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Before I'm off for a week of being a good Goth at the annual WGT, I'll have one more massive review for you: Fire Mountain Games' third installment of the evil AP Way of the Wicked, so let's check this out!
Tears of the Blessed
The third
installment of Fire Mountain Games' evil AP is 102 pages long, 1 page front
cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC, 1 page SRD and 1 page back cover, leaving
97 pages of content, so let's check it out!
This being
an adventure review, Asmodeus watches over these lines. If you're a player and
don't want to be dragged to hell due to knowing about the massive
SPOILERS,
I'd suggest you skip ahead to the conclusion.
Still here?
All right! The adventure kicks off where "Call forth Darkness" left
off - with the legendary Tears of Achlys now in the PC's possession, Thorn's
plans grow closer to fruition. After receiving their rewards the PCs are sent
off to Ghastenhall, where they meet up with an Asmodean scholar in disguise who
has infiltrated the church of Mitra and happens to know Thorn from when he
still was a mortal man. said man will ensure that the Tears of Achlys do their
utmost damage. Their circlets also get an upgrade and by now, finding out that
Thorn scries them via these items as well as some information on their
benefactor's motivations can be coaxed from the man. Even better, the PCs have
a whole month to spend on side-quests, some of which, like pit fighting, are
detailed. Better yet, the organization (or what's left of it) of the PCs can be
established in the town as well, giving them ample things to do while the
Fire-axe continues his rampage through Talingarde. Winter is approaching and in
the spring and summer, the hordes the villains unleashed upon the land will
face off against the true power of the kingdom.
But between
this war and now lies a winter, one the PCs are not supposed to sit idly by -
they are called to the Fire-axe and there will have to negotiate for some
squads of elite troops for their upcoming task: Burn down the most sacred vale
of the Mitran faith, extinguish the holy flames and let none escape. While the basic negotiation is simple, the
PCs can do so much more: E.g. ally themselves with the local vampire lord,
recruit an unruly ogre-mage and a small army of reclusive Duergar and gain a
valuable ally in a beauty-priestess turned mad medusa that first has to be
pummeled into submission (and yes, her ruined temple gets its own map).
Depending on how they fared until now, they will still have allies from
previous adventures as well and some guidelines on managing the minions is
provided, as is a suggestion on how to handle the potential wish of a PC to
turn into a vampire. Oh, and it seems the PCs have come to the attention of the
dark overlord and thus get their very own Nessian hellhounds and make the acquaintance of an infernal
lawyer who will prove to be useful indeed in the future...
Gathering
these allies is the first way to accumulate victory points for the vast battle
to come - as soon as snow is falling the vale must burn! If the PCs are smart,
they have done some reconnaissance, which means you could show them the
beautiful full-color player-friendly map. They might also know that hiding
alignment and infiltrating the tower at the vale's entrance will have to be the
first step for success - killing the Lammasu-watchers another. It should be
noted that the tower is fully mapped and while clearly a task for the PCs, they
can send in minions - who fail. UNLESS the PCs act smart and send the right
minion for the task, in which case the tower is not taken, but their task does
become easier.
Once their
army has passed the wall, the defenders will scramble to keep your dark hordes
out and here the narrative battle begins - essentially, your army crashes into
the vale and over the course of the battles, your villains will have to
intervene and make decisions that influence your VP - an example would e.g. an
elite cadre of archers (warp their bows!), a charge by good knights (take their
horses away!) and then there are the elite dwarves - deadly, stout and another
task for the PCs - or a great way to use their disposable Duergar allies. Fireballs
and catapult stones may hit the PCs and the acolytes of the serene order, a
unit of monks is next up and may make for yet another hard fight - or, if
they're wise, a nice way to use their vampire spawn. The greater bridge is held
by shield archons and here, the PCs must intervene - three battles await them
until the bridge is taken - the shield archons, Aasimar paladins riding on
celestial griffons and finally, holy warriors under the command of high level
priests of Mitra. This is the first grindstone and after this, the victory
points are counted - Your PCs have probably been taxed to their limits and
beyond and it might be possible that they failed - the adventure advises the DM
on the consequences and, depending on what the villains achieved, they'll have
different outcomes and quite a bit of trouble-shooting advice is included in
the pdf. Most probably, the town of Sanctum is theirs. They can man the tower.
Make them scarce pilgrims lambs to the slaughter for their minions. Start a
genocide in sanctum and gain information via torture. And of course, the 3
months of winter make for an excellent time to have people try to escape the
vale and warn Talingarde - something
that must be avoided, especially if the PCs have been seen.
The vale is
not in the PC's hands, though: There still are 3 sacred flames burning bright
for Mitra's glory and they must be extinguished. First lies atop a mountain guarded
from flight, guarded by a Peri and a Phoenix. Yes. A phoenix. And the villains
can steal its eggs while fighting the legendary beast. Very cool! The second
location is the garden of serenity, where not only a vast labyrinth, but also
an Agathion huntress, legion archons and a pack of advanced blink dog guard the
entrance to the labyrinth. Have I mentioned the herd of Kirin the PCs may
slaughter and use for their crafting? At the center of the aforementioned
labyrinth, the second flame burns bright, guarded by the head of the local
monastic order and an almost legendary oracle.
