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The first three volumes of this adventure path were dedicated to building up the Silver Ravens and their rebellion. Strikes against Thrune were indirect and targeted peripheral facilities, which prevented the enemy from mounting a big response.

All of this changes at the very end of Adventure 03, where Barzilai lays a deadly trap for the PCs and potentially kills a lot of innocents. At the start of this one, Barzilai Thrune makes his final three proclamations: he outlaws the Silver Ravens, he forbids worship of any god that’s not Asmodeus, and he blockades the bridge that separates the two halves of the city. As soon as this happens, his forces begin a brutal series of reprisals against the Ravens and the population in general.

The Silver Ravens immediately begin to fight back, since at this point their rebellion has reached its maximum power and anyone who was even a little sympathetic to them throws their full support behind the organization.

In summary, shit’s going down.

PCs start this adventure at level 10 and are expected to finish halfway into level 13.

GMing the Rebellion

The bulk of this adventure is dedicated to commanding the full might of the rebellion to topple Barzilai Thrune. While you might have been able to ignore the custom rebellion rules up until now, they’re unavoidable here. If you didn’t bother with them before the book suggests assigning a default set of stats for the organization (Notoriety 75%, focused stat +15, secondary stats +10). Those numbers are higher than what’s on the Player Guide, probably to account for bonuses the PCs would have gotten if they kept track of things in detail. Even if you were using detailed rules before I recommend upgrading the org’s stats to at least that level.

Now that Thrune’s government can be “killed”, it gets stats of its own. The important one is Authority, which must be brought down to 0 for the Ravens to win. When that happens, Thrune and his remaining lackeys lock themselves up in the Temple of Asmodeus for a last-ditch desperation move, and the PCs can get at them with a final assault.

The PCs and the Silver Ravens fight the Thrune government by completing missions. These usually involve raids against important facilities controlled by named villains. Success at these usually removes whatever capabilities that villain brought into play, and gives the Silver Ravens control of the city district they’re in. Districts under Raven control become safe from patrols and such, and lower both current and maximum Authority by a certain amount (10 or 20 points, depending on the district). This is why I linked the Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood trailer above.

Thrune’s government tries to resist the rebellion through brutal reprisals against the Ravens and the population in general. They can launch one such reprisal per day for every 25 Authority or fraction thereof they have. Specific reprisals are rolled out of a d100 table. The best possible result here is “No Reprisal”, an organizational snafu that actually decreases Thrune’s Authority. The other events result from mere defamation or increased patrols all the way to a dragon air strike, each one increasing Authority by an amount proportional to its badness. As Authority drops and named villains are killed, some of these entries will be removed and replaced with No Reprisal. Can’t have a dragon attack if the dragon is dead! Authority also increased by 1d6 at the start of every day, to represent the population’s and the Ravens’ war weariness.

The problem with those reprisal events is that they also kill some of the city’s population. While the chance that the PCs will lose the game at this stage is small, they must act quickly and forcefully to prevent Thrune from doing too much damage to the city they’re trying to protect.

Authority starts at 100 by default, but past Silver Raven victories in previous adventures can reduce this starting amount. A “perfect run” means allying with both the sea elves and Vyre; destroying Menador keep and stealing the documents kept there; and finishing the Ruby Masquerade with 20 or more Masque Points. This would mean Thrune starts this adventure with Authority at 65/100, giving the PCs a major starting advantage.

The Missions

The default expectation here is that the PCs managed to win the battle at the opera house and fully explore it at the end of the last adventure. If this is the case, the adventure starts with an emergency meeting of the Silver Council taking place as soon as the PCs are recovered, to update them on the state of the rebellion and explain the available district control missions.

If on the other hand the PCs lost the opera house battle, they wake up in a cell in Kintargo Keep, and must escape. They basically tackle the hardest mission first, from the inside out, and then add the Opera House to their to-do list later - it’s still full of stuff vital to their success.

Most of the missions consist of relatively short dungeon raids that are essentially big set-piece battles against the villain of the hour and their minions. These encounters tend to all be CR 13. This is where the game introduces a new monster type, the Troop, which works a lot like a 4e Swarm but occupies an area that’s more “malleable” than the standard square. There are Dottari and Inquisitor troops here, representing the fact that Thrune’s security forces are out in well, force.

As I mentioned above, PCs can order the Ravens to perform support actions before every dungeon raid instead of just at the end of every week. If the named villains in each one manage to survive and escape, they’ll likely join Thrune at the Temple of Asmodeus. Even if this happens, they still count as defeated for district-taking purposes.

This is the mission list:

Rescue Hetamon (Jarvis End District)

Hetamon Haace is the Rose of Kintargo. He became an ally and a member of the Silver Council back in adventure 02, but is missing from this adventure’s emergency meeting. Finding him is a priority.

Turns out he’s been kidnapped by his evil half-succubus sorceress of a mother, who is holed up in the basement of Shensen’s former home and plans to sell him to Thrune in exchange for some sort of cushy job or at least a license to hunt people in Kintargo. She has a bevy of minions both voluntary and enslaved. The former consist of a covey of hags; some of the latter can be freed instead of fought.

Shensen can give the PCs the full layout of her own basement, of course. And if she comes along the PCs might also recruit her best friend who is hiding in there, a sapient dinosaur rogue!

Completing this one and reconsecrating the basement as a shrine to Sarenrae gives PCs control of Jarvis End.

Take the Records Hall (The Greens District)

The Records Hall is full of important information about the city and its inhabitants, and denying this to Thrune will be a major blow to his forces. It’s also the current lair of Tiarise Izoni, the witch responsible for most atrocities of an arcane nature committed so far in the campaign. Opposition here consists of the witch, two inquisitor troops, and two invisible stalkers.

