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[Let's Read] Odyssey of the Dragonlords
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<blockquote data-quote="Libertad" data-source="post: 7960637" data-attributes="member: 6750502"><p style="text-align: center"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/NJFOPUv.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p><p></p><p>The first chapter of the adventure path is a sort of “tutorial session” in the sense that you have helpful exposition outlining the basic facts of the setting. Additionally, the PCs have some wiggle room in fights should they mess up. It is here and in further chapters we will see some clear influences of Sky and Ohlen’s prior work in the form of <strong>Bioware Trope Alerts.</strong></p><p></p><p>We also get sample quest-based experience awards and milestone points for each Chapter based on what method the DM prefers best:</p><p></p><p><img src="https://i.imgur.com/cdsiEq1.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p><p></p><p>We start our tale with some boxed text telling the players how their heroes have been summoned to the Heartlands as the Oath of Peace nears its end, and how the Oracle fears for the Doom of Thylea. The DM is encouraged to ask the players to write down their PC’s name at the top of three note cards along with rumors about their past deeds. One of them is mostly true, the other two are fabrications or exaggerations but not marked as such. The cards are all given to the DM, who then hands them out to the other players and that’s what their own PCs heard about their traveling companions.</p><p></p><p>Our first scene literally opens up in a tavern where they meet a bard by the name of Kyrah, who is actually the Goddess of Music in a rather poor disguise. She tells them about how a Titan-corrupted boar is destroying crops and killing villagers and how previous heroes died against it. Should the PCs find and kill it, they can gain fame and power if they offer it to the gods as a sacrifice.</p><p></p><p><strong>Bioware Trope Alert: Tutorial DMPC:</strong> Kyrah tags along as a helpful guide, explaining the basics of Thylean society if necessary while also helping them indirectly in combat via HEROIC SONGS. She’s not the only god who joins the party on the Adventure Path, although due to the Oath of Peace they cannot “assist the PCs in battle” against Sydon, Lutheria, and their allies. However, there are quite a few encounters where the party is fighting monsters and people not loyal to the Titans. This will bring the inevitable question of what happens if the party asks them for aid in such instances. While the book says to not have them overshadow the PCs, her stats are well…</p><p></p><p><img src="https://i.imgur.com/KRI8Nq1.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p><p></p><p>...godly in comparison to the party. You see, every god in Odyssey of the Dragonlords has one or more ability scores at 30 in reflection of their portfolio, and Kyrah can deal damage with a dagger on par with a greatsword-wielding barbarian. Her 63 HP puts her leagues above the rest of the party, and her Songs are quite clearly meant to alleviate the highly-lethal nature of 1st-level gaming. Her lolrandom Mischief ability, even if generally nonlethal, has the chance of causing the party to drive her off in case something like Stinking Cloud or the blinding lights put a PC in greater danger. She will use a Raise Dead scroll on a PC to bring them back to life, which compounded with the fact that said PC will likely have used their Divine Boon can end up making players feel that they’re being bailed out too easily.</p><p></p><p>The prelude to the boar fight involves hunting and searching for clues, along with being able to set traps for the boar once it’s found. There are some good rules outlines for things like rope snares, camouflaged pits, and the like to help turn the tide in the party’s favor. When the boar is found, it already is quite injured from many weapons sticking out of it and suffers one exhaustion level a round. This means it will die in 6 turns even if the PCs get nary a scratch. Before it breathes its last, the boar speaks of how the end of Thylea is nigh.</p><p></p><p>At this point Kyrah suggests that the boar’s body be burned as a sacrifice to one of the gods. Deities are jealous beings and as such you can’t dedicate it to more than one or a pantheon as a whole. There’s a table for different gods and goddesses and their boons, and some are more useful than others. For example, Pythor will swear an Oath of Service to the party and Volkan will grant them one random magic item once the party meets them, and whose usefulness is mostly in the broadness of potential options. Kyrah will confess her identity and swear an Oath of Protection...which given she’s traveling with the PCs for a while, is a bit superfluous. Thylea grants immediate aid in the form of a Charm of Vitality* for every PC and animals in every forest will aid the party to the best of their ability from here on out. Kyrah advises against sacrificing to Sydon or Lutheria given that sacrifices increase a god’s divine power, but choosing to do so will involve staying their wrath in a single one of their predetermined future encounters. Choosing not to sacrifice to any of the gods causes hurricanes and earthquakes to sweep over the land, turning the PCs into goats for 24 hours.</p><p></p><p>*one-use ability to cure all exhaustion, poison, disease, and roll max value when spending Hit Dice to heal.</p><p></p><p style="text-align: center"><strong>Temple of the Oracle</strong></p> <p style="text-align: center"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/yfswVRj.