And then,
once the second flame has failed and a red sky looks down upon the villains,
it's time to get into the cathedral of Mitra and face the last resistance:
Devas. Hippogriffs. A storm giant with tame rocs. Ghost Paladin Martyrs. And
then there are three trails of Mitra for the PCs to outwit in order to find
high priest Earnan MacCaithlan and stop him from unleashing his ghost martyrs
via the bones of a saint. There also is a deadly Chalkydri angel and iron
golems, which guard the vault where infernal artifacts await the villains -
among which is the legendary blade Hellbrand, yet uncompleted, but eagerly
awaiting the PC's command...
Hopefully,
the PCs find a way to pierce an holy shield of fire (hints are provided), crush
an Azata-emissary and finally, meet the true head of the order, the final
guardian of the flames: Ara Mathra, He-who-stands-in-Light - advanced monadic Deva,
CR 16. OUCH! With that and several possible conclusions, this adventure ends
and provides quite a bit of trouble-shooting for beleaguered GMs.
The book also includes an extensive gazetteer of
the trade town of Ghastenhall and I wholly expected to be bored by the
write-up. Instead we get an interesting and unique town with some neat local
peculiarities in food, street-names and goods available that makes the place
exciting indeed. The excellent beautiful map does its best to add to the town's
appeal and while I don't mind the respective quarter's names, I don't like the
numbers and letters on it. A
player-friendly map would be much appreciated here. This section also ties up a
possible side-quest with a duke's missing daughter started in Book 2.
After that,
we finally get a write-up of the faith that is the opposition of the PCs -
Mitra's doctrine is revealed in all his soon-to-be-tarnished glory and the
organization his church and its 7 tiers as well as holy symbols, ceremonies
etc. are depicted in compelling and well-written detail. Fans of good
inquisitors should note that the faith comes with a neat write-up of the Mitran
Inquisition, but no crunchy inquisitions.
Conclusion:
As much as
I'm loathe to say it - editing can no longer be considered good. This
installment of the WotW has more editing glitches than the first two books
combined - from Mitran Priests that don't include the information on how many
there are in the statblock to typos and minor punctuation errors, I encountered
quite a few of them. Another pass at editing would have been great and I hope
that future installments of the WotW devote a bit more care to the process.
Layout adheres to the stellar, beautiful standard set by the series and the
original full-color maps and artworks rock hard. However, I would have loved to
see player-friendly versions of the maps for all locations, not just for some.
The pdf is bookmarked, though the final one links to the introduction instead
of the Mitra-article as it's supposed to do - another glitch that could have
easily been avoided. The printer-friendly version is b/w, but still features
all artworks and maps.
The Way of
the Wicked has provided us with two of the best adventures out there for PFRPG,
period. And now, in the "Tears of the Blessed", we finally get to
battle celestials, those creatures mostly left untouched in adventures and rip
them a new one. That's great.
However, I
feel that the overt celestial massacre to be instigated in this module suffers
from some points that could have used clarification: Number 1: After the
initial battle (which is awesome and cinematic), the occupation feels a bit
rushed and as if it leaves quite some potential untouched. The town of Sanctum
needs a kind of gazetteer with detailed NPCs, perhaps collaborators and
everyday heroes trying to escape, because 2: The PCs should have a way to
corrupt the vale's magic in order to keep the celestials from calling
reinforcements/teleporting outside. It would have been rather easy - make their
patron devise a ritual that corrupts the detect evil-sight of the watchers in
the vale to a kind of dimensional anchor/communication blockade. 3: After the epic
invasion, there's not much for the villains to do in the vale but kill the
static opponents. Apart from off-screen
genocide/torture, there's just not much to be done in sanctum. Why not make the
villains unearth foes/information? Prevent incursions? Corrupt Aasimar-populations
and/or make them undead? I get the rationale for the powerful celestials/heroes
to guard the flames, but I don't get why there's no plan for
counterattacks/guerilla-warfare. Apart from a certain ritual, the remaining
defenders don't make a smart stand - barricade the final flame, amass forces,
strike back, anything but waiting for the heroes to kill them. Usually I
wouldn't mind, but in contrast to the epic battle that lets the PCs sack
Sanctum, the extinguishing of the holy flames, while cool and iconic, pales in
comparison. Note that all these problems are easily remedied by just about any
DM, but they still remain and detract from what otherwise would be a stellar
module.
In the end,
the editing glitches and minor story/pacing-problems conspire to make this not
own up to the almost unbeatable standard set by the adventure path so far.
Don't get me wrong, this is still a good adventure, but it falls a bit short of
what I've come to expect from the saga. My final verdict, due to these
unrealized potentials and glitches, will be "only" a 4.5 Rudii, with a definite
recommendation and, in spite of the lower review, my seal of approval. If you
can see past the glitches, it's a stellar module - Those walking the Way of the
Wicked need to have this anyway.
All right, that's it for now! See you in a week! As always, thank you for reading my ramblings!
Endzeitgeist
out.
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