Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Libertad" data-source="post: 9083173" data-attributes="member: 6750502"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/7srUsPg.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />Our adventure begins with the deaths of the PCs. The circumstances of how they died are left to the players, who describe what was happening themselves. Each such scene is individually acted out, although the DM is encouraged to give the player as much autonomy as possible in determining the events of the scene. Once each player has acted out their death scene, they will reawaken in the afterlife of the Veil:This is Azrael, and the PCs’ souls are their bodies, which take on an idealized version of how they view themselves. This particular scene is just for one player/PC, where Azrael will introduce himself and his title as the Angel of Death, explaining that they’re dead, and that they’re not yet in Heaven or Hell but a realm known as the Veil. He can answer a few questions, although the conversation inevitably drifts to him asking for the PC’s help in protecting souls on the way to the true afterlife, and that those who aid him are known as Reapers.Before the PC can answer, the decision is thrust upon them when Azrael senses a soul in danger, where he uses a magical pocketwatch known as Timekeeper to transport himself and the PC elsewhere in the Veil. Said soul is another PC, and a group of monsters known as Soulreavers and Bloodfiend Furies are lurking nearby to attack. Individually these monsters are quite weak: Soulreavers are spiderlike fiends who can attach themselves to souls both living and dead, draining hope from them via a pseudo-grapple and their bites deal physical and psychic damage. Bloodfiends are fiends who tend to spawn when blood is spilled on the Material Plane, being literal manifestations of hatred and destruction. Bloodfiend Furies are the weakest of their species, basically being small flying bloodsuckers who heal damage by biting targets.Such an encounter is intentionally meant to be easy even for a reduced party size, and Azrael will be on their side for it as well as serving as a DMPC for roughly the first half of the campaign. In terms of stats Azrael is a pretty powerful physical attacker with a fast fly speed (90 feet), 18 AC from plate armor, and has pretty keen senses such as high modifiers in Insight and Perception plus the ability to detect any spoken (but not written) lie as well as being aware of the location of any creature on the Material Plane, as well as any creature that is in the process of dying. He also has three unique magic items on his person: the Scythe of Death, a +2 weapon that deals bonus necrotic damage which ignores resistance and immunity, advantage on attacks and double damage to undead, and can be used to cast Power Word Kill once every 1d4 Long Rests. Timekeeper can be used to travel through time and space to any location in the universe but can only exist while in the Veil (can be effortlessly retrieved when you return). Finally, the Book of Souls is used to track the locations and destinies of every creature in the universe, allowing one to cast Locate Creature with unlimited range provided you are in the same Realm and they don’t have anti-divination magic protecting them. The book can also give general information on the creature’s personality, relationships, and significant events. All in all, Azrael’s archetypal role can be summed up as a martial investigator, and he’s operating on a power level where he is less of a sidekick and basically PC-tier all his own.Going back to the adventure, Azrael will introduce himself to the new PC, ask them “are you ready?” in stating his offer about joining the Reapers, and the general events sans combat encounters will repeat for the remaining PCs. At this point everyone is encouraged to get to know each other, and we have a sidebar about general roleplay info for Azrael via Ideals, Bonds, Flaws, and his goals. Overall he’s a rather introspective individual, who tends to encourage people to speak more about themselves than about himself in conversations. As an angel, he has a vested interest in helping others find ways to right their past wrongs and redeem themselves. In fact, helping the PCs grow and change for the better during the adventure is his primary goal, although he shrouds this under the cover story of helping “save the world” as Reapers. But the world is doomed to end anyway; the adventure may be Biblical Cosmic Horror, but it is also one that intends to place heavy emphasis on the personal journey. As for how well it does it…I have mixed thoughts we’ll get into later during this