Tiarise’s notes can give the PCs clues about Thrune’s ultimate plan for immortality, and also alert them to the fact she has performed a ritual on herself that will turn her into a powerful undead creature when she dies. Unless she is killed under specific circumstances, Tiarise returns in the last adventure in undead form as one of its named villains.

Bleakbridge (Yolubilis Harbor District)

The bridge is blockaded by a huge force of dottari (three troops, two captains, a named commander). They’re being helped by a gang of tengu named the River Talons, who are acting as lookouts. Fortunately, their alliance is shaky and the Talons’ leader is the brother of Silver Council Member Chok (a weapon shop owner who joins at the start of this adventure). If the PCs can arrange a meeting between Chok and his brother, the latter can be convinced to betray the dottari. In that case, the Talons will not raise the alarm when the PCs sneak into the bridge, and will take care of one of the dottari troops “offscreen”.

Sneaking into the bridge is possible at all because it’s huge - there are actually buildings on both sides, with plenty of space to cross in the middle.

Skinsaw Assassins (Villegre or Redroof Districts)

These cultists are led by Hei-fen, the spiteful and vengeful wererat who has it in for the PCs. The PCs are warned about them by Molly Mayapple, the helpful and grateful wererat from Vyre.

The cultists will attack the PCs in three separate occasions, possibly while they’re busy with something else. The first strike is six cultists, the second one a jorogumo, and the final one another twelve cultists, another jorogumo, and Hei-fen herself. They’re also doing murders for Thrune on the side.

Eliminating all of them changes the corresponding reprisal table entry to “No Reprisal”, and gives the city enough breathing room for the PCs to take control of either Villegre or Redroof.

Kintargo Keep (Castle District)

This is where Thrune’s most important political prisoners are being kept. If the PCs have been captured at the end of the last adventure, they start here and must escape. Otherwise, this will probably be the last place they hit. The keep and castle are much less guarded than usual because Barzilai ordered most of the troops stationed here to go out and hunt for the PCs, which ironically lets them approach the Keep.

While the tower has five levels, only the ground floor and basement are truly relevant. When the PCs attack the tower is being guarded by six Hellknights of the Rack and their leader, Paralictor Kyrre Ekodyre. The knights should spot the PCs as soon as they make it past the door, so they will eventually need to deal with all of them and the paralictor in the same fight. There are some undead knights possessing suits of armor guarding a shrine, but they will not join the main fight unless disturbed.

The keep’s archives contain the contracts Barzilai made with the order of the Rack, to transfer all of the assets of the Order of the Torrent to them (back in adventure 02). Turns out there are a lot of irregularities in these contracts that make them illegal. The Hellknights, who are Lawful-Eviler-than-thou, will abandon Thrune once these documents are made public. This will remove them from all random and pre-arranged encounters!

The archives also contain prisoner records showing that Jackdaw, the original leader of the Silver Ravens, is still here! House Thrune’s redaction efforts were so effective that not even Barzilai or the knights remember why she was important.

Jackdaw is being held in a special cell in the basement, behind a secret door. She’s guarded by a being known as the First Warden, a former warpriest of Asmodeus who was turned into a lich and bound to this prison as a punishment for some forgotten transgression. The Warden will at first attempt to talk to the PCs because it’s been a long time since she had a proper conversation, but will attack when she realizes they’re here to free Jackdaw. She has a lot of priestly abilities and the help of four more of those possessed armors.

Jackdaw is in a pretty sorry state - the lich has kept her from dying, but hasn’t done anything to make her comfortable. Once the PCs restore her health and sanity, she becomes a very valuable ally. She can also supply them with the lyrics for the Song of Silver, which combined with the score from the opera house allows the PCs to use the ritual.

The Dragon (Villegre or Redroof District)

I did mention a dragon, didn’t I? She’s an adult blue dragon named Rivozair. She first attacked the city during the Chelish civil war, and was nearly killed by the original Silver Ravens. Rivozair returned shortly before the campaign started and agreed to join up with Barzilai for a chance to take revenge on the city. He invested her with additional infernal power, binding her to a horned devil in the same way Nox from Adventure 01 was bound to a bearded one.

Rivozair is a powerhouse of a solo boss, and one of Barzilai’s most powerful minions. In addition to her usual “I’m a dragon!” suite of abilities, her lightning breath has been replaced with hellfire, she can summon barbed devils, and she has Regeneration 5 that can only be overcome by Good-aligned spells and weapons (though that last bit shouldn’t be a problem at this point). After the PCs finish the other five missions, or after they reduce Barzilai’s Authority to 0 (whatever happens first), the dragon will be unleashed to hunt down and kill the PCs directly.

If the GM wants to make this battle a bit easier, they can have some of the PC’s allies help in the fight. If on the other hand they want to make it harder, they can have the dragon begin its hunt earlier than scheduled. Rivozair will try to become invisible and run away when she’s badly wounded, but instead of rallying at the Temple she will flee the region. She might come back to disrupt the victory celebration, if the GM wishes. Otherwise she will remove herself from the campaign.

Defeating Rovizair removes her entry from the reprisal table… but more importantly it instantly reduces Authority to 0. I guess any remaining minions will see that the PCs can handle the dragon and will immediately leave their posts as if they had been defeated, rallying at the Temple of Asmodeus. We now enter the final stage of the adventure.

Conclusion

And that brings this post to a close. There’s actually little I would cut from this part of the adventure, since all of the fights here seem pretty cool. When playing in Pathfinder, they are also quite amenable to alpha-strike tactics.

In the next post, we’ll take a look at the effects of the Song of Silver and at the Temple of Asmodeus, which unlike these short raids is a huge grinding slog.