Act II
The second act begins as the party crosses into the second layer of the Darklands: Sekamina.This new land brings with it new dangers. Aside from tougher monsters and a greater likeliness of hazards like lava flows, the PCs may begin to face dissension within the ranks. As food runs scarce, some NPCs may question why the characters are in charge at all– these concerns must be addressed lest the survivors fracture into smaller, weaker groups.
The PCs also come into contact with the seugathi, a servitor race to monstrous serpents called neothelids. The seugathi mostly ignore the PCs as they go about their enigmatic missions, but they do show an inordinate interest in the state of the surface world. Also, throughout this Act, the PCs hear tales of the worm-like horrors relentlessly tracking down and acquiring a rare mineral known as blood crystal.
By this point, the practice of most traditional religions has broken down, both amongst the survivors and within the societies of those native to the Darklands. The drow, once worshipers of powerful demons, now follow their most influential leaders in religion-like cults of personality. The svirfneblin– subterranean gnomes– have burned their holy books and are attempting to expunge all traces of religion from their society. Of the traditional gods, the only one experiencing a glut of new followers is Rovagug, since he appears to be the only one capable of answering prayers. Thus, the PCs may be surprised when they first encounter the green-skinned, semi-aquatic skum. This race continues their fervent worship of beings they know only as the Great Old Ones. Skum questioned regarding their worship may make reference to a great and terrible plan which is being enacted by their deities, but either cannot or will not divulge details under any circumstances.
The brunt of the plot for this Act hits as they PCs reach the drow city of Delvingulf. The party arrives to find the city in a state of civil war– House Parastric, insane researchers of twisted alchemies, has decided to capitalize on the chaos that followed the silencing of the gods by staging a general takeover of drow society. Allied with them are Houses Vonnarc and Misraria, known respectively for their skill in dark magic and assassination; together, these three Houses managed to eliminate many of their political rivals as the opening salvo of the now-protracted conflict. By the time of the PCs arrival, fighting has spilled into the streets, and includes magically-controlled beasts, slaves, and fleshwarped monstrosities alongside drow warriors. (GMs without access to Pathfinder #15-16 may wish to create drow noble houses of their own to fill in both sides of this conflict).
Agents of House Vexidyre– know as master diplomats, traders, and politicians– approach the PCs with a proposition as the band of survivors nears Delvingulf. Though House Vexidyre is currently neutral in the civil war, its matron wishes to install spies within House Parastric. The agents, having heard report of the characters’ skill and resourcefulness, propose to ‘capture’ the PCs and sell them as specialty slaves to House Parastric. From this position of relative access, the slave/spies can report back to Vexidyre by way of dead drops and go-betweens. In return for this, the drow nobles will attend to the needs of the PCs’ band of survivors, ostensibly holding them as slaves while in fact treating them as honored guests. In addition, the drow are willing to supply the party with potent magical items and valuable information about the Darklands.
Thus are the PCs plunged into the intrigue-filled world of drow politics. This portion of the campaign is largely player-driven, as the characters must do what they think best improves their position in Delvingulf. Whatever the PCs do, they soon stumble upon an important secret: House Parastric is currently ruled not by a drow matron, but by a demonic succubus, called to and trapped upon this plane just before the it was cut off from the Multiverse. She is trying to unify the drow to use them as a weapon of her revenge against her captors, which are none other than the elusive seugathi.
If the players choose to aid House Parastric in its struggle for supremacy, they will make a powerful (if undeniably evil) ally. If they decide to help bring it down, perhaps by killing the succubus, they will make less powerful friends, but arguably have performed the morally correct action. And if they somehow manage to play both sides against the middle, ensuring that the civil war is long and bloody, they can weaken the drow immensely, which can only be good for the band of surface survivors in the long run.
Whichever path the party chooses to take, it can only end with bloodshed and the fall of one or more noble houses. It is more than likely that the party will have to beat a hasty retreat before the dust settles. However, one of the more useful pieces of information House Vexidyre relayed to the party is directions to the lowest level of the Darklands: legendary Orv. Here there are massive, kingdom-sized vaults of unknown origin. While some are filled with extremely dangerous beasts (including the seugathi and their neothelid creators), others are mostly empty, and seem almost to be a sort of promised land for the much-beleaguered travelers.