review.Eventually Azrael will use Timekeeper to transport the party into a dimly lit stone room with medieval architecture, where seven lampstands burn. In reality this is the tallest tower in the Citadel of the Glassy Sea, a former military fortress in Heaven that has been converted to a place of rest and learning after Satan’s failed rebellion against God. Each lampstand bears the name of some of the oldest Christian churches such as Laodicea and Pergamum, and it is through the braziers that the voice of God sends messages to Reapers informing them of upcoming missions. There are seven lampstands because the PCs have seven missions to do, which make up the entirety of this campaign. Each lampstand’s fire will go out with a completed mission, and if asked what happens once the final one dims…Azrael will say that “it is finished…Everything…is finished.” An adjacent room holds a teleportation circle that transports Reapers to where they’re needed for missions.<img src="https://i.imgur.com/sA5OIgo.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />Guard Her Heart is the first mission the PCs receive. They will be transported outside a church (or synagogue if Christianity hasn’t yet been established as a religion) in the Material Plane, although the PCs will still be in the Veil. The house of worship is empty save for a teenage girl kneeling in prayer, her anxious heart weighed down by something. Through the Veil Azrael and the PCs can sense that the girl’s soul is in turmoil. Her identity is left vague, and the adventure suggests making it someone relevant to one of the PC’s backstories, along with a d6 table for inspiration of what is troubling the girl. It’s even possible that she may not be anyone the PCs know. In the latter case, “all souls are sacred in the eyes of God, and even a random teenager deserves the protection of the Reapers.”Azrael warns the party that evil forces are on their way, seeking to drain her soul of hope. These are a group of fiends led by Ashmedai, a demon who works directly for the Antichrist, and they attack the church/synagogue in three waves. While the fiends cannot physically harm the girl, the soulreavers will attempt to sneak up during the fight to attach themselves to her soul. The fight is considered “lost” if she fails three saving throws, but if she saves three times then the soulreavers will be repelled by damaging holy light (this isn’t a plot device, this is how their stat blocks are set up) and will thus be immune to any such further attempts. The first two waves of fiends include Infernal Legionaries (longsword-wielding footsoldiers who are the weakest among Satan’s forces) and a single Infernal Warlord leading them (much stronger fiend that uses a greatsword and pistol that shoots hellfire, can give commands to allies to let them move or attack as a reaction).The third and final wave is special. The fiends showing up this time are members of the Antichrist’s Marked Taskforce, 12 shock troopers showing up in three AFVs in sets of 4. They’re also in the Veil, and Azrael will inform the party that Satan’s forces have access to technology from all time periods and these ones have the souls of demons despite looking human. Ashmedai, a particularly cunning and old demon, will call out from one of the vehicles to offer Azrael and the Reapers to surrender, but immediately rescinds this before anyone can respond. Each Shock Trooper has a Bag of Holding containing a Soulreaver which they’ll unleash once they get close to the girl, while being supported by Ashmedai who will fire an AFV’s rotary cannon as an AoE lair action which affects everyone in the building, even his allies.If the three waves are defeated Ashmedai will grow frustrated, attempting to stall for time by “negotiating” with the PCs as the final wave of three more soul reavers come in through the back. He will crush a gemstone to summon an Infernal Dreadnaught, which is an incredibly powerful Huge-sized demon that operates out of instinct and not tactics. The Dreadnaught relies on melee attacks and a trample that can knock people around. If at any time the girl fails three saving throws, she will leave the church depressed, her prayers abandoned.The fate of the girl has brief consequences later on in the adventure. Azrael’s Guide to the Apocalypse makes use of something called a Story Tracker, where certain decisions made in the adventure can alter future characters and encounters. For PCs who helped protect the girl, they will gain bonuses to certain rolls in battle against Babylon in the final chapters of the campaign.All in all, this shouldn’t be a particularly hard encounter for 10th level PCs. The enemies individually can be easily