SoT Book 5 Chapter 1B - Doorway to the Red Star

Hey folks!

The Dooraway to the Red Star
by Hinchel Or

Today we'll be going through the second half of (the very packed) Chapter 1 of Book 5, focusing on diplomacy with the Iobane, raiding the Cathedral of Nothingness, and opening the Doorway to the Red Star.

For the first half of this chapter (the actual Preparations and Pranksters), see the previous post! I won't be going through the journey, other than to touch briefly on how the area has been warped by the Vesicant Egg - I assume it'll take about a month overland (unless the PCs teleport somewhere closer, like one of their homes) but won't be particularly tough.

Insectoid Growth

We're changing Koride. Koride has been studying the Vesicant Egg near the Doorway to the Red Star - the Iobane and the Magaambya have always had a positive relationship, as Old Mage Jatembe founded the Magaambya and the Iobane fought beside him. As such, Koride decided to bring the egg to them to study, and they gave her some abandoned ruins to work out of.

Unbeknownst to her, the Egg drew her to it, trying to rejoin its creator on Akiton. Ever since her arrival, it has been corrupting the landscape with increasing swarms of insects as it sought to find a way through the portal. Over the years, Koride has becoming less and less communicative, eventually fully barricading herself in the ruin the Iobane gave her. (If you'd prefer to replace the Cathedral of Nothingness, you could have her holed up within it with various insectoid creatures instead of its normal defenders, but I don't have that kinda free time at the moment.)

The Journey North

The closer the PCs get to the Doorway (or more specifically, the Egg), the worse the insect plague gets.

• 100 Miles Away. Insects become more noticeable/present, and are often acting strangely (creating weird runic patterns like in Book 1).
• 50 Miles Away. Insects begin travelling in large swarms that the local townsfolk have to avoid, and have developed specific perfumes that are repellant to keep themselves from getting swarmed and eaten. Lots of bug-based foods.
• 25 Miles Away. Giant insects become extremely common, and townsfolk organize guards and patrols to skewer any that get to close. All local food is bugs (nothing else can grow or live here).
• Within 10 Miles. There are now swarms of giant insects. Townsfolk have mostly fled further afield. Only the Iobane remain, holding to their ancient duty.

The Iobane are upset with Koride, guessing that her insectoid egg has something to do with all this since this all started just after she arrived. She talked them down at first, when things were minor, and by the time things got bad they had other things to worry about, with giant Red Guard Ants (magically enlarged by the Vesicant Egg) and bloodstorm swarms (insects not demons - remove Demon Shape and related actions, and swap the Demon trait for Animal). The Iobane have been hunting them for some time, and have lost one Magi per semester the PCs spent so far, and have been unable to safely approach Koride.

Rescuing Koride

Koride has locked herself into a tangled nest of thistles and webs within the heard of the ruins. Even reaching her requires finding a way into into that fortress - fire is effective but might harm her, and any form of destruction will draw out Red Guard Ants - 2 at first, though there are about a dozen roaming the surrounding region.

Inside, Koride is so enthralled by the egg that she cannot see or hear anything. She is sustained by the egg itself, and works tirelessly to find a way to bring it to Akiton (this is impossible given what she is trying, and the Egg doesn't understand people enough to have her ask the Iobane, or even to know that they might be the key - not that they would say yes anyway, at this point). A DC 35 perception check clocks that her shadow seems damaged and worn.

Snapping Koride out of it requires a successful counteract check with an appropriate spell or similar (dispel magic, remove curse, etc.). Rank 8, DC 34 (+1 per semester spent in downtime). If they knock her out first, Rank 7, DC 30 (+1 per semester). The thrall automatically ends if she travels more than 100 miles from the Egg, though returns once closer.

Revised History of the Egg

In the module, when Old Mage Jatembe defeated the King of Biting Ants, his essence later coalesced into the Vesicant Egg and the Iobane found and guarded it (along with the Doorway). The main problem with Koride stealing the egg (as talked about here) is that it makes her 

You're welcome to keep this if you want, and just make it so that the Iobane didn't quite know what they had found (and probably didn't notice it's absence), but personally I'm leaning towards Koride having found it in an excavation somewhere (or rather, it called to her).

Dealing With the Egg

Presumably, the PCs will want to destroy it! My group sure did! Unfortunately, they can't. It's an Artifact that they don't understand. Depending on what they try, feel free to have weapons break (in a fixable way), sicken casters from magical overload, etc. to emphasize how powerful it is.

This should serve to motivate them even more strongly to find Jatembe, who upon being freed will be able to keep the egg contained, although he acknowledges that this is a temporary solution and more research and study will be required - this must be done under the full care of the Magaambya, with the aid of his wards, to have any hope of success. The Iobane will help Koride get it back to the Magaambya for now (and therefore get it the fuck out of their hair). The school should be able to keep it mostly under control until then, especially with Koride's aid if she is rescued and revived, as she did find ways to minimize its impact and stunts its growth - they just clearly weren't foolproof, and left her in danger. The faster the PCs can find Jatembe, who has more permanent solutions, the better.

