SoT Book 4 Chapter 2 - Raising the Sun

Hey folks!

Holy Symbol of Dajermube

I ended up using Book 4 of Strength of Thousands: Secrets of the Temple City as an example of poor module layout, and I felt pretty bad (especially since the writer of the book commented below), because it's honestly a great module overall! I didn't love the scenario structure of Chapter 1, but that's not the module's fault per say, it's the fault of the Influence system and tight deadlines that don't permit playtesting. Chapter 1 is also a really interesting and nuanced take on a complex culture, and I appreciate having less combat-focused scenarios! I did make some light changes to Chapter 3, but mostly because I like the Aspis Consortium as antagonists - I think you can probably run it as is and it'd be fine!

So, today we're going to talk about the other chapter in the book, which I really love, despite it being the main focus of my game rant. Obviously, spoilers!

Advice for GMs

In the spirit of putting the most useful information up front, I want to highlight a few suggestions I have for helping bring out the interesting story of this module:

• Bring the lore to life. As is true in many published modules (not just Paizo, but also Paizo), there's a lot of, like, "here's the elaborate backstory of this room." with no sense of how the GM might communicate that to the players. It sucks, but I recommend going through ahead of time and coming up with details for each room to really bring both the original purpose of the temple and its violent shut down to the fore.
• Encourage Curiosity. As written, the party has achieved their goal once they get to A23 and find the tablets. This is also the first time they get access to the Lanterns, and therefore unrestricted access to the rest of the dungeon - ideally, you want them to want to explore the rest!
• Foreshadow Dajermube.  Use whatever tools you can to foreshadow both Dajermube's presence and the ritual she was working on! I had an Oracle in the party, and two people with consult the spirits, so I had plenty of ways to add in that backstory.
• A19 should be closed. There's an implication in the boxed text that the door is actually open, though it's possible this only means once the door opens (though, why include it at that point, since they would've just walked through it). The fun puzzle dungeon aspect is completely fucked if the door is open from the start, however.
• The worms should be active. Not enough that the party cannot cross the river without being attacked, but enough that there's some challenge to it. 
• Make the players track oil for the lanterns. If they don't have any, they'll have to get creative to burn the Twilight Lantern in A23! I did just put some oil jars in A19, though, because I didn't want to be too mean and it makes sense there would be some somewhere.
• Put the Biloko magic weapon inside the Worms. One baffling piece of the adventure is that, while it totally makes sense that the Biloko are trapped inside, it makes no sense that in order to free them the PCs must get rid of the Worms! Why can't they just walk out the front door now that the PCs have opened it? In order to incentivize the players to still interact with the Worms, I'd have Gambulami tell the PCs he lost his epic magic item fighting off one of the worms (it got eaten, but could likely be cut out of their corpse). This way, the PCs can either back off or go for more treasure! You could instead have it be something the Biloko won't leave without if you wanna make up some content!
• Check in with your party about death. Dajermube has Finger of Death, which can be a really feels bad spell! I used it on a character whose player I knew would be okay with it. And I was right! But two other players were not okay with it. I did not anticipate how strong their reactions would be (largely fear over that happening to them and guilt over not doing more to help). The character was resurrected by Dajermube the next session, because when she ascended she had his soul and obviously was incentivized to give it back, but in the moment it felt really bad for those two players. Make sure you know how comfy your players are with death.

Other than these few minor changes and broad recommendations, I think the dungeon works pretty well as is!

Interesting Linearity

I am generally a fan of Jaquaysed dungeons, because interconnectedness allows players to take control of their exploration and potentially find ways around problems rather than just through them. After running this chapter, however, I think this might be a place where a more linear path is ok!

The expected arc of this dungeon, unless the players happen to prepare sun/moon spells (which is possible, especially with a cleric/druid who can access Sunburst without needing to find it first) or do something clever, is that the players will:

1. Explore the upper floors, learning some elements of the dungeon's history and seeing the first signs of warfare and bloodshed.
2. Head to Floor 1, see the Mzali golems, and either choose to fight them or come back later (either way it's tough to push through even with spells).
3. Head to Floor 2, fight the ghosts (the former inhabitants of this temple, with their fresh ghostly wounds from Mzali's soldiers!), cross the river (fighting the drenchdeads and probably avoiding the worms)
4. Find the Archives, the Plates you came for, some details about the Ritual, and the Lanterns!
5. They likely decide to explore some more using the lanterns. Eventually, they find the Biloko and Dajermube herself!

