A Pathfinder Society Scenario designed for 7th- through 10th-level characters.
A crystal key from another world? We should look into that. What could possibly go wrong?!
In studying a strange key made of metal and crystal, the Pathfinder Society has determined that it is receiving a distressing signal from a remote estate in mist-shrouded Ustalav. Other people in the area have been receiving the signal as well, but without the key, they have no way to interpret the strange messages and images. The Society must travel to Ustalav, investigate the source of the signal, and prevent the terrified populace from taking matters into their own hands!
This adventure is the first part of the two-part Crystal Key metaplot arc in the Year of Boundless Wonder.
Played and ran this scenarion, and I agree with a lot of what's been already said. Sadly, there aren't too many high level scenarios so when we do have them it's a real letdown when the scenario misses the mark.
Spoilers:
The scenario rewards 2 Reputation for Horizon Hunters and Radiant Oath factions, but the NPCs associated to each give players zero clues as to how they could earn that reputation.
If the PCs open the box and fail the Will save, the scant bit of information sends them to an NPC who is suspicious of the NPC you're supposed to save. This meant that my party was suspicious of Lumna for the entire scenario... and the main mission turns out to be that they need to free them. This alone sets the tone for the scenario all wrong, and took me as a GM a lot more work to help the players understand that they should trust Lumna.
Too many NPCs. 3 that give your mission (Evni, Kamenya, Ziri), 2 related to the mob (Saban and Kistur, who really could have been 1 NPC), and 5 in the manor (Revecka, Vilo, Narcela via 'phone', Lumna, and Gleam). Narcela is thrown in strictly to connect the scenario to the metaplot, but largely is a 'so what'. It's hard for the players to even care about these NPCs.
The map is a real problem too. It's very obviously shoehorned to fit the scenario, and as mentioned doesn't even fit the combat encounter with the Roiling Incant and Black Puddings. Thankfully when I ran it the PCs opted to sneak in (and had a way to foil their senses) so I let them get in and get out because they did a Cool Thing. But the Incant and 1 Pudding I put on the map were in separate rooms. I know map art costs money, but I'd hope there'd at least be a check to make sure monsters FIT the space they're supposed to be in.
The fights themselves are fine though. I like challenging encounters. The harpies were fairly easy (there was a Bard in the party, so that helped). The black puddings are tough but the Roiling Incant does interesting things. And the clockwork vessel was able to put a PC unconscious before they were able to win the day.
Also, can we talk about how the PDF throws an error message stating, "Cannot extract the embedded font 'Alcoholica-Bold-SC700'. Some characters may not display or print correctly."? Ignoring the name of the font, how did this pass QA?
I'm hoping that part two of this series connects dots to how this fits in the metaplot. But I won't be recommending this scenario in general.
complex and some stuff that needs fleshing out, but interesting and challenging
I ran this one twice, once low tier and once high tier. I liked it on both occasions. It did require a bit of extra work, on timeline and ensuring players would have all the info in mind, as pointed out in several other reviews. That's part of the GM role, too, I think. It is nice when it is all fleshed out and ready for use, but it does happen that sometimes it is not.
A challenge has been space management, as somewhat 'spoilingly' mentioned below. It makes for a challenging combat, even if long (in both low and high tiers). Particularly if the party does not have the proper means to deal damage.
Overall, interesting scenario, interesting NPCs, requires some additional legwork from the GM and can be a bit long. A good one, even if not the best.
I agree with some of the reviews that it could still use some work -- the overall story isn't quite held together at times -- some due to the amorphous time that based between some of the events in the backstory and just needing to make everything work. And it felt like there's a fair bit of pointless obfuscation (unknown status of too many named peopled). But I think it still worked.
The combats were generally interesting and instead of just shutting certain builds down, tended to have interesting ways to work with the situation. The ooze room however had issues with the size of the room -- the mix of oozes and incants, especially the non-splitting ooze -- was really well done and made for an interesting tactical combat.
I probably would have wanted more about Lumna. The party I was GMing for wanted to get more information out of Narcela about Asylnn and the names of the other children to be watching for. The party enjoyed interacting with Lumna and Revecka.
In that case, can you tell me how the case with the Heavenly Key ended after 7-00? I know there was also a scenario for lube for him in Season 7, but other than that, nothing.
In that case, can you tell me how the case with the Heavenly Key ended after 7-00? I know there was also a scenario for lube for him in Season 7, but other than that, nothing.
I’m curious - what Sky Key stories do you think are left to tell? 7-00 has a fleeting mention of Jormurdun dwarves trapped in a bubble outside of time that’s never actually used, but I’m unaware of any other remaining loose ends.
To be clear, I’d LOVE to resolve that time bubble idea and see some of Jormurdun’s folk return!
Just picked this one up - it’s a lot of fun, and has some really nice unexpected continuity! Excited to see its other half, as what’s here is really interesting.
Spoiler:
Follow-up on the doomed explorers in the Tomb Between Worlds, a renegade daughter of the Society’s hag rival, Stasian tech being used for both an Iron Man heart and a psychic Faraday cage, AND an alien from one of Liavara’s moons?
A crystal key from another world? We should look into that. What could possibly go wrong?!
In studying a strange key made of metal and crystal, the Pathfinder Society has determined that it is receiving a distressing signal from a remote estate in mist-shrouded Ustalav.
I have at least 4 Society characters who are natives to the country and have credible claims as to the opposite, spread across both 1e and 2e
(Please keep putting them in awkward and/or scary situations please . They thrive off complaining about Ustalav)
To be clear, I’d LOVE to resolve that time bubble idea and see some of Jormurdun’s folk return!
Really off-topic...but Starfinder Society does feature dwarves still on the Search for Sky (I believe first mentioned in 1-09 Live Exploration Extreme).
