It's somewhat poorly structured, but my own finale isn't so different from this that I can't borrow some of the same notions. Let me go through it, as I have the others, and see what I want to use.
The first section of the adventure has the PC's traveling through the Ustalavic version of Mordor, so it's overland travel with horror-themed encounters and hazards.
WITCHGATE GROVES This is presuming that the PCs attempt to teleport to their destination; they are drawn by lodestone like witchgates, so they can't arrive where they want to. Ancient groves of trees surround these witchgates, but they've been corrupted, so they have 6 hangman trees in them, which are basically the Pathfinder equivalent of Old Man Willow from The Fellowship of the Ring. I'd treat them as a trap or even a haunt if I were to use them, and why not? Sinister dark forests are a cool idea for any fantasy game and have been ever since sinister dark forests became a meme in Western Civilization folklore, which dates back to the beginning of written records, pretty much.
HAUNTED GROVE: Subterfuge + Mind (Notice) DC 20 to smell the scent of decay one round before the haunted grove strikes. Thin, prehensile branches snake down from the trees and wrap around the necks of the targets, pulling them off their feet, where they will die as if they were hanged. Each round, the PCs can attempt to break or cut free of the branches (STR + Athletics DC 23, or attack with an edged weapon, to hit AC 25, doing 15 total points of damage) but they are still susceptible to additional attack. Now that they are aware, they can attempt to dodge out of the area which can be reached by the tree (a DEX + Athletics check, DC 15) but if the trees are in a grove, they probably cannot leave the area of one tree's attacks without stumbling into another one.Note: this is a relatively difficult haunt, with high DCs to escape from.
WYRMWAY SMEAR Although this is just really a bit of color, Hagmouth is a festering dragon with a tail wound that doesn't heal and therefore is rotted and disgusting. He lives in a cave by one of the witchgates and has an unstable and untrustworthy relationship of sorts with the Whispering Way. At the end of the day, it's just a dragon, though.
KNIGHTS OF OZEM The transparently Christian Knights of Ozem have cornered the transparently innocent Wiccan and want to execute her for being a witch or some such. In fact, she is actually possessed, but she allowed the possession to protect her family from some greater evil. This whole encounter is as stupid as it is insulting. This is a demon. Anyone foolish enough to make a deal with one, even if it is supposedly good-intentioned (but they aren't, because demons don't make deals with the innocent) has been thoroughly corrupted. This is just an excuse for some preachiness. Not on my watch; not in my campaign.
WITHERLEAF BARROWS The demon didn't fulfill its end of the bargain after all; the lady's stupid family was captured by an undead dragon, who keeps them for a while, I guess, and then absorbs their life force like some kind of vampire or something. However, the wagon train where her family was is now the ambush site for some hags, who hoped somebody would stumble back across them. They've also animated the remains in the barrows, which curiously are just zombies, not barrow-wights. Oh, well.
RENCHURCH ABBEY The headquarters of the Black Path (or Whispering Way, as they call it here), but it's just a haunted house slash dungeon encounter bucket. I don't really have much use for it, but let me make some quick notes about what it has in it. There's way too many of them, making this a major dungeoncrawl episode, but some of the below would at least be welcome.
- A banshee (in FANTASY HACK, a variant ghost)
- a haunt that casts a fireball spell, basically
- bog mummies that climb out of a stagnant pond
- a minor haunt based on shady asylum doctor habits, that cause weakness in the PCs
- skeletal demon horses (nightmares) in a stable
- a graveyard haunt where graves open up and attempt to swallow the PCs
- a whispering haunt with variable minor effects
- a bladed door trap—reminds me of some Indiana Jones business
- a freaky giant with an extra withered arm called an athach
- a ghostly bell
- a barbed devil
- some really fat ghouls (I like the imagery, I suppose)
- some kind of famine demon
- a weird haunt where all kinds of animal heads on the wall suck the air out of the room
- a vampire and some spectres
- failed liches (hungry ghosts) (there is some really cool art for these gals, though.)
- invisible stalkers
- mummies
- an undead werewolf
- mohrgs (a stupid, D&D undead)
- golems
- a lich
- another demon waiting in ambush where the PCs have to cross a slippery, narrow rim around a pond underground. Not a bad set-up for an encounter, actually.
- a drowning haunt
- a flying sword haunt
- more liches and cultists
- more zombies and variant undead
- stone golems
- shadows
- more demons
- necromancers
- a flaming iron golem shaped like a fly
- a "worm that walks"
- a sub-boss who's an undead cleric of some kind or another called The Gray Friar
Presumably at this point, you've rescued the "damsel" in distress, and the only thing left to do is go kill the BBEG that you've never met and only just recently heard of for the first time. Now you go to the Ustalavic reflection of Minas Morgul, where you face another dungeoncrawl full of haunts and undead and demonic spiders. But you fight an undead dragon (a fellghast in FANTASY HACK) and the BBEG, a nasty, advanced and customized lich.
