Tag Archives: mordant spire

Seventh Session (12 page pdf) – “The Sun Temple Colony” – The crew finds the lost Andoran colony built atop an Azlanti ruin.  They fall in with religious extremists as an Azlanti artifact nearly burns their ship to the waterline! Then they start poking around the island.

I liked doing the Sun Temple Colony after I did From Shore To Sea, because they were used to the WoW-like architecture of the Azlanti, and even knew to talk to the will-o-wisp streetlights in Aklo… But first they get lit up by the main attribute of the Sun Temple Colony, its big ol’ sun-focusing floating lens.

The Sun Temple Colony is from the Lost Cities of Golarion supplement. The intent here is that there’s parts of it about 10 CRs above the party’s level, so they have to keep it a bit on the down-low and play the locals against each other. They meet the “free” colonists and learn about the cult, the God-touched and breeder varieties. And they get a mascot, the impressionable 15-year-old Lefty.

Sindawe gets to exercise his captaining skills, which is generally “issue orders and then beat the nearest crewman unconscious since he’s clearly not moving fast enough.” They do get loot shares; this is probably the best place to give the pirate crewmen treasure because they are a thousand miles from anywhere they can spend it.

Then, it’s off to hexcrawl and explore the island!

Sixth Session (12 page pdf) – “Quest for Azlant” – The crew sees some hot action against the Mordant Spire Elves as they fight a skimmer to the bitter end. Then they investigate the weird dangers of Azlant, finally arriving at the Sun Temple Colony.

The fight against the Mordant Spire Elf skimmer is very different from their previous naval combats.  The elf ships are small and nimble, with small but very expert crews. Sindawe was shocked when they handily outsailed him and then the magic started – elementals, an unseen servant dropping the ToA’s anchor, fireballs, glitterdusts, fly, invisibility, and much much more!

And they maroon the female elf captain, eschewing torture, rape, etc., possibly as a result of last session’s heart-to-heart on the subject of pirate ethics. They do enjoy taking all the elves’ masks however! The Mordant Spire elves consider the Azlanti islands a “no go” area so patrol it and drive off outsiders. Didn’t work in this case, but it was a solid combat!

Then the crystal pillar they come across and decide not to enter is directly from a legend about real-life St. Brendan the Navigator I read in some book of exploration stories.

And finally they reach the place they end up staying a while – the Sun Temple Colony!