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p><p></p><p>Now that the PCs got a taste of divinely-flavored roast boar, they must make their way to the Oracle’s temple. Although the party’s already received summons, Kyrah will encourage them onward if they seem to dilly-dally. Nobody’s heard from her otherwise in two weeks, so Kyrah fears the worst.</p><p></p><p>She is right to be worried, for several of Sydon’s minions invaded the temple, slaying and taking hostage most of its inhabitants. As the Oracle is the god’s daughter,* Sydon wants her taken back to the tower of Praxys alive. The PCs are not so lucky, and his forces will try to kill them before they get too famous and powerful.</p><p></p><p>*This is public knowledge, and she also acted as the arbiter between the gods for the Oath of Peace.</p><p></p><p>The Oracle’s temple is a relatively short 8-room, 2-level dungeon located above a series of hot spring caverns. Sydon’s forces are led by the sea hag Heleka and include a mix of monsters* and human soldiers. The rooms part of the natural caverns have boiling steam geysers which deal damage to those crossing or pushed into them, while the surviving acolytes can heal the party with their spells if rescued. Heleka herself is mocking Versi in the final room, who is held hostage in what looks like animated tendrils of water (a water weird which will overwise flee once the sea hag is slain).</p><p></p><p>*Steam mephits, animated flying swords and rugs disguised as furniture, and a mimic disguised as a door with an ‘animated’ face.</p><p></p><p>Versi will at first grieve for the dead once rescued, but understands the needs of the PCs and speaks to them of their fate: they must sail the seas in order to face the Titans and bring peace to Thylea, but before this they must accomplish three Great Labors to better ready themselves. The legendary Mithral Forge must be brought to working order again so as to build powerful instruments of magic and war. They must also visit the tombs of the Dragonlords in the Necropolis and claim their weapons, and are given a Burnished Dragonlord Coin to pay a toll of safe passage to the guardian of this dread realm. Finally the party must drink from the Horn of Balmytria, a holy silver dragon horn held in an Estoran shrine, to gain an as-yet unknown vision. These three Labors comprise the next chapter, and can more or less be done in any order. But there is a certain point in the plot where a dilemma can be optimally solved should the PCs bring the Mithral Forge to working order early for a specific magic item.</p><p></p><p>Kyrah will tell the PCs in a rather unsubtle way about the perks of the Fame system (it can potentially make you immortal), suggest that the party swear an Oath of Fellowship* among each other to encourage good teamwork, and challenges the party bard to a ‘poetry battle’ to see who can make the best Homeric epic once their quest is done.</p><p></p><p>*an Oath not really outlined in the Introduction. It basically allows the party to share all gains from their Fame equally and to not turn against each other.</p><p></p><p><strong>Epic Paths:</strong> Versi can help point the heroes in the right direction for their individual destinies. The Demi-God is encouraged to meet their father Pythor in Estoria. The Vanished One is asked to meet privately with her and to swear an Oath to return to her cave once the prophecy has been fulfilled, and only then will she tell them to retrieve their famous armor and Crown of the Dragonlords from the Tomb of Xander in the Necropolis. Tthe Doomed and Haunted Ones are told about Versi’s evil sister, Demeteria, in the Mossy Temple who either has knowledge of their fate or a lost family artifact respectively. The Gifted One is given a locket containing the soul of their sorceress grandmother who will speak through it, promising that if they take revenge upon Sydon they can restore the order of Dragonlords. The Lost One is promised a way home should they find the Lost Treasure of the Dragonlords, which is truly Lost and <em>not</em> found in the Necropolis. The Dragonslayer is destined to be the scourge of evil dragons and is told to seek out the Forgekeeper of the Mithral Forge. The Cursed One must seek the Necropolis’ guardian to learn about the nature of their curse.</p><p></p><p>Once the PCs leave the temple, Lutheria shows up in a collective dream, mocking them as she chops up an unknown old man alive. This forces the party to make a DC 20 Wisdom save or gain a short-term mental illness. Unless they dedicated the boar sacrifice to Lutheria, in which case they don’t need to make the save at all.</p><p></p><p><strong>Thoughts So Far:</strong> There are parts of this chapter I like and don’t like. 1st level is way too low-power and gritty for PCs to begin an Adventure Path when they’re supposedly famous Greek heroes. The adventure tries to rectify this with Kyrah’s aid and neutering the boar monster with exhaustion, which kind of takes the wind out of any high-stakes sails. I do like how the Oracle’s various prophecies all tie into the future quests in some way, and the conceptual power of sacrifices is nice inspiration fodder even if the rewards are not exactly balanced. Sadly there are no future encounters in this style where burning the body of a great foe gives further rewards, which is wasted opportunity.