WHAT NEXT? There's actually some interesting ideas on what do to after the adventure is over as a kind of denouement, or even post-denouement. These are all about a paragraph long, and the entire section is less than a page, so I'm going to copy and paste the text as a quote. Some of these are merely side quests with a similar theme and geographical setting.
Blood of Bastardhall: Once every 100 years, the spectral bridge leading to Castle Arudora appears and a coach driven by a headless rider storms across, scouring the countryside and claiming victims with mysterious deliberateness. Yet this century the bridge to the ruin known as Bastardhall has appeared early, not long after a mysterious figure calling himself Caydserris Arudora passed through Cesca headed for the castle. Who is the mysterious new master of Bastardhall? What has changed the balance of power within its haunted halls? And what lies imprisoned within its catacombs that even angels would kill to keep secure?
The Doom That Came to Thrushmoor: With all the tampering with the forces of reality and sanity occurring on the banks of Avalon Bay—already considered a weak point between worlds—the fundamental barriers that guard reality are beginning to unravel. This becomes most apparent in Thrushmoor, where the town’s Star Stelae become the source of strange piping songs audible throughout the community. But the otherworldly music seems incomplete, as one of the Star Stelae went missing long ago, and gradually the discordant harmonies cause sensitive townsfolk to regress into primitive monsters. Things become stranger when one of the black ships of the denizens of Leng sails into port. Can the PCs recover the missing Star Stelae and repair the borders of reality, or is Thrushmoor doomed to become a realm of madness?
The Haunted Count: Several weeks after Count Galdana’s return to his home, Willowmourn, he begins experiencing terrifying dreams of unliving creatures and ominous arcane seals. The research he conducts in his family library leads him to believe his dreams are in fact visions of the ancient wards scattered across Golarion that ensure the Whispering Tyrant stays locked away, the knowledge of their locations imparted to him by a combination of his recent trauma and secrets locked away in his tainted blood. Not trusting anyone else in the nation with knowledge of his foul ancestry, he contacts the PCs, seeking their aid and revealing the mysteries of his visions. With their help, the count becomes convinced that his dreams aren’t merely memories, but warnings that one or more of these ancient seals is soon to be breached.
Heirs to the Tyrant: Gallowspire is not the only profane edifice haunted by the taint of the Whispering Tyrant. Several of the archlich’s minions still survive across Golarion, and the PCs’ conflict atop Gallowspire garners their attention. Several of these former generals of Tar-Baphon and their reactions to his near return are detailed [below].
The Impossible Cure: Count Galdana makes no secret of the PCs’ involvement in his rescue, and soon they are heralded as heroes in Ustalav’s capital and beyond. Yet Galdana is not the only one of the nation’s rulers who might have use of these newly recognized heroes. Depending on their actions in Caliphas and based on the report of his agent, Ramoska Arkminos, Conte Ristomaur Tiriac invites the PCs to his home at Corvischior, enlisting them in his search for a cure for vampirism. Can Tiriac be trusted? And will the PCs ally themselves with the vampire count, even if doing so might put an end to the curse of vampirism across Golarion?
Vampire War: Caliphas’s vampiric lord, Luvick Siervage, likely had a role in aiding the PCs in their struggle against the Whispering Way. Soon after Adivion Adrissant’s defeat, the vampire general Malyas wakes from his slumber and learns of the role of his ancient rival—Siervage—in thwarting the Tyrant’s rebirth. The merciless warlord rouses his armies to strike at the traitorous vampires of Caliphas, careless of the petty human capital that covers their rat’s den. See [below] for more details on the contenders in this immortal rivalry.
Wrath of Shadows: The umbral dragon Sicnavier has tormented the people of western Ustalav throughout the nation’s history. In truth, numerous dragons have held the name Sicnavier, murdering their predecessors and ruling from an ancient and ever-expanding lair that drills deep into the depths of the Hungry Mountains. After centuries of depravities and murders, the dark pit known as Sicnavier’s Lair has become a haunted abyss where draconic spirits and stranger things lurk in the dark, seeking to drive the pit’s living draconic inhabitant mad. Recently, they succeeded, unleashing a forgotten terror upon the world.As mentioned in Heirs to the Tyrant and Vampire War, there are some other suggestions for follow-ups. I thought about posting them too, but it's several pages worth, so you're better off just reading it in the module itself. But there's some decent ideas there. Especially if you're going to do something a bit less like Carrion Crown and more like CULT OF UNDEATH, which is abbreviated and faster than the prototype on which it is based. I do dislike over-long campaigns with ever-more powerful characters, though. Maybe these sequels would be best served as a kind of informal follow-up with new characters starting all over again from scratch.
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