The Iobane

Understandably, they're not happy. They've been dealing with Koride's nonsense and this bug infestation for far too long, and have lost several magi between that and attacks by the Cult of Nothingness. They're fighting on two fronts, and they're exhausted.

There are several factors that might influence negotiations with the Iobane before the PCs even arrive:

• Increase all DCs for talking to them by 2 for each semester the PCs spend in downtime, as things have only gotten worse.
• At the end of Book 4, the city of Osibu was really destroyed! I gave my PCs the option of either staying to help, and having Dimari Diji come visit, or returning early and basically getting a "free" semester of downtime.
• Decrease these DCs by 2 if the PCs found a way to cut travel down from a month ish to a week or so.
• Increase these DCs by 2 if Raido-Kan ended up publicly smearing the Heroes/Magaambya earlier in this chapter.
• Decrease these DCs by 2 if Raido-Kan instead ended up spreading word of their wisdom.
• Write down your final Base DC (it starts at 34) so you don't have to keep doing math!

Make sure the Iobane bring up each one that applies by name ("This has been ongoing for months while you focused on your studies" or "Your reputation precedes you" for good or for ill).

Negotiations - Accessing the Doorway

Putting a stop to Koride's nonsense is a prerequisite for doing anything else (they start at Patience 0, but gain 1-3 Patience based on how they did with Koride: 1 for getting the egg, 1 for counteracting the effect on her, 1 for killing at least 6 Ants). Any meetings before then will basically amount to "go clean up your mess if you want to talk". We'll be using the same rules discussed last time.

Once Mpondo meets with the PCs (after they deal with Koride), he thanks them for their help, but does not feel prepared to lend them aid, both because of the threats at their door and because he does not believe that the Magaambya are responsible enough to trust with such knowledge (as evidenced by Koride). Addressing these two concerns will likely be the bulk of negotiations!

Patience 0-3 (see above); Interest 2; Base DC 34 (+ adjustments, see above).

Motivations: Appealing to them reduces the DC by 2 for minor or broad arguments, or 5 for stronger or more specific ones.

• Protection. Defend their lands (from both Insects and the cult). (-2 to DCs for sympathy or vaguer support, -5 for offering to take on the cult or spend a bunch of time hunting insects.)
• Justice. Want the cult punished for their attacks. Also would like Koride punished, or at least have the Magaambya take responsibility for her actions (-2 to the DC for apologies, -5 for concrete actions).
• Discovery. Always happy to learn more about the 10 magic warriors or add more artifacts to their collection.
  
• Special: When giving gifts like the gorget of the primal roar or Teacher Ot's collection of essays, PCs can choose whether they would like to do as part of an argument ("look at how beneficial our relationship is!" or "give us what you want and we'll give you these!" or similar) or to just give the gifts freely. Doing the former works like a normal argument, with a -2 to the DC per gift. Giving the gifts freely instead reduces the DCs for all future negotiation checks.

Pitfalls: Count as an automatic failure (-1 Patience).

• (As always, insults and deception, if caught in a lie, always result in a critical failure, reducing both Interest and Patience by 1.)
• Brag. The Iobane revere some of the most powerful mages of all time, and live a fairly ascetic life of service. They do not take kindly to those who think too highly of themselves.
• Interrogate. They are very protective of their magical secrets, and respond poorly if PCs try to pry into them without first earning their trust.

Offers: What might the Iobane offer on positive results (4/5)?

• They might not require the PCs to clear out the Cathedral before continuing! (They'll miss out on Treasure, though you can put more in later chapters to make up or have the Iobane offer gifts on Influence 5, as well as XP if you're using that - we're just levelling up after each chapter though.)
• If the PCs agree to clear out the Cathedral, they might offer help! On Influence 4, probably just advice and pre-emptive spellcasting (illusions, long buffs, etc.) and healing, but on Influence 5 Mpondo or 1-2 of his mages might either join the PCs the whole time or be on standby to come help them out if things get tough!
• They might offer cool treasures/artifacts, either using "there's treasure in the Cathedral, and you can have it!" to tempt the PCs inside or giving them something of their own! I recommend rare spells or magical implements tailored to your group.
• On influence 2, they might offer to let the PCs stay and study on their own

Requests: What might the Iobane ask for (either on a 3/"Yes, but..." or throughout the negotiating process)?

• Fight the Cult. They are very likely to ask for this! See the section on the Cathedral for details.
• Hunt the Ants. I would run this as a montage, with PCs getting 1 attempt for free (if they want!) and subsequent attempts costing 1 Patience (time is abstract - the important thing is the sufferance of the Iobane). See "Bug Hunting" below for details.
• Punish Koride. Or otherwise make amends between the two institutions for her behavior.

All that to say, it's very possible for the PCs to avoid fighting the cult if they really want to, though the most straightforward route is still to deal with them.

Bug Hunting

If the PCs decide to hunt down ants, either to impress the Iobane in advance of negotiations or as a condition for their help agreed upon during negotiations, I'd run it as follows.

The PCs will make 2 checks (other PCs can aid them, but each PC can only make 1 total check here).

The first will represent how effectively they can find and hunt down the giant ants. It will probably be Survival, though other options might work as well.

• If the check is at least a 20, they kill 1 ant + 1 more for every 2 points over 20 (so 20 kills 1, 24 kills 3, 30 kills 6). (This basically amounts to DC 30)
• They need to kill at least 6 to impress the Iobane (+1 Patience pre-negotiations, or "good enough" post negotiations), but if they kill all 12 (DC 42) then the Iobane also start with +1 interest and offer something extra if negotiations are successful.
• Why can't the PCs just keep trying? The patience of the Iobane is not infinite. BUT the PCs can keep trying if the Iobane's Patience is at least 1 - each attempt after the first reduces the Iobane's patience by 1, and the DC to kill at least 1 ant increases to 30 (they are now aware they are being hunted). If this reduces their patience to 0, the Iobane make their final offer based on the results. In fiction, each attempt after the first takes weeks!

The second check determines, during that process of killing ants, what the hardest encounter was. This could be a group stealth check (roll only for whoever has the worst stealth score after modifiers like Follow the Expert) to sneak up on them, a crafting or survival check to lure them into traps, or any other tactic that represents trying to split the ants up and kill them one by one. The DC is 30 regardless:

• The DC is 30 regardless:
• Critical success: 1 Ant + 1 bloodstorm swarm. (Low)
• Success: 2 Ants + 1 bloodstorm swarm. (Moderate-Severe)
• Failure: 3 Ants + 1 bloodstorm swarm. (Severe-Extreme)
• Critical Failure: 4 Ants + 1 bloodstorm swarm. (Extreme)
• Remember, bloodstorm swarms are insects not demons - remove Demon Shape and related actions, and swap the Demon trait for Animal.

I am not using XP - the PCs just level up after each chapter. I quite like this for APs, personally, both because I don't like XP-for-combat and because it allows things to constrict or balloon without causing problems. If you are using XP, I would award PCs 20 XP per ant killed (+20 for the swarm), regardless of how hard the fight ends up being. If they hunt ants instead of tackling the Cathedral due to negotiation well, I might award 40 XP per ant instead.

Sneaking Past the Iobane

If the PCs decide to get to Akiton, they will have to:

• Sneak past the Iobane guards (probably patrolling in pairs to keep out ants)
• Steal the ritual from Mpondo's tent
• Successfully learn the ritual
• Successfully cast the ritual without angering the Iobane! (or driving them off somehow if that fails)

A tough task! Definitely worth some XP if you're using that, or again, just level them up once they go through the portal.

The Cathedral of Nothingness

Again, you're welcome to replace the baddies in the Cathedral with Red Guard Ants and other big bugs from Book 6 or elsewhere. I'm not doing that, because ya girl already has too many projects that she's behind on, but putting Koride in here (either replacing the undead or kidnapped by them) could be fun!

The biggest challenge with this dungeon, for me, is the framing. Honestly, it's fucking stupid. Why would the PCs "infiltrate" the dungeon, instead of just kicking down the door? It feels contrived to get the PCs to maybe cut their own limbs off, but that's such a huge tone shift from the rest of the AP. There are two main options here: either cut it, and have Mpondo tell the PCs to just kill them, or make stealth and infiltration matter.

I'm not going to go too far into that here, mostly because of time. Maybe I'll have time later and edit it in! But here are some broad thoughts:

• If we want infiltration to be desirable, it needs to be a more challenging scenario. Not just a series of fights with a couple haunts thrown in, but a dynamic, responsive environment! Guards that alert more folks inside, maybe wandering patrols... No need to add creatures, but we definitely want at least an Order of Battle for the ones already here. We might want to move a couple creatures around as well (smaller action groups that can combine easily is probably better overall).
• We'd also want alternatives that don't rely on sacrifice. Stealth? Maybe we add a backdoor into the courtyard, plus some windows to higher levels. Of course, someone would need to be at least infrequently patrolling them...
• We'd want an adversity roster to turn this into a proper raid scenario.
• I think we'd want killing the Boss to basically turn the rest of them on each other, effectively neutralizing them, so that the PCs can potentially avoid those combats through smart play (rather than just picking their battles).

That's all for now! Geeze have I had this in drafts for a while, ya girl's got too much going on. Now I just hope they don't blow through this chapter too quickly!