On Dark Tides

Geoffry sat in silence studying the others around the captain’s table.  One in particular had his attention.  The beautiful Ieana intrigued him because of her shifting demeanor.  At the beginning of the voyage Geoffrey had used his trained gift of seeing the evil intent of those he focused on.   Most of the crew and passengers seemed to be of questionable moral character but none seemed to have an evil nature.  That was until this evening when the tell tale signs started to appear upon Ieana.  Geoffry was taught that all who have this ability see evil differently.  For some it’s an eerie glow or skeletal visage while others don’t see anything; they just have a strong feeling.  For Geoffry the indicator is a dark mist that swirls around the forehead, chest, and/or hands of the individual.  The darker the mist the more evil the creature is.  What was initially confusing to Geoffry was that not all evil beings had the mist in all of these areas.  His mentor suggested he must be very sensitive and the difference may lie in whether the being is evil by nature (mist near their heart), had chose to be evil (mist near their forehead) or committed evil acts (mist near their hands).  In the two years since he left the monastery Geoffrey was starting to realize this must be the nature of his ability.

Ieana's true nature

Geoffry absently picked at his food while trying not to be rude to Gelick who was telling tales of his adventures with the Pathfinder Society (some of them for the second time).  A strange feeling of anxiety and actual fear began to grip Geoffry as the mist forming around the hands, head, and heart of Ieana became nearly pitch black.  Attempting to calm his nerves Geoffry drained his cup and took a deep breath before standing.  The accusation of Ieana’s true nature stuck in his throat as the world began to spin around him.  Her knowing eyes caught his just as his legs gave out and the floor came up to meet him turning everything dark.

 

He woke to the taste of salt and sand as water lapped over his body.  His head ached and the bright light of the sun caused the dull pain to sharpen right behind his eyes.  A terrible clicking sound seemed to be causing a searing pain in his arm.  As Geoffry tried to focus his eyes he only made out a red blur over his shoulder.  Panic quickly set in as he realized it was a giant crab using his arm to make that terrible sound.  Caught in the huge claw his right arm was useless, so he swung his left trying to fend off the creature.  The crab barely budged.  The pain was excruciating and Geoffry feared once the bone was broken there would be nothing to keep the crab from taking his sword arm.  Shaken and terrified he went after the weakest point he could think of; the eye stalks.  He grabbed one and pulled as hard as he could.  It came free in his hand but the crab didn’t flinch.  He went for the other eye stalk and as soon as he touched it the crabs own survival instincts must have kicked in as it let go of his arm and shuffled backwards.  Geoffry took his chance and forced himself to his feet.  He made for a piece of driftwood a few feet away and with it managed to club the crab to death.  It was then that he noticed the other ship’s passengers and crew scattered about the beach.  There were also more of the crabs, but he had the advantage now and used it to protect those who could not protect themselves.

Taiko

Several of the crew and passengers’ lifeless bodies were scattered along the beach, some drown and others the unlucky victim of a giant crab.  The survivors gathered and tried to figure out what happened and how they made it to the beach safely.  The most unusual thing was that most of their personal belongings were also on the beach stacked hurriedly into a pile.  Everyone was accounted for except the captain, first mate, ship’s cook and Ieana.  Geoffry found the unusual bird like creature, Taiko, helping comfort and revive the injured.  After praying over a departed soul and invoking the name of Iomeade, Geoffry notices the subtle gesture of the bird man as he flashes him the symbol of his god Milani.  Geoffry isn’t surprised as he remembers first meeting him aboard the Jenivere and feeling a strong spiritual connection almost immediately.  A woman claiming to have fallen off another ship that was sailing near the island the night before is also on the beach.  Geoffry isn’t sure he believes this story, but senses no evil intentions in the one who calls herself Akane so he decides not to press.  She is very quiet and doesn’t seem to ask the right questions or any for that matter, but Geoffry doesn’t really know how one should act after washing ashore.  The mysterious passenger named Uzeil has taken charge of organizing those still alive, although to Geoffry that seems ironic for some reason he can’t quite figure out.  The quiet man has never showed any of the indicators of being evil, but Geoffry felt like it was always right there under the surface.  In light of the changed nature of Ieana, Geoffry decided it would be best to go with Uzeil when he suggests forming a party to search the wreck of their former vessel.

Akane

Uzeil

  

 

The small party manages to get aboard the ship which isn’t too far off shore, but not without the loss of a crewman to the churning sea.  His red shirt was the last thing Geoffry could see of him as he was pulled under by the strong current.  The three remaining men discovered the whereabouts of the first mate and cook, but unfortunately both were dead.  It appeared the cook was done in by the one that poisoned everyone dining at the captain’s table the night before.  The first mate was found huddled in a closet with wounds that appeared to be caused by both weapon and giant crab.  Geoffry gets a strong feeling that it was the first mate that managed to get everyone and their belongings to the beach before succumbing to his wounds.  In the captain’s quarters a variety of loot, maps and documents are found.  Also found is a personal log which sheds more light on the mysterious end of the voyage.  It is discovered that Captain Kovack was under the influence of Ieana and her plot to land on the dangerous island Smuggler’s Shiv.  Geoffry silently vows right then that he will see that this creature is destroyed for her evil deeds.  