There's a lot to like about this! The players slowly end up learning more and more about this place, seeing first its ruins, then hints of what happened here, then finally learning a huge chunk of the history and at the same time gaining access to explore. That's really cool! And they get the feeling of seeing the doors, knowing how they work, but not having easy access, and then unlocking those pathways.

All of this combines to setup the climactic battle with and (hopefully) ascension of Dajermube in a really cool way that makes deciding what to do about her (cleans the temple/slay the undead? help a new god rise?) the players choice. Especially using Milestone, where you don't need the XP.

Linear dungeons can work really well for developing this sort of direct story! I think my preference would still be to set up something more sandboxy where the players can choose their path, maybe gating the final section with Dajermube until you've done enough other stuff, but I think if you're gonna do a linear dungeon, this is the way to do it!

Jaquaysing Just For Fun

I think we could probably Jaquays this dungeon a little bit if we wanted without ruining too much of that intent, since the players goal is still in the same place as the ritual notes, and they still need both lanterns to reach Dajermube, not just one like they do for the rest of the dungeon.

Original vs. lightly Jaquaysed Dungeon

In the map to the right, we see the structure of the dungeon through line art. Green is the aboveground temple and stairs, Blue is water, Pink is potential added (possibly secret) passageways.

In other words, we could add 2 more entrances to the dungeon (through the underground river, which could have an entrance close by, and through the Popobawa's hole, which could be findable and navigable). We could also add either an obvious or secret passage from the Archives on Level 2 to the Sanctum on Level 1. If we want there to be more risk, we can instead basically have steps alongside the waterfall that are wet, small/rickety (they used to be bigger before waterfall erosion), and close to the Worms nest. In other words, the players can progress up this way without the Lanterns if they are willing to risk the worms!

You could similarly introduce places where the river eroded other entrances to places (for example, maybe A19 and A22 are connected), or add burrowing creatures that created their own paths (and that players might be able to corral into doing so again) if you want to do even more of this! I'd only personally do this for an in persons game where I didn't have to rely on a VTT map, however.

Lock and Key

Another way of creating a more dynamic exploration sequence could be take more inspiration from metroidvania games and adjust the lanterns in two ways:

• Not all rooms have both Sun and Moon doors! Some only have one or the other (and indeed, one of the lanterns is unfortunately in a room only accessibly by the other lantern - the inhabitant starved to death long after Mzali troops attacked!). This can totally be due to collapsed rubble if you think the builders would've wanted to have both, though some rooms might also might be designed to only be entered by one or the other.
• Neither lantern is easily accessible! They are both behind either light-locked doors or behind spookier challenges. (In the module as written, the Sun lantern is in A23, so you basically follow the Linear path south on Level 2, then follow a second linear path up on Level 1, and can do side-rooms along the way if you want).

I would also seed more tools that the PCs might use to solve the door problem. For example, maybe floor 1 has a few metal serving things that could be cleaned up to be shiny as well as a broken mirror or two, and combining all of them (with a good skill check) can potentially open the doors to A10, A12, A19, or A20 ( maybe the first door to A14, but not both). You could also have the doors (or walls) more susceptible to damage (or even specific weak points!) as alternate paths that 

Regardless, if you do try to encourage more exploration, you should also introduce random encounters (some wandering ghosts fits the theme well) so that there's some time pressure!

Again, I don't think this dungeon strictly needs to be about encouraging better exploration. I think if it was any bigger, I'd feel otherwise, but as it is, it's pretty focused on telling the specific story of the PCs going on one mission and finding out that things might not be as they seem, nicely setting up for some of the themes in Chapter 3. And that's totally fine! It works pretty well. I think this article is proof that I am incapable of writing a short, simple article without having 12 ideas for expanding it.