dispatched, there is enough time between waves for PCs to heal and make preparations (but not enough for a Short Rest), and someone who stays near the girl can intercept Soulreavers without much trouble given that their sneakiest abilities are a +6 Stealth.Ashmedai will attempt to flee whether the Reapers succeeded or failed, using one of the AFVs. PCs who pursue via using one of the other AFVs can engage in a car chase, which is resolved as a skill challenge. Characters who aren’t the driver can still contribute, such as tracking Ashmedai’s movements via looking for tread marks on the road with Perception, or accurately guessing the urban layout with History.Sadly, this doesn’t amount to much, as even if the PCs catch up to Ashmedai he will use a scroll of Plane Shift to escape by traveling backwards in time to his lair. Azrael will use the Book of Souls to track Ashmedai’s location, narrowing it down to a cave in the mountains near Jerusalem when Jesus Christ was alive and preaching. The rest of Chapter 1 is thus a dungeon crawl where the PCs go through Ashmedai’s lair, solving puzzles, overcoming traps, and fighting his guardians.But first, the party will meet one of Azrael’s allies after being transported to a road outside Jerusalem. A nephilim woman by the name of Gethsemani (her parents named her after the garden in Jerusalem) will greet Azrael and ask about his new friends; she’s still alive on the Material Plane but is wearing a Ring of Dark Glass, a magic item that lets her detect and interact with celestials and fiends. While traveling to the nearby mountains the PCs will get the opportunity for a Short Rest, and while camping she asks if there’s still anything that scares the party now that they’re guardian angels. This is another Story Tracker moment during the battle against Babylon, and also when fighting Satan directly. The PCs will also pass by a large gathering of people off in the distance hearing Jesus give a sermon. Partway through Jesus gives a slight head nod of recognition to Azrael who returns the gesture. Eventually the group will arrive at the mountain region of Gennesaret, where Gethsemani will point out a hidden entrance into Ashmedai’s lair. She will warn them that the lair was built to house a dangerous creature known as the Shamir, and share with them a vague prophecy about the Antichrist who seeks to destroy all religions and convert the world to worshiping demons. Which I suppose is still technically a religion, but I get what she means.There’s more to Gethsemani than meets the eye: she will eventually join the Reapers later on in the campaign and also serve as a recurring ally two times before that happens. When she was very young, Gethsemani fell in love with another girl by the name of Ari, a decision that her family and community disapproved of. The two girls tried to keep their relationship secret, but once their nightly gatherings were discovered the community’s elders assembled an angry mob to murder Ari. Naamah, the Archdemon of Lust and a major villain in Adventurer’s Guide to the Bible, helped fan the flames, taking personal pleasure in ending genuinely loving relationships. Gethsemani later found this out from the Witch of Endor (another AGttB character), which instilled in her a newfound goal of opposing the plots of demons and destroying them wherever they can be found.So Gethsemani is very clearly a queer woman. While Red Panda Publishing has given indications of being the more progressive kinds of Christians, their treatment of sexual orientation in their first adventure was quite vague. It’s a lot more explicit in this one, as none of the angelic or Godly characters have a problem with her. While the adventure still tries to play coy in the above quote, the homophobic undertones of Ari’s murder are placed at the feet of a demon. <a href="https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BuryYourGays" target="_blank">Even so, it’s still a cliche,</a> and I feel that the writers want to give an “out” by going “you can change the details if you want.” But IMO this is much better than the vagaries of Adventurer’s Guide.<img src="https://i.imgur.com/wSw6uUA.