Confirmation of just how dangerous the island is comes later that night when the survivors are attacked by pirates long dead, with bleached bones shrouded in ragged cloth.  The party manages to destroy the evil creatures, but not before some of the crew are cut down.  Their bodies are respectfully blessed before being burned in order to prevent their own return as the walking dead.  Before setting out the next day to search the island Geoffry manages to find his second most prized possession in the stack of luggage.  He spends that morning reading his journal entries of the past several months before adding the recent events to clean pages.

Part 1 Summary

The PCs’ journey to Eleder comes to a sudden end as they are shipwrecked on the notorious island of Smuggler’s Shiv. After encountering dangerous wildlife, vengeful undead, and a tribe of cannibals, the PCs learn that the cause of the shipwreck has been one of the ship’s own passengers. In pursuing this mystery, they make an even more incredible discovery—the presence of Azlanti ruins on the island that provide not only proof that the legendary lost city of Saventh-Yhi exists, but also a method to find it. Once they are rescued from the island, the PCs’ discovery could make them rich—or mark them for death.

After confronting Chief Klorak along with his four consorts the chamber of the chieftain's den is decorated with furniture taken from the Thrune’s Fang, most of which is in relatively poor shape. A dented footlocker against the east wall contains the 70-year-old payroll from the ship—treasure kept more out of nostalgia by the cannibals than anything else. The chest contains several rotted bags, along with 4,200 sp and 180 gp.

The temple beneath the cannibal village itself is a remarkable find, identifiable as Azlanti in origin although there are hints that this ancient temple may have been built over the site of an even more ancient structure. This same check conf irms that the discovery of an Azlanti ruin this far south is a major one—such ruins are quite rare in the Mwangi and Sargava regions of Garund. A complete map of the temple, not to mention knowledge of its location, would likely be of great value to an organization like the Pathfinder Society. Further examination confirms that many of the wall carvings depict the abhorrent worship of the demon lord Zura, Queen of the Vampires.

Sailors whisper that a curse haunts Smuggler’s Shiv... and in a way, they’re right. Yet what causes the spirits of the dead to haunt the surf of Smuggler’s Shiv is not a curse as much as it is the lingering inf luence of what was once a powerful Azlanti cult of Zura who used both serpentfolk and humans as slaves and livestock—for not all of Azlant’s people were kindly and civilized. Zura, the demon queen of vampires and cannibalism, had long plagued certain parts of ancient Azlant—rumors held that she herself began life as an Azlanti queen before she became the Vampire Queen. These outcast Azlanti who came to Smuggler’s Shiv and defeated the serpentfolk who had already begun to colonize the island were hardly heroic, and in the seven decades that the Zura cultists ruled Smuggler’s Shiv, they brought more horror and depravity to these shores than did the serpentfolk they displaced, until Earthfall finally put their acts to an end.

Since that time, that wrongness has lingered, and the temple under Red Mountain has slowly spread Zura’s influence throughout the stones of the place. It is this malevolence that makes it so common for those who die in shipwrecks off the island’s shores to continue haunting the sites of their doom as undead, and that drove the survivors of the Thrune’s Fang to cannibalism.

Upon exploring the ruins of the Temple of Blood beneath Red Mountain the PCs defeat the minions of Ieana who is revealed to be the serpentfolk priestess responsible for the wreck of the Jenevere. The temple walls are covered with carvings depicting serpent folk rituals while the rest of the writing on the wall seem to mostly be prayers to Zura written in Azlanti. After a deadly prolonged fight with a horde of skeletal serpentfolk the group takes several minutes studying Ieana's notes, who found these runes frustrating to translate because of the missing portions of wall that have cracked and the ancient inscriber’s fondness for awkward metaphor, but four key bits of information can be gleaned from the carvings.

• This chamber was once a scriptorium where books and scrolls sacred to the worship of Zura were transcribed and illuminated.
• This temple was built over an even more ancient temple—one that was dedicated to a deity referred to only as the “Beheaded One,” an entity that was apparently an enemy to the ancient Zura cultists.
• Several prayers seem to indicate that the ancients made use of undead slaves created from both “humans culled from the unbelievers and slaves of the Beheaded One.”
• As much hatred as the Zura cultists had for the “slaves of the Beheaded One,” they also seemed to despise their own kind—especially those they called the “misbegotten of Saventh-Yhi.”

