ZEITGEIST Book 5 Questions

[Echolocation]

I have a few questions regarding book five:

1) What is the meaning of Ekosiggan's poem?

When spring returns to winter, / The cauldron births a spark.

Is Spring returning to Winter a reference to Eschatologists? A reference to Ekossigan himself (who transforms into winter from spring before facing the party)? Or is it more general, just alerting the listener to a downfall? I assume the cauldron birthing a spark is a simple reference to Borne.

The steel betrays the vintner, / The silver spurns the arc.

The first part seems clear, Borne/the facility betraying Steelshaper. Is the second part of this simply referencing foresight/prophecy (Reida).

The fire-bride’s dissension: / Dismissed by green-adorned.

Seems clear too. Lya's dissension dismissed by the King. Is this correct?

The wheel-woven dead man / Shall wake the cauldron-born.

Also seems clear. Grappa in the body of an construct wakes Borne.

2) Why is the clock tower at Pardwight University seven minutes slow?

3) For those of you who have run this book, how did you manage defusing the train bomb? The Disable Device checks to isolate reagents seems manageable at first glance, especially if conducted by a technologist with another aiding via detect magic, but it is a lot of checks to make. The punishment for failing is severe.

 

[RangerWickett]

Here's an earlier discussion about the poem: ZEITGEIST - Question about starting Zeitgeist

But yeah, it's spring in adventure 5, and it's sorta like, y'know, stuffs going all off-kilter. The Great Eclipse causes a long winter, the world spins off the axis, and a first sign of that is Ekossigan switches his form to his winter version.

The rest is pretty spot on.

Re: the Clock, honestly, no idea.

 

[Andrew Moreton]

The BOMB can be a challange it depends on the skills of the characters and when they gain access to the BOMB. It is possible to prevent the hostage situation and gain control of the BOMB before it is deployed if the group gets its information from the captured escatologists fast and then intecept the terrorists (the Sword of Ssramma is good for tracking them as at least some terrorists will be women).
I would have used the dice rolls as set up but made sure the DC's were in the range my players could make as skills will vary but I also use Hero Points so if a PC had set off the BOMB they would have had a chance to survive

 

[Echolocation]

Can players trade in multiple Task Force Tokens (TFTs) before a mission to increase the modifier to their roll? For example, using 2 TFTs for a +4 to the mission checks. Or can players just use a single TFT per mission?

I'm playing in Pathfinder 1E, if that's relevant.

 

[Andrew Moreton]

I can't think of any reason why not. The purpose of the minigame is to give structure to the crimebusting effort so anything which makes it more fun should be fine. Particularly if you can have an elderly sergeant give advice in a Saun Connery accent (Untouchables)

 

[tragicThaumaturge]

I think the clock is running slow because of human error. If you mean, what's the point, I think it could maybe make players think they have more time to defuse the bomb than they actually do if they don't realize it's running slow. Regarding the train bomb, my players actually failed to defuse it (one of them acted impulsively and tried just cutting all wires at the same time). So... I gave them 1 round to act, improvising so they wouldn't all die. I just rolled like 10d10 of damage against them (in D&D 4e). Everyone else on the train died though.