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />Ashmedai’s lair is a mid-sized dungeon crawl. And an interesting thing about it is that the elements within draw not as much from the Bible but more from Talmudic writings and Jewish folklore. For example, the Shamir is a wormlike being whose mere gaze can cut through stone and metal, and Solomon used it for constructing the First Temple. Additionally, the first room is inspired by a story in the Talmud (Gittin 68a-b), where an adventurer acting on the orders of King Solomon flooded Ashmedai’s lair with wine to capture him and thus gain access to the Shamir.The top level has four magical juglike vessels spilling out an eternal stream of wine, whose dark consistency conceals a trapdoor at the bottom of the pool. Each vessel has Hebrew letters on them, spelling out Emeth, or “truth.” The wine can be stopped if the first letter (aleph, or א) is removed from the vessel to spell Meth, or “death.” There’s a sidebar for alternative solutions such as using magic to drain or stop the flow of wine, and Azrael can help out the PCs if they’re struggling with the puzzle. One of the guardians is a stone golem carved to look like a hoopoe (a type of bird); it’s been tasked with guarding the Shamir from evil, and PCs can avoid a combat encounter by convincing them that they’re here to stop Ashmedai. The demon’s personal chambers can be unlocked by a Passkey Amulet, which is broken into two halves found in different places in the dungeon, although picking the lock, using the knock spell, or breaking down the door can also bypass this obstacle.When the PCs find Ashmedai, he is in a room full of creature comforts, of food and drugs taken from all manner of eras and cultures. In fact, it is this devotion to earthly pleasures that makes the demon a rather unreliable ally of Satan and the Antichrist. He isn’t eager to see the world destroyed, so while he still serves the Devil there have been times when he’s ruined the plans of other demons if only to prolong his fun and games. This personality is reflected in the battle, where he’ll waste turns to pour himself a drink or engage in small talk even as Azrael and the PCs attack him. In terms of stats Ashmedai is a “skill user/tricky mage” style of character. He has a variety of innate spells with a preference for illusion and enchantment, has very high modifiers in social skills, is immune to magical effects that would force him to tell the truth and magic cannot determine when he’s being deceitful, and his main physical attack is a magical dagger known as Spell-Splitter that can expend 1 of its 3 charges to cast Dispel Magic on the struck target. And this dagger can be gained as a treasure after the battle.In reality, Ashmedai is hoping to get captured and thus will willingly surrender if the PCs make the offer. This is part of a greater plot to engineer a prison break later on in the adventure, where  several archdemons are released to distract the PCs and other angelic forces in order to deliver the Scroll of Seven Seals to the Antichrist. Said scroll is instrumental in bringing about the End Times and unleashing the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. As for the Shamir, Ashmedai stored the monster in one of his gemstones which he will deploy as yet another distraction if he is pursued. While PCs can use skill checks to sense that something is off about Ashmedai, Azrael’s top priority of capturing the demon remains the same. When he’s captured, Azrael will leave the PCs in the lair as he teleports away. As part of taking a long rest, the party can learn about Ashmedai’s research into storing creatures in gemstones along with a handwritten letter by “J.R.” on a vague plan to “be ready to move when Wormwood makes the drop off.” Afterwards, the PCs will hit 11th level.In case you’re smelling a railroad, you’re right. This, and the Scroll of Seven Seals, is one of the low points of this campaign, for it requires various characters and events to act and happen in very specific ways.Thoughts So Far: Azrael’s Guide to the Apocalypse has a pretty novel opening idea: PCs die and act as angelic guardians of mortal souls. The initial combats are rather forgiving, where they fight waves of weaker enemies, Ashmedai doesn’t use optimal tactics as a boss, and failure to save the praying girl isn’t a “Game Over.” However, its extreme linearity and fast pacing is a marked contrast in comparison to Adventurer’s Guide to the Bible, and this is a recurring element. PCs who are playing this one as a sequel may be let down, as the original book had great love and detail in making the First Century Middle East feel like an organic, breathing world that the PCs can shape with their decisions. The car chase skill challenge, Azrael’s hurried recruitment, and having the opening parts of the game (and first combat encounter) happen without the entire party assembled isn’t an optimal way of starting things in my humble opinion. I do like the dungeon crawl, which ironically has the most open-ended options in moving through it and tackling its challenges.Join us next time as we learn about recruiting DMPCs on missions in Appendix C: Elders and Heroes!</blockquote>

Verification