Are you ready for our 40th Paizo blog report across the past ten years?
Here it is, with the newest release from our playthrough of Sky King’s Tomb! No two marathon sessions are alike, and this one brought plenty of moments we won’t soon forget. If you need to, go ahead and get caught up on where things are at:
Marathon two had quite the roster around the table. We were joined by Joe O’Brien from the Glass Cannon Network and Brandon Gillam of Runehammer, whom we placed side-by-side to maximize the roleplaying dynamic. Each marathon of the project also features Order of the Amber Die members from decades past, and for this second marathon we went back to the 1990s. John Albert was the first bridge between two different chapters of Order of the Amber Die, and it was John who helped the Order through its most challenging phase—more on that below. In fact, John was also featured in one of our previous Pathfinder projects, The Giantslayer Endeavor of 2015. Once again, John flew in from North Dakota, this time as a bearded dwarf and member of Clan Firecask for his Pathfinder Second Edition introduction!
- Adventure: Mantle of Gold
- Marathon Length: 61 hours, 15 minutes
- Session Hours: 38 hours, 40 minutes
This adventure took our family of dwarves into the Darklands to recover the clan dagger of King Taargick, and we decked out the studio for it. The black lights were fired up, and the floor was carpeted with glow-in-the-dark balloons to represent the spores we kicked up as we waded through some of the thickest fungi-filled caverns. Adam even surprised us with neon confetti explosions when mushrooms went pop. If you want more detail of what it was like at the table during this marathon, or you just want to confirm that our GM does actually dance in glee when the Amber Die drops a natural 20, check out Runehammer’s marathon commentary.
Highlights from Mantle of Gold:
□ If a basilisk fought a mimic, who would win? We’re not telling until after you place your bets in the comments below. We encountered a tribe of xulgath that had fallen under the sway of a cunning mimic, but their newly captured basilisk dethroned their “god” and generated plenty of jealousy to be exploited. Clan Firecask happens to have one of the oldest bards on this side of Golarion; Renck is a venerable dwarf of almost 400 years, and his age has boosted his charisma to epic renown. Our bard can barely help us lift a keg, but by Torag can he convince you to do almost anything. In the chaos created by diplomacy, we took out the xulgath while the mimic and basilisk faced off!
□ We strode into the Clan Tolorr family festival wearing some of the finest threads in Highhelm. We had to look sharp because Tolorr knows how to throw a party: The procession of relics had you uttering a prayer, the speeches were well rehearsed, and even the food was matched to various periods of dwarven history. We came across some hustlers luring would-be gamers into Elemental Stones for ante. We took the bait, and just like our last marathon, used actual session time to play it out against our GM. Disa Firecask maximized her Objective card and we walked away with free loot!
□ One of the more interesting features of this adventure path is the way that traversing the Darklands is handled. It’s very open-ended, which left our GM space to turn our journey into a narrative that we appreciated more than random encounters. This also meant that Adam spent hours watching caving disaster videos, which he then turned into scenes for us to navigate with either die rolls or just plain fear. If you are a dwarf of some sizeable girth, just don’t crawl anywhere. Ever.
□ This is a pretty historic blog report, so we’re going to do something different and use a highlight to focus solely on an NPC. Krohan Veldollow of Clan Tolorr was someone we doubted and distrusted. How could we forgive him for stealing and losing the Sky King’s clan dagger? Yet Krohan had a compelling backstory, and we were present during many scenes where his regret was owned and atoned for. Even his song, “Used to the Darkness,” bonded us to his experience and made us feel for his youthful but still dire mistakes. His character’s special ability, Righthand Man, endeared Krohan not only to Hamilton fans but specifically to any dwarf in the party, and we have an entirely dwarven party. As you read on, the regret is now ours.
□ We met the Sky King, Taargick himself. We’ll put down our mug of Battle Axe and say it again so you’ll believe us. We met THE SKY KING. His ghost, at least. He directed us to find his secret tomb, but more importantly, we can’t get our eyes off the relics that were awoken by his presence! One or two relics would have already been blogworthy, but three? We dubbed Giantslayer “the artifact AP,” and let’s now bestow “the relic AP” on Sky King’s Tomb.
The Scions
Having John Albert return to the table with us after so many years brought back a vital story in our history, one that John passed down to our scions. In 1995, we went through something that many gaming groups do not recover from: We were split by distance. The original members who had grown up together in New Jersey were headed off to college—largely scattered up and down the east coast—with our GM headed to Montana State University. We barely had email, so contact was severed between Order members. Adam took his dice (including the Amber Die itself), a couple of books, and an adventure module with him. John and Adam met in the dorms, and the northwest chapter of Order of the Amber Die was born. It was John who recruited new members and embraced the legacy that our lifelong GM shared with him about the Order. We still ran marathons when Adam was back in Jersey once a year, and the two chapters met for the first time in 1998 at Gen Con. We didn’t just survive, we thrived during “the Montana years,” and today Order of the Amber Die consists of members from all over the world.
Character Deaths:
□ None from Clan Firecask. Krohan, the exiled member of Clan Tolorr and a welcome companion, fell during our struggle against a fearsome smith of Clan Molgrade. We are ashamed to admit that we were forced to retreat, and left Krohan on the ground at dying 2. We pray that Magrim did not keep you, friend.
Best Quote from Marathon 2:
(encountering a hyphae tyrant)
Yotis Firecask: “It’s small, perhaps intelligent.”
Salthrun Firecask: “Maybe we can talk to it?”
Renck Firecask: “It has sleeves. Anything with sleeves you can talk to.”
Current Situation:
We recovered, reassembled, and presented the clan dagger of King Taargick—only to hear that he wanted us to find his tomb. We had no guide, but we were proudly bearing three relics of the Sky King: a shard of his armor, his beard clasp, and his clan dagger. We had also learned from some of the fierce combats in Mantle of Gold that we’re better at making beer than we are at fighting. With that in mind, we used an ingenious plan to secretly install a clockwork spy inside a thieves’ guild—which provided us with enough audio evidence to free an innocent inmate from Highhelm’s most notorious prison. With a debt of gratitude, a drathnelar named Jirelga is our guide from here on out. Deep into the Darklands we go, toward a fey city known as the Court of Ether…
More Content:
Our table was brought to life with the help of Blue Table Painting for the miniatures, and Black Bard Studios for custom adventure-specific miniatures/terrain.
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