During their time in Sekamina, the characters may also discover more results of the calamity that befell the surface world. If they have not yet discovered the restriction on teleportation and summoning, they certainly will by this point. The mystery deepens, however, if one of the PCs (or their friends) happens to die. Any attempt to contact the spirit of the deceased fails, as does any spell intended to reincarnate or raise the dead. Clearly, any movement or contact to or from the other planes of existence is impossible. But, if that is the case, where do the souls of the dead go? For the moment, these mysteries remain unanswerable. But finally, after months or years of journeying, the characters break through to their promised land: the Orvian vault known as the Midnight Mountains.
Act III
At long last the PCs have found a suitable place to settle with their band of surfacers. Now the GM may switch over from their homemade travel mechanics to Paizo’s kingdom building rules, as detailed in the second part of the Kingmaker Adventure Path (Rivers Run Red) or in the third-party supplement Book of the River Nations.These kingdom building mechanics can pretty much be implemented as is. A GM with some extra time may wish to modify the random events table to include some Orvian flavor– envoys from a nearby Urdefhan colony, the migration of a morlock tribe, the sudden appearance of a cult of Rovagug in their main city– but everything else can be run by the book. Much of the focus of this Act is on how the PCs guide the growth of their new kingdom.
However, the characters, now officially leaders of a small nation of surfacers, will also wish to explore and map their surroundings. They may discover many mundane resources in the Midnight Mountains– including food sources and minerals for their fledgling kingdom– but they will also witness wonders the likes of which they have never seen. They will observe the sadistic rituals of the giant gugs, long-time worshipers of Rovagug. They may discover the hole in the ceiling of their immense vault which leads upwards into the Endless Gulf. And eventually, they will encounter their first neothelid, a combat from which the PCs will likely have to run. The neothelids are scarce within the Midnight Mountains, but every one of them is a serious threat.
Over time, the PCs will put together clues which lead them towards a surprising deduction: the gugs and the neothelids are at war. At first, the details of this war will be vague. The PCs encounter a band of gugs attempting to defend against one of the massive worms– it is their decision whether or not to get involved. Either way, they’ll soon find that this was not an isolated incident. The neothelids are mounting an ongoing assault against the gugs for reasons the latter cannot fathom. However, while undeniably evil and barbaric, the gugs are not stupid, and when the deeds of the PCs become known to them they will petition the new kingdom for aid.
Forming a mutual defense agreement with the gugs, while conceptually unpleasant, is not without benefits. Aside from the obvious military protection, the gugs have a great knowledge of the Midnight Mountains which they can share with the characters. Also, it gives the PCs the opportunity to discover that the gugs use blood crystals as an integral part of their foul rites and to deduce that this is a possible cause for the neothelid attacks.
The PCs eventually decide to do a reconnaissance mission into the heart of neothelid territory, the nearby vault of Denebrum. There they discover a shocking truth. This vault exhibits the same atmospheric poisoning as the surface world they left behind months or years ago: an ash-like substance fills the air, inhibiting normal breathing (the PCs are now of sufficient level and magical ability to survive this poison, at least for small periods of time). To learn more, the PCs investigate a neothelid hive, home to one of the gigantic worms and a small army of seugathi and other followers. While they do not find out anything of immediate use to the war effort, they do discover a cryptic message detailing the defenses of ‘a power source for the planar shroud,’ located somewhere deeper within Denebrum.
Their current mission completed, the players should be all too eager to investigate this ‘planar shroud.’ Adventuring in swampy Denebrum is hazardous to the extreme, not least due to the poison air, but eventually the PCs arrive at the location indicated in the message. There lies a trap-filled dungeon, at the center of which the players find imprisoned in an impressive magical apparatus an astral deva.
Once freed by the players (I can only assume that most PCs would free an imprisoned angel), the astral deva tells of how it came to be in that place. Apparently, many months ago and just before the cataclysm that rocked the surface world, the deva was summoned to this plane by powerful magic, overcome by the neothelid waiting on his arrival, and tied into the magical device. The deva confirms that the poisoned air is a byproduct of his imprisonment, the exhaust of this immense machine. Beyond that, however, the deva knows quite little: he has no knowledge of a ‘planar shroud’ beyond knowing that his own plane shift ability is not currently functioning, nor can he shed any light on why someone would want such a thing in effect.
He does know this single magical machine should not be powerful enough to pollute the entire surface world or shroud against the influence of the planes by itself. There must be others imprisoned, presumably on the surface. If the party can free them, theoretically the planar shroud would fall and the natural order of things will return.
