to him he is aided by three other assassins: Seyfeddin a Janissary-turned-mercenary who fights with a magic longsword and has Champion Fighter abilities, Ziya an assassin who killed off lots of Kavalan’s political opposition, can Sneak Attack like a Rogue and thus prefers to fight with a longbow rather than loud guns; and Hamza the barbarian and train robber, who has Barbarian abilities. That’s a lot less than I was expecting, and none of them have supernatural abilities. They do have some pretty high skill modifiers so Hamitz and the assassins can easily outmanever the average mercenary, but they don’t have any antimagic counters to deal with things such as the Alarm spell or putting the Vizier in Leomund’s Tiny Hut. Once again the adventure proceeds with the expectation that the Vizier is alive and the PCs manage to take in Hamitz alive…again. The PCs are invited back to the Palace as the diplomatic talks are taking place, and in rather dramatic fashion Mejid has the PCs and a bound Hamitz escorted in. As he announces to the gathered attendees that he captured one of Kavalan’s assassins, the Egyptian rebel suddenly interrupts the speech to go over to Hamitz, suddenly whipping out a dagger to slice the assassin’s throat and casting a spell upon him, causing Hamitz’s eyes to glow shortly before he dies. What Mejid is privately realizing is that he doesn’t need Osman alive anymore, but that simply killing him and using divination to pick at the now-unlocked contents of his brain will be enough. The “diplomat” leaving the talks is an informant of the Sekbans, which means that the Ghost of March will soon learn of this as well. [center][img]https://i.imgur.com/FLNCfzw.png[/img][/center] [b]Moment of Truth & the Death of a Mentor:[/b] This is the major turning point in the adventure path. In video games with branching pathways and moral systems, this would be the moment where the player chooses to side with good or evil, or not-so-good and not-so-evil in this case. Osman will meet with the PCs one last time, where he starts off with a friendly discussion about [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tortoise_Trainer]his newest painting[/url] before moving on to political matters. The subject of the Ghost of March and Padishah Mejid will be brought up; he is conflicted on who he should support and wants the honest opinions of the PCs. He suspects that the Ghost of March is Alemdar Pasha, and while officially working for Mejid acknowledges that the Ottoman Empire’s new ruler has made hasty decisions that have done more harm than good for the common people. Based on who the party argues in favor for or side with determines future events and missions for Acts 3 and 4. At this point the Ghost of March will send for the PCs, now willing to give them back Osman’s journal. During (or shortly after) this time the Royal Polymath will meet a violent end. If the party supports the Ghost of March, it will be Mejid himself, killing Osman in one fell stroke with a dagger during a supposedly friendly chat. If the party supports Mejid, then it will be the Ghost instead. By the time the PCs visit the manor again they will find only Eshref the Tortoise as the sole survivor, with Osman’s body taken away. Still in a state of shock and sorrow, Eshref will give the PCs a will and testament written by Osman in the event of his untimely death, where he bequeaths the PCs their manor and its contents in the secret room. The letter also explains that the journal’s contents contain the known location of Mira, Bergüzar’s sister, and how she subconsciously prevents the Queen from making use of her full magical capabilities and thus Sultan Mejid’s grandest ambitions. The journal has several failsafes for its decryption, one of which involves Shahmeran’s aid, who the PCs can learn more about from the Ghost or Mejid depending on who they sided with. This is a callback to the chess game at the start of the adventure path. I like this touch, as it brings things around to the very beginning; as Osman lived, so did he die. [b]Thoughts So Far:[/b] Oh boy, where to start. Some of the problematic trends in Act 1 are more prominent in Act 2. Not only does the adventure presume that the PCs will act in a certain way, it also presumes that certain events will play out with the PCs succeeding at a task with a real element of failure. The side quest opportunities seem like a stress relief valve to give a greater feeling of freedom, but even then there are no answers for some totally legitimate questions: what if the PCs decide to infiltrate the Sekban’s hideout to steal back Osman’s journal instead of negotiating with the Ghost of March? What if the Vizier dies? What if the PCs end up in a loud shootout with Hamitz at the Pearl and there’s a huge amount of witnesses who can relay what happened to the other assassins? What if they ask Aziz why the hell they released Hamitz, only to try and capture him again? What if the PCs realize what Kavalan is about to do and interpose themselves between him and the captive Hamitz? What if the PCs don’t like either the Ghost of March or Abd-ul Mejid and take an Enlightened Centrist attitude during the conversation with Osman? These are all very real possibilities I can see popping up in a lot of gaming groups, and the fact that the adventure doesn’t seek to answer them is a real weakness. [b]Join us next time as we descend into Istanbul’s depths to search for the Queen of Serpents and save Mira from a hit squad in a haunted house![/b] [/QUOTE]
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[Let's Read] Historica Arcanum: The City of Crescent
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