Ieana's notes:
Fortunately for the PCs, by the time they arrive, Ieana has already transcribed the majority of these carvings onto dozens of sheets of parchment (mostly scavenged from the many scrolls she carried and had to use over the course of her journey)—the notes are written in Aklo, but quite complete. In her notes, she seems particularly intrigued by the possibility that Saventh-Yhi might be the exact spot where, so long ago, her god Ydersius was beheaded.

The group recognizes the name “Saventh-Yhi” as a legendary but still undiscovered lost city said to lie hidden somewhere in the depths of the Mwangi Expanse. Knowledge of Saventh-Yhi is rare, and these mentions would be of a great value to a scholar interested in the topic. Accurate transcriptions or rubbings of the runes on these walls that are left behind by Ieana may be worth 600 gp to anyone interested in ancient Azlanti history.

The three large alcoves in the main room once served as meditation chambers—the cultists would enter one, pull a curtain for privacy, and recite the complex prayers and parables carved on the walls here. These carvings, all written in Azlanti, tell the history of this particular Zura cult in three stages. The southern alcove tells of the cult’s genesis in the city of Saventh-Yhi in the jungle, but is frustratingly vague when it comes to exact details on the legendary city apart from confirming that it was built by Azlanti—this section ends with the cult’s exile from Saventh-Yhi and how they made a dangerous overland journey that ended on the shores of a remote island far from their homeland. The northwestern alcove takes up the story at this point, detailing the cult’s exploration of this island (identifiable as Smuggler’s Shiv), their discovery and defeat of a large group of serpentfolk who had gone into hiding after the defeat of their kind many years before at Saventh-Yhi, and the creation of this temple. The northeastern alcove plots the cult’s future plans, focusing on how they had hoped to earn the gift of vampirism from Zura by undertaking extensive and vile rituals, and once this gift was theirs, how they planned on making the journey back to Saventh-Yhi to awaken (infect) that city with Zura’s blessing (vampirism).

All the carvings present a wealth of new information about Azlant’s presence in Garund, particularly all of the references to the lost city of Saventh-Yhi. Saventh-Yhi is one of the most sought-after lost cities of Garund, for legends speak that it was built by the Azlanti. Such a discovery could revolutionize what is known about this ancient empire, and that information alone, properly transcribed and recorded, could be worth thousands. Yet hard evidence about the location of Saventh-Yhi could well be priceless.

Souls for Smuggler's Shiv

Only the Strong Survive
Sargava is a land on the verge, simultaneously pushing on the edge of the map of the Inner Sea and facing an uncertain political future. The nigh impassable jungles of the Mwangi Expanse and the permanent hurricane known as the Eye of Abendego isolate Sargava from the rest of Garund, and its closest neighbors are only nominally nations themselves. The former Chelish colony also stands at the threshold of a new future free from colonial rule, making all things possible. Yet the citizens of Sargava were not the first to attempt to carve civilization out of the wild region—since the dawn of history, humanity has strived to form great kingdoms amid the dangers of the Mwangi Expanse. Crumbled ruins are all that remain of these vanished empires, and even their names have been forgotten by history. Some scholars even whisper that lost ruins of the ancient Azlanti empire may be found in the unexplored jungles, but these crackpot theories are dismissed by more reputable sages. But whatever their origins, these ruins may provide incredible wealth and power to those who rediscover them. This dangerous land and the wilderness beyond serve as the setting of the Serpent’s Skull Adventure Path.
This is the first source book in the Serpent's Skull Adventure Path for the Pathfinder Roleplaying game.

Serpent's Skull Player's Guide PDF
This guide seeks to aid players preparing to take part in the Serpent’s Skull Adventure Path, to arm them with spoiler-free details and rules elements useful in the forthcoming challenges, and to help create backgrounds that easily mesh with the campaign.
Along with advice for players of every race and character class in the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game—including those in the newly released Advanced Player’s Guide—details on Sargava, the country in closest proximity to the campaign’s events, and of the Jenivere, the ship conveying the PCs to adventure, should help ground players in the circumstances and events of this new Adventure Path.
Dowload it for free here ---> Serpent's Skull Player's Guide PDF

Additional Material
Players will have the ability to select from an expanded range of character races that are currently listed in the Advanced Race Guide Playtest document that will be updated with the Advanced Race Guide Hardcover expected approximately June 2012. Some of the new character races available as PCs are outlined in the Bestiary 3. 

PCs will be allowed two starting traits selected from the free PDF Character Traits.
We will also be implementing the Hero Point system found in the Advanced Players Guide. 

Optional Materials
In this campaign the players may also find the following optional material useful in giving them information about the setting that their characters may know.

Pathfinder Chronicles Faction Guide
Pathfinder Chronicles Heart of the Jungle
Pathfinder Companion Sargava the Lost Colony
Pathfinder Companion Cheliax, Empire of Devils