</p><p></p><p>The Oracle’s Temple is just the right length for a starting dungeon crawl, although given that time appears to be of the essence the PCs may be reluctant to take even a short rest after any battles. Although the sea hag is still in the process of searching for a potential route to the sea within the caverns and thus isn’t going to flee with Versi anytime soon, the party does not have a means of knowing this unless they interrogate one of the minions.</p><p></p><p><strong>Join us next time as we cover the three Great Labors and their adjoining quests!</strong></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Libertad, post: 7960637, member: 6750502"] [center][img]https://i.imgur.com/NJFOPUv.png[/img][/center] The first chapter of the adventure path is a sort of “tutorial session” in the sense that you have helpful exposition outlining the basic facts of the setting. Additionally, the PCs have some wiggle room in fights should they mess up. It is here and in further chapters we will see some clear influences of Sky and Ohlen’s prior work in the form of [b]Bioware Trope Alerts.[/b] We also get sample quest-based experience awards and milestone points for each Chapter based on what method the DM prefers best: [img]https://i.imgur.com/cdsiEq1.png[/img] We start our tale with some boxed text telling the players how their heroes have been summoned to the Heartlands as the Oath of Peace nears its end, and how the Oracle fears for the Doom of Thylea. The DM is encouraged to ask the players to write down their PC’s name at the top of three note cards along with rumors about their past deeds. One of them is mostly true, the other two are fabrications or exaggerations but not marked as such. The cards are all given to the DM, who then hands them out to the other players and that’s what their own PCs heard about their traveling companions. Our first scene literally opens up in a tavern where they meet a bard by the name of Kyrah, who is actually the Goddess of Music in a rather poor disguise. She tells them about how a Titan-corrupted boar is destroying crops and killing villagers and how previous heroes died against it. Should the PCs find and kill it, they can gain fame and power if they offer it to the gods as a sacrifice. [b]Bioware Trope Alert: Tutorial DMPC:[/b] Kyrah tags along as a helpful guide, explaining the basics of Thylean society if necessary while also helping them indirectly in combat via HEROIC SONGS. She’s not the only god who joins the party on the Adventure Path, although due to the Oath of Peace they cannot “assist the PCs in battle” against Sydon, Lutheria, and their allies. However, there are quite a few encounters where the party is fighting monsters and people not loyal to the Titans. This will bring the inevitable question of what happens if the party asks them for aid in such instances. While the book says to not have them overshadow the PCs, her stats are well… [img]https://i.imgur.com/KRI8Nq1.png[/img] ...godly in comparison to the party. You see, every god in Odyssey of the Dragonlords has one or more ability scores at 30 in reflection of their portfolio, and Kyrah can deal damage with a dagger on par with a greatsword-wielding barbarian. Her 63 HP puts her leagues above the rest of the party, and her Songs are quite clearly meant to alleviate the highly-lethal nature of 1st-level gaming. Her lolrandom Mischief ability, even if generally nonlethal, has the chance of causing the party to drive her off in case something like Stinking Cloud or the blinding lights put a PC in greater danger. She will use a Raise Dead scroll on a PC to bring them back to life, which compounded with the fact that said PC will likely have used their Divine Boon can end up making players feel that they’re being bailed out too easily. The prelude to the boar fight involves hunting and searching for clues, along with being able to set traps for the boar once it’s found. There are some good rules outlines for things like rope snares, camouflaged pits, and the like to help turn the tide in the party’s favor. When the boar is found, it already is quite injured from many weapons sticking out of it and suffers one exhaustion level a round. This means it will die in 6 turns even if the PCs get nary a scratch. Before it breathes its last, the boar speaks of how the end of Thylea is nigh. At this point Kyrah suggests that the boar’s body be burned as a sacrifice to one of the gods. Deities are jealous beings and as such you can’t dedicate it to more than one or a pantheon as a whole. There’s a table for different gods and goddesses and their boons, and some are more useful than others. For example, Pythor will swear an Oath of Service to the party and Volkan will grant them one random magic item once the party meets them, and whose usefulness is mostly in the broadness of potential options. Kyrah will confess her identity and swear an Oath of Protection...which given she’s traveling with the PCs for a while, is a bit superfluous. Thylea grants immediate aid in the form of a Charm of Vitality* for every PC and animals in every forest will aid the party to the best of their ability from here on out. Kyrah advises against sacrificing to Sydon or Lutheria given that sacrifices increase a god’s divine power, but choosing to do so will involve staying their wrath in a single one of their predetermined future encounters. Choosing not to sacrifice to any of the gods causes hurricanes and earthquakes to sweep over the land, turning the PCs into goats for 24 hours. *one-use ability to cure all exhaustion, poison, disease, and roll max value when spending Hit Dice to heal. [center][b]Temple of the Oracle[/b] [img]https://i.imgur.com/yfswVRj.png[/img][/center] Now that the PCs got a taste of divinely-flavored roast boar, they must make their way to the Oracle’s