Hey folks!
This will (hopefully) be on the shorter side (for me), as I overall really like this chapter! As some folks have been saying since around the time the book came out, it feels a bit weird to start with the "Dealing with Evil" sidebar on page 3 and an entire chapter basically making friends with the city (10 real life sessions and 4 months of in-game negotiation for my group), only for Chapter 3 to have you fighting the very people you spent so long negotiating with! Some folks felt that the magic memory ritual at the end is a bit too handwavy, as well.
Personally, I take a slightly softer view on this. Mzali is, ultimately, an authoritarian, ethno-nationalist, expansionist city state. The Magaambya hopes to make things better, but the book is very specific that this is a slow, incremental process, and that sort of change cannot happen overnight. Plus, my group were positively raring to take the fight to the ruling class of Mzali, and probably would have if it wasn't ruled by a literal god. Players want to fight evil! Put evil in front of them, they wanna fight it.
That being said, I do think it will be more satisfying for the party, and serve as a better climax to the themes I've been setting up, if this is not the full-throated imperial ambition of the city's God King, but rather the individual initiative of the city official that MOST hates the party (Worknesh) as part of the struggle for political power, aided by the ever-blighting influence of the Aspis Consortium, who are already confirmed in the Mwangi Expanse book to be making regular forays into the forest.
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| Osibu, the Golden City |
Revised History & Politics
We are scrapping the part of this chapter (p55-56) that describes Walkena mentally linking with the knowledge of all those who died within the temple. I think that's fine, but 1. it does feel weird that Walkena was willing to go after it was cleared out, but not before (after all, what could scare a god? Idk, maybe he sensed the creation of the new god), and 2. I don't want this to be strictly Walkena's fault. I think he is a really interesting character, and represents a really common thread in history of liberatory nationalism giving way to reactionary nationalism. He ultimately wants what's best for the people of Mzali, and for the Mwangi Expanse as a whole! He just thinks that he knows what that is. I could honestly see him try to basically take over Osibu as part of that, but strategically that feels basically impossible while the Screaming Jungle is still there, and the books motivation of loot and plunder makes a lot more sense in the geopolitical context we have.
Instead, throughout their talks with Worknesh, the Aspis Consortium already had the location of Osibu (we'll get to how in a second). Originally, their plan was to get both permission for their troops to head into the screaming jungle without Mzali stopping them (an otherwise risky prospect given the river chokepoints) as well as get some local guides or aid in their expedition. In return, they offered Worknesh a share of the gold and glory to help prop up her status relative to her rival, Themba, and to solidify her status in the broader Mzali politicking. When our heroes (presumably) disrupt their efforts, however, the plan shifts from "Aspis expedition with Mzali aid" to "Mzali expedition with secret Aspis aid", since in my game at least they were banished from the city. More on that in the play by play below.
We really want to highlight the themes of colonial meddling, here, which is still alive and well despite the fall of Sargava - it's just taken a new form. Just like the real world, direct Colonialism gives way to Capitalism-Imperialism, and the Aspis Consortium is working hard to cement that financial domination as best they can. In chapter 1, our heroes (hopefully) prevented them from gaining a direct foothold into one of the more powerful city states, and now they must prevent them from advancing their plan to loot the Expanse dry.
Speaking of colonial meddling, remember the Pathfinder Deron Melcarian? (He's talked about a fair bit in the Osibu section of the Mwangi Expanse book, pages 246-253, and referenced a few times in this adventure). So, what, textually, do we know about him? Going off those two sources, we know that he jumped into the Nemesis Well in 4718 (3 years ago as of the Mwangi Expanse book, 6 years ago as of my campaign) in order to escape the city with the location of Osibu, hoping to bring it back to the other Pathfinders in Absalom (the richest city in the world). In doing so, he disrupted whatever lies within the Nemesis Well (perhaps Dimari-Diji's fallen siblings?) to the point where the creepy whisperings have increased from once or twice a decade to once or twice a month, and the people of Osibu have been living in fear every since.
In this remix, Melcarian survived, but was driven rather mad by his experience going through the Nemesis Well, and was found about 5 years ago by the Aspis Consortium. He had not been shy about his quest to find Osibu, and so they Consortium could not pass up a chance to find the lost city for themselves. About a year before the PCs arrive in Mzali, the Consortium finally managed to piece together his captive ramblings enough to triangulate the city, and they've been putting together this plan ever since. Maybe they even bring Melcarian along to make sure they go to the right place, and the PCs get to meet him
This way, we have trifold imperial ambitions. The imperial arrogance of Melcarian, thinking that the secrets of this unknown culture were rightfully his to document and share! The waning imperial dominance of the Aspis Consortium, which they are fighting to win back after their Chelaxian partners were expelled. The rising imperial ambitions of Mzali, expressed through Worknesh's political jockeying.
The Siege of Osibu
There are only a few changes we need to make here.
Walkena's Forces
Some of the troops present are Aspis mercenaries! For simplicity's sake, we'll be using the same stat block as the Sun Warrior Brigades, but with guns instead of magic:
- "Frenetic Assault" gains a range of 120 feet, and is a 20-ft. burst (10-ft. at 8 squares). Feel free to rename it to "Take Aim!" or something.
- "Walkena's Radiance" replaced with "Grenade!" - effectively the same thing, but a 20 foot burst within 60 feet (goes down to a 10 foot burst when at 1/3 HP).
- Spellcasting is gone, though if you want you can give them a flamethrower or something to do a 10 foot cone burning hands (feel free to come up with other cool tech replacements for spells, though the extra range on their attacks probably makes that unecessary)
I have 5 players, so I did 3x Sun Warriors and 2x Aspis, but feel free to change up the balance based on how Chapter 1 went! If the Consortium wasn't balanced, maybe it's an even split. If they won, maybe they're the majority!
