Pathfinder Adventure Path #5: Sins of the Saviors

Rise of the Runelords #5

by Stephen S. Greer, Brian Cortijo, Tim Hitchcock

Seven Deadly Dungeons!

The Rise of the Runelords Adventure Path continues! The evil beneath the town of Sandpoint refuses to sleep quietly, and a killer from the ancient past awakes. Clues found in his lair lead to the den of a legendary dragon and into a vast arcane dungeon ruled by ageless wizards, where the seven deadly sins reign supreme. Can the PCs hone the sins within themselves into weapons against their true foe, Karzoug, the resurrected Runelord of Greed?

This volume of Pathfinder Adventure Path continues the Rise of the Runelords Adventure Path and includes:

- "Sins of the Saviors," an adventure for 12th-level characters, by Stephen S. Greer.
- Insights into the magic of Thassilon and the arcane secrets of the runelords, by Brian Cortijo, Nicolas Logue, Owen K. C. Stephens, et al.
- A glimpse into the profane cult of Lamashtu, the goddess of madness, monsters, and nightmares, by Sean K Reynolds.
- The fifth installment of the Pathfinder's Journal, by Mike McArtor and James L. Sutter.
- Six new monsters, by Joshua J. Frost, Stephen S. Greer, Mike McArtor, and F. Wesley Schneider.

Genres: Role Playing Games, Fantasy, Reference

94 pages, Paperback

First published January 30, 2008

Reviews

[Ty Arthur · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is easily my least favorite of the Rise Of The Runelord adventure path, just simply because dungeon crawls aren't my jam. I love the early adventures focused on forging relationships with the people in Sandpoint and Magnimar while getting into and out of all kinds of trouble. Once players start hitting the higher levels it seems like the focus always shifts to room-by-room dungeon crawls and that's just not what I'm interested in as a DM or a player.

There's plenty of other bits I'm not super excited about here, from the illustration on page 6 that is supposed to be the Scribbler but is very clearly just Valeros cosplaying a follower of Lamashtu, to the oh-so-menacing phrase "The time for talk has come to an end my sucklings!"

That being said, there's still some cool stuff here. The Scribbler's hit and run tactics in the fog-shrouded shrine are a fun opportunity to turn the tables on a party that think they have the upper hand when it comes to tactics.

The appearance of Freezemaw is sort of odd, because there's a good deal of backstory given to this deadly white dragon but he's barely even in the adventure. It seems like there should have been some focus on how potentially defeating or driving him off would change the party's reputation with the Shoanti, since he was a terror for the native Varisians for decades.

Runeforge itself is a dream come true if you love dungeon crawls with devious traps and where meta game knowledge comes in handy. If endless combat isn't your thing, you'll be less interested. I do like that each of the seven areas corresponding to the deadly sins are drastically different from each other in both layout and types of dangers present.

If you were missing the incestuous terror of the Hook Mountain ogres, that returns full force with the succubus Delvahine and her children, as well as some bones of long-dead lovers she doesn't want anyone else looking at with lust with their hearts. Its wonderfully disgusting, and one of the few opportunities in the dungeon to solve things without combat if your group doesn't mind roleplaying some really bizarre sexual situations. I can't say there are too many adventures where acquiring the BDSM sex toys of a succubus are critical to a successful resolution.

The end of the adventure is a bit of a bust. Its supposed to conclude with the group enchanting their weaponry to face off against Karzoug's greed-focused magic in the next adventure, but there's not a ton of build up to that point or a particularly exciting resolution. The whole concept also revolves heavily around the group having meta game knowledge of which specialized magic school opposes which other schools.

Lamashtu getting a full write up is the issue's saving grace, and as usual Paizo has some top notch fluff here, as well as the crunch of sample priests, planar allies, and even druid substitution levels. I like the way Lamashtu is described here, because even though she's a chaotic evil demon goddess, you could see how non-evil people might intersect with her faith when it comes to concepts like childbirth or nightmares.

[Kat · Rating 4 out of 5]

Basic Plot: In order to defeat the Runelord Karzoug, the PCs must venture to fabled Runeforge and figure out both what a runeforged weapon is and how to make it.

Note: This is book 5 of 6 in the Rise of the Runelords campaign, written for D&D 3.5 in the Pathfinder world.

This is a classic dungeon crawl, -ish. On crack. And evil...

Strange, fragmented sentences aside, I read this particular installment of the Rise of the Runelords series a LOT faster than I've read any of the others. It wasn't that it was shorter (it wasn't), it was that it was just that interesting. The setup is logical and easy to use for reference. It'll be easy, I'm sure, to flip around in it based on what my players do. As it's a dungeon crawl, the story is a little different from the others, which were very clearly "stories." It's strangely probably not as disturbing as some of the other installments (not that it isn't disturbing at points), but no less intense. It'll definitely require my players' A games.

[Peter De Kinder · Rating 2 out of 5]

A dungeon crawler that is a bit too straightforward: All chambers contain monsters, and almost exclusively the only way to deal with them is combat. The journal bit was a nice read, but for the rest somewhat disappointing.