temple. Although the party’s already received summons, Kyrah will encourage them onward if they seem to dilly-dally. Nobody’s heard from her otherwise in two weeks, so Kyrah fears the worst. She is right to be worried, for several of Sydon’s minions invaded the temple, slaying and taking hostage most of its inhabitants. As the Oracle is the god’s daughter,* Sydon wants her taken back to the tower of Praxys alive. The PCs are not so lucky, and his forces will try to kill them before they get too famous and powerful. *This is public knowledge, and she also acted as the arbiter between the gods for the Oath of Peace. The Oracle’s temple is a relatively short 8-room, 2-level dungeon located above a series of hot spring caverns. Sydon’s forces are led by the sea hag Heleka and include a mix of monsters* and human soldiers. The rooms part of the natural caverns have boiling steam geysers which deal damage to those crossing or pushed into them, while the surviving acolytes can heal the party with their spells if rescued. Heleka herself is mocking Versi in the final room, who is held hostage in what looks like animated tendrils of water (a water weird which will overwise flee once the sea hag is slain). *Steam mephits, animated flying swords and rugs disguised as furniture, and a mimic disguised as a door with an ‘animated’ face. Versi will at first grieve for the dead once rescued, but understands the needs of the PCs and speaks to them of their fate: they must sail the seas in order to face the Titans and bring peace to Thylea, but before this they must accomplish three Great Labors to better ready themselves. The legendary Mithral Forge must be brought to working order again so as to build powerful instruments of magic and war. They must also visit the tombs of the Dragonlords in the Necropolis and claim their weapons, and are given a Burnished Dragonlord Coin to pay a toll of safe passage to the guardian of this dread realm. Finally the party must drink from the Horn of Balmytria, a holy silver dragon horn held in an Estoran shrine, to gain an as-yet unknown vision. These three Labors comprise the next chapter, and can more or less be done in any order. But there is a certain point in the plot where a dilemma can be optimally solved should the PCs bring the Mithral Forge to working order early for a specific magic item. Kyrah will tell the PCs in a rather unsubtle way about the perks of the Fame system (it can potentially make you immortal), suggest that the party swear an Oath of Fellowship* among each other to encourage good teamwork, and challenges the party bard to a ‘poetry battle’ to see who can make the best Homeric epic once their quest is done. *an Oath not really outlined in the Introduction. It basically allows the party to share all gains from their Fame equally and to not turn against each other. [b]Epic Paths:[/b] Versi can help point the heroes in the right direction for their individual destinies. The Demi-God is encouraged to meet their father Pythor in Estoria. The Vanished One is asked to meet privately with her and to swear an Oath to return to her cave once the prophecy has been fulfilled, and only then will she tell them to retrieve their famous armor and Crown of the Dragonlords from the Tomb of Xander in the Necropolis. Tthe Doomed and Haunted Ones are told about Versi’s evil sister, Demeteria, in the Mossy Temple who either has knowledge of their fate or a lost family artifact respectively. The Gifted One is given a locket containing the soul of their sorceress grandmother who will speak through it, promising that if they take revenge upon Sydon they can restore the order of Dragonlords. The Lost One is promised a way home should they find the Lost Treasure of the Dragonlords, which is truly Lost and [i]not[/i] found in the Necropolis. The Dragonslayer is destined to be the scourge of evil dragons and is told to seek out the Forgekeeper of the Mithral Forge. The Cursed One must seek the Necropolis’ guardian to learn about the nature of their curse. Once the PCs leave the temple, Lutheria shows up in a collective dream, mocking them as she chops up an unknown old man alive. This forces the party to make a DC 20 Wisdom save or gain a short-term mental illness. Unless they dedicated the boar sacrifice to Lutheria, in which case they don’t need to make the save at all. [b]Thoughts So Far:[/b] There are parts of this chapter I like and don’t like. 1st level is way too low-power and gritty for PCs to begin an Adventure Path when they’re supposedly famous Greek heroes. The adventure tries to rectify this with Kyrah’s aid and neutering the boar monster with exhaustion, which kind of takes the wind out of any high-stakes sails. I do like how the Oracle’s various prophecies all tie into the future quests in some way, and the conceptual power of sacrifices is nice inspiration fodder even if the rewards are not exactly balanced. Sadly there are no future encounters in this style where burning the body of a great foe gives further rewards, which is wasted opportunity. The Oracle’s Temple is just the right length for a starting dungeon crawl, although given that time appears to be of the essence the PCs may be reluctant to take even a short rest after any battles. Although the sea hag is still in the process of searching for a potential route to the sea within the caverns and thus isn’t going to flee with Versi anytime soon, the party does not have a means of knowing this unless they interrogate one of the minions. [b]Join us next time as we cover the three Great Labors and their adjoining quests![/b] [/QUOTE]
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