Attack of the Sun Spires / Piercing the Wall
The Living Sun Spires are now basically static Mzali defenses that have been combined with Aspis mechanical wheels. This doesn't require mechanical changes, though feel free to give them weakness to electricity or allow clever players to mess with the mechanical bits with water spells, thievery/crafting checks made from up close, etc.
Breaking the Golden Blade
Make sure to include some of the Aspis leaders from chapter 1 - which ones depends on who survives! They killed Nera in my game, and drove Florenzia off, but Lorenzo survived just fine. So, for my group of 5, they'll be fighting Worknesh, Lord Antonio Meschino, and 3 Jackal Guards. You could drop the Jackal Guards for 4 players, though this does feel a bit lame to me haha, so I'd at least narrate the Golden Defenders holding off the Jackal Guard reinforcements so the PCs can focus on the leaders.
If they do have Themba's people assassinate Worknesh, I plan to have other Aspis folks come to Lord Antonio's aid! Probably Florenzia and maybe an Aspis Agent.
The Memory Ritual
It feels a bit deus ex machina to have Walkena's memories, as of those of the entire army completely wiped. Even if it worked, the idea that no one would seriously question how the army ended up in the Screaming Jungle or where Worknesh went is kinda goofy. I also don't think it's necessary! We will keep the bit about the ritual removing the specific memories of Osibu's location, since that's something that has been established to be possible (just usually on a smaller scale).
Instead, they will flee because both their general and the literal avatar of their God King are slain before their eyes in dramatic fashion (possibly with an eclipse blocking out the sun, depending on what happened in Chapter 2)! Plus, they were already taking much heavier losses than anticipated, between the wildlife that comes to Osibu's aid, the magic and golden constructs of its defenders, and of course the actions of the PCs themselves.
The surviving soldiers will retain some memories of their time, but unlike the "sweet, half-remembered dream" that "the dreaming" usually leaves behind, what's left of their memories will be tortured nightmares of death and destruction (ME 250). I think it should be left vague whether Walkena himself knows, but at the very least, the armies of Mzali are devastated by this assault (the approach was not bloodless, the battle itself was bloody, and the disorganized return trip will kill many more and leave countless soldiers as traumatized husks, ineffective in future fights) and the Master of Spears has "inexplicably disappeared".
There will be a sharp pivot in Mzali towards disinformation, trying to hide the extent of their failure to keep up appearances, as well as blame their misfortune on the Bright Lions, unintentionally giving them an almost legendary status. Walkena will be too preoccupied to go after Osibu again any time soon, and since his decision in Chapters 1 and 2 was extremely public (see my rework), he cannot publicly go back on it. Any agreements made with the Magaambya will stand. He is certainly not happy with the PCs, and it might not be a good idea for them specifically to stay in the city in the long term, but they are safe in the short term since Themba is thrilled that they are (presumably) responsible for his rivals downfall.
Addendums
Old Friends and New
I'm bringing back Ktaal (Froglegs), who in my game the players negotiated with, convincing her that they were not enemies, that they didn't need to fight, and that they all wanted to stop Salathiss's meddling and make the city better. It was a really touching arc, and ended with one of my players meeting with Ktaal in an isolated grove outside the city to talk about the future. Ktaal ended up going wandering, uncertain what her place was in a world that seemed to have passed her by. Her way of doing things wasn't working, so she had to find a new one.
I almost brought her back in Book 3, but that felt too soon! So instead, I think she found her way to Osibu in what started as an epic hunt for treasure and ended with her finding a sense of home and community there that she'd never known! She will speak for the PCs when they first alive (instead of Dimari-Diji, though he will be present later), and might help them out in a pinch. I might have Florenzia show up in the final fight as well, only for Ktaal to step in and duel her one on one, allowing the PCs to handle everyone else!
An Isolated "Paradise"
I was thinking a lot about why Osibu remains isolated from the world, and I don't have a great answer! For a while I was thinking about it in terms of Wakanda, who ended the first movie by re-entering the world to share their wealth with people of the African Diaspora, making up for not helping prevent the colonial tragedies that led to our current real-world situation! And while Osibu doesn't have Vibranium, its streets are literally paved with gold and it apparently has healing practices and longevity magic that "most necromancers and alchemists of Golarion could only dream of" (ME 299).
As explored in this excellent post, however, the Mwangi Expanse does not map neatly onto Africa, and is in many ways a product of the Diaspora rather than a Continental work (ironically enough). While some aspects of real-world colonialism are present in the history of the Mwangi Expanse, most notably apartheid Sargava (a South Africa analogue) and the slave trade (though not, in the opinion of that post's author, represented particularly well), but a lot of the knock-on effects of colonialism (and certainly the modern swap to Capitalist-Imperialist financial domination, which this remix attempts to reintroduce) are largely absent.
I don't have solutions, only questions! Is anywhere in the Expanse desperately in need of that gold? How common is disease in this world, and is withholding this knowledge shirking responsibility or safeguarding ancient practices that are too reliant on one individual (Dimari-Diji) to work on a larger scale? Even if their resources could be impactful, do the people of Osibu have a responsibility to help the broader Expanse?
I don't know. But I think reflecting on these questions in the geopolitics of your version of the Expanse could lead to some really thought provoking moments.
That's all folks! ... I know, I know. I was hoping this would be a short one. This AP is just so damn good! There's always more to think about and engage with. The actual changes were pretty small, though, so at least you can skip most of it if you aren't interested!
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