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Strange Aeons #5
Pathfinder Adventure Path #113: What Grows Within
Death From Below
After finding the route to the lost city of Neruzavin, the adventurers must mount an expedition into the vast and deadly desert region called the Parchlands, where they hope to catch up to their treacherous former employer. Once they brave the heat-blasted wasteland, the heroes arrive in an abandoned city at the edge of a lake where a Great Old One slumbers. The adventurers must track Count Lowls's party, recover a vile tome, activate the city's Star Stelae, and perform a powerful ritual that allows them to follow the insane noble to Carcosa. Along the way, the heroes must be careful they don't wake the slumbering Great Old One or stir up the flying polyps sealed beneath the city!
This volume of Pathfinder Adventure Path continues the Strange Aeons Adventure Path and includes:
- "What Grows Within," a Pathfinder RPG adventure for 13th-level characters, by John Compton.
- Examination of the fungal blot that spreads through dreams in an article about the Great Old One Xhamen-Dor, by James Jacobs.
- An exploration of the blasphemous tome known as the Necronomicon, by James Jacobs.
- An icy tomb hides a terrible secret in the Pathfinder's Journal, by Arinn Dembo.
- A bestiary containing a new Great Old One and other hideous monsters, by John Compton, Adam Daigle, and James Jacobs.
Cover art by Michal Ivan
After finding the route to the lost city of Neruzavin, the adventurers must mount an expedition into the vast and deadly desert region called the Parchlands, where they hope to catch up to their treacherous former employer. Once they brave the heat-blasted wasteland, the heroes arrive in an abandoned city at the edge of a lake where a Great Old One slumbers. The adventurers must track Count Lowls's party, recover a vile tome, activate the city's Star Stelae, and perform a powerful ritual that allows them to follow the insane noble to Carcosa. Along the way, the heroes must be careful they don't wake the slumbering Great Old One or stir up the flying polyps sealed beneath the city!
This volume of Pathfinder Adventure Path continues the Strange Aeons Adventure Path and includes:
- "What Grows Within," a Pathfinder RPG adventure for 13th-level characters, by John Compton.
- Examination of the fungal blot that spreads through dreams in an article about the Great Old One Xhamen-Dor, by James Jacobs.
- An exploration of the blasphemous tome known as the Necronomicon, by James Jacobs.
- An icy tomb hides a terrible secret in the Pathfinder's Journal, by Arinn Dembo.
- A bestiary containing a new Great Old One and other hideous monsters, by John Compton, Adam Daigle, and James Jacobs.
Cover art by Michal Ivan
92 pages, Paperback
First published January 25, 2017
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
February 17, 2017
Lot of interesting stuff in this adventure, but it seems rather short on structure. Except when it's railroading. I'm obviously wanting it both ways here, I guess, but it seems like it might be a hot mess for a GM. The lost city of Neruzavin presents a lot of creepy fun, at least potentially, though the map is turrible, Kenny, and it's a bit of closed loop. Some good and well-fleshed encounters, but also relies quite a bit on random-spawn vidja-game sort of encounters. Perhaps a bit too much left off the stage: What could've been the ultimate BBEG is left as an optional footnote, almost, in the rush to reach the designated end of this adventure path in the next installment. Also was hoping for more information on a new area outside the usual Inner Sea setting; disappointingly little if any. Kind of weak, flyby overview on the Necronomicon and an article on Great Old One Xhamen-Dor are included as supplementary texts instead.
December 11, 2025
What Grows Within gets off to a strong start, with good background and intro from John Compton. The journey through the Parchlands is very very atmospheric, setting the tone for what is to come, and communicating a feeling of isolation. The rivalry between the Ash Giants and the Girtablilu is well done, though derivative of Feast of Dust.
Additional strengths: Evocative primary NPCs, with fleshed out backstories, excellent articles on Xhamen-Dor, its cult, and the Necronomicon, and a nice Pathfinder Journal entry.
Unfortunately, the bulk of the adventure isn't nearly so good. It's the lost city of Neruzavin where things begin to fall apart:
- There are far too many denizens and happenings occurring in a supposedly "lost city", with even an otyugh merchant retailer to assist the characters with their magical marketplace needs (ugh).
- The politically-correct gender activism so rampant with Paizo is ramped up here, with attempts to break stereotypes by only having females NPCs as aggressive warrior types with ridiculous STR (20-25), breaking verisimilitude and inducing copious amounts of eye-rolling.
- There is far too much reliance on "haunts" to illustrate for the PCs exactly what Lowls did and the route he took. Lazy, lazy, lazy.
- Calling the excsinder archons LG is an odd choice, considering they care not for individuals' lives. That's analogous to saying that those in the real world who are concerned with winning a war for a just cause, but do not care how many civilians die, are somehow good. This is wrong.
- Didn't Lowls seek out Mun because he needed the Necronomicon translated; where is that text?
- Apparently /flying/ alien polyps, when they build a city, make sure to include convenient human-sized stairs to access all the relevant rooms, despite much of the rest of the tower not conforming to standard geometry/physics.
Additional strengths: Evocative primary NPCs, with fleshed out backstories, excellent articles on Xhamen-Dor, its cult, and the Necronomicon, and a nice Pathfinder Journal entry.
Unfortunately, the bulk of the adventure isn't nearly so good. It's the lost city of Neruzavin where things begin to fall apart:
- There are far too many denizens and happenings occurring in a supposedly "lost city", with even an otyugh merchant retailer to assist the characters with their magical marketplace needs (ugh).
- The politically-correct gender activism so rampant with Paizo is ramped up here, with attempts to break stereotypes by only having females NPCs as aggressive warrior types with ridiculous STR (20-25), breaking verisimilitude and inducing copious amounts of eye-rolling.
- There is far too much reliance on "haunts" to illustrate for the PCs exactly what Lowls did and the route he took. Lazy, lazy, lazy.
- Calling the excsinder archons LG is an odd choice, considering they care not for individuals' lives. That's analogous to saying that those in the real world who are concerned with winning a war for a just cause, but do not care how many civilians die, are somehow good. This is wrong.
- Didn't Lowls seek out Mun because he needed the Necronomicon translated; where is that text?
- Apparently /flying/ alien polyps, when they build a city, make sure to include convenient human-sized stairs to access all the relevant rooms, despite much of the rest of the tower not conforming to standard geometry/physics.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews